Vision Statement
Our vision is to be recognized as a premier center for higher education in Northwest Houston and beyond.
Mission
In support of the university’s mission, the Northwest Houston Center (NWHC) works to promote student learning and development. Our primary mission is to serve the residents of Northwest Houston with high quality, nationally accredited, graduate and undergraduate programs offered in traditional, online, and hybrid modes of instruction. We seek to serve a diverse student body in a friendly environment that fosters excellence, service to the community, and lifelong learning. We wish to be the “University of Choice” for a large number of students in Houston interested in undergraduate and graduate degrees, and continuing education programs.
Core Values
Values are the Northwest Houston Center’s source of guidance and what it stands for. The center upholds the university’s core values: access and quality, accountability, diversity, leadership, relevance and social responsibility.
About the Northwest Houston Center
Prairie View A&M University was founded in 1876 and is the second-oldest public institution of higher education in Texas. With an established reputation for producing engineers, corporate leaders, nurses and educators, the historically black college offers a variety of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs through nine colleges and programs. A member of The Texas A&M University System, the University is dedicated to fulfilling its land-grant mission of achieving excellence in teaching, research and service. During the university’s 148-year history, more than 54,000 academic degrees have been awarded.
The original Office of Civil Rights Texas Plan, assigned PVAMU the responsibility for satisfying higher education needs of the citizens of Texas, especially in the Northwest Houston Corridor. A demand for graduate and certification courses led to PVAMU establishing a presence in the Northwest Houston area in the late 1980. All courses offered were in partnerships with school districts in the area and were held on designated school campuses. In the early 1990s, PVAMU centralized all course offerings in the N.W. Houston area by leasing 20,000 square feet of contiguous space from Compaq Computer Corporation, Inc. (20525 SH 249 – Suite 150, Houston, TX) to be used for classroom and office space. In 1998 PVAMU relocated all course offering to 16800 Stuebner Airline Road, Spring, TX thus establishing the N.W. Houston Academic Center. In 2000, approval was obtained from the appropriate regulatory and accrediting agencies to offer the Master of Education in Educational Administration degree and the Master of Arts in Counseling degree.
In 2009, PVAMU purchased, from Lone Star Community College, the current facility located at 9449 Grant Road north of Willowbrook Mall. This two-story building, near Tomball Parkway and FM 1960, has 52,000 square feet of classroom, meeting and student service space. The Northwest Houston Center is a fully functional extension of the PVAMU main campus.