Life didn't stop at WLAC this summer.

The summer hiatus of this blog has ended, and I'm back with more updates about West.

First, this summer proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that West Los Angeles College has de facto become a twelve-month institution.  The concept of using the summer to "catch up" has pretty well gone the way of the IPod.  We're in a constant state of movement, marked by increasing enrollments in summer school, active construction projects, and confirmation of several awards received by the College and its students.

Now, to give you a quick run-down, here's an overview of a few of the past summer's highlights.

• Your efforts in supporting our students and giving them access to classes has resulted in a 6.1% enrollment increase at West for 2018-2019.  In recognition of that effort, we're receiving over $700,000 in growth dollars from the District.  We'll discuss the distribution of this money through our participatory governance system.
• The College received notification that it has been awarded a $12 million Department of Labor grant to lead the national development of professional apprenticeships.  This is the largest grant in the College's history, and kudos go to Ara Aguiar and Mary-Jo Apigo for their leadership.
• Construction on our two new buildings--the Technology Learning Center and the Watson Center--is continuing at a brisk pace.  Right now, we expect substantial completion of the TLC in fall 2020; for the Watson Center, we're looking at a substantial completion date of December 2019-January 2020.
• We've also made significant strides during the summer months to complete all the details related to the demolition of the sound wall.  Yes, I've identified a time frame before and yes, it keeps changing.  But I'm cautiously optimistic this time that the current schedule for demolition--October--will, in fact occur.  Cautious optimism prevails.
• Over the summer, we received great news from our basketball team and Coach Tony Jones, who writes, "In addition to having a winning season, going to the regional finals, setting a school team GPA record in basketball with a team GPA over 3.0, the men's basketball team is "9 for 9"...yes, nine for nine.  We had nine sophomores on our team last season, all nine will transfer with scholarships to four-year universities."  Tony continues, "I'm no historian; nevertheless, I've never seen this feat accomplished in community college athletics in basketball in recent years."  When you see Tony, congratulate him on this achievement, because the students could not have done this without his leadership and his encouragement.
• While we're on the subject of student athletic achievement...Brenda Rosales-Coria, a member of the track team at both WLAC and LA Harbor College, is not only a two-college state individual champion distance racer for Harbor and West LA College in track and field, but she was also named as the California Community College Sports Information Association 2018-2019 State Athlete of the Year for women.
• Finally, this summer saw the retirement of two of our long-standing, esteemed members of the faculty:  Dr. Patricia Siever (History) and Dr. Rob Hager (Kinesiology).  We all thank them for their tireless commitment to WLAC and we wish them only the best.