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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

CSUN Celebrates its 50th Anniversary

When California State University, Northridge, celebrates Founders’ Day Sept. 22, it will be a landmark occasion. That’s because the university, known as San Fernando Valley State College when it was established in 1958, has been in existence for 50 years now. During the past half-century, the institution has touched the local economy in numerous ways from the money students and staffers pour into local businesses, to the number of graduates who enter professions such as accounting and law, to the studies CSUN conducts about the regional economy. In 2004, CSUN’s Center for Southern California Studies, which is housed in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, conducted a study to determine the impact the university has made on the surrounding community. “What we found was, for every dollar, given to us by the State of California, we create and return more than $4 to the regional economy,” said Vance Peterson, CSUN’s vice president of university advancement. According to Peterson, the university quadruples the dollars given to it by the state via the money faculty and staff spend throughout the region, the research grants given to faculty as well as through its alumni, who experience greater earning power as a result of earning their degrees. “They earn and spend more,” Peterson said. About 80 percent of CSUN’s alumni reside in the greater Southern California area. While that number is already significant, it becomes even more so considering that, over the past 50 years, the university has awarded 200,000 baccalaureate and master’s degrees. Based on Bureau of Labor Statistics, CSUN estimates that its alumni collectively have earned $5.2 billion more than they would have had they only finished high school. “We are an economic driver for the Valley and beyond,” Peterson said. The number of employees CSUN has is also significant. The university opened with 119 faculty and staff members. Today it employs approximately 3,500 fulltime faculty. Additionally, more than 23,000 people have been employees of the school during its 50 years of existence. As for students, CSUN known as San Fernando Valley State College until June 1972 started off with 3,500 in 1958 and now has ten times that number. In 1997, CSUN became an active player in the regional economy when it launched the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center, which analyzes the San Fernando Valley with regards to employment and demographic trends, in addition to conducting special reports. At present, SFVERC has studies in the works about air quality and the healthcare industry. “We’ve done a number of reports , and all of this information is useful to business and making business decisions,” said SFVERC director Dan Blake. “We’ve been providing information to help businesses make decisions that are key to economics in the San Fernando Valley.” This year, the center produced an economic outlook that examined the concerns and circumstances of 125 medium-sized businesses. To provide a three-dimensional picture of present day economic conditions, the report also included demographic information that extended beyond the San Fernando Valley to the City of Los Angeles, the County of Los Angeles, the State of California and the nation. “We’ve also reported on real estate trends in the Valley, rents, housing prices and foreclosures, along with all of the construction trends in the Valley,” Blake said. More information about the center’s work can be obtained by visiting its website, www.csun.edu/sfverc. It’s likely that the reports SFVERC produces become a source not just for general business professionals but for business professionals who have graduated from CSUN. “Our (alumni) are in every industry in California and across the nation,” Peterson said. “You can look at the accounting profession in which there are many, many Northridge graduates.” When CSUN examined the managing partners of the Top 50 accounting firms in the Valley, it found that nearly 40 percent of the accounting firms’ managing partners were CSUN alumni. “A very large impact is being made in that profession by Northridge alone. I would say the same thing about the film and television industry,” Peterson said. “We have hundreds, thousands of graduates in various parts of the industry from animation to performance arts to film production, editing, technology. It’s really hard to sort of go into any profession and not find a very, very large representation of Northridge alumni.” In addition to the large representation of students in the accounting and entertainment professions, CSUN also boasts a large number of lawyers. According to Peterson, CSUN ranks in the top 10 among universities with alumni who take the California bar. “So we have a large number of lawyers, the largest number of any CSU campus in the California bar in terms of their undergraduate degree origins,” he said. These achievements and more will be recognized on Founders’ Day, but throughout this academic year, CSUN will also pay tribute to its 50th anniversary. In addition to the Founders’ Day celebration, CSUN will induct the first members of its 50-year club, a part of the school’s Alumni Association. In the winter, CSUN will showcase an exhibit in its library that will include memorabilia from the university’s first half-century of service. Early next year, there will be a major event focusing on athletics and the spirit of the university through athletics, Peterson said. And, in April, CSUN will wrap up its 50-year celebration with an all-day event called the grand reunion in which all alumni from the past 50 years are invited.

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