Texas State Technical College-Waco

The Texas State Technical College-Waco offers courses in vocational and technical education. It was established as the James Connally Technical Institute by Texas A&M University through an act of the state legislature in April 1965. The institute was located on the site of James Connally Air Force Base in Waco. The first classes were held in January 1966, with a student enrollment of 700 and a faculty of forty-five. Twenty-one hundred acres and buildings of the James Connally Air Force Base, purchased by the state in 1967, were available to the school. The goal of the institute was to train skilled workers for industry and business, particularly those in Texas. The teaching program was conducted in two instructional centers. The technical education center accepted high school graduates for a two-year training program in highly skilled technical occupations. The vocational skill development center prepared students for jobs requiring skilled craftsmanship; the length of study varied with the level of competence of the student. In 1969 the Texas Legislature passed a bill separating the school from the Texas A&M University System and established the Texas State Technical Institute. Student enrollment for the 1968–69 regular term at the James Connally Campus, Waco, was 1,374; in 1974 it was 2,702. By 1974 there were three new campuses located throughout the state in Harlingen, Amarillo, and Sweetwater. Maurice W. Roney was president of the four Texas State Technical Institute campuses in 1974. In 1991 Don E. Goodwin was president of the newly renamed Texas State Technical College-Waco. The certificate of completion and the associate of applied science degree were available for forty programs of study from the college's six areas: Aerospace and Transportation Technologies; Electronic Technologies; Information and Presentation Technologies; Manufacturing Technologies; Service/Business and Health/Environmental Technologies; and Applied Academics. The school was accredited with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. The faculty numbered 281, and there were 4,022 students.