L. A. City College: ‘Queen’s’ Glory Fades

After losing nearly half of its students over the last three years, Los Angeles City College--the first two-year college in the city and for years the largest--has become mired in a downward spiral of declining state funds, reduced class offerings and fewer and fewer students.

“In my chemistry class there are not enough solutions or equipment to do the experiments,” said Anna Vigil, 21, of Los Angeles. She is studying to be a dental assistant and worries that she may not be able to complete a required course because only one class will be offered next semester.

Trying to Fit In

Like its sister campuses throughout Los Angeles, City College is in a painful transformation, attempting to find its economic and educational niche. Recently, the school has put more emphasis on attracting students by offering more non-credit, community service classes in subjects such as aerobics, crafts and real estate investment.

The school on North Vermont Avenue in east Hollywood is still well-regarded for its programs in visual and performing arts, foreign language and vocational training. But teachers and administrators agree that budget cuts have created serious problems in the past few years.

Those include:

A freeze on new purchases the last three years, “which has decimated the college’s ability to upgrade obsolete equipment, to provide needed new equipment and to repair broken equipment,” according to a report by a campus administrator.

The loss of half the campus’s custodial staff.

The elimination of on-campus medical and psychological services.

Cuts in counseling and student services said to be vital in retaining the poor and minority students.

A 10% reduction in the 1,800 credit classes originally scheduled for this semester, with more cuts scheduled for the spring semester. This will delay many students from taking required courses.

Last spring, in her preface to the school’s proposed budget for this year, L.A. City College President Stelle Feuers wrote:

“Given the continuing funding cutbacks governing next year’s budget, it appears unlikely that the college will be able to deliver a quality, comprehensive educational program.”

Drop in Students Blamed

Most administrators and faculty point to the school’s declining enrollment, mirrored throughout the nine-campus Los Angeles Community College District, as the chief culprit in the growing troubles at L.A. City College. Community colleges are funded by the state based on student enrollment.

The drop has been attributed by faculty and administrators to the decline in college-age students nationwide, as well as to the $50 per semester fee the schools began charging last year. Others say the problems have been exacerbated by financial mismanagement, short-sighted planning and a top-heavy administration at both the college and at district headquarters.

“In a period like this, management has a responsibility to cut its own expenses to the bone and put everything it has into program and instructional services,” said Carl Friedlander, an English teacher and campus representative of the local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers.

All agree that the school has changed dramatically since the heady days of championship football and high student enrollment. The students are now mostly working members of minorities--Latinos, blacks and Asians who attend classes part-time. They are older than student bodies of 10 years ago, many of them returning to school to learn new job skills.

Faded Glory

Los Angeles City College used to be “the queen of the community college system,” said Barbara Benjamin, a Spanish teacher and frequent critic of school and district administrators. As president of the school’s Academic Senate last year, Benjamin successfully led a largely symbolic vote of no-confidence against Feuers.

“They criticize the governor for not giving us more money, but if I were governor I would not spend a penny until the district cleans up its act,” Benjamin said.

In response, Feuers said: ‘I largely took the blame for district edicts, and the faculty associated all the cuts with me.

“The changes here have been traumatic,” added Feuers, a former psychology teacher who became president in 1979. “The first couple of years the response was, ‘You have the money, but you’re hiding it.’ Then, the charges of mismanagement. Finally, it starts to sink in when there are fewer and fewer students showing up in everyone’s classes.”

Districtwide, enrollment at the nine campuses in the Los Angeles has dropped from 139,000 students in 1982 to about 93,000 this year. During the same time, enrollment at L.A. City College dropped from 20,000 to 13,700.

Fewer Students Go On

The transfer rate of students going on to four-year universities from City College has also fallen dramatically. Feuers said she no longer keeps track of the rate--budget cuts have eliminated a district statistician who kept such records--but “whatever it is, it isn’t as high as it should be.”

Whereas surrounding community college districts of Santa Monica, El Camino and Glendale have managed to keep their student enrollment stable, Los Angeles students from L.A. City College are either leaving the district for those suburban campuses or dropping out. The drop in enrollment, followed by budget and program reductions and further enrollment declines, has created a vicious cycle for L.A. City College.

“Students see all the programs and services that are available on other campuses that are not available here,” said Henry Ealy, an American cultures teacher.

The cuts have affected all programs, including the college’s football team, the Cubs, which 12 years ago won the community college state championship. This fall, for the first time in the school’s 59-year history, there was no money for the team.

‘Almost Ashamed’

“I am almost ashamed to say I’m from City College,” said the college’s athletic director, Elmer Douglas.

The cuts in student services and the second year of delays in the payment of financial aid by the district have hurt the urban poor who make up a substantial percentage of L.A. City College students.

“People are in my office every day asking for money to buy a textbook, to take the bus, to buy food or to pay their rent,” said the Rev. Peter Canavan, the Catholic campus minister and director of the nearby Newman Center. “Our students are high-risk. They would not make it other places and, without the student services that have been cut, they are dropping out.”

The library’s reserve book room, where students borrow the the required textbooks that they cannot afford, was the target of budget cuts that eliminated a full-time worker there. The result, said librarian Darwin Arnoff, is that the students who can’t buy books because of financial aid foul-ups also cannot borrow the books they need for classes.

Carmelita Thomas, chairman of the foreign language department, said: “If you are taking French or Spanish, imagine not having a book for the first four weeks of the semester, while the other students are studying and taking tests.”

Fewer Magazines Available

Budget cuts in the library have also eliminated the purchase of books and subscriptions to many magazines and periodicals.

With the entire Los Angeles Community College district facing an estimated $5 million to $15 million deficit next year, L.A. City College can expect even greater cuts.

More cuts are anticipated in departments where student demand has fallen the most, Feuers said. Those include the humanities, physical education and Afro-American and Mexican-American studies.

However, demand for business, English for non-native speakers and computer science courses remains strong. “If we just offered those classes, we could fill the campus,” Feuers said.

Teachers Fear Layoffs

There is a hiring freeze at the college for instructors and clerical workers. So far, only part-time teachers have been laid off, while the ranks of full-time teachers have been reduced slightly through retirements or deaths to about 300, from about 350 three years ago. With virtually no more to cut from maintenance and new equipment budgets, some teachers fear they may be next.

The growth at City College has been in non-traditional class offerings in the school’s community services department. Those classes, which give no college credits and charge fees per course from $6 to $150, attract an average of 20,000 students a semester. The program pays for itself through class tuition and receives no state funding.

Community services offers such classes as practical plumbing, real estate and rollerskating. Instructors are paid about half as much as full-time faculty members and some receive incentive bonuses for attracting students above the minimum needed to conduct a class.

‘McDonald’s of Education’

Because of the administration’s ability to change course offerings and meeting times in quick response to community demand, Feuers describes the program as “the McDonald’s of the education industry.”

“If acupuncture is out one year, we can change to an aerobics class,” Feuers said.

The success of the community services program has brought complaints from the faculty that the classes discourage students from enrolling in credit classes, thereby reducing state funding and overall educational quality.

Accounting teacher Ed Renetti said the non-credit program does not pay for its share of rent and maintenance. Others say there are not enough audit controls on the $1-million-a-year operation, a fact that allows equipment purchases to benefit students who take “hobby” courses.

Students Optimistic

Yet, despite the woes at L.A. City College, students interviewed were optimistic that they will be able to fulfill career plans with the education provided.

Louis Argueta, 20, emigrated from El Salvador several years ago and is now in his third semester at City College. He said his classes in math and physics have been tough, but he believes they will be good preparation when he transfers to UCLA next year.

The school’s engineering program brought Enrique Duarte, 19, a graduate of nearby Marshall High School, to L.A. City College.

“I came here because the department is one of the best in the city,” Duarte said. He plans to go on to one of the campuses of the University of California.

School administrators are planning strategies to attract more students.

An $80,000 Ford Foundation grant received by the school this fall will fund a transfer center to help students plan their courses for acceptance at four-year colleges and universities. The school has also begun a marketing campaign to lure local high school students on campus with honors classes, Saturday computer classes and a math, engineering and science program.

“If some want to portray the institution in totally negative terms, they are setting it up for decline,” said Feuers. “This is not to say that we don’t have serious problems . . . but the school has been here a long time and has been through difficult times before. It’s a question of attitude.”