UCI Expected to Get Humanities Facility, Construction Boost

Reflecting UC Irvine’s growth in both students and academic prestige, the University of California’s Board of Regents this week is expected to approve $42.1 million in construction for UCI and also award the campus the coveted new UC Humanities Institute.

A source in the university headquarters in Berkeley confirmed Monday that UCI will be named as the site for the institute, which is to provide facilities for up to 25 humanities scholars living on campus for a year.

The regents this week are expected to start a “humanities initiative” for the nine-campus system. The initiative calls for varied actions to enhance studies of and access to what is defined as the “branches of learning concerned with human thought and relations.”

According to the UC system source in Berkeley, the institute will be the “centerpiece” of the regents’ move to better promote study and research in the humanities. Figures weren’t available on how much it will cost the UC system to operate the humanities program.

While the institute won’t have its own building, UCI will have a veritable building binge if all the other new or expanded projects are approved this week. “This is the biggest spurt of new building proposed for the Irvine campus since its initiation (in 1965),” said Cynthia Gordon, manager of capital planning at UCI.

The regents will meet Thursday and Friday on the UCLA campus and are expected to approve the following for UCI:

- Plans and money for a $13.7-million graduate student apartment project at UCI. The 204 apartments would be built on 8.43 acres north of Berkeley Avenue in the northeast quadrant of the campus.

- A $6.2-million high-rise parking structure for 700 cars at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

- Design approval for a $17.2-million psychiatric inpatient facility at the medical center. The new building would have 92 beds and an emergency unit.

- Addition of about $2 million, for a new total of $6.5 million, for a long-sought clinic on the Irvine campus. This facility would be built adjacent to the College of Medicine buildings off California Avenue. Originally targeted to cost $4.64 million, the clinic’s cost is rising to $6.58 million to increase its size and scope.

- Money for a $4-million Food Services Facilities Building on campus. It would seat about 1,000 people for meals and would be built near the existing Engineering Building.

- An increase of $150,000, for a new total of $1,046,000, to build a central housing office building on campus.

The Humanities Institute, at least initially, will not be housed in its own building, UC officials said. Scholars attending the institute would live and study in existing campus buildings, although the program might eventually warrant its own facility for housing and administration.

Final Recommendation

UCI competed with UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara for the institute. In January, a study committee headed by Stanley Chodorow, dean of arts and humanities at UC San Diego, said it had recommended UCI as the site. But the final recommendation remained to be made by UC President David P. Gardner, who will reportedly concur Friday and also recommend UCI. The regents normally ratify such recommendations, especially if, as in this case, months of study have preceded the recommendation.

UCI officials said they likewise see no obstacles to the regents’ approving the $42.1 million for the building projects. These officials noted that Gardner has already recommended approval to the regents.

The spurt in construction comes as UCI this school year jumps to an estimated enrollment of about 15,000. The campus has almost doubled in enrollment in the last 10 years. UCI officials said UCI’s academic credentials have also grown, as demonstrated by the millions of dollars in grants and endowments lavished on the Irvine campus in recent years.

Winning of the institute, said one official, is particularly satisfying to the 22-year-old Irvine campus since it was competing with older, prestigious campuses such as UCLA and UC Berkeley.

With the increase in new students, Irvine has suffered a housing crunch. The new graduate student apartments would help ease that situation, officials said. The complex would house 376 graduate students in 12 efficiency units, 38 assistant to medical center director

one-bedroom units, 136 two-bedroom units and 18 three-bedroom units. Common areas, including recreation rooms, laundries and storage, would also be provided.

The new parking garage and psychiatric center for UCI Medical Center are somewhat “the feast after the famine” for that arm of the university, UCI officials said. They noted that as recently as two years ago, the center’s future was in doubt as it sank deeply into debt. Special state legislation was needed to bail out the center and to provide seed money for its modernization.

The two new facilities before the regents on Thursday and Friday continue the state’s move to upgrade UCI Medical Center, noted Judith Yates, assistant to the medical center’s director.

“This is a shot in the arm for all of us at the medical center, especially since it comes a short time after our very existence was in question,” Yates said Monday.

The parking garage at the center would ease a severe problem there, according to Gardner’s report to the regents. His recommendation says: “Providing adequate parking at the Medical Center has been a continuing problem for the past 10 years. Currently, there is a waiting list of 430 UCI Medical Center staff who wish to purchase annual parking permits.”

While the parking building and psychiatric facility would be built in at the medical center in Orange, the campus clinic would be built in Irvine. The clinic would give private-practice space to faculty on the College of Medicine in a building with patient examination and consultation rooms and facilities for specialized equipment, including diagnostic radiology.

Gardner said in his recommendation to the regents that the $2-million increase in funds for the clinic is needed because it is one-fourth larger than originally planned.