CSUN Expected to Embrace Ethnic, Women’s Centers

In a show of support for women and minorities, Cal State Northridge officials are expected to vote today to permanently include in the school’s master plan the Chicano House, the Black House, an Asian-American Student Activity Center and the Women’s Center.

Inclusion in the campus master plan, which guides growth of the school, shows long-term support for ethnic and women’s studies, school officials said.

“It’s important that we are a permanent part of the campus because our services are essential to women here,” said Karen Glickman, assistant director of the CSUN Women’s Center. “We have been shuffled around quite a bit.”

Student activists during the past year lobbied school administrators to include the Chicano House--which opened in 1969--and the Black House in the school’s master plan.

Chicano students feared that without inclusion in the plan, their facility could be removed to make room for something else.

African-American students in October were given the school’s former police station to convert to the Black House, which was closed in 1975. Among the demands of minority students who staged protests last spring was resurrection of the CSUN Black House.

“I really think student activism last year set the tone,” said Chicano studies department Chairman Gerald Rosendez.

The departments of Chicano studies, pan-African studies, Asian American studies and women’s studies will operate the houses, which are intended to provide students with a place to meet and hold educational and cultural events, school officials said.

CSUN President Blenda Wilson has agreed to allow the Asian American studies department to use a vacant house in the northwest corner of the campus for the Asian American Student Activity Center.

The Women’s Center, which opened in 1974, is at 9520 Etiwanda Ave. The center provides peer counseling as well as self-defense and health classes, officials said.

The scheduled vote by the CSUN Planning Board comes amid growing racial tension on campus, triggered earlier this fall by a fraternity’s suspension for posting racially offensive party flyers.

The Associated Students Senate previously voted to support inclusion of the houses in the campus master plan.