Trenholm State Community College Renovates Patterson Campus
First impressions are not just important when meeting people, but they matter for businesses and even for educational facilities.
That’s why Trenholm State Community College is investing $10.6 million to not only renovate the inside of buildings on its Patterson campus off Troy Highway, but change the look outside, and that includes how students enter the school, to make it more inviting and safer.
“We realized that we needed to make the campus attractive from the outside,” Trenholm State Community College President Sam Munnerlyn said. “We always knew we had top-of-the-line equipment. We had excellent instructors and we had a caring staff, but you can’t get the people into the campus to see any of that if they are seeing flat roofs and basically a campus that looks like it’s from the ’50s or ’60s.
“Riding by, would you want to come in when you see our college vs. riding by Southern Union, for instance, or Alabama State or AUM? We wanted to make our college more attractive and a more attractive environment externally.”
Now you understand why Trenholm is spending that $10.6 million to improve its Patterson campus. One building, which had mold, was demolished and a green space was created. “It gives the campus a much more student-friendly look,” Munnerlyn said.
Building D, which houses the student union complex, was renovated and a 250-seat auditorium was added for student gatherings, conferences and workshops. The section of the building that contains student services such as admissions and financial aid was also renovated.
Eight classrooms were added to Building B as well as six offices, a lobby and receptionist area, because more students are taking general education classes, Munnerlyn said.
The auto collision repair program was moved from the Trenholm campus on Air Base Boulevard to the Patterson campus. An old warehouse was converted into a 19,000-square-foot facility, which provides about twice as much space as before. Now there is room for 70 students instead of 33. The auto collision repair program had been the lone technical program on the Trenholm campus.
With four programs – auto collision repair, auto services, diesel mechanics and automotive manufacturing – at the same campus, it means that the college can take advantage of resources, facility space and instructors, Munnerlyn said.
Modifying the entrance to the Patterson campus with funding help from Alabama Department of Transportation gives students a traffic light when exiting the campus instead of crossing two lanes to reach a stop sign and then taking off across traffic again. It was the site of numerous accidents. There was a traffic light for a shopping center across the street, but not for the campus entrance.
The first phase is expected to be completed by November 30. Two more buildings will be renovated in phase II, which is scheduled to start in February. Building E, where the computer information system program is conducted, and Building M, which contains the electrical program, will get new roofs and new windows. The inside of those buildings will be gutted. The second phase is scheduled to end in December 2017.
The remaining nine buildings at the Patterson campus are shop buildings, and renovations will include replacing the flat roofs, new windows and new energy-efficient heating and cooling.
Part of the college’s five-year master plan for facilities calls for an advanced technology center on the Patterson campus.
Renovations are not limited to the Patterson campus. Building H, which has the sonography and radiology technology programs at the Trenholm campus, will have renovated classrooms, offices and new labs. The work is expected to be completed by March.
A new entryway has been completed, featuring new signage of Trenholm State Community College. All streets and parking lots are being repaved.
0Trenholm Sets Lofty Student Enrollment Goal
November/December 2016
By David Zaslawsky
Photography by Robert Fouts
You could say that Trenholm State Community College officials have a very aggressive goal of nearly doubling its student enrollment – in four years.
“We have a goal of 3,000 students by 2020,” Trenholm State Community College President Sam Munnerlyn said.
This year’s goal was to increase the number of students by 300 and he said the college will meet that goal. There already has been a 17.5 percent increase from fall 2014 to this year and that number will climb a bit more when students enroll in a mini-term program in late October.
That 300 student increase seems fairly modest compared with the goal of adding 525 students for the fall 2017 semester, and follow that with a goal of 625 new students for the fall 2018 semester.
If you look at the underlying factors driving the student enrollment increases, those goals don’t seem overly aggressive. The accreditation has meant everything that Trenholm officials promised it would. Students are flocking to general education classes, which can be transferred to any public university or college in Alabama. Those transferrable credits cost $147 per hour compared with $300-plus at public four-year colleges and universities. Nine instructors were hired during the year for the general education classes.
That is hardly the only factor behind the dramatic increase in students. A full-time student recruiter was hired in January, and that person spends all day recruiting students “anywhere they can go every day,” Munnerlyn said.
The registration process has been made more student-friendly, according to Munnerlyn.
Another reason for the increase of students is dual enrollment, where students attend Trenholm and high school simultaneously. Dual enrollment students at Trenholm now number 316 and dual enrollment students from Montgomery County have increased from a handful (29) last fall to 101 for the fall 2016 semester. Another 40 dual enrollment students are from Elmore County. There are also students from Macon, Bullock and Butler counties.
Although the dual enrollment numbers are way up, a lack of additional state funding for scholarships limits the program, which is free for the students.
There are some growing pains with the increase of students, and Trenholm has already added an evening program for welding, which has 12 students. New evening programs for sonography and radiology technology will be phased in, Munnerlyn said.
