FERRUM, VA, October 12, 2023 – On October 11, Ferrum College President Dr. Mirta Martin was a featured panelist at the 2023 Governor’s Summit on Rural Prosperity held at the Camp Pickett Officers Club located at Fort Barfoot in Blackstone, VA.
The panel discussed the current workforce crisis in rural Virginia with a focus on the hardest hit sectors and industries. Discussions took place for solutions on how to address the problem.
Virginia’s Deputy Secretary of Labor Anthony Reedy served as moderator for the panel that also included Delegate Wendy Gooditis to speak about housing and Ana James who spoke about healthcare.
Kristy Proctor, director of the Virginia Rural Center invited Dr. Martin to be a panelist because of Ferrum College’s success in producing graduates who have skills the regions workforce needs including agriculture, education and healthcare. “We invited Dr. Martin to share thoughts regarding how we can increase our rural workforce, particularly as it pertains to solving the teacher shortage. We believe Ferrum offers a unique perspective as you all are known leaders for producing ag teachers, and we have seen shortages in ag teachers for many years. We hope having Dr. Martin offer her insight on how to address the teacher shortage broadly from lessons learned at Ferrum specifically through the Agriculture teaching program would be most helpful.”
Dr. Martin discussed current problems in higher education and ways that Ferrum is getting ahead of the issues. Here are some of the key points she made during the discussion:
“We need to invest in what will make communities stronger. There’s great opportunity for all of us to come together and change the world,” Martin said.
