Hope Rises From the Rubble

One by one, the tragic icons of the Northridge earthquake fade into memory. Among them earlier this month were some of the trailers that replaced Cal State Northridge classrooms destroyed by the shaking. As the last of the classroom trailers were removed from the east side of campus, students and faculty of the College of Humanities moved back into refurbished buildings.

It will be another three years or so before the campus is back to normal, but the pace of repairs signals that CSUN--like the rest of the San Fernando Valley--is finally bouncing back strong. About half of the 400 trailers leased after the quake have been removed as buildings are restored. Repairs remain on 76 of the 107 CSUN structures damaged.

CSUN administrators are taking advantage of the repairs to give the campus a much-needed face lift--like the countless homeowners who took advantage of quake repairs to remodel their kitchens. Some of the federal disaster relief money flowing into CSUN is earmarked for a master plan that seeks to make the humdrum campus a place students want to hang around. It’s all simple stuff--a few trees, a few walkways and construction of a quadrangle--but little touches like that can go a long way toward helping CSUN stand out as more than just another suburban commuter school.

Combined with efforts to turn the school’s North Campus into a research park and entertainment production complex, the renovations and face lifts promise to position CSUN as one of Southern California’s most modern campuses at the start of the next century. Yes, the icons of loss are disappearing--replaced instead by icons of hope.