President's Blog

We Have a Lot to Celebrate as Owens Welcomes 2023

Happy New Year! I am excited for the start of what I anticipate will be an inspiring and prosperous year for Owens Community College. As we start spring semester, I want to update you on some exciting things happening at the College.

As a community college, one of our goals must always be responsiveness to our community. Providing access to high-quality education and training opportunities and aligning those with employers’ needs (now and for the future) that lead to meaningful careers is not only at the core of economic development; it’s our mission. I’m pleased to share that we are launching a feasibility study to examine the possibility of a physical location for Owens within the city limits of Toledo. As with everything we do at Owens, we want to ensure that if we move forward with this plan, it provides value to and serves our students and the Toledo community, especially underserved populations. Over the next three to six months, we’ll gather and analyze data to evaluate the need for a location and what academic offerings would be attractive to students and to business and industry.

Owens is no stranger to Lucas County. We previously had learning centers in Maumee and Downtown Toledo. We also have partnerships that provide a physical presence in Lucas County, such as our welding and machining classes at the Cherry Street Mission’s Life Revitalization Center and special interest workshops and high school equivalency preparation classes at branches of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library. In addition, we are continuing to build our new partnership with Toledo Public Schools at the Toledo Technology Academy as well as several other partnerships that are in development. We believe that the time is right to re-examine the possibility of a broader presence, letting data determine our path. Our service district includes Lucas, Wood and Hancock counties and we want to assure that we’re fully serving it’s needs.

Continuing to look forward, we are well underway with our strategic planning process, which began in September. There are three phases, which we’ve referred to as “Where are we now?”, “Where are we going?” and “How will we get there?”. Phase I focused on collecting data and input to determine our current state. We are currently in Phase II of the process and anticipate launching the completed plan later this spring. Our new strategic plan is comprehensive in process, based on input from our students, faculty and staff, alumni, business and industry, and other partners.

Lastly, I am excited to share that you will see some new faces at Owens this spring. With some openings in leadership, I’ve had the opportunity to add to our Owens team with individuals who can bring us new perspectives and ideas that will help propel us to the next level of excellence. These new leaders have a proven ability to collaborate and a strong desire to build relationships within our organization and partnerships with our broader community. These new leaders are strategic thinkers and are here to build upon Owens’ past successes and expand our future. As we’ve worked to fill multiple leadership roles at basically the same time, it’s been so exciting to see how these different people will work together and what we will be able to do as a team and as an institution as we move forward.

As you can see, Owens is welcoming 2023 with excitement about our future. It’s an honor to lead this institution and to be a part of the Northwest Ohio community. I look forward to all we will accomplish together as we forge ahead into this new year.

Dione D. Somerville, Ed.D.
President