Outreach Stressed at CSUN Forum

Jane G. Pisano, a candidate for the presidency of Cal State Northridge, said Thursday she would emphasize fund-raising and community outreach if chosen to run the San Fernando Valley’s only four-year public university.

Pisano, 55, oversees more than 300 outreach programs as the senior vice president for external relations at USC, a position created in 1994 to improve that university’s once staid reputation. This year Time magazine, in conjunction with the Princeton Review, named USC “College of the Year” for having “one of the most ambitious social outreach programs in the country.”

About 90 people attended Pisano’s public forum at the Performing Arts Center, the last in a series of campus visits by the four finalists for president. The Cal State Board of Trustees plans to interview the candidates Monday and announce the campus’ new leader as early as Tuesday.

An accomplished fund-raiser and civic activist, Pisano said donated dollars are the “venture capital” that universities can use to innovate.

“CSUN’s reach must be much broader than the San Fernando Valley, given the nature of industry in the San Fernando Valley,” she said, citing the global character of many area companies. Cal State’s future, Pisano said, “lies, paradoxically, outside of itself.”

Pisano, who earned a doctorate in international relations from Johns Hopkins University, has worked as a White House fellow, a management consultant and a Times Mirror executive.

Perhaps her most demanding job, before she was hired by USC, was the presidency of the 150-member Los Angeles 2000 Committee. Then-Mayor Tom Bradley formed the committee in 1985 to conduct a broad study of governance, transportation and pollution control in Southern California. In 1991, she became the dean of USC’s School of Public Administration and became vice president for external relations in 1994.

Asked about her scholarship, Pisano acknowledged her administrative duties had prevented her from doing much publishing.

As an administrator, however, Pisano said she was very supportive of faculty research, “especially applied research” that bridges academia and the wider community.

“It keeps the faculty fresh,” she said. “In fact, it is one of the main opportunities a university has in partnering with individuals in the community, with private industry, with outside universities.”

Pisano also suggested improving Cal State Northridge’s relationship with public school teachers in the Valley, either through a laboratory school, professional development centers or library privileges.

Pisano identified Cal State Northridge’s alums as an untapped financial and educational resource and suggested that graduates could become mentors to current students, as well as donors.

Michael Broggie, an educational consultant and a Cal State Northridge alum, said he was impressed by Pisano’s administrative background. “Some university’s going to hire this woman,” Broggie said. “I would like it to be this campus.”