Imagine Yavapai College in the year 2026. Leaner and smaller, the college focuses on the needs of its student body, which consists of residents from Prescott and the surrounding communities in western Yavapai County.
The Prescott Valley campus is nearly open, but the project took far longer to build, mainly because the college only has about 60 percent of the budget it did a decade earlier and had to refund part of a bond to the Verde Valley. The population boom for Prescott Valley was nowhere near as big as expected and many of the students who would use the campus never materialized in the numbers the Governing Board had been promised by the former college president.
After the turmoil caused by that former president, the new president focuses on the college’s online classes, which greatly dwarf the number of on-site students who attend classes in person at both the Prescott and Prescott Valley campuses. Also in response to what the former president cost the college in both finances and good will from the community, the new president holds monthly listening sessions in eastern Yavapai County to gather public opinion and feedback on college programs.
Meanwhile in eastern Yavapai County, the new Verde Valley Community College is growing. The new college formed after Clarkdale, Camp Verde, Jerome, Cottonwood and Sedona seceded by voter mandate under a new law spearheaded by legislators in southern Arizona who faced similar difficulties with their community colleges. The communities also sued over a bond voters approved in 2000 — but for which little money went to their communities. The settlement was enough to launch the new college while eastern county taxes now stay in the Verde Valley.
The VVCC campus in Clarkdale is still known for its top-notch oenology program, supported by local wineries and vintners in Page Springs, Cornville and Clarkdale.
Verde Valley Medical Center partnered with the new college almost from the start, helps train nurses and medical technicians who go to work with the hospital and its satellite campuses. Many of those students attend classes and work with patients at the urgent care center in Camp Verde that VVMC opened a few years earlier. Some of the instructors remind incoming students that the drive to Camp Verde is an hour shorter than what they had to make to Prescott back when they were in school.
VVCC agriculture and veterinary students attend classes at the DK Ranch on Oak Creek, which the University of Arizona acquired in summer 2015. VVCC students earn university credit through the UofA’s Veterinary Sciences Department and the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences. Yavapai College cites the loss of the DK Ranch as the first signal the former president was out of touch with the communities she supposedly served.
At the VVCC’s Sedona Center, students take classes in hospitality and restaurant management, supported by Sedona’s hotels and resorts. A film school has also returned to Sedona, supported by Zaki Gordon Institute for Independent Filmmaking alumni and Northern Arizona University’s Creative Media & Film Department. Meanwhile, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute continues to provide classes, workshops and lectures through the new community college.
This could be the future of our community college system if Yavapai College continues on its present course. Secession would be a costly and litigious process for Yavapai College, but if President Penny Wills, and the Governing Board that is supposed to direct her actions, doesn’t listen to the needs of the Verde Valley — and understand the value of our tax money — a proposal by state legislators could make secession an alternative for taxpayers to have a return on our investment.
These Verde Valley programs are currently possible, but require community agitation and Governing Board leadership to create them. If Wills continues to ignore us, well, it’s time to start thinking about a Verde Valley Community College mascot ….
