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HCC Brandon To Celebrate College's First 40 Years

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By D'ANN LAWRENCE WHITE

dlwhite@tampatrib.com

Published: November 5, 2008

TAMPA - They're used to being graded on their academic performance. Now students at the Brandon campus of Hillsborough Community College will be tested on their ability to celebrate.

And the community is invited to grade them during a fall festival from 3 to 9 p.m. Saturday at the campus, 10414 E. Columbus Drive, off Falkenburg Road.

Like the other HCC campuses throughout the county, the Brandon campus has been asked to commemorate the college's 40th anniversary.

For Shannon Grinstead, chairwoman of the campus advisory council tapped to head the Brandon celebration, coming up with a theme for the celebration was easy.

The establishment of the Brandon campus was a grassroots effort that began 25 years ago at the urging Brandon area residents. So inviting the community to a fall festival with the theme "40 Years of Building Community" went right along with the local campus' roots as a community-based institution of learning.

"This is our time to celebrate HCC's history and highlight the Brandon campus. We want the entire community to celebrate with us," Grinstead said. "There will be a little something for everyone. We'll have carnival rides, face painting, inflatables, local high school drill teams performing, local food vendors and our own showcase featuring 30 folks from our campus."

Among those entertaining in the showcase will be the 20 students in the Corporate Associates of States for Scholarship program, a campus exchange program with students from Haiti and Central and South America who are visiting for two years to learn about manufacturing and technology. The visiting students will perform dances native to their countries.

In addition, the HCC Stage Band will perform, and students from the Brandon and Ybor City HCC campuses will read poetry.

The program will get under way at 3:30 p.m. with an introduction by the president of the campus, Carlos Soto.

When Soto came to the Brandon campus in 2000, there were 38 full-time faculty members and 2,900 students. Now there are 54 teachers and 7,500 students, making the campus HCC's second largest. The college also has campuses in Tampa and Plant City, and another campus opened recently in Ruskin. Countywide, HCC serves about 40,000 students.

Two years ago, Soto oversaw development and construction of a new 60,000-square-foot student service building, the fifth structure on the Brandon campus, and helped garner a $3 million National Science Foundation grant to add state-of-the-art labs. Under his watch, the campus has earned kudos for its manufacturing, technology and aquaculture programs.

"Community colleges don't have the best reputations in the world," he said. "They don't have the lure of sports programs that four-year colleges have. So we have to excel at teaching, and I think we do."

Reporter D'Ann Lawrence White can be reached at (813) 657-4524.

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