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PCC President Mark Rocha re-emphasized Tuesday that there would be no job reductions, pay cuts or other drastic measures at PCC like some being taken by other community colleges.”I know it’s hard to feel fortunate in these circumstances,” Rocha said during a news conference in the Courier newsroom. “I wouldn’t trade our circumstance with any other community college in the state.”

Rocha added that PCC has a better “opportunity” than the other colleges and cited Long Beach City College which he said announced lay-offs, salary reductions and furloughs for some faculty and staff as well as the elimination of two sports and class section cuts.

“I am very proud that, as difficult as it’s going to be to balance the budget, PCC will not go through that,” Rocha said. “That will not be occurring here.”

With the economy showing little signs of improving, Rocha feels that fixing the financial problem by cutting money from education is the wrong idea.

“So many things about education are written up as the problem, but we’re not the problem, we’re the solution,” said Rocha. “I can’t believe that we let it get this way, but I do believe that we will come to our senses,” he added.

Rocha noted that regardless of the cuts that will come in the future, most students would not notice much of a difference from the way things are now.

“No departments will be cut,” Rocha said. “The courses that you need for transfer and degree are not going to get touched,” he said. The classes that face cuts are ones that are more activity based, said Rocha.

The goal of PCC will continue to be to do what is best for students to get them out and to get them transferred, said Rocha.

Rocha feels that PCC needs to add courses in areas for transfer and degree. “We’re not putting the majority of our resources where students need them,” said Rocha.

Rocha wants to ensure that students who are ready for college level classes are able to get through PCC in two years.

Rocha, who said he is on the same side as the students, believes that the backwards logic of cutting funding to community colleges needs to change. “Investment in higher education has [never] not paid off,” said Rocha.

The stem cell research department at PCC is one program that will suffer greatly from impending budget cuts, Rocha advised.

There is a future in this technology, which will help human beings, and they are going to have to shut their doors and turn people away, said Rocha.

“This research, will lead to curing diseases, and [they might have to] close the number of seats,” said Rocha.

“All that lost potential, all that lost energy, and lost creativity [of those who wanted to attend college], when in days gone by you just drove your car in,” Rocha said.

Rocha feels that the California Master Plan, which was passed in 1959, that ensured 100 percent access to the college system is essentially being disposed of, with 150,000 human beings turned away from community college last year.

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