EmployIndy ready to help staff, students affected by ITT Tech closure
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – The ITT Technical Institute closure is forcing thousands of students to staff to ask themselves “what do I do now?”
Some obviously want to finish school but others simply need to find a new job.
According to EmployIndy, an organization that helps people find jobs or secure training, the closure means 300 full-time and 85 part-time employees lost their jobs in central Indiana.
“I’m disappointed that I don’t get to work with the students that I’ve been working with,” said Julie Dow, adjunct writing professor at the ITT Tech campus on Indy’s north side.
She had been looking forward to getting back in the classroom next week until an email this morning let her know she and everyone else at the school no longer had a job. She said she knew bad news could be on the horizon, but she never expected a full closure.
“What I was hoping to hear was that we were at least able to teach out the students who were already pursuing their degrees,” she said.
Now she’s forced to find a new school to continue her work, a task she fears won’t be easy. But there are people prepared to help.
“Our desire is to be a navigator and a high touch provider of services and opportunities,” said Angie Carr Klitzsch, president and CEO of EmployIndy. “We’ll talk about what you need to be able move into a new career or opportunities, what jobs are already out there that want your skill-set and then you can also use some online resources.”
One of those online resources is WorkOneIndy.org, which offers easy how-to videos on fixing resumes, interview advice, navigating the daunting task of finding a job, or potentially getting training to gain new skills for a different career.
“We have a lot of other training programs that individuals can rapidly populate themselves in and skill-up,” she said. “Maybe this is an opportune time to look beyond that traditional classroom to some of our accelerated learning programs.”
Dow would prefer to continue teaching, but the main concern right now is more with her students. “I think that if you are involved in education, you want students to get to finish what they started and that’s what I’m really most concerned with right now is that I have lot of students who didn’t get to finish what they started,” she said. “It’s hard to get back into school when you stop doing school. For some (ITT Tech students), it was hard to start doing school to begin with.”
To learn more about the services offered by WorkOneIndy, click here.