Fall Semester Generates Excitement

While our campus buzzes with excitement and activity throughout the year, our intensity levels begin to rise significantly as the fall semester approaches. A flurry of events began this week and will continue through the start of fall classes on Monday, Aug. 18.

This week, we hosted two sessions of New Student Orientation. Next week, we will begin working with our high school students planning to take college-level classes through our Concurrent Enrollment, Secondary Technical Center, and Academies of West Memphis programs. On Aug. 11 and 12, we’ll have regular registration for folks who haven’t enrolled already. We can’t help but be excited about the new or ongoing opportunities our students will have when classes resume.

The orientation process is a great start toward the first day of classes. Talking and working with first-time college students, as well as those attending our institution for the first time, is always an interesting proposition. Sometimes their stories can be enlightening and encouraging. Other times, they are a little more sobering.

Hino Scholarships Helping Students, Region

Thanks to the ongoing generosity of Hino Motors Manufacturing, U.S.A., area students seeking a degree in manufacturing technology or a related field have access to a great scholarship opportunity. The Hino award is worth as much as $10,000 over a four-year span and certainly goes a long way towards helping the students and their families – as well as the entire region.

For the 2014-15 academic year, William Robinson and Dequan Andrews, MSCC Technical Center students and graduates of Marion High School, will receive the coveted award. They join previous MSCC winners Tony Fleming, Kitiara “Kit” Howell, Clinton Jones, Dustin Laws, Tyler Whatley, and Jordan White as scholarship recipients.

The award is open to top-notch students at the five Arkansas Delta Training and Education Consortium institutions – MSCC, Arkansas Northeastern College, Arkansas State University-Newport, East Arkansas Community College, and Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas. The program also includes the possibility of a summer internship at Marion plant which gives students and the company a chance for invaluable professional interaction.

MSCC Sets July 29 Orientation Sessions for First-Time Students

All first-time, degree-seeking students at Mid-South Community College are required to attend a morning or evening session of New Student Orientation on Tuesday, July 29, before enrolling in fall 2014 classes.

Orientation sessions will be held at 9 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. in Magruder Hall on MSCC’s South Campus. To register for New Student Orientation, please call (870) 733-6775 or email lgstevens@midsouthcc.edu.

Students who need financial assistance to pursue higher education should complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as soon as possible. Help with the form is available on the MSCC South Campus 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday.

MSCC, University of Memphis Expand Collaboration

With unanimous endorsement from our Board of Trustees, Mid-South Community College has partnered with the University of Memphis to enhance applied research and training activities related to transportation and chemical processing. Our collaboration with UofM goes back several years, but this memorandum of understanding solidifies and formalizes our relationship.

The University of Memphis recently hired a new president, Dr. M. David Rudd, and he has spent a fair amount of time watching what we’ve been doing, particularly in the alternative fuel arena. He understands that we have a fantastic facility and sees the wisdom in a collaboration that will generate great benefits in western Tennessee and eastern Arkansas. And we recognize that UofM has assets that will be particularly beneficial for us as well.

Without a doubt, this new partnership is a win-win situation. Our institution possesses a multitude of advanced laboratory resources in the Marion Berry Renewable Energy Center, and we also have technicians and instructional staff that can support applied research activities. What we don’t have is the depth of science and engineering talent to maximize utilization of our cutting-edge facility. I have said on more than one occasion that the Marion Berry Center is a Ferrari, and we need more people who can drive it. The University of Memphis can provide us with those Ferrari drivers.

Teacher Ed Program Producing Home-Grown Talent

Our community, state, and country have never needed great people to be great teachers more than we do now, and Mid-South Community College is doing its part to send top talent to local classrooms.

What we’ve been able to do over the last few years, with a lot of help, is create a situation where an aspiring educator can complete everything that is required to become a great teacher right here at Mid-South Community College. Through our University Center, we have helped more than 60 people earn a bachelor’s degree in education, and most, if not all of them, are employed in our communities today in jobs that they might never have had access to without the program.

A student can come here straight out of high school, or even start taking basic requirements while still in high school, take everything that is required, and then enroll in a four-year program through our ongoing collaboration with Arkansas State University. And returning learners have the opportunity to pursue lifelong dreams through the program. We have folks, 30 years of age and older, married with children who have returned to school because of the opportunity that has been afforded them. What we have done is let these students know that their dreams are certainly within reach and that they can do it all right here in Crittenden County.

Need Money for College? MSCC is Ready to Help

Going to college can be financially challenging, even at an affordable institution like Mid-South Community College, but MSCC's Financial Aid Office and Educational Opportunity Center stand ready to help.

With the College’s fall semester scheduled to start on Aug. 18, the time is now to find out what assistance may be available. Over the next month, MSCC is concentrating on assisting students in applying for money to help pay for college. Application hours are 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday. 

“The best time to fill out a financial aid application is today,” said Carol McHann, interim director of Financial Aid. “Applying for financial aid is really easy, and it’s completely free.”

Goldsby Scholarship Worth Its Weight in Gold

New and innovative ideas are often greeted with everything from benign interest to outright denunciation, and such was the case with the Thomas B. Goldsby Jr. Scholarship program at Mid-South Community College. Established through the tremendous generosity and vision of the Goldsby family, the program is now considered the gold standard for providing students with great higher education opportunities while still in high school. Experts all over the country are saying we need more programs just like it.

That certainly wasn’t the situation in the early days of the effort. When Tommy Goldsby came to the College to ask what we would do with a substantial monetary gift ($500,000 at the time), we told him we would create a scholarship program to give deserving, qualified high school students a head start on their higher learning experience. He liked the idea and gave us half a million dollars to get it rolling. We soon discovered that other folks weren’t quite as enthralled with the concept.