Owens fills key spots on two campuses

Ankele, Green Enlarge

The Owens Community College Board of Trustees approved a new chairman Tuesday for its nursing school, which lost a key accreditation from a national nursing organization last fall.

Ruth Ankele comes from the University of Toledo, where she was an administrator for years in the school's associate-degree nursing program. She would be second in command and report to the nursing school dean. Owens is also looking for an assistant chairman for the school.

The board also approved the hiring of Melissa Green to head the Findlay-area campus.

With a salary of $120,000, she becomes a vice president and is essentially second in the college behind President Larry McDougle.

The appointment of Ms. Ankele, who will be paid $85,000 a year, is another step in the direction of reinvigorating Owens' image after losing the accreditation from the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission.

The development spawned a still-pending lawsuit from more than 100 nursing students. After losing the accreditation, then-President Christa Adams and Provost Paul Unger retired effective Jan. 1.

The school expects to have all of its improvements completed and paperwork submitted to regain the status before the end of the school year, said Renay Scott, interim executive vice president and provost.

"There is no other option than we get this accreditation," she said Tuesday. "We are deeply committed to putting resources into this program."

As part of its rehabilitation, the school's nursing program was removed from inside the school of health sciences and placed in its own school with a dean. The school also hired six new clinical instructors to boost the academic credentials of its staff.

The accrediting organization warned the school in 2007 that its associate degree nursing program did not have enough faculty members with master's degrees, among other issues. The school did not fix the problem and eventually lost the important status.

Mr. McDougle called the hiring of Ms. Green, who was vice president for student affairs at Rhodes State College in Lima, Ohio, a new beginning. The campus has had an interim leader.

The Owens campus in Perrysburg Township enrolls about 17,000 students a semester, and the Findlay campus enrolls about 3,000.

The board also approved a women's soccer program Tuesday that it hopes will attract students and interest on the campus.

With the upgrade from club soccer to full Division II status in the NJCAA, the college now has eight teams, an increase from when it only had one sport, basketball, in the early 1980s.

The move doesn't cost extra because the other seven teams gave up a couple scholarship spots each, making 16 available for the new women's team.

The scholarships provide tuition and books.

The shifting of scholarships means Owens has more for female athletes, at 60 scholarships, than for male athletes, at 58.

It hopes to ride World Cup fever and a decade of growing interest in women's soccer. Owens plans a search for a head coach.

Most of the players would come to Owens to work on their game while earning an associate's degree so they might compete at the next level, said Michael Rickard, Owens' director of athletics.

"Our ultimate goal for women's soccer is to become one of the elite programs in the country," he said.

Contact Christopher D. Kirkpatrick at:

ckirkpatrick@theblade.com

or 419-724-6134.