An End and a Beginning

Last week’s announcement that Cal State Northridge President Blenda Wilson plans to leave the campus at the end of the spring semester is at once a great loss and a tremendous opportunity. During seven years in charge of the San Fernando Valley’s only public four-year university, Wilson established herself as a formidable administrator who resurrected the campus after the Northridge earthquake, helped secure the university’s financial future by seeking private partners and presided over demographic shifts that are fundamentally changing higher education. At the same time, though, Wilson was criticized for the way she handled relations with the neighboring community and the students, faculty and administrators on her own campus.

Wilson initially signaled her intention to leave in 1997, when she made a bid to become president of Wayne State University in Detroit. That move, she said then, would have been too attractive to pass up--for both personal and professional reasons. When she was passed over for the Wayne State post, Wilson rededicated herself to her work at CSUN. But it appeared from the outside--and to many on the inside--that Wilson had lost some of the drive that marked the first years of her difficult tenure.

She had been on the job less than two years when the Northridge earthquake in January 1994 devastated the 353-acre campus, causing $393 million in damage. Classes resumed within two weeks in dozens of temporary classrooms, a testament to Wilson’s organization. Within a year, however, enrollment at the campus fell 25%--its biggest drop ever. Those losses were reversed with a recruitment effort Wilson oversaw. Enrollment is now up 10% from 1992. But then questions began to arise over how the campus was spending its disaster relief money and managing the crews conducting the work. An administrator overseeing repairs was censured for accepting free work on her home from a university contractor. Late last year, an audit raised questions about how Federal Emergency Management Agency money was spent. Even so, the vast majority of the funds was spent properly, and Wilson and her staff used the cash inflow to finance improvements intended to make the campus more attractive.

Old procedures in a new era led to financial bungles that left students waiting for tax refunds and incorrectly identified some employees as owing money. The goofs pointed up antiquated procedures that called into question the university’s ability to keep tabs on public money. Wilson modernized the system and appointed the university’s first controller, but a forthcoming audit is expected to reveal still more financial problems on the campus.

Wilson’s understanding that changing times demanded changing methods inspired the university’s partnership with a private developer who plans to build an $80-million biotechnology complex on the school’s North Campus. That plan followed earlier concepts for a retail center on the site--a project neighbors vehemently opposed. Some of the same neighbors now oppose plans to build a new athletic stadium on campus and many say Wilson has ignored their complaints and fears. Indeed, Wilson took hits for her handling of community relations. The worst example came in 1997, when the school canceled four men’s sports to comply with gender-equity laws and to close a gaping hole in the athletic department’s budget. Wilson later reinstated the sports but not before she was lambasted by sports fans and university boosters.

Wilson’s resignation follows a stormy year for her and her administration. Her 1998 raise was one of the lowest in the Cal State system; trustees apparently thought her participation on too many outside boards distracted her from her duties at CSUN, even though the outside work had been encouraged under the previous chancellor, Barry Munitz. And last year, Athletic Director Paul Bubb resigned--as did Vice President for Finance and Administration Arthur J. Elbert. Last month, Vice President for Student Affairs Ron Kopita announced his resignation.

Wilson’s contributions cannot go unremarked. But the campus--and the Cal State system of which it is a part--must focus now on finding a CSUN president who can continue Wilson’s work on one track and, on another, mend relationships that soured over the years. It won’t be an easy job to fill. CSUN, its neighbors and the Valley deserve an uncommonly skillful administrator capable of balancing the academics, finances and politics of a major public university. Given the binary choice between a president who makes nice with the community and one who demands excellence from the university, most would choose the latter. But the job demands both.

The new president will have a full agenda even before he or she comes to campus. Relations with the community must be smoothed. Closer tabs on public money must be kept. The ongoing renovation of the campus must be administered. Critical offices in the administration must be filled. And the relevance and vitality of CSUN’s changing curriculum must be ensured. First and foremost, CSUN is a university--a place of learning where students prepare for their professional lives, but also learn to live an examined life. For most of her seven years at CSUN, Wilson juggled those demands admirably. Her focus now should be on ensuring a smooth transition for whomever is chosen as CSUN’s fourth president.