Apollo College, of Phoenix, is seeking a much larger location for its campus here, which is growing rapidly.


Deanna Baker, director of the campus, says the vocational-technical school now has 274 students on campus here, up from just 77 last October when she came to the school.


The schools growth is being driven by very high demand for health-care workers, she says. We cannot graduate students fast enough to meet the demand, Baker says. If we had the space, we could easily have 450 students on campus.


In Spokane, Apollo trains medical radiography students, pharmacy technicians, dental assistants, and medical office workers, Baker says. While theyre attending classes on campus, the students wear royal blue scrubs and white shoes.


Apollos Spokane campus is located at 1101 N. Fancher, in half of the 20,000-square-foot former Phillips College building, Baker says. Apollo has one year remaining on its lease. A Sears Roebuck & Co. marketing operation occupies the other half of the building.


Baker wants to add a program in computer-network and database administration and a program in software engineering to Apollos curriculum here, but says the Spokane campus cant accommodate those new programs until after Apollo settles on a new location for the campus. Apollos home office is evaluating the schools options for expanding its campus here, Baker says.


While demand for computer-related training is high, health care is Apollos meal ticket now. Its medical radiography program, which trains students to X-ray patients, develop the images, read X-rays, and work side by side with a physician, especially is in strong demand, Baker says.


For example, a Yuma, Ariz., hospital sends students here for the trainingand pays for their schooling and expenses during the two-year program, which includes a year in the classroom and a second year working in the radiology departments of hospitals and clinics here or in this region, Baker says. Some other students attend the school under scholarship from medical clinics. Medical radiography graduates make $25 to as much as $45 an hour when they start work after graduating, she says.


Baker also would like to add a massage program here that would cover massage techniques used in sports medicine, infant medicine, and spa-type Swedish massage. In addition, she says, Weve been approached by two hospitals here in town that are interested in having us teach an eight-week dialysis program. Were in the process of trying to get that approved through an accrediting agency.


The campus, which Apollo opened in early 1999, is attended by some students who commute from Montana every day and by medical radiography students from Alaska, who dont have training in that field available to them in their home state, Baker says.


She says the Spokane campus is growing faster than Apollos other five campuses, two of which are located in Phoenix, with the others in Tucson and Mesa, Ariz., and in Portland, Ore. Baker predicts that the Spokane campus will be the key school in the group eventually. She says she doesnt know exactly how big the Spokane campus will get, but adds that its growth is going to continue.