Kenmore’s Bastyr University announced today it will open a new campus in San Diego, Calif., with plans for the first class to begin in fall 2012.

“We are thrilled to secure a location for our California campus,” said Bastyr University President Daniel K. Church. “To become the first regionally accredited naturopathic medical institution in California is a tremendous honor and we look forward to providing the same quality education as our Kenmore, Washington, campus does. Now students in California and throughout the southwest will not have to travel as far to receive a degree from the best University for natural medicine in the United States.”

Bastyr University, a pioneer in science-based natural medicine since 1978, selected San Diego because of its strategic proximity to a significant number of prospective students, faculty and patients in southern California who are interested in the natural health arts and sciences. The Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine degree program will be offered when the school first opens, with other degree programs expected to be offered in the future.

“To have a campus and teaching clinic on the northern- and now southern-most tips of the western seaboard is an accomplishment of which we are quite proud,” said Dr. Church. “We hope this gives prospective students in both locations and all areas in between, attractive options to further their education at Bastyr University.”

Bastyr University’s new campus will be located in the heart of San Diego’s life-sciences cluster, and approximately 14 miles north of downtown San Diego via Interstate 5.