Rundown Brahma Blotter

These incidents were reported between Sept. 16 - 22

Reported by: Danielle Padilla

09/16

• Vandalism

A vending machine was vandalized on the Art Hill.

09/17

•Suspicious Incident

Pierce College hopes to expand its Outreach Program courses with the help of an assembly bill.

While Pierce has been offering the Outreach program for years, the passage of Assembly Bill 288 now allows for classes at high schools, to be held during school hours.

The new courses will help students gain college credits. With these classes, by the time students arrive at Pierce, they will have gathered enough credits to be close to graduating and be eligible to transfer to a university.

Sheri Berger, vice president of Academic Affairs, said the assembly bill allows those classes to be limited to the students of that school and be offered during school hours.

“A couple of years ago, the state passed Assembly Bill 288, which allowed colleges to enter into the ‘College and Career Access Pathways,’” Berger said. “It allows us to enter into these agreements with high schools to develop a pathway, in which we work collaboratively with them. We can offer high school classes that instead of it being after school

William Marmolejo, dean of Student Services, said that despite the more demanding meeting with neighboring schools, the bill has allowed for better work between Pierce and the participating high schools.

“They changed the law, the funding and those sorts of things,” Marmolejo said. “So this is a new law, but we had to do a whole bunch of things. We have to sit down with the school and the administration, we talk about books and all those kinds of things, but now that it’s a more defined program since Assembly Bill 288 passed, it incentivises us to work better with these high schools.”

The new bill prompts high schools and colleges to work closer together to further high school students’ readiness for college. However, there have been some difficulties getting schools to join the program, especially when it came to textbooks.

“Books were a really big thing because a book had to be in place at the beginning of the program, so every semester that same book is used,” Marmolejo said. “Textbooks are expensive and a lot of times they might change a couple of things in one for Rodriguez. He sees it as recognition for what LACCD has done as a whole.

“It honors our collective work and honors our district in the fact that I am positioned to speak to issues of higher education, to speak to issues of empowerment, to speak to issues that sometimes are contrary to the national narrative on how certain students and communities are treated,” Rodriguez said. “And I can do that here obviously with respect but decorum and with professionalism. But I can do so because it's Los Angeles because I have a very supportive board of trustees who supports and understands and expects that their chancellor advance public higher education.” jmanes.roundupnews@gmail.com

Enrollment drops Faculty and admin debate causes

BLAKE WILLIAMS Reporter @roundupnews

Although the Pierce campus seems bustling, one wouldn’t expect that the campus has hundreds of students less than previous years.

At Monday’s academic senate meeting, Professor of Sociology and Senate President Anna Bruzzese said that student enrollment at Pierce College has declined.

“College enrollment was down about 4.3 percent last fall,” Interim President Larry Buckley said. “Our goal is to not fall any further, maybe get a little higher right now between 99 and 100 percent of a year ago.”

While the exact cause is hard to pinpoint, Buckley and Angela Belden, instructor of psychology and senate treasurer, agreed a stronger economy is a reason for the drop in enrollment.

“Part of it is that there's low unemployment, and very often college enrollments go down when unemployment is down,” Buckley said. “So I think it's a little bit of a misnomer to say that we're really down this semester. We're kind of flat compared to last year.”

Another possible reason for the enrollment drop could be the hurdles students face to get enrolled in the first place according to Belden.

“I think that there are some things that create enrollment barriers for students,” Belden said. “Like our not-friendly website, or our list of 141 majors that are not in alphabetical order. Those kinds of things create unnecessary enrollment barriers for students.”

Buckley does not think this the enrollment drop is a cause for concern at this moment.

“It means that we just have fewer people to learn with,” Buckley said. “Maybe it affects clubs, maybe athletics a little bit, but we're talking about 600 students out of 20,000. It's not a big, big impact.”

Bruzzese said that improving the campus’s facilities as well as a better outreach program could be a solution to the low enrollment numbers.

“Better marketing, maybe improved infrastructure on campus, better technology and Wi-Fi, cleanliness of the campus even,” Bruzzese said. “I mean all these things matter in terms of if this is an inviting campus for students.”

Pierce has already taken steps to try and bring enrollment back up, according to Buckley.

“We have added a lot of late start classes for the fall,” Buckley said. “We have new curriculum that's noncredit including in tutoring and that's improving enrollment as well.” bwilliams.roundupnews@gmail.com the edition and all of a sudden you have to pay for a new book.”

While an enrollment drop is is not ideal, Buckley said there can be positives that come from it.

“If there's anything that is a positive out of it, it gets us as a college administration and faculty looking at what we can do in the classroom and the curriculum programs to retain students,” Buckley said.

To avoid continuously buying updated versions of textbooks, Marmolejo said they decided to buy one set of books and use them for the next three years.

Despite concerns relating to class materials, certain staff members of high schools like Tiffanie Fung, the STEM Counselor and Pierce College Coordinator at Granada Hills Charter High School, believe that the courses are valuable to their students.

“It gives a lot of the students a taste of how college classes are ran. The professors travel very far to teach the classes and students are able to get credits outside of Granada for graduation purposes if they wanted or just for themselves if they wanted to,” Fung said. “I have students taking sociology and psychology just because they are interested in the course, so I think it’s good preparation for higher education and for students who want to see how a college class is ran.” dmalone.roundupnews@gmail.com

Pierce College has also expanded its Outreach courses during this Fall semester, going as far as Chatsworth Charter High School and is looking to make more agreements in the future.

Two elderly men were reported taking photos of cars driving by the marquee.

09/18

•Petty Theft

A student reported their cellphone was stolen.

09/18

•Student Injury

Two students fell down in the North Gym and refused paramedics.

09/18

•Student Injury

A student slipped and fell in Parking Lot 1. They denied paramedics and were taken to the Health Center.

09/18

•Disturbance

Two students were arguing in Parking Lot 1.

09/20

•Grand Theft

A student reported their MacBook Pro laptop as stolen.

Pierce College Sheriff’s Station General Information: Emergency: (818) 710 - 4311