Dateline: November 24, 2005

Clarendon College looks forward to future growth

By Roger  Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

The Clarendon College Board of Regents hired an architect to develop plans for CC’s former library and, as President Myles Shelton put it, set the stage for future growth.

The west end of the Administration Building was vacated in February following the opening of the Vera Dial Dickey Library; and, with the exception of the Office of Public Information and special functions, it is mostly unused.

WD Architects of Amarillo, which designed the new library, will draw up plans to convert the old library’s 4,131 square feet into a new usable space that Shelton says will poise the college to expand.

“It will likely be used for administrative offices and the functions associated with those offices,” Shelton said.

The college administration and some student services are presently crammed into 2,511 square feet on the east end of the building. That area would likely be reconfigured and devoted solely to student services.

“We’re just stacked on top of each other right now,” Shelton said.

Shelton said if the college is to grow enrollment by another 150 students on its main campus, it will require more classrooms, more faculty office space, and more administrative space to support those students.

“We’re trying to set the stage for that next level, whenever that might come about.”

No timetable was set for the architects to report back.

In other business, regents reviewed a performance measures report on the college that showed 92.27 percent of students completed classes in the fall of 2004 and that 79.29 percent of contact hours were taught by fulltime faculty members.

Of all the Clarendon College students who took state licensure exams, 89.85 percent passed, and 94 percent of CC nursing students passed the state exam.

The report also showed that 41.7 percent of CC’s students in developmental classes passed the TASP or similar exam, which Shelton says looks bad but is actually one of the highest pass rates in the state.

The board approved a grant to the Harrington trust and also approved a contract hiring Marsha Julian to teach in the vocational nursing program.

Regents also received an update on the college’s reaffirmation of accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. A final report from the association is still forthcoming but it looks good, Shelton said.