Charles Stewart Mott

The history of Mott Community College spans more than 80 years of success and service. In 1923, the Flint Board of Education established Flint Junior College to make a college education available to Genesee County students at a minimal cost without forcing them to leave home. On September 23, 1923, the first class of what would become Mott Community College was held.

In 1950 Charles Stewart Mott gave $1 million to develop Flint Junior College into a four-year institution in collaboration with the University of Michigan, a move that created the College and Cultural Center (including the DeWaters Art Center, the Flint Institute of Arts, Longway Planetarium, Bower Theater, Sloan Museum, Whiting Auditorium, Flint Institute of Music and the Flint Public Library main branch). In 1951, William Ballenger, Sr. set aside $200,000 for the construction of an athletic field house and left a trust of several million dollars that allowed the college to hire top quality instructors to elevate Flint Junior College to a true community college. C. S. Mott then donated 32 acres of farmland and additional money for an entire new campus.

In 1957, University of Michigan-Flint was established on the MCC campus and remained here until the mid-1970s when its new downtown campus was established (although UM-F science classes remained at MCC for another decade and UM-F's public TV station remained on the MCC campus until 2002).

In 1969, Genesee County voters converted Flint Junior College into a countywide college, Genesee Community College. When C.S. Mott died in 1973 (at age 97) Genesee Community College was renamed Charles Stewart Mott Community College.

The 1980s saw the MCC enter the computer age. Student registration was fully computerized and classes were offered by television. By the mid-1990s classes were offered via videotape, television and the Internet, and satellite campuses opened in Lapeer and Fenton. In 1991, MCC helped establish the Mott Middle College, a nationally recognized program for troubled but talented high school students in the Genesee County area.

In 1996 MCC began development of the Regional Technology Center (RTC), a center for high-technology education built on the site of the old St. Joseph Hospital, adjacent to the main campus. The $40 million facility opened in September 2002 and drew over 1,300 students its first semester. In addition, thousands of area residents have attended community events at the new RTC. During the same period, additional extension centers were opened in Howell and Clio plus other community technology centers were established in Flint to help bridge the “digital divide.”

This brief history of Mott Community College serves to give you just a taste of a much larger and wonderful story.