The college celebrates its 50th year this month — a milestone that wont pass without a party. Staff and students are gearing up for a year-long bash that will include all the bells and whistles of an Alaska-sized hootenanny.
The fun begins Jan. 26 when the college kicks off its 50-year anniversary with the Mat-Su College Winter Festival. Events are scheduled from noon to 4 p.m. and include horse-drawn sleigh rides, live music, a movie premier, guest speakers, storytelling and book signings. All the events, activities and food are free and all are welcome to attend.
  
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“The college has grown and transformed quite a bit over the decades, just like the Valley,” Hirschmann said. “Despite all the changes and growth, it’s still attuned to local needs.”
Anniversary events continue throughout 2008, Hirschmann said. Upcoming events include a fundraising dinner in October for a new Mat-Su College scholarship and an awards ceremony for those who have helped the college grow. Throughout the year, the college will collect a variety of items to place inside a time capsule. The capsule will be opened in 2058 at the college’s centennial celebration.
The History
As the Mat-Su Valley grew in 1950s, many expressed a need for locals to have more access to higher education, Mat-Su College Director Dennis Clark said. In 1957, that desire turned into serious discussion, and it wasn’t long before classes were underway.
Originally named Palmer Community College, the educational institution began offering classes Jan. 21, 1958, at Palmer High School, Clark said. During that first semester, 24 students enrolled. The college offered an assortment of community interest courses, including art, agriculture and welding. Generally, classes were held at night or on weekends and students relied on other local residents to provide an educational experience.
“The very first classes were taught by community members, so the college was really a grassroots-type of thing,” Hirschmann said.
As time passed, the college began to grow in both educational offerings and enrollment, he said. During the 1960s, the college introduced English and science courses, and enrollment continued to increase. By the mid-1960s, the community college began making major changes. In 1964, Palmer Community College became Matanuska-Susitna Community College — the same year the Matanuska-Susitna Borough was created.
Following the name change and creation of a borough government, work began for the college to develop its own stand-alone campus. In 1971, the Mat-Su Borough Assembly donated 100 acres of land near Trunk Road for the project, and by 1972, the first building was constructed and named after Jalmar Kerttula, a state legislator. The first class was held at the new location in fall 1972.
Perspective
Glenn Massay became academic dean at Mat-Su Community College in 1980. When he arrived in May of that year, 312 students were enrolled, he said.
The college was still mostly limited to night classes, but that didn’t last long. By that fall, Massay and his staff had created 12 daytime courses. Similar classes had been attempted before, but many often failed to meet a minimum 10-student enrollment level, he said. To combat that problem, Massay said the college lowered the requirement to eight students. The plan worked, with 11 of the 12 classes meeting the new enrollment level.
“Having that success allowed us to build on that and the daytime program grew,” he said.
Although the college was offering some traditional courses, Massay said he wasn’t about to stray from the college’s community roots. Typically, administration would meet with community groups and listen to residents about their educational needs.
“We just tried to reach out to the community and respond to the educational interests were,” Massay said.
Interests were often specific and related to life in the Last Frontier, he said. As a result, classes like how to manage a wood stove and log cabin construction were popular.
When oil prices crashed in the mid-1980s, Alaskans had to deal with a devastating financial fallout, and the college was no different, Massay said. Fifty classes were cut from its two course schedules. In 1986, change began sweeping across the campus as the community college was added as an extended campus of the University of Alaska Anchorage. Then in 1988, Matanuska-Susitna Community College was changed to Matanuska-Susitna College.
Still feeling the ill effects of the oil crash, MSC faced serious budget cuts by the late 1980s, Massay said. Overall, administration positions were cut by 50 percent. With the abolishment of the school’s academic dean and registrar positions, Massay became college director. Along with a new title came many new responsibilities, he said.
“For quite some time we had an administration of two,” he said. “But we continued to grow.”
After 15 years of involvement at Mat-Su College, Massay retired as director in 1995, but his relationship with the college wasn’t over. Three years later he came back as interim director and served for one year. Then in 1999, he was hired to direct a Title III federal grant for the college. He spent four years serving in that part-time position and finally retired in 2004.
Looking back over the years, Massay said a lot of things have changed over the course of 50 years of history, but one thing remains — the college’s community focus.
“It’s just a wonderful college and it continues to serve the community,” Massay said. “I always felt it was an honor to work at Mat-Su. It is a great college.”WASILLA — Blake McIlvan, a fifth-grader from Shaw Elementary School, won the Back-country Avalanche Awareness and Response Team’s (BAART) avalanche safety essay contest. He was awarded a new beacon, probe and shovel during BAARTs annual fundraiser. McIlvan is pictured with Patsy and Wes Coyne displaying his new safety gear, worth more than $400, and the winning essay, titled “If you snowmachine.”
BAART is a nonprofit organization founded in 1999, the same winter when six people vanished in a massive avalanche on Turnagain Pass. Eight others lost their lives due to avalanches that same year. Two of those were brothers and sons of BAART’s founding members.
BAART stresses the importance of avalanche danger awareness and prevention, offering a multitude of classes year-round.
If you build it ...
Throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, new construction brought additional buildings and opportunities to the campus.
Currently, the system includes three main campuses — the University of Alaska Anchorage, Fairbanks and Southeast. An additional 12 community campuses are spread across the state and include locations in the Valley, Bristol Bay and Sitka. Far from the days when community interest classes, like log-cabin-building, served as main college courses, Clark said computer information and office systems is the major area of study today. At the Mat-Su campus, nearly 1,650 students are served each semester.
“Everybody is using computers these days,” the director said. “A lot of the things we used to do with pencil and paper we’re doing on computers. That’s a high need area I don’t think they anticipated in 1958.”
Similar to a time when the college was first established, growth continues to be a part of the educational institution.
“We have one of the biggest community campuses in the University of Alaska system,” he said. “The Valley is growing and were bound to grow with it.”
Clark said the college plans on experiencing some of that growth in the near future. Next fall, the college will add an associate degree in paramedic technology and begin offering a few courses for a University of Alaska Anchorage bachelor’s degree in elementary education. Future plans also include a certificate in horticulture and courses for veterinary technician.
Currently, Mat-Su College offers nine associate of applied science degree programs with 11 areas of emphasis, the director said. The degrees cover a wide range of study including human services and computer systems technology. MSC also offers one associate of arts degree. In addition to degree programs the college offers an array of certificates and occupational endorsements. Students can choose from four certificates with 12 emphasis areas and 13 occupational endorsement certificates in four areas of study.
Matanuska-Susitna College is located at Mile 2 on Trunk Road in Palmer. For more information visit www.matsu.alaska.edu or call 745-9774.
Contact Chris Gillow at chris.gillow@frontiersman.com or 352-2284.
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