The close to a decade history of Houston University has seen it grow and expand its products to its customers in diversity. This brings out the difference in the various campuses that the university has planted across the state. In this memo, I have picked three campuses each representing one category of the three categories of the University of Houston commonly abbreviated as UH by the students a term that is being adapted even by the teaching and non teaching staff. The campuses that have been picked are the campus of Main, the campus of Downtown and the campus of Victoria (Alfred, 120). The campus of Main represents the main stream category, while the campus of Downtown represents community colleges. Community centers are discussed under the campus of Victoria. The courses that are offered at all the categories are discussed within this memo as well as bringing out the differences between the three categories through a close comparison of the three campuses (Alfred, 126).
This section discusses the history of Main campus, the courses that are offered, and the salient features of the campuses in this category as they can be reflected by the operations of this campus. The various schools that form the sub operation sectors in the campus are highlighted as well as the demographics of the campus. The main aim of this section is to give a clear analysis of the main stream category of the University of Houston.
The “Western Association of Schools and Colleges” accredited university is the one that houses the system of University of Houston. Located in the 667 acre park in Texas, the campus is one of the oldest with its first school being established in 1927 as a “Houston Junior College” (Gaither, 233). As at the time of establishment, the university covered the disciplines in the schools of agriculture and the art category. The first seven years saw the college grow and tat time was enough for it start day classes and four year degree courses. Earlier, the college only offered night courses (Alfred, 211). In the same period, the management saw the need to rename the institution so that it may have a name that would make the community around it have a sense of possession- it was named the “Houston Junior College”.
Over time, the campus has grown tremendously to four constituent colleges in art and science alongside numerous other colleges. As a result of this diversity, the institution offers a total of 131 master degrees in its fields of study which tally at 300. A total of 54 fields offers research doctorate program while there are three fields of professional studies. This diversity is managed by a president who is picked by a board of regents and legislature which legitimately govern the institution (Gaither, 250). The institution registers an average of 20,000 students per year and has a teaching staff that is able to handle the capacity. On average, a tutor handles sixteen students, this makes the institution to have the accreditation since that size makes the tutor to have a close proximity with the student thus the tie between the tutor and the student is more close. This has always lead to the positive outcome of the performance of the graduates in their field of work (Alfred, 132).
Below is a chart showing the students information in the campus
As the chart above clearly indicates, the campus student fraternity has a high percentage in fulltime than part-time albeit small difference. Due to the high rate of intermarriages in the world, the mixed population forms a very high percentage of the students in the Main campus. The average age for the students in this campus is 25.2 which is slightly higher than average age for students at sister campus at Downtown. This is due to the higher number of students joining post graduate programs that are mentioned in this section (Gaither, 91).
In this section, the uniqueness of community colleges of university of Houston are discussed by closely looking at the management, salient features, the history and the relationship between Downtown campus and the community around the institution, the main aim of this section is to clearly indicate the importance of community colleges in the modern society.
Across the globe, there are very few educational institutions that allow open admissions. In the Texas State, eve fewer had not abolished the system by 2011, and downtown campus was one of them, (Syd, 236). This is of the salient features of the institution which draws its student’s fraternity from across the states in America and indeed across the globe. Most of the people who love history prefer this college due to this uniqueness. Established in 1970, the institution has a very strong management which has been able to overcome the challenges that are brought about by the inflation and deflation economic states. The campus is among those that have the least gradates with debt. This ensures that its students do not move into the job market with an already psychologically affected mindset of how to clear the debts. This is illustrated below.
Unlike its sister institution- the Main campus, Downtown puts a lot of emphasis on teaching. The former is well recognized for research. The disparity in their concentration has lead to independence of the Campus from the systems of Houston University at Main (Syd, 258). The proponents of this school of thought argue that, being a community college, Downtown can draw more funds as the surrounding community would only then have a sense of ownership. The independence has however not attracted any shortcoming in terms of development and the performance at the completion of the courses or at the places of work by the graduates (Gaither, 56).
Over the years, the leadership of the campus has changed hands several times from the founding president to the current Chancellor William Froles. This is the other different from the campus in Main which is headed by a different president. The institution also promotes and encourages its student’s further studies. To this effect, the university still holds night classes. Indeed, a third of the entire student fraternity takes their classes at night. Most of these students work during day time.
This section brings out the comparison between community learning centers and other categories of university of Houston. The look into the history of the college, the department that it has and the courses that it offers helps us to understand how community learning centers can develop a certain area. The aim of this section is to help in the comprehension of the importance of learning centers to a community (Syd, 141).
As expected of a community learning center, the highest percentage of the students is Houstonians and part Houstonians who form 37% of the total population. Most of the students in the college are in their late twenties with the average age being 27.7 years. Being a community learning center, it is expected that persons who were late to join higher education centers are the ones joining the center and those who perform relatively lower in the o levels (Syd, 90).
Conclusion
A close look into the operations of the above three campuses of university of Houston shows how diverse the university is and how its management has made efforts to reach out to all levels of its residents. Looking at the historical aspect of every college, the university seems to have adopted a certain trend of starting from the very humble beginnings where most of its campuses started as community learning centers and are upgraded with time. The management has also been able to underscore the core values of each category with the main stream dealing with research while the community colleges are mainly teaching institutions. The community learning centers are specifically established to improve the livelihood of the community at the very remote levels.
Works cited
Alfred, D. Educating the Corps. California: University of Southern California. Education/
(Leadership): Doctor of Education. 2007
Gaither, G. The Multicampus System: Perspectives on Practice and Prospects. Houston:
University of Houston. 1999.
Syd, K. A Marmac Guide to Houston and Galveston. Houston: University of Houston. 2009
