Drury partners with businesses to provide degrees, credentials to employees

Drury University has been reaching out directly to area employers, offering to partner with them on training and degree programs for their employees.

The Drury GO Employer Engagement Program launched in October quickly forged pacts with 12 businesses and started talks with many others.

“People need something, but it may not be a credential. They might need a continuing education credit. They might need a pathway,” said Drury President Jeff Frederick in a mid-April meeting. “They might need to go from shift work to an associate degree – which we can do – and they might need to go from an associate to a bachelor’s.”

Frederick said the team has been meeting with employers, and their directors of human resources, to see what they need and what services Drury can provide.

He said the goal is to support employee retention, recruitment and advancement while also strengthening workforce development.

“We are constantly in an outbound mode to establish those relationships and to provide one-on-one individual assistance to people,” he said.

Here is how it works: Drury enters a partnership with an employer, such as The Arc of the Ozarks, and provides a scholarship – one free credit hour per semester for eligible employees and, in many cases, their spouses or dependents.

The employees have access to all Drury GO degree and certificate programs, which are offered in the evening, online or in hybrid formats.

Employees fill out FAFSA – the Free Application for Federal Student Aid – to be admitted to a degree or certificate program, and enroll in a minimum of three credit hours. The students are eligible to transfer prior college credits.

For their part, employers promote Drury as an education partner internally and provide access to Drury GO to engage with students each semester.

Marybeth Kleinsasser, chief human resources officer at The Arc of the Ozarks, said the partnership with Drury was a “no brainer.”

“We are a nonprofit and we’re always looking for good benefits for our staff, especially when it comes to continuing education,” she said. “A lot of our employees are very interested in getting college degrees.”

Kleinsasser said there is no expense to the nonprofit. She said interest has been highest in a bachelor’s degree program Drury offers in behavioral and community health.

“What we do is just advertise it for them and make sure our employees know about it,” she said. “We just had such good participation that we’ve been able to continue our partnership.”

She said employees who did not enroll or complete college right after high school may not understand where to start, but the program offers a pathway.

“When I can have an actual person to send them to, to talk through things and know that they are going to get a good deal on the program, that really breaks the ice for them,” Kleinsasser said. “We’ve had that feedback from our employees.”

Other partners in the Springfield region include Arvest Bank, Centerstone, Central Bank of the Ozarks, the city of Springfield, City Utilities of Springfield, K&S Wood Products LLC,  Missouri Department of Corrections, MERS Goodwill, Paul Mueller Co., Nixa Public Schools and Positronic Industries Inc.

Lisa Montileone, strategic recruitment specialist at Drury, said the partnering businesses can add this as a benefit for employees who want to advance their careers.

“In order to move up, they may have to have a bachelor’s degree that they don’t have,” she said. “Many of them started their education and abandoned it at some point because they got a position they wanted. But now they’re finding they can’t move up.”

Montileone said the relatively new program has already evolved, offering more flexibility. For example, it wasn’t initially available to employees’ spouses and dependents.

“The program that I’m currently talking about now is different than the program that we started just in the last six months, because of listening to employers that we’ve met with,” she said.

Kevin Kropf, executive vice president of Drury GO, said GO previously referred to global and online and now it is “greater opportunities” and encompasses the range of programs that fall outside of the traditional undergraduate day school.

“It’s very customizable to people’s schedule,” he said.