37 research outputs found
James Toman Interview, 19 July 2012
No full textJames Toman is a photographer and author who has written two books on the Shaker Rapid system. An authority on the subject, Toman continues to give talks and present slide shows on the Shaker line and owns a vast personal collection of around 2000 photographs that he has taken of the trains since the 1970s. In this interview Toman relates the history of the Shaker Rapid from its origins as a capital venture on the part of the Van Sweringen brothers all the way up to the present, relating stories of proposed transit projects that never came to fruition along with placing the public transportation system of Cleveland into a broader national context
James Toman Interview, 19 July 2012
No full textJames Toman is a photographer and author who has written two books on the Shaker Rapid system. An authority on the subject, Toman continues to give talks and present slide shows on the Shaker line and owns a vast personal collection of around 2000 photographs that he has taken of the trains since the 1970s. In this interview Toman relates the history of the Shaker Rapid from its origins as a capital venture on the part of the Van Sweringen brothers all the way up to the present, relating stories of proposed transit projects that never came to fruition along with placing the public transportation system of Cleveland into a broader national context
Clips and interviews, Changing Tides Conference. Interview with James Robertson
No full textInterview with futurist James Robertson, author of The Sane Alternative and the keynote speaker at the Changing Tides Conference. Discusses how many aspects of the organization of modern society are changing, breaking down; we are in a transformational period in history; human fulfillment must come as part of the larger community and the ecosystem; the changing nature of work/employment; the present world economic system, its origins, and its future direction
James Azala Interview, April 12, 2015
No full textPROJECT’S OBJECTIVES: The Homeless Voices Amplification Co-op (HVAC) works to amplify stories of unhoused individuals’ past and present work experiences. Recognizing that unhoused individuals are the most valuable source of knowledge on the realities of their employment, HVAC partners with the unhoused to create space for strategic community reflection as a means to further activism for economic justice. HVAC believes stories have the power to humanize individuals and undermine stigmas and stereotypes in ways statistics cannot. HVAC intends to draw upon the power of these stories to create a powerful, multi-dimensional online platform that can enhance efforts to mobilize the community
James Allen Higgins Interview, April 12, 2015
No full textPROJECT’S OBJECTIVES: The Homeless Voices Amplification Co-op (HVAC) works to amplify stories of unhoused individuals’ past and present work experiences. Recognizing that unhoused individuals are the most valuable source of knowledge on the realities of their employment, HVAC partners with the unhoused to create space for strategic community reflection as a means to further activism for economic justice. HVAC believes stories have the power to humanize individuals and undermine stigmas and stereotypes in ways statistics cannot. HVAC intends to draw upon the power of these stories to create a powerful, multi-dimensional online platform that can enhance efforts to mobilize the community
Nina Gibans Interview, 21 June 2006
No full textIn this 2006 interview, Nina Gibans, a poet, author, and active leader in Cleveland\u27s art community discusses her early life and the work of her husband, architect Jim Gibans. Growing up in Cleveland and Shaker Heights, Ohio in the 1930s and 40s, Gibans was the only Jewish girl in Laurel School. Her father was the head of surgery at Mt. Sinai Hospital. Later on, as editor of the Sara Laurence College newspaper, Gibans had to deal with the censorship of the McCarthy era. Gibans met her husband on a trip to Cuba and followed him to San Francisco where he studied architecture. Returning to Cleveland in 1960, Jim Gibans eventually became a part of Herman Gibans Foder, an architectural firm responsible for building much of Cleveland\u27s public housing. Towards the end of the interview, Gibans gives her opinion on Cleveland\u27s lakefront development, critiques the attitudes of past city leaders towards development, and lists some of her favorite buildings
Caribbean Report 04-06-1996
No full text1. Headlines (00:00-00:28)2. Dominica's Economic Citizenship Programme criticised its passport for sales as it runs into further criticism. Prime Minister Edison James, Opposition Leader Rosie Douglas, Grace Towne, Oriental Hotel Project and Anthony Martin, Critic of the Dominica Economic Citizenship Programme are interviewed (00:29-03:52)3. A failed grade for the OAS at its Panama Assembly. Larry Burns, Head of the Centre, Council on Hemispheric Studies and OAS spokesman Wesley Curtin are interviewed (03:53-08:35)4. Dominica's Opposition Leader Rosie Douglas is warning of the consequences of what he sees as racist politics in the Dominican Republic. Opposition Leader Rosie Douglas is interviewed (08:36-10:16)5. Despite a last minute appeal to the United Nations Human Rights Committee prison authorities in Guyana today executed condemned murderer Rodcliffe Ross. Colin Smith reports (10:17-11:46)6. A failed grade for the OAS at its Panama Assembly. Yvette Colllymore reports (11:47-12:57)7. How marijuana could give lows instead of highs. Author of a report on sexually transmitted diseases Dr Donald Simeon is interviewed and David Wood reports (12:58-14:24)8. Seconds after takeoff from French Guiana Europe's biggest and most expensive rocket was exploded by scientist (14:15:17
Timothy Hudak interview, 22 March 2017
No full textTim Hudak, author and publisher of eight books about high school football, talks about his experience in the writing and publishing industry. As a graduate of St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland, he began by documenting local games and researching school football histories. He specializes in writing school-specific stories but expanded his research to trace the history of Cleveland\u27s high school football championship, The Charity Game. In the interview, Tim highlights the stories of local championship teams during the early and middle decades of the 20th century
James Jensen oral history interview, "Representing the California State University in Sacramento: Twenty Years as a Liaison-Lobbyist", Oral History Project on the Origins of The California State University System, Phase II, 1997
No full textJenson was head of Governmental Affairs of the California State University.Transcripts and cassette tapes of oral history interviews with various individuals involved in the formation of the California State University system.CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
Oral History Project on the Origins o f the CSU System, Phase n
JAMES JENSEN
REPRESENTING THE CSU IN SACRAMENTO:
TWENTY YEARS AS LIAISON-LOBBYIST
Interview Conducted by
Judson A. Grenier
March 19,1997
Processed in cooperation with CSU Fullerton Oral History Program
1997
COPYRIGHT
This is a transcription of an interview conducted for the California State
University Archives under a grant from the Office of the Chancellor, CSU.
Scholars are welcome to utilize short excerpts from any of the transcriptions
without obtaining permission as long as proper credit is given to the
interviewee, interviewer, and the institution sponsoring the project. All uses
of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between the CSU
Archives and the interviewee. Therefore, scholars must obtain permission
from California State University Archives before making more extensive use
of the transcription and related materials.
None of these materials may be duplicated or reproduced by any party except
the California State University Archives. However, because it is the goal of
this project to preserve and make accessible significant documentation relevant
to the history of the State Colleges, copies of any unrestricted transcriptions
may be obtained at cost by writing to the CSU Systemwide Archivist at
California State University, Dominguez Hills, Carson, California 90747.
Copyright c 1997 by the Board of Trustees
of The California State University
PREFACE
The purpose of Phase II of the California State University Oral History
Project is to record and make available to researchers using the California
State University Archives the reminiscences of individuals who participated in
development of the CSU system.
Creation of the California State Colleges in 1961 united fifteen formerly
independent colleges into a single identifiable system, with its own Board of
Trustees and a Chancellor to serve as chief executive officer. Using a formula
that stressed systemwide planning in the allocation of resources and programs,
the California State Colleges sought to offer Californians quality higher
education at reasonable cost. Key to the success of the State Colleges was the
decision to implement a Master Plan adopted in 1960 that divided higher
education into three distinctly separate segments. The State Colleges were
mandated to emphasize undergraduate and master's level programs, while the
University of California campuses were to emphasize graduate education, and
the Community Colleges vocational training and college preparation.
The present California State University, starting from a base of fifteen
campuses and 95,000 students in 1961, has grown to where it provides a wide
variety of innovative programs to more than 320,000 students on 22 campuses.
It is the largest system of higher education in the United States and is known
as one of the strongest institutions of higher education in the country.
In September 1979, the Board of Trustees created the California State
University Historical Archives, to be housed on the Dominguez Hills campus.
Since its establishment, the Archives, as a systemwide project, has been
supported by the Chancellor's Office through the funding of a professional
archivist.
The Archives currently houses a collection of materials from a variety of
sources. These include the Chancellor's Office, the CSU Academic Senate,
and private individuals such as former Chancellor Glenn Dumke and former
Trustee Paul Spencer. Consequently, the Archives holds some personal
papers as well as official systemwide documents. As part of its collection
policy, the Archives also has a responsibility to gather individual recollections
and oral histories of the system.
Phase I of the CSU Oral History Project, conducted from 1986 to 1989, and
funded by the Chancellor's Office, covered the formation and early years of
CSU through 32 interviews with participants within and without the system.
These interviews, housed at the CSU Archives, have proven useful to research
into higher education in the 1950s and '60s. A major quality is their
standardized format, developed at the Oral History Program at CSU
Fullerton.
Phase II is an ongoing oral history project that is decentralized but
administered by the CSU Archives. Its intent is to assure that the
reminiscences of retiring chancellors, principal staff members, Academic
Senate chairs, Student Association presidents, trustees, and local campus
presidents be recorded as closely as possible to their retirement date and that
this be done routinely as a regularized process. Phase II also seeks
information on the growth of the CSU during two mid-decades, 1964-85.
The project has three long-range purposes. First, it will help to increase
interest in the history and accomplishments of the California State University.
Next, it will be a tool in aiding the acquisition of additional materials
concerning the System now in private hands. Finally, it will create needed
documentation for understanding the System's historical role in state and
national education; many issues it has confronted have become matters of
national concern, such as meeting the needs of a multicultural student body
and finding adequate resources in a time of scarcity. Oral history can provide
background information on these developments that is not available in
bulletins, brochures, and minutes.
Funding for the project is provided by the Office of the Chancellor, Dr. Barry
Munitz. We thank the interviewee for generously giving of his time. We also
acknowledge the pioneering work of the CSU Fullerton Oral History Program
in providing a model. Transcribing was performed by Garnette Long, who in
the process contributed many wise editorial suggestions.
Lawrence B. de Graaf Karen Jean Hunt
Judson A. Grenier CSU Archivist
Project Co-directors
MEMBERS, CSU ARCHIVES ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Betty J. Blackman
William D. Campbell
Lawrence B. de Graaf
Robert C. Detweiler
Donald R. Gerth
Judson A. Grenier
James Highsmith
Gloria Lothrop
Ellis McCune
Barry Munitz
Lyn Olsson
John Pfau
Teena Stem
Tom Träger
Brad Wells
Helene Whitson
IV
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT ON THE
ORIGINS OF THE CSU SYSTEM
This interview of Dr. James Jensen was conducted in his home north of
Tucson, Arizona, on March 19, 1997. The interview is one of a series in
Phase II of the California State University Oral History Project. Jim Jensen
served for twenty years as head of Governmental Affairs of the California
State University and was, in effect, the system's chief lobbyist, stationed in the
capital (Sacramento). The interviewer is Judson Grenier, Professor Emeritus
of History.
JG: Where were you bom and raised?
JJ: I was bom in Albert Lea, Minnesota, which is right on the Iowa
border, about a hundred miles south of Minneapolis, and stayed there
until I was a sophomore in high school. At that time, the place my dad
worked went bankrupt, so he moved to Minneapolis to work for
Minneapolis Moline in the fall of 1941. The family then went to
Minneapolis. I went through high school at Roosevelt High School,
which is in south Minneapolis. From there, I started at the University
of Minnesota.
JG: Would you mind telling me when you graduated from Roosevelt?
JJ: In 1944.
JG: Okay, because I graduated from there in '47.
JJ: From Roosevelt?
JG: Yes.
JJ: I lived on 34th Avenue and the [Minnehaha] Parkway. Thirty-fourth
is a street that went out to the airport.
JG: I lived down by Minnehaha Park. Well, that's very, very interesting.
JJ: And you have your doctorate, as I recall, from Minnesota.
JG: No, I got my B.A. from [University of] Minnesota.
JENSEN 2
JJ: Oh. That's where I got my B.A., too.
JG: So you graduated from high school in '44. That was close to the end
of the war.
JJ: Well, I was all set to go in the Navy in the V-5 Program, but I was
colorblind, so they wouldn't take me. I registered for the draft, and
two months after I was eighteen, November 20th of '44,1 was drafted
into the Army. From there I went to Texas for basic training, and
ended up in the infantry. I was sent over to the Philippines, made a
landing there on Zamboanga. The atom bomb was then dropped,
which ended the war. I then went to Japan as an occupational troop
for a few months, then came back to the University of Minnesota.
Let's see, that would be in the fall of '46. I then graduated in '49. Pat
and I were then married and I went out looking for a job.
International Harvester offered me a job in their administrative
training program. I went home and we talked and I thought, Gee, do
I really want to sell trucks and refrigerators (chuckling) and things like
this? In the summertime I had been a counselor at a YMCA camp in
northern Minnesota, and enjoyed working with kids. My entire family
were teachers, so I decided to become a teacher. The University of
Minnesota had a special program then. One who had a baccalaureate
could go back for a year and get a teaching credential. I taught in
White Bear Lake, Minnesota, which is just outside of St. Paul, for two
years, and we then migrated to Merced, California.
JG: What was the reason for that move?
JJ: Basically, we had relations in Merced. My uncle was an M.D. there.
He invited us out to stay there and to vacation a little. So we got
there, I talked to the superintendent, and was hired as a teaching
principal. We stayed in Merced for twelve years until I moved on to
the University of California. I became interested in decision making
and decided that the school districts really didn't have much power.
The real action in the school was in the legislature. The only major
action by the districts is hiring the school superintendent. Criteria for
receiving a teaching credential, minimum salaries, and the curriculum
is dictated by the state. I took a leave of absence, went back to
Berkeley and got my doctorate in Educational Administration and in
Public Administration. My dissertation is entitled: ''The Study of
Influence in the California State Legislature's Education Committees.’’
I went to Sacramento and interviewed a number of people. About that
time, there was a shift in power and a new chairman of the Education
JENSEN 3
Committee was appointed. The senator asked me to come to work
with him for a couple years, and I did.
JG: When was that, roughly?
JJ: That was in 1965. So I was with the Senate Education Committee
from '65 to '67. I worked for Richard Dolwig (R) and also for A1
Rodda (D).
JG: Oh, you worked for A1 Rodda, too?
JJ: Yes. The University of California then offered me a job as an assistant
dean and also to do some teaching. I went there for two years.
JG: In what field?
JJ: Basically, political science and education administration. I did some
studies and decided that if it was going to be publish or perish, I was
going to perish. After I'd been there a couple years, a friend of mine
became pro tern of the California Senate. So he put together a
nonpartisan coalition.
JG: Who was that?
JJ: Howard Way (R) from Exeter. He put together a vote of thirteen
Republicans and eight Democrats, (twenty-one votes). He then
became pro tern. He asked me to become his chief executive officer
and the consultant to the Senate Rules Committee. I liked Sacramento
and that type of work, so we moved back to Sacramento. I worked for
him for a year. I basically ran the California State Senate, because
technically everything has to be approved by this five-member Rules
Committee. Anyway, Howard got dumped when another senator put
together twenty-one votes. So I was out of a job. I went to consult for
the State Department of Education. Glenn Dumke and Harry
Brakebill called me and asked me if I'd like to interview for the
position as the lobbyist for the California State Colleges.
JG: Who had been the lobbyist before you?
JJ: A man by the name of Bill Storey. He had been in the Legislative
Analyst's Office and was a very good budget analyst. The problem was
that Bill wore his partisanship on his sleeve.
JENSEN 4
JG: He was a Democrat?
j j ; Yes. He made the unforgivable error of shipping a final report down
to the central office for approval, and it was very, very anti-Reagan.
He was asked to leave, and that's how I happened to get the job.
JG: How did Dumke and Brakebill know you? Through your work?
JJ: Basically, they had contacts with the University of California and other
people who had seen my work in Sacramento, and my name just sort
of surfaced. The two of them interviewed me. They then brought me
in front of all the vice chancellors to be interviewed.
JG: Was that on Wilshire?
JJ: Yes. I was then offered the job. A friend of mine was the lobbyist for
the University of California, and he said, "Jim, before you take the job,
do these five things: number one, get an academic position”— which
I asked for— "get a car; get an expense account; and make sure that in
the hierarchy you only report to Glenn Dumke. Otherwise there could
be a problem if other people in the Chancellor's Office try to get a
handle on the legislative decision making." So I did that.
JG: The office was already underway in Sacramento? There was a physical
office there?
JJ: Yes. Oh, you mean for the lobbying office?
JG: Yes.
JJ: There was a lobbying office on 10th and L Street. So I went in. Bill
Storey left and he went to work for the Coordinating Council. I think
he's still there, as far as I know. Bill had replaced Les Cohen.
JG: You mean in the Postsecondary Education Commission?
JJ: Yes. Bill had replaced Les Cohen. He had a nervous breakdown and
he left the office.
JG: Of course, you had this great network of acquaintances that you had
built up over your years there.
JENSEN 5
JJ: That was a big help, right. The California Legislature, in those days
when I was there, to a great extent was becoming more partisan, but
it was a lot nonpartisan, and since I had been the Senate Education
Committee Consultant for two years and had run the Senate for a year,
I basically knew everybody in Sacramento, and they knew me too.
JG: Ronald Reagan was governor at the time.
JJ: Right.
JG: I noted that you were introduced to the board at its January 1971
meeting, so you must have come on shortly before that.
JJ: I came on shortly before that, I think around the first of the year,
maybe Christmastime, something like that.
JG: So you had an office in Sacramento and you didn’t have an office in
the Chancellor's Office? You just reported directly to Glenn?
JJ: Right.
JG: Of course, Harry Brakebill was his right-hand man and he probably
made as many decisions as Glenn did.
JJ: Oh, that’s right, and basically, having lived in bureaucracies, I wouldn't
call Glenn unless it was something that was highly personal. I would
always call Harry first and let him know what I was going to ask of
Glenn.
JG: That's very interesting. Okay, could you tell me a little bit about how
the office worked, or what your life was like or what your schedule was
like? Alex Sherriffs once told me that when he was Educational
Advisor to the governor, there were probably 500 education bills each
year, altogether, and that there was no way he could keep track of
them all. But in the case of the CSU, there would have been roughly
how many bills affecting us?
JJ: Oh, about 300 or 400.
JG: Really? Each year?
JJ: Yes, because we got involved also in peripheral areas. For example,
personnel matters, building code areas, this kind of thing that a
JENSEN 6
department head under Alex didn't get involved with that much. But
the California Legislature, to a great extent, was a bill factory. They
would just crank out bills. What we did— and I sort of worked on
this— at one time we brought every bill to the trustees. Don't ask me
why, Judson, but the lobbyist for the CSU reported to the Gifts and
Public Affairs Committee [of the Board of Trustees]. I don't know
how that ever happened.
JG: Public Affairs. Of course, there was no Governmental Operations
Committee then— there is now— in the Board of Trustees.
JJ: That's correct.
JG: But there wasn't then at that time. The person who was head of the
Gifts and Public Affairs Committee when you started out was . . . Do
you recall?
JJ: It was Karl Wente.
JG: Karl Wente, right. Did you have any problems working with him?
JJ: No, Karl was a very, very nice man, and liked to be kept apprised of
what was happening, that type of thing, but I had no problem with him
at all.
JG: I noticed that you prepared for that committee, first of all, a summary
of all legislation and where it stood at that particular moment. But
you also prepared this . . .
JJ: That was the status of it, right.
JG: But you also prepared a report on the budget actions relative to
various budgets and support budgets. [Shows Jensen "1981-82
Legislative program Status Report" and "Summary of Legislative
Budget Actions Relative to the CSUD 1981/2 Support Budget" as
examples of Jensen reports to the trustees.]
JJ: Right. Did you ever read Aaron Wildovsky's book, The Politics o f the
Budgetary Process?
JG: No, but I certainly will.
JENSEN 7
JJ: He's a professor of political science and he was on my doctoral
committee at Berkeley. His thesis, which I think has been proved over
and over, is that budgetary process is one of political decision making.
He took the national scene and ran through a bunch of examples there.
The reason I brought that up is because, to a great extent, the
decisions that are made in the budget, once they get into the
legislature, become a part of the political process. We would try to
keep track of a number of issues that were of major importance, and
then would try to lobby them if it was going against us.
JG: Did you consult regularly with . . . How did you know what the
position of the Chancellor's Office would be on all these items?
JJ: Basically I worked with Lou Messner and Dale Hanner, and Ed Macias
when he was there. I had talked to Glenn when I took the job and I
said, ''Glenn, I can't be blindsided, so I want to know when people are
making decisions that are political which affect us." He had sort of an
unwritten rule that anybody who came to Sacramento had to check in
with my office.
JG: Oh, great!
JJ: They would tell us why they were in Sacramento; if any major decisions
were made, they would let me know. Sometimes they'd make a mad
dash for a plane, but they would call the next day so we would know
what had happened. And it was sort of a two-way street. It wasn't as
formal as that, but as we would be in the halls and there would be
political decisions about money, about the budget, whether it be capital
outlay when Harry Harmon was there or anything like that, we would
call the Chancellor's Office; or if they were coming up, we would brief
them and try to keep the two-way street there, Judson.
JG: So everyone from the Chancellor's Office who came to Sacramento
checked in with you?
JJ: Well, they were supposed to. I won't say everybody did.
JG: Did you then go to the Legislative Committee meetings with them?
JJ: No. If they were going there on a budget issue, I wouldn't go with
them, but if it was a position on a bill, then I would go. Except on the
budget, no one in the Chancellor's Office could speak for or against a
bill without my permission. If they wanted to speak as an individual,
JENSEN 8
fíne, but they could not stand up and say, "We support this or we
oppose that." The other thing that happened is that a lot of the issues
became tradeoffs. You can't be against something and all of a sudden
someone may ask, "If we would do this to the bill, would it be okay?"
We would then check with the appropriate Chancellor's Office in Los
Angeles: with Mansel Keene on personnel matters, Hariy Harmon on
capital outlay, Norm Epstein and his staff on legal questions, and so
on. We really spent a heck of a lot of time on the phone, Judson.
JG: Yes, I would bet. All those vice chancellors and assistant vice
chancellors that you had to deal with. Boy!
JJ: We then had a formal system. An analysis of a bill was written and
sent forward to Governmental Affairs. At times we worked very
closely with the Academic Senate on certain issues. Assemblywoman
Teresa Hughes (D) at one time wanted to mandate that such and such
a course be taught. It related to minority education. A person could
get a degree from a California State University only if they took this
course. The Senate felt very strongly about that because they felt that
curriculum was a collegial matter. Faculty and the administration
should set graduation requirements, not the legislature.
JG: What would a typical day be like for you in Sacramento while the
legislature was in session?
JJ: While the legislature was in session? Basically, we would have the
major bills assigned. On our Friday staff meetings, we would assign
certain people to meet with the committee consultant ahead of time.
Then I, Scott Plotkin, or another assistant would go to committee and
testify. We, at one time, worked out sort of an informal agreement in
my office. Since I was the older staff member and had worked in the
Senate, I would handle most of the Senate bills. The younger staff,
because the Assembly members were younger than the senators, would
work with the Assembly staff in testifying to the Assembly.
JG: How large a staff did you have working with you?
JJ: At the end I had . . . let's see, eight.
JG: Eight full-time staff?
JJ: Yes. That included clerical.
JENSEN 9
JG: And when you started out, how many?
JJ: Four.
JG: So these people were trained to work with legislative affairs.
JJ: Definitely.
JG: Am I right in my assumption that you didn
Nina Gibans Interview, 21 June 2006
Get PDFIn this 2006 interview, Nina Gibans, a poet, author, and active leader in Cleveland\u27s art community discusses her early life and the work of her husband, architect Jim Gibans. Growing up in Cleveland and Shaker Heights, Ohio in the 1930s and 40s, Gibans was the only Jewish girl in Laurel School. Her father was the head of surgery at Mt. Sinai Hospital. Later on, as editor of the Sara Laurence College newspaper, Gibans had to deal with the censorship of the McCarthy era. Gibans met her husband on a trip to Cuba and followed him to San Francisco where he studied architecture. Returning to Cleveland in 1960, Jim Gibans eventually became a part of Herman Gibans Foder, an architectural firm responsible for building much of Cleveland\u27s public housing. Towards the end of the interview, Gibans gives her opinion on Cleveland\u27s lakefront development, critiques the attitudes of past city leaders towards development, and lists some of her favorite buildings
