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Dr. Stephen Vacik began serving as the seventh President of ��«Ӱҵ in 2020. With more than 25 years of experience in community colleges in four states, his visionary leadership has been instrumental in establishing a long-term strategy for the college.

With a primary focus of uniting all six campuses into “one college” to better help ��«Ӱҵ students find their purpose, passion and profession, he’s also focused energy on determining the community needs of the future.

To that end, he has committed to improving students’ experiences at each campus, including adding a Student Hub on the Jackson Campus in 2022 and new dining options, Pizza Hut on the Utica Campus in 2022 and, on the Raymond Campus in 2023, the first full-service community college Chick-fil-A in the nation.

Also, on the horizon is the construction of a new Health Sciences Complex on the Rankin Campus, expected to open in 2025. The complex will be 160,000 square feet and four floors, with three to be immediately occupied when it is built and the fourth to house future growth. It will consolidate the bulk of ��«Ӱҵ’ health sciences programs in one location. A new residence hall on the Utica Campus will have 183 beds on three floors, a laundry room, kitchen on the first floor, study rooms, computer lab, a mini-mart plus an apartment for a residence hall director. It is expected to open in December 2024. Both projects are made possible through funding from local, state and federal sources.

Bolstering workforce training projects has been a high priority under his leadership. The ��«Ӱҵ County WIN Job Center has been relocated to the Jackson Campus. The expansion of the Maritime Center of Excellence in Vicksburg is ongoing. ��«Ӱҵ has also been designated as a Center for Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense.

In 2023, ��«Ӱҵ created the Workforce Innovation division whose purpose is to prepare the community and local industry partners for the jobs of the future. The division focuses on awareness and training in the fields of Virtual and Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Industry 4.0, and Data Analytics. The project has created high-end labs on several campuses and developing informative and hands-on curriculum to help educate and train our local community about the technology of the future.

Other major workforce projects include a 2023 partnership with John Deere at the Diesel Technology Academy in Richland, the opening of the Emerging Technologies Training Center at the Mississippi Center for Innovation & Technology (MCITy) in Vicksburg in 2022 and a new terminal at the J.B.W. Airport in 2021.

Looking to future workforce projects, through his leadership ��«Ӱҵ is receiving $8.63 million in “Congressionally Directed Spending,” formerly known as earmarks, in federal dollars for fiscal year 2025, the most projects, five, by a single community college. Among the projects to be funded with those dollars are the ��«Ӱҵ STEM Training Academy and the Information Technology Workforce Transition Program.

Dr. Vacik is continually looking for ways to leverage funding to meet the needs of both ��«Ӱҵ students and local business and industry.