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When Jay Carraway retires as president of James Sprunt Community College in February, he will be leaving behind an incredible legacy of growth, though he is very reluctant to take credit.
When asked if he considered the new Workforce Development Center being constructed on the campus as “his legacy,” he replied, “Nothing’s mine. I’m part of a team.”
The new-22,000-square-foot facility, which will house four shops and four classrooms for training in four trades, in addition to administrative offices, is expected to be completed ahead of schedule in May, according to Carraway. He said the new building was in response to a growing need.
“As we began to grow, we just filled up our spaces,” he told Duplin Journal in a recent interview. “If we were going to continue to grow to provide more opportunities for our students and this community, we needed to have some more square footage. That was the idea – we’ve got to grow.”
When Carraway mentions growth at JSCC, he’s not referring to small numbers. He said he was shocked by the number of new students enrolling at the school.
Referring to the time he joined JSCC as president in 2019, he said, “If somebody said put down what your expectations to be over the next seven years, it would not have been 83% growth in enrollment,” which is exactly what has happened at the campus.
Considering the campus is located in such a small community, Kenansville, Carraway attributes the phenomenal growth to “everyone doing their part.”
“We have a great marketing department, led by Meagan Turner,” he said. “We advertise, we go out and recruit. It makes all the difference, and it funnels down to what we do in the classroom. I think we’re doing a good job of serving the students in every way.”
That 83% growth in enrollment leads us back to the new Workforce Development Center. The need to get the project going was not an overnight journey.
“I started making trips to Raleigh and speaking with Rep. (Jimmy) Dixon and Sen. (Brent) Jackson,” Carraway said. “We were able to get the funds we needed.”
It was not as simple as just raising the funds to build the large facility. They needed the blessing of the school’s trustees and the county commissioners.
“Facilities are a local responsibility for upkeep,” Carraway said. “When you expand, you need to have conversations with the county commissioners to make sure they are on board because the electric bill’s going to go up, the insurance cost is going to go up, and maintenance and upkeep is going to go up. You don’t make that decision in a vacuum.”
While JSCC awaits completion of the new building, the college continues to grow. For example, it has already added ten welding booths to the existing welding facility.
“The reason we did that was because we had a waiting list,” Carraway said. “As soon as we expanded, we had ten more students in the class.”
The board of JSCC has narrowed down the candidates seeking to replace Carraway to ten. Whoever is chosen will have some big shoes to fill, despite Carraway’s reluctance to take credit for the school’s success over the past six years. When asked about any pride he has in JSCC’s growth, he immediately credits the faculty and staff.
“The thing I’m the most proudest of at James Sprunt today is the high caliber people we have here; folks that could work anywhere in the system across the state,” he said. “They’re good at what they do. The vast majority of them are local. They grew up here.”
The new Workforce Development Center is not the end of growth at JSCC by any means. Carraway told Duplin Journal the school has already selected land in the Wallace area where plans are in the works to build a satellite campus there.
