Some 300 residents of the South Strand turned out July 20 for the formal dedication and open house of Coastal Carolina Universitys new Waccamaw Higher Education Center in Litchfield.

Coastal President Ronald R. Ingle and a handful of CCU administrators stepped to the podium in the new centers Meeting Room to officially dedicate the 14,690-square foot building. As the crowd of civic and business leaders, community residents, teachers and future students jostled for position in the room, Ingle wondered aloud if expansion plans should be initiated already.

The center is located at 160 Willbrook Blvd., west of the Hampton Inn off U.S. 17 Bypass. In addition to credit courses, nearly 100 noncredit community classes and professional workshops are being offered to area residents.

Linda Ketron is the new director of the center, Bobbie Chestnut is program assistant, and Erich Godshall is a trade specialist in facility management. The private sector partners of the center were introduced Neil McCoy, Sammy Span, Steve Goggins and Richard Mancill and Georgetown County Council members were acknowledged for their support and asked to join the Coastal staff on stage for the ceremonial ribbon cutting.

For two hours the Center hummed with excited conversation as the attendees toured the rooms, experienced the video-conferencing facility, explored the wet-lab and art studio, and admired the state-of-the-art computer classroom.

That hum will begin in earnest on Aug. 18, in sync with the Universitys Summer II session, when credit courses will permit entering freshmen to get a jump on their required English, history, math and science courses. From 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., students can participate in credit courses video-conferenced from the Conway campus. A class may go forward with only a single Waccamaw student enrolled, if there is sufficient enrollment across the main campus and the three outreach centers located in Georgetown, Litchfield and Myrtle Beach. In the evenings, faculty will conduct traditional classroom instruction of credit courses.

In the remaining six classrooms during the day, the center will offer more than 90 noncredit courses for the fall term, which runs Oct. 4 through Dec. 4. Several introductory and daylong intensive workshops are scheduled for September. Taught by talented instructors, many of whom are Coastal faculty members, the Waccamaw Center has scheduled noncredit courses in music, art, literature and film appreciation; natural, local and world history; computers and foreign languages; personal growth and creativity programs; art, photography, and writing instruction and more.

To receive a catalog for credit or noncredit courses, call 349-4030, visit the website at www.coastal.edu, or drop by in person at the Center. You may view the schedule at: http://www.coastal.edu/outreach/pdf/WaccGtnNonCreditClassesF04.pdf