Ivy Tech outgrowing new campus

The past five years have been quite a ride for Ivy Tech Community College-Bloomington.

Since moving to a new building west of the city, the campus has seen enrollment almost double. It forged a positive relationship with Indiana University, solidified its role in training the area’s workforce and raised more than $5 million in its first capital campaign.

“The difference today between the old and the new Ivy Tech is just huge,” said Lee Marchant, president of LJM Enterprises in Bloomington and a member of the Ivy Tech state board of trustees.

John Whikehart, the Ivy Tech-Bloomington chancellor, ties the changes to a strategic plan adopted the year of the move. It called for Ivy Tech to serve individual students, respond to business needs, provide seamless education with high schools and universities and promote civic engagement.

“It really goes back to our 2002-03 strategic plan, where we said, ‘Here’s what we want to do in Bloomington,” said Whikehart, the chancellor since 2001.

The campus’s history goes back to the 1960s, with nursing classes near Bloomington Hospital. As programs grew it moved to the Courier- Tribune building on Curry Pike, then to Westbury Village on Arlington Road.

State Rep. Peggy Welch, D-Bloomington, earned a nursing degree in 1995. She’s proud to call herself the only Ivy Tech graduate in the Legislature.

“I got a wonderful education at Ivy Tech,” she said. “They fit my need of the nontraditional student in providing what I needed, which was a nursing education.”

But the Westbury campus, with second-hand furniture and out-of-date labs, was nothing to boast about, she said. That changed in August 2002, when a $23 million facility opened on Daniels Way.

“In a very short period we went from a horse and buggy to a modern institution,” Marchant said.

Meanwhile, state leaders turned to Ivy Tech for something Indiana had never had: a community college to help students make the transition to universities. Walk into Ivy Tech-Bloomington today, and you’ll see young people who look like any group of contemporary college students.

“Fifty-five percent of our students now are under 24 years of age,” Whikehart said.

With the changing student profile, Ivy Tech has added student clubs, recreational sports and community service. Its Welcome Week last week featured a climbing wall and a video game tournament.

“We need to look more like a college,” Whikehart said, while insisting that Ivy Tech will always provide flexible schedules and small classes that appeal to nontraditional students.

And it retains its mission of serving the state’s job training and economic development needs. The college offers not only two-year associate degrees but workforce certificates and customized training for industries — last year, it trained gaming workers for the French Lick Springs Casino Resort.

Ron Walker, president of the Bloomington Economic Development Corp., said Ivy Tech makes Bloomington a more attractive place for existing and prospective businesses.

“They are very flexible and adaptable to the needs of the labor market,” he said. “If I’m meeting with a prospect, I may take someone from Ivy Tech with me and we’ll discuss training options.”

Growth and change bring challenges, however, and Ivy Tech-Bloomington faces its share.

One is hiring faculty to keep up with enrollment. Three years ago, Whikehart said he was unhappy that part-time adjunct instructors were teaching 65 percent of Ivy Tech classes and full-time faculty only 35 percent. Full-time faculty have increased since then, but so have adjuncts.

“We need to improve the number of full-time faculty we have. That’s not just a Bloomington issue, it’s an all-Ivy Tech issue,” Whikehart said.

There’s also likely to be growing scrutiny of Ivy Tech and other institutions for graduation and retention rates and other accountability measures.

In 2006-07, Ivy Tech-Bloomington surpassed state metrics for increasing its enrollment and the number of associate degrees, technical certificates and industry certifications it awarded.

But retention and graduation rates are low by conventional measures. In 2005, the college reported, only about half of beginning students returned for a second year; and just 7 percent of first-time, full-time students earned an associate degree within three years. More recent figures were not available last week.

Whikehart said those numbers don’t fairly measure performance. They give no credit for students who take longer than three years to graduate because they’re working, or for students who leave for a better job or transfer to IU without an Ivy Tech degree.

Finally, Ivy Tech is outgrowing its five-year-old building, long before it was expected to. This year, it moved its workforce development and continuing-education operations to downtown Bloomington and leased classroom space in a building on Liberty Drive. It’s working with the Monroe County Redevelopment Commission to build an Indiana Center for the Life Sciences adjacent to campus; scheduled to open in 2008, it will house science labs and training programs.

The Legislature approved $350,000 this year for a design study of expanding the campus. Whikehart said campus officials hope a 115,000-square-foot addition will be funded in the 2009 state budget, letting construction start that year.

With a shortage of college-educated citizens having a negative effect on Indiana’s economy, Whikehart said, it’s imperative for Ivy Tech to continue to grow.

“We have to do this,” he said.