The 2008-09 academic year, which marked California State University, Northridge’s 50th anniversary, was full of many memorable moments and achievements. These included the university’s first Founders Day, the continued construction of the Valley Performing Arts Center at California State University, Northridge, the outstanding performance of the men’s basketball team at the NCAA playoffs, and the Grand Reunion. All of these accomplishments and events have underscored the university’s importance to the community and its work as a nationally recognized, regionally focused institution.

The year had its challenges as well, among them the uncertainty of the national economy and the delayed state budget, both of which have strained the resources of Cal State Northridge and every other public university in California.

But May is the month of commencement, which means new beginnings. Our graduates are looking toward the future, and so are we. The university listens seriously to the forward-looking observations of students like Sean Carter, who said in the 50th anniversary issue of this magazine that Cal State Northridge must “stay up to date with what’s going on with technology and culture, not get stuck with doing the same thing, but being able to evolve.”

As I noted in an address to faculty in January, Erik Peterson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies describes the present as a world on “hyper-drive.” In this world, Peterson says, the technology referenced by our student Sean is in a state of revolution, as are our knowledge and information systems.

According to information provided in a fascinating video available online called “Did You Know,” by educators Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, we live in a world in which technical information doubles every two years, which means half of what technical degree students learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study. The top ten in-demand jobs for 2010 will be ones that didn’t exist just six years ago; and U.S. Labor Department researchers predict today’s learner will change jobs a dizzying 10-14 times by age 38.

So as its next 50-year stretch begins, CSUN will need to swim ahead of the current as we prepare our students for the changing workforce, indeed for the changing nature of work itself.

We will continue to bring every possible resource to bear on student success and, yes, on graduation. We will bring new energy to workplace-driven learning objectives such as problem solving and analytic reasoning. We will adjust the ways we teach to the many ways students learn, as identified by scholars nationally and right here at Cal State Northridge. Recognizing that active engagement is one of these ways, we already are emphasizing more the kinds of self-directed, hands-on and applied learning experiences for students at which the university already excels.

We can do all of this with a healthy mixture of the practical and the visionary, focusing less on the unknowns and imponderables than on those things we can shape and control. French writer Antoine de Saint Exupéry got it right. “Our task,” he wrote, “is not to see the future, but to enable it.”

Jolene Koester
President, California State University, Northridge

Keep up with the president by visiting her blog

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