Cal State Academic Senate Weighs a Branch Campus in South County

Should Cal State Fullerton start a branch operation to meet a growing student population in south Orange County?

That question--one that both supporters and critics agree would have enormous educational impact on the county--sharply divided the Cal State Fullerton Academic Senate on Thursday.

After almost two hours of debate, faculty representatives could reach no consensus and decided instead to continue the debate next Thursday and possibly at a third meeting before taking a vote.

Majority support of the Academic Senate is “essential” to persuading the California State University Board of Trustees, the Legislature and the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPSEC) to approve such an off-campus satellite college, university officials said Thursday.

“If we vote this down, I’m reasonably sure it’s dead,” said Julian Foster, chairman of Cal State Fullerton’s Academic Senate, after the meeting in the campus library building. “CPSEC speaks of faculty approval as being necessary.”

The need for a south county satellite facility was first raised earlier this year when a committee of the Academic Senate recommended that Cal State Fullerton open a branch campus in Mission Viejo. After a two-year study, the committee said that many south Orange County students lack “convenient access” to the Fullerton campus because of rapid growth in the south county and crowded freeways.

UC Irvine now dominates four-year public education in south Orange County. But state law permits only the top 12 1/2% of California high school graduating classes to enroll at UC campuses, including UCI.

The California State University, by state law, is open to the top 33% of high school graduates. Therefore, more students are eligible for CSU, including Cal State Fullerton, than a UC campus.

Some faculty members opposed a satellite campus, contending that it would would rob south Orange County students of a complete campus environment and also would not be educationally sound. Instead, they argued that the California State University system should make plans to build a new four-year college--a Cal State Mission Viejo.

Other critics of the proposal said that more study is needed. Still others wondered aloud whether a branch center would dilute education and funding at the mother campus in Fullerton.

“I don’t know exactly how the Senate feels, but my guess is that we’re about half and half divided on this,” Foster said after Thursday’s meeting. “I suspect the vote is going to be close.”

But supporters of a south county center said Cal State Fullerton is obligated to offer higher education to all of Orange County. Since Fullerton is predominantly a commuter campus and since traffic is heavy between south Orange County and Fullerton, a satellite center is necessary, they argued.

Fullerton’s administration had hoped for faculty support and a favorable vote on the plan before January, Foster said, adding: “The goal is to present this to the Legislature in January so that it can be included in the new (state) budget.”

Jack Coleman, vice president for academic affairs at Cal State Fullerton, said in an interview Thursday that although the Academic Senate does not have actual veto power in the south county satellite decision, “we obviously seek collegiality. I don’t know what we’d do if they didn’t approve.”

In a somewhat similar move in October, Cal State FullertonPresident Jewel Plummer Cobb granted the faculty group full veto power in deciding the fate of a plan to build a commercial hotel on campus. The Academic Senate ultimately approved the hotel proposal, and in November the project received final endorsement of the California State University Board of Trustees.

The debate Thursday did not touch on the location for a satellite center. Originally, campus officials had discussed the federally owned Ziggurat (Chet Holifield Building) in Laguna Niguel or a site at the juncture of the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways in Irvine.

But the faculty committee, in its report, said Mission Viejo would be a much better site because there would be less traffic congestion there and it would be “clear of the El Toro flight pattern.”

Said the report: “We strongly recommend locating the center in close proximity to the (Interstate 5) freeway between Alicia Parkway and Crown Valley Parkway. . . .”

Neither the California State University Board of Trustees nor the Legislature, however, would be bound by the faculty group’s site preference. The major power of the Academic Senate is its influential role in deciding whether an off-campus center will be built at all in south Orange County.

Such a satellite campus, if created, would offer only junior- and senior-year courses, which led to some debate among faculty critics. But university officials explained that off-campus centers, by California State University rules, may not offer lower-division courses. Supporters said the restriction was not in any way an effort to appease the two community colleges in the area, Saddleback in Mission Viejo and Irvine Valley in Irvine.