Faculties Urge End to KOCE-TV Funding

Faculty members at Orange Coast and Golden West community colleges still want KOCE-TV (Channel 50) to be financially cut off by Coast Community College District, district trustees were told Wednesday night.

The board took no vote on the issue, however, saying that any policy change probably won’t be up for a vote until May.

At issue is whether the college district will continue operating the television station and convert it into a proposed training school for students.

KOCE, situated on the Golden West campus in Huntington Beach, is Orange County’s only public television station. It is owned by Coast Community College District, which governs Orange Coast, Golden West and Coastline community colleges.

Faculty Opposition

Faculty at Orange Coast and Golden West for years have opposed district financial support for the television station. That opposition helped fuel a successful political movement in 1983, when a new board of trustees majority, backed by the teachers’ union, was elected.

The new board voted in the summer of 1984 to phase out financial support for KOCE over 30 months. District financial support, which was about $3 million prior to 1983, dropped to about $1 million last year. The financial support is scheduled to end after this year.

Last December, however, district Chancellor David Brownell proposed coverting KOCE into a “television academy” that would teach up to 300 students a year while still maintaining public television programs.

“We had a wary eye about that,” said Michael Finnegan, president of the Orange Coast College Faculty Senate, in an interview Wednesday night.

Cut-Off Still Favored

Earlier, Finnegan and Evelyn Weiss, Golden West College Faculty Senate president, told the trustees that their faculties still want a financial cutoff of KOCE.

“Our Senate has endorsed the 30-month plan and the move for divestiture (of KOCE),” said Weiss.

Finnegan said three advisory committees of faculty and staff have studied the television academy proposal and “the intent of all those groups is the same.”

He explained that the “clear intent . . . is that there be no money for KOCE except for (television academy) instructional purposes.”

Student Support

Finnegan said teachers and staff generally believe the district should halt all operational subsidies for the station.

Student trustee Marc Heffner told the board that students in the college district are enthusiastic about the television academy proposal. “The sooner the better,” said Heffner.

No other person or group, however, spoke in favor of either the academy or KOCE.

Brownell told the board that KOCE “for all these years has lived with controversy, and that is true up to this minute.”