Former names | Navarro Junior College (1946–1974) [1] |
---|---|
Type | Public community college |
Established | 1946 |
District President | Kevin Fegan |
Students | 10,000+ |
Location | , , U.S. 32°04′34″N96°29′55″W / 32.0761°N 96.4987°W |
Sporting affiliations | NJCAA – Southwest |
Mascot | Bulldogs |
Website | www |
Navarro College is a public community college in Texas with its main campus in Corsicana and branches in Mexia, Midlothian, and Waxahachie. The college has an annual student enrollment of more than 9,000 students.
The Corsicana campus has strong ties with Texas A&M University–Commerce which has branches at the Navarro College campuses in Corsicana. [2]
In spring 1946, a group of local citizens met to form a steering committee for the purpose of establishing a junior college in Navarro County. In a general election held July 16, 1946, voters approved the creation of Navarro Junior College and authorized a county tax to help finance the institution. In that same election, voters chose a seven-member board of trustees to govern the college. The first students began classes in September 1946. Most of the 238 members of that first student body were returning veterans from World War II taking advantage of assistance available under the newly enacted GI Bill of Rights. The first campus of Navarro College was the site of the Air Activities of Texas, a World War II primary flight school located six miles (10 km) south of Corsicana.
In 1951, the campus was moved to its present location, a 47-acre (19 ha) tract west of downtown Corsicana on Texas State Highway 31.
In 1974, the college broadened its philosophy and purpose to encompass the comprehensive community-based educational concept, adding occupational education programs and implementing new education concepts including individualized and self-paced instruction and the use of audio-tutorial instructional media. In keeping with the new educational role, the word "junior" was dropped from the institution's name, and the official name Navarro College was adopted by the board of trustees. In an attempt to address the growing needs of its service area, which consists of Navarro, Ellis, Freestone, Limestone, and Leon counties, the college began offering courses in various locations in those areas in the early 1970s and eventually established two permanent centers, Navarro College South at Mexia and the Ellis County Center at Waxahachie. Later, a third and fourth off-campus centers were added in Midlothian and Fairfield. [3]
In October 2014, Navarro College received criticism for sending admission rejection letters to two prospective students from Nigeria because the college was "not accepting international students from countries with confirmed Ebola cases." [4] Nigeria was identified by the World Health Organization through the summer of 2014 with multiple confirmed cases of Ebola, but there had been no new Ebola cases (since early September). [5] [6] The rejected applicants lived in Ibadan, Nigeria, approximately 80 miles from Lagos, where the most recent infected cases were identified. [4] The college offered an explanation on October 13, stating that the rejections were not a result of fears of Ebola, but that its international department had recently been restructured to focus on recruiting students from China and Indonesia. [5] On October 16, college Vice-president Dewayne Gragg issued a new statement, contradicting the previous explanation and confirming that there had indeed been a decision to "postpone our recruitment in those nations that the Center for Disease Control and the U.S. State Department have identified as at risk." [7]
The Corsicana campus has expanded to 103 acres (42 ha) with 23 buildings. It is home to the Cook Education Center, which houses a 60-foot-diameter (18 m) dome planetarium with seating for more than two hundred, tied with the University of Texas at Arlington for the largest planetarium in Texas. [8] [9] The Cook Education Center also contains the Pearce Collections Museum, home to many American Civil War artifacts as well as a western art collection. [10]
As defined by the Texas Legislature, the official service area of Navarro College includes all of Ellis, Freestone, Leon, Limestone, and Navarro counties. [11]
Navarro is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The accreditation was given in 1954 and reaffirmed in 1964, 1974, 1985, 1995 and again in 2006. [12]
Waxahachie Global High School is partnered with Navarro College, and set up in a way that students at Global can take classes at Navarro. Thus they can graduate from high school with an associate degree or transferable credits to a 4-year university along with their high school diploma.
Navarro's athletics teams, nicknamed The Bulldogs, compete in the Southwest Junior College Conference of the NJCAA. [13] Navarro offers athletic scholarships in the following sports for men: football, basketball, baseball and for women: soccer, softball, volleyball. In 2011, the baseball team won the NJCAA Junior College World Series in Grand Junction, Colorado. The Bulldogs beat Central Arizona College, 6–4, on J.T. Files' walk-off home run in the tenth inning.
The Bulldogs also have a strong reputation for their coed cheer team. Since the year 2000, Coach Monica Aldama has led the program to 16 NCA National Championships in the junior college division, as well as six "Grand National" designations (a status awarded to the team with the highest overall score in competition). [15] [16] [17] [18] In 2020, the squad became the subject of a Netflix docuseries called Cheer . [19]
Waxahachie is the county seat of Ellis County, Texas, United States. Its population was 41,140 in 2020. The city was founded in 1850, and incorporated in 1871. Much of the employment is provided by a number of industries and by educational institutions, including primary and secondary schools, a community college and a private university. In the mid-1980s, the city became a filming location for a number of movies and occasional episodes of television series.
Corsicana is a city and the county seat of Navarro County, Texas, United States. It is located on Interstate 45, 56 miles northeast of Waco. Its population was 25,109 at the 2020 census. Corsicana is considered an important agribusiness center.
Arkansas State University is a public research university in Jonesboro, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the Arkansas State University System and the second largest university in the state. The university was founded in 1909 and is located atop 1,376 acres on Crowley's Ridge.
Lamar University is a public university in Beaumont, Texas. Lamar has been a member of the Texas State University System since 1995. It was the flagship institution of the former Lamar University System. As of the fall of 2022, the university enrollment was 17,044 students. Lamar University is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and named for Mirabeau B. Lamar, the second president of the Republic of Texas.
Blinn College is a public junior college in Brenham, Texas, with additional campuses in Bryan, Schulenburg, Sealy and Waller. Brenham is Blinn's original and main campus, with housing and athletics.
Santa Ana College is a public community college in Santa Ana, California.
Waubonsie Valley High School (WVHS) is a public four-year high school in Aurora, Illinois, United States. It was established in 1975 and it is one of 3 high schools in Indian Prairie School District 204, along with Neuqua Valley High School and Metea Valley High School.
Tyler Junior College (TJC) is a public community college in Tyler, Texas. It is one of the largest community colleges in the state, with an enrollment of more than 12,000 credit students and an additional 20,000 continuing education enrollments annually. Its West campus includes continuing education and workforce training programs and TJC North in Lindale, Texas offers general education classes, nursing programs, and the veterinary technician associate of applied science. The college also operates locations in Jacksonville and Rusk. TJC offers Associate of Science, Associate of Applied Science and Associate of Arts, specialized baccalaureate degrees, and certificate programs.
Lon Morris College (LMC) was a private junior college located in Jacksonville, Texas, United States, and was the only school affiliated with the United Methodist Church that was owned by an individual conference and not the denomination as a whole. Lon Morris was an accredited two-year institute of higher learning, which provided instruction in the arts and sciences with a core curriculum emphasizing liberal arts. While Lon Morris taught as many as 350 students in a semester, enrollment reached more than 1,000, a new record, in the fall of 2009. The school was 30 miles (48 km) south of Tyler. The person who last held the title of college president was Dr. Miles McCall; he resigned effective May 24, 2012.
Kendrick Ladell Starling is a former American football wide receiver.
Hartnell College is a public community college in Salinas, California. Established in 1920 as Salinas Junior College, Hartnell is one of 115 schools that constitute the California Community Colleges, one of the three higher education systems in California. It enrolls nearly 10,000 students, 56% of whom are Latino, and the college is a Hispanic-serving institution. Its name commemorates William Hartnell (1798–1854), who founded the first junior college in California. Hartnell's main campus is located less than a mile west of downtown Salinas. It also has four satellite campuses, one in the Alisal district of Salinas one in King City and another in Soledad and another in Castroville.
North Shore Senior High School is a secondary school located in unincorporated Harris County, Texas, United States in Greater Houston. The school includes grades 9 through 12 on three campuses, and is part of the Galena Park Independent School District (GPISD).
Trinity Valley Community College (TVCC) is a public community college based in Athens, Texas. It has six campuses serving five counties across the southeast and eastern parts of the state.
Evangel Christian Academy is a private, Christian school in Shreveport, Louisiana with two campuses spanning grades K-12. It is owned & operated privately in association with Shreveport Community Church which is located on the property of the grade school sister campus.
Ray Woodard is an American football coach and former player. He is the defensive coordinator for the Madrid Bravos of the European League of Football (ELF). Woodward was the head football coach of the Lamar Cardinals football from 2008 to 2016. He spent four seasons in the National Football League (NFL) with the San Diego Chargers, Denver Broncos, and Kansas City Chiefs, during which he played in nine games all during the strike-shortened 1987 season. He played three games as a "scab" for Denver, the year they went to Super Bowl XXII, but he was ineligible to share in the bonus as he resigned with the Chiefs. Woodard played college football at Kilgore College and the University of Texas at Austin.
Waxahachie High School is a public high school in the city of Waxahachie, Texas, United States and classified as a 6A school by the University Interscholastic League (UIL). It is a part of the Waxahachie Independent School District located in central Ellis County. In 2015, the school was rated "Met Standard" by the Texas Education Agency.
Waxahachie Global High School is a high school in Waxahachie, Texas, founded in 2007 on the historic T.C. Wilemon campus. It is one of only 91 STEM academies in the state of Texas. It was additionally granted Early College High School status in 2009 through a partnership with Navarro College, allowing students to earn an associate degree along with their high school diploma. Recently, as of the start of the 2013-2014 school year, Global High made a partnership with UT Tyler for all the STEM-based college courses offered at Global. As a public charter school, students from Ellis County and surrounding areas can attend regardless of zoning. Many students commute from surrounding cities such as Waxahachie, Red Oak, Ennis, Maypearl, Midlothian, Palmer, Italy, Cedar Hill, and Desoto. In 2014, Waxahachie Global was named the "Best High School" by the U.S. News & World Report. Starting in the 2018-19 school year, the Global campus is located in the Billy R. Hancock Building.
Byron Cook is an American businessman, rancher, and Republican politician from his native Corsicana in east central Texas, who is a former state representative for District 8, which encompasses the counties of Anderson, Freestone, Hill, and Navarro. In October 2017, Cook announced that he would not seek re-election in 2018.
Cheer is an American sport television docuseries airing on Netflix starting in January 2020. The six-part series follows the nationally ranked forty-member Navarro College Bulldogs Cheer Team from Corsicana, Texas, under the direction of coach Monica Aldama, as they prepare to compete in the National Cheerleading Championship held annually in Daytona Beach, Florida. The episodes focus especially on five individual Cheer Team members and include elements of the history of cheerleading, including the formation of the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA).
Trevor Denbow is an American football safety for the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Navarro and SMU and was signed by the Colts as an undrafted free agent in 2022.