OAKLAND — For decades, Laney College and Merritt College have built up distinct brands on opposite sides of town, offering their own slices of higher education but often vying for the same students — and even fielding competing basketball teams.

But pesky financial challenges now may lead the Peralta Community College District to merge the two schools into a single institution: Oakland City College.

It is a bold new pitch, first reported by Laney’s watchful student newspaper, The Peralta Citizen, that Chancellor Tammeil Gilkerson introduced Aug. 14 to a collection of district staff and faculty.

Peralta leaders had kicked around the idea for years but avoided discussing it in concrete terms, with bureaucratic tangles often getting in the way.

Gilkerson, a Hayward native who previously served as Laney College’s president, sees the proposed merger as a “reunification,” because until the mid-1960s there was just the one Oakland City College, before the Peralta district first formed.

Both campuses would remain active under the new plan, but certain programs and top-level administrative positions would be slashed, leaving the district with three schools — Oakland City College, Berkeley City College and the College of Alameda — and the existing chancellor’s office with its own set of administrators.

While the Peralta Board of Trustees may soon vote on a merger it could, if approved, take a couple years for the process to be fully completed. But the prospect of a single community college in Oakland signals a sea change at the district — led by a chancellor who, 18 months into her post, wants to shake things up.

“There hasn’t ever been a formal process for this,” said Greg Nelson, the district’s head of operations. “People weren’t willing to go there.”

High pension costs and widespread defaults on student debt have dragged down the Peralta colleges’ finances over the years, while the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury scathingly tore into the district’s “administrative turmoil” in a 2021 report.

Following 68 layoffs in February, though, the district no longer expects budget cuts over the next two years, opening a narrow window for Peralta leaders to develop a long-term financial plan.

A potential merger could be the driving force of stability. California apportioned about $6.6 million this fiscal year for schools it designates “small colleges,” but a single Oakland City College would qualify as “medium”-sized, making it eligible for nearly $7.8 million in state funding.

The district, Nelson said, could attract an additional $2 million in funding if Merritt College earned a designation as a “center” for workforce training.

Over the years, Merritt has honed in on students pursuing health- and science-based fields, while Laney historically specialized in technical and vocational education before gradually adding some liberal arts disciplines.

All the Peralta schools share resources, part of a district-wide philosophy called “embracing the swirl” that regularly sees students hopping between the various campuses. A merger would save money by slashing duplicative positions, though exactly how much is not yet known.

Layoffs would likely prioritize top-level management staff — which, as of this year, totaled 17 administrators at Laney and 11 at Merritt. But it could also involve assistants and other employees who aid those administrators, such as college presidents, vice presidents and deans.

“There’s a lot of nervousness around this proposal,” said Richard Thoele, a leader at SEIU 1021, which represents non-faculty workers, which are often called “classified employees.” Nearly half of the layoffs announced in February came from this group.

Oakland Roots Soccer Club fans watch a United Soccer League game against San Antonio FC at Laney College soccer field in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. The Roots is looking for a new stadium to fit its growing fan base. Matches at Laney College average 4,300 fans a night, with a maximum capacity of 5,500 while multiple games have sold out, said Roots spokesman Tommy Hodul. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 

Athletics programs would also likely face cuts. The Laney Eagles and the Merritt Panthers, formerly the T-Birds, each have their own basketball teams, as well as women’s track and cross-country squads. Across decades of existing separately, the colleges’ sports programs have built their own legacies.

“Merging could get you stronger talent and resources in one place,” said John Beam, the athletics director at Laney College. “But a lot of the pride that we have at Laney sports — how do you keep that?”

Then there is Merritt’s unique cultural footprint. Before relocating the college to the hills, its North Oakland campus became a key space where Black Panther Party co-founders Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton would convene.

“(Merritt) was the nexus, the impetus, for our Black Panther Party,” David Hilliard, a former member of the party, said in a 2014 documentary directed by retired Peralta spokesperson Jeffrey Heyman.

“That particular college gave expression to primarily African-Americans,” Hilliard added, noting Merritt’s early adoption of ethnic studies programs.

Laney’s campus, centrally located just east of downtown and south of Lake Merritt, has become a community gathering space — often used for local political forums and, for a time, as stadium grounds for the Oakland Roots soccer franchise.

But existing as independent colleges has also invited a number of controversies at the Peralta schools, often attributed to a perceived lack of oversight.

In 2018, a whistleblower complaint by then-history professor Blake Johnson alleged that a Peralta trustee had violated campus finance laws — part of an institutional culture that Johnson described as “the Peralta Way,” according to news reports at the time.

And after the district’s financial struggles threatened the accreditation of its colleges, the civil grand jury in 2021 identified “tension, poor communication, lack of unified goals, and divisive individual behavior at Peralta.”

Enrollment, however, has remained steady the past few years at the two colleges and at the Peralta district as a whole, according to data compiled by both the district and a state office.

And despite anxieties about further staffing cuts, most officials interviewed for this story expressed optimism, overall, that reunifying Laney and Merritt may ultimately strengthen Oakland’s local higher education.

“It would require serious deliberation,” said Matthew Goldstein, a College of Alameda teacher who previously taught at Laney and once helmed the faculty union. “If we can do this in a thoughtful way that honors history, I could tolerate different names and different organizations.”

Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at [email protected].