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Southeast Arkansas College approved a five-year strategic plan to go into effect July 1 during a board meeting earlier this week.
SEARK began the process for building its plan last August, a month into Tyrone Jackson’s stint as the college’s president. The plan breaks down six strategic priorities – enhancing student success and retention, expanding and strengthening workforce development, promoting comprehensive educational excellence, ensuring campus safety and inclusion, fostering community and industry collaboration and building institutional capacity through innovation and technology.
“It was an all-inclusive process,” Jackson said. “We had community stakeholders, industry leaders and education leaders that were involved in the process. They came in from the focus group and we solicited feedback from them to provide us insight on the direction they think we need to take the college in. Students were involved in the process and every employee at the college was involved as well.”
Employees took part in a SWOT analysis, which identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the college, according to the plan. Jackson said college officials took information from internal and external constituents and developed the document.
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According to the strategic plan, the college aims to boost first-year retention by 10%, and four-year graduation rates by 20%, both over five years. The college will also focus on reducing dropout rates and increasing participation in student support services.
Critical to the college’s mission, the plan also states, is aligning academic programs with regional workforce needs.
“The College will develop new workforce programs, expand internship and apprenticeship opportunities and increase access to career pathways through stackable credentials and short-term certifications,” according to the plan. “This will help a 90% job placement rate and ensure SEARK graduates are workforce-ready.”
Among its other priorities, SEARK plans to focus on faculty development, curriculum improvement and experiential learning. The college says it “prioritizes a safe, inclusive and supportive campus environment through safety audits, emergency preparedness and cultural competence training,” and it will strengthen partnerships with local industries, host community events and job fairs and develop collaborative research initiatives.
“SEARK will invest in technological infrastructure and adopt sustainable practices to enhance institutional capacity,” the college adds.
SEARK is holding monthly staff assemblies called First Fridays, which are used for updates on the college’s mission to address standards for accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission, which placed the college on probation last June through June 2026, citing violation of three accreditation requirements. Donna Hunnicutt, SEARK vice president for instruction, said last fall the HLC scheduled a fully comprehensive visit to the Pine Bluff campus for Nov. 3, 2025.
SEARK approved 238 graduates for the fall semester, Jackson reported. This was the second year the college did not host a December graduation ceremony, but Jackson said the college would consider bringing back the event for December 2025.
High School Preview Days at SEARK are scheduled for Feb. 28 and March 14 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m.
“If any prospective students are interested, we would love to have them on those dates,” Jackson said. “If they can’t come on any of those dates, we’d love to have them any other time.”