11/21/2025
ONLY IN THE BEACON
52 FACES: Building more than buildings
By Chris Faulkner
Burlington Beacon
Southeastern Community College President Dr. Michael Ash doesn’t want to be remembered for adding new buildings to the campus. However, he has been instrumental in securing many of them during his 13 years with the school.
Instead, “I want us to be able to see the work I’ve done,” Ash said,
“The guidance I’ve given our staff as a way to improve our college to make it relevant to our community, to make it relevant to our students.”
Going into the 2025-26 school year, SCC leads the state’s junior colleges in retention, and it leads in percentage of enrollment growth. Based on test scores, Ash said, “Our nursing program is No. 1 in the state.”
The Hall of Sciences has state-of-the-art equipment, and SCC is getting a new CDL program.
Ash oversaw the construction of a better dormitory for athletes and has added numerous sports teams to the program – including cross country and track, men’s and women’s wrestling, trap shooting, and golf – to attract more students.
“There are more than 300 athletes on campus,” he said.
Early in his education career, however, he was taking on far less than he is now, yet the stress was so much that he had to have triple-bypass surgery at 45.
20-Year Break
Ash graduated from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., and worked in the school’s student affairs area.
He earned his Master’s Degree and served as the dean of men for four years.
But he switched gears and started a business for remodeling and construction. “I really enjoy doing something with my hands,” Ash said.
Twenty years later, he came back to education. He served as Director of Counseling at Regent University, a graduate school in Virginia Beach, Va.
He then became the Director of Human Services and began his doctoral program in higher education.
“Between the job, the environment, the high-paced graduate education, and then working on the doctorate was just too much,” Ash said.
That’s when he needed the bypass surgery. He took a year off and resigned his position.
He began working on his doctorate again, but he also needed a job, so he took the position as dean of students at State Fair Community College in Sedalia, Mo., in 2003. His wife, Beth, headed up the education program.
“I was going from a graduate position to a two-year community college,” Ash said.
He finished his doctorate program, so the State Fair president wanted to move him to vice president of Advancement in 2009.
“I’ve never even raised a nickel,” he had told the president. “I don’t know how to do that.”
The president didn’t give him another option, and in nine years at State Fair, he raised more than $10 million in grants.
“I learned a lot, I experienced a lot, but I was kind of a one-man show,” Ash said.
He aspired to become a school president someday, and then the job in West Burlington became available in the summer of 2012.
While he would go on to raise millions of dollars through grants and the generosity of families, that wasn’t his initial focus.
College was struggling
“When I came here, I wasn’t diving into fundraising,” Ash said, “I came here diving into trying to help the college. It was struggling. We were on the decline.”
SCC had good facilities but an odd color scheme.
“They were maroon roofs and cream brick,” Ash said. “Those aren’t even close to SCC colors,” which are red and black.
Ash took the first culture survey in 2014, and the feedback wasn’t good.
“It was really dismal,” Ash said. “The place was not happy.
“People were already angry and hurting.”
The best example came from the construction of the Hall of Sciences.
Ash launched a “Building the Dream” campaign. The Health Professions building construction was underway, and Ash announced the plan for a Hall of Sciences building.
“The different science departments were spread all over the place,” Ash said. “But I was getting an undercurrent from the science faculty that didn’t think it was going to happen.”
He said they told him, “‘We’ve been lied to before; not by you but the past administration.”
Ash was serious about his plans.
“I wanted our students here, if they were going to be science majors and they would transfer to Iowa or Iowa State or wherever, that they would be going into state-of-the-art labs,” Ash said.
It was either that or a building for another department, so the faculty took a chance and backed him up.
“The science building was finished in 2017 on the main campus, and in 2018, the college built an Industrial Technology Training Center on the Keokuk campus,” Ash said.
“That began to stimulate the improvements in the attitudes,” Ash said, “and the belief system, which passed on to the students, and now we’re seeing this increase in enrollment.”
Like the rest of us, Ash said, “Students like shiny new things. We like up-to-date stuff. Even though our computer system is top of the grade, our internet service is faster than you can imagine.”
As for the financing and grant money Ash has helped raise over the years, it has led Ash to boast about all that has been added to the school: “It’s all paid for.”
That includes the new rec center, which is expected to be ready for use next spring, and will feature a basketball court, cardio equipment, weightlifting facilities for students and faculty, and a walking track for the entire community.
Ash said SCC has a partnership with Great River Medical Center, Mike Mohrfeld, and his solar panels in Fort Madison, and the school has a partner in Washington, D.C., seeking federal grants.
“We’ve gotten back millions of dollars in that partnership,” Ash said of the D.C. partner.
“It’s been a tremendous journey,” he said. “Early on, I quit about six times in my head. It was pretty bad here.”
But he eventually won people over.
“People would see that when we said something, that’s what we did,” Ash said, “and if we couldn’t do that, then we came back and said, ‘Well, we wanted to do that, but the timing’s off.’ ”
All that, and Ash still puts out a Student Satisfaction Inventory and a Climate Survey for the faculty.
“We’re serious about making changes,” Ash said.
“SCC will never be the biggest; we just don’t have the land mass to make us the biggest,” Ash said. “But we can be the best, and that’s what we’re aiming for.”
Photo by Chris Faulkner
