National Park College (NPC) wrapped up a series of outreach events and began work on the 2025-2030 strategic plan this month. NPC President, Dr. Wade Derden provided an update to the NPC Board of Trustees during the regular monthly meeting Wednesday.
The College’s leadership team began an outreach campaign across the community over the past months. Meet and greet events were held in Hot Springs Village, the Webb Center downtown, the Hot Springs Country Club, and in Malvern. Derden said, “These events yielded thoughtful and constructive conversations about the future of the campus as well as what we are currently doing. Part of the purpose of these events has been to listen and gather feedback and to share information about the college and our comprehensive mission.”
Derden said he was intentional about explaining the College’s full impact in the community, including that the campus serves approximately 3000 credit students, over 1000 adult education students, almost 700 high school concurrently enrolled students, nearly 400 high school technology students, and over 2000 students through our corporate and community workforce training annually. “We have a big reach with over $111 million in economic impact in this community every year,” he added.
Derden emphasized the importance of making sure the community is aware of what is happening at the College and all of the ways the campus can support them. “I want to create an atmosphere where our community members feel welcome on campus and recognize that we are their community college. My hope is to encourage more community involvement on campus.”
Vice President for Administration, Kelli Embry is leading strategic planning efforts for NPC. The strategic planning committee met early this month and has begun scheduling campus and community focus groups to gather feedback to help determine priorities for the College over the next five years.
“These community meetings are opportune, because I am hopeful our community at large, as well as the campus community, will be proactive in providing feedback in our strategic planning efforts, which are now underway. We want this community’s input on what NPC should be focused on over the next five years. You are going to see a lot of us in the coming months.” said Derden.
Derden has also started a new monthly podcast titled, Winging It: Unscripted Conversations with the Hot Springs Community. The podcast launched Tuesday with episode one featuring Mary Zunick with the Hot Springs Sister City Program. Derden noted there are several Sister City events happening in the next few weeks.
Pictured is Jane Browning (left) and Linda Ragsdale (right) speaking with Derden at the Hot Springs Village meet and greet.