Agriculture and Pierce College

[Recently] dozens of community leaders met in the Campus Center to discuss curriculum and land issues of the agriculture department at Pierce College. [The moderator] asked the group, “What makes Pierce stand out from the other colleges?”

It is the farm. We are unique in that we provide the only opportunity for the study of production agriculture and all its unique subheading courses.

What we should be doing is getting [the Los Angeles Unified School District] to work with us. We should be educating their teachers about agriculture so that they can take it back to the classroom. Our farm laboratory should be managed by ag industry. We should bring back the farm tours. We need to offer the community a whole array of courses and opportunities in agriculture that they have been begging for for years and that we used to offer.

The [dollars] will come if we commit ourselves to serving the communities’ demands.

I think it is about time that we support President [Rocky] Young’s efforts to solve the college’s financial problems and at the same time preserve, improve and expand our agriculture, farm and open space programs.

LELAND S. SHAPIRO

Director, Pre-Veterinary Sciences

Pierce College

Woodland Hills