Might the 32-year-long community college drought in D.C. finally be over? Last month, the Board of Trustees of the University of the District of Columbia voted to create the Community College of the University of the District of Columbia, putting D.C. on track to join every other major city in the United States as host to at least one two-year college.
In 1977, D.C.’s only two-year institution, Washington Technical Institute, was merged with the District’s Federal City College and Washington Teachers College to form UDC. This unprecedented act — deemed a mistake by then-mayor Marion Barry’s Advisory Commission on Postsecondary Education in 1988, the Brookings Institution in 2008, and countless others in between — led to a decline in total students from 14,000 to around 6,000 today, as well as a decline in two-year programs.
This community college initiative reflects the vision of new UDC President Allen L. Sessoms, who came on board last fall and envisions UDC breaking up into a standalone community college and a four-year school offering programs up to the doctoral level.
“In a sense, with this new structure, we’re trying to return back to the way things were when the university was established in the mid-70s,” says Dr. Eurmon Hervey, former acting provost of UDC and now director of the community college initiative. “The idea is that the community college is a branch campus of the larger university where the two-year functions are housed.”
However, longtime faculty leader and one-time UDC Acting Provost Wilmer Johnson says the board shouldn’t just make the new community college “a part of UDC which it’s easier to do.”
