The university will lease several classrooms to Washtenaw Community College this fall that will allow WCC to offer evening classes in Ann Arbor as part of a pilot program.
WCC President Larry Whitworth says the use of U-M classroom space will allow the college to expand its class offerings close to where many WCC students live: in the city of Ann Arbor.
“This is a great opportunity for WCC to team up with U-M,” Whitworth says. “We need space in Ann Arbor to serve our students and U-M has classroom space available in the evenings. It’s a perfect match.”
WCC will use four classrooms four nights a week in Mason Hall. LSA manages the classrooms and will provide instructional support services to the WCC faculty and students as part of the arrangement. There is no conflict with U-M evening classes.
“We are pleased to partner with Washtenaw Community College and see this as an excellent way to not only support the needs of the local community, but also increase the use of campus space,” U-M Provost Phil Hanlon says.
Offering classes in Ann Arbor should help ease crowding on WCC’s main campus, where enrollment has grown close to 10 percent a year for the past three years. That growth has prompted WCC officials to look for ways to expand class offerings without expanding the physical campus. The college also offers classes in Dexter, Brighton and Hartland.
“Allowing WCC to use U-M classrooms when they are not being used is an ideal extension of the overall effort to make better use of campus facilities,” says Frances Mueller, project manager for U-M’s Space Utilization Initiative. “It also provides an opportunity to introduce WCC students to our campus and increases campus activity well into the evening.”
Mueller says the arrangement also allows WCC faculty and students to use the U-M computer center in Angell Hall.
The WCC classes will be offered starting the week of Aug. 30 and run through Dec. 17. Classes to be offered range from principles of accounting and basic statistics to composition and introduction to American government. WCC projects 300 students will enroll in the classes on the U-M campus. Registration began July 14.
