Colleges Must Meet Area Needs

On Wednesday the Los Angeles Community College District’s trustees are expected to sign a three-year contract with faculty members that will enable the district to respond more swiftly to the shifting needs of the educational marketplace.

The contract will link faculty pay raises to district success in increasing student enrollment. It will also grant each of the nine campuses the authority to depart from the district’s current school calendar, which consists of two long semesters and a shorter summer session. The change will allow district officials to seek to match the success of the Santa Monica College District and others in offering popular variations on the traditional calendar, like compressed winter sessions and courses coordinated with California State University.

The trustees, however, will also be asked to take a step backward by approving a faculty plan that would retain the current system under which campuses must go through a lengthy negotiating process with the district academic senate before hiring new faculty members. The trustees should reject this plan and instead give that authority solely to college presidents and their local faculty senates.

These changes reflect common-sense goals, but the battle to achieve them has been long and hard. For example, two years ago, when the district was teetering toward bankruptcy, some officials proposed shortsighted schemes to generate cash, like downsizing Pierce College’s agriculture department and letting developers build a hotel and convention center on its 240-acre farm. That plan has been replaced by a smarter proposal to expand the department and turn the farm into an agricultural lab that can teach the cutting-edge bioengineering skills that the state’s agricultural industry now demands.

What district officials forgot in 1998 and what they need to bear in mind when they meet Wednesday are one in the same: The key to the district’s success lies in compelling its campuses to teach the skills that today’s economy demands.