Geovanni EsparzaThe Digital Media program’s highly anticipated move from an off-campus facility to a space on the main campus has been cancelled, leaving faculty concerned for the program’s future.
Since Santa Ana College began to lease the Digital Media Center to Vista Meridian Global Academy in 2024, a public charter high school based in Santa Ana, the facility has been increasingly inaccessible to the students who are enrolled in digital media classes.
Digital media professor Michael Taylor said tours that used to take place at the DMC have stopped, and have been replaced with students taking breaks in the lobby, buses, vans and lines of parents’ cars waiting to pick up the high schoolers.
The students are also not able to use the restrooms in the facility because they are constantly being vandalized. Faculty believe that if the digital media department’s needs are not met, students will give up on SAC and enroll in programs at other colleges.
“Students have choices. They will flock to digital media and production programs that are successful at OCC and Saddleback College,” said Taylor at the March 24 Academic Senate meeting.
The workgroup that was formed to facilitate the move was informed when they returned from winter break that the Facilities Modification Request was cancelled.
An FMR is the official work order that initiates construction or work on any major changes to a facility. An FMR can be approved within a few weeks, but it can take longer if the request is going to be costly.
At SAC, there is currently a year-and-a-half wait time to get a new FMR because there are so many currently in the queue, according to Iris Ingram, vice chancellor of business services.
“Our program will not survive an open-ended project for relocation. If we do not have relocation for our program in the next year and a half, we will not have a program,” said Taylor.
Bart Hoffman, vice president of Administrative Services, said that the FMR for the digital media program’s move to the back of the library needed to be cancelled because it was specific to that location, and the proposed move to the A building will need a new FMR because it is a different space. Hoffman also clarified that because the pivot to the A building is not a completely new project, but rather a change in direction, it should not be impeded by Vice Chancellor Ingram’s request to “refrain from submitting any new requests for Facility Modification Requests.”
Two years ago, the digital media faculty were approached by the college president and the vice president of administrative services, informing them that a charter school would be occupying more space in the DMC, and the digital media program would be relocated to a space in the back of the library.
The workgroup concluded there was inadequate square footage in the new space, which would not meet the program’s needs. At the March 9 board of trustees meeting, SAC President Annebelle Nery said the workgroup was reconvening to look at other spaces on the main campus that could work for the move.
Digital Media faculty and administrators have begun looking at spaces in the A Building to act as the program’s new home.
“[A proposal has been submitted] to the vice president of academic affairs about some space on the 1st floor of building A, and they have been directed to proceed with the planning of that space,” said Nery at the March 23 board of trustees meeting. “We have some money, a few million allocated, and we’re waiting to see what the faculty, staff or members of that workgroup recommend for that space.”
In late 2024, the district’s original agreement allowed the high school to use spaces on the second floor as classrooms for its freshmen and sophomores. Since the lease was approved, the high school has begun to occupy other spaces in the facility, leaving limited spaces for the college students.
Currently, the digital media department uses spaces on the main campus as well as the DMC. While most of the classes are held at the off-campus facility, there is only one classroom that is available to SAC students, and the rest are being leased to the high school.
“The bulk of the classes are in the DMC, and we stagger that classroom’s use so we can get the classes in during the day,” said Taylor.
Other faculty members believe that the needs of the college students should be met first.
“We are a college, and my call is for faculty to start making some noise that we are a college,” said Kinesiology professor and women’s basketball coach Flo Luppani. “So aside from supporting [the digital media program], the faculty need to band together and say no, the campus is for college students, so put me in there with pots and pans, and I think we need to say no, we’re not a high school.”
