The National Labor College is selling its 47-acre Silver Spring campus, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Dorr, leaving its New Hampshire Avenue location after 38 years.

All courses at the college, aimed at labor union leaders, are online. The one-week residencies at the campus, just north of the Capital Beltway, will end in August. Dorr said the college’s Board of Trustees decided to sell the property and move the residency programs to an office building in the Washington, D.C., or Baltimore metropolitan region.

The school, which in 2009-2010 had a total of 1,364 students, could also look at residency programs at select national locations.

“They decided the best move forward was to sell the property, that it would make the most financial sense going forward,” Dorr said.

AFL-CIO President George Meany founded a labor studies center in 1969. In 1974, the George Meany Center for Labor Studies was formally dedicated. In 1997, the Maryland Higher Education Commission authorized the school to grant baccalaureate degrees. It became an independent institution and was renamed the National Labor College.

Dorr said it’s possible the school will rent space from the new owner if it needs to be rezoned.

akraut@gazette.net