COA wants Edenton campus to look collegiate

By Connie Sage, Correspondent

EDENTON, N.C.

Visitors - or even prospective students - looking for the College of The Albemarle here can easily miss it.

Passers-by along Edenton's main thoroughfare, North Oakum Street, have to look hard to see the one small sign for the community college.

A two-story brick building still bears the name D.F. Walker, from the days before integration when it was an elementary school for African American students.

COA wants to change that by creating a front entrance that will be more attractive and visible, and by consolidating its two locations.

The first step is to move its administrative offices, classrooms, labs and meeting spaces out of a nearby shopping center anchored by Food Lion.

The county leases the space for the college at a cost of more than $250,000 annually, which includes utilities and maintenance, said County Manager Peter Rascoe.

When the lease expires in the fall of 2011, the price tag to relocate to the Oakum Street campus could exceed $5 million, according to the college.

COA is based in Elizabeth City, with campuses in Edenton and Manteo. The Edenton-Chowan center enrolls approximately 2,345 students each semester. Of those, 1,930 are in continuing education courses.

COA does not receive funding from city or local municipalities for any of its locations, said Jim Turdici, COA vice president of business and finance.

By state statute, if a county hosts a community college, it is responsible for its buildings. Chowan County's total contribution to COA, including its lease payment, is $358,172 for the current fiscal year. The Edenton-Chowan campus also received nearly $800,000 from the state for equipment, books and faculty and staff salary support.

The college requires a commitment of an additional $81,000 in the next fiscal year for security, Internet support and grounds maintenance, said Lynn Hurdle-Winslow, dean of the Edenton campus.

Coming up with money for increased operating costs, let alone moving expenses and improvements, will be next to impossible without money from outside sources, said County Commission Chairman Eddy Goodwin.

That's because Chowan County is still recovering from a year-and-half fiscal crisis that left it unable to pay its bills several months.

Goodwin told COA administrators that he was more than willing to help the college find money from grants or elsewhere to help with the move.

"Our goal is to do it as cheaply as possible with someone else's money," he said. "We don't have the money."

Hurdle-Winslow outlined three scenarios for the move. The most costly ranges from $3.5 million to $5.6 million, retains all existing services, provides for potential expansion and covers additional renovation or construction costs.

The least costly plans range from $80,000 to $620,000 and would eliminate college transfer courses, such as psychology and English; classes for the unemployed; student support services, such as tutoring or child care; a student center; and offices for adjunct faculty.

One building on the campus is currently being used by the Edenton High School-D.F. Walker Alumni Association at no cost.

In all three scenarios, COA said it would partner with the alumni association to use the county-owned building.

"We don't need a partnership," said Norman Brinkley Jr., the first president of the alumni group. "We want to use the building ourselves."

The building sits on the site of the former Edenton High School, constructed in 1932 and burned during the Civil Rights Movement in 1973.

"We talk about Edenton being an historical town; we're part of the history," Brinkley said.