College Partnership in the Works

Ventura County’s new four-year public university and its community colleges are preparing to take a step toward a partnership that would make it easier for local students to move up the educational ladder, authorities said Wednesday.

Although discussions are preliminary, top officials said Wednesday that the new California State University Channel Islands and the county’s Community College District want to ease students’ paths from the three local two-year colleges to the university.

The point of the partnership would be to provide a “seamless” transition for students who start off at a community college and then want to transfer credits to Channel Islands, Community College Chancellor Philip Westin said Wednesday.

Under a formal partnership, the hassles and “jumping through hoops” to get courses transferred or approved between the two systems would disappear, he said.

Also, a potential benefit would be to eliminate duplicative classes, Westin said.

For example, some basic classes might be offered only at the community colleges and not at the Cal State campus, he said.

Westin said he plans to bring a resolution to pursue a partnership to the community college Board of Trustees on July 29.

If the board likes the idea, it would consider at a Sept. 9 meeting a “letter of intent” to enter an academic planning stage, Westin said.

That letter would then be sent to the Cal State University Board of Trustees, which would consider the proposal. It would take at least a year after that before the partnership could become a reality.

Although Westin and J. Handel Evans, president of CSU Channel Islands, could not provide details of the partnership, both said the prospect is exciting.

In addition to cutting paperwork for transferring students, the partnership would save students and taxpayers money, Westin said.

Freshmen and sophomores would be encouraged to attend local community colleges because they would only pay $13 a credit for classes easily transferred to the university. They would pay the CSU price only when they transferred.

Taxpayers would save too because the state pays community colleges about $3,500 per full-time student per year, half the amount that taxpayers spend on each CSU student.

“It’s the way that education is going now,” Evans said. “This comprehensive approach to education, to serve students from 18 to 80, is the way to maximize [everyone’s] investment.”

Right now, a handful of Cal State Channel Islands employees are using offices at Cal State Northridge’s Ventura satellite campus.

Final state approval of the Cal State Channel Islands campus at the former Camarillo State Hospital site is expected in September.

Evans is hoping to move into the closed mental hospital by July 1998 and begin classes that fall.

If this partnership is successful, Evans said he might look at partnerships with community college districts in Santa Barbara and Santa Monica.

Neither Westin nor Evans seem worried that Ventura County might not produce enough students for both college systems. They said a baby boom ripple is expected to have classrooms bulging with new entrants.