NSCC: Home at Last

After 38 years in rental buildings, North Shore Community College inaugurated its new main campus building this semester.The new building features 26 networked classrooms, a full service cafeteria, central administrative offices, faculty offices and an extensive library and media center.  The dramatic new building, with almost the entire east facade covered in glass, is a long way from NSCC's 1965 origin in a condemned junior high school rented for one dollar from the city of Beverly. In 1992 the President‚Äôs office and Allied Health Division moved to a warehouse the college purchased and renovated on land in Danvers near where Routes 1 and 95 meet. The new building is on that site.

Until last June the college continued a major presence in Beverly in a nondescript commercial building that was costing $1 million a year in rent. Now the college is gone from Beverly, except for a corporate center. North Shore has had its own building for a second campus in downtown Lynn since 1987.

As the college completes its first semester in the new building the faculty and staff are settling in and starting to feel at home. Enrollments are up, and faculty report an improved attitude among the students.  After years of unsuitable facilities and limited possibilities, the faculty is now excited with the potential of this 21^st century environment.