A $42,000,000 building for health and wellness programs?
Grab your wallets, folks, and head for the hills. Unfortunately, that won't be far enough, if the Trustees slam through the next "big deal".
Calling it a "public-private partnership" is like the old shell game. How many health clubs and fitness centers are there in McHenry County that could "partner" with MCC? They already have their buildings and staff to provide an "educational experience" for MCC students.
Note: we're coming right up on the biggest membership month for health clubs. January is right around the corner. People fatten up during the holidays, make their New Year's Resolutions, and plunk down their money to join exercise clubs. They go once, twice, maybe even three-four times. Then life resumes.
Sometime later on, they remember that monthly deduction for their dues and cancel it.
Laura Brown, MCC's VP of Institutional Advancement (where do those titles come from, anyway?), says, "We are not going to a referendum."
Yeah, sure. And the $42,000,000 is going to fall out of the back of one of those new police cars at MCC?
It's MCC, folks. A junior college. A two-year college.
You never know who is interested…
3 months ago
3 comments:
Gus, their fitness center gets jam packed. Sometimes it's not worth it to go into. Sometimes there will be a sports team, NISRA, students, elderly people, and a health and fitness class in there. It's too much.
That being said, I have some questions. Where is it going to be built? There's no room in the college. Are they just going to build a new fitness center? If so, where? Should they wait to build the fitness center until they decide to do their big expansion? Would it be more cost effective to do it all at once? Do they care about costs at all? Where do they come up with the number 42 million? What private businesses are stepping up? If it's going to be a public-private partnership that's fine, but please tell us who you are partnering with. Do you even know? There are a LOT of healthclubs in McHenry County, but I can't picture them wanting to dole out a significant percentage of 42 million dollars. The healthclubs around here are either family owned or large corporate chains. Do they plan on ever allowing students in the Health and Fitness program to work in this new fitness center and get some hands on experience? Will they finally, not discourage(like they do now), but, encourage HFE students to do their internships at the college's own fitness center? What kind of numbers do they have currently? Does it make, break even, or lose money? How much? Who is this Laura Brown in the MCC chain of command and why is there no referendum? Why don't you let the trustees decide how to spend money?
Hey, the good thing about doing this is maybe some people who were in the Health and Fitness program can get a job in the field they went to school for. Why do they push push push HFE but impose strict limits on the nursing program? Nurses, afterall, are in a higher demand. Look in any classified section and you'll see what I'm talking about. There's no shortage of personal trainers. It's an overpopulated field and everytime recruits come to the MCC there's an HFE booth. I've said it before and I'll say it again. MCC HAS NO OBLIGATION TO ENSURE PEOPLE GET JOBS. THEIR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY IS STUDENT ENROLLMENT.
They called me up, asked me how I was doing, and when I told them I didn't have a job they didn't offer any help. It was really robotic. Everything was like "rate this 1 to 10" with no follow ups. I'm really dissapointed that they want to spend 42 million dollars on their health and fitness program when graduates of the health and fitness program don't have jobs in the field. Shame on MCC.
Oh, I misread part of that. The trustees WILL vote on it. By referendum, you meant voters. Yeah, with that large of a number it wouldn't be a stretch for that to be a referendum. 42 million!?!? How many people live in this county?
I really don't like most of the decisions I read about the Trustees making. It seems like they have a greater interest in administrators and teachers than to taxpayers or students. Out of touch? Please prove me wrong, MCC!
I just read the article! It says they are going to get money from occupational, physical, and respiratory therapy programs.
Well, to date MCC has made no OTAs. That program just started about a year ago. As far as I know there are no PTA or respiratory therapy programs.
How can they calculate how much revenue they are going to get from programs that don't exist? Just guess?
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