Contra Costa College
Established:	1948
Type:	Community college
President:	McKinley Williams
Students:	6,6701
Location:	San Pablo, California, USA 37°58′01″N 122°20′36″W / 37.966937, -122.343256Coordinates: 37°58′01″N 122°20′36″W / 37.966937, -122.343256
Campus:	Suburban
Mascot:	Comets
Affiliations:	Bay Valley Conference
Website:	http://www.contracosta.edu/

Contra Costa College, in San Pablo, California, is the west campus of the Contra Costa Community College District. It is part of the California community colleges system, one of the three college systems in California.

History

The college was founded in 1950 on a temporary location housed at the shuttered Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, California. In 1957, a permanent campus was opened on Mission Bell Drive in downtown San Pablo.

Several notable programs call the college home, including:

• The Center for Science Excellence, which works to increase minority participation in the sciences
• High-Performance Computing Center, a pioneering program which teaches the emerging science of computer clustering
• The Advocate, the college's nationally-honored weekly newspaper, which has won eleven National Newspaper Pacemaker Awards since 1990.
• The Contra Costa College Speech and Debate Team, which is one of the top community college teams in the nation.

Middle College High School

The college campus is also home to Middle College High School, whose students take college classes in addition to regular high school courses. The high school is part of the West Contra Costa Unified School District.

Notable graduates

• Courtney Anderson, NFL tight end
• Chris Roberson, Philadelphia Phillies player
• Karleen Thompson, coach of the Houston Comets WNBA team
• John Kiffmeyer, (also known as Al Sobrante), the original drummer for the punk rock band Green Day

References

1. ^ COOL: College Opportunities Online Locator. U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. Data as of 2005. Accessed on 2007-09-18.

External links

• Contra Costa College - official site
• Middle College High School
• The Advocate - student newspaper

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