California College Guide : Community Colleges Getting Innovative : Diversity: The two-year institutions accommodate an enrollment that is ethnically mixed and many of them have adapted unique courses for a changing economy.

At Los Angeles Mission College, about 800 full-time workers--many of them well past the traditional college age--are earning their two-year degrees by attending classes near their jobs one evening a week plus Saturdays.

At Cosumnes River College in Sacramento, a microwave transmitter beams 13 televised courses as far as Placerville in the Sierra foothills. The courses, ranging from analytical geometry and calculus to intercultural communications, are transmitted to 1 19 schools or community centers where students can participate in class discussions via telephone. In April, thanks to a newly approved satellite uplink, the college will be able to deliver such highly specialized training courses as hazardous-materials management throughout the nation and into parts of Mexico and Canada.

And at El Camino College near Torrance, officials have set up a Regional Center for the Transfer of Manufacturing Technology. The center, which was recently awarded a $13-million federal grant, is a project of the California Community Colleges and the state Department of Commerce to help develop roles for the small- and medium-size firms hard hit by cuts in the defense and aerospace industries.

Each is an example of the innovative ways California’s 107 community colleges are seeking to serve increasingly diverse students and adapt course offerings to fit a changing economy in a period of booming enrollments and tight budgets.

The community college system, the most accessible of the state’s three public higher education networks, is open to anyone who can benefit from its instruction. Its threefold mission--to provide vocational training, offer an academic foundation for those who want to transfer to a four-year college, and supply lifelong learning for interested adults--results in a wide range of students. And while fees climbed from $6 to $10 per class credit this semester and the governor has proposed tripling them to $30 a credit for next year, the community college system remains by the far the most affordable of the state’s three branches of higher education.

It also is the most ethnically diverse: More than 75% of all minority higher education students in California are enrolled in community colleges.

“The diversity we understand and see today magnifies in the near future,” David Mertes, chancellor of the 1.5-million-student California Community Colleges system said recently. “Already, there are significant language differences, a wide range of academic preparation and tremendous differences in socioeconomic backgrounds, all coming to our colleges because each individual believes that we can help him or her make a better life.”

*

In November, 1991, Mertes and the community college system’s Board of Governors established a 24-member Commission on Innovation to find ways to maximize the colleges’ resources and accommodate the changing needs of their students.

Chaired by Southern California Edison Co. President Michael R. Peevey, the commission of business, education and civic leaders is being assisted by three task forces made up of college staff members from throughout the state. The Ford Foundation contributed $400,000 to the project, with other funding provided by business groups and the California Community Colleges Foundation.

The commission’s charge is to produce recommendations to assure cost-effectiveness as well as better access and student retention and improved numbers of academically oriented students’ transferring to four-year institutions. The commission expects to complete its task, dubbed Challenge 21, by midyear.

*

The commission and its task forces are working on three basic areas: educational instruction and delivery techniques; facilities planning and accommodation of enrollment, and management and organizational efficiency.

In educational instruction and delivery, commission members will find a variety of programs to recommend for wider dissemination.

Mission College’s program for working students--called PACE (Project Adult College Education)--is one of a handful of such programs in the state, despite its popularity and the solid track record it has had since it began in 1985.

By offering a full load of courses one evening a week plus Saturdays, students who hold full-time jobs are able to complete their two-year degree requirements in five semesters, said John Cantley, who became Mission’s PACE director in August. Evening classes are held at schools, hospitals or other convenient locations. Cantley said one of the best-attended centers is at the headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified School District, used by district employees and other downtown workers.

A 1989 evaluation of the program showed that 91% of the PACE students planned to transfer to four-year colleges (some of which also have courses tailored for full-time workers). Three-fourths of the students were women, and 45% were 35 or older. Thirty-six percent said they would not otherwise have enrolled in college were it not for PACE.

“PACE students see their education as a kind of family affair. They work together with the people at their job site, form a study group and stay together throughout the five semesters,” Cantley said. “It’s a hard thing to go back to school when you’ve been out for a while, and the study groups form a cohesiveness that help them survive.”

*

At the other end of the age spectrum--and halfway across the city--is the Middle College High School Program at Los Angeles Southwest College, which serves Watts and South Los Angeles.

Begun in 1988 with special funding from the Legislature, the program targets minority high school students at risk of failure by bringing them onto the college campus and putting them through a specialized curriculum. Modeled after a successful program in New York City and undertaken with the Los Angeles Unified School District, Southwest’s program provides academically oriented courses, lots of personal attention and plenty of role models through daily contact with faculty and the college’s regular students, 98% of whom are African-American or Latino.

The state has earmarked $310,000 for the program this year, during which it will be evaluated and considered for renewal and expansion to other colleges.

One of the most promising, fastest-growing innovations lies in the phenomenon known as “distance learning,” which uses technology, usually some form of television, to reach increasing numbers of students.

Among the earliest and most successful practitioners of distance learning is Coastline Community College in Orange County, which has used televised classes in a range of subjects since its founding in 1976.

About 4,000 of the college’s 16,000 students are enrolled in one or more of its 25 telecourses each semester, according to Leslie Purdy, Coastline’s administrative dean for instructional systems development.

Instead of driving to campus at a set time, students can watch televised lessons, broadcast over Orange County’s public television station and the college’s media center. The courses also are available on videocassettes at libraries and the college bookstore. Instructors’ time is spent not in preparing lectures but in evaluating students’ work and consulting with them.

“The original motivation was to reach students who were unable or unwilling to come to campus,” Purdy said. “But there is a lot of interest among colleges in California and nationwide because of the facilities and classroom space limitations. . . . What began as a way to reach non-traditional students increasingly is being turned to as one of the mainstream ways of delivering college courses.”

Community College Enrollment

California Community Colleges have long represented a sizable proportion of 2-year college enrollments nationwide. Here’s a look at how enrollments at California Community Colleges compare with 2-year colleges in the other states.

Source: California Community Colleges’ Research and Analysis Unit.