Thursday’s inaugural State of the College Address was presented by President Dawn Lindsay, who focused on recent educational developments, future GCC plans and stated that the second summer session would be eliminated.

The address was held in the auditorium, which had an overflow of attendees. The extra people were directed to Kreider Hall where they watched a live stream of the speech.

Lindsay spoke of the recent accomplishments of the college, such as improving student services, developing community assets and the expansion of the Garfield Campus.

Ron Nakasone, interim executive vice president of administrative services, discussed the budget and the projects that are under the Measure G funds, which include athletic facilities, the parking structure, science center and health science buildings.

Most of the projects are complete, with the Garfield Campus under construction and a college services building, which is in the planning stages.

“We’re going to dedicate one whole floor for college services department,” Nakasone said. The floor would include admission and records, counseling, assessment and financial aid.

He continued, “Our intent is that a student can come into this building [and] apply, see a counselor, be assessed, register, pay their fees, apply for financial aid and by the time they leave, they’re fully admitted into this college.”

The budget for the college services building is at $18.7 million.

In 2009-10, the college lost more than $5 million in funding from the state. There is an additional $2 million reduction in revenue projected for 2010-11.

One budget solution the college has decided on is eliminating the second summer session to preserve revenue. The college will also review all non-personnel accounts of more than $10,000 and consider additional college-wide cuts.

More than 24,000 workers from 3,600 California companies have trained with GCC’s Professional Development Center (PDC).

Ninety percent of the PDC’s requests for training are repeat customers.

Lindsay talked about some of the goals for the college, which included focusing on seamless transfers for students, improving community relations and improving the workforce development programs.

To emphasize the diversity of the students at Glendale College, Lindsay pointed out statistics between credit and non-credit students who enroll each semester, specifically, their gender, ethnicity, age and residency.

There are 41,000 students who enroll each academic year. In credit classes, females make up 57 percent with males at 43 percent. In non-credit courses, females make up 67 percent with males at 33 percent.

Out of the students who are enrolled in credit courses, 62 percent of them are under age 26 with 38 percent over age 26.

With students enrolled in non-credit classes, 77 percent are 31 or older with 23 percent of them under 31.

Fifty-four percent of credit-enrolled students live outside of Glendale while only 25 percent of non-credit enrolled students live outside of Glendale.

Many students have different goals at GCC. Twenty-five percent are looking for lifelong learning while 20 percent are trying to obtain a bachelor’s degree after completion of general education requirements. Other categories, such as acquiring a new job and obtaining an associate’s degree had lower percentages.

One of the main proponents for the State of the College Address was Trustee Armine Hacopian. The address is on route to
being an annual event that will be held in May.