UCI Classes at Theaters Pass Muster After Fire Dept. Warning

As more than 300 freshmen took their seats for a Thursday morning humanities lecture, an Orange County fire inspector scanned the crowded hall, hoping he wouldn’t have to turn any students away.

About 25 seats remained empty when Prof. Guy Sircello began his presentation on St. Augustine’s views of God and love. The inspector, John Moore, was satisfied that attendance was within the auditorium’s capacity.

A criminal justice lecture was under way in the same building. Empty seats were plentiful there, too.

“No problems today,” Moore pronounced, standing in the lobby of the Edwards University Cinemas, where UC Irvine leases space to hold some of its larger lectures. A day earlier, he had found 35 people sitting on the floor of a packed hall, prompting the threat of turning students away Thursday.

“It appears the problem has been rectified,” Moore said.

The problem is overcrowding. And it has plagued the Irvine campus in recent years--affecting class size, housing, traffic and parking.

This year, university officials said, as many as 452 students have enrolled in classes that meet in the theaters across the street from the main campus, auditoriums designed to hold 350 or 380 people.

This week, Orange County fire officials said they would enforce Irvine city building codes limiting the number of people in those halls to the number of fixed seats available.

Thursday, the students were cautioned to keep their books and bags out of the aisles and asked to point out empty seats as late-comers straggled in.

“A few (students) have been” sitting on the floor or standing in rear of the hall during his lectures, said Sircello, a philosophy professor. “They come late, and they don’t see the seats in the middle. They don’t want to disturb . . . or interrupt their fellow students.”

A bigger reason, though, is UCI’s growing popularity and new application procedures that make it easier for high school seniors to apply to more than one University of California campus.

In trying to reach their target enrollment--2,400 freshmen this year--the Irvine campus estimates that about 30% of the students it accepts will enroll in the fall, said Kathy Jones, assistant vice chancellor for communications.

But this year, the yield was much higher: 2,965 new freshmen enrolled at UCI this fall. Overall, 14,532 full-time students now attend the Irvine campus, Jones said. “The target for next year is to maintain that level of enrollment.”

Overcrowding is exacerbated by students who attend lectures on days other than those for which they are enrolled. Many freshmen, for example, catch Sircello’s humanities class on Wednesday instead of Thursday, said Terry Parsons, UCI’s dean of humanities.

“It’s just not feasible to check cards at the door,” Parsons said, but he predicted that attrition will help reduce the strain. “As the quarter wears on,” he said, “the problem just disappears.”

County fire officials have not decided when, or how often, inspectors will return to check attendance in the theater complex, Moore said.

Overcrowded classes are not limited to the big lectures at the Edwards Cinemas. “My next class is worse,” said Heidi Higgins, a junior from Anaheim who was attending the criminal justice lecture Thursday morning.

In her social relationships class, Higgins said, students have to sit on tables or the floor of the physical sciences building. “It’s hard to find a seat,” she said.

The state fire marshal has jurisdiction over university facilities, Moore noted. His enforcement powers extend only to classes held off campus in the City of Irvine.

Plans to ease the strain of overcrowding include a proposal to rent additional auditorium space at Edwards’ six-theater complex, Jones said.

UCI already has set up temporary classrooms, opened additional sections of popular classes and extended the hours of administrative offices and the campus bookstore to deal with the crush of students, she said.

At UCI, about 35% of the undergraduate and graduate students live on campus--the second-highest percentage among the University of California’s nine campuses. Still, “plans are on the drawing board to put additional housing on campus,” Jones said. “We (also) will continue to add parking.”

UCI will retain its target enrollment of 2,400 new freshmen, Jones said. “Because our yield is increasing, we anticipate that we will be admitting fewer students. But I can’t tell you at this point what that number will be.”

University officials probably will make new estimates of their freshmen yield and decide in November or December how many applicants to accept, she said. “As a popular campus, we’re going to continue to feel some pressure,” Jones said.