College To Stay Dark

NWACC OFFICIAL CITES LACK OF DEMAND FOR LATE EVENING

By By Dan Craft <a href="mailto:DCRAFT@NWAONLINE.NET"

Posted: November 2, 2009 at 5:58 a.m.

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BENTONVILLE — NorthWest Arkansas Community College won’t offer overnight classes any time soon, officials said.

Several community and junior colleges around the country are experimenting with classes starting at midnight or later, but there doesn’t appear to be a demand in this region, said John Tuthill, associate vice president for learning.

Early evening classes are popular, but those starting after 7:30 p.m. don’t usually fill up, Tuthill said.

“Nobody’s even asked about holding classes later than that, as far as I know,” he said. “It’s a concept that’sbeen around for a long time, but very few places get much interest in it.”

The same can’t be said for daytime classes at NWACC. The 7,000-plus students manage to fi ll nearly every available classroom space on campus throughout the daytime hours, both at the main Bentonville campus and at satellite centers throughout the region.

“We’ve got a major space crunch issue,” Becky Panietz, college president, told trustees earlier this year.

The majority of the 1,195 community colleges in the nation are seeing a similar problem as enrollments climb, according to the American Association of Community Colleges. Nearlyhalf of all undergraduate students are enrolled in community colleges.

Only a handful, however, are keeping the lights on throughout the night.

“There’s more than just the student demand,” Tuthill said. “In a lot of cases, fi nding faculty willing to teach a class at that hour is tough.”

Aside from occasional specialty labs such as astronomy, the latest University of Arkansas classes begin at 7:30 p.m., said Steve Voorhies, a university spokesman.

“I think college students have better things to do during the nighttime hours, like homework, I’m sure,” Voorhies said.

Tuthill saw plenty ofnighttime classes before he moved to Bentonville. His last job was at Ilisagvik College in the northern Alaska town of Barrow. During winter months, daylight lasted as little as an hour each day.

“Pretty much all we had were night classes,” he said.

News, Pages 5 on 11/02/2009

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