EDITORIAL : THE BIG 4-0; CSUN REACHES MILESTONE LOOKING BETTER THAN EVER.FROM its modest beginning as San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. State College 40 years ago to an educational force in the California State University system California State University System, coordinating agency established in 1960 by the merger of individual California state colleges, now consisting of 23 campuses. , the Northridge campus has become part of the fabric of the region it calls home. Nearly three-quarters of its 26,600 students commute to class, more than 60 percent of those enrolled are non-whites. Since the devastation of the Northridge Earthquake in 1994, CSUN CSUN California State University Northridge has enjoyed a resurgence as a campus, its enrollment has risen and its importance to the Valley and neighboring suburbs has grown. The significance of CSUN's contributions to the area can be summed up in its emphasis on producing educators for the future. The school already has supplied the Los Angeles Unified School District The Los Angeles Unified School District (the "LAUSD") is the largest (in terms of number of students) public school system in California and the second-largest in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population. with 40 percent of its teachers. CSUN now is teaming with the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, whose principal Yvonne Chan earned her master's degree in education at CSUN, to form a teacher training school. A top priority for school administrators is making CSUN the cultural center of the San Fernando Valley. Doing so would vault the university from resident status to regional leader. Possessing that quality would do for the Valley what UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX does for Westwood and Harvard University does for Cambridge, Mass. Over the years, CSUN has had some very important students walk its 165-acre campus. Among them are actors who've won Academy Awards, musicians who've won Grammys and athletes who've won Olympic medals. Alumni have piloted a NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. space shuttle, founded multimillion-dollar computer firms and sung in the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Metropolitan Opera. One of the most flamboyant of the university's attendees was sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner, who suddenly died of an apparent heart seizure Monday at her home in Mission Viejo. Known simply as ``FloJo,'' the fashion-conscious track star won three gold medals in the 1988 Olympics and captured the hearts of her countrymen in the process. She will be missed. So will many of the university's sports teams if the school fails to secure funding for them, as will the opportunity for CSUN to attain the lofty status it is striving for. Part of that goal will be accomplished with financial support from the alumni and Valley businesses. The first 40 years have been marked with growing pains grow·ing pains pl.n. Pains in the limbs and joints of children or adolescents, frequently occurring at night and often attributed to rapid growth but arising from various unrelated causes. , primarily the racial protests of the late 1960s and devastation wrought by the Northridge Earthquake. The next 40 years should be remembered for the substantial gains the university brings to the Valley. |
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