Richland Community College
EN-9: Community Partnerships

Richland is a partner with the City of Decatur's "Sustainable Decatur" plan. This Sustainable Decatur Plan was truly “authored” by the Sustainable Decatur Sustainability Team and four Working Groups. The Sustainability Team was created to guide the process, and provide necessary policy and direction decisions. The Working Groups studied the issues related to water, energy, land, waste/recycling, and made recommendations regarding strategies, goals, and projects for each topic. Both the Sustainability Team and the Working Groups were formed from a collection of City, Macon County and neighboring municipal staff and officials, business leaders, non-profit leaders, and other community stakeholders. While some of the recommendations will be the responsibility of the City of Decatur, the City’s role is more of a catalyst than the sole agent of change. For Decatur to be a truly sustainable community there must a joint vision of accountability for individuals, organizations, and businesses to work together to implement change. Richland's participation in this partnership is ongoing.

The Camp Connections summer academic enrichment program is in collaboration with the Decatur Public Schools and involves K-6 students focusing on sustainability and renewable energy experiments and activities, including biofuels production with carbon capture and storage, wind energy, solar energy, sustainable agriculture, and recycling. This program is held in cooperation with Decatur Public Schools District No. 61. For the duration of the program to date Richland Community College has served as a partner for the event providing both curriculum development, delivery and a location to host Richland Community College’s portion of the camp. Agreements are made on a year-by-year basis with Decatur Public Schools for each year’s camp along with services to be provided.

Program: Illinois Land Improvement Contractors Association Partnership with the College's wholly-owned subsidiary Limited Liability Partnership, Progress City. Through this partnership ILICA and area conservation partners returns to Decatur Illinois for the Conservation Expo at Progress City USA and Richland Community College. The work that began at the site in 2006 continues to improve the water quality supplying the area’s drinking water source, Lake Decatur, as well as provide University of Illinois Professor Richard Cooke with ongoing bio-reactor research statistics. Brush College LLC was created in 2004 as a division of Richland Community College to oversee the development and operations of Progress City USA. As part of the initial agreement, Brush College LLC secured property from Archer Daniels Midland Co. to construct the Progress City USA site. The initial agreement with ADM was for a term of 10 years (2004-2014) with a re-commitment of ten years (2014-2024) secured in 2013. As a division of Richland Community College, the agreement between Brush College LLC and Richland Community College is perpetual for the governance of the organization.

The Farm Progress Show, held every other year at Richland, is held at Boone, Iowa, on the off years of Richland. Richland supports the show in Iowa through the partnership. An agreement to host the Farm Progress Show was made between Farm Progress Companies (Penton Agriculture) and Brush College LLC in 2004 for a term of twenty years. During the course of the agreement Farm Progress Companies would host ten 3-day shows on a biannual basis at the Progress City USA site. While the biennial events are exclusively overseen and operated by Farm Progress Companies, Richland Community College and Brush College LLC provide assistance in event logistics and site operations. Additional resources have also been allocated to host a country concert in conjunction with the Farm Progress Show on a year-by-year basis with both parties working in cooperation for operations, logistics, sponsorship and talent procurement.