Colleges Look to University Partnership

Hoping to forge a symbiotic relationship with a new four-year university, Ventura Community College District trustees on Tuesday unanimously agreed to form a task force to craft a formal partnership with Cal State University Channel Islands.

Trustee Robert Gonzales wanted to ensure that the academic senates of the district’s three schools, the faculties and classified personnel all have input into the proposed partnership--an idea supported by his fellow trustees.

Although the board did not select anyone to serve as leader of the task force, it did stress the importance of working closely with the new university.

Such a partnership would mean that Ventura, Oxnard and Moorpark colleges would become the primary providers of freshmen and sophomore education in the county, while the proposed state university would concentrate on instructing juniors and seniors, board President John Tallman said.

The idea is to offer students a “seamless” stream of education, Chancellor Philip Westin said before the meeting. The current system of community college graduates filling out extensive paperwork to transfer from one level to the next is too cumbersome, he said.

Under a formal partnership, admission to the state university most likely would be guaranteed, said Cal State University Channel Islands President Handel Evans, adding that standards to get into the four-year school would not be lowered.

“The rising tide lifts all boats,” he said.

Evans then invited the board to join him in “a dance . . . to create an educational opportunity.”

Board members responded they were pleased to come to the “dance floor,” with one of the main reasons being that their collaboration should save the state and students money.

Taxpayers spend about $3,500 annually in support of each full-time community college student and twice that for every state university student.

A partnership might mean the state could pay the lower amount for the first two years. Also, the average full-time community college student pays about $300 per semester; state university students pay about three times that amount.

The partnership concept, which began two years ago, has won the support of a number of teachers, administrators and officials from both school systems.

“It’s a positively brilliant idea,” Elton Hall, a Moorpark College teacher and academic Senate member. “I haven’t heard anyone express any doubt, although we all agree there is a lot of work to be done.”

According to officials and teachers from each of the schools, the task force should analyze issues such as:

* How credits would be transferred.

* What classes would be offered at which school.

* How the partnership would be managed.

* Level of state funding to be expected.

* Would students have to travel between three colleges and the university to take certain classes?

* How would the teachers’ unions from the colleges and the university work out issues of seniority, teaching assignments and tenure?

* Which school’s probation rules would be used?

The task force will meet through August and is expected to present its findings at the next board meeting Sept. 9. A letter of intent outlining the district’s proposals would then be sent to the Cal State board of trustees Sept. 15.

From that point, it should take about a year to 18 months for a working plan to be enacted, according to district trustees.

But the inter-school collaboration is dependent on Cal State Channel Islands actually taking shape. Currently, the four-year school consists of a handful of people sharing office space on the top floor of the offices for CSU Northridge’s satellite campus in Ventura.

Cal State officials are now reviewing plans for a multimillion-dollar conversion of the recently shuttered Camarillo State Hospital into the system’s 23rd campus. University classes could begin as early as January 1999.