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Highlands Today

SFCC offers college-level programs from 11 universities

Jasmina Meyer, Highlands Today

From left: Angie Hines holds up her vocabulary exercise for third graders as Brittany Derringer helps her and Wendy Summerson reads a sentence during a level one internship seminar at SFCC's University Center

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By MARC VALERO

Highlands Today

Published: October 27, 2009

AVON PARK - Starting with one parternership in 1999, South Florida Community College's University Center now boasts 11 partnerships with universities to offer bachelor's, master's and doctorate programs.

Due to her circumstances, Samantha Berry of Avon Park, attended classes at the University of South Florida's Tampa campus in the fall of 2008.

"It drains you," she said. "I had to stay with a friend and I gave her a little bit of rent."

With classes on Monday and Tuesday, Berry stayed overnight in Tampa on Monday and then drove back to Avon Park after her Tuesday classes so she could work the remainder of the week.

"It was hard and tiring, so thank God for this University Center," the elementary education major said. "I really like this because it is such smaller classes and you can become more acquainted with your teachers."

Berry noted that if she continued to attend classes in Tampa she would have been interning in a Tampa area school, but she wants to teach in Highlands County when she graduates. She interns on Mondays at Park Elementary School.

"It's hard to make connections there when you are going to be teaching here," she said.

SFCC's University Center started with the nursing program through a partnership with Florida Gulf Coast University.

The latest partnership, with Hodges University in January, added a bachelor of science program in Interdisciplinary Studies.

Also recently added, in August 2008, was an (online) information systems program through Strayer University.

Classes moved into the University Center building, on the SFCC Avon Park campus, in 2002.

SFCC Associate Dean of Enrollment Management and University Relations Laura White said the college pursues partnerships or programs that the community asks.

Two or three of the programs have limited enrollment periods while other programs are more flexible, she said.

Some programs start classes every eight weeks and some every nine weeks, along with the typical 16-week groups, she said.

Senior Tiffany Stamps of Sebring is working toward graduating in May with a bachelor in science in elementary education from the University of South Florida.

"I didn't have to go anywhere, just here," she said of SFCC's Avon Park campus. "It's been wonderful."

Stamps is interning two days a week at Avon Elementary School. Monday she worked in fourth-grade advanced academics classes.

Like Berry, Stamps plans to pursue her career in education in Highlands County.

White stressed when students enter these classes, they are students of those universities with all the rights and privileges of the universities. They are alumni of those universities.

"The rigorousness and relevancy of the program are not seen as any different either," she said. "I say to students 'being at the University Center is an extension of being on those campuses.'"

The University Center's enrollment in traditional classes was 161 for the 2008-09 academic year. The 2007-08 enrollment was 152.

For more information about the University Center, call 784-7154.

Highlands Today reporter Marc Valero can be reached at 386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com

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