HERMITAGE, Mercer County - Butler County Community College celebrated the opening of its new branch campus in Hermitage with a ceremony Wednesday evening at the site.

The college, which has been a staple in Butler County for 38 years, plans to offer several courses at the new site starting in January. Prior to now, BC3 only offered limited classes in Mercer County.

"We are committed to offering affordable and accessible education to the residents of Mercer County and people in the surrounding areas who wish to improve their lives by attending a community college," said BC3 president Cynthia Azari.

BC3 also has a branch campus in Cranberry Township, with satellite campuses in Armstrong and Lawrence counties.

The Mercer County branch is located in the new LindenPointe building and offers five degree programs.

They are business administration, business management, computer information systems, elementary education and general studies. It also offers a pre-nursing program.

A total of 24 classes will be offered, 18 of them at night and six during the day. The spring semester begins Jan. 13.

Todd Hittle, BC3's project coordinator for the Hermitage site, said the new campus was funded in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, which had targeted Mercer County as being one of four Pennsylvania counties in need of the services provided by a community college.

The local work force development group identified three areas where higher education was needed, and those were allied health, manufacturing and computer science.

"We would have loved to offer all three of those programs, but we were told to pick one, so we chose computer science," Hittle said.

The facility is 4,000 square feet and encompasses the first floor of the LindenPointe building.

It has a large group instruction room that seats 35, a small instructional room that seats 12 and a state-of-the-art computer lab that seats 20.

"It's the latest and the greatest, so we're really excited about that," Hittle said about the computer lab.

BC3 is hoping for between 75 and 100 students to enroll in the spring semester and plans to build on that for the summer and fall 2005 semesters, Hittle said.

Because they are starting with a spring semester, Hittle said the college realizes that mostly non-traditional students will be attending.

"But we plan to take the rest of this year, as well as the spring and summer, to recruit students, particularly from the local high schools," Hittle said.

The site has room to expand, and future growth is anticipated if the program is well received.

Bill O'Brien, BC3's off-site administrator, said the Hermitage site would be a test for future expansion.

"This will be a model," he said. "If things work well here, we'll use it when we expand."

If the site proves successful, O'Brien said BC3 would like to offer a nursing program there, adding a nursing lab, a chemistry lab and six classrooms.

For now, the grant is paying for the five full-time staff the site has, O'Brien said. In years two and three, tuition will be increased to continue to pay for the program. After the third year, the program will be evaluated to determine if it will continue and possibly expand, O'Brien said.

"We feel the potential is great to be very successful up here," he said.

Registration begins Dec. 1.

Also, several articulation agreements were signed Wednesday between BC3 and neighboring four-year colleges and universities, including Thiel College, Youngstown State University and Slippery Rock University. The agreements allow students who attend BC3 to transfer those credits to one of the four-year institutions.

To register or for more information on the Hermitage site, call 724-346-2829, Ext. 8346, or visit www.bc3.edu.