ON CAMPUS AT VANGUARD:

Vanguard University of Southern California was originally called Southern California Bible College. It was Orange County’s first four-year college when it opened its Costa Mesa campus in September 1950.

Founded 30 years earlier, the school had occupied four acres of Pasadena’s old Annandale golf course. But by the mid-1940s, commercial and residential buildings had encircled the campus, blocking its views of the city, eroding much of its charm and preventing the expansion required for a growing student body.

In the fall of 1948 the search for a new campus led to the recently decommissioned Santa Ana Army Air Base in Orange County.

The outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 made the rapid development of the U.S. Air Force essential, and the creation of the air base shortly before Pearl Harbor was one response.

Thirteen hundred acres of largely agricultural land between Santa Ana and Costa Mesa was transformed into a base to provide preflight training for pilots, navigators and bombardiers.

Within months, a virtual city of 800 buildings was created to provide the services required for a military population, which ranged from 18,000 to 25,000. A total of 125,000 would be trained at what would become the nation’s largest such facility.

At war’s end, the Santa Ana Army Air Base served as a discharge center before it was transferred to the War Assets Corporation for liquidation. As rapidly as they had appeared, most of the buildings were auctioned off and moved to new sites throughout the area.

A new community college was given 137 acres and Orange County’s District Agricultural Assn. was assigned land to be used for the county’s fair. Other land was sold for commercial and real estate development.

The bible college’s purchase of the 128 acres on the southeast corner of the base required vision when Orange County had fewer than 250,000 residents.

Costa Mesa was not yet an incorporated city, and the new campus consisted of acres of bare earth dotted by 17 abandoned army buildings surrounded by fields of lima beans.

And the economic, cultural and transportation infrastructure needed to support a college existed only marginally.

Over the next two years, old barracks and other structures were relocated and remodeled into dormitories, classrooms, offices and other facilities required for the college to begin operation at its new campus.

But transforming a temporary military facility into a permanent college campus proved much more challenging and expensive than anticipated.

Its first permanent building would not be completed for seven years and its first academic building would require three more.

But slowly a science complex, library, dining commons and dormitories were built. Trees were planted; roads and paths installed as the campus gradually took shape.

In 1958, the college, which had long offered a liberal arts curriculum, dropped “Bible” from its name to more accurately describe its broadening mission, although it would continue to offer a strong Bible major and many of its students would continue to prepare for the ministry.

Now known as Southern California College, the institution began the process of gaining accreditation as a liberal arts college from the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges. Accreditation from WASC was granted in 1964. From 1964 through 1998, SCC evolved as a liberal arts college, and added graduate degree programs and a degree completion program for working adults.

In 1999, SCC reorganized its administrative structures to a university model and changed its name to Vanguard University of Southern California. Since 1999, Vanguard’s enrollment has grown by over 65% and it has expanded its academic offerings. Vanguard now offers 36 undergraduate degree majors and four graduate degree programs. The most recent addition is a bachelor of science in nursing — a program closely aligned with Hoag Hospital — through which registered nurses can earn their degree.

Today’s Orange County, with its 3 million residents and its economic, cultural, educational and transportation facilities, has validated the faith and vision of Vanguard’s leaders as well as the patience of its pioneering students.

Though its SAAAB history may be forgotten, four of its buildings remain in use on campus. The gym, a wing of the science building, the student union and bookstore, and the music department’s offices are still housed in its simple, well-built structures. As Vanguard University continues to build new facilities on campus, the last physical connections with the army base will be removed, but the historical tie between SAAAB and Vanguard will never be broken.

LEWIS WILSON holds the position of academic dean emeritus at Vanguard University and is the historian for the university.