| California State University, Northridge | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1958 |
| Type | Public university |
| Endowment | $48.9 million[1] |
| President | Harold Hellenbrand (interim since January 2012) |
| Academic staff | 1,700 |
| Students | 36,207 |
| Location | Northridge, California, United States |
| Campus | Suburban, 353 acres (143 ha) |
| Former names | San Fernando Valley State College (1958-72) |
| Colors | Red, Black & White |
| Mascot | Matadors |
| Affiliations | California State University system |
| Website | http://www.csun.edu |
California State University, Northridge (also known as CSUN, Cal State Northridge) is a public university in Northridge, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, California, United States.
CSUN is a campus of the California State University (CSU) system. It was founded first as the Valley satellite campus of Cal State Los Angeles (CSULA) amongst old walnut and citrus groves. It then became an independent college in 1958 as San Fernando Valley State College, with major campus master planning and construction. The University adopted its current name of California State University, Northridge in 1972.[2]
CSUN offers a variety of programs leading to bachelor's degrees in 61 fields, master's degrees in 42 fields, and a doctoral degree in educational leadership. The university has over 200,000 alumni. It's also home to a summer musical theater/theater program known as TADW (TeenAge Drama Workshop) that leads teenagers through an intensive 6-week training of the fine arts. Cal State Northridge is home to the National Center on Deafness, and each year the university hosts the International Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities.
Contents |
The establishment of CSUN began in 1952 with the proposal of a new satellite campus for Los Angeles State College (Now known as California State University, Los Angeles).[3] Thanks to Valley advocates, state officials decided in favor of a valley campus (originally planned in Baldwin Hills on 1955).[3] In July 1958, the campus separated from the Los Angeles State College and was renamed San Fernando Valley State College with enrollment reaching 2,525 and tuition reaching $29 per semester.[3] In 1959 the College had its first computer (a first among all State Colleges).[3] In 1964, the Sierra Hall building Complex was completed and enrollment reached nearly 12,000.[3] Due to complaints of low minority enrollment, the college decided to boost enrollment of Latinos and Blacks in 1967.[3] In March 1968, Presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy drew a crowd of 12,000 with student demonstrators burning draft cards.[3] Later on in the year, the Black student Union held 30 staff members hostage. Nobody was hurt and the administration agreed to increase minority enrollment and to investigate discrimination complaints.[3] Some of the students involved were prosecuted for false imprisonment.[4]
The college officially names itself California State University - Northridge on June 1972.[3] In 1975, the construction of the CSUN sculpture begins at the southeast corner of campus.[3] By 1977, the enrollment at the University is 28,023 with tuition at $95.[3] On 1981, the campus officially establishes the foreign exchange student program with Japan, China, Ukraine, South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, and the Netherlands.[3] On 1988, the campus has 31,575 enrollment with a $342 tuition rate.[3]
In 1990 the campus establishes: the Marilyn Magaram Center for Food Science, Nutrition, and Dietetics; the Oviatt building east and west wings are added, and the CSU's only fully established Astronomy department with planetarium.[3]
The 1994 Northridge earthquake, caused $400 million dollars in damage which was the heaviest damage ever experienced by an American college campus at the time[18]. The epicenter of the quake is within two miles of the campus. On that same month, then Vice President Al Gore visited the campus with promises of funds.[3] The campus was heavily damaged by the earthquake, including entire sections of the main library, art building, etc., but classes continued in alternative structures. The art courtyard survived. Among the structures that were considered too heavily damaged for repair were the Fine Arts building, which was designed by Richard Neutra, and the South Library, which was the oldest permanent building on campus. Due to inadequate earthquake engineering, the parking structure next to the Matadome was completely destroyed, and is currently a grass field used for kinesiology instruction, though the driveway formerly used to enter the structure is still visible from Zelzah Avenue. As of August 22, 2007, the University has completed the rebuilding project.
In the aftermath of the 1994 earthquake, CSUN civil engineering faculty and students enthusiastically took part in the research on earthquake protection of building structures, in particular, in the field of seismic performance, vibration control, and base isolation.
On January 17, 1995, then President Bill Clinton visited the campus to commemorate the first anniversary since the quake.[3]
In April 1999, the Board of CSU trustees decide to give $27 million dollars to construct post-earthquake projects.[3] The University opens the first Central American Studies program in the nation on May 2000.[3] On Fall 2006, the University had a 34,560 enrollment and a tuition of $1,260. The University on 2007, with clean energy advocates build the new 1 megawatt fuel cell power plant which is the largest of its kind in any University in the world.[3]
California State University trustees on March 15, 2006 voted their unanimous approval of Envision 2035, the Cal State Northridge planning initiative that will help frame the university’s physical development for the next several decades. The vote approved the revised master plan as well as an increase in the campus’ master plan enrollment capacity from 25,000 to 35,000 full time equivalent students (FTEs). That growth is equivalent to 1.6 percent annual growth over 30 years. The trustees also certified the final environmental impact report on the plan.
Specifically, the plan defines sites for about 1,900,000 square feet (180,000 m2) of future campus academic and support facilities to accommodate the increased FTE enrollment. Near-term projects will include a 1,700-seat performing arts center; a 163,000-square-foot (15,100 m2) arts, media and communications complex; a parking structure for nearly 2,000 spaces and a centrally located mass transit hub for students, faculty, staff and community members. It also proposes the development of about 600 on-campus faculty/staff housing units, mostly on the North Campus, and allows for student housing, parking and transportation sufficient to handle enrollment growth while maintaining desirable open space.
|
|
|
Cal State Northridge faculty have been recognized for their high quality. Eight faculty members have been awarded prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships for research and creative activity, while 59 have won Fulbright awards to conduct research or teach abroad.
The university draws its freshmen from the top one-third of California high school graduates. CSUN's admissions program is rated as "less selective" in most major fields, but admissions to "impacted" majors, such as accounting, finance, music, computer science and cinema and television are more selective. For the fall of 2009, the university admitted 14,984 out of 20,657 applicants. The average GPA was 3.13[5] and the average SAT score was 926.[6] Seventy-four percent of incoming freshmen required remediation in either English, or math or both.[7] Nearly eight in 10 CSUN students rate the university's quality of instruction as good or excellent, and the same share say CSUN was their first choice of a university to attend.
The Roland Tseng College of Extended Learning is a division within the university aimed at addressing the educational needs of mid career professionals. The college develops and offers study opportunities which are designed to ensure that the individuals, communities and organizations served by the university achieve their lifelong learning goals.
CSUN's Chicana and Chicano Studies Department is the largest in California.[8]
Open Doors 2006, an annual report on international educational exchange, records CSUN’s climb from sixth to second place among U.S. master’s level institutions hosting students from foreign countries.[9]
The Department of Music at California State University, Northridge is ranked amongst the top 25 accredited university programs in the nation,[10] boasting an array of options beyond the typical "music major", such as music education, music therapy, music industry, music performance, and jazz studies. In June 2003 the university's acclaimed choral group, the Northridge Singers, took the top prize in the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod and the title "Choir of the World".[11] In 1991 the Northridge Singers, then under the direction of John Alexander, also won the first prize for chamber chorus in the 1991 Tallinn (Estonia) International Choral Festival.[12]
The California State University, Northridge's Oviatt Library provides educational, cultural and information services and resources to the students and faculty. Its primary mission is to support and supplement classroom and independent learning; facilitate student and faculty research; and provide students with lifelong skills in identifying, locating, evaluating and synchronizing information.
All library materials are housed in the Delmar T. Oviatt Library, a 234,712-square-foot (21,805.5 m2) state-of-the-art facility. There are over 1,600 seats for in-house study. Of note are the Collaboratory with its 170 multipurpose computer workstations, 3 computer equipped library instruction labs, and 200 computer workstations devoted to library information resources. Specially equipped computer workstations are located throughout the Library for individuals with disabilities, including four assistive technology equipped study rooms for students. During Fall and Spring semesters, the building is open 90 hours a week. The Library maintains its own server and web pages providing access to online electronic information and archives 24 hours a day for students and the public at the Oviatt Library Digital Collections. The library also maintains its own AS/RS (Automatic Storage and Retrieval System).
The Oviatt Library has a physical collection containing 1.3 million volumes, of which over one million are books, and over 245,000 bound periodical volumes.[17] The Library subscribes to 25,000 online journals, 1,779 print journals, 200 online databases and more than 13,000 ebooks. The microform collection contains 3.1 million pieces. There are over 12,500 sound recordings, 10,000 film and video recordings and nearly 60,000 pictures and other graphic materials. The Special Collections & Archives' holdings exceed 4,000 feet (1,200 m) of materials. The library also has a large collection of materials on Human Sexuality—possibly the "second largest private collection on human sexuality" behind the Kinsey Institute.[18] In addition, the Teacher's Curriculum Center provides a circulating collection of curricular materials for education students and local educators.
The Library is heavily used with 8.2 million uses of its web pages annually, an annual gate count of 1.4 million, and over a half a million interactions per year with Library personnel.
Other campus departments and centers with collections:
Student Semester Permit: $ 180.00 & Daily Permit: $6.00 All lots and structures are open 7 days a week and parking permits are required at all times in all areas of campus. Parking permits must be properly displayed to avoid parking citations. For more info refer to CSUN's Parking page.[19]
CSUN is served by
Metro Bus Lines
Lines 240/741 connects with the Metro Orange Line at Reseda Station. The Metro Orange Line (Warner Center - Van Nuys - North Hollywood) connects with the Metro Red Line (North Hollywood - Hollywood - Downtown Los Angeles) & Santa Clarita Bus Line 757 at North Hollywood Station.
AVTA Bus Line
Route Stops at Plummer St & Reseda Bl.
LADOT Bus Lines
In a presentation to the San Fernando Valley Governance council, CSUN revealed the proposal for a Transportation Center on Vincennes Street between Darby St and Etiwanda Ave. The Transit Center will most likely look like that of North Hollywood Red Line Station. The Center will give access to Metro, LADOT and other bus services. The transit center will also include bicycle parking and a CSUN Tram stop as well.[20]
Metro is already including bus line changes to serve the Transit Center in its June 2010 service changes.[21]
The National Center on Deafness was established in 1978 as a way to serve deaf students at the university. Support services such as sign language interpreters, real-time captioners, and notetakers are coordinated from this center, as well as serving as a location of academic advisement and gathering of deaf students. For the 2008 Fall semster, approximately 200 deaf students are served by the National Center on Deafness.
Because of its proximity to Hollywood, the campus has been featured in dozens of films and television shows, including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Commander in Chief, Van Wilder, Six Feet Under, The Karate Kid, Battlestar Galactica, The Office, McMillan & Wife, Son in Law, Bring It On: Fight to the Finish, The Glass Bottom Boat, Legally Blonde 2, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Roswell, The Nick Cannon Show, Quincy, M.E., Georgia Rule, and Sky High (where the Oviatt Library is prominently featured). Recently, the Barry Levinson directed What Just Happened filmed at the Oviatt Library and featured Robert DeNiro and Sean Penn. The pilot of the remake of the television series "Knight Rider" filmed a car chase on campus, acting as Stanford University. During spring break 2008, the library acted as Starfleet Academy for Star Trek (the 2009 version).[22] The parking lots to the north of the campus were featured in the movie, Superbad.
| Undergraduate | |
|---|---|
| African American | 9.0% |
| Asian American | 12.7% |
| White American | 29.2% |
| Hispanic American | 30.2% |
| Native American | 0.4% |
| International | 5.4% |
| Ethnicity unreported/unknown | 13.1% |
The Political Science Department's Model United Nations received first-place honors at the National Model United Nations Conference of 2000, 2007, 2008, and 2010 in New York. The team has also won first place awards in the international conferences in Xian, China (2008) and in Ecuador (2010).
CSUN fields 18 sports at the NCAA Division I level. The university has won 30 NCAA national titles at the Division II level. The mascot for CSUN is the Matador, which was suggested in 1958 by student submissions. The Matador was chosen over the other four finalists, the Apollos, Falcons, Rancheros and Titans. The Matador is said to reflect the region's Hispanic heritage. CSUN fields both men's and women's teams in basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, track and field, and volleyball. CSUN has a men's baseball team, and women's softball, tennis, and water polo teams. Currently, Men's Soccer is the powerhouse of the school, reaching the NCAA 3rd Round in the 2005-2006 season, knocking out Big West Conference rival UC Santa Barbara in the 2nd Round. However, both the men's and women's Track & Field teams won Big West titles in 2007. In 1978, 1979 and 1980, the women's outdoor track and field team won AIAW national championships. CSUN has seen some sports being dropped due to Title IX mandates including football and men's swimming in 2001 and 2010 respectively. Men's Volleyball dominated the last few years, especially in 2010, when they were in the Final Four.
CSUN joined the Big Sky Conference in 1996 and was a member for for five years; it joined the Big West Conference in the summer of 2001. The men's basketball team won the 2001 Big Sky in its final season there. CSUN made the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament during the 2008-09 Basketball season seeded #15 in the Western Region losing to #2 Memphis Tigers in the first round of play.
The University is home to many fraternal organizations including twelve North-American Interfraternity Conference members such as Pi Kappa Alpha, Pi Kappa Phi, Sigma Phi Epsilon and Sigma Alpha Epsilon, along with six National Panhellenic Conference members, which includes Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Xi Delta, Alpha Phi, Delta Delta Delta, Delta Zeta and Kappa Kappa Gamma.
The campus has seven United Sorority and Fraternity Council members, such as Gamma Zeta Alpha Fraternity and Lambda Theta Nu Sorority, two Armenian Greek Council members, seven National Pan-Hellenic Council members. There are also many political and cultural clubs on campus including Students for Justice in Palestine, MEChA and the Hip-Hop Think Tank.[23]
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||