Classes begin today at Sinclair center in Englewood

By Mark Fisher
Dayton Daily News

ENGLEWOOD | The computers are hooked up, the pop machines are full and the school sweatshirts are nestled in their display case. Let school begin.

While students elsewhere focus on the end of the school year, nearly 300 Sinclair Community College students in northern Montgomery County start classes today in a new building, Sinclair's Englewood Learning Center.

The 15,300-square-foot center is attached to the east side of Kleptz YMCA at Hoke and National roads. It is part of Sinclair's effort to expand course offerings in areas where some students might not make the 20-minutes-or-longer trip to Sinclair's main campus in downtown Dayton to take introductory and general education courses. A second learning center is scheduled to open this fall adjacent to a Huber Heights YMCA.

The Englewood center houses nine classrooms that will host 24 class sections ranging from algebra to Spanish to sign language in an accelerated five-week term this spring. Classes in subsequent quarters will be offered in five-week, 11-week and other schedules.

Although classes begin today with a small ceremony, the center will host an open house from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 20.

The early response has been strong, said Dan Brazelton, Sinclair's dean of learning centers. More than 300 people sought to sign up, though a few courses did not attract enough students to make the class sections viable this spring. About 85 percent of the 280 students who are enrolled in the center's classes live within five miles of the center, and about 60 percent are either first-time freshmen or are returning to school after more than a year away, Brazelton said.