Ozarka College

Ozarka College (OC) is a two-year public post-secondary institution with a main campus located in Melbourne, Arkansas and satellite campuses in Mountain View, Ash Flat, and Mammoth Spring. Serving the populations of Izard, Stone, Fulton, and Sharp counties, Ozarka has benefited greatly from the Arkansas legislature passing ACT 1244, which permitted it to grow into a full fledged community college. This was done as part of a wider movement to transform Arkansas' technical schools into community colleges.

The school opened in 1975 as Ozarka Vocational-Technical School and was renamed to Ozarka Technical College by the Arkansas legislature in 1991. In 1999, it dropped the word Technical from its name to emphasize its wider range of programs. Currently the college enrolls approximately 1,500 students per semester.

In 1996 the Ozarka College was accredited by The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

In 2002, the college received a 30-acre (120,000 m2) donation to serve as the site of a distance learning center in Ash Flat, Arkansas. The donation came from First National Bank of Sharp County and Bob Watson of Brooksville, Florida. It had an assessed value of 105,000 dollars. In 2008 a new 9,200-square-foot (850 m2) structure designed by Rico Harris of Harris Architecture in Hot Springs, Arkansas was completed to accompany the existing 18,000-square-foot (1,700 m2) building.

In 2004 the college's library was renamed to Paul Weaver Library to honor the senator Paul Weaver due to his contribution to Ozarka College and its community.

* Description and images provided by Wikipedia under CC-BY-SA 3.0 license .