Belleville College - Dutchman Yearbook (Belleville, IL)

Page 6 text:

This was the year for a fresh start: a “New Beginning” • • • Come upon any building, look down any hall, or pass by any room and eventually you must confront a doorway, enter that building, amble down that ball, or go into that room. Whether that portal is framed with a marble arch or linteled in peeling wood, it serves as the entrance to whatever lies ahead. It is the first en counter one meets in any journey. But doorways are not always a phy¬ sical tangible structure one can see and touch. Doorways are often intangible; something you cannot take a picture of or record. So it was the doorway through which Belleville Junior Col¬ lege passed in 1966. In November of that year, the vot¬ ers of the eastern half of St. Clair County approved a referendum creat¬ ing a Class I JC out of Belleville Junior College and giving the school its own district, board, president, and budget. JC finished out that school year un¬ der its old system. But July 1, 1967, Belleville Junior College began oper¬ ating under its new organization and its new, if temporary, name —Junior College District 522. The first year of reorganization saw changes everywhere. And if one stop ped to think about them, he realized what was happening. JC had stepped through a doorway from which there was no turning Kick, from which the only way to go was forward. She would stumble along the way, perhaps even come to a complete standstill, where she would watch and wait for the next move. Where was she headed? She was on her way to providing two-year curri culums lor both transfer and voca¬ tional students that would surpass any previous programs. So much was yet to come. In one year JC only began to see her full potential. But she had begun. She bad dared to take that step across the threshold of the future. She would know ' all the grow ing pains and pleas¬ ures that come with that first step, tor she had made a new beginning.