Des Moines Area Community College recently issued the following announcement.
- Twenty years after opening, the DMACC West Campus Still Focuses on Creativity, Imagination and Innovation
- Five Initiatives are Unique to the DMACC West Campus
- The DMACC West Campus was the First of Now Several High Tech Businesses to Locate on the Grand Avenue Technology Corridor in West Des Moines
DMACC West Des Moines Campus Provost Dr. Anthony Paustian welcomed invited guests, community members, and former and present West Campus students, faculty and staff to an Open House commemorating the 20th anniversary of the West Campus.
Dr. Paustian, DMACC’s longest serving Campus Provost, was hired two years before the Campus was built, to assemble a team to plan for a unique campus.
“In 2001, DMACC seized an idea that innovation in technology should drive innovation in education and prepare today’s students for jobs in tomorrow’s economy,” Dr. Paustian said. “The Campus focused on Information Technology and bringing people together in an environment of creativity and fresh thinking. Now, in 2021, DMACC West remains committed to this ideal.”
DMACC Offerings in West Des Moines
DMACC began an Off Campus Credit program at West Des Moines Valley High School and then DMACC's West Lakes Center for Professional Development operated at 6000 Westtown Parkway from 1997 through 2000. The space consisted of two large computer labs and three large classrooms.
“As Director of DMACC’s West Lakes Center for Professional Development back in the late 1990’s, DMACC’s “western focus” was on serving the needs of many West Des Moines businesses in the insurance and financial services sector,” said MD Isley, now DMACC’s Vice President of Academic Affairs. “Our signature program was a series of COBOL Programming Boot Camps that were offered to area businesses in preparation for the looming Y2K Glitch that never actually came to fruition. Regardless, DMACC was present and able to prepare businesses for the future.
“I also had the opportunity to be part of the donation of land event from the McKinney Family and the original concept design that ultimately led to the development of West Campus under the leadership of Dr. Tony Paustian. At the time, several questioned the development of this land and reasoning behind this new “high-tech” campus out in the middle of nowhere. Given the longevity and growth of West Campus and growth of the entire area, it’s clear DMACC was 20 years ahead its time and again, preparing others for their future.”
Dr. Paustian and his team conceived the West Campus as an “educational mall” with the purpose of creating a dynamic, stimulating and interactive learning experience.
The initial programs at the West Campus focused on the areas of Telecommunications/Telephony, Programming, Software Applications, Computer Networking, Internet 2 Technologies (including E-Commerce), Business Administration, and Liberal Arts.
“The primary intent was to reach and serve new students who previously had not attended DMACC,” Paustian said.
Five initiatives unique to the DMACC West Campus
- Celebrate! Innovation Exhibition
- ciLive! (Celebrate! Innovation Live)
- Makerspace
- Microsoft Datacenter Academy
- Virtual Learning Lab (VLL)
The Celebrate! Innovation Exhibition was listed by the state of Iowa's department of tourism in 2012 as a destination spot for visitors, and hundreds of people from the community come to campus each year to visit the exhibition.
ciLive! (Celebrate! Innovation Live) was born out of a conversation during the construction of the permanent Celebrate! Innovation exhibition in the DMACC West building. Dr. Paustian, believed an event that featured actual innovators speaking about their experiences would attract more people to the building and exhibit.
The first ciLive! was held March 1 through 5, 2010 and featured keynote speaker Captain Alan Bean, Apollo 12 & Skylab 3 astronaut and the fourth man to walk on the moon. Working with a limited budget those first few years, Paustian still managed to bring nationally known speakers, including Steve Wozniak in 2012, to headline the annual event. Today each ciLive! hosts multiple keynote speakers, all presented free of charge to the public. ciLive! has grown rapidly from its humble beginnings in 2010 to an event that attracts thousands of people in attendance and is simulcast in HD to anyone who wants to participate. ciLive! 12 in March of 2021 had over 35,000 live viewers.
“Ever since DMACC West Campus was established in 2001, fostering student creativity and innovation has remained the goal of all programs and courses. ciLive! is the thriving, inspiring embodiment of this goal,” said Dr. Paustian.
The DMACC West Campus is also home to a Makerspace, a fun, hands-on, creative and collaborative space for all to come together, brainstorm their ideas and designs and give those ideas and designs form and function.
The DMACC West Campus has teamed with Microsoft to create the Microsoft Datacenter Academy. It’s the first-of-its kind program in the Midwest and only the fourth Microsoft Datacenter Academy in the nation. The new Academy educates and trains professionals to staff, maintain and service the growing number of computer networks located within the data centers throughout Central Iowa.
Microsoft has two datacenters in West Des Moines and is currently building a third one not far from the West Campus.
Also, located at the West Campus in the Microsoft Datacenter Academy, is a new cutting-edge Virtual Learning Lab (VLL). The new lab incorporates state-of-the-art virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies, providing students with a valuable opportunity to navigate within the large, complex and highly secured data centers located throughout Central Iowa via a simulated environment.
“The campus we have today, while different than the one we started 20 years ago, is still focused first and foremost on creativity, imagination and innovation,” Dr. Paustian said.
The West Campus, located at 5959 Grand Ave. in West Des Moines, was the first of now several high-tech businesses located in the area, including Des Moines University, the MidAmerican Energy Company RecPlex and the Microsoft Datacenter.
Original source can be found here.
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