June 16, 2015: Dr. Mary Thornley, President of Trident Technical College spoke to our club on June 16. Dr. Thornley has been at Trident Tech for 42 years and has been president for 25 years. TTC turned 50 last year and has been one of the fastest growing colleges in the last 7-8 years. As college enrollment started to drop in 2009, Trident Tech’s enrollment increased dramatically and dipped for the first time last fall. Current enrollment is over 16,000.
Dr. Thornley continued by describing who Trident Technical College is. Demographically the College looks the same as the Tri-County region, successfully reflecting the region it serves. TTC met 98.5% of its EEO goals last fall and has a large population of veterans. Our region has one of the densest populations of veterans and TTC serves those veterans. The average age of students is 27 and the college has 160 programs of study from 12 academic divisions.
Special programs include:
- Dual credit where students receive high school and college credit at the same time. That program currently has 1300 students (with 400 enrolled at Wando High School alone).
- Youth Apprenticeships which is a partnership between, The Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce, TTC, Apprenticeship Carolina and local school districts. Students are able to apprentice with local companies in the region and work for those companies after graduation. Dr. Thornley showed an example of 2 students from Goose Creek who are now working for Cummins Engines.
TTC Students, she continued, want a diploma, or to transfer (to a 4 year college) or to get a job. College transfer is the largest program with an enrollment of 5000. Outside of transfer, students are looking to get a job or keep a job.
Major programs include:
- Aeronautical which is red hot –all programs are full with waiting lists.
- Nursing has a brand new state of the art facility and has 1000 students enrolled (and those students take the same boards as the 4 year college students)
Online the College has 7 associates degrees and 19 certificates available.
Trident Technical College has 4 campuses, North Charleston, Palmer, Berkeley and Mount Pleasant, 3 career training centers and a Center for Advanced Studies at Wando High School which TTC uses after the high school day is done. This, Dr. Thornley emphasized is the best use of tax dollars.
TTC continues to grow. Although the region is the 12th fastest metro area, that is not the reason for growth at the college as those moving in generally have bachelor’s degrees. TTC is growing because the greatest need is for Middle skilled workers.
Dr Thornley concluded her talk with the planned Aeronautical Training Center at TTC. They still need to raise $37M to make it a reality. Dr. Thornley emphasized the importance of this facility to the State as over 200 aerospace manufacturing related companies operate in the state and employ more than 23,000 people. We need to do in less than a decade what Peugeot Sound has done in over 100 years.
— Don Baus, Keyway Committee