California State University-Channel Islands

providing for the financing and support of the transition of the site for use as a university campus. The state legislature and CSU's board of trustees provided funds to begin the conversion of the facility from a state hospital into a college campus. In 1997, the hospital closed and the patients were moved into the state-local system. In August 1999, The Ventura Learning Center moved as tenants to the Camarillo site as CSUN-CI, a satellite facility for CSU Northridge.
CSU's board of trustees appointed Richard R. Rush the founding president of California State University Channel Islands. He started working on June 18, 2001, however Rush's formal inauguration wasn’t held until April 19, 2002. On August 16, 2002, CSUCI opened to upper division transfer students and in the fall of 2003 it accepted its first freshman class. As of January 2006, the first named school of the campus was the Martin V. Smith School of Business & Economics. On May 17, 2007, CSUCI graduated its inaugural freshman class and received its …