Community Is Our Middle Name: 40 Years of Learning, Working and Growing Together

There is something special about having the word community right in the middle of your name.

For Owensboro Community & Technical College, it is more than part of our name. It describes who we are, whom we serve and why we are here.

As OCTC celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, we have an opportunity to look back at how much has changed since the college's beginnings in 1986. Programs have grown and evolved. Technology has transformed how we teach and learn. New buildings and campuses have opened. Careers that didn't exist 40 years ago are now preparing students for opportunities we could scarcely have imagined then.

But one thing hasn't changed: OCTC and this community have grown together.

For four decades, the people, employers, schools and organizations of this region have helped shape the college we are today.

Learning Together

For thousands of students, OCTC has been the place where something began.

It may have been the first step toward a bachelor's degree, the skills needed to begin a new career, a credential that led to a promotion, or simply the chance to discover, "I can do this."

Today, that beginning can happen at many different points in life.

High school students earn college credit before graduation. Recent graduates prepare for careers or transfer to four-year universities. Working adults return to college to gain new skills or change careers. Employers send employees to us for specialized training. And community members continue learning simply because there is something new they want to know or do.

Our students don't all arrive at OCTC by the same path, and they don't all leave headed in the same direction. That's exactly as it should be.

Being a community college means meeting people where they are and helping them get where they want to go.

Working Together

OCTC's classrooms have never existed separately from the workplaces around us.

Local employers serve on advisory committees, provide clinical and work-based learning experiences, donate equipment, offer expertise and—most importantly—hire our graduates.

When regional employers tell us they need more nurses, skilled technicians, welders, electricians, IT professionals, business leaders or other highly trained employees, we listen.

Sometimes that means adapting a program. Sometimes it means developing a new partnership. Sometimes it means bringing employers and educators together to solve a problem neither could solve alone.

The HealthForce Kentucky Innovation Center is a powerful recent example of what can happen when education, healthcare, government and community partners share a vision. But that spirit of collaboration has been part of OCTC throughout our history.

Our responsibility isn't simply to prepare students for today's jobs. It is to work alongside our community to understand what comes next.

Growing Together

Community also means recognizing that education doesn't happen only inside a classroom.

It happens when a middle school student discovers a career at JobSpark. It happens when a high school student puts a technical skill to the test at Trade Wars. It happens when students meet employers and hear firsthand what it takes to go from college to career. It happens when a child visits campus for the first time and begins to imagine that college might someday be part of their story.

It also happens when our faculty and staff leave campus.

You'll find members of the OCTC family serving on nonprofit boards, speaking to civic organizations, volunteering at community events, visiting schools, working with employers and lending their expertise throughout the region.

That exchange matters.

The community comes into OCTC, and OCTC goes out into the community.

Being There When It Matters

Of course, "community" means something even more basic: showing up for one another.

College students are also employees, parents, caregivers, neighbors and family members. Life doesn't stop because someone enrolled in college.

Cars break down. Work schedules change. Childcare falls through. Families experience emergencies. Sometimes a relatively small obstacle can become the reason a student considers giving up on a much larger dream.

That's why the support surrounding our students matters so much—from faculty members and advisors who notice when someone is struggling to the OCTC Foundation and generous donors who help provide resources when students need them most.

Helping a student cross the finish line isn't the work of one person or one department. It takes a community.

The Next 40 Years

It would be easy during an anniversary year to spend all our time looking backward.

And we certainly have plenty to celebrate.

But perhaps the best way to honor OCTC's first 40 years is to ask what our community will need from us during the next 40.

The students of the future will be different. The workplace will be different. Technology will be different. Some of the careers we will prepare students for haven't been invented yet.

Our job is not to predict every change.

Our job is to remain close enough to our students, employers and community that we can change with them.

That requires listening. It requires partnerships. It requires innovation. And sometimes it requires the willingness to rethink the way we've always done things.

Fortunately, OCTC has been doing that for four decades.

Come Celebrate With Us

On Saturday, September 26, we'll have a chance to celebrate that relationship when OCTC and the OCTC Foundation welcome the community to Boots & BBQ from 2–6 p.m.

There will be great local music, food, family activities and opportunities to explore OCTC programs—but more than anything, it will be a chance to gather with the people who have been part of our story.

Our students and alumni. Our employees and retirees. Our employers and partners. Our neighbors, friends and families.

Because this 40th anniversary doesn't belong only to OCTC.

It belongs to the community that built us, supported us, challenged us and grew alongside us.

Owensboro is in our name.

Community is in the middle of it.

And after 40 years of learning, working and growing together, that's still exactly where it belongs.

Sydney Warren graduated from Daviess County High School, taking some courses at OCTC along the way, earned a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Murray State University and a Master's degree in Management from Brescia University. Warren has served on the Girl's Inc. Board of Directors and the Impact 100 Board and serves as a chair for Impact 100 Next Gen.

She is married to Isaac Warren, and they have two sons.