Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
The average age of an Ivy Tech student is 35. Many have families and spend three hours away from home attending classes at least one night a week.
Currently housed in a portion of Lakeview Middle School, the Warsaw Ivy Tech campus is a convenience to more than 600 students seeking higher education.
The technical school's middle school occupation has always been considered temporary, former dean Steve Grill said in February.
The Ivy Tech-Warsaw Community Schools lease agreement was a school board topic last winter when there was little pressure for the campus to move.
"There's time to work it out," Dr. Lee Harman, WCS superintendent, said nine months ago. "We're reaching a point in the next few years where we might need more space at the school for Lakeview students. There's no rush."
While Ivy Tech rents the middle school, Warsaw Schools leases Cardinal Center property for Alternative Learning Center students. Cardinal Center rents space from Grace College for Cardinal's Head Start program.
Ideally, Cardinal Center should have all of its kids under its roof and the school corporation should have its students under its roof, leaving Ivy Tech to find a roof of its own.
"Hopefully all this will work out so that the transition Ivy Tech needs to make and Cardinal needs to make will accommodate everybody's needs," Harman said recently.
Ivy Tech now occupies the middle school on a month-to-month basis without a contract.
"They chose not to sign an amended lease with a provision to have them there for a shorter period," Harman said.
While the local school corporation has no intention of making the state college homeless, space may become a premium before long.
If worse comes to worst, the Alternative Learning Center students can share space with Ivy Tech, Harman said.
Nonetheless, the Warsaw business and industrial community has been asked to come up with a significant amount of money for the local campus of the state-funded college to move across town.
Members of a community task force have been asked to help raise $3 million to settle the campus in the former Sprint building, north of U.S. 30.
The college's $3 million wish list includes:
• $1.6 million in renovation costs, including a new phone system and computer networking lines;
• $85,000 for furniture and equipment for 16 offices;
• $275,000 to equip 10 classrooms with 30 student "stations" and one instructor station;
• $325,000 for six computer labs with 20 student stations and one instructor station each;
• $190,000 for a library and resource lab;
• $400,000 for a science lecture room and lab and nursing lecture room and training lab (Ivy Tech-Warsaw does not have a nursing program);
• $57,500 to furnish and equip a bookstore and copy center;
• $35,000 for interior and exterior signage;
• and $30,000 for contingencies.
"If the community does not come forward with the funds at the end of this semester," said Joann Walgamuth, dean of Ivy Tech's Warsaw campus since June 2000, "we will be closed. If we have no money to move, we don't move. There will not be a summer semester. People will have to drive to Fort Wayne, Elkhart or South Bend."
The 2002 spring semester has been shortened from 16 to 12 weeks.
"We've offered to raise $325,000 to settle them comfortably," said Jean Northenor, a task force member.
In addition, Sprint has offered an extended lease agreement for 20,000 square feet of space at its building on U.S. 30 east for $9 per square foot, including utility costs and maintenance.
Warsaw School Corp. charges $4 a square foot for 20,000 square feet of space.
But at this point, task force members report there doesn't seem to be any room for compromise.
"They insist on this $3 million figure," Northenor said.
Despite Warsaw School Corporation's position that a move is not imminent, Walgamuth is under the impression she has until June 2002 to find a new home for the students.
"There is no fund-raising plan in place right now," said Walgamuth. "A normal capital campaign takes two or three years. We've been working on this for months. We have eight months left."
She added, "Our students have full-time jobs, families and family obligations," she said. "They cannot travel to another campus after they've worked eight to 10 hours a day."
Determined to find a suitable space, the dean spent this spring and summer considering several sites, including the Wal-Mart building, before settling on the Sprint building.
Sprint has offered a lease contract, but the college has not yet accepted, according to Roger Fisher, Sprint community relations manager.
Currently, Ivy Tech has no contract with the school board, said Randy Thorpe, WCS business manager. Ivy Tech pays Warsaw Schools an annual rent of $53,760, which includes desks, chairs, furniture and other equipment for the students and staff.
Other members of North Central Region 2 also have appealed to the Kosciusko County business community to pay for the move from Lakeview to the Sprint building.
Virginia Calvin, chancellor of Ivy Tech's Region 2, which also includes South Bend and Elkhart, said she is asking the community to support Ivy Tech.
"As a citizen I want a campus there," Calvin said. "If that campus leaves, it will have an impact on the local employers."
But Stanley Jones, member of the state's Commission for Higher Education, said Ivy Tech has had a lot of time to plan this move.
"I'm not aware that any other community is being asked to fund such a move," he said.
Funds to move the Warsaw campus haven't been discussed publicly by the Ivy Tech Board of Trustees.
Ivy Tech public relations director Joe DiLaura was adamant that the college directors intend to keep the Warsaw campus viable. They just won't come up with a financial resolution for the move.
"The college and the state are financially strapped right now," DiLaura said. "Ivy Tech has no money, there are just no funds. There are no resources available at the state level."
But during the June Ivy Tech board meeting, vice president for finances/treasurer Robert C. Holmes reported a 9 percent increase in statewide revenues, totaling $12.7 million.
From July 2000 to July 2001 state appropriations totaled $100 million for the first time, an increase of $6 million over the previous year.
Official board minutes posted on the Ivy Tech Web site (www.ivy.tech.in.us/about/trustees/minutes) show the college routinely acquires land, refurbishes buildings and generates bonds for millions of dollars each year.
In Valparaiso the college is building a new facility at a cost of $20 million for the building and $2.6 million for the land.
In Lafayette new construction projects total $16 million, including a $9.3 million building renovation.
The 2001 General Assembly authorized Ivy Tech to acquire land and construct a classroom building in Richmond through a $17.8 million bond issue.
Sale of a strip of land, 1,040 feet by 0.48 feet long, in Bloomington to Indiana Department of Transportation netted the college $81,615.
About $750,000 has been earmarked to fund new ideas for enrollment growth. The college has been directed by the state to add 30,000 new students to raise the state's higher education enrollment to the national average.
The Ivy Tech Foundation expects to raise more than $20 million for the "Technology for Tomorrow" program.
Attemps to contact Ivy Tech President Gerald Lamkin have been unsuccessful. He did not return phone calls over a period of several weeks.
Although the Ivy Tech - Warsaw campus occupation of Lakeview Middle School has always been considered temporary, the college's board of trustees has left the Warsaw campus to its own devices.
The local program generates 20 percent of the North Central - Region II income even though the region includes the much largers campuses of South Bend and Elkhart.
In 1963, the General Assembly established Indiana Vocational Technical College as the Indiana's first statewide technical college.
With 23 campuses across the state, Ivy Tech offers two-year degrees and technical certificate programs and provides continuing education for business and industry.
Ivy Tech State College began offering classes in Warsaw in 1978. The campus moved from First National Bank in Warsaw to Lakeview in 1991.
