Sandburg College continues to see dual credit and workforce programs play a major role for students across the region. Sandburg President Dr. Seamus Riley says partnerships with programs like GAVC, along with support from the Mellinger Foundation, are helping students gain experience and training before they even graduate high school.
“The Mellinger Foundation here has been very supportive of our automotive program, supporting those students with dollars for tools, so they come out of their classes not just with qualifications, but they’ve actually got a toolkit they can bring on the job with them. But the key thing for me is students who don’t believe they are college material. If we can give them an opportunity at 16 years of age to see that in fact they are college material, and expose them to things they don’t even know exist. To me, that’s really the magic of it.”
Riley says the goal is to keep expanding opportunities for students, whether that is through technical training, health professions, transfer programs, or entering the workforce.
