Early CSUN Administrator a Potent Force

He held the top spot only briefly at what is now Cal State Northridge, but Delmar T. Oviatt has arguably the greatest name recognition of any early CSUN administrator.

A native of Canada, Oviatt was named dean of the proposed Valley campus of Los Angeles College of Applied Arts and Sciences in 1955, according to “Suddenly a Giant,” a 1993 history of the university by history professor John Broesamle. Previously, Oviatt had served as chairman of the division of education at what would later be known as Cal State Los Angeles.

With little more than a few small bungalows atop a dusty patch of land, the Valley campus began its first semester of classes on Sept. 24, 1956. For the first several years, “no library existed,” Broesamle wrote. “Oviatt himself stamped registration cards.”

When the time arrived soon after to appoint the college’s first president, Oviatt was passed over in favor of Ralph Prator, a former president of Bakersfield College who took the helm on July 1, 1958. Although Oviatt was widely liked, his educational philosophy and official manner leaned toward the rigid, critics later recalled.

Still, the popular administrator remained a potent force on campus for decades, serving first as dean of instruction and later as vice president of academic affairs. After Prator’s abrupt resignation in 1968, Oviatt was briefly appointed acting interim president in January 1969, during a time of raucous protests over the status of minority students.

Two years after Oviatt’s death in 1973, administrators opened the Delmar T. Oviatt Library, the intellectual and architectural centerpiece of campus and the inspiration for CSUN’s official logo. Small portions today remain off-limits due to damage caused by the 1994 Northridge earthquake.