Whitney Lawrence
and Alissa Wisniewski
City Times
The L building has recently been shut down, displacing programs like Trio Aspire, a tutoring center, CalWORKS and City Times. All programs have since been relocated to various buildings.
Before any changes could be made, Vice President of Academic Services, Carol Dexheimer, said they had to first “complete the LRC classrooms and TM modular buildings, then we could empty out the L building.”
Trio Aspire, now in room A-10, currently has 220 students enrolled in the program and while they say word got out pretty well about the move, “It was stressful because the final touches, like getting the computers and printers hooked up, occurred on the first day of school,” Director Cathi Lopez said.
Both Trio Aspire and CalWORKS agree that the professional moving service the district hired was the biggest help.
“Those guys were like ‘Oh, this doesn’t work for you? Lets try this.’ We weren’t used to that,” Lopez said.
“All credit (goes) to the movers. They really deserve kudos,” Cherie Bromley-Taylor said, Administrative Technician for CalWORKS.
Lopez said that the real issues and delays were due in part to the planning and communicating by the district. Also, the lack of signs directing students to the offices’ new location is a problem. Lopez said the official signs have been made, but a month into the semester, just haven’t been put up yet. Not to mention the blocked entrance to Trio Aspire, CalWORKS and New Horizons by a garbage bin barricade used to collect water from a serious roof leak.
“The buckets are not welcoming,” Bromley-Taylor said.
CalWORKS has 240 students enrolled in its program, and before the move would see an average of about 30 students per day, if not more. Since opening on Feb. 20, they have yet to see a student.
“We’d like to believe we did such great work before the move (that no one needs to come see us),” Bromley-Taylor said.
The district projects that these displaced programs, also including Military Education and New Horizons, will be able to move back in 18 months. Lopez and Bromley-Taylor have their doubts.
“We’re anxious to move back, but we’re not planning,” Lopez said, “The word is 18 months but the way things go around here . they didn’t even start (the project) on time.”
The old L building will be transformed into an “academic success center,” complete with math and English centers, an assessment center to be used for placement testing, a tutorial center and classrooms. It will also include programs like Extended Opportunities Programs and Services (EOPS), Trio Aspire, New Horizons and the Puente Program.
City College will undergo multiple renovations in the future, including the construction of a brand new child development center, a remodel of the old gym, or P building, and combining the college police, cosmetology, nursing and photography programs into one building.
