Dec 14, 2023 By Katherine Mansfield 5 min read

The new Washington County College Center will be located at Intermediate Unit 1 in McMurray, which is the former site of Peters Township Middle School.

It has been more than a year since the Community College of Allegheny County closed its Washington County branch at the Crown Center mall.

Now, the Community College of Beaver County is filling that higher education void.

On Tuesday, CCBC announced it will move forward with a more than $1.5 million project to expand programming throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania at a new Washington County College Center, located at Intermediate Unit 1 in McMurray.

“The new Washington County College Center is a critical component to growing enrollment funnels for the College, but it also provides residents in Washington, Fayette, and Greene Counties with opportunities to pursue at a value meaningful educational and career pathways that were previously inaccessible,” CCBC President Dr. Roger W. Davis said in a news release.

The announcement follows the securing of a $781,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to expand CCBC’s offerings to Washington, Greene and Fayette counties.

“We found a really enthusiastic partner in Intermediate Unit 1,” said Lesley Tennant, associate vice president of communications for CCBC. “Their executive director Don Martin and his team have been really great partners and really willing to bring us on board. They invited us to participate and to come on board and to fill space in the building that they’re not occupying.”

The WCCC project has been in development for more than a year. It is made possible through the ARC grant and an $800,000 in-kind support from Intermediate Unit 1 and Peters Township Schools. The center sits at the site of the former Peters Township Middle School in McMurray, which IU1 acquired last year.

“At the time, CCAC was removing themselves from Washington County. We knew that there wasn’t a community college option for those folks in Washington County,” said Martin, IU1 executive director. “We had been doing some partnerships with CCBC for the past few years: They have a High School Academy in which a handful of our districts have participated; some work with CCBC through our Innovation and Design initiatives, through our FabLabs. The partnership was already created several years ago. Based upon the strong relationship that we had and the successful work that we’ve done with CCBC, and obviously their reputation, it didn’t take long for us to strike this conversation up.”

Martin said IU1 dreamed of filling some of the spacious McMurray building with secondary education programming, and with the support of Peters Township’s administration and board, brought CCBC into the fold.

“Having CCBC as a partner in that building obviously will pay dividends for the school districts, particularly in Washington County,” Martin said.

The Washington County College Center soft-launched this fall, ahead of the grant funding, with its Aviation Academy. Eleven high school students spend part of their school days earning college credits in aviation, with plans to graduate with degrees as pilots or air traffic controllers, Tennant said.

In the spring, WCCC will offer additional educational opportunities, including dual enrollment programs that allow high school students to earn college credits, career-ready degree programs in education and criminal justice, and online micro-credential courses in medical billing and coding.

Twenty noncredit personal and professional classes will also be available to the greater community, for people to brush up on marketable skills and earn certificates.

“When you take a look at the landscape of careers, of jobs and job trainings, so to speak, community college is definitely a viable option. The traditional four-year degree isn’t required in many of these fields that our students are getting into,” Martin said, noting the WCCC can tailor programming to local job needs. “It’s not a cookie-cutter approach.”

Before WCCC moved into the McMurray location, IU1 offered courses to those with special needs. IU1 and CCBC are working to offer job training to those students, who won’t need to travel far (just upstairs) to cultivate marketable skills.

The campus is also conveniently located on the Allegheny-Washington county line, and not too far from Greene County. CCBC and IU1 are discussing opening satellite locations in Greene and Fayette counties, both IU1 service areas.

Both institutions are of WCCC and eager to offer a full smattering of educational opportunities to the greater Washington County region come spring.

“One of the things that Community College of Beaver County does really well here in our hometown, that we plan to bring to Washington County and beyond, is that ability to be responsive to the needs of the community and the workforce,” Tennant said. “We want to come into Washington County and be a part of the community, be their community college and offer things that are going to make an impact.”

The Washington County College Center at IU1 will partner with additional area schools, career and technology centers and businesses to allow more residents across SWPA to train for regional jobs in cybersecurity, child development, industrial maintenance, welding and more, to obtain new, marketable skills, and to pursue higher education.

For more information on CCBC or Washington County College Center, visit https://ccbcwashington.com/.