West Los Angeles College, commonly known as WLAC or simply West, is a public community college on Overland Avenue at the eastern edge of Culver City. Although it carries a Culver City mailing address, its roughly 70-acre hillside campus technically lies in unincorporated Los Angeles County, surrounded on several sides by Culver City. One of the nine colleges of the Los Angeles Community College District, West offers university-transfer programs, associate degrees, career and technical education, certificates and selected bachelor’s degrees. The school’s athletic teams are known as the Wildcats, and notable former athletes include Pro Football Hall of Famers Warren Moon and Isaac Bruce and NFL star Keyshawn Johnson.

West Los Angeles College opened in February 1969, with Morris J. Heldman serving as its first president. Built on a hillside overlooking the Westside, the college was created to serve communities including Culver City, Baldwin Hills, Westchester, Palms, Mar Vista, Venice and West Los Angeles. Its original athletic nickname was the Oilers, a reference to the nearby oil field, before students and faculty adopted the Wildcats mascot during the college’s 40th-anniversary period in 2008. Over the decades, West expanded beyond its original transfer and vocational programs and became one of a select group of California community colleges authorized to award bachelor’s degrees, including programs in Dental Hygiene and Avionics.

West Los Angeles College

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