Two CSUN Rallies Share One Thing--Low Attendance

The two rallies taking place Friday at Cal State Northridge had similar goals--to make an administration more accountable to the people.

And in the view of some on the CSUN campus, they had similar results--poor student participation.

Only 15 of this year’s 5,600 graduates showed up in front of the Administration Building to protest the school’s controversial plan to stage next month’s commencement ceremony at the Hollywood Bowl.

Only about 200 of the university’s 31,581 registered students turned out at the Student Union on the other side of the campus for Peace Expo, where the Bush Administration’s stance on Central America was being protested.

“It’s understandable. Apathy on this commuter campus is so great,” shrugged Anthony Ashhurst, a graduate student in history who coordinated the commencement protest. “Students are here to get a diploma and join the work force. . . . It’s a get a job and buy a Porsche mentality.”

‘Problem Is Ignorance’

Said Lisa Sherwood, a senior psychology major and student coordinator of the three-day Peace Expo: “The problem is ignorance. People my age are concerned about careers, not social crises in the world.”

As if to underscore her point, those attending a series of Peace Expo lectures on such things as U.S. activities in Central America and nuclear weapons stepped beneath a huge banner that promoted an upcoming campus “Job Expo for graduates.”

Ashhurst said the graduation ceremony protest was called after university officials refused this week to further discuss the May 26 commencement with students.

“The administration has never consulted students on issues,” Ashhurst said. “We’re protesting the general issue of student rights. We’re protesting the lack of student input into decisions made by the president and his advisers.”

James W. Cleary, the university’s president, was reported to be off campus Friday. But school spokeswoman Ann Salisbury denied that students are locked out of the decision-making process. Officials changed the time of the Hollywood Bowl ceremony from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the request of students, she said.

Students were involved in the overall planning of this year’s commencement “to the extent possible” after officials decided they could not hold the ceremony on campus because of construction taking place on school grounds, she said.

Low-Key Negotiations

Salisbury said university leaders “never imagined people wouldn’t want” to receive their diplomas at the Hollywood Bowl. She acknowledged, however, that administrators “didn’t want to publicize our negotiations” with Bowl officials until a deal was signed.

Ironically, the contract-signing occurred Friday morning--just as Ashhurst and the 14 others were gathering in front of the campus Administration Building to complain that the 18,000-seat Bowl is too small to handle graduates and their families and friends.

“I’m very disappointed in the turnout,” said protester Lupita Montoya, a graduating mechanical engineering student who is vice president of CSUN’s student government. “This campus has been apathetic so long. It will take a lot of work to wake people up.”

Across campus, Sherwood was predicting that the sight of 1960s and ‘70s radicals and personalities--such as the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., a peace activist--taking part in the Peace Expo will help. At several of Friday’s workshops, debates and panel discussions, older off-campus peace advocates seemed to outnumber students 3 to 1.