Prisk

On busy Teays Valley Road in Hurricane, near the I-64 interchange, there's a well-kept building where a whole lot of Marshall activity is going on.

It's the Teays Valley Regional Center, which has been serving the needs of students in Putnam County and the surrounding region since 1997. Presiding over the center is director Bonnie Prisk, who is eager to spread the word about what she terms "a real treasure for the area."

Begun in 1997 to offer classes to qualified high school students who wanted to get a jump on acquiring college credits, the center has grown from just 30 students per semester to more than 1200 this past year. However, it's not just high school students who are enrolling in the classes. People of all ages and from all walks of life attend classes in Teays Valley. In fact, growth over the past seven years has been so steady, 50 classes on a variety of subjects will be offered this fall.

High school students take classes on the block schedule in Eleanor at the Putnam Career and Technical Center. They pay about one third of the regular tuition, an amount set by the Higher Education Policy Commission each year, according to Prisk. Since they can earn up to 18-21 hours of credit, students can complete a semester of college while still in high school.

"One advantage of taking these courses is that it allows students to know they can do college work," she says. "It's encourages them and lets them know college is a very real possibility."

The center's structure has broadened to include courses for a wide range of students and they have added evening classes, which have proved to be enormously popular. Prisk says they've worked out a system which conveniently allows students to take courses back to back in a single evening.

"Evening classes have a wide variety of people in them, some are 18 years old but there are people of every age imaginable. We get a lot of displaced workers, those who have lost jobs or who want to get a promotion or job upgrade. Many have had some college courses but don't have a degree," Prisk says.

"There has been a big push for the [Regents Bachelor of Arts] degree, so we began offering a significant number of upper division courses those students need. Marshall Community and Technical College courses are offered. Some graduate classes are offered in Teays Valley as a midway point between Huntington and Charleston."

Prisk is an enthusiastic booster for the center. "It meets a real need. We see people who are stuck in a job and they can't advance until they get a degree, or can't get promoted without additional education. Other students are entering college for the first time and the local classroom is less intimidating than the college campus. We try to make things as convenient as possible. Scheduling classes back to back makes it easier for people to accomplish what they need to do. We also have people who move into the area and want to learn about West Virginia so they enroll in a West Virginia history class we offer. And some people take classes just for pleasure. In addition, some faculty members have said they enjoy having a mixture of people of different ages and different backgrounds in their classrooms."

The center is always open to new possibilities, and they will add courses as opportunities arise, Prisk notes. For example, the center recently reached an agreement with the Putnam County YMCA and this fall will begin offering physical education courses with instructors approved through Marshall's Physical Education department. "It helps with the volume of students the PE department has to handle. These offerings are a wonderful opportunity for the students in the Teays Valley area to fulfill their physical education requirements."

Through an agreement with Putnam County schools, classes are offered principally at Hurricane High School but occasionally at other locales as the need arises. "We had computer classes at Winfield Middle and Winfield High School," said Prisk. "We try to keep classes in one place, though, so students can take two classes in an evening."

Staffed only with Prisk, a secretary and sometimes a graduate assistant, the administrative headquarters at 101 Carriage Pointe in Hurricane is a buzz of activity. The staff offers support services for faculty, advises and registers students, and acts as a clearinghouse for information about Marshall. "People drop in and we give them applications, brochures, catalogs, and answer questions. It's a point of entry for many people, their first contact with Marshall. This is a real feeder system for the university."

A native of North Carolina, Prisk came to West Virginia from Arizona in 1992 and she and family members quickly became part of the Marshall family. She received a M.S. degree in adult education. Son Andrew works in computer services on the Huntington campus and is completing his degree. Another son, David, worked in the library on the South Charleston campus and took classes which led to his receiving a medical degree from the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine. His wife, Tabitha, received a master's degree from Marshall and taught classes for the university before the couple moved to Greenville, North Carolina, where David is finishing his last year of residency in emergency medicine. Daughter Stephanie took advantage of classes offered in Teays Valley and compiled a semester of credits while still in high school. She's a senior at Marshall now, with a double major in French and Religious Studies.

With a busy family that includes six grandchildren-five grandsons and a granddaughter-Prisk has very little spare time but she loves reading, gardening and music and tries to find time to play the piano. An energetic traveler, she fits in trips as her schedule permits. After living in eight states in a little over 30 years, she's at home in West Virginia and is an enthusiastic booster of the state and this area in particular.

As the center continues to grow and flourish, Prisk is quick to give credit to the Putnam County groups that have aided the university's outreach efforts. "The Putnam County Schools have been very supportive and worked closely with us," she says. "The Chamber of Commerce and the County Commission along with the Development Authority have all been supportive of this program. And of course, we would all like to have more space and our own space eventually,"

But for right now, the center will continue to meet the needs of the region and adapt as necessary to meet those needs. "Encouraging students of any age to begin or complete a college degree is the purpose of the off-campus center. The goal is to improve the number of West Virginia residents with college degrees. It's a continuing commitment to the community," Prisk says. "If there is a demand for something, we try to meet it."