Dr. Kathy Murphy, President of Gadsden State Community College, spoke to the Centre Rotary Club on Monday with part of her opening comments being “we have lots of opportunities and challenges we need to meet at Gadsden State”.

Dr. Murphy told the group low student enrollment has been an issue for all 5 campuses of GSCC. She said the pandemic did not help the issue with many students choosing an all “Online” course of study. Murphy said GSCC offering a blended course of study for students has helped with the enrollment. She told the group another avenue she wanted to explore was bringing athletics back to the campus in the form of baseball and softball. Murphy said she believes this would not only help enrollment at GSCC but would also serve to help student retention. In her address Dr. Murphy  said some of the programs offered at Gadsden State may have outlived their usefulness and some new programs may need to be considered.

She did mention the possibility of a Vet Tech program at the Cherokee Campus. Murphy told the group at least 3 buildings on the Gadsden Campus needs to come down. She said one of the buildings has not been occupied in 10 years. One of those buildings is Naylor Hall and another is Browder Hall. Dr. Murphy said she would like to see a manufacturing Training Center on the Campus where they would offer many training classes to address the need for training students for the high demand high paying jobs and a Health Sciences Building to house all the Medical Training Classes.

It appears Dr. Murphy has a vision for growth and high expectations for Gadsden State to continue educating and training students to help equip them for the challenges of the future.