ETSU to offer classes in Downtown Kingsport area
JOHNSON CITY – During a joint news conference this morning, East Tennessee State University and the City of Kingsport announced plans for the school to begin offering classes in the downtown Kingsport area beginning in January 2013.
ETSU will lease space from Northeast State Community College at the Regional Center for Applied Technology for the first semester while searching for a permanent location.
The university intends to offer primarily upper-division courses at the downtown site, while mostly freshman and sophomore-level courses will continue to be taught at ETSU at Kingsport, located near Allandale Mansion.
The addition of the downtown site is intended as a major expansion of ETSUs programmatic and student enrollment bartprint in the Model City, said ETSU President Dr. Brian Noland. Through this new partnership, we will work more closely with Northeast State on course offerings, dual enrollment, and transfer programs, and also assist Kingsport business, industry, city government and health care agencies in responding to workforce needs.
This also presents opportunities to better serve students in the surrounding counties of Virginia where border-county tuition rates are offered, he added.
Noland extended an open invitation to prospective students and other members of the community to attend an Operations Expansion, Partnership Announcement and Celebration event on Thursday, Nov. 8, from noon-2 p.m. at the Kingsport Farmers Market, 308 Clinchfield St.‚ More information about the ETSU expansion will be discussed, and students can meet with various university representatives regarding the admissions process, financial aid, and program offerings.
The presence of ETSU in downtown Kingsport was part of our original higher education plans, said Mayor Dennis Phillips.‚ I want to commend Dr. Noland and the ETSU staff for their outstanding work in making this become a reality. The addition of ETSU can only complement what has been started by Northeast State Community College, the University of Tennessee, King College and Lincoln Memorial University.
This is extremely exciting and should be welcome by the citizens of Kingsport as it is a major step forward toward reaching our higher education academic goals.
