BENTONVILLE -- Some people attending class at Northwest Arkansas Community College next semester won't be the college's students.
Webster University plans to rent a room at the college to offer a marketing class on Monday nights starting Jan. 9, officials from both institutions said. It's the first class in a program for those interested in obtaining master's degrees in business administration.
Schools
• Webster University, based in St. Louis, was founded in 1915. The private, nonprofit university has nearly 17,000 students studying at campuses in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. It has three campuses in Arkansas.
• Northwest Arkansas Community College was founded by voters in the Bentonville and Rogers school districts in 1989, when they passed a 3-mill property tax to support the new institution. Enrollment this fall semester was reported at 7,973.
Source: Staff report
Webster University is based in St. Louis but operates numerous campuses across the United States and in seven other countries. Those satellite campuses include ones in Fayetteville, Fort Smith and Little Rock, and at Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville.
The university designs its schedule mainly to accommodate the schedules of adults with full-time jobs. It sought space in Benton County for the convenience of its students who live there, officials said.
"It's tough, particularly with the road construction going on, for people to get from Bentonville to Fayetteville," said Michael Gibbs, director of Webster University's Fayetteville and Fort Smith campuses. "So we're trying to see if there's demand for classes there."
The state Highway and Transportation Department is widening Interstate 49 from four lanes to six lanes in Benton and Washington counties. Construction is expected to last several years.
Kevin Lee of Centerton has been a Webster student for two years, pursuing a master's degree in management and leadership. He has to leave his house at 4:15 p.m. to make it to his 5:30 class.
"The traffic is just stop, stop, stop," Lee said.
Ammie Serrano, who is pursuing a master's degree in human resources through Webster, said she has to leave early from her job at the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. home office in Bentonville on days her class meets. Fortunately, she has supervisors who are understanding, she said.
Offering a class at Northwest Arkansas Community College will save Benton County students like Lee and Serrano time and gas money, Gibbs said.
He estimated that one-third of the students enrolled at Webster's Fayetteville campus are from Benton County. The university could offer additional courses at the Northwest Arkansas Community College, depending on the interest level.
The community college is "a nice, convenient location, and we can rent the rooms on a term-by-term basis," Gibbs said. "If the demand proves to be there, we would look for a more permanent solution to serving the students up there."
The university will be paying a rental fee of $185 per week to use Room 1037 at the community college's Southern Region National Child Protection Training Center. The room seats 13-15 people, according to Steven Hinds, Northwest Arkansas Community College's director of public relations and marketing.
The marketing class will meet from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays.
"That's a time it wouldn't be in use for us, so it's not a conflict," Hinds said.
Hinds said as far as he knows, this is the first time the college has engaged in this kind of agreement with another institution of higher education.
Webster University initially contacted Northwest Arkansas Community College in March to inquire about room rental rates but didn't follow up on the matter until September, Hinds said.
Gibbs said it's "not unusual" for the university to rent additional space to better accommodate its students.
"We're just trying to make it more convenient for people to get to class," he said.
Metro on 11/13/2016