NCHEMS

Readers familiar with NETnet membership will realize that the report references 14 (not 15) college and university members with a 36-county (not 50-county) service area. The 15th NETnet member and its 14-county service area were added subsequent to NCHEMS submitting a final report.

The fourteen institutions of higher education in east and northeast Texas formed an ad hoc consortium and commissioned a study to identify the higher education needs of the 36 counties that comprise their primary service area. This study, conducted by NCHEMS Management Services, Inc. (NCHEMS), involved:

• Analysis of data and development of comparative statistics that shed light on unmet educational needs – data about participation rates, educational attainment of the adult population, and the availability of educational programs in the region

• Interviews with faculty and administrators in each of the fourteen institutions

• Interviews with employers, in both public and private sectors and across the array of industries in the region, to identify their needs both for new employees and for continuing education of current employees

• Interviews with leaders of local economic development groups and staff of Chambers of commerce in several cities

These activities resulted in a number of findings about unmet educational needs and about characteristics of northeast and east Texas that affect how these needs can be addressed. As context for this assessment of needs, it is important to understand that the region is well endowed with community colleges, many of which grew out of a junior college, transfer-oriented tradition; has a fairly standard complement of baccalaureate and master’s programs, with the absence of engineering, rigorous science and masters level health programs being notable; and has only two doctoral programs and no first-professional programs (law, medicine, etc.). This means that the region provides a less diverse array of educational opportunities to its citizens than do the other regions of the state.

Northeast Texas has certain characteristics that create special problems for delivery of many of these needed programs (as well as other services such as health care). The population of the region is large enough to create some demand for a wide array of services, not so large as to create a critical mass of demand sustainable on an ongoing basis, and scattered enough to make delivery of these services in a single location problematic. This particular condition plays a critical role in shaping the recommendations that emerge from the study.

Response to most of the unmet needs identified will require that the institutions of the region seek entirely new ways of providing services. The central recommendation of the report is that primary attention be given to creation of a capacity in northeast Texas that will allow delivery of educational opportunities in a wide range of programs to non-traditional students through use of non-traditional systems. The recommendations suggest that:

Each college in the region function as an Educational Access Center

Appropriate facilities be created at each college to allow them to fulfill this role. Particular attention should be given to facilities that allow use of interactive video, a technology that allows students to see and be seen by, hear and be heard by, the faculty member, regardless of where that faculty member is physically located

These facilities be linked together and be the focal points of rural area networks, designed to utilization by health care providers and other potential users in the community