Writer: Mike James
Ashland Daily Independent

ASHLAND Ashland Community and Technical College kicked off a $3.2 million capital campaign Thursday but it already has a big head start - the college already has received some $2.3 million in donations from faculty, staff and major donors.

Once it raises the money ACTC plans to build a child care center on land it already owns across the street from its Ashland campus on College Drive, endow several faculty chairs, create a workplace literacy program to increase access to job training and developmental education, and support a science and technology fair for students from kindergarten through high school.

The child care center is ACTC's most pressing need, said President Gregory D. Adkins. More than half of ACTC's students are non-traditional and many have children, he said. "It is very important for those non-traditional students who have children to have a place for their children to be taken care of," he said.

ACTC currently has a child care center but it occupies converted classroom space. The college needs the space for classes, because enrollment is at record levels, he said.

Starting the campaign with more than $2 million already socked away should make it easier to raise the remaining $900,000, said Guy Spriggs, who is co-chairing the campaign with Pat Goodpaster, widow of the late Bob Goodpaster, ACTC's first president.

"Nobody likes to be first in line," he said. "This makes it a little more credible."

The child care center itself will require about $800,000 to complete, said Director of Advancement Frank E. Salisbury. However, work will have to wait until all the money is raised, because much of the $2.2 million already there has been earmarked for other projects in the campaign, he said.

It is likely that the remaining $900,000 will be raised by sometime this fall, Spriggs said.

If that happens, work on the child center could start this year, Salisbury said.

Raising the money will help ACTC meet its ultimate goal of solving problems in adult literacy, preparing workers to enter the increasingly competitive technological work force, and enhancing access to a college education, said Kentucky Community and Technical College vice president Tim Burcham.