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Flower Mound welcomes NCTC
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By Chris Roark, croark@acnpapers.com
The commute to school is about to get a little shorter for some local college students.
Flower Mound and southern Denton County officials celebrated the opening of a new North Central Texas College (NCTC) campus in Flower Mound on Friday morning.
The 32,000-square-foot campus, located at 1200 Parker Square Road, is expected to give students on the southern end of Lewisville Lake a closer option to attend school.
Among the dignitaries at the ceremony were State Rep. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound), Denton County Commissioners Bobbie Mitchell and Andy Eads, Flower Mound Mayor Melissa Northern and a lecture room full of community leaders.
“This is a perfect location for these students to get their education,” Mitchell said. “This helps keep traffic off Interstate 35E for a while since students won’t have to drive up to Corinth.”
But the new campus could draw in students from other parts of the county. There will be a Denton County Transportation Authority (DCTA) transportation service from Denton to the Flower Mound campus.
More than 400 students have already registered, and official registration begins next week.
“This is excellent for southern Denton County to have an educational facility here, and I’m excited about the opportunity,” Mitchell said. “I’m excited to have this back in southern Denton County.”
NCTC once had a campus in Lewisville in the late 1970s and early 1980s, located near Main and Charles streets. The Corinth campus opened in 2000.
Flower Mound’s campus will contain a lecture hall, 10 classrooms, two computer labs and a science lab.
NCTC will offer basic transferable classes such as English, government, math, history, biology, reading and psychology. There are expected to be at least 110 sections of courses available for the spring semester before expanding to more for the 2011 fall semester.
Classes will be available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The college will also offer night courses, though the schedule will be different from its Corinth campus, which offers one three-hour class from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Flower Mound’s location will offer two courses lasting an hour and a half each to provide relief for students not wishing to sit through a three-hour class.
A look at recent demographic statistics in Flower Mound further illustrates how local college-age residents could make use of the new campus. According to the 2010 Flower Mound Economic development profile, 14 percent of the town’s adult population has a post-graduate degree, 50 percent has an associate or bachelor’s degree and 85 percent has had some post-secondary education.
“The welcoming of NCTC to our town is truly reflective of our community and the residents who place such a high value on education,” Northern said. “And the vibrancy of a college campus fits perfectly with our goal of Flower Mound developing into a healthy community with a healthy economy, healthy environment and healthy quality of life.”
Not only is the campus expected to be beneficial for the students but also the surrounding community. Shops and restaurants in Parker Square and the immediate area are also likely to benefit.
“This is an awesome time for development in Flower Mound,” Northern said. “During the past few months, we’ve opened a hospital, broken ground for a new medical center, and today we launched a new college campus. These are the right kind of changes and development we want in Flower Mound.”
For campus and registration information, go to http://www.nctc.edu/FlowerMound/.
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