Over the next five years, Ozarks Technical Community College will place a heavy emphasis on retention rates, academic performance and its regional impact on southwest Missouri as it develops and grows.
Officials with OTC on Wednesday announced the details of a new plan that will guide the college's strategy through 2028.
“This plan is basically the roadmap for the future,” said Chancellor Hal Higdon. “Not specific action items, but the way we are going to grow, the way we are going to look at the college and the way it serves the community.”
The plan, titled “Dream. Plan. Build.” and approved by the OTC Board of Trustees earlier this year, sets three major goals to accomplish over the next five years:
- Landing OTC in the top 25th percentile of similar colleges for fall-to-fall retention rates.
- Exceeding median performance on academic standards compared to similar colleges.
- Increasing the college’s regional economic impact on southwest Missouri.
Each part of the plan takes a student-centered approach, Higdon said, with a goal of helping students earn either an industry certification or course completion toward a four-year degree.
About 200 people attended the plan’s introduction, held in the Plaster Manufacturing Center. After Higdon spoke, the attendees were able to visit stations highlighting many of the plan’s proposed actions, and sign up for future development efforts.
Community involved in process
The plan was developed over the last year, said Abby Benz, chief strategy officer for Ozarks Technical Community College, with the involvement of hundreds of students, faculty and community members contributing feedback. Benz said the feedback did not contain many surprises, but reaffirmed some of the college’s previous commitments.
It also confirmed that about 15,000 OTC students were interested in more chances to be involved in a college-like atmosphere — something the commuter college can improve, Benz said.
“We don’t have dorms, we don’t have sports,” Benz said. “Building that culture and sense of community is something that is really important to us as we look to the next five years. One thing we heard from students is not only a community inside the classroom, but a community while they are here on campus, whether it’s just enjoying the facilities or getting to know other students outside the classroom.”
Connected with that are plans for building a workforce and student success building, Higdon said. Bidding for the construction project will be held sometime in 2024.
Other recent OTC construction projects, such as the Industry and Transportation Technology Center, will be needed to handle more students the college anticipates seeing in its six campuses across southwest Missouri.
“We know that a recession will come one day,” Higdon said. “The last time a recession came, we grew by 5,000 over three years. We have capacity for a lot more than 5,000 now, but if 10,000 more students show up, we’ll be ready.”
Future potential
Developing student engagement sounded exciting to Jon Herbert, a theater and drama instructor at OTC since 2007. Being involved in the fine arts department has helped him see how giving students something to do can help them build their own communities on campus.
“I’m really excited about student engagement,” Herbert said. “I feel like there were many years where we were getting feedback that there wasn’t any student life. There was a lack of student engagement.”
The plan also calls for a review of the OTC’s processes through a student-centered approach, so that student needs can be met proactively and holistically.
Plans for the section on institutional excellence call for continued evaluation of instruction methods and programs. The section for local communities involves responding to industry demand and developing career pipelines for the region’s needs.
