Starting at the beginning

Deirdre Newman

Summer is finally over for UC Irvine students, who swarmed onto

campus Friday for the first day of classes.

The school has about 18,900 undergraduates registered for the fall

semester, 1,500 more than last year, continuing the fast-paced growth

trend over the past several years.

While the population explosion caused overcrowding in some of the

freshmen dorms last fall -- forcing the use of some study areas for

triple occupancy -- the amount of housing has expanded to accommodate

this year’s influx, school officials said.

Mesa Court, which felt the housing pinch last year, added 762

rooms for mostly freshman students, said Manuel Gomez,

vice-chancellor of student affairs.

“Move-in day looked fantastic,” Gomez said.

School officials also took pride in the fact that more students

had registered for a full course load by the first day of classes

than last year. By Friday, 93% had registered, said Meredith Lee,

dean of undergraduate education.

“I’m very happy because we’re building that up every year,” Lee

said. “It’s terrific, considering our growth.”

Because so many students had already registered, lines were short

and fast-moving on campus, except for the Financial Aid office, which

had a long line during the late afternoon.

“So far [the first day] isn’t bad, but this line is miserable,”

lamented Delfa Mejia, 21. “I think they should get more people to

work in their office.”

The busiest students on campus Friday were manning a booth for Ant

Vote, a group that encourages students to register to vote. While the

majority of the booths soliciting students during Welcome Week had

already packed up, the Ant Vote booth was still going strong Friday

afternoon.

“Eighteen to 24-year-olds are the lowest voting group,” said

alumni Danny Hall, 25. “That’s why politicians don’t pay attention to

young voters. So if we can get thousands of voters, we can put them

in a database and let politicians know how we feel on certain

issues.”

Some things that are new on campus this year include the expansion

of the freshman seminar program and broadening the enrollment of the

University Studies class.

The freshman seminar program boasts provocative classes such as

“Power, Sex and Religion: The Present Crisis in the Catholic Church”

and “From Atoms to Quarks and Beyond: The Search for a Theory of

Everything.” The expansion effort, which is part of a UC-wide goal,

attempts to bring freshmen together with faculty in an intimate

classroom setting, said Lee, who is teaching a seminar on Puccini’s

“La Boheme” to coincide with the Opera Pacific production in Orange

County this fall.

“We want students to have access to what faculty enjoy doing at a

level that’s accessible to freshmen,” Lee said.

UCI is also opening up its University Studies class, which has

traditionally been for undecided majors, to anyone who is interested

in learning more about the myriad opportunities on campus for

research and other academic pursuits, including counseling and

tutoring.

In terms of housing, UCI is also planning its biggest expansion

for the accommodation of upperclassmen at the East Campus Apartments.

The first phase will add space for 1,500 upperclassmen. The second

phase will increase it by the same amount.

‘Housing is really important because the building of a campus

community is dependent on having students live close or near to

campus,” Gomez said.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.