News Releases

May 8, 2013
For Immediate Release

For additional information: 
Jennifer Kirby
Communications and Marketing

Telephone: 360-992-2219
Email: jkirby@clark.edu



Clark College offers more classes,
more days to eastern Clark County

Clark College Columbia Tech Center Campus

Clark College at Columbia Tech Center 
will begin offering classes on Fridays

 

VANCOUVER, Wash. — Since opening in 2009, Clark College at Columbia Tech Center (CTC) has provided access to education four days a week to the eastern portion of the college’s service district, which includes Clark County communities like Camas and Washougal as well as parts of Skamania and Klickitat counties. Now residents of these communities will have even greater access to education, as Clark prepares to begin offering for-credit classes on Fridays as well.

“Clark College is meeting the demand of students at the Columbia Tech Center location,” said Clark College Vice President of Instruction Dr. Tim Cook. “Offering Friday classes releases some of the pressure from the Monday-through-Thursday schedule. This ultimately allows for additional lab classes and other popular offerings from our general education offerings.”

With its convenient location and high-tech classrooms, CTC has proven to be a magnet for students in eastern Vancouver and beyond. At the beginning of the 2013 spring quarter, the facility was home to more than 1,800 students, the equivalent of about 700 full-time students.

CTC is already open on Fridays for corporate and continuing education classes. However, offering for-credit classes on Fridays will make it easier for students to complete their degrees entirely at CTC, without traveling to take classes on Clark’s main campus in Vancouver’s Central Park. The Friday expansion will allow CTC to offer more classes per quarter, many of them general-distribution courses such as English, history, science and mathematics—courses that all degree-seeking students must take to graduate.

Additionally, Friday classes will allow expanded use of CTC’s state-of-the-art labs serving popular programs like network technology, biology, and mechatronics.

Being open five days a week will also make it easier for students from the Camas, Evergreen, Washougal and Stevenson school districts to participate in Running Start, the Washington state program that allows students to earn college credit while still in high school. Currently 265 Running Start students take classes at CTC.

“We have purposely offered courses at CTC that meet high school graduation requirements from the school districts in the eastern part of our service district,” said Linda Calvert, associate director of Running Start at Clark College. “With CTC offering classes on Friday in the fall, it will make it easier for Running Start students to build a schedule around their high school classes and activities. We are currently testing students for entry to Running Start in the fall, and many of them have expressed interest in the CTC location.”

The Friday expansion is scheduled to begin with the 2013 fall quarter in September.

Clark College at Columbia Tech Center is located at 18700 SE Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver. More information is available at www.clark.edu/ctc.

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