UAFS Center Provides Custom Continuing Ed

When deciding whether to invest money, time and resources into offsite employee training, business owners want to work with an institution they can trust to provide the results they need.

For business owners in the Fort Smith area, that institution is the Center for Business and Professional Development at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith, said Pat Eller, director of the center.

Most of the custom training courses are $7-$8 per student per instructional hour. Other courses, such as Six Sigma, run in the neighborhood of $1,300.

The CBPD has an established history with some of the region’s largest employers, such as Baldor Electric Co. In the last year, the center has worked with 96 different companies and partners and more than 5,600 employees.

One thing the center offers is a staff that has not only formal training, but real world experience as well.

“Employers want people who have been there, done that,” Eller said.

Finding instructors who have both professional experience and teaching ability can be a difficult proposition, and some of the staff members at the center have degrees that might seem unlikely.

Computer applications instructor Micki Voelkel has a degree in performance studies from Northwestern University.

After college, she worked in the theater world for a year, but found that making a living in that world is tough.

“I discovered that while I got cast, I never got paid,” she said.

Voelkel came to the CPBD after learning to use a variety of office software applications while working at Holt-Krock Clinic and earning a master’s in adult education.

Hal Boyette, workforce development and manufacturing systems consultant for the center, has a degree in divinity. He was also a manager at Rheem Air Conditioning Products for several years, an experience that gave him first-hand knowledge in manufacturing.

The CBPD offers many courses – such as FranklinCovey’s “7 Habits for Managers” – that are popular at campuses across the country.

Within the framework of those classes, however, the center can develop a customized curriculum focusing on an issue specific to a particular company or organization, Eller said.

Another successful CBPD application is the Decision Center, where companies use computers to facilitate planning, conflict resolution, brainstorming, problem solving and more.

Each individual sits at a computer and types out opinions and ideas.

These suggestions show up on screen anonymously and thus can be analyzed and discussed without anyone worrying what another thinks of a particular statement.

It also allows for participants who might be more timid in traditional meetings to be more outspoken, while preventing more dominant personalities from taking over the discussion.

In addition to non-credit professional training, the department of applied science offers an associate’s degree in workforce leadership.

More than 900 people have completed the program.

Until recently, this was a terminal degree, but now UAFS offers a program that will allow those with an associate’s degree to upgrade to a bachelor’s degree.

The degree completion program is the first of its kind in the state, and is also being administered through UAFS at Mid-South Community College in West Memphis, Eller said.

Like many of the courses the CBPD facilitates, ESL training is also very often industry specific. The center works with many employees who have limited English skills.

It is often the first time many of these workers have been on a college campus, and the new environment can be intimidating.

But the experience of completing a course and earning a certificate, increases their confidence significantly and changes their demeanor.

Many of them come back to pursue degrees and further education, Eller said.

Enrollment in professional development courses has risen from 4,426 in 2004 to 5,700 this year, an increase of nearly 29 percent. The number of organizations the center has partnered with rose by 14 percent over the same period.