{"id":144812,"date":"2021-08-14T01:33:31","date_gmt":"2021-08-14T06:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=144812"},"modified":"2021-08-16T00:00:14","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T05:00:14","slug":"nwscc-president-full-service-campus-in-citys-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2021\/08\/14\/nwscc-president-full-service-campus-in-citys-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Full-service NWSCC campus in city’s future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Northwest State Community College President Dr. Todd Hernandez is shown at Hickory Sticks Golf Club Friday afternoon. Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s six-county service area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It didn\u2019t much research to discover that, while Van Wert and Paulding counties make up 25 percent of the college\u2019s service area, only 6 percent of Northwest State\u2019s students were from those two counties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur mission is to serve by providing affordable access to education and training services,\u201d he explained. \u201cIf you look at our mission to serve by providing access, we\u2019re not serving Paulding and Van Wert counties very well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Hernandez said that Northwest State officials determined that, with the Archbold campus up to 1\u00bd hours away for students here, geographic access was where the community college was failing in its mission to serve local students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe talked about geographic access and that\u2019s where we\u2019re not meeting the needs here,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe decided to make a strategic investment in Van Wert and Paulding counties,\u201d Dr. Hernandez said, noting that a campus here will also vastly improve the college\u2019s ability to serve local companies with on-site training services now being provided in the other four counties it serves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust like the students here can\u2019t go to Archbold (easily), we can\u2019t come from Archbold and serve the companies in a meaningful way, in an impactful way,\u201d the Northwest State president noted. \u201cWe need a facility, a home base here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019 focus will be on identifying unmet needs, rather than duplicating services already available here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One population the NWSCC president said is unserved is those students who are prepared academically, but are also good with their hands and don\u2019t 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\u2019s high school students have no plans after high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the population that a community college can really have an impact on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s up and running, Dr. Hernandez added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201ccreate a buzz\u201d in the community in anticipation of the new campus. While that didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 04:26:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}