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Several changes in store for Ivy Tech Greencastle campus
A new region, future expansion and an altered hierarchy lie ahead for the Greencastle campus of Ivy Tech Community College.
"We're going though reorganization statewide," Ivy Tech Central Indiana Chancellor Kathleen Lee told the Banner Graphic in a recent interview, "and we are very excited to be adding Putnam County as a whole to the Central Region as well as partnering with Hendricks County."
Putnam and Johnson counties will become part of the Central Region under the Ivy Tech reorganization, with the Greencastle campus leaving the Terre Haute/Wabash Valley Region.
From a Greencastle Ivy Tech student standpoint, there shouldn't be any noticeable change when the reorganization commences with the next academic year, Chancellor Lee pointed out.
"It's a better natural flow," she said. "The exciting part is we're continuing to grow and expand this campus as we continue with our plans."
Ivy Tech President Thomas K. Snyder also said the "most interesting change" is the alignment of the local campus with Indianapolis.
"We've been listening to the community," Snyder said. "It makes much more sense to be aligned with Indianapolis. This is a great step forward.
"It makes a good fit," he reasoned, "because you're about 20 miles from the Plainfield exit (of Interstate 70) and 40 miles from Terre Haute."
One aspect Snyder pointed out was that while the Area 30 Career Center in Greencastle has a thriving culinary arts program -- which actually cooked and served the meal for the Greencastle/Putnam County Development Center's annual luncheon meeting for which Snyder was the guest speaker -- the Terre Haute campus of Ivy Tech does not.
At Indianapolis, however, Ivy Tech operates the largest culinary school in the country, he said of the facility in the old Stauffer's Inn. Some 1,000 students are attending classes there after a $50 million renovation to the 13-floor facility.
Hendricks County students will also benefit by the new partnership, Ivy Tech officials stressed.
"We have things here in Greencastle that they don't have in Avon," Lee said, comparing the two Ivy Tech locations.
In Avon, Ivy Tech utilizes an old strip mall for classroom space, while Greencastle is a fully functioning campus with a library and counselors also available to students.
"The flow is natural this way (from Avon to Greencastle)," Lee said. "Avon doesn't always want to drive downtown (to the Indianapolis campus)."
Meanwhile, the Greencastle campus could be growing as early as 2016, Ivy Tech Senior Vice President Jeffrey Terp told the Banner Graphic.
"The dream there originally was for it to be a bigger campus," Terp said of the 32,000-square-foot facility at 915 S. Zinc Mill Rd. that was dedicated Nov. 5, 2009.
Funding for a Greencastle campus expansion is expected to come in the fiscal year 2015 budget, he said.
In the most recent funding cycle, only the Muncie, Kokomo, Col-umbus and Lafayette Ivy Tech campuses were ahead of Greencastle on the list, leading Terp to believe the local campus will likely receive funding next year.
"There is room at Rokicki Park to expand," President Snyder noted, alluding to the name of the site on which Ivy Tech sits, south of Veterans Memorial Highway (State Road 240).
The addition of a "west side campus" president will help coordinate the Greencastle/Avon outreach in the future, Lee said.
That person will be responsible for "being the face of Ivy Tech" with the local communities, she added.