BY RACHEL MELCER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LAWRENCEBURG -- Bulldozers and construction crews are not the only ones breaking ground in building Ivy Tech State College Southeast.
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Executive Dean James Helms watches the beginnings of a much larger Ivy Tech campus in Lawrenceburg.
(Yoni Pozner photo)
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When the two-year vocational and community college opens its doors in fall 1999 or spring 2000, it will become the first post-high-school educational campus in this region of Indiana.
Students will be able to earn an associate's degree or vocational certification in business, computer and industrial trades as well as medical technical fields. Course credits may be applied toward a bachelor's degree at Indiana State University.
And Ivy Tech's first hospitality curriculum -- including hotel management, food service and restaurant training -- will be started in response to the area's booming riverboat casino and tourism industry.
The college is being built on 15 acres donated by the city of Lawrenceburg. For the first time in this state, construction of a public college campus is being financed by a municipality rather than an appropriation by the General Assembly.
Lawrenceburg undertook a $5.5 million bond issue to fund the project, but it left the design up to Ivy Tech officials. The college will pay roughly $500,000 a year over the next 10 years to lease the campus, and then assume ownership of the building and grounds. The city also gives Ivy Tech $100,000 in riverboat casino revenue each year as part of a sharing agreement.
"It looked like it was going to take forever to get legislative funding. . . . But now it's moving forward so rapidly. It has just been a great project all the way through," said Jonathan Thomas, executive dean of the Madison campus.
Ivy Tech has offered classes for about 20 years in a small, leased space on Main Street in Lawrenceburg, where about 600 students are enrolled. But curriculum and class sizes have had to be limited and the facility was considered a satellite of the Madison campus. Vice President - Chancellor Homer Smith said Ivy Tech officials have wanted to expand into a full campus for more than 15 years. But in competition with the needs of the college system's other 22 sites, southeastern Indiana always lost out.
"Lawrenceburg always came in at the bottom of the list," Mr. Smith said. "A lot of it is because of the relatively small population. We do a needs analysis, and rank (expenditures) based on the needs of the greater community."
So last year, officials approached casino-rich Lawrenceburg for some assistance. But they never expected to receive so much. Jim Helms, the first executive dean for the new southeastern campus, said he expects more than 1,000 students when the 41,000-square-foot building opens. The site is on rolling green hills in the northern part of Lawrenceburg, and will feature a man-made lake.
"This is going to be a big plus to this area. It's been long awaited," he said. "I think it's going to be a big draw."
Local economic development officials say the college will also help attract business and industry.
"It's always valuable to them, in terms of deciding where to locate, if they will be able to access a trained workforce," said Tom DeWees, chairman of the Lawrenceburg Redevelopment Commission. Ivy Tech officials are also consulting with management at Argosy Casino Lawrenceburg and Grand Victoria Casino & Resort in nearby Rising Sun. Although the casinos said they prefer to train their own dealers and casino workers, they suggested a hospitality curriculum, Mr. Thomas said.
Courses will be offered in culinary arts, hotel - motel management, food service and other areas suited to the riverboats' restaurants, bars and lodging.
"If the gaming people say to us, "Look, this is the kind of curriculum that we'd like to have,' then we can take a look at our curriculum to meet their needs," Mr. Smith said.
Of course, officials don't want to play down their other course offerings and potential to serve a variety of needs.
"Dearborn County is one of the fastest-growing counties in Indiana," Mr. Thomas said. "We didn't have the equipment and the facilities to handle all the students who wanted to enroll -- that's when we saw the potential there."
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