By Anna Maria Petrova

With record enrollments this fall, CSUSM has been named one of the fastest growing

universities in the Cal State system.

From the first graduating class of 1991 to the 2014 fall semester’s record enrollment, CSUSM

has come a long way.

As the years passed and more students were accepted, the university was expanded, new

buildings were added and new programs were founded.

“It has changed a lot since I started in 1991. Initially we had only a couple of hundred students

without a campus. We rented a part of Business Park by Jerome’s,” Literature & Writing

Professor, Dr. Yuan Yuan, said. “Now we have over tens of thousands of students on a well-
developed campus.”

The current fall 2014 semester welcomed 12,853 students to CSUSM, which included 2,175

new freshmen and 1,644 transfer students, surpassing the 12,000 student mark that had not been

broken in the past.

The CSUSM campus has also been recently ranked as one of the best universities in the area.

“As a relatively speaking young institution, it is admirable to be ranked among the top 20 best

universities in the area,” said Gezai Berhane, Associate Director of Operations of Dean of

Students Office.

Another notable accomplishment attained by CSUSM is the recently awarded Higher Education

Excellence in Diversity or HEED award.

“The Office of Diversity was established three years ago, and within the last couple of years we

have been operating off our strategic plan,” said Marilyn McWilliams, Administrative Assistant

of the Office of Diversity, Educational Equity and Inclusion. “We have five years of strategic

planning, and based on that plan we have been implementing a lot of things”

CSUSM’s accomplishments and progress can be first attributed to its unique history. The CSU

campus held its first classes in 1979 at Lincoln Middle School in Vista and served approximately

148 students. However, in 1982 the campus moved into a larger office building in Los Vallecitos

Blvd., San Marcos, also known as the Jerome’s area.

“I was here the first two years as a student, we didn’t take classes here the first two years on this

site we were at what was back then the Jerome’s area,” Berhane said.

“CSUSM was founded in 1989, and that’s when they started hiring faculty and staff

administrators,” he said. “I was one of the first students enrolled in the fall of 1990.”

CSUSM was the twentieth campus in the CSU system at the time and was headed by Bill W.

Stacy as its first president. Alongside President Stacy, there were 12 other founding faculty

members.

In Feb. 1990, CSUSM introduced its first junior and senior class with an enrollment size of 448

students while the CSUSM campus was still under construction.

In May of 1992, CSUSM had its first official commencement ceremony prior to the grand

opening of the CSUSM campus.

In 1996, Jean and W. Keith Kellogg II pledged a donation to the school which helped support the

future development of the Kellogg Library.

Moreover, in 2010, the university celebrated its twentieth anniversary, and the enrollment of

students reached 9,767 and has continued to grow since.

With a ranking placing it in the top 20 best Cal States, a diversity award and record enrollments,

CSUSM has become one of the fastest growing schools in the region.

The opportunities CSUSM has to offer to its students along with the accomplishments obtained,

makes this campus a truly exceptional one.