The ongoing retrenchment process at the University of Central Missouri has affected people currently at UCM and alumni of the programs involved in the retrenchment process.

  One of these programs is the entrepreneurship and social enterprise bachelor of science in business administration program. The ESE program was deemed as a category 4 program by UCM’s Academic Program Review Committee, which means it was recommended that the program be phased out. The program decided not to appeal the recommendation.

  Katie Staples, who is currently a personal banker, graduated from the ESE program in December 2020. She said she has utilized what she learned from the program during her job search after graduation and learned about sales and how to approach it. 

  “I’ve learned a lot about personal sales and, when it comes to entrepreneurship, approaching sales from a position of, ‘I have a person I want to help’ and not ‘I have a product I want to push,’” Staples said.

  While the program is coming to an end, Staples is appreciative of her time in the program. 

  “It was a program that I really, really grew into, and I’m really grateful that I was there when it was around,” Staples said.

  Fellow ESE alumnus Dakotta Hunt graduated from UCM with a double major in entrepreneurship and management. He said he gained hands-on experience from entrepreneurship as opposed to his more leadership-heavy management courses.

  “They really enabled me and mobilized me to understand what it was like to start and run and think of all of the aspects of a small business beforehand instead of running into those problems with a trial-and-error situation,” Hunt said.

  Hunt currently works as a digital assistant at 360 Media Co. in Warrensburg, Missouri where he helps clients with marketing and branding of their websites. He got the job at a UCM career fair. Hunt said that his UCM education helped him to predict and understand what his clients want to accomplish. 

  Some category 4 programs, unlike ESE, appealed their APRC recommendations. Two programs whose appeals were rejected by UCM’s Academic Review Board were the MS psychology and religious studies minor programs. The ARB recommended that these programs be placed in abeyance, which starts the process of discontinuing a program. 

   Sydney Piontek graduated from UCM as an individualized religious studies and psychology major. Currently a graduate student at Saint Louis University, Piontek is planning on going into social work after she graduates and said that her religious studies background has helped her with social work.

  “In social work, we talk a lot about being as culturally competent as we can be, and I think religion plays such a huge role in that,” Piontek said. 

  Piontek said UCM’s religious studies coursework took politics out of religion and students focused on religion from an academic perspective. She also said that religious studies brought her a new perspective.

  “We’re a relatively small university in the middle of the Midwest, and so being able to take a more global perspective, because we definitely did that in our classes, was super helpful as well,” Piontek said.

  Shannon Carl, a technical service assistant at Ford Motor Co., is an alumna of the automotive technology management program, a category 3 program. Carl gave credit to the program for helping her with her career. 

  “I have a lot of appreciation and gratitude for the program helping me build my career, because I’m hoping to go really far in the automotive industry, and it’s all because of them,” Carl said. 

  Carl said that programs like automotive technology management are important because of the need for automotive jobs and candidates with automotive-specific training.

  “It’s really important that these programs remain open and continue recruiting students into this industry because there’s going to be a big push and a big need for students in automotive with that passion,” Carl said. 

  UCM President Roger Best is expected to release retrenchment decisions midday Friday, March 26.