Arts, Media and Communication
Business Administration and Economics
Education
Engineering and Computer Science
Extended Learning
Health and Human Development
Humanities
Science and Mathematics
Social and Behavioral Sciences

The University Library

Radio-Television-Film Department graduates at the university have an outstanding record of employment in the field. Seventy three percent of department students find employment in the entertainment industry after graduation, according to a recent department alumni survey. The department also receives about six times as many internship requests each year as it has students available for such assignments.

Business Administration and Economics
Demonstrating its involvement with and commitment to its community, the college operates the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center. The center, through the research of university students and under the direction of faculty members, publishes an annual “Report of Findings on the San Fernando Valley Economy.” The annual report has quickly become the main source of economic and demographic information about the region. Additional information about the center is available at its web site: econ.csun.edu/sfvalley/.

The college in 1998 created a Program for Adult College Education (PACE), which provides degree-earning opportunities for older, fully employed adults who cannot attend the university during traditional hours. This accelerated, evening and weekends-only program has proven extremely popular with non-traditional students, with program enrollment growing by nearly 50 percent in its first year.

Education
The college offers one of the only one-year teacher credential programs in California. The Accelerated Collaborative Teacher (ACT) preparation program is open to those wanting to become elementary, secondary or special education teachers. The program is offered collaboratively with the Polytechnic School Family in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The university’s fully accredited master’s program in genetic counseling is one of only three in California (along with UC Berkeley and UC Irvine). Genetic counselors work as members of a health care team, providing information and support to families who may have members with birth defects or genetic disorders. The program is a collaboration between the departments of Special Education and Educational Psychology and Counseling in the College of Education, and the Biology Department in the College of Science and Mathematics.

Engineering and Computer Science
The college is home to the largest supercomputing center in the Cal State University system, including having the largest deployment of Silicon Graphics machines in the San Fernando Valley. The supercomputing capacity gives the college’s students the ability to engage in high-end learning that prepares them to work with the latest technology in the private sector.

The college has an extensive undergraduate research program in engineering materials. More than 118 students have participated in this program since 1988. The students have prepared more than 142 research publications and presentations. Eighty-two of these students have gone on to graduate work at CSUN and other prominent universities across the country.

Extended Learning
The College of Extended Learning (ExL) is a regional and national model for innovation and excellence in continuing higher education. Working within the university and with its external audiences, ExL offers hundreds of classes throughout the year for the personal and professional development of students. ExL enrolls 20,000 to 30,000 students per year in classes ranging from computer software to teacher training abroad.

Expanding on Cal State Northridge’s long track record in offering on-line courses, the college launched its first entirely on-line degree program in 1999, a master’s in speech-language pathology. The ExL program, developed jointly with the Department of Communication Disorders and Sciences in the College of Health and Human Development, is aimed at speech pathologists working in public school districts throughout California. The on-line master’s program in speech-language pathology is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.

Health and Human Development
The college’s Kinesiology Department houses the CSUN Center of Achievement for the Physically Disabled, which offers unparalleled programs in therapeutic exercise for the disabled. The department and center already are housed in the newest and most comprehensive kinesiology facility in the Cal State system. And the center soon will be adding an expansion of four pools to add an adaptive aquatic therapy component to its low-cost programs, which serve both students and community members.

Graduate students in the college’s Department of Communication Disorders and Sciences have long had an exceptional pass rate on the national certification exams to become licensed audiologists and speech/language pathologists. The department’s pass rate in the exams has exceeded 95 percent, compared to a national average of about 65 percent among universities with such programs.

Humanities
The college has the largest freestanding Chicano/a Studies Department in the nation, with more department faculty (20 full time and 30 part-time) and more course offerings than any other comparable department. The College of Humanities also houses separate departments of Asian American Studies and Women’s Studies, and during 2000 began offering the first minor in Central American Studies offered by a U.S. university.

The college’s Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department provides an extensive multimedia/computer-based Language Learning Resource Center. The facility offers audio, video and language-specific software in nearly a dozen languages ranging from Armenian to Farsi and Japanese to Russian.

Science and Mathematics
The college’s Biology Department operates a state-of-the-art DNA sequencing facility that provides genetic information to faculty, students and investigators from throughout Southern California. The department also runs an especially strong program in field biology, offering one of the largest arrays of field courses among universities in the region.

CSUN Biology Professor Steven Oppenheimer, director of the university’s Center for Cancer and Developmental Biology, has been a leader in involving undergraduate students in published research, helping them gain admission to prestigious doctoral programs. Oppenheimer also is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the world’s prestigious research honors.

Social and Behavioral Sciences
The college hosts a nationally recognized Geography Department with faculty specializing in fields such as geographic information systems and cartography, ethnic geography and regional/international studies. The department also has a map library that is one of the largest in the western United States and operates a National Weather Service weather station that includes a public information hotline.

The college also is home to several distinguished centers that pursue areas of specialization. One is the Center for Southern California Studies, which conducts public policy research on issues affecting the Los Angeles region. Another is the DuBois-Hamer Institute, which runs a mentoring project for at-risk youth and a leadership academy for minority youth from throughout the Los Angeles area.