Retiring Dean Saw Changes, Wants More : Education: CSUN’s Vice President of Student Affairs Edmund T. Peckham will leave next month after 24 years. Some of his goals remain mired in delay.

Cal State Northridge’s longtime dean of students had hoped to see a CSUN football stadium, basketball arena, a fraternity-sorority row and other trappings of a “first-class university” before he retired.

But these and other projects have been delayed, largely because of neighbors’ protests about traffic and noise.

Dean Edmund T. Peckham, who will retire Sept. 20, said CSUN has “never gotten the kind of love other communities give their universities.”

Peckham, 67, has been dean for 24 years and vice president of student affairs for seven.

“I’d always before been where communities were proud of their universities,” he said. “But there is no mutual respect.”

Nevertheless, Harvard-educated Peckham said, CSUN has changed its image in the community and among students.

“You respect Harvard if you live in Cambridge,” he said. “That will come to Northridge, too, as we mature.”

Peckham has seen CSUN grow from a mostly white commuter campus of 14,700, known for orange groves and bungalows, to a bustling school for 31,000 ethnically diverse students.

He says it has gained respect in the academic world and from its neighbors.

“Northridge was considered a second-class school, even by its students” when he arrived on Feb. 1, 1967, Peckham said. “But it always had enormous potential to be great. I have no doubt that in the future when people think of great schools in the Los Angeles area, they will think of us right along with USC and UCLA.”

During Peckham’s early years on the job, the school was called San Fernando Valley State College, the name it was given when it was founded in 1958. A name change gave the university a status boost in June, 1972, when all of California’s state colleges became state universities. Valley State became California State University, Northridge.

Other major changes during the years included the building of a student union complex, a student health center, a child-care facility and enough dormitories so that 10% of the students can live on campus. This is more than at any other school in the California State University system, Peckham said.

Last year, for the first time, CSUN competed in NCAA Division I athletics in all sports but football. A football stadium, a sports arena, a cultural arts center and more classroom buildings are on the drawing board. Ground will be broken for in the fall for buildings that will house the schools of business and education, and the administration.

A different kind of change, Peckham said, began on Nov. 4, 1968. That day a few dozen black students took over the administration building, holding Peckham and 34 other people hostage until their demands were heard.

“The school was 95% or more Caucasian,” Peckham said. “The only black students were on the football team or on some other sports team. The impression you got when you walked around campus was that CSUN was very much an all-white campus.

“There was more of an ivory tower concept here then. So when Nov. 4 happened, it came as a big shock to us all.”

Peckham said he and six other people, mainly administrators, were “herded into one room” on the building’s fifth floor by a young man he had never seen.

“There was fear,” Peckham said. “We were not free to leave. There were weapons. There was intimidation. It was an experience I’ll never forget.”

Acting President Paul Blomgren agreed to hear the students’ grievances.

They wanted an investigation into racist attitudes in the physical education department, easier entrance to the college for minorities and reversal of a decision to cut funds for needy students.

Blomgren promised to consider the students’ demands and, some claimed, to not retaliate against the participating students.

“But there were reprisals,” Peckham said. “The next day, several students were arrested. Some were prosecuted and went to jail. I and others had to testify at their trials.”

The event put Valley State College on the map. The takeover made the cover of Life magazine.

There were bigger demonstrations later, especially against the Vietnam War. But none affected the administration so much as the takeover, Peckham said.

The university began to recruit members of minority groups, helping them with scholarships, loans, counseling and tutoring. Pan-African and Chicano studies courses were added to the curriculum.

White students will be in the minority at CSUN in the near future, Peckham said. “That’s as it should be. A university should reflect its community.”

Peckham and his wife, Dorothy, attended a church in Pacoima for a number of years. He said he was drawn to the church when he was assigned to organize a tribute to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. after King was assassinated in April, 1968.

“I wanted a black minister to participate,” Peckham said. “I called several churches. No one would come here. There was a lot of bitterness in the communities of Pacoima and San Fernando. The impression was that blacks were not welcome at CSUN. If they went to college, they thought more in terms of going over the freeway to Cal State L.A.”

Finally, the Rev. Larry Smith, then pastor of the United Methodist Church in Pacoima, agreed to participate. Peckham said he was so impressed by Smith that he decided to join his church.

Faculty members who have worked closely with Peckham said that the longtime dean always has been dedicated to meeting students’ needs.

“He really loves the students. He always has,” said John Broesemele, a CSUN history professor who was Peckham’s student 30 years ago when Peckham taught at University of the Pacific.

“He’s really a great guy,” said James Benson, a former Associated Students senator.

A former editor of the Sundial, the student newspaper, had a less favorable view. “The Sundial has had a rather steamy relationship with Peckham,” said Rod Wade, who edited the paper last year. “He likes to control what people know. We had a big problem with crime at the dorms. Peckham pretty much closed our access to them.”

Peckham, however, said he has made many lifelong friendships with students.

“If there is a legacy I’ve tried to create in 24 years, it is an emphasis on students,” he said. “I’ve tried to help them get involved with university affairs. I’ve tried to establish the validity of student affairs.”

He said he is especially proud of the university’s student health center.

“We were the second campus in the CSU system to have confidential HIV testing,” Peckham said.

Peckham said he had hoped to see all student services--from admissions to counseling--housed in one building before he retired. That, along with the football stadium, sports arena and cultural arts center, is in limbo.

“There are going to be protests from the community,” he said of the developments planned for the North Campus area, now called Devonshire Downs. “People feel we’re already infringing on them.”

Residents have complained about noise and traffic generated by university events from dorm parties to a July 4 fireworks show that CSUN co-sponsors, Peckham said.

The football stadium proposal, especially, must be approached with diplomacy, he said. It “will take a very studied effort on the part of the university. The community must see it as a strength, not as a threat.”

Peckham said he decided to stay on the job long enough to see that the fall semester gets off to a good start. Then he and his wife will travel to China, where a son teaches at a university.

College officials said an acting dean will be named by President James Cleary while a nationwide search is conducted for Peckham’s replacement. The process will take about a year, they said.

“We’ll stay close to CSUN,” Peckham said. “We only live a mile from here. The college has been our life for too many years to go away completely. I’ll still be around.”