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WEST HILLS COLLEGE COALINGA LIBRARY CERMONY
Kickoff ceremonies for the modernization and expansion of the library/learning resources center at West Hills College Coalinga were held on Wednesday, April 14 th on the campus. Construction of a $2.4 million project started recently and is expected to be completed by the summer of 2005.
The project, combined with a $2 million childcare expansion project, will bring the total spent on the Coalinga campus to $11 million since Measure G, a local higher education bond measure, passed in 1998.
Speakers at the ceremony included Dr. Anthony Tricoli, president of West Hills College Coalinga; Pedro Jurado, a student on the campus and Dr. Frank Gornick, chancellor of West Hills Community College District. Board of Trustees members Nina Oxborrow and Mark McKean also participated in breaking ground.
Dr. Tricoli opened the ceremony with a brief history of the facility. He said the Coalinga College library first opened in 1956 with a collection capacity of 20,000 volumes in 7,500 square feet of space. At that time, the campus had 250 students.
The West Hills Community College District Board of Trustees voted in July of 1980 to rename the library in honor of Rodney B. Fitch, a long-time instructor at the college.
Tricoli said the library was expanded in 1988 to 11,400 square feet.
On October 7, 1995, a rededication ceremony was held honoring Fitch who received his bachelor of science degree from Central Missouri State and his master’s from the University of Missouri. He taught at Coalinga High School in 1954 before joining the faculty at the college to teach English 1A the following year. He retired from the college in June 1980 but continued to instruct English classes on a part-time basis well after that.
A document from the United States Congress recognizing Fitch’s efforts and the rededication in his honor was signed by Representative Cal Dooley.
During his remarks, Dr. Gornick noted that Fitch was his English instructor while he was a student at Coalinga College in the 1960s.
“He instilled in his students respect and a love for the written word,” Gornick said, noting that Fitch gave students two grades—one for content and another for grammar. “He expected perfect grammar.”
Today, Dr. Tricoli said, there are over 1,600 students attending West Hills College Coalinga (including those at the North District Center, Firebaugh) and there will be over 14,800 square feet in the library.
Once the current construction is completed, the West Hills College Coalinga Library/Learning Resource Center will have state of the art technology throughout including:
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Pedro Jurado, a freshman from Avenal, said that students at West Hills are especially excited to learn of the technology that is being integrated into the library. The wireless laptops that will be provided, he said will allow students to do homework, research and other activities without feeling tied to a desk and he said they will benefit from a larger selection of books and periodicals that will be available. “The remodeling of the Rodney Fitch Library is only one of the many improvements that students at West Hills College have seen in the past years that have been implemented with student’s best interest in mind,” he said. |