Southwestern's board of trustees holds September 2024 meeting

Creston- The Southwestern Community College (SWCC) board of directors met on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, at 5:30 p.m. in the college's Administration Center for its regular board meeting.

The consent agenda was approved as presented.

Kevin Britten, SWCC board member from Red Oak, said he is excited to see the progress being made on the Red Oak carpentry and building trades program. Britten thanked everyone involved with restoring the program. Lindsay Stoaks, SWCC president, said it had been a team approach to relaunch the program in Red Oak.

During the president's report, Wayne Pantini, SWCC vice president for economic development, provided an update on SWCC's Industrial New Jobs Training (260E) Program. Pantini said the college currently has three bonds involving six different companies throughout the region. Pantini said those companies pledged 472 new jobs through the training program, and to date, 356 of those jobs have been filled. Pantini said the college continues to work with the companies on training plans.

Kim Bishop, SWCC dean of student services, provided the board with a preliminary fall enrollment report. Bishop said fall enrollment is at 1,570 students and 14,224 credit hours, which is down 63 students or 3.8 percent from last fall and 493 credit hours or 3.3 percent from last fall. Bishop noted there has been a decrease in the number of high school students taking college courses this fall, but that number is still up from Fall 2022. Dr. Tony Cass, SWCC board president, asked about enrollment trends for other community colleges in Iowa. Stoaks said there haven't been any final numbers provided yet, but preliminary numbers in August showed some have seen increases and some have seen decreases in fall enrollment.

Stoaks recognized Holly Booth, SWCC business instructor, who attended the board meeting as faculty representative.

Stoaks then introduced representatives from Community Colleges for Iowa. Emily Shields, executive director of Community Colleges for Iowa, presented the board with the organization's legislative agenda for the year. Monique Ellefson, director of strategic initiatives of Community Colleges for Iowa, provided information to the board about the organization's upcoming conferences.