General education unit requirements

LA Trade-Tech College is unique because 70 percent of the college’s students are enrolled in career technical education (CTE) programs and the other 30 percent are pursuing academic degrees.

Pierce College is made up of around 60 percent of students pursuing an academic degree and 40 percent moving toward a CTE certificate, according to Kathleen Burke, Pierce’s president.

Faculty members of TradeTech iterated that this increase in general education units may be right for some colleges, but not for theirs.

“We are not asking that anybody eliminate what they are asking to do,” said Carole Anderson, department chair of the fashion center at LA Trade-Tech College. “If they think this is the right thing for them to do for their students, then God bless them. But we know what’s right for our students.”

Larry Pogoler, a professor at Trade-Tech, said that the increase in units will cause more harm than good for his students.

“There are actually units being pushed out of our major coursework,” Pogoler said. “At

Trade-Tech, we believe that this has created an exceptional and compelling circumstance.”

Section 6201.14 of the Board

Rule Subsection B on general education requirement states, “Developing and implementing a specific philosophy of General Education is a responsibility of each college, since each must be sensitive to the unique educational needs and learning environment of its students.”

Trade-Tech seeks to keep its campus’ general education unit requirement at 18 because they say it is unnecessary for most of the students in a CTE program and it is just another obstacle for students who are in an academic degree program.

District Academic President Don Gauthier favors the unit increase and believes that the board must rely on the faculty experts when making a decision.

“They have a choice. They can decide that this is going to have a big impact and they can say no. They can also decide to agree with us and there is no issue,” Gauthier said.

The board of trustees will review the newly acquired information and testimonies before putting it to vote.

“Our custodians take our recycling bin and put it in the trash bin,” said Robb, who co-founded a sustainability committee with assistant professor of art Beth Abels. “When the custodians were asked about it, they responded that we used to have recycling, but they said it had something to do with the funding.”

Robb said the sustainability committee views recycling as one of its chief concerns.

“I know a lot of people are concerned about it, but I don’t know if it’s going to change,” Robb said. “I hope so.”

Martha Ahlstrom, oceanography instructor in the Physics and Planetary Sciences Department, said there was an issue with the bins in the classroom.

“I do think there is kind of an issue with making sure the recycling bins are located in proper classrooms,” Ahlstrom said. “I do notice they are distributed throughout the campus fairly and I think a lot of it is just training the students as well as the professors to make sure they’re aware of where the recycling bins are and to use them.”

Ahlstrom also teaches at Moorpark College and compared

Rodney Allen, operations manager for Plant Facilities at Pierce, said that the school does have a recycling system in place.

“We have a greater control over paper and cardboard,” Allen said. “Cans and bottles are hard because people from the public take them.”

Allen said the green bins designated for paper and cardboard are located in a secure area to make sure there is no chance of contamination.

According to Allen, Pierce currently uses the Republic Services company, formerly known as Consolidated Disposal Services LLC, for paper and cardboard recycling. Allen said that company has a strict standard for what is considered recyclable, and that there have been times when students have thrown trash into recycling bins and compromised the recyclable items.

“If it is five percent trash, then the whole bin is considered trash and Pierce gets billed for the disposal of trash,” Allen said.

According to Allen, Pierce is currently looking to change its recycling company and has already met with two companies.