DALTON, Ga. — With more hardhats and more mortarboards, higher education in northwest Georgia is changing, and the area’s workforce is changing with it. And with more courses offered at both Dalton State College and Georgia Northwestern Technical College, and with construction dominating both campuses in Whitfield County, educational opportunities are increasing. 

That was the message that both DSC President Margaret Venable and GNTC President Pete McDonald shared Tuesday at the Good Morning Dalton: Higher Education event sponsored by the Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce at the Dalton Convention Center.

“One of the things we are really focused on is graduating more students,” Venable said of Dalton State. “So we have really hunkered down on that student success thing. We’re still recruiting more students, and we will hope to grow in terms of overall enrollment. But we’re really more focused on how we can make sure students graduate successfully.”

For Venable, a “successful graduation” means there is a local job waiting on the student. She said by working with local industry and business leaders to focus on skill sets tailored to their needs, both DSC and GNTC are producing more graduates who choose to remain in the local area.

“We don’t want people to get an education and then leave,” Venable said. “We are going to reinvent ourselves to become even more relevant to meet the needs of the future.”

DSC has gone through several renovation and building projects, with new construction wrapping up on the renovation of Memorial Hall, which will house the Wright School of Business. More renovations are scheduled.

Venable said while enrollment growth at the college was 3 percent over a 10-year period, the number of four-year degrees increased by 175 percent, and is now 24. 

“That’s really amazing,” Venable said. “And that’s part of what this community needs. … We need people to have four-year degrees to help the complement of employees in this community.”

Diego Alvarado, a junior communications major who leads tours of the college for prospective students and alumni, said the growth in the number of programs is having a big impact. 

“One thing I love, because I give tours of Dalton State College, is when prospective students come almost reluctantly because they think it is a small institution that doesn’t have what they want, and then I am able to show them amazing things,” Alvarado said. “My biggest point of pride is whenever I finish a tour and have somebody look at me and say, ‘Wow! I had no idea Dalton State did that.’ Dalton State offers the chance for your life to truly be changed.”

Changes are certainly happening at the Whitfield Murray campus of GNTC. The college will soon open a new $28 million facility, and McDonald said there is room for “two or three additional buildings.” The new facility will house a diesel mechanics program and a two-year engineering technology program, among other programs, and the precision machining and manufacturing program is moving there from the college’s Walker County campus. 

McDonald said enrollment is now around 8,000 on the college’s six campuses across northwest Georgia.