It’s Wednesday evening at Pierce College and a crowd shuffles in. Students coming to take Kathy Oborn’s criminal justice class Wednesday night fill the auditorium-style classroom with talk and laughter as a bubbling energetic teacher walks in.
Kathy Oborn, the chair of the political science/economics/criminal justice/Latino studies department, is a legend at Pierce College.
The professor who built the criminal justice program caters to all of her students.
Oborn made it possible to easily transfer to a California State University and earn an AA degree. She was instrumental in bringing in a judge, a deputy district attorney and a retired police lieutenant to teach criminal justice classes.
“We’re not a police program,” she said. “We focus on the justice system as a whole. We’re an academic track.”