Colleges to Get High-Tech Labs, if Not the Equipment

Their fortunes seemed to be improving this year.

Last month, enrollment at the county’s three community colleges reached its highest level in five years. Then, the state upped its annual contribution to the district’s budget by $600,000. And on Friday, Ventura College broke ground for a $12.4-million math and science complex, one of three sleek new projects under construction or soon to be.

But instead of basking in the long-awaited growth that will bring modern classrooms and laboratories to all three campuses, trustees and district officials are in a “minor panic” over how they will fill the new buildings with everything from furniture to the expensive equipment they need for newly upgraded science labs.

After waiting more than a decade for state money to build new math and science buildings at Moorpark and Ventura colleges and a new letters and science complex at Oxnard College, plans for the sophisticated facilities have been hampered by state cuts in equipment funds for two of the buildings.

And if a statewide bond measure to raise money for new educational facilities fails next month, the district stands to lose an additional $2.4 million it planned to spend on microscopes, scales and computers to equip the buildings’ new high-tech science labs. Another $2.1 million dedicated to secondary effects of the construction, such as tearing down old buildings, is also at risk.

“Our efforts to build the campuses out are finally coming to fruition,” Trustee Allan Jacobs said. “But if we can’t equip these buildings, we are going to be behind the eight-ball. There is no point having a science lab in chemistry if you can’t put equipment in it.”

On Friday, amid much ballyhoo about “breaking into the 21st century” with high-tech chemistry, physics and biology labs, Ventura College broke ground for its $12.4-million math and science complex.

The new labs, according to Dean Bob Renger, should be equipped by fall of 1997 with digital measuring devices, sensitive sensor technology, and software-laden computers that will allow students to access and manipulate science data and complex mathematical equations.

But the Ventura County Community College District is counting on more than $1.3 million from the state to purchase the high-tech tools. Another $1 million has been promised to equip Moorpark College’s new $12.7-million building, which will be bid upon next month.

Both amounts, however, depend on the passage of Proposition 203, a $3-billion statewide bond measure on the March 26 primary ballot, said Melanie Bedwell, a spokeswoman for the state chancellor.

If passed, the measure would generate about $300 million during the next two years to replace deteriorating facilities and equipment at the state’s 106 community colleges.

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Without the funds, the buildings will not stand empty. A certain amount of equipment--such as cabinets, display cases, fume hoods and glassware sterilization chambers--will be installed during construction. Some existing equipment will be transferred to the new buildings.

And efforts at outside fund-raising that have in the past resulted in equipment--such as helium neon lasers paid for by the National Science Foundation that allow Ventura College students to study light rays--will continue.

But a shortfall could result in state-of-the-art classrooms filled with ancient equipment, according to Jacobs.

To avoid such a prospect, the district would have to dig deep into its own pockets, said Jeff Marsee, vice chancellor of administrative services.

“This is really pretty serious stuff for us,” he said. “We are going to have to find some local ways to find money for that equipment. We would have to borrow or go into reserves. Another way is to cut into our operational budget.”

Already, the district has cut into its reserves to cover shortfalls in state money promised for the construction of the buildings. The district put up about $528,000 to cover the cost of Oxnard College’s letters and science building, now under construction, and has earmarked more than $512,000 to help fund construction of Ventura College’s new building.

In addition, both buildings have seen their original allocations for equipment cut by the state.

Oxnard College is facing a $300,000 shortfall in equipment funds.

Like Ventura College, the Oxnard campus plans to apply to the National Science Foundation for money to purchase new equipment.

Short of that happening, however, the plan is to “get down on our hands and knees and beg to the district,” says Don Brockett, dean of the math, science and letters departments at Oxnard College.

“It’s silly to put in the building and not have the equipment,” he said. “We need to enter the 21st century.”

Ventura College also saw its initial funding request reduced from $1.7 million to $1.3 million because of a 1992 change in the state’s funding formula.

The change threw college officials into a brief panic, said Ruth Hemming, former vice president of administrative services at Ventura College and now interim president at Oxnard College.

Without the money contingent on the bond measure, years of planning to upgrade the college’s math and science curriculum--based on the new teaching tools--would be compromised, said Ventura College’s Renger.

“It would be a shame to come here and say we have a new computer lab but no computers,” he said. “That would be a terrific degradation of the instructional programs planned for this building.”

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Trustees say that even with a recent boost in the money they receive from the state, they will be hard-pressed to find money to subsidize equipment at all three schools.

“We will just have to creep and crawl and struggle to get them equipped,” Trustee John Tallman said.

Still, says Tallman, it is better to have new buildings with substandard equipment than to have none at all.

“It’s a problem I would rather have than not have,” he said. “At least it means that we are getting buildings.”