As a result of immense budget cuts called on by the Tennessee Board of Regents, ETSU has asked the Bristol campus to remove its administrative staff and find alternative locations to conduct classes for the 2009 spring semester.
The Bristol campus is closing its doors on 1227 Volunteer Parkway due to high leasing costs.
“In these difficult economic times from global to state and local levels, we simply cannot afford to continue to pay for the current Bristol facility, which we lease, and the costs to maintain it,” said ETSU President Dr. Paul Stanton in a press release issued by the university.
This comes as a shock to the 222 students currently enrolled at the Bristol campus, but Dr. Norma MacRae, ETSU vice provost for academic support and public service and dean of continuing studies, assured that ETSU has received a good response from the community and has identified a number of possible locations where classes could be held beginning in January. These locations would be offered to the university free of charge.
Since location shouldn’t be a problem, MacRae says that they are now looking at what classes to offer in Bristol. Several cohort programs are set to continue in the spring without cancellation. They include Criminal Justice, Social Work, Early Childhood Master of Education and Master of Arts in Library Media Technology. “Cohorts” allow students to complete their selected program together as a group.
MacRae said that Bristol director Sue Fulmer has gotten a lot of phone calls from concerned students asking about the future of the campus. She insists that students register for the classes they were planning to take in the upcoming semester because the core classes that are normally offered are still open for enrollment. The ones with sufficient enrollment numbers will be offered in the coming semester.
Advisors are available at the campus to assist students on their schedules for the spring and to help them get registered.
At a certain point, MacRae says they will have to stop and check the enrollment status of each of the classes currently being offered. Those that do not have enough students will be cancelled and each student affected will be contacted immediately. They will “assist them in getting into another course” and “contact instructors to try and get them in the class” said MacRae.
This means that some students may still have to drive to the main campus unlike originally planned, but ETSU is doing what it can to continue to provide classes in Bristol.
“We are proud to serve the Bristol Tennessee/Virginia community and our students here, and we will continue to provide this service with appropriate programming and offerings as we do in other areas of our region” said Dr. Stanton.
Even though the five people currently employed at the Bristol campus will be losing their jobs at the end of the term, ETSU is “already working to identify suitable positions within the university” for these individuals, said MacRae.

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