Collin County's first university center is now open

Higher education opened its doors to Collin County on Wednesday as the Collin Higher Education Center officially opened for the spring semester.

The Collin College facility is a university center featuring junior- and senior-level college classes as well as master and doctoral programs from area universities. For the first phase of operations, five universities - Dallas Baptist University, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Texas Women's University, The University of Texas at Dallas and The University of North Texas - will offer a varying range of degrees.

"We are really excited about our classes convening. It is important to the community because it is creating accessibility for higher education," said Cary Israel, president of Collin College. "Because 80 percent of our 46,000 students work, it is very difficult for some to go to a residential university; it is sometimes just difficult going down (Highway) 75 to attend a class."

The center is built around the idea of the new college student. No longer is college just for the high school graduate leaving home for the first time; the image of the typical college student is shifting. Some are like Fran DeArman. For the Princeton mother of three, the new center offers a degree of accessibility that she could not get from another university.

DeArman is both a student at Collin College and a student at Commerce, where she is studying psychology. For her, less time on the road means more time focusing on her education.

"Depending on traffic, it is more than an hour to any of these schools," she said. "You can take that hour, come here and literally be able to take another class."

The center will serve as a multi-purpose facility, housing administrative departments and the university programs. It will also provide space for meetings and training for the growing district as well as outside bookings.

"This is really a higher education community with a big convenience factor," Israel said. "Rooms are available if a small business needs video or a board room to conference in."

On the education side, the center basically houses the classrooms for the supporting universities. Students in Collin College or any of those with credits may attend. Students must achieve the standards set for the core curriculum for state universities, which is a part of any undergraduate degree at Collin College.

The students are students of the universities offering the degree. They enroll with that university, pay that university's tuition and fees and work out financial aid with that university.

Each of the five universities has office space set up in the building for its administrative needs. Three of the universities already have full-time members on site.

With the shared-use facilities, Israel said he suspects it will have a different feel from a residential university.

"There will probably be more of a corporate feel than collegiate," he said. "I would hope it would have more of community feel, a learning community."

Some other typical fixtures of any college setting are the bookstore and cafeteria, both absent at the center. Israel said this was more of the philosophy of collaboration and not duplication. Both are services either offered at the partnered university or nearby in the community. He said the center was not created to compete with the surrounding area or the partnered universities, but to collaborate with all to offer services the students need.

"We have to look to the future, not in the rear-view mirror," Israel said. "We don't have a cafeteria because we don't want to compete against the private sector. We are using taxpayer money, so we didn't want to duplicate services. Rather, we wanted to collaborate with the community."

For Hugh Faison, a graduate of Collin College planning to attend classes at the center in the future, the center has given him a chance he would not normally have had. As another example of the changing college student, Faison is an adult striving to finish school while juggling two jobs.

"I have a limited amount of time to go to a university. I have to worry about personal survival first and then education," he said. "We are not the traditional college students. We have to take care of a household and a car note, which is why something as flexible as this is a godsend."

For information about the Collin Higher Education Center, visit www.collin.edu/chec or call 972-599-3100.



Programs include the following:

Bachelor's degrees

· Accounting and Information Management, Bachelor of Science, UT Dallas

· Alternative Dispute Resolution, Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences, UNT

· Business Administration, Bachelor of Science, UT Dallas

· Child Development, Bachelor of Science, TWU

· Communication, Bachelor of Arts and Sciences, DBU

· Computer Science, Bachelor of Science, UT Dallas

· Criminology, Bachelor of Arts, UT Dallas

· Interdisciplinary Studies (Elementary Education), Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science, A&M-Commerce

· Math (with Teacher Certification), Bachelor of Science, TWU

· Non-profit/Volunteer/Community Resource Management, Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences, UNT

· Nursing (RN to BSN), Bachelor of Science, TWU

· Psychology, Bachelor of Science, A&M-Commerce

· Spanish, Bachelor of Arts, A&M-Commerce


Master's degrees

· Accounting and Information Management, Master of Science, UT Dallas

· Administration (Education), Master of Education, TWU

· Business Administration, Master of Business Administration, UT Dallas

· Counseling, Master of Science/Education, A&M-Commerce

· Curriculum and Instruction, Master of Education, A&M-Commerce

· Engineering Systems (Construction Management), Master of Science, UNT

· Engineering Systems (Engineering Management), Master of Science, UNT

· Higher Education, Master of Education, UNT

· Management with Human Resource Concentration, Master of Arts, DBU

· Professional Development (Leadership Studies), Master of Arts, DBU

· Special Education, Master of Education, TWU

· Teaching, Master of Arts, DBU


Doctoral degrees

· Educational Administration, Ed.D., UNT

· Higher Education, Ph.D./Ed.D., UNT


Contact Zach Markovic at zmarkovic@acnpapers.com

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