T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY From left to right, Marshalltown Community School District Communications Director Abby Koch, Marshalltown Education Partnership Coordinator Karina Hernandez and MEP Board Chairman Terry Buzbee pose for a photo inside the BJ Harrison Library on the MCC campus Friday morning. The MEP, a scholarship program for first generation college students that Buzbee helped to launch back in 2005, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

(Editor’s note: This is the first in an occasional series of stories commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Marshalltown Education Partnership, a program led by local businesses and nonprofit organizations to provide scholarships to first generation college students from MHS who attend MCC.)

As he noticed the demographic shift on the horizon in the community around the turn of the century, retired Emerson CEO Terry Buzbee knew companies like his would still need to find ways to meet Marshalltown’s future workforce needs. A Martha-Ellen Tye Foundation board member had an acquaintance in San Antonio who had launched a scholarship program for first-generation college students there, and Buzbee and other community leaders decided to borrow the idea.

After a few years of planning, the Marshalltown Education Partnership (MEP) was officially launched in 2005 thanks to a $270,000 fundraising campaign spearheaded by Emerson, the Martha-Ellen Tye Foundation, Lennox and the local hospital, which is now operated by UnityPoint. The idea is simple: MHS students who commit to the program as freshmen can attend Marshalltown Community College (MCC) and get half of their tuition covered if they are the first generation to attend college in their family, meet certain academic standards (2.75 GPA and 90 percent attendance) and demonstrate financial need.

Twenty years later, over $1 million in scholarships have been awarded to 317 students with 222 graduating, but nearly 5,000 students have been mentored or “touched” by the program in some way. The MEP is currently coordinated by Karina Hernandez, who was herself a first generation college graduate and also serves on the Marshalltown Community School District (MCSD) Board of Education.

“We start out with, say 100 plus freshmen. About 20 to 25 will qualify for a scholarship or will accept a scholarship. Some will do better than that and will go to other schools, but what Karina does is, of that 5,000 all through their freshman through senior year, she’s touching them with various programs to kind of keep them on track,” Buzbee said. “The mission is, ‘Can we hold them up to that GPA and that attendance level?'”

Hernandez, who took the MEP job two years ago, said she has been aware of the program through serving on the school board and her previous job with Mid-Iowa Community Action (MICA), but she has gained an even more in-depth knowledge in her current role and has a stronger appreciation of the positive impact it has made in Marshalltown.

“When I first started, I thought it was a scholarship program. They get in the program, they get a scholarship. But it’s more than that,” she said. “Students start meeting with me in ninth grade, and they meet with me throughout the four years (of high school). And as they’re meeting with me, we’re talking about different careers, different skills they need to have to have leadership skills. We’re talking about resumes. We’re talking about any job opportunities in town that they might be interested in, and I definitely partner with any other program at the high school to give them those opportunities.”

Hernandez encourages the kids to take trips to other universities or employer tours, and she works with them to formulate their postsecondary plans before continuing that relationship once they arrive at MCC. And as she explained, there are unique challenges that come with being a first generation college student.

“Sometimes they don’t think they can do what other people can do. They don’t see themselves doing those jobs, so they think, not less, because any job is not less, but they’re just thinking ‘Maybe I’ll just go work construction’ or ‘Maybe I’ll just go to JBS’ or ‘Maybe I’ll just go wherever they give me a job,'” Hernandez said. “And then I start talking about (the fact that) those are great jobs. How can we get certified doing these jobs, and what does MCC have to offer to get you certified to be at an upper level? So those are the opportunities I try to provide.”

Early on, Buzbee said, some parents were skeptical about MEP because they believed there were unknown strings attached, but they’ve worked diligently to educate the public over the years. MCSD Communications Director Abby Koch described the program as tailored to the district’s mission and vision and embodying the “Embrace the Lead” mantra.

“These kids are thinking about more than… They’re thinking about what they’re currently doing within the high school environment, but it’s also expanding their horizons of ‘I’m looking into this job field. I’m looking into these possibilities, and so with this opportunity given to me, I’m going to take my best step forward and really pave my own pathway forward,'” Koch said.

The goal, Buzbee added, is to create a seamless transition between MHS and MCC and encourage those first generation students to return to Marshalltown. When he was at Emerson, the company never struggled to hire university graduates for entry level positions, but they still needed to find individuals with welding and machine skills to work at the Governor Road plant.

“It all began with farmers that had a lot of machining expertise, but over the years, that skillset dropped down,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of plants in Marshalltown, a lot of technology companies in Marshalltown. Without those skillsets flowing into there… You don’t want to leave, but if you can’t get the skills you need, you have no choice.”

Koch highlighted the district’s recent investments in the Career and Technical Education (CTE) wing as further evidence of the complementary relationship, and Hernandez noted some examples of students who have participated in MEP and been successful after high school and college, including current Fourth Ward City Councilor Melisa Fonseca, who used the scholarship during the summer and then went on to study at UNI. Buzbee also cited the example of a former MEP student who worked as a draftsman with Emerson, went back to Iowa State to get his engineering degree and is now in the sales suite.

“I think if we do this well with a whole focus on skill base, that it’ll really fuel more of that worker (pathway) into Lennox, Emerson, MARSHALLTOWN Company, that kind of thing,” he said.

In conjunction with the 20th anniversary, MEP leadership has set a lofty goal of raising another $1 million in 2025 to sustain the program into the future, and Emerson ($250,000), the Martha-Ellen Tye Foundation ($250,000), Mechdyne ($30,000), the Buzbee Family Foundation ($50,000) and the Lennox Foundation ($50,000) have already made major commitments. Buzbee, who serves as the chairman of the MEP board of directors, would like to see other major employers come onboard, and there are also opportunities for individuals to make donations through the Community Foundation of Marshall County and for MCSD staff to contribute through paycheck deductions.

To learn more about the MEP, visit https://mcc.iavalley.edu/i-am/marshalltown-education-partnership/.