Valencia Community College

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Valencia Community College


Motto:	"A Better Place to Start"
Established:	1967
Type:	Public Community College
Endowment:	$68 million[1]
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) [2]
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.

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 $68 million endowment is about 12 times the average community college endowment, which reflects the abnormally commitment of local business, organizations, and individuals, including the foundation board of directors.^{[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, University of Florida, Vanderbilt University, and Georgetown University.^{[citation needed]}

Valencia's Criminal Justice Institute [3] occupies a separate 77,000 square foot state-of-the-art criminal justice training facility. The CJI is certified and approved by Florida Department of Law Enforcement FDLE to operate law enforcement and corrections academy's, advanced courses and specialized training. Valencia is one of 4 colleges in Florida that trains Department of Juvenile Justice recruit officers.

The college's strengths lie in media-related courses. In an interview with Jane Pauley on The Today Show in 1990, Director Steven Spielberg called Valencia's film program one of the best available.[4] 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. World famous trauma surgeon Ernest FJ Block, MD, EMT-P attended VCC for his EMT certificate.

The seal of the college includes the coat of arms 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 four national community college championship at NAQT and Six State championship.