TRC: New welcome point planned for public

Construction work on the Welcome Center canopy at Three Rivers College is on schedule to become the “new focus point” by the end the year.

The canopy is going on the outside of the Westover Building so that it’ll be visible from Raiders Way coming off of Shelby Road when cars are coming onto the campus. It will also be visible from the main parking lot.

President Dr. Wes Payne said the goal of the project is to help with directing traffic for visitors on campus. The canopy, which will have a Welcome Center sign above it, will mark it as the place for visitors to go to when they aren’t sure where they’re looking for.

Payne said the construction group worked on the canopy leading up to registration. During that time, the initial framing and the roofing were installed. Payne said they reached an agreement for the group to take a break for several weeks during the peak of registration and the beginning of classes so as to not disturb the flow of traffic for those weeks. However, they are expected to return to finish the project.

During that pause, Payne said, the canopy was functional but not complete.

“I will say that I was very impressed with the work that they got done,” he said. “It was a functional canopy for the registration process, which was very nice to have.”

Some of the work that still needs to be done includes the sign above the canopy, which will be on the brick wall facade, and the finishing touches to the canopy itself.

Payne said he wants it to serve as the focus point for the entrance of campus.

“The purpose being that when you top the hill on Raiders Way, that will tell be the focus point that you will see,” he said. “When you enter campus and find a place to park, it will be bluntly obvious ‘this is probably where I should go.’ I do not believe we could make it more obviously unless we change the signage to ‘start here.’ That has been an ongoing problem on campus that there has not been an obvious place that a visitor to campus begins.”

Payne said this should change that problem and help with traffic on campus by making it clearer where visitors to campus need to go.

Fall semester

Payne said the first day of school on Monday was one of “the smoothest starts” he’s experienced in a number of years.

He did say, however, that if everything goes completely smoothly then there’s something that he didn’t know about.

This year, one of the air conditioning units went down on the first day. However, Payne said he was pleased with how the campus responded.

“That just goes to show you that our students, faculty and staff are tough and they persevered,” Payne said. “Because everybody still got taught that day and classes went on.”

Tax Rate

The Three Rivers College board of trustees approved no change to its taxation rate for the 2019 calendar year.

The rate is set to 0.2355-cents for each $100 of assessed valuation. This is the same rate that was set for the 2018 year.