SHELBY – After two years of extensive renovations and improvements, the Kehoe Center for Advanced Learning was celebrated and rededicated on Friday afternoon.
As North Central State College’s Shelby campus, the Kehoe Center renovations were a necessary step to accommodating new learning and collaboration spaces and capturing the latest technology.
“Our event today is to simply say thank you,” said Dorey Diab, president of NCSC. “It’s a way to pay it back to our partners who helped us get to this point, and pay it forward to the community.”
The renovations at the Kehoe Center include a more welcoming entryway, collaborative meeting space, and updates to numerous labs and classroom spaces to support programs in business, engineering, visual communications and information technology. These renovations were funded in part by a $500,000 Ohio Capital Budget Appropriation and a $248,000 USDA Distance Learning and Telemedicine grant.
Behind the scenes, major facility upgrades and improvements have been completed to increase the effectiveness of the wired and wireless networking, environmental systems and elevators that serve visitors, students and employees every day. These improvements were funded partly by a $1.5 million Targeted Workforce Development Expansion Grant from the Ohio Department of Higher Education.
“This is a world-class facility, bar-none,” said Rep. Mark Romanchuk. “But it’s not just the building itself, it’s what’s in it.”
Between state appropriations, grants at the state and local level, and gifts from local foundations, the Kehoe Center has amassed approximately $7 million in funds put towards improvements over the past three years.
“All of this is to put forth more educated and skilled citizens, who are less dependent on government assistance and drug abuse and more likely to earn better jobs with higher salaries,” Diab said. “This creates a better quality of life for the entire community.”
The Kehoe Center hosts programs at NCSC including business, visual communication, information technology, engineering and robotics, as well as the business and engineering academics of College NOW, which has served more than 200 students.
In addition, Kehoe is also the center of numerous workforce training initiatives including the nationally-recognized Integrated Systems Technology program, Industrial Readiness Training initiative, and additional modularized training programs.
This partnership of educating students while also meeting the needs of local employers is what helps the Kehoe Center thrive.
“It’s really exciting what’s going on here,” said Rep. Bob Gibbs on Friday. “Bringing affordable education is what our young adults need. I hold this up in the community as a way for young people to get a good education and good jobs in these fields.”
After a short ceremony in the Ralph Phillips Conference Center, followed by the official ribbon cutting in the Kehoe Center foyer, guests at the state and local level were invited to tour the Center’s various facilities.
Friday’s rededication was a testament not only to the beautiful building that is the Kehoe Center itself, but also the top programs and collaborations the facility houses.
“Community colleges uplift the entire community,” said Jack Hershey, president of the Ohio Association of Community Colleges. “They lift entire families into the middle class. This is a great thing you’re doing here.”
