CSUN HARDLY AN IVORY TOWER; RAPE CRISIS CENTER SERVES AS PRIME EXAMPLE OF UNIVERSITY'S COMMITMENT TO VALLEY, ITS RESIDENTS.

Byline: Patti Dengler

I'VE read many comments in recent months - in news items, editorials and letters to the editor - about the supposed isolation of California State University, Northridge, from the community it was created to serve. Knowing what I do about CSUN and its many links to residents, businesses, students, schools and other organizations in the San Fernando Valley, I felt it was time to speak out.

I want to talk about just one of many institutions established by people from CSUN, operated by CSUN faculty and students, and funded by grants obtained through the efforts of CSUN staffers and supporters. You won't find CSUN in its name, but you'll find its commitment to the community and dedication to public service typified in its every activity.

I'm talking about the Valley Trauma Center, where I work. We are the rape crisis center for the San Fernando Valley and surrounding areas. We operate our hotline 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We provide crisis intervention counseling; individual and family counseling; medical, psychological and legal advocacy and support; and accompaniment services to any member of our community who has survived rape, sexual assault or sexual abuse.

We worked with other members of the community to establish the Sexual Assault Response Team at Mission Community Hospital in Panorama City and are involved with the team at Northridge Hospital Medical Center. We work closely with the staffs of those and other SART units throughout the area.

We offer sexual-assault prevention education programs to all concerned community members, especially secondary school students - talking about everything from dating violence to acquaintance rape to gang prevention.

For instance, we offer our ``Stranger Danger'' programs to parents of school-age children, through schools and community centers.

Last year alone, the Valley Trauma Center responded to more than 3,000 hotline calls, including nearly 1,400 from sexual-assault victims, and provided in-person counseling and support to 750 clients. We also conducted some 400 assault prevention and education programs, reaching nearly 14,500 people with information, advice and support.

We served twice as many people last year as we did just three years earlier. We did that job with a staff of three full-time employees, several part-timers and 60 volunteer counselors - some of whom are students, some of whom simply want to serve their community.

The Valley Trauma Center is part of CSUN. We are sponsored by the university's Department of Educational, Psychology and Counseling, in the School of Education. We are funded by a grant from the state of California - bolstered this year by a $5,000 ``Excellence in Community Service'' award from the United Way.

We serve as a hands-on training ground for the area's undergraduate and graduate students in psychology and counseling - not just our own bachelor's and master's degree students at CSUN, but also master's and doctorate candidates from Phillips Graduate Institute, Antioch University, Pepperdine University, USC and UCLA.

Those students are more than prepared to handle the emotional and psychological issues that confront them every day: Our volunteer training program requires 60 hours, rather than the state-mandated minimum of 40 hours, and our counselors are supervised and mentored regularly by degreed and licensed professionals.

We also offer area residents who are not enrolled in college but want to explore the counseling field the chance to do so by becoming a trauma center volunteer. These people, who undertake the same rigorous 60-hour training program as our students, serve as hotline volunteers and as speakers in our educational outreach programs.

In short, the Valley Trauma Center is part of the San Fernando Valley. It evolved from a grass-roots-level service program into a major player in the support network to help sexual-assault survivors in our community. It grew because CSUN saw a need and figured out a way to meet it - on a shoestring budget, with a bare-bones staff, and with hundreds of student and community volunteers helping to make it possible.

We employ the community's residents. We train the community's students. We offer volunteer opportunities to local residents. We educate the community's elementary and secondary school students and their parents. We support community SARTs. And we provide critically needed counseling and support to the community's sexual-assault survivors.

Please remember the Valley Trauma Center the next time someone tells you that CSUN is an uninvolved institution - an example of the hackneyed ivory-tower mythology that all too often engulfs America's universities. Because the center is just one of the dozens and dozens of programs and activities that have grown out of the commitment of CSUN people and help make the Valley and its neighboring communities better, more healthful, more vibrant places to live, work and learn.