Photo by: WSU Office of Marketing
Within the next two weeks, Wright State University’s Lake Campus will hear from Ohio’s General Assembly regarding a proposal to build a brand-new workforce center.
“Once we have that number in hand, we sit down and have serious discussions with the university architects,” said interim dean of WSU’s Lake campus. Dr. Dan Krane.
The workforce center:
“We’re building this new center but a sub-story is that this is going to help us tackle some of these classroom space needs that we have,” said Dr. Krane.
The proposal is that a new structure would be built, in which the school’s business enterprise center would move. The current business enterprise center would become a vacant space which could be utilized for more space for instruction.
“Student enrollment at the Dayton Campus has been declining consistently for the last several years, the opposite is true for the Lake Campus. While there is excess instructional space at the Dayton Campus, that is unequivocally not the case for Lake Campus. We’re busting at the seams,” said Krane.
This project has been in the works for seven years, according to Krane.
“It [the workforce center project] was next in line and the time is definitely right for us to go ahead and finish off the work that we had begun so long ago in getting the project up and running,” said Krane.
‘All those things are coming together’
The center has been a priority at the Lake Campus since August, since the grand opening of the Lake Campus’ extension of Andrew’s Hall.
“We’ve had great success in impressing upon key legislators that it should be a priority for the region as well,” said Krane. “All those things are coming together right now.”
Right across the street from the Lake Campus is a brand-new facility: the Tristar Career Compact.
“It’s a result of a collaboration between 10 local school districts. It’s virtually unprecedented across the country, let alone in Ohio,” said Krane. “It’s a real statement to the commitment to the community and enhancing the local economy, particularly the booming manufacturing industry that’s taken place in the northern part of the Miami Valley.”
Tristars impact
Tristar Career Compact is a career technical center where high school students can attend to gain vocational skills, according to Krane.
“What we’re talking about with this workforce development center is a very natural progression from what’s happening with that Tristar Compact,” said Krane.
Mercer and Auglaize Counties have the lowest unemployment rates in the state, according to Krane.
“The workforce development center is going to be a neat opportunity for us to upskill the current employees that these companies have but also to help train people within the region to take those high paying manufacturing jobs,” said Krane.
The Lake Campus houses a business enterprise center that is all about getting students traditional and non-traditional the skills they need for their career fields.
“There’s a large variety of courses that are available within the business enterprise center and they’re designed with that sort of thing in mind,” said Krane. “You can do that straight out of high school, or you can do it coming in after having had a job for decades and you just want to be able to continue to be competitive in that job market.”
How does this impact a community?
Studies in the state of Ohio have shown that students are likely to settle within 100 miles of the college in which they attended, according to Krane.
“They’re aware that if you build this sort of thing, those students are going to be trained and they’ll never leave,” said Krane. “You can do things like come to southeast Ohio to try and recruit people where there is high unemployment to go where there is low unemployment or you can just double down on your efforts to keep the local people from moving someone else and I think it’s all of the above, they’re really working to fuel that fire of the booming economy.”
More information is to follow in the coming weeks regarding the progression of the project and when to expect the center to unveil.
“I think fall of 2020 is unrealistic, spring of 2020 could be a possibility, fall of 2021 seems likely,” said Krane.
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