Within hours of announcing a new initiative aimed at the applied trades at Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary, Mark Davis said he had multiple students and families reaching out with queries about signing up.
This wasn’t a surprise to the college’s vice president for enrollment, however, as Faith Baptist officials working on the new associate degree program had spent about two years on research to understand what they should offer.
“We sent a survey out, said, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about this,’ and we were just bombarded with interest,” Davis said. “Hundreds of parents and students saying, if you add that, we would be interested.”
The Ankeny college’s new, one-to-two-year applied trades program will allow students to earn up to an Associate of Applied Trades degree with instruction in electrical, plumbing, framing and other areas, as well as lessons on how they all interact at different points in the construction process. The program will officially start this fall.
Beyond general workforce needs and demands of the current job market, Davis said this program will be especially helpful for Faith Baptist graduates heading out on missions or to small churches in rural Iowa, where the skill set taught in the program would aid in construction, upkeep and other work.
One of the survey’s respondents was Paul Pestel, a Faith Baptist and Iowa State University alum with more than two decades of experience in construction and facilities management. He offered his services in developing the program and said he worked with the college’s education department to design courses “to walk them through a lot of the generalities of construction, so that no matter what trade they would go into, they would be able to flourish.”
Now, Pestel has been named chair of the new program and in addition to running it, he said he will teach students introductory topics on different trades and business aspects of the work, like scheduling, budgets and contracts.
In addition to instilling foundational knowledge in the program’s first year, Davis said students who continue on will learn how to lead jobsites, not just navigate them. Students will learn about construction documentation, how to interact with architects and engineers, how contracts are developed, businesses are formed and methods of negotiation, Pestel said.
“It’s more of a holistic approach. So, if you’re going into a trade, traditionally, you have to choose, right? So I’m going to be a plumber, I’m going to be an electrician, whatever it might be,” Davis said. “This is designed actually to get your feet wet in multiple trades, and to give you a skill set that’s hireable.”
Students enrolled in the program can also transfer into four-year degree programs at Faith Baptist, Davis said. He added he’s never seen a program like this at another private university, with other training focusing on certification rather than a degree.
While the program will launch with 30 slots for students, Davis said he hopes to bring that number to 50 or higher in the future.
Master plumbers, electricians, builders and other experienced tradesmen will help with program instruction as their specific trades are covered. Davis said with Pestel’s announcement as director the college will start pursuing partnerships with job sites and others, and people have already started to reach out.
Pestel said he’s most excited to see the kinds of students the new program draws in, not just for trades training, but for the biblical education they’ll receive alongside it. His education at Faith Baptist helped him understand why he believes what he believes, he said — an understanding he was glad to have when he started his construction career on highway road crews, working out of hotels, and experienced what that life was going to be like.
“These kids, they can go out and they can do well, because they’re probably going to have great work ethics, but to be better versed in what the Bible really says and how doctrine works together in their real lives, that’s the part I’m the most excited for,” Pestel said.
