Mission College President Monte Perez, Ph.D. welcomed city officials, community leaders and members of the public to the new Sunland-Tujunga Campus at a ribbon-cutting event held Tuesday, March 28th. The new campus is located at the Commerce Center, 7200 Foothill Boulevard, Tujunga, CA. Classes for the first eight-week semester officially open on April 10th, 2017.
Crediting Nina Royal, chairperson of the Mission
College Sunland-Tujunga Campus Committee for her perseverance, Dr. Perez spoke about the hard work that went into planning and coordinating city approvals to open the new campus. Present at the event were former Assemblywoman Patty Lopez, LAUSD Trustee Ernie Moreno, STNC President Krystee Clark, and many others who were instrumental in bringing the community college to Sunland-Tujunga.
Nina Royal began working on bringing Mission College to this area in 2007 by helping to get Measure J passed, which was to provide funding for a satellite college in Sunland-Tujunga. The principle location selected for the campus was the former K-Mart property, now vacant, however in order to open, Royal says the K-Mart property will have to go through some legal issues. “The hope is that the campus will expand to that site sometime in the next few years,” says Royal. “Meanwhile, we need to populate the classes because that will further validate the need for Mission College in this region.”
Chef Louis Eguaras, Department Chair of Mission College’s Culinary Arts Program, stated that he hopes by opening this satellite campus, students can get a start in classes for menu planning, sanitation safety and nutrition. At Mission College’s main campus, 700- 800 students are currently enrolled in the Culinary Arts program which prepares them for a job in many top restaurants and hotels in Southern California and across the country.
In addition to the Culinary Arts program, the initial schedule of classes includes art, music, computer applications, and English as a Second Language. Mission College is a fully-accredited community college offering both credit and non-credit courses. Students can enroll by going online to: www.lamission.edu/sunland.
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