Rabbit Island:To sell or not to sail?

Orange Coast College students and faculty want the school’s foundation to find a way to retain Rabbit Island, a British Columbian island the foundation might sell to raise money for the college’s sailing school.

Since 2003, the college used the island for a number of academic courses, but the foundation has struggled to pay for its maintenance. The island could fetch up to $1.25 million to $1.75 million, Foundation President Doug Bennett said.

At Monday’s OCC student government meeting, the board of trustees voted unanimously to request the foundation wait 60 days before making a decision on Rabbit Island so college officials can seek other ways to save money on the island’s maintenance.

“The question is, ‘How can this be funded so we can rescue this property for future students’ use?’ ” student body President Lynne Riddle said.

On Thursday, a foundation subcommittee plans to recommend that the college put Rabbit Island, which was given to OCC three years ago, up for sale. Bennett and Brad Avery, the director of the OCC School of Sailing and Seamanship, said they wanted to hold onto the island but would need a benefactor to shoulder the expense.

“To us, the whole issue boils down to a financial issue,” Bennett said. “It’s costing the sailing program $60,000, $75,000 a year to run Rabbit Island. We don’t have unlimited resources to fund the program, and last year only about 25 credited students went up there. It just becomes a dollars-and-cents thing.”

Avery and Bennett did not speak at the Monday meeting, but OCC President Bob Dees and two faculty members publicly expressed their views. Dees encouraged the student trustees’ request of the foundation and said he sympathized with those who regarded Rabbit Island as a precious asset.

“When I became president, I thought, ‘Wow, I’m not only president of a college, I’m president of a college that owns an island,’ ” Dees said.

Biology instructor Kelli Elliott, who has applied to the National Science Foundation for a grant to help support Rabbit Island programs, said her courses there had been singular experiences.

“The students I’ve taken up there have had the most amazing time,” she said. “They’re doing independent research. They’re getting the experience of what it’s like to work in teams.”

If the foundation is able to sell Rabbit Island, Bennett said, the funds would most likely benefit the sailing school, which is seeking a new parking lot and separate locker rooms for women. The island was originally given to OCC to benefit the sailing school, although other departments on campus use it as well.

Twelve students who took courses on the island have submitted an online petition to persuade the foundation to seek other ways to fund it.

“As students who have invested a lot of time and effort into the research and have gotten a great deal of education in return, we firmly believe that the long-term educational and research value of this remote, expensive and seemingly insignificant islet vastly outweighs any temporary drawback it may put on the college’s finances,” the petition reads.

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