New A&M-Commerce North Dallas campus will not affect traditional students
Jun. 13—Two months ago, the Texas A&M University System announced that the College of Business and the College of Education and Human Services at Texas A&M University-Commerce will spread part of their operations to North Dallas.
Since then, this has created concern among some current traditional students at A&M-Commerce who weren't sure how the change might affect them or if they might have to start commuting between both campuses.
In response to these concerns, the university's deans of business and education have clarified that while the programs will be re-headquartered and expanded to two floors of the 20-story business tower at 8750 North Central Expressway, that none of the offerings at the Commerce campus will change.
"All that means is that the dean will spend most of his or her time in Dallas developing the programs there, and an associate dean has been hired to oversee our Commerce operations," A&M-Commerce Dean of Business Dr. Mario Hayek told the Herald-Banner. "However, we will continue teaching all of our undergraduate and graduate programs as we have been thus far in Commerce. Nothing will change in terms of our Commerce offerings."
In addition to moving administrative offices for the colleges of business and education to the new site in North Dallas, the extension of A&M-Commerce is also being planned as an alternate location for junior, senior or graduate level students to take classes.
"We are excited about our Dallas site, and creating a strong teaching and learning impact in an urban area, similar to our impact in rural areas," A&M-Commerce's Dean of Education and Human Services Dr. Kimberly McLeod said. "With a site in Dallas, we are able to target a group of students that want to achieve their degree from TAMUC, while not having to take on the expenses of living on campus if they reside in the metroplex or if they simply don't want to leave the metroplex."
While offering classes at the Dallas location, administrators with A&M-Commerce are also working at further strengthening partnerships with Dallas College and high schools in the Dallas metroplex.
In addition to offering classes at both locations, it is also planned that the Dallas location will have offices where on-site staff will offer many of the same student services that are offered on the Commerce campus, including enrollment management, financial aid, career services, student success teams, academic advising and technical support.
The university's goal is to have the North Dallas location fully open and serving students by the Spring 2022 semester. When the campus opens its doors, it will be one of several campuses and institutions that are affiliated or partnered with A&M-Commerce, which currently include: Collin College in Frisco, A&M-Commerce at Mesquite Metroplex Center, El Centro College in Dallas, Dallas College, Collin Higher Education Center in McKinney, and Navarro College in Corsicana.
"The North Dallas site will mostly just be another instructional site, but it will be a little different in that the deans' offices will be moving there, and the campus will just be for junior and senior level undergraduate students and grad-level students, so it won't compete with or pull from any of the colleges that we're currently partnered with," said A&M-Commerce Provost Dr. John Humphreys. "It will just help us serve more students in the metroplex, without making them move or commute to Commerce."
