MISSION VIEJO : CSUF Branch Gets Permanent Director

It’s official. George Giacumakis Jr., acting director of Cal State Fullerton’s South County satellite, on Monday became the permanent head of the year-old branch campus.

Giacumakis has overseen planning for the long-sought campus since August, 1987. It opened on the grounds of Saddleback College last fall with 383 students. Next fall, enrollment is projected to jump at least 187% to about 1,100 students, and to 3,000 by 1996.

“It really has been a lot of fun,” said Giacumakis, a Middle Eastern history professor and former chairman of CSUF’s history department. “It’s exciting to see what’s happening down here. Even with all its transportation problems, South Orange County will continue to grow. All the projections . . . show us growing too.”

Giacumakis (pronounced Jay-ka-may-kiss), 52, was one of 64 applicants in a national search for the director’s post. President Jewel Plummer Cobb chose him over two other finalists whom he described as “very, very qualified.”

Asked what gave him the edge, he said with self-deprecating humor: “I guess the university decided not to train another one.” He will receive $75,000 a year and plans to teach one history course a semester starting this fall.

Giacumakis has a Ph.D. in Mediterranean and Near Eastern studies from Brandeis University. He joined the Fullerton history faculty in 1963 and was department chair from 1972-75. He left to head the American Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem in 1978, where he stayed for six years before returning to Orange County.

The Mission Viejo campus is one of 10 such facilities operated by the California State University system.

CSUF’s quest for a South County campus was more than a decade-long struggle, one that gained steam after Cobb’s arrival in 1981.

The determined president eventually won faculty endorsement on the promise that it wouldn’t siphon dollars from the mother campus. Legislators, too, were persuaded, and even the governor, who vetoed the proposal a few years ago to save money, ultimately agreed to it.

CSUF’s branch campus operates with 43 faculty members teaching in seven classrooms that run almost continuously from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. during the regular school year. Only upper-division courses are taught as part of an agreement with the Saddleback District not to compete for freshmen and sophomores. Students can take a range of most courses except those in the sciences, which for now are taught only at the Fullerton campus.

By fall, 1991, the campus may expand into a fourth building. In the same year, CSUF officials must decide whether to extend a five-year contract with the Saddleback District and remain at the Mission Viejo site, Giacumakis said.

If the CSUF branch remains at Saddleback, Giacumakis said it could expand to accommodate about 5,000 students on about 22 acres. Other options may include leasing facilities on a proposed third Saddleback district campus planned near Rancho Santa Margarita, or building its own campus next to the proposed site.

Giacumakis and his wife, Joan, a registered nurse, live in Yorba Linda and have four adult children, three of whom are enrolled at Cal State Fullerton.