New EMCC President Is On A Mission To Continue Moving The College Forward

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI)- The New Year brought in a new leader to East Mississippi Community College.

Dr. Scott Alsobrooks is the school’s newest president and is a community college graduate himself.

He expressed that it’s a personal goal for him to not only continue moving the college forward, but to also help lead students along the right path.

However, while he’s eager to take on the position, the new president acknowledges there are a few challenges ahead, including a decline in student enrollment.

“I think one of the reasons is we’re victims of the success of this area, because people can go to work,” said Dr. Alsobrooks. “There’s lots of jobs, unemployment is very low, which is a very good thing for this community, but a lot of times when people have that option to go to school or go to work, they’ll go to work, so I think that’s one of the reasons that enrollment is down some. Another reason is because we are experiencing some population decline around the state and some areas are just losing population.”

Along with lower student enrollment, Alsobrooks said the school is facing a lack of state funding, which is causing his administration to make budget cuts and layoff some workers.

“Unfortunately we have to look at cuts across the board, and 80% of our expense approximately is in people,” Dr. Alsobrooks explained. When we’re looking at cutting budgets, unfortunately sometimes we have to look into cutting people.”

However, despite the hurdles that lie ahead, the EMCC president said he’s optimistic that the college will overcome each one of them and continue to grow.

“The positive is we’re going to rightsize the institution and we’re going to put a long-term path going forward for students to come here and get their education at a very budget friendly cost,” Dr. Alsobrooks expressed.

With the economic success in the Golden Triangle, the school’s president said EMCC can help students learn a trade, and also develop the skills they need to work in various industries in the area and be successful.

“A lot of these companies around here have tuition reimbursement, so even though you may or may not want to get a four year degree, if you can’t do it right now because of financial reasons or personal reasons, get a degree, go to work with a good company that offers tuition reimbursement and let them pay,” said Dr. Alsobrooks.

Along with helping students earn their degree and learn new skills, Dr. Alsobrooks is also excited about EMCC’s new communiversity that sits just off of Highway 82 in Lowndes County.

Construction on the building is complete, now furniture is being added inside the facility, and they will soon begin moving equipment inside.

The Golden Triangle logo that’ll be placed outside of the building is curently down at the moment.

However, it’s being modified and will be back up when classes start this fall.