OHLONE COLLEGE
MONITOR
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 2014 Vol. XLVIII No. 3 What would it be like to be an Ohlone student in the ‘70s? Find out on Page 6.
FREMONT, CA OHLONEMONITOR.COM
Then & Now 40 years on the hill 1974 The current Fremont campus opens on Mission Boulevard. Classes had been held at the Serra Center since 1967.
1995 The Gary Soren Smith Center for the Fine and Performing Arts opens. Actor Tom Hanks appears at the gala opening.
2002 Ohlone opens the Morris and Alvirda Hyman Hall, a business and technology center on the Fremont campus.
2009 The Student Services Center, paid for by Ohlone’s Measure A bond, is completed. This aerial photograph shows Ohlone College’s current Fremont campus after it opened in September 1974. Before that, classes were held at the Serra Center on Washington Boulevard.
Fremont campus celebrates anniversary ABIGAIL MONDEDA Staff writer Much has changed since Ohlone College’s Fremont campus first opened four decades ago. Fremont was less than half its current size, with a population of a little more than 100,000, and much of the area surrounding the campus remained rolling hillside. Local historian and author Lila Bringhurst said the small community welcomed the new campus. “Mission San Jose had a lot of vacant land,” she said.
“I think Ohlone was greeted with open arms.” Irene De Alba, a longtime Fremont resident who works at the Mission Museum, said the area was “just beautiful brown hills” with little other development. “Mission San Jose was only five streets when I moved here in 1959,” she said. The college district first was established in 1965 to serve the communities of Fremont, Newark and Union City. It was named Ohlone College in June 1967 in honor of the Ohlone Continued on Page 3
EMILY BURKHARDT / MONITOR