An education from the State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, must be available to every student in our region who is willing to do the hard work necessary to achieve their educational dreams. As our population grows and migrates, we must have educational opportunities available for our students through classroom and virtual modalities. We will boldly engage our community to design these necessary solutions.

The first strategic priority in our recently launched 2015-2020 Strategic Plan is to ensure that SCF programs are available to students in all geographic locations of our service region. We are seeing dynamic growth in both Manatee and Sarasota Counties and we know that student needs change over time. We have to match our delivery methods to the needs of our students and be accessible to all students in our service area.

We must begin planning now, specifically for the areas east of Interstate-75 and north of the Manatee River. Permanent buildings and campus amenities take years to design and build so we will begin now to identify existing facilities where we can provide classes or even entire programs in the communities in this region that are rapidly developing. We need to be innovative and integrate cutting edge education right where our new neighbors work, live and play. It is imperative that we remain part of the fabric that serves our citizens.

Ensuring programs are available to students in all geographic locations also means implementing virtual online services to assist students who choose to take on-line degree-producing courses at their most convenient place and time. We know that just because students take online classes, it doesn’t mean they want an entirely virtual college experience. Many students will take a mix of online and on-campus classes and those online students still want access to traditional campus resources and experiences.

Planning for future growth does not mean we will ignore our traditions. Ensuring access means in particular that our SCF Venice campus develops flagship programs that address the unique educational needs of the area and that attract students to our Venice campus as South County continues to grow.

We will look at centralizing our high cost/high demand health science programs within our two-county service area. Would putting them at our Lakewood Ranch campus provide greater access? We will answer that question and take the appropriate measures to ensure that all students have easy access to our programs.

The most innovative, productive and vibrant communities in America today have integrated higher education within the fabric of the community. This is my goal for the State College of Florida and Manatee and Sarasota Counties.

Where you are … we will be, building the future together since 1957.

Carol Probstfeld is president of State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota.