2 Issues Inflame Tensions at CSUN

Two serious problems confront Cal State Northridge these days, and we’re not even talking about the earthquake and its aftermath. These two problems would be difficult to deal with separately. Unfortunately, they have collided on this campus of hard knocks and, once again, tensions are inflamed.

The first problem involves the fact that 28% of CSUN’s burgeoning population of Mexican American, Central and South American students requires six years in which to graduate. An even larger percentage requires seven years. Just 22% of African American students have graduated after six years, and 28% require seven years. For the rest of CSUN’s student body, 40% to 50% have graduated by then.

Those figures are unacceptably low, and changes are in order. The other problem is more volatile.

In the past year or so, several groups within the increasingly diverse CSUN community have been outraged by one act or another. Latinos were livid after a fraternity circulated a racist song about a Mexican whore. Women on campus were appalled when flyers for another event asked “wouldn’t it be great to rape, pillage and burn again?” A campus appearance by Muslim Minister Louis Farrakhan sparked a dispute between Jewish and African American students.

Stir in the quake and you probably have a mix in which folks on campus aren’t feeling especially trustful of one another and are waiting for the other shoe to drop.

For several Latino and African American students, the other shoe was the way in which CSUN officials chose to address the graduation and retention problem. CSUN would reorganize a long-respected sanctum called the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) for disadvantaged students, and for which students, faculty and alumni have a deep, emotional connection.

It was predictable that dispersing EOP staff to other locations on campus would be seen as the first step in the program’s dissolution. (It had much more to do with the quake and the need to free up as much space as possible for classrooms.) It was predictable that a vacancy in the position of EOP director would be perceived the same way.

CSUN officials said that they laid the groundwork for this last year. Well, the ground moved, quite literally in the quake.

Much more could have been done to sell this idea first, which CSUN insists involves no breaking up of the EOP office, nor any plans to eliminate the position of EOP director, nor any diversion of EOP funds. Now, a task force has been formed that will consult the aggrieved parties on the reorganization. That should have been the first step, not the last.