Full-service NWSCC campus in city’s future

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

When Northwest State Community College President Dr. Todd Hernandez came up with the idea to have a golf outing in Van Wert, it was also a statement that the college is preparing for a much greater presence in Van Wert and Paulding counties.

Dr. Hernandez noted during an interview Friday at Hickory Sticks Golf Club that, after he became the eighth president of the Archbold-based community college in April, he began looking for opportunities to better serve underserved populations within NWSCC’s six-county service area.

It didn’t much research to discover that, while Van Wert and Paulding counties make up 25 percent of the college’s service area, only 6 percent of Northwest State’s students were from those two counties.

“Our mission is to serve by providing affordable access to education and training services,” he explained. “If you look at our mission to serve by providing access, we’re not serving Paulding and Van Wert counties very well.”

The NWSCC president added that, with only 6 percent of its students coming from Van Wert and Paulding counties, those students were also only receiving approximately that same percentage of the more than $2 million in scholarship money the college provided in 2020-21.

Dr. Hernandez said that Northwest State officials determined that, with the Archbold campus up to 1½ hours away for students here, geographic access was where the community college was failing in its mission to serve local students.

“We talked about geographic access and that’s where we’re not meeting the needs here,” he noted.

With the college in a strong fiscal situation, that realization led to a financial commitment by the college to locate a full-service NWSCC campus in Van Wert and the signing of an intent to purchase property in the city at a location he held off identifying because the purchase is not yet complete.

“We decided to make a strategic investment in Van Wert and Paulding counties,” Dr. Hernandez said, noting that a campus here will also vastly improve the college’s ability to serve local companies with on-site training services now being provided in the other four counties it serves.

“Just like the students here can’t go to Archbold (easily), we can’t come from Archbold and serve the companies in a meaningful way, in an impactful way,” the Northwest State president noted. “We need a facility, a home base here.”

Dr. Hernandez said officials of the college will be talking to community and business leaders in the two counties to learn what they would like to see in the new facility, once a site has been purchased, while adding that the campus’ focus will be on identifying unmet needs, rather than duplicating services already available here.

One population the NWSCC president said is unserved is those students who are prepared academically, but are also good with their hands and don’t know yet what they want to do with their lives after high school. Dr. Hernandez noted that anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of a community’s high school students have no plans after high school.

“That’s the population that a community college can really have an impact on,” he said.

In addition, local students who want to attend college using the College Credit Plus program will be able to do so at the Van Wert NWSCC campus when it’s up and running, Dr. Hernandez added.

The Northwest State president said the golf outing here — the first for the college in Van Wert — was originally intended to occur after the campus site announcement to “create a buzz” in the community in anticipation of the new campus. While that didn’t happen, he did note that he had several good conversations with local officials, including Van Wert Mayor Ken Markward, on what they thought were community needs the new campus could serve.