Buildings 50% Complete, Staff Being Hired; Fall 2001 Opening Planned
The 103-acre Soka University in Aliso Viejo is a year ahead of schedule, as planned.
The Buddhist-owned liberal arts university is slated to be built and fully staffed by late next year, to allow for a “shakeout” period before its fall 2001 opening.
And despite the air of mystery lent by the school’s Buddhist connections, its officials insist it will be a mainstream school,much like the Catholic Notre Dame or, locally, Chapman University, which is affiliated with the Disciples of Christ denomination.
“We are an American university,” said Wendy Harder, director of community relations.
The campus’s 14 buildings are about 50% complete, and six of 21 faculty members are on board, preparing curricula for its first 100 freshmen in fall 2001. Eventually, the school will enroll 2,500 students.
Soka’s planned size and academic focus will compare with the Irvine campus of Concordia University, a four-year liberal arts school that has 1,300 students. Concordia is affiliated with the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church.
At Soka, recruiting the remaining faculty is the current focus, said Gail Thomas, dean of faculty and professor of sociology.
“We are searching quite broadly,” she said. Beyond competency, Soka is seeking faculty who “have a passion for undergraduate teaching and a big heart for both our students and our mission at Soka.”
The faculty brought on so far hail from such schools as UC Berkeley, Cornell and Texas A & M.; Faculty positions will be filled by this summer or early fall, Thomas said. Thus far, more than 500 candidates have applied for Soka’s 15 advertised openings, she said.
Scott Cowdrey, the school’s director of information technology, is the latest non-professor recruit. Altogether, 14 of Soka’s planned 50-member staff are on board.
A marketing campaign will begin in a few weeks, once the university obtains licensing. Early admission begins April 1. Student makeup is expected to be 70% from the U.S. and 30% international.
“Students who come here are going to be risk-takers,” said Wendy Harder, director of community relations. That’s primarily because it’s a new university being built from scratch. In addition, there’s an emphasis on dialogue-based learning because of the low student-to-teacher ratio, she said. “There’s no back of the classroom.”
The student-professor ratio is planned to be 9:1, one of the lowest in Orange County. The ratio upon opening will be 5:1.
The 54-foot diameter dome mounted on the 10-story-high Atrium of the Student and Community Services building had one panel left to be placed as of last week. The Italian Renaissance-inspired building will contain a two-story, 8,000 square-foot art gallery, which will be open to the public. The library, academic buildings and residence halls also are rising from the ground. And the construction-yellow Athenaeum building stands out, overlooking the edge of the Aliso and Wood Canyon Wilderness Park. The Athenaeum, meaning place of dialogue, will house the conference center and lecture halls.
“(The Athenaeum) is where we will hold the gala for the real millennium” said Harder.
Other plans for the opening include a Linus Pauling exhibition. Pauling is the only person to date to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes; one in chemistry in 1954, the other in peace in 1962. Of course, music, social events and community tours will be a big part of opening week.
Japan-based Soka Gakkai International,the world’s largest Buddhist organization,is funding the $200 million Soka project. (Soka is a Japanese word meaning value creation; Gakkai means society.) Daisaku Ikeda is the founder of Soka University of America and president of SGI. He started the first U.S. Soka campus in Calabasas in 1987.
Though Soka’s roots are in Japan and it was conceived with Buddhist principles, Harder said, “we aren’t teaching Buddhism.”
A world religion class will be offered, but as an elective, she said.
Admission standards will be similar to those of the University of California system. Yearly tuition is set at $16,500 and room and board will be $7,500.
In 1995, Soka University acquired the land from the Mission Viejo Co., masterplanners of the Aliso Viejo community, which is 85% complete.
Newport Beach’s Swinerton & Walberg Co. is Soka’s general contractor. Summit Architects, based in Santa Monica, is the project manager and architect. Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates of Los Angeles is the master planner and architect. SWA Group, Laguna Beach, is in charge of landscaping. n
