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UNR Fire Science Academy to close or be sold?
A BRIEF NOTE IN THIS MORNING’S STATter911 Quick Takes (HERE) was stunning.
“We’ll give them the damn thing”: That’s how the Chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education feels about the Fire Science Academy in Carlin. Jim Rogers wants the academy gone and gone fast. Rogers believes students shouldn’t have to subsidize “something that has no relation to my education”. People, including Governor Jim Gibbons, are dancing trying to find a home for the academy. Article from Mercury News.
I was envious when the University of Nevada at Reno Fire Science Academy opened and wished the Virginia Community College System could do the same thing.
Despite a busy schedule of open classes and contract courses at the 426 acre facility, Chancellor Jim Rogers told a group of about 35 local leaders at a workshop in Elko last week that UNR students have effectively subsidized the academy by $11.2 million since it opened in 1998. It appears much of this expense is related to loan payments related to the construction of the facility.
from my post http://www.firegeezer.com/2008/12/15/unr-fire-science-academy-for-s...
I was wondering if anyone here has attended classes at Carlin.
“We’ll give them the damn thing”: That’s how the Chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education feels about the Fire Science Academy in Carlin. Jim Rogers wants the academy gone and gone fast. Rogers believes students shouldn’t have to subsidize “something that has no relation to my education”. People, including Governor Jim Gibbons, are dancing trying to find a home for the academy. Article from Mercury News.
I was envious when the University of Nevada at Reno Fire Science Academy opened and wished the Virginia Community College System could do the same thing.
Despite a busy schedule of open classes and contract courses at the 426 acre facility, Chancellor Jim Rogers told a group of about 35 local leaders at a workshop in Elko last week that UNR students have effectively subsidized the academy by $11.2 million since it opened in 1998. It appears much of this expense is related to loan payments related to the construction of the facility.
from my post http://www.firegeezer.com/2008/12/15/unr-fire-science-academy-for-s...
I was wondering if anyone here has attended classes at Carlin.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by T.J. on
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Never heard of it before, sounds like they were robbing peter to pay paul ad it finally caught up with them, to bad though.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Gaylord on
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That's too bad, it's an excellent facility with a wide range of training options. I attended their petrochemical firefighting school there back when I worked for ConocoPhillips...it was really the only option for that type of hands-on training other than Texas A&M. Our refinery guys went every year for a week...I worked in the pipeline group and got to tag along with a couple of our guys. We also opened it up to municipal FFs in the areas surrounding the refineries..when I was there, we had one LA County guy and two LA City guys in our group.
They also have an ARFF program, HazMat Tech/Spec, wildland training (there were a bunch of hotshot guys there doing pack tests when I was there) and some other specialized industrial-type training (they have a prop of a mega-dump truck run up over a regular pickup for rescue/extrication).
I know there were some major financial issues when they opened the Elko facility. They'd originally been located in Reno itself, and either at that site or the new Elko one they had to shut down for a couple years due to problems with the groundwater pollution prevention technologies. I forget if that's why they moved to Elko (problems at the old facility) or if it was a problem with the new facility...think it was the latter.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Ward on
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Thanks for posting, Chris. It appears that it was the facility financing and not the quality of the programs that has caused this issue. Most training sites like that make enough revenue in the industrial/commercial courses to cover the cost of volunteer/municipal courses. (TEEX, MFRI)
Mike
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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on
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Only based on the articles you linked to, I'd say it sounds like a bit of bad planning and management from the outset.
There's a massive loan sitting there and if the University student fees are subsidising the thing, then that tells me they aren't filling the classes- were the forecasts and projections wrong when it was propsoed, before being built?
Lots more questions than answers. Especially if other training centres are funded and this one is isn't....
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The thing that really surprises me about that is that when we were scheduling the refinery fire brigade training, there was very limited availability for class time, thus I got the impression they were very busy. Things may have changed in the last 5 years, but like I said, there's not many other options...in CA, TEEX was about the closest option.
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