Published: May 10, 2007 10:05 pm         

Ivy Tech building $8 million facility

Legislature approves money for Greencastle campus

Ivy Tech Community College-Wabash Valley Region will benefit from $8 million in state funding to build a new facility for its Greencastle campus.

The Indiana Legislature approved bonding authority to build the facility during its recently concluded session.

“We’re just thrilled to death,” said Jeff Pittman, chancellor of Ivy Tech-Wabash Valley Region. Greencastle is part of the Wabash Valley Region.

Ivy Tech has run out of space in its leased facility, the former IBM building in Greencastle, he said. The city has donated 30 acres on which to erect the new building.

Planning efforts involving an architect and construction manager will resume next week on the proposed 40,000-square-foot, two-story building. The Legislature previously approved planning money.

Ivy Tech also will conduct a capital campaign to raise between $1.2 million to $1.5 million, both for construction and equipment, Pittman said.

Groundbreaking could begin as early as spring of 2008, with construction taking about 18 months, he said. He described that timeline as a conservative estimate.

The Greencastle campus has about 500 students, but enrollment is expected to grow significantly with a new facility, Pittman said.

The new, two-year state budget approved by the Legislature provides Ivy Tech Community College statewide with a 6.4 percent increase in operating funds this year and a 6 percent increase next year.

In addition, the Legislature provided Ivy Tech $163 million in capital cash and/or bonding authority for 10 different projects to expand current facilities and build new facilities around the state, including the Greencastle facility.

“We are pleased that the General Assembly recognized our need for new and improved classroom and laboratory facilities,” President Gerald I. Lamkin said in a news release.

In the operating budget, full funding of the enrollment change formula was critical for Ivy Tech. Between 1998-99 and 2005-06, Ivy Tech’s full-time equivalent enrollment has grown by 81 percent.

Additional state funding through the enrollment change formula will allow Ivy Tech to add new full-time faculty and other staff necessary to serve the growing number of students.

The added funding for enrollment growth “is critical to us and will be helpful” in hiring more full-time faculty and developing new programs in the Wabash Valley Region, Pittman said.

Statewide, Ivy Tech also is proposing to raise student fees 3.9 percent each of the next two years.

For a full-time student enrolled in 15 credit hours per semester, the current 2006-07 student fee rate is $87.75 per credit hour with a $40 per semester technology fee.

Proposed rates are $91.30 per credit hour and a $40 per semester technology fee for the 2007-08 academic year and $95 per credit hour and a $40 per semester technology fee for the 2008-09 academic year.

The cost for full-time students will increase by $53.25 per semester in 2007-08 and by $55.50 per semester in 2008-09.

The increased revenue will go toward hiring additional full-time faculty, increased health insurance costs, improved information technology, implementing new academic programs, faculty and staff wage increases, utility costs and costs associated with the opening of new facilities.

Sue Loughlin can be reached at (812) 231-4235 or sue.loughlin@tribstar.com.