Higher education center looks to future

Higher education center looks to future

Written by Mandy Hobby Thursday, 07 September 2006

The Round Rock Higher Education Center opened its doors to students a year ago and is already planning for the future. The Avery Building, named after the family that donated the land for the RRHEC, is just the beginning of a campus master plan modeled after a historic Jeffersonian university with the main building at one end of a pedestrian mall bordered by academic buildings.

RRHEC Director Edna Rehbein moved from Texas State University’s 15 portables by Westwood High School last summer and quickly made the state of the art facility her new home.

“It is not everyday that one gets to be part of establishing an entire university on land that has not been previously touched by construction,” Rehbein said. “The Avery family and the university were fully cognizant that this first building is setting the standard and the style for the rest of an entire campus that will be here for decades and centuries to come.”

High school students attended the RRHEC this summer for the first time in order to get dual credit for classes that high schools offer.

Austin Community College and Temple College at Taylor operate out of the RRHEC and cater to a younger population by offering freshman and sophomore classes. However, two thirds of the students are TSU commuter students attending at night with an average age of 28.

“The atmosphere is in many ways more mature,” Rehbein said. “The students are focused and demanding. We have no time to waste preparing for them.”

Dr. Sarah Nelson, assistant professor of educational administration, has been a commuting professor with TSU since 2002 and moved with the university.

“The facilities are much nicer here and much more university-like,” Nelson said. “We now have efficient classroom space, a library on site, offices and space to meet with students.”

Rehbein said the second building will be a nursing facility composed of classes and labs that TSU plans to offer to junior and senior level students. It will be built southeast of the Avery Building and will begin the quad arrangement of the master plan.

“In order for us to offer the nursing classes, we need a new building and funding. We would design an entire program from scratch,” Rehbein said.

Rehbein is already talking with the RRHEC’s future neighbors, Scott & White Health Center and Seton Williamson Hospital and is excited about the future relationships. Students could work with the hospitals for necessary training and rotations.

“The building will be conveniently situated adjacent to the Seton Hospital property so the two organizations will be able to utilize one another’s buildings and students will be able to go back and forth between the two campuses,” Rehbein said.

TSU will begin to secure the money in January of 2007 by cashing out bonds from the state and could start the nursing program as early as the fall of 2010.

Round Rock Higher Education Center

Home of Texas State University, Austin Community College, Temple College at Taylor and the Small Business Development Center

• The Avery Building:
  • 40 classrooms
  • 50 staff members
  • 20 faculty members in house
  • 150-200 faculty members commute
  • 2,000 TSU students
  • 1-2,000 ACC students