Madison Technical College has opened up a new $25 million campus designed to serve the educational needs of the south Madison communities.
The new 75,000 square-foot institution on Park Street was built to meet the growing demand of students in south Madison. President of Madison College Dr. Jack Daniels said the discussion about building Goodman South started five years ago.
“The conversation was about the needs of that [south Madison] community, knowing the numbers of unemployed and underemployed with the highest poverty levels within our city and how to meet that need because we were not meeting that need early on,” Daniels said.
Goodman South Dean Tina Ahedo said Madison College’s roots in south Madison began long before Goodman South was in the picture. Ahedo said Madison College has been in south Madison for almost thirty years in a variety of forms and spaces.
The college offered classes at the Labor Temple and the Villager Mall for many years in an attempt to reach students in south Madison. Ahedo said the lack of access to other campuses and space for programming in makeshift spaces were factors in the creation of Goodman South. Ahedo also said reports in recent years show the indicators for quality of life in south Madison were more “significantly tilted towards poverty” than other parts of the city.
“Can we, as a community, really afford to have this large area of our city, a quarter of our population and primarily minority populations, at a time when we need workers, can we afford to have a quarter of our population sit out?” Ahedo said. “And the answer is no.”
Daniels said once the decision was made to move forward with building a new campus, the college found a piece of land on Park Street and privately raised 98% of the $25 million to build the facility. Ahedo said the college planned Goodman South’s programming by reaching out to the south Madison community through forums, focus groups and surveys to ensure the campus would be one the community would respond to.
Daniels said Goodman South is the most diverse of the eight Madison College campuses. According to Madison365, 54% of the students enrolled are students of color.
Daniels said the most prominent difference in the Goodman South campus is that it is open seven days a week. Daniels said the structure allows for classes at odd times of the day to ensure that any student can be successful.
“You have many people in that area who are working two or three jobs, and they don’t have the opportunity to access higher education so they can improve their lives,” Daniels said. “We are trying to give them that opportunity.”
Daniels said another major issue the campus eliminates is the problem of transportation. The location is within an accessible walking distance to the community. Additional shuttling and busing services break down the remaining time and distance barriers that previously limited students’ access to other campuses.
“Prior to the Goodman South campus, many of the students and residents in [south Madison] would not come to our main campus at Truex,” Daniels said. “[Goodman South] has tackled those issues.”
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Daniels and Ahedo said other services on the Goodman South campus acknowledge external issues of students in the south Madison community. Ahedo said the campus is partnered with legal clinics, mental health clinics, housing groups, childcare services and food share services to help students with barriers.
“We wanted people in this area to be able to access those types of resources and those types of programs,” Ahedo said. “That was our interest: taking people where they were and helping them move along the educational and career goals.”
The campus falls within District 14. The alder, Sheri Carter, believes the new campus will provide new opportunities previously inaccessible in the south Madison community.
“When [Madison College] decided to build a campus in south Madison, that brings a wide open door of opportunity to have a walkable campus that is full service versus what they had before which was very limited,” Carter said.
Carter said the campus has a lot of potential to provide for multiple demographics in the general Madison community, ranging from recent high school graduates that do not want to attend a four year college, to unemployed or underemployed people seeking to build a specific skill set to earn a livable wage.
Carter believes the campus will bring new businesses to the south Madison community and new economic growth that comes with the increased access to education. She said the combination of the increasing access to health services and walkable jobs will “change the dynamics of Park street on a whole new level.”
Ahedo said the campus will ensure increased involvement in the economy from the south Madison community, resulting in a stronger economic community throughout Madison.
“The whole goal of putting this campus here was to build what we call an inclusive economy,” Ahedo explained. “An inclusive economy recognizes that there are talents and there are skills that people have to contribute and that what they need is to be able to have access to those training opportunities and education.”
Carter, Ahedo, and Daniels all agree the campus is a major step forward in Madison to provide access to education to marginalized communities and provide them the chance to better their lives.
“[Goodman South] is providing an opportunity we don’t see in every city,” Carter said. “I think this is going to be one of the catalysts that changes the outlook that people have about their own future.”
