California Community Colleges Board Of Governors

A Glendale educator was appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson on Thursday to the board of trustees that governs the 22-campus California State University system. Alice S. Petrossian, 50, is president of the California Community Colleges Board of Governors and is the longtime director of special projects and intercultural education at the Glendale Unified School District. Also appointed to the 24-member board of trustees were Robert Foster, 50, of Long Beach, and Maridel Moulton, 53, of Moraga.

Karen Sue Grosz, an English professor at Santa Monica College, has been named to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors by Gov. George Deukmejian. Grosz, who has been on the college faculty since 1971, will take her seat on the 15-member board at its Sept. 14-15 meeting in Sacramento. The board sets policy and provides guidance for 71 community college districts with 107 campuses throughout the state. Grosz's term expires in 1991.

A Glendale educator and a Southern California Edison executive were appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson on Thursday to the Board of Trustees that governs the 22-campus California State University system. Alice S. Petrossian, 50, of Glendale, is president of the California Community Colleges Board of Governors and is the longtime director of special projects and intercultural education at the Glendale Unified School District.

A state governing board has granted Compton College an exemption from a law that requires community colleges to spend at least half of their annual budgets on teachers' salaries. The college spent 47% of its $10.8-million budget on teachers in the 1993-94 fiscal year, falling short of the state-mandated minimum by about $335,000, officials said.

A Pierce College English instructor is the recipient of the 1998 Hayward Award for Excellence in Education, one of the most prestigious awards given to faculty members of the California community colleges system. Richard Follett, 50, is one of four educators receiving the award from the California Community Colleges Board of Governors at a recent meeting. "It means a great deal to me," said Follett, who has been at the school since 1984. "It's validation by my peers."

The UC Irvine Department of Chemistry was named one of the top 10 chemistry departments in the nation in a recent issue of Science Watch, a publication of the Institute for Scientific Information. The university's No. 9 ranking is based on the number of times a research paper issued by the UCI chemistry department is cited in research reports issued by other universities, corporations or government laboratories.

Fullerton College's special math hot line has been honored as one of two outstanding programs offered by California community colleges, and the $4,000 prize that comes with the award will keep the program alive at least another semester, its creator said Thursday. The Math Assistance Telephone Hot Line is a pilot telephone tutoring service launched by Fullerton College students in January.

The Project for Adult Education at Pierce College has been awarded a California Community Colleges Board of Governors 1992 Exemplary Program Award. "It's quite an honor. We believed in it and now someone else believes in what we believe in," said Spanish instructor Tom O'Dea, founder of the program and PACE director until last year.

The governing board of California's community colleges approved reforms intended to streamline the path to graduation and transfer for thousands of students. The California Community Colleges Board of Governors endorsed the policies at a meeting Monday in Sacramento that featured more than three hours of public comment, including vigorous opposition from many students who argued that the plan would penalize low-income and other disadvantaged students. The reforms were suggested by a statewide task force that met for a year to consider how to improve outcomes for more than 2.6 million community college students at a time of dwindling state support.