Iowa Central Community College Focusing on the future, impact on region

By KELBY WINGERT kwingert@messengernews.net

Aside from two major construction projects, Iowa Central Community College has had a busy year, starting with creating a new strategic plan for the institution.

In April, the college hosted several strategic planning conversation sessions with students, staff, faculty and community members.

“We had well over 300 people participate in our listening sessions and our strategic planning sessions to provide feedback about what we’re doing really well as a college and where we’re seeing that we have a need,” said college President Jesse Ulrich.

Through those sessions, four main priorities were identified: advancing developmental opportunities, cultivating Triton culture, uniting through communication and collaboration and empowering student engagement.

Several committees are being constructed to look at specific objectives related to these four areas, including the President’s Leadership Academy.

“We want to make sure we are empowering and building our human capital so that when we have leadership positions that open up at Iowa Central, we have people that have been trained and know our culture, that understand our leadership framework, to be able to slide into those positions and continue the good work that we have been doing,” Ulrich said.

This last year, Iowa Central also launched the Triton Academies on the Fort Dodge campus.

“We have career academies throughout our region — one down in Greene County, one over in Laurens and one in Eagle Grove,” Ulrich said. “But the Triton Academy opened up our campus to be an allencompassing career academy for this portion of the region.”

Through the Triton Academies, high school students can enroll in up to nine credit hours per semester in a variety of degree and transfer degree programs. Students take classes alongside the traditional students on Iowa Central’s campus, creating a real college learning environment.

“The way we look at it is even if you go your junior year and senior year and you just do the minimum three courses, then by the time you graduate high school, you’re halfway toward your AA degree,” Ulrich said. “And for students who really want to ramp it up and take more of these courses, it increases their potential to complete their AA degree along with their high school diploma at the same time.”

For students who don’t have the option of traveling to campus or one of the other career academies, there are several programs that can be completed online.

The Triton Academy program is an example of how the college aims to be a high-quality and efficient option for students to continue their education, Ulrich said.

“When we say we want

See FUTURE, Page 7D