Hitt described ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½β€™s plans as a β€œgame changer” for downtown. Valencia College will be a partner in the expansion, and approximately 10,000 students from the two schools could study downtown.

β€œToday, through another bold collaboration, we explore a vision for ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ in Orlando that could energize downtown and redefine its future,” Hitt told a crowd of community and business leaders Tuesday at a downtown breakfast.

Plans for ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ Downtown are contingent upon receiving the necessary state funding and also approvals from the university’s Board of Trustees and the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state’s 12 public universities.

Hitt said ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ is assessing which academic programs would benefit from moving downtown, and the university will continue conversations with staff and faculty members as part of that process.

The timing of any such moves is not yet known. What is known is that ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ is first considering the Creative Village area of downtown Orlando, and that ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ and Valencia pledge to work closely with the Parramore community and the new K-8 school that will be built there.

β€œValencia and ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ desire to be vital forces for improving the lives and livelihoods of the residents who live nearby,” Hitt said.

To view President John C. Hitt’s remarks

β€œWe are just delighted to be a part of this exciting new project in downtown Orlando,” said Sanford Shugart, president of . β€œOur results, working together in partnership — ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½, Valencia and Orange County Public Schools — have been recognized around the country. On this foundation we hope to build the future economy of Orlando and greater Central Florida.

β€œWhen you bring the power of that collaboration together to reactivate the west side of downtown, there’s no telling what we can accomplish, not just for our students and the future of the city, but for the people who live and work downtown. We’ll start by engaging the people in the Parramore community to find out what programs would be transformational for their lives and their families.”

ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ Downtown also presents potential opportunities for new academic programs. In one example, ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ will be designing a new program for young men and women with disabilities to allow them to attend classes and participate fully in college life.

This program β€œwill offer an immersion in the college experience and will enable these deserving students to develop the life skills, the career tools, and the independence they need for a fulfilling future,” Hitt said.

The downtown initiative has its roots in a visit from President Hitt last year to , which enrolls more than 11,500 students.

β€œPhoenix city leaders told us that the campus had done more to … enliven the economy and culture, than either the new Major League Baseball stadium or the NBA arena that had been located downtown,” Hitt said.

β€œSoon, our desire to explore a robust downtown campus for Orlando piqued the interest of state Senate President Andy Gardiner, along with Senator David Simmons and House Speaker-designate Steve Crisafulli, a ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ alumnus. Thanks to them and to the Central Florida Legislative Delegation, we received a state appropriation ($2 million) to perform a feasibility analysis that has brought us here today.”

When thinking of programs for which a downtown move would benefit students, Hitt said it’s natural to think of digital and visual arts as complements to ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½β€™s and Center for Emerging Media, which are already located downtown.

Hitt also said he believes β€œ, with its strong community emphasis as the home of PBS in Central Florida, would thrive with a downtown location.”

Furthermore, β€œwhen we consider the array of city, county, state, and federal government offices located downtown, it makes sense to consider how our students in public service disciplines” might benefit from being closer to those offices and internship sites, Hitt said.

ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ will provide updates to the campus community and the public as plans progress.

Created in partnership with Valencia Community College and the University of Florida, students in the program take two years of classes as Valencia students and two years as ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ students. They then can move on to obtain their master’s degrees, potentially by staying in Orlando and enrolling in a University of Florida College of Design program based in ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½β€™s Center for Emerging Media in downtown Orlando.

The Valencia and ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ classesΒ are taught at the University Center building shared by the two schools at Valencia’s West Campus. The local chapter of the American Institute of Architects has worked closely with Valencia, ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ and UF to develop the program.

In addition, Valencia also leads all two-year schools in the number of associate degrees awarded to minorities, an 18 percent increase from the year before.

The report was compiled using data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics and focused on degrees conferred during 2008-2009.

In that academic time period, Valencia awarded 5,128 associate degrees, including 1,956 earned by minority students.

β€œValencia’s focus on improving student success, particularly in the critical first year of college, is paying off,” said Valencia President Sanford C. Shugart. β€œThe rankings also underscore the role Valencia plays as the primary entry point to a college education in our region.”

Valencia also ranked first in the number of degrees awarded in general studies, 10th in nursing and 15th in engineering technology.

Source: Orlando Business Journal, , Friday, June 18, 2010, 3:14pm EDT

[ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ Today Note: Valencia is an important education partner in the initiative]

Though such guaranteed transfer programs are not new, the sheer number of students making use of the option to enter ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ is attracting the attention of university officials and presidents of the participating community colleges. More than 35,000 students are currently in the DirectConnect pipeline for eventual transfer to ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½, said David Harrison, vice provost for the university’s regional campuses. This fall, more than 60 percent of ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½’s 5,337 transfer students enrolled via DirectConnect.

ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ officials distinguish DirectConnect from Florida’s statewide “2+2” articulation program, which guarantees community college graduates admission to one of the state’s 11 public universities, but not necessarily one of their choosing. In contrast with those utilizing the 2+2 program, students in DirectConnect meet periodically with ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ advisers and other officials to help create and keep up with a four-year academic plan, making for a seamless transfer and increasing familiarity with their eventual baccalaureate institution.

“The state 2+2 was designed to get students into four-year institutions, but DirectConnect was designed to help them graduate,” Harrison said. “ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ officials work with students as soon as they declare their intent to transfer, and they stick with them through graduation.”

Demand-Driven Program

The access- and completion-oriented program grew out of Florida’s recent enrollment boom, in which demand for seats in higher education has nearly exceeded supply.

“Florida was under-built for higher education and didn’t realize it for a long time,” said Sanford Shugart, president of Valencia Community College, a DirectConnect partner. “There was no strategic planning by the state, so in those parts of the state that drive the economy the game plan was for the regional universities to grow like crazy. They thought that all growth is good. Well, they reached a point where big is good, but prominence is better. And, prominence comes from being more selective, not huge, and growing graduate programs. That’s what happened at ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½.”

In 2000, ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ admitted 63 percent of its applicants. This academic year, ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ admitted 43 percent of its applicants. In addition to becoming more selective during the past decade, ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ has also become more residential. It now has more than 10,000 beds, an increase of 5,700 since 2000. This institutional shift, however, pushed out some students from the local Orlando area, as the university began admitting more students from around the state.

“Once ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ changed its strategy, it was nearly full, and the demand for freshman seats far exceeded supply,” said Shugart, noting that ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½’s freshman class has been frozen in size for the past three years. “A lot of really good students in our area couldn’t get into ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ after it began the transition from what some have called a β€˜commuter school on steroids’ to a more residential college. Local students aren’t living in those dorms; students from elsewhere in the state are.”

Though Shugart said it is too early to judge the success of DirectConnect in graduating local community college transfers — given the program’s youth — he noted that it has increased the access his students have to a baccalaureate degree. What Shugart did not expect, however, was for DirectConnect to make his community college more popular among students from outside of its service area.

In the three-year period before DirectConnect was introduced, the number of out-of-district students at Valencia increased by only 2 percent. But, in the three-year period since DirectConnect was introduced, the number of out-of-district students at the college increased by 30 percent. This upswing comes at a time when the number of “commuting students” from neighboring districts has steadily decreased. As a result, Shugart believes that th lion’s share of the new out-of-district students at Valencia have uprooted and moved to the area because of benefits such as the guaranteed admission to ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½.

Shugart also believes that DirectConnect may also serve as an alternative to the recent movement among many Florida community colleges to offer four-year degrees.

“Everywhere in the state where community colleges are aggressively fighting for bachelor’s degrees, there are open tensions with their local universities,” Shugart said. “While everyone else in the state was concentrating on what they could do as an institution, we focused on what we could do for our students to have immediate and complete access to all bachelor’s degrees.

“Given that those who have sought the authorization to offer very specific occupational or boutique four-year degrees have led to eroding relationships between institutions, we thought this was more important. That’s what DirectConnect is about: It’s helped us meet the policy issue of under-built supply and overwhelming demand without damaging our 2+2 articulation.”

While they laud the access to baccalaureate degrees that DirectConnect provides their students, Valencia and ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½’s other community college partners are not entirely opposed to the idea of offering of four-year degrees themselves. Shugart acknowledged that there was some interest in offering four-year degrees in programs that ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ has recently discontinued for cost-cutting purposes, such as electrical and computer engineering technology. He noted, however, that the college has no intention of adding dozens of baccalaureate programs as some other two-year institutions in the state have done, citing the strain these can put on relationships with nearby state universities.

E. Ann McGee, president of Seminole State College of Florida, a DirectConnect partner, noted that her institution already offers industry-specific baccalaureate degrees in fields such as interior design – in which Seminole State has a thriving two-year program but ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ has no intention of offering a four-year degree. She believes the college’s partnership with ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ helps the institutions from clashing over the offering of these baccalaureate programs.

“We have a very deliberate partnership,” McGee said of the consortium of ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ and the four communtiy colleges. “When ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ has gotten rid of certain baccalaureate degrees, it has caused us to think about how we can partner among ourselves to serve the needs of our students and the community.”

Regarding DirectConnect, McGee has seen the transfer program dramatically grow in popularity at her institution. In two years, the number of students enrolled in the program at Seminole State more than tripled. In fall 2007, more than 2,100 students were enrolled; now, more than 6,500 are enrolled.

“There’s been a huge increase in the number of students who transfer to ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½,” McGee said. “I think that’s because, before DirectConnect, hometown kids weren’t getting into their hometown college. And that’s become even more critical with the downturn in the economy. It was prophetic that we had this program in place before the economy crashed. The only thing I worry about is the pressure, in terms of the number of students, we are putting on ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½. If you had told me that the number of Seminole students in this program would triple in two years, I wouldn’t have believed you. I just wonder when the pressure of these students may become too great for ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½.”

Source: Inside Higher Ed, by David Moltz (david.moltz@insidehighered.com), January 8, 2010; for more about Inside Higher Ed or to see original story visit Waiting in the Wings.