Neighbors to Hear Soka Plans : Education: Administrators of the Tokyo-based university will meet with Calabasas residents about the campus’s future.

Administrators at Soka University in Calabasas have invited neighbors to meetings Wednesday and Thursday nights to discuss plans to expand the campus.

The Tokyo-based university formally announced in April that it wanted to expand from an 80-student English-language center for Japanese exchange students into a 5,000-student, international liberal arts college.

In August, the university cemented that intention by announcing that it had acquired 332 additional acres, more than doubling its land holdings in the Santa Monica Mountains to nearly 600 acres.

Beyond saying they hope to reach full capacity by 2015, the administrators have been vague about what they call their vision for the campus. But invitations to this week’s meetings indicate that they have translated “our visions into concepts” and are ready to share them with the community.

“We really wanted to share this with our neighbors first,” campus spokesman Jeff Ourvan said.

For 12 years, through three owners, the National Park Service has wanted to buy the mountain-ringed meadow for use as its park headquarters. Those efforts continue as parks officials search for other government land to offer the university in exchange for the Calabasas site.

Last week the Angeles chapter of the Sierra Club voted to oppose the proposed expansion and back the parks’ efforts to acquire the land.

Soka University also has been criticized for its connections to Soka Gakkai, a neo-Buddhist sect that critics liken to a cult. University administrators have attempted to distance the university from the sect, although they acknowledge that the university was founded by Soka Gakkai leader Daisaku Ikeda and that most of the students are members.

“We want to try to make it clear to the community people that we don’t want to teach religion,” Ourvan said. “We don’t have any kind of hidden agenda.”

The meetings will be at 7:30 p.m. both nights on the campus, 26800 West Mulholland Highway, near Las Virgenes Road.