The Renaming of Santa Ana College ‘Rancho Santiago’

As president of the board of trustees of the Rancho Santiago Community College District, I would like to clarify the board’s position regarding the name change of Santa Ana College and respond to the concerns of George Broomell (Letters, May 19).

Santa Ana College spearheaded the establishment of Rancho Santiago Community College District in 1971 when it separated from Santa Ana Unified. It was then that voters from the Orange Unified School District, and later one-third of the Garden Grove School District, joined the Rancho Santiago Community College District constituency.

Rancho Santiago is an established name that clearly represents the fact that we serve a much broader constituency than just the City of Santa Ana.

Why not two colleges as Broomell suggests? Because the board believes that the single-college, multicampus concept is fiscally responsible, representative to all whom we serve and addresses the need to plan for not only today, but for the 47% projected growth in our district by the year 2000.

As trustees of one of six growth community college districts in California, we need to be responsible for the limited resources available to community colleges.

As far as the vast unhappiness and opposition from the community goes, The Times reported that at the meeting at which the vote was taken, 35 people advocating against the change were present. At subsequent meetings even fewer opponents came forward and the board has received barely a dozen letters of protest.

From a constituency of 500,000 and a student body of 30,000, this is hardly a “vast” group of opponents.

The board of trustees is proud of the tradition that Santa Ana College has built and we are enthusiastic about the future of Rancho Santiago College. We believe that the name change will be a positive move for everyone.

SHIRLEY RALSTON,

President,

Board of Trustees

Rancho Santiago

Community College District