Budget concerns last year forced administrators at Green River Community College to close the Enumclaw campus for the summer (), but that's not happening again -- at least not this year -- as the campus is looking forward to its June 25 start date for the summer session.
Compared with other community colleges in the Puget Sound region, the college is doing very well, said spokesperson Katie Rose. "We have a very strong international program that not only pays its own way, but provides resources to the college so GRCC has not had to reduce access to Washington State students as our counterparts have had to," Rose said in an email to Patch last week.
Nonetheless, cuts have been made across the board from instruction to student services to facilities and administration to keep the college operational. What was never cut, said Rose, was enrollment.
Thankfully, there were no lay-offs in the last year either.
"We’ve weathered four years of budget cuts which began in the 2008-09 school year," wrote Rose. "While the legislature passed a 'no cuts' supplemental budget during this past session, we’re still absorbing carryover cuts from the 2011 session and in preparation of our 2012-13 budget."
With the presumed approval of that budget -- expected sometime this month -- the college hopes to begin hiring again.
"Proposed areas for hiring are throughout the college representing a mix of backfilling some of areas plus a few new areas of opportunity," she said. "We are filling most of the faculty positions that have been vacated by retirements and resignations in areas such as Nursing, Occupational and Physical Therapy, English, Science, History, Art and IT/Computer Science."
GRCC has also added new faculty positions in Math and Chemistry to meet the demand in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math enrollments, she said. (See .)
Back in Enumclaw, the campus is offering summer credit classes including Adult Basic Education/GED Preparation, English Composition and a variety of Business and Math lab courses; non-credit classes include work-related education as well as courses in arts and crafts, culinary arts, health, home and garden, youth, outdoors and writing.
According to Diane Anderson, campus director in Enumclaw, the course offerings are very much the same as they were two summers ago and enrollment numbers remain stable as well.
While things are looking up for GRCC, the Enumclaw campus won't be seeing the Small Business Center (SBAC) move back -- not at this time, anyway. (See )
"This program is entirely dependent on grant funding, so it would be contingent on our ability to raise more money and justify the need," Rose said. "Currently we are serving Enumclaw and the plateau from our Auburn and Kent offices."
To vew the summer catalog for the Enumclaw campus, visit www.greenriver.edu/enumclaw or download a PDF copy from this story.
