Southeast Community College’s six learning centers put a quality education in reach

Southeast Community College’s campuses in Beatrice, Lincoln and Milford provide students with a wide range of academic and athletic programs, delivering a rich and fulfilling experience while creating a path to the professional workforce or to further education.

But for prospective students in SCC’s 15-county service area, getting to those campuses may require a long drive, taking time away from their studies, jobs and families.

“What our president, Dr. Paul Illich, noticed in 2014 was that we had the three campuses — and they’re spread out a little bit — but there’s a whole lot of the area that we serve in the counties where it wasn’t convenient for students to be able to get to one of our campuses,” said Dr. Joel Michaelis, SCC vice president for instruction.

Through data analysis, Illich and his team identified a range of 35 miles where students in the 15-county area could easily attend an SCC institution of higher learning. To fill the gaps, Southeast established six learning centers between 2016 and 2019 in Falls City, Hebron, Nebraska City, Plattsmouth, Wahoo and York.

“Plattsmouth is only 15 minutes from Bellevue, a beautiful drive down Highway 75,” said Lyn Belitz, the coordinator of SCC’s Learning Center at Plattsmouth. “Rural and urban communities enjoy the open spaces as well as the life in the small and big towns. Development is happening here, and the college is here to support all aspects of that.”

Like the other five learning centers, the Plattsmouth location brings a rich assortment of educational opportunities to the town and the surrounding area. The school offers credit and noncredit courses, as well as business and industry training, online courses, a computer lab, GED and English courses and more.

The Plattsmouth location is in the historic Dovey Building on Main Street. “Tin ceilings and wood floors that date to 1886 make it a place folks want to come to hang out as much as to learn something new,” said Belitz. “The coffee shop next door is pretty convenient, too.”

SCC students can take nearly any and every program offered by the three campuses at any one of the six learning centers, barring just a handful of technical courses that rely on equipment found only in Beatrice, Lincoln or Milford.

“It’s your learning center,” said Michaelis. “We are there to serve that community. If there is something they want that we aren’t offering, they need to come tell us. If there’s something that they can do or can teach that they would like to offer to others, they need to come tell us. We really want to be a hub of activity in every one of the communities that we serve.”

Belitz says attending SCC is an outstanding, affordable investment, adding that 96% of 2021 graduates found work or continued their education.

For more information about SCC, please visit southeast.edu.

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