Logistical considerations and the prospective size of California's K-12 population have forced the University of California to begin planning for a tenth campus of the University, even though prospects for its construction are uncertain.
Working backwards from the date at which UC's existing campuses will be filled to capacity, UC administrators realized over the course of the last several months that, if enrollment demand is to be met through means of an additional campus, deadlines for opening the campus will arrive as early as the fall of 1997. Thus, the groundwork is being laid now for the formation of an academic plan for the campus; creation of the plan may take place in the 1996-97 academic year. None of this means, however, that there has been any change in UC's stance on what will be required if a tenth campus is to open.
"I want to make it absolutely clear; unless the University has adequate funding to fund the existing campuses and maintain their quality, there will not be a tenth campus," UC Vice-President William Baker told California Assembly members in March. "But, given sufficient funding to maintain the existing campuses and additional funding to proceed with the tenth campus, we will do so."
What will happen if such funding is not forthcoming is anybody's guess, since at the moment three competing imperatives seem to be on a collision course. The first of these is the undergraduate enrollment capacity of UC's existing general campuses. The second is undergraduate enrollment demand, which could exceed enrollment capacity as early as 2004-05, according to current estimates. The third is the California Master Plan for Higher Education, which calls for UC to offer admission to the top 12.5 percent of California high school graduates. Unless a tenth campus is built, early in the next century UC seemingly would have to modify its historic Master Plan commitment or fill its existing campuses beyond their capacity.
This problem may become particularly acute beginning in 2007-08, when a surge of California high school students, nicknamed "tidal wave II," will begin enrolling in UC. By 2010-11, undergraduate enrollment demand at UC may exceed 175,000 students, while existing capacity will be no more than 165,000 under a scenario in which UC Riverside would grow to 30,000 students. Under alternate scenarios, with fewer students at UCR, UC's undergraduate capacity might be as low as 145,000, UC officials estimate.
Such figures mean that UC has to plan as if a tenth campus will open. In order to move its planning efforts forward, early this year UCOP established a new post of associate vice provost for educational relations and chose, as the first occupant of the position, Daniel Simmons, a UC Davis law professor and last year's chair of the Senate's Academic Council. The need to move now on planning for a tenth campus is apparent once the time-line is thought through, Simmons says.
"Let's assume that existing campuses reach their enrollment capacity by 2007," he says. "You can't simply enroll all of these extra students in a single year, so you'd have to start admitting students to the new campus by 2005." In order to do this, he points out, the initial academic leadership -- those faculty who would be responsible for hiring other faculty -- would have to be on board by about 2002-2003, by which time construction would have to be underway.
Much has to be in place earlier for this to happen: physical planning for infrastructure, preliminary planning and environmental compliance work. Meanwhile, the step that underlies all of this is the formulation of an academic plan for the campus. If the other work is to go forward on time, Simmons says, "we would have to go to the Academic Senate and the California Postsecondary Education Commission with an academic planning document in the fall of 1997." Thus, Simmons plans to come to the Academic Council soon to ask for names of Senate members who could work on such a document next year. Meanwhile, UC's chancellors have been asked to update their campus enrollment plans, which should give UC a better idea of its campus capacities.
UC already has one critical element of a tenth campus in place, of course: a site for it. Last May, the UC Regents decided on the 2,000-acre Lake Yosemite site, near Merced in the San Joaquin Valley, as the location for its next campus. Thus far, however, questions of how to finance it have forestalled any groundswell of support for it in the Legislature.
The financing that would be required is considerable, particularly when considered in the context of the capital needs of UC's existing campuses. In recent years, the state has been providing about $150 million a year in capital financing for UC, with most of this going for seismic safety projects. UC estimates that its actual current needs are about $250 million a year. By the time the "tidal wave II" students are ready for college, UC's capital needs will be about $350 million a year UC officials estimate. The University's position is that start-up capital costs for a new campus -- some $300-400 million -- would have to be provided on top of this.
"The big money in this would have to come in 2002-03, with the actual construction funds," says UC's William Baker. Thus, the critical decision for the governor and state legislature is likely to come in that time-frame. The working drawings that would be required for construction would also carry some cost but, prior to this work, the state might only be asked to provide a few million dollars for such things as environmental impact reports, Baker said. The question that is on the minds of a good many faculty and campus administrators, however, is whether UC will be able to remain firm in its position that a tenth campus will be built only if the state provides adequate funds for both it and the existing campuses.
"I think the University will stick with that stance," says Roger Anderson, chair of the Senate's University Committee on Planning and Budget, which has begun to look at the tenth campus issue. "We're not going to build it if it means enormous sacrifices from the existing campuses."
Nevertheless, Anderson points out, an important issue related to this is what kind of financial commitment the University can receive from the state legislature in an era of term limits. Can the University count on succeeding sets of legislators to honor financing commitments made by their predecessors?
Finally, apart from financing, some faculty feel that a Lake Yosemite tenth campus faces another potentially very difficult problem: how attractive will such a remote, rural location be to prospective faculty and students?