Berkeley City College

Berkeley City College

Former names	Berkeley Learning Pavilion Peralta College for Non-Traditional Study Vista Community College
Motto	Transforming Lives
Type	Publiccommunity college
Established	1974; 50 years ago(1974)
Parent institution	California Community CollegesandPeralta Community College District
Chancellor	Carla Walter (Interim)
President	Angélica Garcia[1]
Academic staff	172
Students	6,457[2]
Location	Berkeley , California , United States 37°52′11″N122°16′11″W / 37.869826°N 122.269698°W /37.869826; -122.269698
Campus	Urban
Colors
Website	berkeleycitycollege.edu

Berkeley City College(BCC, formerlyVista Community College) is apubliccommunity collegeinBerkeley, California. It is part of theCalifornia Community Colleges Systemand thePeralta Community College District. Berkeley City College is accredited by theAccrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges.^[3]

Berkeley City College was founded in 1974 as the Berkeley Learning Pavilion, which was renamed the Peralta College for Non-Traditional Study the same year, as a Peralta community college to serve the northern cities of Alameda County: Albany, Berkeley, and Emeryville. It received initial accreditation through the ACCJC in 1977 and in 1978 it was renamed Vista Community College. By 1981, the number of locations with classes offered exceeded 200. The same year, it received full accreditation from ACCJC. Between 1994 and 1996, the college attempted to deannex itself from the Peralta Community College District,^[4]but in exchange for dropping the deannexation effort, the Peralta District built a permanent building for the college in 2006. (Before that, classes were offered in many locations throughout the East Bay including UC Berkeley, West BerkeleyYMCA, Berkeley High School, the North Berkeley Community Center, St. Mary Magdalene School, the Summit Educational Center, and the Oakland Army Base.) In June 2006, the name was changed to Berkeley City College when it moved into its first and current building, a six-story, 165,000 square foot campus designed to accommodate 7,800 students.^[3]

The college maintains a strong and unique community college-university collaboration with theUniversity of California at Berkeley. The college had the fifth highest transfer rate to UC Berkeley in California in academic year 2004-05 and remains in the top five as of 2011.

Berkeley City College structures its transfer courses into guaranteed afternoon, evening and Saturday schedules so that students can completeUniversity of CaliforniaandCalifornia State Universitytransfer requirements, even if they work full-time.

As part of aCalWORKscollaborative, the college has developed training programs for those affected by welfare reform legislation. The college hosts the Center for International Trade Development which provides counseling and international economic development services to local small businesses.

• College of Alameda
• Laney College, a community college located in Oakland
• Merritt College, a community college located in Oakland
• California Community Colleges system
• City College of San Francisco, a community college located in San Francisco

• Official site