Iowa Western Community College history

A major development was the addition of a liberal arts curriculum at the Council Bluffs Campus in the fall of 1968.

In June 1969, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the new campus in Council Bluffs for a construction project totaling 94,000 square feet.

Edwin S. Lisle served as a Board of Trustee for both the Clarinda Community College and the newly Merged Area XIII, Iowa Western Community College, until his untimely death in 1977.

In November 1981, KIWR-FM radio turned on its microphones for the first time in a remodeled house-turned studio on campus.

In 1982, Looft cut the ribbon on a new Continuing Education Center on the main campus (today’s Looft Hall). In its first year of operation, the center served more than 9,000 people through a variety of seminars, workshops, short courses and conferences.

In fall 2005, there were 1,150 students enrolled in distance learning courses. It first offered distance learning courses in 1983.

Doctor Carl Heinrich, who served 13 years at Butler County (Kansas) Community College as vice president and president, became the second president of Iowa Western in 1987.

The Iowa Western Board of Trustees again looked to Kansas for its next leader, hiring Doctor Dan Kinney, president of Coffeyville (Kansas) Community College, in September 1994.

Kinney also brought key leadership experience from his service in the United States Army National Guard, from which he retired in 2001 as a colonel.

The Council Bluffs/Southwest Iowa area became Merged Area XIII,” Looft (2004) wrote. “The numeral 13 may, to many, represent an unlucky designation.

The state-of-the-art simulation center was funded by a $1.1 million grant from the Iowa West Foundation, a United States Department of Health and Human Services Grant Award of $718,740, the State of Iowa’s ACE-PIAP Program award of $366,667, and proceeds from a December 2007 bond issue.