As the first community college created by the State Board for Community Colleges and Occupational Education and the largest community college in Colorado, Front Range has a longstanding reputation for innovation and fostering student success.
FRCC’s Rich History
1967 – The Colorado state legislature creates a State Board for Community Colleges and Occupational Education.
1968 – Front Range Community College (then the North Campus of the Community College of Denver) becomes the first community college established by the State Board. The college is located at East 62nd Avenue and Downing Street in Denver. John H. Swenson serves as chief campus executive, considered the college’s first president.
1977 – The college moves to 112th Avenue in Westminster, near the crossroads of Adams, Boulder, and Jefferson counties. The Westminster Campus is the largest solar-heated educational building in the world, and its solar panels operate until 1996.
1982 – Classes are offered at Longmont High School and other Longmont locations.
1983 – Classes are offered at a Boulder Junior High School.
1984 – The North Campus of the Community College of Denver is renamed Front Range Community College. Donald R. Mankenberg is appointed interim president.
1985 – Front Range Community College becomes an independent college.
1986 – Cary A. Israel is appointed FRCC president.
1988 – Larimer County Voc-Tech Center merges with Front Range Community College, creating the Larimer Campus of FRCC. Even today, more than 400 Larimer County high school students attend classes daily in 12 technical programs.
1990 – FRCC opens the Boulder Valmont Campus in an office building at 2995 Wilderness Place.
1991 – Richard Bond serves as FRCC’s interim president until the appointment of Thomas Gonzales.
1994 – FRCC becomes one of the first colleges in the state to offer online courses (telecourses were much earlier). Since then, FRCC has become the clear leader among Colorado community colleges in online learning and the integration of Web enhancements into classroom courses. In one recent semester, for example, FRCC offered 251 online sections, 128 hybrid sections, and 696 Web-enhanced course sections.
1995 – FRCC opens the Longmont Campus, after 12 years of offering classes to Longmont residents at Longmont High School and other locations.
1996 – FRCC opens the North Boulder Campus in the Gunbarrel area of Boulder to replace the overcrowded Boulder Valmont Campus.
1997 – FRCC offers an A.A.S. degree in machining at the Rocky Mountain Manufacturing Academy. The academy is part of the Higher Education and Advanced Technology Center at the decommissioned Lowry Air Force Base in Aurora.
1998 – The Longmont Campus doubles in size. A building program creates new student centers, libraries, and state-of-the-art classrooms and computer facilities at Larimer and Westminster, as well as major improvements in technology, telecommunications, and science and computer laboratories at all campuses.
1999 – FRCC opens the Brighton Center in the former Adams County Justice Center, now called the Community Education Center. The Student Services area at Westminster is renovated.
2002 – Larimer Campus students, faculty, and staff move into the newly renovated Mt. Antero and Blanca Peak buildings. To accommodate growing enrollment, the Boulder County Campuses (in north Boulder and Longmont) open two new satellite sites: one in Boulder and one in Longmont.
2003 – The four Boulder County FRCC campuses are consolidated into one new Boulder County Campus that has more than double the space of all four locations combined. Stargazer Observatory opens, thanks to a unique partnership with Village Homes, developer of Observatory Village in southeast Fort Collins.
2004 – In July, Janet Gullickson is appointed president.
2005 – In August, Karen Reinertson is appointed president. The Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Program at Larimer moves to a larger space in the Community Learning Center in Loveland, joining Allied Health Programs in the learning center.
2008 – Upon the retirement of President Reinertson, Michael Kupcho, vice president of finance and administration and chief financial officer, is appointed interim chief administrative officer. The Westminster Campus enrolls 50 dropouts in Gateway to College, the first of an expected 325 students over three years. The Westminster Campus is first in Colorado (and the 18th nationally) to replicate the program, thanks to a grant from the Gateway to College National Network.
2009 – Andy Dorsey, a former FRCC instructor, faculty member, dean, vice president, and chief academic officer, is appointed president. FRCC earns continued accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission, a commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. A new and larger Brighton Lifelong Learning Center welcomes students in the spring semester at the Brighton Learning and Resource Campus on Egbert Street. Architectural planning begins for a new science building at the Larimer Campus.