400 at CSUN Protest Proposed Fee Hike : Finances: The students threaten a strike if campus administrators don’t join their cause by the end of the week.

In a scene reminiscent of the tumultuous 1960s, hundreds of Cal State Northridge students Wednesday protested a proposed 40% fee increase, threatening a student strike if campus administrators do not join their cause by week’s end.

The protest was the latest in a series of rallies around the state prompted by the proposal, contained in Gov. Pete Wilson’s 1992 state budget. Although organizers expressed some disappointment at the turnout of more than 400 students, the gathering was one of the largest and feistiest at CSUN in more than two decades.

Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), one of several speakers, likened the protest to the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations that fostered his political career.

“This is going to be the struggle of the ‘90s,” he said. “You’re on the right track. You’re starting to have an impact in Sacramento.”

Significant opposition has been mounting among state legislators to the 40% student fee increase in the California State University system and a proposed 24% boost in University of California tuition. Hayden suggested that the only way to delete the increase may be to hold up the entire state budget “until hell freezes over.”

CSU trustees approved the 40% increase last month.

As Wednesday’s protest gained momentum, speakers pumped up the volume and incisiveness of their comments, causing interpreters for CSUN’s large population of deaf students to sign with faster and more staccato motions.

Students said they already are working--many holding several jobs--and taking out extra loans to pay their college costs. The proposed fee increase, from about $1,032 to $1,404 a year, would break them, they said.

Enrique Castrejon, 19, who supports himself with a part-time job as a picture framer, told the crowd that he would have to drop out of school if the hike is approved.

“I’m Latino, a freshman and. . .homeless,” Castrejon shouted. “I can’t afford to pay more.”

After the rally, at least 250 students marched to university President James Cleary’s office, shouting “student power” in unison and rhythmically waving their fists above their heads, Arsenio Hall-style.

They pounded on the walls and doors of the administration wing. When they were told that Cleary was out of town, students said they would return at noon Friday and boycott classes if they did not receive a message of support from the administration by then.

“We want a response. We demand a response,” said student Elissa Glickman, the rally’s emcee and chairwoman of the campus legislative task force committee.

Donald E. Bianchi, acting vice president for academic affairs, emerged from the president’s office holding a portable microphone. His news that Cleary was not on campus was greeted with unabashed skepticism by students, who chanted a common vulgarity over and over.

Bianchi said he personally opposes the increase but that Cleary had not released an official campus position.

“Blah, blah, blah, blah,” the students chided.

But as they wandered out of the administration building after the rally, mixed emotions emerged about the threatened strike.

Two young women excitedly talked about noisemakers that they could round up for Friday’s event, including a cowbell. But a young man walking near them turned to his female companion and said, “I support everything they’re saying, but I want to graduate and I don’t want this to hang over me, you know?”

* CAL STATE FEE HIKE: A3