Beginning of the end at CSN center

By Cassie Tomlin

Friday, Aug. 29, 2008 | 4:12 p.m.

The College of Southern Nevada's Boulder City Center began what is likely to be its final fall semester Aug. 25 with 32 classes ranging from computers to nursing to religion.

Almost 400 students enroll in Boulder City every semester, and they are returning to the community college this week to the news that it and six other satellite centers are scheduled to close at the end of this school year. The announcement was made June 30 by CSN President Michael Richards as part of cost-cutting measures ordered by Gov. Jim Gibbons, who told all state agencies to plan on cuts of 14 percent. That means CSN needs to slice $28 million from its budget in the 2009-2011 biennium. The college had to give one-year notice before closing the centers, college officials said.

Administrator Andrea Anderson said school will carry on as usual in Boulder City this year, and students won't notice a difference in their courses or their building.

The changes will come next year, she said, when the town's senior citizens will no longer have access to the popular computer courses the campus has tailored for them, and high school students won't have a convenient way to get a jump on their higher education.

"To make education accessible to everybody — seniors, high school students, people juggling jobs and kids— we're defeating our own purpose," Anderson said. "It's a shame. I hate to see it close."

Anderson said she won't know until spring if a legislative miracle will provide the schools more money and perhaps keep the center open. She is preparing to close down after this academic year, she said.

Loretta DeGrandis, who has taught art in Boulder City since 2004, said Aug. 25 she was outraged about the imminent closure, but hopeful budgetary cuts wouldn't be so severe.

"We've really built (the art program) up," she said. "People come from Henderson for this class, and now they're not even moving it. They'll just cut it."

She said a drawing course is taught at the West Charleston campus, but those sessions are packed and too far away for Boulder City residents.

Eric Huening, who graduated from Boulder City High School a few months ago, said he plans to take CSN courses for another two years before entering art school to study industrial design.

From DeGrandis' classroom, his second course of the day, he said he'd just as soon not take a course at the Charleston campus.

Darren Divine, vice president of academic affairs, said the college will soon work out a plan for cuts greater or smaller than expected, but said he couldn't predict what would happen either way.

Anderson said that of 500 full-time faculty across CSN, she is one of four working in Boulder City, as well as one part-time employee, and adjunct professors.

The Boulder City center's main costs are the staff, utilities and maintenance, she said. Rent at the Wyoming Street building is $1 a year, a token amount charged by former City Councilman Bill Smith, who bought the building for the college.

Anderson said she worries about the two unique programs in Boulder City — the aviation department and a wildland fire course for the fire science degree. Those courses aren't offered anywhere else.

Divine said both will move to the Henderson campus, on College Drive.

National Park Service Fire Management Officer Bob Trodahl, who teaches the fire course in Boulder City, said the course two years ago moved from Henderson to Boulder City.

He said wildfire students will still have to travel to Boulder City, where they learn practical fire training in the Boulder Basin part of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

He said he'll have at least 40 students in his two classes this semester.

Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or [email protected].