Valencia Community College

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**Valencia Community College**

Motto	"A Better Place to Start"
Established	1967
Type	Public Community College
Endowment	$30 million
President	Sanford C. Shugart
Faculty	396 (full-time)
Staff	2,557
Students	51,551
Location	Orlando, Florida, USA
Campus	Urban
Colors	Red, Black and Gold (unofficial)
Nickname	Matadors (unofficial) [1]
Website	www.valenciacc.edu

Valencia Community College is a college located in Orlando, Florida in the United States.

The college was founded in 1967 as Valencia Junior College, taking its current name in 1971. It has several campuses in Orlando with additional campuses in Kissimmee and Winter Park. More than 50,000 students enroll each year.

Valencia is ranked second in the United States for the number of Associate's degrees awarded; it is first among two-year schools. Among Florida two-year colleges, Valencia graduates more Hispanics and Asian Americans than any other school in the state.^{[citation needed]}

The average class size is 23.5. The campus is diverse, with 51% of students being white, 22% Hispanic, 15% African-American, and 6% Asian.

The Valencia Foundation endowment is about 12 times the average community college endowment, which reflects the abnormally high donor rate from alumni.^{[citation needed]}

The college is primarily a feeder school for UCF, but it is not unheard of for honors graduates to attend top schools like Emory University, Vanderbilt University, and Georgetown University.^{[citation needed]}

The college's strengths lie in media-related courses. Director Steven Spielberg called Valencia's film program one of the best available.^{[citation needed]} Howie Dorough of the Backstreet Boys and Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC both attended Valencia's music department. Bob Newhart briefly taught at the college during 2003.

The seal of the college includes the seal of Valencia, Spain, in the middle and the entire diamond design stems from it.

Valencia is not a member of the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), and does not participate in any sports competition with other colleges. Intramural sports, however, are available. The Valencia college bowl team won three national community college championship at NAQT and Six State championship.