In April, the college hosted several strategic planning conversation sessions with students, staff, faculty and community members.

“We had well over 300 people participate in our listening sessions and our strategic planning sessions to provide feedback about what we’re doing really well as a college and where we’re seeing that we have a need,” said college President Jesse Ulrich.

Through those sessions, four main priorities were identified: advancing developmental opportunities, cultivating Triton culture, uniting through communication and collaboration and empowering student engagement.

Several committees are being constructed to look at specific objectives related to these four areas, including the President’s Leadership Academy.

“We want to make sure we are empowering and building our human capital so that when we have leadership positions that open up at Iowa Central, we have people that have been trained and know our culture, that understand our leadership framework, to be able to slide into those positions and continue the good work that we have been doing,” Ulrich said.

This last year, Iowa Central also launched the Triton Academies on the Fort Dodge campus.

“We have career academies throughout our region — one down in Greene County, one over in Laurens and one in Eagle Grove,” Ulrich said. “But the Triton Academy opened up our campus to be an all-encompassing career academy for this portion of the region.”

Through the Triton Academies, high school students can enroll in up to nine credit hours per semester in a variety of degree and transfer degree programs. Students take classes alongside the traditional students on Iowa Central’s campus, creating a real college learning environment.

“The way we look at it is even if you go your junior year and senior year and you just do the minimum three courses, then by the time you graduate high school, you’re halfway toward your AA degree,” Ulrich said. “And for students who really want to ramp it up and take more of these courses, it increases their potential to complete their AA degree along with their high school diploma at the same time.”

For students who don’t have the option of traveling to campus or one of the other career academies, there are several programs that can be completed online.

The Triton Academy program is an example of how the college aims to be a high-quality and efficient option for students to continue their education, Ulrich said.

“When we say we want kids to come here, finish their degrees in the shortest amount of time possible with the least amount of student loan debt so they can have a better life, we mean it,” he said. “If they can get the first two years of their college done by the time they graduate high school and then go to Iowa State or Iowa for only two years, that literally cuts their student loans in half … it saves tens of thousands of dollars.”

In 2022, Iowa Central trained about 15,000 people within its nine-county service region, Ulrich said. These include CDL drivers, emergency medical technicians, career and technical education programs and workforce training at large regional employers like Prestage Foods of Iowa in Eagle Grove and Tyson Meats in Storm Lake.

“The economic impact that Iowa Central has on our nine counties where one out of every 26 jobs is impacted by this institution, that’s pretty big,” Ulrich said.

Only 35% of the students the college serves are from the nine-state service region, Ulrich said. However, of the students who graduate from Iowa Central, 77% stay in the service region.

“That’s an awesome draw for our businesses,” Ulrich said.

Fall enrollment at Iowa Central was up by 2%, Ulrich said, which is an overall 12% increase over the last two years.

The college also welcomed a new colossal 3-D printer that will eventually be used by the construction trades to print an actual house.

Iowa Central announced in the fall that the turf grass management program at Willow Ridge would be moving to the Fort Dodge Country Club, and the restaurant at Willow Ridge will be closing after this semester.

“At the end of the day, we were losing $200,000 a year, and the purpose of a community college is not to lose a quarter million dollars a year so that a small group of people have a golf course,” Ulrich said.

The Country Club has been a “wonderful collaborative partner” with this transition, he added.

The culinary arts program that runs the Willow Ridge restaurant will be pivoting to a commercialized food truck in the near future.

Once the spring semester is complete and the restaurant closes, Ulrich said, the plan is to sell the property.