Dr. Shawn Powell:
We have one of two FAA approved programs for aviation maintenance technology in the state. The students can graduate and they can take their airframe and power plant license and be fully able to go worldwide, literally to work on aircraft. The air center where we’re located, it was the former Walker Air Force Base. We have communications and partnerships with almost every business in Roswell that is involved in aviation maintenance. All aircraft have to go through what they call depot level maintenance at some point, and that is based on flight hours, or it could be based on if there’s a problem, if there were a lot of hard landings on the aircraft, they have to bring it into a hangar. And so our students are able to get involved with those types of situations at the maintenance repair organizations, and they can work directly on aircraft and supervision get paid, and then they can be going to class with us at the same time.
Joe Gottlieb:
That’s Shawn Powell, president of Eastern New Mexico University, Roswell describing how his institution leverages its location on a former Air Force base to plug students directly into local aviation industry as they pursue their associate of applied science degree in aviation maintenance. We talked about how this and other programs focused on healthcare and agriculture demonstrate a critical resourcefulness necessary for this remote, rural, regional institution to overcome economic pressures and technology access gaps in order to elevate the quality of life and even generational wealth of the local community. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Joe Gottlieb:
Welcome to TRANSFORMED, a Higher Digital podcast focused on the new why’s, the new what’s, and the new how’s in higher ed. In each episode, you will experience hosts and guests pulling for the resurgence of higher ed while identifying and discussing the best practices needed to accomplish that resurgence. Culture, strategy and tactics, planning and execution, people, process and technology. It’s all on the menu because that’s what’s required to truly transform.
Joe Gottlieb:
Hello, and thanks for joining us for another episode of TRANSFORMED. My name is Joe Gottlieb, president and CTO of Higher Digital, and today I am joined by Dr. Shawn Powell, president of Eastern New Mexico University, Roswell. Shawn, welcome to TRANSFORMED.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
Thank you, Joe. It’s a great honor to be here, and thank you for the invitation.
Joe Gottlieb:
I want to talk about surviving as a rural yet resourceful community college. But first I’d like you to share a bit of background on your personal journey and how you got connected into your work in higher ed.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
I graduated in high school when I was 17. I joined the International Guard. I was originally in aviation maintenance, working as an assistant crew chief on C one thirties. I became a flight engineer on the one thirties. This was with the Oklahoma Air International Guard. And then after a while, I went, finished my degree at the University of Oklahoma in education, and I became an aircraft maintenance officer. From that point, I started a master’s in counseling psychology at the University of Central Oklahoma, and then moved to Wyoming. I was in the Wyoming Guard and also in a liaison officer for the Air Force Academy. I worked in public schools for a number of years as a school psychologist, and that’s what my doctorate is in from the University of Northern Colorado. And then I found out about the ideas and working behind the careers in community colleges. And so I moved to Casper College. I was on faculty, I was a dean, and then I was the Vice President of Academic Affairs. And that happened in about six years ago. I had been applying for president positions and one came open here in Roswell, New Mexico. And so I applied and was selected, and I’ve been here six years at the Eastern New Mexico University Roswell Campus.
Joe Gottlieb:
It’s a great background. I you really did come up through the ranks, so to speak, while getting exposed to a lot of, of interesting things that I know we’ll talk about today. Particular your, your background in aviation maintenance that I’m sure you’ve got some very personal views on as, as you think about how that program stewards forward at your campus. So let’s say, set the stage for this conversation. Why don’t we start by me letting you describe the NMU Roswell and the community it serves.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
Campus has around 2000 to 2,500 students per semester. We have over 40 programs that we offer. A lot of them are in career technical education, and we have healthcare programs, tech ed, like I indicated also arts and sciences programs. We have an early college high school program that students can go to and they can graduate high school and also earn an associate’s degree. At the same time. We have communications and partnerships with almost every business in Roswell that is in involved in aviation maintenance. The air center where we’re located, it was the former Walker Air Force base. And of course, there was something that happened in 1947. I haven’t had the official briefing yet. I think you have to be here 10 years before they give you the official briefing. But something happened in 1947. People are familiar with that when they associate the word Roswell or the Town of Roswell.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
And the thing that’s really interesting about that is here in Chavez County, we’re in southeast New Mexico and we’re about 200 miles from anywhere. It’s 200 miles to Albuquerque, 200 miles to El Paso 200 miles to Santa Fe. I could keep on. We’re about 200 miles from anywhere you want to go to get to a civilized population with a larger number than say 50,000 people in a city. And so, as we think about that, the primary enrollment in our areas have to do with people from Chavez County. 98% of our students are from our geographic area of responsibility, which is right here. The industries here in Southeast New Mexico have to do with agriculture, which is a real surprise for a lot of people when they hear about New Mexico. Roswell sits on an aquifer, and so we have dairy farming and we have an international cheese factory that operates 24 hours a day.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
And so the dairies operate 24 hours a day and they make primarily mozzarella cheese. And it doesn’t get sold retail. This is all wholesale. If you’ve had pizzas at Papa John’s or Pizza Hut or one of the other large pizza firms, chances are Laprino Foods is providing the cheese for those pizzas to be made. In terms of demographics for Chavez County, it’s over 60% Hispanic population, and our campus serves largely a rural and first-generation college student population. New Mexico as a state has the third highest poverty rate, and so it’s something that we have to really be attending to and listening to because we wanna make sure that we’re meeting student needs and community needs and helping individuals to reach their professional goals and their individual goals. And also community goals. The age range on our campus is very broad, includes many non-traditional students.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
In the fall semester of this last term, the age range was 14 to 77. Wow. Last year, a 77-year-old graduated from aviation maintenance technology program. He had been a Vietnam veteran and had gone into aviation maintenance, got his airframe and power plant license, and we’ll talk about the a NP programs here in a bit. But this individual, this fellow, he worked worldwide after retiring from the Air Force on million dollar aircraft, and did a lot of work in aircraft maintenance, but he didn’t have a degree. And he picked up a brochure about our aviation maintenance program in 20, in 2002. It took him 20 years to enroll in classes. And what caused him to enroll in classes at the age of 77 was his grandchildren were getting ready to graduate from high school, and he wanted to set an example for them.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
Wow. Now this fellow is a combat veteran, but the thing about it, and this is, you know, a typical story, I think for a lot of community colleges, he was afraid that he wasn’t gonna be able to pass math. So for two years, he took classes to earn the general education portions of his degree. We gave him credit for prior learning for his a and p license, the airframe power plant license. But he didn’t tell anybody. He didn’t tell his family, he didn’t tell, his spouse didn’t tell anybody until he knew he was gonna graduate. And then he was one of our graduation speakers. So there’s a lot of range when we talk about a community college and the population that we serve. Other things, again, we’re located on the former Walker Air Force Base. It’s a former strategic air command base. And what that means is there’s a 13,000 foot runway here. We currently have the US Navy, they bring their pilots here for spring training for undergraduate pilots, and there’s navy aircraft that fly for about three months of the year. Not quite 24 hours a day, but they get in a lot of flight hours here because of the weather. And then of course, we have the UFO Museum and we have a UFO Festival, and that happens in July. And I would encourage everyone, if you have any interest in UFOs to come to the home of UFO history here in Roswell, New Mexico.
Joe Gottlieb:
All right. Well, thanks for that quick tour. Really interesting background for this, this campus and what you’re up to there and, and the types of students you serve. So let’s talk about what sort of challenges does that circumstance produce as you think about how, how you run the institution as its president?
Dr. Shawn Powell:
I wanna go to a survey that was done by the Roswell Independent School District and we’re good partners with RISD. And the superintendent at the time, during covid in 2020, did a survey in Roswell that revealed that more than 50% of households lacked the broadband and computer access to be successful in completing online classes. When that survey result came out, we started looking at ways that we could help and close access gaps. And by good fortune, what happened is the National Telephonic Information Agency, NTIA, put out a grant and a series of grants back in that 2020 timeframe. And this was to increase broadband and wifi access, computer literacy, and also computer access. And so we received a two year, $1.9 million grant to increase broadband and computer literacy in our area. And so our area was defined as Chavez County, and that just ended in January of, of 25.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
But for two years, we were able to offer hotspots and we were able to offer computer classes and also computers through that grant. And that was one of the challenges that we face as a rural community, is just broadband access or digital equity, if you will. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And I think another thing about New Mexico, again, we have the third highest poverty rate in the United States in terms of statewide. And one of our main issues is how can we help increase that medium income to assist people to raise themselves up, to increase their family’s net worth, and also to increase their quality of life. But also, the other part to that is how do we meet community needs? And so we wanna make sure that what we’re doing is thoughtful and intentional. And as we offer programming, we wanna make sure that we’re, again, meeting those student needs and we’re meeting community needs.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
I was recently at a HAKU conference, and one of the themes that they had was, instead of focusing on wages, focus on generational wealth, and in conversations with individuals at the conference, what we really came to the realization of is that doesn’t mean high income. It doesn’t mean generational wealth. Like a professional athletes contract might create generational wealth for their family for the foreseeable future. The important question and the important issue that kept coming up is when you’re working with individuals who have immigrated to the United States, and many of them, their parents didn’t have much more than a third grade education, that generational wealth could be much less than, you know, a professional athlete. It could be something where, what’s meaningful for them owning a home having reliable transportation, and how can you build on that over a period of time? And so as we think about the needs and the things that we have to face in our areas, we always want to address issues and provide programs that are gonna help those individuals that are taking classes from us or enrolled in our workforce training programs to get good jobs, to be able to provide for their families.
Joe Gottlieb:
Makes a lot of sense. So let’s dive into the, into some of those activities, right? How are you aligning your programs and student success in sync with this local and regional labor market demand? ’cause As I listened to you talk about it, right, a lot of this is just creating more stability in the lives of, of this, of, of the people in this community. And anywhere you can connect these people to that sort of predictability of, of lifestyle is really essential. So I know you’re, you’re building that into the way you’re approaching programs and student success. Please share,
Dr. Shawn Powell:
Got a case study I can present from the psychology background. And so there was an individual 18 years old, graduated from early college high school. And by the way, when they finish at our program, they graduate from college before they graduate from high school simply because of the timing of the graduation ceremonies. But I always find that interesting. But he was in our aviation maintenance tech program, and this was two years ago. He graduated at the age of 18, took all of his FAA licensing exams, the airframe and power plant and general tests that he had to take in order to be fully licensed to operate and work on aircraft and maintain them. And he got, hi, he’s from Roswell, and he got hired at a local aircraft maintenance repair organization. Well, now, a year after he got hired, he’s supervising eight people at the age of 19.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
Wow. And the reason he’s doing that supervision is because he is the only one that’s licensed. And so when I think about career development, it was ingrained in me at age 17. When I joined the Air National Guard, I was immediately surrounded by individuals in all stages of their careers, whether they were the same age as me or whether they were older and getting ready to retire or somewhere in between. And it was always about looking toward retirement, looking toward career development, looking toward professional development. Plus the Air Force as a service branch has this built into their career training. And so there’s career training and then there’s civilian education, and they encourage you to do both, to increase the opportunities to be promoted and to meet all the expectations to continue and have a successful career. Well, I thought that was something everybody knew, and it took me a long time to figure out that not everybody understands a career ladder development where you have education on one side and workforce training on the other side, and how you blend those two.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
So we’ve, we’ve developed, it’s not a new idea. It’s not, not trademarked to us. I mean, these things are out there forever, but it’s a career ladder. And so for example, if we take a student in our nursing program, they get outta high school, then they come to our program, they continue their education while they’re doing that. They might be doing some clinical rotations at the hospital or different clinics as they finish their associate’s degree, they get licensed and they enter the workforce as a registered nurse. And then if they want to continue their education to move up the chain, they can work with our host institution, Eastern New Mexico University of Portales. They have a Bachelor of Science program online. It’s for working professionals. After they complete that BSN, they’re still gaining work experience. They could move up to maybe a floor manager or floor supervisor, whatever term the hospital might have in place.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
And then if they want to continue, they can get a Master’s in health or they could do a master’s in nursing, and then they could move up on the workforce side to a director of nursing position after they have the education and, and training. And again, I thought everybody knew about this. I thought everybody had this general idea of how you move forward in a career balancing education and tech and workforce. But I found out it they don’t. And it’s because of that time in the Air National Guard and Air Force that really brought that home. Another thing that we do offer is a partnership with the New Mexico Youth Challenge Academy. And this is a program of the National Guard. It’s for 16 to 18 year olds whose experiences at high school aren’t being successful. And so they come to the National Guard programs, 38 states have them.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
And I was involved in developing the program in Wyoming about 20 years ago. But when, when you look at the National Guard Youth Challenge program or the Youth Challenge Academy, it’s really a life changing experience because a lot of these youth have had a lot of negative experiences in their lives that come for 22 weeks or in a semi military structure. They work on their high school equivalency, and about 80% of them will leave after that 22 weeks, and they’ll have a high school equivalency. And then with our campus, we offer specific vocational certificates that they can get involved with, whether it’s based in healthcare as a certified nursing assistant, phlebotomy, depending on their age. Then also we have some welding programs. We have some automotive programs that they can do as well. And when I think about how, how we align our programs with student success, those youth in early college high school, and the Youth Challenge program, we really are providing opportunities for ’em at a young age to be successful.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
And we try to encourage them to continue their education as they enter the workforce and, and return home and help out their own community and their families. I think the other piece, like we talked about before, has to do with technology. And one of the things we’ve done on campus in terms of capital projects and infrastructure is we’ve replaced the broadband backbone, if you will. So we have fiber optic cable across campus, and also we have become a server for Southeast New Mexico in, in a statewide educational network. And we bought a generator to back up the data server room, and it took us two years to get it. This was during covid when we were trying to do all of this, but we have it in place now. But we continue to lobby efforts for technical efficiency and, and for broadband access. Because in today’s world, you just have to have that digital capability. And if you don’t, you’re really at a disadvantage. So I think those are some of the ways that we try to get in sync with local and regional markets and how we promote student success.
Joe Gottlieb:
Love hearing about those programs and, and the related stories. Now, I’d love to sort of, you’ve mentioned several different programs I want to double click on on a few of these. Let’s start with the, the program focus on, on agriculture. ’cause I know that’s really important, as you mentioned in the very beginning to the regional market and the business that exists there.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
So I indicated Southeastern New Mexico is heavy in agriculture. We have cattle, we have dairy. We also grow pecans in the state of New Mexico. And sometimes it’s the number one producing state in pecan growth. And other times it’s number two, just depending on the season and if the rain comes at the right time. But agriculture’s very important in terms of what happens in Southeast New Mexico. And so one of the things that I’m reminded of when we talk about program focus areas in 2018, I had asked our academic departments to go through our academic catalog. I mean, it’s a standard thing you do. And you look at programs that are effective. You, you see which ones might need a little more support, you try to figure out how you can add new programs, or if you have programs that just aren’t, aren’t effective, you might have to discontinue them.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
So I asked them to go through, look at the programs with low enrollments and the ones that had classes that hadn’t been successful in enrollment, and we would come up with plans to try to address it. They brought me an alphabetized list, and again, we’re in Chavez County, Southeast New Mexico, heavy in dairy, heavy in agriculture. And the very first program on the list, it was alphabetized, was agriculture that they thought we should discontinue. And I said, well, I’m the first semester college president. I’d like to make it through the whole year if I can. I think if we try to get rid of the ag program, they might as well get rid of me. So we dedicated resources to that. And we’ve added quite a bit to our agricultural program. We’ve hired great agricultural faculty members. We have one right now who’s a former extension agent for another college that I don’t wanna mention in the state, but she does great work.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
And this coming month in March, what we have happening on campus is an FAA statewide event where they travel around the state. And our campus for the last three years has been one of these sites, and there’s gonna be over 1200 FAA students and four H students on campus to do competitions. And that leads to another peculiarity about New Mexico. I’m originally from Oklahoma, and then I was in Wyoming, like I indicated for a long time in New Mexico. They have three state fairs, <laugh>, and we’re fortunate to have one here in Roswell. The, I don’t wanna call it regular, but the state fair of New Mexico takes place first and then they have a southern state fair that follows that. And then the Eastern New Mexico State Fair occurs here in Roswell. So we have a heavy presence. We have a state fair that happens in town, and we’ve been very fortunate to have the right people that we could hire and the right faculty members to support the program.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
The way we got there is we developed an advisory board. We involved the FFA, we involve 4-H, we involve local businesses, the dairies, and we asked them about agriculture and the type of programs that we should be building as we revised it. And we also involved our, our cheese factory. And it’s a large employer here in Chavez County. And really what they wanted was an ag MEC tech degree. And so a degree certificate or certificate program was developed to be, be a stepping stone into our ag program degree for the associates where they have some ag classes, they have some welding classes, they get some automotive classes, and they learn how to work on machinery that they might encounter on the dairy or over at the cheese factory or even out on a farm. So those are the kinds of things that we do in terms of trying to meet community needs and also student needs.
Joe Gottlieb:
Okay. That sounds again, just listening to you talk about it, Shawn, it’s it’s just so, it’s very engaged right from the, from the standpoint of partnering, from the standpoint of thinking through what the community needs, meeting students, where they are making the extra effort to make that connection and to, and to activate student success. So let’s, let’s now shift over to I know you’ve done some smart partnering and positioning of your aviation maintenance program to take advantage of your location right next to the Roswell Air Center. Can you describe that program?
Dr. Shawn Powell:
Absolutely. And so we have one of two FAA approved programs for aviation maintenance technology in the state. The students can graduate and they can take their airframe and power plant license and be fully able to go worldwide, literally to work on aircraft. And a few things about that. We have local industries here, and Roswell is a large air base. It’s a large air center former Air Force base as I indicated. And so there’s lots of empty land. And so what happens is airliners get brought here for their final flight and they’ll be left and they’ll be cannibalized. And so after an aircraft gets to a final point where they’re not gonna be able to fly it anymore, oftentimes they’ll bring it here to Roswell, and then the airline companies know which aircraft is at what location, and if they need a seed or if they need a panel from inside the aircraft or a bulkhead or whatever it is, they’ll be able to come and find it.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
So at any point in time, there’s 180 to 250 aircraft that are parked out here that are going through that cannibalization period. We also have aircraft maintenance repair organizations, and so our students in the A MT program can go right into work locally at one of the maintenance repair organizations, get work experience, and then do that while they’re going to school. One of the local companies Dean Baldwin, it’s an international company, they paint aircraft from around the world. And so it’s not unusual to see Arab Emirates here, or you’ll see things like Air Canada. You’ll see lusa, all kinds of different aircraft will be here in addition to United, Southwest American, Delta, whatever airlines need to be painted. And all aircraft have to go through what they call depot level maintenance at some point, and that is based on flight hours, or it could be based on if there’s a problem, if there were a lot of hard landings on the aircraft, they have to bring it into a hangar.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
And so our students are able to get involved with those types of situations at the maintenance repair organizations, and they can work directly on aircraft under supervision, get paid, and then they can be going to class with us at the same time. We, during Covid, we had a opportunity with a production company in Florida that was producing short video clips to add on to PBS shows that were hosted by Lawrence Fishburne. And so we paid a company to come and they interviewed students, they interviewed individual faculty members, they did a lot of video on campus, and then these efforts resulted in a five minute clip and a 32nd clip, and they would show those at different times for a couple of years as part of in-depth series with Lawrence Fishburne. So when we, when we think about that aircraft maintenance opportunity, one thing that I wanna make sure I I convey is the average age of aviation maintenance technicians in the United States is 57.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
And so we know that those folks that are 57 years old are looking to retire soon, or they’re in the later stages of their career. And so we know that it’s an important industry here in the United States. And a lot of times, times when flights are disrupted or discontinued at different airports, it’s not necessarily because of, not of not having enough people on the aircraft. It’s not necessarily because the aircraft didn’t full or they don’t have enough seats occupied, or they don’t have enough pilots. It could be because they don’t have enough maintainers. And so we try to convey that to our students, and we do that with the school districts here to try to ensure that they understand about the importance of aviation maintenance.
Joe Gottlieb:
Excellent. again, more examples of you really crawling into the state of an industry and how your local community can participate and making those connections happen. So I got one more fun one. I know you, you teed me up for this, but has the Taylor Sheridan show, landman starring Billy Bob Thornton, John Ham, and Demi Moore helped you stimulate career opportunity awareness among students and prospective students in your region since you’re since you’re close to that Permian Basin there, that’s mostly in Texas, I think, right?
Dr. Shawn Powell:
So the Permian Basin extends from New Mexico into Texas. And so if you’ve seen the show Landman that Taylor Sheridan has put out with Billy Bob Thornton, what you’re seeing in Odessa and Midland, those are actual footages. If you drive to Midland or Odessa, what he, what he drives by is what you’re gonna see, that same thing is in Hobbes, New Mexico and Carlsbad, New Mexico and Artesia. So Chavez County, where our campus is located, is on the edge of the Permian Basin. And when you go about 40 miles south to Artesia, that’s really where the first oil and gas rig was set up more than a hundred years ago here in New Mexico. And that’s hence the name Artesia. When you go out to the state line and you’re driving to the East, what you see on Landman is exactly what you see in on that drive from Artesia to, to Hobbes, New Mexico, or even over to Odessa or into Midland.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
And so we’re on the edge of the Permian Basin. The show Landman has spy has put a spotlight on the lucrative nature of the oil and gas business. The other part that it’s really put a highlight on is that these are dangerous jobs that people are doing. They operate 24 hours a day. Oftentimes they’ll be in remote locations and they don’t have a lot of support. So if something goes wrong, they’ll be out there by themselves. Students in our welding program and our welding program, we have 40 welding booths. It’s full every semester with students. Our welding program does very well, especially in the first couple of classes. What happens is companies out of the Permian Basin will hire one of our welding students after they take one welding class, and then they’ll be paying ’em over a hundred thousand dollars. And it’s hard to convince that student that, well, wouldn’t it be nice if you stayed and did an associate’s degree with us?
Dr. Shawn Powell:
Wow. But our instructors in welding are great. They have experience in industry and they’ve come back and now they’re passing along their knowledge and their information to the students and preparing folks to enter a, a very lucrative field right now for welding. And it’s just one of those things, again, when you talk about the show Landman, I know some landmen here in Roswell, I think probably the main injury that they might suffer is carpal tunnel syndrome, <laugh>. I don’t think that, I don’t know any of ’em that have been kidnapped by the cartels, but maybe that’ll be coming, who knows? But we really, really want to have appreciation for the local community and the local growth that can happen in oil and gas and the state of New Mexico. The economy 49% of the state budget is oil and gas related from severance taxes.
Joe Gottlieb:
Well, sounds like another really just important macro trend, and it’s not a new trend, right? This has been going on for quite some time, I imagine. And while the, the cartel stuff makes for good entertainment, there’s a, there’s a kernel of truth here running through that oil and gas industry and, and the stakes that it involves the dangers, but also the opportunities for for local folks.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
Absolutely. And just as a note, if you go to the coffee shop on the way to the oil field at four o’clock, just get black coffee
Joe Gottlieb:
<Laugh>. That’s right. That’s one of the seeds. You’ll, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll really anger those behind you if you ask for a, a, a dressed up coffee order. Alright, well let me zoom out then. I appreciate you sharing these different programs and how you’re really engaging with, with the things you have available to you in your market to, to create, you know, frankly through resourcefulness, making some things happen that are good for the community. So let me ask you, you know, real pointed question, what’s the hardest thing about this job? You know, as a, as a, as a president leading this institution, what do you find the most challenging?
Dr. Shawn Powell:
I think in leadership, the number one challenge is personnel. It always comes down to the human resources and individuals who you’re hiring. And so the people we hire is probably the most important decisions we make at any one time because we can have a lot of different plans, we can have a lot of different processes in place, but we have to have the right people in place with the right training. And as a rural location, that can be difficult because when we advertise positions, especially for those that would need some years in higher education, we have difficulty filling positions particularly in the areas of accounting or chief business officer in rural fields. And that that’s not just here in Roswell. I think that’s countrywide. I know that there’s a shortage of accountants that’s going on as well nationally. And so there’s some workforces that are going on and some task forces to try to encourage students to get into accounting.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
And we do offer an accounting program. I think respecting people and being honest and forthright about the jobs that you’re hiring them to do, and then also professional development. And it goes back to Air Force days and Air National Guard days for me, because as a airman, you have certain skills that you’re going to gain in a given career field, and there’s career development courses you take. And then there’s also what used to be called professional military education. I believe they’ve changed the name of that. But when I was enlisted that was the NCO Academy Senior NCO Academy over on the officer side at Squadron Officer School, Air Command and General Staff College and then Air War College. And when I think about our location in Roswell and what we can offer individuals, we have a great relationship with our host campus. We’re a branch community college of ENMU and Portales.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
Well, our individuals have the ability to take classes for their associates with us. They can do their bachelor’s and master’s through ENMU Portales. There’s no fee for tuition and fees. And we allow opportunity for them to do that. And then I think another thing that we have to pay attention to is how we can move that person from one position to another in a successive manner and make sure that they’re ready for the next job. That doesn’t mean we pre-select one person and say, Hey, you’re gonna be doing this in five years, but we wanna have them open to the opportunities for advancement if they so choose to do so. We have lots of conversations with individuals that we’ve hired that are from Roswell, Chavez County area. They’re likely to stay here. Compared to folks we bring in from the outside, we run into the same thing with our hospital where doctors will come in and spend a year or two and then they’ll leave, go on to another city, maybe a larger location. I think when we talk about this, we have to just look at what funding we have, what opportunities for advancement, what leadership training we can offer. And then we also just want to make sure that the pathways for success are also there for students. And so again, it’s, it’s about the people you hire, it’s about the mission statement, and it’s about ensuring that we’re preparing people to do the jobs that they’re doing now and that they might be doing in the the future.
Joe Gottlieb:
Good stuff. All right, let’s bring this to a close. In summary, what are three takeaways we can offer our listeners on the topic of surviving as a rural yet resourceful community college?
Dr. Shawn Powell:
Think number one, you have to look at student needs professional personal needs, make sure you’re trying to meet those. The second one would be community needs. Make sure you’re working with industry community workforce training. And then I think the third one, Joe, is really trying to understand your community’s culture and the individuals that reside in your area where your college is located.
Joe Gottlieb:
Great summary. Shawn, thank you so much for joining me today.
Dr. Shawn Powell:
Well, you’re very welcome. And again, this has been great and I appreciate the opportunity to join you in this podcast.
Joe Gottlieb:
And thanks to our guests for joining us as well. Have a great day and we’ll look forward to hosting you again on the next episode of TRANSFORMED.
Joe Gottlieb:
Hey, listeners have transformed. I hope you enjoyed that episode and whether you did or not, I hope that it made you stop and think about the role that you are playing in your organization’s ability to change in the digital era. And if it made you stop and think, perhaps you would be willing to share your thoughts, suggestions, alternative perspectives, or even criticisms related to this or any other episode, I would love to hear from you. So send me an email at Info@Higher.Digital or Joe@Higher.Digital. And if you have friends or colleagues that you think might enjoy it, please share our podcast with them as you and they can easily find Transformed is available wherever you get your podcasts.