College of the Sequoias Hanford Education Center will be undergoing some changes as the college aims to give students a campus with a more traditional college feel. The college has both an expansion project and a construction project on the horizon.

Due to enrollment growth, COS President Stan Carrizosa said the Hanford campus of almost 2,000 students needs more academic space and a means to accommodate more students. He said one planned project will expand the education building to add three more portable classrooms, plus a few offices, a conference room and some restrooms.

The college, located at 925 13th Avenue, will not only be adding more classrooms, but the construction of the new student pavilion in the center of the campus to give students a place to congregate when they are not in class, Carrizosa said.

In a student survey conducted in 2015, Carrizosa said many of the students liked the fact that the Hanford Center felt like a close-knit environment with accessibility to faculty and staff. He said students also wanted facilities to make the campus feel more like a college campus. He said these new projects are a response to what the students wanted.

Carrizosa said the student pavilion will be a lot like a college quad area. He said it will have a concrete foundation and a shade structure with furniture underneath the covered area. He said it will be a common place for students to gather and will be wired for a speaker system for announcements or music, and there will also be a projection screen for videos.

Aside from student activities, Carrizosa said the pavilion could be used for community events because there are plans for a small amphitheater that could accommodate around 200 people.

The $1.6 million pavilion is made possible by funding from the state, plus increased funding due to the college growing and becoming a State Center Community College, which provides an additional $1 million per year, Carrizosa said. He said the additional classrooms will cost $1 million and will be paid for with general facilities money and money from the $22 million bond “Measure C” that was passed in 2006.

COS Hanford Center Provost Kristin Robinson said she believes the student pavilion will provide a place for students to gather for a multitude of activities.

“The pavilion will help the campus culture and the campus feeling,” Robinson said. “It will also be a facility that will serve as a resource for the community for events.”

The new classrooms will alleviate some of the pressure from the rest of the campus, Robinson said, especially because the student enrollment continues to grow. She said she is looking forward to the new room that will be used to support student services, whether it will be used for tutoring, counseling, computer labs or something else she isn’t sure of yet.

The campus offers two anchor programs in the public safety arena – two police academies every year and a firefighter academy in the spring of each year. The campus also provides vocational classes for electrician training and industrial maintenance, prerequisites for registered nursing programs and general education for transfer to a four-year college.

The limited number of classrooms meant many classes had to be taught at night because there were not enough rooms to accommodate the number of classes and students. Carrizosa said some classes had to be taught in buildings that were not appropriate, like an English class being taught in the Public Safety Building, for example.

Carrizosa and Robinson both said the additional classrooms will allow for more day classes and more flexibility in class schedules for students.

COS Board of Trustees member John Zumwalt said the Hanford Center has been successful and as a result is starting to outgrow the space it has. He said the new classrooms will make the entire campus work better because they will allow for more classes at more convenient times for students and their busy schedules.

“Most community colleges are not growing,” Zumwalt said. “But COS is, and we need to provide for that growth and for students.”

Sue Sorensen, a board member for the COS Foundation, said the pavilion is something that can make a huge difference in making the campus feel more like a college campus for students. She said the growth at the COS Hanford Center is also a positive for the city of Hanford because as educational facilities expand, opportunities for the community expand too.

“I think it’s going to be a nice, user-friendly design that even the community can have for events as well,” Sorensen said, adding she is excited about educational opportunities that keep coming to Hanford.

Carrizosa said the additional classrooms should be ready when the fall semester begins in August. The student pavilion will start initial construction this month and Carrizosa said he hopes for it to be ready for students to use by August as well, though he admits it may take longer than he hopes.

A new Educational Employees Credit Union branch is part of a $3 million construction project at Clovis West High School and will be staffed by students when it opens in August.The EECU branch is part of a Clovis Unified School District program to develop a “career technical education” pathway focused on banking and financial work for students who want to learn skills to prepare them for jobs after high school or to continue their education in college, said Clovis West Principal Marc Hammack. The credit union branch will be open for business – and open to the public – when the fall semester begins in August.

“Students will be working in the branch, between three and four students every two hours during the school day, and outside of school hours as well,” Hammack said Monday on a tour of the construction.

“The students will be going through an 80-hour training with EECU over the summer on how to be bank tellers and do some of the other things that folks do in banks,” including helping customers apply for loans. Hammack said 28 students are enrolled in the banking-finance career pathway program for the 2016-17 school year.

The branch will include an EECU automated-teller machine that will become operational in mid-May. Both the ATM and the public entrance to the credit union will be near the front of the campus with easy access from the parking lot, where eight parking spaces will be designated for EECU customer use.

“We want the public to be able to use it, and we want students to be able to experience what it is like to work in a bank and the finance world,” Hammack said.

The branch will join a Union Bank branch at McLane High School in Fresno as working financial institutions on school campuses that afford students a chance to work in a banking environment. The Union Bank branch, however, is not open to the public.

Students working in the Clovis West branch as part of the class won’t be paid, but will receive class credit. Students who are at least 18 years old can be eligible to be hired by EECU to fill in during periods when school isn’t in session but the branch will remain open.

“It’s a great way for EECU to intern some kids prior to hiring them,” Hammack said. Students at the branch will be supervised by EECU employees.

Two Clovis West students, sophomore Giovanny Hernandez and junior Brittney Medina, said during the tour
that they’re eager for the training and to work in the credit union branch.

Hernandez, who is interested in someday starting his own company, said he wants to learn about handling and managing money “because it opens a lot of doors for other jobs.”

Medina, who works as a cashier at a fast-food restaurant, said she likes dealing with cash and hopes the experience will aid her in furthering her education and landing a career as a contract specialist handling purchasing chores for companies.

Dick Ashjian, EECU’s senior vice president for risk management, said the credit union and the school district are working closely on the issue of security for not only the branch, where cash will be handled, but also over public access to the campus to use the branch. Those discussions, he added, have included the Fresno Police Department and Clovis Unified’s own police force.

“Both EECU and Clovis Unified have a lot of experience in creating secure and safe environments,” he said.

EECU operates 16 branches in Central California. Hammack said he has been told by EECU officials that the Clovis West site “is probably one of the safest places to put a bank because you’ve got about 2,100 witnesses, and no one wants that many witnesses.”

“Typically, when we have visitors (to the campus), they have to sign in at the office,” Hammack said. “We’re not going to make the bank customers sign in.”

Mark Wilson Construction of Fresno is the contractor for the project. In addition to the new 2,000-square-foot branch, the Clovis West project includes about 3,000 square feet of remodeling to convert several classrooms of space into a modernized classroom as well as an entrepreneurial lab and a student store, where students can market and sell their own products.

Tim Sheehan: 559-441-6319, @TimSheehanNews