High-tech Portsmouth TCC campus targets workforce sectors

By Michael Schwartz

Tidewater Community College's new Portsmouth campus has an interesting relationship with workforce development in the region.

On the one hand, the shiny $65 million campus that opened for classes in January after 10 years in the making was constructed with specific workforce segments in mind, a strategy that helps the growing college target programs it believes will attract more students and tuition dollars by offering an avenue to those who want in on hot areas of employment.

That strategy is based on TCC doing its due diligence to learn what industry segments are in need of workforce growth and which of those might attract students in Hampton Roads.

In the case of the Portsmouth campus, those targeted areas are nursing, welding, administrative HVAC, and computer-aided drafting and design.

Judging by its enrollment figures, TCC guessed right on what's hot.

Overall enrollment at the Portsmouth campus is up 30 percent this semester, said Provost Terry Jones.

With its new 48 high-tech welding stations and instructors from local shipyards, TCC Portsmouth's welding program enrollment is up nearly 100 percent. There has been an increase in the number of females enrolling in the welding program, Jones said.

Enrollment for the HVAC program, in which students work on the internal systems of the new campus as training, is up around 50 percent.

The upgraded campus, with the help of a $1.4 million grant from the Beazley Foundation, allows the nursing program to train students on four patient simulators, about as close to real humans as you can get.

At $200,000 apiece, the simulators are mannequins that talk and have a heartbeat. Their eyes open and shut. The pupils dilate. The female dummies can simulate birth and students must care for the dummies through a range of scenarios, including some that result in death.

There's a waiting line to get into the nursing program, Jones said.

A unique program that trains students in the intricacies of everyday office life, known as "The Firm," is like a live-action simulator in which students take part in running a virtual office complete with real cubicles, morning coffee breaks, a board room and bosses who tell you what to do.

Enrollment in that program is up 100 percent.

"We designed the campus very intentionally," Jones said.

On the other hand, TCC's strategy not only fuels its own enrollment, but helps steer the region's workforce into certain industries and if the programs are targeted correctly, can help the region fill gaps of need in workforce segments.

They know, for instance, that the average age of shipyard workers is 55, proving time is of the essence for that industry and the new Portsmouth campus, located near local shipyards on purpose, could not have come at a better time. The campus sits on 35 acres next to the Victory Village Business Park just off Victory Boulevard.

"We believe we're positioned to meet those needs," Jones said.

The dynamics of workforce development have also changed because of the economy and the rising rate of unemployment. There has been no shortage of news reports about older unemployed people returning to community colleges for retraining.

Jones said the new campus is benefiting from that trend.

"We've seen a lot of people come back," he said.

A surprising statistic is that the fastest-growing segment of the student population on the Portsmouth campus is the traditional college- age student.

The new 183,000-square-foot campus will teach 11,000 students this year.

That figure includes a targeted segment TCC and the city of Portsmouth want to grow for the long- term health of the area.

The campus has partnered with Portsmouth Public Schools to bring the city's high school seniors to the campus to complete college credits. For too many young people in Portsmouth the goal has been simply to graduate high school, according to the city and TCC. That has resulted in gaps in the workforce.

The city of Portsmouth donated $4 million to TCC for the new campus, which helped build an extra 20,000 square feet to house the high school college credit program, known as First College. That program now has 100 students, Jones said, compared to when it began four years ago with only 19 students.

That, coupled with targeting industries that operate within close proximity to the campus, is TCC's attempt to "try to reflect the needs of the Portsmouth community," Jones said.

It also helps that the Portsmouth campus is actually physically located in Portsmouth. The old TCC Portsmouth was technically in Suffolk.

"This was always Portsmouth's campus even though it was in Suffolk," Jones said.