Chattahoochee Technical College

Chattahoochee Technical College
Established	1963
Type	Public
President	Dr. Ron Newcomb interim president effective October 1, 2011
Students	10,000+
Postgraduates	0
Location	Marietta, Georgia, United States
Campus	7 suburban, 1 other
Nickname	Chattahoochee Tech
Website	http://www.chattahoocheetech.edu

Chattahoochee Technical College (commonly Chattahoochee Tech, sometimes CTC) is a two-year state technical college located in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is governed by the Technical College System of Georgia. Chattahoochee Technical College has seven campuses in the north-northwest metro Atlanta area, and another just outside of the region. It is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to award technical certificates of credit, diplomas, and associate of applied technology degrees.

Facts and figures

Chattahoochee Technical College was founded in 1963, and is named for the Chattahoochee River. Prior to the 2009 merger, there were over 6000 students enrolled in 27 programs of study, making CTC Georgia's largest technical college by enrollment. Combined with the campuses which joined it, there were over 10,000 students. As of January 2010^[update], there were 11,365 enrolled, an increase of 27.3% from the 8,931 of winter quarter 2009.^[1]

The Blue Heron^{[disambiguation needed ]} was the official mascot of Chattahoochee Technical College, created in 2004 by marketing management student Kevin M. Moss (2005 alumnus), who later went on to serve as secretary/treasurer of CTC's student government (2004–2005) and student-body president (2007–2008) of nearby Southern Polytechnic State University's student government^[2]. The Golden Eagle is the new mascot of the combined school.

Students of the school's video production major produce some of the programming seen on Cobb edTV, the local Educational-access television channel seen on Comcast cable TV (or Charter Cable in Smyrna).

Locations

There are now eight campus locations north and northwest of Atlanta. The main campus is located in south Marietta, near Fair Oaks, between South Cobb Drive (Georgia 280) and Sandtown Road (33°55′44″N 84°33′18″W / 33.929°N 84.555°W / 33.929; -84.555 (Chattahoochee Technical College, Marietta main campus)Coordinates: 33°55′44″N 84°33′18″W / 33.929°N 84.555°W / 33.929; -84.555 (Chattahoochee Technical College, Marietta main campus)). It has since added three buildings on the west side of Sandtown Road, and an earlier one on the south side of Beech Road at the corner of South Cobb Drive.

Its three original additional campuses are: Mountain View (northeast Cobb; 34°02′03″N 84°28′04″W / 34.0343°N 84.4677°W / 34.0343; -84.4677 (Chattahoochee Technical College, Mountain View satellite campus)), South Cobb (Mableton/Austell; 33°48′56″N 84°36′00″W / 33.8156°N 84.6°W / 33.8156; -84.6 (Chattahoochee Technical College, South Cobb satellite campus)), and Paulding (Dallas; 33°54′39″N 84°49′35″W / 33.9107°N 84.8263°W / 33.9107; -84.8263 (Chattahoochee Technical College, Paulding satellite campus)).

The Paulding campus was dedicated in November 1996. A second building was constructed in 2009, and dedicated on October 13, with keynote speaker Glenn Richardson.^[3]

The Mountain View campus was donated to Cobb County by the family of the late Frank Gordy, proprietor of the famous restaurant The Varsity in Atlanta. Specified for educational use, the county supplied the land and most of the construction money for the building, which was dedicated to the county commission in 2000 and opened for class that October, and was transferred to the state in 2009 after having been leased for a dollar a year. It shares a parking lot with the adjacent Mountain View Aquatics Center, an indoor public swimming pool run by the county. The remainder of the formerly forested land was sold and developed in the 1990s for strip malls and upscale tract housing. The school's address is on Frank Gordy Parkway, a loop which allows access to these developments, but whose street signs all indicate only "Gordy Parkway".

The South Cobb campus was renamed the Austell campus in spring 2010. It consists of two one-story buildings on Tech Center Drive, and its address is on Veterans Memorial Drive (U.S. 78/278 & Georgia 8), which was originally the historic Bankhead Highway.

The Woodstock campus is located in the former Woodstock Elementary School (historically the all-grades Woodstock School, the town's first public school), and was the second campus of Appalachian Tech.

Through June 2009, graduation ceremonies were held only in June and September, and were at the Mable House amphitheatre in Mableton. The December 2009, due to the growth of the graduating class, the graduation ceremony was held at the Cobb Galleria Centre; in June 2010 it was held nearby at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.

Enrollment by campus for fall 2009, compared to the previous year:^[4]

• Marietta: 5,428 (+38.1%)
• North Metro: 3,284 (+33.8%)
• Appalachian: 1,013 (+44.7%)
• Paulding: 994 (+18.9%)
• Mountain View: 958 (+34.4%)
• Woodstock: 437 (+49.1%)

3,500 students registered for classes at multiple campuses. The Austell campus was closed for the quarter for renovations, so that most of the medical programs could be moved there.

A new campus in Canton is now open at Bluffs Technology Park (approximately 34°16′25″N 84°28′15″W / 34.2735°N 84.4707°W / 34.2735; -84.4707 (Bluffs Technology Park)) and opened for winter quarter 2011. Gilmer (north of Pickens) is the only county within the school's official service area that does not have a campus of its own.

Merger

In early August 2008, a merger with North Metro Technical College near Acworth (but in Bartow rather than Cobb) was approved. In October 2008, the two remaining campuses of Appalachian Technical College were added to the merger. This includes the nearby satellite campus in Woodstock, and the much further main campus, located on the outskirts of metro Atlanta in Jasper. (The Woodstock campus switched at the beginning of January 2009, while the third Fannin campus in Epworth went to another TCSG school, North Georgia Technical College.)

The merger, expedited due to the 2009 recession, officially took effect at the beginning of July 2009 (Georgia fiscal year "2010"). Originally all schools would be forced to completely change their names, and all signs and stationery which use them. However, in January 2009 it was announced that "Chattahoochee Technical College" would continue to be the name, although the logo was changed. Dr. Sanford Chandler, president of Appalachian Tech, was named the head of the newly combined school. Dr. Harlon Crimm was the previous head of Chattahoochee Tech.

Rather than being named the Bartow, Pickens, and Cherokee campuses as would be consistent with the other county-named TCSG schools, they are called the North Metro, Appalachian, and Woodstock campuses.

References

1. ^ http://www.chattahoocheetech.edu/index.html?lmenu=index&content=News
2. ^ Southern Polytechnic State University, SPSU SGA website
3. ^ http://gsfic.georgia.gov/00/article/0,2086,77323081_78558241_150379257,00.html
4. ^ www.chattahoocheetech.edu/News/Documents/October_2009/CTC_Fall_Qtr_2009.pdf

External links

• CTC official site
• New Georgia Encyclopedia on CTC