Appalachian Springboard

CAMBRIDGE, MA–August 7, 2001–Take a drive through the Southeastern Ohio city of Zanesville, and you will notice - and most likely drive over - the community-hallmark Y-Bridge, a highway bridge that crosses two rivers and is a fork in the road. The other things you will notice (in fact, you cannot help but notice) are the beautiful hills among which Zanesville nestles. In the old days, such mountains were a natural defensive position, useful in keeping unwanted strangers out.

Today, they can work just as well to keep local residents in.
"Most of our students are place-bound," Ted Neuenschwander, Administrator, Management Information Services for Muskingum Area Technical College (MATC), states. "We draw the overwhelming majority of our students from the local area." And, while the more than 2,000 students fit more or less comfortably within the sprawling 179-acre campus, they might as well have been on different planets. "We had redundant data in each department," Neuenschwander notes, "because we lacked the ability to integrate it." MATC had a homegrown student-side system and AMS that ran on an IBM mainframe.

But, lack of integration was only half the problem. "We did not have a web presence," Ron Pratt, MATC's Vice President for Business Services observes. "We wanted to be able to grow. So, we evaluated systems that could fill our needs and help us do that. We chose Jenzabar CARS software." Using the Web portal and Internet infrastructure of Jenzabar, CARS supports e-business and administrative functions with a complete suite of software applications. "We chose just those applications we needed to help us fulfill our current growth plans," Neuenschwander notes. "We can add the others as our growth dictates."

And that growth has already begun. Shortly, MATC will open another campus, this one located in an industrial park near the intersections of Interstates 70 and 77. "We realize it is not conventional," Pratt states, "but just like the pioneers who looked for rivers beside which to build their villages so they could reach them by land or water, we look for sites that make it easy for our students to reach us."

And, we might add, nowhere near a fork in the road.

About Muskingum Area Technical College
Established in 1969, Muskingum Area Technical College is a two-year technical college, located in Zanesville, Ohio, which provides the education necessary to compete and excel in the professional technical environments of the 21st century. Offering associate-degree programs in more than 25 separate disciplines and career paths, the College emphasizes a hands-on approach to education. Students take general and basic courses, while concentrating on practical and technical classes in their specialized field of study.

More than 2,000 full- and part-time students attend Muskingum Tech at any given time. Students range in age from 16 to 65, and the average age is 29. The faculty to student ratio is an impressive 1:18. One of the most impressive aspects of the college is the individualized and personal attention given to students. A dedicated placement department, the Student Success Center, is committed to the continued success and professional development of the student body. Of the 1999 graduates eligible for career service assistance, 96 percent are employed and 86 percent of those are in technology-related fields.

About Jenzabar, Inc.
By improving the exchange of information through powerful business intelligence applications and services, Jenzabar's Internet enterprise software, e-learning solutions, and services deliver a competitive edge to higher education institutions.

Dedicated to supporting and enhancing the educational community, Jenzabar's business units serve 1,000 higher education institutions worldwide, including students, professors, and administrators from private liberal arts, medical, law, state, and community colleges. Institutions employing Jenzabar solutions include The Claremont Colleges, Colby College, Daytona Beach Community College, William Mitchell College of Law, Governors State University, Bluffton College, Florida Southern College, Bay de Noc Community College, Berry College, and Harvard Medical School. Jenzabar also facilitates IT training and certification for corporate clients, including Global 500 corporations.

Jenzabar's offerings include Web-based enterprise software with student, institutional advancement, human resources, and financial applications; e-learning solutions; and a higher education enterprise information portal (EIP). All are strengthened by partnerships with Accenture, edu.com, EMC, Lexis-Nexis, Microsoft, Oracle, Tutor.com, and Yahoo!. Founded in 1998, Jenzabar is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and currently employs more than 400 people in regional offices across the United States.