NORTHRIDGE : Cal State Will Restore 75 Canceled Courses

The Cal State Northridge administration, discovering that a budget squeeze canceled many introductory courses that students need to graduate, has decided to tap next spring’s funds in order to rehire dozens of instructors whose jobs were recently eliminated.

The action by CSUN Vice President for Academic Affairs Donald Bianchi is intended to ease the registration bottleneck created by the cancellation of more than 500 courses.

Because of expected state budget cuts, the fall schedule shows dramatic reductions from the previous year in the number of introductory classes offered in subjects such as freshman composition, mathematics and computer science. About 75 of the eliminated classes must be restored, Bianchi said. That means rehiring temporary instructors who were told in June that their positions had been eliminated.

Money to pay the rehired instructors will be borrowed from spring semester budgets and will come from the anticipated savings on salaries for about 100 faculty members expected to retire this year, Bianchi said.