The past is still present at OCC

Coral Wilson

Orange Coast College was just a whisper in the wind when the bombs

rained on Pearl Harbor. The Santa Ana Army Air Force set up base on

900 acres of the plateau, now known as Costa Mesa. When World War II

was over, the land was deserted as quickly as it had been occupied

and the War Asset Administration designated 243 acres and a bunch of

empty barracks for educational purposes.

While Orange Coast College was not much more than a legal entity,

a small group of administrators and educators found themselves at the

scene. Dry, bleak and desolate, there were only jackrabbits and

tumbleweeds and no sign of students.

“Now how did we happen to end up here?” was the question on

everyone’s mind, said Giles Brown, chairman of the Social Science

Division. The group agreed “gee, it couldn’t be any worse than this,

so let’s go on from here,” Brown said.

In the summer heat of 1948, 28-year-old carpenter Fran Albers

faced the seemingly impossible task of converting barracks into

classrooms by Sept. 13, when the college opened its doors to 533

students. With a limited budget, Albers said he had to use his own

tools and hired students, mostly football players, for 60 cents an

hour. They worked weekends and all day “until we got tired and I

couldn’t see,” Albers said.

Even after the first day of classes, keeping the college going was

a team effort.

“The teachers were always willing to jump in and help,” Albers

said, “I could ask any student to give me a hand.”

Instead of teaching, professors found themselves recruiting

support for a tax override to pay for basic necessities. They were

even asked to lend books to the empty library, Brown said. Agreeing

to lend his own personal collection, he was enraged to discover his

books had been stamped repeatedly with the words, “Property of OCC’s

Library.” Brown’s confrontation with librarian Beth Cosner led to the

first campus romance. The couple married three years later in the

army chapel.

“I like to point out it must have been a real, warm marriage

because a few weeks later, the chapel burned down,” Brown said.

Former dean Fred Huber said Orange Coast College excelled

immediately in athletics and academics. The condition of the

classrooms was not as important as what happened inside, he said.

“The students who came felt [they played] a part in learning and

in creating something as well,” Huber said.

That same spirit was recreated in 1998 when the college celebrated

its 50th anniversary and students were encouraged to continue

creating into the future.

This year the enrollment at Orange Coast College reached almost

29,000 students and its past is still present. It was only last year

that the last of the barracks came down. And when workers broke

ground for the new Art Center in 2000, a buried oil drum resurfaced.

Director of community relations Jim Carnett said the college has

plans for the near future to preserve the history of the college in

an on-campus museum.

Now in their 80s, Albers, Brown and Huber still live nearby and

often return to campus to admire the progress made over the last 54

years. They set the foundation but they leave the future of the

college to the present day students.

* Do you know of a person, place or event that deserves a

historical Look Back? Let us know. Contact Jennifer Mahal by fax at

(949) 646-4170; e-mail at [email protected]; or mail her at

c/o Daily Pilot, 330 W. Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627