By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Since 2001, almost a quarter of the manufacturing jobs lost in the entire United States have been in Michigan, Southwestern Michigan College President Dr. David M. Mathews told Dowagiac Rotary Club Thursday noon at Elks Lodge 889.
SMC raised tuition 32 percent over four years, “But there's a limit to how much we can raise,” he said. “The higher we go, the more we close the door of educational opportunities. We had students come in after Labor Day and drop their entire course load because they couldn't afford $3-a-gallon gasoline. To somebody who's making $7 an hour at their job, trying to support their family, trying to go to school and trying to buy that gasoline just doesn't work.
More than 40 percent of SMC students are “financially needy” by federal guidelines.
Superintendent of Schools Larry Crandall said 55 percent of Dowagiac students qualify for free- and reduced-price lunches.
College revenue comes from three sources: state aid, which has declined drastically to less than 1999; tuition and fees, which now exceed state averages; and local property taxes.
Michigan has 28 community colleges which, on average, derive 41 percent of their operational funds from local property taxes, compared to the lighter burden SMC places on its community at 25 percent.
SMC's priority, of course, is providing access to affordable, high-quality education and job training.
While college-level education - the first two years toward a four-year degree - is most important to SMC, community feedback also encouraged SMC to furnish access to bachelor's degree programs, prompting partnerships with Western Michigan University, Ferris State University and Bethel College.
While education and training rank one and two, Mathews, Rotary's most recent Paul Harris Fellow for community service, also tailored his message to another prominent SMC role that resonates with Rotarians of “service above self.”
For his Oct. 24 presentation to Dowagiac City Council, Mathews composed at his keyboard two single-spaced pages of ways in four categories SMC gets involved in the community “that goes beyond our core mission.”
SMC also provides academic support services such as advising and tutoring and access to technology that help promote student success.
Wednesday night, while his son Michael, 7, dressed up as Popeye the sailor for the The Museum at Southwestern Michigan College's ninth annual Halloween Bash, Mathews was at the Jefferson Township Community Policing meeting, where he heard Cass County Board of Commissioners Vice Chairman Ron Francis identify SMC as the county's largest economic development asset.
Community services SMC provides include major sponsorships of Dowagiac's Dogwood Fine Arts Festival and the Cassopolis Art and Music Festival and its museum, “which preserves the local history of our region. It is truly a unique asset,” Mathews said. “We run a Girl Scout badge program out of the museum.” The college also offers a Fitness and Wellness Center.
Mathews said he believes there are enough voters in the college district of Cass County and Hamilton and Keeler townships of Van Buren County to pass the millage request Nov. 8.
But “there are also enough people out there to defeat this. We had 8,000 people tell us in May that they would go to the polls and vote yes and only 2,400 did. If that happens again, then we are taking that fork in the road where we have to turn inward and preserve our academic programs. There are just barely enough people identified to pass this thing … we're maybe within 200 votes - 200 votes short - of where we need to be Nov. 8.” Yard signs “are all for nothing if you don't go vote. It does my heart good to drive in parts of the county I've never been in before and see SMC signs next to mobile homes and lake estates. We cut across all economic levels. This is a community enrichment issue and a lot of people understand that.”
Scanning the list of community involvements and being new to the area, Ann Ringland said, “It strikes me that you're giving away far too much.”
Mathews responded, “The mission of a community college is determined by its locally-elected trustees. If we were in Battle Creek, we'd have cereal science programs. In Flint, auto programs. Here in our region our trustees have always been about general development of the community as a whole. It has never been about one group of people, but trying to transform the region.”
President Mathews also said someone is going through Dowagiac among renters claiming passage will hike their rent $100 a month.
From when he served in Special Forces, the former Green Beret recalls a saying, “On the plains of hesitation lie the bleached bones of countless millions who at the dawn of victory sat down to rest, and resting, died.”