Pierce College Farm, Faculty Obsolete

For 20 years, the Pierce College farm and the agriculture faculty have been obsolete (Valley News, Dec. 12). For 20 years, the local residents have screamed, “Save the farm” for fear their property values would go down if any productive use were made of the 300 presently wasted acres.

Agriculture programs at Pierce College are vocational and there is no call in the San Fernando Valley for highly trained agricultural workers, but the faculty members want to save their high-paying jobs.

So now the faculty has come up with a new plan--equine science, horticulture and animal health technology.

Equine science is essentially horseback riding. While there are something like 50,000 horse owners in the entire Valley, most are upper-middle-class persons who need no instruction at all, much less at taxpayers’ expense.

Horticulture is gardening and training florists. Those few who enroll in these courses are, like the horse owners, hobbyists. With city and state budget problems as they are, a few things have higher priority, such as not cutting back on the academic and occupational courses that large numbers of students need but cannot get.

Unlike the others, the animal health technology program is hugely successful. Almost all the young women who graduate from this two-year program find jobs as assistants to veterinarians. But they are dead-end jobs that pay minimum wage. There is nowhere to go other than to another veterinarian for about the same money.

Previous Pierce College presidents haven’t had the guts to face the obstreperous people like Mick Sears and the agriculture faculty or Margo Murman and the local residents, all of whom care only about their own selfish interests.

Perhaps President Erickson will have the courage to face the facts about the farm and do what is appropriate for the huge majority of Pierce College students and the California taxpayer.

M. STEPHEN SHELDON

Studio City