6 minute read
President Kelle Stephens: Future Focused
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut rhoncus ex id ex blandit porta. Etiam erat turpis, vehicula eu egestas sit amet, rhoncus ut leo. Sed commodo purus feugiat mauris Kelle Stephens’s road to becoming a fierce advocate for technical education started with rejection. tincidunt, ac volutpat tortor sodales. Etiam et tincidunt lorem. Curabitur vehicula, ligula vitae After completing 130 credits, Stephens left college with an “almost bachelors degree” to run a business with her varius dignissim, ligula ligula consectetur purus, ut placerat telhusband. Shortly after the business sold, Stephens was approached with lus ante nec est. Donec iaculis interdum orci. Sed at felis eros. a job opportunity for which she had the necessary experience but was ultimately denied the job due to her Maecenas non lorem et massa hendrerit finibus vitae a felis. lack of a college degree. “That was a wake-up call for me,” she said. Vestibulum nibh urna, cursus sed elit ac, sodales viverra dolor. In true Kelle Stephens fashion, she went above and beyond. She retook math classes, fought for older credits Morbi in arcu et nibh viverra accumsan sed ac lectus. Pellento count, took more classes, and went to school with small children at home. tesque facilisis orci libero, a placerat velit fringilla et. Aliquam She obtained a bachelor’s degree and later, a Master of Social Science in Economics with an emphasis in HR. Her vitae euismod est, a malesuada justo. Donec eu tincidunt lectus, motto, one that she has shared often since, was ‘“the time will come and go, and I can either have this or not.” quis mollis sem. While visiting St. George one summer, Stephens had an impromptu meeting with an administrator on the Dixie College campus and was later hired Sed orci ex, rutrum vitae erat ac, feugiat pretium ipsum. as the Director of Custom Fit. “I had to look up what exactly custom fit was in preparation for my interview,” Stephens Donec id diam nisi. Fusce lobortis arcu nec ex elementum, nec said. “I found that it was perfect for me; it involved labor economics and employee training and development, imperdiet risus accumsan. Vivamus ac suscipit arcu, ut mattis which I had studied in school.” mi. Vivamus hendrerit ligula urna, id ullamcorper eros cursus
Advertisement
Future Focused
By Aubrey Gurney For the next eighteen years, Stephens spent her time in the St. George business community, addressing the needs of local businesses through custom fit training and helping local businesses to thrive. Stephens continued to work at Dixie College until 2006, when Custom Fit was moved to Dixie Applied Technology College. The DXATC began as a small tech college with a very small budget and few programs, but that would soon change upon her arrival. “I started having ideas, lots of ideas, about how we could grow,” Stephens said. She had so many ideas that she was named Vice President of Instruction. During her first few months as VP, Stephens sat in on classes, taking note of improvements to make and envisioning what DXATC could become. Her biggest concern was the college’s open-entry/open-exit flexible education model. In theory, the model sounded great. Students could enroll at any time and graduate as soon as they finished their coursework. In practice, Stephens saw students fall behind, become isolated, and have no sense of camaraderie with their peers. Despite some pushback, Stephens transitioned the students from the open-entry/open-exit flexible education model to a cohort-based, structured learning model, becoming the first tech college in the state to adopt this method. The college felt the positive impact: fewer students fell behind, graduation rates increased, and its reputation rose. “Suddenly, students were in it together,” Stephens said. “They were confused together, figured things out together, learned together, and lifted each other up.” The next challenge Stephens tackled was funding. In 2009, the small college budget would scarcely allow for infrastructure or program improvements, and Stephens wanted both. With the help of a few team members, she wrote a grant request and received 2.1 million dollars in a Department of Labor grant. A few months later, DXATC was able to make some infrastructure improvements and added its first manufacturing program. In 2012, Stephens was named President of DXATC and knew exactly what she wanted to do: move the college to a permanent campus on Tech Ridge. This became the toughest and most significant challenge of her career. “The permanent campus was meant to show a passion for technical education, our students, and the careers they chose,” Stephens said. “It would tell the students that they were important, that they mattered, and it would legitimize technical education.”
With no solid connections in the Utah State Legislature to help lobby for funding, Stephens knew she would have to be on the hill every day, making her presence known and talking to any legislator who would listen. To stand out in a sea of black suits, Stephens wore a red pair of cowboy boots. “The boots drew attention to our need for a permanent campus and helped me overcome a mountain of pushback,” Stephens said. “We had to walk through fire to get that funding.”
Through what seemed like a minefield of setbacks and opposition, Stephens and the supportive St. George community raised and received enough funding to break ground on the permanent campus on Tech Ridge in January 2016, and it became a reality late in 2017. In the last four years, under the leadership of President Stephens, certificateseeking membership hour rates have increased by 90 percent. Her high standards for quality education have been met with a 78 percent graduation rate, a 94 percent completion rate, a 96 percent placement rate, and a 100 percent licensure rate, making Dixie Technical College a truly exceptional institution of higher education in the state of Utah.
President Stephens’s efforts have changed countless lives for the better. Thousands of students have graduated from Dixie Tech debt-free and found incredible job opportunities. As her time as president comes to an end, Stephens has high hopes for Dixie Tech’s future. “Dixie Tech will continue to grow and expand in ways we can hardly imagine now, “Stephens said. “The College will begin its third decade with new leadership that will bring fresh ideas and passion. With that, I hope that they will stay true to the critically important role and mission that only a tech college can fulfill.
“Dixie Tech works with the finest people in our community,” she continued. “Our students come to school and dive deep into a course of study that will give them the knowledge and skill sets to take right to work. They keep our community functioning. I love and respect every single one of them! I will deeply miss the daily interactions, but I’ll always be cheering them on.”
As for her future, Stephens plans to spend time with her eleven grandchildren and travel to Slovenia and Croatia, the homeland of her grandparents. But one thing is certain: she will always be a fierce advocate of technical education.
The permanent campus was meant to show a passion for technical education, our students, and the careers they chose. It would tell the students that they are important, that they matter, and it would legitimize technical education.
Stephens’s Dixie Technical College Inauguration, 2012. From left to right: Rich VanAusdal, Kelle Stephens, Mark Fahrenkamp, and Rob Brems.
Aubrey Gurney works in Digital Marketing and Communications at Dixie Technical College. She spends her days running around campus, capturing students’ incredible stories, and learning something new every day (how could you not when there are 28 different programs?!). Aubrey firmly believes that the outcome of your education should be income and highly suggests you check out all the programs offered at dixietech.edu.
