THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 1, 1994 TAG: 9409010209
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover story
SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
SET ON A POINT OF LAND in northern Suffolk with a panoramic view of Hampton Roads, the Portsmouth Campus of Tidewater Community College continues to attract an increasing number of students each year.
The second largest of Virginia's 23 community colleges, TCC, as a whole, has experienced a 50 percent growth in full-time student enrollment since 1985.
Students attend classes on campuses in Suffolk, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Norfolk and dozens of off-campus sites throughout Tidewater.
The Portsmouth Campus, which is at the end of College Drive, just over the Portsmouth line in Suffolk, served 4,650 students last semester.
During the 1994-95 school year, new technology as well as some new facilities will enhance the Portsmouth Campus, where TCC was founded in 1968.
The college is spending $3.5 million to upgrade its computer systems collegewide, putting the hub of the network at the Portsmouth campus, TCC President Larry L. Whitworth said.
A Center for Information Technology is being created in a renovated building that once housed science classes. All the TCC campuses will be linked to each other and to the new center via a network of personal computers. The new technology center is scheduled to open at the beginning of the second semester.
In recognition of the major role that computer technology plays in careers and everyday living, TCC has introduced a graduation requirement of computer literacy.
``In order to graduate in May of 1996, you will have to be able to demonstrate competency in keyboarding skills, word processing, introduction to personal computers, data base and spreadsheet,'' Whitworth said.
Introductory computer classes as well as individual computer study programs will be offered to students. In the fall of 1995, word processing will be a required English course.
The main classroom building has undergone some renovations with the opening of a student lounge area, a relocated book store, and a complex of offices dedicated to student government and student activities. During the school year the dining area also will be remodeled.
One of the most noticeable improvements to the Portsmouth Campus is the resurfacing and expansion of the parking lot. An additional, $1.74 million project, expected to be completed by the fall of 1995, will add more lighted parking area to the east side of the classroom building.
Heavy landscaping, a rerouting of the road into the campus and a redesign of the east facade of the classroom building also are included in the project.
``We hope to give people a better view and more of a campus atmosphere,'' Whitworth said.
A major addition to the college's facilities, the new Visual Arts Center, is scheduled to open in January in Portsmouth's Olde Towne. The center will fill the building formerly occupied by The Famous at High and Court streets.
The three-story, 33,000-square-foot building is ideally suited for an arts center, Visual Arts Center director Anne Iott said. Galleries, offices and a reception area will share the first floor with ceramics and sculpture studios. Student activities areas and a kitchen also will be on the first floor.
The second floor, which has very few windows, will house darkrooms and lecture halls. In contrast, high clerestory windows ring the third floor, making it an ideal studio location for oil painting, watercolors, printmaking and drawing.
A 27,000-piece slide library, soon to be converted to laser discs, and two large computer laboratories also are included in the state-of-the-art center's plans.
Even the rooftop will be utilized as the site for kilns that must be fired outdoors.
``It is pretty wonderful actually,'' Iott said.
The college's art department has outgrown its Virginia Beach campus quarters, and the new center could draw more than 1,000 students, Iott said.
The center will offer 60 courses in six programs as well as a variety of individual credit and non-credit courses.
``We also plan a full season of art shows as well as some music, dance and poetry,'' Iott said.
After decades of emphasis on vocational training, community colleges, Whitworth believes, should be fine-tuned to the needs of their communities and focus their attention on a broader-based education.
``Our mission has changed rather dramatically,'' he said. ``We are, for a large portion of our students, providing the first two years of a baccalaureate program.''
In the college's earlier years, Whitworth explained, about 60 percent of the students were enrolled in vocational/technical programs. Today that number is less than 25 percent.
``Everything we do here helps prepare people for careers and to earn a better living as a result from being here,'' Whitworth said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by L. TODD SPENCER
Dr. Sam Lamb, left, who is in charge of the Portsmouth Campus of
Tidewater Community College, and Dr. Larry Whitworth, its president,
visit the new technology building.
by CNB