THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 6, 1997 TAG: 9701060040
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 147 lines
Today, Norfolk will lose a designation that city leaders had hoped to shed years ago: the largest East Coast city without a community college.
Thirty years after it was first proposed - and eight years after the City Council began heavily lobbying for it - Tidewater Community College's Norfolk campus will open.
About 1,500 students had registered by Friday afternoon, said John Massey, a former math professor who is director of the campus. He said he expected 2,000 students by the end of this week.
That's less than the 2,500 predicted for opening day, but Massey still thinks the Norfolk campus will meet its long-range predictions: 4,000 students by the fall and 10,000 by the year 2000.
The campus consists of three buildings - the new Science Building on Granby Street and College Place; the Martin Building, which formerly housed the Smith & Welton department store, on the other side of Granby; and the Technology Building (formerly Woolworth's) on Granby and Freemason streets.
This semester, TCC will offer about 250 courses in Norfolk as part of standard two-year programs that include science, accounting and history. But the Norfolk campus also will offer two programs new to TCC: culinary arts and railroading.
``There's every reason to believe that thousands of people will, in fact, get training here and that it will be beneficial to them and the community,'' said Dr. Mason C. Andrews, a member of the City Council who has been one of the most ardent supporters of the campus.
With the opening of the Norfolk campus, TCC now has four key facilities: the Chesapeake campus, the Virginia Beach campus and the Portsmouth campus in Suffolk. But only 2,000 of TCC's 17,000 students come from Norfolk, a city where, U.S. Census data show, one-third of residents above 25 don't have high school diplomas. Those numbers are glaring proof, Massey says, that Norfolk needs its own campus.
``We're here to provide educational opportunities to Norfolk residents that didn't exist before,'' he said. ``Many of those students couldn't get to the other campuses of the college.''
The campus, along with the completion of nearby MacArthur Center mall, is seen as a key ingredient in the economic revitalization of downtown Norfolk. That hope helped bring local business leaders and Gov. George F. Allen behind the campus.
Gladwin Jarvis, owner of Tropical Delights, a Caribbean restaurant that opened on Granby Street last year, is counting on more customers. He just started selling a new array of ``quick bites'' - such as beef patties and chicken pita pockets - for students on the run. ``With 1,000 or 2,000 students in the area, that should lend itself greatly to an increase in business,'' he said.
One of the major stumbling blocks to the creation of the campus was the fear that TCC-Norfolk would siphon students from the two state-supported universities in the city - Norfolk State and Old Dominion.
NSU President Harrison B. Wilson said Friday that he no longer has those worries: ``Years ago, we fought it; at that time, we were relying only on students in the Hampton Roads area. Now we've branched out to many other areas.''
NSU could gain students, Wilson said, through 17 ``articulation agreements'' with TCC in programs such as nursing. The agreements guarantee that Norfolk State will admit TCC graduates in the specified fields and accept their community college credits. ``We can do some things together than will make us strong and will make them strong as well,'' Wilson said.
He also said NSU will provide shuttle service to the campus for TCC-Norfolk students and permit them to use Norfolk State's library.
ODU President James V. Koch said the two-year campus might initially draw a few students from Old Dominion but would end up expanding ODU's enrollment. Roughly half the students at TCC-Norfolk are expected to go on to a four-year college, said David Neff, a TCC history instructor who assisted Massey in planning the campus.
``We might lose a few students,'' Koch said, ``but overall we expect the impact on us to be favorable, and we think it's a fine development.''
Last week, parts of the campus looked far from ready. A maze of mud piles surrounded the entrance of the Science Building. In many classrooms, computers sat on the floor, with no desks in sight. ``If I can get some tables, we'll be in good shape,'' Massey joked.
He said most of the classrooms would be shipshape by today. However, the culinary labs, where the industrial-size sinks lay on the floor, won't be in use until March. The plaza outside the Science Building, which will be filled with greenery and benches, also won't be done before then, Massey said.
Unlike many other two- and four-year campuses, the Norfolk campus will offer high-tech capabilities in every classroom, he said. With a TV and a computer hooked up to a projector in each room, every professor will be able to project images from the Internet onto a screen.
Neff, who will teach Civil War history this semester, said: ``These are things I have never, ever seen before. I'm like a kid at Christmastime.'' He expects to call up Internet images of Civil War figures such as Frederick Douglass, and maybe show the movie ``Glory.'' ``We can look at `Glory' and see what is true and what has been Hollywoodized.''
The Science Building - formally called the Mason Andrews Science Building in honor of the councilman's support - contains nine science labs. The student services office, where students can take care of registration and financial aid at one time, is on the first floor, Massey said.
The Martin Building will devote at least one floor to corporate training programs.
The building also houses the Women's Center, where women can get counseling and advice. Massey expects about two-thirds of the students to be female. ``Most of the adult students have been out (of school) for 10 to 15 years,'' he said. ``They're scared to death. They need some support and help.''
The Technology Building holds most of the campus' 13 computer labs. It also has the two culinary labs, one devoted to pastry-making.
The Norfolk campus was included in a statewide community college master plan 30 years ago, but a lack of city support left it in limbo while all other campuses were built.
A city task force finally recommended creation of the campus in 1989, and in 1993 the General Assembly went along. Last month, Gov. Allen proposed $3 million in additional state aid for the campus in the 1997-98 school year.
The allocation - which is expected to be approved by legislators when they reconvene this week - will help expand TCC's staff, Massey said. The Norfolk campus now has 165 full- and part-time employees, including 110 faculty members. But only about five are full-time teachers for TCC-Norfolk.
Under the funding mechanism for construction of the campus, the city, through a separate authority, has issued $15 million in bonds. The state community college system will pay back $1.3 million a year for 20 years and will then claim ownership of the campus.
As an interim step, the college ran a ``Norfolk center'' in rented space in downtown Norfolk since 1992, Whitworth said. That center, which drew up to 930 people, has closed. But Massey and Neff said it provides a snapshot of the types of students to expect on the campus:
Two-thirds of the students were part-time. Eighty-five percent worked. The average age was 30.
``We get a lot of people from public housing and the Navy base,'' Neff said. ``Many of their parents never went to college. It's a new experience for them. They never would have thought about going to ODU or NSU. But this is right in their back yard.''
Said Andrews: ``When you think of the years that thousands of people didn't get the preparation they need, it's a poignant story. But the fact that they can now is a happy one.'' MEMO: To register for classes, call 683-9414. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
RICHARD L. DUNSTON
The Virginian-Pilot
The Mason Andrews Science Building signals success for the city - in
part the work of the building's namesake.
WHAT'S AT TCC-NORFOLK
SOURCE: TCC
The Virginian-Pilot
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