What Indian Hills Community College is like

What it's like

IHCC is a regional community college serving a ten-county area of southeast Iowa and northern Missouri, with two main campuses in Ottumwa and Centerville. The school has a strong athletic tradition, particularly in basketball, and offers both residential and commuter student experiences. It's built on a foundation of technical and workforce education, with significant investments in specialized facilities like aviation centers and agricultural programs.

Academic feel

IHCC offers associate degrees, certificates, and diplomas alongside transfer programs designed to help students complete general education requirements before moving to four-year institutions as rising juniors. The college operates an Advance Technology Center and maintains a North Campus focused on aviation programs, commercial driver training, welding technology, and auto collision repair. A major sustainable agriculture program expansion at the Centerville campus, funded by a $500,000 philanthropic donation in 2013, includes greenhouse and learning facilities with community outreach components.

Social life

The college supports over forty clubs and organizations for student engagement, with performing arts opportunities including theater, jazz band, and a camerata singers group. A student health and wellness clinic staffed by a registered nurse practitioner is available on the main Ottumwa campus. On-campus housing is available at both Ottumwa and Centerville campuses in both apartment-style and traditional dorm rooms, all non-smoking and air-conditioned with laundry facilities.

What you should consider

IHCC serves traditional residential students and commuters, making it well-suited for students from the surrounding ten-county region. The college's extensive athletic offerings—spanning basketball, baseball, softball, soccer, golf, volleyball, track and field, wrestling, cross country, competitive cheer and dance, and sports shooting—attract student-athletes. Technical and vocational students benefit from the specialized facilities and programs across the three campuses, including the Job Corps training center.

Strengths

• The men's basketball team is the only NJCAA program to win three consecutive Division I national championships (1997-1999) and broke UCLA's collegiate record with 89 consecutive wins, maintaining 17 total appearances at the NJCAA Division I championship with over 1,200 all-time wins.[1]
• The golf program has won six national championships since 2000 and has competed in 35 consecutive national tournaments dating back to the 1987 season.[1]
• The women's wrestling program won both team and dual Junior College National Championships in back-to-back years in 2021 and 2022 with 25 individual All-Americans and seven individual national champions in its first two years of existence.[1]
• The baseball program has produced more than 120 alumni who signed or were drafted to play professional baseball, with 10 alumni either playing or coaching at the professional level as of 2022.[1]
• Multiple NJCAA athletes from IHCC have gone on to compete at the professional level, including three NBA players drafted directly from the college and Olympic silver medalist Kenny Bednarek who won three national track and field championships in 2019.[1]

Traditions

• The college has experienced relatively low turnover in school administration since its founding, with only four presidents serving from 1966 through 2013, contributing to institutional continuity and program growth.[1]
• Home basketball games for the Warriors are played in the historic Hellyer Center, where the team has won over 88% of home games since 1986.[1]
• The baseball team, formerly known as the Falcons and now the Warriors, plays home games at Pat Daugherty Field on the Centerville campus, with facilities featuring a pro-style clubhouse, indoor batting cages, and indoor mounds.[1]