William Rainey Harper

J. Stanley Brown

Historical Overview of Joliet Junior College

• 1901 Joliet Junior College (as it would later be named) begins with six students at Joliet Township High School

• 1916 College officially named Joliet Junior College

• 1917 JJC accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools

• 1918 College holds first formal commencement on June 19

• 1920 Separate JJC library established

• 1928 Student Council organized

• 1930 College newspaper, The Blazer, born

• 1950 First college football team established

• 1967 E.W. Rowley named first college president; District 525 established as a Class I junior college district, and college begins operating under its first Board of Trustees

• 1969 JJC moves into temporary buildings on its new campus on Bush Road, now Houbolt Road

• 1973 Joliet Junior College Foundation incorporated

• 1976 Industry/Business Institute organized 1980 College opens an instructional site in downtown Joliet at the Louis Joliet Renaissance Center, now known as the City Center Campus

• 1981 Fine Arts Building opens on Main Campus

• 1993 North Campus opens in Romeoville with a full range of credit and non-credit classes

• 1996 Arthur G. and Vera C. Smith Business and Technology Center opens on Main Campus

• 2000 Veterinary Medical Technology/Industrial Training Facility opens

• 2001 Joliet Junior College celebrates Centennial anniversary

Joliet Junior College is a comprehensive community college. The college offers pre-baccalaureate programs for students planning to transfer to a four-year university, occupational education leading directly to employment, adult education and literacy programs, work force and workplace development services, and support services to help students succeed.

JJC, America's oldest public community college, began in 1901 as an experimental postgraduate high school program. It was the "brain child" of J. Stanley Brown (photo, bottom left), Superintendent of Joliet Township High School, and William Rainey Harper (photo, top left), President of the University of Chicago. The college's initial enrollment was six students. Today, JJC serves more than 10,000 students in credit classes and 21,000 students in noncredit courses.

Brown and Harper's innovation created a junior college that academically paralleled the first two years of a four-year college or university. It was designed to accommodate students who desired to remain within the community and still pursue a college education. Within a few years, the concept of the community had grown to include students outside the existing high school district. By December 1902, the Board of Trustees officially sanctioned the program and made postgraduate high school courses available tuition-free. In 1916, the Board of Trustees officially named the post-high school program Joliet Junior College. The following year, the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools accredited the college, and the State Examining Board approved selected courses for teacher certification. Enrollment at the time numbered 82 students.

In the years that followed, JJC responded positively and creatively to the pressures of a world war, depression and rapid social change. The college met the challenge of a growing technological society in the 1920s and 1930s by expanding the curriculum to include programs in business and industrial training.The return of veterans in the 1940s and 1950s prompted further curriculum development in the area of two-year occupational programs. Both the transfer and occupational divisions of the college grew at a steady pace. In 1965, the Illinois Legislature enacted the Illinois Junior College Act, creating specific districts served by various community colleges. In particular, JJC was to serve the people in parts of seven counties in Northern Illinois. By 1967, college enrollment approached 4,000 students. In February of that year, the citizens of 12 high school districts in portions of Will, Grundy, Kendall, LaSalle and Kankakee counties voted to establish Illinois Community College District 525. An area to be served by JJC.

For two years, the college rented facilities at Joliet Township High School. In February 1968, the Board of Trustees selected 368 acres on the west side of Joliet for a new campus. In April 1969, the Board voted to build interim facilities consisting of 17 temporary buildings on the new site. The college began offering classes at its new location in September 1969, serving 4,130 day and evening students. Contracts for the construction of a permanent campus were awarded in September 1970. The $50 million Main Campus was fully operational in the fall of 1974. During 1973 and 1974, both the area and the population of the district expanded with the addition of Peotone, Dwight, Odell, and the area of Lemont that is in Cook County. Today, the 1,442-square mile district serves a population of more than 400,000 in Will, Grundy, Kendall, LaSalle, Kankakee, Livingston and Cook counties. To better serve people throughout the district, off-campus instructional sites have been established at many high schools in the college district, as well as civic centers, churches, libraries and businesses. Most classes at these locations are held in the evening.

In the fall of 1980, the college opened an instructional site at the Louis Joliet Renaissance Center at 214 N. Ottawa Street in Joliet's City Center. That facility today is the college's City Center Campus. The City Center Campus is an educational facility and conference center. A variety of credit and noncredit classes are offered at the City Center Campus.
The facility provides "hands-on" experience for JJC Culinary Arts and Hotel-Restaurant Management students who run the Renaissance Center restaurant and banquet facility. The City Center Campus also houses the Division of Adult and Family Services, and the Community & Economic Development (CED) Department. The Division of Adult and Family Services provides educational opportunities for students beginning with the literacy level and continuing on to the baccalaureate transfer and/or career preparation for the work force.  The Community & Economic Development (CED) Department is the headquarters for work force preparation, employee training, business development and technology deployment for JJC's district. Its mission is work force and workplace excellence.

In January of 1993, JJC opened its North Campus at 1125 W. 135th Street in Romeoville, marking the beginning of a new chapter in the history of America's oldest public community college. The 35,000-square-foot North Campus includes 18 general classrooms, biology, chemistry and computer skills labs, a library/learning resource center, and offices for student services, faculty and administrative support. North Campus offers a full range of credit and noncredit classes including accounting, advertising, biology, business, business law, chemistry, computer information systems, culinary arts, economics, education, English, geography, history, management, mathematics, philosophy, political science, psychology, real estate, sociology, speech and word processing.

The Main Campus expanded in 1996 with the opening of the Arthur G. & Vera C. Smith Business and Technology Center. The 90,000-square-foot facility houses several state-of-the-art microcomputer labs; the Business Education and Computer Information and Office Systems departments; and the Electronics Engineering Technology, Electrical/Electronic Automated Systems Technology, Construction Technology and Computer-Aided Drafting programs. The facility also is home to many of JJC's Institute of Economic Technology work force services that assist business and industry in adapting modern technologies directly into the workplace.

Illinois Community College District 525 is one of 40 community college districts governed by the Illinois Community College Board under the Illinois Board of Higher Education. The ICCB was created by the General Assembly under the provisions of the Illinois Public Junior College Act of 1965. Its primary responsibilities are to coordinate the educational programs offered through the community college system, to allocate state funding for capital expansion and to act on curriculum changes proposed by individual community colleges. JJC is directly governed by a seven-member Board of Trustees, all of whom are elected from within the district for six-year terms. A student representative, elected annually by the student body, is a nonvoting member of the Board. The officers of the Board are Chairman, Vice Chairman and Secretary, all of whom are elected by their peers for a one-year term.