Question of the Month

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March 2002

Do corporate sponsorships help or hurt community colleges?

Your responses will be published here at www.faccc.org and may be published in other FACCC publications.

Please e-mail responses to Communications Director Katherine Martinez, k7martinez@aol.com, by March 30 (use the subject "March Question.")

Answers received:

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03/09/2002 10:27:29 PM Pacific Standard Time, From: zimls@earthlink.net (Seth Zimmerman)

Corporate sponsorships might fill a short term financial need, but dependency will grow, commercial influence will soon be accepted as normal, the values of the marketplace will form the underlying or even the overt assumptions of our institutions, and ultimately our colleges will be no more than components of the economy. The state should pay for absolutely all the needs of the community colleges.

Seth Zimmerman
Dept. of Mathematics
Evergreen Valley College
San Jose CA 95135

03/05/2002 2:59:06 PM Pacific Standard Time, From: dyoung@Cerritos.edu (Dave Young PhD)
While I believe that this question is a false dichotomy in the sense that I don't think the the answer is an either/or, I think for the most part that the answer comes down on the positive side of the questions for me.

I can think of examples where it has been either one or the other and I can imagine that there are instances where it may have been both simultaneously.

Examples here at Cerritos where it has worked very well have been in our Technology division. We have corporate sponsors for programs in automotive and wood manufacturing that have worked very well for the programs involved. The programs' ability to maintain contemporary machinery is based upon corporate support and donations of equipment that the college simply cannot afford.

I think there are examples at other colleges where this has been the case in animation, computer graphics and science as well.

The best examples that come to mind are those where the colleges, their students, and the corporate sponsors all benefitted. I believe that thoughtful, well meaning people can produce those results. I've seen it happen here.
03/05/2002 3:06:28 PM Pacific Standard Time, From: sstocking@sjdccd.cc.ca.us (Steve Stocking)
I suggest Pacific Gas and Electric Community College. Or possibly Pacific Gas and Electric Science and Mathematics Division at Delta College.

We might need to modify some of our basic math since it appears that P.G.& E. has not always been too upfront with theirs. We could divert some of our profits to other parts of the firm?

This is a good one. Ha. Ha. But I am afraid that you may not be kidding.

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