Sue Ellspermann plans to leave Ivy Tech after decade as president

Ivy Tech Community College President Sue Ellspermann will retire after the next academic year, she told the school’s board on Thursday.

Ellspermann, the college’s ninth president and the first woman to hold the role, will serve out her current three-year contract, which ends in June 2025. The board will have a year to conduct a nationwide search, although Ellspermann said the campus already contains strong candidates for the position.

Ellspermann, a former Republican lieutenant governor, said her decision comes as the college is prospering.

Ivy Tech, which was originally a technical school and became a statewide community college system 19 years ago, is Indiana’s largest postsecondary institution and the country’s largest singly accredited statewide community college.

It wrapped up a $340 million capital campaign last year. It has also exceeded its goal (set last year) of 190,000 enrolled students; it now has more than 198,000 enrolled, a number that includes dual-credit high school students.

And Ivy Tech has nearly reached its goal of 50,000 credentials completed each year; this year, students will earn 45,000 credentials.

“If you’re going to retire, you want to do it when the institution is in a good spot where you know that you’re preparing for a smooth transition to the next level of leadership,” Ellspermann told IBJ in an exclusive interview.

The impetus for Ellspermann’s decision is evident in her office, which is adorned with a dozen framed photos of infants and toddlers. Ellspermann, 64, said she wants to spend more time with her family and babysit her nine grandchildren (a 10th is on the way).

Ellspermann’s eight years of accomplishments at Ivy Tech fall into two buckets: expanding the college’s offerings to match statewide needs and lowering barriers to higher education by cutting costs for students.

The college now has more than 75 academic degree programs and is open to expansion. The nursing program, for example, added 800 seats this summer and could produce more than 2,000 nurses annually with associate degrees to combat a shortage. It had pledged to the General Assembly two years ago to add 600 seats by 2025, and it has exceeded that goal.

Ivy Tech’s dual-enrollment program reached 91,000 high school students last academic year—the largest program of its kind in the country. The college is also developing version 2.0 of Ivy+ Career Link, a development and advising services program Ellspermann launched to connect students with resources and employers.

The typical college student is not a cookie-cutter, college-bound teenager anymore, she said. The students Ivy Tech serves are often first-generation students, students making a second or third attempt at higher education or workers trying to transition to a new career. It’s that last category in which Ellspermann said the college expects to see continued growth.

As the state continues to bank blockbuster manufacturing commitments in burgeoning industries, Ellspermann said, those companies are looking for a workforce talent pipeline just as much as they are for infrastructure and incentives. The university is often in lockstep with state government and the Indiana Economic Development Corp. on major decisions because, she said, the college is critical to the long-term success of those projects.

“I would be so bold as to say, without Ivy Tech hitting on all cylinders, contributing at least at the level we are,” she said, “Indiana will not meet its talent needs and have the level of prosperity that I believe Hoosiers deserve.”

During Ellspermann’s tenure, the school has prioritized working with companies to provide tuition upfront for employees seeking additional education (rather than students paying upfront and being reimbursed). About 300 employers participate in the Achieve Your Degree program, which supports 2,000 to 3,000 students each semester. The school also negotiates textbook prices to try to keep them lower and offers a program that lets students pay a flat $17 fee per credit hour that covers all class materials. The school said more than 99% of students opt into that program.

Ellspermann said she’s proud that those initiatives make education more attainable and that 84% of Ivy Tech students graduate without student debt.

After her departure, Ellspermann said, she is confident Ivy Tech will keep its foot on the gas. One area where she expects growth is in non-degree skills training programs, which can serve as both an upskilling measure for workers and an on-ramp to further education. She also said the college will continue to expand college credit offerings for prior learning or experience.

In her last year, Ellspermann said, she plans to continue working toward the college’s benchmarks of improving retention, increasing Hoosiers’ wages through upskilling and credential programs, and enabling students to complete their chosen programs.

Career of public service

Ellspermann grew up in the southern Indiana town of Ferdinand, with a population of about 3,000—and she’s carried that community as part of her identity and career. At Ivy Tech, she has sought to improve educational equity and opportunity.

“Those of us who grew up in small towns know how important they are in forming community and how important talent is,” she said. “As I’ve come to Ivy Tech, it’s been very important to me that we don’t leave any county behind, no community behind.”

Her educational background includes a bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree in industrial engineering. She worked at Frito-Lay, Michelin Tire Corp. and General Motors in operations and engineering roles. She also was founding director of the Center of Applied Research and Economic Development at the University of Southern Indiana from 2006 to 2012.

Ellspermann served in the Indiana House of Representatives from 2010 to 2012, where she supported a right-to-work law that allowed workers to opt out of joining a union. She was Republican Mike Pence’s running mate in 2012 and was elected lieutenant governor when he was elected governor. She served for three years before resigning in 2016 to take the post at Ivy Tech.

She said her time as a statewide elected official has influenced her tenure as Ivy Tech president.

“Having traveled all 92 counties of Indiana and all of our communities, large and small, you understand that not all of Indiana was prospering at the same levels,” she said. “I understood that the economy was changing rapidly, and what you see when you travel the entire state is an Ivy Tech campus in every large community and serving the entire state.”

In her retirement, Ellspermann said, she will continue to sit on three corporate boards and the Strada Education Foundation board. She also will assist with the Sisters of St. Benedict in her hometown monastery.

“My hope and dream was to give more Hoosiers great opportunities to succeed and have a reason to stay in Indiana, to raise their families here, to have the means to invest in their communities,” Ellspermann said. “And if I did that, then I’ll be very happy.”•