Here For You
Southwest Mississippi Community College provides academic, technical, and continuing education, meeting the diverse needs of the population at a reasonable cost. SMCC promotes community services and promotes economic development through consultative and workforce training.
We are located about one mile east of the town of Summit, Mississippi. The campus is one of natural beauty covering sixty acres with an abundance of beautiful shade trees, shrubs, and flowering plants.
The site combines beauty, quietness, restfulness, and the healthy, invigorating atmosphere of the country with all the conveniences offered by the town of Summit and the larger city of McComb, four miles to the south.
Welcome From The President
Welcome to the Southwest Mississippi Community College website. This website is designed to help you explore the many opportunities offered here. Southwest is a comprehensive community college, located in Summit, MS, which offers academic transfer, career/technical, evening, online, and workforce training programs. The college prides itself in serving the southwest portion of Mississippi and especially our four tax supporting counties of Amite, Pike, Walthall, and Wilkinson counties since 1929. Southwest currently enrolls students from 46 Mississippi counties and 8 states.
Our instructors are highly qualified in their respective teaching disciplines. Our faculty and staff are professionals who care and invest in the success of their students. We offer a variety of student service/support programs including campus housing, counseling, financial aid, and campus food service. The college also boasts student programs and organizations that focus on the interest and talents of our students. Such programs include discipline-specific clubs, fine arts, varsity athletics, and intramural sports.
Southwest Mississippi Community College is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Many of our instructional programs also have specific program accreditation through state and national accrediting agencies.
I invite you to view this website as you make plans to attend college. I also invite you to call, e-mail, or come by for a visit or tour. I am confident that you will find Southwest to be the college for you. I hope to see you soon!
J. Steven Bishop, Ph.D.
Accreditation
Southwest Mississippi Community College is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to award associate degrees. Southwest Mississippi Community College also may offer credentials such as certificates and diplomas at approved degree levels. Questions about the accreditation of Southwest Mississippi Community College may be directed in writing to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, GA 30033-4097, by calling (404) 679-4500, or by using information available on SACSCOC’s website.
As a federal requirement, Southwest Mississippi Community College must be authorized to provide postsecondary educational instruction by the home states of its students To accomplish this task for out-of-state students, Southwest participates in “the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA), an agreement among member states, districts and territories that establishes comparable national standards for interstate offering of postsecondary online education courses and programs.
Professional Licensure
Requirements for licensure vary from program to program and from state to state. If a student lives outside the state of Mississippi and is considering a program and desires licensure in another state, then the person should contact the appropriate state before applying to Southwest Mississippi Community College.
While it is the student’s responsibility to contact the appropriate licensing board Southwest will make attempts to contact students who are residing out of state while enrolled in licensure programs to prompt them to check their state’s requirements.
Southwest Mississippi Community College has been approved to participate in the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements.
For your licensure or certification questions, click the appropriate link:
Furthering Education
History of SMCC
Since its early beginning, Southwest Mississippi Community College has maintained a rich history, from its early days reflecting an agrarian community to today’s technological society. Through each change, each event, the College endeavored to meet the educational needs in southwest Mississippi. Conception for Southwest Mississippi Community College began as early as 1908.
In 1908, the Mississippi legislature enacted legislation allowing counties to establish agricultural high schools. On April 7, 1916, the Pike County School Board voted to establish such a high school. The ideal spot for the new agricultural high school was Godbold’s Mineral Wells, located in a picturesque setting just northeast of Summit. Godbold’s Mineral Wells, a state and national resort noted for its mineral waters, had outlived its glory years, yet it proved to be the perfect location for an educational facility. On September 3, 1918, Superintendent James Murray Kenna, six faculty members, and approximately forty students began the Pike County Agricultural High School – an institution destined to become Southwest Mississippi Community College. The original campus consisted of classroom buildings, dormitories, and a comprehensive farm, including dairy, beef, and row-crop operations.
The agricultural high school first offered college work in 1929 and added second-year courses in 1932, when the school became a two-year junior college. In 1988, the name of the college was changed to Southwest Mississippi Community College to more accurately reflect the mission of the institution in meeting the various educational and public service needs of its district.
Still located on its original site, Southwest continues to grow and develop. The campus, located on a sixty-acre plot, includes twenty-eight buildings, a football stadium, and a baseball field. The buildings are situated around a central lake with walks, bridges, and paths connecting the buildings. The remainder of the approximately 855 acres is now a tree farm.
Southwest has had seven presidents: J. M. Kenna 1918; H. D. Pickens, July 1947; Clyde H. Snell, July 1948; Charles C. Moore, July 1951; H. T. Huddleston, July 1952; Horace Holmes, July 1972; Oliver Young, July 2005. Steve Bishop was named president in July 2011. The College’s excellent leadership, strong faculty and staff, strategic location, and vision for the future will continue to enrich the College’s history.
Mission & Goals
Southwest Mississippi Community College provides academic, technical, and continuing education, meeting the diverse needs of the population at a reasonable cost. SMCC promotes community services and promotes economic development through consultative and workforce training.
Institutional Goals:
- To provide a two-year college transfer program applicable to a bachelor’s degree.
- To provide career and technical programs leading to employment or skills enhancement.
- To provide programs enabling students to overcome specific deficiencies and achieve success.
- To provide curricula, instruction, guidance, extracurricular activities, and other support services enhancing student development.
- To provide facilities, technology, methodology, and staff sustaining an appropriate environment conducive to learning.
- To provide lifelong learning opportunities.
- To provide facilities and services supporting cultural, educational, and economic needs.
- To publicize offerings of the institution and the opportunities it affords.
Intellectual Property Rights
Southwest Mississippi Community College maintains rights to intellectual property created at college expense. The college reserves rights of ownership of all intellectual property including, but not limited to, curricular materials, books, web pages, electronic publications, and programs written or otherwise created by a student, instructor, or staff member while using college materials or equipment and while working during time that is compensated by the college. All classes of intellectual property, scientific and technological developments, materials or objects created or produced by a faculty or staff member on personal time without the assistance of SMCC personnel, equipment, materials, or facilities, shall be the exclusive property of the individual. If college resources are used during personal time to create intellectual property, the creator should consult the Vice-President of Financial Affairs to determine a reasonable compensation for the use of college resources.
It is the responsibility of the creator of any form of intellectual property to ensure that copyrights held by other entities are not infringed and that appropriate permission has been obtained for the use of copyrighted material by adhering to the copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code). Creators of intellectual works that are not partially owned by the college own the copyrights of their works and are free to register the copyright and receive any revenues which may result.
