Bigger Satellite Campus Helps Cal Lutheran : Oxnard: The business park branch, which opened on a shoestring, can accommodate 600 graduate students.

Amid all the hullabaloo about whether a new California State University will be built in Ventura County, Cal Lutheran University has quietly opened an expanded west county satellite campus.

The satellite campus moved from a 12,000-square-foot space in a Ventura office complex to an 18,000-square-foot office in the Sammis Business Park on North Solar Drive in Oxnard. Among other benefits, the new site offers abundant parking compared to the former campus.

“We needed more space,” said Fred J. Phipps, director of the center, which offers graduate programs in business and education. “We were a little crowded there.”

But because of budget constraints, the primary advertisement for the new campus, which opened in January, is a small Cal Lutheran logo visible from the Ventura Freeway.

The Oxnard operation opened on a shoestring, Phipps said, pointing to a foyer that still lacks furniture and wall hangings.

Phipps said he looks forward to the day when he can replace the computer-generated paper sign on the front door and put up a proper one outside. He also said he believes the space will seem more like a part of Cal Lutheran once he can decorate the front offices and lobby with poster-size photos of the main campus in Thousand Oaks.

The new Oxnard center, which enrolls between 350 and 400 graduate students, has room for 600 students in its eight classrooms. The Ventura space had only five classrooms. Since the move, enrollment at the west county campus has already climbed by 8%, officials said.

“Right now, we are not utilizing every ounce of space that we have, but our goal is just to add more students,” Phipps said.

Recently, he added, many companies have been cutting the money they once allotted to employees for obtaining master’s degrees in business administration. On the other hand, he said, some people who have been laid off are going back to school to increase their marketability.

Phipps said that with the 200-student satellite operation of the University of La Verne next door to the Oxnard center, officials from both universities hope the Sammis park will become an educational center.

Cal Lutheran President Jerry H. Miller is confident that the Oxnard enrollment will continue to grow. “We see a growing market and growing needs in the areas we serve,” he said.

Miller, who will become the university’s first chancellor in August, said he expects the university’s enrollment to reach 3,500 by the year 2000. Cal Lutheran now has 2,950 graduate and undergraduate students.

Despite the recession, Miller said, undergraduate enrollment has been growing by 30 to 50 students a year, while the graduate population has remained steady.

Because space is getting tight at the main campus, Phipps said, some classes usually taught in Thousand Oaks will be moved to Oxnard, including the fifth-year teacher training program.

The Oxnard campus offers master’s degrees in business administration and education as well as teaching credentials. Education programs include counseling and guidance, educational administration, curriculum and instruction, special education and computer education specialization.

In addition to furnishings, future plans for the new center call for a computer lab so students will be able to tap into the main library system and register for classes without having to drive to the 285-acre Thousand Oaks campus.

“We have students coming from as far as Shell Beach, Santa Maria and Lompoc,” Phipps said.

During the next five or six years, Miller said, the university also hopes to build three new facilities on the main campus at a cost of $21 million: a new athletic facility, a creative arts center and a building for educational technology.

Cal Lutheran has had a small campus in the west part of the county for more than 15 years, starting out at the Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station. It moved from there to Buena High School, then to the Ventura center on Valentine Road before moving to Oxnard.

The Oxnard center is one of three satellite campuses, with others in Woodland Hills and North Hollywood. The North Hollywood campus is slated for closure within a year so Cal Lutheran can put more resources into the two others, Dean of Graduate Studies Robert Amenta said.

Amenta said he would welcome the proposed Cal State University campus in Ventura County, if site and budget problems are ever resolved.

The relationship between the two universities should be a healthy one, he said, because students are expected to transfer from Cal State to Cal Lutheran for graduate programs.