a transfer-friendly school

Profile of Curriculum Programs at Wayne Community College: 

• Wayne Community College offers 49 certificate programs which are less than 1-year in length, 14 diploma programs which are more than 1-year but less than 2-years in length, and 34 degree programs which are 2-years in length.  This reflects the expansion and diversification of vocational-technical offerings since the mid-20th century (Levin & Kater, 2013).
• The school partners with Pitt Community College in the fields of Biotechnology and Healthcare Management Technology. 
• Wayne Community College partners with East Carolina University's College of Education regarding teaching.
• The programs of Elementary Education and Teaching and Cosmetology/Cosmetologist, General are currently not accepting new students.  I expect this to be due to saturation in these job sectors.
• Some of the school's unique programs include:
• Turf and Turfgrass Management
• Airframe Mechanics and Aircraft Maintenance Technology/Technician
• Forest Technology/Technician

I expect this to be due to the close proximity of turf farms in the region, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base which is also in Goldsboro, and the role of tourism and national forests in the state.

• Wayne Community College offers the following college transfer programs:  Associates in Arts, Associates in Science, and Associates in Engineering.
• Of the five most popular fields of study at Wayne College identified by StateUniversity.com, liberal arts and sciences was overwhelmingly the most popular:

• The other top contenders, for most popular fields of study at Wayne Community College, make sense from the local economic perspective, as they align with two of the top three sectors of area employment.  AccessNC identified the top three sectors of Wayne County's employment as: 
1. Health care and social assistance
2. Retail trade
3. Manufacturing
• Wayne Community College's most popular study fields of Welding Technology/Welder and Machine Shop Technology/Assistant address these employment needs.  Their Medical Office Management/Administration and Registered Nursing/Registered Nurse fields address the identified employment needs of health care.  These are examples of geography affecting opportunity (Olivas, 2005).

• In viewing all of Wayne Community College's curriculum program completion disaggregated by program and race, the following observations can be made: 
• Both Black and White students are enrolled in a wide variety of programs
• Liberal arts transfer programs are most popular for all races, even being off-the-chart for White students
• Black students completed Welding Technology/Welder at the same rate as they completed Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Top programs overall, after Liberal Arts and Sciences, were:
1. Machine Shop Technology/Assistant
2. Electromechanical and Instrumentation and Maintenance Technologies/Technicians
3. Mechanical Engineering/Mechanical Technology/Technician
• The popularity of the liberal arts transfer programs at Wayne Community College are in-line with the evidence of Cohen, Brawer, and Kisker (2014) who wrote "In 2010, 40 percent of all students beginning postsecondary education enrolled first in a two-year college" (p. 53).

 

• According to CollegeTransfer.net, in 2013, Wayne Community College had 1,028 transfer students yielding a transfer-in rate of 27%.  I expect this to reflect a variety of reasons students change schools such as cost, programs, difficulty, work and family responsibilities, and flexibility or inflexibility of the job market.  Additionally, I expect the reverse-transfer (Cohen, Brawer, & Kisker, 2014) of student who already have a degree and are retraining for new or different work.
• According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in 2014, Wayne Community College's transfer-out rate was 17%.  For this same year, US News reported the national transfer-out rate at 18%.  I expect this to also reflect a variety of reasons such as relocating or feeling proficient enough to gain employment in the field.  I think the transfer-out rate is much lower than the transfer-in rate, as there are not too many more lower-cost institutions with a variety of program offerings available if transferring elsewhere.  Levin and Kater (2013) describe community colleges as "the lowest-priced postsecondary option available" (p. 25). 
• NCCommunityColleges identified the top three institutions to which Wayne Community College students transfer as: 
1. East Carolina University (ECU)
2. North Carolina (NC) State
3. University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW)
• Wayne Community College partners with the University of Mount Olive to enhance college transfer.

• Wayne Community College partners with Allen Aircraft Radio (AAR) Mobility Systems, a global aerospace and defense company, to provide a customized 8-week welding certificate program for AAR employees, accelerating their welding careers.  This program addresses a shortage of welders at AAR Mobility Systems, and students who complete the course can test for their welding certificate, immediately increasing their salaries by as much as $4.50 per hour.
• Non-AAR employees can also take this fast-track welding curriculum through Wayne Community College’s adult continuing education initiatives.  The partnership of AAR, local industries, and the college has resulted in the development of an Introduction to Manufacturing course designed to prepare students for manufacturing careers while building a pipeline of talent.  The curriculum includes:
• Training in soft skills, also called people skills
• Preparation for testing for the North Carolina Career Readiness Certification (CRC)
• Wayne Community College resources to assist with the transfer process include:
• Webpage with helpful links, including the North Carolina Comprehensive Articulation Agreement:  http://www.waynecc.edu/college-transfer/
• College Transfer Advising Center       

Monday – Wednesday – 7:45 AM. to 5:30 PM

Thursday – 9:15 AM to 7:00 PM

Friday – 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM

• Online new student orientation, for those transferring in
• Career and College Promise for High School students to transition-in by taking some courses at Wayne Community College while still in High School:  http://www.waynecc.edu/career-and-college-promise/  This assists with shaping college-going aspirations during high school (Levin & Kater, 2013).

References:

Access North Carolina.  (2016).  [website].  Retrieved from: 

http://accessnc.commerce.state.nc.us/docs/countyProfile/NC/37191.pdf

Cohen, A. M., Brawer, F. B., & Kisker, C. B.  (2014).  The American community college.  San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass.

College Transfer.  (2016).  [website].  Retrieved from: 

https://www.collegetransfer.net/WayneCommunityCollege/TransferProfile/tabid/145/Default.aspx?radius=25&instName=Wayne community college

Levin, J. S., & Kater, S. T.  (Eds.).  (2013).  Understanding community colleges.  New York, NY:  Routlege.     

National Center for Education Statistics.  (2016).  CollegeNavigator:  Wayne Community College [data file].  Retrieved from: 

http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=wayne+commnuity+college&s=all&id=199892

North Carolina Community Colleges.  (2016).  Statistical reports:  Curriculum student enrollment [data file].  Retrieved from:  http://www.nccommunitycolleges.edu/analytics/statistical-reports

Olivas, M. A.  (2005).  Higher education as ‘place’:  Location, race, and college attendance policies.  Review of Higher Education, 28(2), 169-189.

State University.  (2016).  [website].  Retrieved from:  http://www.stateuniversity.com/universities/NC/Wayne_Community_College.html

Wayne Community College.  (2016).  [website].  Retrieved from:  http://www.waynecc.edu/

35° 24' 15.4908" N, 77° 56' 51.8676" W

 

 

 

  Institutional Background

• Established in 1957
• This is during the 1950s and 1960s which saw expansion of community colleges such that most of the United States population would reside within 25 miles of a community college and an increase in local high school graduates enrolling in community colleges (Cohen, Brawer, & Kisker, 2014).

• Originally named Goldsboro Industrial Education Center; Renamed Goldsboro Technical Institute in 1964; then renamed Wayne Community College in 1967

• This is in-line with the typical community college focus of occupational education and follows the naming convention of original community colleges which are later renamed to reflect community college (Cohen, Brawer, & Kisker, 2014).

• Institutional extensions were established between 1963 and 1965 in Morehead City, Kenansville, and Clinton; these later became Carteret, James Sprunt, and Sampson community colleges
• Cohen, Brawer, and Kisker (2014) pointed out that "During the 1950s and 1960s, whenever a community college was established in a locale where there had been no publicly supported college, the proportion of high school graduates in that area who began college immediately increased, sometimes as much as 50 percent" (p. 17-18).

• Began with 47 students enrolled in four programs; now over 15,000 students enrolled in curriculum and non-curriculum
• This corresponds with Cohen, Brawer, and Kisker's (2014) noting community college rising enrollment, expansion of buildings, and expansion of program offerings during the past five decades.

• Mission:  "To meet the educational, training, and cultural needs of the communities it serves" (NC Community Colleges, 2016)
• This is broad and comprehensive as the institution takes on responsibility for many aspects of one's life (Cohen, Brawer, & Kisker, 2014).

• Website states Wayne Community College is "preparing students for promising careers" (Wayne Community College website, 2016)
• Use of the word promising speaks to credibility, professionalism, and possibly illusion (Cohen, Brawer, & Kisker, 2014).

• Website states Wayne Community College "also takes pride in its Associate in Arts and Associate in Science college transfer programs and its graduates who have a high success rate at four-year institutions" (Wayne community College website, 2016)
• This speaks to dualism:  Is the mission workforce development or college transfer? (Dougherty & Townsend, 2006).

• Wayne Community College demographics, Fall 2013 (nces.ed.gov):

• This is in-line with data of all community college students in which most are attending Part-time and most are Female.  From 2010 data of all community college students:  59% Part-time; 41% Full-time; 57% Female; 43% Male (Cohen, Brawer, & Kisker, 2014).

• This mirrors the race/ethnicity of the population of Wayne County, the county in which Wayne Community College is located.  In 2014, the population of Wayne County was:  63.6% White, 31.9% Black, 11.1 % Hispanic, 1.4% Asian, 0.8% American Indian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian, and 2.2% two or more races (US Census Bureau, 2016).
• It makes sense that most students (61%) are age 24 and under at Wayne Community College, as nearly 70% of students enter postsecondary institutions of some kind within a year of leaving high school (Cohen, Brawer, & Kisker, 2014).
• Additionally, it makes sense that most students (99%) are In-state residents, as those are the people a community college is typically serving; community colleges were strategically built to be within the reasonable commuting distance of 25 miles for 90-95% of a state's population (Cohen, Brawer, & Kisker, 2014).

• Enrollment declined from Fall 2014-15 to Fall 2015-16 (NC Community Colleges, 2016)
• This is expected to be due to economic improvement in which more people are going to work and fewer people are going back to school.

References

Cohen, A. M., Brawer, F. B., & Kisker, C. B.  (2014).  The American community college.  San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass.

Dougherty, K. J., & Townsend, B. K.  (2006).  Community college missions:  A theoretical and historical perspective.  New Directions for Community Colleges, 136, 5-13. 

National Center for Education Statistics.  (2016).  CollegeNavigator:  Wayne Community College [data file].  Retrieved from:  http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=wayne+commnuity+college&s=all&id=199892

North Carolina Community Colleges.  (2016).  Statistical reports:  Curriculum student enrollment [data file].  Retrieved from:  http://www.nccommunitycolleges.edu/analytics/statistical-reports

United States Census Bureau.  (2016).  QuickFacts:  Wayne County, North Carolina [data file].  Retrieved from:  http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/POP010210/37191

Wayne Community College.  (2016).  [website].  Retrieved from:  http://www.waynecc.edu/