THE FOLLOWING IS A NEWS GAZETTE STORY BY JENNIFER-BAILEY
ABOVE: Fall semester began Monday at Danville Area Community College. Tables of information were set up for students.
To submit a letter to the editor, click here.
To pitch a ‘My Turn’ guest column, email jdalessio@news-gazette.com.
Want to purchase today’s print edition? Here’s a map of single-copy locations.
Sign up for our daily newsletter here
DANVILLE — Danville High School graduate and first-year Danville Area Community College student Hannah Lowe was excited about her first day on Monday at DACC studying history education.
About mid-day, she said her day had been going well. She plans on transferring to a four-year college after DACC. She wants to be a high school history teacher.
The DACC campus was buzzing with students and staff for the first day of the fall 2024 semester.
Carl Bridges, DACC provost and vice president, academic and student affairs, says it’s an exciting week for the college.
“It’s always great to have the students back on campus,” Bridges said.
Some students, for the barbering program, aren’t starting yet.
The Barbering School could be ready to begin this semester as a delayed-start class at the Village Mall.
“We are still waiting on the final visit and approval for the Barbering Program from the Illinois Department of Finance and Professional Relations. We are working with IDFPR to finalize the format for the official transcript given to graduates of the program. Our hope is to have this completed and the approvals complete in time to start in October,” according to Bridges.
As part of the “Ask Me Campaign” on DACC campus, Jenn Seda, a part-time reference librarian, was one of the staff members available for student questions. She was standing outside the Clock Tower building, which is being renovated for heating, ventilation, air conditioning, restroom accessibility and other improvements, and outside the Bremer Center where the library is moved into a classroom temporarily from Clock Tower.
She said they had to move most of the library’s collection into storage and moved essentials to Bremer and are getting creative with library services for the start of the fall semester.
The $4.5 million renovation of the Clock Tower building (home of DACC’s liberal arts classes and library) is scheduled for completion in October.
Seda said student traffic and questions had been steady for the first day of fall semester.
Nacco’s top 10
DACC President Stephen Nacco also got into the excitement, sharing his top 10 list of what excites him about the fall 2024 semester.
1. Students came back in droves on Mon., Aug. 19. Enrollment is up — but we won’t know how much it’s up until the 10th day of the semester, which will be by the end of next week.
2. The renovation of Hegeler Hall — funded by the Julius W. Hegeler II Foundation — is ready for beneficial use, and DACC’s Corporate and Community Education people have begun moving in. Classes will include health professions — Phlebotomy, Pharmacy Tech, EMT Basic, and EMR. Safety courses include: Forklift, Arc Flash, OSHA, Powered Industrial Truck Train the Trainer. There also will be quality classes, leadership series and human resources workshops, classes. DACC also will host contract training for any business and industry client needs.
3. Echocardiography and sonography have begun their first semester as full-fledged associate-degree programs that are fully transferable.
4. Adult Basic Education’s “Elevate” program is offering training in welding, public health-medical billing, HVAC, or CDL; while students also are preparing to earn their high-school diplomas. Students must pass at least two (out of the four) GED exams before DACC will consider enrolling them in CDL.
5. Volleyball is back at DACC and the team Coach Shawna Jameson has assembled is ready to roar like Lady Jaguars.
6. Health Information Technology’s Cancer Registry program is filling up classes both in-person and online.
7. DACC has eight fully functional HyFlex classrooms in operation on the DACC campus and in Hoopeston. These classrooms feature advanced technology that provides in-class and online students quality interaction with their professor and among one another.
8. DACC’s new Dean Dr. Michael Hepner has a new department to oversee — the former Math & Sciences and Liberal Arts Divisions that DACC has combined to become the Arts & Sciences Division.
9. The DACC Foundation is once again awarding $1 million in scholarships with almost 800 students receiving a scholarship and 100 percent of all who applied for a scholarship receiving at least partial scholarship support.
10. DACC’s “free community college” initiative — a.k.a., the Provost’s Promise — has enrolled 50 students who have pledged to graduate in two years (or fewer) and keep up a B average (or better). If they succeed, they will have earned a DACC degree or certificate without paying a dime out of their own pocket, even for books.
Other items of note
The college has added a manufacturing class to the four other career programs offered at the Danville Correctional Center. DACC’s transfer classes continue to fill up for men pursuing associate degrees.
Kendra Morts has returned to the Hoopeston Higher Learning Center as assistant director to Karla Coon.
“We’ve begun sprucing up the Student Union in Lincoln Hall to make it look really nifty and Jaguar-ish,” Nacco continued.
The overdue renovation of the Radiologic Technology classroom and lab is underway.
DACC’s Illinois WorkNet-funded pre-apprenticeship Construction Program continues to fill up with students. DACC ran a full class last fall, last spring and this summer, and it has another 25 students this semester.
“Graduates earn a certificate and most wind up hired while the ink is still wet on their certificate,” according to Nacco.
DACC has begun transitioning to a new online educational system called “Canvas” in advance of spring implementation.
