State of Evolution

Edison State College is starting to look like a state university.

olleges around the state, Fort Myers-based Edison now offers four-year degrees to its students. It has started opening residential dormitories, it's considering creating a collegiate sports program, it's boosting its alumni program and it plans to ramp up efforts to raise money from wealthy individuals and corporations.

“We're taking all the trappings of a college,” acknowledges Jeffery Allbritten, the president of the school.

The evolution of the community college is critical to employers in the region who depend on an educated workforce to grow. For example, Wisconsin-based Alta Resources recently cited the universities in the Fort Myers region as a top reason for opening a 400-employee customer service and sales center here. “We just had Hertz two weeks ago,” says Allbritten, referring to his discussions with executives from the car-rental giant that is moving its global headquarters to south Lee County from New Jersey over the next two years.

Schools like Edison already have lower tuition rates than other universities, but Allbritten says the college is taking up Gov. Rick Scott's call to offer bachelor's degrees for a total of $10,000 over four years. “Our degrees are $13,700 on average,” says Allbritten.

All of this takes money, and state colleges like Edison can't depend on traditional state funding to fill in the gaps. In fact, Allbritten says the college lost $34 million during the recession as new students flooded the campus for training (more than 16,000 students enrolled in fall 2012). “The state funding never kept up,” says Allbritten.

Meanwhile, Edison nearly lost its accreditation because of lapses in some of its degrees, preventing it from actively fundraising and launching new programs. The Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools recently lifted Edison's probation one year after Allbritten took over as president.

With the organizational challenges behind it and stabilization in student enrollment, Allbritten is on a mission to raise the college's profile. A capital campaign is in the works to grow the Edison State College Foundation's endowment to $100 million, more than double what it is today. “We're going to be talking about partnerships,” Allbritten says.

Building a foundation
The Edison State College Foundation posted net assets totaling $42 million, according to the nonprofit's most recent tax return. The fundraising arm of the school could reach $100 million within a decade, says Allbritten.

“I think that's reasonable and doable,” says Tammy Surratt, the foundation's chair.

Part of the challenge is getting the message out. “It's not well understood by the public that we are not 100% funded by the state,” says Surratt.

Corporate fundraising will match efforts to meet employers' needs, especially those who graduated from Edison and have been successful. “Our challenge and our desire is to bring in the alumni, the up-and-coming business leaders and get them engaged in the college,” Surratt says. “Now we have a full-time person who is dedicated to alumni relations and alumni programs.”

A letter of the alphabet identifies many of the Fort Myers campus buildings, but those could be replaced with donors' names. For example, the administration's offices are located in the “I” building. “There are lots of naming opportunities, from brick pavers to buildings,” says Surratt.

To attract corporate donors, Allbritten is particularly keen to discuss the needs of employers. “It's not just about enrollment,” says Allbritten, who notes that employment after graduation should be a top measure of the college's success.

Fact is, the four-year bachelor's degree is the passport to employment today. Edison now offers 10 bachelor's degrees in fields such as health care, public safety and education. “Those are the areas with the high needs,” he says.

The two bachelor's degrees that will cost $10,000 will be secondary biology education and middle grades science education. The college structured the payment of those two degrees so the savings are realized in the last years of the program as incentives for the students to graduate. “It's yet to be seen if that's going to be enticing,” Allbritten says.

Dorms and sports
Allbritten, 49, says he also wants to bring back collegiate sports to campus, despite the budget and facility challenges. Edison, which was established in 1962, had a sports program that included a good basketball team, but it was gutted in 1992, he says.

Among the sports under consideration are baseball, basketball and softball. The tie between fundraising and college sports is clear: “It's a way to engage the community,” Allbritten says.

Meanwhile, dormitories mean Edison won't be the commuter campus it used to be. Last year, Edison opened a new 164,000-square-foot residence hall for students based on demand for on-campus housing. The 400-unit, $26 million dorm called LightHouse Commons was built using municipal bonds.

“This is a brand new adventure,” says Sankey “Eddie” Webb II, chairman of the college's board of trustees. “The main thing we have to do is continue to change to meet the needs of the population of the communities we serve.”

Edison State's evolution means it is starting to look like its state university neighbor in Fort Myers, Florida Gulf Coast University. Both administrations are on good terms with each other, they say. “We try to make sure we're not stepping on each other's toes,” says Ronald Toll, the provost of FGCU.

Edison and FGCU don't offer the same bachelor's degrees, and they cooperate to accept each other's students. There's even some talk about offering joint programs and having FGCU faculty teach at Edison. “We have begun to talk about programs with the IT space and sciences,” says Toll.

For one thing, it might be harder to get into FGCU now that it has gained national prominence from its basketball team reaching the NCAA tournament's Sweet Sixteen. “We will see a Dunk City bounce,” says Toll. The university has 14,000 students and it doesn't have room to accept more students.

Other universities in the area see Edison's evolution as more competition. Jeanette Brock, president of Hodges University, says she expressed disappointment when Edison started offering bachelor's degrees. “The community college is so needed in today's educational choices,” she says. “There's a group of students that needs that support. Their focus has shifted.”

In the early 2000s, Brock says Hodges had an agreement to accept Edison students with associate's degrees so they could finish their bachelor's degrees at Hodges. “When they got their own bachelors programs, that fizzled out,” she says.

Still, Hodges has a slightly different mission because it targets older students with a range of flexible options, including night and weekend classes as well as online offerings. The average age of the student at Hodges is 33, while a majority of the students at Edison are under age 24. “Our focus is on the adult learner,” she says.

What's more, all of the university presidents and superintendents of the five counties in the area gather three times a year to make sure they're not overlapping programs and fulfilling the needs of the students. “We're friendly competitors,” Brock says.

This story has been updated to correct that Jeanette Brock, president of Hodges University, says she expressed disappointment when Edison started offering bachelor's degrees because of the importance of community colleges for some students.