University of Sacramento laying groundwork for future campus
Leaders hiring instructors, developing fundraising plans at Catholic collegeSacramento Business Journal - July 6, 2007by Kelly JohnsonStaff writer
Dennis McCoy | Sacramento Business Journal
Rev. Robert Presutti holds one of the university’s granite cornerstones, which were blessed by the late Pope John Paul II in Rome. The stones will become part of the foundation of the new campus.
View Larger University of Sacramento won't open its new 200-acre campus for another five years, but the private Catholic university is ramping up now.
The university is developing its team and strategies for raising the hundreds of millions of dollars it will need for the new campus south of Highway 50 in the proposed Cordova Hills development.
The school is about to hire its second full-time faculty member to complement its part-time instructors, more than half of whom fly in from around the country to teach their weekly classes. University of Sacramento also is adding to its program offerings and pursuing accreditation.
The university, which launched in January 2005, has much to do in coming years as it readies itself to make the leap from an easy-to-miss downtown office building with 80 graduate and certificate-program students to a full-fledged campus with ultimately 5,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students.
Observers and university leaders are confident about the end result.
The Legion of Christ, a congregation of Catholic priests, runs a global network of higher education and K-12 schools, including 14 universities it founded before coming to Sacramento. The group has expertise to establish the campus, contacts around the globe who can fund it and research showing student demand.
Kevin Starr, California's former state librarian and now a part-time instructor at University of Southern California's campus in Sacramento, advised the Legion of Christ as they set up shop in the capital.
The Legion members "are good business guys," he said. "They'll do this very soundly."
The fundraising team
In June, landowner and developer Conwy LLC agreed to give the university 200 acres on a grassy hill east of Grant Line Road for what is to become a 3 million-square-foot campus over the next 25 to 30 years. The university had considered land at Mather Field but decided this site offered more buildable land and a nicer location. The donation is worth about $12 million.
Ron Alvarado, Conwy's project executive for Cordova Hills, doesn't envision significant obstacles for the project.
"This is not a fledgling enterprise," said Alvarado, who has been impressed with the university leaders' fortitude, vision and eagerness to contribute to the Sacramento region.
University president Rev. Robert Presutti estimates the first phase of the campus -- which would include 250,000 square feet of buildings accommodating up to 1,500 students -- would cost $75 million to $100 million.
The campus would open with several hundred students in 2012 and grow to as many as 1,500 by 2020. Future phases would depend on student demand. University of Sacramento needs to raise hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 30 years.
As its first step toward building its fund-raising team, the university hired John Power, vice president for institutional advancement, formerly of Gonzaga University.
The university hasn't developed its capital campaign yet. It will start holding public events and will send out mailings and newsletters. The university will offer building naming rights and would consider structuring a deal with a developer that would build the dorms and lease them back to the school.
The university has conceptual master plans, but it must make the plans more concrete so it can estimate costs for the different phases, Presutti said. The Legion has potential donors around the world, he said. Much of the money, though, will be raised in California.
Teachers flying in
In more immediate actions, the university expects to soon hire its second full-time faculty member, someone to launch and lead the College of Business Administration. The university's sole full-time faculty member oversees the university's one program, the master's of arts in education.
The university will launch its second master's degree program, a global leadership MBA, in fall 2008. The university uses a couple of local instructors, but more than half are professors tenured at other universities who fly in. The approach works because University of Sacramento's students are working adults whose individual classes meet weekly in the evenings.
Abe Saadeh, a Roseville husband and father of three, attends class at the college at 16th and I streets in midtown Sacramento on Tuesday nights. Saadeh, who works in sales in the print industry and owns two Montessori schools, is pursuing a master's in education with an emphasis in theology and catechetics, or religious instruction. With his degree, he'll be able to teach at his parish or at a Catholic school or university.
Saadeh is typical of University of Sacramento's students. They work full time or are retired. Most are from Greater Sacramento, but one drives from Vacaville and another from Chico.
Most students are "40-ish," said Barry Sugarman, university executive vice president. They're teachers or volunteer instructors pursuing the 12-course master's degree or the six-course advanced certificate to advance in their careers. Others take the one-course certificate program to meet continuing education requirements. They pay $975 per course, cheaper than most private universities and more expensive than public universities. The university had its first two graduates in February.
One step at a time
The school expects to reach 100 students by the end of the year. The university's rented downtown space can accommodate a couple of hundred students. Even when the main campus debuts in five years, Presutti wants to continue with a downtown presence. Later, the university may look for more space downtown.
The university will roll out its undergraduate program with the opening of the new campus in 2012 and will have its core teaching staff in place by 2009, Presutti said. University leaders envision offering such fields of study as law, medical, nursing, engineering and music, as well as providing continuing education. The university will have intercollegiate and intramural sports programs, Presutti said, as part of providing for a well-rounded education.
Among the university's many tasks as it prepares for the new campus is accreditation. It's a long process of research and submitting paperwork -- one that could take five to 10 years, Presutti said.
University leaders will get it all done, several observers said.
"If you base the future on the past, they've done a marvelous job thinking about how to build a university," said Jonathan Brown, president of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities.
The Public Policy Institute of California recently found that the state isn't producing enough college graduates to meet work force needs. California is importing its way out of the shortage, but that's not sustainable. University of Sacramento will help California build capacity, Brown said.
For this region, observers said the full-sized University of Sacramento offers much: $1.2 billion from construction to payroll to new spending in the community by faculty, staff and students; more prestige; and well-educated employees.
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