MACOM (WGM) – This school year marks the fourth class to pass through the McDonough County CEO program, but the first class to qualify for dual credit at Western Illinois University.
CEO is a program that allows selected high school students and seniors to meet for 90 minutes a day, five days a week. Class coordinator Allison Jefferson said students are getting the chance to meet local business owners while also getting hands-on experience in what it takes to build a startup.
Jefferson also said students who participate in CEOs are more likely to give their skills back to the community.
“It gives them a greater appreciation of what we have in the community,” Jefferson said. “We found that students say that if they go to school for a short time, they want to go back home or stay here and start a business sometime in the future.”
Since the class came to McDonough County in the 2019-2020 school year, 46 students have gone through the program. There are currently 16 students this school year.
Macomb junior Ivy Chapla said the skills she learns as a CEO don’t compare to a regular classroom.
“Leadership, learning how to communicate and speak, and stepping out of your comfort zone are the three main things we learn in this class,” Chapla said. “I feel like we touch on it in the classroom, but you don’t get the hands-on experience you do here.”
Heavily involved in FFA, Chapla offers extracurricular leadership training, but lacks the business aspect. That’s where she says the CEO program comes into play.
“I feel like I feel. [FFA] It touches on leadership, but it doesn’t take the business side of it, and so I want to get that experience here [CEO] It will help me in the long run,” said Chapla.
For McComb junior Tyler Shannon, he describes the CEO program as a departure from the regular classroom.
“It’s a great place to learn without going to school,” Shannon said. “We try to look at this as a team, not as a class.”
Shannon said that now that the program is listed as a dual-credit class, it may encourage more students to enroll in the program.
In addition to the initial two credit hours the CEO program provides for high school, the dual credit option gives students the ability to earn three credits from WIU.
Craig Conrad, dean of the College of Business and Technology, said the program gives students an early advantage before entering a college classroom.
“We’ve learned a lot about the program and its benefits to the students,” Korrad said. “We think the dual credit program here at WIU is a great way for students to take their first step toward a college education.”
Craig said McDonough County CEO WIU is the only local program to offer dual credit, but he said an active effort is being made to offer similar credit to other local CEO programs.
“We’ve reached out to a lot of counties and expanded their programs,” Conrad added.
Other counties with CEO programs include Schuyler and Brown counties, where Brown Schuyler is CEO by combining their students.
The first Brown Schuyler executive class came in the 2020-2021 academic year.
CEO is run through the Midland Entrepreneurship Institute and reaches 288 schools nationwide.
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