YORBA LINDA : District Has Big Plans for Adult Center

The Yorba Linda Adult Continuing Education Center is currently a modest campus, with four buildings and a theater surrounded by 190 hillside acres. Course offerings are fairly typical, ranging from business education to parenting classes.

But plans for this branch of the North Orange County Community College District are anything but modest. It is slated to become the district’s third community college campus, and in the process, district officials hope to make use of its unique terrain and surrounding habitat.

One plan would include an equestrian center, and the hands-on care of horses would be a part of the biology curriculum.

There would also be a nature center for the study of unique animal and plant life, such as coastal sage scrub.

“The primary question we have to ask is do we have the creativity to look beyond the obvious,” community college district trustee Barbara G. Hammerman said. Having just classroom space at the site “wouldn’t reach the highest and best use of the property.”

What Hammerman, other trustees and district officials are striving for is a campus that balances the needs of the entire district, which includes Fullerton and Cypress community colleges, and the unique potential of the property.

An example that Hammerman uses to illustrate that balance is Orange Coast College’s boating program, which takes advantage of the school’s proximity to the ocean and meets the needs of that community.

“There is a growing realization by people in the North County that there are fewer and fewer places to take advantage of the very things that brought them here,” Hammerman said of the rural hills of Yorba Linda, where many residents keep horses on lots of an acre or more. “That property is the parcel of open land in that area and we have an obligation to look at it in unique ways.”

Before the district can build at the Yorba Linda site, located in the city’s northern hills, it must still obtain community college status from the state. To do that, the district must demonstrate the demand for college credit courses there.

This semester, 21 credit courses are offered at the campus and that number is expected to double next semester. The district plans to add credit courses as money and space allow.

If community college status is conferred on the site, it would be placed on a priority funding list.

Hammerman said she anticipates some objection to building an equestrian or nature center instead of adding classrooms.

But she noted that a combination of state money, private donations and support from the business community could be used for such centers.

The district also plans to hold a series of forums next year to gather community input on the future of the campus. A citizens’ advisory committee also will be formed, she said.