By DENISE RAYMO
MALONE — North Country Community College is adding degrees in fine arts, paramedics, solar energy, environmental sciences and possibly gerontology.
It is also seeking state permission to hold classes on weekends in order to teach potential nursing students on a growing waiting list, said College President Dr. Carol Brown.
She met with Franklin County legislators Thursday to review her first six months on the job and to outline the college’s goals for 2010.
The idea of adding the different programs is to meet regional job needs by producing workers qualified in health care and environmentally conscience fields, where their skills are already in high demand or project to be in the near future.
GROWING
“We’re serving 4,000 students in various ways, and our Malone campus has grown in capacity,” Brown said.
“Our fall applications have increased from last year, and we expect another record.”
And to serve them, the college is expanding its degree programs.
A two-year fine-arts degree will begin this fall at the Malone campus, and the college will work from a Workforce Investment Board grant to train more certified-nursing assistants.
PARTNERS
NCCC is also partnering with Hudson Valley Community College on two degree programs that would have the first year of study at North Country and the second year at its campus in Troy.
The training classes would be for paramedics and those interested in careers in solar-energy field.
The students would transfer their credits between the two schools.
“It’s the best of both worlds,” Brown said. “They (Hudson Valley) have to build the building, but we get the students.”
ALCOHOL ABUSE
Coupled with the nursing-assistant program through the Workforce Investment Board, she said, a $22,000 grant will be used to re-integrate veterans and help displaced workers earn certification as alcohol-abuse counselors, which are always in demand locally.
The president said there is also great interest and movement forward in creating a gerontology certificate program.
Brown told legislators she has recently met with Plattsburgh State and Clinton Community College officials about future program sharing and has begun investigating a consortium of BOCES and high-school administrators to reach out and encourage students who have either already dropped out of school or are at risk to do so.
E-mail Denise A. Raymo at:
draymo@pressrepublican.com
