College District Wants Educational Center for Anaheim

Officials with the North Orange County Community College District are considering plans to build an educational center in Anaheim, which could house more than a dozen classrooms and offer Anaheim its only venue for higher education.

“We’d really love to do it, because Anaheim is underserved,” said Donna Hatchett, a spokeswoman for the district. “But we still need to find a place for it. Ultimately, the nature of the center will be determined by the kind of building we find.”

Few cities of Anaheim’s size--almost 300,000 people--are without a college-level school. Many say it would be a welcome addition to the city.

“I can’t tell you what an advantage something like that would be. I wouldn’t have to send people to Yorba Linda or someplace to get training,” said Marco Lucero, a supervisor with the city’s Workstart Center, which helps people get jobs. “A city of this size needs something like that.”

Officials with the district hope to buy--or build, if they don’t find an existing structure--a 60,000-square-foot or larger building to accommodate about 2,300 students. The soonest the center could be ready for business is 2003.

Plans are to offer a balance of credit and not-for-credit classes, and even to create some programs in which students could complete most, if not all, course work for a degree without leaving the center. The mix of courses likely will include both standard noncredit fare, such as parenting, home decorating and physical fitness classes, and such academic classes as teacher education, math, science and creative writing.

“We are planning for credit and noncredit classes to make the facility appeal to the widest audience,” said Janet Portolan, vice president for educational support and planning with Fullerton College, one of district’s two main campuses.

The new center also would help alleviate space burdens on a growing Fullerton campus that currently serves about 19,000 full-time students, Portolan said. “The intent is that this would be a much bigger educational center than what we have in Yorba Linda.”

In fact, district officials say they might close the Yorba Linda Continuing Education Center--which they said serves roughly 1,000 students and functions at half-capacity--because it isn’t centrally located and doesn’t easily accommodate those who most need continuing education classes, such as English as a second language.

The Yorba Linda center consists of four buildings with a total of 40,000 square feet and offers mostly continuing education classes.

“It is a good facility, but Anaheim seems to be a more logical central point,” said Rod Fleeman, a vice chancellor. “Plus, Anaheim is in need of opportunities for higher education.”

Fleeman said the district also would use the Anaheim site to house administrative offices and serve as district headquarters.