College plan adds a fourth county

By Harold Gwin

Jefferson County is now included in the Mahoning Valley’s community college proposal.

WARREN — A proposed local community college has grown from the original concept of creating a college for the Mahoning Valley that would serve Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties.

An implementation committee appointed to map out the plan is now proposing that the scope of the college be expanded to the south to include Jefferson County, which already has a community college.

Jefferson Community College, with an enrollment of 1,800, is willing to become part of a new, larger community college system serving the four counties, said Dr. Laura Meeks, its president.

The four-county concept was presented to the Governance Working Group of the implementation committee during a meeting Thursday at the YWCA here.

Meeks said her board of trustees has already passed a resolution of support for the new system. There is uncertainty about what will happen, but the board believes it is in the best interest of Jefferson County residents to link with a larger area and become part of a new community college rather than have to compete with it.

Jefferson Community College would become one campus for the new school under that scenario.

No formal name has been selected for that new school, but members of the Governance Working Group seemed to agree that it shouldn’t be limited to the names of just one or two counties or the Mahoning Valley.

A broader name, such as Eastern Gateway, or a name that would give some indication that the community college will be a school for the 21st century, had more acceptance.

Eric Fingerhut, Ohio’s chancellor of higher education, told the group that it has great leeway in crafting the new school, which the governor will ask the state Legislature to approve and fund in the next biennial budget that takes effect July 1, 2009.

The plan is to begin offering classes in the fall of 2009.

In terms of a board of trustees to run the new school, there are a number of possible options, but Fingerhut said the plan is to have the board appointed by the governor, with some form of special consideration for Jefferson County because that county has a tax levy enacted to support Jefferson Community College.

There are no plans to seek similar levies in the other three counties, Fingerhut said, and Jefferson will be allowed to determine where and how its tax money will be used.

Roy Church, president of Lorain County Community College and head of the implementation committee, said the trustee appointments would likely be made geographically so every county has some representation.

The new school will offer classes at a wide variety of locations and won’t have a central campus, with programming provided by Jefferson and Lorain community colleges, Youngstown State University, Kent State University and perhaps others.

Church did propose that it have a central headquarters, most likely in leased space.

Mahoning County would be the most central location and has the largest population, he said.

David C. Sweet, YSU president, said he hopes the new school would appeal to students in western Pennsylvania as well as Ohio.

“I’m taking a positive approach,” he said, explaining that it is in YSU’s best interest to be collaborative in development of the new educational system.

Church said every effort is being made not to pull students from YSU or Kent, which has three branch campuses in the community college service area. The goal is to increase the overall number of people attending college and feed into programs at YSU and Kent, he said.

gwin@vindy.com