El Toro Ready for a Student Invasion

Until the Marines pulled out, the aging but graceful building off Desert Storm Way served as the headquarters for an elite squadron of pilots. Now, the building at the mothballed El Toro Marine base is on the verge of rebirth.

By the end of the month, Cal State Fullerton students will enroll in criminal justice, nursing, public administration, adolescent behavior and teacher-credential classes at the closed base.

The state university has signed a 10-year lease to use the 46,000-square-foot military leftover as a satellite campus, aimed at South County students who otherwise would have to drive across the county to reach the Fullerton campus. Nearly one-fifth of the 30,000 students enrolled at Cal State Fullerton live in the southern part of the county.

“We want to go where the students are,” said George Giacumakis, director of the new El Toro campus. “So we thought it was time for us to spread out a little bit in that region. We’re running out of space here.”

Classes begin Aug. 26.

The number of students attending class at the old Marine base is expected to reach 2,500 for the fall semester--nearly double the enrollment of the college’s previous satellite campus in Mission Viejo.

The college spent more than $1.4 million renovating the two-story Spanish-style building that once housed the Wing Command Headquarters.

The building will have 22 classrooms and 48 offices, as well as a cafe and a student bookstore. With the base largely unused, parking will not be a problem. There will be 550 marked spaces when class starts.

Plans to move and expand the South County campus to El Toro began in 1993 after it was announced the base would close. The lease was signed last fall.

Shuttles will transport students who are enrolled in upper-level and graduate programs between the Fullerton and El Toro campuses, university officials said.

“Now that the El Toro campus is closer to the main campus, we expect students to mix and match courses between the main campus and El Toro, or enroll exclusively at El Toro,” said Sylvia Alva, assistant vice president for academic programs in Fullerton.

The El Toro campus offers complete degree programs, especially in education-related disciplines.

“Those were our most popular courses at the main campus, so we want to expand them to El Toro,” Alva said. “There’s a strong demand in California to prepare more teachers and so there’s more course work in the teacher-credential area.”

Marketing brochures about the El Toro campus have been sent to Cal State Fullerton students since April.

“It’s an exciting venture for the campus. This is a project that has been in development for a long time and it’s nice to see that it’s all coming together,” Alva said. “It’s like having dual citizenship; you can move in and out of the two campuses as needed and it’s exciting for the students in terms of the potential.”

The history of the base will not be completely lost on students.

Giacumakis, a history teacher, plans to collect information and memorabilia about the old air base and incorporate it into a community history class.