The proposal outlines the joint venture by Boston-based Higher Education Partners LLC and Cincinnati State in which responsibilities would be split. The college would control academics, including budget, tuition and marketing. HEP would foot the $5 million to $6 million in financial capital for facilities as the college would create a curriculum and manages academics. Students would not face a tuition or fee increase and the college would “expend no capital.”
The final deal will continue to be negotiated.
HEP would be responsible for the campus or facility build-out, lease, and operating payments and equipment purchases. Equipment purchases include instructional tools such as microscopes and computers. HEP would foot the bill for the building facilities as well as operating the day-to-day maintenance of the campus, rather than the city or the college doing so, according to the proposal.
The operation is similar to a joint venture, but all tuition flows to the college, according to the proposal. College expenses, such as instruction and academic support, would be paid first, the college would then retain 5 percent to cover overhead.
Afterward, the college reimburses HEP for expenses and then pay HEP 15 percent of the tuition received. The initial phase of the expansion to Middletown is to enroll between 200 and 400 students in the first year and as many as 3,000 in five years.
“We think that we can get to 3,000 students and make this a reality,” said HEP chief financial officer John Muller. “We get 15 percent, should it be sufficient to exist – so we get 3,000, we do really well. If we only get to 500 students, we’re never going to get our money back.”
If the 3,000 student goal is reached, HEP would make a profit from the venture.
In return, the city receives an economic jolt and the college expands its brand to Butler County, making it a major player in Ohio’s educational world, Cincinnati State President O’dell Owens said following the board meeting.
“We’re putting in this money into the facility, and we think it fits our understanding of the geographic area,” said Muller. “There are far more people that will go to school if you provide them an opportunity to go. People are local.”
Plans are for the school to establish a presence in the former CG&E and senior center buildings first. After that, adding buildings would be based on enrollment figures.
“After assessing the risk with Mayor and council, we felt it was in the best interest of the community to acquire the buildings and preserve the opportunity for Cincinnati State,” Gilleland said.
Both Senior Vice Chancellor for the division of Innovation and Enterprise Development at the Ohio Board of Regents Gary Cates and Middletown Mayor Larry Mulligan recognize the importance for a community campus in the city’s core, to rejuvenate economic development and to educate those locally who want to learn.
“People will come to Middletown from Preble and Montgomery counties as well as Warren County,” Cates said. “Something that is key is going in and marketing to high schools and selling students and their families that that is the real deal, a real opportunity in Butler County.”
There are Miami University regional campuses in the eighth largest county in the state, Cates said.
“We have no community college in Butler County,” said Cates, “I think it’s time we had a community college presence ... this could be a game-changer, a page-turner in Middletown’s history.”
Labor strike
Before the Middletown proposal presentation, the board listened to students about the ongoing faculty strike.
One after another, students at Cincinnati State told the board of trustees they want their teachers back. Approximately 120 students were in the conference room for the board meeting, regularly ending their one-minute address to the board with, ‘I want my teachers back.’ Students’ stories describe empty classrooms with either students or adjunct faculty not showing up for class and overall frustration.
“On any given day at my career here, you can either find me frustrated by the school or completely embarrassed by it,” said Lindsay Valentino, a first-year graphic design student. “Please, bring back our faculty, let’s come to an agreement and give me something to be proud of.”
Approximately 200 full-time faculty plan to continue picketing and protesting outside the community college at the intersection of Ludlow Avenue and Central Parkway, with no new negotiations planned, said both board chairman Michael Oestreicher and American Association of University Professors spokesperson Pam Ecker.
Crain said about 40 percent of the course load taught is done by full-time faculty, and the union’s latest proposal would about $2.8 million over a three-year period.
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