The South Bend Tribune, South Bend, Indiana

Published May 22, 2007

New Ivy Tech leader sets educational goals
Thomas Snyder to target awareness, outreach, refining business processes.

MARGARET FOSMOE
Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND -- Each year, about 40,000 Hoosiers in their late teens go on to college, while about 40,000 others drop out or don't pursue higher education.

It's that latter group that interests Thomas J. Snyder, president-elect of Ivy Tech Community College.

"We have about a half-million young Hoosiers under the age of 30 that are a prime target for us," Snyder said Monday during an interview at the Ivy Tech campus in South Bend.

Snyder, an Anderson, Ind., businessman, plans to increase Ivy Tech outreach into high schools and middle schools to help reduce the dropout rate. "We'll be looking for (students) in urban areas like South Bend and in smaller towns and high schools," he said.

He plans to focus on three areas: awareness, outreach and refining the college's business processes with a new $30 million statewide computer system that goes online later this year.With the old system, it's hard for the college to compile data about student retention and graduation rates, he said. "We can't track our students from when they check in until when they leave without doing it manually," he said.

The new system will start with finances and within a year expand to include student records, he said.

Indiana's community college system -- with more than 100,000 students -- is the largest in the nation, Snyder said.

Snyder will take office July 1, succeeding Gerald Lamkin, who is retiring after nearly 25 years as Ivy Tech's president.

Snyder has ties in north-central Indiana. He and his wife own a lake cottage near Warsaw, and they have relatives in Warsaw and Mishawaka. His sister-in-law, Judy Snyder, is a teacher's aide at Kennedy Academy in South Bend.Snyder joined Flagship Energy Systems in 2006 after 12 years as president of Anderson-based auto parts supplier Remy International Inc. and more than two decades with General Motors Corp. in Anderson.

He graduated from Kettering University (formerly General Motors Institute) in 1968 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He earned a master's degree in business administration from Indiana University.