Blackhawk Tech to show off another new building

JANESVILLE — There are a lot of firsts and mosts and newests being tossed around at Blackhawk Technical College this fall.

Last school year, Blackhawk achieved a decade-high 3,672 students enrolled in its various programs. That’s the most since 2014 when the Janesville General Motors plant closed in 2008 caused 5,000 people to suddenly need training for new careers.

On Sept. 6, Blackhawk hosted its first collegiate athletics home game when Bryant & Stratton College came to the central campus between Beloit and Janesville for a volleyball match. This year, Blackhawk Tech is fielding teams in bowling, clay target shooting, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s golf and women’s volleyball.

On Sept. 26, the college unveiled its Public Safety Center, the final piece of a $32 million public safety and transportation complex to serve as a training hub for students pursuing careers in emergency services and law enforcement.

And on Thursday, the college is holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 5 p.m. for its new Innovative Manufacturing Education Center (I-MEC). Located on the south side of the central campus, it has hands-on learning equipment for students studying automation technology, CNC programming, electro-mechanical, industrial maintenance, manufacturing engineering, welding and fabrication and heating, ventilation and air conditioning. It replaces a smaller manufacturing center the college used to run in Milton, which was sold to KANDU Industries.

“When I got here eight years ago, there was clear indication in the data that we weren’t engaging in our community at the level similar colleges were in their communities,” Blackhawk Tech President Tracy Pierner said. “We are now nearing the end of a strategic plan to rebuild our reputation, which had been tarnished for whatever reason, and become a much more critical part of the education system here.”

For decades, Wisconsin had a bifurcated system where colleges such as Blackhawk Tech solely focused on developing workforce skills and schools such as University of Wisconsin-Rock County (now UW-Whitewater at Rock County), offered two-year associates degrees to students who were looking to complete four-year degrees.

Over the past four years, Pierner said the state has approved all 16 colleges in the Wisconsin Technical College System to offer two-year associates of arts and associates of science degrees. That makes them the same as the community colleges in Illinois such as Rock Valley College in Rockford and Belvidere and Highland Community College in Freeport.

Blackhawk Tech was approved to offer two-year degrees in 2022, which directly led to launching an athletics program.

“We knew that we would be a destination to a younger demographic, the 18- to 19-year-old recent graduate,” Pierson said. “We needed to work on our campus, to make it more appealing. We needed to have things for the kids to do, something to create community. Athletics helps create a campus atmosphere.”

Those who to a BTC event this year, may see Pierson there.

“I have my Talons gear, some T-shirts and sweatshirts,” he said. “I love it. It’s not just students at the games so far. I’ve seen some community members.”

It’s also a recruiting tool. Blackhawk Tech jumped directly into Division II, which is the deeper end of the junior college competitive pool. Division III schools offer no tuition or housing scholarships. Division II schools offer athletic scholarships to help pay tuition. Division I schools can offer both tuition and housing scholarships for athletes — what is commonly called “full rides.”

Blackhawk Tech this fall welcomed athletes from Florida, North Carolina, New Mexico and Arizona, among others. Those students were unlikely to come without the scholarships.

Still, Pierson cautioned that Blackhawk Tech, which also has a campus in Monroe, remains tightly focused on its historical mission — helping people in the community develop marketable skills.

“We don’t want anyone to get the impression that we’re no longer interested in workplace development,” Pierson said. “The public safety center and I-MEC shows our commitment.”

Indeed, over the past 10 years there has been a noticeable shift at the high school level to focus more on career development. Blackhawk Tech is a central part of that movement locally. According to BTC statistics, last year there were students from 27 different high schools or home school programs taking dual-credit classes. That included 68 from Turner, 49 from Beloit Memorial, 39 from South Beloit, 29 from Clinton, 19 from Brodhead, 13 from the Lincoln Academy and five from Parkview in Orfordville.

Vocational classes remained the most popular majors as well. Nursing, by far, had the most students with 522, followed by diagnostic imaging (254), radiography (179), dental hygiene or assistant (158) and business management (145).

Pierson said this semester has been extremely exciting with the new buildings to show and teams to celebrate. There is one piece of the puzzle still left — on campus housing.

This year, Blackhawk Tech has 17 students living on the Beloit College campus at Peet Hall through a partnership that allows the students access to Beloit College’s fitness facilities and meal plans. Blackhawk Tech provides shuttle service to its campus.

“We reserved 20 beds and got 17 right out of the chute. That will grow next year,” Pierson said. “Our analytics show we can support a 125-bed facility. Our (Blackhawk Foundation) owns 12 acres of land. We’re not allowed to use our funds to build housing so we’re either going to have to form a partnership or our foundation is going to have to build it. We’re in the early stages of a long discussion.”