Community Colleges California

A federal judge on Monday extended until Jan. 25 a previous order blocking mass proficiency tests for non-high school graduates seeking to enroll in community colleges in California and the rest of the nation. U.S. District Judge D. Lowell Jensen left intact a temporary restraining order he issued Jan. 2, barring enforcement of a controversial new federal regulation. The extension was ordered to allow attorneys more time to file written arguments in the case. The new rule, devised by the U.S.

Motivated by the Los Angeles Community College District's success in getting voters to approve a $1.2-million bond issue, community colleges from Fullerton to Ventura are asking voters for more than $1 billion to repair and renovate campuses. But officials fear some of those campaigns could prove more difficult because of economic uncertainty exacerbated by a state energy crisis and the East Coast terrorist attacks.

Community college nursing programs, straining to address a growing statewide nursing shortage, are facing a new difficulty: soaring dropout and failure rates that are shrinking California's already inadequate nursing pipeline. Faculty blame the increased attrition on the lowering of admission barriers, which has made it easier for students with poorer grades to gain entry.

The state is ready to spread $2 million among community colleges with the worst transfer rates to four-year universities. The money would pay for programs designed to boost those numbers. But no college seems to want to apply for the grant funds, because officials say no school relishes going on record as an underachiever. So the $2 million, in the pipeline since November, is still unclaimed several weeks after lawmakers made it available.

Shirley Ralston, a longtime member of the Rancho Santiago College Board of Trustees, has been named vice president of the state's chief policy-making board for community colleges. "I'm very excited about it. For me, it's an opportunity to provide real leadership for community colleges in California," she said. Ralston, 56, who was appointed to the 15-member California State Colleges Board of Governors in 1990 by Gov.

California's community colleges filed a lawsuit Thursday against enforcement of a federal law that will require all new students without a high school diploma or the equivalent to pass a test screening them for likely academic success at the two-year schools. The 107 community colleges in California asked the U.S. District Court in San Francisco to temporarily block the rule, which is supposed to take effect Jan. 1 as part of a federal budget reduction package.

Enrollment in California community colleges fell 9% this fall--the steepest drop in 15 years--primarily because student fees more than doubled during the last year, according to a report by the system's administrators. The state's 107 community colleges lost an estimated 137,000 students from the fall of 1992 to the fall of 1993, the report said, the biggest decline since a 12.3% drop in 1978, when voter approval of property tax-cutting Proposition 13 led to major budget reductions.

It's been attacked as embarrassing, hurtful and just plain wrongheaded. But it also marks the first time that California's community college system has fingered the 14 campuses--out of 107 statewide--with the worst record of transferring students to the state's public universities. More than half of those on the list are urban campuses in the Los Angeles Basin, serving large numbers of Latino and African American students.

Federal legislation aimed at reducing the national debt also threatens to block the enrollment of 100,000 new students in California community colleges and could cost the institutions $200 million in lost federal aid, a top state educator said Thursday.

Frustrated by bureaucratic obstacles that "make it impossible to accomplish anything," California Community Colleges Chancellor Joshua Smith, who was hired two years ago to resuscitate the state's struggling system of two-year colleges, said Wednesday that he will resign before the end of the year. Smith, 52, said in a telephone interview from Sacramento that he has accepted the presidency of a community college in New Jersey. He plans to assume his duties there no later than Dec. 15.

The University of California announced Thursday that it has accepted a record number of community college transfer students for the fall, with significant increases in the numbers of Latino and African American transfers admitted. Across its eight undergraduate campuses, the university admitted 12,221 California transfer students, a 9.1% gain over last year, according to annual transfer admission figures. The increase, which comes alongside a 10.

An experimental program to increase salaries for underpaid, part-time "freeway fliers" who teach at several community colleges was approved Monday by the system's state advisory board. A $2-million pilot program, if approved by the Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis, would allow six colleges to hire five full-time, tenure-track instructors each. It also would let them teach courses at neighboring colleges.

It's been attacked as embarrassing, hurtful and just plain wrongheaded. But it also marks the first time that California's community college system has fingered the 14 campuses--out of 107 statewide--with the worst record of transferring students to the state's public universities. More than half of those on the list are urban campuses in the Los Angeles Basin, serving large numbers of Latino and African American students.

An area biologist has been selected to head a statewide biotechnology training and jobs program. As the new statewide director of the biotechnology economic development program in the California community college system, Mary Pat Huxley will coordinate the six regional biotech centers throughout the college system. Huxley said she hopes to increase the program's funding--now $1.07 million--and to draw more biotech companies into partnership with colleges throughout the state.

California's three higher education systems--University of California, Cal State University and the community colleges--usually maintain peace in the name of family unity. But recently the community colleges have been failing to keep up appearances. In fact, they have been behaving a little like a drunken relative at dinner--embarrassing the family and startling the guests by revealing some long-simmering quarrels. At issue is how state money is divided up among the three systems.

California is desperate for public school teachers, but in the community college system, the problem is the reverse: Underemployment of teachers is rampant, and more than 100 job seekers may line up for a single opening. It's nothing new in the world of academia, where many young PhDs and M.A.s fresh out of graduate school have faced daunting competition for university faculty jobs for many years now.

Because of high default rates on student loans, 225 post-secondary institutions, including eight community colleges and 12 vocational schools in California, may be cut off from the federal Guaranteed Student Loan Program, the U.S. Department of Education announced Wednesday.

Meet Michael Forrest, modern-day professor. Forrest guides Coastline Community College students through earth science subjects, such as glaciers and earthquakes. If you're taking his weekly night course, feel free to ask him questions--but if you want to leave an apple on his desk, you've got to drive about 30 miles to do it. He teaches at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson, and his lectures are piped to a huge video screen in the Coastline classroom.

Nicole Naclerio never thought it would happen to her. The gifted San Pedro High School cheerleader had always assumed that community colleges were for students who, as she delicately put it, "wouldn't have a chance of going anywhere else." But last year, rejected by all the prestigious universities to which she had applied, Naclerio became one of thousands of California high school graduates who overcame reluctance, braved embarrassment and enrolled in community colleges.

The state's vast system of 106 community colleges has been declared a "top priority" by the Assembly's new speaker, Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks), a change in status for a system long relegated to the back burners of politics. Hertzberg is backing the largest proposed budget boost for the colleges in recent years--a $560-million increase in the community colleges' $3.9-billion annual budget. The proposed augmentation is the largest since the economic recession of the early 1990s.