MSCC Working with Memphis Chamber, SW Tennessee CC

As a member of the Arkansas Delta Training and Education Consortium and the Mississippi River Transportation, Distribution and Logistics Consortium, Mid-South Community College grasps the value and efficacy of regional partnerships. We understand that strategic collaborations to pool and maximize the resources of multiple stakeholders are not only logical but are crucial to the future of this part of country.

So when the Memphis Chamber of Commerce approached us about a partnership with Southwest Tennessee Community College, an institution some might consider as a competitor of MSCC, but a fellow member of the Mississippi River consortium, our Board of Trustees recognized the value. Trustees recently approved a fairly straightforward, cooperative agreement that teems with tremendous potential for positive change. In a short period of time, we have been able to create a very strong relationship with Southwest Tennessee, primarily driven by the Memphis Chamber of Commerce’s desire to better integrate Mid-South Community College into the Memphis business and industry world.

 

Memphis is going through a very important philosophical change in how they address challenges to the region. They have assembled a group of 100 company leaders, including representatives of Nike, Auto Zone and FedEx, who have said they want to change the future of Memphis in terms of its economy by changing its educational process. After careful exploration and consideration, Memphis selected the workforce training model of Mid-South Community College and the ADTEC consortium as the one to emulate.

Our friends across the river asked us if we would be willing to partner with Southwest to not only help them understand what we’re doing but to utilize some resources that they have that we don’t. In particular, Southwest has 14 people in its business and industry department who are very skilled at creating services for business and industry, but they don’t have access to the types of cutting-edge facilities and equipment that we have. On the other hand, we have the facilities and equipment but don’t have the 14 people to create critical, industry-specific training opportunities.

The whole idea of the collective effort is to share expertise and resources among industry, education, government, and Memphis metropolitan-area communities to meet business’ needs for highly-skilled employees as well as our work force’s needs for high-wage, high-skilled, and sustainable jobs. By working together, instead of against each other, we have a much better chance of catalyzing the economic advancement of the Mississippi River Delta region.

While we’re still in the very early stages of the collaboration, our cooperative activities have proven very, very positive. The relationship that we have established with the Tennessee community college is one that further aligns our community and our community college with Memphis’ future, and I think that can only be a good thing for eastern Arkansas. West Memphis and Marion’s future is inextricably linked to that Memphis, and the more that we interact with our neighbors in Shelby County the better chance we have of making the outcome of benefit to our community.

- See more at: http://www.midsouthcc.edu/blog/mscc-working-with-memphis-chamber-sw-tennessee-cc/#sthash.fFUACAby.dpuf