Soka Univ. graduates final class
School closes after 20 years
By Joann Groff joann@theacorn.com

BILL SPARKES/Acorn Newspapers FAREWELL TO SOKA--Koichi Yoshikawa of San Diego, flanked by Soka University President Dr. Daniel Habuki and Dr. Tomoko Takahashi, accepts the Founders Award at Soka's recent graduation exercises in Calabasas.

Parents wept and cameras flashed as the graduates of Soka University walked down an aisle to a stage where their diplomas awaited them.

In the auditorium where the 10 students prepared to receive their honors, large crystal chandeliers hung overhead. The procession mirrored that of many previous graduations, but the Dec. 13 ceremony was different. For the picturesque university near Calabasas, the day marked the final graduation in the school's 20-year history.

"Today represents the starting point of my new life," said Megumi Oda, a graduate student from Tokyo. "I will do my best as one of the last graduating members of the Calabasas campus."

Emily Yumiko Yamazawa came to Soka from Durham, N.C.

"The 10 of us struggled, succeeded, failed and everything in between," Yamazawa said. "I'm incredibly proud to be part of this university and this community. And I've replaced my initial apprehension with only feelings of joy and appreciation."

The Japanese-owned university had been leasing the campus since 2005 when the National Park Service, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and other public agencies purchased the site near the intersection of Mulholland Highway and Las Virgenes Road for $35 million.

The Calabasas campus served as a graduate school for foreign language education.

After the Soka lease expires next year, the Park Service and the California Department of Parks and Recreation plan to build a new headquarters and visitor's center at the campus.

"We are still advancing the plan and starting to plan for moving," said Charles Taylor, Park Service spokesperson. "We are going to move in there together, and hopefully have some other partners that are going to move in there with us."

Taylor said the park agencies expect a January 2008 move-in date. "A full-fledged visitor's contact station" will be built, Taylor said.

"The idea is not to do too much building, but we are going to have to rehab some of the buildings they have there," he said.

Vice president of administration Arnold Kawasaki said the Soka graduate school will be moving to the university's Aliso Viejo campus over the next year. The students will use the existing facilities at the Orange County campus.

A March 2003 court ruling halted expansion of the Calabasas campus into the Santa Monica Mountains, even after permission was given by the California Coastal Commission to allow the school to increase in size to 440,000 square feet and raise its enrollment from 100 to 650 students.

Following their victory in the decade-long legal battle against Soka growth, groups such as the Sierra Club, Save Open Space and the Monte Nido Valley Community Association mounted a campaign to close the school altogether.

Soka opponents said growth at the Calabasas school was unnecessary because of the opening of the 103-acre Aliso Viejo campus in 2001. Opponents objected that the Coastal Commission preferred expansion into the environmentally sensitive local mountains instead of into Orange County.

Not everyone felt that Soka was an intrusion. The 119,500-square-foot campus occupied 12 acres, but the entire site comprised 588 acres and much of the grounds were open space.

Students and staff called their picturesque Calabasas campus an "eternal garden" and say they will miss the school's peace and tranquility.

"Just as we applaud and congratulate the class of 2006, we also acknowledge the closing of the Calabasas campus," said a mournful Tomoko Takahashi, provost and dean of the graduate school.

"For 15 years, I have made this campus my home, and this staff and faculty and students my family.

"I already miss (it)," Takahashi told the graduates and their families.