South Piedmont Community College

South Piedmont Community College provides quality and affordable education and training programs to over 10,000 students annually. Whether your goal is to complete a short-term training program to enhance or change your career, or to earn a degree aimed at transfer or a career, South Piedmont offers an array of options to meet your needs.

As a learning college, South Piedmont promotes and celebrates learning as the process that changes and improves lives. This applies to our students, employees, and the college itself. We are an organization in which people continually expand their ability to grow and learn.

South Piedmont is guided by a Strategic Plan that highlights this focus on learning through our Vision (what we want to be), Mission (who we are), Values (what directs our decisions), and Strategic Directions (what actions we will take to fulfill the Vision and Mission).

Our Vision

To be the premier community college of choice, offering university transfer, career and technical education, and workforce and economic development programming to prepare students to be productive citizens in the global community.

Our Mission

To foster life-long learning, student success, and workforce and community development.

Our Values

Quality, Service, Stewardship, Respect, and Innovation.

South Piedmont Community College traces its roots back to 1962. The institution was originally designated as the Ansonville Industrial Education Center by action of the State Department of Public Instruction. In 1967, the Anson County Board of Education.

Anson County Commissioners officially appointed a local Board of Trustees. As a result, the Ansonville Industrial Education Center became Anson Technical Institute, a unit of the Department of Community Colleges of North Carolina.

Further progress, larger enrollment, and additional support from the community, especially from Polkton Mayor W. Cliff Martin, enabled Anson Technical Institute to acquire land, obtain additional funds, and complete construction of a 28,000-square-foot building in Polkton in 1977.

To better reflect the offerings of the institution, the Board of Trustees changed the name to Anson Technical College in 1979 and then to Anson Community College in 1987. 

While Anson Community College served the citizens of Anson County, neighboring Union County was not part of the service area of an existing community college.

Therefore, in 1981, Union Technical Education Consortium was created when the North Carolina Department of Community Colleges authorized service in the county by a consortium of Anson and Stanly community colleges.

On May 19, 1999, Governor Jim Hunt signed a bill, based upon recommendations of an independent study team, to dissolve the charter of Anson Community College and Union Technical Education Center and form North Carolina’s newest community college.

The signing of this bill created a single college with two campuses, one in Anson County and one in Union County, to serve the residents of both counties, and a new 14-member board of trustees was appointed. The new college was named South Piedmont Community College on August 3, 1999—the name selected from more than 400 suggestions made during a contest held earlier that year.