UC Says It May Need Up to 3 New Campuses

Facing a projected enrollment boom for the next 20 years, the University of California probably has to build a 10th campus, or even an 11th or 12th, UC officials said Thursday.

“We are beginning to plan how to plan for another campus,” William Baker, UC vice president in charge of budget and university relations, said at a meeting of the Board of Regents.

Without more classrooms and dormitories, officials said, the system may have to abandon its tradition of admitting all eligible California high school students--those in the top 12.5% academically. “It’s been increasingly difficult to fulfill that commitment,” said William Frazer, UC’s senior vice president of academic affairs.

Spurred by the university’s good reputation and relatively low fees, enrollment has grown over the last 10 years, even though the number of college-age students has dropped, both in California and nationwide.

Officials project that the current enrollment of 155,000 may grow to 200,000 within two decades because of the so-called “echo boom” effect--in which children of baby boomers will reach college age--and an increased presence of Asian and Latino immigrants.

The university would like to expand facilities at some of its existing nine campuses. However, such attempts are likely to provoke opposition from surrounding communities that already complain about problems--from traffic to housing--caused by the schools.

“From what I read, the only community that would welcome growth is Riverside,” said Yori Wada, a regent from San Francisco.

“And Fresno,” quickly added Frank W. Clark Jr., chairman of the Board of Regents. He was referring to the well-known lobbying by Fresno-area officials to get a campus built there.

UC President David P. Gardner said he expected to present more detailed information about ways to handle enrollment growth at the October meeting of the regents. At a press conference after Thursday’s meeting, Gardner said it would take between six and eight years to build a new campus once the regents approved such a decision and the state agreed to pay for it. He said the cost would depend on many variables, including location and whether the campus would include both undergraduate and graduate studies.

The regents met Thursday in a non-voting session to discuss the complicated and controversial issue of undergraduate admissions. Competition has become increasingly fierce at the most popular UC campuses, particularly UC Berkeley and UCLA, and more and more UC-eligible students complain about being rejected at their first-choice campus.

If the commitment to admit all eligible students is dropped, minority and low-income students might suffer the most, several regents and guest speakers said. Asian-American activists have claimed that the UC system has unfairly limited the number of Asian students admitted as freshmen, an allegation the university denies.

In a separate action, the regents approved Gardner’s choice of John H. Nuckolls as the new director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the nation’s two nuclear weapons research centers. UC manages the laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy. Nuckolls currently heads the laboratory’s physics department, which has worked on the controversial Strategic Defense Initiative space-based laser program. He will become lab director in April, succeeding Roger Batzel, who has held the post since 1971.

The lab, in Alameda County on the outskirts of Livermore, has 8,250 employees and an annual research budget of more than $850 million.

The regents’ decision to promote Nuckolls was made behind closed doors, but Gardner later said that there was no dissent among the members. Gardner, however, acknowledged that some regents questioned Nuckolls about his stance on SDI. The controversial program has been criticized by some scientists both inside and outside the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. The critics say that supporters of the project have exaggerated its research success so far.

At a press conference, Nuckolls complained about his characterization in the press as an SDI advocate. “I’m an advocate of the common defense, and if SDI is the best way of doing that, fine,” he said. However, Nuckolls said that he would be willing to stop SDI research if a better defense program were found.