Where Higher Education Has a Low Profile

One of California’s heaviest concentrations of colleges and universities is sandwiched between downtown Fullerton and the Orange Freeway, occupying a forest of low-rise office towers that could easily be confused with an aging business park.

Within a one-mile radius in eastern Fullerton are five institutions of higher learning with a combined enrollment of 45,000 students, producing some of Orange County’s top attorneys, teachers, ministers, engineers and eye-care specialists.

Although locals refer to the area as “little Claremont,” referring to the renowned Claremont Colleges in Los Angeles County, it has long maintained a low profile. But that is slowly changing.

All five campuses--Cal State Fullerton, Pacific Christian College, Fullerton College, Western State University College of Law and Southern California College of Optometry--are undergoing expansions that promise to bring new research centers, classrooms, parking structures and athletic facilities.

Cal State Fullerton recently opened a new library and is planning to expand its baseball stadium in hopes of hosting College World Series playoffs. The law school and optometry college are scheduled to complete new libraries next year, while Pacific Christian is planning an athletic complex and science wing.

For years, the colleges grew with little coordination. But starting in 1995, the presidents of all five campuses began meeting regularly to discuss common concerns and examine ways that the colleges could team up to enhance student services and share resources.

“We are finding that there are so many opportunities to share our resources,” said Bill Heaton, advancement director at the College of Optometry. “We are beginning to feed off one another for the advantage of all.”

This new partnership comes as the Chamber of Commerce and city officials debate whether to make “The Education Community” Fullerton’s official motto.

Boosters see the slogan as part of a larger effort to improve the city’s image and economy, which have been battered by defense downsizing, including the loss of 6,000 jobs at a Hughes aerospace plant.

“All of north Orange County has taken a big hit, not just in terms of economic development but in its reputation as well,” said Anil K. Puri, an economist at Cal State Fullerton. “Marketing an area’s image can certainly help. It’s a way of saying this area is not in decline.”

Marketing alone, however, won’t address complaints from some students that the city lacks the night life, pedestrian shopping and collegiate atmosphere of other university towns.

“Fullerton feels like suburbia,” said Michael White, 27, a former Cal State Fullerton and Fullerton College student. “You can’t just walk off campus and see a French movie.”

White and others have detected a modest improvement in recent years as several coffeehouses, music clubs, clothing stores and eateries opened both in downtown as well as on the streets that connect downtown to Cal State Fullerton.

Along State College Boulevard, secondhand music and paperback book stores, an art supply center and other youth-oriented businesses share strip mall space with doughnut shops, supermarkets and fast-food restaurants.

Still, some students say campus life has suffered because most of the colleges are essentially commuter schools.

“People come in for their classes in the morning and drive out in the afternoon,” said John Martinez, a Fullerton College student. “It’s not a real community. . . . This is not Westwood Village or Berkeley.”

Fullerton’s colleges may lack the prestige of UCLA or UC Berkeley. But the city does boast an educational tradition that dates to 1913, when California’s oldest community college--Fullerton College--opened near downtown.

In 1959, Cal State Fullerton was founded amid the Valencia orange groves about a mile to the east, providing four-year degrees to the thousands of people who migrated into Orange County after World War II.

Over the next two decades, Pacific Christian College and the Southern California College of Optometry abandoned cramped urban campuses in Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles for larger facilities alongside Cal State Fullerton. Western State opened in 1966.

The colleges have a significant economic and cultural influence on the city. Cal State Fullerton alone pumps more than $180 million a year into the local economy while its students contribute another $126 million, according to a study by Puri and economist Robert A. Kleinhenz.

All campuses have seen their enrollments substantially increase over the last two decades as development has taken hold in Orange County. Pacific Christian began operating out of an abandoned shopping center in 1973 with just 300 students.

Over the years, the college has taken over nearby apartment complexes, professional buildings and even a seven-story office tower to accommodate its expanding curriculum and enrollment, which now stands at 1,050 students.

“When we reached 1,000 students, [the state] finally gave us a freeway exit sign with our name on it,” said Gary Tiffin, dean of undergraduate studies. “That was important because we feel kind of hidden.”

The optometry college’s enrollment has jumped from 200 students to nearly 400 since the 1970s, requiring its own expansion. The college hopes to break ground soon on a library featuring an extensive collection of videos and CD-ROMs related to vision care. Twelve study rooms and a parking structure are planned.

The colleges cater to different types of students, from budding optometrists and pastors to professionals earning law degrees at night and teenagers still searching for majors.

Despite the diversity, however, educators and community leaders see many benefits to partnerships among the institutions.

“When you have a mass of educational institutions in one place, there develops a certain intellectual excitement that the lectures and activities spark,” said Dennis Honabach, president of the Western State law school. “When students are part of a larger educational community, there is a sharing of ideas that is very important to a legal education.”

So far, the discussions have helped foster some modest joint projects, such as an optometry school program in which students help staff the Cal State Fullerton medical clinic. Optometry students also provide eye screenings for the university’s geriatrics program, Heaton said.

Three professors from Cal State Fullerton and Pacific Christian College now team-teach a class on comparative religion that is open to students from both campuses. The course is unique because each professor is an expert on Christian, Jewish and Islamic religions.

The college presidents recently commissioned a study to determine the economic impact of the campuses on the surrounding community. They have also talked about more long-term goals such as providing universal library access to all students, holding more joint classes, and sharing facilities and resources.