South Arkansas College in El Dorado has been significantly building up its offerings as the lithium industry boosts interest in the southern part of the state.
The two-year college is currently building its first residence hall, a new industrial lab and a baseball stadium in downtown El Dorado. A new nursing pathway is also in the works, with multiple other programs starting up across the past year.
SouthArk’s new residence hall and baseball park are part of the same capital campaign, which aims to boost enrollment as well as encourage people to move to El Dorado — “to live and learn in our environment,” SouthArk President Stephanie Tully-Dartez said in an interview.
“South Arkansas is a great place to live, and South Arkansas College has several unique programs that are or regionally significant, programs that are really important to the local economy,” Tully-Dartez said. “And so having people commute four hours a day, two hours here and two hours back, to get into some of these programs is not ideal.”
First Dormitory
SouthArk received a $10 million donation from Murphy Oil Co. to start construction on a 100-bed residence hall next to the El Dorado Conference Center, which is owned by the city but managed by the college.
The college additionally received a naming rights sponsorship from William (Bill) R. Howard, a nearly 102-year-old El Dorado native. Outside of Murphy Oil, Howard has been the largest individual contributor to the campaign.
Overall, the 30,000-SF building, dubbed Howard Hall, will cost around $12.1 million. It’s set to open in August.
The building will include common spaces, study areas, laundry facilities, lounges, individual-occupancy bathrooms and other amenities. Food service will be provided by Boomtown Bistro, the college’s existing food-service provider, which is located inside the conference center.
Nabholz Construction of Conway is building the hall.
Tully-Dartez said adding the residence hall is critical for attracting students from outside of the region.
“We’re rural, but we have unique programs, and being able to bring people to our campus means that we’ll open up more possibilities for important employment and career options for people from from a little bit further away,” she said. “We also are dealing in an environment where everybody has this idea that you’re going to college, which is fantastic, except they’ve been sold on the college experience, so they’ll pick a college before they pick a major. So we have to be able to compete and provide that college experience that they’re looking for, which includes residence life and athletics.”
Baseball Stadium
The proposed baseball stadium will be located adjacent to the new residence hall, at the southwest corner of Hillsboro Street and West Avenue, currently a vacant lot.
Tully-Dartez said the ballpark will cost around $10.5 million. Howard purchased naming rights for the stadium.
The stadium will be built in partnership with the city, Tully-Dartez said. The college will own it but El Dorado donated nearly $6 million in local economic development taxes to the project.
Tully-Dartez said the goal of the stadium is to facilitate more and improved sports tourism in the region. The city currently has a recreation complex that isn’t large enough to pull in baseball tournaments.
The new field will be rated for NCAA standards.
“When you have youth tournaments, you’ve got the whole team coming down. They’re eating, they’re staying in hotels,” Tully-Dartez said. “But you’ve also got families, and between the Murphy Arts District, our great playgrounds and recreation areas, downtown shopping, it just makes a whole lot of sense for us as a region to think about this as another economic development opportunity.”
Clark Contractors of Little Rock won the contract for the ballpark.
Industrial Lab, New Programs
Another big change for the college is the construction of an industrial chemistry lab. The new space will contain the same equipment used by local industry chem labs, Tully-Dartez said.
“That will allow people to train on the exact same equipment instead of them training in the lab at the plant where it’s in production, and it slows down production,” she said. “You can train them offsite, same equipment, get them completely ready before they’re in the actual production environment, and really cut down on lost time, crowdedness.”
The lab isn’t as far along as the other projects, but the project has been supported by the Delta Regional Authority, federal funds and HIRED grants from the governor’s office. Local plant and lab managers also helped design the space.
The lab is especially important as the critical minerals industry booms in the region. The college now offers an industrial lab tech pathway in addition to three other industrial pathways.
SouthArk has also partnered with South Arkansas University for lithium-based degree programs. The college is a partner on SAU’s Lithium Learns grant, as well as The Venture Center’s Lithium Works grant.
Outside of lithium, in the past year the college has added a diesel technician pathway, and a year before that a forestry technician pathway.
“We’re always trying to respond to that workforce call,” Tully-Dartez said.
The college also just built a facilities building, the first purpose-built non-student space on the campus.
Tully-Dartez said SouthArk is also working on boosting its concurrent credit offerings, but there will be “more on that later.”
“We’re investing in our infrastructure to accommodate growth and long-term planning,” Tully-Dartez said. “The need has been there, the planning has been there for the past few years. Between the support that we’ve received from corporate partners, from the state, from the federal government, it’s finally given us enough momentum to take these things to the next level. So it’s been sitting there semi-dormant for a few years, but there’s an urge to do something big and do bold for South Arkansas once we got a little kickstart.”
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