SHARING OUR HISTORY
What's in a Name?
El Camino is Spanish for "The Road." The road refers to California's first road: "El Camino Real," which means "The King's Road," or "The Royal Road."
Fray Junipero Serra (1713-1784), a Spanish Franciscan priest, explorer and colonizer of California, founded the missions of California along this dirt road. In his fifteen years as padre president, he established nine of his 21 missions, each a one-day walk apart (about 30 miles), and all linked by "El Camino Real." The road stretches from the Mexican border to north of San Francisco.
Why the Bell Logo?
El Camino Real was distinguished by numerous markers of a single bell suspended on an upside down hook-shaped pole. All of them are tributes to California's first road.
From the beginning...
In 1946, After strong recommendations by a consulting team to establish a two year college in the Inglewood, South Bay area, the governing boards of the Centinela Valley, Redondo (later to become the South Bay district), Inglewood and El Segundo districts won 10-1 voter approval for the creation of a junior college.
Torrance soon joined the newly chartered group, and the El Camino Community College District was officially established as of July 1, 1947.
Located centrally in the South Bay, the El Camino College District encompasses five unified and high school districts, twelve elementary school districts and nine cities, a population of almost one million.
The El Camino Community College District includes the cities of El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Torrance, Lawndale, Hawthorne, Lennox and Inglewood.
The history of El Camino College is told in its buildings which not only show sound pay-as-you-go fiscal policies but which are solid evidence of enrollment growth.
The founders of the college were able to buy the original 80 acres forming the eastern part of Alondra Park
$1,000 per acre with the money to be spent on athletic facilities rather than paid to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors under whose auspices it lay. That land was estimated to be worth $225,000 when the transaction was approved on May 23, 1947. And the remarkable fact is that it had been acquired for nothing more than the promise to build facilities which would have been built anyway.
Early classrooms were surplus World War II barracks which were trucked north from the old Santa Ana Army Air Base in Orange County.
At the end of the first 20 years, the property was valued in excess of $5 million. By today's land prices, best estimates put the value of El Camino College's campus at more than twice that amount, excluding the buildings.
The first permanent building for classroom instruction was the shop which opened in 1949. The women's gym, field house, another shop building and the social science building came shortly thereafter. Major construction was the order of business nearly every year during the growth years of the college.
El Camino's buildings cover 1,129,112 square feet and were built at a cost of $28 million. That means 37 structures were completed without any bonded indebtedness to the District.
Working in these buildings is a faculty which has grown since the first 30 members to more than 800 full-time and part-time instructors today. Nearly 20 percent of the full-time faculty have earned doctoral degrees while more than 85 percent have master's degrees. The remainder have excellent credentials for their areas of expertise.
The college is governed by the five members of the El Camino Community College District Board of Trustees. Each is elected for a four-year term by voters in the five trustee areas which make up the college district. Board meetings are monthly and are open to the public.
Heading the administration is the college's president who also serves as superintendent of the El Camino Community College District. The president is assisted directly by three vice presidents of the college. Their areas of responsibility are Academic Affairs, Administrative Services and Student & Community Advancement.
EL Camino College: "The Road" to Success for Over Half a Century:
As the college mushroomed from an enrollment of fewer than 500 in 1946 to nearly 25,000 students today, the curriculum expanded to include not only lower division courses but an honors program and numerous vocational programs. Today, El Camino College students enjoy a broad curriculum featuring nearly 2,500 different classes offered in some 850 different programs. With more courses available during a variety of class times, including online and telecourses, students have wide flexibility in individual scheduling. |
