University Center Makes Degrees More Accessible
Published Oct 29, 2009
The partnership between area universities and McLennan Community College’s University Center just keeps getting better.
The center allows those pursuing an associate’s degree at MCC to stay on campus and complete a four-year program. Texas Tech University now offers a bachelor’s degree in general studies, with English, biology or communications concentrations. Texas Tech joins Tarleton State University, the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Texas at Brownsville, the University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston and Midwestern State University at the center. The expanding partnerships and programs support the center’s mission to make higher education more accessible.
“In the late 1980s, the MCC administration realized that the Waco area had as many as 30,000 individuals that had earned an associate’s degree from MCC or [Texas State Technical College-Waco], but did not have the opportunity to attend a four-year state university to earn a bachelor’s degree,” says Lewis Snell, the center’s director. “Discussion soon began that resulted in offering limited classes on the MCC campus. In the late 1990s, the idea of offering all the necessary upper-division classes over a two-year period was developed, which ultimately led to the current concept of bachelor’s degrees being offered through the University Center partnerships.”
To say the idea took off is a serious understatement.
“We began offering complete degrees with the University of Texas at Arlington in 2001 with just a handful of students,” Snell says. “By 2009, we had six partner universities, 30 degrees offered and just over 800 students. At this point, we can say that over 600 students have graduated with a degree from one of the partner universities and have never had to leave McLennan County.”
Each of the participating universities is responsible for its degree programs and provides faculty members to instruct each course. Some are taught live on campus, while others are conducted remotely via the Internet, but all have combined to benefit not only MCC students but the partner institutions as well.
“They gain access to students, classrooms and the general use of the MCC facilities,” Snell says. “In some cases, they are also able to recruit students from Waco to their home institutions as an added benefit.”
Each also has been busily adding faculty and advisers, which they’ll need if current enrollment projections hold true.
“Our general goal is to offer educational opportunities to the 9,100 students that are currently enrolled at MCC,” Snell says. “Roughly 40 percent of students are currently enrolled in classes in preparation to attend one of the University Center partner programs, and we have projected that we will have 2,500 students enrolled in classes in the next five years.”
Story by Joe Morris
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