California State University-Fullerton is the biggest campus in the Cal State system.
It wants to get bigger.
CSUF has nearly 40,000 full- and part-time students at its campus covering 241 acres.
University staffers, led by newly minted President Framroze “Fram” Virjee, have crafted a new master plan for the state’s top dog among the two dozen CSU sites statewide.
The plan includes:
• Boosting full-time enrollment nearly 30% in 20 years, from 25,000 now to 32,000 in 2040.
• More than double on-campus student housing capacity to 5,000.
• A new 6,000-seat event center, also on campus.
The plan goes before CSU Trustees next spring.
Fine Focus
The school’s dream of bigger and better mirrors an OC-wide growth push at several of its major schools and even a few of the minor ones. OC’s cluster of community colleges have added facilities in recent years, Concordia University in Irvine is working through new projects at its campus, and Chapman University and University of California-Irvine are on something of a similar tear (see stories, page 1).
The future’s bright even at Western State College of Law, previously troubled by financial woes for a half-decade, as it sets a course under new ownership, and new, permanent facilities (see story, page 26).
Demand at CSUF is steady as she goes and the ship’s captain Virjee said even the 30% increase in students is only a bit over 1% annually during the second decade of the vision.
The aim remains CSUF’s core demographic—indeed, that of CSU campuses statewide: students from families with less collegiate history and generally less-inclined toward higher education.
“We are dedicated to serving our demographic,” Virjee said, “first-generation college students and [others from] underserved communities.”
Virjee came aboard full-time a few months ago after a stint as interim president, following the departure of Mildred Garcia, who also pushed programs strongly focused on the groups CSUF continues to envision as benefitting from a big expansion.
For Funds
He said the California legislature will pay for a chunk of the growth: half of CSUF’s annual operations funding comes from the state—about $227 million next year—with the rest from tuition, which runs about $7,000 a year.
About 80% of annual income goes to operations including fixed costs, and wages and benefits, Virjee said.
The third leg of gearing up for growth is CSUF’s first campuswide capital campaign ever, aimed at raising $175 million over the next five to seven years, to fund student scholarships and faculty.
Individual areas of the school have raised funds in OC—witness the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics or Folino Drive, for instance—but this will be its first trip to the well for a full-fledged CSUF effort.
Of its 300,000 alumni, about 80% stay in OC after graduation—part of the conversation on whether young adults want to live in OC.
“We want to get our alumni back here, so they can see what we’re doing,” Virjee said. “That will only strengthen us as an institution, and strengthen Orange County as a major economic engine.”
First Gen
Virjee said the campus graduates more women and more women of color, than any other university in California and ranks No. 4 nationally helping all students of color graduate.
Efforts are being made to ensure than CSUF will never be a place “that costs a lot of money to go there.”
It does the usual—and sounds not a little like a business—working to restrain costs while providing its service: more degree programs, tenure track faculty, and so on, while at the same time, looking to the future and trying to innovate.
It’s increasing “hybrid” courses, combining online with on-ground work and considering changes to class schedules to accommodate different elements of its growing student population.
At the public level it has Center for Entrepreneurship at Mihaylo, active in startups and business incubation, and its planning includes new space for interdisciplinary innovation.
People’s perception of the school needs to change from “transactional” to “transformational,” Virjee said.
CSUF sent into the world last year the Cal State system’s largest graduating class ever, 12,000 students.
Virjee said capacity and student body changes come from—and will bring—changes to the campus and its culture.
“During the week, campus is packed,” he said. “On Friday, I could go bowling.”
Virjee Speaks
Framroze “Fram” Virjee became the sixth permanent president of California State University-Fullerton in March this year after 15 months in an interim role. A few of his musings on CSUF’s unique place in OC and where it’s headed:
• “For too long, and I still get this when I’m out in the business community, I hear that we’re the best kept secret in OC. Best, I want to be. Secret, no thank you.”
• “We’re not just teaching students skills to get to a first job, but a second and third as entrepreneurs and CEOs. We’re helping them to build a sense of community values in a diverse environment.”
• “OC is five minutes behind CSU Fullerton in becoming as diverse as we are.”
• “We graduated 12,000 students last year … and it’s really important that we continue to be able to do that in order to build the economy of tomorrow.”
He added, “If we can push another 300,000 Titans into the community over the next 50 years, then that is who will be running and thriving [in] OC.”
