EMCC Instructor Takes Students Into the Field

MAYHEW – While teaching Army infantry tactics at Fort Knox in Kentucky, Joshua Carroll picked up the methods he now applies to teaching Business Marketing at East Mississippi Community College.
“If you’re teaching soldiers to maneuver in an open field or the woods, they need to be in the field or the woods. You can’t get that from looking at little dots on a board,” said Carroll.
That’s why Carroll and his students are frequently absent from their classroom at EMCC’s Golden Triangle campus. During his first semester, the French Camp native has already taken his students on field trips to the Commercial Dispatch, WFCA Radio and WCBI Television to learn about selling ads in various media, as well as production methods in each.
“A large portion of our instruction is based on experiential learning. They got to see how a newspaper press works. They got behind the sound boards and recorded their own radio ads. They got to stand in front of the green screens and do their own weather broadcasts. Good instructors put their students in the woods,” said Carroll.
Carroll was first exposed to marketing as a young boy following his father, who managed WFCA Radio in French Camp for decades, on sales meetings. Later, he picked up selling ads on his own as a way to make money while in college. After picking up a master’s degree in business administration, Carroll found himself selling the military itself as a recruiter for the Army ROTC program at Ole Miss. He parlayed that experience into a job as the Business Marketing Management instructor at Northwest Community College’s DeSoto Center for three years before moving to EMCC to be closer to home.
In his first semester as Business Marketing instructor at EMCC, Carroll has been busy in the field both with and without his students. He’s recruited representatives from the Commercial Dispatch, WCBI and Cindy Hodo of the Quest Group marketing firm to serve on the program’s advisory committee to make sure the information and techniques being taught inside, and outside, Carroll’s class are relevant in the industry.
“We don’t just cover marketing. We cover business management and human resource management. I teach them entrepreneurship, a little bit of web design, how to combine social media with e-commerce. We’re trying to give students every aspect of the industry and equip them to join a business or start their own,” said Carroll.
The Business Marketing program, said Carroll, is front-loaded to offer students the most relevant classes in the first 30 hours of instruction.
“After two semesters, students are equipped to move out into the working world with enough knowledge to start a career. To get in a position where they can start paying their dues. But I advise them to finish the four semesters and earn their associate’s degree at the same time, and to never pass the opportunity to further their education,” said Carroll.
Practicing what he preaches, Carroll is currently using the remnants of his G.I. Bill funds to pursue a PhD at Mississippi State University.