ROBY BROCK: I’m Roby Brock. Welcome to this edition of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal Report. Today we head over to northeast Arkansas, but we’ll talk with a familiar face to northwest Arkansas. Arkansas State University in Jonesboro Chancellor Dr. Todd Shields’ campus is offering a new pathway for physician recruitment. That’s where the two of us will start our conversation on today’s Northwest Arkansas Business Journal Report.
Joining me now, Dr. Todd Shields. He’s the chancellor of Arkansas State University. Good to see you.
BROCK: Good to see you too.
SHIELDS: Thank you for being here.
BROCK: All right. A-State and the new NYITCOM, the New York Institute of Technology College— I can’t say it. All right, I always mess it up there, so I apologize —
SHIELDS: NYIT
BROCK: You guys have formed a freshman-to-physician pathway that you announced earlier this week. Tell me what that exactly is.
SHIELDS: I’m calling it the F2P program.
BROCK: OK. We’ve got to have an acronym.
SHIELDS: Yeah, exactly. But basically I was just saying, hey, let’s build the best freshman-to-physician premedical program possible. Not only so that students can remove barriers and get there quickly, but uniquely at A-State, there are so few institutions that have a medical school that are right there on campus. We want them to start interacting with the med students and the faculty there as soon as possible so that they can not only just arrive to campus thinking, do I belong here? But they think not only do I belong here, but I can see where I’m going to go and I’m going to do it right here.
And partnering with them is great because 70 percent of their graduates stay and work in Arkansas. So we want to help them fill that medical need that’s so needed across the state, and particularly in the rural areas.
BROCK: Yeah. So you will not have to take the MCAT because you will have qualified for some things before then that they will know and have some confidence that you’re going to do this. It also accelerates the timeline for getting out of medical school. I’m just asking that as a question.
SHIELDS: Correct. Right. It’s definitely a possibility because we’re going to say, here are the courses you take through the premed program. And if you maintain a 3.5 GPA through there, then you’re right, the MCAT is not necessary. And then they’ll know the pathway program through the med school too. So it’s very possible that you can do it quicker.
BROCK: I have a daughter-in-law that just finished her obviously undergraduate, med school, residency. She’s 30, she’s almost 31. She’s just now starting out as a private physician. I mean, it is a long, long path to get there.
SHIELDS: It’s a path.
BROCK: Yes it is.
SHIELDS: It’s a commitment, but it’s one that is definitely worth it.
BROCK: Give us an update on the College of Veterinary Medicine. This is another first for Arkansas State that we’re not that far away from opening.
SHIELDS: No. We are scheduled for our final visit Jan. 4. All of our indications are suggesting that it’s going to be fantastic. Our first visit was a flying success, and we expect the same thing. Pending approval from that, we will be admitting our first class next fall, 2026.
BROCK: All right. How big will that class be?
SHIELDS: You got about 120.
BROCK: OK. All right. And we have a critical shortage in the state, which is hugely dependent upon agriculture, not to mention pets.
SHIELDS: Small animals to large animals, that’s the need that we need to fill. Not only do the veterinarians that call me about every week say, hey, can you send me some help? But they’re at the average age of retirement, so they’re looking at who’s going to succeed me and who can I partner with that will be a successful person to trade this off to.
BROCK: These two things that we’re talking about — more physicians, more veterinarians — are part of a bigger picture of trying to realign higher education to meet workforce needs. Tell me a little bit more philosophically about what’s happening at the higher education levels. And we certainly saw some activity in the legislature this session that’s shaping it more in that direction too.
SHIELDS: Right. At A-State, our definition of workforce development is a continuum, because when I talk to industry leaders, they talk about, hey, we do need concurrent students in high school seeing the areas of work that they can go into and getting concurrent credit starting. Maybe the workforce, but coming back to a credential or a two-year degree leads to a four-year degree, because they definitely need managers and accountants and finance people and all the things that businesses need to run. But they also need advanced degrees so that we’re running the back-end R&D and being the engine to keep those industries competitive not only in Arkansas, but the nation and the world.
And then I think that even beyond that continuum is lifelong learning, because even for me, AI is changing how I do my job, a lot. And it’s changing how people in banking and insurance and the steel mills and medical—
BROCK: Journalism.
SHIELDS: Everybody’s doing it. So we’re having 30-year-olds and 50-year-olds saying, we need trained on this. So we’re partnering with industry to say, what skills do your employees, future employees and current employees need? And how do we design those programs that will make sure that they get that career pathway ladder to make them successful?
BROCK: Do you worry that there’s a — because I hear that conversation a lot at the legislature, and there is a huge emphasis on cranking out graduates that meet job needs, employer needs. Do you worry about a loss of a liberal arts education, just a general knowledge and the ability to think critically?
SHIELDS: What I hear from industry is that they’re looking for that critical thinking, leadership abilities, communication abilities, teamworking abilities. So I think that what we’re providing now is that fundamental base that we’ve done before, doing it even better, and then adding on the skills that people need to be successful in whatever area they’re going into. So I do think that it is this continuum, but that is a core of it that runs throughout.
BROCK: Yeah. You’re not neglecting entrepreneurship either. As a matter of fact, I think you’re teaching. Are you getting out there and doing something?
SHIELDS: I’m teaching a class this fall with executive-in-residence Heather Nelson. And this fall, we’re teaching a class on startup companies and programs and how they work and how they fail. And we’re bringing in lots of people who’ve actually done it, experienced it, many of them with ties to A-State, so that the students can hear directly from people who’ve done it. Contrast that with what we’re reading in the book, in the literatures, and then actually giving them a chance to meet some people and again, to be able to see it and say, hey, I can do this too.
BROCK: Yeah. John Allison is one of those guys, and I assure you that will be your most entertaining conversation.
SHIELDS: Absolutely.
BROCK: Yeah. Every time I have him on, we go down some path that I never predicted we would go down. And it’s always good, always insightful.
SHIELDS: Yes.
BROCK: I want to get your take too. You were in Fayetteville for a long period of time. You saw the regionalism that has developed and really flourished up in that part of the state. There is similar activity in Northeast Arkansas, and A-State is a big part of that is because your footprint is so large in that area of the state. What do you see kind of happening on a regionalism basis in northeast Arkansas? What gives you hope that it’s moving in the right direction?
SHIELDS: If I look at places in the country that have had very great success with explosion of workforce development, there’s always a connection between the industry, a research university and then the government itself to the state. If I look at Utah or University of Texas at Austin or Chapel Hill Research Triangle, there’s always that combination. And that’s what we’re trying to make sure we do up in northeast Arkansas. Make sure we bring all those people together to make sure that we’re thinking, hey, big picture here. Everybody wins if we all are working together. Sustainable wins if we all work together on these things. So I see that happening. And in fact, on Nov. 6, we’re having our second Catalyst Conference where we’re actually bringing all those people together to make sure that they come in with their issues and their problems, and they leave not just with information but with practical steps and people to do it with.
BROCK: I have to think, when you look at some of the industries that are driving in northeast Arkansas, it is health care, it is education, it is the steel industry and manufacturing, and obviously agriculture just from a legacy standpoint. Am I missing any of the big-picture stuff?
SHIELDS: Agriculture, yes. Infrastructure and energy are other two things that we would add to that list that we’re going to be talking about and hitting on. And then a lot of the industries are really talking about the professional skills that students still need, that traditionally we may not have specifically focused on, but increasingly we will be.
BROCK: That’s Dr. Todd Shields, chancellor at Arkansas State University. Of course, he spent many years at the University of Arkansas. You can catch his full interview here.
That’s all for this edition of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal Report. I’m Roby Brock. We’ll see you next time.
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