Thomas Nelson Community College is particularly pleased that Fall 2019 marks the 10th anniversary of the opening of our Historic Triangle Campus at 4601 Opportunity Way, Williamsburg.
In conjunction with the Williamsburg Arts Council, a celebratory event was held on September 27, to include proclamations of congratulations and commendation read by elected officials from the three localities primarily served by the Historic Triangle Campus: the City of Williamsburg, James City County, and York County.
Ever since the original campus in Hampton opened in Fall 1968, Thomas Nelson has sought ways to more effectively serve the needs of the Upper Peninsula. For a number of years, this was done through offering classes in scattered locations, to include area high schools, William & Mary, libraries, and police and fire department training rooms. These efforts were consolidated in 1998 when the college opened a location at Busch Corporate Center, John Jefferson Square. As the demand for classes and programs continued to grow, however, it became increasingly clear that the College’s regional presence needed to be grounded in a full-fledged academic campus.
Thanks to the strong support and collaboration among the major stakeholders—the Peninsula legislative delegation to the General Assembly, the local governments and community leaders, the Virginia Community College System, and the Thomas Nelson College Board and administration—the vision was realized with the establishment of the 73-acre campus in James City County at Lightfoot with ready access to Interstate 64 and Highways 60 and 199.
In Fall 2009, the Historic Triangle Campus officially opened with students attending classes in the first of what will eventually be a number of buildings: a handsome 3-story, 120,000 square-foot facility of neo-Colonial design and state-of-the art instructional resources.
From the beginning, the campus has offered an array of programs to support transfer to universities in Business Administration, Liberal Arts, Science, and Social Science as well as serving as the home base for programs in the Health Professions: Dental Hygiene, Emergency Medical Services, and Registered Nursing. The College Board has recently approved additional academic programming in Dental Assisting, Healthcare Technician, Practical Nursing, and a bridge from Practical Nursing to Registered Nursing. Through a collaboration between Thomas Nelson and Adult Basic Education (ABE), the campus is now offering Nurse Aide Education classes supported by ABE staff.
We have also expanded our cyber-related programs to the Historic Triangle Campus and will soon be opening a cybersecurity and Cisco network lab designed to meet the pressing needs of the Peninsula and Commonwealth for tech talent.
Thomas Nelson has sought to foster strong partnerships between the Historic Triangle Campus and organizations in the Upper Peninsula. We are actively involved with the Greater Williamsburg Chamber & Tourism Alliance-Business Council, both the economic development and education committees, as well as with the economic development agencies of the localities. Literacy for Life has an affiliate site on campus, and we host offerings by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. We maintain good connections with the York-James City-Williamsburg branch of the NAACP.
We are especially pleased to be working with the localities and the Greater Peninsula Workforce Board to open a Virginia Career Works affiliate site at the Historic Triangle Campus starting early in 2020. This means that many of the workforce resources and services offered at the Peninsula Workforce Development Center on the Hampton Campus will now be much more accessible to job seekers and employers in the Upper Peninsula.
Our relationship with the College of William & Mary has grown stronger over the years, and we are currently working together to increase the number of Thomas Nelson students who transfer there (currently 25-30 students each year). In conjunction with the University of Virginia, we continue to offer the Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies adult degree completion program. And we have excellent partnerships with Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools, with over one hundred students from all three high schools enrolled in dual enrollment programs and attending Early College classes on campus in the second semester of their senior year. This spring, the College will welcome the first cohort of Early College students from the York County School Division, many of whom have elected to attend our Historic Triangle Campus.
Although Thomas Nelson is currently experiencing financial challenges related to enrollment declines over the past several years that affect not only us but community colleges across the state, our commitment to the Historic Triangle Campus remains unwavering. Recent strategic steps to reorganize operations within the College have been difficult, but they have been made with the overarching goal of ensuring that Thomas Nelson continues to carry out its fundamental mission of providing all residents of the Peninsula with access to affordable and high quality collegiate and career education as well as workforce training.
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