Jeannie Hamblin-Fox from New Castle Ivy Tech was at the Henry County Commissioners meeting on Wednesday to talk about how much Ivy Tech does for Henry County.
Hamblin-Fox has worked for Ivy Tech for 23 years and is a Henry County resident.
She said, “I really believe in what Ivy Tech does, and I am passionate about what we have to offer.”
Ivy Tech is the largest community college in the nation and has had a campus in New Castle since 2012. The local campus was created using money from the Henry County Food & Beverage Tax fund.
The New Castle site is a smaller facility, so their parent campus is in Muncie. Even though New Castle’s campus is small, they still offer a plethora of opportunities for community members, Hamblin-Fox said.
“We’ve grown over the past few years,” she said. “We just added two new positions in the last two months and we will add another position.”
Hamblin-Fox walked the commissioners through some of the programs and opportunities that Ivy Tech gives.
Ivy Tech worked with the New Castle Career Center in specific programs to offer dual credit classes.
She said, “Those classes are where their high school teacher actually teaches the class. They have been credentialed by Ivy Tech just like a regular instructor. Those kids take those classes at the Career Center at no cost.”
They also offer dual credit classes to Henry County high schools at a smaller level in general education classes.
Ivy Tech also offers Early College, a program that allows high school seniors to take college level courses at Ivy Tech’s New Castle campus. The students go to their classes four days a week and have two classes per semester.
Hamblin-Fox said, “They are taught along with our regular students in regular classrooms. The really nice part about that program is that it costs those students nothing.”
The career center and Ivy Tech split the cost for the students.
Ivy Tech also offers a nursing program at the New Castle campus that has 40 students a year. Hamblin-Fox said they offer different majors, such as design technology, and are planning on adding industrial electrical classes, as well.
Last summer, the campus graduated 17 students, in the Fall semester they graduated 57 students, and in the Spring semester they graduated 141 students.
Ivy Tech also works with local companies to help them meet the needs of their employees. They have worked closely with Grede to help give their employees job skills.
“Even though we are so small, we have gem in our midsts,” Hamblin-Fox said.
More about Ivy Tech
According to Ivy Tech’s website, it is a higher education institution that primarily serves its surrounding community. Community colleges are the most common type of two-year colleges in the U.S. Community colleges like Ivy Tech offer millions of students a better way to reach their goals – whether that goal is to get a good-paying career fast, or to get a better, more affordable start to a bachelor’s degree by transferring credits on to a four-year school.
They offer 76 academic programs in 46 different locations throughout the state of Indiana. They also offer an online college option with over 500 classes.
They served 148,091 students. Of those students over 5,000 transfer to a four year degree college and 73 percent receive some kind of financial aid. Forty percent of Ivy Tech students are first-generation college students.
– Story by Haley Segarra Torres (HTorres@TheCourierTimes.com) of The Courier-Times. Read more local stories at TheCourierTimes.com.