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(To Editors: If you use this release, please consider using the attached byline. The author is an HCC journalism student. No compensation is necessary.)

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT
ANSON C. SMITH AT 203-332-5229

HCC FAST-TRACK COURSES OFFER WHAT YOU NEED, WHEN YOU NEED IT

By Dorothy Fitch

BRIDGEPORT, Conn.- You may have missed the beginning of the fall semester, but you can still learn plenty between now and Christmas.

Thirty new non-credit courses offered through the Continuing Education Department of Housatonic Community College are slated to begin between now and December. And while there are a number of personal enrichment courses on the schedule, such as Genealogy, Conversational Polish, and Stress Management, the majority of the Continuing Education offerings are designed to develop career skills that are in demand in today’s marketplace - especially technology-related courses.

“Technology keeps changing,” says Debbie Kresge of Derby, coordinator of continuing education, about the latter. “If you don’t keep up with it, you can end up at the bottom of the heap.”

Since Kresge brought her market-driven thinking to the department in July, 2001, enrollment has jumped 500 percent. Just one year later, the course catalog described sixty different non-credit courses. Computer offerings make up about half of that total, but a number of other subject areas are covered as well, including creative writing, foreign language, journalism, and marketing.

The courses are part of Kresge’s new focus for the department. Her major emphasis is on no-nonsense, fast-track courses that offers career-minded people what they need when they need it - not just at the beginning of each semester. She supplements these with education-for-the-fun-of-it courses like pottery, geneology and boating.
Like the course offerings, continuing education students are a diverse lot - some are high school students, some are working professionals. But they have one thing in common. “Our students want to enhance their skills,” says Kresge. She described the various scenarios. Students lacking college, or even high school credentials, seek to acquire skills to enter the job market. College graduates already in the workforce need to upgrade their skills, to qualify for a promotion or prepare for a job change.

Kresge’s secret is to provide this wide range of customers with what they need, when they need it. How does she do this? “By getting out there and talking to people to find out!” she said.

Continuing Ed instructors then distill the course material down to its essentials and packages it into eight to twelve hours of instruction.

If enrollment is any indication, Kresge’s formula seems to be working. While just sixty students enrolled in courses in the Fall of 2001, enrollment nearly quadrupled in the spring semester, with registrations numbering 223, and with the current Fall semester only nearing its halfway mark, total enrollment stands at 324.

The rapid growth in enrollment leaves Kresge facing a new challenge: more bodies than she can accommodate. Booming enrollment in college-credit and non-credit courses alike has created a classroom crunch.
“We’re running out of rooms,” says Kresge. “… I need more rooms!”

However, Kresge will not be deterred. She’s scheduled classes for Friday evenings, Saturdays and Sundays -- and people are taking them. Next Spring. she’s planning to offer more than 100 courses.

Where is she going to put them? She’s is investigating the use of other venues to accommodate additional course offerings. Where else? She’s working on that - just like she was working on building enrollment a year ago!
For more information, or to register for a course, contact the Continuing Education Department at 332-5057.
Dorothy Fitch is a journalism student at Housatonic Community College.