LTCC on path to become 4-year destination college
By Kathryn Reed
A bachelor’s degree with Lake Tahoe Community College’s seal. That could be a reality for students graduating in 2016 if college President Kindred Murillo gets her way.
She would also like to turn the two-year institution into a destination college – as in people would move to South Lake Tahoe to go to college here.
LTCC President Kindred Murillo has big plans for the South Lake Tahoe college. Photo/LTN file
A few select programs would be expanded or introduced for students to complete all four years of study at LTCC. She foresees turning the fire science program into four years, possibly environmental sciences, as well as sports medicine.
With LTCC having the highest transfer rate to the UC and CSU systems of the eight small community colleges, this proves local students are seeking a four-year degree.
The idea is for the four-year programs to complement other things the area has to offer – which translates into being able to work in the region upon graduation, as well as not competing with the UC and CSU systems.
Plenty of potential roadblocks could thwart Murillo’s plans of LTCC starting as a four-year college in fall 2014, but she is not shy about confronting the challenges head-on.
“It requires building community support, support through the community college system and the Legislature,” Murillo told Lake Tahoe News.
It’s possible the state will launch a pilot program that LTCC could be part of. If that doesn’t come to fruition, Murillo is prepared to work with officials in Sacramento to have LTCC be a test case for a community college to expand its offerings.
Murillo said with higher education in California going through major changes, now is the time to try new things – like having a community college offer a four-year degree.
The board of education at its retreat earlier this summer voiced support for staff to pursue this goal.
Even if LTCC does not evolve into a four-year institution, Murillo and the board are committed to attracting students from out of the area. This will require building student housing on campus. She said parents don’t want their offspring to be living in apartments or hotel rooms right out of high school.
“Becoming a 24/7 campus is the linchpin to being a destination college,” Murillo said while sitting in her office, with plenty of developable land outside her window.
Besides recruiting students from California and Nevada, Murillo wants a true push to lure international students here. She expects to work on this more in the 2013-14 school year. Why she believes it will be more successful than what the college tried a few years ago is that she would employ people who do this for a living.
“We need to globalize this college,” she said. “It could be a great economic development tool for this community.”
But to entice some of those students who might not be thinking of Lake Tahoe as a college destination, Murillo also knows the campus needs upgrading.
“We don’t want to let the college deteriorate. Instructors and students deserve modern facilities,” Murillo said. Plus, using technology that is found in the workplace is critical to being able to land a job.
While the college once had classrooms in a motel, it moved to its current location off Al Tahoe Boulevard in 1988. It has grown since then, with the newest building – the library – opening six years ago this month.
But the science classrooms and labs are 24-years-old. Technology has changed, how classes are taught has evolved. At a minimum, a remodel is needed; though a whole new science complex could be possible.
The college has submitted an initial capital outlay plan to the state chancellor’s office. This meant looking at how every inch of space is used – even closets. The goal is to obtain an efficiency remodel grant.
Any grant will require the college to come up with matching funds, but that dollar figure is unknown. It would depend on what the state allocates and what all the college wants to do.
Besides the science upgrades, most of the technology on campus needs to be brought into the 21st century. New servers are part of those upgrades. The art department is also in drastic need of being revamped. A less visible improvement that is needed is fixing the roof.
The finishing touches of the initial facilities master plan are being workout out. The first reading of it is expected to be before the board Sept. 25. It’s expected to be a fluid document that talks about the college’s needs for the next 15 to 20 years.
To pay for the upgrades or have a match for state dollars the college is talking about going to voters in 2014 at the earliest to ask them to approve a general obligation bond. The amount would depend on the needs of the college.
With students of the initial phases at the new wings on the local high school campus starting to graduate in 2014, and the second phase graduating in 2015, this might have a huge impact on seamless local education, with the ability to charge higher out of area tuition to others. As an alpine environment based college, a possible potential for California to benefit on local research specific to California as the Sierra Nevada mountain range most likely has technical differences with other mountains doing research. Be interesting to see what happens.
You mean there is a possibility that the Sno Globe crowd might be coming to live here? For four years? I’m sure that would upset a few people!
If this were to happen it would be a MAJOR boost to not only our economy, but also how we as a community are viewed. I am thoroughly behind this forward thinking idea for our town!
Yes, this town needs a destination college. It would be a huge engine for the community and would diversify the economy here.
There are a lot of great benefits of having an institution of higher learning in our community but there are a couple of things we’d have to be aware of. I’m sure the college is already looking at these. 1) A safer environment for students who are away from their parents. As a parent I’d be concerned with sending my child here without a strong system in place for watching over students. Student housing with a meal program for those living there. There aren’t a lot of activities aimed at the 18-22 year old. 2) The classes many of us take would, most likely, take on the fee structure of a college, thus making them out of the range of most who take classes for “fun.”
But, this would help our community and bring a new group of residents into town.
Thank you President Kindred Murillo for continuing to look at viable options for LTCC. We are lucky to have you and I look forward to supporting your efforts.
I think this is a wonderful idea. A few select programs would also lead to expanded housing needs or investment in local real estate as it does in other 4 yr college communities.
This would also be a perfect opportunity for our local high school trade students to get some experience as apprentices. Teach “green building” with hands on training, under the mentorship of LOCAL construction companies and that would be even more of a win for our community. Fire science, environmental (hopefully including water reclamation and waste management), and orthopedic with the eventual addition of more medical focus, and we would really have a great addition to the solutions for our town. Community garden on the campus – maybe? I really like the thinking – good job, President Murillo and LTCC!
I believe this concept has success written all over it and think that South Lake Tahoe so well lends itself to advanced fire science, advanced environmental science and advanced sports medicine that this is a real no-brainer. This IS one of the needed components that helps diversify the economic driver in our community and moves us away from our complete financial dependence on tourism. How cool would it be to work toward the aspiration of being the Sierra version of a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution but with our emphasis of advanced fire and environmental sciences? This idea is something that I completely support and I applaud President Murillo for her forward thinking.
This would be huge.
A four year college? We barely have a two year college. Seen the catalog later? Good luck and best wishes. Maybe she can pull it off.
Looks like most of the comments are positive, but LTCC can hardly fund its two year mission? Kind of hard to imagine that major facility expansion to accomodate a 4 year program is the best use of limited funds. Despite some of the length of time certain parts of the school were built, one thing LTCC offers is pretty well maintained and functional facilities – what it is not maintaining is class offerings!
“Plenty of potential roadblocks could thwart Murillo’s plans of LTCC starting as a four-year college in fall 2014”
– The article mentions the need for community and legislative support – how about something that shows there is actual demand for this, rather than a build it and they will come approach?
Last,
“This will require building student housing on campus. She said parents don’t want their offspring to be living in apartments or hotel rooms right out of high school.”
Well “offspring” is certainly an interesting choice of words? What is really funny is that parents have any say in this at all – mine sure didnt because when I went to college, I and most of my classmaites paid our own way! I think that does have a major effect on who goes to college. What the school doesnt realize is how many kids here take classes to use as a tool to get mom and dad to support them living in Tahoe – what they really want is a ski pass. Once they get that all arranged, they drop many of their classes. I imagine a 4 year program will be a big boost to that strategy – sorry to be negative about all this, I just dont see the demand justifying the expense of a lot of physical structure – some four year programs utilizing existing facilities is a different story, but such major proposals hint of the school’s attempt to finance upgrades in the face of declining enrollment and reduced course offerings – maybe I am wrong, but that is my initial reaction
O.K., let’s suspend reality for a moment and forget about the following article from 3 days detailing LTCC’s sagging finances:
https://www.laketahoenews.net/2012/09/ltcc-making-ends-meet-by-dipping-into-reserves/
Evn IF they find the money to make these upgrades…which would no doubt be a valuable addition to SLT’s economy and status….how do they propose to mitigate the increased traffic issues that a 4 year college with student housing will generate? Unless there is also a concurrent and significant upgrade to our entire transit ‘system’ (such as it is), this would be another example of the college acting without accounting for the ever-present unanticipated consequences.
Think snowglobe which has been booted by it’s original host in Avon, Co. and is coming back here with no solid plan to mitigate the low-frequency bass issue which caused so much trouble here and got them kicked out of Avon. This time, near-by residents will be prepared with acoustics experts and measuring devices, and, if necessary, legal action. This is no way to run or fund a college.
still need to stoke the ‘anti snow globe’ fire, huh? the aspiration of this community college to become a destination 4 year school is what we should encourage.
This idea assumes major funds are available and plentiful, and voters are further willing to increase their taxes.
Good luck with that.
At the very least, we should appreciate the vision necessary to even think this way – as some of the above comments don’t understand the “swimming upstream” exertion needed to get Upstream from where we are: “nowhere” (i.e.,’poverty with a view’) to where we should be – and were at one time. We can excel again. . .
My only suggestion vis-a-vis a “4-year” college is that it not be done the way Western Nevada (Community) College seemed to have been done – the Administrator’s apparent desire to be the leader of a “4-year” versus a “Community College” for the prestige.
Ironically, the program they chose to herald as their entry into the ‘4-year’ world was ‘construction management’ – which had absolutely no green building or alternative energy as part of the curriculum, rendering such ambition a backward move, instead of a progressive, contemporary one. . .Tahoe can do otherwise.
That being said, I would like to help them in the spirit of sustainable economic development, as Tahoe is just starting to “get with the program” and seriously needs to catch up with what’s going on in the outside world, not to stay way behind as they are now.
I’ve been trying to interest LTCC in sustainability (as practiced now in so many places), especially after one of their people wrote a 35-page assessment of all the current (at that time) college & university sustainability programs in the nation. . .and then lost her to another institution.
Between that and the soon-to-be emerging directions in environmental education, these two can easily discern a “destination” school, as I want to use a “Nature Center” approach to lure the 300,000 teachers there are just in CA to interact with K/12 children using “service learning” to accelerate the rate at which we have to educate the next generations as to the decisions they will be put in the position to make . . . as market differentiation for a little (but naturally beautiful) place like Lake Tahoe, the effective leverage comes from the scientific “fulcrum” being in its’ proper place (here), given the supposed science-based decisions that Tahoe always claims for itself. . .
In short, their are literally thousands of schools already doing environmental science and engineering, etc., but there are none focusing on the principles of scientific sustainability principles, which by definition include critical thinking, and all the science already being done – except with a focus on environmental education, as growth in that area is inevitable now, but is still very much marginalized in our way over-politicized culture. . .
Let’s actually think about counteracting our ‘blue sky’ thinking [i.e., not grounded in the realities of the present] thinking with ‘blue lake’ideas [needed visionary measures] such as that proposed by Ms. Murillo. . .
That being said, Lake Tahoe is still not going in a sustainable direction for itself, as it still thinks of it as a ‘buzzword’ or bumper sticker and acts accordingly. . .so, could use some correct orientation not to once again fall behind the rest of the world.
In that sense, the market is still wide-open for the educational direction the world is now going, in spite of Tahoe’s now-ignoring or short-shrifting of it…
I’m with Earl on this one. LTCC is barely making it as a 2 year institution. Enrollment down, adjunct faculty cuts etc. I love the idea but reality gets in the way.
Nice as a 4 year college sounds, we’d really need some CORE classes instead of all PE and recreation. I mean, seriously. . . try to do the MATH!
Who is going to pay for it? It is already a liberal wet dream!
Teach vocational classes and bag the gym or doze the progressive breeding ground.
Seriously? How can I be a faculty member at LTCC and hear about this for the first time on LTN? So much for shared governance. At a time when we are struggling to provide access for our students, I find this new “vision” to be counterproductive. I’d be interested in knowing the source of funding for this dream, as well as the staffing. Developing a four year college is a massive undertaking and I can’t imagine who on campus has a spare minute to devote to such a project. The comment regarding “build it and they will come” is spot on. Where is the demonstrated demand?
Maybe you should go to college council and school board meetings. Other faculty knew.
Say what, it is scary you are faculty and cant make a clear arguement for your position.
This is not an arguement:
“I find this new “vision” to be counterproductive.”
It has been fascinating to read through the comments. Just a quick history. In January the college brought faculty, staff, student, and the board together to talk about a vision. Out of that meeting we compiled all the responses which led us to this vision of a destination college. On June 8th we had a Planning Day where we openly discussed the following:
LEVERAGE OUR CAPACITY as a DESTINATION COLLEGE
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE – COLLEGE TOWN
AS WELL AS WORLD CLASS RECREATIONAL AREA
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
STUDENT HOUSING
COLLEGE OF CHOICE
PILOT PROJECT
UNIQUE RURAL SMALL COLLEGE (this information is straight from the presentation)
This concept was reaffirmed by our Board of Trustees on August 17, 2012 at the Board Retreat. The idea came not only from me, but from the college faculty, staff, leadership, and Board.
This will be a long hard process, and those of us dedicated to the concept of a destination college with the potential to move signature programs to a four year program, clearly understand this will be difficult and require a great deal of tenacity and community support. Not sure we think the alternative is tolerable. LTCC either will move forward or decline, there is no status quo for community colleges. We appreciate the positive responses to the article and also the concerns because that helps us plan better.
Thank you,
Kindred
I am not against the idea of 4-year offerings per se, but I still dont see demand analysis in anything that came out of the planning sumary above. There are numerous reasons why Tahoe’s poulation is down and exactly how does the school envision it will overcome those barriers to attracting the desired number of students and faculty? And no, it’s clear the scenery isnt enough! Ironically lack of cultural opportunities are, and so the college can certainly elevate that aspect, but to have a measurable impact on the town this would have to involve more than a few hundred students – and then now you have a much larger project. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg thing, and I don’t see how one would realistically pull it off in the face of all the current difficulties functioning as a 2 year school?
It’s also funny how someone dissed the PE classes – the facilities are already built, people pay to use them – and for many folks this is the entry into what else the college has to offer. Due to the demographics of this town, personal enrichment and continuuing education drive this community’s interaction with the college and make it truly a community institition – dont short change that interaction and the supprt it builds for the school.