EARTHQUAKE: THE ROAD TO RECOVERY : Students Meet Deadlines Amid Chaos

“Not just back. . .better!”

That feel-good mantra was everywhere--on T-shirts, bumper stickers and signs--as Cal State Northridge resumed classes Monday.

But it was a hard sell for the staff of the student newspaper, the Daily Sundial, as it struggled to put out its first issue after the quake-delayed start of the spring semester.

Booted from their second-floor Sierra North digs by the Jan. 17 earthquake, Sundial staffers found themselves working shoulder-to-shoulder and occasionally on the floor of a cramped storeroom in the campus bookstore, sharing a single telephone and several rented computers.

The day began when students arrived to find that the modular classroom that was to be the Sundial’s temporary home was still being set up--and indeed, many of the portable buildings in its Prairie Street cluster were still off-limits hours later.

Undeterred, staffers gathered in the shade of a campus food court for an introduction-cum-pep talk by faculty adviser Henrietta Charles.

“We’ll sit down and talk some other time,” she said. “Today we work.”

And they did, including first-time staff writer Michael Symes, who by early afternoon had written two stories and was awaiting a third.

“Today has been real hell,” the 20-year-old junior said between assignments. “Real hectic.”

But despite the chaos of opening day and the problems created by the cramped quarters, the mood among reporters and editors was largely upbeat.

“My staff has performed excellently,” said Paul Bond, the paper’s 33-year-old editor-in-chief. “The core group has performed above and beyond the call of duty.”

While praising his staff’s ability to publish a 36-page special edition before the start of classes, he acknowledged a bit of regret at the temblor’s timing. “It’s a little disappointing,” he said. “We don’t have an office. The ideas we had are all shelved.”

Still, one editor noted that copies of the Sundial’s Feb. 7 earthquake edition were disappearing from campus bins faster than staff members could refill them.

“The attention the newspaper is getting is very satisfying,” Bond said. “I’m told people who have never read it are reading it now.”

And while CSUN’s administration failed to deliver on many of its opening day promises, Bond offered hearty thanks for the effort.

“They’ve done a tremendous job,” he said. “It’s a huge undertaking. We’re open and running and that’s more than I expected.”

Sundial advertising manager Elizabeth Whirledge said although the staff was displaced from its offices, the paper would publish under its usual Tuesday-through-Friday schedule beginning today.

Minor inconveniences, however, remained. Lacking any darkroom facilities in their makeshift newsroom, Sundial photographers were having their pictures printed at an off-campus site--a one-hour photo lab.

For others, the day illustrated the problems that they will encounter covering a campus that will be dealing with the quake’s crippling effects for years to come.

“I was excited yesterday,” said staff writer Toya Anderson, 25, as she headed off to work Monday afternoon, unable--because of the disruption on campus--to complete the assignment she’d accepted earlier in the day.

“Today reality set in.”