Effects of Budget Crisis About to Be Felt at CSUN : Registration: About 800 courses are being canceled, leaving 30,000 or so students to vie by phone for courses designed for less than 26,000.

Cal State Northridge students signing up for fall classes Wednesday will be among the first to feel the shock of a state budget crisis blamed for cancellation of hundreds of courses on the campus and a reduction of at least 75% in spring semester admissions.

Campus officials are bracing for outbursts of anger and frustration as the 27,000 CSUN students who will register using the school’s computerized phone system find they cannot get the classes they want.

Approximately 800 classes are being canceled, which means the 30,000 or so students expected will be competing for courses capable of handling the full demands of fewer than 26,000, school officials have said. That means many will be forced to take fewer courses than they need to graduate when planned, Director of Admissions and Records Lorraine Newlon said.

CSUN officials said they will post a list today in the lobby of the administration building of all the courses canceled from the fall catalogue. Students can also contact academic departments for the information.

Students are assigned a day during a three-week period to call the registration system’s computer and sign up for classes using code numbers transmitted by touch-tone phone keys.

Students are allowed to call the computerized registration system an unlimited number of times during the day they are scheduled. But as the computer tells them one of their class choices is canceled, students will have to juggle the available course with the schedule of classes in other departments, which in turn have also been reduced.

The computer will automatically cut them off after 10 minutes, however, which school officials said may require students to make several calls before completing their schedules. The computer has 100 lines to accommodate the approximately 2,000 students assigned to call each day.

The expected scheduling nightmare comes as Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature remain deadlocked over the 1992-93 state budget, which California State University officials expect will include cuts of between 8% and 11% in funding for the 20-campus system. CSUN officials predict that as many as a third of the school’s instructors will be laid off or not rehired because of the cuts.

The staff cuts are much larger than the percentage cut in funding because staff salaries make up such a large part--about 90%--of the schools’ budgets.

The drop in state funds is also prompting CSUN officials for the first time to turn away incoming freshmen for the spring semester and dramatically reduce the number of transfer students so that the school’s current students get a better chance of enrolling in desired classes.

In past years, about 3,000 students--mostly juniors and seniors--enrolled at CSUN for the spring semester, Newlon said. Officials hope to limit that number to as few as 500 by turning away students seeking to study several of the school’s most popular majors--such as business administration and speech communication--as well as by refusing to enroll students who have not declared a major.

In addition, only transfer students who have completed all of their general education requirements will be allowed to enroll for the spring semester. Applications will be accepted beginning in August.

The limited number of seats for classes that fulfill general education requirements has in past years delayed graduation for thousands of students. And because of the expected state cuts, the problem will get worse, campus officials said.

Seminars have been held for some of the CSUN faculty and staff to prepare them to deal with crowds of irate students, confounded by the system that makes it difficult or impossible to get the courses they need to graduate.

“Part of my job will be to help students understand how to vent frustration and anger in more creative ways,” said Margaret Brown, director of educational equity services for the School of Communication, Health and Human Services. She attended a seminar sponsored by the school.

Brown, whose normal duties are to help minority students stay in school, said she has already received calls from students upset that they will be paying more money for fewer classes. Fees in the Cal State system are expected to increase 40% this fall.

“Hopefully students and their parents will start writing the Legislature and governor and let them know what’s going on,” Brown said.