Central Alabama Community College is building for the future.
CACC just broke ground on a new Center of Excellence, Innovation and Technology on its Prattville campus to serve residents of Elmore, Autauga and Chilton counties. The idea is to allow residents and students to stay near home as they improve their employment skills for the jobs of today and tomorrow.
PHOTOS: CACC breaks ground on new building in Prattville
“This center will give our students the tools and training they need to step confidently into the workforce,” CACC president Jeff Lynn said. “It also supports local economic growth by connecting education directly to industry needs.”
The Prattville campus and soon-to-be center helps fill an education desert in the community college system. The campus is in Autauga County but near Elmore County. The new center will be visible from Interstate 65. Prior to CACC coming to Prattville, those seeking classes or certifications from the community college system had to travel to the other side of Montgomery, Alexander City or Birmingham.
CACC’s Prattville location has grown from a store front at Pratt’s Mill Shopping Center to now using the property and buildings of the former East Memorial Baptist Church.
CACC is very much studying occupation, forecasting looking up to two decades into the future. The aim is to make sure CACC is meeting the needs of the students and helping local businesses and industries for years to come find local employees.
Lynn said the campus and especially the new center will help take students from where they are skillswise and get them to where they need to be.
“We want to get them employed and keep them local,” Lynn said.
The vision for the new center and its construction will allow for change. Lynn envisions a classroom space used for robotics in the morning might serve as space for an English or history class later in the day or evening.
“In 10 years, we are going to be training people on things that we don't know about yet,” Lynn said. We made this very, very flexible so we can adapt.”
The campus serves about 400 students but that is growing. It serves students from morning to night Monday through Saturday.
Elmore County Schools already partners with CACC. It offers Elmore County students dual enrollment opportunities through its Career Tech Center in Wetumpka. ECS superintendent Richard Dennis said he is very hopeful of growing the partnership with CACC.
“Our schools in Millbrook, Holtville and Wetumpka are close to this location,” Dennis said. “Our schools in Eclectic are close to the Alex City campus. I envision us being able to grow the dual enrollment options through these campuses. I can see many of our students taking English or history here and getting both high school and college credit at the same time.”
Lynn is also hopeful of growing existing partnerships in education and in the workforce and creating new ones for the betterment of the area.
“We want to be a really strong Center of Excellence,” Lynn said. “We want a really strong economic drive for our existing industries and our aspirational industries. We are working with our economic developers to help companies to select our area, help parents to select our areas, because of all the great work everyone is doing.”
