California community colleges leading the way
Did you attend a public junior college or what is now known a “community” college? Many Californians have. It’s been a tradition and a wise financial option for a number of years.
The first appeared in Fresno during 1907. San Joaquin Delta College was originally founded as Stockton Junior College back in 1935.
But on the East Coast, it was a different story. During the 1950s and ‘60s, I grew up in Bethesda, Md. — a suburb of Washington, D.C. Here students were very competitive, and an Ivy League acceptance after high school was the only option one could seriously consider. Students who were not in the upper echelon of their class or did not have parental influence were most likely destined for the University of Maryland.
My lazy high school performance was average, so I assumed the next step in higher education would be with the “Terrapins” at Maryland — along with many of my classmates.
Yet it was not to be. You see, my parents had other ideas. They were both native Californians, and the junior college option seemed like a no-brainer. But Montgomery Junior College did not have the recognition or acceptance that California JCs had. It was founded in 1946 right after World War II and located in Takoma Park, Md.
The campus was composed of a suburban block with old buildings from a former electrical training school dating back to 1908. Certainly, it was nothing to look at or brag about. My peers thought of it as unworthy of consideration — a completely different mindset from what was found in the Golden State.
High school seniors liked to brag as to where they would be attending for their freshman years. When the conversation got around to me, I would simply lower my head, put my hand over my mouth and mumble something like “Monrumjurridge.”
They would ask me to repeat and I would give the same response — hoping they would give up the inquiry, which usually they did. I also took classes at nearby Columbia Union College that gave me an “out” for a school designation.
My high school girlfriend was accepted at snooty Smith College in Southampton, Mass. She seemed to understand my explanation of a Californian’s junior college point-of-view, but her university professor father was another story. He treated me as if I were a hobo, who had just jumped out of a B&O boxcar.
There was certainly nothing wrong with the education provided at MJC. Happily, I later was accepted at the University of the Pacific for my junior year. Now I owned the bragging rights.
Of course, Easterners knew nothing about UOP or its location. Based on the school title, I always got the same response: “Wow! You sure are lucky. I’ll bet you’ll be surfing every day!”
I had never been to Stockton and didn’t know much about the area either. But a friend of mine was attending Pacific. I remember asking him what its Valley location was like. He thought for a moment and then responded:
“Do you ever watch that cowboy show ‘Gunsmoke’ on TV?” he inquired. “You know how the saloons in that program have swinging doors? Well, that’s Stockton.”
I thought he was joking, but I remember my first view of the town while driving a Volkswagen from East Charter Way to El Dorado Street. There they were — those swinging doors with drunks staggering through them — just as he had described.
One year later, that part of the city was bulldozed for highway and freeway projects — its Gunsmoke blight was gone.
But returning to the main focus, where is Montgomery Junior College today? It is now a 56,000 student Montgomery College with a beautiful main campus in Rockville, Md. — along with branch campuses in Germantown and Takoma Park. There are students from over 160 countries enrolled and more than 1,500 faculty members.
The school offers a variety of programs from fine arts to health sciences.
So all things considered, I think it’s safe to conclude that there still are institutions in California, such as the community college system, that do set the pace, change attitudes and in addition, can lead the way for the rest of the nation.