Post-secondary plans

Post-secondary plans
New institution would expand on local educational offerings

December 15, 2001

On Monday, state educational heavyweights will be in Durango to hear from the locals about the possibility of expanding post-secondary education in Southwest Colorado. One possibility expected to be discussed is to wrap the San Juan Area Technical School’s good trades classes into a broader and deeper list of classes that only a community college can offer.

It is possible that Pueblo Community College would be the institution, given its several years of service to the area, although there is a suggestion to create a West Slope group of schools that would include Rangely Community College, San Juan Vo-tech and the vo-tech school in Delta.

Attending the informational session in the Student Union building at Fort Lewis College will be Tim Foster, executive director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, PCC’s president Mike Davis, and a couple members of the board that governs the state’s community colleges.

State Rep. Mark Larson will be present; he has been instrumental in advancing the idea of improving the number and quality of post-secondary educational classes in this corner of the state. State Sen. Jim Isgar may be there, too.

Larson has taken a strong interest in a community college, and in recent weeks has been candid in his view that strictly vocational education, as delivered by San Juan Vo-Tech, is too limited for the new decade. He claims that more state funding for expanded vo-tech teaching is highly unlikely, and that a community college-level institution is what is needed.

The Journal will have a reporter at the Monday meeting, which runs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., but it behooves Montezuma County residents who want to comment on the issue to be present. Welders and mechanics and EMTs are important, and a good community college that incorporates the best of the tech school would be an asset to the county.