Laney College
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Laney College is a community college located in Oakland, California, next to the Lake Merritt BART station and the Kaiser Convention Center. Laney is the largest of the four colleges of the Peralta Community College District which serves northern Alameda County. Laney College originally opened in 1953 as Oakland City College, at the former University High School campus (which operated from 1923 to 1948). It offers both certificates and credits for prerequisites to transfer to four year universities.
Academics
Laney is divided into four divisions and sixty-one departments. CampusMost of the college's academic and administrative buildings are clustered together in a complex in the northern corner of the campus. The buildings are arranged on a rigid grid, with two levels of concrete pathways providing circulation. The square in the center of the complex has been reserved for the quad. Facing the quad are the student center, theater, library, and gymnasium. On one corner is the triangular "Laney Tower", the main administration building; on the opposite is the "Forum", the largest lecture hall on campus. Academic buildings form the outer ring of the complex. Each has a similar design, with courtyards in the centers of each square on the second level, ringed by classrooms and offices; and more classrooms and vocational facilities on the first level, accessed from the perimeter of the building. Most of the outer buildings occupy three squares on the grid. The entire complex shares a red brick and concrete theme, with sharp corners, square and triangular shapes, and little vegetation. The newest academic building is the art center, which is adjacent to the main complex but has its own architectural style. The building opened in the 2006-2007 school year. It was designed by Beverly Prior Architects to be built from prefabricated materials, because of the short time frame between the start of construction and planned opening. The channel that connects Lake Merritt to the Oakland Estuary runs through the center of the campus. This section was also the former site of the World War II "Auditorium Housing Project" which housed war industry workers from around the United States, many of whom worked in the Kaiser Shipyards. The housing was demolished sometime after the war, and in the early 1960s, a temporary football stadium called Frank Youell Field was constructed on the site for use by the Oakland Raiders. See alsoExternal links
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