Photo by Joselyn King A focus group discussed trends in the local community during a planning session at Wheeling Park’s White Palace Friday morning.

WHEELING — West Virginia Northern Community College is looking to create a new path for its future, and it’s asking its community partners to help them draw the map.

WVNCC invited a cross-section of community leaders to a planning session Friday at Wheeling Park’s White Palace, where participants discussed current societal trends and how they affect their business or organization, or the community in general.

The trends were discussed within focus groups during Friday’s second session.

Discussion in the politics focus group centered on decline in funding higher education has received from the West Virginia Legislature.

“We have to find a qualified and well-trained workforce,” explained Sharon Campbell, executive director of the Wetzel-Tyler Chamber of Commerce. “If the funding to higher education is cut, there might not be a workforce.”

She suggested that as tuition continues to rise, it could mean only the more wealthy will be able to afford college. Others wanting more education would have to consider military options or taking on a large amount of debt.

Across the room in another focus group, the discussion centered on how best to attract employees to fill vacant job openings.

Bob Peckenpaugh, president and CEO of the Wheeling Park Commission, discussed what a lack of workers means in the hospitality industry,

“It might come down to us turning away customers at the hotel if we have no staff to clean the rooms,” he explained.

The park commission has offered hiring incentives to workers who stay on the job for a designated time, and adjusted pay scales, Peckenpaugh said.

“But I don’t know how effective that was,” he said.

The session on Friday was the second in a three-part series organized by WVNCC as it seeks to craft its educational strategy for the future. The first session took place prior to the COVID pandemic in early 2020, and participants were tasked with determining what current trends were in the region and across the nation.

After this, Joel Lapin — emeritus professor of sociology at the Community College of Baltimore County — took the information gathered and produced a list of 48 trends noted in the areas of economics, labor force, demographics, technology competition, social values and lifestyles, education, politics and emerging industries.

WVNCC President Daniel Mosser said an upcoming third session will involve WVNCC officials sitting down to develop the school’s strategic plan, mission, priorities and goals based on the feedback gathered from community leaders on Friday.

“(The trends discussed) are things we think will impact the community, we think will impact our college, we think will impact our stakeholders,” Mosser said. “They impact all of us.”