Ohio Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel visited Kent State University at Geauga on June 9 to tour its nursing program with President Todd Diacon and Geauga Dean Angela Spalsbury, Ph.D.
Kent State Today was there when Tressel later took part in a roundtable discussion with Geauga County leaders and educators to share ideas on how best to prepare Ohio’s workforce.
Tressel, who previously served as president of Youngstown State University, was appointed the state’s new lieutenant governor in February to fill the role left vacant when former Lt. Gov. John Husted took over one of Ohio’s two U.S. Senate seats.
Tressel said he has been touring the state with a focus on education to learn how K-12 schools, career and technical institutions, and universities and colleges are working collaboratively within their communities to prepare young people for roles in Ohio’s ever-growing jobs market.
“I have always appreciated your very common sense, straight-forward approach to higher education as a real force for good and a driver of economic development,” Diacon told Tressel as he welcomed the lieutenant governor. “It’s a pleasure to have you here.”
Diacon said he believes Kent State’s role is to “educate, graduate and contribute to workforce development,” and praised the state for its commitment to keeping higher education available in rural areas and small towns through regional campus systems such as Kent State’s, which boasts seven regional locations throughout Northeast Ohio.
Spalsbury noted how Kent State’s Geauga Campus graduates between 60 and 70 registered nurses each year and boasts a 100 percent pass rate for the nursing licensing exam among its Bachelor of Science in nursing degree graduates, as well as 100 percent employment for its graduates.
Xander Pertz, of Painsville, Ohio, a junior nursing major who also serves as student government president for the Geauga Campus, said learning on a regional campus has worked out well for him because he deals with several learning disabilities and the smaller class size allows more time for one-on-one instruction.
In addition, Spalsbury said Kent State’s Twinsburg Academic Center offers an associate degree in nursing, which still enables students to take the state licensing exam and go to work as a registered nurse. Often, what those nurses find is that many hospitals are willing to pay their tuition for them to complete their bachelor’s degree, making it an affordable way to earn their bachelor’s degree, particularly since tuition at the regional campuses is 40 percent less than the Kent Campus.
Dianne Pearce, chief nursing officer for University Hospitals (UH) at Geauga and Geneva Medical Centers, who attended the roundtable, said UH is one local health system that is willing to offer tuition reimbursement for registered nurses who want to continue their studies to achieve their Bachelor of Science in nursing degrees.
Tressel praised that kind of local cooperation and noted how many companies are more interested in obtaining reliable workers than they are concerned about those workers having a four-year degree upon entry. Many are willing to pay for an employee to obtain an advanced degree.
Also attending the roundtable was John Stoddard, Ed.D., superintendent of Berkshire Local Schools, which recently built its new kindergarten-12th grade school building, co-located on Kent State at Geauga property in Burton, Ohio.
President Diacon pointed out the neighboring building to Tressel and discussed the innovative approach of having a college campus co-located with a K-12 school.
“It’s really one of the best partnerships we have engaged in since I have been president,” Diacon said, “It’s one of the real success stories.”
Stoddard said his goal is to have every student graduate from Berkshire with at least 12 hours of College Credit Plus (CCP), which has become easier with the campus being next door. CCP is a program in which high school students take college courses for free while still in high school.
In addition, Spalsbury said, Kent State was willing to reconfigure its class hours for a certificate program in medical assisting, to enable students from Berkshire to take those courses as part of their normal school day. When they graduate from high school, they can also graduate with their certificate from the medical assistant program, helping to fill a serious shortage in the field of medical assistants in the Geauga County area, she said.
Kent State Geauga offers a similar certificate in information technology, also offered as part of CCP, she noted.
Tressel said Ohio has a diverse landscape of big cities, small towns, suburbs and rural areas, and its workforce development efforts in all those areas have resulted in a wealth of jobs in Ohio.
“We’ve had 63 companies move from the East or West Coast to expand or start new businesses in Ohio,” he said. Ohio has gone from ranking 34th as the most attractive state for business 15 years ago to seventh now and first in the Midwest, he noted.
“We need more workers,” he said, “We don’t know what those numbers are yet, but we will need every Ohioan. We have to maximize our outputs.”
On June 12, Tressel is expected to visit Kent State’s College of Aeronautics and Engineering and tour the Kent State University Airport.
