FBCC dedicates faculty housing
By Jerry W. Kram
As the Fort Berthold Community College faces many of the same challenges as any business in the Bakken Boom these days. Chief among those is "where will our employees live?"
The college took a step to solve that problem as it dedicated a four-plex that will be used for faculty housing. Each of the four two-bedroom apartments measure 1,250 sq. ft. and include full kitchens and a washer and drier.
College President Russel Mason said the apartments are needed to attract and keep qualified faculty for the college programs.
"As we move to have more four year programs, we need to have Ph.D. level faculty members," Mason said. "Having our instructors living right here on campus is really important. The students will have access to the faculty and the faculty will have much easier access to their classes. It’s the first time ever that we’ve actually had faculty housing on campus."
Mason said the college has rented a couple of houses near Deepwater Bay south of Parshall and had other instructors commute from as far away as Minot.
"So they had to come from quite a ways away," Mason said. "We were a couple of months behind in this project. I’m just glad there wasn’t snow on the ground. We wanted to move faculty in this weekend, but we still have some punch list items to take care of."
Twyla Baker-Demaray, Ph.D., Vice President of Student Services offered welcoming remarks at the dedication ceremony.
"In order to secure students and to attract the people to our institution of higher learning we have to have quality instructors," she said
