Main News Section
Creativity, cooperation vital to attracting university
Community colleges can play key role
QUOTE: “Everyone in the region has to sit down together.”—CSU Chancellor
Charles B. Reed
BY BILL DEAVER
MOJAVE — If they hope to attract a new state university to the “Aerospace
Valley,” community leaders must be willing to work together and be creative,
the chancellor of the California State University system told leaders at
a meeting at the Mojave Airport/Spaceport Monday.
And the vice-president of the San Diego firm offering land for the
project offered to donate $5 million to a new foundation created to support
the university, $10 million foer the first phase of construction, and to
pay for environmental and planning studies, “All at no cost to Antelope
Valley taxpayers,” said Strata Equity Vice-President Eric Flodine at the
meeting organized by the East Kern Educational Resource Network (EKERN).
Meeting in the East Kern Airport District board room, CSU Chancellor
Charles B. Reed warned that “everyone in the region has to sit down together”
and agree to form a joint powers agreement to develop the university. Efforts
to create a JPA are already underway, led by Antelope Valley College President
Jackie Fisher. The only impediment to that effort has been concern that
all communities and school districts in the region are represented.
Reed emphasized that everyone interested in attracting a state university
to the region must be invited to the table, adding that the JPA process
worked for developing CalState Channel Islands in Ventura County, Reed
said.
Creative approach
Noting that funding for the state university system and University
of California are being neglected by state lawmakers, Reed said the best
way to bring a university to the region is to follow the example of Florida,
where he worked before coming to California.
Florida’s approach has been for community colleges to offer the first
two years of classes with the state university offering the next two years
and post-graduate programs, with both located on the same site.
“You don’t need two libraries, you don’t need two administrations,
you don’t need two sets of laboratories,” Reed said. If both institutions
share these overhead costs students and the public see one institution.
When that approach was first proposed in Florida there was a lot of
complaining but people have gotten used to it and understand the benefits,
Reed said.
“It becomes seamless,” he said.
Reed also said that the best way to begin the process is to create
university centers, like the one already operating in Lancaster where CalState
Bakersfield and CalState Fresno work with Antelope Valley College to offer
four-year engineering degrees.
Bob Johnstone, who led the effort to develop the master plan for the
proposed High Desert University, said the first engineering graduate of
the Lancaster University Center is a single mother who lives with her terminally-ill
mother while attending classes and taking care of ehr kids and mother.
“She would never have been able to earn her degree if she had had to
travel out of the area,” Johnstone said, adding that she accepted one of
three job offers from local aerospace firms.
Students
Reed said the key to qualifying for a university site is a steady flow
of potential students. Briefing the meeting on the site his firm wants
to donate for the new university, Flodine said the region already has a
population of 1.2 million and expects that to increase by 800,000 by 2030.
Johnstone said there are already 13,525 full-time-equivalent students attending
college courses in the region.
Reed also said the way universities will teach is changing rapidly
to the classroom and teacher model to classes being presented online. And
he noted that CSU students across the state tend to be older and holding-down
40-hour-a-week jobs and raising families while working for their degrees.
Noting that local advocates for the university want a polytechnic campus,
Reed said they are the most expensive to build and operate.
“You need to find out what your needs are before settling on the type
of school you want,” Reed warned.
But Johnstone said local employers were surveyed during the 10-month
period the 73 members of his committee worked together to develop the master
plan for the proposed university.
Site
Flodine said the site Strata is offering is between the Highway 58
freeway east of Mojave and the Hyundai/Kia automotive test center. Strata
is offering 640 acres free to the state along with 60 acres for a community
college. A new town would be developed on land Strata already owns and
would include a research center that would help support local aerospace,
mining, and other industries. Flodine said Strata is already working with
the East Kern Airport District to ensure that the site will not interfere
with flight operations from the Mojave Airport/Spaceport.
Johnstone said the only two other sites offered since the effort to
attract the university was kicked-off in May, 2006, are one on Edwards
Air Force Base and a collection of Bureau of Land Management property scattered
around the desert. No sites have been offered in Los Angeles County.
Pointing to a map of the region the university wills serve, Flodine
said the Mojave site is in its geographical center and at the crossroads
of two major highways railroads.
Invite Governor
Reed suggested EKERN invite California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
to visit the region, noting that he plans to declare 2008 “The Year of
Education.” Way and California City Mayor David Evans, who welcomed Reed
and Executive Vice Chancellor Richard P. West to the meeting, said they
will work with state legislators to invite California Schwarzenegger.
Evans also announced that the Secretary of State has approved formation
of a foundation to support the university. Strata Equity President James
M. Kozak said the firm will donate $5 million to get the Cal poly High
Desert Foundation started. Witt and EKAD board member Cathy Hansen have
pledged $500 each.
Flodine said that some of the land at the site would be owned by the
foundation, creating a perpetual source of income.
PLANNING — California State University Chancellor Charles B.
Reed, at left, discussed the process for attracting a CSU campus to the
Aerospace Valley at a meeting at the Mojave Airport/Spaceport Monday. At
his right are, from left, California City City Manager Bill Way, Bob Johnstone,
who has led the effort to attract the university, and Craig Peterson, aide
to Kern County Supervisor Jon McQuiston. BILL DEAVER/Desert News
TEHACHAPI City Manager Jason Candle, at left, meets California State
University Chancellor Charles B. Reed following a meeting at Mojave Airport/Spaceport
Monday to discuss plans for a new state university in the High Desert.
BILL DEAVER/Mojave Desert News
A.V. trade board leaders hear East Kern university concerns
Need to increase students numbers
DESERT NEWS STAFF REPORT
CALIFORNIA CITY — Supporters of an effort to attract a new state university
to the Antelope Valley should concentrate on increasing the number of college-eligible
students in the region and meet with state university officials to learn
the process for qualifying for the new institution.
That was what East Kern leaders told Antelope Valley Board of Trade
President John Currado and Executive Director Cathy Hart at a two-hour
meeting in city hall Monday.
Members of EKERN — the East Kern Educational Resource Network— also
repeated their support for the Board of Trade leading the effort to promoting
the effort to attract the university rather than forming a “joint powers
authority” for the same purpose.
After outlining the 10-year process to bring a university to the region
and efforts to develop the last three new state universities in California,
Hart said the trade board “didn’t do our homework” during the recent year-long
effort that began with a meeting at the Lancaster Fairgrounds last May.
Currado, who has discussed the region’s effort to attract the university
with Dr. Richard West, the number-two man in the state university system,
said the state system is short of money to operate universities, and that
the key to any new campus is having a sufficient number of students qualified
for admittance to state universities
According to Currado, this region doesn’t currently meet that goal.
But Eric Flodine of Strata Equity Group, the Riverside and San Diego
firm offering to donate land and money for the new campus, said his research
shows there are some 13,000 “full time equivalent” students in the region
already. “That’s more than enough,” Flodine said.
Learning the rules
East Kern Airport District General Manager Stuart Witt, a member of
the Kern County College board of trustees, said he’s learned over the years
that it’s always best to deal with the top, rather than the second person
in organizations, and that “we need to find out what the rules are, so
that no one can come back and say we missed something.”
Currado said he learned from West that the normal process for qualifying
a university in California involves creating a university center, which
has been done in Lancaster, Palm Desert and El Toro, the three communities
vying for the next CSU campus.
The next step is to have that campus certified by the California Post-Secondary
Education Commission, which has been done for the Lancaster center.
“The next step is to become a university,” Hart said.
But it’s not all that simple, she cautioned. While Hart said that supporters
of the last three new campuses formed joint powers authorities (JPA), the
key to landing a university will be legislation introduced by the area’s
two state senators. Rex Moen, representing state Senator Roy Ashburn, said
the region doesn’t currently have enough qualified students. But he said
that Ashburn and state Senator George Runner of Lancaster could eventually
introduce such a bill.
The Lancaster center and related sites are bursting at their seams
and need to expand, Hart said. Witt suggested that officials at the university
center consider finding expansions sites in Kern County. (To date, the
only viable site offered for the new university is Strata’s east of Mojave).
‘Confusion’
In response to comments about dissension in region’s efforts to attract
the university, Desert News publisher Bill Deaver said “everything was
moving right along until the proposal was made to form a JPA. We believe
the Board of Trade is and has been for decades a truly representative organization,
and see no reason to delay this process by forming a new government agency.”
California City City Manager Bill Way, Ridgecrest Mayor Chip Holloway,
Witt, Flodine, and others agreed that a JPA was not necessary at this time,
and that if one is formed it should include full representation from East
Kern based on projected population growth.
Currado told the group that he needed something to take back to his
board for a meeting Tuesday morning. On a motion from Deaver, EKERN members
voted to support the following resolution:
“EKERN will continue the efforts of supporting a fouryear university
to the end with all of the region being represented appropriately.
We will continue to work with the Antelope Valley Board of Trade to
obtain direction, what we will need and which direction we will need to
go to make sure we have correct and appropriate representation.
EKERN, will attempt to coordinate a task force to solicit guidance
from (state university officials), and request the Board of Trade to support
EKERN in these efforts.”
BOARD OF TRADE Executive Director Cathy Hart and President John Currado
discussed plans to attract a state university to the Antelope Valley with
members of the East Kern Educational Resource Network Monday. BILL DEAVER/Desert
News
Mojave Desert News
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