ESCALATING COSTS FORCING CUTS AT PIERCE.Byline: Lisa M. Sodders Staff Writer In the wake of soaring soaring: see flight; glider. soaring or gliding Sport of flying a glider or sailplane. The craft is towed behind a powered airplane to an altitude of about 2,000 ft (600 m) and then released. construction costs, Pierce College In 2006 the Library won a national Excellence award. Academics Pierce College offers associate's degrees, mainly in the arts and sciences. There are also certificate programs in early childhood education, social services, dental hygienist, and others. is making another $15.8 million in cuts to its Proposition A/AA building campaign - putting a $3.8 million art gallery on hold, and cutting the animal sciences and horticulture horticulture [Lat. hortus=garden], science and art of gardening and of cultivating fruits, vegetables, flowers, and ornamental plants. Horticulture generally refers to small-scale gardening, and agriculture to the growing of field crops, usually on a large budgets. Pierce College officials discussed the cuts Tuesday at two town hall meetings. About 100 students and faculty attended the first session and about 25 attended the second one. Pierce's share of the district's $2.2 billion in funds comes to approximately $272.5 million. But construction costs have severely increased budgets, causing the Science Center budget, for example, to escalate es·ca·late v. es·ca·lat·ed, es·ca·lat·ing, es·ca·lates v.tr. To increase, enlarge, or intensify: escalated the hostilities in the Persian Gulf. v.intr. from $45.6 million to $51.9 million. Utilities improvements are now projected to cost $34 million, instead of $14.6 million, as originally planned. ``It's been a rude rude - [WPI] 1. Badly written or functionally poor, e.g. a program that is very difficult to use because of gratuitously poor design decisions. Opposite: cuspy. 2. Anything that manipulates a shared resource without regard for its other users in such a way as to cause a awakening,'' said Dorothy Rupert, dean of academic affairs. ``We thought we had so much money that we could do everything we needed.'' To make the latest round of cuts, the college put the art gallery on hold, cut the animal sciences program's Proposition A/AA budget from $10.8 million to $2.8 million, and the horticulture Proposition A/AA budget from $6.1 million to $2.1 million. Leland Shapiro, director of the pre-veterinary science program, complained that the college is gradually phasing out the farm. ``They've replaced the old golf course plan with multiple joint venture projects on the farm proper,'' Shapiro said, referring to a plan scuttled eight years ago to develop a golf course on Pierce Pierce may refer to: Places
But Pierce President Tom Oliver said the farm's livestock livestock Farm animals, with the exception of poultry. In Western countries the category encompasses primarily cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, horses, donkeys, and mules; other animals (e.g., buffalo, oxen, or camels) may predominate in other areas. will remain, and the course offerings won't change. Campus officials also said the cuts reflect current student priorities and how the campus has shifted away from large animal agriculture over the last 15 years. Currently, student enrollment in animal science and horticulture programs is only half of one percent of Pierce's total enrollment of about 18,000. Swine production was phased out in the mid 1980s, the dairy barn was shut down in 1990, and cattle on the farm has been reduced from a herd of 300 beef cows and 100 dairy cows to only 48 head, Shapiro said. Lisa M. Sodders, (818) 713-3663 lisa.sodders(at)dailynews.com |
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