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Congratulations, SCC – 40 years, and counting
Southwestern Community College is celebrating its 40th year of serving Jackson County's educational needs. As SCC marks this significant milestone, it seems appropriate to pause and reflect on a few of the ways SCC impacts our lives, whether we ever attended classes there or not.
If you ever have need of a law enforcement officer in Jackson, Macon, Swain, Clay, Graham or Cherokee counties, you have a 95 percent chance that the officer will have received training at SCC. Each must earn Basic Law Enforcement Training certification which is only offered through SCC.
Concerned about fire protection? SCC offers the necessary training, certification and recertification required by the state for our volunteer fire fighters to serve in the field, and it's the only certified firefighting training agent in the area.
If you or someone you know needs emergency medical services, 85 percent of the people who will respond to those needs were trained through Southwestern.
As you know, these three – law enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency medical service providers – are considered first responders, so chances are your first responder will be a Southwestern grad.
Perhaps health circumstances will also require that you seek care or testing at a local hospital. Some 85 percent of those who will assist you with hands-on care – nurses, radiologists, respiratory care technologists, physical therapy assistants, and others – received their training at SCC.
Perhaps you use the services of a child care facility. If so, be assured that 70 percent of those who take care of your child received their state-required certification at SCC.
Look at our general workforce. A large number of the people who repair our cars, survey our property, style our hair, build our houses, prepare and serve our meals at local restaurants, fix our plumbing, design our business logos (or in this newspaper's case, design ads), notarize our documents, balance our books or prepare our income tax returns, prepare or install air conditioning or heating systems, wire our houses, repair our electronic equipment and build the foundations of our homes learned their skills at SCC.
Consider the savings in education costs at SCC. Tuition and fees at Southwestern are a fraction of what they would be at a four-year college or university. Did you know that our area high school students can get the first two years of college free of cost? Under SCC's Dual Enrollment program, high school students can enroll in college classes while still attending high school. An increasing number of students are graduating from SCC and their local high school at the same time. With public college costs coming in at about $10,000 a year, two years of free education at SCC represents a direct financial benefit to these students and their parents.
Think of all the personal development, personal enrichment, professional licensure and certification courses and workshops Southwestern has offered over the past 40 years. Many have gained knowledge and skills in a wide range of interests from earning a GED, to learning how to start and grow a small business, to gaining computer skills, to gaining skills in a variety of crafts, to learning to write a grant proposal, to learning a foreign language, or even managing stress.
More than 6,000 students have earned associate's degrees in a wide range of fields. And 70 percent of all Southwestern graduates stay in the area.
During the past 40 years, SCC has provided a wealth of educational opportunities to the people of Jackson County and the surrounding region and made a significant difference in the lives of the people of our county.
We salute all those who have contributed to making SCC the vital community force it is today.
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