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By LOIS KINDLE The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 19, 2008

Updated: 01/17/2008 05:15 pm

RUSKIN - Although its doors have yet to open, things are moving right along at Hillsborough Community College's new SouthShore Center.

The school has hired its first academic dean, Allen Witt, its first full-time instructor and a bilingual enrollment development coordinator. And the facility is slated for completion in June, with classes beginning in fall.

Witt was most recently associate dean of academic affairs at Palm Beach Community College's second-largest campus in Palm Beach Gardens.

Before that, he was the department chairman of communications and humanities for seven years at Broward Community College. With the addition of HCC to his resume, Witt will have worked at three of the top 10 community colleges in Florida.

Witt, 56, earned a bachelor's degree in speech and theater from Newberry College in Newberry, S.C., in 1972. Five years later, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a master's in dramatic arts. From there, he studied at the University of Florida under James Wattenbarger, founder of the state community college system, and graduated with his doctorate in 1985.

As academic dean, Witt will be in charge of curriculum, scheduling classes and hiring faculty.

Karen Boosinger became the school's first full-time instructor this month, having taught at Manatee Community College, St. Petersburg College and the University of South Florida.

Last fall, Edwin Olmo was hired as the center's bilingual enrollment development coordinator. His job is to recruit area students and interact directly with families to help make college education a possibility for their children.

Olmo is available to make presentations on HCC's enrollment process and financial-aid opportunities. He can be reached at (813) 672-5190 or (813) 326-2064.

Witt said HCC is aggressively pursuing prospective students by tripling its online offerings aimed at homemakers and others with full-time jobs who can't take courses offered on campus.

"We have teachers from as far away as Tennessee and Michigan to teach these classes and will continue hiring the best from across the nation," Witt said.

Hybrid classes are another popular option, where reading, papers and discussion groups are handled online, but face-to-face discussions, reviewing and testing are done in the classroom.

"People like them because hybrid classes cut the time they have to be in the classroom," Witt said. "They're great for working adults and parents with small children."

HCC officials expected to open the campus this summer but revised the projection to fall due to delays in procuring building materials and cost overruns.

"The building is heavily dependent on a special form of structural steel because of the environmental standards involved in constructing a LEED-designed campus," said Steve Stancil, dean of student services. "It has to support things like floor-to-ceiling windows."

Using guidelines established by the U.S. Green Building Council, the facility will be the first LEED-designed college campus in Florida.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and is a nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of green buildings. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

"It should set the standard for all new construction in the community," Stancil said.

The first of six buildings to comprise the $16 million campus has 55,000 square feet of space, which includes classrooms; a learning resource center; health, science, math, reading and computer labs; a student cyber cafe; student services section; faculty and administrative offices; and a partners' center, which is an area dedicated to four-year colleges that partner with HCC to help students earn a bachelor's or master's degree at the South Shore site.

Upon opening, Saint Leo University and Webster College will have advisers working at the partners' center.

The campus also will offer dual-enrollment courses to students at nearby Lennard High School. Designed to meet high school and college requirements, the courses will give students the opportunity to familiarize themselves with college-level classwork and jump-start their college careers.

Witt said he is beginning to develop the school's fall curriculum, which will initially focus on general education classes, including math, English and history, special courses in business and education and required courses for an associate's degree in health sciences.

The campus will offer a registered nursing program in fall 2009 and is negotiating with HCC's main campus in Tampa to offer EMT/paramedic and nursing assistant programs. Instructors from that campus would travel to Ruskin to teach classes for those programs.

"I'm really excited," said Sun Point Center student Lisa Guevara, a Ruskin resident who works at SouthShore Community Bank in Sun City Center. The new campus "is so close to home. I'm planning on taking classes there in the fall."

Stancil said initial enrollment should be strong.

"My best guess is that it will be somewhere between 600 and 1,000 students, with more than 1,400 class registrations," he said. "The Brandon campus started out exactly like this."

SOUTHSHORE CENTER

WHERE: 551 24th St. S.E., Ruskin

PROJECT COMPLETION: June

CLASSES BEGIN: Fall

PRESIDENT: George Keith

ACADEMIC DEAN: Allen Witt

STUDENT SERVICES DEAN: Steve Stancil

INFORMATION: (813) 672-5189

Reporter Lois Kindle can be reached at (813) 865-1553 or lkindle@tampatrib.com.

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