On Monday, April 7, the State of the College presentation will take place at Merced College, as it has for more than a decade. After a luncheon, President Chris Vitelli will explain to those in attendance where Merced College is today and where it plans to be in the future.
For the first time, however, this address will not be given in Merced, as it always has, but in Los Banos at the Los Banos Campus. And well it should be, since voters of the area the campus serves passed a bond last November enabling the campus to improve and expand.
At each of the past State of the College events, someone is given the President’s Medallion, in gratitude for their service to the college. On April 7, the medallion will be presented to a family important to the Los Banos Campus, the Anderson Family, and well it should be.
For it was Larry and Georgeann Anderson who donated 125 acres to Merced College in 2001 as land on which a permanent Los Banos Campus could be built. The donated acreage was large enough for the campus to expand and, if enrollment increased, to someday become the Los Banos College. And since 2001, the Anderson Family has continued to be among the campus’s most loyal supporters.
I don’t take the Anderson Family land donation for granted. Between 1993 and 2001, college and campus officials were searching for a permanent site and hoping for a land donation. They looked at land east of Los Banos, land west of the city near Interstate 5, and farmland in the city’s northeast corner, but each time their search yielded no concrete results.
It was a relief when Ben Duran, Merced College’s president in 2001, after conversations with Larry Anderson, reported to the college community that a donation of land was indeed forthcoming. As someone connected to the Los Banos Campus since 1971, I will always be grateful to the Anderson Family.
That donation was critical, because in surveys done prior to 2001, residents of Los Banos and Dos Palos said they would vote for a bond to build a permanent campus only if there was donated land on which to build it.
Sure enough, in 2002, Westside voters, knowing 125 acres of land had been donated, passed a bond by more than 70%, which provided funding which, along with a state match, enabled a permanent brick-and-mortar facility to be built.
That facility was completed in 2007, on time and on budget, and has served thousands of students since that time, providing them with an education that would lead to a better life.
Since 2007 the college has invested significant dollars to make the Los Banos Campus even better, adding, among other things, a child development center and an agricultural lab.
Now, with the passage of a second bond last year, the college plans to build a state-of-the-art Career Tech Education Center, enabling more students to earn certificates and degrees in two years or less that will help them get jobs in demand without having a four-year degree.
The State of the College is a big and fancy event, and for people who want to attend, it’s not cheap–$100 a ticket. In the past, the college has filled all the available seats, especially thanks to businesses and organizations contributing $800 for a table. As of this newspaper’s publication date there are still tickets available by going to this website: https://www.mccd.edu/about-merced-college/divisions/external-relations/foundation/merced-state-of-the-college/.
I have been saving up my pennies and plan on attending. As many of my longstanding loyal readers know, I’m a big fan of the Los Banos Campus, especially since I was a part of the “founding faculty” who started teaching at the campus when it opened 54 years ago.
Since then, I have continued to be proud of the campus and what it has done, under exceptional deans like Ted McVey, Dr. Anne Newins, Karen Dower, Dr. Brenda Latham, Dr. Lonita Cordova and now the current dynamic dean, Dr. Jessica Moran.
I have seen the campus grow from an original enrollment of 400 students to its current enrollment of more than 4,000 students (based on the spring 2025 semester census data). Several years ago, the campus survived the challenges of COVID and has rebounded robustly in enrollment since then.
Over the years, I have seen the campus at its many different locations — from a rented facility on L Street, to a homeless campus that had to offer classes in storefronts, to a modular campus on ten acres (thanks to a donation of land by Richard Menezes), to its current splendid facility at 22240 Highway 152, just west of the Los Banos city limits.
I have seen so many students who have benefited from the campus — from veterans returning from the Vietnam War, to young people on their way to becoming teachers in Los Banos and Dos Palos schools, to women and men on their way to becoming nurses, radiographers, and sonographers at Westside hospitals, to students who have earned credentials and degrees in agriculture who have strengthened our local farming community.
I anticipate at the State of the College address on April 7 that Dr. Vitelli will talk about plans the college is developing to move forward with the proposed Career Tech Education Center, as well as other upcoming improvements to the campus, thanks to the recent passage of the bond.
I’m glad Merced College continues to acknowledge its campus in Los Banos, as it did two years ago when it scheduled the first ever graduation ceremony on campus. Having the State of the College address in Los Banos is another example of this acknowledgement.
I’m old enough to remember the years of 1978 and1979, when it appeared the college’s administration had little respect for its Los Banos Campus and there were genuine fears it might be closed down. But residents of Los Banos and Dos Palos, who believed then in the importance of a campus in Los Banos, fought long and hard to ensure the campus would never close.
I appreciate the acknowledgment the Los Banos Campus will receive on April 7, and I won’t ever take the campus’s acknowledgement for granted.
John Spevak’s email is john.spevak@gmail.com.
