I'm about to speak at the grand opening of a beautiful student services center on the campus of National Park College in Hot Springs when I notice a number of familiar faces in the crowd. A group of Spa City business and civic leaders has turned out for the evening event at the two-year institution. That wouldn't have been the case 20 years ago.
There was a time when this school was out of sight and out of mind in the tourism-oriented city. Its roots go back to 1969 and the establishment of Quapaw Vocational Technical School, a branch campus of Ouachita Vocational Technical School at Malvern. The Legislature mandated in 1973 that the Hot Springs school become a separate entity.
Also in 1973, Garland County Community College was established to provide higher education opportunities for county residents. It was an era when the state seemingly was trying to put a two-year college and a state park in every legislative district, ultimately ending up with too many of both. In 1991, the state Board of Vocational Education changed the name of Quapaw Vocational Technical School to Quapaw Technical Institute.
In 2003, the Legislature passed a bill merging Garland County Community College and Quapaw Technical Institute. The result was National Park Community College, which is now just National Park College.
Earlier in this century, the leadership of Hot Springs finally began to appreciate the importance of higher education to economic development, even in a town that relies on tourism. In the fall of 2006, the school's 35,000-square-foot Lab Sciences Building was dedicated. That same year, Fred Dierks pledged what at the time was the largest amount ever given by a single donor to a two-year school in Arkansas. His $1.5 million gift helped in the construction of the Dierks Center for Nursing and Health Sciences.
In nearby Malvern, Ouachita Vocational Technical School was established in 1969 to offer occupational and technical training for residents of Hot Spring, Grant, Saline, Clark and Dallas counties. It took several years to get the school up and running; it opened in January 1972 with 292 students.
"While a permanent campus was under construction, classes met in the former Wilson High School building, which had been the African American high school prior to integration," Marvin Schultz writes for the Central Arkansas Library System's Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
"In 1985, the state Board of Education designated OVTS a high school vocational center to provide career-oriented training to students in the area's 11 high schools. The vocational-technical school taught automotive technology, cosmetology, food service, small-engine repair, welding, classes designed to meet the specific needs of area businesses and post-secondary practical nursing. OVTS operated until 1991, when it became Ouachita Technical College."
In the late 1980s, a group of Arkansas business leaders began calling for educational reforms, including the transfer of post-secondary vocational programs from the state Board of Vocational Education to the state Board of Higher Education. The group also called for converting vocational-technical schools into two-year colleges.
A 1991 legislative act made most of those recommended changes. The first bill didn't include OVTS, but state Sen. George Hopkins of Malvern introduced separate legislation to redesignate the Malvern school as Ouachita Technical College. The bill passed and was signed by Gov. Bill Clinton.
OTC worked with Henderson State University at Arkadelphia to offer college-level credits. Henderson officials developed a curriculum and provided faculty.
Malvern voters passed a one-cent sales tax dedicated to the college, and that allowed for the construction of a 35,000-square-foot facility in 1999 that provides library, office and classroom space. A building where nurses are trained was added in 2003. The name of the school was changed to College of the Ouachitas in July 2011.
In February, the college signed a merger agreement with the Arkansas State University System. In September, it was announced that the new name of the school will be Arkansas State University-Three Rivers.
About 25 miles down the road in Arkadelphia, Henderson found itself in a financial crisis earlier this year. In July, the Henderson board of trustees signed an agreement with the ASU System that allows the system to provide support services for the remainder of the year. Glen Jones resigned as Henderson's president that day. Chuck Welch, the ASU system president, is a former Henderson president. It's practically a foregone conclusion that Henderson soon will be part of the ASU System.
On the cover of today's Perspective section is a story I wrote about the new strategic plan in Hot Spring County. Increasingly, business leaders in Hot Spring, Garland and Clark counties have come to understand that if there's to be a growth region south of the Little Rock metropolitan area, it will be those three counties. That's if the leaders there will work together.
The only three regional growth areas in the state now are northwest Arkansas, the Little Rock metro area and the Jonesboro area. Almost all of the counties south of the Little Rock metro area are losing population.
What I call the Arkadelphia-Hot Springs-Malvern triangle offers advantages that other parts of south Arkansas don't have--an interstate highway, a national park, a national forest, three state parks and four popular lakes. The biggest advantage in the knowledge-based economy of the 21st century, however, is the presence of four institutions of higher education--Henderson, Ouachita Baptist University at Arkadelphia, COTO and NPC. If the two four-year institutions and the pair of two-year institutions will cooperate, the possibilities for the region are endless.
There are already pieces coming together that offer a glimpse of an exciting future. Saline County (part of the Little Rock metro area) is about to construct a multimillion-dollar career training center adjacent to Interstate 30. COTO (and thus the ASU System) will provide support for that center. That could open a steady pipeline of students from growing Saline County to ASU campuses in Malvern and Arkadelphia for additional education.
This won't be the first major change in the rich history of Henderson. The school has the distinction of being Arkansas' only public liberal arts school. It was founded in 1890 as Arkadelphia Methodist College. The name was changed to Henderson College in 1904 to honor a benefactor named Charles Christopher Henderson and then was changed in 1911 to Henderson-Brown College to honor a benefactor named Walter William Brown. In 1929, Methodists in Arkansas decided that they could no longer afford to operate both the school in Arkadelphia and Hendrix College at Conway. Methodist leaders decided to combine Henderson-Brown with Hendrix.
"The student body of Henderson-Brown strongly opposed the idea, as did most of the administration and local citizens," writes Henderson historian David Sesser. "After negotiations with state lawmakers, it was decided to turn control of Henderson-Brown over to the state rather than close its doors. In 1929, the institution in Arkadelphia became known as Henderson State Teachers College."
HSTC became Henderson State College in 1967 and Henderson State University in 1975. Now, it's set to play a key role in the emerging south Arkansas education triangle.
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Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Editorial on 10/27/2019