East and West are coming together in Aliso Viejo, as the first phase of the Soka University of America campus there is nearly complete, and the university has begun enrolling students for its opening semester in the fall next year.
Although it will be non-denominational, the four-year liberal arts college is being created to advance Buddhist values by fostering “a steady stream of global citizens committed to living a contributive life,” according to SUA founder Daisaku Ikeda.
Soka offers a BA degree emphasizing international studies and humanities as well as social and behavioral sciences. All students will concentrate on a foreign language and culture, including a related internship or period of study abroad. Concentrations will increase in numbers that correspond with enrollment increases and student interests, according to school officials. The school also offers classes in fine and performing arts, science, communications and other areas.
Chapman University president James Doti, for one, is happy that Orange County is getting another school offering post-secondary liberal arts education.
“I think it’s great that Orange County is the home of another fine liberal arts school,” Doti said. “At Chapman, we’re already turning away some gifted students, so the need is obviously there.”
Doti also said he is glad that OC soon will have more capacity to provide an independent higher education experience for those students, with small classes that allow students to get to know their professors.
“I think Soka will be similar in that regard to Chapman,” said Doti. “I don’t see Soka as competition. I see us as partners in higher education, and I look forward to having many of their graduates think about Chapman for their graduate work in law, business and film studies.”
The 103-acre first phase is 90% complete and will be ready for spring, with future phases developed over the next several years depending on funding. The opening phase, which is costing about $220 million, totals 750,000 square feet, while the next phase will grow the university to 1.2 million square feet.
The initial 18-building phase includes academic buildings with fiber-optic technology; a library; the Founders Hall student and community services center; student residence halls wired with campus and network connections; the Athenaeum reception center; sports fields; and an Olympic-size swimming pool. The Daisaku and Kaneda Ikeda Library will be open to the public.
The first phase can accommodate up to 500 students. Soka plans to enroll about 100 students for its opening semester in fall next year and will step up enrollment in one-year increments.
The school has already filled 21 of 22 faculty positions, with a sole remaining position in political science. Soka has filled 28 out of 50 non-faculty positions at the school.
Soka’s president is Daniel Habuki, who is also president of the university’s other U.S. campus, in Calabasas.
The school has appointed Gail Thomas as its dean of faculty. Before joining the faculty at SUA, Thomas was professor of sociology and founder and director of the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute at Texas A & M; University. She also has been a visiting professor at Harvard University and was principal research scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University.
The school appointed Edward Feasel as its dean of students in 1998. Feasel previously was a research fellow of the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco. He was also a visiting economics professor and regular instructor at UC Berkeley, as well as an assistant economics professor at George Washington University.
The school has attracted professors from schools such as Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Chapman University, UCLA and UC Berkeley.
“Our focus is on teaching in the classroom,” said Harder. “All our professors are being hired based heavily on their teaching ability, so there won’t be situations where (teaching assistants) are teaching a class because the professor is busy doing research.”
Students will also participate in research undertaken by Soka professors,a graduate approach to an undergraduate institution. Students will work in small teams in the classroom and with faculty on research projects.
The school’s course of study will be divided into four-week terms in which the student studies only one subject at a time. “If a student is studying Chinese, for example, that’s all they will be studying during a four-week term,” said Wendy Harder, director of community relations.
International studies is by far the most popular choice among Soka’s applicants to date, according to Harder.
Soka offers both Eastern and Western perspectives throughout its curriculum, which includes core courses in psychology, history, sociology and anthropology.
“The whole purpose of this is to get students to think more globally and to think a little bit outside the box,” said Harder. “This way they can problem-solve throughout their lives with a broader viewpoint.”
The school is founded on the belief that student-centered education is the best way to promote peace and human rights by fostering a global humanistic perspective on the world.
Harder believes the university’s core values have wide appeal. Its students will come from a diverse set of countries and religious backgrounds, she said.
“Peace, human rights and the sanctity of life I think are pretty universal values,” said Harder. “Those values resonate with the type of people we want to attract.”
The cross-cultural and spiritual values are further reflected in the naming of academic buildings after Mohandas Gandhi and Linus Pauling and the Peace Lake and Fountain that will be at the center of the campus.
Soka has not encountered any problems attracting applications for enrollment, according to Harder, although the school has yet to release enrollment figures.
Soka relies on the Web as its primary means of marketing, with a site that records an average of 170,000 hits per month, according to Harder.
In promoting the school in Southern California, Soka participates in local school districts’ college nights and organizes family tour dates. Soka has attended or will attend 27 college nights in October and November and has placed ads for its family tour dates with local newspapers and radio stations and lined up television interviews on talk shows.
Harder said Soka has built good name recognition in Orange County.
“Our challenge now is getting known outside OC,” she said.
Nationally, the university works through different community centers and schools and sends out literature. Soka also uses direct mail and brochures, as well as the Web site, to promote itself internationally.
Soka chose South OC as its location because the area lacked higher education or cultural facilities, according to Harder.
The school’s positioning on the West Coast is no accident, either. Being on the Pacific Rim is important for a school with close ties to Japan and with plans to draw upon a wide range of East Asian students while arranging internships abroad.
The university’s first 100 students will launch and set the pace for its first-ever student government. These students will also establish dorm policy,an intriguing challenge considering the wide range of cultural backgrounds that Soka students will represent.
Soka has no percentage targets for international or domestic students. Instead, university officials want to have as many countries represented as possible, according to Harder.
International applicants must have a minimum score of 500 out of a possible 677 on the Test of English as a Foreign Language, which measures fluency in English. Other criteria taken into account include high school records; extracurricular activities or special talents; written personal statements; recommendations; and SAT I or ACT scores, which are optional for international students. Soka strongly recommends that U.S. students undertake a grade 9-12 college preparation program covering English, mathematics, history and social studies.
Tuition for the 2001-2002 academic year will be $16,500, with room and board costing an additional $7,500.
The school has a simple rule regarding whether students live on or off campus.
“Everybody lives on campus,” said Harder. “We found that about half of what a student experiences from university comes from living in student residences.”
The school’s construction plan ensures that the exteriors of remaining student residences under construction will be complete when the school begins its fall 2001 semester. With only interior construction pending, there will be relatively little noise to disrupt students.
The school’s structure and layout are designed to foster interactions among people. The dining areas encourage people to sit together in groups of four or five. Its layout discourages people from sitting alone.
“There are no tables for two,” said Harder.
The architecture of the campus is designed to be reminiscent of Tuscany, Italy, with buildings stepping down a sloped hillside. Buildings feature hand-troweled plaster in light earth tones, with travertine stonework at ground level and surrounding windows and doorways. Roofs have red clay tiles.
As an example, the Founder’s Hall building uses travertine stone imported from quarries that are about 45 minutes by car from Rome,the only spot in the world where that type of stone can be found. Travertine also was used in Rome’s ancient Coliseum and the Getty Center in Los Angeles.
The campus also has been carefully designed to harmonize with the neighboring community and to limit its visual effect on the adjacent Aliso and Woods Canyon Wilderness Park. About 80% of the perimeter of the school grounds abuts the park.
“The design and placements of the buildings complement the surrounding community,” said Harder. “And the buildings are built to 100-year standards, so they’ll be here for generations.”
Soka is a mile and a half from Aliso Viejo’s town center, which has important stores for students and faculty that include a Barnes & Noble retail bookstore.
OC’s skyrocketing rents have posed a challenge in finding nearby housing for newly recruited faculty. This is posing a problem for professors brought in from the Midwest more so than for faculty moving from high-priced real estate markets like New York or Hawaii, according to Harder.
Ultimately, the university plans to serve 1,200 residential, undergraduate students. The student-faculty ratio will eventually reach 9:1 from the initial 5:1 level. Either ratio would be among OC’s lowest. The university plans to offer adult education and graduate programs in the future.
“The motivation with a campus like Soka is not to make money,” said Harder. “We’re more interested in providing a personal education.”
SUA operates as an independent not-for-profit organization incorporated in California. The university has been approved by the California Bureau for Private Post Secondary and Vocational Education. As a new university, SUA will pursue accreditation by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges as soon as it becomes eligible after fulfilling the required minimum of one year of academic programs offered.
Japan-based Soka Gakkai was founded in 1930 by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, an educator and Buddhist leader. “Soka” means “creating value” in Japanese; “gakkai” means “education.”
During World War II, Japanese authorities arrested Makiguchi for his opposition to the war and for his views on educational reforms and religious freedom. He died in prison in 1944.
The education society he started has become one of the world’s largest lay-Buddhist organizations.
Soka Gakkai International was founded in 1975 to link members spread throughout the world. It now has members in 163 countries. SGI is the primary source of funding for SUA.
In 1987, Daisaku Ikeda, president of SGI, founded Soka University of America as an independent nonprofit organization with its first campus in Calabasas. SUA Calabasas offers a master’s program specializing in second- and foreign-language education. In 1995, SUA acquired the Aliso Viejo site.
Helping students learn how to create value in their lives, communities and the world is a central tenet of the Soka schools. The schools, which range from kindergarten to the 8,800-student Soka University of Japan, have established a tradition of humanistic learning and scholarship. n
