Timeline History of California State University, Northridge
In many ways, Cal State Northridge began like many other Valley institutions: Trees were cleared and foundations poured at sites that were once orange, lemon or avocado groves. Hand-lettered signs gave directions to temporary buildings connected by plank pathways. But before that humble start, there was a great deal of political maneuvering to ensure that a four-year college would even be located in the Valley. In 1952, state officials had originally identified Baldwin Hills as the site of a satellite campus for Los Angeles State College (now Cal State Los Angeles). In reaction to the decision, Valley leaders organized to successfully overturn the legislation and to later ensure that a four-year college would be sited in the San Fernando Valley. On December 21, 1954, advocates for a Valley four-year college hosted 23 legislators for dinner at the Brown Derby on Wilshire Boulevard. Armed with demographic projections, they pitched the Valley as the only logical place for the next state college. The pitch worked. In 1955, state Assemblyman Judge Julian Beck sent the legislation for approval to purchase land in the north San Fernando Valley for a new satellite campus to Los Angeles State College.
1956
(January 4) Groundbreaking is held for the new Valley campus, a satellite of Los Angeles State College. The 165-acre site, much of it farmland, is purchased for $6,000 an acre. Classes start at night in temporary quarters at San Fernando High School.
(September 24) The Northridge campus opens in 14 temporary buildings with 40 instructors and 1,475 students. Delmar T. Oviatt is named dean of the campus. To distinguish itself from Los Angeles State College, the Valley campus will specialize in preparing teachers.
1957
(February) First issue of the “Sundial” student newspaper is published.
Athletics begin at Northridge with men’s swimming and water polo.
1958
(July) The Valley campus separates from Los Angeles State College and is renamed San Fernando Valley State College and the Matador is adopted as the campus mascot.
Ralph Prator is named its first president.
(September) Enrollment reaches 2,525 students; full-time in-state student fees are $29 per semester.
1959
The first permanent building, South Library, is dedicated.
The first computer at a state college in California is installed with a 4,096 word memory.
1960
The Alumni Association is founded. Ben Rude, the first Associated Students President, later serves as the first Alumni Association president.
Construction is completed on the Speech-Drama and Fine Arts buildings, the latter designed by famed architect Richard Neutra.
1961
Music Building is constructed with a 400-seat theatre. “Othello” is the first production.
1964
The Physical Education Building, the three-building Sierra Hall complex, the Administration Building, and the Engineering Building are completed as student enrollment reaches 12,690.
1966
(Fall) Era begins of campus student protests against the Vietnam War, continuing through the early 1970s.
Gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan gives a speech. Vice President Hubert Humphrey is heckled by anti-war protesters.
1967
Amid complaints of too few black and Latino students, the campus decides to boost minority enrollment.
(December) Matador football team plays in the Junior Rose Bowl.
1968
Enrollment climbs to 15,600 and faculty reaches 619. Full-time in-state student fee is $57.50 per semester.
A group of dedicated faculty build (with their own hands) the University Club, a collegial gathering place on the southeast corner of campus near the historic campus orange grove.
(March) Presidential candidates Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Sen. Eugene McCarthy draw a record 12,000 spectators during a visit to the campus. Student demonstrators burn draft cards; rock singer Janis Joplin performs on campus.
(November) About 150 LAPD officers are called to campus when members of the Black Student Union take more than 30 staff and administrators hostage. No one is injured and the hostages are released after the administration agrees to increase minority enrollment and staff, and to investigate complaints of racism.
Men’s gymnastics wins the college’s first NCAA national championship.
1969
(January) The Pan African Studies and Chicano Studies programs are created after negotiations between students and the administration.
(October) James Cleary—former vice chancellor of academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin, Madison—is named San Fernando Valley State College’s second president.
1972
(June) San Fernando Valley State College is officially renamed California State University, Northridge.
1973
The Oviatt Library opens, posthumously named for former Dean Delmar T. Oviatt.
1974
A wave of streaking, then a nationwide college fad, hits the campus. The Sundial student newspaper records it with front-page photographs of full frontal nudity.
Rincon Hall closes to convert to one- and two-bedroom apartments for more than 300 residents, with the building later reopened as the University Tower Apartments.
1975
(April) “CSUN” sculpture at the corner of Nordhoff Street and Zelzah Avenue, designed by engineering graduate student John T. Banks, is built.
1976
The Addie L. Klotz Student Health Center opens.
1977
The University Student Union opens, with construction funded by student fees.
Full-time in-state resident student fee is $95 per semester. Enrollment reaches 28,023.
1981
President Cleary signs university’s first foreign student exchange agreement with China, and later with schools in Japan, Ukraine, South Korea, Brazil, Taiwan and Netherlands.
1983
Original Art and Design Center is constructed.
1984
First closed-circuit instructional television classes are broadcast to students off campus through the Office of Continuing Education.
1985
First university Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities is held.
1986
W.P. Whitsett Foundation establishes the first endowed chair at CSUN—the W.P. Whitsett Endowed Chair in California History—and the W.P. Whitsett California Lecture Series in History.
1988
Enrollment reaches a record 31,575 students, along with 1,764 faculty. Full-time resident in-state student fee is $342 per semester.
1989
Campus radio station KCSN (88.5 FM) changes to a classical music format. (1988 KCSNonair)
Due to extensive construction on campus, Commencement ceremonies are held at the Hollywood Bowl. Result is what police call one of the worst traffic jams on the Ventura Freeway.
Jeanne Chisholm Hall opens as the home of the National Center on Deafness. The building is made possible through a $2.7 million donation from Grace Petri in memory of her sister.
1990
After winning 30 national titles and 53 conference championships at the NCAA Divison II level, the university moves athletics to NCAA Division I and Division I-AA in football. (Note: in 2007, Northridge still ranks third in national championships among NCAA Division II institutions).
The Marilyn Magaram Center for Food Science, Nutrition and Dietetics is dedicated as the only facility of its kind in CSU system. The center is named in memory of former faculty member
The Oviatt Library’s ASRS (Automatic Storage and Retrieval System) is dedicated as part of a $15 million library expansion that adds new east and west wings to the building.
The final elements of the University Park plan are completed at the north end of the campus, including the third and final phase of the University Park Apartments student housing and a 35,700-square-foot Satellite Student Union (SSU) center.
The Science addition and planetarium are dedicated on campus. The addition gives CSUN the only complete astronomy facility in the CSU system.
1992
President James Cleary retires after 23 years as president. He is widely praised for guiding the growth of the campus.
(September) Blenda J. Wilson, chancellor of University of Michigan-Dearborn, becomes the third president of Cal State Northridge. She is the first African-American woman in the U.S. to preside over a university the size of Northridge.
1994
(January 17) The 6.7 magnitude Northridge earthquake causes more than $400 million in damage but no fatalities or serious injuries on campus. It is the worst natural disaster (based on damage and costs) to hit an American college campus as of that time.
(February) The spring semester begins, only two weeks late, after the campus scramble to erect more than 350 temporary classrooms, domes and other portables. Vice President Al Gore visits with promises of federal funds for rebuilding. Poet Laureate Maya Angelou comes to help inspire the community.
Music Department hosts 130 high school students at the first CSUN Honors Music Festival.
1995
(January) President Bill Clinton visits to mark the first anniversary of the Northridge earthquake.
(September) More than 1,000 demonstrators protest appearance of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who debates affirmative action with civil rights activist Joe Hicks at an invited event. At least 100 LAPD officers in full riot gear meet crowd, but only minor injuries occur.
1997
(June) Four men’s sports teams are cut in effort to comply with gender equity laws and tighten spending. A few months later, President Wilson reinstates the four sports after widespread community and student protests.
1998
The University Tower Apartments student housing, closed in 1991 and then further damaged by the Northridge earthquake, are demolished.
Cal State trustees approve nearly $27 million for three major post-earthquake construction projects, and approve a public-private partnership with biotech company MiniMed to develop the north end of the North Campus with its corporate headquarters complex.
1999
(April) The Planetarium Room of the Science 3 Building is renamed the Donald E. Bianchi Planetarium, honoring the former dean of the College of Science and Mathematics who died in 1996 after nearly 40 years of service to the campus.
2000
Alumna Linda Brown and her husband Abbott donate $ 2 million to the university to help fund a aquatic therapy center bearing their name.
(May) University announces it has developed the first Central American Studies program in the nation.
Alan Armer, an Emmy Award winning television writer and producer, donates $1 million to build a screening room.
2001
Jolene Koester, the provost and vice president for academic affairs at Sacramento State, is inaugurated as the fourth president of Cal State Northridge.
(March) Matador men’s basketball team wins the Big Sky Conference title championship, earning the university’s first-ever NCAA Tournament berth in men’s basketball.
(September) The acclaimed Northridge Singers choral group performs for the first time at the Hollywood Bowl, joining jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
(November) The university announces it will discontinue intercollegiate football after the end of the 2001 season.
2002
The university is invited by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to take part in its landmark Teachers for a New Era initiative designed to strengthen K–12 teaching in the United States.
2003
(April) The College of Education is renamed as the Michael D. Eisner College of Education to honor the then-Walt Disney Co. chairman. The college naming, the university’s first, follows the Eisner family’s May 2002 gift of $7 million to establish the Center for Teaching and Learning in the college.
2004
The university teams with the Los Angeles Unified School District to open the district’s first new comprehensive high school in more than 30 years.
The Los Angeles City Council endorses the university’s plans for a regional performing arts center on campus.
2005
Alumna Mary Bayramian and her husband Jack donate $7.3 million in support of student scholarships. The Student Services Building—the original administration building—is renamed Bayramian Hall in their honor.
(August) The university opens the new B3 parking structure, the campus’ largest with 2,063 spaces, across from the Sierra Complex. Campus parking improves dramatically.
2006
(August) Curb Records Chairman and former California Lt. Gov. Mike Curb pledges $10 million for the university, half to support the College of Arts, Media, and Communication, and the other half for the university’s future regional performing arts center.
Enrollment for the fall semester reaches 34,560 students. Full-time in-state student fees are $1,260 per semester. Campus parking permit is $126 per semester.
A $15 million renovation of the University Student Union is completed, creating many new facilities.
2007
The university plans for the fall to launch the nation’s first bachelor of arts degree program in Central American studies.
(February) Clean energy advocates join university officials to dedicate the university’s new 1 megawatt fuel cell power plant that is the largest of its kind at any university in the world.