Small island receives Southern instruction
By Mandi Steele

International Editor

This summer, Missouri Southern started a program to help business students from the island of Tortola receive their bachelor s degrees.

Spreading its influence into the Caribbean, Southern now has 39 students enrolled in business classes on the 20-square-mile island. Emma Baker, registrar at H. Lavity Stoutt Community College in Tortola, is a longtime friend of Derek Skaggs, director of enrollment services, and asked him about providing a business degree for some of HLSCC s graduates. Skaggs contacted Jim Gray, dean of the school of business, and Dr. Larry Martin, vice president for academic affairs, to discuss the possibility.

More than a year later, and after much negotiations with HLSCC, Southern started the program overseas, which allows graduates of HLSCC to continue their education and earn a business degree from Southern.

Aside from a few startup hardships and the distance problem, Martin said the program seems to be going well.

 So far, we ve been very pleased,  he said.

Last summer, instructors in the school of business taught at HLSCC a few weeks at a time, offering students two to three different courses.

Martin said the goal of the program is for students with associate s degrees to complete 60-64 hours during a three-year period to complete the bachelor s degree requirements.

Skaggs said all the students are non-traditional, and most are middle managers at financial institutions on the island. Tourism and banking are the main sources of income for Tortola, he said. These students are looking for advancement in their companies they can t get with only an associate s degree.

Students spend the summer learning from Southern faculty, and the spring and fall semesters learning from either HLSCC faculty approved as adjuncts by Southern or from Internet courses. Students pay Southern s out-of-state tuition fee, and in return, Southern pays HLSCC a stipend for the use of its facility.

The program easily pays for itself, Martin said, even with the expense of paying for the instructors to go to Tortola.

 It s a beautiful place to go and visit,  Skaggs said.  The people there are very warm. 

HLSCC is small, he said, but he was impressed with the professionalism of the staff.

Martin expects relations between Southern and the British Virgin Islands to strengthen and said there may eventually be internship opportunities available for Southern students who want to visit Tortola.