University doing special delivery
Union-Tribune 2/15/07
The Scripps Ranch university has professors making campus house calls to the community college in Chula Vista. What's known as “university within a college” started last month with three classes in psychology and business.
Its launch is so small and nimble that Alliant held a psychology class in an IHOP restaurant after it was displaced from a double-booked room and then shooed out of the student center by campus security. Trejo, Castillo and Parker met over orange juice and iced tea with professor Mary Ellen Brooks to talk about eating disorders and pastoral psychology.
“It's not an experiment. It's an experiment that we are committed to making work,” said Al Zolynas, an Alliant English professor and the fledgling satellite program's administrator.
Alliant has anted up Zolynas and two colleagues to teach the first eight students. Alliant plans to offer every class these students need to complete their four-year Alliant degrees without ever having to drive to Scripps Ranch.
For Alliant, it's a recruitment tool. It's in the midst of becoming a two-year, upper-division university, so it has increased its outreach to the county's community colleges to tap into its customer base.
For Southwestern, the aim is to increase transfer rates by removing obstacles – like commutes to North County – to getting a four-year degree.
Alliant's annual tuition is $14,000. Most of the university's 191 undergraduate students receive some form of financial aid.