University Housing
Early Days | Rapid Growth | Community Partnerships | University Housing | Student Demand
Shortly after the campus was established, efforts were made to develop student housing. The first residence, a rented ranch house east of the campus, was home to 19 male students. In 1963-64, a two-story office building south of the campus (now Hope International University) was leased to house 120 coeds. By the mid-60s, two dorms were built south of the campus and leased by the institution. But student housing was flat—the facilities rarely reached optimum occupancy—and reverted to private interests by the end of the decade.
And so it stood until Cal State Fullerton’s first woman president, Jewel Plummer Cobb, decided that the campus needed student housing. It took five years, but in 1986, Cobb presided over the groundbreaking for residence halls to be constructed on the east side of campus.
Two years later, when the three buildings were opened, there was no doubt: these were not traditional dorms. The four-story buildings housed three-bedroom, fully furnished suites with much of the same feel and look as apartments.
