By Staff
The fall tuition and fee schedule accepted Tuesday night by the Southwestern Michigan College Board of Trustees includes a $5.45 per credit hour increase for in-district students, a $7.05 increase for out-of-district students and a $9.95 increase for international students.
The new credit hour rates that will take effect fall semester of 2005 are: In-District $67.75; In-State $85.75; Out-of-State $92.50; International $117.85.
Additionally, trustees approved a $1 per hour increase in SMC's registration fee and technology fee.
According to SMC President Dr. David Mathews, "Even with the new tuition rates, Southwestern Michigan College provides an outstanding educational value. Next year, tuition and fees at SMC will still be less than $2,500 per year for a full-time student of SMC's district.
SMC Board of Trustees Chairman Dr. Fred L. Mathews described the tuition adjustment in relation to total college revenues.
In a presentation called, "The Changing Face of Library Usage," SMC Director of Library Services Dr. Angie Carrico described both the ongoing and new services available at no cost to students and community members at the Fred L. Mathews Library.
According to Carrico, "The Fred L. Mathews Library plays a dual role in enhancing student success and being a valuable resource to our community.
Throughout the past three years, the library staff has been focused on combating the stereotype that college libraries are intimidating.
Carrico explained that SMC's goal is exactly the opposite.
"We want our library to be user-friendly - a comfortable place to be," she said. "We want to be a welcoming place where both students and community members can come to ask questions, find books and conduct research."
Some of the ways SMC has done this is by opening a computer-based Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) within the library and opening the Educational Resource Center (ERC), where students who are preparing to be teachers and local teachers in the community can come to create classroom materials.
Continuing services include delivery between the Dowagiac and Niles area campuses, inner-library book loan, which allows a person to get a book not currently at the SMC library without going to a different library and access to electronic databases that can be used to find full text articles. Moreover, the library remains a designated federal depository.
As such, SMC's library is a rich source of documents printed by the U.S. government.
SMC recently conducted a survey which showed that people who used the library's services were very satisfied.