Crowding at CSU Satellite Campus Tests Patience of Students, Teachers : Education: The Ventura site isn’t big enough for all those who want to study there or for all the needed classes. A new university is still years away.

The years-long debate over where to build a state university in Ventura County has left hundreds of students at Cal State’s Ventura satellite campus struggling to find seats in the classes they need to graduate.

Each semester, students clamor for more classes and programs, but officials say there is no room to accommodate them at the temporary lodgings of the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge.

Five hundred students have requested a program to earn a master of business administration degree, but none is available. Students working toward their teaching credentials fear that there will be no room for them in the student teaching program next semester.

And while enrollment has steadily grown over the years to 1,200 students this fall, the quarters remain cramped and classroom space is scarce. The center has had to schedule 10 classes on Saturdays. Seventy-five faculty members who teach 100 different classes share two offices, and empty parking places are practically nonexistent after evening classes begin at 7 p.m.

“It’s really hard to get enough classes to be a full-time student,” said Debbie Lepas, who is in her final year of course work to earn a teaching credential. “Every year, it’s a big scare as to whether or not you’ll be able to continue with your education.”

Joyce Kennedy, director of CSUN’s Ventura campus, said a new campus with more room is critically important to continue serving the county’s students.

“We have maxed out here,” she said of the temporary campus on Alessandro Drive near Seaward Avenue and the Ventura Freeway. “We need a place of our own.”

Today, California State University trustees meeting in Long Beach are expected to take the first step toward replacing the rented office space with a permanent campus.

Five of the trustees are scheduled to decide whether to authorize the purchase of one of three parcels of land in Ventura County. The full board of trustees will take the final vote on the issue Wednesday, but that vote is largely seen as a formality, officials say.

A 320-acre site on farmland just west of Camarillo is expected to be chosen as the permanent location for a new two-year campus to serve juniors, seniors and graduate students. The school will develop into a full four-year university over 20 years. The existing center now serves only upper division and graduate students; local community colleges serve freshmen and sophomores.

If the property known as the Duntley/Chaffee site is approved, it would cap a five-year search for a location that is acceptable to the university system and to neighboring residents. Disputes among residents and elected officials in the city of Ventura spurred Cal State’s rejection of two proposed Ventura sites in the last five years.

Without the delays, the new campus could have been nearly ready, Kennedy said.

“If everything had gone smoothly, we would be preparing now to move into our new home next year,” she said.

Officials say it would be at least three years before they could begin building a new Ventura campus.

A permanent two-year campus with increased classroom, office and parking space is critically needed now, and the need for a full four-year campus will only grow in coming years, students at the Ventura campus said.

Lepas is one of 66 students who will need student-teaching experience next semester. Other classes at the Ventura campus had to be juggled or canceled to accommodate this semester’s student-teachers, and there are hundreds more students working through the program.

“We’re all here at the end of our programs, and we’re really afraid of what will happen. . . . I can’t just move to Northridge to continue because I’m married,” she said.

Mia Fernandez, who left a career in banking to study for her teaching credential, said students have to be diligent to get the classes that they need in Ventura.

“It’s been difficult for all of us to stay on track,” she said.

Celia Montgomery, a business management student and mother of three, said she has been able to take all but five of her classes at the Ventura campus. For the remainder, she must make the 1 1/2-hour commute to Northridge. But she is grateful for the Ventura campus that has allowed her to attend most of her classes near home.

“One of my children is a high-schooler, and I just wish there were a university here so he wouldn’t have to go so far away,” she said.

Christine Newman, a single parent and student in the Ventura center’s master of public health degree program, said the Ventura campus allowed her to find another career when she developed carpal tunnel syndrome after 18 years as a dental hygienist.

“If I had to commute to Northridge to take classes, I would lose so much time with my son that I just wouldn’t be able to do it,” she said. She and other students welcomed the prospect of increased numbers of classes at a two-year campus and the expanded opportunities of a full four-year campus.

“Any place in Ventura County will be great,” she said.

Adding to the satellite center’s problems, the campus also has been hit by budget cuts that have affected the university system statewide, Kennedy said. The campus took a 9% cut from its $500,000 facilities and administration budget this year. As a result, Kennedy said, nine classes were cut this semester and another nine will be cut in January.

The Northridge campus had planned to allow enrollment at the Ventura campus to grow by about 250 to 300 students a year, but funding for the additional students has been halved and may be cut even more, Kennedy said.

Even without the funding problems, the Ventura campus has no room to grow at its present location.

“We’ve gone as far as we can go here,” Kennedy said.