CSU Chancellor Tours Camarillo Hospital Site

It didn’t take long for Cal State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed to envision a college campus taking root and blossoming at the shuttered Camarillo State Hospital complex.

Touring the fledging campus for the first time Thursday, Reed was instantly smitten by the hospital’s Spanish-style buildings, graced by sun-bleached arches and crowned with red-tile roofs. Since taking over as head of the state university system in March, Reed said he has visited nearly every campus.

But none, he said, match the beauty and potential of the one being created in Ventura County.

“We are very lucky,” said Reed, ducking in and out of aging buildings in line to be converted into classrooms and offices necessary for the inaugural phase of the university by September of next year.

“We have the opportunity to create over the next 10 years one of the most beautiful campuses in California,” he said. “This has to be the best buy in America in higher education. Our job is not to screw it up.”

For several hours Thursday, the plain-talking Cal State chancellor took a good, long look at the place slated to become the university system’s 23rd campus.

CSU officials plan to convert the old hospital into the new home for the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge, the first step toward establishing a four-year college at the site to be called Cal State Channel Islands.

Reed’s visit was an important step in that process.

With Cal State officials going before the governing board in September for approval of an environmental study, university boosters want to be able to count the chancellor among the project’s supporters.

And as the campus expands--eventually home to 15,000 full- and part-time students over the next decade--Reed’s support will grow even more critical as Cal State trustees and state legislators turn to him for guidance.

“This is huge to have him here,” said state Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo), who invited Reed to the campus shortly after he became chancellor and joined him on Thursday’s tour.

“He will be making key recommendations on funding,” O’Connell said. “And there’s no substitute for experiencing this setting firsthand.”

Led by Cal State planners, Reed spent a good part of the morning marveling over the intimate details of design, lingering over a level of work still breathtaking more than 60 years after the hospital opened and more than a year after it was shut down with an eye toward conversion to a college campus.

They walked through empty buildings destined to become the university library and student bookstore. They cut through darkened hallways, poking their heads in old dormitories and church chapels slated to become classrooms and lecture halls.

Reed joked that he would be jailed today if he tried to build a college campus as handsome as this one. But he was serious when he said he would like the campus master plan to mandate that any future construction reflect the existing Spanish-style architecture.

“It’s a beautiful campus; just the way it’s laid out it all fits together,” he said. “This is a forever decision, nobody will ever come back and say let’s close this campus. This place is going to become a very special gift to the people of Ventura County.”

It’s a gift that has taken a long time to deliver.

For 30 years there have been proposals to build the local campus, but each time those plans have been thwarted by community opposition. As a result, Ventura County is the most populous county in the state without a public, four-year university.

At a luncheon for Reed on Thursday, longtime university boosters were quick to make that point.

“We’ve been so frustrated, we can’t even tell you,” Ventura farmer and business leader Carolyn Leavens told Reed. “We’re so pleased you were able to set foot on our campus. We hope you are as impressed with it as we are.”

Reed said he was. And he said he has been equally impressed with the rising tide of support local residents have shown for the new campus, highlighted last fall when boosters packed a meeting of the Cal State governing board to urge that the hospital be turned into the newest campus.

But he said he believes it won’t be long before that kind of enthusiasm is shown across the state for the fledgling campus, destined to become the kind of place appreciated by students and parents alike.

“I can just see people from all over the state competing to get in here, the setting allows for that,” Reed said. “And I can see parents saying there is this little jewel called Channel Islands and that’s where I want my children to go.”