Lori Kloos, President, St. Cloud Technical & Community College
Lori Kloos, president of St. Cloud Technical & Community College, sat down with Invest: to discuss the current state of enrollment, technological innovations coming to programming and staff processes, priorities regarding student success and business partnerships, and more.
What were the highlights for St. Cloud Technical & Community College in the past year?
St. Cloud Technical & Community College is experiencing an increase in enrollment. In 2022-23, we started seeing year-over-year increases in enrollment, which was really fun to watch, especially as we began to feel like we emerged from COVID. Students are returning to in-person classes, and SCTCC continues to offer a number of online options to provide flexibility. Fall 2024 had a year-over-year increase at nearly 14% and Spring 2024 at about 12.5%—this growth is across the college in our liberal arts and career and technical education programs. As enrollment increases, St. Cloud Technical & Community College is reallocating resources and building capacity to make sure we are supporting incoming students.
In the past year, we developed a broad framework that our strategic plan fits under, focusing on a sense of belonging. Our community is continuously diversifying and over one-third of our students are students of color. We want to foster a sense of belonging for each of our students from every walk of life. Student success is also a large focus of the framework, as well as sustainability in resources and in continuing the good work we are doing. We received a $2 million matching grant over the next five years to build capacity around student success, particularly for our first-generation students, who make up about half our student population.
How does the college’s strategic plan apply to the mission and vision?
Our mission is to provide the education, training, and support necessary for equitable participation in our economy, democracy and society. Underneath that, there is a framework of sense of belonging, student success and sustainability. This fosters an environment of diversity, equity and inclusion to ensure we are a welcoming campus to all students and that our faculty and staff reflect our student body. When faced with attrition, we look to hire people who are representative of our community. We are pleased to see increasing inquiries and larger pools of qualified applicants interested in our posted positions. We have had the opportunity to welcome new employees excited about SCTCC’s mission and passionate about helping students succeed and thrive. We also have a strategic enrollment plan and have experienced significant application and enrollment growth this academic year. This tells us that our outreach is working. Our enrollment plan includes strategies to work directly with students to ensure they have the resources needed to be successful.
What industries are you targeting to ensure you are training students for the future workforce?
Manufacturing plays a critical role in our Central Minnesota economy. In collaboration with our community and business and industry partners, we opened the Advanced Manufacturing Center in October 2023. We were fortunate to be awarded a $2.5 million grant for the Center from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration as a result of collaborative regional partnerships. To our knowledge, we are the only Minnesota state institution to have a 3D metal printer allowing our students and manufacturing partners to interact and create innovative prototypes for potential implementation in the industry. Due to a required $2 million match, the Center also features a water jet cutter, two flexible manufacturing system training cells, seven Fanuc robot cells, and eight instrumentation and process control trainers. The Center also provides us with the opportunity to be more responsive to the need for non-credit training through our Customized Training department.
What technology uses are integrated into curriculum and facilities to prepare students for the job market and create more ease for faculty and staff?
The entire Minnesota State system has moved away from its initial ERP system and implemented Workday as of July 1, 2024. Everyone is involved in learning how to use this new platform with the goal of added efficiencies and updated technology. We will be able to utilize it to have better reporting and get more real-time information. As with any new software implementation, it has been exciting and challenging. In 2023, our Cybersecurity AAS degree was officially recognized as a designated Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense. Our cybersecurity program is growing, and the program received a donation of new servers at a $60,000 value to support increased student enrollment.
What are the college’s top priorities for the next few years?
Over the next few years, the top items include assessing student success and evaluating academic programming to align to business and industry needs. Our partnerships with our regional and state universities remain critically important to ensure our students transfer as seamlessly as possible. Approximately half of our students are pursuing liberal arts and transfer degrees. Another top priority includes closing the achievement gap as we work towards Minnesota State’s Equity 2030 goal of ensuring equitable educational outcomes by 2030.It’s essential for our community’s economic well-being that our students have access to educational opportunities and can achieve their academic goals to pursue rewarding careers with sustainable wages. When our students thrive, our community thrives.
