LTCC on dual course to offer 4-year degrees
By Kathryn Reed
Lake Tahoe Community College is on a path that would allow students to obtain a four-year degree two ways.
One is through allowing universities to offer their programs on the South Lake Tahoe campus, the other is by being selected as one of the 15 community colleges in California to be part of a pilot program offering baccalaureate degrees.
“We really want to bring programs to Tahoe that will benefit Tahoe,” LTCC President Kindred Murillo told Lake Tahoe News. “We would love to have UC Davis on campus. I think it would be a good partnership with (Tahoe Environmental Research Center) on the North Shore (at Sierra Nevada College).”
Through Measure F, the $55 million facilities bond that voters approved last month, one line item was for a university center. There is $825,000 in the bond to renovate a section of campus to allow for a CSU, UC or UNR to have a presence at LTCC.
The state will not pay for a university center.
But the ideal situation would be to have a standalone building that the higher education institutions could use for classrooms, registration and counseling.
Lisa Maloff is allowing this to occur with her $5 million gift to LTCC. She is the widow of Bob Maloff, who at one time owned what was the Timber Cove Lodge. They both have been and continue to be, through this donation, supporters of the college. This is the single largest donation the college has ever received.
Maloff was not available for comment.
“She doesn’t want a lot of recognition. She is very humble about this. She wants to do something for the college and the community,” Murillo said.
A university center is a location on a community college campus occupied by staff from four-year colleges who offer their programs locally. It gives them their own identity.
“They are not part of us,” Murillo explained. That means LTCC staff does not register students for those classes, nor offer counseling or anything else. The universities are essentially renting space from LTCC.
Depending on how many institutions are interested and when classes would be offered, the center could handle three to four colleges.
“One thing I’d like to see is a teaching credential, particularly for bi-literate teachers,” Murillo said. “I have to directly negotiate with the university and work with them.”
That will be done over the course of the next year.
It’s estimated it will take about 3½ years from now for the building to be done. Plans need to be drawn, permits obtained, the state architect’s office will be involved, and then construction of the approximately 5,500-square-foot facility begins.
If the $825,000 from the bond is needed for the larger facility, then that is where it will go. Otherwise the college will figure out how it will be spent on other facilities.
The other way the college is looking to add four-year degrees is through the state. The college this week filed an application with the intent to be part of a pilot program. LTCC is proposing a public safety administration degree.
With the current course offerings, this would complement what is in place. Today LTCC offers an associate of arts and transfer degree in criminal justice, and three AA degrees and certificates in the area of fire, including fire science, fire officer, and fire academy.
A team comprised of Chancellor’s Office staff, a member of the business and workforce community, CSU and UC representatives, and community college staff from districts that did not apply to host a program will review the proposals. The chancellor will then make a recommendation to the CSU and UC systems. The final decision is expected Jan. 21.
What kind of degrees will be offered? Would not this selection be a precursor to the needs of the proposed building?
With many schools focused on STEM, what about training for jobs that affect the local economy?
First, your sentence uses an acronym that people are not likely to understand without first having to look it up. That’s why its a bad idea to use acronyms without first introducing them.
Second, you statement, couched as a question, implies that science, tech and math don’t prepare kids to work in Tahoe. That assumption is fundamentally flawed…STEM training is the only training likely to prepare kids to work in science and tech fields where there are actually some jobs here.
Keystone Cops University ?
I like Motel University.
the future of our Town is not for Locals.
all of you folks should be able to see that.
We need to train our kids to take over midlevel management jobs, and there 100 time more of those than there are firefighter jobs. Those jobs are many times out of area hires because our kids don’t have the education for these jobs.
Chief Slowroller. Our first communty college was in an old motel, Gerkens Lodge. It was across the street from where Whiskey Dicks is now.
Measure F squeaked by at the polls by a narrow margin. It will be intersting to see how much of the taxpayers dollars are spent wisely or squanderd on classes few will attend and uneeded buildings.
I’ve heard enrollment is low but that’s not verifiable, and I don’t know what the max capacity is.
We shall see if all this money and improvements bring in more students, which in turn , in the long run, could help our economy.
LTCC! Hire LOCAL contractors for construction and upgrades!!! PLEASE??? Afterall, it is a COMMUNITY college so be part of the community and hire locally! OLS
If local contractors provide the lowest responsive and responsible bid then they will be hired. Since it is taxpayer money that will be spent LTCC is legally required to accept the lowest bid and they cannot show cronyism in their award to someone who is a local but charging more than someone else. They must spend the taxpayers’ dollars wisely and not squander them by showing favoritism.
4-mer, the big problem there is that there really aren’t any “local” contractors set up to tackle that kind of a project. Our guys are all too small, primarily residential construction, not commercial. The time between big commercial projects up here would starve a local.
The cheapest bids usually mean the lousiest contractors–let’s get real. They are cutting corners. Period. Cheap bids cost more in the long run. Proof is in the pudding.
Perhaps the decision makers on this project could give heavier weight to those bidders that promise local sub-contractor hiring when they decide.
Shopping locally and hiring locally equals more jobs for people right here. Instead of firing people we should be hiring people. Look what the casinos just did! Folks hours are being cut and are now considered part time employees with no benefits along with smaller paychecks.
Homes being foreclosed on because there’s not enough money to pay the bills. Schools closing due to people moving away and a declining enrollment. Post offices closing. Empty commercial buildings on 50.
From what I’ve seen, more people are moving away than moving here. Not a pretty picture! That’s all the happiness I’ll share for now. OLS
How about local contractors getting out there and managing their businesses and earning the contracts.
We have a free market economy…we don’t owe welfare to people because of the street they live on.
Absolutely Moral, but quality should not be sacrificed just to “earn” a contract. It’s not a free market if a business is forced to go with the cheapest bid. Getting your bid low enough to get honored the job means cutting costs and you end up with inferior work. It’s just the way it is. We all know you get what you pay for.
I wish LTCC nothing but the best!
The bids are sealed, so you never know what the other guy is bidding; unless you’re the bear box people, and after the fact you WHINE to your friends in city government to let you undercut the guy who originally won the bid fair and square. . .
So in the last two posts we see the “best value” contract should win and that the perception and fact of fair competition are what matters most.
I agree.
I think a four year degree program sounds like an excellent idea for the area. I would have loved to stay in Tahoe to get my Bachelors degree but the only college in Tahoe the offers them is Sierra Nevada College which is a liberal arts type school. So because of the lack of available Bachelor degree programs available in the Tahoe region most local students(like myself) end up with no choice but to continue school out of the area. Sierra Nevada College already offers many majors that are useful for the local economy, so LTCC should keep those in mind and try to bring in ones that aren’t already available in the area but are needed based on the areas of employment that are hiring most in the Tahoe region.
I’ll just follow up on my earlier comment about shopping locally and hiring locally. If you don’t want to shop in So. Shore, go to Wal Mart or Costco down in the Carson Valley. You will probably see a lot of like minded people there. If you don’t want to hire a local contractor to work on your house, they’re lots of people off the hill who will gladly do the work. The same can be said for automotive repair and so many other things.
I just see things a little differently as I believe it’s good to spend my money locally helping local businesses and the people that live and work here. OLS
OLS, you have to be the most patient man in the Tahoe basin.
But back on topic, I think it’s great that LTCC is proposing to become a four year college. Not only will it serve the community by offering actual college degrees to residents, but, if it develops and maintains its academic excellence, and doesn’t get caught up in trying to serve only the local community, its very environment will attract students of quality, some of whom will stick around and provide the intellectual diversity that South Lake Tahoe is hugely in need of. As clearly demonstrated on LTN.
But it will need to change its name – who really wants a real college degree from Lake Tahoe Community College on their resume? Go big: High Sierra University at South Lake Tahoe would be my early submission.
OLS, you are on a roll. i know you are upset about the Harrahs issues, but that is because they will soon be in bankruptcy but not for anything that is a local problem. I know that you know that SLT in in a economic recovery, TOT collections were up over 3/4 million dollars over last year, which was up over 1/2 million over the prior year. Look at all of the new business opened up this year, construction is way up! Please stop being drepressed, things are looking up, things will come up roses.
For your knowledge there is a little less than 2000 full time equivalent students and has increased them by 300 in recent years. The school can support 4000 full time equivalent students
Reloman, Thank you for the information!!! I’m glad to hear the collection of TOT is on the rise, good news indeed!
Yes, I believe the improvements to the city as of late are a welcome addition to SLT. I never thought I’d see paved walkways with lighting in my life time, along with many other improvements.
Increased enrollment at LTCC, another plus!
Sorry if I came off a little grouchy earlier, sometimes I get like that. I dwell on things and it gets me down.
But you bring good news and I feel better now! Thank you and as always,Take care, OLS
OLS-
You have it basically right, it would be good if we could shop locally and find what we need at a good price, or get services and know that the work was going to be done correctly. Unfortunately this is not happening.
The basket of goods that is available in Tahoe is continuing to shrink. New businesses?????????????
Don’t make me laugh.
We really need another auto parts store a few blocks from an existing one. Remember when NAPA had two stores? One gone now Autozone is going to compete with O’Reily’s and Napa. It’ll be like Staples and Office Depot, one will lose and close.
The bulk of new businesses in this town are restaurants, and they really are not new for Christ sakes, they are replacements for ones that didn’t make it. We have so much empty retail space offered at such high prices it is obvious the law of supply and demand has been suspended in this town.
The Mayor’s state of the city speech was a riot.
BevMo…yup we really need another big box booze purveyor. But Raley’s is ready for them with a new booze section of 4 isles instead of 1, which means less food. The number if food items that Raley’s does not stock any more is amazing, especially if you are looking at larger sizes. I think their house brands are fine but sometimes you need a choice, and we apparently have not supported them enough to keep things as they were. It is going to get worse.
LTCC? Joke.
The grand plans they got voted in for somewhere between 55 and 100 million dollars of our dollars are not even backed up by professionally done estimates, as they didn’t have the bucks to hire it done so a bunch of college instructors on committees all sat around and pretty much dart-boarded the costs to design the bonds. If you don’t believe this, go try to get a look at the estimates but be prepared for a line of BS and much obfuscation.
Cranky, I agree with you. I think the law
of supply and demand has been suspended here. Does anyone know why?
Zillions of tax dollars wasted in the middle east with no goal or exit strategy. I’d much rather see my tax dollars go to providing education and training for those seeking to better the world. This countries priorities have been upside down for far to long. Education is not a luxury nor a commodity, it needs to be affordable and accessible. Thanks to those in the community who have helped LTCC evolve and grow.
@copper…I agree.
While I fully support LTCC, many wouldn’t want “Community College” on their resume.
–In regards to sealed bids: Yes, they are sealed, but the contractors are cheap to begin with. There is a reason they are cheap. They use cheap material and leave out items which would be beneficial to construction. You guys know this…
Some of the contractors in this town are not above this, so hiring local does not always solve the problem. One should be able to review several bids and compare what is being left out and who is going overboard and pick the best suited bid, just like you would on you own home.
I would much rather have “Community College” on my degree than $30,000 plus worth of debt on my loan statement. Boggles my mind why anyone would bother with somewhere like Berkeley if they weren’t legacy or on scholarship. There’s too many people with degrees today for that to matter to 95% of employers. Either you know your stuff or you don’t; whether you went to LTCC or a UC school doesn’t matter if you didn’t put in the effort.