Cal State Fullerton Reaches a New Milestone: Seven Schools Are Elevated to College Status

Cal State Fullerton renamed its seven schools “colleges” Wednesday--the first day of the spring semester--to signal growth of the campus over the last 40 years into a mature university.

“It’s really a recognition of where we’ve come from and where we are now,” said Ephraim Smith, vice president of academic affairs.

With a student population surpassing 27,000 and its schools rapidly growing, the university now has the state’s largest business school, officials said.

“As the schools have grown in numbers, they’ve also grown in complexity,” Smith said. “Renaming them colleges will make it easier to subdivide each subject into specific disciplines when necessary and make administrative changes.”

The name change, which will have no practical effect on the value of degrees conferred, will apply to the schools of arts, business administration and economics, communications, engineering and computer science, humanities and social sciences, and human development and community service.

The business school will be renamed the college of business and economics, and the school of natural science and mathematics will be known as the college of natural sciences and mathematics, university officials said.

The changes are also a way to celebrate the university’s 40th anniversary, university President Milton A. Gordon said.

“The two really do go together,” he said. “We certainly didn’t plan it that way, but it’s nice.”

The university opened in 1959 as Orange County State College and became a state university in 1972.