Page program applications available
INDIANAPOLIS — Applications are open for 2024 Indiana Senate Page Program. Students in grades six through 12 will have the opportunity to tour Indiana’s Statehouse, listen to debates, help staff with age-appropriate tasks and meet their state senator through the full-day program.
The program will begin in January and run through February, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays during the legislative session. Pages will begin at 8:30 a.m. and are dismissed at 3:30 p.m. and groups will serve together on Wednesdays.
Participating in the program is considered an excused absence from school.
For more information and to apply, visit IndianaSenateRepublicans.com/Page-Program.
Ivy Tech wins success award
FORT WAYNE — Ivy Tech Community College and Marian University have been named the winners of the 2023 Stan Jones Student Success Award as recognition for the institutions’ promising student success practices. Both institutions were honored Dec. 7 at the 2023 Student Advocates Conference, an annual conference hosted by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.
The theme of the conference, “Now What? A Roadmap to Programmatic Changes for Student Success,” focused on the recent historic changes to Indiana’s higher education programs. Led by commission staff and partners, attendees will hear about initiatives such as 21st Century Scholars automatic enrollment, Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the Indiana College Core expansion, the My College Core tool, Career and Technical Education (CTE), and programs impacting military and adult learners.
In addition to these sessions, Gov. Eric J. Holcomb and Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education Chris Lowery engaged in a fireside chat about student success and Indiana’s higher education landscape around the shared items in the Commission’s legislative priorities and the Governor’s Next Level Agenda.
The Stan Jones Student Success Award is named after the late Stan Jones, founder and former president of Complete College America and former Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education. The award was created in 2017 and recognizes university campuses with promising practices that support student success initiatives on their campus and beyond.
Ivy Tech was honored for its Ivy+ Textbooks program, a digital-first, equitable access program in which students are charged a flat per-credit-hour fee for any required course materials. The program has saved students more than $34.2 million in textbook and courseware costs. Ivy+ Textbooks is an exemplary, interdepartmental student success model that provides students with the opportunity to pursue their education with less burden of the cost of textbooks and materials.
“Ivy Tech is dedicated to providing students with an excellent education at an affordable price, and Ivy+ Textbooks is a prime example of how we’re innovating to respond to the needs of today’s students,” said Dr. Sue Ellspermann, president, Ivy Tech Community College. “When students have first-day access to high quality course materials at an affordable and predictable price, they’re able to focus their energy on what matters most: learning.”
Ivy Tech Fort Wayne to upgrade
INDIANAPOLIS – The Ivy Tech Community College State Board of Trustees have approved a major capital improvement project at Ivy Tech Fort Wayne, the statewide system’s second largest campus serving more than 19,000 students from Adams, Allen, Dekalb, Huntington, Kosciusko, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wabash, Wells, and Whitley counties. The board voted to issue up to $60 million in bonds to finance major renovations and improvements that will enable the Fort Wayne campus to provide state-of-the-art facilities that will train the region’s current and future workforce in a variety of professions, notably in nursing and health sciences.
The Fort Wayne project includes the construction of a new, 50,000 square-foot nursing and health sciences facility, which will help respond to the region’s workforce needs by providing a hospital-like environment for students pursuing careers in healthcare. The facility will allow Ivy Tech Fort Wayne to increase enrollment in the Schools of Health Sciences and Nursing by at least 7 percent and increase completions of high-quality healthcare certificates, credentials and degrees by 20 percent after renovations are complete. The campus currently serves 342 Associate Degree of Nursing students and 57 Practical Nursing students.
The project will also include the renovation and modernization of the Coliseum Campus, with a focus on increasing instructional lab space and reducing overall square footage and providing operational savings of more than $600k.
