CVTC OFFERING LIMITED SERVICES IN NEILLSVILLE
Friday, August 5th, 2011 -- 2:33 PM
Chippewa Valley Technical College continues committed to their Neillsville Industrial Park facility, but they're not offering any credited classes there.Tim Shepardson, campus administrator for the Chippewa Falls Campus and the Neillsville Center, says CVTC is currently offering only ?academic services? at its Neillsville location. These are remedial and college prep courses.
"We don't have a lot of face-to-face classes because, frankly, we don't have enough people who have stepped forward saying they wanted face-to-face lecture courses," he explains. "If we get the demand, we can run the classes, but if we run classes and the numbers are low, that's a waste of everyone's time."
There was [url=http://www.cwbradio.com/news/index.php?p=news&fn_mode=fullnews&fn_incl=1&fn_id=66]a lot of optimism when CVTC opened their Neillsville Center in 2005[/url].
The City of Neillsville donated the land for the 3,700-square-foot center and the Listeman Foundation donated $200,000.
At the time, officials said the new building would allow students to start and complete programs in town, but the classes never materialized.
Shepardson says the building does maintain regular hours, is home to a computer lab where some students take classes on-line and instructors still do on-site training with area manufacturers.
And, despite a 30% cut in state funding, there are no plans to reduce services in Neillsville further.
"I'm pleased with that," Shepardson says.
He says the Neillsville community came out in droves for a listening session with school leaders in February. The crowd was the largest of any listening session CVTC held around their district.
"People expressed their support for our facility in Neillsville and Pres. (Bruce) Barker heard that," he says.
But, there are no guarantees moving forward, as the state's budget picture appears murky, he says.
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