New president has big plans for Olive-Harvey College

Since July 2018, Kimberly Hollingsworth has been at the helm of leadership at Olive-Harvey College, 10001 S. Woodlawn Ave., and last month launched a free food pantry at the school for needy students. Photo credit: By Wendell Hutson
Since July 2018, Kimberly Hollingsworth has been at the helm of leadership at Olive-Harvey College, 10001 S. Woodlawn Ave., and last month launched a free food pantry at the school for needy students. Photo credit: By Wendell Hutson

New president has big plans for Olive-Harvey College

BY WENDELL HUTSON

Contributing Writer

For more than a year, Kimberly Hollingsworth, an amateur weightlifter, has been at the helm leading Olive-Harvey College into a new era of leadership.

After first being installed interim president in July 2018 and being named permanent president a year later, the Hyde Park resident is aiming high with five-year goals, such as boosting enrollment at the school, establishing greater relationships with the community and improving the student life cycle.

“Increasing our strategic partnerships is one way we plan to recruit new students and to increase our enrollment because we realize here at Olive-Harvey we have an older student population with the average student being 50-years-old,” she said. “Building a stronger pipeline with high schools is another way we are looking to boost enrollment.”

She added that because the economy is doing well, students are able to find meaningful jobs and therefore have chosen not to go to school.

Olive-Harvey, 10001 S. Woodlawn Ave., has a current student enrollment of 1,743, a far cry from its heydays when it had upwards of 4,000 students. Most of the students attending Olive-Harvey are black and Hispanic, women and attend school on a part-time basis, according to Hollingsworth.

But with courses costing as little as $146 per credit hour (an average course is three credit hours for city of Chicago residents) Hollingsworth said it is one of the most economical community colleges in the state.

Olive-Harvey Center of Excellence focuses on transportation, logistics and distribution but Hollingsworth said the college is “not a truck driving school” although it does offer a commercial drivers license course, which is required to become a truck driver.

“The Center offers automotive training as well as forklifting, aviation, diesel technology, supply chain management, and so much more,” added Hollingsworth.

One recent accomplishment the new president oversaw, which she said was the brainchild of City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Juan Salgado, was a food pantry that kicked off last month.

“The launch of our food pantry completed a string of food pantries City Colleges initiated at all seven of its colleges with Olive-Harvey being the last one,” said Hollingsworth.

The pantry, which is free of charge, is open to students from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursdays. Now, students have their choice of fresh fruits, vegetables, canned goods, and even toiletries.

Food insecurity among low-income and minority college students has grown into a national problem, according to a 47-page report by the nonprofit National Student Campaign Against Hunger & Homelessness.

In October 2016, the NSCAHH organization along with three other nonprofits released the report “Hunger On Campus.” The report found that 53 percent of low-income college students facing food insecurity and housing instability had missed class; 54 percent missed important study sessions, while 55 percent were unable to purchase textbooks.

College students were surveyed on food insecurity between March and May 2016, and the study included 3,765 students in 12 states attending eight community colleges and 26 four-year colleges and universities.

Prior to joining Olive-Harvey, Hollingsworth, a single mother of one adult son, served as vice president of Academic and Student Affairs at Malcolm X College on the West Side. As a native from downstate East St. Louis, Hollingsworth said in her spare time she enjoys working out at the gym and reading a good book.

“As a student of life, I would describe myself ‘perfectly imperfect’ because I am not always right and I have made mistakes in life,” she said.

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