2 research outputs found
Hector Lee oral history interview: Developing State College Policies in the 1950s, Oral History Project on the Origins of The California State University, 1988
No full textOral history interview with a primary focus on the origins of the California State University System and the 1960 master plan for California higher education. Lee was held academic administration positions at the Sonoma and Chico campuses.Transcripts and cassette tapes of oral history interviews with various individuals involved in the formation of the California State University system.Origins of
The California State
University
Hector Lee
Interviewed
by
Judson A. Grenier
An Oral History Project
of the
Archives
California State
CSU Dominguez Hills
University Archives
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
Oral History Pilot Project on the Origins of the CSU System
HECTOR LEE
DEVELOPING STATE COLLEGE POLICIES
IN THE 1950*8
Interview Conducted by
Judson A. Grenier
in 1988
Processed by CSU Fullerton Oral History Program
1988
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 © 1988 by the Board of Trustees
of The California State University
PREFACE
The purpose of this oral history pilot project is to
record and make available to researchers using the California
State University Archives the reminiscences of individuals who
participated in the creation of the California State Colleges
from 1959 to 1965.
The 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 which stressed systemwide planning in the allocation of
resources and programs, The California State Colleges sought to
offer Californians quality higher education at reasonable
cost. The key to the success of the California State
University was the decision to adapt a plan, incorporated into
the Donahoe Higher Education Act of 1960, dividing higher
education into three distinctly separate segments. Under the
act, the California 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 California Community Colleges were to focus on
vocational training and college preparation.
The California State University, starting from a base of
fifteen campuses and 95,000 students in 1961, has grown to
where it now provides a wide variety of innovative programs to
more than 320,000 students on nineteen 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 and Colleges Historical Archives,
to be housed on the Dominguez Hills campus. Since its
establishment, the Archives, as a systemwide project, has been
jointly supported by the Chancellor’s Office and CSU Dominguez
Hills, through the funding of a professional archivist.
The Archives currently houses a collection of materials
received from a variety of sources. These include the
Chancellor’s Office, the CSU Academic Senate, and private
individuals who had previous dealings with the CSU, such as
former Chancellor Glenn Dumke, former Trustee Paul Spencer, and
others. 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
collect individual recollections and oral histories of the
early System and pre-System years.
iii
Short-term goals of this oral history project are to make
available the recollections and reminiscences of former members
of the Board of Trustees, the State College-University of
California Liaison Committee, and the Master Plan Survey Team,
as well as other individuals who participated in the formation
of the California State Colleges from 1959 to 1965.
For the long run, the project has three purposes. First,
it will help to increase interest in the history and
accomplishments of the California State University. Next, it
will, hopefully, be a tool to aid in the acquisition of
additional materials concerning the System now in private
hands. Finally, it will serve as a model and learning device
to develop a more comprehensive oral history program. If the
pilot project is successful, as many interviews as possible
will be conducted under the expanded program with the System’s
retired trustees, former vice-chancellors and college
presidents, current senior management, state legislators, and
other important individuals who have been influential in the
growth and development of the state university.
Funding for the project is provided by the Office of Vice
Chancellor, Administration, Dr. Herbert L. Carter. We thank
the interviewee for generously giving of his time. We also
acknowledge the work of the Oral History Program at CSU
Fullerton for the use of its facilities in processing this
interview. Transcribing was performed by Shirley de Graaf,
proofreading and index by Lynn Finger, and final preparation by
Shirley de Graaf.
Lawrence B. de Graaf Jacquelyn K. Sundstrand
Judson A. Grenier CSU Archivist
Project Co-Directors
MEMBERS, CSU ARCHIVES ADVISORY BOARD
Betty Blackman
John Brownell
Mayer Chapman
Robert W. Cherny
Lawrence B. de Graaf
Glenn S . Dumke
Donald R. Gerth
Judson Grenier
Arthur Hall
Claudia H. Hampton
James Harris
Louis H. Heilbron
Donald B. Leiffer
Gloria Lothrop
Theodore Meriam
Carol J. Numrich
Morris Polan
W. Ann Reynolds
Phillip V. Sanchez
John Smart
Jacquelyn K. Sundstrand
IV
HECTOR LEE
1961
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT ON THE
ORIGINS OF THE CSU SYSTEM
This interview with Dr. Hector Lee (HL) was recorded in his
office in Nichols Hall on the campus of Sonoma State University
on June 23, 1988. Dr. Lee was the first dean of the college at
Sonoma, and before that served fourteen years as dean of
instruction at Chico State College, from 1947 to 1961. He also
was chair of the state college conference of deans. The
interviewer is Judson Grenier (JG). The interview is part of
the ongoing investigation into the origins of the California
State University system.
JG: These interviews usually begin with a little biographical
material. Would you tell me where you were born and
reared?
HL: I was bora in Decatur, Texas. You* 11 find a Texan
wherever you go. But I grew up in southern Utah. My
mother married a farmer there, so I grew up on my
stepfather’s farm in Millard County, Utah, and went to the
schools there. I eventually went to the University of
Utah. I got my B.A. at the University of Utah, and my
M.A. at the University of California, Berkeley.
JG: Let me slow you up. What was your bachelor’s in, was it
in English?
HL: Yes, it was.
JG: What, then, motivated you to go to Berkeley for your
master’s?
HL: I had several contacts. One of the Berkeley professors
came as a visiting professor at the University of Utah. I
read papers for him. So he gave me a fellowship in the
subject A department. I taught subject A.
JG: The ground floor.
HL: Yes. I got a lot of good experience there. I took my
master’s there. I didn’t like the program at Berkeley too
well. It was too impersonal. As a matter of fact, when I
went in to take my master’s oral I had to introduce myself
to the three professors who gave it to me. I had never
had a course from them. And they didn’t care whether they
passed me or not. I didn’t like that. So I went to the
University of New Mexico for my Ph.D. in American Studies.
LEE 2
It was one of the first programs in American Studies. The
University of Iowa had one, and one or two other
universities, but I headed for Texas to study under some
special Americanists there. Frank Dobie for one.
JG: Yes, I know of him.
HL: But Frank Dobie was not taking graduate students, and he
happened to be in England that year anyway. So I went
back to New Mexico. I was the first Ph.D. that the
University of New Mexico granted.
JG: In American Studies?
HL: In anything.
JG: In anything!
HL: Of course, being the first, I was subjected to much
attention. Everybody wanted to be on my committee, and
everybody wanted me to study in his field. It was all
right. I did the job, but I had to offer five fields of
specialization: English language and literature, American
language and literature, American history and biography,
American anthropology, and American folklore. That was
quite a strain, but I survived it, and I think quite
well. I have remained on very good terms with the
University of New Mexico ever since. My old mentors, of
course, have died off. But that’s the way of the world.
So with that new Ph.D. . . . I was an instructor at the
University of Utah English department. I had a
Rockefeller Foundation fellowship to the University of New
Mexico to study American Studies, because the University
of Utah and the Rockefeller Foundation got together and
they decided they wanted to stimulate regional studies in
the inter-mountain area, around the University of Utah. I
was selected to spearhead that. So my adventures at the
University of New Mexico were in training to establish and
operate what I came to call the Utah Humanities Research
Foundation.
JG: You established that?
HL: I established that.
JG: At the University of Utah?
HL: At the University of Utah. And for two years we gave
small grants to encourage research in Utah and regional
history and culture, including folklore. I taught the
first folklore there, of course. We developed an archive
of regional material. It was a rather elaborate archive.
LEE 3
When I left there in 1947 my office was taken over by
somebody else, and he lost, or destroyed, or removed, much
of the archive, but part of it survived, and the
University of Utah library has it now. But I started as
the first editor of what I called the Utah Humanities
Review, which later became the Western Humanities Review.
It is still one of America’s leading humanities review
journals. I’m rather proud of that, because I think we
gave it a good start.
JG: So you left there in 1947?
HL: In 1947. I was involved in the Utah Centennial television
series and other programs in 1947. Then I came to Chico
to teach a summer session at Chico State College.
JG: Who asked you out for that?
HL: The director of the summer session was a fellow named
Crawford, who was also head of the department of education
at the time. He had been to the University of Utah
recruiting for the Navy during the war. He recruited me.
So I knew him. The dean there said "Crawford wanted
somebody for summer session, would you like to go?" I
said, "Sure." So I went down and taught, among other
things, American folklore at Chico State College. And
folklore was a new and exciting field in those days, so I
had a big enrollment and the course went very well. The
president took a liking to me.
JG: Who was president at that time?
HL: Aymer Hamilton. An old dictator.
JG: I’ve heard that.
HL: Oh, yes, he was. So he offered me a professorship, and
the head of my department at Utah said, "I can’t match
that. I could go associate professor for you, but I can’t
go full professor." I went back and I said, "I think I’ll
go back to Utah anyway." And Aymer Hamilton was not
accustomed to have anybody say "No." Nobody had ever said
"No" to Aymer. They were developing— it was just after
the war when the college was growing— and they were
expanding a little, and so they said, "I think we can make
a position as dean." So I came aboard as dean of
instruction. That’s what we called it. In those days, as
you know, the state colleges were in the Department of
Education.
JG: Yes.
LEE 4
HL: And they were primarily teacher education institutions.
So whenever we offered a major it would be in the teaching
of English, the teaching of science, the teaching of
history. This was all right with me, because I had always
believed that teacher education was an important role for
collegiate institutions. So we got along very well. I
spent my first year or two at Chico, actually, binding up
the wounds of the faculty.
JG: What wounds were there to bind?
HL: Oh, Aymer would fire people without explanation if he
didn’t like them. He took a dislike to a couple of ladies
who taught reading, so he abolished the department to get
rid of them. He was getting old and quite ruthless, but
we got along very well. We had a fine team there. You
may have heard of Harlen Adams; he is still extant. I
don’t whether you know him or not.
JG: I don’t know him.
HL: He has retired long since. He was the so-called executive
dean. A good man for Chico State.
JG: I know Charles Adams, but not Harlen.
*HL: The others are either dead or gone elsewhere.
JG: So you began as dean of instruction?
HL: I began as dean of instruction in 1947. I always taught
one class. Or I did until the school got so big and
matters became so important, administrative matters, that
my secretary would have to come into a meeting and tap me
on the shoulder and say, "Time to go to class.” And I’d
have to say, ”What*s the lesson for today?” So I thought
that was no good. So I hired a folklorist and a very good
English teacher, so I didn’t have to do much in my other
fields.
JG: When did Chico begin to branch out into other majors than
teaching majors?
HL: About that time. All the state colleges were anxious to
grow and develop. The GIs were coming back, and they
wanted a variety of programs. We could see a great future
for the state college system if we could grow beyond the
teacher education scope. So there was constant
agitation. You might be interested in this. At that time
we had what we called a deans council, or a deans
conference, in which the deans of all the state colleges
met twice a year. We developed policy for the presidents.
LEE 5
This was under the state Department of Education,
remember. So the presidents were, by and large, old
school administrators. They kept things under strict
control, as an elementary school principal could. They
made the contacts with the Department of Education, under
whose aegis we were operating.
JG: The deans conference never directly met with the
Department of Education?
HL: No, not at that time. We met by ourselves. We developed
educational policy. General education programs, new
curricula, and that sort of thing. We would recommend
these policies to the presidents. Then the presidents
would have their meeting with the Department of Education
representatives, and those policies which they thought
proper they would advocate and promote. One of the
problems that we quickly encountered was the problem of
budgeting. Each president would go to the Department of
Finance and lobby for his own budget. As a result some of
the colleges were prosperous, and some of them were not.
JG: Which ones were the most prosperous?
HL: Well, I would say those with the most aggressive
presidents. Paul Leonard was an aggressive president for
San Francisco State. And I think San Francisco State did
very well in the budget process. Chico was not doing too
well, because Aymer’s policy was to get along with the
people in Sacramento. And he could handle matters at home
even if the budget was a bit stringent. But he liked to
get along with the Sacramento people.
JG: Was Roy Simpson superintendent?
HL: Roy Simpson was superintendent.
JG: Was Joel Burkman . . .
HL: Joel Burkman was in charge of finances. And our budgets
all had to go through Joel Burkman, and he had to approve
new programs and supplies and equipment, and things like
that. So each of us deans worked directly with Joel
Burkman.
JG: Oh, you did?
HL: Whenever we could. He was all right. He was reasonable.
He was kind of tight, we thought. So we developed
something, the deans conference did, that you ought to
know about, I think. We called it the Faculty Staffing
Formula. Have you heard of that?
LEE 6
JG: I certainly have. But go ahead and tell me about it.
HL: It happened that for about— and I’ve forgotten
exactly— but I think it’s about six years, or maybe seven,
I was chairman of the deans conference. That is, I was
chairman of the academic deans. And an attempt or two had
been made prior to my coming on to develop some kind of a
formula that would make more equitable the budgeting for
the various colleges, and it had always failed. So the
deans and I said, "Let’s make it work." So we developed a
rather elaborate and complicated formula. We had some
deans with some science and mathematics training, and they
knew about that sort of thing. I was chairman and
directed it along with James Enochs, who coordinated
things in the Division of State Colleges. We developed a
formula, and I had it written up here— I was looking for
it before you came, but apparently I discarded it. I’m
shedding the things from my office now. Roughly what it
was, was this. The staffing budget was to be based on the
actual courseload need as postulated by a formula which
recognized the different kinds of instruction involved,
with a teaching factor for each, the size of the class.
Take for example, composition, freshman composition, or
any composition course in English. Twenty-five students
was stipulated as the average for a class size, and thirty
students were the breaking point; you were entitled to the
teacher-load credit for the number of units the course
carried. So the total composition teaching load was
figured at an average of twenty-five students per section,
and for each you were entitled to three units of teaching
time— that is, if it were a three-unit course. In science
labs there was another factor to be computed. Supervising
a three-hour science lab equalled, as I remember it, one
unit of teaching time. The Department of Finance demanded
that this be worked out in terms of a theoretical work
week. State employees had a work week of forty hours. So
my job was to figure out how to make a professor’s work
week look like forty hours.
JG: Were you able to do that?
HL: Yes. By adding up all the teaching units, which I’ve
started to tell you about, supervision of student
teaching, for example. Five students to supervise, I
think, equalled one set of teaching units. So all of this
was worked in. And each college worked out its own
staffing formula based on its actual academic needs. Then
we took those budgets to the state Department of Finance.
We had some meetings with them, and explained the formula
to them. And they said, "This sounds good." So they
adopted it. Now, it was so complicated that the
legislature never did understand it. So they passed it
LEG 7
without question. Each section of the staffing formula
was worked out first by the various deans; each dean took
on the part that he was most interested in or competent
in. We had some very able deans in those days, as I’m
sure they also have today. I’d say they made a very
strong committee— Don Watson of San Diego, Chester
McCorkle of Cal Poly, Mitchell Briggs of Fresno, Rex Bell
of San Francisco, Stephen Walker of Sacramento, Homer
Balabanis of Humboldt.
JG: Was Alan Post [Legislative Analyst] up there then?
HL: Alan Post was there. He was reasonable.
JG: He would understand it.
HL: He was all right. He was on our side. And for nearly
twenty years that faculty staffing formula worked. And
some of the undernourished colleges received staff that
they needed to do the job. It was all based on the job
that needed to be done. Now to get this up to forty hours
a week I think the number of teaching unit equivalents
added up to about thirty or so hours. The full teaching
load was theoretically four three-unit sections of twelve
teaching units. But then there was preparation time to be
added to that, you see. And paper grading time to be
added to that. And then I put in a factor— I mean we— put
in a factor for committee work and for advising. So
theoretically each professor had an advising duty, and
committee work time allowed. So we got it up to forty
hours, all right. We had this rationale all worked out.
I’m sorry I don’t have a copy.
JG: Do you know what year that was?
HL: It was about 1957, or 1958. Just before the transition.
JG: Right before the transition.
HL: Yes. And it was working very well, except that someone in
the Sacramento office had to oversee it. I was brought
down on loan from Chico to work up the rationale and to
work out the details under the direction of Jim Enochs,
who supervised the implementation of it. If you get a
chance to talk to him . . .
JG: I have talked to him.
HL: You have talked to him. He was about third in line, I
think, on the academic side. There was a fellow named
Douglass— I’ve forgotten his first name, under Roy Simpson.
LEE 8
JG: Was that Aubrey Douglass?
HL: Aubrey Douglass. Then, I think, co-equal with Jim Enochs
was a fellow named Semans.
JG: Hubert Semans.
HL: Hubert Semans, and Jim, and then I worked under Jim to
work out this formula for him.
JG: On lo
Dorothy M. Knoell oral history interview, "State Colleges and the Department of Education", Origins of the California State University System, 1987
No full textKnoell was staff in the Division of State Colleges and Teacher Education.Transcripts and cassette tapes of oral history interviews with various individuals involved in the formation of the California State University system.Origins of
The California State
University
Dorothy Knoell
Interviewed
by
Judsort A. Grenier
An Oral History Project
of the
Archives
UUU Archives
CSU, Dominguez Hills
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
Oral History Pilot Project on the Origins of the CSU System
DOROTHY M. KNOELL
STATE COLLEGES AND
THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Interview Conducted by
Judson A. Grenier
in 1987
Processed by CSU, Fullerton Oral History Program
August 1988
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)1988 by the Board of Trustees
of The California State University
PREFACE
The purpose of this oral history pilot project is to
record and make available to researchers using the California
State University Archives the reminiscences of individuals who
participated in the creation of the California State Colleges
from 1959 to 1965.
The 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 which stressed systemwide planning in the allocation of
resources and programs, the California State Colleges sought to
offer Californians quality higher education at reasonable
cost. The key to the success of the California State
University was the decision to adapt a plan, incorporated into
the Donahoe Higher Education Act of 1960, dividing higher
education into three distinctly separate segments. Under the
act, the California 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 California Community Colleges were to focus on
vocational training and college preparation.
The California State University, starting from a base of
fifteen campuses and 95,000 students in 1961, has grown to
where it now provides a wide variety of innovative programs to
more than 320,000 students on nineteen campuses. The system is
the largest as well as one of the strongest institutions of
higher education in the United States.
In September 1979, the Board of Trustees created the
California State Colleges and Universities Historical Archives,
to be housed on the Dominguez Hills campus. Since its
establishment, the Archives, as a systemwide project, has been
jointly supported by the Chancellor’s Office and CSU Dominguez
Hills, through the funding of a professional archivist.
The Archives currently houses a collection of materials
received from a variety of sources. These include the
Chancellor’s Office, the CSU Academic* Senate, and private
individuals who had previous dealings with the CSU, such as
former Chancellor Glenn Dumke, former Trustee Paul Spencer, and
others. 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
collect individual recollections and oral histories of the
early System and pre-System years.
m
Short-term goals of this oral history project are to make
available the recollections and reminiscences of former members
of the Board of Trustees, the State College-University of
California Liaison Committee, and the Master Plan Survey Team,
as well as other individuals who participated in the formation
of the California State Colleges from 1959 to 1965.
For the long run, the project has three purposes. First,
it will help to increase interest in the history and
accomplishments of the California State University. Next, it
will, hopefully, be a tool to aid in the acquisition of
additional materials concerning the System now in private
hands. Finally, it will serve as a model and learning device
to develop a more comprehensive oral history program. If the
pilot project is successful, as many interviews as possible
will be conducted under the expanded program with the System’s
retired trustees, former vice-chancellors and college
presidents, current senior management, state legislators, and
others who have been influential in the growth and development
of the state university.
Funding for the project is provided by the Office of Vice
Chancellor, Administration, Dr. Herbert L. Carter. We thank
the interviewee for generously giving of his time. We also
acknowledge the work of the Oral History Program at CSU
Fullerton for the use of its facilities in processing this
interview. Transcribing was performed by Shirley de Graaf,
final preparation, proofreading and index by Teryne Bell.
Lawrence B. de Graaf, Jacquelyn K. Sundstrand,
Judson A. Grenier, CSU Archivist
Project Co-Directors
MEMBERS, CSU ARCHIVES ADVISORY BOARD
Betty Blackman
John Brownell
Mayer Chapman
Robert W. Cherny
Lawrence B. de Graaf
Glenn S. Dumke
Donald R. Gerth
Judson Grenier
Arthur Hall
Claudia H. Hampton
James Harris
Louis H. Heilbron
Donald B. Leiffer
Gloria Lothrop
Theodore Meriam
Carol J. Numrich
Morris Polan
W. Ann Reynolds
Phillip V. Sanchez
John Smart
Jacquelyn K. Sundstrand
IV
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PILOT PROJECT ON THE
ORIGINS OF THE CSU SYSTEM
This oral interview of Dorothy M. Knoell (DK) took place on June
10, 1987 at her office at the California Postsecondary Education
Commission [CPEC] in Sacramento as part of the on-going pilot
project on the origins of the California State University. The
interviewer is Judson A. Grenier (JG), professor of history,
California State University, Dominguez Hills. Miss Knoell was a
staff member of the Division of State Colleges and Teacher
Education of the state Department of Education, which supervised
the state colleges prior to assumption of responsibility by the
new state Board of Trustees in 1961. Her topic is the
administration of the state colleges before and during the
adoption of the Master Plan.
JG: I wonder if you could give me a little bit of your own
background. We like to do this in all of our interviews in
a routine way. Where were you born and reared?
DK: New York.
JG: New York.
DK: Yes, on Long Island.
JG: Oh.
DK: It was said that New York did not have good public higher
education at that time. New York City did, but we were not
allowed to partake of New York City’s offerings. So I went
out of state then to go to college to Douglass College— the
women’s college of Rutgers in New Jersey— and then wandered
to the University of Connecticut for a master’s degree.
JG: What was your master’s in?
DK: Well, it was in foreign languages and teaching of foreign
languages at Connecticut. I’d had French and German as an
undergraduate and then picked up Spanish.
JG: Do you still speak French?
DK: Not well. I’ve been to France a few summers recently, and
I can communicate pretty well and I can read, but there’s
just not the opportunity to speak French here. But we had
very, very excellent foreign languages instruction at
Douglass College; we had foreign language houses, and I
KNOELL 2
worked in the departments. I was very much immersed in it,
but it was not a very good field to be in to earn a living.
JG: Did you teach in that field?
DK: Well, you see, I was in secondary schools and I just hated
it. I was out after a few experiences in some of the best
schools. I decided that was not for me. I sort of had to
wait for higher education to become a field of study. I
went straight through to the doctorate at the University of
Chicago without really stopping along the way, basically,
from the baccalaureate on through.
JG: You could do that?
DK: Yes. And without going into debt, which is a fabulous
thing, (laughter) I didn’t make any money, but at least I
didn’t wind up owing when I got through.
JG: Right.
DK: Then followed some postdoctoral research at the University
of Wisconsin for a couple of years at Madison.
JG: Oh, really?
DK: Yes, but as I say, it was a long time before higher
education became a field. It was teacher education at that
point, and there wasn’t any real field of higher education
until some years later, although I decided that what I
really wanted to do was get into research in higher
education. I was in measurement, evaluation, research,
curriculum, and so forth at Chicago.
JG: After you left Wisconsin, where did you go?
DK: Well, I wound up as a research psychologist for the Air
Force for four years. (laughter) Very, very exciting, it
was marvelous. We had some of the best young research
social psychologists in the country as part of our unit,
and research sociologists as well. That was again
post-doctoral training in a way to be able to work with
that group. And you know, the Air Force goals were not
exactly mine. That’s when I got back into education, and
went from Texas to the University of Pittsburgh for a year
where I was working in the Schools of the Health
Professions again, curriculum evaluation, and so forth,
very fascinating. It was the first time that they tried to
integrate the various schools of the health professions
instead of having medicine over here and dentistry over
here and something else over there. But I hated Pittsburgh,
KNOELL 3
Pennsylvania, with a passion, and set out for California,
and wound up at the state colleges.
JG: What drew you out here?
DK: Well, I was looking for a job in higher education and
through Chicago . . . Ralph Tyler remembered that Jim
Enochs was out here in state colleges in the state
Department of Education, and so that was the connection.
He picked me up;
JG: Was Jim Enochs from the University of Chicago?
DK: Yes. I didn’t know him; he was earlier than I was by a
good deal.
JG: So what year did you start working for the state Department
of Education?
DK: I came in the summer of 1955, I believe.
JG: Just about the time of the Restudy?
DK: No, wait a minute, it must have been about 1956.
JG: Oh, right after.
DK: That’s right, in the summer of 1956.
JG: That was an exciting time to come on board.
DK: Oh yes, oh yes. And see, Hubert Semans was on the staff of
the department, at that point— probably one of the most
dominant people on the staff. As I understand it, he
thought after the Restudy that I would be coming out to be
staff to him, and it didn’t turn out that way. I don’t
think that our personalities meshed terribly well. I had a
lot of respect for him, but as I say, it was not . . .
JG: I’ve been reading, through some of your responsibilities,
and I’m overwhelmed by the various areas you were in.
DK: We did everything; we were a very, very, very small staff.
JG: Your title was Consultant in State College Curricula.
DK: Yes, well, that was a civil service title.
JG: But so far as I can see, you were into almost everthing
from instructional television to nursing to a . . .
DK: admissions.
KNOELL 4
JG: Computers, admissions, transfer policy,
DK: Oh, absolutely.
JG: Quite incredible. * - ?
DK: Well, we had a very, very small staff. And the other thing
that was incredible was that I had the opportunity to work
from initiating things at the lowest level on up the
ladder. I would work with the advisory committees from the
colleges on up through the presidents. I would take items
to the Presidents* Council [Meeting of the State College
Presidents and Division Staff] and to the state Board of
Education, so I would see the development of policies and
programs every step of the way.
JG: You were part of the Division of State Colleges and Teacher
Education?
DK: Yes.
JG: From the beginning, from the first time you came out?
DK: Yes.
JG: I just read over a few of your reports; let me remind you
of a few of them. One was "The Need for Instructional
Television in the State Colleges.” Another was "Analysis
of the Needs for Electronic Computers."
DK: Those were two in the same year, if you can believe it.
JG: Both in 1958.
DK: That was quite a story; that was a fluke. Those were
leading primarily to budget decisions, trying to get money
into the budgets for large numbers of the colleges, both to
get the instructional television equipment they wanted, and
the computer equipment. We had sort of lost, year after
year after year on this one.
JG: I see.
DK: And I was very angry. Again, I had a chance, I think, to
meet with the Director of Finance and with his staff to
plead our case. I don*t know what I said but I was so
disgusted after being turned down one more time on the
budget items that the top brass said, "Okay, you’re going
to have a chance to meet with the Director of Finance on
your own, and defend these things."
JG: And did you?
KNOELL 5
DK: Yes, and it’s a crazy story, because Roy Simpson went with
us, and [J. Burton] Vasche, who was head ' of the state
colleges. I remember going down to the basement of the
garage with Simpson’s limousine and trying to figure out
where I was supposed to sit, you know, with the driver or
with these people going to meet with the Director of
Finance. The Director of Finance had his own agenda, but
really, looking back, it was a fairly historic occasion.
Because the University of California with Glenn Seaborg had
come in with a very huge proposal to take over the whole
instructional television area in a way that only the
University of California can do, and the Director of
Finance saw our relatively modest request as an opportunity
to, in a sense, stop the University, because he wasn’t
convinced that their heart was in it in terms of the
University’s using this tool. So not only that, but after
our conference he said, "I want you back on Tuesday morning
when Glenn Seaborg and the University people are coming in
to present their budget for television, and I want you
state college people to be there.” Of course the
University was outraged, but we got our money in the end.
JG: Good. Then I noticed too . . . you remember, they passed
the National Defense Education Act after Sputnik stirred
everybody up.
DK: Oh yes, sure.
JG: And you were the state Department of Education’s
representative at a regional meeting and were elected
secretary of that group.
DK: I don’t remember what the name of that was.
JG: It was a meeting on implementation of the National Defense
Education Act.
DK: I just remember my involvement in student financial aid,
because that was the first time that the state colleges
would have federal student aid.
JG: Student loans.
DK: With the federal loans I had a terrible time, because the
state college presidents didn’t want to have anything to do
with it. They felt that we didn’t need student financial
aid for the state colleges. I had to talk them into it.
JG: Really?
DK: Into participating in the federal aid program. And the
legislature didn’t trust them, so the legislature offered
KNOELL 6
to put up the matching money that we needed, instead of
having to get it from private sources.
JG: That’s very interesting. Did the presidents oppose it
because it might mean federal control?
DK: No, no, they just felt there was no great need for
financial aid— colleges were virtually free, people
commuted— why would they need financial aid?
JG: At any rate, I noticed that then you did a report on the
status of student loan legislation as it worked its way
through the legislature.
DK: Yes. You see, the other problem we had was that the
presidents turned it over to the business officers to
administer the student loan program, and that was not a
very happy kind of a situation, either. They were making
other kinds of loans to students while they got their
federal money, and it was a tough time.
JG: During that same period of time, you were a member of a
committee on research in the state colleges chaired by
Albert Graves.
DK: Yes.
JG: This was the committee that developed guidelines for
implementing. . .
DK: . . . faculty research.
JG: The Board of Education adopted a policy permitting
research, in essence; do you remember all that?
DK: Yes, yes.
JG: You came up with a statement called "Guidelines for the
Conduct and Administration of Research.”
DK: Yes, yes.
JG: And you recommended that four types of research be
permitted in state colleges: "community service,"
"institutional," "graduate programs," and "individual
faculty"?
DK: Yes.
JG: That’s broader than we have now.
KNOELL 7
DK: I know. You see, I was trying hard, (laughter) But, as I
say, it was never funded in a way that made it possible,
and the presidents were not unanimous on this either. I
remember most vividly the mam from Chico saying his faculty
would rather go home and tend to their roses than to do
research— it was not something that they wanted. That was
one of the problems, I think, in working with the
presidents. It was almost impossible to get them united on
anything that they wanted. Everyone wanted something
different. And we’d keep saying that if only you’d get
together and say that this has a number one, number two,
number three priority, we’d stand a much better chance of
getting some improvements related to budgeting.
JG: Well, that was a real breakthrough; we’ve been trying to
get ’’community service” ever since. (laughter) And then
you got involved in the nursing curriculum, and we’ve been
involved in that ever since.
DK: Oh dear, nursing and social work, I could never figure out
which one I disliked more.
JG: Then, also in that same period of time, you were working
with the deans and test officers to obtain data on
admissions requirements and success rate of our people.
DK: Oh yes.
JG: And [A.] Alan Post was asking nasty questions (laughter),
and you wrote an answer to his questions that was so
brilliant that the presidents voted formally to
congratulate you on it.
DK: Oh gosh, I have no recollection of that.
JG: There are a couple of other committees, too, that I thought
I’d show you. One of them is a study of junior college
transfer problems . . .
DK: Oh really, I don’t even remember doing that . . .
JG: . . . chaired by a man named Donald Watson.
DK: Yes.
JG: The other one was a Committee on Changes in the
Administrative Code . . .
DK: Ah, that was a dull one, I’m sure.
JG: . . . chaired by Mr. Hector Lee.
KNOELL 8
DK: Oh yes, he’s a dear guy. Is he still alive, do you know?
JG: I don’t know that.
DK: He was very instrumental in the work, in that he was
working with us on leave from— was he at Sonoma then or
Chico?— and did a great deal of work, although he was not a
regular member of the staff. He worked with us on many,
many things. There wasn’t much I didn’t do.
JG: Yes, it’s really quite incredible. At any rate, could I
ask you about your co-workers?
DK: Oh, sure.
JG: I don’t know much about them.
DK: As long as you don’t quote me by name.
JG: No, of course not. First of all, of course, Roy
Simpson— did you work with him?
DK: Well, I noticed in going over the questions you sent me . .
. they made some assumptions that were not too valid in
that Roy Simpson was pretty remote from the state colleges.
Now he may have worked quietly behind the scenes in
different ways. But I don’t really ever— and I was at
almost all the presidents’ meetings— recall his meeting
with the presidents’ group. Of course, he would have been
at the state board meetings as superintendent, but Vasche,
who was head of the division, met with the presidents. But
I knew Roy Simpson. We had a warm personal relationship,
including after he retired, because I was at all the board
meetings, and I had to carry an awful lot of the items,
partly because I got along with people, and didn’t irritate
them, and tended to get things to go the way we wanted them
to, so I had a better relationship with people like him
than might be called for in my level of job.
JG: So he didn’t actively participate in running the state
colleges?
DK: Not actively. I’m sure that behind the scenes he would sit
down with the presidents, because he had awful, awful
problems, as they still do— as with the president of Long
Beach and Humboldt, and so forth— but I can’t recall,
frankly, his sitting with what was called the Council of
Presidents.
JG: Now, Burton Vasche was the principal administrator. Is he
still alive?
KNOELL 9
DK: No. I don’t know how much you know about his story. He
was a very fine, honorable man, but ineffective as the head
of that division. And finally, I’d say, and I think it’s
pretty much true that Stanislaus, which was his home
territory— his family and his wife’s family were very
strong down in that area— was really created as a place for
him to go.
JG: I see.
DK: He did leave the division before the end. He died of a
brain tumor about two years after he moved down there to be
president.
JG: Was his background in higher education, and did he have a
doctorate in that field?
DK: I suppose, but he was a— I don’t like to use the word
’’nonentity"
