Triton College

Triton College

Triton College seal
Type	Community college
Established	1964
Location	River Grove, IL, USA
Campus	Urban
Website	www.triton.edu

Triton College is a public two-year community college located in River Grove, Illinois, a suburb 12 miles (19 km) northwest of downtown Chicago.

Junior College District 300 was voted into existence in a referendum in March 1964. In March 1965, a second referendum was passed approving the purchase of an 86 acres (34.8 ha) campus site at Fifth Avenue and Palmer Street in River Grove. The school was named Triton College in recognition of the three high school districts that it encompassed – Elmwood Park, Leyden, and Proviso Township. Triton College opened in September 1965 and held classes at several of the high schools in its district. About 1,200 students were enrolled, and full-time in-district tuition was US$5 per semester hour.

Construction on the permanent campus began in June 1967 with the Technology building and proceeded in phases. With the opening of the Learning Resource Center in 1974, the original campus plan was essentially complete, except for some athletic facilities and the Performing Arts Center, a large auditorium planned for the area now occupied by the soccer field, but never built. The original Cernan Space Center building, located north of the Learning Resource Center, was plagued by latent construction defects, and, after being used for several years, was demolished and replaced by the present building located nearby.

In 1972, another referendum was passed adding Oak Park and River Forest, Riverside Brookfield, and Ridgewood high school districts to the original three, forming Community College District 504. This district was expanded to its current size in 1974 by the addition of Rosemont and Pennoyer school districts. By 1975, enrollment had grown to nearly 20,000, in-district tuition had increased to US$11 per semester hour, and Triton had become the largest single-campus community college in Illinois. The campus was expanded by the acquisition of the North Avenue Drive-In theater, which closed in 1973. This area, designated the "East Campus" and located across Fifth Avenue from the original ("West") campus, was cleared and used mainly for the construction of athletic facilities, as well as a small auditorium as part of the Collins Center.