Colleges Build for the Future : 1990s: Officials prepare for major changes on campus. They say increased state funding is critical.

The bulldozers, hard hats and faculty recruiters who helped build UC Irvine and its academic reputation through the 1980s are expected to continue their work during the coming decade.

The 1990s also will find the county’s other four-year public institution, Cal State Fullerton, tackling huge enrollment demands and the question of whether to build another campus.

Administrators say the 1990s will bring a more ethnically diverse group of students to the schools, which will have to struggle to attract top-notch faculty to keep pace with growth and retirements.

“It should be a real exciting time with a lot of changes,” said Mary-Louise Kean, associate vice chancellor of academic affairs at UC Irvine. Kean said the next 10 years will be crucial for UCI as it begins a second “build-out” phase that administrators believe will thrust the 25-year-old school--young, by university standards--into the national spotlight.

One challenge facing the school as it strives for recognition is “achieving distinction in existing academic strengths,” such as comparative literature and mathematical behavioral science, Kean said. Another will be developing new disciplines of interest in fields such as geo-science, Pacific Rim issues and ethnic studies, she said.

Construction at UCI will continue at a rapid pace into the ‘90s with academic facilities and mixed-use projects slated for development throughout the sprawling, 1,489-acre campus, lending credence to the school’s unofficial acronym: Under Construction Indefinitely.

One plan calls for a new research park--a public-private venture to develop a high-tech industrial and research complex aimed at generating money for the university.

And, as the campus evolves and takes on a new look in the next decade, so too will the student body and faculty. “We can expect to see a larger population of minorities here,” said Manuel Gomez, assistant vice chancellor in charge of student affirmative action. “You can look at the future by looking at the state’s current pool of students” in elementary school, he said, noting that minorities make up more than half the population in those grades.

Administrators at UCI will be working closely with those at Cal State Fullerton to develop joint degrees, a program that will allow students to earn academic credits at both schools.

Jack Coleman, vice president of academic affairs at Cal State Fullerton, which also is in the midst of heavy construction, said he expects the demand for education to be so great that it might warrant building another campus.

He said it will be important for the state to finance higher education in the next decade.

“The state will have to ensure that each campus is utilized to its fullest. Maybe what this will mean is that we go to state-supported, year-round operations as opposed to student-supported summer sessions,” he said. “The state is going to have put a lot of resources into education.”

Coleman said both Cal State Fullerton and UCI will have an “increased emphasis on the international aspects of curriculum as well as greater implementation of computers and other high-tech equipment into the learning process in the next decade.”

At Chapman College, the county’s largest private institution, physical and academic growth also will be a common theme in the ‘90s. Enrollment of full-time students is expected to jump in the next couple of years from 1,860 to 2,260. Also by the mid-’90s, three buildings will be constructed, including a state-of-the-art residence hall equipped with computer terminals and loft beds.

At community colleges, where the “strength is in the quality of teaching and not the research,” educators will be relied upon heavily to prepare students to transfer into four-year institutions, said David Grant, president of Orange Coast College.

In the next decade, community colleges also will be expected to train people who want to make career changes, he said. He noted the average age of the students on campus currently is 28, and 20% already have bachelor degrees. “We have a real obligation to make sure that all of our students are successful in what they plan to do. . . . These colleges belong to the community.”