NORTHRIDGE : CSUN to Hold Its Largest Fund-Raiser

Hard hats and a fish dinner will kick off the largest fund-raiser ever for Cal State Northridge as President Blenda J. Wilson wines and dines local powerbrokers at her home this week.

About 100 CSUN corporate representatives, executives and alumni will tour a CSUN construction site and dine at Wilson’s home Thursday, ushering in what could be a new era of private funding for the financially strapped university, school officials said Monday.

Confronted with the worst public-funding crisis in the university’s 35-year history, CSUN’s schools of education and business have spent the past year soliciting private donations, primarily from local businesses and CSUN alumni, said Julie Lichtenberg, director of development for the business school.

The schools aim to raise a combined $5 million over three years for faculty, fellowships, minority recruitment, equipment and scholarships, Lichtenberg said. About $1 million has already been raised, she said.

Fund raising is a top priority for Wilson, who was recruited from the University of Michigan at Dearborn, where she was chancellor, in part because of her success in soliciting private contributions there.

Donations will help install the two programs into a new business-and-education complex being built with state funds at Etiwanda Avenue and Plummer Street, said CSUN spokeswoman Kaine Thompson. The partially constructed complex, which donors and potential donors will tour Thursday, already bears the signs of CSUN’s new reliance on private donations. Signs with such names as Xerox and Arthur Andersen & Co. have been posted on many of the rooms in recognition of corporate sponsors, said Lichtenberg.