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The Southwestern Community College Board of Directors met Tuesday to discuss the five-year facilities maintenance plan, which includes drastic changes to the library and use of study space.
Five-year facilities maintenance plans
Southwestern is currently planning to centralize the library and bookstore so the study space is used more often. Board member Fred Shearer raised concern about eliminating the texts Southwestern offers.
“If we’re going to put the bookstore and the tutoring and the financial aid assessment there, what happens to all the books?” Shearer said.
SWCC President Marjorie McGuire-Welch said this decision was made as the current space was not frequently used and the college is transitioning to more electronic resources, but the library will remain. The remodeling will include reducing, but not totally eliminating, the number of hard books and expanding the space into the courtyard.
Shearer was also concerned about the reduction of books leading to some resources being unaccessible.
“For as much as we do online, I know there are going to be some references that will be impossible to access online, you’ve got to have that book in your hand,” Shearer said.
Welch said the idea was based on research that found community college student success and retention rates improved when their resources were streamlined.
“We’ll be utilizing the current area of the library and remodeling it so we’re making best use of all of the space and being able to move the much-needed resources that our students need to use and centralizing them, so that students can come together into one larger area that has all of the resources they need and it’s all right there for them and they will better use the space and more often use the space and will be more likely to go there and use the different services that are available to them,” she said.
The decisions in the planning process will be driven in part by the input of representatives from the library and bookstore. The use of space study planning and bookstore remodeling are priced at $250,000 each.
In other SWCC news...
• Automotive instructor Cole Vogel and carpentry instructor Kyle Harvey will be teaching high school students this year as the number of students enrolled in SWCC’s career academies has jumped from 120 to 180. East Union High School has a faculty member qualified to teach college-level industrial technology courses.