Robeson Community College impacts the lives of thousands of people in our county every day, and thus the college is frequently in the news.

After looking back over the past year at newsworthy events involving the college, one could argue that the No. 1 story for 2017 was the appointment of Kimberly Gold as the college’s fifth president. Gold joined the college family on Jan. 2, 2017, after serving in leadership positions, including as executive vice president and chief academic officer, for several years at Isothermal Community College in Rutherford County. Gold has been with the community college system since 1995.

Other stories that impact the community at large relate to our Health Sciences programs. The biggest among these is the continued success of these programs as evidenced by the record of excellence among graduates in taking certification exams for nursing, radiography, and respiratory care, each of which had 100 percent of graduates passing heirOther stories that impact the community at large relate to our Health Sciences programs. The biggest among these is the continued success of these programs as evidenced by the record of excellence among graduates in nursing, radiography, and respiratory care, each of which had 100 percent of graduates passing certification exams.

The college’s Emergency Medical Science program hosted its third annual Trauma Rodeo. This collaborative event involved many on-campus and off-campus entities, including EMS, nursing, respiratory, law enforcement, and surgical technology students. Seventy-five students interacted with more than 20 professionals from Robeson County EMS, Robeson County Sheriff’s Office, Robeson County Dispatch, Southeastern Health, and Campbell School of Medicine.

Students also interacted with life flight helicopter crews from Valley Link Air at Cape Fear Valley, Air Link from New Hanover Medical Center, Air Reach from McLeod Health in Florence, and Carolina Air Care from UNC Chapel Hill.

In other health science news, the college’s Surgical Technology program restarted after a short hiatus and students from the school’s Respiratory Care program won the state championship Sputum Bowl competition.

Among the more significant of the $2.5 million in additions to the college’s grant portfolio were the Single Stop Grant, which will enable the college to connect students to community services for which they may be eligible. Duke Energy funded additional equipment for the college’s much in demand industrial technologies programs. Project Search assists with the training of developmentally disabled students, which leads to meaningful employment for those students. The college partnered with the Lumbee Tribe on a federal Department of Education grant and offered summer camps on our campus for elementary and middle school students.

RCC partnered with Southeastern Health to provide EPIC training for most hospital employees. The hospital has chosen the EPIC software package as its implementation of federally mandated electronic medical records and training its thousands of employees is a huge undertaking of which the college is proud to be a part.

The college hosted its 43rd annual Fire/Rescue College and Law Enforcement Expo in February. Serving about 700 first- responders, this event is one of the largest of its kind in the state and draws participants from all over North Carolina and parts of South Carolina.

In addition to serving traditional college-aged students and our continuing education population, Robeson Community College made great strides over the past several years in serving high school students through the Career and College Promise program whereby high school students can earn college credits at no cost to them or their family. The number of students served in this program reached record levels in 2017.

Also, the college shared with the Public Schools of Robeson County the honor of the Robeson Early College High School’s newly established Robotics team, which won its first competition at the state level against more established teams from larger and wealthier counties.

Often there are behind-the-scenes stories that the public does not hear, but that make the stories that they do hear possible. Information Technology upgrades qualify as one of those stories. Last year the IT department at the college completed more than 90 projects to keep the college’s information infrastructure up-to-date and running smoothly.

Finally, the biggest news from Robeson Community College continues to be the success of our students and alumni. Over the past year we’ve highlighted stories about Robeson County Magistrate Rudy Locklear, East Carolina University graduate student Joshua Jones, Robeson Healthcare employee Janice Oxendine, and science interns Samantha Lewis and Celeste Lewis. But the reality is that there are thousands of RCC success stories in our county, throughout the state, and across the nation. These students and former students impact the lives of those around them daily as they go about serving in the variety of roles for which RCC either prepared them or provided the foundation for further training.

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By Dennis Watts

Contributing columnist

Dennis Watts is the Public Information officer for Robeson Community College.