Pierce Starts Computer Retraining to Save Workers From Obsolescence

The president of Pierce College on Tuesday presided over the opening of a $300,000 computer lab set up to retrain secretaries and clerks to keep them from being laid off at companies in nearby Warner Center.

Then David Wolf hurried to his office to help oversee the layoffs of 15 teachers. They were caught in a Los Angeles Community College District budget squeeze.

The irony was not lost on the 50 college district officials and West San Fernando Valley business leaders present for the computer center dedication.

Layoffs Unprecedented

The unprecedented college layoffs were ordered last month because of an enrollment slump and changing student tastes. Officials said students are shunning traditional courses in the humanities in favor of more popular subjects such as computer science.

There is limited space in computer classes, however. The district wants to remedy that by replacing professors from the unpopular courses with instructors to teach more trendy classes that will lure students back to school.

Pierce College’s campus in Woodland Hills now has about 17,000 students, 7% fewer than a year ago at this time, Wolf said.

“If we can move out of the investment in low-demand courses, the enrollment problem will take care of itself,” he predicted as he inspected the new computer center.

Wolf said Pierce College sidestepped the college district’s financial pinch by obtaining a state grant to pay for the two dozen new IBM microcomputers in its new lab. The money is part of nearly $14 million the college district is receiving from the California Employment Training Panel to retrain 3,675 “potentially displaced” workers in private industry.

About 200 secretaries and clerks will be trained this year to use office computers though the Pierce program.

Kathy Basil, professor of office administration at Pierce and head of the new computer lab, said office workers from Litton Industries and the Malibu Grand Prix Corp. in Woodland Hills and the Zenith Insurance Co. of Encino are the first retraining program participants.

Dwight Wheeler, vice president for employment at Litton Industries’ guidance and control division in Warner Center, said about 60 of his plant’s 200 clerical workers have begun the retraining.

Modernizing Skills

“Some of them may have been pretty close to layoff,” Wheeler said. “We might have had to hire new staff for new equipment. If individuals did nothing to modernize their skills as office automation penetrated the company, they’d be unable to compete.”

Linda Thor, head of occupational and technical education for the college district, said such retraining may also hold the answer for college professors threatened with layoffs.

She said the district held a drawing last Friday to determine which teachers would be slated for dismissal. The first name picked was that of a physical education instructor.

“But she has been retrained to teach in a demand occupation, computers,” Thor said. “So she can switch to that. She won’t be laid off.”