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PROGRESS
“This is just going to allow us to go that extra mile for the students
who are very interested in that as a four-year, master's and Ph.D.
major,” Heicher said.
The labs will hopefully draw in new students who might have
been drawn to other schools because of major-specific classes, said
Michelle Simmons, president of the Ivy Tech Kokomo campus.
The campus also only had one lab room before, and after the
renovations it will have two.
“Scheduling was naturally a
concern,” Heicher said. “We’ll
no longer have the conflict
between prime times that our
students want for our physical
science courses conflicting
with the prime time our
students want for life sciences.
That’s the most immediate sort
of conflict that this resolves.”
The work on the commons is
also exciting, Simmons said. The campus worked with student life
leaders and read through student surveys to come up with the best
plan for the space. Once it’s completed, it will include comfortable
chairs for studying and space for activities.
For now, student life activities are being held in the student life
building or in other campus buildings. Due to the tornadoes, classes
in the Inventrek building were moved back to the main campus.
Simmons said they’ve wanted to move those classes back to campus
for a while, but this wasn’t the ideal way to do it, and now the
facilities are crowded with students.
They’ll figure out whether to move those classes back to Inventrek,
but for now the campus is operating on a short-term plan and
adjusting the student life activities accordingly.
The campus worked hard to convince Ivy Tech administrators that
the renovations were necessary. When the state board of education
announced last year that they weren’t approving any Ivy Tech capital
projects, the Kokomo campus went into action. Simmons and other
campus officials brought administrators to the campus to show them
what they needed.
The administrators told them to come up with a plan, which was
approved by the Ivy Tech board early this year. The trick then was to
get approval from the State Board of Education. The project, split up
into three parts for a total of $1.7 million, was approved in June.
It was just enough time for
contractors to finish phase one
before school started in late
August. Phase two is expected
to be completed by mid-
December.
At IUK, construction on a
parking lot was completed
over the summer, adding spots
for students and faculty. The
lot has been well-received by
students.
Kayetlin Shady, a junior studying criminal justice at IU Kokomo,
said she was happy to see the reconstructed parking lot. She bought
a parking pass, which cost $45, and said the cost is worth the
convenience of parking on-campus.
“It seems to make everything run a little bit smoother,” Shady said.
Austin Berndt, a junior at IU Kokomo studying allied health, said
he also likes the reconstructed parking lot, and he hopes the library’s
construction will be finished soon.
IU Kokomo is also working on the first floor of its library, which
will be transformed into a modern learning commons, encouraging
collaborative learning. The work on the library is expected to be
completed in October.
This is just going to allow us to go that
extra mile for the students who are
very interested in that as a four-year,
master’s and Ph.D. major.
Ethan Heicher, liberal arts and sciences dean
Amber Williams talks about her expectations
for class with students in Psychology 101 on
the first day of classes at Ivy Tech this fall.
Tim Bath | Kokomo Tribune
