CSUN Expansion Draws More Fire

A controversial plan to add 10,000 students to the 29,000 already enrolled at California State University, Northridge was discussed Thursday at a meeting of faculty members and high-ranking university officials.

The proposal, which calls for the enrollment increases to be completed by 1995, has been roundly criticized by many Northridge faculty members. They have expressed concern that the plan does not take into consideration the need for more instructors, classrooms, offices and parking facilities.

“We don’t see where the space for the additional 10,000 heads and their cars is going to come from,” said Nathan Weinberg, a sociology professor.

CSUN teachers complain that the university needs to pay more attention to maintenance of buildings, many of which are in disrepair. They have also expressed fear that rapid growth could lead to deterioration of the quality of students at the university.

In response to the criticism, CSUN President James W. Cleary and top administrators have held a series of forums with individual academic departments to defend the plan. Thursday’s meeting was open to faculty members from all departments and attracted about 30 people.

Visionary Versus Mundane

“It’s hard to put people’s mind-set in a visionary position when elevators don’t work, air conditioners don’t work and when there’s overcrowding in classrooms,” Cleary said at the latest meeting.

Cleary said he supports increasing enrollment only if the state funds adequate facilities and “addresses the problems of the last four to five years of overenrollment and underbudgeting.”

Three more campus meetings on the enrollment expansion are scheduled in the next few weeks, Cleary said. In April, California State University System Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds will discuss the expansion plans at a CSUN Faculty Senate meeting.

Reynolds has proposed increasing enrollment at Northridge and at CSU campuses in San Luis Obispo and Chico. She selected the three campuses for an accelerated growth program because of the popularity of the schools, Cleary said.

Reynolds wants Northridge to add 5,000 “full-time equivalent students” to its campus. About two part-time students equal one full-time equivalent student under the state’s formula to determine enrollment at CSU campuses.

To reach Reynold’s goal, about 10,000 more students would have to be admitted to CSUN in the next eight years, university officials said.

CSUN Third Largest

CSUN’s enrollment of 29,718 makes it the third-largest campus in the CSU System. Only San Diego, with 36,000 students, and Long Beach, with 35,000, are larger.

If the Northridge expansion plan is implemented and enrollments hold steady at San Diego and Long Beach, CSUN will quickly become the largest school in the 19-campus system, CSUN officials believe.

Preparations for growth are already under way at CSUN. Construction has started on an ambitious $150-million University Park project on a 100-acre area site north of the campus. When completed, the expansion will provide dormitory space for 2,400 students and scores of additional classrooms, university officials said.

The university has received state approval to construct a building for science and another for communicative-disorders programs. In Gov. George Deukmejian’s 1988-89 budget, money has been allocated for expansion of the CSUN library and for construction of buildings to house the business administration, economics and education programs.