WELDON — Approval of the final draft of the advanced planning for an Academic and Student Services Center has been approved by the Halifax Community College Board of Trustees.

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At the board’s recent meeting, Deborah Armstrong, vice president of administrative services at HCC, said, “We have come a long way.”

The planning began when the 2007 session of the General Assembly appropriated $8 million to develop a “Plan of Action” that would lead to better advanced planning of local facility needs.

The Plan of Action included the development of a Long Range Plan, a Master Facility Plan and Advanced Planning Funding for each community college.

She said HCC received approval of its long range plan on March 6, 2008. The Master Facility Plan was submitted on May 31, 2008, outlining three priority construction projects. Project #1744 (priority one) Academic and Student Services Center was approved by the State Board of Community College on Nov. 21, 2008.

HCC hopes to build the center in the near future. Cost for the project will be $12.8 million. This figure includes $9.9 million for construction, $348,200 for site work and additional parking, $915,000 for technical upgrades to 64 learning spaces on campus and $1.6 million for assessment, fees, owner reserves and other miscellaneous items.

With the approval of the plan, it will now be sent to the state.

Trustees also approved the academic calendars for Fall 2010 and Spring 2010. The calendars include days set aside for exams.

Dr. Erica Holmes, vice president instructional services, said the benefit of having an exam week means instructional time is not cut into.

With the highest unemployment numbers, community colleges across the state have become the economic emergency room for the North Carolina’s workforce.

President Dr. Ervin Griffin Sr. updated trustees about the community college system request for the General Assembly to put $75 million aside to cover the “historic, unprecedented enrollment of the community college system.”

“The community colleges are really growing in enrollment,” he said.

Griffin added this increase of at least 27,000 students means the system has grown by a student size equivalent to an University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in just one year.

Other requests include $3.5 million for equipment continuation, $14 million for forward funding for growth and $12 million for remediation.

“These are items the community college system are pushing for the General Assembly to endorse,” he said.

Griffin noted remediation in the college system cost $70 million with more than a third spent on students 21 or younger. Sixty four percent of the 2008 high school graduates who enrolled at community colleges took at least one remedial course at a cost of $13 million.

He said moving remediation to the unfunded summer semester would cost $12 million which would make summers more productive for students working to succeed and increasing the probability of degree completion.