CCSN spreads out its classes

Thursday, Aug. 27, 1998 | 10:48 a.m.

The first of five mini-campuses planned by the Community College of Southern Nevada will begin offering high-tech and general education courses to college and high school students Sept. 8.

To celebrate what might be called a new era in education, CCSN officials will host four open houses to introduce the idea to the general public and to select groups interested in learning more about what is being billed as "America's first high-tech center."

The events will be held at the new $5 million CCSN building at Palo Verde High School in Summerlin Sunday and Monday from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Tuesday from 5 to 7 p.m.

Sunday's open house will be for Summerlin and Sun City residents, Monday's for the Clark County School District, Tuesday's for those who want to enter the health care industry and Friday's will be for a variety community leaders.

A building similar to the CCSN High Tech Center at Summerlin will open at Western High School in the spring and it is anticipated three more will be included in the community college's next budget.

Both facilities were authorized by the 1997 Nevada Legislature.

"This is a natural piece in a plan to create a seamless pipeline of education," CCSN spokesman John Kuminecz said.

By having a mini-college campus next door to a high school, noted Kuminecz, students begin to realize college is a real alternative once they graduate -- and even before they graduate.

High school students who qualify may be able to take college courses at the new facility.

"A lot more will go on to college," Kuminecz said.

Kuminecz said UNLV also will become part of the combined campus concept, creating a partnership that will include the university, the community college and the Clark County School District.

The unprecedented growth rate in the Las Vegas Valley was the motivating force behind development of the mini-campus.

"Las Vegas will emerge as the fastest growing metropolitan area for the past 25 years -- and this is the system's solution to keeping pace with that growth and taking advantage of it to present some dynamic programs," Kuminecz said.

Kuminecz, noting that CCSN is the fastest growing community college in the nation, said it would only be a matter of time before its campuses ran out of space therefore the satellite campus concept was a logical alternative.

"It made good sense to develop this concept -- to create a college campus building where the growth is," he said. "If we can do it at 20 locations over the next several years we can keep pace with growth and at the same time enhance education."

The 33,000-square-foot building features a computer interactive learning center and four computer labs with 200 computers, a student center and a Boys and Girls Club youth center as well as faculty and administrative offices.

Kuminecz stressed that the center is not just for computer classes.

"There will be 120 classes in 30 subject areas," he said.

Among them will be such courses as biology and political science.

"We've dedicated 10 of our best professors as the center's full-time faculty, augmented by numerous full-time and adjunct faculty, to bring high demand courses to Summerlin in an exciting, convenient way," CCSN President Richard Moore said.

Larry Tomlinson, faculty coordinator, said most courses offered at the center are transferable to UNLV and the University of Nevada, Reno.

"But what makes our Summerlin campus doubly inviting is the innovative course structure from interactive content to physical classroom layout," he said.