U of A Graduate Guiding Business, Marketing Education Programs for State

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Sandon Williams

Sandon Williams is one month into his position as program coordinator for business and marketing education for the Arkansas Department of Career Education and his top priority is updating curriculum put into place a dozen years ago.

"We are preparing students today for jobs that don't exist yet," said the University of Arkansas graduate. "We need to be proactive and innovative but our curriculum has not been updated since 2004. That is my main goal."

Williams, who grew up in Berryville, earned a bachelor's degree in business education in 2005 and a Master of Arts in Teaching in 2006, both from the College of Education and Health Professions. He was completing his teaching internship at Rogers High School when a computer teacher at a middle school in the district died.

"I moved into a long-term substitute position at the middle school," he said. "That was like my interview, a nine-week interview."

Williams was hired full time at Kirksey Middle School and stayed there for six years.

"I knew I wanted to be a teacher my first day of seventh grade when I walked into the computer teacher's classroom," he recalled. "There was something about her that inspired me to be better. I took every class I could with her throughout junior high and high school."

However, Williams' parents wanted him to go into a higher-paying field so he enrolled in accounting and finance when he got to the U of A. He realized quickly that wasn't for him and then tried one semester of something else before changing his major again.

"I realized I had to follow my passions so I changed to business education and I have been there ever since," he said.

Williams eventually decided to make the move from the classroom, where he could influence about 150 students at a time, to a state-level position because it gave him to chance to effect change for 15,000 students. He spent four years as a program advisor before moving in October to the coordinator's position in which he oversees all secondary education programs in the state, which start with keyboarding in seventh grade.

"Every high school has to have three programs of studies in career and technical education," he said.

Those could include agriculture, family and consumer science, skilled and technical, or STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

Williams wants to expand the curriculum to offer programs that will help students prepare for positions available in Arkansas. For example, supply chain management is a huge industry in Arkansas because of the global companies based here but there are no high school programs to prepare students to enter the field. A secondary program of study in supply chain management will be piloted next year in three high schools across the state.

He also emphasizes the agency's involvement with student organizations. Every school district is required to have a chapter of the Future Business Leaders of America or DECA, an organization for marketing students. He serves as state chair for both organizations.

"We are heavily involved in helping these students gain leadership skills," Williams said. "We just returned from a national meeting in Daytona Beach, Florida. For some of these students, it was the first time they had been on an airplane or seen the ocean. I'm proud to work with these organizations and provide these opportunities."