LUMBERTON – Robeson Community College recently announced that its fire and rescue program ranked No. 1 in Eastern North Carolina in terms of FTE and total populations touched for the 2019-2020 academic year.
FTE means “full-time equivalent” for the purposes of calculating a full-time enrollment, which include full-time students along with those who only attend on a part-time basis.
RCC’s program earned a total of 148.1 FTE and reached .11% of its population.
“This is definitely a ray of sunshine,” said Steven Hunt, vice-president of Workforce Development, Continuing Education and Institutional Services. “Both Robert Ivey and Stephanie Burnette have fought really hard during this past year for every single FTE in the midst of the pandemic.”
Overall, across the state, RCC came in at No. 4, behind Rowan-Cabarrus Community College in Salisbury, which ranked at the top with 361.8 FTE; Wake Tech in Raleigh reporting 171.2 FTE; and Cleveland Community College in Shelby coming in at 154.2 FTE.
With regards to populations touched within the county they serve, RCC ranked No. 2 in the state, only behind Cleveland Community College, which reached .16% of its population.
“I think this says a lot for the college as we are in a predominantly rural area,” said Robert Ivey, director for the fire and rescue training program at RCC. “We do not have the larger populations to pull students from as some of the other colleges.”
Some of the courses provided through fire and rescue education include firefighter certification, technical rescuer certification, aerial certification, driver/operator certification, and other specialty courses.
Robeson Community College is a certified delivery agency through the North Carolina Office of the Fire Marshal. The college also hosts the Southeast Fire Rescue and Law Enforcement Expo the second weekend of February. The dates for the 48th annual seminar is Feb, 10-13, 2022. Call the training center for information and to register for classes at 910-272-3330.
Cheryl Hemric is the public information officer for Robeson Community College.