ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

Styling a New Career
Cosmetology supported Elva Salinas as she studied to become an English literature professor

In His Element
Mesa College chemistry professor loves being in the classroom, opening students’ eyes to the wonders of science.

College for Kids
City College’s child development program would have to double to in size to meet current demand.

Parking 101
The first lesson for Mesa College students is the art of finding a parking space.

Lighten Up
Marilyn Biggica shares her low-fat, low-salt, low-sugar recipes for health with students in community cooking classes.

Go With the Flow
Dorothy Simpson has adapted to the waves of innovation in business communication technologies.

News Beat
Veteran journalist guides Mesa College student reporters to create an award-winning campus newspaper.

Close Encounters
Despite cramped locker rooms, no interview areas or parking spaces, the College Police Department continues to keep campuses safe.

Chancellor's Page
The children of baby boomers flood classrooms beyond capacity and state funding.

Development News
Washington Mutual donates $35,000 for future teachers project; EDS equips classroom for computer training.

Factoids
Miscellaneous tidbits of news

Newsmakers Accomplishments of faculty and staff…

They leave home early, sit in long lines of traffic, try to out-smart the other guy, and sometimes tempers flare in pursuit of the elusive parking space at Mesa College
Parking 101

It’s hard to get a college education when you can’t make it to class because there’s no place to park. Ask any of the hundreds of students who were prowling Mesa College’s campus and surrounding neighborhoods for parking spaces as the fall semester opened.

Unprecedented student demand has taxed the facilities of many colleges and universities, but none more so than Mesa College, San Diego’s largest community college. Mesa College faced opening day enrollments that were 11 percent higher than last year, worsening an already critical parking situation.

7:55 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 4

“It’s never been this bad,” a Mesa College neighbor said looking down from outside his ridge-top home at the long line of cars headed into campus from Genesee Avenue. Traffic was backed up a quarter-mile from the intersection at Genesee and Marlesta Drive.

9:45 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 3

On the east side of the Kearny Mesa campus, the traffic was even worse along Mesa College Drive. Cars were backed up a mile, all the way from the campus entrance to the 805 freeway.

One Mesa professor reported that on the first morning of classes, Sept. 3, her usual 35-minute commute from East County took an hour and 20 minutes. The next morning she reached work 10 minutes sooner, but on both days much of the time was spent sitting in traffic on Mesa College Drive.

By 6 a.m. on Sept. 3 and 4, college police reported that the student parking lots were already half full. By 8:45 a.m. they were completely full. Parking officers placed “Lot Full” signs at lot entrances and turned cars away.

On the second day of the fall semester traffic was so jammed “we had to close the gate for 10 minutes at the Marlesta Drive entrance,” reported College Police Sgt. Dave Vasquez.

Welcome to the first week of fall semester 2002.

With a college enrollment around 25,000 full- and part-time students, Mesa College has long needed additional parking. Currently, there are only 3,497 spaces at the landlocked campus on Kearny Mesa, including disabled spaces and motorcycle slots.

For more than 15 years, college officials have reported that the parking problems have regularly reached crisis proportions, particularly during the first few weeks of each semester. The college has tried to ease the parking mess by moving many classes to off-peak times, such as afternoons and Saturdays, but rising enrollments continue to stress the limits. Many students have said they dropped classes or dropped out of college altogether because they couldn’t find parking on or near campus.

This prompted the college to provide free shuttle service to students during the first two weeks of each semester. The costly shuttle service began about five years ago and is expected to continue. Although many students use the shuttle, it doesn’t come close to alleviating the parking problem and helps out only for those first two weeks of classes.

How quickly the shuttle service parking lot filled up further illustrated the seriousness of the college’s parking problems. The shuttle parking lot, located at Kearny High School, reached capacity by 9 a.m. each day of the first week of fall semester. Throughout the second week, the lot was full by 10 a.m., according to Debra Picou, district parking program supervisor.

In response to the increased parking crunch this semester, Picou was able to extend a scaled-down shuttle service for one additional week.

“Parking is the single most difficult problem that students face at Mesa College,” declared Constance Carroll, Mesa president. “Solving this problem will be a tremendous challenge. We urgently need another parking lot in addition to a parking structure.”

Each year, student government leaders complain about parking. Last year, the Associated Students even produced a video on the parking crunch. Student leaders showed it to the SDCCD Board of Trustees at a board meeting last fall.

“The increased enrollment has made parking even more impossible,” said Gaspar Montesa, president of the Associated Students. “It’s a daily struggle for students, myself included. Every semester, I try to structure my class schedule to work around the peak parking times. There’s nothing worse than not to find parking.”