New name, same great department

Taken from the 2023-24 SWCC Mag
By Scott Vicker, marketing & institutional advancement specialist

There’s a new face on campus. Or, a new department name, at least.

Back in May, SWCC’s adult & continuing education department rebranded itself and now operates as SWCC Business & Community Development.

The new name better represents the department’s goals, including the outreach of the division to businesses and communities served within the college’s region.

Programs such as adult literacy, continuing education, corporate training, customized training, early childhood education/Parents as Teachers, EMS/health-related services, GAP/PACE tuition assistance, health occupation education, and the Small Business Development Center all operate within the department.

“SWCC Business & Community Development is committed to providing customized, affordable programs through innovative partnerships, in-turn creating pathways for success,” SWCC Vice President of Economic Development Wayne Pantini said in a May 2023 press release. “We look forward to continuing to build our programs and services to benefit individuals, businesses, and communities throughout our region.”

The department is currently working on two new major projects to better serve those communities.

First, in a partnership with Clarke County Development Corporation (CCDC), is the ORBIT (Osceola Regional Business and Industrial Technology) Center (pictured above), which will be located adjacent to SWCC’s Osceola Center on the south side of Highway 34.

The ORBIT Center is being fully funded by CCDC and will offer various trainings for regional industries. Those trainings will be able to utilize classroom space at the Osceola Center. SWCC will provide all the programming and administration at the ORBIT Center. The center will allow SWCC to expand its program offerings through the Osceola Center.

“We are going to maximize our current Osceola Center and utilize the classrooms they have in there,” Pantini said. “The center itself will be used as lab space. We are looking into the feasibility of reestablishing a welding lab in the south side of the Osceola Center. We learned that was already a welding lab when the building was first built, then it was retrofitted for the building and trades program. So some of that infrastructure is already there.”

SWCC is currently in the process of developing a lease agreement with CCDC for the building that will help dictate the roles of each party in terms of maintenance of the building.

In addition, the college was recently awarded a CDL Infrastructure Grant through Iowa WorkForce Development in the amount of $665,000. The grant funds may be used for building, purchasing, or remodeling CDL training infrastructure. The grant requires a 50 percent match from SWCC.

As part of the college’s ongoing Master Facilities Planning process, options being explored for the CDL facility include either construction of a new facility at the college’s ag site, or the expansion of the existing facility at the ag site.

“Right now, there is no other provider for this in southwest Iowa,” Pantini said. “We feel we can serve, in the first couple of years, 60 new CDL drivers, with the anticipation we’ll be able to build it up to 75 annually with the variety of endorsements in there.”