LSCS to open university center in NW Houston

LSCS to open university center in NW Houston

By Kimberly Stauffer Tuesday, 15 December 2009

HOUSTON — Northwest Houston community college students will have more opportunities to earn higher degrees closer to home with Lone Star College System’s recent purchase of 1.2 million sq. ft. of the Hewlett-Packard campus, which will be renovated into a second university center and conference facility.

More than 3,000 students from LSC-Tomball’s satellite Willowchase Center will begin the spring 2010 semester at LSC-University Park. The second largest real estate deal in the nation in 2009, LSCS bought part of the HP campus, where Compaq Computer Corporation was housed. The facility will provide a higher education learning center for the LSC-CyFair community, which is the largest of the system’s five main campuses.

LSC-University Park will also house a university center with several state schools, including Texas A&M University, Sam Houston State University and University of Houston, taking up permanent residence, a major change from the original university center. The Woodlands-based campus offers courses from area universities, but none have permanent classrooms or facilities like LSC-University Park.

The complex, which includes eight buildings on the 45-acre campus, will have the capacity to serve approximately 10,000 students in the next year or two. Ray Laughter, vice chancellor for external communications, said the system’s primary interest was finding a location for a university center.

“There has been a strong push in the northwest part of Harris County to have a university center similar to the one at [The Woodlands],” he said. “It seemed to be the perfect general area to locate. We were able to not only solve the need for us to have a place to build a university center, but to also create something special with the size of the facility we were able to acquire.”

The system is in effect fulfilling a promise, Laughter said. LSCS gained northwest Houston voters in the May 2008 bond election by pledging to build a university center in the area to serve the 15,000 students who attend LSC-CyFair and the surrounding community.

“We had a major push from the community to have the center here,” he said. “There are a lot of school district partnerships out there that will lead directly into programs [at the center].”

New opportunities

Dr. Audre Levy, president of LSC-CyFair, said University Park is a nearby solution for parents and students during a tough economy. After receiving their associate degree with LSC-CyFair, students can drive roughly 15 miles to the university center to complete advanced degrees without moving away from home or paying higher tuition at state and private universities.

Since the original university center started 10 years ago in The Woodlands, some 50,000 students have taken courses or graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, Laughter said.

“We expect this one to be equal to or greater. We have more resources and experience setting it up,” he said. “We’ve actually done a study in the radius of the [new] campus, and … I can tell you there is tremendous interest.”

The complex itself is a boon to system officials wanting to create a college environment, rather than an office space atmosphere.

“It’s not just like buying an office building or an old building. It’s similar to other [college] campuses,” Laughter said. “It has a state-of-the-art conference center perfect for us to do more corporate training and has all of the infrastructure to support a campus.”

The campus includes a cafeteria capable of handling 1,000 people and a 3,000-space parking garage, which will be shared with HP employees.

Renovations

Jimmy Martin, LSCS construction and facilities officer, said the college system has no plans for large-scale structure changes, but basic renovations will bring the buildings up to code for higher capacity and its new role as a college campus.

“We’re adding signage over the next couple of months, and in the interior we’re taking out walls, reconfiguring rooms into classroom-oriented environments and upgrading the restroom facilities,” he said. “We’re also widening staircases.”

The college is “increasing the density of the space,” Martin said, meaning the buildings will be able to handle a denser, or larger, population. HP had between 100 and 120 people on each floor. The college system estimates about 300 to 350 people. The campus also better accommodates Willowchase Center students who were “quite constrained with the number of classrooms” at the previous facility, Martin said.

Area benefits

Michelle Tran, director of college relations for LSC-CyFair, said the reputation of both Cypress-Fairbanks ISD and LSC-CyFair draw people to the Hwy. 290 corridor.

“The growth out here has been tremendous with all the new development,” she said. “People are moving out here in droves.”

As LSCS only purchased part of the HP campus, Laughter said several thousand HP employees would continue to work there, sharing the cafeteria and using training and conference facilities. Otherwise, the college buildings are secured, and any connecting walkways between HP and LSCS buildings have been locked. The influx of students joining the HP employees will benefit the area, Laughter said.

“The good news is having 10,000 students plus our employees will add to the economy. They’ll shop at stores and eat at local restaurants and bring vibrancy back to the area like when Compaq was there,” he said. “We took a lot of office space off the market, and there’s a lot of good for the community coming out of that.”

Laughter said the LSC-University Park project does not aim to take students from LSC-CyFair, but rather create a separate entity for the burgeoning northwest Houston community.

“What we want to be is a comprehensive, visionary learning complex that will create synergy between a lot of different stakeholders and partners involved in education and training,” he said. “The doors are wide open and the sky is the limit to what we have in there.”

Getting there – Lone Star College’s area campuses

Five universities participate in LSCS undergraduate programs

Six universities and Lone Star College System join together to offer 29 bachelor’s degrees, 33 master’s degrees and three special programs for a total of 65 programs at LSC-University Center. Listed are the universities in partnership with Lone Star College System and the undergraduate programs available with each university. Programs offered at LSC-University Park will be decided in spring 2010.

Source: Lone Star College System

Prairie View A&M University

• Nursing
• Social Work
• Sociology

Sam Houston State University

• Accounting
• Applied arts & sciences
• Criminal justice
• General business administration
• Interdisciplinary academic studies in elementary certification
• Management
• Political science B.A.
• Political science B.S.
• Psychology

Texas Southern University

• Human Performance
• Interdisciplinary academic studies - Bilingual education (EC-4)
• Interdisciplinary academic studies - Bilingual education (4-8)
• Interdisciplinary academic studies - Generalist (EC-4)
• Interdisciplinary academic studies in special education

University of Houston

• Consumer science and merchandising
• Hotel and restaurant management
• Technology leadership and supervision
• English
• History

University of Houston Downtown

• Biological and physical sciences
• Biotechnology
• Computer information systems
• Finance
• Humanities
• Interdisciplinary studies
• Marketing
• Social science B.A.
• Social science B.S.