Gordon, college hype initiative

A visit and tour of Western Wyoming Community College led to Gov. Mark Gordon and leaders from WWCC and the University of Wyoming to promote a partnership between the state's community colleges and the university,

WIN, the Wyoming Innovation Network, aims to refocus the state's higher education network by creating more collaboration between UW and the community colleges and focus on economic opportunities important to the state's different regions. For Sweetwater and its surrounding counties, that means industry.

Kimberly Dale, Western's President, said the collaboration will help create economic development opportunities throughout Wyoming. She said the college has a strong industrial technology program its leaders are seeking to expand. She said the college hopes to provide training for what she describes as "H3 jobs," jobs that are in high demand, require a highly-skilled employee and offer a high wage. Dale also said the college is "dusting off" its outdoor recreation program, saying the college understands the need to sell recreational opportunities to prospective employees. She said one of the challenges employers face is retaining employees.

"We understand the quality-of-life issue," she said.

Gordon said demographics in the state's higher education system are changing rapidly as nontraditional students, which are students who don't immediately start a higher education program after high school, are the majority of students seen at the community colleges. According to statistics provided by Western, the average age of a full-time student is 21, while the average age of a part-time student is 26.

"Things are changing so dramatically," he said.

Gordon said Wyoming is in a better position to pivot to those changes, describing the state's colleges as being small and nimble while providing a world-class education.

Ed Seidel, President of UW, said he was "blown away" by what he had seen at Western, describing the school as a magnificent facility and marveling at the number of corporate partnerships it has built. He views the colleges as being important to the communities they serve and being a place area students can earn advanced certificates provided by those colleges, offerings WIN seeks to expand upon.

Seidel also said the partnership is important for the state, saying neither the university or any of the community colleges have the critical mass needed to handle a project on their own.

One of the fruits of this new collaboration with UW is a maker space WWCC is working to install. Dale said it would be open to anyone, not just students, and allow them to work on personal projects that could become the start of a new business.