NPC's Newly Renamed Career Academy Sees Program Changes, Growth
The National Park College (NPC) Board of Trustees discussed preliminary fall enrollment data during the regular monthly meeting Wednesday. NPC’s total headcount for credit and concurrent enrollment is 2,316 for fall 2023 compared to 2,336 students for fall 2022.
Darla Thurber, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management shared the fall enrollment report. Credit student enrollment for fall 2023 is 1,742 compared to 1,826 enrolled in 2022 as of the 11th day census count. Semester credit hours for fall 2023 are 21,401 compared to 21,743 for fall 2022.
The number of concurrent credit students increased significantly this fall. Concurrent enrollment for fall 2023 is 583 compared to 510 students in fall 2022. This is a 14.3% increase.
Thurber noted, “While we are basically flat year-over-year in total headcount, I am glad to share that our credit students are taking an average of 12.31 credit hours compared to 11.9 credit hours last year. This is the highest average number of hours to date and means our students are closer to completing on-time than ever before.”
Thurber reported a record number of students living on campus with 233 students in Dogwood Hall this fall. She noted residents are highly engaged and have high participation rates in Student Life events. “There are nightly events in Dogwood Hall, games, karaoke, movie nights, local churches coming to cook out. This creates a fun, safe environment for our resident students to live and learn.”
Dr. Bill Allison, vice president for workforce reported Community and Corporate Training programs served 2,660 students and logged 46,238 contact hours in 2023, compared to 2,717 and 33,995 respectively in 2022. Overall contact hours increased 36% year-over year. Allison attributed the growth to industry investments in their incumbent workforce.
Adult Education has served 444 students since July 1, compared to approximately 368 in the same time period last fiscal year. This is an increase of about 20.7%. Associate vice president for workforce, Bill Ritter said, “This increase is across our programs and at all of our centers, but especially in our new Allied Health programs, which are offered for free to the public. The Allied Health programs continue to attract more students meaning we continue to put more students into the workforce quickly in good-paying careers right here in the Hot Springs area.”
National Park Technology Center (NPTC) has 411 students enrolled this semester, an increase of 51 students. Ritter said, “We are dedicated to providing our high school technology students concurrent credit courses, nationally recognized industry certifications, and a direct path to either the workplace or to complete a 2-year degree here at NPC after graduating high school.”
Ritter shared that NPTC offers Automotive, Marine Repair, Machine Tool, Medical Professions, and recently added high school Welding. “We continue looking for opportunities to expand programming for students. For example, we will be offering some additional allied health certifications in the spring, including a dental assistant certification to our Medical Professions students, and certified nursing assistant training.”
Ritter also announced a change to the NPTC name from National Park Technology Center to NPC Career Academy. “With all of the changes and additions in our high school programs, we believe the National Park Technology Center name no longer fully describes our mission of preparing students to go directly into a career in our local workforce. With the help of our Advancement team this summer, we arranged focus groups with students and surveyed parents and high school leaders to find a name that better describes our efforts.” He said the name will officially be implemented on July 1, 2024 and the team will begin to transition to the new name over the next few months.
Dr. John Hogan, NPC president expressed his support for the name change to NPC Career Academy. “I appreciate the team’s efforts to gather feedback from students and from our local school districts. This change, along with some of the programmatic changes occurring, will help us refresh our high school instruction so that we are better aligned with the expectations and needs of our community and local employers.”
NPC Board Chair, Joyce Craft said, “It is good to see growth in the concurrent, high school and workforce programming that NPC offers. Also, I am pleased by the success of our Adult Education program, which I believe is such a crucial service to this community. The Adult Education report, in particular, reminds me that I recently heard it stated that NPC can take someone from illiteracy all the way through a bachelor’s degree and everything in between. I think we may sometimes take for granted what this college does. I know we tend to focus on the college students’ headcount, but NPC reaches so many other students. I’m impressed by the broad impact of the services provided here.”
