"The development of a competitive and attractive workforce is key to economic progress in the Central Kentucky region. From time to time, Business Lexington focuses on how area institutions of higher learning are engaging in this process. In a conversation with editor in chief Tom Martin, Midway College Dean of Admissions James Womble and Dr. Frank Fletcher, chairman of Midway's business division, discuss the school's expansion into programs designed to strengthen careers already in progress. Here are some highlights from that conversation, which can be heard in its entirety online at www.bizlex.com.
TM: It's now been a dozen years since Midway College created its school for career development. What prompted your board of trustees to move in this direction?
JW: We became increasingly aware of more and more adults who seem to want to go back to college, but they could not accept the challenge, if you will, of going to class one night a week for sixteen weeks and then earning three hours credit. Many people just weren't into it. We're the first institution in this area, perhaps the state, perhaps the region, that offered accelerated evening courses for men and women.
TM: When did Midway elect to go in this direction?
JW: The creation of the school for career development was in 1995. We attempt to recruit an entirely different demographic, obviously traditional young women, or actually women of any age, in the day college, and men and women in the evening. The reason I think the trustees chose to do this? They felt that there was nothing out there like this at the time. The degree was Organizational Management. It was a degree that was structured to be accelerated, it was to offer people coming into that program the opportunity to complete a 45 semester-hour major in 18 months by going to class one evening per week.
TM: Frank Fletcher, we're talking about your domain here. You're the business division chair and oversee these programs. Do you have a lot of entrepreneurs show up on your doorstep who have just gotten through the first phases of a start-up and realize that they need to understand the organization a little bit better?
FF: I think we get a really good mix in terms of that. We do get people who are entrepreneurs who are starting a business, but we really have a lot of people who are sort of on a career track now. For whatever reason, they went to college for a little while, dropped out, got married, or just went to college and just didn't have it work at that point. They're now at a point in their life where they really need to do it. So, we're looking at an audience probably that's twenty-five to, say, early forties that we work with in the evening. We have sites in Toyota - we've been there for about a year now. We've been at 3M in Cynthiana; we also do Lexington, and a number of sites around the state.
TM: So you actually carry the program to the workplace?
FF: One of the key things that we do focus on in the organization management program is a lot of group work. I think that was the reason Toyota really was impressed by our program. Most companies now are organized around teams, and that's really probably the toughest thing that people have to learn. I know that in my courses when people work on a project and it's a team, every team gets the same grade. It's always, "Well, I did more than this other person," but that's the reality of the workplace, and we try to drive that home very heavily.
TM: Are any of these programs more in demand than others? Is there one that stands out as most popular?
FF: Organizational Management has sort of been the key driving program, but we also offer a program in Health Care Administration, Human Resource Management, and Computer Information Management, which is a new program. What we've found is that basically we've been able to take the core of the management program, what it takes to be a good manager, and then involved them in other specialties. The entrepreneur comes to us and somebody who's good in a profession, like a nurse or someone who's a good technician, they get promoted because of that, but they don't have those management skills. And I think that's where we can help finish people in terms of their career.
TM: In your curriculum, do you talk about management versus leadership or a combination of the two?
FF: Very much. There's a difference between leadership and managers. Anybody can be a manager. I can appoint you a manager today, but are people who work for you going to follow and do what's important? There's a whole set of skills that come with that. There's argument about that in the literature, about (how) people are born leaders and people are born managers and you're either one or the other, but I think now people are really appreciating leadership. And those skills can be learned and they can be applied.
TM: Let's talk about your partnership with KCTCS.
JW: Our first off-campus activity was with the legislative research commission in Frankfort. The request came based on a statement like, "We have many people who are involved in research, but we do not have people with the skills that we really wish they had. We understand your organizational management program is heavy in the research component." And we said yes. Bottom line is we ended up taking the entire major to Frankfort and actually offered it in the capital annexes, as I recall. At some point, Maysville Community College became aware of what we were doing with the LRC and contacted us about possibly bringing that program to Cynthiana at their Licking Valley Center. We did. They liked it so much, and that is where we worked with 3M. It progressed from there to Maysville main campus, and they were very pleased with it. From there, we went to Somerset Community College, where we were welcomed with open arms. Subsequent to that, to Lexington Community College - the same reception. From there to Jefferson Community College, from there to Southeast Community College, then to Prestonsburg, what is now the Big Sandy Community and Technical College. Shortly thereafter, we were invited to cross the state line into Williamson, W. Va., where we began offering our degree programs.
More recently we entered into a contract with Hopkinsville Community College, and we really do believe that, in time, we will be in Paducah. So it was not that we sat down and planned this. The opportunities were there, and we did minimal market research. We really sort of jumped in based on what encouragement the administrators at the local KCTCS institutions gave us, and now of course, with KCTCS in Versailles, we're very close to them. We continuously look at the degree programs that are offered in those particular locations. More recently, we were called to come to a meeting in Big Sandy in Prestonsburg because they want our bachelor of science nursing program. They will launch that there this fall. Mostly, we're pleased with our KCTCS relationships, and those really began with Dr. Ben Carr, who at the time was head of the University of Kentucky Community College system. And in effect, the first partnership, the one with Maysville Community College, was done through Dr. Carr, and we're quite proud of that. So we not only have had a great relationship with KCTCS but with the University of Kentucky as well.
TM: I have to confess, I was not aware of the extent of Midway's influence statewide and even across the state borders.
FF: I think we try to practice what we teach in many ways to try to remain agile. We're always listening to what customers' needs are. We have a business advisors group that comes and meets with us a couple of times a year, and we try to meet with business leaders, and a lot of the ideas for programs have come that way. You know, we try things and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but I think there's an innovative spirit very much at Midway.
TM: What can you tell a reader who might be intrigued about Midway's programming for the first time and is thinking 'That's for me - I'm at a point in my life where I need that'?
JW: I think the message we want to get out is our eagerness to work with business and industry. Because we are a small college, we can move very quickly - people like Frank Fletcher help us facilitate getting through the faculty committees, etc. So, we would welcome the opportunity to visit onsite with any company, small or large, to talk about their particular training needs and how quickly we could structure something to accommodate that. If anyone would like to contact me for additional information, the best way would be to contact me at jwombles@midway.edu
TM: Well, gentlemen, thank you both for joining us. It's been very interesting.
JW & FF: Thank you very much.