Cal State Fullerton Says It May Put New Branch on Saddleback Campus

Cal State Fullerton may put its south Orange County branch on the campus of Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, a university official said Tuesday.

Jack Coleman, Cal State’s vice president for academic affairs, said that he and university President Jewel Plummer Cobb had recently inspected the Saddleback campus “and were very impressed with the possibilities there.”

Coleman said that university officials were invited to look over about 22 acres of available land at Saddleback by Richard Sneed, the community college’s chancellor. Sneed and Saddleback President Constance Carroll both said Tuesday that they are hoping the four-year school will pick their campus for the long-discussed south Orange County branch of Cal State.

Would Rent Facilities

The university would have to rent facilities from Saddleback, but terms have not yet been negotiated.

The South County branch, Coleman pointed out, would be a facility at which Cal State professors would offer upper division (junior and senior) college courses that lead to a four-year bachelor’s degree.

Among the advantages of the Saddleback campus, Coleman said, would be “library facilities and a cafeteria for our students. These are major things that we were concerned about for our new center.”

Coleman said, however, that no firm decision has been reached by Cal State Fullerton officials. He added: “I think we will be making a decision in the next 60 days. We recognize that we should be moving to a decision now as soon as possible.”

Land Is Available

Carroll said the 22 acres of the so-called “lower campus” at Saddleback are available because the state in recent years has provided for new, high-rise buildings that are being clustered closer together on the higher elevations of the “upper campus.” The lower campus area, Carroll said, now has about 20 portable classroom buildings that could initially be used by the Cal State branch.

“We think this would be beneficial for all concerned, and certainly it would be beneficial for the taxpayers,” Sneed said. “It’s a lot easier to locate a new learning center at a location that already has utilities, a library, support services, parking and many other things for the students.”

Carroll said the lower campus area proposed for the south county branch would easily accommodate 5,000 or more students. “We’ve been having classes for twice that many students in the buildings there,” she said, adding: “It makes a lot of sense for two institutions of higher learning to work together like this. Saddleback College is one of the state’s major feeder schools to four-year universities, and our students certainly could benefit by having Cal State Fullerton offer courses here.”

Coleman said that Cal State Fullerton also is considering some commercial sites just off the Santa Ana Freeway in the Mission Viejo area. Those sites are not being publicly identified while negotiations are in progress.

“These (commercial sites) are building shells that could be completed to our needs if we decided on them,” said Coleman. “They’re close to the freeway and between the intersection of the 405 (San Diego) and 5 (Santa Ana) freeways and Mission Viejo.”

The California Postsecondary Education Commission in Sacramento said Tuesday that it is unusual, but not unique, in California for a four-year university to put a branch on a community college campus. Suzanne Ness, a commission spokeswoman, said that Delta College in Stockton and the community college system in San Francisco both have branches of the California State University on their campuses.

“The Postsecondary Commission thinks that from an education standpoint, this sort of thing makes very good sense,” said Ness. “We applaud it.”

No Official Name

Cal State Fullerton proposed the south Orange County branch to serve the rapidly growing communities of that area. Coleman said Tuesday that while the branch still has no official name, it is generally referred to as the “South Orange County Center.”

The proposed branch was hotly debated by Cal State Fullerton’s Academic Senate last year before being overwhelmingly approved. The California Postsecondary Education Commission on Feb. 2 gave its official blessing to the branch campus proposal. The California State University Board of Trustees had approved the idea earlier by including it in its budget request to Gov. George Deukmejian.

Deukmejian, however, failed to include the $500,000 needed to launch the new campus in his proposed 1987-88 budget. Coleman said that the university believes it has a much better chance of getting the money in the 1988-89 budget, and he said that Cal State Fullerton still plans on opening the south county branch in 1988.

“We’d planned to open in the spring of 1988, but now we’re planning on the fall of 1988,” Coleman said.

University officials have said that initial enrollment at the south county branch would be about 300, but that within a few years the enrollment of upper-division students would climb to 5,000.