President's Office

From the President's Desk March 24 2000

Meet the Candidates
for Vice President for Administration and Finance & CFO Position

I am pleased to report that, after an extensive process, the Search and Screen Committee for Vice President for Administration and Finance & CFO has narrowed the field to five candidates. The candidates were selected from a pool of more than 65 applicants and after televideo interviews were conducted with 11 of that group.

The candidates and the dates of their visits to the university are:

Mr. Michael Rothman, Mon., March 27
Vice President for Finance and Administration
University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA

Dr. Eugene A. Gilchrist, Wed., March 29
Vice President for Administration
St. Cloud University, St. Cloud, MN

Dr. Ronald Smith, Thurs, March 30
Assistant Vice President/Controller
University of Arizona

Dr. Mohammad Qayoumi, Fri., March 31
Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services
University of Missouri-Rolla

Dr. Gebeyehu "Gebe" Ejigu, Mon., April 3
Vice Provost for Administrative Affairs (Chief Business Officer)
Arizona State University West

On the dates of their visits, the candidates will have a full schedule of meetings and interviews with designated members of the campus community.

In addition, to provide an opportunity for all interested members of the campus community to meet the candidates, we are hosting a series of open forums, scheduled from 10:45 a.m. to noon each day in Conference Room A in the President's Office Trailer.

An abbreviated copy of the candidates' resumes is available online at http://www.csun.edu/~hfpre001/candidates.html. Hard copies of the abbreviated resumes also will be available at the open forums. Any questions about the visits or the candidates should be directed to Mr. Rick Evans in the President's Office at ext. 0949.

I would like to express my appreciation to the search and screen committee, under the leadership of Interim Vice President James Sullivan, for its hard work in identifying these candidates and bringing us to this stage of the search process.

WASC Visit

As a reminder, please note that a site evaluation team from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) will visit the university on April 4-7. Their visit is part of the reaccreditation process required of all higher education institutions that receive government financial aid and transfer course credits to other universities and colleges. Cal State Northridge was first accredited in 1960, reaccredited in 1980 and again in 1990. In its most recent accreditation, the university received a generally favorable report that commended faculty, staff and students.

We ask that the campus community cooperate with members of the WASC team and provide them with any assistance or information they need to conduct their evaluation. They will be our guests during this time and we look forward to receiving their report and recommendations.

In addition, open meetings with the WASC team have been scheduled as follows:

Wed., April 5 - Pasadena Room USU
Open meeting with students - 1 - 2 p.m.
Open meeting with faculty - 3 - 4 p.m.

Thurs., April 6 - West Valley Room USU
Open meeting with students - 10 - 11 a.m.
Open meeting with faculty - 11 a.m. - noon
Open meeting with staff - 1 - 2 p.m.

The university has been preparing for this visit for more than a year and the accreditation process has been discussed in earlier editions of From the President's Desk. Our on-campus WASC self study team has prepared a Q&A with more details about the visit that has been widely distributed on campus. If you have any questions about the visit or the process, please contact Ms. Nancy Pement, Assistant to the WASC Coordinator on campus, or review the university's self-study on the Internet at http://www.csun.edu/~wascreac/.

New Academic Affairs Appointment in July

During the past year of my appointment as interim president, Dr. Philip Handler has served with distinction as interim provost and vice president of Academic Affairs. I have long appreciated Dr. Handler's leadership and enjoyed working with him in his role as dean of the College of Arts, Media, and Communication. Knowing that Dr. Handler would be leading Academic Affairs in my absence made my work as interim president more productive and enjoyable. Clearly, the entire university and Academic Affairs have benefited from his wise direction.

As members of the university community know, Dr. Jolene Koester will formally assume her appointment as president of Cal State Northridge on July 1, and I will return to my position as provost and vice president of Academic Affairs.

After much reflection, Dr. Handler has decided that this transition provides him with the appropriate occasion to retire from the deanship. With more than 30 years of service to the university, including 11 as dean, he feels it is the right time for a change in leadership in the College of Arts, Media, and Communication, and for a redirection of his service to the university.

Following this decision, I am pleased to announce that Dr. Handler has agreed to accept the appointment of vice provost for academic affairs, which he will assume when I return to Academic Affairs this July. Given the increased demands on the division in recent years, the position of vice provost has been in the planning stages for quite some time and I am delighted the timing is right to permit Dr. Handler to accept this appointment. His years of experience at the university and his work as interim provost will serve the university well in his future role. On a personal level, I am excited I will continue to have the benefit of his counsel and assistance on a regular basis.

I hope all members of the university community will join me in congratulating Dr. Handler on his retirement and his new part-time appointment, and also in expressing appreciation for his service to the university. He has built a long-lasting legacy and I am pleased he will continue to play a leadership role at Cal State Northridge in his new position.

Request for Grant Proposals for the Advancement of Strategic Planning SMART Goals

The university's Strategic Planning Governance Group (SPGG) is seeking proposals from faculty and staff for the 2000/01 academic year. Anticipating that SPGG will again receive funding through the university budget process, approximately $50,000 will be provided to fund between four and seven one-year initiatives that advance the attainment of college or university SMART goals.

As defined by the campus' strategic planning process, SMART goals are the desired end results that have been adopted by either a college or the university to help achieve the organization's mission and vision, and have the following characteristics:

Specific: They are expressed in terms of concrete outcomes.
Measurable: The end result desired is expressed in quantitative or other verifiable terms.
Agreed upon: There is general consensus by the organization members that the goals are desirable.
Realistic: The goals are realistic and achievable within the time and resource constraints of the organization.
Time- and cost-bound: The goals have an expected completion date and specific resources assigned.

Faculty and staff who are interested should:

a. Identify an existing college or university SMART goal (see your college dean or division vice president). Current university SMART goals may be viewed on the university web page at http://www.csun.edu/~strplan/themesgoalsfr.html.b. Prepare a brief description (maximum three pages) of how your initiative will advance the goal, including how the results of your initiative will be measured. Priority will be given to proposals that include participants from two or more disciplines or organizational units.c. Include a line item budget up to $10,000. Larger awards may be made to exceptional proposals.d. Submit your proposal to the chair of SPGG (Interim Provost Philip Handler, mail drop 8200) by Mon., April 24.e. You may contact Spero Bowman at ext. 5700 for further information.

Proposals will be evaluated by a subcommittee of SPGG, with notification of awards being made by Fri., May 5.

Retirement of Dr. Harry Murphy

I would like to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Harry Murphy, the founder and director of the Center on Disabilities, who retires from the university on March 31.

Dr. Murphy has served the university for 23 years. His experience at Cal State Northridge includes service as assistant director of the National Center on Deafness and Coordinator of Disabled Student Services. In 1993, Dr. Murphy founded the Center on Disabilities and he has served as its director since that time. He also directs the Assistive Technology Applications Training Program.

In addition to these accomplishments, one of Dr. Murphy's greatest legacies is the annual international conference sponsored by the Center on Disabilities titled "Technology and Persons with Disabilities." I had the good fortune to attend part of this year's conference, held March 20 25. The event has grown immensely through the years, with participants attending from all 50 states and about 35 countries. The conference has become an important international showcase for technologies for persons with disabilities and provided hope and assistance to countless people with disabilities all around the world.

Please join me in wishing Dr. Murphy well in his retirement. He has made Cal State Northridge a nationally recognized institution for providing assistance and assistive technologies to students and other persons with disabilities. I am pleased to note that he will continue to contribute to the work of the center through the end of 2000 and I know he will remain active as a leader in his field.

Women in Higher Education Teleconference

The College of Extended Learning (ExL) would like to alert the campus community to an upcoming teleconference, "Women's Lives, Women's Voices, Women's Solutions: Shaping a National Agenda for Women in Higher Education," hosted by the University of Minnesota on March 27-29.

ExL has registered to be a teleconference downlink site for this event, which will provide a forum for women and men in higher education across the nation to discuss key issues that affect the education, advancement and success of women in higher education; create strategies to improve campus climates and the status of women in higher education, and shape a national agenda for women in higher education that will assist colleges and universities in supporting women as teachers, learners and creators of knowledge.

The live teleconference will be Mon., Mar. 27, 10 a.m. to noon, and Wed., 8 to 10 a.m. In addition, CSUN is planning caucus sessions tentatively scheduled for Monday after the teleconference and Tuesday (time to be determined). The CSUN location for all sessions will be in the Matador Bookstore Complex, room 102.

All members of the campus community are encouraged to participate in this important national discussion. To reserve seating, please contact Julie Cha in Extended Learning at ext. 3125.

For more information about this conference, visit http://www.umn.edu/women/wihe.html, or contact Ms. Julie Cha for a copy of the conference information.

Campus Achievements

In the last From the President's Desk, I mentioned several awards that KCSN News received from a statewide professional news broadcasters organization. I am pleased to report that KCSN News also has won eight additional awards in the regional competition of the Society of Professional Journalists' (SPJ) Mark of Excellence Awards.

These include a first place award for Radio Daily Newscast for "The Evening Update" broadcasts of March 2, Sept. 14 and Nov. 8, 1999; first place for Radio Spots News Reports for Andrew Padula's story on "Santa Clarita Explosion"; first and third place awards, respectively, for Radio In-Depth Reporting for Ken Hallinan's "Street Vendors in North Hills" and Andrew Padula¹s "Drugs in High Schools"; first place for Radio Features for Susan Byun's "Eating Disorders"; and a first, second and third place sweep for Radio Sports Reporting for Chuck Francey's "John Burrell Basketball Profile," Brian Wamsley's "Jeopardy Boxing Program" and Jeffrie McKinnie's "Professional Boxing."

The awards will be presented April 1 at the SPJ's regional convention in Las Vegas. The first place winners now will be considered in the SPJ¹s national Mark of Excellence awards.

My congratulations once again to the student journalists and KCSN News Director Keith Goldstein for this well deserved recognition from their professional colleagues. All of us on campus wish you well in the national competition.

Louanne Kennedy
Interim President

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