State and local officials met at Chula Vista’s City Hall recently for its first Assembly Select Committee on Higher Education in San Diego County meeting of the 2015-2016 year to discuss the possible next steps of bringing a much talked about four-year university to the county’s second largest city.
Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, who represents the 79th Assembly District, which encompasses Chula Vista, National City, La Mesa and Lemon Grove, said the committee was formed to help make Chula Vista’s dream of a four-year university become a reality.
“Our task now is to make sure that we do all we can to help you realize that dream,” she said. “That if there are obstacles or challenges in the way, we try to remove those, if there are resources that are necessary or if there’s some advocacy that needs to happen at the state level that we try to make that happen.”
Chula Vista has dreamed of a university since 1993 with the development of the Otay Ranch General Development Plan.
Weber said she is working at the state level to see what kind of opportunities there might be in order to move the potential university forward.
She said one of the issues that she is dealing with is determining whether or not she needs to engage with a public institution as part of the process.
The city of Chula Vista in 2014 secured the full 375 acres needed for a potential University and Innovation District.
The current vision for Chula Vista is to create a Binational University with Mexico, an idea that former Senator Denise Moreno Ducheny supports.
“The vision is a binational campus to leverage this critical position that we have and to build what many of us see as the future here as a binational workforce,” Moreno Ducheny said.
Moreno Ducheny said this would benefit South County because so much of the region’s economy is built on the synergistic relationship with Mexico. The Binational University could include a research center that focuses on trade and other border issues as well as offer bilingual education and environmental and sustainable planning.
Chula Vista Mayor Mary Casillas Salas said the city plans to complete the master plan for the university and innovation district some time this year.
Meanwhile, the city is in the process of establishing a nonprofit group called The Chula Vista University Partnership, which will be completely independent of the city. The group will be tasked with fundraising and university recruitment.
