Colorado Mountain College’s Glenwood Center recently converted its former computer lab to a more communal space for students and community members.

“I feel like the community spoke up and said that this was an important place to them and an important part of the community and our administration listened,” assistant dean of instruction and Glenwood Center director, Laura Hardman, said.

She was referring to a proposal before the CMC Board of Trustees two years ago to potentially close the Glenwood location and sell off the property, which met with significant community resistance.

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On Nov. 30, the center located at 1402 Blake Ave. held an open house for members of the community to show off the new learning lab. 

“We needed to make sure that we had a good space for all of our students,” Hardman said.

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The renovation involved removing the rows of computers in the first floor learning lab and replacing them with some cozy furniture, large spaces and smart boards for group studying. The idea was to make the space a more comfortable study environment for individual students or group study sessions.

“We used to have students who would, for example, take a calculus class, and then they would say, ‘we need a classroom where we can go have a study group,’ and we would always open a classroom for them,” Hardman said. “Well, now they can come in here and have a study group.”

She said that the building already has four and a half full computer labs, so instead of opening up a classroom each time a group of students ask, they can come to the newly renovated learning lab instead.

“Since the pandemic, everybody has their own device,” she said. “Since then, we’ve been trying to make this space a little bit more vibrant and well-utilized.”

The move included putting the counselor’s office in the learning lab area, so students have better access to meet with their counselor. 

“Once we showcase that we have a student area dedicated directly to our students and they know their counselors there, it’s a much more freeing environment,” counselor Cory Rikard said.

There is even a new Keurig machine for people needing that caffeine fix to keep them going after many hours of study time.

The space is open for students and the community to use. Rikard said that the space is even open to Glenwood Springs High School students taking concurrent enrollment classes through CMC, who might want the added study space.

“I feel like this building serves the entire community from ages three to 93,” Harden said. 

As it stands now, the college has no plan to move from the building anytime soon. The CMC Children’s Mini College is even planning for an expansion in the coming years.

A lot of the additional space in the building is rented out to other members of the community for different uses, like Goal Academy, a charter online high school or alternative high school and Valley Settlement, which teaches classes in the building, too. 

Post Independent reporter Cassandra Ballard can be reached at cballard@postindependent.com or 970-384-9131.