SYLMAR : Mission College Celebrates 20th Year

Mission College in Sylmar may be the youngest and the smallest of the nine campuses in the Los Angeles Community College District, but on its 20th anniversary, the school is better prepared to adapt to the inevitable sea changes in technology and education than its sister colleges.

That’s according to Bill Norlund, the 57-year-old physics instructor who became Mission’s interim president in January, after former president Jack Fujimoto accepted a temporary revenue-generating assignment in the district’s Downtown headquarters.

Fujimoto’s assignment will last at least one year, officials said.

Norlund, former vice president of academic affairs at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, took over the helm at Mission in the midst of several new construction projects, including an $11-million library and resource center scheduled for completion in the fall of 1996.

The college also is negotiating with Los Angeles County on a planned 40-acre, $4.5-million expansion into neighboring El Cariso Regional Park. That expansion will include a new general classroom building, fine arts facility and, possibly, a new gymnasium or physical education facility.

But, Norlund emphasized, a bigger campus does not necessarily mean better.

“Thirty years from now I think people will understand, we won’t need a larger campus,” he said. “We’ll need a larger switchboard” to accommodate students who are trying to access classes via computer from homes or learning centers.

When the new library and resource center is finished, it will contain 400 computer terminals for use in training and studies, with about 250 terminals designated for the general use of students. Some of the equipment in the center will be geared toward multimedia uses, including teleconferencing and audiovisual studio work.

The college has come a long way from the scattered collection of storefronts in and around San Fernando where college classes were first held 20 years ago. The college moved to its present 22.5-acre campus in Sylmar in the fall of 1991.

Fujimoto became Mission’s president in 1989 to help lead the college expansion. But prospects for growth have dimmed because of declining enrollment, which peaked at 7,400 in 1992, but fell below 6,000 last year. Today, 5,700 students attend the college.

Norlund said boosting enrollment is his top priority. In 10 years, he hopes enrollment will top 13,000. Other concerns include involving the community in programs organized by the college and networking with area junior high and high schools.

To help the college celebrate its anniversary today, two community activists influential in the development of the college will be honored tonight at a dinner.

Frank Modugno, who served several terms as president of the Mission College Foundation, will be honored, along with Guadalupe Ramirez, a 79-year-old great-grandmother who has affectionately been known as “the mother of Mission College.”

“He’s been very committed to this school,” Rosalinda Gonzales, the current foundation president, said of Modugno. “He has brought in numerous supporters to work with the foundation.”

Many describe Ramirez, a former Sylmar resident now living in Oceanside, as a key member of the community who refused to let die the idea of bringing a community college to the northeast San Fernando Valley--home to many poor, minority residents.

The dinner begins with a social hour at 6:30 p.m. with dinner at 7:30 p.m. at the Odyssey Restaurant, 15600 Odyssey Drive, Granada Hills. For more information, call Gonzales at (818) 364-7822.