To the Peoria special council meeting. The next item on the agenda is the study session.
And the topic for tonight's discussion is Huntington University Update.
So Mr. Swenson.
Thank you, Mayor Karellant. And as council knows, we have been working with Huntington University for some time
to create a branch campus and a presence in the city of Peoria. And what we are doing this evening is getting an update on all that.
So I'll turn it over to Scott White, our economic development services director, and he will make some presentation and also some introductions.
Great.
In evaluating the Peoria market, the Peoria opportunity for establishing a branch campus here in Peoria.
And the signature programs that they would look to bring to Peoria.
So, I'd like to introduce Jeff Bergen, who is an official with Huntington University, a recent
relocate into the Mesquite District from Indiana, who is going to give the presentation in
terms of the proposal that Huntington University is considering.
But what I wanted to do first was just kind of set some context as you may recall in the fall
of 2010, the city adopted the economic development implementation strategy.
And some of the key provisions within that document was the attraction of targeted industries
generally, specifically institutions of higher education, because it was believed that
that absolutely enriches a community in terms of programming, that higher institutions of
higher education can offer to a community, but also it adds significantly to business attraction
pursuits.
So to that end, we've been working with private higher education recruiter, as well as efforts
through the economic development services department, and that is what is yield that is
trying University and now Huntington University.
So this is part of implementing the EDIS, and our initial contact with Huntington University
goes back to actually the fall of 2012.
So during that period of time, there's been a lot of discussions, a lot of evaluation, a lot of different sites that have been looked at, a lot of different models that have been contemplated and subsequently modified.
All with the objective of getting to the most efficient and effective execution that Huntington University can look at bringing Tupioria and the programs that will be offered as being those that are not replicated elsewhere in the valleys.
So we have some real niche opportunities to bring the various types of programs and degrees that
Huntington University is going to share with you tonight.
So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Jeff, who's going to walk through a presentation
for us.
That sounds great.
Thank you, Scott.
Thank you, Council for the opportunity to give you folks an update.
Scott said this has really been two and a half years in the making to get the point where
we can come and have some good information to give us on very, very excited to be able to
to do that.
I want to just quickly introduce a couple of folks who are here sort of with me in conjunction
with this project and we'll be mentioned time during the presentation but thought of
a good to acknowledge them and they would obviously be available for questions if the council
has any after the fact.
So we'll turn here, even waiting with me so that's to have to give them some props.
I will be first the Charles Car.
Charles is the owner developer of the property that we're looking at in Pioria.
many of you know Charles. Matthew Earl Jones, Matthew's a connection we've had it's very exciting.
Matthew is the founder of the Earl Jones Institute for Film and Television. The family name
should sound familiar to you as father's Ralph Earl Jones and brothers James Earl Jones. So Matthew's
a great connection for us. Then Remingtoner, Remingtoner, Remingtoner, Remingtoner, we'll have you stand up.
Portfolio manager from Bioinspire. And so they are all so representative of the collaborators
that we've been kind of lining up as we've been, so we've been putting our two and a half years
to get used. That's what we hope anyway. Scott mentioned also. It's great to be here as a
resident of Pioria. We bought a house in Vastancia. We moved here in Vittal, July, so we did pay our
dues. My daughter is a freshman at Liberty High School. We attend new life community church here in Pioria.
I work out at the Rio Vista. I just spent a lovely Valentine's Day with my wife at Dillon's
on the Scorpion Bay, which then necessitated more workouts at Rio Vista, and so we're
excited to be part of here and I have about five different ways to get to 101 for my house
all of which seem to take about the same amount of time. So I'm settling into the Peoria mode pretty
quickly. I also have been connected with the University for 22 years, serving as Vice President
Rowan Management and Marketing up to this point, and now I get to be in the role of being the lead
person for the opportunity here in Pioria. So it's been exciting to kind of the transition
and looking forward to what's in store, what's possible here in the Pioria area. So strong
connection to the university. Huntington University is a school founded in 1897, so almost 120 years
of history. The university is a not-for-profit, private, liberal arts college, Christian college,
crisis entered in nature and has over 70 different academic programs.
I want to clarify that the University is connected with the Church of the United
Brethren and Christ, but it is a educational institution, not a church, so we have always
in our history welcomed people of all faiths or no faith.
So it's part of our mission, but it has never been a deterrent in terms of attending the
university.
It's a good thing to clarify.
I, Huntington University is fully accredited, nationally recognized.
We are ranked by U.S. News and we'll report as one of the top 10 percent of the colleges
of baccalaureate colleges in the Midwest, Forbes ranks us as one of the top 10 percent
of all colleges and universities in the country and then Princeton Review is ranked
us as one of the best in the Midwest and we're also victory media, also has us as a military
friendly school.
So when we looked at coming out here, we're bringing a lot of history and hopefully
of positive reputation we think, and that's what's kind of exciting with the partnership with
Pioria.
I want to think I have my cool little excellent.
So Scott alluded a little bit in terms of the pathway.
We're looking at launching our program in digital media arts as a lead program here in the city
of Pioria.
We first started talking to Scott, actually it was our nursing program, and now light
health that was kind of the start of the conversation, but as we have spent more time here
talking with folks, digital midiarts has kind of risen to the top for reasons that hopefully
will be made clear throughout the presentation.
What is digital midiarts?
That's a good question.
It's going to be better answered by a seven and a half minute video that you folks will
receive as a follow up from Scott on a flash drive.
It's our student, our student work kind of telling about the program they did that last year.
So we far more entertaining than myself, but in the interest of time I'll give you the
truncated version, and then hopefully you have a chance to follow it up later on with a far
more compelling video.
Digital New Arts is really a new umbrella to pull together a number of the different
beatings that have been out there in the past.
You can think of broadcasting, radio TV broadcasting is certainly part of that.
We call that Fusion Media now.
It's a different toolbox.
It's students need to function in the broadcast world.
But Digital New Arts also includes film production, digital animation,
graphic design, and so it's a umbrella that encompasses all of those disciplines that's
a exciting problem for us. It is quite literally the fastest growing major in the
University and one that we have a national international reputation. So it's been exciting
and launched in 2005. Head of our broadcast department was over radio and TV, but he has his
in films.
So it's always been an area of interest for him.
He saw some things coming in the world of Disney Arts,
so decided to build from a ground up a film program
and animation program to bracket our current broadcasting program.
So we did the film side of things.
It's not just cobbled together,
it actually is a literally from the ground up film program.
The animation.
We went out and hired two guys from Veggie Tales
and off interview watched Veggie Tales
or we'll admit to watch them over your kid's shoulder over the years.
But we have two animators from those folks who came in from that industry who came and started the program at Huntington.
So it's been intentional to be a high quality program focused on those areas for quite some time.
The key element is not only learning the software, but also to help people learn how to tell their story.
And every organization, every business, every enterprise has a story that needs to be told.
Like many people say it's not the story that matters, not your stuff.
we're looking forward to bringing that to Peoria.
The poster you see there is one of our initial projects
that two students did that was a classic sort of a 45-minute
movie that was done in kind of classic Black and White.
One of the two lead people behind that project
has now graduated and has actually a writer and producer
on the mini show on network television.
So we have some graduates who've gone and are doing
starting to make an impact in the national industry
or in the local industry.
Why digital media arts?
Why would we bring that to Pioria?
Has a national draw?
It's a largest academic program in the university.
And even though the initial focus of DMA
will be to serve the city of Pioria, the West Valley,
we think that digital media arts is unique enough
that it will attract students from throughout Arizona
to Pioria, and actually will serve regional audiences
that are underserved for education options
in the region, including California.
It's a STEM discipline that can impact all businesses
and community organizations.
So it fits well with some of the efforts
that Scott and his team have been doing
in regards to attracting STEM businesses.
And you might be interested,
we'll refer to this a little bit later,
but some of our graduates,
not only are talented enough to produce art,
like you see there,
but have gone into a number of different fields,
many which into the biomedical device field.
So we'll talk more,
But it's not just film, film, in the industry.
There are a lot of applications for digital arts
and a number of different areas.
And the faculty in that area, certainly,
personified that, in addition to the vegetals work,
are faculty of our professionals who've gone and worked
for everything from Microsoft, the Tendo, Disney,
Harley Davidson, it's a long stretch from Harley Davidson
to vegetals.
But these guys can get that done.
So it connects to a lot of different things
that are going on.
And again, why digital arts?
the demand for DMA graduates is high and growing.
The figures you see in front of you are from occupation net, or O-Net,
which is sort of a go-to place to find out what's happening in the workforce nationally.
Carson Hall, who's on Scott's staff, we have O-Net conversations from time to time.
It gives you a sense of what the trends are in that area.
These are numbers that I just went in as typed in,
that if you type in digital media into the O-Net,
377 occupational careers emerge and not just jobs, these are careers.
Digital mid-arts, 454 careers.
Digital media technology, 525 occupational careers.
It just shows the fact that every industry now has a need for some element of digital
mid-arts.
And the salaries range anywhere from mid-forties all the way up to $100,000.
So, I know where you plug in.
It's not just minimal wage work.
There are some opportunities to make some pretty pretty significant impact and we have graduates who have gone on to not only the midi project, biggest loser America's got talent
Working on the TV series the dome short lived as it were, but also a number of different industries in Los Angeles
locally and then also with the
Depue with Johnson and Johnson
with people then
model have been doing artists
for an animators for a lot of folks connected to the biomedical industry for
or automotive, a lot of industries have use and need for digital media technology.
Why digital media arts in Arizona?
So we're narrowing down here to Peoria.
There really is a lack of higher education training for digital media arts in the state of
Arizona.
You have community colleges, six of which have some type of digital media arts, graphic design
or film component.
You can go to ASCUS CRONKITE School, Journalism Masked Communication, which is an excellent
program nationally recognized, they do journalism and mass communication.
What they don't do is animation, film, graphic design.
There's an opportunity here.
One of the things that's unique about Huntington's programs is Mary's film and animation
together.
And so that gives us a little bit of a category distinctive, and that's part of the reason
why we have a national draw in that program.
And then you have the for-profit institutions, the University of the Vancing Technology,
the
state, although they tend to be a little bit of a higher price to option.
We'd like to give students another another possibility.
The image you see here is one of Jim Moore, who's a videographer for Duck Dynasty.
You don't have to raise your hand if you're a Duck Dynasty fan or not.
But it's an example of how our students have been working hand-in-hand with industry professionals
on the home campus.
We are very excited that that theme will continue with our campus here in Piora.
Again, why do you think we are in Arizona?
there's a target audience that exists that is a pretty pretty impressive. Arizona has a well-designed training program for students through the career and technical education program. The community colleges obviously are target audience.
I should move back to that real quickly. The schools I mentioned, we're not looking to compete with community colleges. We're going to collaborate with those folks and be a pipeline for students who get their two year degrees.
come to Peoria, come to Huntington to be able to complete their bachelor's degree, so we're
going to be a degree completed for programs that are already in place in Arizona, but also
we'll have an opportunity to talk to students right out of high school. The career and technical
education program in the state is pretty impressive. In the Midwest, where we're from Indiana,
Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, you don't find it a sort of an orchestrated and well organized program
students learn media in a high school setting. You'll have a hotbed here and there
where you have a teacher who has connections and has a vision, but Arizona has a
growing their own digital media.
15,000 students graduate with media experience every year in the state of Arizona through the CTE program. In fact, I have a
mailer here that I just got a couple weeks ago that handy visual aid that showed up to me from pure unified school district, and one of the programs,
commocation information systems and media productions, is a big piece of that. Students get out and don't have a lot of options in that area to continue their education.
Also, we have, there's 20,000 graduates with some level visual arts experience, because we have graphic design and digital animation as part of that, we think we'll be in a tract of option for those students also.
So there's a group of folks that we can go to and talk to about the opportunities that are, would exist at Huntington University in Pioria.
A great example is right here in Piora Unified School District has an excellent media program.
Piora Student Broadcasting Network is one that we've been able to be connected with and
been talking to the PUSD almost since the first visit here.
We met with Dr. Santa Rally, then it's spending time with Mike Siewardson and out of liberty
with Rick Johnson and Brian Yoder.
An excellent program.
My daughter is a great example of someone who will be in media next year and also in art.
So, she's straddling both those fields and frankly, she had no chance because my oldest daughter
just graduated from Huntington in a DMA major in film production, my wife's abroad casting
has a degree in broadcasting. I've degrees in broadcasting business and publications. My dad had
a degree in broadcasting. So, unfortunately, the gene pool, she was sucked in. So, my our kids are sort
a bot into the program, but nothing exists out there, it's consistent, like the PSVN.
Talking to Mike and other folks, there may be as many as a thousand students in PSVN next
year.
So this gives, I need to know, unique opportunity with Digital Media Arts to go ahead
and create a pipeline, partner with PUSD in some pretty neat ways.
We're talking about the idea of maybe dual credit, not just in general study areas, but
actually in Digital Media Arts.
So the kids who are studying media in the high school have an opportunity to go ahead and
get a head start in that area while they're still in high school.
And those credits will obviously be transferable to where they want to go.
But we think having a high quality, nationally known program, in the city, will be attractive
to a lot of students who want to continue their digital media arcs education right here in
Pioria.
So you see we have a letter of support from PUSD, a couple of excerpts of that on the screen.
There, we just think there's a lot of potential, and so it's exciting for us to bring a program to a city that's already doing some pretty cutting edge stuff in that area.
We'll also be able to do some institutes for training teachers who are in teach media, not only in Pioria, but also in the West Valley and potentially across the state.
So we see an opportunity to not only bring people to Pioria, create some revenue for the university, but also serve the educational community in that sense.
location of the Huntington Mercy Campus. Part of the Arrowhead Innovation Campus, some of you
know that is the Arrowhead Business Park. You can see we're located right on Kelton Lane,
the property that Charles has owned, and he will say he planned this out to kind of hold
on to the right option came on, and we were connected to that facility through Scott. Scott
had been talking to Charles Car and also the Dave Cornelius who
will introduce you to in just a minute via the PowerPoint about a vision
they had for this facility.
So when we heard about that and looked at the possibilities,
we thought there's a lot of upside to this.
If you think about the location, we just
talked about pur unified school district.
This is almost centrally located where
students from almost any high school could access it in a fairly
short distance, which given the shape of the city of Peoria
is not something you can speak about, and for a lot of opportunities, so that is a great
upside.
We have automobile dealerships all around us as potential clients for our digital market
services.
We also have the opportunity to have students, access, not only things within walk-in-distance,
but actually to hop over for lunch, and that type of thing at the P83 project, and perhaps
even be part of a shuttle service that if there's a shuttle service that develops for the
Some of the dealerships have been swing through campus.
Students can hop on, spend an hour or get lunch, come back.
So we see a lot of ups, I did that.
Plus you can kind of tell people where it is.
Everybody has a general idea where the campus is located.
So we're very excited about that.
We think we can leverage some areas where the city is already
invested that could be a good upside.
The other thing that is an option is for industry professionals
that come in rent space at Arrowhead.
We think this we could be a tractor to the digital yards industry.
And unlike other studios in the state, being located here is great for those folks, around hotels, around restaurants.
So there's a lot of upside that we think can help stimulate that industry here in the city of Peoria.
Sure, a couple of quick questions.
Photos.
This is the main entrance right now, and if you've driven by this is what you would see at this point.
As we look ahead to the future, this is what we see would be the entrance to the university.
has a nice campus sort of a feel to it, and frankly, using the existing
facades will build those out, but it could be a very welcoming environment for
students to come to the campus. The Billings themselves, as Scott alluded to,
we spent a lot of time driving around looking at different possibilities for the
university. To do Disney Arts well, you need high ceilings and ideally
minimal interior walls, and there were a lot of spaces we looked at, Scott and
members of his staff. We went to some unique places. We brave some unique places. We were
we were creative. So being able to see the arrowhead invasion campus for the first time in June
was pretty exciting for me because it was literally exactly what we were looking for. High ceilings,
opportunity to kind of a clean slate. No interior walls. It gives us a chance to build out
the way we want to build out. And frankly, a way we're not able to do even on our home campus
because of the existing buildings.
It's a perfect model for that.
The campus itself, you see the exteriors,
has a field where you can, you because of the fact
that Charles and his investors control that space.
We have a chance to kind of build a campus
and grow out as we need the space,
but we also can incorporate more of a campus field.
So we're excited about that,
and it does have a very nice atmosphere.
Just far enough off a bell road, it's a little quiet.
And we think there's a lot of it would be a very attractive to students.
And then the picture up on the left hand side, you see Charles and his group also own the lot next to it.
So as things develop, we build out the existing structures.
There's an opportunity for growth as we see what the needs are for our campus.
Right there connected so we can continue to extend the campus without having to leap over other other facilities.
So that's also another upside to the location.
And so when this all came together, we felt pretty excited about not only the location, but
the fact that Charles Clarks involved in the project.
Here they are, Charles is here in person, but so you can compare photo images.
And then we mentioned, so we'll talk to about Charles, but you know, partners are a big piece
of this.
There's a African proverb that the pastor of new life communicates.
He uses a lot if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.
I think for us to try to launch this well to have longevity.
We need to have the right partners and two of those partners would be Charles and as you can see
he's got a couple of bullet points there on him, you know that about Charles.
Then David Cornelius, David is a beauty education.
I use the phrase icon there, but really he's been so connected to
The CTE program, he's helped write the curriculum, he's been on the leadership group, he actually has trained a number of the teachers statewide who are involved in the CTE, the media program.
He's currently on faculty, had junk faculty at ASU, in fact, that's where he is tonight teaching at Cronkite, and he has developed several media programs here in the Valley.
So the great thing is you go back to the slide to talk about all the media students that are involved in CTE throughout the state.
Dave has connections allows us to go right into the classroom, gives us credibility, locally, along with our national reputation.
So we have a pathway to get to those target audiences that we think is going to be very viable for the university.
One of the elements that was already in place for the Arrowhead Invasion Campus, as Scott mentioned,
or as I mentioned, that David and Charles already had a vision for this as being a film,
being a media technology education campus, one of the use it for something unique and different,
and already worked on a couple key points.
Can that communicate collaborate, create?
Here's some quick descriptions of that.
Connect, students with professionals,
connect teachers with technology,
university with community,
commerce with content creators.
Communicate, tell good stories, provide solutions.
Collaborate, identify opportunities, solve problems,
share facilities, embed enterprise with education,
and take collaborators and connect them together.
Either existing or also targeted collaborators
as part of the industry and create opportunities,
clear pathways, create community connections,
town and gown, jobs, business, create, and engaging content.
It's a perfect fit for what we want to do at Huntington University.
So the Havill's piece is already in place for us to be able to step in and be part of that is very exciting.
The idea is that industry will professionals will be, this will be a working,
digital media industry campus, in addition to an educational facility.
So students will come and be able to work side by side of industry professionals,
And it's who professionals who, here's an example of how it will work.
Say there's a video editor that wants to come and kind of put his business, locate in the
Arrowhead Invasion Campus.
That person has an opportunity to access, equipment, facilities, and also the workforce
that our students would provide.
As their business grows, they can solicit outside business from peoria businesses or West
Valley businesses, and then enlist the facilities and resources at the Innovation Center
to help create those projects.
As their businesses grow, they already have been exposed
to a great workforce that they're seeing developed
right before they're very eyes,
so they can actually cherry pick the best of the best
and employ them within their business.
And you get this snowball effect that will just happen
where we think this is a very efficient way
to spur the media industry here in Pioria.
Serve the Pioria business community
with high-end media projects at a very competitive price.
Effectively use equipment and space via sharing model
while also creating ancillary income for HU
to assist in keeping tuition costs low for the Arizona market.
Those pieces are coming together.
That would be a pretty aggressive goal.
Statement to make otherwise.
But I think you're seeing how the pieces are coming together for us.
And for that is a pretty exciting model.
One of the great things about having Matthew Earl Jones.
Here's these are pieces that he can help play.
Industry professionals who want to be involved in the project
who are connected to other people.
Industry benefits.
Aero Innovation Campus certainly benefits our students and benefits a city of Peoria to bring that business to this area.
The image you see here is one of our graduates Andrew, who had a vision, you want to work for DreamWorks some day.
So he's a double major in a digital animation, computer science, and today he's working for DreamWorks.
And a big part of that was a connection that one of his faculty had to someone who worked at DreamWorks.
He developed an industry level sort of Vita, but that phone call that a professor can make got him in the door and then Andrew's credibility is skills, you know, allowed him to stay there.
So we want to create that kind of an environment at the Arrowhead Innovation Campus.
We have collaborators already kind of coming together when there's an idea that sort of unites folks, people come and it's been exciting to see how some of these players have emerged.
BioXL, BioInspire, Remi's here representing that.
We've had conversations with Remi, with Marianne, in regards to some of the ways that
HU and our Disney Arts campus can intersect with BioInspire.
You can see the quotes there.
It's the idea of this whole model of real world experience for our students that also benefits entrepreneurial
small businesses.
The things that the City of Pure is already invested in, like BioInspire.
great fit, great fit for what we want to do.
Can say it is another partner that's already come to the
come to our campus.
They're actually sub-leasing from us in our initial office location.
And best way to describe them is just a quick paragraph.
This is the intro letter to their letter of support for
the university.
Can say a social enterprise is a peoria,
Arizona based not for profit organization
whose mission is to create jobs and provide
support services for persons facing challenges to employment, our long-term goals create
at least 1,000 jobs for underserved population groups within our initial three targeted groups
being veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan wars persons with developmental disabilities
and at risk youth. While we've created partnerships with major landowners and Tempe,
Mesa, Pason, and Phoenix, we have elected to relocate our corporate headquarters to Piora
it's Huntington University's mission, so closely fits our own mission.
Sometimes there's going to be some obvious connections, other times you're thinking,
well, how would a social enterprise group interface?
Media is an incredibly tool for people to help tell their own story, veterans,
need that, and it's also a way to kind of train for workforce development.
It's been already built out on the East Valley through a civetan project there.
We're looking to bring that here to the AIC.
There are a number of other collaborators that are sort of emerging that aren't in place yet that are potentially coming.
Design build technology firm based out of Atlanta that has a manufacturing plant in China.
We'll like to locate a design center at the Arrowhead Innovation Campus.
Faith-based film studios and other studios are interested.
Pureflex, which something may be of our own in Scottsdale is contacted us about once our studios are up and running.
Can they use our space?
And which we would love to have that happen.
A Kids Star, a national program to train kids into the area where I have radio, would like to locate their animation campus.
So we're seeing folks who have a vision for digital yards as we co-locate is going to be a pretty vibrant environment.
And we'd like to see what happens in that area. And again, it's one of the most pieces where some of these folks have just
just used a little bit of a connection train. They come together, but when there's a kind of a rallying focus by
digamy arts, people start to emerge and it becomes pretty exciting. Here's what we'd like to do.
And we think is a possibility for a university in the city of Peoria.
We'd like to see that digamy arts becomes a technology industry for Peoria.
There's a unique opportunity that doesn't really exist anywhere else in the state, where there's really a point,
place you can point to this, says, well, that's a DMA hotbed.
We think pure can can do that.
We know the 94% of businesses use social media, and those that don't probably should.
We can impact the businesses here in this in Pioria by providing services for them that could be far more cost effective
than what they could get an agencies or our elsewhere.
Pipe Point of Access and Success for Students.
We embrace the STEM initiatives already taking place in Pioria, and I think there's going to be a great pipeline from students in PUSD through either PSBN or other programs to come, get ahead starting college, get their degrees here in the city, get connected to the businesses while they're here and stay.
So we think we can be a talent, a tractor, the Digimon Yards industry.
We think we can be a talent retention tool through the pipeline of access, success for students.
We can be a destination for national and regional Digimon Yards institutes, either through the connections
that already exist through the university through Dave Cornelius who has done this and replicated
it a number of times here in the Arizona or through Matthew Earl Jones, who is institute with
love to do these sort of things on a national level.
So we can bring those people here to Peoria, and the idea is that this campus has been used
all the time, all year round, to give higher visibility to the city of Peoria and to
the university.
And we want to create affordable excellence.
We're trying to structure this campus, so that students can come to any university, get a
national level education from a nationally recognized liberal arts college at the same price
that students would pay for state schools here in the state.
So we like cost not be a barrier.
We're working very, very hard to have that to deliver.
Basically, a state school price for what we think
will be a very robust and focused education here.
To summarize, and I love the picture here a little bit
with mentioned that is one of the things
that I think our faith-based component
that comes as our students had a leaning towards telling the positive side.
And I think we all know that the world needs, city needs, more positive stories.
This is a drawing of one of my favorite artists who was a hunting university student.
And just seeing the upside, seeing the positive.
I think that's one of the things that we think we can bring to the city of Peoria.
Our students will have a little bit of a natural leaning that way.
It certainly is our intent.
good people telling good stories being encouraging, being redemptive, we look forward to that opportunity.
Economic impact.
We believe we will have not only our employment impact, as the people that we employ,
also the payroll and expenditure of not only those who are employed by the University,
but also students while they're here, student interns to impact local businesses, their needs,
development of new business startups.
Digimon Yards people are by their nature, entrepreneurial, they are self-starters, and so we
think there's going to be some pretty neat things that will come out of the Digimon Yards
campus here and with the other collaboration entities within the Arrowhead Innovation Campus.
Workforce development, preparation of highly educated graduates and key technology fields,
animation, digital media broadcasting, film, graphic design, video communications, we can increase
college completion opportunities for Peoria residents, possibly for the development of educational
programs, a specific sector needs. There's some things that we don't know, but as we learn
more about Peoria, we'll be able to work together to decide how can we meet those needs. Whether
for digital media arts or some of the other programs that Honeyton has back in home campus that
will be an exciting conversation to continue to have. We want to partner with Scott and his
office to attract new corporations and industries to Peoria.
Again, remember everybody has some need for digital media arts.
Everyone has a story to tell.
Community development, we are by our nature,
a town and town and town institution.
We have a great relationship with our home city in Huntington, Indiana.
In fact, the mayor's Huntington University graduate,
Director of Economic Development, the nature grad,
the outgoing superintendent of schools in nature grad,
the head of our United Way,
nature grad, the list schools on and on.
That won't happen immediately in PRA, but it's certainly our intent to have an impact here,
and as people graduate, we want them to connect with the community, and also as our
full-time professionals work here, we want to be community-connected. To be volunteer service,
we are a service community-minded institution, and that mission will be
will carry over here to PRA training workshops, lectures, other entrepreneurial opportunities
for people either at an education or for small business people who just want to learn some basic
social media skills, we'll be able to provide that for them in a unique way.
And digital media students will projects one gauge, local not-for-profits with small
businesses, allow people who maybe don't have a voice to tell their story, to tell their
story, to expand and have a positive impact on the community.
And programs enrollment.
We have a sharp focus on one specific area, digital media arts, animation film, fusion media,
graphic design, web development, gaming would be something else that could be added to that
We have a strong connection in place with key figures in Arizona digital media education.
And so that is going to help us identify target audiences, but also faculty with David Cornelius,
with Matthew Earl Jones folks in industry who can bring high-level industry professionals here
to the campus to train, teach, and share their experiences with the students that are here.
And the fact that there are minimal, high-education options for students in the state
creates an opportunity to have high demand under supply.
That's a good combination when it comes to developing a new market.
We understand that breaking into any new market is challenging.
So, in closing, after considering a variety of possible means of launching our presence here in the city of Peoria,
we've deliberately chosen to focus our offerings on a pre-qualified target audience
to bring our most highly enrolled and most distinctive program
To lease space from a landlord who was already planning on developing a technology campus to relocate an experienced enrollment vice president,
who's me to the city of Eoria, to partner with a well connected and respected local educator, like Dave Cornelius, to find partners out there who are industry professionals like Matthew Earl Jones and to build something cool and unique here in the city of Eoria.
That would conclude the presentation part, but certainly open to questions if the council has any or for Scott for a nice close, right?
Council, do you have any questions?
I do.
Thank you, Mayor.
Jeff, great presentation.
This certainly can be an exciting time for the city of Peoria and Huntington University, and so I think we're all excited about that.
My question is a couple of questions is what initially is the square footage you're looking at at the university?
Yeah, so we're looking at, start out in 15,000 square feet and then growing within three to five years,
25,000 square feet, which is nice as it kind of fills in some of the existing shell buildings that Charles has on that property.
And then beyond that, again, that open lot is sort of who knows at that point. There could be a lot of potential.
but initially 15 and then growing out the 25 fairly quickly as enrollment and needs expand.
Okay, and as you come into Bioria, is the digital arts, the only discipline that you will currently offer?
It is the one that we'll launch with and lead with. Okay.
But I would mention that we think this is the salvage of foothold here in the city of Bioria and as we continue
of conversations, we have a number of great programs back on the home campus that are nationally accredited.
our nursing program is nationally credited, social work, education, occupational therapies and
and canisies status right now. So we may find some other great fits. But yes, good to
me, arts will be our lead. So we can come in, do that very well, and then continue conversation
about what else we might bring to the city. Okay. And you mentioned earlier in your presentation
that you could help people kind of finish their degrees, but if someone chose not to go to a
community college, I'm assuming that Huntington would bring them in as a freshman. Oh, absolutely.
And it would be a four-year degree program?
OK.
Yeah.
Thank you for clarifying that, Bill.
Yeah.
That is exactly the case.
Is that students can come right in?
And we will start and finish right
on our university campus or in partnership with community colleges.
Find a great way for them to kind of streamline and pipeline.
OK.
Thank you.
What's up?
Thank you.
Such an exciting presentation.
Oh, thanks.
Such a future.
When?
Where are you planning to?
Oh, yes.
Open the term.
That's a good question, so after two and a half years, it would be nice to have sort of a target date.
We are currently in our proposal and timeline, I would say a soft launch in spring of 2016.
Probably with some transfer students from CUNY College and probably some dual credit with the PUSD and then a full program launch in the fall of 2016.
So, we will begin the idea as soon as we build out, we'll have some operations that will be
educationally related, some of the institutes we can do almost right away.
We can have some other sort of training programs.
We can start with some of the industry work, but the reality is, as we go through the state approval process,
a higher learning commission, we are fully accredited by those folks.
And so this will be a new location, luckily, not luckily.
Well, yes.
That's the same group that also accredits the Arizona so we get a chance to just work with our current accrediting firm.
That'll still take some time through that organization, but we think that we'll be in position for a good strong
Watch against soft launch, bring a 2016. Again, knowing that a lot of students will be already making decisions, but then really to go full blast grand opening in fall of 2016.
I had kind of the same questions as Bill, so say a student say you were close to them and everything was a go except that really wasn't their ultimate goal.
Could they take two years at Huntington and get their English and their math and their history and everything that would all be transferable say to Grand Canyon or to a state university.
And you mentioned your tuition being comparable to state.
I think Grand Canyon is right in there too,
maybe even a little less.
So you'd be comparable with them?
Yes, and it's very close to their mission.
That's what you are in terms of being a Christian organization and all.
Absolutely.
Yes, well, I think in their case, their initial tuition is higher.
Once their discount is done, it's pretty equivalent.
So I think they've also recognized that there's
a little bit of a price sensitivity in the market and Arizona.
We've recognized that coming in and we can't bring our price structure from the Midwest.
I think I didn't mention this, but we've really tried to learn that time has been well spent
to watch other institutions come into the Arizona area and try to bring a higher price high discount
model that just doesn't work very well. So we'd like to do is bring a high quality low price model
into the state of Arizona. We think that will be a vote well for success.
Well, I graduated from Grand Canyon when it was a college and I paid $12 a semester hour so you're not going to be able to talk to that.
We may not be able to talk that exactly. Hopefully that was when we chose everything on stone and.
The virus in charcoal was a lot cheaper at that point.
The other thing that I wanted to know distance learning.
Will you be doing offering distance learning?
That is one thing that we'll be able to do almost immediately in terms of some of the core classes that we can offer online classes back in the home campus.
Something we can administrator just gives students a chance to take those.
So I think there'll be some flexibility that students can take all their classes from Huntington University.
Someone beyond line.
Someone will be here in residents.
Someone will be in partnership with community colleges.
or students who are in the area this for the summer time and want to have, as you mentioned,
an English class, a history class can come and take that either face-to-face if it's what we're offering in our main campus or through an online program through the university.
So, we will be very flexible and, again, our credits all transfer out or can transfer in, so we'll be in a good position to work with students in that sense.
So, do you first see maybe something like a teaching major because that it fits so beautifully if someone wants to go into the graphic cards
as a teacher, they don't want to maybe produce things themselves, but they want to teach kids
how to do it. That seems like a fairly easy degree to add.
Well, we're looking at it. In our education program, it's also nationally accredited, so we think
as this builds out, when we find new opportunities, not only to train current teachers in
the arts and give them an opportunity to kind of add another credential to their existing teaching
degree, but we may find a unique program here that would be the education that could be
the umbrella of our existing education program. That would be kind of cool. That would be very
unique and literally maybe one of the first of its kind, not only in the region, but maybe
nationally. So who knows what will develop in that way? Well I'm very happy to welcome you to
Peoria. It's exciting. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you. I mentioned employees. How many employees you're going to have?
We will kind of grow that out a little bit as we go. We kind of project at this point
being somewhere in the area probably 20 or so full-time employees in the first five years
and then eventually up to the area, maybe eight years, so many would be adjunct
profession professors, professors are practice in that area and so some will be full-time,
some will be part-time, but we think in five years, somewhere around the idea of a hundred employees,
Majority which will be part-time may be folks who locate in our facility who are working
professionals who are also teaching part-time for the university.
We think in terms of our core operation, probably about 20 years, so it would be as we
kind of target and kind of project out in that first five year period.
And that's strictly teaches you, is that the administrators and that actually...
We'll be, there'll be some of those that be full-time faculty, but likely to be more the administrators,
will be people who would be in terms of technology support, will be people who would be recruiters,
financially, people, that type of things. So it'll be, there will be certainly an academic component,
but there will also be the other, the other back office functions that we'll want to have. Eventually,
those as, if the campus grows here, things that we're supporting back on the home campus in Indiana
will need to shift out and hire people to do those face-to-face out here.
That's not, that's not a full maintenance.
That's not.
Did you imagine how much the tuition is going to be?
We are targeting, so I think at this point we'd say in our models we're building something
the Cronkite School at Arizona State University is right around $335 a credit hour this year.
We're trying to target that is that.
We launch, we're going to be in that ballpark.
So we're looking at figures somewhere in the 350 to 375
per credit hour range right now.
Looking at that being our rate in 2016.
OK, thank you, ma'am.
Mr. Toma.
Thank you, ma'am.
First of all, I'd like to say echo the thoughts
of the others, the great presentation.
My question is, in digital arts, how many of your students
on average would you say that graduate
end up working in the field?
Yeah, and I think the great thing about the fields,
It's fairly expansive.
I can speak as a dad of a daughter who just graduated
with Indigenous May Arts, and this might be a good example.
It's show how it works.
Someone going the industry where you would quickly
identify it as, OK, that's a Indigenous
industry, the dream works, the Pixar film industry.
But others will go into support of an industry.
So my daughter is a marketing manager for an automobile dealership
nearby, but she does all their social media, all their video,
all their photography, all their web and graphic design capabilities.
She also does freelance project.
She's worked for the City of Huntington.
She's worked for you for Christ International.
She's worked for the university.
So even those that will go into areas that are existing businesses
will still be doing the digital yards on the side.
They are storytellers by nature.
So the majority of them are somewhat
are somehow connected to their core function.
and the employability and the career placement is quite high in that major because there's
such a need that this point is businesses expanding, grow, realize, boy, we really
need someone who come on board, who can handle this for us.
And so we've been reducing students that can do that type of thing.
And we didn't really think that the biomed industry might be a possibility for our graduates.
You don't sense that, but there is a very robust corridor, just north of Huntington,
where Johnson Johnson, Depuis, Zimmer, BioMet have all located corporate headquarters there
and our students have been highly sought after by them because we can animate, they can model,
they can literally kind of fill for either sales, training, product development,
that's an exciting thing, even with Bioinspired, we see a lot of connections there.
So there's a lot of good different ways to answer the question, but a lot because of the breadth
of the careers, and the breadth of the application,
but Georgia's students are working in a digitally arts area.
Thank you.
That's too bad.
Everybody seems to have questions.
This is really interesting to me because I was at Pure Unified
when the PSP and Project started, and I hope you're a 33 student
set first year when it started up.
And I actually had lunch with Dr. Central today.
So if you're ironic that we're having this discussion today.
So a couple of questions for me.
Do you have a graduation rate that you're for your students in Huntington?
We do.
It's just a little over 60 percent that started Huntington graduating in a little over four
years.
I had a bunch of questions listed here and a lot of people have already asked them, so bear
with me for just a moment.
Projection enrollment in the next five to ten years.
Yes.
That's a good question.
So it's, we have been projecting out and looking at it three to five years, somewhere between
300 and 500, we think we'll be the total head count.
That varies a lot because we're trying to get a sense of the market here.
We feel like, before able to walk into a classroom of 100 students who have been, you'll
media trained through Puri High School through CTE, we walk in with someone like a David
Cornelius who knows the, the, the teacher in that area and we can talk to those students
say we have an option to offer a nationally regarded program in your area of interest.
It's located here in the state, pricing is the same as a state school.
The question is how many of those students will say, yes, that's what I want to do.
And we don't know is that half a percent, one percent is at five percent.
So it could escalate pretty quickly, but we're trying to be very conservative.
And looking at the idea of maybe a somewhere between 300 and 500 head count by years three to five.
Okay, so that actually leads to my last two questions.
One, do you have scholarship opportunities for kids?
What we will do is our goal is to not so much directly
do the scholarship, but to try to come in at a set discount rate
that will be commas ripped to state schools.
That being said, so again, we don't want to play the sort of
what it becomes a little bit of the shell game for the little
rards back in the Midwest where you have a high price
and then you have a high discount.
But we will be very interested in working with local organizations to raise money to develop
scholarship programs for students here and Arizona support the Arizona initiative.
So our structure to try to come in can kind of be a little bit of the keep the sticker price low and
honest and viable but we will also be working to develop organization.
We think that once people get a vision of what's happening and want to keep students here
that will find folks who can step up and would create scholarship opportunities for students
here in Arizona. We would very much welcome that. Okay. And then my final question
I promise. Credentials for teaching are there certain credentials that I need to have
to teach at Huntington. What we do is typically it's a master's level to teach. I wouldn't
mention that other programs that are naturally credited to have additional requirements beyond
what the university would have. Did you mean arts does not have an additional professional
accreditation requirement. So if we were bringing in nursing or education, there would be another group
that would have oversight. Did you know the arts is a little more flexible? So because
the nature of it, we will have professors or practices who can come in, who maybe will teach
an adjunct class, who maybe just have a bachelor's but have a lot of years of experience. But certainly
to be a full-time faculty member, would be a master of fine arts, would be sort of that minimum,
to be full-time faculty.
Thank you.
All right.
We have one more question from Youth Council.
Yes.
Yeah, it's more of a common.
I just like to say how exciting this is.
This is a student of the P.R. in effect school district.
I go to Centennial High School.
Oh, great.
And I work very closely in that one.
I have an announcement.
Why not take place to go to the media room.
Because that's where they do our announcements.
And when you go into those media rooms.
That is a hub of creativity of students.
They take students every single year.
Students can start when they're freshman.
And many of them stay all four years until they're senior year.
and they can learn so many exciting things.
There's an I've been involved with the CTE,
I've been more involved with the business side of CTE,
but I've seen all the events
and all the opportunities that media,
that the CTE and the state of Arizona,
especially in our district provides for media students.
And I can think of a plethora of students that,
I mean, if you can see the cool things that they design,
a lot of my friends, they do stuff on YouTube,
which is an incredible outlet,
a creative entrepreneurial outlet
that you can go and post videos and do media things
and make money off of that.
And I can just think of so many students
that would just take this opportunity and full-stripe
of being involved with this, not only in my school,
but all across this district.
It's incredible what people are doing with media.
And it's becoming really a norm,
especially with my generation as far as not only
a job placement and the future,
but just even knowing basic simple things
that we need to know to be successful.
So great job and so excited to see this take place here.
Oh, I appreciate that's a great comment.
I look, my daughter being involved, my oldest daughter,
there is certainly a mentality and an environment
that happens.
So we have creative people coming together, it's by nature a collaborative sort of a discipline.
And so it can be pretty high energy.
So what you see in the high schools is only replicated and expanded in the university setting,
particularly when you have people who are professionals in the field like Matthew and Dave,
who kind of just sort of feed that a little bit.
It could be pretty energizing place to be around.
Okay, well, thank you, Scott, did you want to say anything?
Yes, there's one more thing.
One more slide, if I could borrow the, oh, yes, there's just a kind of, I guess we've ran out of juice, so I'll do it verbally, okay.
So the purpose of today was for you to get to hear the background and what is the concept of this campus.
If this is something that the council is interested in staff pursuing, Hunting University has tendered up proposal,
Then what we would do is go and start to go shading that proposal and go back to council and executive session for normal to talk about the outputs of that.
So what would be asking tonight is is this something that the council's desire is to staff pursuing in terms of negotiating with hundreds of university relative to the submitted proposal.
I think you've heard so many positive comments from our council that you realize we have a consensus to pursue it.
And I just wanted to add my comments to that.
Your enthusiasm and excitement is so contagious
and you've put together a tremendous team.
It really just says a lot.
The collaboration, or as you say,
the chain of collaboration, it speaks volumes for who you are.
And I think that the programs that you're putting together
mesh very nicely with the innovation
that we see ourselves as in our future in Pioria.
So thanks for what you're doing and I look forward to seeing something back here in the form of a deal.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you, Council.
Okay, then we are adjourned into our seven PM meeting.