Panel Votes to Name CSU Library After Benefactor

It took fewer than five minutes Tuesday for Cal State University officials to decide that a man who gives $5 million to create a new library deserves to have his name on the building.

Rewarding Oxnard rancher John S. Broome for his landmark donation to Ventura County’s budding Cal State Channel Islands campus, CSU trustees unanimously voted to name the university’s library and media center after the 81-year-old philanthropist when it is built.

The vote, handed down by a trustee subcommittee and subject to ratification today by the full governing board, was meant to recognize the importance of the $5-million pledge to the Camarillo university.

The donation brings to nearly $36 million the amount of non-CSU money--including private donations and assistance by local government--that has been generated so far for campus development, CSU Channel Islands President Handel Evans said.

“Mr. Broome has been a quiet and constant supporter of CSU Channel Islands since I first arrived there in June of 1996,” Evans told trustees. “It is perhaps the measure of the man that Mr. Broome declined my invitation to be here today, saying it was honor enough that you consider the naming of this facility.”

Broome’s gift--one of the largest charitable contributions in county history--will speed creation of the library complex at the fledgling campus, currently under development at the former Camarillo State Hospital complex.

The money will allow university administrators to immediately start planning design of the 283,000-square-foot building and later aid in construction of the $30-million facility. It will be built in two phases, so that in the early years the building will include some classrooms and offices.

When completed, the library is expected to be larger than the main library at Cal State Northridge.

Broome, whose family has lived and worked in Ventura County since before the turn of the century, said before Tuesday’s meeting that his gift had nothing to do with a desire to have the library named after him.

“Of course I’m honored by it,” said Broome, who serves on the university’s steering committee. “But the most important thing will be if it is able to validate interest in supporting the university.”

That’s exactly what university officials are banking on.

CSU leaders launched the inaugural phase of the new campus Aug. 30, shifting the satellite center of Cal State Northridge to the shuttered state hospital.

The center is expected to evolve in two years into an autonomous institution, but the CSU governing board has made it clear that local planners need to generate a pool of nonpublic money in order for the campus to expand in future years.

Local officials are proposing a range of development projects to generate the needed cash, but private contributions will be key to that effort. University boosters are hopeful Broome’s gift will spur a wave of generosity by others interested in helping the campus reach its potential.

They are hopeful that such a showing of community support will help persuade the Legislature and the governor to support a request for $10 million next year to operate the new campus and plan academic programs.

“We put out the challenge and the community has responded,” said Richard West, senior vice chancellor for business and finance for the university system. “It’s a real statement about the desire in that area for a university, and we intend to use it to encourage the governor to consider our budget request all the more seriously.”

Broome’s donation is also significant in that it provides a much-needed boost to the university’s private fund-raising efforts.

Not counting Broome’s gift, the Cal State Channel Islands Foundation has collected nearly $500,000 in private contributions since its creation in 1996. Foundation board members hope to match that amount by next summer.

Foundation leaders last week sent out mailers to more than 5,000 potential supporters, extolling the virtues of Ventura County’s first public university and soliciting donations to help speed its development.

“What it says to me is that the community really wants to educate the citizens who live in that region,” CSU trustee Martha C. Fallgatter said. “And these types of gifts often have a snowball effect. The next thing you know, people are standing in line to show their support.”