As a Department Chair, I am tasked with many responsibilities. One of the larges ones is making sure that we are offering programs that are meeting the needs of the student, college, and community.

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One way I do that is by having advisory board meetings twice per year. The advisory board is made up of individuals from industry who are interested in our students and mission and wish to give input. I have attached the meeting minutes from our Fall, 2017 meeting to show some of the topics that were covered. Part of participation with the advisory board is to keep members up to date with things that are applicable to the industry. To the left I share an email that I forwarded to my advisory board members and one of their responses.

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Another way to be connected to the community is to work on special projects. One such project that recently completed was a Department of Workforce Development project for the DWD Region 9 on what types of IT needs did companies have? Region 9 includes 10 counties in south-eastern Indiana, including Bartholomew County, which is the home to the Columbus campus. I have attached the findings document, and you can see on page 76 that I was a member of this team.  It was a very interesting experience. The next step in the process is to identify gaps and to move forward to ensure we are offering the proper programs.

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Ivy Tech Columbus is becoming recognized as a place to find excellent employees. I have attached two email messages from the community wanting our students in either a full-time position or an internship/contract position. One is a small business owner who has had several of our students and the other is a local government IT director.

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