Looking Smart as Term Starts

Launching another school year Monday, Cal State Northridge appeared finally to have recaptured its pre-earthquake bustle and verve after years of destruction, construction and the threatened loss of its president and sports teams.

With summer winding down but the blistering heat sticking around, students swarmed the campus on the first day of classes in hopes of buying books, checking class schedules or catching up with old friends.

Though final numbers won’t be available for about a month, administrators in the university’s Office of Admissions and Records estimate that with 26,325 students registered Monday, compared to 25,789 on the first day of classes in 1996, overall enrollment may exceed last fall’s boom when there were 27,189 students enrolled by late September.

“We’ve been on a general upward swing since that first semester after the earthquake,” said CSUN spokesman John Chandler.

CSUN’s all-time record enrollment was 31,575 in 1988.

In the first semester after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which caused an estimated $320 million in damage to the campus, enrollment dipped to 24,310 as many classrooms, labs, offices and other buildings were housed in trailers and tents. But with a recent resurgence in enrollment, credited to reconstructed buildings and CSUN’s increasing popularity in the CSU system, the frictions of a crowded campus are returning in full force.

Food shops and student services were jammed with wide-eyed freshmen exploring college for the first time. Most feared were the long lines in the student bookstore. Grumpy students shifted books from the left to right arm as the line inched along ever so slowly.,

“Man, I’ve been waiting in this line for 40 minutes,” sighed June Gordon, a 24-year-old Pan-African studies senior. “It’s a bummer. This is the most people I’ve seen in this store since before the earthquake.”

Bookstore director Dean Goetz said 10 extra cash registers were put into service to deal with the influx of students. Goetz said early cash returns indicate a 7% increase in sales in the past 10 days as compared to the same time period last year.

In addition to students and faculty now being able to attend classes in the central part of the campus instead of using makeshift classrooms in trailers, students said the campus feels like it has regained its pre-quake spirit.

“People are still a little cranky because there’s still construction going on around the university,” said Rick Levy, a 26-year-old recent graduate of the radio/TV program. “But I think it’s more upbeat around here.”

Levy, who entered CSUN as a transfer student in the first semester after the earthquake said he remembered those chaotic days when the campus seemed to exist in perpetual disarray.

Rebuilding the campus might have been a headache for administrators, but students are enjoying the benefits. “There’s a big change in the way things are done around here,” said Gordon, who’s been on the campus for four years. “More classes are being taught and the university is just plain doing things better.”

Students have also wrestled in recent months with the prospects of losing many of their men’s sports teams. To meet budget problems and comply with gender equity laws, university officials announced that baseball, volleyball, soccer and swimming would be cut. But following a community uproar, money from booster clubs and the state government bailed the teams out for at least a year.

And many students expected that CSUN President Blenda Wilson was headed back to Detroit to assume the presidency of Wayne State University. Only Monday was it announced that Wilson, one of three finalists, did not get the Wayne State job.

The renewed school spirit allowed students to get back to pre-quake complaints.

“It’s great that things are closer to what they were before,” said Jeanette Gonzalez, a 24-year-old Chicano studies major. “To be back in the central part of the campus, when things were so spread out before, feels good. But the parking is still terrible.”

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CSUN Fall Enrollment

Student enrollment hs risen steadily since 1995. With 26,325 registered Monday, overall numbers may exceed the 1996 total.

‘97: 26,325*

* Projected