Students can go from pre-K through college along one-mile stretch in Eagle County
By Carrie Click
The Partnership for Education was supposed to take 50 years to achieve its goal of constructing a college campus and integrating it into the Edwards community – yet it took just a dozen. So at an Eagle County School District board meeting on Oct. 8, with Colorado Mountain College’s Edwards campus constructed and fully operational, the partnership that enabled the campus to be built was dissolved.
The conclusion of the collaboration among Colorado Mountain College, Eagle County, the Eagle County Schools, and the Edwards and Berry Creek Metropolitan Districts offered an opportunity to look back on what was accomplished and to look forward to the future.
“This isn’t the dissolution of a partnership,” said Dr. Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of Colorado Mountain College. “It’s the beginning of a new chapter of collaboration to serve the needs of Eagle County and beyond.”
Goals met decades early
In 2002, representatives from the Eagle County School District and Eagle County established a partnership to provide for a postsecondary education facility for the people of Eagle County. Sixteen acres in the Berry Creek parcel in Edwards seemed the best choice for a campus.
Colorado Mountain College, the community college serving Eagle County through locations in Eagle and Vail, was selected as the academic institution. The partnership entered into a 50-year lease, doling out parcels of land as CMC was able to consolidate its Eagle County facilities into a centrally located, purpose-built college campus.
But the college moved much faster than anticipated. A campus building in Edwards was constructed in 2004; when the college quickly outgrew that, an addition was built in 2011.
“We wanted to make sure [CMC] developed it,” Treu said, as to why the land was initially leased and parceled out, and not given outright. “Now, here we are, 12 years into a 50-year lease, and we’re wrapped up and resolved. There’s no reason for the partnership to exist.”
The dissolution on Oct. 8 formally deeded the complete 16 acres of land over to the college.
Doris Dewton, chair of the Colorado Mountain College Board of Trustees during the early years of the Partnership for Education, congratulated the group for achieving their goals and bringing the partnership to a close.
“It’s a great example of one street extending less than a mile, with educational facilities from daycare to a college offering certificates, associate and bachelor’s degrees and continuing education classes to people of all ages,” she said. “It took the dedication of many people and community organizations over the years to bring this to closure, including Peggy Curry, the now-retired campus vice president.”
Exceeding expectations
Carrie Benway, Eagle County School District board member, was on the original governing board of the partnership.
“CMC has exceeded our expectations both as to the timing and quality of the academic campus,” she wrote in a recent letter requesting the dissolution of the partnership.
What’s resulted is the construction of the college’s campus in Edwards, in close proximity to Battle Mountain High School, recreation facilities, residential neighborhoods and primary schools – where students may attend school from preschool through college, and community members may easily integrate the college into their everyday lives. Since the new campus building opened in 2004, more than 11,000 students and community members have taken classes at CMC in Edwards.
Other partnerships have developed as a result of the collaboration. At Battle Mountain High School across the street from the college, a culinary teaching kitchen the college helped to fund is used by the high school during the day; at night the college uses the space to teach its sustainable cuisine students. An automotive program taught by CMC instructors and held at Eagle Valley High School currently has 48 students enrolled, the most ever, according to the college’s Mike Trujillo, who oversees the program.
And the Eagle County School District’s concurrent enrollment program with Colorado Mountain College – in which high school students can earn college credit while completing their high school diplomas – had 20 percent enrollment during the 2012-13 school year. According to the Colorado Department of Higher Education, this places the district among the state’s top 10 participating in concurrent enrollment, by student headcount.
“I can’t think of anything that’s more inclusive, innovative and student-centered,” said Hauser of the college’s presence and involvement in Edwards and the broader Vail Valley. “With this partnership, that many more students will be able to enter and complete college.”
“In my visits throughout the county,” said Eagle County Commissioner Kathy Chandler-Henry, “I used to hear, ‘When are we going to get a college around here?’ People see a college as an important part of our economy. With what Colorado Mountain College is doing, I don’t hear that anymore. We have a college, and I’m thankful for its ongoing partnership.”