Pierce’s Accreditation Reaffirmed

Nearly two years after an oversight panel postponed a decision on renewing Pierce College’s accreditation, citing serious financial and administrative problems, the panel has reaffirmed the school’s good standing, it was announced Thursday.

“This is a great day for Pierce College,” said school President E. Bing Inocencio, who took over at the troubled institution last year. “There was kind of a cloud hanging over us here.”

The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges decided earlier this month to reaffirm the college’s accreditation, granting it a widely accepted stamp of approval and ensuring that students can continue to qualify for financial aid and that their Pierce credits will be accepted at four-year colleges and universities. The college announced the decision late Thursday.

Although rumors abounded after the commission’s September 1995 decision, Pierce’s accreditation was never denied or withdrawn, only deferred. Colleges face a review of their accreditation every six years.

Members of the same team that blasted the school in the 1995 report returned in April to check on Pierce again and found improvement in virtually every problem area, according to a summary of the panel’s findings obtained by The Times.

“All of the items cited in previous team reports have been addressed,” according to the memo, which is unsigned, but lists the names of the team members.

The two-page summary also offers kudos to Inocencio.

“Even though he has been on the job for only 10 months, he has provided an energized focus for the entire campus,” the document reads. “As the president of the faculty senate stated, ‘The tone on campus has changed.’ ”

Members of the commission and its executive director, David Wolf--himself a former president of Pierce--could not be reached for comment Thursday.

But Faculty Senate President Helen Krahn reiterated the praise for Inocencio she expressed to the commission in April.

“This may sound Pollyanna-ish,” Krahn said, “but I do believe in a time and season. And he happens to be a man who arrived at the right time. We needed somebody to be optimistic. We had been negative for such a long time.”

Indeed, Pierce--which continues to be burdened by an approximately $1.5-million budget deficit--had endured a decade of declining enrollments and revolving-door administration by half a dozen presidents before the commission visited in 1995.

In an unusually harsh statement--and rare move--the commission, a branch of the privately run Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges, warned in 1995 that enrollment drops, poor finances and uneven administration had so rocked Pierce that it would have to make major changes or perhaps face revocation of its accreditation down the road.

“It is frightening to learn that the college . . . [has] made very little effort to market the college and recruit students,” the 1995 report said.

It also found that the school’s “financial future is uncertain [and] reserves almost nonexistent.” Rapid turnover in leadership positions was also cited as a reason for instability, and the report said the college “cannot continue to defer action.”

Inocencio, who had been associate provost for academic administration at New York City Technical College in Brooklyn, took over with a three-year contract. Since then he has made permanent three acting deans. The position of vice president for academic affairs--held on an interim basis since January 1995 by Carmelita Thomas--is expected to be filled this summer.

The installation of permanent leadership was cited in the recent committee report as an important sign that Pierce was turning around, Inocencio said.

Enrollment, which plummeted from 24,000 in 1982 to fewer than 14,000 when the 1995 report came out, has begun to stabilize with the help of satellite campuses created last year in Agoura Hills and at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, Inocencio said. Enrollment currently stands at about 14,000.

While harshly criticizing Pierce, the 1995 report also blamed the recession and the Los Angeles Community College District for the decline of the school.

And the recent commission also praised college district Chancellor William Segura, who, like Inocencio, has been in his post less than a year.

District spokesman Blair Sillers said the commission, which also met with Segura in April, was pleased that the district is working to implement a new funding system that would reward campuses that show growth. The current system takes funds from more prosperous campuses and shifts them to struggling sister schools.

“I’m not saying we’ve reached nirvana,” a cheerful Krahn said. “But we have begun that change in all kinds of little ways. We’re getting painting done. We’re getting gardening done. It looks different. It feels different.”