CSUN Students Dial for Dollars to Save Courses : Education: Alumni, parents and others are pressed for donations to supplement the shrinking state subsidy.

At a time when California state universities are facing unprecedented budget cuts in the millions of dollars, a small group of Cal State Northridge students are hustling to get some of it back: $10, $20, $100 at a time.

Like many other public schools, CSUN is starting slowly to raise private funds now that the state has become a stingy benefactor.

But much of the fund-raising work is not being done at black-tie dinners, silent auctions or over drinks after the Big Game. It is being done by students in jeans and tennis shoes working the phones.

“We can’t do anything about what happens in Sacramento, but we’re doing the best we can right here,” said Roy Vincent, 28, a religious studies major and campaign worker.

Vincent and his 29 student colleagues, who make $6.50 an hour, are among those on the front lines of an increasingly desperate effort to persuade alumni, parents--and just about anybody with deep pockets--to supplement the school’s dwindling state subsidy.

They are also one of the bright stars in the CSUN fund-raising effort, which has been plagued in recent years by a lack of community interest, little contact with alumni and investment losses. With no relief in sight to the state budget woes, the fund-raising efforts this summer have taken on a new importance.

Gov. Pete Wilson has called for an 11% cut to the California State University system. At CSUN, that would result in layoffs of more than one-third of the CSUN faculty and force the cancellation of hundreds of classes.

Students working in the CSUN development office spend five or six nights a week in a high-tech phone room talking to alumni and parents who are reached through a computerized dialing system that has information on 70,000 individuals.

When someone answers, the computer transfers the call instantly to student solicitors along with information on a computer screen that includes, for alumni, their graduation date, area of study and whether a person has given money in the past.

“I’ve raised $30,665 since October,” said Gena Dearing, 23, a liberal studies graduate. “The computer even called my own phone one night. But I didn’t pledge. I work here; that’s my pledge.”

Students have bonus incentives, as well. They earn 1% of pledges greater than $100, up to $500, and $8 for pledges of $1,000.

The students working the campaign said they hear a lot about the tough times being suffered by recent CSUN graduates who cannot find work.

“Sometimes half the people on a night will say they can’t get a job,” said Ryan Ehsan, 19, a political science major.

Even so, “most of the people who say they will talk to you will pledge,” Ehsan said.

The average donation from alumni last year was about $111, CSUN officials said. Even though total donations are up, the average alumni gift has fallen from $140 the previous year, a change campus officials attribute to the recession.

The bleak state budget picture has also changed fund-raising tactics. Pleas are no longer just for educational extras, but for basics such as teacher salaries to save classes.

“Right now, we’re not trying to raise money for future planning or endowments or educational enhancements but money to return some classes,” said Sandra Klasky, a CSUN graduate hired by the campus School of Education to raise funds. “And to be honest, that’s not what the thrust of fund raising should be for a state institution.”

But even armed with a state-of-the-art computer dialing system and the strong hide of salespeople, the student solicitors face an uphill battle. Their efforts over the next school year are expected to earn the campus $700,000 or so in its annual alumni and parent campaign, not nearly enough to cover the school’s expected $12-million shortfall from the state.

That number is up from about $500,000 that the students raised this past school year, when they took over the operation from a private company, campus officials said. The private company had earned about $300,000 in its 1990-91 annual fund drive, records show.

CSUN’s eight schools are expected to raise in the neighborhood of $2.5 million, with the bulk coming from foundations and corporations such as IBM and Arco that routinely give to colleges. Applications to receive that money is generally done by professors and department administrators, often with assistance from the development office.

In addition, the students also engage in campaigns for specific campus departments, such as the current drive for the School of Education.

Despite the effort of the students, CSUN’s development office is still far from the well-oiled fund-raising machine found at private campuses such as USC--which raised about $100 million last year--or even more successful sister campuses such as San Diego State, which raised about $14 million during the same time.

During the 1990-91 school year, the most recent year records are available, CSUN raised $4.6 million, with about two-thirds in cash and the rest in donated equipment and services. That ranked the school 15th among the 20 CSU campuses in donations raised per student and 10th in total contributions.

In a report to the chancellor’s office, CSUN officials said they hope to dramatically increase the amounts donated to raise $40 million over the next five years.

“We have had a trust fund for about 15 years but have never had a priority on fund raising,” said Pamela McClure, acting director of CSUN’s development office. “We have a staff of 10 people for a university that is of comparable size to USC, which has hundreds of people raising money.”

Market conditions have also hit CSUN hard. When longtime San Fernando Valley resident Grace Petrie offered to give $2.7 million to the school to build a center for deaf students, campus officials were thrilled. In 1987, they agreed to build the center, and pay Petrie $189,000 a year until she died, campus officials said.

The plan was to put her money--CSUN’s single largest gift--into an investment earning a return high enough to pay interest on the building loan, as well as Petrie’s annuity, said John Golisch, president of the CSUN Trust Fund. At the time, the CSUN Trust Fund--which holds all money contributed to the school--was earning an average of about 15% in interest.

“Shortly after the agreement, several things happened,” Golisch said. “One of them was the October stock market crash.”

As a result, investment returns plummeted and the CSUN fund-raising office has been stuck paying a $300,000 annual interest payment on the $3.2-million Jeanne Chisholm Hall and was paying Petrie $189,000 a year until her death in November at age 90.

“That has been the biggest albatross around our neck,” said Leo Bell, operations manager for the CSUN Development Office.

The office during the 1990-91 school year fell about $4,000 short of covering its expenses despite a state subsidy of about $200,000 from a discretionary fund overseen by President James W. Cleary’s office and another $100,000 from the CSUN Foundation, Bell said. In addition, the state paid $324,000 to lease Chisholm Hall, which houses the National Center on Deafness, an assistance center for deaf students seeking a college degree.

The office lost $81,000 on the sale of its investments during the 1990-91 school year, which was better than the previous year, when it lost $162,000 and ended up nearly $500,000 in the red, records show.

But with its stepped-up donation drive, and the death of Petrie, “we’re in better shape than last year,” Bell said.

Incoming CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson is expected to take a greater interest in fund-raising efforts, campus officials said. She has already asked for a summary of comments by alumni and parents being recorded by student telephone solicitors.

And as campus faculty and administrators wait nervously for a final state budget, community members and alumni are already stepping forward.

Physician Lillian Paula Seitsive has pledged $60,000 toward facilities for deaf students.

“My husband was president of the Chamber of Commerce in Northridge in 1960 when they were just breaking ground for new buildings on the campus,” said Seitsive, 86. “I feel connected even though I never attended school there.”

Seitsive said she is donating the money to help deaf students because she once taught a class to the deaf as a substitute teacher before becoming a physician 61 years ago.

“They were so wonderful and responsive that I have since always had a very soft heart with those who cannot hear,” she said.

Vaughn Street Elementary School Principal Yvonne Chan, who earned her teaching credential and graduate degree at CSUN, has pledged a $15,000 gift to help restore classes in the school’s Department of Education.

“I’m not rich and I have kids going to college,” said Chan, who has worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District since 1979. “I do it because I wouldn’t be here without CSUN.”