OSU-Cascades building tight squeeze next year

There’s no new campus yet for OSU-Cascades in Bend, but freshmen are still coming next fall, despite an ongoing legal battle over the proposed Westside campus location.

It’s all part of OSU-Cascades’ commitment to move ahead with plans to transform into a full four-year university by fall of 2015.

They’ll be making do with their current building on the COCC campus: Cascades Hall.

“We’re already pretty full,” Director of Enrollment Services and Student Success Jane Reynolds said Wednesday. “It’s a juggle for us. It’s going to be tight for the next couple years.”

The university has announced it hopes to recruit 100 freshmen next year. The goal is to get 50 students from Central Oregon and 50 from other areas of the state.

Reynolds said applications are already up 40 percent.

“We already teach across the day, but we’ll probably be starting a little earlier and ending a little later,” Reynolds said. “We may have to use some of our space in the Graduate Research Center.”

Students NewsChannel 21 spoke with said they’re grateful COCC is right across the street.

“There’s the little computer place (in Cascades Hall), but it’s always full,” said senior Ricky Miller. “Definitely, if we didn’t have the library to study, this building would not work.”

But senior Kristy Behrs thinks busier will be better.

“It would be nice to see more faces here, have more people active in clubs,” Behrs said. “They wouldn’t be overwhelming the computer lab and these seating areas.”

Then there’s the other big piece — where will these freshmen live?

Reynolds said students will not be required to live on-site until the university opens its new campus. But they will have the option to live in COCC’s new dorm, slated to open next fall.

Reynolds said the university is not sure yet how many faculty members will be hired to instruct the new students. She said they hope to get those details ironed out in the next couple of months.