Pierce Can’t Keep Students on Farm, May End Program

Only months after promising to continue the struggling agricultural program at Pierce College, the school’s president warned Friday that the program could be shut down in the spring of 1992 if enrollment does not improve.

“At the rate it’s going, the program will not survive,” said Daniel Means, who took over as president of the 18,000-student college this year. “The enrollment is just too low. I want to have a program that will flourish. If not, we may have to make a hard decision on whether we should maintain the whole program or not.”

Means held out the possibility that some of the 250 acres devoted to the agricultural program could be converted to a golf course or a park if the program is dismantled.

“My hope is to maintain a flourishing farm,” he said. “But if not, there are lots of other options that the school’s Board of Trustees could decide on. But we would like to keep it open space.”

Enrollment Decline

Agriculture department enrollment fell this year by 200, to 1,300, continuing a long-term decline. Enrollment stood at 2,473 in 1982.

Officials said the program would have to attract at least 700 more students before it could be considered viable.

“We have seven different disciplines in this department,” said department chairman Mick Sears. “Some of our class sizes are so low it’s laughable.” Some classes are being held for as few as seven to 10 students.

Means’ comments confirmed the worst fears of conservationists, animal lovers and homeowners who have long claimed that the agricultural department, its 250 acres of farmland and the herds of horses, sheep, pigs and beef cattle were in jeopardy. The campus has 400 acres.

They said they are afraid that school officials and the Los Angeles Community College District want to sell the valuable property on the Woodland Hills campus.

‘Hidden Agenda’

“I’ve always had this uncomfortable feeling that there was a hidden agenda somewhere that would cause the agricultural programs to disappear,” said Bob Gross, vice president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Assn., which opposes development of the farmland.

The department deteriorated from a lack of creative ideas and from infighting among many of the 11 faculty members, advocates of the farm program said Friday.

“The agricultural program used to be an important part of the Woodland Hills community,” said Rosemary Woodlock, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization. “But it has not changed with the times. Also, there are faculty members who have denigrated each other’s program in order to keep theirs going.”

Means promised members of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization in April that the program would grow, even if the amount of farmland was reduced. “I can guarantee you that the agricultural program at Pierce will continue,” Means said at the time. “We may not need all the land . . . we don’t know yet.”

However, he said his perspective changed after an intensive review of the program and after enrollment declined this school year.

Means said he held a meeting with professors and other members of the department last week. “I told them that based on the enrollment, the curriculum would have to be revitalized to attract more students,” he said. “There has to be an improvement. My challenge to them is to work together to improve the program. We can’t keep plodding along in the same direction we’re going.”

Means suggested that there be more emphasis on programs such as organic crop production or a course on pesticides.

An agricultural business program already has been eliminated for lack of interest, Sears said. He added that enrollment in classes devoted to large animals such as horses and cows is low. The large animals take up most of the farm property, he said.

“If we must give up the large animals, maybe we can replace them with classes on horticultural production,” which students might find more relevant, he said.

Sears said the college was trying to attract agricultural students through magazine advertisements and flyers handed out at high schools.

Fans of the farm said they intend to fight any attempt to dismantle the program and sell the farmland.

Lorretta Kinsley of the Friends of Pierce College said that if the program is shut down, “there will be an outraged public. The public wants and needs that farm.”