Agriculture Program to Be Reviewed

Los Angeles Community College District Chancellor Donald Phelps, responding to growing criticism of the Pierce College agriculture program, has asked for a review of the program’s curriculum to determine whether it is out of step with the needs of the area’s agriculture industry.

Phelps said he didn’t want to eliminate farm classes completely, but at a recent meeting with Pierce faculty he mentioned that other colleges have leased excess land to cities and private groups for uses that have included municipal facilities and a privately owned hotel. The farm at Pierce occupies about 250 acres of the 400 acres on the Woodland Hills campus.

Pierce’s agriculture program has become increasingly controversial in recent years as its enrollment has fallen. The program has about 1,300 students, about half of the number it had in 1982, and officials have said that the program would have to attract at least 700 additional students to become viable. Classes directly connected with the farm enroll about 240 students.

Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal criticized the agriculture program as an example of how community colleges are doing a poor job of preparing the nation’s future work force.

“Pierce Community College is still teaching courses in agriculture and cattle and sheep production, even though it serves a bustling urban area where any sheep unwise enough to venture forth are likely to wind up as flattened fauna on the freeways,” the newspaper article said.

In response to the article, Phelps said: “If the article is correct, we need to respond to it by correcting the curriculum of the Agriculture Department so that we are teaching compatible classes with the agriculture industry.”

He was also critical of the $100,000 the college spends annually to water the farm. “That’s pretty doggone expensive,” he said.

Enrollment is particularly low in the agriculture department’s classes on large animals. Most college academic departments seek to enroll about 35 students per class, but the large-animal classes at Pierce this spring average only nine students per class. Norlund said the college spends about $1 million, or about $5,000 per student a year, on the large-animal program.

Horse classes, which have always been popular, are not included in those figures.

Mick Sears, who chairs the Agriculture Department, agreed that “what was important 30 years ago is obviously not as important now.”

However, he defended the agriculture program. “We are looking to teach classes that are relevant to the future,” Sears said.