Fullerton Faculty OKs Plan for Arena, Hotel

The Academic Senate at California State University, Fullerton, voted overwhelmingly Thursday to permit construction on the Orange County campus of a sports arena and a Marriott Hotel, the first commercial building at any public university in the state.

Despite complaints from some professors that sports are superseding academics, the vote of the 44-member faculty group was 38 to 4, with one abstention and one absence.

Earlier in the week, University President Jewel Plummer Cobb took the unusual step of turning over to the Senate the decision on whether to proceed with the long-debated facility. She said she would abandon plans for the $16-million hotel, a 10,000-seat stadium and a 2,000-seat baseball field if they voted against it.

Cal State Fullerton currently has no facility for major outdoor sports events.

Faculty opposition was aimed less at the novel hotel proposal than at the $6.7-million sports complex. Critics said it would mean expanding athletics at the expense of academics and that sports already was receiving too large a share of the university’s money. Cobb, however, insisted that the complex would not take money from academics, and would, in fact, be built “without having to do any private fund raising on our part.”

University officials said the sports complex, when completed in 1989, would be self-sustaining from ticket sales and rentals.