CALARTS CELEBRATES GROWTH, DIVERSITY.

Byline: Angela M. Lemire Staff Writer

No sooner had CalArts officials celebrated record-breaking growth in one area than they found other areas to be proud of.

Student enrollment surpassed the 1,200 mark with the opening of its 1999-2000 year last month, while also showing record numbers of foreign students and faculty on campus, according to officials at California Institute of the Arts.

By final count, 1,233 students had registered for visual and performing arts classes at the 30-year-old private undergraduate and graduate school, a 3 percent increase over last year and the largest enrollment to date for the Valencia institute, officials said.

One record that sprouted from those figures was the enrollment of 173 foreign students from 40 countries, who now account for 14 percent of the total student population, they said.

``We're proud that the attraction of CalArts has continued to grow so much in 10 years, enabling us to bring in a diverse student body,'' said Ken Young, director of admissions.

CalArts spokeswoman Anita Bonnell attributed increased interest worldwide to ongoing recruitment efforts, national publicity the school has earned and the efforts of foreign alumni.

``A lot of our past students have gone back to their countries and spread the word about CalArts, we've found,'' Bonnell said.

Korean students make up the single-largest foreign group on campus this year, with 65 students, she said.

Increased student enrollment brought the hiring of additional faculty members to maintain small class sizes. The faculty, which gained about 15 new members, now has 293 full- and part-time members, the equivalent to 186 full-time instructors and professors, Bonnell said.

Although enrollment has increased, CalArts officials maintain that admittance remains competitive and, in fact, continues to grow more competitive.

As applicants to the school increased in the last decade, the percentage of those who were accepted to those who were rejected decreased to a 40 percent acceptance rate, Bonnell said.

She noted that CalArts was one of 300 schools listed among Peterson's Competitive Colleges guide, while Time magazine and The Princeton Review of Best Colleges for You recently named CalArts as ``one of the hardest art schools to get into in the nation.''

CalArts also was named among the top 10 graduate schools for drama, film, fine arts and photography in U.S. News and World Report's Best Graduate Schools 1998-1999, while Playboy magazine includes its School of Film and Video as one of the top 10 places to learn independent filmmaking.