It was a good week for Southeast Arkansas College.
First there was the announcement from Trinity Village retirement home that a scholarship had been set up with the college that would offer paid schooling for a nursing assistant to become a licensed practical nurse.
The next day, SEARK signed an agreement with Arkansas Tech University to allow the college's students to further their degrees online.
As SEARK president Steven Bloomberg put it, many local students are "place-bound," meaning transportation is an issue. There's plenty that someone getting a two-year degree at SEARK can do with that level of education and training, but if they want to turn that associate's degree into a bachelor's degree, it's tough. Want to go to UALR or UCA or even UAPB? Without a car, well, things get complicated if not impossible.
Arkansas Tech, in the meantime, has been developing its online course offerings, which is something that dovetails nicely with a motivated student who is stuck at home.
Barbara Johnson, vice president of academic affairs at ATU, said the two schools had been working on the cooperative agreement since late spring and that she was excited to be rolling it out.
"This opportunity will help us fulfill our mission to provide access and opportunities for success for students," she said after signing the agreement with Bloomberg.
The two school officials also called this arrangement "seamless." That simply means that students at SEARK can hop on the ATU online program and not lose any academic ground they've already covered.
"For these particular programs, we've already worked it out so they don't lose any academic credits," Johnson said.
No doubt, that's where the work went to make this happen as the curricula at different schools don't just automatically match up.
But the effort would appear to be worthwhile. Administrators can see what these place-bound students are up against, and also see this plan as a handy way of getting them beyond what had been a dead end.
And even before the paperwork was signed, one dean at SEARK said she had already recruited one person to the program -- a recent SEARK graduate who apparently had been wanting a bachelor's degree but just couldn't make it happen.
Hopefully, that will be one of many students to take advantage of the new program.