A Good Start for Pierce Plan

There’s more to the Pierce College master plan--approved last week by the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees--than what to do with the school’s farm. And that’s the point.

Among the plan’s ambitious goals are to maintain the community college’s impressive record of student transfers to four-year universities, offer vocational training that responds to market needs and provide lifelong learning opportunities.

And yes, the goals include revitalizing its agricultural program as well as providing a “quality of place that contributes to student, faculty, staff and community pride.”

For years, a place--the farm--dominated the debate over Pierce College. Previous administrators viewed the acres of undeveloped farmland as a source of potential income. Community members saw it as a de facto park.

When President Rocky Young took office last year, he put the focus where it should be--on education. “While I do respect our heritage, I don’t want to be enslaved by it,” he told trustees last week.

Respect for Pierce’s history as an agricultural school, albeit with an updated, urban emphasis, can be seen in the plan’s call for an improved equestrian center and a new building for agricultural sciences. The amount of campus land devoted to agriculture will remain the same.

The plan also looks beyond agriculture to include such programs as nursing and biotechnology. One of Young’s more innovative goals is to recruit a private developer to build apartments on campus for retirees, who would agree to take classes or volunteer at the school.

Young not only offered a sound proposal for the west San Fernando Valley college, he laid the groundwork for its acceptance. Last week’s unanimous vote of approval by the trustees came after Young spent months soliciting support for the plan from campus and community groups. There were a few objections voiced at last week’s board meeting but nothing like the divisiveness that stopped earlier proposals to develop the farm.

The new plan could get a boost from a $1.2-billion bond issue, the largest in the district’s history, that trustees agreed last week to put on the April 10 ballot. Pierce College’s share would be $166 million. The Valley’s two other community colleges, Valley College and Mission College, would receive $165 million and $111 million respectively for projects ranging from a new media arts center to additional classrooms.

Young’s work is not over. The next step is convincing voters that the long-neglected community college system both needs and deserves their support. He’s off to a good start.