Catawba Valley Puts Students on Career Track
Published May 27, 2009
A key facet of Catawba County’s quality of life is the higher education options that help students transition to four-year colleges, receive training to prepare them for careers or sharpen skills they already have.
In March 2010, Catawba Valley Community College in Hickory will open North Carolina’s largest simulated hospital, a 28,000-square-foot center dedicated to teaching the next generation of health-care professionals without imposing on the current crop of patients.
Students will tend to robots sophisticated enough to blink, to cry or to turn blue, but not, of course, to feel pain.
“If our nurses are drawing blood, they are able to mess up on a robot many times before they actually have to stick a real human,” says Dr. Garrett Hinshaw, president of the 6,536-student college.
It’s another example of the college’s overarching mission of workforce development, workforce training and meeting the needs of the region’s employers.
The college regularly collaborates directly with industry, helping to train new employees through its Workforce Development Innovation Center, mentoring growing businesses through its Small Business Center or developing new technologies.
The Center for Emerging Manufacturing Solutions, the school’s R&D facility, helped one business develop biodegradable socks out of corn silk, a product that generated more than $8 million in sales, Hinshaw says. “We’re creating jobs here,” he says.
The college and three other higher-education institutions have formed a partnership that will expand degree programs offered in the region by Appalachian State University.
The new partnership is a successor to the Hickory Metro Higher Education Center, founded in 2003 to provide opportunities for students to earn four-year degrees through Appalachian State without having to leave the region.
Story by Sam Scott
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