MARK WAITE / PVT Robert Lurker, director of the Great Basin College Pahrump campus. Advertisement

A rapidly growing community, supportive administrators from the Great Basin College system, an involved citizen's committee and talk of a new campus all has Robert Lurker, newly-hired director of the Great Basin College Pahrump campus excited about his new position.

"I'm hoping we can do some neat things here with looking at putting in a tech lab and looking at a new college and the possibilities that can bring. Between the expected growth of the community, already seeing the need for and the desire to and the progress for a new campus, I see there's a tremendous amount of opportunity here," Lurker said.

The fall semester began in full swing at Great Basin College on Monday.

Earlier indications were enrollment was down this year, but Lurker said enrollment picked up the last few days.

"We have a lot of people that are waiting until the last minute to enroll. It's really a detriment to them, because at some point we have to make a decision whether a class is going to go or not and the more people we have enrolled early the more we can push to keep those classes and make sure they happen here," Lurker said.

Lurker took over for Al Daniels, who was interim administrator after the death of Kelcy Thompson in January 2006. She had run the college from its inception in 2001.

Lurker spent as much time working in the private sector as in education, which gives him a unique perspective of the importance in the transition from school to work: instructor at ITT Technical Institute in Portland, Ore., regional consultant for Idaho Power, then back to education at the University of Central Missouri.

While at his last assignment in Missouri, he drew up plans for a technology learning center, a concept he said could be applied to a future community college in Pahrump. It's hands-on learning, "high end labs," he said. A chart shows wings for a bio-technology earth and science zone; a high-tech hand fabrication lab, a virtual reality public safety and natural security simulator and others.

Students at Pahrump Valley High School taking dual high school-college credit began filtering into the Great Basin campus last week Tuesday.

"We do have a few of the classrooms being used strictly as high school classrooms for part of the day, and then there's still college classes being given in those classrooms at night," Lurker said. "The rest of the classrooms are all college classrooms."

Ten courses were canceled as of the first day of class, three of which were going to be taught using interactive TV. Last year, 29 of the 79 courses taught at the campus were canceled due to lack of enrollment.

Fourteen courses were already full by the first day of school. Lurker said the college could schedule more sessions on a particular course if there is enough advance notice.

"My preference is not to have to cancel any classes and to make sure we're doing a good enough job, which is always to try to know what the community wants," Lurker said. "I don't want anybody signing up for a class and not being able to take that class."

Two more sections of auto shop and two certified nursing assistant courses were added this year, he said.

Lurker is also part of the resurrected Pahrump Valley Community Action Team. One of the first tasks of the PVCAT higher education committee, which he chairs, is a survey of the community, and specifically its businesses, to determine its educational needs. A survey was conducted a few years ago, but Lurker said Pahrump has changed a great deal since then.

An associate of human services degree was just approved by the Great Basin College trustees, Lurker said. The college has an elementary education associate degree program and next year will have a full certified nursing assistant program, he said.

After talking to the president of Great Basin College and incoming vice-president, he said, "They're very much interested in Pahrump and they know that there's a lot of needs and changes and things that will be different here than elsewhere in the system. They're interested in finding what the needs are and addressing the needs, and they see huge growth potential here."

A new college campus would allow for more labs for vocational training, Lurker said.

"We really don't have facilities here to do some of the vocational classes," Lurker said. "We're really at a point where we should be looking at what can we add."

A room could be converted, for example, into an HVAC lab, for heating and air-conditioning technicians, but then they'd lose the room for art class or whatever it was used for.

"Larger facilities is definitely a need, and it makes a lot of sense," Lurker said.

The Pahrump Great Basin College campus may not have a student union or dormitories, which raises the question: Is it still attractive to local high school graduates?

"Looking at the statistics from a couple of years ago, it was obvious a lot of kids were leaving town," Lurker said. "I'm guessing that it probably hasn't changed a whole lot."

The incentives to stay, however, are many, he said.

"With the dual credit program, if it's fully functioning as well as it should, I think these students that are getting out of high school here that have any interest in college should be getting out with at least a half a semester, if not at least a year's worth of college, and then it makes a lot of sense for them to stay another year and finish their two-year degree here," Lurker said.

Community College of Southern Nevada didn't have any full-time instructors at the Pahrump campus. Since Great Basin College took over in 2006, there have been two full-time teachers in English and biology. There's a good chance another full-time teacher will be on board in January, Lurker said.

The college will have a recruiter/advisor starting in October, he said. Twenty to 25 adjunct professors round out the staff, and Lurker said they are a great resource -- hands-on people who work in the field.

"There's lots of pieces to learn when you're inheriting something. With the transition from CCSN to Great Basin it's a big change in procedures for people. Then a lot of our office staff is new," Lurker said. "My intent is to try to get things as smooth and streamlined as I can. I just want to make sure we have classes for as many people as we can in as many areas as we can."