WOODLAND HILLS : Quake Jolts Facilities, Enrollment at Pierce

The men’s gym at Pierce College will likely remain closed until next semester, while the women’s gym and library on campus may reopen within about a month, administrators said.

Although overshadowed by the havoc at Cal State Northridge, earthquake damage at Pierce College in Woodland Hills caused a four-day delay of the start of the spring semester, with about $2.1 million of damage to the gyms, library and five classrooms, making Pierce the hardest hit of the Los Angeles community colleges, said Pierce President Lowell Erickson.

The southeast wall of the men’s gym is bowed and must be rebuilt, Erickson said. The women’s gym and library suffered minor damage to ceiling supports and tiles, he said.

Final damage estimates have not been made, Erickson said.

About 200 physical education and other classes have been moved to other classrooms or held outside. The only class canceled because of the earthquake was an evening volleyball course.

The earthquake also rocked the student body.

“We know that a lot of our students were affected in their housing and where they work,” Erickson said. “We had many people who withdrew their registration money because that was suddenly all they had to live on.”

Enrollment dipped by more than 2,000 students from last spring to 14,663, said William Norlund, vice president of academic affairs at Pierce.

“Normally, we pick up a lot of students during the first two weeks of the semester,” Norlund said. “That didn’t happen at all this semester. We have more students dropping classes than adding them.”

That does not bode well for future semesters at Pierce, since budget allocations from the district are based in part on enrollment changes and state funds are granted per student, Norlund said.

To make matters worse, before the earthquake the school learned that more than $1 million in cash promised for accepting topsoil from the adjacent Warner Ridge would not be coming in because of the financial problems of the property’s developer.

“We’re operating on a deficit budget this semester,” Norlund said. “And we’re not looking at a good year next year.”