Since its early days of Quonset huts and satellite classrooms, Moraine Valley Community College has been a microcosm of the community, a snapshot that is still reflected in the course catalog and the resumes of its alumni.
College President Sylvia Jenkins, who began at the school as a librarian some 30 years ago, said the school’s mission to be a bridge to myriad destinations continues to this day.
Next week marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Moraine Valley, so named because it stands at the intersection of the Valparaiso and Tinley moraines. Chartered in February of 1967, the school opened that September with 1,200 students. It now averages 34,000 a year, though the Quonset huts are long gone, replaced by multi-storied buildings that house classrooms, a performing arts hall and assorted culinary, medical and trades training centers.
Some students have come to the Palos Hills campus with a destination in mind, Jenkins said, others have come simply to explore options in the hopes of finding their passion.
Among the latter is Joan Zabelka, of Hickory Hills.
Forty years ago, when Zabelka first enrolled in higher learning, she didn’t know a student was supposed to have a plan.
“I thought you just went to college to get smarter,” she said. After taking classes that interested her, she set her sights on a paraprofessional certification.
“It was radical for a mother with a kid to go back to school. One great thing about Moraine Valley was that they had baby sitting. Even back in the ’70s,” she said. “That’s they only way I could go.”
And go she did, until a house fire disrupted her family’s life so much that she had to quit.
In 2003 she went back, this time earning that associates degree and moving onto Saint Xavier University for a bachelor’s.
The Moraine experience, which included an eye-opening class on goals-setting and a world-broadening course in humanities, she said, not only helped her academically, it put her on the path to earning masters degree credit and becoming first a librarian at Bridgeview School and today a life coach.
“I am a lifelong learner,” Zabelka said. “Once I got started with college work I couldn’t stop.”
She went on to take additional classes at the School of the Art Institute and the University of Chicago.
Over the years, Zabelka’s entire family has attended Moraine Valley.
Her husband became a teacher. One of her sons studied fire science and became a fire fighter. Another son is now a vice president for Bank of America. A third son enrolled, took classes and then decided school wasn’t for him. And her daughter today owns her own tax preparation small business.
Moraine Valley, Zabelka said, was a journey of self discovery.
“It helped me decide what I wanted to do,” she said. “Every now and then I’ll bring out a paper from that first ‘human potential’ class to compare what things interested me then with what interests me now.”
Jenkins said some 68 percent of the MVCC study body is made up of transfer students — students like Alyssa Malchick, who first went away to University of Illinois in 2009 and then came back, got her footing at the Palos Hills college and went on to complete a bachelors degree at Governors State University.
Today, an optometric technician, Malchick, of Tinley Park, said, in terms of online assignments, online courses and access to more modern computers and devices, “Moraine felt a lot more up to date than both of the universities I went to.”
She said not only was the community college close to home and much less expensive, the teachers were both challenging and accessible.
“It was a great fit,” she said. “I got the start that I needed.”
Dean Kapitan, of Palos Hills, represents the 24 percent of students who Jenkins said enroll in the college’s career programs.
By his own admission, Kapitan was “not really into school,” but he loved to cook.
A graduate of Stagg High School, Kapitan had been considering enrolling at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School in Chicago when someone told him to check out the culinary program at Moraine.
“As soon as I walked in there, I felt like it was the right choice. It was close to home and close to where I worked,” he said.
Kapitan said in addition, it was less expensive than other culinary schools and “the kitchen was state of the art.”
“It had every tool, every oven, everything you needed.” He graduated with his associate’s degree in 2012 and now owns and runs the Palos Diner, taking it over from his father who recently retired. Several of his customers are Moraine Valley students and staff.
Kapitan said classes such as knife skills, basic soup stocks and garde manger prepared him for his profession.
“It wasn’t just cooking, you learned the history of foods and of people in general, how they have survived with food,” he said. “I learned about the hospitality industry. It created more passion for me because the more you know, the more passionate you become.”
Jenkins said though much has changed both in the local economy and on the sprawling campus over the years, the school’s mission remains one of getting students, regardless of their age, ability or aspirations, from point A to point B.
“From the very beginning, the founders and early faculty who taught here realized people were coming to Moraine for different reasons,” she said. “Therefore we created a comprehensive community college.”
By that, she means there are courses for people who need remedial work, for those who want to start an academic journey and for hose who need workforce development.
“The programs expand and change based on the needs of the community and based on the industry — what type of workforce they’re looking for,” she said. “So, when students leave us we have to make sure they’re ready, either to go into a job or to another school for that degree.”
Though no one has a crystal ball with which to predict future job trends, Jenkins said the school’s advisory committees, as well as practitioners from the community shed light on the direction the curriculum needs to go.
Among the recent additions that reflect the ever-changing needs of academia and the workforce are dual-credit arrangements with local high schools and programs in sign language and cyber security.
“It’s a very complex institution,” she said, pointing out it must, on the one end, meet the needs of students who have not finished high school and, on the other, the needs of those who graduated high school with distinction.
“Because we’re an open door access institution, we realize not everybody is ready for college level coursework, so we help them get ready,” she said.
Among the challenges is funding, particularly the lack of a state budget, she said.
“Adult Basic Ed (GED program) is supposed to be a 50-50 match between state and federal government. We decided and the board agreed to maintain those programs even without the state budget because they’re too important and they help too many people who live in our district who come to us without those credentials,” she said.
Other community colleges have not been as fortunate, she added. Many have had to taper or even stop their GED programs. Moraine has scaled back in terms of number of sections offered.
“But how else are we to help these students advance if we don’t offer those programs,” Jenkins said.
Other challenges include staying ahead of job trends, particularly health care, which continues to be the largest hiring industry in the district, and convincing a population that once claimed a large segment of blue collar workers that the economy has changed and that many of the manual labor jobs of yore are not coming back, she said.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t factory jobs, she said. “There is still a need for manual labor, just not the same kind as in the past.”
Teaching the future laborer force how to operate robots, for example, is one way the school recognizes the changing manual labor field, she said.
“We can be a bridge to helping industry maintain the workforce its looking for. And, at same time, we want to teach our students how to think critically. I am very much a proponent of a liberal arts education. I think regardless of what your field or profession is going to be, you still need to be well educated and well rounded. You still need to be able to write and read and understand what you’re reading and communicate that well,” Jenkins said.
As single campus community colleges go in Illinois, Moraine is second in student population, behind College of DuPage, Jenkins said.
The district’s student body comprises both affluence and homelessness, she said. In addition to meeting the academic and professional needs of its enrollees, Jenkins said, the school must be mindful of each student’s personal situation, which is why there are night and weekend classes and classes at a satellite building in Tinley Park, which opened in 2006.
Annette Dixon, editor and publisher of the Village View newspaper, which is available in several south suburbs, was a “returning adult” in the late ’70s. With children and a job, convenient class times were a must, she said.
“Moraine gave me the opportunity to explore,” Dixon said. “I really didn’t know what direction I was going to follow at a university. So, being able to follow the liberal arts program at Moraine gave me the avenue to learn which direction to pursue.”
Dixon went on to study at Saint Xavier before enrolling and graduating from Governors State, where she also earned masters degree credit.
For graduating high school seniors, caught up in the whirlwind of university talk among peers, opting for a community college can seem like settling.
“A lot of students say Moraine Valley was not their first choice but now that they’re here and engaged, they are happy to be here,” she said.
One way the school tries to keep the students engaged in that most important college sidebar, socializing, is through athletics and clubs.
Roger Germann, class of ’89, grew up in Orland Park. He now lives in Riverside.
“While it was not my original intention to attend (Moraine), after relocating back to the area upon graduating high school, and learning more about the quality of education offered by MVCC and appreciating the cost-savings, I decided it was the right path for me to begin my higher education journey,” he said.
Germann earned an associates degree at Moraine and then transferred to University of Illinois Chicago. Because he could commute to school, he could continue to work, which he says helped him develop a strong work ethic.
It was at Moraine that Germann said he decided to pursue a career in journalism/communications, a field that would eventually propel him to the office of executive vice president of John G. Shedd Aquarium and, most recently, enabled him to open his own business, Four Lions Strategies.
While at Moraine, he joined Model Illinois Government, which gave him the opportunity to meet state leaders as well as other students from all walks of life, many of whom he is still friends with today, he said.
“Everyone hung out at the McDonald’s in-between classes,” Germann said. “When we wanted to get off site, we enjoyed a sub sandwich . . . at Peppo’s on Roberts Road.”
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