Seventh ACC campus opens in South Austin

Austin Community College's newest campus, located at 1820 Stassney Lane, on the northeast corner of the junction of Manchaca Road and Stassney, began construction in March 2005. Today ACC's South Austin Campus (SAC) is a beautiful 86,000 square-foot structure that provides its 2,300 students with three stories of state-of-the-art learning space. The South Austin Campus was built to address an increasing need for access to higher education for the growing community in the region.

Currently, SAC is the only ACC campus to have only one building. Some features at the new campus include an 8,200 square-foot library, a student commons area overlooking the courtyard where students can study or eat a meal from Simon's Café, as well as an interactive video classroom.

Special features at the new campus include three computer labs dedicated to visual communication, graphic design and animation as well as web design classes. This is due to the fact that SAC specializes in visual communications, previously offered only at ACC's Northridge Campus. Interestingly, some of these computer labs are completely filled not with the usual Dell computers seen in most computer labs in ACC campuses, but with brand-spanking new Apple Macintoshes. However, the feature that is probably most welcomed by students is the three-story parking garage - a first for any ACC campus - that hosts 363 parking spaces in addition to the 104 surface parking spaces.

There are more than 200 credit courses offered at SAC in addition to Adult Education and Continuing Education classes. To accommodate the courses, SAC has 26 classrooms in total - 17 general-purpose classrooms with the newest media teaching equipment, two science labs for biology (including anatomy and physiology), microbiology, and chemistry classes, three computer labs for business and accounting classes, and the three computer labs for visual communications classes.

The SAC Learning Lab offers small-group and one-on-one tutoring, study-skills workshops, as well as 20 computers equipped with supplementary instructional software. The Learning Lab is open to the general public on Sundays from 2 to 6 p.m.

One major beneficiary from the new campus is Crockett High School, located right across the street.

"[Crockett High] is very excited to have the new ACC campus right across from our school," said Kris Waugh, senior counselor at Crockett High School.

Waugh explained that convenience was an advantage, especially for the 150 students in ACC's Early College Start program, since many high school students do not have their own cars. She added that she hopes to see admissions into Crockett High School increase with the inclusion of SAC into the neighborhood.

Betsy Erwin, the new campus manager of SAC, revealed plans to add one-and-a-half stories to the current 8,300-square-feet parking garage. According to Erwin, the original design of the building cost more than the budget of $21.5 million, requiring some cutbacks. The cost of building SAC was included in a $99 million general-obligation bond referendum approved by ACC District voters in 2003.

On Sept.16, an event was held by the ACC College District - All Access: An Education Celebration! - to thank Central Texas for it's continued support of the college as well as to celebrate the addition of ACC's seventh campus. The turnout was large, with visitors bustling about the campus and courtyard, enjoying the food and music. It was a sure sign that SAC was very much welcomed by the community.