NARRATOR: Modesto Junior College, founded in 1921, was the first junior college district formed in California, and its boundaries were coterminous with those of the Modesto High School District. Within these 48 years, this institution has developed into one of the most respected and renowned community colleges in the nation, enrolling some 4,000 students. On July 1^st, 1966, by an overwhelming majority of its voters, the district was enlarged to include all of Stanislaus and Tuolumne Counties, and portions of Merced, San Joaquin, and Santa Clara counties, and was renamed the Yosemite Junior College District. The district stretches over 170 miles across Central California, from the coast range on the west to the Sierra Nevada on the east. Because of the growth and the number of potential students in the district, the need for higher education in a remote area, and the distances involved in transportation to existing colleges, the Yosemite Junior College Board of Trustees authorized the formation of a second campus in Tuolumne County, and gave it the proud name of Columbia Junior College.

            In November 1966, the voters of this expanded district approved a 30-cent override tax for ten years, to be used for construction of the Columbia Junior College campus. Also the modernization of Modesto Junior College and the future development of a third campus located in the Valley. It should be noted that even before the passage of this override tax, the Yosemite Junior College Board of Trustees had the vision and foresight to begin negotiations for the acquisition of land for Columbia Junior College with the Bureau of Land Management’s Department of the Interior. Mr. Donald Brady, president of the Board of Trustees, accepted the land patent transfer, at a cost of $2.50 an acre, from Congressman Harold T. ??? Johnson, designating 160 acres of forest land surrounding San Diego Reservoir for educational use on July 1^st 1967. Strategically situated on the property is the beautiful San Diego Reservoir, from which rolling hills join with the rugged majesty of the Sierras. The campus is adjacent to Columbia State Park, in the heart of the historic Mother Lode, and is steeped in the heritage of the Gold Rush days. In this unusual, remote, and beautiful setting, the faculty and staff of Columbia Junior College is in the process of developing a program of meaningful academic and occupational education, which will be focused on the worth and dignity of each student. These curricula will be developed using the newest and most innovative ideas, and are dedicated to serve the educational needs of all citizens of post-high-school age residing in the district.

Columbia Junior College is now under construction around the shores of San Diego Reservoir, and the buildings will flow outward in all directions, following the roll of the hills surrounding the lake. Groundbreaking ceremonies took place on September 4 ^th, 1968, and the actual construction began approximately November 1^st, !968. The first facilities are designed to serve 750 full-time students efficiently, permit growth for future use and to be an effective part of the greater facilities necessary to serve a maximum of 2,500 students in approximately 10 years. Briggs and Rustin Company were chosen as the primary contractors, and the initial buildings will cost approximately 1,750,000 dollars. The state will share in the construction costs in the amount of 546,820 dollars, under the Junior College Construction Act of 1965. The buildings in Phase One include the Learning Resources Center. This large, multi-purpose building will serve as the heartbeat of the campus, and will house our library, instructional resources center, basic skills development center, independent study center, the student bookstore, snack bars, student lounge area and administration and counseling area, in addition to seven classrooms and faculty offices. The General Education Center will include a lecture space for 80 students, a projection room, two classrooms, and faculty offices. The Science and Natural Resources Center includes a science lecture facility for 112 students, a large multi-purpose laboratory, preparation rooms, storerooms, animal rooms, plant room, faculty offices and restrooms. The Creative Arts Center will house a large, multi-use art studio to serve all of the various art forms of instruction. It will have storage facilities, faculty offices and restrooms, as well as outdoor development for instructional spaces. The seminar building includes small rooms to be used for faculty-student meetings and small group discussions, as well as faculty offices. The Forum is a large lecture hall, which will seat 288 students, complete with rear-view projection for multimedia presentations, plus faculty offices. The Business Education Building will include classrooms for accounting, typing and business machines, as well as faculty offices, storage, and restrooms. The building temporarily will house a drafting program.

The Columbia staff has recently completed application for Phase Two construction, and this phase has been presented to the State Department of Education and Department of Finance for their approval. Hopefully, the college will receive state funds approximating 50% of the cost. Construction is scheduled to begin by July 1^st, 1970. Buildings included in Phase Two construction include the Forestry Technology Building, Heavy Equipment Maintenance and Operation Building, Health Occupations Building, Fire Science, and the first building in the Physical Education Center complex, including outdoor areas such as tennis courts, athletic field and basketball areas. The addition of this phase of construction will allow us to begin a meaningful and realistically planned occupational program, which has been developed with the advice and under the direction of a group of Tuolumne County Citizen’s Advisory Committees. These programs will serve the occupational needs of the Mother Lode area.

            It was the district’s original desire to interest private financing in developing residence halls and dining commons for the use of Columbia Junior College students. We were not successful in this endeavor, although we had complete discussions and tentative commitments from eight different investment groups. On December 3^rd, 1968, the Yosemite Junior College Board of Trustees decided to apply for a low-interest loan from the Housing and Urban Development Office, to develop residence halls and dining commons to serve at least 150 students. These buildings will probably be under construction and will be ready for student use in September 1970.

            Residence halls are an important and necessary component of Columbia Junior College, as all surveys and studies have indicated that at least one-third of those students interested in enrolling desire to live in residence halls. With this in mind, its planned residence halls will be ultimately constructed to house over 700 students. Still, a majority of the students will commute by private automobile. The first entrance developed onto the site was by an ingress road from the east off of Sawmill Flat Road. This entrance presents a pleasing introduction to the campus as it traverses through a grove of Ponderosa pines. In the future, a second road will be developed in the south or southwest, and will join either the Sawmill Flat road or the Columbia-Sonora highway.

            An interesting feature of this campus will be that all parking will be located off-campus, so the vehicles will not be seen. A hill to the east of the campus has been terraced for this purpose. Inasmuch as vehicles will not be allowed into Columbia Junior College, all campus travel will be by foot or bicycle.

            Each instructional space will be constructed at Columbia Junior College as a long-range investment, and as such will be as flexible as is possible. Major units will meet long-range needs, but be assigned other functions during the first years of college operation. The college will make the greatest possible use of space with maximum flexibility, and will attempt to create an environment to stimulate and encourage learning. Involvement is a key word at Columbia, and students will have the appropriate places to think, to study, and to become totally involved in our educational processes. There will be generous use of outdoor teaching stations whenever practicable.

Use of new techniques in education is a commitment at Columbia Junior College. We believe that facilities should be capable of maximum use of multimedia techniques in the process of education – those available for use today, as well as those in the future. Consequently, provisions have been made for ultimate individual use of television, programmed learning, teaching machines, communication media of all designs, language laboratories, as well as methods developed for the storage and retrieval of information. The possibility of a television and communications intertie between Modesto Junior College and Columbia Junior College is possible for the future.

The Learning Resources Center will be the symbolic center of the campus, and, properly used by the distinguished instructional staff, will be the heartbeat of the instructional program. Within this complex building will be found an excellent library, of sufficient size that permits use of not only books and periodicals, but microfilm and recorded information which can be collected and distributed. An Instructional Resources Center will assist the faculty in the development of courses of study, including tapes, microfilms, slides, programmed learning materials, maps, charts, models, and the necessary audiovisual equipment for their maximum use. Such a center will extend the influence of the instructional program and faculty, and will assist the students in developing the primary responsibility for their education, and will give them the tools and facilities to involve themselves completely in the learning process. This is a major objective of Columbia.

Every attempt will be made to achieve close cooperation and liaison between Columbia Junior College and the community of Tuolumne County. Hopefully the college facilities will be utilized by the community. Local industry, government and business will provide many special laboratories and facilities required for the community college occupational programs, as not all of the occupational facilities will be located on the college site. Arrangements have been made to acquire the use of facilities and equipment from business, industrial and governmental organizations located elsewhere in Tuolumne County. The principle of extending the college program beyond the college campus is a major thrust of Columbia Junior College. It is hoped that this community college and the industry of our community will join together in a cooperative spirit, and supplement each other in attainment of each organization’s goals. This will make available for student use modern, up-to-date and meaningful equipment, in exchange for the community’s use of the college’s learning center, library, museums, and the theater and other cultural areas on campus.

Cooperation with the business and industrial community will allow the students to become involved in their business organizations for observation, training and work experience. And, conversely, will bring the adults from business and industry onto the campus for trade extension and in-service training during the evening hours. Selected expertise from the community’s resources will be used by the college, as part-time instructors in many occupational areas. In effect, the college’s physical facilities will not be located to the buildings that happen to be located on the campus. We perceive the entire Tuolumne County area as an extension of the learning environment for Columbia Junior College. Examples of occupational areas under consideration for community involvement could include natural resource management, including technicians in fish and game, forestry, conservation, fire science and outdoor recreation. Licensed vocational nursing and nurses’ aides, lumber technology, office occupations, aviation programs, heavy equipment operation and maintenance and hotel and resort management. Columbia exists to serve the educational, vocational and cultural needs of the Mother Lode community, and is indeed a community college.

In order to bring a educational program to Tuolumne County at the earliest possible time, it was decided to begin a regular day program before the campus was completed, as well as a continuation of the evening program instituted four years ago. Arrangements were made through the cooperation of Columbia State Park, University of the Pacific and interested citizens to lease Eagle Cottage and the Oddfellows’ Hall for this purpose. In addition, a building was leased on Highway 108 that is used as a temporary business education building. The Tuolumne County Hospital and Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors graciously allowed us to use the hospital basement as a training area for health occupations. Our evening program was housed in these buildings, as well as Sonora High School, Summerville High School, Curtis Creek Elementary School and other facilities of the community as needed. The college staff was tremendously gratified that the fall quarter of 1968 showed that we had 300 students taking a full-time load, as well as 759 part-time students taking less than 12 hours, while 81 students were involved in ungraded classes for adults. This meant that the total of 1,140 individuals were involved in the first educational program offered by Columbia Junior College.

Our outstanding instructional staff is composed of fifteen eminently qualified instructors that have been brought together from all over the nation. Faculty members are carefully selected on many factors, but primarily by their interest in and concern for students. We feel that in order to be an outstanding educational institution, it is necessary to have a very close relationship between faculty and student body. It is our opinion that many of the problems higher education is experiencing in the large urban institutions are brought about by the fact that students generally resent losing their identity as individuals. At Columbia, every student has worth and dignity. This is a guiding principle and the backbone of the Columbia philosophy. The faculty and staff look forward with great enthusiasm to the opportunity of serving the educational, vocational and cultural needs of Tuolumne County. We are especially grateful for the cooperative attitude demonstrated by the citizens of this fine area as we entered our first year of operation. Individually and collectively, we are proud to be a part of the community.

General Information:

Narrator: Ladd, Pete

Script by: Dead Deal, Robert

Name of Tape: (a section of) History of Columbia Junior College (CC_dev_1)

When: various

Transcriber: Alden (3/12/08)

Transcriber’s Note:

-Note that this is the first tape of the “CC_hist” series, even though the tape is labeled “Development of Columbia Junior College”

-I got the name of the narrator and the write or the script from the PDF files (AM 10.9.09)