Nevada Focus: Elko’s two-year college wants to offer four-year degrees

Friday, March 26, 1999 | 9:43 a.m.

Library construction began in July 1998, and the new library in McMullen Hall should be ready for students this July.

Great Basin College hopes to offer its first four-year program, in elementary education, starting this fall. The launch of the degree program at the two-year college depends on approval from the Nevada Legislature and the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges, which accredits colleges in Nevada.

Approval by both bodies would create the first so-called two-plus-two college in Nevada a two-year college that has select bachelor's degree completion programs.

Great Basin would be only the second such college in western states behind Utah Valley State College, says Kerry Romsberg, Utah Valley's president. Only five two-plus-two colleges are now in operation in the United States.

Colleges in many states, however, have proposals before their legislatures to add bachelor's programs to their associate degree core programs.

Great Basin still faces legislative battles in Carson City, including a move to divert $1.5 million earmarked for Elko to Southern Nevada's college and university, Great Basin President Ron Remington said.

Great Basin seeks $600,000 to start the elementary education program this fall and another $900,000 to add a four-year business program in 2000. Plans call for a third bachelor's program in applied science for the mining industry in 2001.

"I would say by 2010 we will have four to six bachelor's programs," said Betty Elliott, Great Basin's vice president of academic affairs.

The college chose elementary education as its first four-year program because of the outcry from elementary schools lamenting that they have to import nearly all their teachers from out of state.

"The two universities in Nevada supply only 7 percent of the teachers in this part of Nevada," Remington said.

Great Basin finds a particular need for key bachelor's degree programs because Elko is 230 miles from the nearest four-year institution in Salt Lake City. Other four-year schools are 240 miles away in Boise, 290 miles in Reno or 440 miles in Las Vegas.

The expanded 47,000-square-foot library will provide facilities never offered in the previous 27,000-square-foot library. These include a reading room for current periodicals, offices, a computer lab with 20 terminals and a 12-seat class conference area, library director Juanita Karr said.

The open area will expand from 70 seats to 100 seats. The library, with 30,000 volumes, relocated to an empty warehouse a mile off campus for the one-year construction.

The library project is just the first phase of extensive campus improvements scheduled for the near future, said Carl Diekhans, the college's vice president of administrative services.

Starting at the end of May, the creek that crosses the center of campus will be put underground and replaced with what Diekhans calls a water feature that will include cascades, a pond and an amphitheater. This will use circulating clean water.

A $4.5 million Reynolds Foundation grant used for the creek bed work will also build a 50-foot clock tower as well as link the campus theater, community center and fitness center with solariums.

Great Basin also wants to build a 32,000-square-foot high-tech facility next summer for joint use between the college and Elko High School. This is a similar arrangement as the new tech center at Carson High School built by Western Nevada Community College, Diekhans said.

Elliott envisions the bachelor's degree programs and the extensive campus improvements helping transform Elko into a college town.

Great Basin has satellite campuses in Winnemucca, Ely and Battle Mountain along with offering college classes at each high school in its five-county district.

Great Basin, formerly called Northern Nevada Community College, was the first community college in Nevada when it opened in 1967. The state now has four community colleges.