Visiting the new John and Mary Pappajohn Center for Higher Education during the winter break emphasizes the large classrooms and cavernous common areas. Filling those spaces in the months and years ahead with programs that will resonate with Greater Des Moines’ business community is the challenge facing its new executive director, Kent Sovern.

At this early stage of its development, the Des Moines Higher Education Collaborative, a seven-school partnership offering professional and continuing education from one central location, “can do anything,” said Sovern, “but it can’t do everything.”

With the completion of the three-story Pappajohn Center at 12th Street and Grand Avenue, the collaborative is entering a stage in its development that holds both tremendous potential and challenges, said Sovern, who is just weeks into his new position.

“The efforts of the John and Mary Pappajohn Foundation and the collaborative members themselves can’t ensure the success of this initiative,” he said. “We re going to have to develop broad-based support for this in the business community. Without broad-based support, we just won’t become what we can. The potential of this place is huge.”

Within the next several weeks, the organization will begin moving forward with development of an extensive assessment of the business community’s educational needs to refine the preliminary work that has already been done, said Sovern, who formerly headed the governmental relations arm of the Greater Des Moines Partnership.

“Our first goal is to brand this place, the John and Mary Pappajohn Center, and to brand the courses offered as something special and unique,” he said. “We’ll be doing that first by looking at the marquee programs the institutions want to deliver. It is letting people know that this is the center for continuing education here in Central Iowa.

“The next step will be to go beyond the needs assessment that’s been done to this point; to drive our needs assessment into the market, segment the market so we can clearly understand what the expectations of employees and employers are, and then design the programs that will meet those needs and expectations.”

Formed in 1998, the collaborative consists of seven higher education institutions: University of Iowa, Iowa State University, Drake University, Des Moines Area Community College, Simpson College, Grand View College and University of Northern Iowa. Each is a partner and tenant in the Pappajohn Center.

The collaborative is taking a different approach to higher education, which has in the past tended to operate in a “Field of Dreams” mode of “let’s offer some courses and see if anyone shows up,” said David Maxwell, president of Drake University and president of the DMHEC’s board of directors.

“In this context, that would be a waste of valuable resources — human and capital,” he said. “We need to be connected to the community to ensure that we’re providing what they need and want, and that they will utilize.”

Sovern, who has worked in public policy for nearly two decades, was deeply involved in the Partnership’s efforts that helped create the center.

“The original vision of a downtown education center was created with the downtown projects task force, and was honed by the Project Destiny education task force,” he said. “We said, ‘Let’s create this collaborative and begin talking about it.’ Now, business community, what is it that you want us to do? I think I have a foot in both those worlds and can help all the key decision makers come together.”

Sovern began his career in education, earning a teaching degree from a small Missouri college after serving in the Army in the early 1970s. He taught in the Mason City public school system for seven years before moving to Des Moines to work as an instructional programming coordinator for Iowa Public Television.

His first administrative position was serving as director of educational services for the Educational Cooperative Service Unit in Marshall, Minn. Which serves the southwest and west-central region of that state. The programs deliver the same type of programs to rural schools as the area educational associations do in Iowa.

He returned to Des Moines in June 1985. “I just didn’t find the right fit in public education; that’s when I got into public policy,” he said. He entered state government with what was then the Department of Employment Services. He later joined the staff of the Iowa League of Cities, where he worked before joining the Partnership.

His new role enabled him to bring his career “full circle” back to education, he said.

As in public policy, moving the collaborative’s work forward in the new center will be about building relationships, Sovern said.

“This is about building trust, developing new ideas, creating new opportunities, leveraging resources. I believe that’s the promise of this institution and the program that will be the collaborative.”

Sovern will enable the member institutions to move forward in innovative ways, said DMACC President Rob Denson.

“I think with Kent’s leadership, we’re going to be looking at things that the seven schools haven’t even considered,” Denson said. “I think our best days are ahead.”

DMACC plans to move a training coordinator to the Pappajohn Center to provide easier access of its Business Resources programs to downtown businesses, and is discussing several new or expanded programs with its partner institutions, Denson said. Among those are a teaching and special education program with UNI and additional entrepreneurship classes in conjunction with ISU Extension.

“We’re very excited,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for the building to open, and now that we have a new director, we’re ready to take it to the next level.”