Northark hires new Vice President of Technical Education and Workforce Development

North Arkansas College will soon welcome a new face to its leadership team. While Dr. Ricky Tompkins is new to Northark, he is no stranger to Arkansas community colleges. The position was reclassified from an Associate Vice President to a Vice President to better reflect the college’s focus on workforce and technical education.

Having dedicated 25 years of his life to education, Mr. Tomkins is currently the Director of the Center for Student Success at Arkansas Community Colleges (ACC). Since 2022, he has worked with campus leaders, providing student success programming and technical assistance that benefits students across the state of Arkansas. A few of his key accomplishments were designing and implementing a statewide leadership and management program that prepared new and current leaders from the Association’s member institutions. He represented the Association on national projects including Strong Start to Finish, Math Pathways redesign, Multiple Measures for Placement, and the JFF Student Success Center Network and was selected as a member of the national Student Success Center Network Leadership Team (NLT) tasked with providing leadership for the Network and contributing operational input on the SSCN’s ongoing focus and activities.

Prior to his current job at ACC, he was the Chief Academic Officer at Northwest Arkansas Community College (NWACC) from 2013-2022 where was responsible for cultivating relationships to diversify the college’s resource base through external sources and philanthropic opportunities, receiving over $77M in external funds.

He started his education at East Texas Baptist University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Church Careers followed by a Masters of Language Arts from Henderson State University. Mr. Tompkins obtained a doctorate in Higher Education from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

“Mr. Tompkins is a great fit for us as he has an impressive background and is a well-known leader in Arkansas,” Northark President Rick Massengale said. “I am excited to work with him and watch his expertise emerge to bring new opportunities to our stakeholders and to Northark as a whole.”

In his new role Mr. Tompkins will provide leadership and strategic direction for all credit-bearing technical programs and non-credit workforce development programs at Northark. He will serve on the President’s executive leadership team and play a pivotal role in shaping the college’s strategic vision for workforce development and technical education.

“I’m honored to be selected as the new Vice President of Technical Education and Workforce Development,” Mr. Tompkins said. “I look forward to working with the amazing team at Northark as we strive to serve our students and community.”

His first day of work will be September 1, 2024, when he will officially become a Pioneer.