/Institutions/Central-Texas-College/json/2024/Central-Texas-College-Course-Catalog-2024-2025-local.json

/Institutions/Central-Texas-College/json/2024/Central-Texas-College-Course-Catalog-2024-2025.json

History of the College

In 1965, the citizens of Central Texas joined together to authorize the building of a community college that would serve the western section of Bell County; Burnet, Coryell, Hamilton, Lampasas, Llano, Mason, Mills and San Saba counties; portions of McCulloch and Williamson counties; as well as Fort Hood* and the state correctional facilities in Gatesville. In June 2015 Section 130.171, Texas Education Code, was amended to include Gillespie County in CTC's service area. The campus was constructed on 560 acres of land donated by Fort Hood* through the Department of Education and with funds supplied through a local $2 million bond issue. Central Texas College, under Section 130.04 of the Texas Education Code, opened its doors with an initial enrollment of 2,068 students in the fall of 1967. The number of students and the locations of offerings have steadily increased since that time. Central Texas College (CTC) has maintained its institutional accreditation status with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges since first being awarded accreditation in 1969 and was reaffirmed most recently in June 2015.

CTC initiated on-site programs on Fort Hood* in 1970 and in Europe in 1974. CTC’s success at Fort Hood* and Europe led to the explosive expansion of CTC’s locations including Fort Leonard Wood (Missouri), South Korea (Army), and the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific Fleets in 1976. This expansion occurred locally as well with the initiation of instructional programs and services for the Texas Department of Corrections* in Gatesville in 1976. By the 1980s CTC held agreements to offer classroom instruction on U.S. military installations in Alaska, Hawaii, Panama, and Puerto Rico; and at Bolling AFB, Camp Pendleton, Fort Benning, Fort Bragg*, Fort Campbell, Fort Knox, Fort Lee*,  Fort Polk* Fort Riley, and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA. With CTC’s contract award in July 1983 to provide instruction to all U.S. military branches in the Pacific Command, CTC joined other CTC personnel already providing instruction under existing agreements at San Miguel, Philippines; Subic Bay, Philippines; Yokosuka Naval Station, Japan; and South Korea and expanded its course offerings in the Philippines to Clark AB,  Okinawa (Japan), Mainland Japan, Guam, Diego Garcia, and Johnston Island.

In 1970, CTC began to offer broadcast telecourses to the citizens of Central Texas. College credit classes were first delivered by video conference in the service area in 1994 and from the Central Campus in 1996, enabling area high schools and other colleges in the geographical region to receive CTC courses. At the same time, Central Campus faculty began to enrich traditionally taught courses with professionally produced multimedia materials and with materials selected from the Internet. CTC taught its first online course in 1998. In 1998, CTC was invited to list its online courses in the inventory of the Electronic Campus of the Southern Regional Educational Consortium. CTC’s membership in the Sloan Consortium was approved in 1999. In 2000, the PricewaterhouseCoopers firm invited CTC to become an educational partner in the new Army University Access Online (eArmyU) project for the soldiers in the United States Army. Entire associate degrees were available online for the first time in the spring of 2001. CTC continues expanding its distance education offerings and delivery methods and is a leader among two-year institutions in providing distance education courses and degree programs.

In 2014, Killeen Independent School District (KISD) applied for Texas Education Agency approval to partner with CTC on the creation of an Early College High School. Early College High School (ECHS) is a dual credit model where students work on obtaining a high school diploma at the same time that they’re working on an associate degree. The goal is to finish both by the time they graduate with a high school diploma. Approval was granted and ECHS was launched on Central Campus in 2015 with a cohort of 150 students and 150 enrollments. All students work toward an AA Interdisciplinary Studies degree, and tuition and textbooks are paid by the district, KISD. Initially, only juniors and seniors participated in this program, but it expanded to include sophomores and grew to 1,265 students and 5,680 enrollments by the 2020-2021 school year. The inaugural ECHS graduating class of 113 students finished in Spring 2019, followed by 125 in 2020 and 145 in Spring 2021 with many in each class graduating with honors.

Today, CTC consists of the following administrative units: the Central Campus, Service Area, Fort Cavazos and Continental, and Navy Operations. Of these, the Central Campus, Service Area, and Fort Cavazos operate within the State of Texas. Instruction is provided to a variety of students to include military and their family members, civilians, and incarcerated students.

Students enrolled in CTC may select a degree plan from 69 Associate of Arts degree programs, Associate of Arts in Teaching, Associate of Science degree programs and Associate of Applied Science degree programs. In addition, students choosing to earn a certificate may enroll in any of the 90 certificate programs. CTC locations other than Central Campus may offer the full range of degree programs and services or only those identified through local needs assessments. CTC also provides a wide range of education and training opportunities for those students who do not select a degree or certificate option. Committed to serving all students, CTC provides comprehensive programs and services for special populations: disability support services, single parent/homemaker support services and nontraditional career support services as well as tutoring. To meet occupational training needs, CTC offers a variety of credit and noncredit professional development and job-related skills programs such as basic literacy, leadership skills, foreign language skills and occupational skills programs.

When Mount Pinatubo erupted in June 1991 the American government was in negotiations with the Philippines government to renew the military lease agreement at Clark AB. With Clark AB devastated by the volcano, the American government ceased negotiations and left Clark AB in November 1991. By then only essential military personnel were left at Clark AB and CTC staff at Clark AB had evacuated to other locations in the Pacific Far East. In 1992 the Philippines government did not renew the U.S. government’s lease agreement for San Miguel and Subic Bay. The remaining CTC locations in the Philippines were closed. CTC continued to offer instruction to the U.S. military in Okinawa, Mainland Japan, South Korea, Guam, and Diego Garcia. Then CTC closed all locations in the Pacific Far East in July 31, 2017. The closing of the Pacific Far East locations was followed by closure of CTC in Europe CENTCOM (Downrange) in July 31, 2021, and the Europe Vocational-Technical programs in July 31, 2023. Closures were related to multiple reasons such as declining U.S. military troop strength in the Pacific Command and Europe, downsizing of Military Education Centers, and the explosion of online course offerings.

Multiple locations in the Continental United States, Hawaii, and Alaska closed after decades of providing instruction on U.S. Military Installations. MCAS Miramar and Fort Bragg* closed in 2018, and Fort Leonard Wood in 2020. In March 2020 the U.S. President declared a National Disaster due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. CTC sites were forced to move their classroom courses to online in the spring/summer of 2020. For most CTC locations, a reduced number of classroom courses resumed in fall 2020. Although the CTC locations continued to increase the number of the classroom course offerings between 2021 and 2023, the number of students returning to the classroom did not reach pre-pandemic levels. As a result, other CTC on-site locations were closed, which included Marine Corps Base Quantico, Fort Sill, NSA Bethesda, Bolling AFB and San Diego Naval Base in 2022; all Hawaii sites in September 2022; Fort Wainwright in July 2022, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in February 2023 followed by Fort Stewart/Hunter Army Airfield in May 2023 and Fort Campbell in December 2023. By 2023, the Central Campus and other Texas CTC locations experienced a shift in the student population along with the rest of the nation. On-site students included more high school students enrolled for dual credit while the adult student population moved to online classes or similar instructional delivery modes.

*Note: To preserve the history of Central Texas College, the names of the U.S. military installations in the time period referenced were retained. In 2023 the Federal government renamed Fort Hood to Fort Cavazos effective 5/9/2023, Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty effective 6/2/2023, Fort Polk to Fort Johnson effective 6/13/2023, Fort Rucker to Fort Novosel 4/10/2023, Fort Benning to Fort Moore effective 5/11/2023 and Fort Lee to Fort Gregg-Adams effective 4/27/2023. The Texas Department of Corrections has since been renamed the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.