Many UW students look to LCCC as a small part of their education, but the Albany county campus is now looking to upgrade to accommodate increasing attendance.
Representatives from Laramie County Community College appeared at the Laramie City Council work session on Tuesday to propose a purchase for lots 7, 8, 9 and 10 of the Turner Tract Office Park at a reduced rate. The four lots total to be less than eight acres of land.
Ed Mosher, the trustee representative of LCCC, said the Laramie campus is quickly being outgrown by the demand of students. Mosher said the mission statement of LCCC is to develop a work force and to enrich the communities they serve.
“This is one of the healthiest economies in Laramie,” Mosher said. “You folks are growing and expanding and we want to be a part of that.”
James Malm, associate vice president of LCCC, presented a fact sheet that outlined how many students their campus has educated since 2005. He said that 5,227 UW math students earned a total of 17,838 credit hours while attending the college.
“We ask you to share in our vision of how many more people we can transform with more land. Perhaps with more dedicated buildings in the decades ahead,” Malm said.
Steve Yeager, a 40-year-old LCCC student, said the campus gave him an opportunity to get an education after retiring from working in the oil field. He said the idea of going to school on the UW campus with a bunch of young students scared him.
“The Albany county campus has given me the confidence to be a good student which I never thought was possible,” Yeager said, “I studied with other non-traditional students at LCCC and most of them felt the same way.”
Malm said the expansion will potentially allow students in fields such as welding or nursing to have a facility to learn in since the other LCCC campus does have these, but it is too far for students who attend the Albany county campus.
