By Dr. Ross Tomlin, TBCC President
As a new year begins for all of us, it is only the halfway point in the academic year for colleges. For TBCC it truly is a new year and a new era including lots of change and growth for us. As our student numbers continue to grow, we are also growing as an institution. Thanks to a $2.25M Title III grant received in October, we are able to fund several key areas of growth at the college, including development of a new nursing program, adding career services support for students at both the beginning of their education and at the completion of their degree, and adding the capacity to align first year common courses for students studying in the same learning community. The grant will also help strengthen our Foundation. This new work means we are seeking people who want to make a difference in their community and impact change. If this sounds like you, do check out the job openings on our website, tillamookbaycc.edu under the Human Resources tab.
With all this growth, we are moving staff offices around to better align our work flow and resources. If you haven’t been on campus in a while, people may be in a different office than you were expecting. We also added a welcome station in our lobby to better serve visitors and answer questions.
We are continuing to collect data from faculty, staff, students, and the community for our new strategic plan. Thanks to all of you who took our online survey to provide feedback and input that will help us define our new strategic priorities, mission and vision statement, and values moving forward for the next seven years. There will be more opportunities to get involved in the planning process as the year goes on. We will share the new plan with the community this summer when it is completed.
The other big project in 2022 is to bring a bond measure before the community at the May election. TBCC received $8M from the Oregon state legislature this past summer to help construct a new academic and healthcare training building that will also include a large community event space. We will be asking the community to help fund the remainder of the building cost by approving a $14.4M bond measure at the May election. This new building will include a 360-seat community event center and state-of-the-art healthcare labs for nursing, medical assisting, EMS and paramedic, phlebotomy, and additional classroom space for other programs. It will be built just across the driveway from the current main campus on land already owned by the college. We will be getting out into the community over the coming months to provide more details on this project and how it will be transformational for the college and community.
On top of all that, TBCC is waiting to hear about a $1.1M grant from the Economic Development Administration of the federal government to renovate our new Center for Industrial Technology, which we purchased over a year ago and is located right across Third Street from the main campus. Once it is remodeled, it will contain our Manufacturing and Welding programs.
So, 2022 is truly the beginning of an amazing year and a new era for TBCC with new facilities, new programs, new staff, and a new strategic plan. We are excited to keep growing and doing even more of what we love to do – serve students and help them to succeed and change their lives for the better.