Yet another semester has passed at Pierce College and what a semester it has been.
The good and the bad combined, Spring 2007 proved to be a very important semester for Pierce and all its students.
Renovations began during the winter inter-session and have moved into high gear.
The bungalows were demolished and the new Pierce Village opened. For a lot of people, watching the tear-down of the bungalow was an emotional and nostalgic ride through time.
At the end of April a bigger and better sheriff’s station was built to replace the trailer.
This semester we saw the campus athletes make news not only because of their wins but because of administrative bungles.
The basketball teams had a rough season when clerical errors, which have yet to be fully explained, caused them to forfeit their position at the playoffs.
More than two months later, no action has been taken to make sure such mishaps are not repeated in the future.
In the world of sports, Bob Lofrano has been selected as the new full-time athletic director.
The issue of soaring book prices has finally been addressed. The faculty and departments, during this semester, were timely with their book orders and the students will get back at least $50,000 more from our book buy-back than before.
Pierce also received a better evaluation than it has in more than 30 years, from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC). The accreditation team concluded that the Pierce is in compliance with all their standards.
Most deaths in the Pierce community occur among the retirees, but this year saw the loss of three full-time employees.
Burt Sanchez, assistant professor of business administration for 10 years, was an enthusiastic teacher of marketing and international business who led several student trips to China. He died at age 59 while going in for surgery.
Larry Humphrey, chair of the industrial technology department, died a day after suffering a heart attack. Unassuming, he was remembered as a tireless worker who often contributed his own money to various educational projects. He began working at Pierce in 1985.
With 35 years in the college’s plant facilities operations, Peter Prochter was a familiar face to the faculty but especially to his colleagues in the classified staff. He died unexpectedly at home at age 54.
Our beloved faculty and staff members will be missed and remembered.
Although we are glad to see the recent changes and renovations some questions remain unasked and unanswered.
It is still hard for students to be timely in their ways because clocks throughout the school seem to have gone on hiatus. At the beginning of the spring semester plant facilities said that they were working on installing radio-controlled clocks in all the classrooms. Students have yet to see the actual working clocks.
ASO has been organizing many events throughout the semester without much turn out from the students or faculty.
There seem to be blood drives hardly anyone knows of. Important speakers were present at the “Textbook Funeral” that only 2 students amongst the 19,000 who go to Pierce knew about or participated in.
Are these events not advertised properly or is it that the general student population just does not care?
The campus has become bigger and better in the last few months- lets work together to make the coming semesters even more positive.