I have to be back on-campus in a bit for kick-off proceedings to start another semester. This will be the second semester of our third academic year in operation. Other than not being aboard for the first year of operations I have been part of the staff since August 2022.

Yesterday the president of the college announced we broke through the threshold of 500 students being enrolled. That’s been a big psychological barrier for a lot of us. We’ve been speed-running a lot of this work getting a community college off the ground and starting nearly from scratch. On Monday we’ll be kicking off our sixth regular semester of teaching and we have essentially created something good in so little time.

In the days before COVID, this would’ve been unheard of. What we’ve done would’ve taken far, far longer. So many barriers that existed previously aren’t there. The environment that we’re working in is also rather different.

I can look and say that I’ve had a hand in changing lives for the better and have helped create an institution that will build a community up. My main regret is that it isn’t in Ohio let alone Ashtabula County. I am never really able to do this sort of work in the place where I dwell (sometimes called “home”) and usually end up doing it elsewhere.

Yes, there are several hours of meetings to come. They’re going to be exciting ones.