AREA COLLEGES BACK STATE BOND MEASURE; PASSAGE WILL ALLOW GROWTH, OFFICIALS SAY.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

North Los Angeles County community college officials said Tuesday that the $9.2 billion state bond measure on next week's ballot would provide crucial funding to expand and modernize campuses to serve their burgeoning enrollments.

College of the Canyons President Dianne Van Hook and Antelope Valley College President Linda Spink said the money that would be generated if voters approve the measure Tuesday would pay for much-needed construction at their campuses.

Statewide, the 106-campus community college system serves 1.4 million students, a figure expected to grow to 1.6 million by fall 2002. The bond, Proposition 1A on the ballot, would set aside an estimated $833 million for community college construction projects statewide over the next four years.

Spink said the bond could provide $8.2 million as early as next year for construction of a 41,218-square-foot business and high-tech multimedia center at the Lancaster campus, along with $1.5 million for the needed equipment.

``If this bond measure passes, we will be breaking ground this summer,'' Spink said.

The bond also would supply funding for a $7.6 million technical building for vocational training, a project that would be built by 2001.

Antelope Valley College currently has 9,370 students, operates on a $25.7 million annual budget and serves a 1,945-square mile region in northern Los Angeles County.

Meanwhile, College of the Canyons is short the classroom space to serve its 8,000 students, Van Hook said.

``We are full right now. We have no more room. We're offering classes in the board room and the cafeteria,'' she said. ``We're already running from 7 in the morning to 10 or 11 at night.''

Although there has been growth on the campus over the past decade, Van Hook said that pattern must continue in order to accommodate an expected enrollment surge nicknamed ``Tidal Wave II.'' Estimates are that the school's population will grow by 75 percent in the next 10 years to roughly 14,000 students, she said.

Van Hook said that from 1988 to the present, College of the Canyons has expanded from seven buildings to 12, from 23 labs to 45 and from 31 classrooms to 43. Plans call for the addition of five to seven buildings and 65 to 70 full-time faculty in the next decade, she said.

``Up until 1983, all of our buildings were financed by a local bond,'' Van Hook noted, saying the district currently relies on state funding to pay for campus construction projects.

Spink, meanwhile, noted that Antelope Valley College wants to add a Palmdale campus, but needs $15.3 million to pay for plans, architectural drawings and infrastructure.

The aerospace industry also wants Antelope Valley College to offer employee retraining classes for its workers. Additionally, the Rite Aid drugstore chain has established a distribution center in the Antelope Valley and wants to offer employee training classes on campus, Spink said.

Van Hook said community colleges are no longer the domain of 18- to 20-year-olds who are trying to complete general education classes to transfer to a four-year university.

Increasingly, they are the educational resource that the local work force - and employers - turn to when the need arises for the teaching of new skills demanded by the ever-changing job market.

Van Hook, paraphrasing a favorite expression, said community colleges ``are going to become the `graduate schools' of the future.''