Building at UCI Sign of Hope Amid Gloom of Budget Cuts : Education: Recently approved bond measure will fund design work on long-awaited social sciences complex. Construction continues on other projects.

Amid the gloom spread campuswide by the worst budget cutting in recent UC Irvine history, Willie Schonfeld and Dan Stokols have reason to be bullish about the future.

While they may be rationing paper clips, photocopies and subscriptions this year, the two college deans are also moving ahead with design work on a long-awaited social sciences complex, thanks to an infusion of $1.3 million from a bond measure for higher education approved by voters earlier this year.

When the $33.8-million project is completed by 1995 or 1996--assuming future voter approval of construction funds--it will help close the chapter on the second phase of the 27-year-old university’s development, positioning it to serve up to 20,000 students by the year 2000.

The complex, known as Social Sciences II, will provide a range of labs, offices, classrooms and lecture halls that will eventually spell an end to lecture classes in a rented movie theater off campus and a chance for the schools of Social Science and Social Ecology to meet the mammoth increase in student numbers over the last decade.

“What this means for us is that we will finally have room to carry out our existing activities,” said Schonfeld, dean of the School of Social Science, which includes a host of disciplines such as anthropology, psychology and political science. “We will also be able to do a better job of . . . graduate and faculty research--which has been thwarted by the lack of space.”

Stokols, dean of the School of Social Ecology, is, well, stoked. The complex will mean a new building for his growing team of professors, who already have outstripped their existing three-story office and lab building on the east end of campus.

Other UCI projects approved under last June’s Proposition 153, the statewide bond measure for higher education construction, include a $4.2-million renovation of the campus’ original engineering building and $2.2 million to modernize Steinhaus Hall, the original biological sciences building. These and some other projects are further along in the construction process than Social Sciences II.

Asked about the wisdom of such construction when the university’s operating budget has been pared 8% and 70 employees have been laid off in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, Stokols said: “If the people in this state want the University of California to continue as a first-class research and teaching institution, the facilities for that work have to be provided.”

For professor John M. Whiteley, the proposed social sciences complex will be an opportunity to house a whole new generation of scholars.

“UCI has, in a quarter of a century, moved to the top 50 research institutions in the country,” Whiteley said. “But to do better, we have to put our land to use more productively. With more space for labs and research, these new people will go out and raise research grants and contracts that will increase UCI’s productivity even more.”

At UCI--initials some say stand for “Under Construction Indefinitely”--students again this year can hardly find a corner of campus without the buzz of saws, the ring of hammers and a swirl of dust clouds.

The imposing Science Library being built near Bridge Road and California Avenue is causing headaches for researchers in nearby buildings. Renovation of Steinhaus Hall has made for uncomfortably noisy classes. Engineering students are still crammed in the existing engineering building--which itself is slated for renovation--while they wait for the Engineering II building to be equipped and opened by mid-1994.

Plans are being prepared even now to ask for an undergraduate instruction center, envisioned as a $15-million amalgam of classrooms, computer instruction stations and offices. If approved, funded and built, it would complete the second round of building around the campus’ central ring, said William H. Parker, associate executive vice chancellor at UCI.

“In 1974, we completed the first round of buildings inside the ring,” said Parker, a physicist and longtime member of UCI’s faculty. “With Physical Sciences II in 1985 or 1986, we started making the second round. . . . When we complete all these projects, we will have completed two-thirds of the academic core of the campus.”

To complement that core, UCI leaders hope a number of research facilities also will be built over the next 20 years, joining the Beckman Laser Institute and other specialty labs. Among them is a proposed neurosciences building, the anchor of what is envisioned as a center for health sciences linked to the College of Medicine at the west end of campus. Parker said UCI hopes to win state approval by next year for the building.

Some UCI professors fear the state’s recession will put on hold many of the ambitious plans for the future at one of the youngest UC campuses.

Social Science II “may well be the last building we see on this campus for a long time,” said Schonfeld, the dean of social sciences.

But Parker noted that the population of California is still rising, and the number of high school students seeking a college education will grow too. By the year 2006 or 2010, the 1,510-acre campus is expected to serve 27,000 students, up from 17,140 this fall.

To fill that demand will mean a third round of construction around the center ring. And the time to start planning for that future is now, he said.

“Yes, we’re in an economic recession now. But the country will eventually come out of it, and when California’s economy returns, and it will, the youth of California will be pounding on our door,” Parker said. “So why not make the investment now so that UCI will be ready for them when they come?”

In the meantime, for those professors who are having trouble getting paper clips, staples and papers copied, and for students who face continued escalation of fees, the nettlesome construction projects that make life difficult may be the one sign of hope amid the gloom.

“Investment in capital construction is a demonstration of faith in the future,” Parker said.

Asked when UCI will no longer mean “Under Construction Indefinitely,” he said: “I’d say 2015.”

New Complex for UCI

Long-term plans for construction at UC Irvine continue, and one is for a large social sciences complex. Bond measures approved by voters this year and last have helped keep these plans alive despite state budget cuts.

Major UCI Construction Projects Project: Engineering II Description: Construction underway on second engineering facility; includes classrooms, lecture hall, lab space Total cost (millions): $34.2 Construction start: 1992 Opening: 1994 Project: Social Science II Description: 89,000-square-foot complex of three towers, 400- and 200-seat lecture halls and 12,500 square feet of classrooms Total cost (millions): $33.8 Construction start: 1994 Opening: 1995 Project: Science Library Description: 131,000-square-foot six-story building will combine medical and science collections, learning resource center and microcomputer lab Total cost (millions): $33.3 Construction start: 1992 Opening: 1994 Project: UCI Medical Center Psychiatric Inpatient Center Description: Full-range inpatient services in new, 44,000-square-foot building Total cost (millions): $17.6 Construction start: 1991 Opening: 1992-’93 Project: Group Housing Description: Housing for student groups and clubs; clusters of 35 buildings spread over 10 acres will house about 600 people Total cost (millions): $16.5 Construction start: 1991 Opening: 1993 Project: Steinhaus Hall Description: Upgrade lab and class facilities of campus’ original biological sciences building Total cost (millions): $15.1 Construction start: 1992 Opening: 1993 Project: Engineering I Description: Remodel existing building to improve classroom and lab facilities Total cost (millions): $6 Construction start: 1993 Opening: 1994 Project: Computer Science Description: Add 15,000 square feet of offices and classrooms; renovate and upgrade teaching labs Total cost (millions): $2.8 Construction start: 1994 Opening: 1995-’96 Project: Humanities/Fine Arts building Description: Adds 11,300 square feet of offices and classrooms for both schools Total cost (millions): $2.5 Construction start: 1992 Opening: 1993 Source: UC Irvine

Researched by KRISTINA LINDGREN / Los Angeles Times