Saddleback Plan : Dual Campus May Become Two Colleges

Orange County soon may get its eighth community college.

Saddleback College, which has campuses in Mission Viejo and Irvine, is likely to be divided into two colleges next week.

A proposal on the agenda of the April 8 board of trustees meeting of the Saddleback Community College District would make Saddleback’s Irvine campus a separate college and give it a new name--as yet unpicked. The Mission Viejo campus would continue to be known as Saddleback College.

Saddleback’s North Campus has about 5,000 students; South Campus, in Mission Viejo, has an enrollment of about 18,000.

Some civic boosters of the Irvine area are among the supporters of the division. The Irvine Chamber of Commerce board has urged college trustees to name the new institution “Irvine Community College.”

“We’re set to vote on it at our board meeting, and I think it’ll pass,” said William Watts, president of the college district’s board of trustees. “But there is diverse opinion on the board, and two trustees want to delay action. Others want it to pass right away, and my belief is that it will pass.”

Watts, who favors the two-college proposal, said the change would not immediately increase costs for the community college district. He noted that the campuses already have separate staffs and presidents.

Watts acknowledged, however, that “farther down the road” the new college might want to expand its facilities and activities, such as having its own athletic teams. “My feeling is that they’ll have to grow a little bit more before some of those things would be in order,” said Watts.

Trustee Eugene C. McKnight opposes the change. “I recently visited campuses of community colleges in Washington and Oregon, and without exception, the chief executives of colleges in those states said multi-campus colleges are preferable over multi-college districts,” McKnight said. “They said this avoids unnecessary duplication of facilities . . . .

“I’ve urged my fellow trustees to delay action on this proposal . . . . North Campus is hardly off the ground . . . and I do not think we need two colleges.”

William Schreiber, executive assistant to Saddleback Chancellor Larry Stevens, said three reports on the question all favored establishing separate colleges. He said the reports followed studies by Stevens, by the combined Academic Senate of the two campuses and by a faculty-administrative staff Master Planning Committee.

Studies Were Favorable

Schreiber noted, however, that all three reports recommended avoiding duplicate facilities or increasing costs to the college district.

“In a sense, this is just a semantical action,” said Schreiber. “In essence, nothing is going to change that much except the name. Obviously, it could become more than that in the future.”

Schreiber said the two-college concept has the support of the presidents of the two Saddleback campuses and Chancellor Stevens, who would remain chief executive of both colleges.

Last week, the board of trustees governing Santa Ana College voted to change the school’s name to Rancho Santiago College. The trustees said that name change was intended to unify the identity of the college’s three campuses--in Santa Ana, Orange and Garden Grove--and to keep them from becoming separate colleges.

One-College Organization

The Rancho Santiago Community College District, said the trustees, is committed to a one-college model.

By contrast, the Saddleback board, with one two-campus school, has indicated it favors the multi-college approach.

Orange County’s other five community colleges are all in districts that have separate colleges, rather than multiple campuses. Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, Golden West College in Huntington Beach, and Coastline Community College, based in Fountain Valley, all are part of Coast Community College District.

Fullerton College and Cypress College are in North Orange County Community College District.