CSUN Looking More Like a Campus

Thanks to round-the-clock work over the summer, Cal State Northridge students will return Monday to a campus more closely resembling its pre-earthquake condition.

Most classes will still be held in trailers, professors will still compete with noisy construction crews for students’ attention and a multilevel parking garage--one of the more devastating images from the Jan. 17 temblor--still sits collapsed behind a chain-link fence.

But nearly all classes have returned to the Northridge campus, and the core of the Delmar T. Oviatt Library--considered the heart and soul of the university--has reopened for research and study.

As of last week, more than 23,000 students had registered for the fall semester.

For returning students, administrators offered these tips:

* The campus layout remains virtually the same as it was in the spring, with the “recovery villages” of portable trailers for classrooms and offices scattered around the campus.

* Yellow signs bearing a hard hat with a mortarboard have been placed at construction sites. Rebuilding will continue on the 353-acre campus, which suffered $350 million in quake damage.

* At least portions of all four science buildings will be open.

* Dorms for 3,000 students have been refurbished. The Student Union, bookstore and most of the eating areas are open.

* There will be 6,500 spaces for student parking. Free shuttle buses will circle the campus every eight minutes.