retain its name in an "evergreen" agreement. Campus WVU Parkersburg is located on the outskirts of the city of Parkersburg. The campus is home to, among various buildings, a library, the main administrative building, the College Activities Center, the Workforce and Community Education building, and the Caperton Center for Applied Technology, which opened in 1999. Recently completed facilities include the Applied Technology Lab, the Early Childhood Learning Center, and Eldon Miller Plaza. WVU Parkersburg does not have any student housing on campus; it is a commuter school. The school originally opened in an abandoned elementary school on Emerson Avenue in Parkersburg in 1961. The bell from the elementary school, which was cast in 1902 by the Meneely Bell Company, is still used in campus ceremonies and is part of the college's official seal. In 1965, Wood County voters approved a bond levy for construction of a new educational complex. The college moved to its current location once construction was completed in 1969. The Jackson County Center, which opened in 1975, is a smaller campus of WVU Parkersburg and offers a limited number of classes for students living closer to its Ripley, West Virginia location. WVU Parkersburg's Downtown Center opened on Market Street in Parkersburg in January 2013 to serve the school's new Culinary Academy. The college has a workforce training lab and classroom at the Polymer Alliance Zone's Polymer Technology Park in Davisville, West Virginia. WVU Parkersburg also owns a small farm that is used for the Diversified Agriculture program. Chris Gilmer, who began his term as campus president July 2018, stepped down to become campus president of WVU Potomac State College effective July 2022. Academics WVU Parkersburg is the first and, thus far, only community college in West Virginia to offer any bachelor's degrees after becoming accredited to do so in 1991. Bachelor's degrees that are currently awarded at WVU Parkersburg include: the Bachelor of Applied Technology, Bachelor of Applied Science, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Bachelor of Arts, the Regents Bachelor of Arts (RBA) degree which gives adult students college credit for past work and life experience and allows them to gain a general college-level education without selecting a specific major. WVU Parkersburg also offers associate degree and certificate programs, as community colleges traditionally do, in a wide variety of other academic areas which are not offered as baccalaureate programs. The vast majority of these associate degrees