Mountain Empire Community College will no longer house workforce programs at the Center for Workforce and Innovation of Appalachia, located in the former Appalachia Elementary School.
The center is closing, and all power line worker, commercial driver’s license and welding programs have been moved back to campus, a change Mountain Empire says will save about $86,000 per year during a tight time for community colleges across the state.
Dental assisting is the only program on pause due to the center’s closing and the college’s larger financial challenges. Enrollment decline was a main factor behind a “strategic restructuring” at Mountain Empire earlier this year that cut $2 million from its annual budget and laid off 14 employees.
Mountain Empire opened the center in 2019, when it did not have room on campus to house select workforce programs, said Amy Greear, vice president of institutional advancement at the college in Big Stone Gap.
The college came to an agreement with the Wise County Board of Supervisors to lease the building at no cost and received funding through GO Virginia and the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission to help equip the facility.
The former school has been home to programs designed to train different workforces since then, from nursing assistants to welders. When local employers need training for workers, they have gone to Mountain Empire in search of programming.
“There’s not really any dedicated state money to do that — start a program,” said Greear, who later added that workforce programs often shift based on industry demand. “We’re funded based on our enrollment.”
Greear said the community college typically had two types of enrollment: workforce training and four-year transfers — students who transfer to a four-year college after two years at Mountain Empire. Now, four-year transfers are often done in high school through dual enrollment, meaning many students complete their first year before ever going to the campus.
Increasing dual enrollment has freed up space on campus for workforce classes — arts and science courses are a large majority of dual enrollment and have been offered online since the COVID-19 pandemic. Greear said this can be a benefit to students living in Lee or Scott counties who used to drive over an hour for their classes.
At the same time, the loss of in-person instruction helps explain the financial deficit — while classes like English only need an instructor, trade courses require technology, equipment and lower student-teacher ratios. Mountain Empire is no longer making enough revenue through arts and sciences courses to cover these larger trade expenses, Greear said.
The savings will come from no longer having to pay for the utilities and operation of the building, Greear said. Project SOAR, a trades training program for students in recovery from opioid addiction, will also be moved on campus.
“The [cost of the] building fell on the cost to run the programs, so it made more sense not to charge the students for facilities,” said Kristen Westover, president of the college.
Westover and Greear emphasized the increased access students will have to campus resources, from library services to financial aid. A new grill will open for food service on July 17.
Greear said Mountain Empire is currently working with other Southwest Virginia community colleges to bring back a dental assistant program.
