Are Southland Colleges Ahead of the Game?

In the article by Bradley Inman, “Business Discovers the Benefits of Tapping Community College Network” (May 12), it seems that he is familiar only with Northern California’s community college programs.

In the Los Angeles Community College District, we have been doing many of the things that Inman describes for a long time: college classes at the work site for General Telephone, medical anthropology classes for area hospital staffs (in the mid-1970s) and cooperative programs with local industry for work force preparation.

One of the best-kept secrets about college training for company work force upgrading is a program that has been at Harbor College for 10 years and since been established at six of the eight other colleges in the district. This is the Project for Adult College Education program, which stresses liberal arts and communication skills.

PACE started in fall, 1981, as a program for educating working adults, but it is now recognized by local employers as an excellent, inexpensive way to upgrade the business skills of their employees. Classes are designed to meet the general education transfer requirements for students who want to go on to a California State University.

The program also provides excellent preparation for students who wish to enter accelerated business programs provided by schools such as University of Redlands, Pepperdine University and Mount St. Mary’s College.

Students attend classes one night a week, watch two hours of educational television per week and attend all-day Saturday conferences about every other weekend throughout an 18-week semester. They earn 12 units of college credit each semester and are ready to transfer to upper-division work at a four-year university in 2 1/2 years.

The districtwide nursing programs also have good success rates. They work closely with area hospitals, and a sizable percentage of program graduates get jobs in local health-care facilities.

SAMUEL H. SANDT. The writer is the director of the PACE program at Los Angeles Harbor College in Wilmington.