Big year for Horry-Georgetown Technical College

Horry-Georgetown Technical College students finally have a chance to test their new roundabout - and it better be ready for a workout.

Classes start today at the college, and the new circular intersection, built during the summer on University Boulevard, is one of the most visible changes returning students will notice - and there will be even more students on campus to take advantage of it and the new degree offerings.

"More students than ever - an estimated 8,000 - will show up [today] for the first day of classes on three campuses of Horry-Georgetown Technical College," Mary Eaddy, HGTC's marketing director, said in an e-mail. She said it will be the highest number of students in the college's history, with more than 74 percent of students being state residents, 66 percent female and 34 percent male.

Student safety led to the construction of the roundabout, which opened Aug. 4. The traffic circle is situated near the main entrances to HGTC and Coastal Carolina University off U.S. 501, and it was designed to slow traffic and increase safety on a road where 19-year-old Heather Meade, a CCU student, was struck and killed in February.

"It's turning out to be a little more successful than we had thought in that the vantage point that it appears to be giving motorists and others is much more open and larger, therefore safer than we had ever anticipated," Harold Hawley, HGTC's vice president of business affairs, said during construction this summer.

As with the road to the college, academic offerings also have been expanded.

Growth is steady for associate degrees in criminal justice, forestry, information/digital arts and culinary arts/hospitality, and students will have four new programs this year to choose from, according to Marilyn Fore, HGTC's senior vice president for academic affairs.

Two advanced certificates, in homicide investigation and latent print development, collection and classification, will be available to students and law enforcement officials looking for additional crime scene training. Homicide investigation courses begin this semester, with latent print courses starting in the spring.

Fore said the college offers an associate degree in criminal justice and added the crime scene investigation emphasis about two years ago. She said to be accepted for either the homicide or latent print programs - both advanced certificates - a student would have to already have earned the CSI degree or be an in-service law enforcement officer.

"The CSI track has been well-received, not just by students, but by those in law enforcement," Fore said. "They have a regional training center now in CSI."

A third certificate will be available in natural resources and environment, starting this fall, according to Fore. The certificate is Internet-based and will be delivered from HGTC's Georgetown campus, where the college has the state's only associate degree in forestry and wildlife.

The fourth new program, set for next year, will be in aircraft airframe technology, Eaddy said.