Camden County College

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Camden County College enhances the quality of life in Camden County by preparing students to live and work in a global economy. The College further fulfills its responsibility to the citizens of Camden County by creating a skilled and stable local workforce; by encouraging enlightened civic engagement; by providing an avenue of social mobility; and by serving as a destination for cultural and recreational activities. All who study, visit, or work at our three campus locations will find comfortable, safe, and attractive settings that are designed to sustain a vibrant academic community characterized by imaginative teaching, caring student services, energetic management, and collegial discussion of diverse ideas and opinions.

Mission

Camden County College, a comprehensive public community college in New Jersey, provides accessible and affordable education including associate degree programs, occupational certificates programs, non-credit courses, and customized job training. The College welcomes all who can benefit and provides the support services students need to transfer for further studies, prepare for a career, and continue their education. The College responds to the changing needs of its community and students and continuously improves its programs and services to support the economic development of Camden County and the personal development of its citizens.

History
Camden County College is three distinct campuses (Blackwood, Camden, and Cherry Hill) with a common mission.

That mission was launched when Camden County College purchased what had been Mother of the Savior Seminary – along with the 320-acre tract of land surrounding it – early in 1967. By September of that year, the first class of Camden County College students was taking courses on the Blackwood Campus.

These early enrollees had at their disposal classroom and laboratory space as well as a dining hall, a gymnasium and an auditorium. The original buildings containing these facilities are now known as Jefferson Hall, Lincoln Hall, Roosevelt Hall, Washington Hall and the Wilson Complex.

Now, nearly 40 years after the college was founded, the Blackwood Campus is poised to undergo a dramatic transformation. In May 2005, the Camden County Freeholders announced a historic campus-rebuilding plan. The six-year, $83 million capital initiative is the most significant project undertaken by Camden County College since the institution was founded, affecting more than half of the facilities and structural amenities on the Blackwood Campus. Over a six-year period, the college will demolish seven old buildings, renovate an existing building, construct three new buildings and create roads, grounds and athletic fields suitable for a large multi-faceted campus.

As the first major step of the initiative, in fall 2005 the college began construction of a new building, which will connect Madison Hall with the Community Center. This Connector Building will be the home for the Center for Civic Leadership and Responsibility, an academic center, which will prepare students to be effective leaders and citizens who understand and accept individual responsibility for civic engagement. When completed in the summer of 2007, the Connector Building will also provide the campus community with technology rich classrooms, adjunct faculty offices, an interactive arena classroom, an Atrium for public forums and a lecture hall with instant polling capacity.

The college’s presence in downtown Camden began in the spring of 1969, when an evening diploma-completion program was offered to 20 students who had finished 10th grade but not graduated from high school. This program helped the students prepare to pass their general education development (GED) test so that they could begin full-time college courses on the Blackwood Campus that fall.

In 1991, a five-story campus building was opened at Camden’s Broadway and Cooper Street, providing the college’s first permanent home in the city. This structure, now known as College Hall, features 40 classrooms, a community meeting room, a student lounge, a child care center and laboratories for computer and science instruction. Portions also house junior- and senior-level programs for Rowan University, allowing Camden County College’s urban students to continue their studies for a baccalaureate degree at the same campus.

A second Camden City Campus building, the Camden Technology Center, was constructed across the street on the block bordered by Broadway and Cooper, Sixth and Penn streets in 2004. This eight-story academic, retail and parking center is allowing the college to supplement its existing offerings with new technology-driven programs in health, business and computer-related careers. It was one of the first projects completed under the 2002 Camden Municipal Rehabilitation and Economic Recovery Act.

Camden County College’s third campus location opened in the spring of 2000 as the result of a unique public/private partnership between the college, Cherry Hill Township and the William G. Rohrer Charitable Foundation. The two-story William G. Rohrer Center, located at Route 70 and Springdale Road in Cherry Hill and named to reflect the generosity of the late banker’s endowment, offers undergraduate academic courses as well as credit and non-credit business and industry training in 31,600 square feet of technology-rich space.

Through these physical resources, Camden County College serves an enrollment of more than 30,000 credit students and thousands more non-credit students each year. Programs cover technical fields like automotive technology and mechanical engineering; health professions like nursing and medical coding; and liberal arts and sciences like English and chemistry. There also is a multitude of recreational offerings, ranging from social dancing to computer studies.

Recent studies of federal Department of Education data completed have shown that in addition to ranking among then nation’s top 100 community colleges for overall associate’s degree completion and among the nation’s top 10 community colleges for associate’s degree completion in education, Camden County College is one of the fastest growing two-year institutions of higher education in the United States. The institution also is recognized nationally as a leader in technology programs such as robotics, computer-integrated manufacturing and photonics. In addition, it is acknowledged regionally as a vital resource for transfer education, customized training and community cultural events. Because it has maintained one of the lowest tuition rates of any college or university in the state or region while offering such outstanding programming, the college has come to be known as the best higher educational value in the Delaware Valley.

Perhaps most importantly, Camden County College is recognized universally as an institution of higher education that ably completes its mission to offer affordable, high-quality education to the people of Camden County and beyond.