Southern Arkansas University Tech

Southern Arkansas University Tech (SAU Tech) is a public community college, located in Camden, Arkansas.

SAU Tech was created on April 5, 1967, as Southwest Technical Institute by Act 534 of the Arkansas Legislature. The purpose of the institute was to provide a technically trained workforce for the growing Highland Industrial Park where it was located. Seventy acres of land and six buildings at the Park were donated by the Brown Foundation of Houston, Texas which had purchased the former Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot for redevelopment. Financing for renovation and equipping the facility was made possible by a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

The Arkansas State Board of Education operated the school until 1975 when, by an Act of the Arkansas Legislature, Southwest Technical Institute became Southern Arkansas University Tech, under the governance of the Board of Trustees of Southern Arkansas University. With this change, the college came under the jurisdiction of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education to grant the associate of arts and associate of science degrees as well as the associate of applied science degree.

Today, SAU Tech is a two-year college specializing in technical training and offers the first two years of a university transfer program in General Education, Teacher Education, and Business Administration. Technical programs are offered in Aviation Maintenance, Computer Information Technology, Technology, with the option of an emphasis in Industrial Maintenance and Engineering, Office Systems Technology, with the option of an emphasis in Medical Transcription, and Multimedia Technology, which includes either an emphasis in Film & Video Production, Graphic Design, or Game Design and Development.

Roger L. Worsley, former president of Laredo Community College in Laredo, Texas, became chancellor of SAU Tech in 1996. In 2001, he reported that 112 former employees, a fifth of the work force, of the 73-year-old but since closed International Paper plant in Camden, were at SAU Tech seeking educational credentials for other jobs, many with state financial assistance. He noted that many of the jobs for which the workers were training were in computer networking and electronics, openings mostly unavailable in Camden and the South Arkansas region. Once the skills were acquired, the workers would largely be leaving the Camden area.

...
Wikipedia