New President’s Plans for CSUN Aimed at Donors

The new president of Cal State Northridge, Blenda J. Wilson, said Monday she wants the campus to be recognized as a major educational institution as well as an “economic and social force” in the San Fernando Valley.

Wilson, 51, said in an interview that such recognition will pave the way for significant fund raising in the next several years.

Among her first steps, she said, will be the adoption of long-range plans for the 28,000-student school so she can tell donors “what the money will do.”

The strategy is similar to one she carried out at the University of Michigan at Dearborn, where Wilson was chancellor for four years until taking the CSUN job this fall.

Campus officials in Michigan say Wilson stimulated an improvement in business and community leaders’ opinions of the 8,000-student school, a sister to the much larger and more prestigious University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

“She put our school on the map,” said Bernie Klein, acting chancellor at Dearborn.

Private donations more than doubled while Wilson was chancellor, college officials said.

Wilson said she will have the opportunity to appoint a permanent vice president for academics at CSUN. The acting vice president for academics is Don Bianchi, a biologist.

Earlier this summer Wilson interviewed and selected Ronald Kopita to be CSUN’s vice president for student affairs, bypassing Fred Strache, who had served as acting vice president last year and sought the permanent job.

Wilson also said she probably will commission a community opinion survey about CSUN. “Understanding how the broader community views the campus is essential,” she said.

At Dearborn, results of a similar survey kicked off a two-year planning process that involved faculty and community members, Klein said.

Many CSUN faculty members say that higher education’s declining share of the state budget is also prompting the need to decide whether the school should eliminate any of its offerings.

Wilson said it will take her at least several weeks to assess the university’s strengths and weaknesses.

She said she has been studying reports that grew out of demands by the campus Black Student Union and Black Student Athletes Assn. for the resignation of Athletic Director Bob Hiegert. The groups charged the athletic program with racism, criticizing the 9% graduation rate of black student athletes and the lack of minorities on coaching staffs.

“The narrative language of each of the reports said something more about the quality and character of this community than just the issue of black students and racism charges and athletic problems,” Wilson said. “So I hope to be part of the solution.”

Times staff writer Theresa Munoz contributed to this story.