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CENTENNIAL SPOTLIGHT
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Joliet Junior College will celebrate its Centennial anniversary in 2001. JJC is proud to be America's oldest public community college and a recognized leader among two-year educational institutions. The college is pleased to spotlight its rich history with this series of centennial vignettes. Beginning as an experimental post-graduate high school program envisioned by J. Stanley Brown and William Rainey Harper, only six "post-graduate" students were enrolled in 1901. Today, JJC serves more than 10,000 students in credit classes and 21,000 students in non-credit courses. Although initially intended to academically parallel the first two years of a four-year college or university, JJC now offers occupational and technical education as well as traditional pre-baccalaureate programs. The college shared facilities with Joliet Township High School until 1969, when it moved to its current home on Houbolt Road. Over the years, JJC has responded positively and creatively to the pressures of world war, depression, and rapid social and technological change. Originally meant to serve only the Joliet Township High School district, today the college encompasses 1,442 square miles in a seven-county region. In recent years the college has continued to grow, extending services and programs into downtown Joliet in 1980 with what is now known as the Joliet City Center Campus and into the Romeoville area with the North Campus in 1993. |
As America's oldest junior college, JJC has made unique and significant contributions to the local community as well as to the development of the nation's educational system. This rich heritage will be explored further in the next Centennial Spotlight, which will focus on the founders of this pioneer institution J. Stanley Brown and William Rainey Harper.
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