School Once Going to Seed Now Sprouting New Hope

When the trustees named Thomas Lakin president of Los Angeles Southwest College in March, 1986, they attached “acting” in front of the title. It underscored a widespread belief that he--and the institution--might not be around very long.

Enrollment at the predominantly black two-year college had plummeted to 2,900 students--a 64% loss in five years--making it the smallest in the nine-campus Los Angeles Community College District.

Waiting for the End

Programs and staff had been cut. Classrooms stood empty in the campus’ only permanent building, a massive, four-story structure stretching along Imperial Highway near Western Avenue. Scarred by graffiti and surrounded by weeds, it had begun to look like an abandoned fortress.

“The place was really at a low point,” a district official said. “People there just seemed to be putting in their time, waiting for the end.”

Less than two years later, new programs have been added to the college’s curriculum, enrollment is up 60%, and nobody is talking about closing Southwest. And the “acting” has been removed from Lakin’s title.

For Lakin, a 43-year-old New York native with a UCLA doctorate who had been a vice president at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, it was a once-in-a-lifetime challenge. “Not everybody gets a chance to save a college,” he said. “The scary part was that I knew my career was on the line.”

The college, founded in 1967 in the aftermath of the Watts riots, had been billed as an educational ladder of opportunity for blacks in the ghettos of South-Central Los Angeles and surrounding areas.

It flourished for a while in the late 1970s after the long-delayed completion of the first permanent building in 1973. By 1981, enrollment had reached a peak of 8,000.

Then the slide began.

Some blamed Proposition 13, which dried up funding needed to continue construction on the 71-acre campus so it could compete successfully with older colleges. The district’s short-lived experiment with an earlier semester start in August cut into enrollment, as did the state’s imposition of a first-ever tuition fee.

Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, who represents South-Central Los Angeles, blamed “weak leadership” and the “low priority given to the needs of black communities.” Southwest, she said, had become “another dream deferred.”

Others blamed the community, saying that people there didn’t want their own college enough to support it. They pointed out that inner-city students were driving past Southwest by the thousands on their way to other community colleges, such as El Camino and the Santa Monica and West L.A. campuses.

In 1985, the state’s Little Hoover Commission, after looking at the college district’s budget and management problems, pointed to the elimination of Southwest as part of the solution. A county grand jury reached the same conclusion.

When Lakin arrived at Southwest, there were so many problems he wasn’t sure where to start.

He bought a batch of weed pullers, issued them to his staff and invited the educators to join him in attacking the wild plants that had taken over the grounds.

“That got our attention,” said Major F. Thomas, an assistant dean and Southwest veteran. “We weren’t sure he was serious until he shouldered his own weed puller and led the way. Before long, we even had some rose gardens planted.”

Quoted From Song

At his first formal staff meeting, Lakin quoted from the lyrics of “This Is It,” a Kenny Loggins song in which an ailing father is urged to rise from his sick bed and fight for his life.

“It was do-or-die time for Southwest, too, and I wanted the people here to know it,” Lakin said. “I told them we had to turn this place around fast, or very likely the college and everybody working around here would be history.”

A number of people moved on immediately. Lakin replaced the college’s 10 top administrators, except Thomas, with his own handpicked team--people he had come to know and trust in his 12 years as a district teacher and administrator.

He fired the old maintenance crew and told the new workers that their job tenure depended on daily victories against weeds, graffiti and dirty floors.

Joining the Parade

Several employees suspected of drug dealing were invited to leave, Lakin said. Campus security was reorganized and strengthened.

In sending Lakin to replace Walt McIntosh as president, the college board had decreed that enrollment must rise by at least 20% in two years. Few around the campus believed it could be done.

To reach the enrollment goal, Lakin started an all-out recruiting campaign that extended through the summer last year. His daily calendar filled with speaking engagements at area high schools and before community groups. Potential students were pulled aside, wherever they could be found, for a review of their educational needs and goals and told about financial aid available at Southwest.

Expanded Bilingual Programs

To reach the growing Latino population--now estimated at 40% in some areas around the school--Lakin expanded bilingual and English language programs, set up a Spanish hot line for prospective students and promoted Latino festivals on the campus.

To attract working adults, he adopted PACE (Project for Adult College Education), a fast-track program to a two-year degree that has been used successfully at several other district campuses.

PACE students, like Sherry Potts, a 40-year-old Northrop Corp. employee, say the program can fit the work schedules of “anybody who wants to get ahead in life.” Classes are held one night a week and on Saturdays.

“Lakin is turning people on to Southwest by giving them programs they need,” said Potts, whose views were echoed by teachers and other students. “He’s given me my ticket at last to a four-year college and a degree.”

‘Information Age’ Programs

To promote Southwest as a high-tech institution, Lakin introduced “Information Age” programs such as computer-assisted design, word processing and computer-aided math studies. He based them on a districtwide program he developed at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College.

When the 1986 fall semester opened at Southwest, seven months after Lakin’s appointment, enrollment shot up 44% from the previous year. This fall, enrollment reached 4,700 for an overall gain of 60% in 19 months--three times the two-year goal set by the trustees.

“We have been impressed and encouraged,” said Harold Garvin, president of the college board. And to show it, the board voted to make Lakin full-fledged president of Southwest.

Now, talk of closing the college has faded away. But Lakin still worries that people may tire and lose hope before the foundations of an enduring institution can be laid.

Then there is the fear that larger political forces might doom plans to complete construction of the college.

First on Lakin’s building agenda are a technical center and a gymnasium, which he estimates will cost $12.5 million. The center, he says, will enable Southwest to compete on an equal footing with other colleges for students interested in high-tech careers.

A gym was intentionally left out of the original construction on the notion, Lakin says ruefully, that blacks are already too much into sports and need to concentrate more on academics. As a result, Southwest teams must travel to other campuses to practice and play games, and sports-minded high school graduates tend to look elsewhere for a college.

“Besides costing us students,” Lakin said in a rare display of anger, “the lack of something so fundamental as a gym and a swimming pool cuts out whole areas of community interest and participation at our campus. If every other college--Santa Monica, El Camino, you name it--can have a gym, why can’t we?”

Limited Construction Money

Garvin, the college board president, said the district is giving high priority to Southwest’s building needs. But the real decisions on funding requests are made in Sacramento, and Southwest must compete for limited construction dollars with other schools throughout the state, including the district’s uncompleted Mission and West L.A. campuses.

“Lakin isn’t bashful about telling us what he wants, and I like that in a college president,” Garvin said. “But we do have to deal with the funding realities.”

In his first 18 months at Southwest, Lakin, who keeps fit running in marathons, charged full-tilt against what he calls “the circular reasoning of Sacramento bureaucrats” who tried to persuade him that he was asking for the impossible. Now he has fallen back to regroup for a longer battle.

Help Spark Drive

His most powerful ally is Assemblywoman Waters, who has tried before to get construction money for Southwest and now says Lakin’s accomplishments at the college can help spark a new drive for support. “When I deal with these agencies (in Sacramento), I’ll talk nice at first like I always do,” she said. “But if that doesn’t work, I can get rough. . . . I won’t let this dream die.”

To rally community support and raise local money, Lakin has revived the Southwest Education Foundation by replacing its inactive directors with new supporters of the dream, including the assemblywoman’s husband, Hollywood car dealer Sidney Williams.

Old Racquetball Buddy

The group is headed by one of Lakin’s old racquetball buddies, Joseph Rouzan, a security consultant and former Inglewood police chief who now serves on the Inglewood school board.

And Odessa Cox, a leading figure in Southwest’s history, said she is willing to “start agitating again” for the college. Now in her mid-60s, Cox is credited with leading a 17-year crusade that led to Southwest’s founding.

According to Lakin, “. . . the hardest part of my job doesn’t involve buildings and curriculum and limited budgets. It’s trying to convince young people that they need an education in the first place.”

In his own family, Lakin said, a good education was taken for granted. “I come from one of the largest black families in the country,” he said. “When we had our last annual reunion in Washington, 900 people were there.

“Chuck Bolden, the astronaut, is a cousin and another is Ralph Carter who played in ‘Good Times’ on television, and we’ve got scientists and doctors and engineers and educators. You just don’t belong to my family and not learn how to live and how to make a living, and there used to be a whole lot of black families that believed strongly in a good education.”

Lakin paused, then returned to the subject of Southwest. “The question about whether our community deserves a first-rate, comprehensive community college should have been settled long ago,” he said.

“The only question now is, what do we have to do to get it?”