As published in the March 1, 2011 Toledo Business Journal
Dr. Larry McDougle,
Owens Community College
Owens Community College impacting development
Toledo Business Journal recently interviewed Dr. Larry McDougle, president, Owens Community College. He shared the following thoughts.
Toledo Business Journal: Can you discuss the role that you see for Owens Community College concerning economic development in our area?
Larry McDougle: The two-year colleges have one of the most significant roles to play in economic development in our state. Owens plays a significant role, obviously, here in northwest Ohio, given our location and educational resources.
We have the opportunity to reach out to many of the counties within the region, including Lucas County, Wood County, Hancock County, and even as far away as Hardin County.
We have a very good staff of highly qualified professionals who go out and do nothing but talk to business and industry about their training needs. We then work with these companies to coordinate customized training programs that will meet their specific needs.
TBJ: Federal Express (FedEx) placed a major strategic investment in our region with its construction of a regional operations hub in Northwood. Close proximity to Owens Community College was one of the factors in their site selection decision. Are there other such opportunities to impact development in our area?
LM: We are well positioned in this region to reach out to a lot of different kinds of companies – Federal Express certainly being one of them. Owens is within close proximity to many outstanding resources in northwest Ohio such as major highways, air, rail, and water. These and many other resources are enabling the region to remain on the cutting edge of science, innovation, and technology. Owens is poised to provide innovative training for these dynamic companies to ensure that they remain on the cutting edge and prosperous.
A collaborative project we’re working on now as an educational training partner is with the CSX intermodal hub in North Baltimore. I don’t think people have even begun to realize the significance of that particular development. That’s going to be much more than an intermodal as time progresses.
Governor John Kasich recently said he’s talking to the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) about finding a way to provide better highway access and make it easier to get trucks in and out of that facility.
In Putnam County and Hardin County, we’re working with several groups that are developing wind turbine farms. Green energy is an area that we’re really getting much more involved with and recently announced the creation of a new alternative energy and sustainable systems degree program. We have a solar panel array in addition to two wind turbines on the Toledo-area campus. We also have a wind turbine and a solar panel array on the Findlay-area campus. Those are primarily for training purposes because we’re conducting a lot of green energy training.
TBJ: Owens has set up the Success Program and a new Academic Achievement Scholarship Program for selected area high school graduates. Can you explain these programs and the opportunity they represent for students?
LM: The Success Program began initially through a partnership with Toledo Public Schools (TPS) to provide their students in financial need the opportunity to pursue a free college education. In order to be eligible, students must graduate from high school, be enrolled in 12 or more credit hours each semester, and complete their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form to determine financial aid and receive some federal Pell grant funding.
The Success Program is designed to bridge the gap between the federal grant aid a student receives and the cost of an Owens education. For some of the students, their federal Pell grant aid is enough to cover the entire cost. For others, it might only be half. But we make up the difference.
The program started with the Toledo Public Schools and has since broadened to include Findlay City Schools, Lake Local Schools, Washington Local Schools, and all public schools in Hancock County. The Success Program provides a tremendous opportunity for students to realize their goals of a college education.
The new Academic Achievement Program is designed to recognize area graduating high school students achieving academic excellence at the highest level. Public and private high school graduates in the top 5% of their graduating class have the opportunity to receive an Academic Achievement Scholarship for 100% of their tuition. Students in the top 6-10% will be eligible to receive a scholarship for 50% of their tuition. Separate criteria has been arranged for graduating high school students attending area career centers. The new program is being offered to qualifying students graduating from public and private high schools as well as career centers within the College’s legal district, which encompasses Lucas, Wood, and Hancock counties, and parts of Ottawa and Sandusky counties. The Owens Community College Foundation and College Development executive director Ann Savage and her staff have been instrumental in helping to lead both of these programs.
TBJ: Owens has made a number of major strategic investments during the past couple of years. Can you explain these new facilities and new programs and the expected impact?
LM: That’s an exciting part of what’s occurring at Owens right now. In 2008, Owens purchased the former 56-acre Penta Career Center property for about $6 million. We have totally renovated the former Administration Building, which is now named Founders Hall. It’s an incredible facility. Founders Hall has 65 offices, a number of classrooms, computer labs, a lounge area for students, and individual study areas for students. The facility is home to several of the College’s arts and sciences departments.
A second facility is named Heritage Hall. This building is partially completed. The first floor is home to the School of Business and Information Systems and features three really impressive computer laboratories all with leading edge technology for our students and faculty.
The second floor features the School of Nursing. Their facilities would rival any hospital you walk into in the Toledo area. It’s just an incredible facility.
We just completed renovation work on a new Welding Center, which is also located on the former Penta Career Center campus. It has 56 welding booths, 12 cutting booths, and eight grinding stations, and a very sophisticated welding fume extraction system, whereby the filtered air can be re-circulated throughout the Welding Center. As a result, the building is very green energy friendly and safe.
We also have a state-of-the-art Center for Emergency Preparedness on Tracy Road, which features an innovative emergency services virtual training system for training purposes in the Emergency Preparedness Training and Operations Center high bay area. The complex also features a Boeing 727 aircraft and many other props and simulators.
I think we’ve just scratched the surface on what we can do with regard to emergency preparedness and expanding our educational training into such areas as counterterrorism training with an aircraft to simulate a hijack scenario to name one example. Certainly, we already conduct a significant amount of training with area police and fire officials.
And the College’s Center for Fine and Performing Arts is a jewel. I don’t know of many two-year colleges that have an educational facility like the Center for Fine and Performing Arts on their campus. The theatre alone is really impressive and we can seat about 500 people in there for performances. It’s wonderful.
Those are just a few of the initiatives taking place that have a lot of potential for programming opportunities.
TBJ: Owens has opened a new facility in Maumee’s Arrowhead Park that also serves as the home of the Workforce and Community Services area at the college. Can you explain the services that this organization provides to area companies?
LM: We have both the Arrowhead Park Learning Center – which right now has about 600 students attending – and the Learning Center at The Source in downtown Toledo, which also has about 600 students. The Learning Center at The Source plays an integral role in meeting the education needs of Toledo-area residents and downtown Toledo. We recently expanded the educational facility to include two new instructional classrooms and a new computer laboratory.
The Arrowhead Park Learning Center provides both credit and non-credit educational opportunities for area residents and has provided greater access to higher education within western Lucas County. The Arrowhead Park location has enabled the College’s Workforce and Community Services to broaden its workforce development and training programs for area businesses and students and further support local economic growth within the region. We are very pleased with how the surrounding communities have embraced our Maumee location.
TBJ: The Workforce and Community Services area has been successful at not only providing training for area companies, but also at winning grants to assist these organizations to fund this training. Can you provide some examples of recent successes in this area?
LM: Two examples of local companies we are working with are First Solar Inc. and Willard & Kelsey Solar Group LLC. Our staff led by Dr. Michael Bankey and Heidi Altomare assisted them in securing significant grants from the Ohio Department of Development’s (ODOD) Energizing Careers Program. First Solar received a million dollar grant, while Willard & Kelsey recently received a $700,000 grant. We not only assisted with the grant-writing process but also will be providing training for their organizations. That’s all part of economic development.
These are dollars coming from the State of Ohio that we’ve been successful in securing for this region. I think that there was only $6 million total made available, and we received about $2 million of it here for northwest Ohio.
We also have another grant program we’re excited about, called Project DEgree. Owens was selected by the Gateway to College National Network to participate in a national pilot of Project DEgree to help students achieve success in their pursuit of a college education. Only nine of these grants were awarded for the entire country, and we received one of them. This program is designed to provide students who require further developmental education with enhanced academic and support resources, allowing them to be better prepared for college-level coursework. It’s a whole new curriculum and teaching approach on how to go about helping students who need assistance with math, reading, writing, and more.
We’re in our second semester now. We had 21 students enter the program in the fall and 20 of them are still in the learning community. In other words, we’re keeping them. The one student that didn’t completely finish the program transferred to another school, which is still a success story.
It is important that students succeed when they enter college and we are proud to serve as a nationwide leader in such educational programs as Project DEgree.
TBJ: Are there other opportunities for Owens to work with and provide support to businesses in the area?
LM: We continue to explore new and innovative partnerships with both local and statewide business and industry groups. We have over 50 partnerships with union trades, including training partnerships with plumbers and pipefitters unions from around the state. Owens also has longstanding partnerships with Toledo Police and Toledo Fire and Rescue Departments, and conducts a significant amount of truck driver training through a partnership with Trainco, Inc.
Additionally, we are one of only a select few academic institutions in the world to have partnerships with John Deere and Caterpillar Inc. Owens provides the educational training for eventual employees with John Deere and Caterpillar. Both John Deere and Caterpillar provide our faculty and students with the latest in innovative equipment for educational training. It’s not uncommon for these programs to have several million dollars of equipment housed in the College’s Transportation Technologies building.
We typically have 15 or so students graduate from each one of these programs every year. Owens graduates of the John Deere and Caterpillar programs are then employed at dealerships around the region and beyond.
TBJ: Are there any other issues that you would like to address?
LM: One is to give you an update on our registered nursing program. As you know, we lost our National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission (NLNAC) accreditation in 2009. We are now working on regaining that accreditation.
Certainly, this is a process and we have reached a very important milestone in this process, called candidacy status. What that means is that we have given a report that has been accepted, and we are now a candidate for accreditation. We have been invited to complete a self-study and are currently working on writing the self-study. Once completed, the NLNAC will conduct a site visit and then go back to their board to make a recommendation.
I’m optimistic that we’ll regain accreditation in the near future.
But, more importantly, with regards to the registered nursing program, the NLNAC accreditation is voluntary. What we do need is approval from the Ohio Board of Nursing, because they’re the agency that enables our students to sit for the NCLEX-RN exams. I am happy to say that the Ohio Board of Nursing recently informed the registered nursing program that they were granted formal full approval for the next five years with no conditions. That’s the maximum number of years they can give any institution. So, that was just a wonderful report that we received on the registered nursing program. I’m very thrilled about that.
Another initiative that is currently underway is a new student success collaboration with Noel-Levitz, Inc. They are well-known for working with colleges to develop retention programs. Ensuring that our students succeed is crucial to the future economic growth and development of Ohio and this region. Noel-Levitz is going to help us in developing a long-term, sustainable, retention program.
And finally, I would like to say that we are honored to have Lake High School as part of the Owens family as their classes are currently being held in the College’s Center for Development and Training building. Our mission at Owens is to serve our students and surrounding communities. We are proud to lend a helping to our educational neighbor and support them as they continue to move forward in rebuilding their educational facilities, which were damaged and destroyed by the tornadoes that devastated the northwest Ohio region.