by Anne Kibbler
Hoosier Times
August 7, 2005

BLOOMINGTON - Drivers heading west out of Bloomington on Arlington Road could have been forgiven for sailing obliviously past the old Ivy Tech campus. The brown, low- profile buildings, part of a commercial center next to Terry's Banquet and Catering, blended so modestly into the background that they could be missed in the blink of an eye.

Not so the new Ivy Tech. The modern, 148,000-square-foot building, with its curved glass atrium and limestone colonnade, commands - almost demands - attention, giving the college a boost its chancellor long believed it deserved.

"Our image has changed," said John Whikehart, beginning his 15th year in the Ivy Tech system and his fourth in Bloomington. "What changed locally was when we moved into this building. The fact is, we were in a shopping center. This is an academic building with an academic environment."

The change goes far more than skin deep.

The statewide Ivy Tech system began in 1963 as a purely vocational school, with $50,000 in start-up funds. Over the decades, it's expanded to 24 campuses with 63,000 students, ranking second only to Indiana University in enrollment. In 2004, it took over the state's community college system after the failure of a shared leadership role with Vincennes University.

Next year, the Bloomington campus alone will educate about 3,800 students and have a budget of $12 million. Even though the $23 million campus opened just three years ago, Ivy Tech has already bought 16 acres of land east of the new building in anticipation of increasing enrollment. And in July, it launched a $3 million fundraising campaign for programs, facilities and scholarships.

Whikehart said he expects to see continued growth in the life sciences and health-care programs, responding to the need for local, entry-level employees in those industries. And he anticipates the construction of a science building in the not-too- distant future, to add lab space and classrooms where they are most needed.

Ivy Tech's future wasn't always so rosy.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, when states including Illinois and Florida were forging ahead with the development of community college systems, Indiana chose a different path. At the urging of IU president Herman B Wells and Purdue president Fred Hovde, the state decided to create a system of regional university campuses rather than one of community colleges.

Wells later wrote that he believed the regional campus system offered "clear advantages to be gained from association with an established university."

But a report in November by the Indiana Government Efficiency Commission's subcommittee on higher education said Wells' and Hovde's recommendation ultimately came at a cost to the state.

In short, the report said Indiana was graduating too many people with four-year degrees - many of whom ended up leaving the state - and too few people with two-year degrees who could fill the growing number of entry-level jobs in the new high-tech economy. It recommended that the major universities focus on research and on expanding graduate programs, leaving more of the undergraduate education to the community colleges.

Thomas Reilly Jr., a former chemical company executive who headed the subcommittee, said the report received widespread acceptance in the state Legislature, but "was not overly approved of on the research campuses."

"We weren't saying they should disband the regional campuses, but by God they had better find a better way to enrich and improve their coordination with the community colleges," said Reilly, recently appointed by Gov. Mitch Daniels to the IU Board of Trustees.

He said the four-year institutions shouldn't look down their noses at community colleges. Instead, they should accept that some students simply may be better served at two-year institutions.

"They have to wake up to the fact that somebody has to make their shock absorbers," he said. "It's a question of effectiveness. We don't have gobs of kids coming out of community colleges and going to Berkeley or Stanford. Most of them are going to college to get a job."

While the report might have irked some of the four-year institutions, it "was not blissfully complimentary of community colleges," Reilly said. The embittered relationship between Vincennes and Ivy Tech became an administrative ni.htmlare that still festers. And the subcommittee disagreed with the college system's central curriculum, saying each campus's offerings should be based on local needs.

"It's still a long way from the community college programs in Illinois and California," Reilly said.

Whikehart doesn't want to dwell on the past.

"It's not important how long it's taken us to get here, but that we're here now," he said.

He is optimistic about his campus's relationship with IU Bloomington, believing the two's roles are complementary rather than competitive.

"We are not getting students who are coming here saying, 'I can't decide if I want to go to IU Bloomington or Ivy Tech Bloomington,'" he said. "We are not in competition with IU for students. We think it's an additive process."

Ivy Tech is increasingly promoting so-called "articulation agreements" with four-year institutions, allowing students to transfer credits to IU and other universities. Currently, students can transfer credits to IU Bloomington for two degrees - general studies and biotechnology - and they soon should be able to do the same for kinesiology.

Since taking over the community college system, Ivy Tech is to provide liberal arts degrees, although Whikehart said he'll be looking most closely at math- and science-related subjects with entry-level value into a four-year program. At the same time, the college is keeping pace with local demands for graduates trained for jobs such as paramedic, radiation therapist and computer technologist.

Whikehart cites the enrollment at Ivy Tech of 22 Baxter Pharmaceutical employees, supported by the company's state-funded tuition reimbursement program, as an example of responding to employers' needs. And he points to a request made in 2003 by IU's Midwest Proton Radiation Institute that led to the creation of a degree in radiation therapy. The program now serves the institute as well as Bloomington Hospital.

The chancellor believes it's the mission and responsibility of the college to meet the needs of the community. In addition to working with the for-profit sector, the campus has integrated service learning into each of its program areas. Nonprofit agencies can make use of its facilities, and Whikehart said he'll continue to open the campus for community events such as the Picnic With the Pops.

"Our attitude is that this is a community college. There's an investment the state made in us," Whikehart said. "How do we pay back that investment?"

Ivy Tech by the numbers

Bloomington campus budget, 2005-06: $12 million

Programs offered: two-year associate degrees and one-year certificates in 19 subject areas, from biotechnology to paralegal studies

Students: 3,800

Average age: 24

Percentage seeking degrees: 84 percent

Percentage of recent graduates employed: 98 percent

Percentage employed in field of certificate or degree: 93 percent

Percentage employed or continuing education in Indiana: 98 percent

Percentage employed in south central Indiana: 95 percent

Number identified as "IU hopefuls": 700

Counties with students attending Ivy Tech Bloomington: 64

Credit hours that transfer to IU Bloomington: 209, up from 39 in 2003

Degrees that transfer to IU Bloomington: general studies, biotechnology, kinesiology

In-state fee per credit hour, 2005-06: $83.95

IU Bloomington in-state fee per credit hour, 2005-06: $196.40

For more information: www.bloomington.ivytech.edu/ivytech/