History Timeline

Timeline

• 1957
  • Orange County State College is authorized by the California State Assembly and Governor Goodwin Knight. The bill also establishes a state college in Alameda County, bringing the number of state colleges to 12. The state appropriates $1,650,000 for site acquisition and construction in Orange County. 
• 1958
  • Fullerton site is selected by the State Public Works Board for the new college: a large orange grove in northeast Fullerton. Selection is in March; authorization to purchase is granted in November; purchase is made in 1959. 
• 1959
  • William B. Langsdorf, President, is hired by Superintendent of Public Instruction, Roy Simpson. Langsdorf has been president of Pasadena City College for 10 years (1950-­‐59). He accepts in January and arrives in March, beginning his new job early, before the start of the fall semester, in leased offices at Fullerton Union High School. Governor Pat Brown allocates an operating budget of $139,051 to start Orange County State College for its first year. Langsdorf remains president until 1970. 
  • Seth Fessenden is hired to head the Division of Communication, which includes courses in journalism, speech, and drama. (The 1959-­‐60 catalog only lists speech). 
  • Fall classes are first held on September 1 with 452 students at Sunny Hills High School (construction is still underway among the orange groves). 
• 1960
  • Titan Times is published on January 4. Ernie Becker is the adviser while also serving as the campus’s first Dean of Students. In those days, the fall semester ended with final classes and exams in January, so Titan Times was the final project of Becker’s fall 1959 class, with publication in January 1960. Eventually the paper becomes the Daily Titan in 1969. 
• 1960
  • Classes taught on current university site in 12 one-­‐story bungalows surrounded by orange groves. 
  • Seth A. Fessenden oversees the Division of Communication and chairs the Department of Speech and Drama, which offers a B.A. degree. He hires J. William “Bill” Maxwell to chair the Department of Journalism, which also offers a B.A. degree. Lee Granell is hired to teach speech and forensics courses, and James D. “Jim” Young to teach drama courses. Administrators Ernest A. “Ernie” Becker (Dean of Students, Daily Titan instructor 1959-­‐60) and Emmett T. “Shorty” Long (Associate Dean of Admissions and Records, Speech faculty) help build the Communication Division. Granell launches classes in speech therapy in 1960. Granell establishes a speech clinic in 1961, hiring Donald Kaplan in 1964 as its first director. Maxwell hires James P. “Jim” Alexander to teach the first journalism classes in fall 1960, while Maxwell has a Fulbright Scholarship in Peru. Alexander also becomes the adviser of the Titan Times. When Maxwell returns from Peru, he takes over as the Titan Times adviser, keeping that role until 1968. Maxwell and Alexander become lifelong friends as they vision and build what becomes the Department of Communications. Likewise, Fessenden, Granell, Kaplan, and others build what becomes the Department of Speech Communication. 
  • California State College system is created by the State Assembly and Governor Pat Brown as part of the Master Plan for Higher Education in California.  
• 1961
  • Division of Humanities is established, which includes journalism. The new Division of Speech and Fine Arts subsumes speech and drama.  
• 1962
  • Orange State College becomes the new name of Orange County State College, now part of the California State College system (see 1960 above). 
• 1964
  • California State College at Fullerton becomes the next new name of the university (the word “at” is replaced with a comma in 1968). 
  • Music-Speech-Drama building is completed (today Performing Arts building). Speech and Drama configures a rehearsal room as a TV studio with donated equipment (today PA-122, still the TV studio space for that department, later named Theatre and Dance). In 1965, Don Kaplan, Director of the Speech and Hearing Clinic, moves the clinic from an office in a building on Yorba Linda Blvd. (then Pioneer Ave.) across from campus into this new building (today PA-121 and 131). Eventually, the clinic moves to the Education Classroom building, first floor, and in 2000 to the College Park building, first floor, CP-150, where it is today. 
  • Department and B.A. degree in Speech are established in the Division of Humanities, now separate from Drama (that division changes its name to “Fine and Applied Arts” in 1962).  
• 1965
  • Department of Communications becomes the new name of the Journalism Department to reflect its broader curriculum. In addition to journalism, courses are added in Advertising, Public Relations, Photography, and Broadcasting. The photography area is named Photocommunications in 1969 to distinguish it from photo classes in the Art Department. The Photocomm concentration is retired in 2018 due to lack of majors. The Broadcasting concentration is renamed Telecommunications in 1966, then Radio-­‐TV-­‐Film in 1983. In 2001, it becomes its own Department of Radio-­‐TV-­‐Film, renamed Cinema and Television Arts in 2016. 
  • Titan Times goes from weekly to twice-­‐weekly publication under student editor Jim Drummond. Bill Maxwell continues as the adviser.  
• 1966
  • School of Letters, Arts and Sciences is established, including the Department of Communications and the Department of Speech. 
  • M.A. in Speech is launched. 
• 1968
  • California State College, Fullerton is the newly-­‐revised name of the university, with the comma replacing “at” (see 1964 above; “University” replaces “College” in 1972). 
  • The Titan, published three times a week, replaces the twice-­‐weekly Titan Times, dropping the word “Times.” Wayne Overbeck becomes the faculty adviser and continues until 1973. 
  • M.A. in Communications is launched. 
• 1969
  • Daily Titan becomes the new name of the Titan and is still the name of the university’s newspaper, and later website. Additionally, the “DT” begins publication four days a week instead of three, and this remains the publication schedule today. Bill Schreiber is the first student editor of the DT, and Wayne Overbeck is the first adviser. 
  • School of the Arts is formed out of the School of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, incorporating music, art, and drama (later joined by dance). Speech separates from Drama and becomes Speech Communication in the School of Letters and Sciences. 
  • Communications television studio is built on the second floor of the Humanities building when the department moves into that structure. George Mastroianni oversees the broadcasting curriculum and studio installation. Don McLaren is hired as the studio broadcast engineer, remaining in that position until his retirement in 2006 when the studio is shut down and a new studio is created in the library lower level. 
• 1971
  • California State University and Colleges becomes the new name of the California State College system. 
  • Department of Communications receives accreditation from the American Council on Education in Journalism, renamed the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications 
    (ACEJMC) in 1980. The department has carried this accreditation ever since. 
  • Communicative Disorders program receives accreditation from the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech-­‐Language Pathology (CAA), affiliated with the American Speech-­‐Language-­‐Hearing Association (ASHA). The “COMD” program has carried this accreditation ever since (initiated in the Department of Speech Communication in 1961, renamed Human Communication Studies in 2003, and now administered by the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders since the launch of that department in 2017). Note: While ASHA’s website shows continuous accreditation since 1971, the book The Fullerton Way (de Graaf, 2008) indicates that in 1969 this program became the first “in California on a college campus to earn accreditation from the American Board of Examiners in Speech Pathology and Audiology (ABESPA) of the American Speech-­‐Language-­‐Hearing Associations (ASHA)” (p. 102). I was unable to determine if ABESPA was a precursor to CAA, but if it was, the COMD program has been accredited since 1969.  
• 1972
  • California State University, Fullerton becomes the new name of California State College, Fullerton, following the addition of “University” to the system-­‐wide title the previous year. This is the name the university still carries. 
  • Speech Communication becomes the new title of the B.A. and M.A. degrees in Speech. 
• 1976
  • Seth Fessenden, founding head of the Division of Communication (see 1959 above) and founding chair of the Department of Speech Communication, is one of seven victims killed in a campus shooting on July 12. 
• 1978
  • Comm Week is launched, though at first it is “Comm Day” and a year or two later expands to 
    “Comm Week.” Norm Nager creates this special event with students in his public relations class, and Comm Week continues as a signature college event today. Dave Pincus is instrumental in helping Nager in the earlier years. Rick Pullen and other instructors teach the class through the years. Eventually, Dennis Gaschen takes over as the Comm Week adviser, with help from Peggy Garcia Bockman and Pamela Caldwell. In 2013, Waleed Rashidi takes the helm and continues to serve as the adviser today. 
• 1979
  • B.A. and M.A. in Communicative Disorders are launched. Courses in communicative disorders 
    (speech pathology) have been offered since the early days, but students taking those courses prior to 1979 earned the Speech degree. The department also offers the Preliminary Speech-­‐Language-­‐Hearing Services Credential, a program accredited by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC). 
• 1981-1982
  • Color television equipment is installed in the Communications studio by Storer Cable and TelePrompter, following a 1980 agreement that Communications will produce cable programming to help fulfill a 72-­‐hour annual programming commitment for the University Channel. Ronald Dyas, who did consulting work with Storer, leads the agreement. Beginning in 1982, student-­‐produced programming is cablecast on a number of Orange County systems and broadcast on the new Orange County TV station, KDOC. Among the programming, Larry Ward and his students produce live television coverage of Titan sports, which lasts through the 1980’s. 
• 1982
  • California State University (CSU) becomes the new name of the system, dropping “and Colleges” from the former system name. 
• 1985
  • Daily Titan newsroom receives its first DOS computers, retiring its last manual typewriters. This comes a few years after receiving a high-­‐end phototypesetting system. 
• 1987
  • Plans for two new schools are announced by President Jewel Plummer Cobb: Communications and Engineering. Ed Trotter, chair of Communications, takes the lead and writes the proposal for the new school, along with Lucy Keele, Speech Communication. The proposal includes two departments: Communications and Speech Communication, then chaired by Joyce Flocken, who coincidentally is the chair of the Academic Senate that approves the proposal the following year.  
• 1988
  • School of Communications receives final approval and launches in fall 1988 with its two departments: Communications and Speech Communication. David Sachsman is the inaugural dean. 
• 1990
  • College Advising Center is established by Irene Matz on the third floor of the Humanities building. She is the half-­‐time adviser and the half-­‐time Assistant Dean for Student Affairs until 1994. The advising center moves to College Park 425 in 2000 when the college moves to that building. In 2013 it is relocated to the sixth floor of CP, and in 2014 it is renamed the Advising and Student Success Center after an additional adviser is hired, along with a retention specialist and a graduation specialist. In 2019, the Student Success Center, with its now shorter name, moves to CP-­‐210.  
• 1990s
  • More growth. In Communications, there are five formal concentrations: Advertising, Journalism, Photocommunications, Public Relations, and Radio-­‐TV-­‐Film (which receives new equipment for the studio in the 1990s). In Speech Communication, while there are no formal concentrations, the curriculum offers courses in intercultural, interpersonal, organizational, and rhetorical communication (the latter incorporating forensics, which includes speech and debate, or argumentation and persuasion). Additionally, this department continues to administer the communicative disorders (speech pathology) curriculum and clinic until 2017 when the new Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders is launched. 
• 1995
  • Center for Children Who Stutter (CCWS) is established by Glyndon and Jeanna Riley, along with Robert and Ginger Emry. Affiliated with the Communicative Disorders program, and sharing space in the Speech and Hearing Clinic, the CCWS continues its partnership with the college today under the direction of Robin Ottesen (director since 2017). 
• 1998
  • Inter-Club Council is established by new Assistant Dean for Student Affairs, Peggy Garcia Bockman. This group of student representatives from each college club is called Student Organizations Accessing Resources (SOAR). In 2014, the name changes to Communications Inter-Club Council (CICC) after Dana Roson becomes Assistant Dean (in 2013). This name is consistent with other college inter-­‐club councils. CICC remains the name of this student organization under the guidance of current Assistant Dean, Rob Flores (since 2016). 
• 1998-1999
  • Tusk magazine is launched under the guidance of Jeff Brody as a two-­‐semester capstone magazine publication: writing in the fall and production in the spring. 
• 1999
  • Titan Communications is launched by Fred Zandpour, Associate Dean, with Lee Bentley as Director. Titan Comm is an integrated and collaborative learning environment that integrates video, audio, multimedia, storage, and distribution. In 2014, Bentley retires, and Eraj Shadaram becomes the Director of Titan Comm. 
• 2000
  • “Schools” are renamed “Colleges” at the dawn of the new century on January 26. The “School of Communications” becomes the “College of Communications.” (Later, schools within colleges begin to form as departments expand to school status, including the School of Nursing in the College of Health and Human Development and the School of Music in the College of the Arts.) 
  • Titan Internet Radio becomes official with a ribbon-­‐cutting on February 8. Lynne Gross, having worked with students to plan the station in 1998-­‐99, teaches the first internet radio class in spring 2000. Titan Radio soon joins Titan TV as part of Titan Communications (later web content is added with Titan Universe). 
  • Entertainment Studies is added as a new concentration in Communications. When Radio-­‐TV-­‐Film becomes its own department the next year, reducing the number of majors in Communications, that reduction is only temporary as Entertainment Studies and the other concentrations continue to grow.  
  • College Park becomes the new home of the College of Communications in another major change at the turn of the century: a defining moment for the college. Offices had become scattered across multiple buildings over the decades of growth. With the university’s purchase of College Park, Dean Rick Pullen takes the opportunity to consolidate college space into CP. Associate Dean Fred Zandpour oversees planning and implementation. College and department offices occupy the fourth floor and half of the sixth floor, which also houses the Daily Titan. The Speech and Hearing Clinic and Center for Children Who Stutter are on the first floor. Computer labs and a photo studio are in the basement. Equipment checkout and video editing also locate in the CP basement, and in 2006 move to the library basement when the TV studio moves there. In 2019, the college is given additional space on the second floor of College Park for a Student Success Center and other offices. 
• 2001
  • Department of Radio-­‐TV-­‐Film, and its corresponding new B.A. degree in RTVF receive final approval (September 26 letter from CSU Chancellor Charles Reed to CSUF President Milton Gordon). Ed Fink serves as the inaugural chair, having been the lead in writing the proposals for the new department and degree following the growth of this concentration in the 1990s. The department and B.A. degree are renamed 
    “Cinema and Television Arts” (CTVA) in 2016 under the chairmanship of Garry Hart (chair since 2014). 
• 2002
  • The Public Relations concentration in the Department of Communications receives the Certificate for Education in Public Relations (CEPR). The concentration has carried this certification ever since, and today it is the only PR program in California with this certification.  
• 2003
  • Department of Human Communication Studies becomes the new name of Speech Communication, reflecting its broader curriculum, including intercultural, interpersonal, organizational, and rhetorical 
    (argumentation and persuasion) communication. The new name becomes effective that fall. 
• 2006
  • Production moves to the library lower level, as the studio space in Humanities (since 1969) is vacated for the growing College of Humanities and Social Sciences. New digital studio equipment and a new control room configuration are set up for college TV production. Video editing and equipment checkout also move from the College Park basement to the library lower level, swapping space with the American Language Program (ALP, which was dissolved after the spring semester of 2018 for budgetary reasons). Titan Communications, the university’s multimedia production organization, is already housed in the library lower level, so all television, film, video, audio, and radio production is now consolidated in this space. 
• 2010
  • M.F.A. degree in Screenwriting is approved for the Department of Radio-­‐TV-­‐Film. Jule Selbo authors the proposal and serves as the inaugural graduate adviser. 
  • Bill Maxwell estate gift is generously given to the college two years after the passing of J. William “Bill” Maxwell (1919-­‐2008), inaugural chair of Communications. The Maxwell Center for International Communications is established, along with a Maxwell scholarship endowment and a gift to Radio-­‐TV-­‐Film, which had been a concentration in Communications during the years Maxwell was chair. Dean Kazoleas is the inaugural director of the Maxwell Center, and he continues in that position. The college has always had an international view, from Maxwell’s world travels to agreements of various kinds through the years with institutions and organizations in various countries, some expired and many current. These past and present accords range from offering the full M.A. in Communications in Hong Kong to numerous faculty-­‐led programs of varying lengths in Cambodia, Costa Rica, England, Greece, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, and Vietnam, to some exchange and visiting agreements in Austria, Brazil, China, Cuba, France, Germany, Japan, Norway, and Sweden. 
• 2011
  • Titan Communications enters a partnership between the College and the Division of Information Technology for operation. Bill Briggs, Dean, and Amir Dabirian, VP for IT and Chief Information Officer, sign the agreement. Eraj Shadaram, Director of Titan Comm, continues to oversee this hands-­‐on video, audio, and multimedia production lab for the university, with Titan TV (cable and streaming), Titan Radio (internet), and Titan Universe (web). 
  • PRactical ADvantage Communications, a student-­‐run Public Relations and Advertising Agency, is launched at CSUF Irvine under the direction of Doug Swanson. This agency is a collaborative capstone class for PR, advertising, and entertainment concentration majors. It continues the tradition of student agency work from the 1990s when Fred Zandpour established the first agency, Titan Communications – also the name of the college’s media production operation (see 1999 above).  
• 2013
  • Communication Studies becomes the new name of the B.A. and M.A. degrees in Speech Communication, offered by the Department of Human Communication Studies. 
  • Latino Communications Initiative is launched, later upgraded and renamed the Latino Communications Institute (LCI) in 2017 when it becomes self-­‐funded, focusing on a three-­‐prong mission to: (1) be a workforce pipeline for students and bilingual media companies; (2) offer curricular and co-­‐curricular activities to support Latinx students; and (3) conduct research about and for the Hispanic media market. Inez González serves as the LCI director. One of the curricular activities is a partnership with Modern Languages and Literatures to offer a Certificate in Spanish for Hispanic Media, formally approved in 2017 (courses offered since 2015). 
• 2014
  • Student Success Teams are formed in the colleges to promote student success, increase graduation and retention rates, and close the opportunity gap. Each college creates a Student Success Center. These teams and centers are expansions of college advising teams and centers.  
• 2016
  • Department of Cinema and Television Arts (CTVA) becomes the new name of Radio-­‐TV-­‐Film, focusing more clearly on entertainment motion pictures. Radio courses go to the Department of Communications (where they had begun in the 1960s), which offers a Certificate in Radio-­‐Audio in 2018. 
• 2017
  • Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (COMD), the fourth department in the college, launches out of the Department of Human Communication Studies (HCOM). HyeKyeung Seung, program coordinator for the Communicative Disorders degrees in HCOM, authors the proposal. The degree name remains the same: Communicative Disorders. The new department begins operation in fall 2017 with Seung as its inaugural chair. This department administers B.A. and M.A. degrees in Communicative Disorders and offers the required credentialing, certification, and licensure for graduate students to become speech pathologists. The program continues to be accredited by the Council on Academic Accreditation (CAA), part of the American Speech-­‐Language-­‐Hearing Association (ASHA). 
• 2018
  • Certificate in Photocommunications is created by the COMM Department when the Photocommunications concentration is dissolved for lack of majors. Additionally, COMM creates a Certificate in Digital Communications Media. 
  • B.A. in Communications degree is expanded from 36 to 39 units with the addition of a required digital skills course. This is done in response to the previous accreditation review by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC). 
• 2018-2019
  • College celebrates 30th anniversary.