Community College Success Launches Bachelor’s Degree, Career in Public Service

Desteni Tinzie of Marianna, Arkansas, wasn’t sure she wanted to go to college after she graduated from high school. Once she chose to attend her local community college, however, she excelled. She earned two associate’s degrees, one in general education and one in medical lab technology, as well as two technical certificates in phlebotomy and general studies. She went to work in the medical field soon after.

The story of how Tinzie, 25, arrived at a position as a county extension agent earlier this year is both ordinary and extraordinary. And utterly relatable.

For her, it was about educating herself so that she could serve her community. As a young person, Tinzie said, she considered moving away from home but then she saw what was available to her there in terms of a degree delivered online plus employment opportunities from the U of A.

“Why would I go and give my time somewhere else, when I can make an impact and fill a need at home?” Tinzie asked. “The U of A gave me that opportunity. With online education, you can get everything right there in your home and stay and serve the local community,” she said.

Community College

Community college was the start of an educational journey that took her to the state’s flagship institution. The University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture also figures prominently in her journey. It oversees the Cooperative Extension Service, her employer now, but Tinzie was already working for the division while she earned her bachelor’s degree from the U of A.

She graduated from high school at Barton (Phillips County) in the Arkansas Delta in 2019 without a clear idea of what she wanted to do next.

“After high school, I went to Phillips Community College, but at the time I was undecided about the route I wanted to take,” Tinzie said. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure about going to college.”

Tinzie made the most of her opportunity at Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas in Helena-West Helena, near where she grew up in Marianna. Well-prepared with her degrees and certificates, she went to work at a hospital.

However, she eventually realized the work was not what she wanted to do. Looking around, she saw others who studied medical lab technology were changing fields, some to agriculture.

Division of Agriculture

She went to work in the Soil Testing and Research Laboratory in Marianna operated by the U of A Division of Agriculture in 2023.                  

“There are similarities between medical testing and soil testing,” Tinzie explained.  “The safety guidelines were the same. You have a materials safety data sheet, and you still had to make sure quality controls were effective whether it is a human or soil. Otherwise, you don’t know if the results were accurate.

“People don’t realize that, as in a human, you test things like sodium and vitamins. You study the soil composition, similar to a chemistry panel.”

Tinzie found she really enjoyed working in a lab.

“I like precision,” Tinzie said. “I also like how there are different things you can do day by day. I could stick to the same department, or I also could go around and learn the different areas, switch it up. Unless you wanted your work to stay the same, it doesn’t have to. I’m the type of person who wants to learn. It fascinates me. I never had to do the same thing unless I wanted to.”

Supportive Workplace

At the soil lab, she met Nathan Slaton, associate vice president of the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, which is the research arm of the Division of Agriculture and includes 11 research facilities, and head of the soil testing program for the division.

Slaton encouraged her as she pursued a bachelor's degree, Tinzie said. She was able to use the U of A employee tuition discount to help fund her degree.

Slaton is celebrating his 25th year in his current position as a full-time administrator. The U of A Division of Agriculture boasts the second largest public soil testing program in the U.S., he said, running 180,000 to 200,000 samples a year until a recent downturn in the agricultural economy.

Based in Fayetteville, Slaton’s job overseeing Division of Agriculture facilities requires him to travel around the state. He typically takes time to talk with staff members on visits to facilities and described Tinzie as a “really great team player.”

“Her main job ended up being working with the data as it came out of the lab to make sure it went to our clients,” Slaton said. “If there were problems, she talked to clients on the phone to help figure out what the glitches were. She also worked in the back because the data has to get from the lab into the computer before she could work with it. She was kind of a team player working with the front office data management team but also helping get the soil samples into the lab, get them prepared and started for analysis.”

Educational Opportunity

On one visit to the soil lab in Marianna, Tinzie told him she wanted to advance her education.

“A lot of people in these roles are absolutely essential to what we do on an everyday basis,” Slaton said. “They are irreplaceable, valuable employees, but these are not high-paying jobs. We try to make it a good workplace. When you have an employee who shows ambition, you tell them, ‘Whatever I can do to help you, you just let me know.’ And in many cases, it was just simply, I think, stopping by Desteni's desk and asking, ‘Hey, how's school going? What do you need from me?’”

Community colleges are vital in helping improve economic circumstances in areas such as the Arkansas Delta, Slaton said. East Arkansas residents may not want to attend a four-year institution such as the University of Arkansas for various reasons, he said, including a lack of financial means or family matters or just a personal choice like Tinzie’s to not leave home to go to college.

“So many people in agriculture, whether you grew up on a farm or simply worked on a farm as an hourly worker or what have you, the one thing that a lot of people in agriculture have, for whatever reason, is that we're very passionate about what we do,” Slaton said. “And, I can see that in Desteni. She has a great personality. You don't show up every day the way she did without some passion and motivation.”

Online Degree Delivery

Tinzie started the bachelor’s degree program offered by the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences in the fall of 2023, studying online from the beginning. The flexibility of that delivery method made it possible for her to become a Razorback. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture in agricultural business in December 2025.

“I didn’t tell anyone I applied,” she said. “I knew it wouldn’t be a problem. My mama was an alum, and my dad wanted me to go there.”

While working full time at the soil lab, Tinzie studied during breaks and on nights and weekends. She kept up her church and social activities including service with the Girl Scouts and Order of Eastern Star.

“I kept a calendar so I knew something was coming,” she said. “I would work ahead. I still went to church and served my community.”

Ease of communicating with instructors also helped, Tinzie said, and, they had real-world experience in agriculture.

“They were not only professors with degrees,” she said. “They had a personal perspective when they gave students advice. That made it extra special.”

Bumpers College Student

Nathan Kemper, associate professor and director of undergraduate and online programs, advised Tinzie during her degree program.

As her adviser, Kemper said, he didn’t have to coach Tinzie about time management because she already had a strict work, school and outside schedule that she stuck to. She was one of his advisees who understood what her needs were and was invested in a particular career path with the U of A Division of Agriculture, he said.

It wasn’t unusual for Tinzie to ask a question he couldn’t answer right away, Kemper said. He was glad to help her find electives delivered online by the Human Development and Family Sciences program, another offering by the Bumpers College, that fit Tinzie’s plans to work for the Cooperative Extension Service.

“We would spend lots of time together,” he said. “But I always left the meetings feeling better than when I started because she was very positive.”

He also found Tinzie well-prepared for coursework because of her success at community college, Kemper said. For many students, community college gives them a chance to develop and mature, he said, as well as explore possible topics to study without the expense of relocating and living away from home.

Program Mission

Kemper helped develop the online version of the agricultural business bachelor’s degree. At the time, he put together a one-page vision statement: the idea was to educate people in rural, eastern Arkansas, particularly the Delta where Tinzie grew up and lived, to improve agricultural practices and economic success. He thought, for prospective students who would have had to drive 5 or 6 hours across the state to attend classes in Fayetteville, the online delivery might be the deciding factor in them getting to earn a bachelor's degree.

“One of the objectives, strategically, was specifically to teach rural Arkansans, particularly from east Arkansas, but we weren’t doing a good job, for whatever reason, to get them to come to Fayetteville,” he said. “A lot of it is just that distance. That’s a long way to go for a kid that grows up there.”

The department began by offering online courses for Bumpers students who went home to east Arkansas for the summer, Kemper said, but then they found some of those students – and others who were closer to other universities in Arkansas and neighboring states with similar degree programs – saw it as an opportunity for them to earn a degree from the U of A delivered online.

“So much agriculture comes from that part of the state, it just seemed obscene for us to not try to at least expand how we serve those students,” he said. “That was one audience we specifically targeted because we were not serving them.

“And then I would say the other big target was non-traditional learners, people who started working for local companies without finishing a degree. We were kind of thinking of a pathway for someone like that.”

Because the degree curriculum includes general business concepts, graduates can go into a broad range of fields – sales, insurance, real estate, banking, finance and marketing, he said. Tinzie was a bit of a nontraditional student in her career path, but the HDFS courses helped prepare her, he said.

“I enjoyed working with Desteni,” Kemper said. “She was working full time, schooling full time and involved in the community. She was capable of managing it all with a positive attitude.”

County Extension Agent

Since February, Tinzie has been working as an extension agent for St. Francis County in Forrest City. She has been meeting with students at schools in the county to build the 4-H youth development program there. She’s focusing on teaching the 4-H members life skills.

“My goal in 4-H is to teach skills students would normally learn in family and consumer science classes,” she said. “We learn about financial literacy and entrepreneurship, for example.”

She also taught photography at a camp during spring break this year and had two participants compete in the Ross Photography contest.

When it comes to agriculture, Tinzie said her late great-grandmother inspired her.

“Every year she always grew a garden, and I used to work in the garden with her,” Tinzie said. “After she passed away in 2009, I kept on growing a small garden every year.”

Her mother also inspired her. She was formerly a county extension agent for Lee County.

“A lot of kids in our public schools think agriculture is just being out in a field,” Tinzie said. “It’s so much more than that. I showed them you can do this. I’ve never touched a tractor, couldn’t drive one if I tried.”

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