Seven of Greater Des Moines’ colleges are trying out a team approach to address the statewide concern of keeping Iowa’s educated young adults from seeking “greener pastures” in other Midwest cities and beyond.

A new group, Keeping Educated Youth in Des Moines, held its first meeting Thursday, bringing representatives from Iowa companies and college career services professionals together to share ideas, concerns and job openings and to pursue the common goal of maintaining a talented workforce in the area. Hamilton College, Grand View College, AIB College of Business, Drake University, Simpson College, Des Moines Area Community College and Upper Iowa University are taking part in the initiative.

“This network is going to allow us not only to learn from each other, but also provide an opportunity for employers to identify talented individuals from a variety of local colleges and high schools and ensure they find meaningful work,” said Lori Gelhaar, Hamilton College’s director of career services and the group’s organizer. “One of Gov. Vilsack’s missions is to keep our youth in Des Moines. Let’s finally do something about it.”

Gelhaar said she was tired of hearing about the problem and not seeing enough being done locally to address it, she said, which led her to the idea of putting a group of concerned parties together.

“I attended many network groups, but none of them focused on being a college and keeping educated youth here in Des Moines,” she said. “I decided to start up this networking group and link together all the Des Moines colleges in the process.”

Gelhaar said everything has moved together pretty quickly since the group of career resource professionals started meeting at the end of June.

“I called them and told them the whole point, and they just loved the idea and jumped right on it,” she said. “We are working with some of the same employers on a daily basis, so it made a lot of sense for us to all be in the same place at the same time.”

Jennifer Downe, the director of career services at AIB College of Business, said she believes that bringing college career service counselors together for regular meetings will strengthen each institution’s career development efforts.

“From one standpoint, I think of the best things about the organization is that it allows career service professionals across Central Iowa to communicate about what they’re seeing as trends in resume writing, application standards and so forth,” she said. “We’ll be able to talk to other people who are sitting in the same seats as we are, and work together instead of against each other to keep our own students employed in the Iowa market.”

Also, Gelhaar said, having representatives from the seven colleges together in one place enables at once fills an opportunity for employers to learn about and work with institutions that they haven’t been in contact with regularly.

“This allows them to build company recognition with colleges that may not be aware of their presence in the Des Moines area, and they can build these relationships with colleges without a big investment,” Gelhaar said. “It’s also a chance for the companies to be able to learn about the different campuses and whether the colleges have a career fair coming up or an event that they want businesses to participate in.”

Gelhaar said the college campuses will take turns hosting the K.E.Y. in Des Moines events, which companies will be invited to attend on a bi-monthly basis. The meetings will tentatively be the second Thursday of the month at 9 a.m. A typical agenda for the hour-long meeting will include networking, a roundtable discussion, a five-minute presentation by the host college and conclude with resume sharing and job recruiting.

The career resource counselors have been working together this summer to compile a booklet for employers that explains each institution’s way of handling career development. Through relationship-building with area employers and combining the best practices of each career resource office, Gelhaar said, K.E.Y. in Des Moines will make a difference in putting Iowa-educated students into the state’s workforce.

“The main purpose is to connect academics to the workforce,” she said. “Overall, it’s going to help our economic development by keeping our educated youth in Des Moines.”

For more information, contact Gelhaar by phone at 727-2100 or E-mail her at lgelhaar_dm@hamiltonia.edu.

Investing in students

The Iowa Department of Education reports that 82.4 percent of the state’s high school graduates pursue postsecondary education. An ongoing challenge the state faces is how to keep these college graduates from moving elsewhere after they’ve earned their degrees.

Iowa’s higher education system serves more than 140,000 Iowans pursing advanced academic and skill-based programs, according to a message from Gov. Tom Vilsack on the Iowa College Student Aid Commission Web site. And the state makes a substantial investment in these students through grants and other forms of financial aid, which is one of many reasons state leaders want Iowa’s educated young adults to stay in Iowa after graduation and contribute to its workforce and economy.

According to the Iowa College Student Aid Commission, the state has made $55 million available for student aid and will provide almost 27,000 need-based scholarships, grants and work-study opportunities this year. Long-term, low-interest student loans made by Iowa lending institutions will enable more than 42,000 students to attend the state’s 41 private and public colleges and 15 community colleges.