Business Input Sought in University’s Development

Saying the companies that will benefit from Ventura County’s first public university should help shape it, Cal State University Channel Islands officials have hired a consultant to solicit ideas from local business leaders.

Dennis Jones, president of an education consulting firm in Colorado, said Wednesday that he will meet with business executives to determine the kinds of educational services their companies need from the long-sought school, which Cal State officials hope will occupy the Camarillo State Hospital buildings once the facility shuts down this summer.

The corporate feedback, Jones said, will help decide how the school delivers education. With the recent attention given to “virtual universities”--the idea of teaching classes primarily via computer or television--Cal State officials must choose how much of their curriculum will be delivered on campus and in person.

“In what areas do you build a full-time faculty?” Jones asked. “In what areas don’t you?”

University President Handel Evans gave some preliminary answers Wednesday morning as he presented Jones to a crowded conference room of business executives, school administrators and public officials at Moorpark College.

Although plans for the university are far from final, Evans said he envisions a school that combines elements of the virtual university with a traditional campus. At the school’s heart will be a population of students who can’t afford to leave the area for school.

Those students, Evans told the crowd, will not necessarily be the 18-year-old, recent high school graduates who have dominated campuses in the past. Instead, many will come from local community colleges. Others will be older students picking up new skills for a changing workplace or job market.

The campus, he said, will have to provide employers a way to retrain workers quickly and locally.

“You can’t afford to send someone off to Stanford for three months to learn business practices in Japan,” he said.

While Jones assesses the needs of local businesses, Evans will continue hunting for firms that may be interested in leasing unused portions of the hospital as a way to generate income for the campus.

Evans and his staff are working on the university’s business plan, due in April. Current estimates say opening and operating the converted campus could cost at least $45 million during the next 10 years.

Jones said Wednesday’s meetings--first at Moorpark College, then a later gathering at the GTE offices in Thousand Oaks--were just his introduction to the county, with the real work still to come during the next two months.

But several of those who met with Jones and Evans on Wednesday said they were impressed.

Moorpark College President James Walker said the university would be an ideal complement to his community college, which now sends many transfer students to other Cal State schools.

“It hurts that we’re only this far along,” he said.

Rudy Gonzales, region manager for Southern California Edison, said the utility could use a local university, both to retrain current employees and teach future ones.

“Any time you can develop a good pool of employees in the county that will stay in the county, you’re better off.”