LSC-Houston North President Quentin Wright is preaching the gospel of education and a new partnership with a local church is helping spread the knowledge in areas that have previously been learning deserts.
“We’re very excited. It’s been a lot of work,” Wright said.
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The new location stemmed from a desire at Fallbrook Church to do more to get college in their community. Wright said they saw the numbers that college attainment rates were not very high. Due to a relationship Pastor Michael Pender had with LSC Chancellor Stephen C. Head that went back a decade when Head was the president of North Harris, a meeting was called, and decisions made.
“The church decided that they would put up the money to build a new facility. The agreement was we would design it, build it, and outfit it with all the computers and equipment necessary,” Wright said.
The handshake agreement was formalized and after a couple years of design work and 18 months of construction, the newest campus extension for LSC Houston-North opens on Monday.
“I’ve been in higher ed for 18 years and I’ve never seen this kind of community partnership in a church that’s this willing to increase college attainment in their community, and they’re not making anything off of it,” he said.
“It’s personal for me because it’s the first building that I’ve led the design work on,” he said.
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The Houston North campus is sort of new already in the sense that when Wright took over the three campuses, they were low-performing course completion-wise. Something had to be done.
“We decided to go with a different model,” he said.
To find out what that would be exactly, he traveled the country for two years researching programs that were working.
They settled on a program and went to work in areas that are the lowest income in the 1,400 square miles of the Lone Star College system, and the most diverse.
“In the first year, our course completion rates increased quite a bit, and all of our interventions seemed to work,” he said, but with one caveat—they were all at existing campuses.
“The excitement about this campus is that we start with this new model, we don’t have to phase it in,” he said.
By new structure he described it as classes are eight weeks long, they address food insecurity with care centers, and first-time college students receive a mentor to help them in their academic journey.
“Our faculty, instead of teaching a normal load of five classes, teach four and mentor first-time college students,” Wright said.
The LSC model has been to try to obtain at least four percent of every ZIP code.
“We found that if we do that, we effect a lot of change. Right now, we’re at about 1.8 percent of the ZIP codes that surround the Fallbrook Church. We are hopeful with this campus that we’ll achieve that four percent goal,” the college president said.
The partnership with the church gives them a campus in that area and when they have a campus in the area, the penetration rate also goes up.
The new building is spread out over 51,000 square feet, one of the smallest campus spaces in the system, but they feel they use the space well.
There are 17 learning spaces, four computer labs—two of which are specialty, one for the mobile app and web design students, and the second for the game design program. The site also has two science labs including one for chemistry (for the teacher’s preparation program), and a logistics management program. They also researched a warehouse program and they now have their own warehouse as a lab for students interested in the industry.
“Since we focus as a college on food insecurity with our care centers who can come in and get nonperishables and paper goods for free, we decided to make the warehouse designed for our logistics management program a warehouse for our care center. The idea is that our students in the program will learn how to run a real warehouse,” he said.
The experience, according to Wright, will be invaluable and provide them an internship within the college setting.
Students at the campus can obtain an Associate of Arts and Associate of Finance, the gaming program and web design programs, and Associate of Arts in Teaching and in Logistics Management among the collegiate offerings.
“We will be the first college in Texas that will have a competitive esports program. It’s a program that has been taking off,” he said.
He credits Dr. Head and Michael Pender for the forward thinking in creating centers in the neighborhood.
“People don’t have to travel far, plus people trust the church. It was a good way to put our brand and all of our innovativeness in the neighborhood to get the students to come out,” he said.
On Monday, at least 350 students will begin their collegiate journey at the campus.
“Spring is not the best time to start your college experience and we expect those numbers will go up in the fall,” he said.
Wright said with full-time and part-time faculty, and support staff, he expects they will have close to 30 working at that location.
Wright pointed out that they purposefully designed the campus where students start and finish there without having to transfer withing the college system.
“With the blocks (of time) that we have available, they can get their two-year degree here and transfer to a major university or obtain a certificate for the program they attend,” he said.
The college is leasing the building the entire week, including the weekends.
The alarm system is centrally located and the same security protocols will apply to this campus as it does to others across the LSC system.
The college district signed a 15-year lease with the church.
The classrooms are a little smaller but that was done intentionally.
“We designed them that way so we wouldn’t be tempted to go over 20 students per class,” he said. “We will know everyone there personally and we think that helps in the long run.”
Another first for the campus lies in technology.
“This is our first facility in which every classroom has streaming ability,” Wright said.
To learn more about the Lone Star College Houston-North Fallbrook campus, visit lonestar.edu.
dtaylor@hcnonline.com
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