San Marcos Storefront Busy : SDSU Considering N. County Campus

Alongside California 78 here, sandwiched between Young’s Carpet and Ace Pest Control in 7,200 square feet of antiseptic industrial park space, sits San Diego State University’s North County Center.

Unlike its massive mother campus east of Mission Valley on “Montezuma Mesa,” the fledgling North County Center is a tiny facility, consisting of two offices, several classrooms, a computer lab, a small library and an even smaller student lounge. A pair of restrooms rounds out the state university’s northern branch, which was founded in the fall of 1979.

Although a red sign posted above the front door identifies it as “SDSU,” most people need more help than that to find the mini-campus, which sits in the shadow of Jerome’s Furniture Warehouse.

“Nothing against Jerome’s, but it’s a bit embarrassing to use a furniture store as the university’s major landmark,” said Richard R. Rush, the center’s director and a former SDSU professor.

Enrollment on Rise Despite the center’s decidedly low profile and cramped, Spartan quarters, enrollment has bounded upward recently. A record 169 full-time students--those taking 15 units of course work--plus 230 attending part-time crowded into the 45 courses offered last semester. That enrollment was a 50% increase over the previous year’s. Officials expect 250 full-time students next fall and 500 by the fall semester of 1986.

That growth--combined with projections of a continued population boom, increased industrial development in North County and severe overcrowding on the San Diego campus--has prompted university officials to consider replacing its storefront satellite center with a full-fledged North County campus.

The effort would be expensive. SDSU officials project that it could cost as much as $40 million to create a 200- to 400-acre North County campus over the next decade.

But the need is there, they contend. The major difference between the existing small center and the proposed campus, at least initially, would be the expansion of available classes. Current course offerings are so few that students in some majors must take occasional courses at the main campus--nearly an hour’s drive from much of North County.

A new campus would allow students to complete all of their course work in North County. It would offer a much greater range of disciplines than the five undergraduate--liberal studies, American studies, social sciences, public administration and accounting--and two graduate degrees--education and social work--available at the tiny center. And it would offer a full range of support services, including counseling, job placement and administration.

Initially, the campus would offer only upper-division classes--course work for juniors and seniors--in order to avoid duplicating the efforts of North County’s two community colleges, MiraCosta and Palomar. Within a decade, it would likely evolve into a four-year institution.

‘It’s a bit embarrassing to use a furniture store as the university’s major landmark.’ --North County Center Director Richard R. Rush As for faculty, Rush said officials are still wrestling with that issue. Currently, the center has no faculty members based there full time. Rather, the instructors are full-time professors at the main campus who commute north to teach part time. That situation would probably continue, he said.

“Our faculty will not be totally distinct like the faculty on the Imperial Valley campus,” Rush said, referring to SDSU’s other satellite campus, in Calexico. (That one, on eight acres, was founded in 1959 and has never grown much beyond its current enrollment of 300 students.) But Rush said that most of those appointed to teach at the North County campus likely would be residents of the area.

SDSU’s plans are in the infant stages. Funds still must be secured from the state Legislature to finance a feasibility study.

But college officials say that if all goes without a hitch and the Legislature ultimately approves, the campus could open its doors in 1990 and could enroll as many as 10,000 students by 2000.

“It’s all a long way down the road, and there are many hurdles in our path,” said Rush, who took over as director in July. “But we feel strongly that the demographics are right. The interest is high, and the tremendous growth forecast for North County makes the campus an obvious necessity for the area.”

While a satellite campus may be little more than a gleam in the eye of hopeful academics, city officials in all corners of North County are greeting the university’s plans with interest. In most cases, they are making it very clear that they would be delighted to play host. Although none has actively lobbied to become SDSU’s North County site, most have taken Rush on tours of their city’s available land.

Officials in Carlsbad, Vista, San Marcos and Escondido are cautious in discussing the matter at this early date. But, when pressed, all quickly express enthusiasm about the idea and produce a list of reasons why San Diego State should locate on their turf. (Oceanside is not likely to be seriously considered, however, because of a lack of unoccupied, centrally located land, said Oceanside City Councilman John MacDonald.)

Benefits Listed It is not difficult to see why the proposal has aroused such interest. Although, as a public institution, the university would pay no taxes, the city that is chosen as host stands to gain immeasurable indirect benefits from its presence. These range from an improved ability to lure high-tech industry seeking the research and employee pool that a college provides, to the cultural and intellectual enrichment of a college campus.

Then there’s simply the prestige of being known as a university town.

“There’s no question that any city would consider it a real coup to get San Diego State based within its city limits,” said Ken Lounsberry, former city manager of Escondido and now vice president of Lusardi Construction Co. in San Marcos. “A university means an undeniable improvement in the quality of life for a community. Also, a huge factor in industry’s decision to locate in a city depends on the educational resources available, so the city that has the branch will be way ahead.”

That is not lost on Vista Mayor Mike Flick, clearly the most eager and unrestrained of the North County leaders hoping to snag San Diego State. When asked why the campus should make its home in his city rather than elsewhere in the region, Flick replied, “Because we want them here more.”

Further, Flick called Vista “the geographical hub of North County, so it makes good business sense to locate here. And we’ve got abundant available land that would be just perfect for a university campus.”

In Carlsbad, City Manager Frank Aleshire has plenty of reasons why SDSU should put its new campus in his city. Carlsbad, “as a coastal community, might not be as centrally located a place as San Diego State desires,” but it is “a city with upper-middle income, well-educated residents who would be very supportive of a university, much like a Santa Cruz or a Santa Barbara,” he said.

“We’ve also got what is likely North County’s strongest high-tech industry area near Palomar Airport, with computers and robotics and biomedical research and all kinds of projects on the cutting edge,” said Aleshire, who is a member of the North County Center Advisory Council, made up of industry and government representatives.

“Those scientists and executives are very interested in a setting where they can work with a university, to recruit, improve and advance their employees’ skills and further their research,” he said.

Housing a Factor The pitch from San Marcos, the North County center’s home since it moved here from Vista two years ago, is that theirs is the best site for a full-fledged campus because San Marcos is an emerging community poised to accommodate major population and industrial growth.

San Marcos Planning Director Darrell Gentry, who met last week with Rush to discuss potential campus sites, added that the city of 19,000 has “a mix of housing types--from apartments to mobile-home parks and high-priced homes--that would easily meet the needs of anyone attending or employed by the university.”

That factor may give San Marcos and inland cities with similar housing stock an advantage over Carlsbad, where housing for students on a budget is practically non-existent.

Finally, Escondido City Manager Vernon Hazen contends that a university campus would make his city “just about textbook perfect” and expects San Diego State representatives will want to locate there--in the community considered North County’s eastern anchor.

“First of all, unlike most of our neighbors, we are a full-service city, prepared to provide all the infrastructure--police, water, sewer, fire services--you’d ever need, and we’re not factionalized by special utility districts,” Hazen said. “Secondly, Escondido is perfectly situated to serve the accelerating growth all along the I-15 corridor and up into southern Riverside County, which is projected to produce a much bigger market than southern Orange County.”

Finally, Hazen notes with obvious pride, Escondido’s ambitious plans for a $52-million cultural arts center--scheduled to be built in about the same time frame as the proposed campus--are important to people associated with a university.

“My point here is, in a cultural sense, there ain’t going to be another place like it in North County,” Hazen said. “The potential for a partnership between the arts center and the university, along teaching lines, is tremendous. This could become the showcase of the entire state college system.”

There is, of course, a down side to hosting a university. A college demands a hefty load of public services. It can produce traffic congestion, and it consumes a large chunk of land that could be developed in tax-generating commercial or industrial ways. Still, most city officials say the benefits outweigh those drawbacks.

If the Legislature loosens the purse strings at the university’s request this spring, a feasibility study would take about a year, SDSU officials said. Then, assuming results of the study justify the need for a North County campus, a formal proposal would begin winding its way through the state university bureaucracy, eventually returning to the Legislature and the governor for final approval.

State Sen. William Craven (R-Oceanside), who in 1968 spearheaded a similar attempt to establish a North County campus but watched it die in the Legislature, said he feels optimistic that the proposal will win approval this time around.

“The existing demand for the campus and the potential students who will come with the growth expected for North County make our case very good this time,” said Craven, who also was instrumental in securing the small state grant that made possible the opening of the North County Center in 1979. “Furthermore, to wait any longer poses two problems. Either the land will be all gone or that which remains will be so exorbitantly expensive that a campus won’t be feasible.”

Carlsbad’s Aleshire and others note another factor: San Diego’s painful 1983 loss of a major, high-tech consortium to Austin, Tex., will likely assist SDSU in its bid to create a full-fledged campus.

“It’s no secret that MCC (the firm, Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corp.) chose Austin primarily because the educational facilities in this county were not comparable to those in other urban areas,” Aleshire said. “I think that made everyone realize that what we’re really lacking up here is that final element--a four-year university. It will help round out and put North County on the map.”

The loss of MCC, which took 400 scientists and engineers as well as an annual research budget of $50 million and $100 million to Austin, was a blow, but the loss has also been credited with subsequently boosting funding for higher education in California.

Because a verdict on a full-fledged North County campus could be years away, Rush said, there are plans to expand the existing center’s rather limited course offerings to better serve students in the interim.

For students majoring in most disciplines, course offerings at the center are not sufficient for graduation, so they must journey to the main campus in San Diego for an occasional class.

“That’s something we really want to improve upon,” Rush said. “Commuting down there, not to mention the parking hassles, is truly inconvenient for North County residents.”