Engineering at Mission Intact Despite Cuts

After a week of controversy following the announcement that a $2-million budget shortfall would force Mission College to cut nearly 200 classes, eliminate its athletic program and limit hours at its new library, the head of one academic department was pleased to announce some good news this week.

Lee Risemberg, chairman of Mission’s engineering department, said corporate fund-raising efforts will allow his department to offer its complete selection of courses this fall.

Risemberg also said the department was recently able to purchase new, state-of-the-art computers and update other laboratory equipment as a result of a $160,000 grant from the Ralph Parsons Foundation. The grant was the third the department has received from the philanthropic organization in the last 10 years, Mission officials said.

“Just about all of the equipment that we have in engineering we purchased with grant money,” Risemberg said. “If we had to rely on the state we would have nothing but blackboards. And you can’t teach engineering with that.

Thomas Oliver, Mission’s vice president of academic affairs, said Risemberg’s tenacious fund-raising in the private sector spared his department from having to cut classes.

“Nobody hustles like Lee does,” Oliver said. “He really has a lot of pride in his department. What he is really doing is buying the classes in the sense that he is using money that he has raised from industry to pay for them.”

Although money from the Parsons grant was restricted to purchasing and repairing equipment, the engineering department will be able to compensate for its share of the budget deficit through donations from Rocketdyne and other corporations, Risemberg said.

Risemberg said that he was concerned that prospective students who have heard about massive cuts at Mission might not look into engineering courses. Ironically, he said, low enrollment, and not lack of funds, could require the department to trim classes.

Mission is one of only two community colleges in the Los Angeles district, and the only one in the Valley, to offer a complete engineering curriculum, school officials said.