It’s a Start : After 10 Years, Cal State Fullerton’s Southern Campus to Open in 3 Trailers

When Jewel Plummer Cobb, president of Cal State Fullerton, and Richard J. Sneed, chancellor of Saddleback Community College District, ceremoniously signed a lease for Cal State Fullerton’s long-awaited South County campus last week, it was just that--ceremony.

The document was a facsimile substituted at the last minute because state attorneys, who have had the real lease for three months, still have not completed scrutinizing the lease.

It has always taken some imagination to envision the university satellite. First proposed nearly 10 years ago to serve the burgeoning South County, the branch campus has finally found a home in three trailers at Saddleback Community College in Mission Viejo. Lease or no lease, classes will begin there Monday.

“It is like a dream come true,” said Cobb, the prime mover behind a South County site. “It means that now we can more effectively fulfill our mission to serve all of Orange County.”

Funds Vetoed Last Year

Plans for the satellite campus, which were delayed when Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed start-up funds last year, moved into high gear July 7, when the governor approved $636,000 for remodeling, lease and administrative costs. But because architectural drawings for renovation of the 20-year-old trailers were delayed by state officials, work could not begin until Aug. 1.

Sawdust still was flying last week as workers hustled to transform 7,500 square feet of trailer space into seven classrooms, a computer center, administrative and faculty offices and a library reading room with computer links to the Fullerton campus.

Just five days before students were scheduled to take their seats for the fall term, electrical wiring dangled from wall sockets, cement floors remained exposed and fluorescent light tubes and ceiling panels littered the future quad. Lower priority work--landscaping, exterior paint and building signs--had yet to begin.

“We’ve only had three weeks to gut these trailers and build classrooms,” said George Giacumakis Jr., acting director of the Mission Viejo campus. “It’s been a race. Students could have come here to avoid registration lines in Fullerton, but we didn’t advertise that because we didn’t know if we’d be set up in time.”

The pace is one indication of the determination behind the satellite, said Sneed, whose offer of unused Saddleback buildings ended Cal State Fullerton’s search for costly land or rental space in the South County in 1987. The university will pay $135,000 a year for rent, use of Saddleback’s library and other services. A fourth trailer will be renovated for use next year.

“We’ve gone out to bid, let contracts and we’re getting the work done in an incredibly short period of time,” Sneed said. “It’s amazing that we would even attempt something like this, except that people really want it so bad.”

Because of cramped quarters and time constraints, only 26 courses were offered for the first semester. Those were quickly filled, and 350 to 400 students will begin classes in English, business, history, nursing and education this week. Within five years, enrollment could balloon to 5,000, and Cal State Fullerton is expected to seek funds for permanent buildings on the 22-acre lower Saddleback campus.

As the satellite grows and offerings expand, students will be able to complete their first two years of study at Saddleback College, then transfer to Cal State Fullerton to finish selected degrees without ever leaving Mission Viejo.

Ambitious Ideas

Although university officials have proposed only limited, upper-level and graduate courses for the branch campus, some suggest that it could be the seed for a new Cal State university. Others propose a new kind of campus entirely, one that would combine a community college, a four-year Cal State university and perhaps some University of California programs.

The ideas are ambitious, but so was the satellite proposal a decade ago.

“Population growth has been heavy in that area,” said Kenneth B. O’Brien, executive director of the California Postsecondary Education Commission, which makes recommendations on public higher education expansion to the governor. “Some people would disagree about the need for another new campus, but not the people in southern Orange County or northern San Diego County.”

A combined campus, with a community college, state university and University of California, perhaps located in South Orange County, would make the best use of all levels of higher education resources and is “something we should consider,” O’Brien said.

The demand is there, Cobb and others agree. Worsening commuter traffic, combined with a housing boom in South Orange County and North San Diego County during the last decade, have combined to increase the need for a Cal State campus while making Fullerton and San Diego State University harder to reach.

Campus in San Marcos

The planned 1990 opening of the 20th Cal State university in San Marcos, about 40 miles south of Mission Viejo, will not meet the needs of Orange County commuters, local officials and lawmakers said. Individually, community colleges generally require 100 to 200 acres, Cal State campuses about 500 acres and University of California locations 1,000 acres.

“From my perspective, every indication suggests that there will be a need for at least a four-year university established somewhere in the central part of that southern area,” said Jack W. Coleman, Cal State Fullerton vice president for academic affairs.

“Whether that would be this campus (Mission Viejo) or not is a question mark.”

Cobb called the combined campus concept “an interesting idea” but said consideration is at least eight years away. Saddleback Chancellor Sneed called it “intriguing.”

Hundreds of acres of undeveloped land, much of it owned by the Mission Viejo Co., surround the rolling Saddleback campus. Giacumakis, who has learned a thing or two about politics and finance during his two-year tenure as shepherd of the branch campus project, takes it all in with a sweep of his arm.

“Everybody wants a four-year institution in their back yard,” he said. “And here sits all this land.”