New CSU campus OK'd

By Suzanne Johnson, On-Line Forty-Niner

Monday, September 21, 1998

California State University trustees approved on Wednesday the site for the 23rd campus in the system, Cal State Channel Islands.

About 60 Ventura County residents, who traveled by bus to Long Beach to support the decision, applauded the decision.

The former Camarillo State Hospital and Development Center will be renovated. As part of the long-term growth plan for the site, the Campus Master Plan allows for the construction of several new buildings, as well as the development of university-related space within the main campus core.

The CSU has been trying to find a campus in Ventura County for several years. The demand for a four-year university arose in the 1960s. In 1971, the Education Code was amended to include a Ventura County campus among the existing CSU sites. In 1969, 425 acres of land in Somis was purchased to build a Ventura County campus, but the land was sold in 1976 when the project stalled.

Rather than opening as a public four-year institution immediately, the campus will be the new location for Cal State Northridge Ventura Campus, also called the Off-Campus Center.

The current student population of 750 is expected to increase to 1,100 very rapidly, said Stephen Blake, associate director of government affairs. Under the trustees' plan, the campus will remain an extension of CSU Northridge until enrollment reaches about 6,000 and funding reaches self-sufficient levels.

As enrollment increases, course offerings will be expanded, in accordance with student demands. The OCC currently offers programs in business, social science, history and English.

Faculty members will come from OCC. Handel Evans, formerly from Cal State San Jose, is CSUCI's president. Evans was responsible for acquiring land for the last campus added to the system, Cal State Monterey Bay.

Although the campus will not be located on the Channel Islands, residents and business owners in Ventura County suggested the name in order to reflect the region rather than a city entity, said Steve Lefevre, director of the Ventura campus.

According to Blake, the first phase of development will be funded through the governor's budget. Thereafter, property taxes will be deferred to CSU authority and used for additional renovation.

Channel Islands Site A Senate Bill 623, passed in 1996, permits the sale or lease of property not needed for campus purposes to be used to generate revenues for campus growth and maintenance.

Ventura County has one of the lowest four-year university participation rates of any major county in California, with less than five percent of high school graduates advancing to a university.

The CSUCI campus is expected to draw students from Ventura, western Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties. It would serve to alleviate overcrowding at CSU Northridge, which is expected to reach its enrollment ceiling by the year 2002, and CSU San Luis Obispo, which has already exceeded its enrollment ceiling.

"With the opening of a new institution of higher education within the border of Ventura County, and with resolve on the part of both CSU and our district to create a seamless transition to this new four-year institution, we can be a model for the rest of the state," said Allan W. Jacobs, vice president of the board of trustees for the Ventura County Community College District.

One committee, devoted to campus planning, approved an environmental study evaluating the conversion of the hospital into the campus. A second committee, consisting of nearly all 24 members of the governing board, accepted the property into the CSU system.