Clayton State Bringing Dual Enrollment Courses to Academy for Advanced Studies in McDonough

Clayton State University is partnering in bringing academic courses to Henry County.

Beginning with the fall 2009 semester, Clayton State University, Gordon College and Griffin Technical College will be offering both dual enrollment and evening general education courses at the Academy for Advanced Studies in McDonough… a new site located at Henry County High School.

Clayton State’s role will be to offer English composition and speech communications to dual enrollment high school students in the morning and American literature and introduction to sociology in the evening.

The dual or joint enrollment program provides one way for high school students to ease their transition into college. These programs allow students to take college courses while still in high school. The courses they complete fulfill high school requirements but also count as college credit. Such programs expose students to the nature of the college classroom, while they still have the support they receive from parents and their high school.

Clayton State courses being offered include English Composition, Speech Communications, American Literature and Introduction to Sociology. Speech Communications (COMM 1110) and English Composition I (ENGL 1101) will be offered in the early morning (7:45 a.m. to 9 a.m.) so that students can take a class and get to their high school in time for second period. English Composition will be offered Mondays and Wednesdays, Speech Communications on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Introduction to Sociology will be offered from 6 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. on Mondays, and American Literature I from 6 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Students can take anywhere from one to five courses per semester.

“We are excited about this opportunity to offer morning courses in Henry County because it will allow more students to take advantage of the dual-enrollment program,” says Dr. Kevin Demmitt, Clayton State’s Assistant Vice President for Academic Outreach. “Currently, many students from Henry County travel to our campus in Morrow to take courses, but this will make the program much more accessible.

“We are fortunate to have very strong support for this program from the Henry County School system and the community in general.”

“We are very pleased to be involved in bringing more opportunities for higher education to the citizens of Henry County. With the classes held at the Academy for Advanced Studies at Henry County High School, we hope this will afford our students the advantage of early and local access to college courses,” says Michael Surma, superintendent of Henry County Schools.

An Information Session for the new programs will be held at the Henry County Board of Education, located at 33 N. Zack Hinton Pkwy., McDonough, on Tuesday, Apr. 21 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. More information is available at http://Henry.Clayton.edu.

Demmitt, the director of the Clayton State – Fayette instructional site, is a strong supporter of the dual/joint enrollment program.

“As a father with two children in college, I am well aware of another benefit of joint enrollment programs – they save money. Every college course a student completes in high school is one less that they have to complete once enrolled in college full-time. High school students completing just one course per semester their junior and senior years can cut nearly a semester off the time it will take them to graduate from college. Students can even choose to enroll full-time in the joint enrollment courses and complete their entire first year of college while in high school,” he says. “An additional benefit for residents of Georgia is that most of the expenses for joint enrollment courses are covered by the Accel program, which is administered by the same agency that oversees the HOPE Scholarship. All of the tuition and most of the fees are paid by Accel, and there is an additional allowance for textbooks.”

To be eligible for Clayton State’s dual enrollment program, students must have a combined math and verbal SAT score of 970 or a composite ACT score of 20, and a 3.0 high school grade point average. There are some additional requirements for certain courses.

For more information on the dual enrollment programs, contact Clayton State’s Dr. Bill Hagans at williamhagans@clayton.edu, or call (678) 466-5010.

A unit of the University System of Georgia, Clayton State University is an outstanding comprehensive metropolitan university located 15 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta.
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