Long Beach City College Board of Trustees voted on the Pacific Coast Campus new identifier to the “Trade, Technology and Community Learning Campus” during their monthly meeting on Mar. 13.
Superintendent-President Mike Munoz opened the discussion on the name change.
According to Munoz, the first round of surveys conducted during the 2023 fall semester had under 1500 responses from both students, staff and community members.
A second round of surveys was then sent out that asked participants to rate how they felt certain keywords matched the identity of PCC.
These results were then used to come up with names that were tested in three different focus groups among students, staff and community members.
A focus group was also held specifically for English Second Language and Trades students to ensure the college took their opinions into account.
“The focus groups yielded that no one liked any of them, so we went back to the drawing board,” Munoz said.
In the last set of surveys, only 319 students participated, with 169 at PCC and 150 at the Liberal Arts Campus according to Munoz.
The final round of on campus surveys was done through poster boards placed inside the student union at LAC and PCC, students were given a sticker they could place on one of three name options to signify their preference: Trades and Community Learning Campus; Trade Tech campus; and, Trade Tech and Community Learning Campus.
Trustees were asked to vote between the two most popular options based on the 316 students who participated in the final activity.
During discussion, trustee Sunny Zia stated that she received a complaint that PCC staff and students were not accurately represented in the survey data, and wanted to wait until the Board could acquire more data to come to a decision.
Trustees debated between the two options, with trustees Virgina Baxter and Herlinda Chico, pushing back against the “Trade Tech” identifier and preferring “Trades and Community Learning Campus.”
“If we call ourselves LBCC Trade Tech, we fail to recognize all the other classes that are offered at the Pacific Coast Campus,” Baxter said.
Student trustee Emma Manetta voiced her concern that the decision felt rushed, as the majority of LBCC’s 23,000 students were not surveyed on the name change.
The final trustee vote was five in favor of “Trade Tech and Community Learning Campus,” with Student Trustee Manetta the only one to vote no on the motion.
“I feel that the motion reflects the surveys and the hard work that was put in to get these responses,” Manetta said after the vote, but still impressed the need to listen to other suggestions and possibilities for PCC’s new identifier.
The decision to rename PCC was also pushed in order to coincide with PCC’s 75th anniversary and just in time for the college to start marketing enrollment for the 2024 fall semester.
“I think my issue was just playing around with the names and finding something as succinct as the Liberal Arts Campus, that identifier isn’t everything that’s on this campus, but it’s what is associated with the area,” Manetta said.