Kalamazoo Valley Community College
 | |
| Type | Community College |
|---|---|
| Established | 1966 |
| Students | 11,398 |
| Address | 6767 West O Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI, 49003, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA |
| Campus | suburban |
| Website | kvcc.edu |
Kalamazoo Valley Community College is a two-year community college in southwest Michigan that offers degrees and certificates in scores of academic programs, occupations and trades. It prepares students for transfer to any four-year university in the country and for entry-level jobs after training in nationally accredited vocational, business, technology, and health-care programs. It also offers workshops and seminars for law enforcement professionals, health care professionals, personal development, supervisory management, computer software, manufacturing processes and many more.
Locations
Kalamazoo Valley Community College (KVCC) has locations in downtown Kalamazoo and southwest of Kalamazoo, in Texas Charter Township. The original campus, referred to as the Texas Township Campus, is outside of Kalamazoo's city limits, near the I-94 and US-131 interchange, and adjacent to the Al Sabo Preserve.
KVCC's Arcadia Commons Campus in downtown Kalamazoo includes Anna Whitten Hall, the Center for New Media and the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.
The Groves Center which is a workforce-development and training entity for Southwest Michigan, is located on the Groves Campus near the Texas Township Campus. The Groves is the college's business-education-technology park that was established in 2001 as an economic-development initiative.[1]
History
The community college district was established by voters in 1966, enrolled its first students in the fall of 1968, and currently enrolls more than 13,500 students. With the selection of Marilyn J. Schlack as its second president in 1982, KVCC was the first two-year college in Michigan to have a female president.
As recommended by a citizens committee, KVCC assumed the governance of Kalamazoo's public museum, passed a charter tax to support its operations, and successfully completed a $20-million capital campaign to build what is now the Kalamazoo Valley Museum in downtown Kalamazoo. Since its opening in February 1996, it has attracted 1.25 million visitors.[2] In 2004, KVCC opened the Center for New Media as part of the Arcadia Commons Campus to teach the creativity and skills needed by employees in the Information Age that has spawned the World Wide Web and e-commerce. Programs include graphic design, video game art, animation, e Business and several more.[3]
In May of each odd-numbered year, the college, the Center for New Media and the museum hosts the Kalamazoo Animation Festival International in downtown Kalamazoo. Independent and student animators from around the world will take part in the competition, vying for $15,000 in prizes. Screenings of the best of established, pioneering and breakthrough animators are part of the festival along with dozens of entertaining and educational seminars.[4]
KVCC is the headquarters of the Midwest Institute for International/Intercultural Education, a consortium of 50 community colleges that infuses curricula across the board with global components to expand the perspectives of students.[5]
National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium
The school is a NAFTC's Training Center.
Notable alumni
- Jason Brian Dalton, suspected perpetrator of the 2016 Kalamazoo shootings
- Ryan Thompson (politician), write-in candidate for Idaho State Senate District 16 in 2016 general election; received Certificate of Achievement as an Industrial Lab Technician (with honors) in 2008.