COLLEGE OF THE SEQUOIAS - HANFORD CENTER

College of the Sequoias is committed to supporting students' mastery of basic skills and to providing programs and services that foster student success. College of the Sequoias (COS) is a California community college located on the eastern edge of the San Joaquin Valley midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The college, like most of the early community colleges in the state, developed out of the local public school. In 1926 the Visalia Unified School District established "Visalia Junior College" as a department in the high school.

College of the Sequoias is a comprehensive community college focused on student learning that leads to productive work, lifelong learning and community involvement. College of the Sequoias affirms that our mission is to help our diverse student population achieve their transfer and /or occupational objectives and to advance the economic growth and global competitiveness of business and industry within our region.

The depression drove many unemployed young people to enroll in classes who were either not prepared for, or not necessarily interested in, transfer education. Confronting this fact, and recognizing that larger enrollments generated greater state financial support, school officials began to develop appropriate courses for these "terminal" students. By the late 40s they had expanded the vocational curriculum, developed some "general education" courses, set up a career guidance and counseling office, and established a job placement service. This vocational emphasis helped increase enrollment and community support for the college and ushered it into a period of stable growth that lasted into the 1960s. By the 1980s, however, funding constraints and state mandated reforms led the college to reevaluate this broad community--education mission. During the 1990s the College reaffirmed transfer and vocational education as primary missions and relegated community education as a secondary position.

In 1939 it built the current college campus, and in 1949 it nurtured the formation of an independent College of the Sequoias Community College District From its opening in the fall of 1926 until World War II the district's sole mission was to provide inexpensive, lower-division college education to local high school graduates who intended to transfer to a traditional four-year college. This "transfer" mission shaped the college during these years in that it provided the theoretical and political basis for its founding, defined its initial curriculum and activities, led to the construction of its campus, and met the needs of the overwhelming majority of its students. After the onset of the great depression in the 1930s the college embraced a second mission that shaped its development through the 50s.