GLASGOW Western Kentucky Universitys new Regional Postsecondary Education center is helping students cut time and expense from their college educations. Taking courses at the Glasgow campus saves Sandy Braswell of Albany about an hour of commuting every day, she said. Its a lot closer for me than having to drive all the way to Bowling Green, Braswell said. Braswell, a licensed practical nurse, hopes to complete the nursing program this semester and become a registered nurse, she said. Western Kentucky University will dedicate the new center at a ceremony this afternoon. Construction of the building, which cost about $9 million, began in April 2000 and was completed last fall, said Juanita Bayless, the facilitys director. The center houses Westerns Glasgow campus and the Glasgow campus of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. It offers associates and bachelor degrees in many fields, including nursing, information systems, and general studies, Bayless said. About 1,650 students, all of whom commute to the campus for instruction, are enrolled in about 225 different classes at the facility, she said. Our primary service area is eight counties. beginning with Barren and Allen and then working east from there, Bayless said, but we have students from about 40 different Kentucky counties and some from as far away as Tennessee. Braswell credited the teachers at the facility with helping make her course work more meaningful. We have really good instructors here, Braswell said. They all are good nurses themselves, and they go out of their way to help us with our work. The schools courses provide a plethora of opportunities for students to gain clinical experience, said Jennifer Byrd, a third-semester nursing student from Glasgow. The teachers are always willing to help and we get to do a lot of hands-on work, Byrd said. That will be really useful when I get out and become a nurse myself. For students with a more mechanical bent, the technical college at the center has more than $1 million in equipment to provide hands-on training, Bayless said. Automated system training courses are among the most popular in the technical college catalog, technical college director Sandra Appling said. Weve been told by industries in this area that this is a key area right now, and so weve tried to offer as many courses in that area as we can, Appling said. Students in the program can start and finish their degrees at the campus, and 91 are enrolled in this semester, the programs first, she said. The technical college has equipment designed to simulate various aspects of automated systems production, from computers to motor controls, instructor Bryan McLerran said. We do a lot of hands-on training and we have the most state-of-the-art equipment for our students to learn on, he said. Western will dedicate the facility in a ceremony beginning at 4 p.m. today. Western President Gary Ransdell, Gov. Paul Patton, and other regional and state leaders are expected to attend the ceremony.