It was an event festooned in military fanfare and unlike anything Ivy Tech Sellersburg had ever seen before. With generals on hand from both the U.S. Army and the Indiana National Guard, an agreement was signed on Aug. 12 that made the Clark County college home to a national first—a program which will use the military to enhance student careers in public service roles.
Called the Enlisted Training Corps (or ETC), the program is a credit-bearing, pre-enlistment course modeled after the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) but focused instead on enlisted service. Beginning in the fall, the program will begin with a pilot course introducing students to public service roles and then progress into the ETC course itself, taught by instructors from the U.S. Army.
The program aims to help boost Army recruitment, while also helping students develop the skills and readiness needed for roles as soldiers, technicians and specialists in active duty, the Army Reserve or Army National Guard. And once they return to civilian life, those same students will be far better prepared for public service roles like firefighters, police officers or emergency medical technicians. So why is Ivy Tech the first two-year institution in America to offer the program?
“We are one of the leading community colleges, and we really have a solid record of preparing students for a career path,” said Matt Marshall of the Ivy Tech Sellersburg School of Public Affairs and Social Services, who will lead the initial pilot program. “It's fast, it's affordable, and it's a family environment that makes learning more conducive. And it's all about success. It's not about difficulty. It's about learning, to get students out there so they can apply it.”
Pathway to success
Authorized by the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, the ETC program aims to embed military preparation within educational institutions—offering a more accessible, career-aligned entry point into service. While military enlistment isn’t mandatory for students who take part in Ivy Tech Sellersburg program, Marshall said, those who choose to join will come out of basic training at a higher enlisted rank than if they signed up otherwise.
The initial Ivy Tech Sellersburg pilot program will provide students with “a pathway to success,” Marshall added. “It takes students who are transitioning from high school into college, and gives them the skills to succeed in college—like note-taking, time management, critical thinking, things like that. It’s going to help them succeed in a college environment versus a high school environment.”
The ETC course itself will be taught by Army instructors onboarded into the Ivy Tech family. “It’s going to discuss things like what to expect during basic training, some military history, some military ethics, things of that nature,” Marshall said. “And then they're going to flip that to how it can be applied toward preparing a student for public service, which is almost identical in some aspects, and can be helpful to that transition as well.”
In addition to coming out of basic training at a rank of Corporal or Specialist, students who complete the ETC program “are going to be a step ahead of everybody else there,” Marshall said. “The goal is to get them prepared, get them excited for it and get them in there so that they can definitely succeed once they enlist. And then when they come out, it’s about how they can apply what they learned to a public service career in civilian life. We’re trying to gear the students to think long-term here.”
Raising the profile
The ETC program at Ivy Tech Sellersburg is designed to benefit everyone—students receive enhanced training, the military gets better-prepared enlistees, and communities ultimately get more seasoned public service personnel. It could also offer a boost to the profile of military service, which, according to the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, suffers from low awareness and increased competition from the civilian workforce.
Marshall, a former sergeant in the Indiana State Police, hopes the program can put public service careers in a positive light as well.
“The realm of public service is so desperate for manpower right now, and it has a bad image,” he added. “You see police officers making bad decisions, firemen getting shot, EMTs getting fired upon—but that’s not the whole kit and caboodle of the career. Those are rarities, but they're so publicized that that's what people think the career is. My goal has always been to take public servants and make them human. Let's show the humanity. Let’s bring the community back to our profession and see the people within it, and get people excited about doing this again.”
The movement toward making that happen began Aug. 12, when Lt. Gen. Johnny Davis of the U.S. Army Recruitment Command and Brig. Gen. Larry Muennich of the Indiana National Guard joined Ivy Tech president Dr. Marty Pollio for a ceremony at Ogle Hall in Sellersburg to officially create the ETC program. “There’s pride in it,” Marshall said. “It’s really cool to be part of something like this that helps students.”
Are you or a loved one interested in the ETC program at Ivy Tech Sellersburg? Contact the campus admissions office by phone at (812) 246-3301 or by email at sellersburg-admissions@ivytech.edu, or visit their website at IvyTech.edu/Locations/Sellersburg for further information.
