- PNC is proud to support Business Forward, where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in central Illinois.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to Business Forward.

I'm your host Matt George.

Tonight's topic is a great one, so I want to get right down to it.

Joining me tonight, Dr. Sheila Quirk-Bailey.

She's the president of Illinois Central College, doing an unbelievable job here in town.

Welcome.

- Thank you.

Excited to be here.

- Well, I'm glad you're on, because your name comes up so many times in so many positive ways because there's a lot of initiatives that are in motion right now.

I mean, there's a lot, and I think a lot of times our community middle Illinois, because ICC is more than just, just Peoria, east Peoria.

It is, it's statewide or even country-wide.

People come to junior colleges all over, right?

- Right.

- So, where were you before you came to Illinois central college?

- I was at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois for 26 year before I came down here.

- [Matt] 26 Years?

- Yeah - That's awesome.

That's awesome.

So what brought you to here?

Just the opportunity to, when you came in you saw ICC and the power that it has and the power that it could be, is that what sways someone like you to apply to a job like this?

- You know, it's interesting, because I had had seven different administrative positions at the previous college.

So the joke there was I couldn't keep a job even in the same institution.

So I never really thought I aspired to be a president.

And then after working for the last two, I realized that being further away from the students, but the impact of setting that policy and really setting that direction and with the community, could be really impactful.

So when I was looking and I'm a Bradley alum, I grew up further downstate, so I knew the area and just took a look at the need in the community and the portfolio of the college and thought, what we really needed to do, was to create workforce programs that were just as strong as our transfer programs, which are just amazing.

Our students, when they transfer around the state, actually have a higher graduation rate and higher GPA at graduation than the students who started there their freshman year.

- [Matt] Wow.

- So I thought what we're missing then is that workforce components to balance that out.

And I'd done a lot of that work at my previous institution.

So I was looking for a place where I could sort of delve in to the community and those topics.

- Yeah I mean, because for years, junior colleges have been looked upon as really as hidden gems in communities, because I even told, I, you know, I have four daughters and a son and I, I told my three oldest daughters, I said, listen, trust me on this, you have, go to a junior college.

The classes are smaller, you get one-on-one time with those professors, you learn more, it's the same classes.

And then I don't care where you go.

You can go wherever you want to go and continue your path.

But, and it's more friendly to the wallet.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

So you don't have to worry about going directly to a university where you're going to be taught by teaching assistants.

- [Matt] Right.

- These are dedicated professionals, who chose to be in a community college because they wanted to teach, right?

They're not going to spend three quarters of their time researching.

They're there for the student.

They're there because they want to teach.

- [Matt] And they're part of the community.

- And they're part of the community.

They understand the needs of our students, because we're open access.

Anybody can come to us, we will meet you where you are and put you on the path to go where you want to go.

And again, from a financial standpoint, you don't have to, it just breaks my heart.

You know, student debt is second only to mortgages, you know, and we've got students graduating from four years who are 40, 60, $80,000 in debt and just heartbreaking.

- [Matt] It is.

- And you could have cut that in half, right?

If you started at a community college.

- Yeah, and the other thing too is, when kids come in, I'm already straying now, cause I have so many questions for you, but when kids come in, a lot of times, they have no clue what they're going to do.

So coming into a community college, it also opens some doors and eyes to things, especially, let's say, take an example, a kid comes in from a rural area and they come from a farm.

They know farming, they know small community.

They come to ICC or any junior college, they come to a junior college and they see opportunity after opportunity.

- Absolutely.

You know, we talk about, if you can't see it, you can't be it.

So we do a lot of work with our Middle Schools and our High Schools.

It's amazing opportunities in health careers, right in this community with these two major hospital systems and students come in and they either want to be a doctor, transfer on and stay on that path, or they want to be a nurse.

Now, why is that?

Because it's the only two occupations they've ever really seen, in that field.

When we really have 23 occupations, to your tech positions that pay amazing money.

- [Matt] Right.

Right, think respiratory therapist, right?

Because of COVID we think of that right down the line.

So we really try to focus with Middle Schools and High Schools, along with the Regional Workforce Alliance and Beth Kreider over at the right, superintendent.

- [Matt] She's awesome.

- Isn't she great?

- [Matt] Yeah.

- And with really trying to build in systemically, understanding of the opportunities in those individual career clusters.

So students, whether they come to ICC or not, are graduating High School and they may not know the specific occupation, but they know I'm interested in health careers, or I want to go into business or I'm looking at engineering, as opposed to it being a complete blank slate.

And we're a great place to explore because if you need to, you know, a semester at this and you change your mind, much less costs much less further behind than if you go into a university and two years in, right, now you still have four years to go.

- Yeah.

And I don't know if you remember this, but right when you came into town, I was lucky enough to have one of the first meetings with you.

I think it was your first week or two.

- I think it was my first week yeah.

(laughs) - And I sat down in your office and you already started laying out a vision.

And I found that very interesting.

I, I, honest to God, I walked away from that meeting and I thought this lady has a plan already.

I don't think she knows exactly what this plan is, but she's got some ideas.

And I always, I always will remember that.

It's pretty cool.

So how long did it take for you to actually get into the groove?

Because I felt that you jumped right in, but you probably didn't.

I'm guessing.

- You know, we really spent that first year (clears throat) put together a strategic planning committee and we did for the first time a community-based strategic plan.

So not only do we do a year's worth of work internally, with our wonderful faculty and staff, we also studied a lot of external data about the community and where higher Ed was going.

And then that all culminated in a two day retreat that included community members, to talk about what do you really need from this institution at this point in time to help move the community forward?

So it took us about 18 months to get all that figured out.

- Interesting.

So one of the initiatives that, and you hear these words all the time work force initiative, but really, I think it could mean several things.

What does it mean to you, to ICC?

What does it mean?

- Yeah.

So when we're talking about workforce, when you enter a community college, students usually have one or two goals.

I'm looking to get some sort of certification, to go straight into a job workforce, or I'm looking to transfer to a four year institution.

And those two categories muddy together, when the occupation you want requires a four year degree.

So if you're an engineering student, we would consider you transfer.

You'll do your first two years of engineering.

And in fact, we've got a great program with U of I, if you meet their GPA and stay on their guided pathway, right?

You can start as a junior at the U of I's engineering program and think of the money you just saved there, compared to ICC.

So that gets there.

But what we needed to do in workforce was to stack our credentials, right?

So say you want to be a welder, where there's a production welder an entry-level and there's a specialty welding, and then you actually get up to some of the Ark.

And we aligned that with industry certifications.

So companies knew there was quality there and you meet people where they are, right?

And you put them on that pathway.

Now, when you talk about our new workforce division, where we're really trying to focus there is, occupations where there are workforce gaps.

So there are more job openings in this community than there are people to fill them.

Because that way, when you help someone right, get a workforce certification, you know there's a job waiting because right there aren't enough people in the area.

So that cuts down a little on the choice, but it really ratchets up the opportunity to move straight into a job when you're done.

- Well there's a finish line.

- [Dr Sheila] There's a finish line.

- Yeah.

- And then we stack those credentials.

So let's say you want to be a production welder, right?

You can start there and then come back and up-skill right.

Make another $6 an hour, come up to the highest level right, make another $10 an hour and keep moving people up, so we can keep back filling with people.

So we're meeting the needs of businesses as well as people's ability to meet the needs of themselves in their family.

- So there's certain trainings and certificates that they can achieve or have the goal to achieve at ICC that would put them in those positions to Excel in that whatever job they get.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- You know, what's interesting is when you talk to the trades, as an example, the gaps that they're seeing right now, really are complementing what, or I guess you are complimenting their gaps because you're filling these jobs and giving these kids hope.

Because a lot of times, I know I'm all over the board today, but this is an interesting conversation.

A lot of times kids will come in and they'll sit there and they'll go, I don't know where I'm going to be in four years.

You're actually putting the paper in front of them right now and saying, well, here's where you could be.

You just have to do these two years or this certificate.

And then you will jump into this lane.

- Absolutely.

Give them, we give them tools to use, to determine what they, what they're interested in, and where their talent set currently is.

And to say, hey, we think this career cluster, we like to talk about groupings of jobs, make sense for you.

Now where's your passion?

Do any of these light your fire?

Here's all those options and what they pay and how many positions are usually open in our region, you know, in higher Ed, in the United States, it's really interesting, very different than the approach they take in Europe, because here we say, live your dream, right, and figure it out later.

Right?

So someone may go off and I don't want to pick on a certain area, but let's say Sociology, I'm a Sociology major.

And then they graduate and they go, oh, well, I don't quite know what that gets me.

I need to go back and get my master's degree or maybe even my doctorate to do the kind of work I thought I wanted to do, but I didn't understand that at front.

So it's not about trying to push people into specific choices, but those should all be informed choices.

You should know what that means when you set out on that path and really having that information is critical back in Middle School.

Because while students don't know what they want to be when they grow up in seventh grade, all the research shows what they start to do in seventh grade is say, oh, gee, I don't like the sight of blood and everything in health careers is now off the table.

Or I don't like, you know, somebody I know they work in manufacturing and they're always coming home and their clothes are dirty.

I don't want to be in a dirty environment.

I'm not doing anything in manufacturing.

- [Matt] Right.

- And they just take all of these amazing opportunities and push them aside, right.

And we've got to make sure that they really understand what those are, so they keep them viable until they get a little older to understand some of those details.

- Yeah.

And let's talk about, you know, you, you talk about trades and you talk about the healthcare piece because that healthcare piece is important.

We've gone from a manufacturing area, a decade ago to now we are healthcare.

And when you look at the open positions at both hospitals here and in hospitals in Bloomington and Galesburg, you take all of those, just nursing positions, they can come to ICC and start that path and really be another feeder school instead of like, if OSF has their school and you know, Unity Point and Methodist has theirs.

And so you actually go into really finding another lane to really providing the care that a region needs.

- Absolutely.

So, in our health careers fields, 100% placement rate, right?

Other than two programs, they are full continuously nursing, we turn away about 400 students a year - [Matt] Wow.

- Who are qualified, because there are caps on how many we can put in our program.

Right?

Because they need clinicals in the hospital.

So each regional program is given here's how many students.

So we have 90, right?

We'll do 90 nursing students.

We could, we could do hundreds, right?

So that's a system that needs to be, you know, considered.

The other side of that is, our students are from the region and they stay in the region.

So nothing that gets Bradley, I'm an alumnist, right?

Love them to death.

But students come from all over the country.

They have a wonderful nursing program, but often they go back home.

Right?

To where they came from to seek out their job.

And that's not necessarily Bradley's role, to say, hey, stay here.

But we're starting to work with them on that Regional Workforce Alliance and say, hey, is there any way we could get more companies involved with your students before they graduate?

So they can see this is a wonderful place to stay and build a life.

It's not, you don't have to go back someplace else.

- Well you came here from Northern Illinois right?

- Well, I actually grew up in Caseyville.

- [Matt] Okay.

- Right?

So I came here, I was first one of my family to go to college.

My mom used to refer to Peoria as sin city.

She couldn't believe she was sending her baby girl to Sin City.

This was back in the, (inaudible) back in the early eighties, let's just say that.

I had an amazing experience at Bradley and in Peoria.

And when I had the opportunity to come back, didn't hesitate at all.

I don't get, sometimes people are a little negative about this region, but oh my gosh, if you take a look at everything we've got going on, just say a rubric, right.

And you've got the water and you've got the baseball and you have the hockey and you've got a symphony and you've got the Civic Center.

Right?

And all the concerts, I can go.

I went to, I went to a concert and I left literally left my seat, and I was home in 20 minutes.

I mean, if it was Chicago it'd be, you know, it'd be an hour and a half, at least.

I was like.

- It's a beating, yeah, you do some of those things here.

Here it's great.

- Bob Seger, right?

And I would've paid to go see him in Chicago.

First of all, the ticket was cheaper.

It was home.

And I was like, you can't beat this anywhere.

- [Matt] You can't beat it.

This is a great community, great place to be.

- It's, it's an awesome community.

And it's one of those things.

You, you touched on it.

We need to take the Chicago's and the St Louis's and the Indianapolis and when people are migrating out of those cities, we need to sell our city.

We have to get rid of this notion, that there's a negative vibe around middle Illinois and Peoria and Bloomington.

It's just, it drives me nuts.

- Me too.

And I think we just need to figure out how to get the cat out of the bag.

That new ad campaign that starting to run, "the less traffic more life".

I think that's really going to speak to the St. Louis in the Chicago metropolitan area, because nothing could be, I mean, if you take 20 minutes to get someplace here, right.

We think we've had a long commute.

You know, I commuted over an hour each way for over 20 years.

Right?

And now I'm here.

I'm like, man, I can be anywhere in five minutes.

- Yeah, think of that, you saved two hours a day, - [Dr. Sheila] A day.

- [Matt And Dr. Sheila] Yeah.

- [Matt] You're a busy woman.

So let's talk promise neighborhoods.

What does that mean?

- Sure.

So promise neighborhoods is a federal grant that we applied to.

It was $30 million over five years, we just recently learned we weren't funded.

- [Matt] Okay.

- But what that was about is, 61605, is one of the most devastated communities in our country.

There's a federal ranking system for devastations of communities.

And that community was at 99.6.

So our vision was when we brought the community together, there were over 40 community-based organizations who were in on those calls.

A lot of that led by Peoria public schools, the city of Peoria, and then ICC to put together a model.

The model that we were basing, our, our program on was the one you may have heard 10 years ago, back in Harlem, where they really went community, community, house to house.

And the theory is you can't turn a community of intense poverty around, unless you can deal with the whole person.

So there may be a free health clinic over here, but do they have the transportation to get there?

Do they even know about it?

There may be extra supports in school.

There may be food pantries.

There may be, you could make a full-time job out of just trying to figure out how to go get resources you need to survive.

Right?

So the whole model is built around community navigators.

And the plan was that each household in 61605 would have a navigator to help stabilize that family, to create an environment where their students could get the most out of the wonderful things going on at Peoria public schools, so they could move forward with their life.

So the initiative was called Cradle to Career and how to turn that community around household by household to help stabilize environments for those students.

Right?

So they could go forward and they have a successful life and it included more lighting.

It include internet access on that lighting.

It included a portal that would make it a drop of a hat.

All of the services that were available, internet devices.

I mean, it really was a comprehensive plan to move forward.

So the bad news is we were five point short of perfect, which didn't get us funded.

That grant will come around again.

And so we'll go again.

And we did receive a half million dollars as a congressional earmark to do one year's worth of work, to get all the baseline data and the processes and everything down, the more refined we are with this, the more likely we already get funded the next time.

So usually I get that like feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Oh no!

Here I'm just like, okay, we didn't make it the first time, but we're going to get this done.

- I was gonna say that to you, I'm in the business of dealing with these grants and dealing with the State and Federal and so on.

And what happens is they like the idea, I've always felt this.

They like the idea that was your pilot run, refine the pilot and let's, we'll fund your next time.

And it may not even be the same funder, but the good thing is you have the cookie cutter now already set to the side to say, hey, we've got a jump on everybody because we've already done all of the leg work that you've got.

So I'm with you.

It's going to happen.

- It's going to happen.

- And our 61605 needs it.

- Absolutely.

You know, and when we took a look at the, the $30 million required a 100% match, we really actually had over $47 million in match.

And so when you think of all those community-based organizations providing services to people in that, the power of that all coming together with someone to help each family figure out which part of that works for them to stabilize them, is just amazingly powerful.

Right?

So we're going to figure that out.

- This is kind of, it was kind of a setup question because I know this well, and these are the kids that children's homes serves, and this is, this is our community.

And I, what, you know, one of the things that people don't understand, I talk about this a lot when I go out and speak is that it's really hard sometimes for kids to even put on a uniform for school when they don't have anything to eat, or when they don't have a bed to sleep in, or all of the oral health issues that are happening with these kids and these families, and then you have the transportation piece like you're talking about.

Huge!

I was Principal one day at Harrison school and I got to go shadow the principal there and it was like one of the best days in the last few years that I had.

And, and when I walked in, there were kids that had walked to school and, a mile and a half, and it's not, this is happening all over the country.

Transportation issues happen everywhere.

But you know, I think Peoria public schools always gets a bad rap.

And my wife's a teacher there.

My kids go there.

And you know, I look at it as it's a perfect opportunity to get involved in a great way with so many diverse kids, and so many great things happening in this community and so many opportunities.

- [Dr Sheila] Yes.

- And so I brought up promise neighborhoods because I love the idea of it.

It's one of the coolest ideas there is.

So let's talk about your team.

- [Dr Sheila] Sure.

- Because I always liked talking about teams because the teams are really what drive everything you do, because if you don't have them.

- [Dr Sheila] Right - You're going to fail.

- [Dr Sheila] Right.

- So talk about the team at ICC.

- We have an amazing team at ICC, and we have like, everyone had a couple of retirements recently, as well as someone who decided to run for Mayor.

So Reed is doing other things.

So we have some openings right now, but everyone in the community usually knows Bruce Buddy, right?

He's been there over 26 years.

He is absolutely amazing and has been the heart and soul holding ICC together, right, over multiple presidents right?

As all that's played through.

We have an amazing new vice president of Academic Affairs.

His name is Dr. Chuck Swaim, and he is innovative, and collaborative, and funny.

You know, our meetings are fun.

I have a new assistant who's been with us three months.

She's like, I've never been in, she's been in executive, I've never been in this CEO type, you know.

- Where it's fun.

- These executive, right?

You have some fun, right?

So work hard, play hard.

And Chuck is just amazing.

And we also have a new vice president of Student Affairs, Bill LaVare, and he comes to us from the Wisconsin system, and then was recently in Boston for a couple of years before he joined us.

Doing some amazing things with Student Services.

We've got a great new program that we're completely redesigning, how we do advising at the college.

- [Matt] That's awesome.

- So that is, that is wonderful.

And then Kim Armstrong, long time Peorian, - [Matt] Yeah.

right, is running our, both our foundation and our communications and our marketing that entire, that entire, she's amazing.

She's amazing.

And who am I leaving out?

We just.

- What about the coaches?

I mean you've got, you have some of the best sports.

- Absolutely.

- Yes.

I had to bring that up.

I'm a sports guy.

- No, I appreciate that.

So our, we were in the top five in the nation last year, both in women's basketball and women's and women's volleyball.

- [Matt] Right.

- We always, and it's not always the same groups, although our women's sports do really well.

But year in and year out, we have two or three, right, teams that go to, and people, a lot of people don't know that there is a whole league, right, for community colleges and a national series.

- [Matt] It's huge.

- And it's amazing.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- And our teams do very well.

We just had, you may have heard, Jim Thome out, right?

To dedicate the fields.

- Everybody loves Jim Thome.

Those fields look awesome, by the way.

- [Dr. Sheila] Didn't they do a great job?

- Yeah.

And, and Tony Wysinger, I went to Illinois with Tony Wysinger.

- Yeah.

- And Sue Sinclair in the past and Rain Ramsey, and there's legends through this sports at ICC.

- Absolutely.

Well You don't get any better than Tony.

And I agree with, with Sue, I mean, just legends.

- [Matt] Legends - Just legends, come to the Cougarplex, and you can read about it on the wall, or look it up any way you want to.

- [Matt] Yeah.

Right, Some of the, the best have been through ICC.

- Well and I want to say one more thing.

The janitorial staff, that the campus is always clean.

- [Dr. Sheila] Absolutely.

- Every time I have a meeting there, anywhere, on that campus, it is beautiful.

And that's important, especially when you're trying to, I don't know if recruits the right word for kids, but you're trying to get families.

And if I'm taking a visit and I go over the river, which is beautiful.

And then I go up the hill and then I go into the ICC campus.

There I am.

- So well, thanks for sharing that.

And we have, we agree with that.

You know, sometimes people think of community colleges as less than.

We want them to know that they're on a campus.

We want them to be proud of that.

We want the community to be proud of that.

And that's just as important.

It's part of being welcoming.

It's part of knowing you fit in.

If you believe about yourself, that you don't deserve what other people have or you've never had, what other people have, we want you to walk on that campus and say, this is the full deal.

I can do this.

- [Matt] You got it.

- I can make it happen.

Make them feel excellent.

- Well, you do great things.

What a great show.

We appreciate everything you do.

I'm Matt George.

And this is another episode of Business Forward.

(upbeat music) - Thank you for tuning into Business Forward, brought to you by PNC.