Air classes' wings clipped

As students at San Jose State University's aviation department were about to take a test one day last fall, custodians entered the classroom and began hauling away desks and chairs.

``People were sitting on the floor taking exams, or taking tests on work benches,'' said aviation student Kenneth Pierce, who will be a junior this fall.

The incident, students say, is an example of how the university's aviation studies programs at Mineta San Jose International Airport are being radically downsized.

Now students and recent alumni have formed a coalition to try to restore the program to its former status. They also want to get industry involved, and have appealed to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It's a David vs. Goliath battle, because university officials are planning to eliminate part of the program and relocate the rest of it from the aeronautics laboratory at the airport to the main campus.

The expiration of the university's lease at the airport in six years is driving the change.

For some time, instructors and students had voiced fears that airport expansion plans would force their nationally known aeronautics lab off the airfield. Instead, it turns out that the program -- which leads to a bachelor of science degree for students planning careers in aviation -- is being dismembered much earlier.

In their letter to Schwarzenegger, the students charged that the facilities haven't been properly maintained for four years; that because faculty members have left, non-aviation professors teach aviation courses; that lab hours are being cut, counseling is non-existent, and course curriculum changes without notice. Students said required classes are dropped, or overlap, postponing graduation dates.

Many say they can no longer get all the training they need to enter the aviation industry without attending a community college.

The students ``deserve the best education to the very end. So they're getting shortchanged,'' said Dan Casey, who just graduated in maintenance management and works in human factors research at NASA/Ames Research Center in Mountain View. ``We're trying to make sure the students get the education they were promised.''

The coalition, which calls itself the Students Council of San Jose State Aviation, says the university should pursue an early buy-out of its lease with the city, move the program to Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View, and use the proceeds to upgrade facilities there.

But Patricia Backer, chairman of the department of aviation and technology, said the university has already rejected that course of action.

``No facilities were available that did not require lots of money to be brought up to state standards,'' Backer said. ``It would cost close to a million dollars to renovate.''

More than a year ago, airport officials rejected a university proposal for a $2 million early buy-out of the 50-year lease on five acres, which San Jose State rents for $2,500 a year.

``The aviation program has not died. We decided to survive and move to the main campus,'' Backer said. ``It will be more of a research and academic program.''

Backer said the aircraft maintenance program, which leads to federal certification, is being phased out ``mostly because we're losing the building. We didn't have enough room on campus to move all of the facilities we need to maintain'' the courses on repairing and maintaining aircraft, she said.

San Jose State students will have to enroll in Bay Area community colleges that offer the courses leading to the federal certificate.

``We're going to spend our money where we have our students'' in flight operations, Backer said. Three or four aviation labs will be built on campus, and some of the department's smaller planes will be transferred from the airport.

Industry observers question why the program is suffering.

``There is hands-on experience on aircraft and engines,'' said Jim Lafferty, former president of the San Jose Jet Center, which caters to business and corporate jets. ``You take that out of the equation and try it strictly in a classroom, you just take a huge giant step backward.''

Lafferty said San Jose State ``has been a tremendous asset to the aviation industry,'' and its graduates ``are all over the world in every phase of aviation.''

``It's a shame the commitment of the students isn't matched by the commitment of the university,'' said Lafferty, who runs a San Jose aircraft sales firm and taught a business aviation class at the university last semester.

The San Jose State aviation department was founded in 1935, and moved to the southeast corner of the airport in the early 1960s under the leadership of then-Chairman Thomas Leonard.

Over the years, the program has graduated about 7,000 students in flight operations, airport management and aircraft maintenance. San Jose State is the only public university in California that offers such a program. Such programs are rare in higher education, but the University of Arizona and the University of North Dakota have similar programs.

San Jose State graduates have gone on to careers as airport administrators and managers, flight operation managers, marketing and aviation executives as well as airline and commercial pilots and aircraft mechanics.

Among the graduates was Jason Dahl, who was captain of United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania after terrorists took over the airplane on Sept. 11, 2001.

But enrollment has dwindled from as many as 800 students two decades ago to about 200 today.

Although the handwriting seems to be on the wall for the airport facility, the students complain that the university is making life difficult for them in the meantime. Faculty members agree.

``All of the curriculum has been redesigned. Every course content has been changed. It's geared to aviation operations,'' said Scott Yelich, who has taught there for 20 years.

``It's changing us from a tech degree that fit well with engineering to more of a management type of thing without the heavy tech knowledge,'' Yelich said. ``It's just sort of a jumble of classes thrown together. Before, we had a very structured progression through the curriculum.''

Said Backer: ``Change is very difficult for a lot of people. I'm sorry they're unhappy. No one has come and talked to me.''

The students disagree. ``We have gone through the proper channels to get our voices heard, and they have not been heard,'' Pierce said.