New Top Fund-Raiser Brings Valuable Experience to CSUN
To bolster its endowment, Cal State Northridge has tapped a top-level fund-raiser who just completed a $400-million campaign at Arizona State University, officials said Thursday.
Northridge President Jolene Koester filled her highest-level vacancy by naming Judy Knudson as CSUN’s new vice president for university advancement.
In her new position, Knudson, 60, assumes leadership of campaigns such as CSUN Rising, an $11-million initiative to upgrade facilities and equipment in the College of Arts, Media and Communication and the College of Health and Human Development.
Knudson, who replaces acting vice president Dick Tyler in a position vacated last year by Bill Outhouse, arrives with Northridge off to a late start in fund-raising and with increased pressure on state universities to support their budgets with outside donations. She said her work in Arizona has well prepared her for the challenge.
“As a matter of fact, Arizona State was a good 40 years behind most of your major public universities in terms of fund-raising,” Knudson said. “Quite frankly, when we went into the [$400-million] campaign, we thought we were stretching it. But the community support was shocking. We reached our goal by forming partnerships, increasing our visibility and branding the university.”
Outhouse left his post in April to become the lead fund-raiser at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville, Ark., saying “smaller is better.”
Koester said in a statement that she is delighted with Knudson’s appointment.
“We are fortunate to have someone with Ms. Knudson’s background and experience at CSUN,” Koester said.
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Knudson has spent the past five years as associate vice president for institutional advancement at ASU after assignments in other fund-raising and marketing positions at Arizona State University West in Phoenix; Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minn.; Cambridge College in Massachusetts and College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.
She starts her new job March 15.