TORRINGTON – On Thursday, June 24, Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon visited Eastern Wyoming College (EWC) along with University of Wyoming President Dr. Edward Seidel and University of Wyoming Board of Trustees President Jeffrey Marsh.
The visit to the campus was to highlight the college and to give Gordon, Seidel and Marsh a tour of the facilities and all EWC has to offer to prospective students.
At the end of the tour, Gordon and Seidel spoke to an audience about the new Wyoming Innovation Network (WIN) initiative. The initiative seeks to improve the coordination between the University of Wyoming and the state’s community colleges and to help improve workforce development.
“Our university and our community colleges need to work collaboratively to meet the needs of a changing work environment,” Gordon said. “Suddenly we realized, it’s also necessary to have economic development on board, because we’re all in this together.”
After Gordon spoke, Seidel gave a few words praising EWC for all the different things they can offer to students and spoke a little bit about the WIN initiative.
“What a wonderful community college you guys have here,” Seidel said. “I’m just blown away walking around here to see what you’ve done and how you’ve built it. We want to do everything we can at the University of Wyoming to help support the community colleges and the growth of the community, particularly around economic development.”
Seidel said before coming to the University of Wyoming, he worked at the University of Illinois as the Vice President for Economic Development and he understands how a university needs to be the future bedrock for not just the workforce, but also the economy.
One of the biggest things students are demanding of universities is learning how to deal with the changing economy and how to better prepare themselves for entering the changing workforce. The goal isn’t to just prepare people for now, but also the future.
“We need to train the workforce for the jobs that are available now and, in the future,” Seidel said. “We also need to go beyond that to help people create and innovate to be the home of innovation that helps drive new things in the economy.”
Seidel said it’s important for him the University of Wyoming is in every corner of the state, but the only way they will be able to accomplish it, is by having strong relationships with the community colleges throughout the state.
The main goal of the WIN initiative is to get all of the schools in Wyoming to share the same goals and to put in a similar direction and to focus on things that will have a big impact on the state.
Another goal of WIN is to make it easier for students to transfer for community colleges to the University of Wyoming.
EWC President Dr. Lesley Travers said it’s very important Gordon and Seidel are able to come to Torrington and see what EWC can offer to students as they look to further their education.
“They need to know what we provide and get an idea of what’s important to Goshen County, Torrington and to Douglas,” Travers said. “I think Dr. Seidel is very interested in economic development and the workforce and that’s really what we do very well.”
At the end of the ceremony, Marsh spoke to the crowd and said the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees will be hosting their July meeting at EWC. He said it’s important for all of the trustees to see all the different things Wyoming has to offer.
“It’s really helpful for all of the trustees,” Marsh said. “We come from all various parts of the state, like Jackson and Sheridan, and so it’s good for us to do that and [EWC] have been great partners.”
Marsh also spoke about how important it is to have these relationships with the community colleges in Wyoming and those relationships are even more important now due to the budgetary issues the state is facing.
“With the budgetary constraints that we have, you’re going to have to do more collaboration, you’re going to have to become more efficient,” Marsh said. “This is one way in which we can do that. We’re blessed to have one state funded university in the state of Wyoming but having those partnerships with the community colleges really only enhances what we do.”
