Jeff State celebrates 25th anniversary of Shelby-Hoover campus
Twenty-five years ago, Jefferson State Community College opened its Shelby County campus on Valleydale Road with about 1,000 students.
This morning, as the college celebrated the Shelby-Hoover campus’ 25th anniversary, there are nearly 5,000 students enrolled there, interim President Keith Brown shared with people who had gathered for the celebration.
It has grown to be the largest of Jeff State’s four campuses, which together serve about 8,900 students.
Over those 25 years, the Shelby-Hoover campus has served more than 78,000 students, awarded more than 10,000 degrees and graduated more than 2,400 registered nursing students, Brown said. “Our success here has been nothing short of phenomenal,” he said.
That success would not have been possible without the vision of former longtime Jeff State President Judy Merritt, who led the college from 1979 until her retirement in 2014, Brown said.
When Merritt took the reins of the university, she immediately started planning to develop a campus to serve the fast-growing population south of Birmingham, Brown said. There already was an off-campus extension center at Berry High School, but in 1991, Merritt won approval from the Alabama Board of Education to establish a campus in Shelby County.
With all the growth that has taken place in north Shelby County, it seems obvious now that a community college was needed in this area, but when planning first began in 1979, the area was much less populated, Brown said. There was no Interstate 459 and no Riverchase Galleria, and U.S. 280 was a two-lane road on the way to Auburn University (and Lloyd’s restaurant), he said.
After the Shelby County campus opened in September 1993, enrollment grew quickly. A second general studies building opened in 2000, and in April 2004, the site was renamed the Shelby-Hoover campus.
Growth continued, and Merritt contacted former Hoover Mayor Tony Petelos after he was elected in 2004, seeking to buy land from the city of Hoover so Jeff State could expand. Petelos worked out a deal to sell the land and use the proceeds to help develop Spain Park as a public park next door, in partnership with Jeff State and the Shelby County Commission.
The Shelby-Hoover campus’ third building, now called the Judy M. Merritt Health Sciences Building, opened in 2008.
“Through the years, we continue to have a great partnership with Jeff State, and I know that they will continue,” said Petelos, who is now the manager for Jefferson County.
“This region — it’s exploding right now,” Petelos said.
There is a lot of research and development taking place at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Southern Research Institute, and the way the health science programs at Jeff State are feeding into all the medical facilities in the region is incredible, he said.
Jefferson County is recruiting a lot of high-tech companies that are creating thousands of jobs, Petelos said. “We need manpower for these people to locate in our community,” he said. “Jeff State is primed to help us grow our region in this area.”
The culinary program at Jeff State also is finding success, Petelos said.
“We have some of the finest restaurants anywhere in the United States,” he said. “It’s great to have this facility here training these students so they can go and work in these really neat restaurants all over the community.”
There is also the potential for Jeff State to tap into the growth in the film industry in Alabama, Petelos said. In the last 18 months, six movies have been made in the Birmingham-Hoover region, and more are on the way, he said. Producers and directors are telling him they need more students training to help their industry, he said.
Current Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato, who obtained an associate’s degree in fire science from Jeff State in 1979, said he doesn’t think Merritt would be surprised at the growth and success of the Shelby-Hoover campus.
“She recognized the growth patterns that were going on in this region,” he said. “This campus means so much to the Birmingham-Hoover metropolitan area in so many ways.”
Jeff State already is doing a wonderful job with its health science programs and can play an important role in training workers for the high-tech industries of tomorrow, Brocato said. “We’re very proud to have them in the city of Hoover.”
Brown said Jeff State just launched its first full-stack coding class this past summer. It teaches students five programming languages in 15 weeks and sets them up for entry-level positions in that arena, he said. Jeff State also recently launched an advanced coding class and this fall is starting its first respiratory therapy class, he said.
Officials from six Birmingham-area hospitals said they have many respiratory therapy jobs they have been unable to fill, he said. So in two years, Jeff State will be graduating students with those skills who can make a livable wage, he said.
Nadia Banilohi, a pre-pharmacy student from Hoover, said she really likes Jeff State’s Shelby-Hoover campus. Being a community college, it offers smaller class sizes and gives her more one-on-one time with professors to ask questions, she said. She also likes the diversity on the campus and how easy it is to get involved in college activities, she said. When she completes her training at Jeff State, she plans to continue her education at Samford University, she said.
Khadijah Muhammad, a culinary student, said she got started at Jeff State as part of the culinary Explorer program before she finished her homeschool high school studies. The people at Jeff State helped her get a scholarship so she could go to college and continue her training, she said.
“This has been the best experience ever,” Muhammad said. “They push you so hard. The coursework is not easy to go through, but they support you the whole time.”
The culinary program at Jeff State has allowed her to get real-world experience in the restaurant and catering business, she said. “If they see you’re passionate about it, they try so hard to introduce you to people out in the field.”
Brown thanked the faculty and staff at Jeff State who make everything happen there. While the campus has accomplished much in 25 years, there is still much work to be done, he said. “We’re going to continue to do a lot of great things in the Shelby-Hoover area.”