More than 150 members affiliated with the San Diego Community College District celebrated the grand opening of San Diego Continuing Education’s César E. Chávez Campus on Oct. 28 in Barrio Logan.
The district is proud to open its new campus, Constance M. Carroll, chancellor of the district, said in a news release.
The campus, located on 1901 Main St., consolidates programs from the original César E. Chávez Campus near Chicano Park and the Centre City Campus in Downtown. The new facility is designated as the Campus of Excellence for Healthcare Careers, specializing in vocational training, business, computer technology and continuing education.
“The architecture is symbolic and far more impressive than anyone could have initially imagined 10 years ago when the planning began,” Carlos O. Turner Cortez, president of San Diego Continuing Education, said in the announcement.
Construction of the campus began after voters approved $58 million in bond measures to pay for the 67,924-square-foot dual building design. The three-story campus features a 149-car parking structure and a 320-car lot two blocks east of campus with murals relating to labor activist César E. Chávez’s life.
“The design is a culturally-based aesthetic taken from the indigenous peoples of the Americas and infused with the DNA of the Latino experience in order to inspire upward mobility via education, civic engagement and a respect for ethnic diversity well into the next millennium,” Joe Martinez of Martinez + Cutri, the architectural firm responsible for the design and construction of the campus, said in the release.
Donmek • Nov 12, 2015 at 2:12 pm
I think this would be a better site if comments were posted after they were read. I mean, of course they’re fun reading, but they’re also meant to be published, too.
Metdore • Nov 11, 2015 at 6:06 pm
Everything about Chavez is so controversial: his wartime service, his labor, and his association with Synanon. Maybe a school campus, but to name a Navy vessel after him?
Chavez never saw combat during the war, though he did serve on active duty. He, like many veterans, didn’t consider his military service the high point of his life, but he did go as far as to declare his Navy time as “the two worst years of my life” Doesn’t really sound too career oriented by those words, nor was he decorated for bravery. But he wasn’t court martialed and he did receive an other-than-dishonorable discharge.
If there was a need for labor unions in the last century to protect American workers, that time has long passed. Unions now protect workers in the American workforce that are not Americans, or at least North Americans. That in itself would be a fair argument to keep a Navy ship from being named in his honor.
Education?
But perhaps the worst is the support Chavez made to support the Synanon drug rehab in California. These drug rehabs (Delancey Street, Futures Foundation, the rest of that ilk) use just about the closest to historical slave labor as their rehab philosophy as can be imagined or defined in this present day. A labor rights activist couldn’t in his right mind condone as rehab philosophy or psychiatry the forced servitude that Synanon had, or the fear tactics that it used to keep its true nature secret.
But, this is the 21st Century now and we all win, right? We won!