Staff members, trustees and leaders in the community attended the 20th anniversary celebration at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College’s south campus on Friday to reflect on the past and look toward the future.
Over the last 20 years, the campus has grown, adding buildings, programs and now serving about 10,000 students in a year, the college said.
“The college’s importance has increased immeasurably,” said North Carolina Sen. Fletcher Hartsell. “It’s going to continue to increase.”
Hartsell recalled the steps local leaders took in the late 1980s that led to RCCC being the first multi-campus community college in the state with the addition of the south campus in 1991.
More than 20 years ago, the Cabarrus County commissioners made a number of decisions that Hartsell said were controversial, and one of those had to do with moving forward with opening the south campus.
“Looking forward to the future, they knew this was essential to the growth of this community,” Hartsell said.
He also asked what might have happened if RCCC was not around when Pillowtex closed in 2003, and thousands of its employees were without jobs seeking retraining.
“The college itself has been a partner in so many ways with thousands of people who have lost jobs and been retrained for new jobs,” Hartsell said. “Simply reporting the efforts of the last 20 years is not sufficient…It’s at the conjunction of not just education, not just retraining, but hope and the future…It requires investment.”
Scott Ralls, president of the North Carolina Community College System, also mentioned Pillowtex’s closing in 2003.
“Between 40 and 50 percent of those who lost their jobs immediately became college students,” Ralls said. “To meet people where they are, you’ve got to be where they are… We believe the road to recovery (for) the state is right through our community college.”
President Carol Spalding agreed.
“The ride is certainly not over,” Spalding said. “We have great things in store for this county…We want to deal with the unemployment rate, and the way to do it is with education.”
She highlighted recent grants RCCC received, the college’s new completion agenda, which focuses on making sure students graduate, and its partnerships with local school systems.
“We have a great past and an even better future,” Spalding said.
She said that the college is interested in sustainability and wants the south campus to be a symbol of it.
At the anniversary celebration, she and Carl Short, chairman of RCCC’s Board of Trustees, concluded the planting of a sugar maple tree, which kicked off a new edible landscaping initiative with Cabarrus County.
Spalding also accepted the official plaque for RCCC’s north campus building 400 receiving Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Certification this year.
That building is the first LEED Gold certified building in Rowan and Cabarrus counties, said Bill Hughes, of Yates Chreitzberg Hughes Architects, who designed the building.
As the speakers said on Friday, it was just one of ways RCCC has paved the way for others.
Hilda Pinnix-Ragland, chairperson of the North Carolina Community College System Board of Trustees, thanked those at RCCC for paving the way and charting the course.
“Most (community colleges now have) multi-campuses so you paved the way,” Pinnix-Ragland said. “You were first.”
She said the college also paved the way by starting its motorsports program, having a building on the North Carolina Research Campus and by retraining thousands of local citizens.
“I can’t wait to see what the next 20 years will be,” Pinnix-Ragland said. “I know you’ll think of another first.”
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