CSUSM Lays Out Its First Welcome Mat

Chick Cullen is making his fourth attempt at a bachelor’s degree, and this time he’s confident he’ll make it.

After dropping out of the U.S. Naval Academy 45 years ago, Cullen drifted to a small New England college and then to the Navy, where he spent 19 years, retiring in 1979.

Now, after attending Chaminade University in Hawaii and, most recently, Palomar College in San Marcos, Cullen is in the first class of the new California State University, San Marcos. He was one of 125 students who attended the first of the school’s three orientation days Wednesday.

“It’s close to where I live, it has the major I’m interested in, which is history, and it’s part of the Cal State system, so I know it will be a good school,” said the 54-year-old retired lieutenant commander, who will enroll as a senior.

“For me, it’s strictly a degree that I didn’t finish when I was younger,” said Cullen, who joked about having attended college in three decades without earning a degree. “I guess that’s the definition of a part-time student,” he said.

“I waited for San Marcos to open up rather than to have to drive down to San Diego State,” said Cullen, a Vista resident.

He will renew his pursuit of a degree in history as a part-time student when classes start Aug. 27.

“I had a good time when I was at Palomar College,” Cullen said. “I do better now in school than I did back in 1958. I think I take it a little more seriously now than I did when I was a kid.”

Cullen was not alone in returning to education after several years of non-academic life. Middle age seemed to be the norm rather than the exception in the orientation room Wednesday.

The average age of Cal State San Marcos’ first batch of students is 29--the youngest being 18 and the oldest 76. More than a quarter of them are 35 or older, and 25% are younger than 22.

“I would have anticipated a younger average age, but it’s not inconsistent with other CSU (schools). Some are slightly younger, but they all hover in the late 20s as being their average age,” said Ernest Zomalt, dean of student services.

The average age of undergraduate students in the Cal State system is 25.

Of the 416 students admitted to Cal State San Marcos as of June 28 (the most recent data available), only 12% are from ethnic minorities, a figure that disappoints but does not surprise Zomalt.

“The numbers are very representative of our feeder schools, which are primarily Palomar and MiraCosta” community colleges, he said.

According to another university official, the percentage of minority students is expected to become more reflective of the community when the university begins to draw freshman directly from high schools. Minority enrollment at the other Cal State schools averaged 34.5% last fall.

Almost half the university’s students are transfers from either Palomar or MiraCosta.

Meanwhile, women outnumber men almost 3 to 1 in the university’s first class.

“It’s probably just purely speculation, (but) if you take a look at the total population, the age grouping, it’s my view that you’re going to find more women who are coming back to school to finish their education,” Zomalt said. “You’re probably going to find more re-entry women than men.”

Some of those women attended the orientation session with children in tow.

Cecelia Blanks, 27 and a mother of four, is transferring from MiraCosta and plans to work full time toward a business degree at Cal State San Marcos.

“I like a challenge,” Blanks said as 15-month-old Jarisa yelped occasionally during the orientation, scrawling on the note pad given to incoming students by the university welcoming committee. “It wouldn’t be a challenge if I just stayed at home. I couldn’t see myself doing that every day.”

Enrollment at the college--likely to exceed 550--is not much higher than university officials expected, but a higher percentage of students are enrolling full time.

The university based its budget on 250 full-time equivalent students, but now predict there will be more than 350.

“The budgeted figure is for the entire academic year, and sometimes the spring enrollment is less than the fall’s,” said interim director of admissions Mildred Scott. “It might mean that we are more restrictive on how many we admit for the spring.”

The immediate effect has been that some students have not been able to enroll in classes they wanted, a common occurrence at most public universities.

More than twice as many students as expected signed up to take the only women’s studies course and geography course. A geography course was added, but the women’s studies overflow was asked to wait until next semester.

Business, liberal studies and psychology were the most popular of the nine undergraduate majors offered, which also include biology, English, history, mathematics, social sciences and sociology.

“We’re going to stick pretty much with the faculty’s wishes that the classes be small,” Zomalt said. “There are some courses that we’re going to allow a maximum number of 40 students, but that’s going to be the limit. We have no intention of having large lecture classes.”

About 20 temporary faculty members will be hired to accommodate added classes and shifting schedules, with “quite a few” teaching education courses and “a handful” in psychology, according to Pat Worden, a founding faculty member in charge of the hiring of temporaries.

The orientation day coincided with the first day the SDSU North County bookstore--now shared with Cal State San Marcos--began carrying Cal State San Marcos wares. (The fledgling university is still two years from having a campus of its own, and functions out of the same business park as the North County branch of SDSU.)

Next to Bart Simpson banners, key chains and buttons rested a display of blue and silver license-plate frames bearing the name of the new university. Everything one needs to begin a Cal State San Marcos career: T-shirts, sweaters, folders, note pads, pencils, buttons and collectible pins adorn the shelves and racks of the bookstore, all at a “phenomenal” price, according to a sales clerk.

Everything, that is, except textbooks, which have yet to arrive.