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| 10/28/2009 1:50:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Construction employees continue to work on the Round Rock ACC campus, scheduled to open in January 2010. |
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Group asks for more from ACC
Report calls for increase in growth in ACC enrollment
Austin Community College enrollment con-tinues to grow faster than the five-county Austin metropolitan area's total population, but the college must grow even faster to meet enrollment and improve economic compet-itiveness goals, according a recent Austin Community College Progress Report from the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.
Austin business leaders produced the second annual Austin Community College Progress Report in the order to track ACC's progress in the areas most important to regional economic growth: work-force development and supply, said Austin chamber vice president of education and talent development Drew Scheberle. Information from the ACC progress report is based on 2008-09 school year data, he said.
The Austin Chamber's Austin Community College Progress Report is part of the Chamber's "20,010 by 2010" initiative to increase metro-Austin's college enrollment rate by 20,010 students by the year 2010. The 20,010 by 2010 initiative dovetails with the state's Closing the Gaps plan, a statewide plan directed at closing higher educational gaps in student participation, student success and other areas, according to the Austin Chamber news release.
Other 2008 Austin Community College Progress Report findings include:
• Between 2000 and 2008, ACC's overall enrollment grew by an average of 3.4 percent annually while metro Austin's population grew by an average of 3 percent annually. Most of the growth was in courses completed by students planning to transfer to four-year colleges.
• ACC's planned increase in the number of nursing and other health field graduates will likely allow it to meet most of local health field employers' labor needs by 2015.
• ACC spends a majority of its property tax revenue on workforce development classes such as nursing, health-related and technical classes.
Recommendations by the 2008 Austin Community College Progress Report Task Force include:
• Student enrollment should rise from 33,700 in 2008 to 45,000 by 2015.
• ACC should continue with plans to increase the number of graduates from nursing and health-related programs to 90 percent of expected labor market need by 2015.
• ACC should sig-nificantly increase its targets for the number of graduates from non-health tech-nology-related programs, such as those for computer support specialists, to 90 percent of expected labor market need by 2015. This labor market information is in concordance with Texas Workforce Commission projections through 2015.
"Since ACC is a responder for local workforce needs for new and replacement jobs, we're hoping ACC will continue to grow as fast as they have been for the past year-and-a-half and we want them to accelerate the number of students they have completing studies in health care and information technology," Scheberle said.
"Our hope is the ACC Board of Trustees will set goals to make sure ACC is providing 90 percent of the total need in targeted areas such as information technology," Scheberle said. "We want to attract companies but make sure they get quality and available hires."
It's been easy for ACC to expand its health care offerings because of the growth of hospitals in Round Rock, such as Scott & White University Medical Campus and Seton Williamson, and because of the opening of ACC's newest and largest campus in Round Rock in January 2010, Scheberle said. The anticipated opening of the Round Rock campus began with a successful annexation election of Round Rock into the ACC taxing district in May 2008, he said.
Regarding growth areas for ACC Round Rock and areas northwest of the city, such as Cedar Park and Leander, are large targets, said ACC director of public information and marketing Brette Lea. In fall 2008, the ACC Cypress Creek campus in Cedar Park expanded its space to a 5,100-student capacity, Lea said. For fall 2009, there are 5,368 students enrolled. This campus serves both Cedar Park and Leander since both of the cities are within ACC's taxing district, she said. There is also an ACC center in Leander at Leander High School.
Even though there are no official plans to build a separate ACC campus in Leander, college district officials abide by the practice of land-banking, looking at land for the future if needs arise, specifically in high-growth areas such as Leander, Lea said.
The process of planning and expanding instructional facilities ties in with ACC's master plan goals planned out through 2025, said ACC president and CEO Stephen Kinslow.
"Program expansion is based on what is happening in the labor market and on job creation in specific areas," Kinslow said. "Right now in the recession we are not seeing this kind of expansive job creation as much. But we monitor the labor market very carefully as a community college and we do expand programs based in response to student demand and job growth in the community."
"The chamber report is good input for ACC and we appreciate that," Kinslow said. "We value their input and we are doing a good job of expanding within our available resources. The most important message we received from the chamber report is that ACC continues to expand to communities and that communities go through the process of formally joining the ACC taxing district. It's what is necessary for ACC to continue to grow in response to needs of the local workforce and to the residents throughout Central Texas."
Scheberle thinks ACC is doing great things in Central Texas and the metro Austin area.
"The business com-munity needs to know ACC continues to grow at a rapid rate," Scheberle said. "This is an institution that is looking to improve itself and wants to be responsive to the business community. ACC is an important part of economic development and quality of life in the area."
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