As the summer sizzled on, plans to bring a four-year university to Chula Vista heated up.
Assembly Member Shirley Weber, the Chair of the Assembly Select Committee of Higher Education in San Diego County Shirley Weber travelled down from Sacramento to hold an Informational Hearing in the Chula Vista City Council Chambers to update the status of the university project and to discuss the roles local and state government as well as the community and postsecondary institutions would play in the process of obtaining the school.
Chula Vista University has run into several obstacles since being proposed in 1993. Community member David Walden said he is frustrated over the university’s delay.
“After 20 years of thought, still nothing,” he said. “The need is clear. There’s really nothing else to discuss except putting the right people in the right forums and putting the resources together.”
Southwestern College governing board member Tim Nader said he remembers when talks of the university first started 20 years ago when he was Mayor of Chula Vista and is happy they are still ongoing.
“It’s good that we’re still talking about it and I understand that the state has had severe economic and budgetary constraints between then and now,” said Nader. “However, those constraints are only going to get worse if we don’t accommodate the educational needs of our students.”
Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox hopes to show results in the coming months.
“It has been a slow, meticulous, very methodical process,” she said, “and come the next 90 days, with our fingers crossed, we will have the land we’ve been looking for for the last 14 years.”
The land she referred to is located close to the Olympic Training Center in the Otay Ranch section of Chula Vista. Interested parties are counting on a total of 375 acres.
Chula Vista boasts a population of approximately 250,000 and is one of the most diverse cities in the nation. It is also home to many popular landmarks, such as Living Coast Discovery Center and the Olympic Training Center, both of which were mentioned as possible resources for the proposed university.
Representatives for both the University of California and California State University presented their cases in an attempt to land the bid.
After making comparisons to the abundance of four-year colleges in and around Los Angeles County, Weber questioned the lack of a presence in San Diego.
“We have what? UCSD, San Diego State and San Marcos,” she said. “That’s it, as the second largest city in the second largest county. We have a shortage that’s there.”
Weber said hopes are to attract students from all over the state and to give those who prefer to stay close to home an option. Many are turned away by SDSU and UCSD because the schools are heavily impacted. Chula Vista university would house around 20,000 students and would work closely with community colleges and high schools in the region. This would diminish the number of students who have to leave the county to further their education.
Weber said she has spoken to presidents of local campuses to eliminate the “push-back” that tends to come with the proposal of a competing school. She said she wants them to be a part of the process.
“It’s not designed to take resources from San Diego State or our UC campus,” said Weber. “I’m gonna continue to fight to fund those campuses and increase their budgets because they are important entities in this region.”
Budget cuts have been an issue within the educational system since the recession.
President and Chief Executive Officer of the South County Development Council Cindy Gompper-Graves said businesses can and should benefit together with the school.
“We wanna make sure that our university is an economic engine,” she said.
Gompper-Graves said the opportunity for economic impact would be far greater if the university had a strong research and development component.
During her closing remarks, Weber said she was done doing studies, but that she did have critical questions about the type of campus the city should have.
“One of the things I’ve looked at is that we haven’t had a Cal Tech and a Cal Poly developed in a long time,” she said. “Maybe that’s our signature campus that we hang our hat on. That brings in UCSD and SDSU to help develop something they already have bits and pieces of.