Calif., Mexico colleges sign agreement.

GLENDORA, Calif. -- Citrus Community College in Glendora, Calif., has signed what is being billed as a "historic memorandum of understanding," with the Network of Technological Universities in Hidalgo, Mexico, a move that college officials hope will lead to increased student and faculty exchanges--as well as some potential course integration--between the schools.

"This is the kind of thing (that) will prove to be a great benefit to both of our schools," said Citrus College spokesman Greg Zerovnik of the agreement, which was partly coordinated by the International Center for Educational and Economic Development.

"If all goes as envisioned, we will not only be exchanging students and faculty, but also ideas and learning that will help each of us to understand the needs and desires of each other better," Zerovnik added.

Although the agreement doesn't specifically mention the exact number of students and faculty that could eventually be part of an ongoing exchange program or present a specific timeline, Hidalgo education officials say the signing signals a new era for the two-year schools of both regions.

"Already we have had six faculty members from Hidalgo visit the Citrus College campus," said Sergio Figueroa, president of the Technological University of the Hidalguense Mountain Range. "And we expect to see a similar return visit from the Citrus faculty to our schools."

Figueroa said such exchanges will ultimately permit faculty members both from Citrus and the two-year schools in Hidalgo to study teaching and learning techniques in a wide variety of course offerings, particularly in English as a Second Language classes and job-skills training.

"Our students take five courses in English, with each course lasting 15 weeks," Figueroa said. "We have both an English department and an ESL department. And, of course, Citrus College has an ESL department as well, because they have so many students who also don't speak English as their first language."

With more than 11,000 students, Citrus College serves a large Hispanic student base, some of which is made up of recent immigrants from Mexico. Hispanics also are the largest minority group in Glendora, according to the 2000 census, comprising roughly 20 percent of the city's population.

The five technological universities in Hidalgo, by contrast, serve about 2,500 students out of 60,000 students enrolled across a national network of 57 campuses throughout Mexico.

Curriculum emphasis, Figueroa explained, has always been on language and skills training: "We realized early on that a college degree was often too much for many of the new jobs that were opening up in Mexico in the early 1990s, but a high-school degree was not enough."

"Job training in the classroom lasts for five terms in our universities, with the sixth and last term devoted entirely to the students actually working in the industry of their choice. During that last term, they are not in the classroom at all," he said.

Citrus College, too, offers a wide array of skills training in a variety of professions, school officials say, noting that the student base for the schools of both countries is often the same, composed of first-generation college students from middle- and low-income families who do not always speak English.

"Our ultimate hope is that in the long run we will end up with an equal level of skills training for the students of both countries, not to mention an enhanced curriculum development between the schools," said Eugene Bohatch, director of the Center for International Trade Development and the California-Mexico Trade Assistance Center at Citrus.

Citrus College is the first two-year institution in the United States to enter into a formal agreement with a counterpart in Mexico. Last year, the American Association of Community Colleges signed a joint memorandum with the Network of Technological Universities of Mexico, calling for an increase in student, faculty and administrative exchanges between the United States and Mexico at the two-year level.

"As it stands now, the exact details of the agreement have not been entirely worked out, and that's by design," Zerovnik said. "The idea at this point is to just encourage a dialogue between our school and theirs in the hope of building an exchange program that makes sense."

"This is only a first step," Zerovnik said. "But it's also a very good step."