All through 2023, Waukesha County Technical Faculty (WCTC) will have fun an necessary milestone within the Faculty’s historical past: its a hundredth anniversary.
WCTC, one in all 16 Schools within the Wisconsin Technical Faculty System, has been a pacesetter of workforce improvement and coaching for a century. The faculty has educated scores of scholars and contributes to the financial system by offering expert employees to fill vital roles inside enterprise and business.
In 1923, Waukesha Vocational Faculty was fashioned within the basement of Waukesha Excessive Faculty (now Les Paul Center Faculty). The highschool principal doubled as part-time director, and the vocational faculty quickly appointed a devoted, full-time director, O.B. Lindholm, who additionally served as its first guide coaching teacher.
The varsity would increase and relocate – from the highschool basement within the Twenties, to a brand new house on Waukesha’s Maple Avenue within the Nineteen Thirties, to a sprawling campus on 110 acres of farmland in Pewaukee within the Nineteen Seventies. It will additionally expertise a number of identify adjustments, amongst them Lindholm Vocational and Grownup Faculty, Waukesha Technical Institute and others.
The vocational school-turned-technical school’s beginnings have been modest. In that first 12 months, enrollment was simply 443 college students, however would quickly enhance; as we speak, enrollment sits at greater than 17,000 college students yearly.
In these early years, the college’s choices have been restricted. Programs have been out there within the trades, normal training, residence economics and fundamental topics. Within the early Forties, throughout the Conflict, there was a fantastic want for extra extremely expert engineers, technologists and craftspeople, and the college responded by including a wide range of new programs. The primary one-year and two-year packages have been provided in 1961 and 1962, respectively, and the college held its first formal commencement ceremony in 1964.
Beginning within the Sixties the college sought recommendation from working professionals to assist develop new packages, and occupational advisory committees have been fashioned. The Nineteen Seventies and Eighties noticed the event of extra partnerships and customised coaching alternatives, and the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s ushered in an period of elevated collaboration with Ok-12 districts and expanded highschool twin credit score alternatives.
A century after its humble begin, WCTC boasts 170-plus areas of examine that result in certificates, technical diplomas, apprenticeships and affiliate levels. Greater than 1,400 business professionals serve on advisory committees as we speak, and tens of 1000’s of scholars are honored to name themselves WCTC graduates.
Richard G. Barnhouse, Ph.D., president of WCTC since January 2021, stated he’s grateful to all who’ve had a hand within the school’s success — together with college students, school and employees, neighborhood members, legislators, enterprise and business companions, and others – and he’s wanting ahead to WCTC’s vivid future.
“As we glance again, we’re grateful for thus many accomplishments, victories, and the expansion and improvement of a school that has been on the forefront of upper training for a complete century,” he stated. “As we full our first century of academic excellence, we’re shifting rapidly to make sure the muse for our second century is constructed to excel.”
Be taught extra about WCTC’s centennial at www.wctc.edu/100.
Waukesha County Technical Faculty
800 Predominant Avenue
Pewaukee, WI 53072
wctc.edu
262.691.5566
