Name on the Horizon : Channel Islands Inspire the Likely Designation for County’s Future Cal State Campus

Not a brick has been laid or any concrete poured, but the county’s long-awaited Cal State campus is making progress on one front: It’s about to get a name.

Cal State Chancellor Barry Munitz on Thursday recommended “California State University, Channel Islands” as the official name for the university system’s 23rd campus. Cal State trustees will make the final determination next week.

“It seems to be the name of choice,” said J. Handel Evans, acting president of the yet-to-be built campus. “It represents the region and reflects the pride that people have in the Channel Islands.”

Trustees are expected to go along with the selection that fits neatly the university’s format. It also follows the pattern of another new campus named after a geographical wonder: Cal State University, Monterey Bay.

More importantly, it avoids many of the pitfalls of other names bandied about recently for the campus, to be built on a 260-acre parcel of farmland just west of Camarillo.

Although many campuses are named after their nearest city, university boosters weren’t keen on Cal State University, Camarillo, or C-SUC.

Few seemed interested in Cal State Oxnard, using the city name that for years was the butt of Johnny Carson’s jokes. And although Ventura had its proponents, a group of university advisors wanted to avoid any intercity rivalry.

“Camarillo would have gotten its nose out of joint, and so would have Oxnard,” said Carolyn Leavens, who leads the advisory group.

The group suggested that the chancellor use a variation of either Channel Islands or Ventura County in the name.

Leavens, among others, favored Channel Islands State University, pushing the acronym CIS-U, pronounced Kiss-you.

“I think Handel felt it was a little bit much,” Leavens said. Instead, the most-favored name ended up as California State University, Channel Islands.

So will CSU-CI end up with a nickname?

Ever the nimble diplomat, Evans won’t touch that one: “I’ll leave that for the booster club of the Class of 2010, when they cheer their Division I team to the Rose Bowl.”

Evans has other things on his mind. He is trying to scrounge up the $700 million or so needed to build a campus from scratch on the lemon orchard that the university recently bought west of Camarillo.

He is also closely monitoring the fate of Camarillo State Hospital, which Gov. Pete Wilson wants to close because of exorbitantly high operating costs.

If the hospital closes, its 750 acres and campus-like cluster of 85 buildings south of Camarillo would be up for grabs. Some Cal State officials are intrigued by the prospect of taking over the ready-made campus.

The name Cal State Channel Islands would suit either site. Anacapa and Santa Cruz islands are visible from the hilly grounds of Camarillo State Hospital, although a small hill blocks the view for much of the central campus.

Both islands are also visible from the lemon orchard, although tall eucalyptus trees along the Ventura Freeway obscure part of the view.

Naming the university after the Channel Islands caught the fancy of some university officials quite some time ago.

But the name did not emerge from dozens of others until Cal State Northridge English professor David Andersen made a plea to the group of university advisors earlier this year.

Andersen, a sailor with a sloop docked at Ventura Harbor, waxed romantic about the islands, the “road” used by migrating whales through the Santa Barbara Channel and the accounts of sailing into the area by Richard Henry Dana in his seminal book “Two Years Before the Mast.”

“The islands have the greatest appeal, not naming it for some particular city,” Andersen later said.

Most Cal State officials are just pleased that the campus will have a name.

“It’s a small block in the foundation of the university,” Evans said. “What it does is reflect the fact that this area is going to get a university.”

By next week, the long-delayed campus will finally shed its most painful nickname of all: “Cal State In Limbo.”