Contact: Patti Klein Lerner,
(818) 677-2130

CSUN To Help Middle School
Students Learn Leadership Skills

The fifth to eighth grade students from Valencia and Simi Valley will be welcomed by members of CSUN's Student Outreach and Recruitment Pre-College Program, then shown around the campus by the University Ambassadors.

"A lot of staff, faculty and students pulled together to make this happen," said Vicki Allen, advisor to CSUN's Emerging Leaders student group, which is coordinating the event. "We hope the students go back to their schools with a better sense of their own leadership skills."

The middle school students will participate in ceremonies as CSUN reopens its kinesiology field, which has been closed since the 1994 Northridge earthquake. University officials will speak, then the middle school students will cut the ribbon--by running through it--before participating with members of CSUN's Recreation Majors Association in games and activities designed to teach leadership skills.

CSUN alumnus Debbie Dillon, who teaches a leadership class at Valley View Middle School in Simi Valley, read about CSUN's Emerging Leaders Program in the university's "Northridge" magazine and called Allen. CSUN's Emerging Leaders were eager to work with the younger students. They arranged the visit for Valley View and three other schools which participate in a Leadership Network: Arroyo Seco Junior High School in Valencia and Hillside and Sinaloa middle schools in Simi Valley.

Other event sponsors are the College of Health and Human Development, the Kinesiology, Leisure Studies and Recreation departments and the Physical Plant Management.

For more information, call Allen at 677-2393.