Making Solid Changes: The Final Countdown Part III

-- THE FINAL COUNTDOWN --

 

For our second-to-last blog post, why not have a party?! MSC opened the campus to the general public on Nov. 2 to help us celebrate our Grand Re-opening and 50th Anniversary. We had face painting, live music, dancing, campus tours, food (Satay Hut and Sandra Dee's) … And most important, we all had a blast! Take a look! 

Getting the party started ... dance time!

Local businesses, nonprofits, social service organizations, and MSC staff and students manned tables. Even some of the armed forces, 104.7 KISS FM and the reigning Ms. Phoenix came out to celebrate with MSC.

MSC students and staff painted faces, explained computer support and health care.

Thanks to everyone who celebrated with us! MSC is looking forward to another great 50 years!

 

MAKING SOLID CHANGES: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN PART II

-- The Final Countdown --

 

MSC kicked off its Grand Re-opening week with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Monday, Oct. 29. The ribbon cutting officially introduced MSC’s newly remodeled campus to the public and also coincided with MSC’s 50^th Anniversary.

It's official! MSC's newly remodeled campus is opened.

In little more than a year, MSC has come a long way! The expansion project added the Excellence Learning Center (formerly known as Building B), a 17,000 sq. ft. building which houses a community room for meetings and events, Chartwell’s, cafeteria, and classrooms for some of the Business & Technology programs, and Essential Skills.

MSC Main (formerly known as Building A) had a complete facelift. Our Student Services department became a full-service one stop for existing and prospective students. The remodel increased program space and the functionality of existing space. Through the once dull and aging campus, one will find pops of sky blue, red, fushcia and avocado green on the walls, natural light throughout offices and common areas, and comfy chairs and large screen TVs in student lounge areas.

Students have been able to enjoy the lounge areas in MSC Main.

We couldn’t have made this major renovation without Maricopa County voters, Maricopa County Community College District, and our renovation partners – Gould Evans and Jokake Construction. Throughout this blog, the tremendous amount of creativity and work that Gould Evans and Jokake Construction put into MSC is evident.

Left: MSC during its groundbreaking ceremony; right: MSC's remodeled campus.

Making Solid Changes: Countdown to Conversions at MSC

-- The Final Countdown --

We’ve been away from this blog a little too long! With construction over at MSC, our Making Solid Changes blog will be coming to an end. In the future, we hope to revamp the blog and relaunch it with a new focus. But until then, we have two more posts this week and one more post during the second week of December. The final post will go out then.*

Below you can read about Cutting Edge, a Cosmetology school for high school students in the West Valley made possible through a partnership between MSC and West-MEC, which has recently completed an expansion project. Thanks for reading and sharing our “countdown to conversions” journey!

Cutting Edge Wraps Up Construction

In October, Cutting Edge, a cosmetology school for high school students made possible through a partnership between MSC and West-MEC, completed a major expansion project. The campus, which serves over 400 junior and senior high school students per year, now has added 2,600 sq. ft. to better accommodate students and staff.

West-MEC made the campus expansion possible by purchasing the vacant space adjacent to Cutting Edge. The additional space added an extra storage room, conference room, and eight staff offices. Existing areas, such as reception/waiting, student break room, teacher room, and cosmetology supply storage, expanded. In fact, the student break room doubled in size. 

Cutting Edge now extends into a former vacant retail space (left); The reception desk (center) and waiting area (right) are much larger, open and brighter than before the remodel.

Students and staff have responded positively to the remodel. The finished campus allows them to have more functional and storage space. Before the remodel, Kim Richardson, associate director of Cosmetology at MSC and Cutting Edge, says that space was limited.

“The old student break room could accommodate no more than six to 10 students at one time. Our instructors didn’t have a comfortable working space for in-between classes. Staff had no meeting space, and many didn't have offices,” says Richardson.

Cutting Edge went to having very little space for its support staff to now being spacious, including new offices and storage.

MSC and the Cutting Edge staff are grateful to West-MEC, especially Greg Donovan, West-MEC’s superintendent, for making the remodel possible and to Jokake Construction, the contractor, for staying on schedule.

*This has been edited to reflect that the actual last post will be published during the second week of December.