WIN | Sioux Falls Development Foundation

Southeast Technical Institute Articles

Early career spotlight: One student's journey to become a physician's assistant

Makenzie Haensel is no stranger to challenging, new adventures, and she’s about to embark upon one such opportunity yet again.

This fall, Haensel, 23, is one of 26 students who will pursue a physician assistant, or PA, degree at the University of South Dakota, a highly competitive program that routinely admits approximately 26 students per year, which amounts to accepting just 2.5 percent of applicants. With a 16.9 percent population increase in Sioux Falls since 2010, Makenzie’s chosen career path is also critical to the area’s growth, as hospitals are increasing care for more patients.

Live, Learn, Inspire: How to engage multiple generations for lifelong learning

Want to gain insight on how to work with multiple generations? Start by teaching them.

That’s what Fenecia Foster does as part of her role at Southeast Technical Institute, where she splits time teaching math and applied physics with serving as a faculty liaison working on accreditation and on-boarding faculty.

“We have a lot of Gen Xers who are coming back in the classroom to retrain, and I’ve had students who are baby boomers,” said Foster, who has been teaching at Southeast Tech. for almost seven years. “We really get those three generations – Gex X, millennials and Gen Z – in our classroom at the same time, and the workforce is similar.”

Foster will be part of a panel around the topic of “Live, Learn, Inspire” at the Aug. 22 WIN in Workforce Summit presented by the Sioux Falls Development Foundation. Foster will be joined by panelists Kayla Eitreim of Junior Achievement of South Dakota, Josh Hall from the Career & Technical Education Academy and Alyssia Salguero with the South Dakota Department of Labor & Regulation.

It’s one of several sessions designed to share strategies around talent development. The summit also will cover talent attraction, business partnerships and other workforce development resources.

What is WIN?

WIN in Workforce Group is values-based community effort whose mission is to champion career transformation within the workforce. Our goal is to exchange best practices within our cradle to career initiatives for the betterment of all.