{"id":49073,"date":"2018-11-21T15:11:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T20:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/?p=49073"},"modified":"2024-10-23T15:14:04","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T20:14:04","slug":"acc-san-gabriel-welcomes-its-first-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/2018\/11\/21\/acc-san-gabriel-welcomes-its-first-students\/","title":{"rendered":"ACC San Gabriel welcomes its first students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Community Impact: ACC San Gabriel welcomes its first students<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

By Abby Bora<\/a><\/strong>   |  7:43 am Nov. 21, 2018 CST<\/p>\n

Less than two months into its first fall semester, Austin Community College\u2019s San Gabriel campus had 893 students, according to ACC data.<\/p>\n

After beginning construction in 2016 the community college district\u2019s newest campus opened in Leander in May and welcomed its first students during the fall semester. The San Gabriel campus\u2014located in the city\u2019s transit-oriented development district, or TOD\u2014was funded by 2014 voter-approved bonds totaling $60 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe campus is intended to help expand educational services to this part of the district and help relieve overcrowding at other campuses,\u201d ACC spokesperson Jessica Vess said.<\/p>\n

Neil Vickers, ACC executive vice president of finance and administration, said both the Cypress Creek campus in Cedar Park and the Northridge campus in Austin are overcrowded. Some course offerings were relocated from those campuses to San Gabriel to provide relief, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen this first semester is Cypress Creek credit hours are down almost 10 percent,\u201d Vickers said.<\/p>\n

The Cypress Creek campus, located around 9 miles from the new school, is currently operating at nearly double its capacity. This fall there are 4,109 students at the Cedar Park location while the capacity is approximately 2,200 students, according to ACC. The San Gabriel campus has around the same student capacity.<\/p>\n

ENROLLMENT TRENDS<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Mitch Fuller\u2014a business development consultant and former Cedar Park City Council member\u2014the fact that the Leander location opened at less than half capacity raises concerns.<\/p>\n

He said it was the understanding of members of the community that the campus was expected to open with close to 2,000 students. He mentioned how ACC\u2019s decision to build new campuses, resulting in debt, is one of the reasons the district\u2019s tax rate increased this year.<\/p>\n

ACC\u2019s fall enrollment peaked at 45,100 students in 2011 and fell to 40,799 students this fall, according to data from the district. During that time three campuses opened, and the Pinnacle campus in Austin closed for renovations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis assumption that we\u2019ve got to build more campuses and make this commitment\u2014you\u2019re basically slicing the same piece of pie over and over and over again,\u201d Fuller said. \u201cIn a time when enrollment\u2019s declining [ACC] build[s]a new campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vickers said fall 2011 was a high point for enrollment in community colleges across the nation because of the economic recession, which prompted many people to attend school.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you actually took a much longer-term look, the college\u2019s growth trend is still upwards over the long term, and that is the basis by which we said we needed to expand our campuses,\u201d Vickers said. \u201cSo some of this building is building just to kind of catch up, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

CAMPUS OFFERINGS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vickers said if a campus opens at full capacity, it would indicate a planning problem because the campus would quickly become over-capacity. Expansions on the San Gabriel campus will be driven by enrollment numbers to meet demand in upcoming years, he said.<\/p>\n

At the present the campus provides traditional classrooms, science labs, a multipurpose room, a library and other facilities, according to ACC documents. San Gabriel\u2019s ACCelerator lab serves as a technology-enhanced learning environment for students and offers computer stations.<\/p>\n

The campus provides courses for students looking to earn an associate degree, learn technical training or transfer to a university, according to ACC\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

Lesley Hall, a freshman at the San Gabriel campus studying nursing, said friends at bigger universities have trouble connecting with their professors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like the small classes,\u201d Hall said. \u201cThis campus is really \u2026 nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former ACC board chairman Vic Villarreal said that he worked for over 13 years to secure the campus for Leander. He said he thinks the campus is doing an \u201coutstanding job\u201d of serving its students and community and meeting goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy fear was that no one would enroll, and the campus would be a complete disaster,\u201d Villarreal said. \u201cWell, that didn\u2019t happen. Instead, enrollment was as-expected and will increase over time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Community Impact: ACC San Gabriel welcomes its first students By Abby Bora   |  7:43 am Nov. 21, 2018 CST Less than two months into its first fall semester, Austin Community College\u2019s San Gabriel campus had 893 students, according to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3930,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12,11,13,15],"tags":[331,59,392,874],"class_list":["post-49073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-acc-in-the-news","category-business-and-community","category-campus-updates","category-current-students","category-facstaff-news","tag-community-impact","tag-enrollment","tag-leander","tag-san-gabriel-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3930"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}