'The Hub' with Michael Allen sponsored by Manpower Richmond

Ep. 17 | Ivy Tech's Chad Bolser: From Paperboy to Chancellor – 'A Journey in Education & Innovation' with host, Michael Allen

• Kevin Shook • Episode 17

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What if your first job as a paperboy could shape your future leadership skills? Join us for an engaging conversation with Chad Bolser, Chancellor of Ivy Tech Community College of Richmond, as he reminisces about his early years delivering newspapers in Clinton, Illinois. Chad shares the life lessons in hard work, responsibility, and financial savvy that he gained from those early mornings, offering a heartwarming glimpse into the roots of his work ethic and leadership style.

Step into the world of high school basketball with Chad as he recounts his transformative coaching career at Richmond High School. From the ups and downs of building a successful team to mentoring standout players like Dominique James, Chad provides inspiring insights into leadership, teamwork, and personal growth. We also delve into his professional certifications in Simplex Creative Problem Solving and ProSci Change Management, exploring how these methodologies have influenced his approach to organizational leadership and communication.

Look ahead to the future of education and technology as Chad discusses the role of AI and modern communication methods in academic institutions. Hear about his enlightening trip to Switzerland, where he studied global educational reforms and their potential impact on local systems. Discover Ivy Tech's innovative work-based learning programs, successful enrollment initiatives, and the exciting launch of a high-tech healthcare floor. This episode is packed with valuable insights and forward-thinking ideas that underscore Ivy Tech's commitment to cutting-edge education and community engagement.

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Speaker 1:

Michael Allen from Manpower. We are a national brand, yet locally owned franchise. We are familiar with the challenges businesses face. It's tough recruiting and retaining qualified employees. That's why working with Manpower is a smart, cost-effective solution. Our entire focus is talent acquisition. We'll manage your hiring and training and provide ongoing, customized support. Since 1966, we have been your community-invested partner, uniquely positioned to help eliminate the hassles and save you time and money. Let us help contact Manpower today. Hello and welcome to the Hub powered by Manpower of Richmond, with offices in Richmond, portland and Newcastle. I am your host, michael Allen, and here on the Hub we interview local businesses, community partners and very special guests. And interview local businesses, community partners and very special guests, and our mission is to share and spotlight unique and untold stories of companies, organizations and people who are making a difference in our community. So today's guest is Chad Bolzer. He's the chancellor of Ivy Tech Community College. Uh, in the campus, and we talked about this before we started recording and I didn't know whether to call you, like Chancellor Bolzer, dr Bolzer.

Speaker 2:

Chad, chad would be fine. Let's not break that up All right?

Speaker 1:

Well, hey, welcome to the hub today. Thank you so much for joining. When I looked over your bio, it occurred to me that we've really kind of known each other a pretty long time A mix of socially, professionally. However, we really haven't sat down and had super real long, intimate conversations, so I was pretty excited about getting to do that with you today.

Speaker 1:

And, uh, it was I believe it was kind of during golf league, uh, that you and I are both in. Uh, you mentioned a working trip that you'd recently uh been on to, uh, zurich, yeah, switzerland, right, and um, you're excited about the trip and you kind of came up about maybe coming like today and talking about it, and so we're definitely going to get to that point. But before we do that, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about just some things about you personally. And before we even get to that, I want to start with. Our tradition here is we ask everybody about their very first job.

Speaker 1:

Yeah so can you tell me about that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I was a paper. I did a paper out back in Clinton, Illinois. That was the first official job. I think I had certainly had jobs before that. But yeah, the paper route for the Pantograph, which was the area newspaper out of normal Illinois, and we did that every day before school, seven days a week and did that for about three years and honestly it was a great experience. I'm not sure my parents would say it was a great experience because I think they had to motivate us because it was an early morning, you got up early and it had to be out on the doorsteps by 6. But we learned a lot of stuff there and I know that Sunday editions were a lot bigger back then and that was a struggle and collecting, going around door to door and collecting with those tickets, that kind of shows how old and how long.

Speaker 1:

That was, but I remember that, yeah, it was a great job.

Speaker 2:

It was a great job because not that we made a ton of money from it, but that aligns with the first savings account we took place, where we kept track of that and kept track of our money and how much we were being paid. I think that was all good experience, learning how to work. So when you said, we did your brother, help you.

Speaker 2:

So Clint and I had Clint, two years younger, some folks. He's been around and he played, graduated from Richmond High School but has also been around the community in a professional standpoint. He's now in St Louis but he was, you know, part with. We split up the area and it was about a eight block area. We did it on our bikes and it was was, uh was quite a deal. We would have a you know a little bit of competition in the morning who could get it done the fastest. But there was that quality versus uh, you know, uh time, uh who could get them on the, because if you didn't get them on the porch in the right area there were several people that would oh yeah, there's a phone call.

Speaker 1:

Oh, there's no doubt about that. So was it the traditional the big bag? Oh, yeah, yeah, the big, yeah that bag.

Speaker 2:

I, that bag probably was the first thing in my life that I ever threw away um with great, uh anticipation, because you can only do it was. It's hard, it's getting up early and that's where sort of stuff is. Is was fun and you know and work and you learn to do that. But sundays, that bag. There's nothing quite like that experience and you know that. You did it all year long, so you know that rainy days or cold days or whatever were just as uh, just as much part of the process as good days did you have to roll the papers?

Speaker 1:

oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah, before before you went out. Yeah, they came to your house. Yeah, big stack of, big stack of papers yeah they would drop, they would drop those off.

Speaker 2:

I and look, I I think about 4, 4, 30 in the morning, and then we had we, we had to have them out on on doorsteps by six wow, yeah, do you remember, like, how many you guys had to deliver?

Speaker 1:

I mean, I don't remember the exact number.

Speaker 2:

but if you, if you and I, were to drive to Clinton Illinois, I would be able to tell you exactly the paper out and I promise you I'd be able to tell you the homes that were the most difficult to get their tickets paid.

Speaker 1:

Well, I like that story about the papers Cause I mean that was kind of a. I like that story about the papers because I mean that was kind of a traditional, kind of a young person's job. I mean I haven't had anybody talk about paper delivery. A lot of it is like fast food which is a lot of us. I don't know if you ever did fast food.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, dairy Queen, I can still put the swirl on a ice cream cone if you'd like to.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, I think that's really cool. Thanks for sharing that uh the uh. So, going on past that, tell us a little bit about it. You touched on it, but where you grew up, where you went to school?

Speaker 2:

yeah.

Speaker 1:

Clinton, illinois is a yeah.

Speaker 2:

Central Illinois. My dad was a school teacher, uh, and then a school administrator, um, and and did that his entire, uh professional career. Um, we grew up, um, our myself and the family and mom and two brothers uh, we were in Clinton. Clinton is exactly in the middle of Central Illinois. If you were to bisect places that people do know Normal and Bloomington, normal, decatur, springfield and Champaign, if you took a line, it's actually right in the center of it. And what most people would remember about or know about Clinton, illinois, is that it had a nuke. It still has a working nuclear power plant. So the jokes about the Simpsons and all of that stuff a small town of about 10,000 folks with a nuclear power plant and a really cool man-made lake, to cool, the power plant was what we lived in, lived there and so grew up there, graduated high school from there.

Speaker 2:

My brothers both were in school when my dad had made a career decision that he wanted to expand out of the school district the only school district he had worked in and he applied at three places Columbus, indiana. There was another place in Illinois, I think, sparta, illinois and Richmond, indiana, and at that time I had just graduated high school, and so then. So we moved over here and my brother both my brothers graduated from Richmond High School. We were heavily into basketball and athletics and so I went on, went to school in Missouri, lindenwood College, played there and graduated from there.

Speaker 2:

And Clint eventually played here at Richmond and then followed me down there and was a part of that, played there as well. He's a lot better player than I was. That was a quick exit for me. Once they recruited my brother and then I, you know, after I had bounced around from small college basketball programs for about four years and then or six years, sorry then uh came here, uh, in 1998, 1998, to be the head boys basketball coach and teacher at richmond high school the uh when you go to clinton, illinois, is that, would you like to take 70 and yeah?

Speaker 2:

well, yeah, 70, 70 to 74 and then at 74 it um at the even less, uh, larger. No, it's a smaller town, farmer city. Uh, you, would you jump off of there and you go, uh, you go in on, uh, I believe it's, route 10. Yeah, so it's, it's truly a farm community. It was agriculture all the way around the pretty small town based solely on that industry.

Speaker 1:

Well, for about three, three and a half years I would travel to Illinois quite a bit because my oldest son, sam he, went to college in Illinois.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, greenville College, yeah, it's Greenville University now but I don't know how far that was from where yeah, so if you go on 70 and so that would be, um, when we went from richmond to st louis, we would go by greenville college and, in fact, lindenwood college where uh was. Uh went to school. We played at greenville, okay, um, so been on that campus many times, and both as a player and a coach. Okay, all right, very familiar cool, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And then I actually my youngest son lives in crystal Greenville, so been on that campus many times and both as a player and a coach, very familiar. And then actually my youngest son lives in Crystal Lake, illinois.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, yeah, I had several friends that I went to college with from Crystal Lake. In fact, my first recruiting trip as an assistant basketball coach for Lindenwood because I got hired right after I graduated my first recruiting trip was to Crystal Lake. I think it was Central at the time, crystal Lake South, and they had a junior college work out there, and so I went up and watched a bunch of players and spent a day and a half up there.

Speaker 1:

It's a nice area, very nice area. Yeah, did you go to Lindenwood because of basketball, basketball. Yeah, were you recruited. I mean, how did that opportunity come up?

Speaker 2:

I actually was a better football player than I was a basketball player, I don't, so I was going to. I had full intentions of going to DePaul over in Greencastle, indiana, all right, and I would have been an excellent clipboard holder and wore a baseball cap for four years, but I love football and love playing it. It was a great opportunity. I played in an all-star game in basketball in my summer and was offered a scholarship. Lindenwood was an NAIA school, so they were able to offer athletic scholarships and I was offered a scholarship. Lindenwood was an NAIA school, so they were able to offer athletic scholarships and I was offered an athletic scholarship, and it was one of those situations where it was essentially I went to school on a full scholarship for four years and that was too. I loved DePaul and loved the thought about playing for Coach Marissus and had a real fondness for that. But free was free.

Speaker 1:

So you said, your brother followed you there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah two years later we recruited Clint and I was still playing at the time and not very well. To be honest with you, I was a typical high school basketball player. It wasn't bad, but not good enough, and the better we got, the less chance it was that I was good enough to play. And so Clint came down and he was excellent. I mean, he's a really good player. He was a good player here at Richmond. He was a really good college player, all-region kind of player and that sort of allowed me to take my exit and start the coaching track that I would eventually be on for a few years. Did you guys get to play a little bit together when you were there? Yeah, a little bit, a little bit, but mostly the way I would describe it is him playing and me watching. Yeah, it was. As I. I don't have any problem admitting the stair step of the hierarchy of playing.

Speaker 1:

You came to Richmond to work for Richmond Community Schools in 98. Yeah, I'm assuming that was because of the connection that you made being here when you moved here. I mean you came here, but then you went off to college, but you did have a Richmond connection.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I spent my summers here and I actually worked as a groundskeeper on what used to be the grounds crew for Richmond Community Schools in the summers and there were some great folks there who I learned to pour concrete and finish concrete there and do a lot of the maintenance work. That was a part of that. It was a great program, met a lot of folks in there and really did feel like Richmond was home. I applied honestly, this is the truth. I was an assistant coach for Milliken University and we had a nice program and it was a good program at the time. But I was 28 years old.

Speaker 2:

Richmond High School has had a long-standing tradition of pretty experienced coaches coming in. Not many 28-year-olds get hired. There were some tough times for you know, six or seven years after Coach Griff had retired, and so I think there were some wanting a new face, kind of thing, and so I so, um, I always tell people that I, uh I eventually was the athletic director. I never hired myself. You know like I it was. It was, you know, and Ray Wolpe, who is still the principal. There was the AD and and I think you know I think things worked out pretty well, uh, but I came here, uh, as as probably too young for the position, frankly, um but uh, 10 years, 10 years, a pretty good basketball and I think we turned things around and set the stage for what I think were really good years after that.

Speaker 1:

I don't trying to kind of think of where I would have been, you know, when you were coaching. I remember going to the games a lot when I was during, like the woody austin and chad austin years but I kind of lost connection because I didn't go to richmond high school so I didn't have this natural uh connection to going to games and such. But I just don't remember, I don't. I know that during that time you guys were able to get an NCC championship again after a pretty long drought.

Speaker 1:

I don't remember the players who was kind of, when you look back, who was kind of the really talented some of the really talented players that you had during your tenure.

Speaker 2:

Well, the one that everyone will remember in Richmond that had any association was Dominique James. Dominique played for us for four years and ultimately went on to Marquette and he was runner-up to Mr Basketball and those were really really good basketball teams.

Speaker 2:

You know, dominique had the unfortunate and our team had the unfortunate luck, as it is and that happens to teams. We were in the same section with Muncie Central that ended up going to the state championship two years, so they beat us three years in a row in the championship, so those were a part of it. That's the group that probably most people would remember from my time. We did win the conference his freshman year, which was the first group that had really changed the dynamic of the program where we went from. There were not a lot of wins over a four or five-year period and then my first year, we really struggled and only had five wins that first year, but that group was a freshman and that had Marcus Jewett and Tyler Stewart, chris Yant, jermaine Crumby, donald Crawley those folks People probably would remember in terms of that crew. They were a really solid basketball team and um, um and won the league. Uh, for the first time in 2002 had won for the first time. It's 88.

Speaker 1:

It's ironic you mentioned on it, cause I was talking about him not long ago. I just didn't associate the time that you were coaching. And I. The question came up like what's he doing today? Do you know? Yeah, yeah, do you know what's going on with him?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so he is married with a family. He played overseas for about a decade. Never was able to crack into the NBA. You know he was not, was still is about 5'10" very small, unbelievable athlete. He got caught up in being a point guard when the transition of there were longer guards in the NBA and really, from a shooting perspective, that was the beginning of the transition about, you know, to the extra emphasis on the three-point line. He is now with his family, three kids. They live in Tennessee.

Speaker 2:

His wife is or was played at Kentucky and Indiana State was an excellent point guard. He would never admit that. She might have been better than him, but she's an unbelievably talented person and so they have put together a business. In fact they just broke ground. They started a training business outside of their house, on a half court kind of in their backyard sort of thing started training folks, created he is a very faith-based young man, he and his family a very strong Christian ministry and as a part of that ministry they have given their talents to training folks and putting people together. They have a daughter, jensey, who's going to be an excellent player. She's in third grade and they have a thriving business. In fact, they just broke ground on a facility that they're building on their property.

Speaker 2:

That's a great story? Yeah, it really is. And, as I tell people, he was an unbelievable basketball player and I mean he got the absolute, very best out of there. He got it. You know, he had a great experience, got a degree, had a great career. But what he's done now since that time his ability to, one, be an entrepreneur, two, to have a creative ministry and, three, to touch doing what he loves to do, to touch the amount of kids that he does it's amazing.

Speaker 2:

Uh and and. To hear him speak about that journey is absolutely it's one of the most inspiring things. I've always thought he was a uh, a great person, person, um, since I've known him in the in middle school, what he is as a man uh is is inspiring.

Speaker 1:

That's great well, I'm sure you uh probably wouldn't take any credit, but I'm sure this four years that you spent with him in high school were uh help, was a compliment to him and an encouragement to him. So I just love hearing about that. So, going through your bio and your different jobs that you did, there was one thing that I saw you talked about these additional designations, and so you're a certified coach, trainer and facilitator of simplex creative problem solving yeah uh, it's a certified pro side change management.

Speaker 1:

So I was curious about that and I went to look up this pro side and I watched this video and I got to tell you I got lost. I didn't really understand it. So I was just curious to ask you a little bit about that, because I just didn't, so it lost me.

Speaker 2:

So the transition, I think, is important. I was the chancellor here on the Richmond campus and I had been at the campus for a couple of years. We made a transition from campus president to chancellor in the summer of 2019. We had a couple of good years. I was I transitioned into the vice president of operations for the state and the the part of what we did was we worked directly with the chancellors around the state to you know who were running campuses, and so it became really important to us that we put we were able to go in and work with folks and have tools sort of in the tool belt to be able to work through whether it was coaching of personnel or whether it was just project planning or change management or creative problem solving. And so we went through and Simplex. Creative problem solving is something President Elsberman brought to Ivy Tech and has that and it's a really great sort of way to get large groups of folks to focus in. It's a lot of what strategic planning. We write our strategic planning process through that.

Speaker 2:

The change management is really important when you have large groups of folks who are going to go through rapid amount of change and so their certification process and that gives you. It's a lot of logical steps. So, for instance, if you said, hey, we have 500 employees and we're going to go through a huge change in an industrial framework, maybe it's a different product or if it's a different sector that you're going to get into, change can create some issues workforce issues, management issues, production issues, all kinds of things like that. So there are some natural steps and what this crew has done with ProSci and I would agree with you it's a pretty technical sort of approach to it, but what it does is it gives some really specific items, research-based items, to a lot of practicality.

Speaker 2:

So, in other words, if you're going to make a big change in the organization, the single most important part of that initial part of that is initial communication. Don't implement a change and expect everybody to come and be on board with it if you let them know after the change has already been taken place. So when they start to notice what's going on, now that seems like a pretty like. Well, of course, chad, that doesn't need. You don't need any certification to figure out that. That's the thing. But there are things and ways to go about that that lead to success in large organizations. So when we went through that training. What we were basically saying is if you're going through a change, we can help you go through that and we can give you practical tools to do that.

Speaker 1:

Well, really it doesn't surprise me on the communication part, because sometimes we've had several of our recruiters out of our office. Over the years have had opportunities to move on to some local companies in HR roles.

Speaker 1:

It's a natural progression of one, that I'm always been uh very happy for them that they were making a uh, a professional, progressive step. And I've, uh, most of the time I try to meet with some of those folks and they leave and you know, try to get some feedback about time working with me and whatever, and and I've had a few times say, hey, you know really like working for you and and your company and. But I just asked for, hey, can you give me a little bit of help with how I can, I can improve? And I'd say that communication is a as a topic and sometimes I think you know I've I've done a good job it, but I'm finding out that there's always room for improvement in that area and I assume that maybe you would maybe agree with that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think the principle of probably you know, as you learn to say whatever message that is, to do it until you know, you say it and you keep saying it, and when you get sick of saying it, say it again, right, you know?

Speaker 2:

I mean this idea that that individuals in your organization are going to pick up on it in the same way that any of us are going to do that, that every individual is critical in that. And then I think what's I think the deal with communication today is? There's so many channels to communicate and sometimes that becomes super annoying, right? Like you know, we talked about before we got on here that, without a doubt, our phones, even though they're silenced and on, do not disturb, they are ringing, even though we're not going to answer them, you know, and the messaging coming on. But we live in a world where our workforce has to have constant communication and they have to have it in a variety of ways, and sometimes that's a direct messaging, but sometimes it's subtle messaging and, yeah, so I think that there's no question that you know, we always are looking to improve that sort of process and I think we're challenged with it every day. How does that?

Speaker 1:

How does text messaging affect all that?

Speaker 1:

because I've got to tell you, when we communicate and this is I'm not speaking this as a negative or positive, but we get a higher level response from job seekers through text messaging that's not not phone calls and uh, and some sometimes with our, our business in the, in the software that we have, the operator company, the text messaging part of our operations software is good in that if I send you a text it puts a copy of that text on their employee record. So if somebody goes, if you were to call in, I could go and say, oh yeah, so-and-so, sent a text to this person, that's why they're to this person, that's why they're calling in or that's why they're messaging back and so. So it's nice to have that documentation, but you just don't get some of the the interaction with people and sometimes I I just don't know. I mean it's, it's a tool that we need to use and are using more and more every day, but I just don't know where it's going.

Speaker 2:

Well, I suspect that my guess is that the next transition for all of this is going to be how we can more efficiently use artificial intelligence in the messaging world. I think you're seeing that product line coming out. I think that that's a very similar operation for you. You as we do the amount of communication to access different educational opportunities, those things. We're going to be trying to be more efficient, more efficient, more efficient, because that's ultimately what we talk about is that text messaging is good.

Speaker 2:

Language is super important to this. If you talk to folks, my two daughters will say the following sentence I talked to fill in the blank, which translate, that is, I have text messaged them, I have sent them a message on Instagram or something to that name. Talking is not what we would consider talking, and so does that mean the communication is any worse or it's not good? You know, it's just the method that is predominant, and I think, as we as organizations and institutions, we have to adjust to that, and I suspect the next, the next piece of that and it's already in there, right there. You know, when you go to a website and they say, hey, do you have any questions? You know you have to ask 12 questions before you actually get to a human being. Most of that is generated through the. You know hundreds of thousands of responses that take place.

Speaker 1:

At the Richmond campus. When Ivy Tech wants to communicate with students, how are you doing? I mean, how is Ivy Tech communicating with students? And how are educators communicating? Are they using text messaging, or are they still doing? Are they sending emails? How's that? How's all that?

Speaker 2:

I think. I think the answer would be in as as many ways as you can possibly have. I think if we know one thing about that is if you're going to, you know if you're going to depend upon one way to message. Email was so predominant in our messaging system just probably pre-COVID, for certain, it was predominantly the messaging. I think we've moved into texting, we've moved into that. But I think the communication cycle, whether it is outsourcing, you know, to a call center for some things through the website itself for some things, direct messaging I think we're probably, as most educational institutions, a little bit behind on how to engage with them from the platform standpoint. You know like an Instagram, but, um, you know like an like an instagram, like that, but you know a tiktok, that, that sort of thing.

Speaker 1:

That's more messaging as in advertising at this point, not direct like hey, come and apply you know where, where we'd say that I said no if you had, if, if ivy tech had some type of uh um, communication platform that you use kind of universally to communicate. If I have a class I'm teaching, how do I communicate with my class if I want to get them information?

Speaker 2:

Now that goes through our learning management system. So that part of it for the classes itself and that so. So if I'm a, let's say, I'm an instructor and I've got a class and I want to, I need to cancel class. I can, I can get on there because most things are submitted through that learning management system and and and that's where the course builds are. Even if it's, even if it's a face-to-face course, the, you know, everything is based upon that part of it and that's no different than K-12 environment. So if you, you know, power school would be something that's a learning management system, same thing that takes place, you know, it's just, it's something that happens and goes on consistently and it's way most educational institutions do that the last time that that I participated in a class was 34 years ago and I was finishing up my master's at ball state and uh, I, I don't think we had even email, uh, and probably not 1990 yeah.

Speaker 1:

And I don't even remember how things were communicated. I was a graduate assistant in the political science department at Ball. State. And if class was canceled, they'd send my grad ass play on words there over to the classroom and say, hey, Dr Bolzer's not, we're not having class today. Here's your assignment and pass it. Gave it to them and sent them on their way. Or worse, they'd make me show a video or a movie.

Speaker 1:

Well, we'd have to reel up a movie yeah sometimes you can never get it reeled properly and I was like losing my mind. But yeah, I mean, yeah, I just and and it's I still remember, like yesterday I remember in class or doing that. But technology I mean, I remember doing papers. It was on a mac word processor yeah so's just. It's just changed so much it's so hard to keep up with it all.

Speaker 2:

It is absolutely hard to keep up with it and I think the challenge from an educational standpoint is to ensure that you know it is a.

Speaker 2:

It is a divide and I think that for the education educational community, if you talk about artificial intelligence or you talk about some of the you know writing stuff that goes on, you know you can spend all your time trying to make sure that that you know you don't have somebody that just says write me a paper on you know political studies and you could do that Like you and I can get on our phones right now, get into a system and it'll write a five paragraph essay on whatever and you turn in.

Speaker 2:

You can spend as an organization an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out and ensure that you're not doing that right, like that's a critical component of not having that take place. But the reality is we are also challenged with ensuring that folks are doing that, having faculty and staff who can improve communications with folks who can improve the way they're doing their business to make sure they're more efficient in there. Nothing is ever going to replace the human-to-human contact that is necessary to provide education. However expanding that and using the technology to reach more and more folks is absolutely what we ought to be doing, and I think it does change fast and is and and it certainly is not in my level of expertise, but it's it's something that I think is an exciting time for the future of uh, of the educators and the education opportunities.

Speaker 1:

So we better get to it, let's talk about Switzerland. So tell me about your time there Is it, cemets, yeah.

Speaker 2:

CEMETS or CEMETS it's just an acronym.

Speaker 2:

I had to write the acronym the Center for Economics and Management of Educational Training Systems, so the CMETS is really what that is. What happened was, when I came back to campus, I got heavily involved in what is called the Rural Alliance Zone. It's a rural collaborative between career and tech educational system where they were transitioning those, or transporting those folks, to Muncie in order to access the career center. And the Muncie Career Center is great, but the schools were like we'd like to take, at least in some areas, take our own control of our own environment, and to do that, though, they had to change. They had to share students for lack of better terms, and that's a tough environment because you know you have to account for ADM and this and that and the others.

Speaker 2:

So, anyway, we got heavily involved because those career pathways they were developing would come through Ivy Tech in order to get those certifications. Healthcare was our primary focus initially, but we've expanded that along the way. That group of folks has been. The consulting group that they brought in is empower schools, and empower schools decided that they would like to go to this C-METS summer Institute, and it's it's a, it's an intensive program. And they said oh, by the way, it's in Zurich.

Speaker 1:

And.

Speaker 2:

I was like well, that sounds like a pretty good deal.

Speaker 1:

You know, that's not a bad bad deal.

Speaker 2:

I didn't realize that I would be going to class, but, like I, we went for a day and I got to see a little bit of it. But I uh. It's funny, on my phone my pictures stop about 48 hours in because the rest of the time was in class. It was not nearly as scenic as I thought it would be I.

Speaker 1:

I did try to look this up a little bit and did it start off with some online stuff you had to do and then you? There Is that how that was. Did I read that right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we did 15 hours prior to. So I think when we initially signed up, I don't think we all fully encompassed what it would be. We essentially took a college class, so it was 15 hours of online work. We did lots of meetings about this and really what they're trying to do is they bring groups of folks from all over the world. So when we were there, there were folks from Washington, the state of Washington in the United States, indiana but there were from Nepal, washington in the United States, indiana but there were from Nepal, from Serbia, from Cuba, from and I'm trying to think I think I'm missing one, but there are countries and there was another group prior to that that did also have some folks from Indiana, but they were, but it's a.

Speaker 2:

The educational system in Switzerland is seen as one of the top five in the world and they have some unique properties, and the University of Zurich has basically said, hey, we're going to not only are we going to study this on how our system works, we're going to help other countries with their educational reform.

Speaker 2:

And so what?

Speaker 2:

The how that connects to Indiana is Indiana, through what's called Indiana iLab, the Fairbanks Foundation is, and and then, ultimately, through the Indiana Department of Education, has made some adjustments to the high school program with these concepts in mind, and so we are not an educational system like Serbia, which has a lot of different issues.

Speaker 2:

But we are clearly different in our approach in the United States about educational, the way we go about secondary education, and that is the connection piece of why we went to explore more of this Now. Are we into? You know, the folks from Nepal, for instance, are trying to do national reform. So the Secretary of Education for Nepal was in the room and there were, you know, there were lots of folks, lots of government officials, who were trying to figure out ways to improve their educational system. We're obviously not in the reform business from Randolph County or from Wayne County in this area were that would help us do our small bit and leverage these new outcome or these new products from the IDOE and from iLab to enhance the student experience here and on the ground in these rural counties.

Speaker 1:

So after you came back from that, I I were you one of those pictures they have online yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I thought I might have saw it. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I was in the back there, yeah yeah, so I, I think I saw you, yeah, but it was. I think, wow, that was probably pretty cool to get to go to that, because it looked like a very diverse group of people and, like you mentioned, from government yeah, from different governments and all over the world. So that had to be a pretty cool experience. Uh, how did you guys deal with the language?

Speaker 2:

so yeah, so, with the exception of the other countries, spoke English, including and, so they, that's the default language that's spoken in the institute. There were times where that you know, they were certainly English wasn't used, but in the presentations and in all that, and there are, and many of the professors that that part of that and that's who instructed the courses, were professors and industry leaders and a lot of folks from from Zurich, um, and Switzerland, broader Switzerland, that understand this process, um, but that's who did that? They, they all spoke english and and, and, except for the, the cuban delegation had a translator so what's your?

Speaker 1:

so you went. Yeah, you invested quite a bit of time before you're, you know, 15 hours or whatever beforehand. So what's kind of the takeaway for you right now, at this point? That experience?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so one. I left that experience and was a huge believer. It is certainly a different system and it is not something that we would replicate here in its entirety, but I do think it answers this fundamental question, and this is applicable to the work that you do and it's applicable to the work we do at Ivy Tech. We get asked a lot by employers, or we have frustration by employers, that individuals don't know how to work. They may have technical skills, they may have certifications, they may have whatever, but we have this. We, along with finding folks to, to, to be employed, how to work doesn't seem to be as as prevalent, uh, of a skill base. Um, well, you know, and folks kind of talk sometimes with skills, uh, soft skills or professional skills or something like that but the reality is, I think working is something that has been pushed a little bit farther. So, for instance and I think this is, you know, it's a, it's a reality my, when we talk about the first job, my recollection of the first job happens and when I turn, I think, a fifth grader, fourth grader, fifth grader, that sort of area, I think we are less likely to get those, you know, during school, for folks to have jobs and that sort of thing. Those ages have been pushed a little bit farther up and a little bit older, and so teen you know numbers of teens that have been employed in part-time jobs and that sort of thing, and the reality is that continues to go down uh, in, in, uh in the United States and Indiana, and so what that does is does. Does it make any difference? That I learned when I was 16 years old to do a uh uh ice cream cone with a curl. You know the Dairy Queen curl on it? No, but here's what I learned is I had to be there on time, I had to work through the thing, I had to produce a quality product and I had to clean up when I was done and, and there was a certain amount of time that we had to do all of that, Um, had to do all of that. We learn those things by working and there's almost nothing that you can do to replace that. Now I would say I would suggest that when we talk about basketball, I think people through sports or band or different sort of activities. There's lots of ways that you can do it without actually being a job.

Speaker 2:

But what Switzerland did was they had in the 70s a really poorly rated school system, and what they essentially have done is, over the last 25 years, they have reformed their educational system to essentially embed work into the educational experience. And there are a few students, but there are very few, that go completely academic. And when we say academic, that means sit in the classroom, get a lecture, take a test, it's research-based, You're going to go on and go to the university. We have the same formula, but we kind of integrate a bunch of things in there and rarely do we do work. What they've done is said okay, with the exception of those folks that are going to go on a completely academic track.

Speaker 2:

There are vocational and professional training programs that are embedded in the course of their educational experience, and that is really the key thing.

Speaker 2:

It answers that fundamental question.

Speaker 2:

If you're going to have folks that do work really well, you've got to teach them to work, and the best way to do that is to actually work. And so they have a large percentage I think probably 85% of the students that go through the program and don't write that down in a pen, write that down in pencil because it's not exactly right but that they go through and they are embedded in internships and work-based learning consistently through their secondary experience, and that means from finance to service industry. When we think about internships here, lots of times we think in industry or you know, some sort of the hands-on automotive construction, that sort of thing. This is finance, where we met students that had been in banking for three years in the Swiss banking system. So you know they have an unbelievable story to tell when it comes to that. But that's embedded, it's a natural part of the educational system, and so what Indiana has done is try to, at least in part, begin the process of that sort of reform through work, mandatory work-based learning programs within the high school diploma.

Speaker 1:

Well, both of my boys they graduated 10-plus years ago out of high school and neither one of them really worked until after high school.

Speaker 1:

They were both super involved in different things, especially my youngest son, peter he, he tried everything when he was at centerville, he tried uh he was involved in all kinds of um activities uh, some sports, some the arts or whatever, and you know, I I liked that they were doing those things and I wasn't so much concerned about, you know, them having to go and work, uh, because they were being productive with their time in a positive way. But there was probably some like to your point they're not, they weren't working earlier in their age, uh and uh. So I that part makes some sense to me. Another thing that you mentioned about um being the hands-on aspect of it.

Speaker 1:

We recently had to purchase. We had a client that wanted us to put a certain type of timekeeping system at their site for our employees and it wasn't, was not a system that we had experience with, and so we bought, we bought these two units and had them installed and it works off a web-based. You go in and you work through this web-based program and it was really kind of cool. This company, latham, was actually the timekeeping company. We had virtual training with them and the training was really good. He would not do anything for us, he made us sit at the keyboard and and navigate every part of it, and I really appreciate that they were. That takes more time to do, because I've been another training where they're okay, you click here, you click there, you do this, but they, their approach to this teaching us, was making us do every click, every move and I was impressed with that training part of it because I felt like the the primary staff person that was going to be involved with it really learned it well from the beginning.

Speaker 1:

And so I really like that learning aspect that that company brought to the training part.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and what we know about our students are when they are in work-based learning environments and again, in a variety of situations, and again in a variety of situations, we talk about our kids. My daughter, Mallory, is an acting major and she is just in her third year in the CCM program down at the University of Cincinnati. But she did an internship. We didn't even describe it, I think, as an internship, but she worked at the theater and those experiences trained her to be on time and to do things and being in performances do that stuff and what we know is that if you want to develop those social-emotional learning skills, having those interactions is critical.

Speaker 2:

Those things are going to continue. The more human interaction, the more talking you have to do, the more personalities you deal with, the more you learn things like resilience and time management and all the professional skills that we desire. You cannot sit in a class and look at a PowerPoint and have somebody say you know. You cannot sit in a class and look at a PowerPoint and have somebody say, you know, here is what a good time management system is. No one pays attention to that. I've never met anyone that says, boy, I'd really like to do that.

Speaker 2:

You can't learn professional systems like that, professional skills, unless you're working, and I think that's the you know as I listen to the stuff that you do and your organization. I think we all know that right, like we inherently know that, and those experiences are critical, I think, for the educational purposes. We've always kind of sort of pushed that over to the well, those are the folks who are not going to go to college. I think the message from the system that we're in, or the Swiss system, is integrated into everything and you'll have a much better product. It'll take a while. It's not something you can just snap your fingers and make happen, but having those students in there, just you know your kids, my kids. The more they learn how to do that, the less we have to worry that they're going to have to learn it when they get their first job we see, we're exposed to these, uh, these concepts, these ideas of learning, and we really love them, but implementing them are very challenging.

Speaker 1:

I mean, how, how do you get it started? How do you get off the you know, get it going? Because it seems like that first step or two is always the hardest.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the most critical thing, I think, is in it starting small. For instance, if you think about the razz 32, the, the rural group up in randolph county, having spaces and places in which they can, that students can get real hands-on experience in healthcare opportunities or IT opportunities or in different areas and then create and look for work-based learning. You know, and lots of folks would say they're familiar with the term internship, or you know, and lots of folks would say they're familiar with the term internship, or you know, or a job shadowing or whatever. But a lot of times when that takes place, that's a really it's not as integrated as a work-based, a full-fledged work-based learning opportunity. And for companies that you know, like in Switzerland, they're all paid to do those. So when they're in high school they're making money. Now it's a low wage but they're making money and it's a part of the educational process. The retention in that over time is really good.

Speaker 2:

So I think the answer to your question is how do you do it?

Speaker 2:

You start small, right, you start small, you have sectors that you identify and you try to move forward, but most of all, you need to be able to create a picture for employers and industry.

Speaker 2:

That one they're leading the educational process, not educators.

Speaker 2:

And number two, the return on investment, is there's a little expenditure early and research the research that the University of Zurich says it takes about three years of investment in that and it flips from being an expense to a revenue producer because the employees that you have are more dedicated to your operation, they're more valuable and the training time goes way down. They're more valuable and the training time goes way down, and that ultimately you create the culture that you want to have in that experience, and so that's part of it is start out small, be successful and then study it and create the ROI for employers. When we put industry before educators, education, it turns out lots better. I think we have a wonderful healthcare and nursing staff. Our nursing program has grown by 30% in three years. We are being guided almost every day and helped by Reed Health in their efforts to have better trained employees. So when we look at the stuff we're doing at Ivy Tech, that's what we have to do and we have to convince other industries and sectors to continue to do that.

Speaker 1:

That kind of starts to wrap up. It does make me. You talked about the nursing. What are some of the current vocation trends that are out there right now? I mean healthcare. I don't see that slowing down anytime soon, but are there some other areas that people would find interesting to hear?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think the smart manufacturing is going to be critical for any group in this area. I think the biotech um, which we're going to be dipping our toes in in this area with the liberation labs and and some of the stuff that's going on there, we're starting to see where we've helped develop a training program. Uh, for that, that operation um, that that is a potential expanding marketplace and that could take an entire another episode to talk about the possibilities for that.

Speaker 2:

And then I think IT is really where we've got to look and, honestly, educational institutions that are really challenged by this, educational institutions that are really challenged by this. There's some basic entry-level IT opportunities that come about and we have excellent programming in that. But that area of our world smart manufacturing and technology embedded in manufacturing is, and technology embedded in manufacturing is moving at a very rapid pace but it is slow compared to IT. And just for the things that we talked about, the fact of the matter, you saw, purdue is doing a. They just announced a master's program in AI. I think that that and I don't think I can't remember if that was Purdue or Purdue Global.

Speaker 2:

My point is how we engage with this really big moving, you know, which is about two years old now. I think that's going to be huge. Cybersecurity is a huge area of emphasis, but that educational process is not traditional in any way, shape or form. You know this idea that you're going to go to high school graduate, you're going to spend four years in college. I mean that stuff's out the window. There's ways to get trained really quick in a variety of ways and we're getting up to speed, but we've got to continue to really press the gas pedal in order to keep up in that area.

Speaker 1:

How's the enrollment numbers?

Speaker 2:

I'm glad you asked that this is the best stuff that we can talk about this year well, not the current year, but 23- 24,. We've gotten all of our official numbers and our analytics and our metrics are in. We are at a five-year high in enrollment. We're just under 4,400 students, which is huge, a five-year high in enrollment. Our retention numbers are also there at longer than five years, but we'll go with a five to six year high and our completion numbers that we just got done, we just got loaded up last week, will also be the highest we've had. That will be about six or seven year high and six or seven years ago or maybe I guess it was eight years ago we were a part of another region. So as an independent campus it's the highest number we've had. So it's really really, really good.

Speaker 1:

So if I had a child who was graduating in the spring of 2025 and they were not, they just weren't really sure what they wanted to do and how, how do you, how do you, how can you communicate with, with my child in a way to kind of just explore with them maybe an area they might want to go into or should go into? I mean, I don't even know if you have enough staff and time to do it, but I mean, how can you explore with potential students that would come to Ivy Tech and trying to guide them into at least a starting point where they can kind of get a feel for what they should, how they should pursue some training or education?

Speaker 2:

It's a great question and I think what we have really done is blur the lines between high school and higher education. What I would tell you is, if you've, if you're in our five county service areas so Rush, wayne, fayette, union and Randolph, if you're in our five county service area we have about 2,300 what we call K-14 students. So they're in our dual credit program, so they're taking college credit courses within, embedded within their high school experience. So we have 2,300. That's with about 6,000 high school students in those five counties. So you know, that's a good, yeah, that's a really good number. And if you think about that, that most of those dual credits come in their third and fourth year of high school, that even the percentage grows really high.

Speaker 2:

Number one I would be really disappointed if in 10 of our 14 schools, we have embedded personnel that visit the school on a regular basis, that they talk with the students, they help guide them through, and what we're really trying to do is provide a credential for the students to have the opportunity to earn a credential of some sort. So, and that can be an Indiana College Corps, which is the equivalent of first year of college, or it can be, it could be a welding certificate or something in health care or variety, depending upon what school they're in and the career opportunity. But the but the idea that they haven't met with or been around someone from Ivy Tech, I would be really surprised, especially in those 10 schools Getting in and getting involved in that number one. There is a part of it that some of the classes that they're taking are hands-on enough that they're going to you know there may have an opportunity to do that as a career.

Speaker 2:

Lots of folks this past summer we had nearly 60 high school students come in and work on their CNA certification.

Speaker 2:

So those are 60 students that are from, you know, sophomore to seniors, free of charge, had an opportunity to earn a CNA and had really good passing rates on that. So about 85% of our students passed, which they get to go to work in healthcare. So our assumption is they have a healthcare track which we can help to facilitate through that and they have a connection out the campus. I think our high school work is really good. And then I think the final thing that I would say is, as we go through this, the number of opportunities that Ivy Tech, because we do such a good job statewide from a financial standpoint, and locally from a financial standpoint. From a financial standpoint, and locally from a financial standpoint. Every year for the last four years we've offered free summer to high school students. So any high school student that wants to take a college class on the Ivy Tech campus or on our Ivy Online or whatever, whatever modality can come in and take a course free of charge.

Speaker 2:

One summer course for the summer, free summer, which means if you want to take six now, we don't recommend that. But one or two courses, yeah, typically happen. You can do a free summer and our goal in that is one, accessibility, but two is that gap, filling the gaps for folks who are not quite at that credential piece. Our operation is critical that we get and I think the DOE Department of Education, I think the high schools, they're being measured more and more on the number of folks who get a completion out and more on the number of folks who get a completion out. It's economic development, it's talent retention and access. It's really important because it's something that we know lends itself to individuals continuing on with their training and education and that's a huge deal. But that's happening in so many schools in our area.

Speaker 1:

Do you know how many? I mean how successful was the, the free summer course or two this past summer? I mean how many, how many did it? Do you know?

Speaker 2:

That's uh. Um, well, let me just say this Um, I don't. I can't give you a raw number off top of my head I didn't do my homework. That way.

Speaker 1:

I think we plan on talking about that, but let me, it's interesting to me yeah, so so we did uh.

Speaker 2:

So the a year ago we did, we did the program um and the way we figured things up when you pay for and when it's free, it's somebody's paying right and we we take it out of some operational stuff that we do and and the state does as well, and, and so what we?

Speaker 2:

what we figured was that when we, if a campus any of the 19 campuses in the system increased by 25%, we would know that that was a. That was a pretty good threshold and it kicked into some other monies that were available along the way, and we did that. In about the first two weeks we had moved on Melissa Kircher-Smith is our director there and I think we probably were 30% higher than we were the previous year. The word is getting out, Credentials are becoming more important and, as that happens, access to that is really important, and we think that it's just one of the ways that we can do that I wasn't aware of that program and I think it's an excellent idea.

Speaker 1:

If someone's coming right out of high school, they can and take a one or two courses, maybe for free, and I would think that would be. If that went well for them, then they would maybe you're hoping, I think that they would encourage to go ahead and enroll for the fall and move forward yeah, and I think even uh, even more important in that is that's any high school student.

Speaker 2:

so what? The other thing is, if a sophomore wants to come in and take a biology class or wants to take a welding class, that's available too, which answers a little bit of the first part, which is how do we get? If we wait until they're graduating, we're done, it's over, and and we're finding that more and more and more in the employment side the recruiting process not unlike every athletic team that we know, if you're waiting until they graduate to recruit basketball players, they're gone. It is getting earlier and earlier in the cycle, and the same thing is happening here. And so our, you know, in an ideal world, we would have a sophomore take a class free of charge that's in line with what they're trying to do get a completion, and then our part, as they graduate, would be to say here's what that completion gives you opportunity. Does it give you an opportunity to open up in a workforce sector, to go directly into employment? Does it? Is it a way for you to enroll in ivy tech?

Speaker 2:

or is it something you can take and go to iu bloomington?

Speaker 1:

it's. It also, I think, helped that if somebody there was, say I was on the on the fence about whether or not I wanted to go to a certain field.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, let's just take this summer course.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And you'll find out if you do have a passion for it.

Speaker 2:

And almost every one of our students get to, gets to be a part of our career link program, which has we have a embedded career coach. They have lots of tools in terms of assessment on on what they can do that help to set up those work-based opportunities that can help say, hey, this is what the lead is. Almost every one of our students get that. Probably the exception of that, although they do a lot of mock interviews and stuff for the end of it, we are for the end of the healthcare experience, because those healthcare students kind of sort of know where they're going, especially if they're in a nursing program. But we do embed that and they've got some really cool technology that they roll out to kind of show, hey, this is what you're going to be doing. And so Aaron Suits runs our program for that and that is an embedded part of their experience from day one.

Speaker 1:

Great. Well, I think that wraps it up for us, so I appreciate you taking the time and sharing, and it's exciting to see how your campus continues to grow and expanding and what you're offering to. You know people in the community who want to further their education in one way or another and like the idea about the free summer courses, and so, anyway, thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let me let me plug one more thing. On October 29th Tuesday, october 29th we're going to unveil our open up, grand opening for our healthcare floor that we've renovated over the course of the past year High-tech sim labs it's really cool 430,. We're going to do a little ribbon cutting and those kinds of things and some unveilings, but the community is welcome. We welcome love for people to get involved and see the really cool stuff. Uh, it's going to be as good as simulation space and health care space as there is in the state of indiana.

Speaker 1:

There you go. So hey, thank you so much thank you, enjoyed it yep michael allen from manpower. We are a national brand, yet locally owned franchise. We are familiar with the challenges businesses face. It's tough recruiting and retaining qualified employees. That's why working with Manpower is a smart, cost-effective solution. Our entire focus is talent acquisition. We'll manage your hiring and training and provide ongoing, customized support. Since 1966, we have been your community-infested partner, uniquely positioned to help eliminate the hassles and save you time and money. Let us help. Contact Manpower today.