Among longtime residents and higher education observers in and around Phoenix, South Mountain Community College (SMCC) has been known for 30 years as “the little college that could.”

With its 104-acre main campus nestled at the foot of the city’s South Mountain Park, the largest municipal park in the nation, SMCC has been a cornerstone for development in what was little more than a cluster of agricultural fields and weathered neighborhoods three decades ago. Today the college serves as a beacon central to the amazing growth and economic activity that have transformed the rapidly expanding region into one of Arizona’s most dynamic.

SMCC, the smallest of the 10 Maricopa Community Colleges, is experiencing record enrollment growth during this, its 30th anniversary year. At the beginning of the fall 2009 term, full-time student equivalency had shown an increase of more than 25 percent from the previous fall. The college is on pace to top 10,000 students during 2009-2010, for the first time in its history.

With a student enrollment that is twothirds traditionally under-represented minority, South Mountain is the only federally designated minority-serving institution (MSI) within the Maricopa Community College District. In addition, SMCC is one of three Hispanic-serving Institutions (HSI) in the Maricopa District with an annual Hispanic enrollment of between 35 and 40 percent. African-American enrollment remains between 15 and 20 percent, while Asian-Americans and Native Americans combine for another 10 percent.

The college was built in what had historically been a low-income area south of the now dry Salt River, or Rio Salado, whose fl ow carved a geographic boundary separating south Phoenix from its urban core. The presence of an institution of higher learning in this area was a point of controversy from the beginning—but eventually, bowing to pressure from neighborhood and civic leaders, the governing authorities allotted the modest sum of $8.4 million to construct the college in 1978.