Ivy Tech Community College — Columbus will add the Johnson and Shelby counties to its service area next year.
The Columbus campus is currently assigned to serve residents of four counties, Bartholomew, Decatur, Jackson and Jennings. The Johnson and Shelby counties are currently part of Ivy Tech’s Central Indiana service area.
Ivy Tech Chancellor Steven Combs said that the college is working "to make that transition as smooth as possible to add the two counties to the Columbus campus’ service area.
“I think we’re actually kind of ahead of schedule," he said. "We’re supposed to actually begin to absorb them July 1, but we’ve already started to do work in those counties."
Mark Schneider, director of K-14 initiatives at Ivy Tech, has been "really engaged" with a few of the high schools in the two counties, Combs said.
Jackie Fischer, vice chancellor of academic affairs, has been involved in starting a new Associate Accelerated Program in Shelby County.
Ivy Tech Community College – Columbus will need to find two individuals from Shelby and Johnson counties to serve as trustees on the local board. Combs said this will probably be a topic of discussion at the board’s February meeting.
When asked if the addition of the two counties would help enrollment numbers, communications coordinator Chris Schilling said the service area reorganization is an effort to provide more support for Ivy Tech’s Franklin site, and the change will most likely boost enrollment.
He added, however, that since the counties won’t be added to the Columbus service area until July 2021, the change probably won’t affect enrollment until spring of 2022.
"We may, however, see some marginal gains next fall as we begin some support measures with our enrollment team early next year," he said.
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Ivy Tech — Columbus’s campus board of trustees will likely discuss adding trustees from the Johnson and Shelby counties at a February meeting. These counties will be added to the Columbus service area in July 2021.
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