Wayne Chamber of Commerce sponsors Hot Topic forum with focus on education
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on December 17, 2015 2:12 PM
Education is a hot topic these days, prompting the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce to make it the linchpin of its fourth quarter forum.
A Wednesday breakfast meeting Wednesday at the Lane Tree Golf Club featured a panel discussion on the subject, comprised of Wayne County Public Schools' Superintendent Dr. Michael Dunsmore and presidents of the county's two colleges, Dr. Kay Albertson of Wayne Community College and Dr. Philip Kerstetter of the University of Mount Olive.
Kate Daniels, chamber president, said the subject was chosen because of its universal appeal.
"It's important to everyone -- the business community, private education, public education, all across the board. We're all at the table on this," she said.
To illustrate the importance of such partnerships, the session was kicked off with a financial investment in WCC's efforts to meet current and future industry demands in the advanced manufacturing fields.
Millie Chalk, Duke Energy's district manager, invited Mrs. Albertson to the podium while sharing that Duke officials have been impressed with the evolution of the Advanced Manufacturing Center being developed adjacent to the WCC campus.
She announced the Duke Foundation's intent to continue supporting higher education with the community college's program in "mechatronics engineering."
"It's a combination of engineering and mechanical engineering and electronics," Mrs. Albertson clarified.
Ms. Chalk presented Mrs. Albertson with a $250,000 check.
"We're excited to partner with WCC and a lot of other community colleges in our service area in the hopes of building and growth," Ms. Chalk said. "Wayne Community College is committed to equipping its students with the skills needed to compete in emerging sectors of today's economy."
During the panel discussion, Mrs. Albertson enthused about the rich partnerships that exist in Wayne County, including that with Wayne County Public Schools and the dual enrollment program. The number of high school students gaining college credit while earning a high school diploma continues to grow, she said.
"As of this fall semester, from public, private and home-schools, WCC is serving 668 high school students taking 1,336 classes," she said. "Of those numbers, 368 of those students are coming from WCPS."
That does not include the innovative high schools, she noted. Wayne Early/Middle College High School, housed on the WCC campus, is one of the Top 10 high schools in the state, she said, with over 250 students, taking 550 classes at the college. Students from there, and Wayne School of Engineering, have the potential to earn associates degrees by the time they graduate high school, she said.
The early college premise was one of the unique entities that drew Dunsmore to the role he assumed in July, he said.
In his previous job as Tyrrell County superintendent that community was one of a handful in the state that did not have a community college within 100 miles.
"We did everything virtually (online)," he said.
Education has evolved much over the years, he said, but ultimately the measure of success will be beyond academics.
"I think in education we need to shift that focus, to make students ready for work," he said. "We have to get them prepared to be working adults and citizens and members of the community. I think everybody wins with that."
Kerstetter said there is a unique situation in education in Wayne County, which is no longer "one size fits all." One area that is particularly critical is technology.
"There are three realities -- one, you never have enough. Two, it's out of date automatically. And three, the students know more about it than we do," he said. "We're trying to prepare our students for occupations that we don't have a clue what they're going to look like down the road."
The state budget and the economy have stalled some of that progress in the public schools, Dunsmore said.
"Out of 115 school systems in the state of North Carolina, we've ranked 90th in infrastructure readiness," he said. "That's embarrassing for me to stand up and say that in front of you.
"That means if I put every student on our infrastructure on our web and access, you'd see buildings blowing up across Wayne County. It couldn't be done, because when those buildings were built and we started putting those switches and infrastructure in, and I'm not going back that many years ago, the purpose was just give the teachers access so they could get on the smart boards, the podiums and all the technology we would be doing for instruction."
The challenge moving forward, he said, is in updating the schools to keep pace with all the rapidly changing advancements in response to students "demanding technology" at younger and younger ages.