Former name | St. Petersburg Junior College |
---|---|
Motto | Lux et Veritas (Latin) |
Motto in English | Light and Truth |
Type | Public college |
Established | 1927 |
Parent institution | Florida College System |
Endowment | $57.4 million [1] |
President | Tonjua Williams |
Academic staff | 1,300 (Fall 2016) |
Administrative staff | 2,885 (Fall 2016) [2] |
Students | 29,183 (Fall 2018) [3] |
Location | , , United States |
Campus | Urban Total: 406.29 acres (1.6442 km2) [2] |
Colors | Blue and White [4] |
Mascot | Titans |
Website | www |
St. Petersburg College (SPC) is a public college in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is part of the Florida College System and one of the institutions in the system designated a "state college," as it offers a greater number of bachelor's degrees than traditional community colleges focused on associate degrees. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and enrolled about 29,000 students in the fall of 2018. [3]
The school was founded in 1927 as a private junior college, the first in Florida. It later became a public institution and grew to include campuses throughout Pinellas County. Today it has eleven campuses and centers: four in St. Petersburg, Florida and seven in Seminole, Pinellas Park, Largo, Clearwater, and Tarpon Springs.
St. Petersburg College was founded in 1927 as St. Petersburg Junior College by Captain George M. Lynch, Pinellas County's city superintendent of schools for the city of St. Petersburg, as a private, non-profit institution. [5] It was created in part because of the economic downturn preceding the Great Depression as a way for local students to receive a postsecondary education without having to relocate or pay high tuition. [6] On opening day, the college consisted of 102 students and 14 faculty members, operating from an unused wing of St. Petersburg High School. After one semester, SPJC moved its operations to a former high school facility overlooking Mirror Lake, where it remained until January 1942. At this point, the facility was moved into a single building on the corner of 5th Ave. N. and 66th St. N.—a building still in active use today as the James E. Hendry Administration Building, part of the St. Petersburg/Gibbs Campus. SPJC became a public college in 1948. [7]
After a 1959 study clearly illustrated the demand for a higher-education facility in northern Pinellas county, SPJC began planning the development of a second campus located in Clearwater, Florida. In 1962, the college acquired 72.8 acres (295,000 m2) of land in the vicinity of Drew Street and County Road 32 (Old Coachman Road), land which previously contained an orange grove and a waste disposal site. Construction began on February 25, 1964. That same year, the new campus, consisting of only five buildings, was officially dedicated on November 21. [8]
Like almost all other Florida colleges, SPJC was all-white until the mid-1960s. A companion junior college for black students, Gibbs Junior College, opened its doors in 1957. Gibbs was placed under the supervision of SPJC in 1965, and became the Gibbs campus of SPJC. In 1966-67 the name was changed to the Skyway Campus of SPJC. It ceased operations in 1967. [9] The only association of today's (2016) Gibbs Campus of SPC with the former Gibbs Junior College is nominal; it is located where the college was.
St. Petersburg College has no residential students. This is mostly because no single campus is large enough to warrant a need for student on-campus housing. Many of the SPC campuses do not offer a large curriculum of available courses, but instead specialize in one or two specific fields. For example, the Caruth Health Education Center in Pinellas Park specializes in courses centering on health care, while the Seminole campus is a highly technology-oriented campus.
The Seminole campus also serves to house SPC's University Partnership Center, a campus that offers select degree programs from 16 fully accredited institutions, including Barry University, Case Western Reserve University's Francis Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Cleveland State University, Eckerd College, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida Institute of Technology, Florida International University, Florida State University, Indiana University, Saint Leo University, University of Central Florida, University of West Florida, University of Florida, and University of South Florida. [10] In total, SPC's University Partnership program offers 60 bachelor's degrees and 39 graduate degrees. [11]
Both the Student Services building on the St Petersburg/Gibbs Campus and the Natural Science, Mathematics and College of Education Building on the Clearwater Campus were both recently awarded LEED Gold Certification. The two buildings mark the first LEED Gold higher education buildings in Pinellas County.
St. Petersburg College has eight campus libraries, as well as an extensive online library. The eight campus libraries include the Allstate Center Library, Clearwater Campus Library, SPC Downtown Library, SPC Midtown Library, West St. Petersburg Community Library at St. Petersburg Gibbs Campus, Health Education Center Library, Seminole Community Library at Seminole Campus, and the Tarpon Springs Campus Library.
The St. Petersburg/Gibbs, Clearwater, and Seminole campus libraries are joint-use libraries, giving users the benefits of a public library and a college library in one. The collections include print and electronic books, academic journals, magazines and newspapers, thousands of online research databases, streaming videos, audiobooks, images, citation tools, music, and periodicals. Study areas, computer labs, and printing services are also available. In addition to on site reference librarians, students can use digital reference services such as AskALibrarian, where they can chat, email or text with an SPC librarian. [12]
The St. Petersburg College athletic teams go by the name "Titans." They are a member of the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) and compete in the Suncoast Conference of the Florida State College Activities Association (FSCAA). The Titans are represented by a men's basketball and baseball team, as well as a women's volleyball, basketball, tennis, and softball team. The college also has a cheerleading squad who cheers for the men's and women's basketball teams. Cheerleading is also present at pep rallies and other school functions. The Titans softball team appeared in the first Women's College World Series in 1969. [13]
Notable alumni include Gus Bilirakis, the current U.S. representative from Florida's 9th District; Henry Lyons, the former president of the National Baptist Convention; Jim King, the former president of the Florida Senate; Frank Wren, the former general manager of the Atlanta Braves; Carl M. Kuttler Jr., the former president of St. Petersburg College; Bob Carroll, the writer and creator of the I Love Lucy television show; Nicole P. Stott, NASA astronaut; and James F. Sirmons, broadcast pioneer and CBS executive. Jim Morrison of the Doors attended SPC briefly. [14]
St. Petersburg College is partnered with the Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Task Force Training (MCTFT) and the Florida Army National Guard in counter-drug efforts. In partnership with St. Petersburg College, the MCTFT provides unique, tuition-free military and counter-drug training for local, state, federal, and military criminal justice professionals as well as awareness training for community leaders. [15]
St. Petersburg College is also partnered with the Combating Transnational Organized Crime (CTOC) Center of Excellence (COE). The CTOC COE provides unique, tuition-free CTOC training in support of Department of Defense strategies. The CTOC COE has campuses on Camp Blanding Joint Training Center near Starke, Florida, at St. Petersburg College in St. Petersburg, Florida, and on Camp Murray near Tacoma, Washington.
Pinellas County is a county located on the west central coast of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 959,107, which makes it the seventh-most populous county in the state. It is also the most densely populated county in Florida, with 3,491 residents per square mile. The county is part of the Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area. Clearwater is the county seat. St. Petersburg is the largest city in the county, as well as the largest city in Florida that is not a county seat.
Clearwater is a city located in Pinellas County, Florida, United States, west of Tampa and north of St. Petersburg. To the west of Clearwater lies the Gulf of Mexico and to the southeast lies Tampa Bay. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 117,292. Clearwater is the county seat of Pinellas County and is the smallest of the three principal cities in the Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater metropolitan area, most commonly referred to as the Tampa Bay Area.
Florida State University is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Chartered in 1851, it is located on Florida's oldest continuous site of higher education.
The University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus is a campus of the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg, Florida. Opened in 1965 as a satellite campus of the University of South Florida, it was consolidated with the other two USF campuses as of July 1, 2020. USF's St. Petersburg campus is the only public university in Pinellas County. The campus enrolled 4,455 students during the fall 2019 semester.
The Tampa Bay area is a major metropolitan area surrounding Tampa Bay on the Gulf Coast of Florida in the United States. It includes the main cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater. It is the 17th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, with a population of 3,175,275 as of the 2020 U.S. Census.
Broward College is a public college in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is part of the Florida College System. It was established in 1959 as part of a move to broaden Florida's two-year colleges. In 2008 it adopted its current name, reflecting that it is one of the schools designated a "state college", meaning it can offer four-year bachelor's degrees.
Seminole State College of Florida is a public college with four campuses in Central Florida. It is part of the Florida College System.
Schiller International University (SIU) is a private, for-profit university with its main campus and administrative headquarters in Tampa, Florida. It is named after the German playwright and philosopher Friedrich Schiller.
The University of South Florida (USF) is a public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, and other campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota. It is one of 12 members of the State University System of Florida. USF is home to 14 colleges, offering more than 240 undergraduate, graduate, specialist, and doctoral-level degree programs. USF is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. USF is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) and is designated by the Florida Board of Governors as one of three Preeminent State Research Universities.
Gibbs High School is a public high school of the Pinellas County School District in St. Petersburg, Florida. Gibbs is home to the Pinellas County Center for the Arts (PCCA), Business, Economics, and Technology Academy (BETA) and their television production in Communication Arts. The school is named for Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs, a black man who was Superintendent of Public Instruction and Secretary of State in Florida during the Reconstruction era. Gibbs' current principal is Barry Brown.
The Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail is a rail trail in Pinellas County, Florida. It stretches from Tarpon Springs in the north to St. Petersburg in the south, passing through the towns of Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Belleair, Clearwater, Largo, Seminole, South Pasadena, and Gulfport. It is utilized for walking, jogging, and cycling. Some trail users are able to commute to work using the Pinellas Trail instead of a motor vehicle.
The Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Florida is a diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA) in Florida which extends from Marco Island on the south, to Brooksville on the north, and inland to Plant City, Arcadia and LaBelle on the east. As part of the ECUSA, the diocese is a constituent member of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Carl Martin Kuttler Jr. is the former president of St. Petersburg College in St. Petersburg, Florida, which he headed from 1978 to 2009.
Tampa College was a private business college founded as a coeducational, nonsectarian, and proprietary institution, in 1890. The school was originally located in Tampa, Florida. The final owner, Corinthian Colleges, folded the school into its Everest brand.
Johnnie Ruth Clarke was an American activist, teacher, and humanitarian. She participated in many different societies, and is credited as the first African American to obtain a doctorate from the University of Florida's College of Education. She served as dean of Gibbs Junior College and as assistant dean of academic affairs at St. Petersburg Junior College, which offers a scholarship in her name. The Johnnie Ruth Clarke Health Center was also named after her.
The St. Petersburg Library System is a free public library system for residents of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, located in Pinellas County. The St. Petersburg Library System is part of the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative and consists of 7 branch locations.
Gibbs Junior College was created in 1957 by the Pinellas County Board of Public Instruction to serve African-American students in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was the first and most successful of Florida's eleven new African-American junior colleges, founded in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid the racial integration mandated by the unanimous 1954 Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision. It was named for the minister and abolitionist Jonathan C. Gibbs, who opened a private school for freed slaves after the Civil War, and was later Florida's Secretary of State (1868–1872) and then Superintendent of Public Instruction, the first African-American member of the Florida Cabinet.
Tonjua Harris Williams is an American academic who became the President of St. Petersburg College in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2017.
Richard Vernon Moore Sr. was an American educator, principal, and university president. He served as the third president of Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida (1947–1975). Moore was also the state of Florida's first African-American Supervisor of Secondary Schools for Negros.