City College of San Francisco

History

City College of San Francisco first opened on September 4, 1935 as San Francisco Junior College and it had no central campus at the time. It was nicknamed "Trolley Car College" in the early days since students were forced to travel extensively to get between campuses. As the enrollment grew over time, so did the CCSF campus. In February 1948, the name was changed to City College of San Francisco. It now consists of eleven campuses, the Ocean Campus being the primary one. Since its founding in 1935, City College has evolved into a multicultural, multi-campus community college that is one of the largest in the country. CCSF offers courses in more than 50 academic programs and over 100 occupational disciplines. There is a full range of credit courses leading to the Associate of Arts and Science degrees, most of which meet the general education requirements for transfer to a four-year colleges and universities.

2012 – 2017 accreditation issues

In 2012, the college began experiencing significant public turmoil. On July 2, 2012, the college's regional accreditor, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), gave the college eight months to prove it should remain accredited and ordered it to "make preparations for closure". As summarized by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2015, "the commission has never found wrongdoing or substandard instruction, but has said the college should lose accreditation because of tangled governance structures, poor fiscal controls and insufficient self-evaluation and reporting."

In September 2012, the state chancellor's office warned that a special trustee would be appointed to oversee the institution's finances if the college did not voluntarily invite one; the board of trustees voted to invite a special trustee, despite student protests and objection. A report issued by California's Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance team in September 2012 found the institution to be in a "perilous financial position" caused largely by "poor decisions and a lack of accountability.

In July of 2013, the ACCJC elected to take action to terminate the college's accreditation, subject to a one-year review and appeal period. The decision was based on a variety of deficiencies in standards. A Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team report was expected to be released by the end of July 2013. Nearly two months later, San Francisco city attorney Dennis Herrera filed two legal challenges to stop the ACCJC from revoking City College of San Francisco's accreditation alleging conflicts of interest, a faulty evaluation process, and a politically motivated decision-making process. The 2013 decision to revoke accreditation in 2014 was put on hold pending the legal challenges.

In January 2015, with the legal conflict still ongoing, ACCJC said that CCSF remained out of compliance with standards in 32 areas but granted the college a two-year extension for resolving these issues and avoiding a shutdown. Two years later, ACCJC reaffirmed the college's accreditation for seven years.

Campus life

The Student Activities Office provides resources, support and leadership training for eight Associated Students Councils and more than 80 clubs and student organizations. It sponsors a wide variety of concerts and lectures throughout the year. It funds the Book Loan Program, Dr. Betty Shabazz Family Resource Center, Multi-Cultural Resource Center, Queer Resource Center, Student Health, Students Supporting Students mentoring program, and Women’s Resource Center.

Students can also avail themselves of the Fitness Center, enjoy nationally ranked intercollegiate sports, and participate in the College’s award-winning intercollegiate Speech and Debate Program. The College also features a student-run newspaper, The Guardsman, an award-winning magazine, ETC as well as television and radio stations. Performances given by students in music, dance, and theatre Arts further enhance campus life.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community

Currently, there is a Queer Alliance student group and a Queer Resource Center on campus. The Queer Resource Center is an academic and informational resource center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender queer, intersex, questioning, and straight allies. The Queer Resource Center aims to empower and celebrate its demographic as well as its community. The center has participated in anti-violence, anti-homophobia, and anti-transphobia rallies and workshops. The center has struggled with funding although this has caught the attention of politicians, notably the Green Party, whose candidate for board of trustees John Rizzo has promised funds for more LGBT studies and the Queer Resource Center.

Women

On campus, there are numerous student activity groups, gender-specific courses, and health services. For example, the Women's Resource Center and Library (Smith Hall, 103–104) offers women on campus an opportunity to network with academic support services and resources, and Project Survive is a campus peer education group working to promote healthy relationships and end abuse and sexual violence.

Administration

CCSF is part of the San Francisco Community College District which is independent and co-extensive with the City and County of San Francisco and part of the California Community Colleges System. The district's Board of Trustees is elected by San Francisco residents. District funds are allocated from the state legislature, local property taxes, student tuition and fees, lottery funds, sales tax funds, and miscellaneous sources.

On July 3, 2013, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges voted to revoke CCSF's accreditation, effective July 31, 2014. ACCJC has made recommendations to the college several times about major problems. In July 2012, ACCJC gave the college eight months to prove it should remain accredited and ordered it to "make preparations for closure". Once the accreditation expires, the college may close indefinitely, "unless an appeal is successful or if the college can make enough progress to win an extension". It was announced on July 3, 2013, that "the college system's Board of Governors will appoint a special trustee 'with extraordinary powers' in [the second week of July 2013] to replace the trustees. That person will run the college with the aim of restoring it to full favor".

City College of San Francisco is located in urban environment and has the associated crime rate. All campuses are maintained by the San Francisco Community College District Police Department (SFCCDPD). The SFCCDPD has twenty eight police officers and nine civilian employees.

Campuses

CCSF opened in 1935, during the age of the Depression era with no central campus and only 1483 students enrolled. Today it not only has a main campus (called Ocean Campus) but it also has 10 other campuses located across San Francisco.

Academics

City College of San Francisco has over 50 educational programs and more than 100 work training programs. CCSF has a transfer rate to four-year institutions of 60%, with 45.8% of students transferring with an associate degree.

Schools

Hotel and restaurant management programs

Founded in 1936, the two-year hospitality program is the oldest of any kind on emphasizing culinary arts, with an annual average enrollment of 200 international students. This program offers culinary art, food service management, and hotel management.

The current facilities in Statler Wing are now home to a café (currently named Radius 99), cafeteria, and fine dining restaurant (Pierre Coste Room); four kitchens, a bake shop, three lecture rooms, a lecture/demonstration auditorium, the Alice Statler Library and Gifford Resource Center. The department has an ongoing enrollment of over 250 students from around the world.

Teams

Intercollegiate athletics are offered for men and women. College teams belong in the CCCAA Coast Conference North Section and competes with teams from other colleges. Intercollegiate sports include baseball, basketball, cross-country, football, soccer, softball, tennis, track, badminton, volleyball, and judo. These teams are all nicknamed the Rams. City College of San Francisco Football Teams have won ten national championships. The annual rivalry football game is played against the College of San Mateo Football team.

Sports facilities

All of the CCSF Rams teams are based on the Ocean Campus. Field sports, as well as track and field competitions, uses Rams Stadium. A new Soccer Practice Field has been built north of the stadium. The Wellness Center, south of Rams Stadium, houses staff offices, weight rooms, a swimming pool, lockrooms, classrooms, and an indoor gym. East of Rams Stadium used to be the former site of the North Gym and the South Gym, which used to contain the lockrooms, weight rooms, and staff offices. The Tennis Courts are across an access road from the former gyms.

Art on campus

Most of the early art on CCSF campus was due to the work of Timothy Pflueger, the architect was in charge of designing San Francisco Junior College in the 1930s (which would later be called City College of San Francisco). Pflueger was on a committee of well-known Beaux-Arts architects organizing and designing the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) and he put together a large exhibit of Art in Action in 1940, showcasing a number of artists (from various genres) on display, engaged in creating works. Many of these artworks from GGIE now permanetely live at CCSF's Ocean Campus.

Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera's work Pan American Unity, originally created for the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1940, has been displayed at the theater at the Ocean Campus of San Francisco City College since 1961. This large mural stands, 22' high and 74' long made up of 5 panels. The mural was entitled by Rivera, “Unión de la Expresión Artistica del Norte y Sur de este Continente” (The Marriage of the Artistic Expression of the North and of the South on this Continent) but now commonly called Pan American Unity. There are three self-portraits and a portrait on his wife, artist Frida Kahlo within this mural. As of 2014, City College is in the process of supporting the The Diego Rivera Mural Project, with goals return of the mural to the position of public importance, stabilize the environment for the mural and secure funding to make the project self supportive.

Frederick E. Olmsted

Frederick E. Olmsted's 1941 Theory and Science mural is located at San Francisco City College (CCSF) Ocean Campus in the Science Hall west entrance. This is two 12′ x 8′ tempera frescos murals and depicts a range of careers in the sciences, featuring men, women and people of color doing things such as viewing bacteria through a microscope, conducting field research, and excavating dinosaur remains. Olmsted also created two large, limestone sculptures of Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison heads that are on display in the Ocean Campus middle courtyard. The giant Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison heads were created in 1940 as part of the Golden Gate International Exposition's Art in Action exhibition and later given to CCSF for care and display.

Beniamino Bufano

Beniamino Bufano was a California-based Italian American sculptor, best known for his large-scale monuments representing peace. Bufano's sculpture Saint Francis of the Guns of 1968 stands at San Francisco City College in front of the Science Building. It is a statue of Saint Francis of Assisi—San Francisco's namesake—made from melted-down guns mixed with bronze to prevent rust from the city's dampness; this work was inspired by that year's assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. The sculpture is of a 9-ft tall figure of a robed Catholic saint, his arms spread in peaceful greeting. On his robe, Bufano created a mosaic tile mural showing the glowing heads of four of America's assassinated leaders: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy and John F. Kennedy. This was one of Bufano's last works before he died.

Dudley C. Carter

Dudley C. Carter has three works at the CCSF Ocean Campus, including The Ram sometimes called Mountain Ram, Goddess of the Forest, and The Beast sculptures. Dudley had donated The Ram because he knew it was the school mascot and it had been part of the Golden Gate International Exposition's Arts in Action exhibition. The Ram sculpture stood outside on the campus periodically changing locations from time to time, students would coat it in paint with campus colors red and white. Sometimes rival schools would repaint The Ram in their own school colors. By 1980 The Ram had many layers of paint and damage and in Spring of 1983 it was restored by Carter with use of a pick axe and its original, natural redwood. Currently located in the lobby of Conlan Hall, on the Ocean Campus. The Goddess of the Forest is another redwood sculpture created during GGIE, it is very large standing at 26 feet tall and had a girth at the base of 21 feet. For years this piece was located at Golden Gate Park, until 1986 when it began to show distress and decay. It was then moved to CCSF to an indoor location awaiting restoration.

Ignacio Perez Solano

In 2004, the then Governor of Veracruz, Mexico, Miguel Alemán Velazco presented CCSF with a reproduction of an Olmec colossal head in honor of the new Pan-American Center. The gift, a 14-ton, 9-foot tall replica of “El Rey” (The King) San Lorenzo #1 created in volcanic tuff is now the centerpiece of the proposed Frida Kahlo Garden next to the Diego Rivera Theater at City College of San Francisco. The artist that carved the replica was Ignacio Perez Solano, also known as “il Maestro.” This is only one of five Olmec heads reproductions in the United States and is viewed by some as the "mother culture" of Mexico.

Herman Volz

Two 50′ x 45′ low-relief polished marble mosaics by the Swiss-born artist Herman Volz are located in the south portico of San Francisco City College’s Science Hall, located on Ocean Campus. The murals are named Organic and Inorganic Science. The imagery of the mosaics represent fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics with text accompanying the mural that reads ‘Give me a base and I move the world.’ These murals were originally part of the Golden Gate International Exposition’s Art in Action show in 1940 on Treasure Island before they were moved to the college. The two mosaics took two years to install with a staff of eight workmen, Juan Breda served as assistant mosaicist for the project. The murals were restored in 2005.

Alumni

This is a list of notable alumni from City College of San Francisco, listed in alphabetical order by last name.

Actors

Artists

Baseball

Football

Journalists

Politics and civil service

Other

Faculty

This is a list of notable faculty from City College of San Francisco, listed in alphabetical order by last name.