This space is more accessible and more functional. We can serve both students and the community at the same time, and we’re excited about that.
Can taking tests be fun?
They might be at Milwaukee Area Technical College’s Downtown Milwaukee Campus.
This week, the college opened a new testing center at the Downtown Milwaukee Campus. The space, where thousands of students and community members take placement assessments, standardized tests and professional credentialing exams each year, is bright, welcoming and conveniently located.
The new center is on the second floor of the college’s C Building, close to the entrance at the corner of Eighth Street and Highland Avenue.
For the past four years, students and residents had to take a somewhat circuitous and often confusing path to the old testing center on the fourth floor of the Main Building.
“This space is more accessible and more functional,” said Nicole Tanner, the college’s director of admissions and testing. “We can serve both students and the community at the same time, and we’re excited about that.”
The center is also close to the other student services located in the Student Center, which is connected to the C Building. “This is a great space for all students, and it’s close to where the action is,” added MATC President Anthony Cruz.
On Thursday, August 28, Dr. Cruz, administrators, testing services staff and other employees gathered to cut a bright blue ribbon at the center’s entrance, in a grand opening ceremonial fashion.
The event celebrated the completion of a renovation project, which started in March, that combined three rooms into a multipurpose, centralized testing facility.
One room has 10 stations that comply with the technical requirements of Pearson VUE, a company that administers secure certification and licensure exams for professional, academic, IT and governmental programs.
The other, larger room has 26 computer stations for other types of testing. An intake and administration office area is between the two rooms and has observation windows into both testing rooms.
In the first eight months of the year, nearly 8,300 students have taken tests at MATC’s five centers, said Tammy Howard, the college’s supervisor of testing. More than half of those — 4,300 — took tests at the Downtown Milwaukee Campus.
The college is on pace to test more than 12,000 students and residents in 2025, more than the 11,009 served in 2024. Of those, 5,885 were tested at the Downtown Campus, Howard said. In 2023, the college tested 4,794 students at the Downtown Campus, she said.
The testing center at the Downtown Milwaukee Campus has two full-time employees and one part-timer worker, while testing centers at the other college locations each have one full-time employee, Howard said. The testing centers offer a wide range of exams:
- Pearson VUE
- TABE (Test of Adult Basic Education)
- CLEP (College-Level Examination Program)
- Apprenticeship Accuplacer
- Mechanical and Spatial tests
- GED (General Educational Development)
- National Testing Network
