Cal State L.A. Seeks Role as Gateway for Community

Nine years ago, Ruben Quintero was a deputy sheriff and chased gangbangers and car thieves through the hills and flats of Los Angeles’ Eastside. Now, in the same neighborhood, he is an assistant professor of English at Cal State Los Angeles, his alma mater, and he guides students through poetry’s rugged terrain.

“Many of the students here are in a similar situation to the one I was in. They need something else to enrich their lives, to enhance their careers,” explains Quintero, 41, a large, soft-spoken man who still seems very capable of tackling a burglar. “I would have not made the leap into teaching had I not been encouraged by the professors here.”

The grandson of illiterate immigrants from Mexico and the son of a man who started out as a fruit picker, Quintero knows firsthand the difficulties and rewards of higher education. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Cal State L.A. while working as a deputy to support his wife and four sons. That led to a fellowship and Ph.D. at Harvard, moonlighting as a prison guard, and then a return west to teach composition and British literature, stressing “language is empowering.”

California State University, Los Angeles, prides itself on providing students such opportunities for change and is increasingly providing them to the Asian and Latino immigrants and their children who are redefining Los Angeles. Yet those opportunities also mean troubled soul-searching on issues of shrunken enrollment and a high dropout rate as the school undergoes the once-a-decade review for national accreditation this spring.

Of the 20,804 students enrolled this year, about 30% are Latino, 28.5% Asian and 11.5% black--by far the highest representation of minorities at any major university in California. An astounding 28% of the students, primarily Latino and Asian immigrants, are not American citizens--among the highest at any university in the nation. Cal State L.A. also produces more Latino, Asian- and African-American teachers than anyplace else in the state.

“Cal State L.A. is probably close in its student body representation today to what any university campus in California, public or private, is going to look like early in the 21st Century,” explains Anthony Moye, deputy vice chancellor for academic affairs for the entire Cal State system. “And there’s always pluses and minuses in being the first to face problems and resolve them.”

Among those problems is white flight, fueled by a perception in some quarters--a racist one, the school’s boosters complain--that Cal State L.A. is not as good academically as its more Anglo sister campuses in Northridge and Long Beach. As a result, enrollment at Cal State L.A. is 18% below what it was 15 years ago, while most other public universities in California are overcrowded or growing.

In addition, how well the school prepares its diverse students is questioned in the face of mediocre scores on basic skills tests. Critics complain the school’s administrators should not tout ethnic diversity as much as figure out better what to do with it.

Located in El Sereno, five miles east of downtown, Cal State L.A. is a commuter school (residence halls, which first opened in 1984, now house only about 4% of students), is relatively cheap ($822 in annual basic fees for a full-time student), has many night classes (slightly more than half its students come part-time), and a student body juggling jobs, families and studies (the average undergraduate is 25 years old, and nearly 60% of the students spend at least 20 hours a week at their jobs.)

“A majority of the students here are working-class, commuter and Third World,” says Eva Barraza, a senior majoring in political science and a campus activist who grew up and still lives in El Sereno. “We don’t have the money, the influence or the prestige that makes a university snap to.”

To many Angelenos, Cal State L.A. is just that school perched above the San Bernardino Freeway near Monterey Park and Alhambra. Few outsiders visit because it lacks the academic cachet of a Stanford, the home town spirit of Cal State Long Beach, the medical center of UCLA, the well-known athletics of USC and the beauty of Pomona College. What’s more, it is only one of 20 Cal States, which often live in the shadow of the more glamorous nine University of California campuses.

The low-profile image persists, despite prominent alumni, including California Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally, County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, Sheriff Sherman Block, State Sen. Diane Watson, Assemblywoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, City Councilman Richard Alatorre, “Stand and Deliver” calculus teacher Jaime Escalante, L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling, Pacific Bell president Philip Quigley and policeman-turned-author Joseph Wambaugh.

Sadly, Cal State L.A.’s biggest moment in the public eye came in October, 1987, when the Whittier Narrows Earthquake caused $20.5 million in damage on campus, including a concrete garage panel that collapsed and killed a female pre-med student. Because of squabbling between the state and federal government over who should pay for repairs, the bridge linking the library’s wings is still held up with wooden pillars and the second-largest classroom building, Salazar Hall, has been closed since the quake and probably won’t reopen until September.

Student complaints about the slowness of repairs were presented to the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges, which is to finish its accreditation review of the campus by summer. Accreditation renewal, the stamp of approval from outside academia, is all but certain, but so are suggestions for improvements. Meanwhile, the campus is debating whether a new emphasis on the arts will improve its reputation and how it will affect bread-and-butter programs in business, education and engineering.

“I think it’s a fairly well-kept secret,” David Hinden, a 43-year-old attorney who is in the biology master’s program at Cal State L.A., said of the school. When Hinden mentions Cal State L.A. to some people in his Westside neighborhood, the response is either confusion with Cal State Northridge or questions about why he’s not at UCLA.

“I tell them it’s the place you pass on the way to Palm Springs,” he laughingly recalls. “Otherwise, to them it’s like saying Krakatoa east of Java.”

Yet Hinden, who wearied of the hassles of being a lawyer and, in midlife, decided to pursue his interest in science, says he is very pleased with his classes, even compared to his previous education at Cornell University and Yale Law School. “This place doesn’t have the bells and whistles you have at expensive Eastern schools,” says Hinden, who is thinking about becoming a teacher or specializing in bio-tech law. “What it has is a lot of really good, serious students getting an education and working their way through.”

Originally called Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences, the school awarded its first degree in 1948 at the Hollywood site it then shared with Los Angeles City College. In 1955, construction began on the present 175-acre campus of sterile modern architecture, abundant greenery and large parking lots that are busy from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The most eye-catching landmark is the gymnasium’s enormous ceramic mural depicting many different sports; created for the 1984 Olympics, the work has a colorful Mexican style that reminds a visitor of the Latino flavor on campus. A brief stroll away, outside the Student Union building, is a symbol of Asian presence: a 16-foot-high bronze statue of Confucius. The 1987 gift from Taiwan has inscribed on its marble base: “Among truly educated persons, there is no discrimination.”

Adding to the United Nations feel are many signs for ethnic clubs’ activities, like a Korean Bible Study barbecue fund raiser near the union. A tangy plate of beef ribs, rice and vegetables went for $4, attracting a steady stream of customers, Asian and non-Asian. That pleased Daniel Pak, the group’s president.

“This is America and different kinds of people have different personalities,” said Pak, 23, a junior majoring in international business who emigrated from Korea five years ago. “That’s why I like this school. I have more opportunity to meet all different people, and that’s good preparation for the business world.”

Over the past 15 years, Anglo enrollment at Cal State L.A. dropped from 49% of the student body to the current 30%, and black enrollment decreased from 15% to 11.5%. Large increases in Asians and Latinos have not offset those losses.

The development of Cal State Dominguez Hills closer to black neighborhoods in South Los Angeles--along with the dip in overall college attendance by blacks--may explain their downward trend at Cal State L.A. And the San Gabriel Valley, from which the university draws about half its students, has seen much Asian influx and Anglo flight. Yet some Anglo students in nearby Pasadena drive long distances to other schools even though Cal State L.A. is closer.

“There is no question potential students in our area are not even considering Cal State Los Angeles and are going to Northridge, Pomona, Long Beach or Fullerton,” says speech communications professor Robert Kully, a leader in faculty politics and a former CalState system trustee. But he says the reason may not be racial bias but fear of being among students who need academic hand-holding.

About 26% of the fall 1988 freshmen were admitted by waiving the usual requirements in high school grades and college entrance exam scores--compared to about 10% across the Cal State system. For the L.A. campus, that means obvious academic difficulties as well as pride in providing access to middle-class careers.

The most popular undergraduate degrees now are in business administration, electrical engineering, child development and nursing. The most popular masters are in educational administration, business administration and special education.

“At times, it can get real boring here because so many people just walk from the car to class and from class to their car,” said junior biochemistry major Timothy Huerta, 19, of Maywood, who expects to be the first in his Chicano family to earn a bachelor’s degree. But he described professors as very accessible: “I never met one who wouldn’t sit down and talk to you. And that’s important, because the people who come here are more susceptible to change and have more desire to get ahead.”

Still, despite much remedial work, more than a third of those who took it recently failed the writing proficiency examination required for graduation, although that figure includes students who repeatedly fail. And Cal State L.A. graduates, as a whole, perform below average on the California Basic Educational Skills Test needed for teaching credentials: 62% of the Cal State L.A. baccalaureate holders who took the CBEST last year passed it, compared with 74% for all test-takers, 72% for Long Beach State alumni, 79% for USC and 84% for UCLA.

Also embarrassing is overall enrollment. Although the decline bottomed out five years ago, there are still about 4,700 fewer students on the Los Angeles campus now than in 1975. That has meant budget problems since funding is based on the number of students.

Some legislators ask why they should pay for proposed new Cal State campuses in Southern California when there is still plenty of room at Cal State L.A. The unspoken questions: Is there prejudice among whites against attending Cal State L.A.? Or is something wrong at Cal State L.A.?

Everyone seems to agree that Cal State L.A.’s image could use a boost. And its biggest booster is James M. Rosser, the university’s president since 1979.

Rosser practically bounces out of his chair with enthusiasm as he ticks off the school’s accomplishments: Engineering students are building a solar-powered car in competition with such prestigious schools as MIT. Nearly half of the students in the biomedical research program for minorities go on to advanced degrees in the sciences, medicine or dentistry. Women’s track has Olympic medalists.

“This institution probably stands as an unparalleled public university if you take into consideration the characteristics of the entering student body and then what they’ve achieved in later life,” says Rosser, a microbiologist who used to be vice chancellor of higher education in New Jersey.

Rosser has been accused of trying to squelch any bad news by dismissing two faculty publishers of the student newspaper in the past two years. The president denies any censorship, saying the changes were made to improve the University Times.

Also controversial have been his moves to boost the university’s identity by emphasizing the arts. The Los Angeles County High School for the Arts has been housed on the campus since 1985. The Joffrey Ballet began last year to use the university as its summer West Coast rehearsal base, an arrangement expected to continue despite the Joffrey’s current managerial turmoil. Groundbreaking is expected soon for a new $21 million complex of two theaters and a gallery.

Some teachers and students resent this arts emphasis as a luxury at the expense of earthquake repairs and better overall maintenance. It has led to tension between faculty leaders and Rosser, who says the new arts center will provide a better cultural life for the Eastside.

Improving ties with the surrounding neighborhoods is important to him. Rosser, who is black, arrived at the school 11 years to face protests that a Latino should have been named president.

Over the past decade, student recruitment has improved in the Eastside community, but the university’s roots are not deep enough, says Reva Trevino, past president of the Mexican-American alumni organization. A consultant for the county’s Human Relations Commission, she recounts how that group adopted the Malabar Street Elementary School, less than two miles from campus. “When we go to Malabar and ask the fifth-grade children, they have no awareness of the university whatsoever,” she says, adding sadly that many of the youngsters are familiar with another big institution nearby: Sybil Brand Institute, the women’s jail.

Also troubling is the dropout rate. According to a recent study, about 43% of the Cal State L.A. students entering as freshmen in fall 1983 had graduated or were still in school five years later, compared with about 52% for the entire Cal State system.

Still, Quintero, the deputy-turned-English-professor, finds his Cal State L.A. students more interesting to teach than their peers at Harvard. “They are not polished like the Harvard students, but they are hungry for knowledge,” he said. “They have tremendous motivation and don’t have time to waste.”