Calif. College Approves Plan to Seek Donations for Classes

City College of San Francisco is moving forward with a plan to seek contributions to save courses that have fallen victim to the budget ax, but without a provision to give donors the naming rights for classes they support, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

The college is seeking $6,000 donations to pay for one semester of a canceled course; so far, eight such donations have come in. Some 800 classes of the college’s approximately 9.800 courses were eliminated in the face of state money cuts.

The college’s board of trustees balked at a proposal floated in the spring by the institution’s chancellor, Don Griffin, to affix donors’ names to saved courses. The board also wanted the university to retain control over which courses would be restored, although donors can specify gifts to benefit a particular discipline.