A Different Drummer : Education: The average student at newly opened Cal State San Marcos is 29 years old. As a result, some of the fledgling extracurricular activities and clubs are decidedly different.

While universities around the country field football teams, Cal State San Marcos is trying to field a Rotary Club.

While other campuses offer math clubs for super brains, Cal State San Marcos is thinking about forming a club for middle-aged students who fear math.

While making it to editor of the college paper is a major honor at most schools, the newspaper serving Cal State San Marcos is co-edited by a student who doesn’t attend the school.

The university’s large number of re-entry students, its commuter-campus atmosphere and the cramped, temporary facilities have made it difficult to develop extracurricular activities.

“We’re in the building process,” said Ernest Zomalt, dean of student services at the young campus. If space and resources are required, the activity will be “deferred until we can meet those needs,” Zomalt added.

Integral activities such as student government, which provides student representation on university policy matters, are provided, but sports and a Greek system may have to wait until the permanent campus is established in 1992, Zomalt said.

The university opened its doors last month. Is is essentially a drive-through campus, which dampens participation in extracurricular activities. There are no freshmen or sophomores this year; local community colleges supply the bulk of the students.

“There will be those who drive in, take a class and drive out,” Zomalt said. “But that doesn’t mean that we stop from trying to impact their lives as well.”

The age of the students--a quarter are 35 years or older and the average age is 29--also means “they’re not likely to be as interested in extracurricular activities,” Zomalt said.

But those demographics also give outside-the-classroom activities

non-traditional forms.

One of the first groups getting started, for example, is one for students who are parents, a reflection of the demographics.

“This is going to be an opportunity for people with children to get together and meet on issues such as child care, time management and stress reduction,” said Patti Elenz-Martin, a counseling psychologist for both Cal State San Marcos and the North County branch of San Diego State University, which is in the same industrial park.

Elenz-Martin said the group, which does not have a name yet, also will address one of the most common concerns among students: math anxiety.

“People who have been away from math for a while sometimes have stress involved with that,” Elenz-Martin said. “Sometimes people have had some bad experiences from high school and they bring them to college, even if it’s years later.”

There are other, more traditional organizations being formed.

Larry Boisjolie, a junior English major at CSUSM, along with his roommate Jonathan Young, a Palomar College student, have put together a biweekly newspaper to serve the university.

“We aren’t the (official) student newspaper of Cal State San Marcos. We serve the university community,” Boisjolie said. Because a student government has not yet been created, there cannot be an officially sanctioned student newspaper, Boisjolie said, so they have to be careful about how they refer to themselves.

The first issue of the Pioneer, distributed during the second week of classes, was a 24-page tabloid with original typefaces designed by Young, and almost all of the stories and pictures were by Young and Boisjolie.

“Heck, we even sold the ads for it,” said Young, who eventually hopes to transfer to CSUSM. The newspaper, which has attracted 10 new staff members for its second edition, has also managed to fill 23% of its pages with advertisements, enough to pay for material expenses.

Boisjolie said the paper is not just a conduit of campus information, but is also intended to serve prospective students. About 5,000 copies of the newspaper are circulated to Palomar and Mira Costa colleges, the main feeder schools to the university, as well as the university and local businesses.

“This year we have eight issues planned, and (getting it published) it’s going to be hell,” said Boisjolie, 29.

Young and Boisjolie spent all summer putting out the first issue, developing styles and pages, and now face the task of producing an issue every two weeks--without sports pages, of course.

Both Young and Boisjolie have attended journalism classes at Palomar College, and Boisjolie once served as editor of the college’s student newspaper.

Although the first edition attracted new staff members, the only response in the form of a letter to the editor called the new venture an “embarrassing” paper devoted to “promoting right-wing propaganda.”

“You always need to expect the few people who are not going to like what you do,” said Young, 20.

Because there is no student government and probably won’t be one until next semester, the two must fund the venture themselves. Armed with a business license in Young’s name, the two have sold enough ads to break even.

“We didn’t want to start a business. It just kind of happened,” Young said. “It would sure be a lot easier to have college funding to support us. We don’t want to sit here and bust our buns over advertisements.”

Young and Boisjolie would be more than willing to hand over their project to the school, if only someone there would take it.

A student government is on the way, however. Ken Green, a junior studying business, is one of a handful of students working to establish a student government.

“This is the biggest opportunity anyone can ever have,” Green said. “We have all avenues open to us. There are no limitations. We are setting the traditions here.

“It’s the thrill of it. We’re looking at different constitutions and different methods, and we want to develop one that’s going to be a model for other schools later on,” Green said.

“The first thing I see the student government doing is representing the students on the various university committees,” said the former Palomar College student body president.

Several other organizations are getting under way, including a Christian fellowship group, a Rotary Club for young adults, two academic clubs and a literary journal.