Crowder Cassville: 20 Years of accessible education
The new face of the Crowder Cassville campus. Construction is still being completed at the time of this publication, but the building has already taken shape.
Above is what the original Cassville campus of Crowder College looked like when it was founded. The campus has experienced substantial growth since it first opened.
September 25, 2019
Vinnie Roberts
In many rural areas, college prospects are nearly non-existent, shutting off the locals who can’t afford tuition, gas and living expenses from a valuable tool for success. Thankfully, for the last 20 years, this problem has been non-existent in Barry County and the surrounding areas, thanks to the Cassville branch of Crowder College.
Crowder officially opened up its first campus in Cassville in the summer of 1999, but the school was a part of the community well before that, originally only offering evening classes. That all changed with help from Jerry Watley, a local Cassville business owner.
“We had classes in Cassville at the High School before that. It was an evening program,” explained Angela Seymour, director of the Cassville facility. “At some point, Jerry Watley approached Crowder and told them that he was planning to move his Able 2 industry to a new facility. That was prior to ‘99”
Seymour went on to explain that Watley had this idea due to a survey administered by the Cassville Chamber of Commerce in previous years.
“Previously, the Chamber of Commerce did a survey in the community to ask what things the community wanted to see in Cassville,” explained Seymour. “One of those things was a college campus. So, Jerry approached Crowder and offered space at his company.”
Watley stayed involved in the Cassville campus, offering the space at a cheap rate and continuing to assist in renovations. At first, the campus and part of Watley’s business shared the facility, but the business soon moved out leaving the building to Crowder.
“He offered his old manufacturing facility to Crowder to have classes in and have a satellite campus,” said Seymour. “He actually came in and built classrooms for us and allowed us to use the space for very little money. We paid a very small amount of rent.”
The Crowder Cassville Campus began operations at its first location on 13th Street in the summer of 1999. Classes were small at first, which allowed the facility to offer a type of class that allowed students to view a live class being taught on another campus.
“We started classes with the ITV system, which was a series of cameras and microphones hooked up at the Neosho and Nevada Campuses,” continued Seymour. “That allowed us to run classes with just one or two students in the classes and use those students to fill attendance in those classes in Neosho. That really helped us out a lot.”
As the Cassville campus continued to grow and offer new classes, the eyes of the administration soon turned to degree options.
While Crowder Cassville has always offered college courses, prior to 2003, a student was unable to attain a full degree without having spent some time taking courses at the main campus in Neosho. Soon, the administration began to pursue options to remedy that fact, at least for students seeking a general studies degree.
“At one point, we received a grant to build a science lab,” said Seymour. “Once we had that, that completed the last courses we needed for the full degrees, so students could get their entire degree at Cassville.”
According to Seymour, this also enabled a new group of degree-seekers new opportunities as well.
“We also started having a lot of pre-nursing students with the science class. We were able to offer them anatomy and physiology and microbiology. Those were required for the nursing degree, and we were able to offer those.”
With eyes always locked on the horizon, the Cassville administration aimed to aid nursing students, one of their largest groups, with completing more of their degree closer to home.
“We saw a need. We had a lot of students driving to Neosho for the nursing program,” said Seymour. “So, we started to petition with the nursing department at Neosho and started talking about what it would take for us to start a nursing program.”
Discovering that Cassville had many of the requirements already in place, the administration partnered with the Department of Labor and local hospitals to acquire the means to build a skill lab for the program.
“We acquired a Department of Labor grant that allowed us to start it,” explained Seymour. “Mercy Hospitals of Cassville and Aurora were a great partner for us in the beginning. They provided hospital beds, equipment, I.V. pumps and other things the lab needed.”
During the creation of this lab, the Cassville Crowder facility was undergoing a momentous change of its own. Having begun to outgrow their space on 13th Street, Crowder partnered with Jerry Watley once again in order to create a new, larger facility to house an ever-growing student population.
Just in time to celebrate their tenth anniversary, Crowder was able to move into this new facility, the current site of Crowder Cassville at 4020 North Main Street, in the fall of 2009.
This change saw Crowder Cassville grow from a facility with five classrooms, two computer labs, and a science lab, to a facility with nine classrooms, three computer labs, a science lab, a bookstore, a student lounge, and now that they had the space to accommodate it, a nursing skills lab. The new facility also included a community building that was available for school activities and was also available to rent for private groups.
The change also had a positive impact on enrollment at the school. Whereas before students were being actively turned away from the Cassville facility, the school now had the space to accommodate a significantly larger student body.
“We greatly increased our square footage, and, with that, we were able to increase offer more classes and additional sections of classes that we already offered,” said Seymour. “We increased our credit hour enrollment 45 percent that first fall.”
Crowder Cassville would continue to grow in the years after the move. Enrollment continued to grow at the school, so much so that Crowder was able to purchase the grounds from Watley outright in 2013.
During this period, Crowder was able to grow its existing programs and diversify the types of education that the Cassville campus could offer.
“Before, I would have to choose between the needs of a class that would meet the needs of 25 students versus eight, because you want to have a class that’s degree specific, but you don’t have a large number of students that were taking that course,” Seymour continued. “You have to try and serve as many students as humanly possible in the space you have. Those were some of the hard decisions that having additional space eliminated. We have a larger variety and more majors now with the new space.”
The Cassville campus would also grow to benefit from partnerships entered into with other universities. Today, Crowder Cassville offers six degrees that can be completed entirely on the Cassville Campus or mostly on campus with the addition of an online component. In addition to associates degrees offered in general studies, business and criminal justice, the campus also offers bachelors degrees in nursing, teacher education and psychology through their partnerships with Missouri State University and Drury University in Springfield.
To this day, the Cassville Campus continues to grow. Now celebrating their twentieth anniversary, the school broke ground on a major construction project back in March of this year. Construction is well underway and will grow the campus to include two larger classrooms, with one of the classrooms in the existing facility set to become a second nursing skills lab. The campus will also include a larger bookstore with a small soda fountain, two study rooms with glass fronts designed for dry erase marker usage, a new computer bank and new offices equipped with a quiet room for isolated test taking.
Amidst all this growth, Seymour has stayed amazed at the amount of good the campus has been able to do for the people of Barry County.
“There’s not that many people in the community that this hasn’t touched. When I first started at Crowder, people didn’t even know we had a campus here,” said Seymour. “When we did our ten year anniversary, I pulled statistics from our institutional research office and we had over a thousand students who had either graduated or were transferred on that had taken something at Cassville. That’s not just the students have taken classes here, that’s students that have graduated or transferred. We were still so small. It’s amazing to think that we contributed to the betterment of people’s lives.
“I look at my job and even in the stressful times, I’m still blessed to be a part of it. It’s nice to be a part of something that’s such a big part of so many people’s lives.”
The Crowder College Cassville Campus is currently in session amidst all the construction. For more information about the school or to inquire about enrollment, contact the campus at (417) 847-1706.
Vinnie Roberts
In many rural areas, college prospects are nearly non-existent, shutting off the locals who can’t afford tuition, gas and living expenses from a valuable tool for success. Thankfully, for the last 20 years, this problem has been non-existent in Barry County and the surrounding areas, thanks to the Cassville branch of Crowder College.
Crowder officially opened up its first campus in Cassville in the summer of 1999, but the school was a part of the community well before that, originally only offering evening classes. That all changed with help from Jerry Watley, a local Cassville business owner.
“We had classes in Cassville at the High School before that. It was an evening program,” explained Angela Seymour, director of the Cassville facility. “At some point, Jerry Watley approached Crowder and told them that he was planning to move his Able 2 industry to a new facility. That was prior to ‘99”
Seymour went on to explain that Watley had this idea due to a survey administered by the Cassville Chamber of Commerce in previous years.
“Previously, the Chamber of Commerce did a survey in the community to ask what things the community wanted to see in Cassville,” explained Seymour. “One of those things was a college campus. So, Jerry approached Crowder and offered space at his company.”
Watley stayed involved in the Cassville campus, offering the space at a cheap rate and continuing to assist in renovations. At first, the campus and part of Watley’s business shared the facility, but the business soon moved out leaving the building to Crowder.
“He offered his old manufacturing facility to Crowder to have classes in and have a satellite campus,” said Seymour. “He actually came in and built classrooms for us and allowed us to use the space for very little money. We paid a very small amount of rent.”
The Crowder Cassville Campus began operations at its first location on 13th Street in the summer of 1999. Classes were small at first, which allowed the facility to offer a type of class that allowed students to view a live class being taught on another campus.
“We started classes with the ITV system, which was a series of cameras and microphones hooked up at the Neosho and Nevada Campuses,” continued Seymour. “That allowed us to run classes with just one or two students in the classes and use those students to fill attendance in those classes in Neosho. That really helped us out a lot.”
As the Cassville campus continued to grow and offer new classes, the eyes of the administration soon turned to degree options.
While Crowder Cassville has always offered college courses, prior to 2003, a student was unable to attain a full degree without having spent some time taking courses at the main campus in Neosho. Soon, the administration began to pursue options to remedy that fact, at least for students seeking a general studies degree.
“At one point, we received a grant to build a science lab,” said Seymour. “Once we had that, that completed the last courses we needed for the full degrees, so students could get their entire degree at Cassville.”
According to Seymour, this also enabled a new group of degree-seekers new opportunities as well.
“We also started having a lot of pre-nursing students with the science class. We were able to offer them anatomy and physiology and microbiology. Those were required for the nursing degree, and we were able to offer those.”
With eyes always locked on the horizon, the Cassville administration aimed to aid nursing students, one of their largest groups, with completing more of their degree closer to home.
“We saw a need. We had a lot of students driving to Neosho for the nursing program,” said Seymour. “So, we started to petition with the nursing department at Neosho and started talking about what it would take for us to start a nursing program.”
Discovering that Cassville had many of the requirements already in place, the administration partnered with the Department of Labor and local hospitals to acquire the means to build a skill lab for the program.
“We acquired a Department of Labor grant that allowed us to start it,” explained Seymour. “Mercy Hospitals of Cassville and Aurora were a great partner for us in the beginning. They provided hospital beds, equipment, I.V. pumps and other things the lab needed.”
During the creation of this lab, the Cassville Crowder facility was undergoing a momentous change of its own. Having begun to outgrow their space on 13th Street, Crowder partnered with Jerry Watley once again in order to create a new, larger facility to house an ever-growing student population.
Just in time to celebrate their tenth anniversary, Crowder was able to move into this new facility, the current site of Crowder Cassville at 4020 North Main Street, in the fall of 2009.
This change saw Crowder Cassville grow from a facility with five classrooms, two computer labs, and a science lab, to a facility with nine classrooms, three computer labs, a science lab, a bookstore, a student lounge, and now that they had the space to accommodate it, a nursing skills lab. The new facility also included a community building that was available for school activities and was also available to rent for private groups.
The change also had a positive impact on enrollment at the school. Whereas before students were being actively turned away from the Cassville facility, the school now had the space to accommodate a significantly larger student body.
“We greatly increased our square footage, and, with that, we were able to increase offer more classes and additional sections of classes that we already offered,” said Seymour. “We increased our credit hour enrollment 45 percent that first fall.”
Crowder Cassville would continue to grow in the years after the move. Enrollment continued to grow at the school, so much so that Crowder was able to purchase the grounds from Watley outright in 2013.
During this period, Crowder was able to grow its existing programs and diversify the types of education that the Cassville campus could offer.
“Before, I would have to choose between the needs of a class that would meet the needs of 25 students versus eight, because you want to have a class that’s degree specific, but you don’t have a large number of students that were taking that course,” Seymour continued. “You have to try and serve as many students as humanly possible in the space you have. Those were some of the hard decisions that having additional space eliminated. We have a larger variety and more majors now with the new space.”
The Cassville campus would also grow to benefit from partnerships entered into with other universities. Today, Crowder Cassville offers six degrees that can be completed entirely on the Cassville Campus or mostly on campus with the addition of an online component. In addition to associates degrees offered in general studies, business and criminal justice, the campus also offers bachelors degrees in nursing, teacher education and psychology through their partnerships with Missouri State University and Drury University in Springfield.
To this day, the Cassville Campus continues to grow. Now celebrating their twentieth anniversary, the school broke ground on a major construction project back in March of this year. Construction is well underway and will grow the campus to include two larger classrooms, with one of the classrooms in the existing facility set to become a second nursing skills lab. The campus will also include a larger bookstore with a small soda fountain, two study rooms with glass fronts designed for dry erase marker usage, a new computer bank and new offices equipped with a quiet room for isolated test taking.
Amidst all this growth, Seymour has stayed amazed at the amount of good the campus has been able to do for the people of Barry County.
“There’s not that many people in the community that this hasn’t touched. When I first started at Crowder, people didn’t even know we had a campus here,” said Seymour. “When we did our ten year anniversary, I pulled statistics from our institutional research office and we had over a thousand students who had either graduated or were transferred on that had taken something at Cassville. That’s not just the students have taken classes here, that’s students that have graduated or transferred. We were still so small. It’s amazing to think that we contributed to the betterment of people’s lives.
“I look at my job and even in the stressful times, I’m still blessed to be a part of it. It’s nice to be a part of something that’s such a big part of so many people’s lives.”
The Crowder College Cassville Campus is currently in session amidst all the construction. For more information about the school or to inquire about enrollment, contact the campus at (417) 847-1706.