By Khalida Sarwari
West Valley College’s park management program teaches students how to save lives and survive in the wilderness. Now, because of state budget cuts, it’s the 43-year-old program that’s in need of saving.
Department chairman Chris Cruz predicted the program could be eliminated as soon as June 2014. He and the other instructors are trying to recruit enough students to keep the program funded and alive.
The park management program is one of a handful of career technical education programs that West Valley is considering cutting. The perception, Cruz said, is that it is not as important as the standard academic programs such as history, math and English. But that perception is inaccurate, he said, especially in the Bay Area–an environmentally and park-rich environment that depends heavily on the program’s students and graduates, Cruz said.
Started in 1970 by John Nicholas and Tom Smith, two coaches in the physical education department, the park management program is the college’s oldest career program and is comprised of students from high school-age to those with master’s degrees in other fields.
“They’re coming to us because they’re doing what’s in their hearts,” said instructor Kim Aufhauser. “They want to work in the woods.”
Aufhauser is one of 12 faculty members in the program, and like the others, is also a practitioner in various fields, from mountaineering to biking and climbing. He is a 16-year-veteran of the National Park Service and spends at least 100 days out of the year in the outdoors. Similarly, Cruz has been with NPS for nearly 11 years.
“We all work in parks and play in parks in summers,” Aufhauser said. “What Chris and I teach is not what we learned from the books, but from what we’ve learned in the field.”
Most classes combine academic teachings with real world experiences. Students, for example, learn how to fight fires, but they also learn about how fire is a management tool. They take trips to state parks and work with local agencies.
The program offers classes that educate students about medical care and how to survive in the outdoors or handle a major disaster. There’s a first responder class that anyone can take and learn vital life-saving skills, such as treating a broken leg.
“Our students are involved in more life-saving acts than any other program in the college,” Aufhauser said. Whether they’re working as volunteers or as park troopers, students “are involved in all sorts of life-saving acts.”
Cruz teaches a class on geospatial technology, which involves computer programming, GPS and science. This past semester, one student undertook a heritage tree mapping project, working alongside city of Saratoga arborist Kate Bear.
“We’ve had people who have never handled a chainsaw, slept under the stars, gone to Yosemite or used a hammer,” said Aufhauser. “A lot of firsts.”
At its crux, the program prepares students for jobs in land stewardship, or the protection and management of public lands. Students who go through the program end up working in both public and private sectors throughout the country. Some of the agencies that the program partners with include the Nature Conservancy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and a number of environmental consulting groups.
“You can’t find an agency that doesn’t have people who graduated from our program,” Aufhauser said.
Many of those agencies offer students internships in advance of them graduating from the program. Some land jobs and have no need to return for their diploma. And that’s perfectly OK with the faculty.
“Whenever I see a student get a job, that makes me think what we do is good, what we do is effective,” Cruz said.
But, said Aufhauser and Cruz, the community college rubric system doesn’t recognize that as a measurement of success. Now, with the focus shifting away from career technical education programs and toward transfer education, park management–one of the college’s signature programs–appears to be in jeopardy. And it’s not the only program that’s at risk–there are five others: architecture, engineering, digital media, computer application and photography.
In the case of the park management program, its uniqueness is a double-edged sword, in that while it sets it apart from other disciplines, it also doesn’t fit into any box, said Aufhauser.
There is no category for it in the labor market. Because labor market data is considered crucial for the college, the department is working on providing a working analysis of all the different fields that encompass the program. So far it’s been narrowed down to 22, but the college says that list is too expansive, Cruz said.
The department is also in the process of assessing the program’s overall curriculum to ensure it is “current, relevant, modern, up-to-date and offers value,” Aufhauser said. Part of that entails identifying classes that can be combined and making certain classes recommended to take as opposed to mandatory. There are also plans to offer classes online.
“Our industry is not static,” Aufhauser said. “We’re constantly tweaking our courses, our programs.”
And because West Valley’s is the only program of its kind in the state, it is imperative for the industry to also take a stand for its survival, he said. Although the threat of losing the program, and thus their jobs, has hovered over the department and members of the faculty for years, it has never been as real or as personal, Aufhauser said.
He predicted that the ramifications of the loss will be felt by dozens of public land agencies as it will mean a depleted pool of potential employees.
“They’ve already told us it would be a huge problem for them if the program goes away,” Cruz said, “because they know the quality of education we give our students.”
The trickle-down impact will be felt across search and rescue teams, some fire and police departments, airport and roads departments, and fish and game and vector control agencies, according to Aufhauser.
It will immediately affect San Jose and Palo Alto regional parks and Santa Clara County parks, as well as agencies such as the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District and the California state parks, Aufhauser said.
Through the program, students in the past have done trail work and invasive plant removals, cleaned storm damage, built interpretive displays and barbecue pits and kiosks, and split rail fences at many of those parks.
“Will parks vanish and go away? No, of course not. Will they suffer? No doubt about it,” said Aufhauser.
To learn more about West Valley College’s park management program, visit westvalley.edu/pm.
West Valley College park management instructors hope to keep program alive
