Burke residents interested in four-year degrees in psychology, human services and clinical mental health counseling have a new option closer to home.
Montreat College has opened an office at Western Piedmont Community College and will offer classes on the local campus.
An articulation agreement between the two schools will allow WPCC graduates to transfer all 64 of their associate’s degree credits into the Montreat programs.
Jonathan Shores with Montreat and Chad Bledsoe with WPCC helped seal the deal between to the two schools.
Both schools have similar agreements with other campuses.
Shores, the vice president for professional and adult student services, said Montreat sought to offer degrees at WPCC that other college and universities don’t.
“Our intent wasn’t to compete with other higher education programs,” Shores said. “We came in and looked at what was not being offered to Burke County.”
He said Montreat is able to fill a need in the strong mental health services community in Burke County — with Broughton Hospital and the J. Iverson Riddle Developmental Center plus other health agencies.
Montreat will offer a bachelor’s degrees in psychology and human services and a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling.
Shores said Becky Franklin is the student liaison and has an office on the campus of WPCC.
She will help WPCC students and others determine which credits will transfer and what courses they need.
The classes will meet on WPCC’s campus from 6 to 10 p.m. one night a week.
The bachelor’s program is $375 per credit hour and Shores said it would take a student about a year and a half to complete. The master’s program is $395 per credit hour and it would take about two years to complete. The programs will begin in the fall semester
Bledsoe and Shores said the partnership has been in the works for several years, and the two were familiar with each other as Bledsoe helped a different institution he worked for before coming to WPCC create a similar articulation agreement with Montreat.
There are GPA and course requirements and the agreement calls for both schools to help market the program.
Bledsoe, vice president of academic affairs at WPCC, said the partnership will be especially beneficial to applied science majors.
“While there are degrees at WPCC designed to transfer to four-year institutions, degrees in the applied sciences often do not transfer. These articulations allow for a path to four-year degrees that was not previously available to some students,” Bledsoe said.
In addition to expanding opportunities for higher education, Bledsoe also listed helping students transition into a four-year program and transferability of credits as benefits to area students.
WPCC also has similar agreements with other colleges and universities, including Laurel University, Lees-McRae, Lenior-Rhyne, N.C. State and UNC Asheville, Charlotte and Greensboro and Western Carolina.
WPCC will hold open houses at 6 p.m. March 21 and 9 a.m. March 31 for Montreat and its new programs.
Montreat is a Christian liberal arts college in Black Mountain. Visit www.montreat.edu. WPCC is a part of the North Carolina Community College System and enrolls around 4,000 students a year. Visit www.wpcu.edu.
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