1973 The college moves from Pasadena to San Diego.

Can a college be moved? Yes, of course-in one sense. Moving a complete college, with everything from registration records to test tubes, 120 miles to another campus, and doing it in one month, was a massive undertaking. Brown appointed Keith Pagan to organize and oversee the effort, and he proved masterful.

Robert Foster was projecting a $500,000-a-year operating deficit, and it was unclear how long that would be necessary. Brown told the board and faculty that the move was a risk, that the institution could be lost. He hoped everyone would be as excited as he was about the move, but he was disappointed. Opinion on the faculty was mixed. Some were very pleased, though not convinced the college could actually survive. Others saw it as divine providence and moved with excitement. Others were opposed, had been opposed for the whole previous year, and had spent that year in a state of criticism and depression. Most faculty families relied on two incomes, and to move would mean the loss of both job and seniority for the spouse. Ties with local churches were deep. Faculty found, sometimes to their surprise, how deeply attached they were to their homes, and how deep was their assumption that life is stable and predictable. Doubters sought anew the will of God for their lives and careers. Brown hoped the entire faculty would move with the college but did not want anyone to feel forced to move and would make room for a personal decision not to move and not harbor any animosity. Administrators who doubted the wisdom of the move were told by Brown to support the move or find other employment.

Whatever the wisdom of the move, the reality of finding a home in San Diego generated emotions barely short of horror. Faculty families drove to San Diego virtually every weekend during the last year in Pasadena to find a home, but when they began shopping, they found housing prices were double what they were in Pasadena. Physics Professor Garth Morse and his wife, Fern, had located early and became a small oasis of comfort and help during these frustrating trips as they took friends to dinners and made small loans to help with expenses.

Faculty naturally wanted to live near the college, as they had in Pasadena. They also wanted a nice house and affordable payments. But they could have only two of the three. They could have a nice home with payments they could afford, and live 30 to 40 miles away, or they could have a nice house near the college with payments they could afford but in an old house with small rooms and bad plumbing. The college helped the faculty sell their homes in Pasadena and moved them to San Diego, but it could not help them buy. Since this was just prior to the OPEC oil embargo, many faculty chose to get the best home they could for their dollars, and located in the northern arc of Encinitas, Mira Mesa, Rancho Penasquitos, Poway areas, and commuted to the campus. Others located on the Point and persisted for a decade until they could refinance and remodel their home.

In 1970, three years before the move, 57 of 72 faculty lived within a 1-mile radius of the Pasadena campus. Those 57 faculty families and more attended either Bresee Avenue Church or Pasadena First, both within the same radius. Though status-oriented neighborhoods existed with Pasadena, most of the children attended the same high school, so faculty bonds were further strengthened through school interests. The Faculty Wives Association was strong, with regular social events and widespread support. In contrast to that, three years after the move, 36 faculty lived within 3 miles, 11 lived 6 to 10 miles out, and 22 lived up to 30 miles away. Faculty were dispersed into strong neighborhoods with their own schools and community interests, and families naturally found their friends and interests there-and the close circle of faculty friendship withered.

Spouses had to take whatever work they could find in the new business market. Though time solved that problem, the transition was devastating. Some of the older faculty helped their younger colleagues pay monthly bills. When in the inflation of the middle 1970s hit, faculty had to go deeper in debt just to get by. Unlike the Depression years, everybody else was not in similar struggles. It was a time of spiritual battles over self-interest and brittle emotions.

Dispersal also characterized the campus. In Pasadena nearly all faculty offices and classrooms were in the Music Building, Science Building, or Nease Hall. In San Diego each academic division had its own building, and some departments like speech and art and nursing had their own buildings. Faculty rarely saw colleagues from other departments. A Faculty Club was organized and centered in the dilapidated faculty lounge, but it died within a year as lounges sprang up in individual buildings. The president and administrators moved into the Spaulding House, which Brown renamed Mieras Hall in honor of his friends. There was no student center, and dorms were widely separated at opposite ends of the campus.

This dispersal of the faculty and students on campus, combined with the dispersal of the faculty off campus, prevented the kind of campus community that existed in Pasadena. The Camelot of the last years in Pasadena was gone and could not be rebuilt. As Keith Pagan noted in a speech to Phi Delta Lambda, "You can't move a college," meaning that a college is more than test tubes and books. It is a special kind of community. Pasadena College as a close-knit faculty community died somewhere along Interstate 5 on the way to San Diego.

The tangible elements of the college were moved and resumed their functions, but it was going to be a different college nevertheless. What was important to rebuild? What parts of the campus community and organizational culture were crucial to the mission of the college? What would be the reaction of the alumni? Would the constituency still consider it their college? For over a decade, groups on and off campus pressed the claims of one or more of these elements and evaluated the college and the decision to move from the perspective of what they considered essential. Many thought Pasadena College had to be replicated or the relocation was a failure and mistake. Others saw the chance to move the college further in one direction or another. Relocation was accomplished. Replication was impossible. The direction and amount of change, and who was going to guide it, became serious concerns for allies and adversaries of the college.

Besides grace, everyone concerned, on and off campus, needed patience and trust-trust in the providence that led the college to San Diego and trust in the conformity of Shelburne Brown's vision for the college to that providence.

From For Zion's Sake, by Ron Kirkemo


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