Now entering her third year as President at Southeastern Illinois College and her 28th year with the institution, Dr. Karen Weiss dropped by Kiwanis on Thursday to provide an update. Fall enrollment is on pace with last year.
About the same as the start of last fall. We’re at about a 1,200 headcount, which means we have about 1,200 students there taking about 10,000, what did they say, 10,760 credit hours. But we’ll end up probably at the end of the year around 1,400. That’s kind of our sweet spot, 1,400, a little over.
Weiss says CoViD was a game changer for colleges and they’ve pivoted the way they have to serve the region. Dual enrollment/credit programs account for about a quarter of enrollment.
There’s also been a shift toward introducing youngsters to college programs from children’s choir to Jr. Falcons, even 4H spin clubs. New initiatives include a CMA (Certified Medical Assistant) certificate, electric vehicle training through the automotive and diesel technology program, and an oil/gas certification is anticipated.
At the main campus, there’s been pivots as well.
Some of you may not know that we do have, we do offer regional police training down at the main campus. We have it set up where they come in. It was a building that was originally built for coal mine training, but since we don’t do a lot of coal mine training that much anymore, they’ve converted it now into police training where they cordon off certain sections and they do different training in this building. They also do K9 training. We have a course in the back of that building that has been built by Police officers and their canines to come out and get trained in that.
At the end of the day, it’s all about networking, talking with industries and helping meet the need. That’s exactly what the Career and Training Center at the Carmi campus is addressing by focusing on skilled trades including welding, diesel technology, industrial maintenance, industrial arts, CNA and CDL training.
SIC’s Carmi campus will host an Open House on Tuesday, September 15th. We’ll have more with Griffin Hart during an Open Line coming up September 8th.