California State University San Marcos (CSUSM or Cal State San Marcos) is a public comprehensive university in San Marcos, California, United States, and one of the 23 campuses of the California State University system. San Marcos is a suburban city in the North County area of San Diego County. It was founded in 1989 as the 20th CSU campus. The first class was admitted in 1990.
CSU San Marcos offers 62 different Bachelor's degrees, 15 master's degrees, an Ed.D. program, and 13 teaching credentials. The university has four colleges: the College of Business Administration; the College of Science and Mathematics; the College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences; and the College of Education, Health and Human Services. In Fall of 2013, the university had 615 faculty, of which 225 (or 36.5 percent) were tenured or on the tenure track.
History
Efforts by community and political leaders to bring a state university to North County date back to the 1960s. In 1969, the chancellor of the CSU system, Glenn S. Dumke issued a report concluding that there was "an ultimate need" for a new university campus in the area.
In 1978, State Senator William A. Craven (1921â€"1999) of Carlsbad won $250,000 in state funding for a North County satellite campus of San Diego State University, which opened at Lincoln Junior High School in Vista with an enrollment of 148 students. In 1982, the satellite moved to larger quarters in an office building on Los Vallecitos Boulevard in San Marcos. When it appeared that the new San Marcos campus would be a satellite of San Diego State, CSU Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds insisted on an independent university with the goal of creating leadership opportunities for women and minorities. In September 1985, Senate Bill 1060, introduced by Craven, passed, appropriating $250,000 for a feasibility study on building a university in North County. By 1988, the enrollment of SDSU North County had reached 1,250 students, and the CSU board of trustees purchased for $10.6 million the future site of CSU San Marcos, the 304-acre Prohoroff Poultry Farm in San Marcos. The hillside site lies approximately 8 miles (13 km) due east of the Pacific Ocean and 35 miles (56 km) due north of downtown San Diego. Today the campus comprises 340 acres (140 ha). The CSU trustees also requested $51.8 million in state funds for the first phase of construction.
In 1989, Governor George Deukmejian signed Senate Bill 365 (also sponsored by Craven) into law, officially creating CSU San Marcos. Bill W. Stacy was named the university's first president in June 1989, and over the next year recruited the first 12 members of the faculty. These dozen "founding faculty" played an important role in the university's early years and are today honored at Founders Plaza on the CSU campus. Stacy and the faculty were given $3.9 million to begin the university, which at first offered nine majors.
In February 23, 1990, ground was broken on the new campus, and construction began at the former chicken farm. In fall 1990, the first class enrolled at the new university: 448 juniors and seniors. (Initially, only upperclassmen â€" were admitted to CSU San Marcos). While construction continued on the permanent campus, classes continued to be held at the former SDSU satellite location on Los Vallecitos Boulevard. An industrial facility on Stone Drive was also used to provide lab space for the Biology program, and was used through January, 1993. In 1991, the university conferred its first degrees, as seven students were awarded Bachelor of Arts degrees. CSU San Marcos' first official commencement ceremony was held in May 1992.
In fall 1992, the permanent CSUSM campus at Twin Oaks Valley Road opened. The first buildings were Craven Hall (opened December 1992), Academic Hall, Science Hall I, and the University Commons. The university had grown to 1,700 students and 305 faculty and staff.
The university continued to grow rapidly, and by 1993 CSU San Marcos' enrollment had grown to almost 2,500 and it received accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. The university then offered 17 bachelor's degrees, nine teacher credentials, and six master's degrees. In 1995, CSU San Marcos admitted its first freshman class and offered lower-division courses for the first time, with enrollment growing to 3,600. The same year, the College of Education was fully accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education.
In 1996, CSU San Marcos received two major gifts: $1 million from Jean and W. Keith Kellogg II, the first of a series of gifts for the Kellogg Library, and a $1.3 million bequest from Lucille Griset Spicer (present by Spicer's siblings Richard H. Griset Sr. and Margaret Griset Liermann) to begin a student loan fund.
In early 1997, Stacy departed as university president, and Alexander Gonzalez was named interim president. In 1998, the CSU Board of Trustees made Gonzalez permanent president. By 1997, enrollment had grown to 4,400, the faculty had grown to 300 (including part-time instructors), and the university offered 19 bachelor's degrees, 15 teacher credentials, and eight master's degrees. The university also received additional major donations, including a $2.3 million gift from Leonard Evers to establish the Evers Computer Scholarship and a donation from Bob and Ruth Mangrum to build the Mangrum Track & Soccer Field. The university intercollegiate athletics department opened in 1998, and initially consisted of men's and women's golf, cross-country, and track and field.
A campus "building boom" began, with the Foundation Classroom Buildings opening in December 1996, University Hall in 1998, Science Hall II and the Arts Building in August 2002, and the University Village Apartments and the nearby M. Gordon Clarke Field House / University Student Union in 2003. The University Village Apartments were the university's first on-campus housing; the new student union, known as "the Clarke," was funded by $1.2 million gift pledged in 1998 by Helene Clarke in honor of her husband.
In January 2004, the campus' first freestanding library, the five-story, nearly 200,000 square feet (19,000Â m2) Kellogg Library, opened. The same year, Karen S. Haynes was named the university's third president, following Gonzalez's departure the year previously, and the university announced that it planned to establish a nursing school. In fall 2004, over 7,000 students enrolled.
In 2006, the College of Business Administration's Markstein Hall opened, funded by a 2003 state grant of almost $25 million and a 2005 pledge of $5 million from Kenneth and Carole Markstein. The School of Nursing opened in fall 2006. The university added baseball, softball, and men's and women's soccer teams the same year.
A Sprinter (light rail) station and the university's first parking garage, the six-floor, 1,605-space Parking Structure I, opened in 2010. The Sprinter connects the campus to the major cities of north San Diego County, including Oceanside, Vista and Escondido. In May 2011, the 106,509 gross square foot Social and Behavioral Sciences Building at the north end of the campus opened.
For the 2011â€"2012 academic year, tuition and fees rose to $6,596, a 31% increase attributed to the state's budget crisis; it was the largest such percentage increase in the United States.
Academics and students
The university has four colleges:
- College of Business Administration (three departments: Accounting and Finance; Information Systems and Operations Management; Management and Marketing)
- College of Science and Mathematics (five departments: Biological Science; Chemistry and Biochemistry; Computer Science and Information Systems; Mathematics; Physics)
- College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences (thirteen departments: Anthropology; Communication; Economics; History; Liberal Studies; Literature and Writing Studies; Modern Language Studies; Philosophy; Political Science; Psychology; Sociology; Visual and Performing Arts; Women's Studies)
- College of Education, Health and Human Services (two schools: the School of Nursing and School of Education, as well as two departments: Kinesiology and Human Development)
Through summer 2010, the university has conferred a total of 24,529 degrees in its history: 13,559 Bachelor of Arts, 6,327 Bachelor of Science, 1,235 Master of Arts, 691 Master of Business Administration, 157 Master of Science, and 37 Doctor of Education degrees.
In 2011, around 53 percent of students were in the College of Arts and Sciences, 20 percent in the College of Business Administration, 6 percent in the College of Education, 6 percent in the School of Nursing, and 5 percent undeclared. The ten most popular undergraduate majors are business administration (2,056 students, including pre-business), liberal studies (670), psychology (624), nursing (621 including pre-nursing), communication (549), human development (444), criminology (423), biology (324), sociology (321) and kinesiology (315).
In 2011, the university had a total enrollment of 9,722. This is an increase from the university's historic size. The first class in 1990â€"1991 had 448 students (only upper class students were initially admitted). The first freshman students entered in 1995, when enrollment has grown to 3,642, and by 2002 the university had around 7,700 students. The campus master plan envisions the university growing to an enrollment of 18,000 students by 2020, and eventually to 25,000.
Currently, CSU San Marcos trends heavily female: 62 percent of students are women, and 38 percent men. In 2011, some 48 percent of incoming freshmen were from North San Diego County, 12 percent from elsewhere in San Diego County, 28 percent from Riverside County, and 7 percent from Orange County.
There are a sizable number of transfer students from community colleges. The "local admissions area community colleges" for CSU San Marcos are Mount San Jacinto College in Riverside County and Mira Costa College and Palomar College in San Diego County. About 50 percent of transfer students are from North San Diego County, 2 percent from San Diego County elsewhere; and 48 percent from Riverside County.
Around 45 percent of students are white, 28 percent Latino, 11 percent "other," 10 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, 3 percent African American, and 3 percent multiple races. The university has been accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) since 1993.
The university has around 157 international and exchange students, of which the largest numbers come from China (19 percent), Japan (18 percent), and Korea (10 percent).
The university has around 232 tenured and tenure-track professors, of which all except three have a terminal degree.
Student life
There are some 80 recognized student organizations on campus. The student newspaper is called The Cougar Chronicle.
CSU San Marcos is a "perennial top performer" in RecycleMania, a nationwide college and university recycling competition, and had been ranked #1 for six consecutive years (2005â€"2011).
Greek life
CSUSM recognizes seven sororities: alpha Kappa Delta Phi, Alpha Pi Sigma, Alpha Xi Delta, Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Chi Omega, Delta Zeta and Sigma Gamma Rho and five fraternities: Alpha Psi Rho, Nu Alpha Kappa, Omega Psi Phi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and Sigma Chi.
University Student Union
CSUSM opened up its new University Student Union (USU) in January 2014. The cost of construction totaled 44 million dollars. The Union includes various student groups, cultural centers, leadership centers, an extended food court, two game rooms, a ball room, an amphitheater, and a commuter lounge which includes a shower and lockers. The USU offers many spaces for students to gather between classes with panoramic views of the San Marcos valley.
Athletics
Cal State San Marcos teams, nicknamed athletically as the Cougars, are part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), primarily competing as an Independent of the Association of Independent Institutions (AII). Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, soccer and track & field; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, track & field and volleyball.
The original mascot of the campus was Tukwut, the name for the California mountain lion in the Luiseño language of the local Native American Luiseño people. However, the mascot was "dropped for something with more ring," and in a referendum students selected "cougar" over "mountain lion." The dropping of the indigenous word was criticized by a faculty member at CSU San Marcos.
The official colors of the Cougars are bright/royal blue and white. In the early years, burgundy was used sparingly as an accent. The school recently hired their first coaches in baseball and soccer; in baseball, Dennis Pugh, who coached at a local high school for decades, and soccer coach Ron Pulvers. In 2007, the softball program's second year, the school hired former UCLA All-American Kelly Warren who was previously the Associate Head Coach at nearby San Diego State University. Steve Scott (aka "The Miler") is the Cougars' cross country and track & field coach. In fall 2009, the women's cross country team won their first NAIA National Championship. They went on to defend their title the next year in fall 2010. The university also has a surf team that competes in the National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA). The surf team won the NSSA collegiate national championship in 2009. For the academic year of 2011, women's volleyball, and men's and women's basketball, have all been added to the campus. In the 2011â€"2012 academic year, the Athletic Program has so far dominated the A.I.I. conference by having 6 teams emerge as conference champions.
On May 27, 2010, Cal State San Marcos hired former Palomar College head coach, Sheri Jennum, as their first women's basketball head coach. Jim Saia is the men's basketball head coach, who led the team to its first-ever appearance in the NAIA Division I National Championship Tournament in 2012â€"13.
On February 1, 2014, Cal State San Marcos accepted an invitation to join the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) while applying for NCAA Division II membership ranks.
President and faculty
The university has had four presidents:
- Bill Stacy (1989â€"1997), who left to become chancellor of the Chattanooga campus of the University of Tennessee
- Alexander Gonzalez (1997â€"2003), previously the provost of the California State University, Fresno who left CSUSM to become president of the larger California State University, Sacramento
- Roy McTarnaghan (2003â€"2004), interim president
- Karen S. Haynes, (2004â€"), former president of University of Houstonâ€"Victoria, who joined CSUSM in February 2004
References
External links
- Official website
- Cal State San Marcos Athletics website