There's great satisfaction in new programs that help students, faculty and community
Among the many satisfactions of working at a community college in Oregon are the opportunities to find a need within the community and devise ways to meet it.
And, because our region and its people hold so much potential, this becomes all the more gratifying.
When that is coupled with the energy, imagination and ambition of our Umpqua Valley wine industry you really have something special.
The satisfaction for me, in this regard, is to be able to find a match where our students – and potential students – benefit as well as the community.
This is currently the case with new programs we have begun this year in the fields of paralegal and medical coding and billing. Both of these programs, first offered just this fall, have full classrooms and extensive waiting lists. Additionally, they respond to a need of employers in the region, and they help keep Umpqua Community College a leader in education in the region, in cooperation with other schools in southern and southwestern Oregon.
The viticulture (growing wine grapes) and enology (wine-making) program we have envisioned, while not the first for Oregon or the region (we’re taking advantage of what knowledge we can from Chemeketa and Walla Walla community colleges), hold tremendous possibilities for the College, for our students, for the faculty, for wine-makers and growers and for a host of other industries that comprise the “wine cluster.”
A study we commissioned determined that the southern Oregon wine industry, including the Umpqua Valley, has the potential of producing 5,000 new jobs and annually bring nearly $115 million in wages to the region.
With the support of such a program, we have the potential of becoming another Napa Valley. Imagine how that could transform this region, bring needed jobs and support to our economy.
This potential brings many more students to our campus, with the intellectual and educational activity that implies, both for our current courses in the sciences, social sciences and humanities, as well as a range of new career and technical classes. It will make Umpqua Community College a key part of the economic development engine in the region. It will help the region grow and add to and sustain the many attributes that all of us who live and work here already see.
These Schedules and our Catalogue grow and change every year. They grow and change as our county does, as the needs and desires of the people we serve do. The economic health of Douglas County and its people are very much on our minds as we get ready for the term, plan the next school year and look ahead into the future.
Even the paralegal and the medical coding and billing programs are just the most recent two of eight new programs we’ve added in the past three years. The UCC Southern Oregon Wine Institute will embrace an entire industry in our region. It will take our College forward, our students and faculty forward and fuel the economic development of Douglas County and southwestern Oregon.
Sincerely,
Blaine Nisson, Ed.D
President, UCC
Umpqua Community College is an equal opportunity educator and employer.
Umpqua Community College, PO Box 967, Roseburg Oregon 97470 Phone: (541)440-4600.
This page last updated 11-05-07.