OHS CTE Students Observe Ole Miss School of Applied Sciences

By Duncan M. Gray

OSD Director of Community and Workforce Development

Three Career and Technical Education Programs from the Oxford School District recently visited the Ole Miss School of Applied Sciences to see how their CTE classes aligned with courses and degree pathways at the University of Mississippi.

After a general opening session, students from the second-year Law and Public Safety, Sports Medicine, and Culinary Arts classes broke out into smaller groups and toured the respective departments within the Applied Sciences building.

Dr. Wes Jennings, the Chair of the Criminal Justice and Legal Studies Department, said he was very impressed with the Law and Public Safety students.

“It was clear that the OSD CTE programs are well designed in terms of covering the core material that best prepares them for success at the next level as they performed as well as some of our current undergraduate students,” Jennings said. “They were able to correctly discriminate among various constitutional amendments and answer several complex constitutional law-related questions.  Similarly, they excelled in a series of memory recall tests related to crime scene investigations and scenarios.”

Students in the Culinary Arts class had an opportunity to work with the Chefs/Instructors in the School of Applied Science and hone their seafood preparation skills while students in the Sports Medicine class went through real-life scenarios with Dr. Jeremy Loenneke, an Associate Professor of Exercise Sciences.

Loenneke said, “It was evident that the students already had some working knowledge of the concepts discussed. More importantly, they were able to critically think through scenarios. It was a joy to interact with the Oxford High School students.”

OSD career coaches, Heather Ormon and Neoykee Wadley, and OSD Asst. CTE Director, Shaquita Lathon organized the visit for the students as part of a larger initiative to showcase how CTE programs can feed into multiple post-secondary options and to help students determine next best steps as they prepare to enter the workforce.