DICKINSON, N.D. -- Dickinson State University will soon be collaborating with a local workplace safety and truck driver training firm to bring business fundamental skills into the company’s classrooms.
The university has announced a partnership with Alaska-based Northern Industrial Training, which has an office in Dickinson, in a business fundamentals program, which it’ll offer this fall and is designed for non-degree-seeking students looking to receive a formal education in business basics.
“It’s an exciting means to respond to the businesses in this area,” DSU President D.C. Coston said.
ADVERTISEMENT
The 15-credit program will cater in part to NIT’s commercial driver’s license training students, who will be encouraged to combine the course with the business fundamentals program to simultaneously receive education in a technical skill, and business and management.
It will be open to students both in the classroom and online beginning this fall.
NIT’s CDL training course is a seven-week program where students are taught both in the company’s Dickinson office classroom and driving training trucks.
The collaboration idea was hatched when NIT President and CEO Joey Crum met with Coston last year. NIT administrative coordinator Chelsea Westerberg said it began with Crum’s “personal motivation.”
“Joey really wanted to come up with this program,” Westerberg said.
Westerberg said, in the past, whenever Crum or his family members experienced an injury in labor jobs and were unable to work, they were also deemed ineligible to qualify for any business or management positions because of their lack of formal education or training.
This, she said, drove Crum to advocate for additional education alongside technical training.
Westerberg said Crum wanted to help offer those entering a vocational pursuit a formal business education that would give them multiple options, should circumstances someday prevent them from performing their job.
ADVERTISEMENT
Coston said he was excited for the collaboration.
“A lot of the clients they have are companies,” Coston said, adding it was mainly these companies that were sending their employees to learn from NIT.
It was these companies, he said, along with others in the local business community that expressed desires for employees who have both technical skills and some knowledge of business management. He said this collaboration is filling that need.
Westerberg said the program will be unique for NIT.
“We don’t have any partnerships like this in Alaska,” she said.
She said NIT aims to create a “well-trained, quality workforce,” and that this venture will help with meeting that ideal.
“That is ultimately our goal,” she said.
