SAN MARCOS: 30K-plus college students heading back to class

Fall semester starts Monday at Cal State San Marcos, Palomar College

By ANDREA MOSS - Staff Writer | Sunday, August 24, 2008 3:11 PM PDT ∞

SAN MARCOS ---- More than 30,000 college students will pick up their backpacks and head back to class Monday, when Cal State San Marcos and Palomar College kick off new academic years.

Officials at both campuses said Friday that they were ready for the influx, thanks to a flurry of final preparations by faculty and staff members last week.

The efforts included getting syllabuses and lecture materials ready, making sure classrooms and other buildings were in good shape, and getting new library books on their shelves so students could find them easily, campus officials said.

Officials at the university celebrated when its enrollment topped 9,000 for the first time last year. Founded in 1989, Cal State San Marcos hopes to have 20,000 students by 2020.

Cal State San Marcos spokeswoman Margaret Lutz said Friday final enrollment numbers for the fall semester would not be available until Monday. However, preliminary figures show the campus has about 9,700 students, she said.

That includes a 4 percent jump in the number of freshmen compared to last year, Lutz said, though she was unable to provide a specific number.

Palomar College spokeswoman Mea Daum said its enrollment stood at 22,589 as of last Monday. This year's freshman class is about 4.8 percent bigger than last year's, she said.

Student walking onto the campuses will see signs of other types of growth, as well.

Workers tore down two aging buildings on Palomar's Mission Road campus in July, leaving a large construction zone at its center. A 100,000-square-foot multidisciplinary structure and 23,000-square-foot health science building eventually will replace the ones that were leveled.

"When those buildings were razed, we lost classrooms, of course," Daum said. "So this summer we have had a lot of people working to get (portable buildings) in place to take care of those classrooms that we lost."

The portables are clustered in a parking lot near the front of the campus. Plans call for Palomar College to break ground on the new structures, which are part of a $50 million building project, this fall.

Cal State San Marcos broke ground on a $4.75 million meeting center earlier this year. The university also is preparing to build a $56.8 million social and behavioral sciences building near the center of campus.

Both buildings are part of a master plan designed to ensure the university's facilities continue to keep pace with growing student population.

Contact staff writer Andrea Moss at (760) 739-6654 or amoss@nctimes.com.

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