Continuing coverage
The Springfield News-Sun has been reporting on plans to create a food science center at the former South High School for more than a year. We will continue to cover education and agribusiness stories that impact the local economy.
The Ohio Board of Regents has approved Clark State Community College’s new Food Science and Technology degree program, to be housed at the former South High School.
The program is one of only a few two-year degree programs in food science in the U.S. and the first in the Miami Valley, said Aimee Belanger-Haas, dean of the Business and Applied Technologies program, which will offer the Associate of Applied Science degree.
Students in this program will learn how to package food, research and test it, and market products, all skills that local employers have said are crucial to fill their workforce needs, Belanger-Haas said.
“Basically they’ll learn how to go from an idea to actual production,” she said.
Local employers such as Dole, Bob Evans, GFS and Klosterman have need for workers trained in this field.
Clark State has partnered with The Ohio State University, which offers a four-year degree in food science, to create a pathway for transferring if desired.
“This program will help fill the skilled workforce need for the largest industry in Ohio: agriculture,” Dr. Amit Singh, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Clark State, said in a press release. “Food processing business is a part of that.”
Agribusiness accounts for 14 percent of Ohio’s employment, or about one out of seven jobs, according to OSU studies.
Housing the program at South alongside the Global Impact STEM Academy, which will move in for the upcoming fall semester, and the Greater Springfield CareerConnectED Center is a win for students involved in all those programs, said Springfield City School District Board of Education President Ed Leventhal.
“It will just be another opportunity to graduate students with a lot more skills,” he said. The school board owns the building and is leasing space to Clark State.
The program will offer six new courses: Introduction to Food Science, Introduction to Food Processing, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, Food Marketing, Food Laws and Regulations and Advanced Topics in Food Science.
In the Advanced Topics course at the culmination of the two-year program, “students will use all of their information to create a product, package it, create processes, research laws and regulations and present it to the class,” said Tonja Kunzler, Business and Applied Technologies consultant coordinating the program for Clark State.
Clark State is projecting enrollment to be 10 to 15 students during the fall semester, with a projected expansion to 20 students within two years. Class registration is now open.
Clark State is using $1 million allocated from the last state capital improvements budget to renovate part of the second floor at South High for labs and classrooms to house the program.
That renovation will not be completed in time for the fall semester, so classes will begin on the Leffel Lane campus. The program hopes to move to South for the spring 2016 semester, Belanger-Haas said.
About the Author