View this article in the Bristol Herald Courier…
by UVA Wise Chancellor Donna Price Henry & Mike Quillen
It happens every year about this time.
The energy surrounding high school football playoffs fuels excitement in communities across Southwest Virginia.
The entire focus of players and their classmates is to advance – advance to the next round of the playoffs. Win or lose, when the last game is over, the band plays the school fight song for the last time in the season.
As most high school seniors’ athletic careers come to an end that day, the time to advance their own educational journey begins in earnest. Each of them will have to determine what they are going to do after graduating from high school.
Today’s high school graduates possess more options than ever in pursuing their desired career paths. Even in these uncertain economic times, education beyond a high school degree continues to be the passport to success.
A college education provides these high school graduates with opportunities which often lead to a high-paying career with a bright future. As higher education leaders, we have a responsibility to ensure that educational attainment beyond high school – whether four-year degrees, associate degrees or non-degree certificates or credentials – is available and most importantly, affordable, for middle income and first-generation students.
As high school graduates make the leap to the next educational level, we must also ensure they obtain the skills necessary to succeed in today’s workplace. Traditional classroom and laboratory instruction is still important. But increasingly, partnerships with business provide experiential learning that is an essential ingredient for students’ post-graduate success.
We believe that every Virginia student who wants one should have access to a paid internship opportunity. The backbone of the internship program at UVA Wise relies upon the development of meaningful partnerships with employers – many of whom are right here in this region.
One such Southwest Virginia-based company, Medentum Innovations, showed how experiential learning opportunities can lead to direct employment of UVA Wise interns after graduation AND create additional jobs for the region. UVA Wise interns at Medentum worked together with company employees, solving problems as a team, to create a “digital stethoscope”. A real-world success story, these UVA Wise students and the employees of this start-up company, created a prototype that could both revolutionize rural health care in the region and create new jobs.
The founder of Medentum summed it up best noting that “We learned a lot from the UVA Wise students, and they from us”.
Data conclusively shows that college graduates and recipients of non-degree credentials and certificates earn more lifetime income than those without degrees or credentials. The talent produced by Virginia’s colleges, universities, and community colleges ultimately become tomorrow’s leaders.
Companies and employers choose to locate in states where the best talent exists. Accelerated investment in making Virginia the top Talent-to-Opportunity state in the country is critically important right now. Those students who make Friday nights at play-off time special in our region are counting on it.