7 research outputs found
Ralph Prator oral history interview, "A New College in a New System", Origins of The California State University System, 1988
No full textPrator was a former president of San Fernando State College, now California State University, Northridge.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
Ralph Prator
Interviewed
by
Judson A. Grenier
An Oral History Project
of the
Archives
IIUU Archives
CSU, Dominguez Hills
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
Oral History Pilot Project on the Origins of the CSU System
RALPH PRATOR
A NEW COLLEGE IN
A NEW SYSTEM
Interview Conducted by
Judson A. Grenier
in 1987
Processed by CSU, Fullerton Oral History Program
October 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 sus 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 them 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 and proofreading were performed by
Shirley de Graaf, final preparation and index by Lynn Finger.
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
RALPH PRATOR
1958
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT ON THE
ORIGINS OF THE CSU SYSTEM
The following interview of Dr. Ralph Prator (RP), former
president of San Fernando State College, which became
California State University Northridge, took place at his home
in Camarillo, California, on January 22, 1988, as part of the
ongoing CSU Oral History Project. The interviewer is Judson A.
Grenier (JG).
JG: I would like to start with a little biographical
information. Could you tell me where you were born and
reared?
RP: I was born in a place called La Veta, Colorado. And I
just celebrated my eightieth birthday; I was born on the
sixteenth of November 1907.
JG: How do you spell the name of the town you were born in?
RP: L—a V-e—t—a. La Veta, Colorado. It’s a very small place
down in the south central part of the state of Colorado,
near what are called the Spanish Peaks. It’s in the
mountains of Colorado.
JG: How long did you stay in that town?
RP: Well, I stayed there through the third or the fourth
grade. And then we went into the area near Denver. We
lived in several places, but the longest time was in a
town called Brighton, Colorado, which is about nineteen
miles north of Denver. I graduated from high school there
in 1925, and went then to the University of Colorado,
where I got my baccalaureate degree in history in 1929.
JG: History, a good field.
RP: I stayed on then for my master’s degree. But I had an
interim. I played professional baseball for part of one
season until I had an injury to my back. That sort of
ended my professional baseball career. I was stationed at
St. Joseph, Missouri. I was assigned to the St. Louis
Cardinals, and put into one of their farm teams. So I
came back to the University of Colorado then and finished
my master’s degree in 1931, also in history, with a minor
in economics.
JG: So that was right after the onset of the Great Depression,
wasn’t it?
PRATOR 2
RP: Yes, it was. Actually, I had a number of short-lived
careers in this process. In 1929, when I graduated from
the University, I went as high school principal and
athletic coach to a place called Flagler, Colorado, which
is out in the eastern part of the state. In the interim I
had signed a contract to play professional baseball. So I
went then the summer of 1930 to St. Joseph, Missouri, and
the season ended after school had started in September.
So then I went back to the university since jobs were no
longer available. This, as I indicated, turned out to be
an interesting interval. When I finished my master’s
degree at the university I went then to a place called
McAlister, New Mexico, where I was also high school
principal and athletic coach, and taught a full schedule
of classes at this high school. I was there for two years
and then went to a place called Huerfano County High
School, which was in Walsenburg, Colorado. There I was
the athletic coach and taught the social sciences, history
primarily. I was there only one year, and then I went to
a place called Del Norte, Colorado and did pretty much the
same sort of thing. In the meantine my athletic teams
were pretty successful, so I was then recruited by
Clifford Houston, who was the president of a small college
in western Colorado, called Mesa College, as athletic
director and dean of men. Also I taught a full load of
classes. It was a small school. I was there for three
years. And in 1939 Lois, my wife, and I decided that I
had better get going with my education. I went to the
University of California at Berkeley.
JG: What made you choose Berkeley?
RP: Well, that’s kind of interesting. One of the students in
the class that I had in comparative education at Mesa
College did a study on the relative respectability of the
graduate schools in the United States. And at that time
Harvard and Berkeley were pretty much matched as to
excellence of record and reputation in graduate studies.
Well, Berkeley was a lot closer than Harvard, and a lot
less expensive. So I chose to go to Berkeley. That’s the
answer to that.
JG: And what was your field of study there?
RP: Educational administration. I finished my Ed.D. degree in
1947. But the reason for the interval: I was, of course,
caught in the war. I should back up a bit, too. While I
was at Berkeley doing my residence requirement, there were
several jobs that opened up. One of them in El Centro as
president of El Centro College, which was a junior
college. And I was intrigued by the possibility— I was
recommended, incidentally, by the University of California
PRATOR 3
placement service for that responsibility. I went down to
visit with them. While I was there I got a call from the
University of Colorado suggesting that I come back and be
a member of their administrative staff. So we decided
that probably— there was a bit of nostalgia in this, I
assume— that we go back to the University. We were very
fond of the place. My wife had graduated from there, as I
had. So I went there as director of alumni relations and
admissions counselor. Within a year I was made director
of admissions and records, in addition to the other
responsibilities I had. The war broke out, so in 1942 I
became a member of the United States Navy, and served then
at Quonset Point, Rhode Island, in an area that was titled
civilian personnel relations, but was really industrial
relations. I was there, then, during the whole time of
the war. This was a new field to me. I imposed upon the
people at Rhode Island State College to brief me on what
an industrial relations specialist had to do, and had to
pick up this kind of specialty. When I left active duty
then in 1946, 1947 . . .
JG: You stayed in the service for a year or so after the war
ended?
RP: Yes. I was there about a year to clean up things. It was
an involved process, because we had reduction of staff,
and a lot of other complicated factors. The navy was
anxious to keep those of us who had at that time acquired
some expertise in this area to stay on until we got this
facet of it over. Then I went back to the University of
Colorado and was made director of summer sessions and
associate professor of education in addition to my
admissions and records, and also was acting director of
the placement bureau. This was the way things had to be
at the end of the war. Things were pretty complicated.
JG: So you went back to Colorado in 1946 or 1947?
RP: Yes. And was there until I came to Bakersfield in 1950.
Again, the University of California placement service had
recommended several places that were open at that time.
This was kind of a bonanza time for all of us in
education. There were a lot of openings.
JG: Because of the GI Bill?
RP: Well, that was partially it. Enrollments were booming,
and, as I say, there were a lot of openings. We chose
Bakersfield, partially because several of our children had
been sick with asthmatic and respiratory problems in
Colorado. I said, ”1 have to come to some place where it
is warm and dry.” And he said, "How about Bakersfield?”
PRATOR 4
This was a grand opportunity for me, because Bakersfield
at that time was one of the premier community colleges in
California. It had a long, illustrious history. My
predecessor there was Grace Bird, who had started the
college, really, and had stayed there the whole time from
its inception about 1913. So I stayed there, then. One
of the other attractions about Bakersfield— they had
raised a very large amount of money and were going to
build a completely different campus, starting right from
scratch. The challenge of this was very interesting. And
I was delighted with the opportunity. As a matter of fact
at one time we had something like fourteen buildings
coming out of the ground at one time at Bakersfield. It
was delightful. When I went there we started the process
of selecting the site, and doing the planning, and so on.
JG: So you were responsible, in part, for site selection?
RP: Yes. Well, the building of the staff, too. Our staff was
growing rapidly at that time. I assume this experience
was what moved Roy Simpson to call me on the telephone
about Christmastime of 1958. He said there was an opening
of a new branch of the state college system at Northridge,
and since I had had this experience of starting right from
scratch at Bakersfield in building a campus, and they were
going to do the same thing in the San Fernando Valley,
would I be interested? I met with the Board of Education
at that time, and it looked like a very challenging
opportunity. So we moved then to Northridge, and thus
started San Fernando Valley State College in 1958.
JG: When you were president of Bakersfield College did you
have contact with Roy Simpson?
RP: Oh, yes, frequently. At Bakersfield, too, I became
president of the California Junior College Association,
which is the state organization of the junior colleges. I
was very active then in community college circles. I was,
as a matter of fact, quite impressed with California
development in junior college education. It was a premier
state organization, of course, [in reputation] across the
country. And I had had this rather brief experience at
Mesa College, which was a community college in Colorado.
So this whole thing fit into an interesting pattern.
Bakersfield was a delightful place to be, just a marvelous
experience there for all of us. Our whole family. I got
pretty steeped in community college education. It was a
good crash course for me.
JG: Do you remember Forrest Murdock of El Camino?
RP: Oh, very well.
PRATOR 5
JG: He hired me there in 1956.
RP: Did he really? Well, here is kind of an interesting
sidelight in that category. When we were planning the
selection of the site, and how much land we should have at
Bakersfield College, El Camino was a new one at that time
just getting underway. Well, there was another one that
was close by, the name escapes me— but what I urged our
Board of Trustees to do was to join me, and we went on a
little tour of these places that were just starting in
southern California, the new junior colleges. I had
warned them that one of the things that we needed to know
was how important it was to get an adequate land base.
Because many of the junior colleges were saddled on
fifteen or twenty acres of land, and I was pretty sure
this was not going to be comfortable for the kind of
growth it looked like we were going to have at
Bakersfield. So I called these people ahead of time and I
said, "Please emphasize what you think is an adequate land
base, because this will be important to our Board of
Trustees." We visited about five or six institutions in
southern California. When we got to Forrest
first— Forrest Murdock— he said, "Now gentlemen, one of
the things you want to do is get plenty of land, because
once you’ve gotten started, it gets closed in and it’s
hard to come by. We found this out at El Camino." Then
we got down to Mr. Casey, who was at Harbor College at the
time. They had something like 210 acres of land at
Harbor, and he said, "Now, Gentlemen, one of the things
you must do is get plenty of land." We got to one of the
other junior colleges which was a very large one because
it had an agricultural unit, and he emphasized the same
thing. At this particular point, of course, our Board of
Trustees turned to me and said, "You haven’t been briefing
these fellows?"
JG: That’s what I would have thought, too.
RP: But they got an adequate land base. And we were very
impressed with all the possibilities. So we built, then,
what at that time was considered kind of an ideal set-up
at Bakersfield. It all came at once.
JG: Tell me how you got to know Walter Stiern.
RP: Well, he was a veterinarian in Bakersfield. Since I was
involved in civic affairs, particularly as president of
the Rotary Club, I was active. Of course you have to come
up through the chairs. But Walter was one of my
colleagues in committee work, in a number of the
organizations there: the Kern County Heart Association,
the Rotary Club, as I mentioned, and the Kern County
PRATOR 6
Cancer Society. All of these organizations . . . by
virtue of our burgeoning activity I was pretty much
involved in a lot of these civic affairs, and so was
Walter Stiern. That’s how I came to know him.
JG: Bakersfield was a fairly close-knit community?
RP: Very close-knit. As a matter of fact, Bakersfield is
unique in that there was a commonality about the place.
They were tremendously interested in a number of special
things. Probably Walter Stiern was a graduate of
Bakersfield College. That was common there, that a lot of
their civic leaders were also graduates of Bakersfield
College, and then they had gone on to other places, like
Berkeley and so on.
JG: Was Stiern interested in educational issues, educational
matters?
RP: Yes, very. And Stiern was a very able man. He was
objective, fair, well-liked, and very influential in the
Bakersfield area. And, of course, he was very influential
in the state legislature, too.
JG: Were there any things that he didn’t want Bakersfield
College to do?
RP: There wasn’t anything within the context of community
college education that he didn’t think Bakersfield ought
not to do. And, of course, I knew Dorothy Donahoe. The
act which started the Master Plan is credited to her. It
is called the Donahoe Act.
JG: How did you come to know her?
RP: Dorothy was a member of the administrative staff of the
school system there. My recollection is that she was the
registrar, I believe, of Bakersfield High School. Dorothy
had suffered an attack of polio, and was partially
crippled in one leg. She had a limp, as it were, but was
able to get around pretty well, and was very active in all
civic affairs. She was a marvelous community worker in
all of the women’s organizations. She was the sole
support, as I remember, of her mother. And her mother and
she were present at virtually everything of civic interest
in and around Bakersfield. So far as I know, too, she and
Walter Stiern were pretty much colleagues in a number of
these civic affairs at that time. Of course, Dorothy was
quite well liked, very popular, and as evidence of that
she was elected to the legislature.
PRATOR 7
JG: Her handicap didn’t keep her from being very active in
community affairs?
RP: No, she had prodigious energy. She used to remark to
those of us who were going into many of these civic
affairs, MI saw you this morning, I saw you at noon, I’m
seeing you this evening." And Dorothy was one of those
who was was present at practically every civic
organization meeting that I attended.
JG: Why was she popular?
RP: Two things, probably. One, when she accepted a
responsibility, she did it to the best of her ability.
She was willing, of course, to accept and take on
responsibility. Secondly, she was easy to work with, very
easy to work with. She was not an offensive pusher; she
was very tactful, and quite successful. Of course, my
recollection is that she was most interested in, and
successful at this Master Plan for Higher Education in
California. She undertook the responsibility of the
legislature’s involvement in it, and just gave
unstintingly of her time, her energy, and her knowledge,
all of which were considerable. She knew a lot about
community college education. I don’t know that she had
graduated from one of the four-year institutions. My
recollection is that she had gone to Bakersfield College.
But education had a top priority with Dorothy.
JG: Did you ever discuss educational issues with her when you
were president of
Methodological aspects of the SAVE data set
Get PDFThis paper describes the general design of the SAVE survey: the design of the questionnaire, inter-viewer and interviewee motivation, and the sampling designs of the various subsamples collected in 2001 and 2003. It discusses the representativeness of the data, explains the construction of weights, and provides probit regressions to analyse potential selectivity problems. The paper finishes by discussing implications for the use of the SAVE data in various estimation procedures.
Oral history of Walter Newkirk
No full textWalter Newkirk owns Walter Newkirk Public Relations LLC. A graduate of Rutgers University in New Brunswick NJ, Mr. Newkirk was the first openly gay Arts Editor of The Rutgers Daily Targum, the daily newspaper on the New Brunswick campus from 1975-1976. As a college journalist he interviewed Pat Loud of the landmark PBS TV series An American Family, and the actor Divine for The Rutgers Targum.
Mr. Newkirk was the Project Director of the film lecture series The Changing Stereotypes of Women Black and Gays in The Cinema, sponsored by Rutgers University and The New Jersey Committee for The Humanities in 1977. Vito Russo's presentation The Celluloid Closet was part of this series, later to become a book and HBO film.
Walter Newkirk worked on publicity for the film Roseland with the Oscar winning director James Ivory and producer Ismael Merchant, prior to being a publicist for the Whole Theatre in Montclair, NJ, from 1978-1980 where Academy Award winning actress Olympia Dukakis was Artistic Director.
As Supervisor of Public Relations for the Newark Museum from 1980-1982, Mr. Newkirk coordinated a press conference with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama in relation to the Museum exhibit TIBET: A Lost World, and publicity projects with Lena Horne and Sheryl Lee Ralph to promote the Newark Black Film Festival.
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As Director of Public Relations for the John Harms Center for the Arts in Englewood NJ - now Bergen PAC - Mr. Newkirk coordinated national print and television coverage to promote a reunion of The Broadway Annies with Andrea McArdle, Sarah Jessica Parker, Shelley Bruce, Allison Smith and Alyson Kirk and also worked on special events with Arlene Dahl, Charles Osgood, Eartha Kitt and Meredith Vieria.
For Planned Television Arts in New York City, a division of Ruder Finn, Walter Newkirk was a Senior Account Director and coordinated publicity for many authors including Tom Clancy, Daniel Silva, Martha Stewart, Joan Rivers, Buddy Ebsen, and Amy Tan. He was also the Director of Gay and Media Relations and did publicity for Michelangelo Signorile's book Queer In America and provided satellite TV services for AmFAR in conjunction with World AIDS Day 1996 when Elizabeth Taylor addressed the United Nations.
As an author, Mr. Newkirk's books include memoraBEALEia A Private Scrapbook about Edie Beale of Grey Gardens (2008), Letters of Little Edie Beale (2009), and The Secret Life of Walter Newkirk (2014). The books are in the Harvard, Dartmouth and Rutgers University Libraries in additional to several other libraries nationwide. The books will be reissued in 2018 and 2019.
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Raymond A. Rydell oral history interview, Origins of the California State University, 1987
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. Rydell was an executive in academic affairs;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
Raymond A. Rydell
Interviewed
by
Lawrence B. de Graaf
An Oral History Project
CSÌ Archives
U UU Archives
CSU, Dominguez Hills
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
Oral History Pilot Project on the Origins of the CSU System
RAYMOND A. RYDELL
A VICE-CHANCELLOR VIEWS
THE CHANCELLOR’S OFFICE
Interviews Conducted by
Lawrence B. de Graaf
in 1987
Processed by CSU, Fullerton Oral History Program
September 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 and proofreading were performed by
Shirley de Graaf, final preparation and index by Lynn Finger.
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 PROJECT ON THE
ORIGINS OF THE CSU SYSTEM
This is an interview with Dr. Raymond Rydell (RR), former
vice-chancellor of academic affairs and executive
vice-chancellor for the California State College system. It is
being conducted by Lawrence B. de Graaf (LD). It is taking
place on August 20, 1987, at Dr. Rydell’s home in San Diego.
LD: Ray, we usually begin these interviews with a bit of a
background biography. When and where were you born?
RR: I was born in Los Angeles, August 13, 1914, so I had my
birthday just a week ago.
LD: And have you lived in California most of your life?
RR: Most of my life, right.
LD: Did you go through public schools in Los Angeles?
RR: Yes and no. I was born in the southwestern part of L.A.
and we lived there until I was, I think, eleven. And at
that time we moved out to Beverly Hills. So my schooling
went from the Los Angeles system up to the sixth grade, to
the Beverly Hills system until I graduated from Beverly
Hills High School. From there, in the winter of 1932, I
went to UCLA and graduated in five years. You remember,
or if you don’t, you’ve certainly read about the
Depression, which was then at its lowest ebb point. So
it took me a little extra time.
LD: This was five years to get your baccalaureate degree?
RR: That’s right, which I received in 1937.
LD: Was that in history?
RR: No, it was in political science. That undergraduate work
included almost a year at George Washington U. in
Washington D.C., where for a time I was a government
employee. Then I returned here and graduated at the end
of that academic year from UCLA. I was out of school
formally for a number of years and didn’t enter again, in
this case UCLA, until late in the war, after it was quite
clear that the armed services weren’t going to accept me
because of physical reasons, because I was a diabetic and
have been most of my life. I decided to go back to higher
RYDELL 2
education and to earn graduate degrees in history, rather
than political science. I’ve always been basically
interested in history, as was my father, though he was not
a professional historian. So I returned, and because of
my really overwhelming interest in the American West and
the Pacific area, I went into the same seminar that Glenn
Dumke had just left. We didn’t meet at that time.
LD: Oh, you didn’t meet?
RR: But we were both students of John Caughey, who is still
alive. I earned my master’s degree, and doctor’s degree
under him in 1947 and 1948, respectively. In the process
I was a teaching assistant at UCLA, both for John Caughey
and for Brainerd Dyer, and several others in undergraduate
United States History. I spent about one semester, most
of the semester after I left the University of
Arkansas— I’ll mention that in a minute— at the Baker
Library at Harvard University pursuing research for my
dissertation.
LD: What was that topic?
RR: The topic was the Cape Horn route to the Pacific area,
mainly in the nineteenth century. It was later published
as a book by the University of California Press, after I
revised it. The period just before I earned my doctorate
was one which included not only this work at Harvard
University, but also one semester— this was 1947 to
1948— at the University of Arkansas as an instructor.
This came about unsolicited through friends I knew there
who had been at UCLA. I wasn’t too keen about going to
Arkansas, which is a long way geographically and
culturally from Los Angeles, but I went mainly because I
needed some experience away from UCLA, teaching on my
own. I felt, and I think it worked out this way, that if
I had full-time teaching experience, however short or
long, outside the state, I would stand a better chance of
getting a position in a University or college here in
southern California. And that’s what I wanted. When I
returned and finished my graduate work it did work out
this way, and partly because I had this on my record I was
appointed as one of the first faculty members to the new
Los Angeles State College.
LD: Did you more or less found the history department there?
RR: I have to say negative on that, because the key figure in
recruiting and hiring at L.A. State in those years was a
historian, Chet Milham, who had been on the faculty at Los
Angeles City College, where Los Angeles State College was
located. He had a key responsibility, even though it
RYDELL 3
was not presidential, in all of the appointments in the
social science areas. Nevertheless, the president who
appointed me, P. Victor Peterson, stayed there that year
and then a year later left to establish Long Beach State
College. I had the opportunity, the way it worked out, to
build that history department and all of the social
science departments pretty much as I pleased. It was a
rare opportunity.
LD: The year you went to L.A. State, was that 1949?
RR: It was 1948.
LD: Was your assignment always strictly in history, or did you
have a multi-department assignment?
RR: My first assignment was history, and that was always the
discipline in which I held my rank, assistant professor in
this case. But as we were building for the coming
academic year, we had to find men and women in a number of
fields in all the social sciences, and I was directly
involved in this. In the case of L.A. State, this
involved not only conventional social studies, but also
the areas of philosophy, psychology, geography, and
anthropology. So this became the division of social
sciences, and I became its chairman almost at once and
remained its chairman, until I became the associate dean
of graduate studies when that position was created a
couple of years later. This becomes closely related to
several problems that the state colleges themselves, as a
whole, become involved in, accreditation, for one. In the
case of L.A., as with all the new state colleges, they
were not regionally accredited at first, except through
the state. Accreditation was limited to recommending for
teacher certificates, and to the degrees themselves, but
not for transfer purposes in the liberal arts. In 1949 we
prepared for an accreditation visit, which was to take
place later that year.
LD: This would be by the Western Association of Schools and
Colleges?
RR: That’s right. At that time it was called the Western
College Association. The visit was a disaster. We didn’t
get accredited, which is almost unthinkable for a new
public institution. Word on this spread quickly, which
made it worse. But the social sciences division in the
report came out very well. So well that it was almost
embarrassing, I might as well tell you, because most of
the report was so bad. The new president, Howard
McDonald, asked an administrator who had worked with him,
in the San Francisco school district, Albert Graves then
RYDELL 4
at Humboldt State, to come down to become the dean of
educational services and to take accreditation as one of
his high priority responsibilities and to get the college
accredited. One of the changes he made was simply to take
me out of the line and put me— I guess I was teaching two
classes— but put me into this position and give me full
authority and responsibility for preparation for the next
accreditation visit.
LD: This position being associate dean of graduate studies?
RR: Yes, which was a part of what I was doing. But the main
thing was to prepare for the coming accreditation visit
the next. year. That was quite an experience.
LD: As you reflect back on the failure to attain
accreditation, can you put your finger on any central
cause? For instance, was L.A. State too attuned to
teacher preparation and not sufficiently rich in liberal
arts disciplines?
RR: Yes, this is very true. But it’s also true that the
teacher-training program was harshly criticized. And the
qualitative matters of library, faculty, research,
academic standards generally, all of these things were
targets.
LD: Did the report allude in any way, or did you pick up
informally, that this was a common problem of other state
colleges?
RR: No, it wasn’t. At this time, I think the only other new
state colleges were Sacramento and Long Beach, and both of
them were accredited.
LD: And the older ones had not had any particular difficulty
with accreditation?
RR: No. Well, yes, they had had some and were regarded still
as teacher’s colleges. And some of them were regarded as
applied arts schools, like Cal Poly. Nevertheless, the
older ones, such as Cal Poly, were accredited. Well, it
took about a year to prepare, and we did so, and came up
with what the Western College Association called three
telephone books. It was about so thick (gestures), about
five inches, I guess. We really put everything in
there. The basic message was quality in everything.
This time we were ready, and made it.
LD: What year was that, do you recall?
RR: I think it was 1951.
RYDELL 5
LD: Now, during all this accreditation fight was L.A. still at
that old junior college campus in downtown L.A.?
RR: Yes, we were, which meant that throughout this period we
had no lower division. We were upper division and
graduate only.
LD: And your graduate program was largely education degrees,
wasn’t it?
RR: In numbers, yes, that is numbers of graduates. But in
degrees, I think we had, even at that time, about as many
liberal arts programs at a graduate level as in
education. But they were quite small; it was a start.
During this accreditation visit, for the first time, I had
some acquaintance with Glenn Dumke, because he was a
member of that visiting committee. He was also at that
time dean of the faculty at Occidental. And he was a
member of the commission on membership and standards of
the Western College Association. So he was a key member
of the committee.
LD: Was that your first real acquaintance with him?
RR: Yes, it was.
LD: Now, how long did you stay at L.A. State before going to
the San Fernando Valley campus?
RR: There was a good deal of public and political interest, in
establishing the new Los Angeles State College, whose name
Sacramento had changed to the Los Angeles State College of
Applied Arts and Sciences, on a campus in the San Fernando
Valley. It didn’t work out at first, for a variety of
reasons, and instead a site was chosen where the college
is located now. It appeared to most of us at the time,
and it still appears to me, that it was a poor choice. It
was the cheapest site that the state Department of
Education and the legislature could find, because it was
a piece of land which they were using as a dump, to hold
sections of the freeway dirt that they would dig up as
they developed the freeways. There it was, and it wasn’t
. needed for anything else, and didn’t involve spending
additional money. Of course, the geographical and
cultural location has worked out rather well over the long
haul. But the basis for the selection at that time, I
still believe, simply was that it was cheap.
LD: It’s a fascinating contrast to some of the sites the
University of California system has acquired.
RR: You’re certainly right. But when that decision was made,
the people in the San Fernando Valley who still wanted
RYDELL 6
either a campus of L.A. State, or better yet, their own
college, were very active. And by people I mean their
legislators as well. It wasn’t long before it was
decided, again in Sacramento, that there should be a San
Fernando Valley campus of this college. That was set up
and occupied, and the program first offered in 1955, which
is one year before the college was separated and became
San Fernando Valley State. I had an opportunity then, an
option really, either to stay at L.A. or to go out there,
and I chose to go out there. I think if I had it to do
over again I might not have. I think I might have stayed
at L.A. With all the problems, and the disadvantages, we
were a family which had gone through all these problems.
It was almost like a war, of which we were veterans.
(interruption)
LD: That’s very interesting. I had not exactly known that
these two campuses essentially grew up almost
simultaneously. Most of the brief book accounts you
receive give the impression of L.A. State being firmly
established and San Fernando Valley an offspring of it.
RR: As we began to consider what the campus and the program
would be like out there, the majority who became involved
in it were all convinced that this should be exactly what
L.A. State was not.
LD: In other words, it should not be an applied arts college?
RR: Exactly. It should be basically a liberal arts
institution, a full four-year program, with
teacher-training an important part, but we always refer to
it as teacher education. And we would try to build into
this institution the quality that we hadn’t been able to
do at L.A. because of the way it started.
LD: And what would some of these quality things be?
RR: A library. We spent a lot of money and a lot of time on a
library. From the outset we recognized the librarians as
members of the faculty, as well as the administrative
librarians as member of the administration. We did
everything we could to focus attention on the library.
And I think it worked out well, and paid good dividends,
and still is. We tried to build the teacher education
program in the way that it would have been built, in the
independent colleges and universities, with a heavy
emphasis on subject matter in the liberal arts and with
teacher-training, or teacher education really a subsidiary
of the basic purpose of the institution, which was to
educate generally in the liberal arts. So it was very
attractive to many of us, and we went over there in 1955.
RYDELL 7
And then in 1956 we became an independent institution, San
Fernando Valley State, with a president, Ralph Prator, who
was appointed in from Bakersfield College, where he had
been president.
LD: That was before Bakersfield had any affiliation? Or was
it an offshoot of Fresno State?
RR: That was the junior college.
LD: Oh, the junior college.
RR: He became our first president.
LD: And did he share these liberal arts ideas that you and the
other faculty had?
RR: Yes, he did. His experience and his interests, I think,
were more applied than that of some of us, but he had a
very broad interest, nonetheless, and was very helpful in
all kinds of ways. And as you know, he was a close friend
of Bill Langsdorf. The man that set the tone for the
institution in its early years, nonetheless, was not Ralph
Prator, but it was Del Oviat, who was one of those who
came from L.A. in education. He was a Canadian, with a
typical broad Canadian background in education, who was
really an inspiring leader.
LD: Was he the dean of education?
RR: No, he was the dean of the college at that time, a special
position. So he functioned, really, as president. And
many of us were quite disappointed when he didn’t make
that. But nevertheless, it was his institution for that
first year. The library is now named after him because he
is no longer with us. The same problem of accreditation
came up, the problem of achieving quality when you are
dealing with quantity and when you have to move quickly.
The accreditation L.A. had earned applied to both its
campuses, so that meant that the new institution, even
though it was now independent, was still accredited until
the next visit. And the next visit was, I believe, 1956,
the end of the five-year period, because we
Donald R. Gerth oral history interview, "Researching Higher Education in Transition", Origins of The California State University", 1987
No full textTranscripts 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
Donald R. Gerth
Interviewed
by
Judson 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
DONALD R. GERTH
RESEARCHING HIGHER EDUCATION
IN TRANSITION
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
DONALD R. GERTH
ca. 1976
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PILOT PROJECT ON THE
ORIGINS OF THE CSU SYSTEM
This interview of Donald R. Gerth (DG) was conducted in the
office of the president of California State University,
Sacramento on July 7, 1987. The interviewer is Judson Grenier
(JG) of the CSU Oral History Project.
JG: We begin all these interviews with a short personal
background. Could you remind me where you were born and
reared?
DG: Chicago, Illinois. I was bora in 1928, December of 1928,
and I grew up in Chicago, went through the Chicago public
schools. Did not graduate from high school until after I
graduated from college, because I left high school and
went to the University of Chicago as an early entrant. I
got my B.A. in June of 1947.
JG: I remember that under [Robert] Hutchins that was a fairly
common procedure, wasn’t it?
DG: It was possible, yes.
JG: And what was your major?
DG: At the undergraduate level, it was liberal arts.
JG: I see.
DG: We had no majors at Chicago. It was possible to get a
concentration; I didn’t even elect to do that. I took the
solid liberal arts program.
JG: What did your father do for a living?
DG: He was a civil engineer.
JG: And after you got your B.A., what then?
DG: Went on for the master’s; got a job on the staff of the
University of Chicago in student affairs, and also went on
for my master’s degree. Did that for two years, then went
to southeast Asia as field representative for World
University Service for the better part of a year. Came
back, finished up my master’s. Always on the staff, too.
Was loaned at one time as assistant to the president at
GERTH 2
Shimer college, which was at that point in time a small
college in western Illinois that had a relationship with
the University of Chicago. Finished my master’s, started
on the Ph.D. It was clear that the military was going to
get me; by this time the Korean War was underway. I was
in the Far East when the Korean War broke out. So, I
volunteered for the Air Force, and got a commission in the
psychological warfare . . .
JG: That’s interesting.
DG: . . . business or branch of the Air Force. And did that
for four and a half years. Then I came back and rejoined
the staff of Chicago, finished up the Ph.D. By this time
I was getting beyond the age of eighteen, which was all I
was when I graduated from college I taught at the
University of the Philippines while I was overseas in the
Air Force in southeast Asia. I worked all over southeast
Asia for the Air Force.
JG: My goodness. What was the topic of your dissertation?
DG: At the Ph.D. level, it was the governance of higher
education in California.
JG: How did you become interested in that topic?
DG: Because I was recruited to join the faculty at San
Francisco State by the then president of San Francisco
State. I decided to go in spite of all these dire
warnings from the department in Chicago that I shouldn’t
leave, I should take a Ford Foundation Fellowship, which
I’d gotten to go to India. That I shouldn’t leave,
because if I left, I wouldn’t finish. They recited the
statistics to me about the odds of ever finishing. And
they were grim, but I decided to come to California
anyway. So, out of all that, all the warnings, I decided
I would pick a very manageable topic that I knew I could
do on the scene in California, where I knew I wouldn’t be
trapped and have to go to Washington when I was young and
didn’t have any money and would have to go here and there
for material. I knew that if I wrote on the government of
higher education in California, the material would be here
in California. And it struck me as an interesting thing
to do. I was sort of fascinated with the topic.
JG: There had been little or nothing written on it?
DG: At that point in time, social scientists by and large had
not gotten involved in writing about higher education as a
public enterprise.
GERTH 3
JG: What year did you come out to San Francisco State?
DG: 1958.
JG: 1958. So you taught full-time while finishing up your
Ph.D.?
DG: No, actually, between the time I was first appointed— I
had worked in the admissions office in Chicago as a
graduate student— between the time I was interviewed, and
the time I actually got appointed in a technical sense, I
was asked if I’d be willing to take a different job than
straight teaching as director of admissions— in those days
they called it "Associate Dean of Students for Admissions
and Records"— for the princely sum of $8,112 a year. I
remember the figure; that was more money than I thought
there was in the whole world.
JG: Yes.
DG: And I thought about it a little bit and said yes. So I
was a member of the government department at San Francisco
State and taught, but my principle job, the thing that
paid me, was being associate dean.
JG: You came out in 1958 . . .
DG: I was 29.
JG: . . . and Glenn Dumke had already been named president by
that time.
DG: He was, yes, he was president when I was appointed, and my
dean was a fellow named Ferd Reddell. Ferd is still
around.
JG: Yes.
DG: Of course, Glenn is. They’re both retired.
JG: So, what were the sources that you used for the study of
the California state college part of higher education?
DG: A lot of interviews. I went back into the historic
material, I spent time here in Sacramento. It’s when I
first visited this campus on one of my trips up here. I
used the state archives, the state library, all kinds of
musty old records from the state Department of Education.
I did a lot of interviewing, because nobody had been
collecting the material. I used the Bancroft at Berkeley
. the Bancroft Library. There was a woman there named
Mae Dornan, who was then the librarian at Bancroft. I
GERTH 4
don’t think she was the head— the head was James Hart— but
she was the one who did a lot of the work, and worked
with graduate students. She was very helpful. What
else? . . . I used the records of the regents, I used the
records of the state Department of Education. In those
days, the chancellor’s office didn’t exist.
JG: Right. That was a pretty heady time in higher education
here in California.
DG: Oh yes. While I was doing the research . . . then the
Master Plan started.
JG: Right.
DG: So, one of the by-products of this was that I got
involved. My expertise, or my specialization in this
topic, caused people to draw on me for the Master Plan.
JG: That’s very interesting. Did you ever interview Roy
Simpson?
DG: Yes.
JG: Did you ever observe any of the meetings of groups such as
the Council of Presidents?
DG: No, those were private. I tried to, and I was told I
couldn’t. I attended the state Board of Education— I
think the first state Board of Education meeting I ever
attended may have been on this campus. It was either here
or Fresno. I think it was here.
JG: Was that in 1958 or 1959?
DG: 1958.
JG: What was Roy Simpson’s leadership style?
DG: Oh, he was very quiet. He would come to the meetings
rather well prepared, as I remember now. He was not
deeply involved in the substance of the issues about the
state colleges. He had his chief, an associate
superintendent named J. Burton Vasche, who became the
founding president of Stanislaus and died fairly soon
after that. And it was Vasche and a couple of his people
who were the people who were deeply involved in the
substance of the issues. The two people who were really
the most involved were Jim Enochs, spelled E-N-O-C-H-S,
he’s the retired vice-president at Sonoma now— lives up in
Oregon— and Dorothy Knoell, who is with the California
GERTH 5
Post-Secondary Education Commission [CPEC], here in
Sacramento.
JG: I did interview her.
DG: They were the two people who were most deeply involved in
the substance of the issues. Vasche sort of coordinated
the whole thing. As I recall, Vasche had four
professionals; he had Enochs, Knoell, a fellow named Don
Youngreen, who was his chief fiscal type; he was an
accountant. I don’t know what’s happened to Don, I’ve
lost track of him. And a guy named Art Browne, who ended
up doing a lot of the staff-work for the community
colleges on the Master Plan. That was the whole division
of higher education [Division of State Colleges and
Teacher Education]— that and some clerical staff— and a
few technicians: Clarence Lust, who’s on the chancellor’s
staff now, Boyd Horne, who has just been named an
assistant vice-chancellor was just a young kid then we
all were— Clarence was the fellow who did all the
enrollment projections, did all the technical stuff.
JG: I see.
DG: It was a very small staff. So, Vasche was a very busy
guy. But the real substance at that point in time would
have been carried by the other two. Simpson was the man
who sat at the table. My impression always was that he
was fairly well briefed— my impression was that he was
supportive of his presidents, and I think he regarded them
just that way. When the presidents met— they didn’t meet
with Roy Simpson with any regularity— my understanding is
that they met with Vasche.
JG: Did the division of higher education exercise any real
authority over the colleges, or were they virtually . . .
DG: My impression at the time was that, yes. On curricular
affairs, yes. All of our appointments went through there;
my appointment went through there. Our appointments in
those days all went to the state board; both the original
appointments of faculty and tenure decisions went to the
state board. Now I’m not sure maybe the presidents made
the original appointments and simply reported them. I
know tenure went to the state board, and I know that
appointments of administrators went to the state board.
JG: How would the state board have time to concern itself with
all those . . .
DG: I don’t know that they did. I think they got a list and
they approved them on a motion.
GERTH 6
JG: Was it your impression that the state board devoted much
time to higher education as opposed to other levels?
DG: No, no, no. The real governing board, in my judgment, for
the California state colleges at that point in time was to
be found in the monthly meeting of the presidents. I am
told that was commonly understood. I’m doing all this
from memory; some of the detail on this is in my
dissertation and in my book [An Invisible Giant], But I
am told that the business managers met with some
frequency. In those days, you had common titles for
administrators on all campuses, and a common
administrative pattern for all campuses. There were nine
campuses, and all but two, Humboldt and Chico, had the
same administrative pattern. Humboldt and Chico were
smaller; they had a modified one. The business managers
would meet with some frequency, and periodically would
meet with the presidents. I am told that there was a
great deal of muscle in the business managers’ group.
There were other groups that met with some frequency: the
deans of students did, the deans of instruction did, the
executive deans— in those days they were building
types— did. The muscle, I think, was in the presidents
and in the business managers.
JG: Who were the strong presidents in the system when you did
your study?
DG: Oh my goodness . . . Guy West to a certain extent— he was
the president here at that time. Malcolm Love, without
question, at San Diego. Going up and down the state,
Julian McPhee was certainly very strong.
JG: Yes.
DG: Glenn Kendall was strong, although he used restraint—
Glenn would use restraint in the exercise of power— and I
watched that over the years. I ended up working with him
for two years.
JG: Was this picture of the group taken just about the time
you did your study? (Shows a photograph.)
DG: Yes, it’s a little afterwards, because Fred Harcleroad is
in it, and Carl McIntosh. I would say Malcolm Love and
Kendall had a kind of strength. Of course, Dumke because
of the Master Plan. The presidents were all pretty strong
in those days. [Ralph] Prator came on the scene in
1958— that was when the system started to grow. Bill
[William B.] Langsdorf was fairly new. I would say
particularly Julian McPhee and Malcolm Love, and then to a
certain extent Kendall. There was a certain potency among
GERTH 7
all of them. There were a couple whom I personally
regarded as fairly weak.
JG: Were there any clusters? Were there any groupings within
the Council of Presidents— people who tended to think
alike?
DG: You ought to ask Glenn Dumke that question. I don’t know,
because I wasn’t in the group. By the time I got in the
group, I was sort of an adjunct to the Council of
Presidents in 1963-64 when I was on the chancellor’s
staff, and I used to meet with them then. But not in the
days when I was at San Francisco State, from 1958 to
1963. By that time, there was a difference. There were
really three groups by 1963. There were the sort of "new
order" types who were committed to the arts and sciences,
the "comprehensive state college," as envisioned by then
chancellor Dumke. There were the old "teacher education"
types, and their relatives; McPhee would have been in that
group, at Cal Poly. And then there were some who were
waiting to see how things would go. It’s not unlike
today, where the issues are very different, but where
there are three groups of presidents . . .
JG: Yes.
DG: . . . the ones who take a definitive stand here, another
group taking a definitive stand there, and a third group
waiting to see how it all turns out.
JG: When you did your study, the state colleges were still in
the process of evolution, were they not, from teacher
training schools to full-scale liberal arts colleges?
DG: Oh yes. I was appointed director of admissions at San
Francisco State in 1958, and I shall never forget, my
first or second year there, I went to a place called
Galileo High School which was not distant from the campus,
in the city of San Francisco. And I got there, was met by
the— in those days the San Francisco city schools all had
what they called "educational counsellors," and somebody
was on the head counsellor’s staff who worked with kids,
getting them ready for college— and the educational
counsellor met me. If I recall correctly, her name was
Miss Marini. We didn’t talk much. She met me, and we
walked down a hall, and she marched me into a room. There
were all these lovely young ladies, high school seniors.
And she said, "All these students are interested in San
Francisco State; this is Donald Gerth, Director of
Admissions," or whatever. And I said, "Thank-you," and
gave my little pep talk about San Francisco State. She
stayed. I turned to her, and I said, "Isn’t it unusual,
GERTH 8
that these are all girls?” And she said, right back to
me, as if it were fact, in front of this entire group,
”Not really, because people who go to San Francisco State
want to be elementary school teachers.” This was 1958.
And I said, ”0h no,"— by this time, because of my
research, I knew the history of the system backwards— I
said, "That changed in 1935." Actually it had changed
earlier in the twenties, in terms of secondary credential
preparation. But I said, "We became state colleges in
1935." And she said, "No, you’re new to California, you
don’t understand, only people who want to be grade school
teachers go to a state college."
JG: Oh my.
DG: And I just wasn’t going to have a debate with her. Now
that was atypical in 1958, but deeply symptomatic. And
internally . . . this was certainly true at San Francisco
State. Now San Francisco State was founded just before
the turn of the century, so it had a significant history
as a teacher education institution, a teachers’ college.
At San Francisco State, the combat level, the tension, the
strife, between those who felt they had a commitment to
[WFAA News Clips and B-roll, ca. February 13-17, 1970]
No full text0:00 - Seven handcuffed men are seen standing in a police line-up and, later, being escorted by law enforcement officers down a hallway of the Dallas Police Department; there are shots of a clock, the door to Room 317 ("Crimes Against Persons Section"), and the door to Room 422 (''Identification Section'') (Silent). 0:45, 5:26 - An ambulance, with lights flashing, is seen rounding a curve on a city street; two medics push an injured person into a hospital on a gurney; also, additional footage of an ambulance and its attendants at work (Silent). 1:22 - (February 13, 1970) Nineteen local youths calling themselves the Dallas Ad Hoc Committee for Life stage a three-hour ''kneel-in'' demonstration at the Planned Parenthood of Dallas offices (3620 Maple Avenue) to protest "the fascism of birth control"; footage shows the exterior of the Planned Parenthood Center, a group of the predominantly Catholic youths kneeling and reciting the rosary, and signs reading "End the War on the Poor," "Stop Fascist Genocide," and "Viva Papa"; the spokesman and leader of the group is University of Dallas student Michael Schwartz who is seen talking with a Dallas police officer as other protestors talk among themselves (Silent). 2:05 - (February 13, 1970) Capt. William T. Alford (Bill Alford), national safety director of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and a Braniff pilot, is opposed to a recent ruling by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) which approved the construction of proposed DFW skyscrapers which his organization feels would compromise the safety of the flying public and have an adverse effect on air commerce; ALPA is particularly concerned about three proposed skyscrapers in downtown Dallas (the Griffin Square Tower, Two Main Place, and the LTV International Tower) as well as the proposed high-rise hotel at the Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport, all of which, he says, are obstructions which violate several federal air regulations; he also mentions the WBAP and WFAA radio antenna towers as being problems, but says that the towers will be moved from their present location in Grapevine near the airport to a new site near North Lake. 2:58 - (February 13, 1970) A. Maceo Smith – assistant regional administrator of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) – says that he has assembled several federal and local agencies and community leaders to work on housing 141 families from Austin who are being transferred to Dallas to work at the OEO’s new regional office; a number of these employees transferring to Dallas are African American and Hispanic, and Smith is working to make sure there will be fair housing available in any Dallas neighborhood to these families who are able to pay for their own homes; another man addresses the situation which will be faced by lower-income families who may need to take advantage of emergency public-welfare housing offered by the Greater Dallas Housing Opportunity Center or long-term housing needs offered by new government programs such as ''Operation Breakthrough.'' 4:22 - A man discusses how an educational meeting will go forward during the day, with tables of like groups gathered together – students with students, principals with principals, teachers with teachers, etc. – with the participants then listing things that schools need; as the afternoon progresses, groups will be mixed and new lists will be generated, lists which the region’s public schools can ultimately use; Gene Thomas reporting. 6:10 - (February 14, 1970) A Dallas policeman talks to a news camera as a WFAA news van can be seen behind him; the bullet-riddled body of Victor Cortez Gonzalez had been found lying beside his car in the Trinity River bottoms near the 3800 block of Sylvan by Dallas patrolman C. J. Henry; the body is seen being covered and loaded into an ambulance; the red car is seen with bullet holes in the windshield; detectives are at the scene with a crime-scene investigation kit (Silent). 6:48 - (February 14, 1970) TV personality Art Linkletter discusses the epidemic of drug abuse and says he sees only the faintest glimmer of hope in the desperate battle against it; he says the "middle and middle-upper class" have been swayed by illegal drug proselytizers like Timothy Leary; Linkletter is in Dallas to appear at ''SellAmerica,'' a non-political patriotic rally at SMU’s Moody Coliseum. 7:53, 12:49 - A man discusses how teachers have never really been aware that they have a way to enforce their rights of academic freedom and due process, how teachers are tired of being discriminated against, how teachers are "the priests" of our democracy, and how the success of our democracy is predicated on teachers’ involvement in it; also, silent footage of teachers gathered together to listen to a speaker, plus silent footage of the interviewer and interviewee; Cochise Cash reporting. 8:54 - (February 14, 1970) Psychiatrist Dr. Jorge Valles, director of the alcoholism unit of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Houston and author of the book "From Social Drinking to Alcoholism," discusses the causes of alcoholism and how alcohol physically affects the body. 9:53, 15:35 - (February 14, 1970) Dan Reeves, Dallas Cowboys running back, is interviewed about being appointed a player-coach by head coach Tom Landry; he talks about how he’s always wanted to be a coach, his conversations with Landry about becoming a player-coach, how this new position is entirely dependent on his health going forward (he has recently had surgery on both knees), what he can bring to the organization in this new role, and how his rapport with the players as a fellow player will affect his new role as a coach; Reeves goes on to discuss his coaching responsibilities, whom he’ll work with, and how he feels about becoming the youngest coach in professional football at the age of 26. 12:15 - (February 14, 1970) Several people, including two boys, are seen speaking to Fort Worth police in a wooded area; two men transport a covered body on a gurney, followed by other men, two of whom hold articles of clothing; a man points to a river bed as another man steps up to take a photograph; the body of 20-year-old Jacky Richardson had been found near Lake Arlington by Boy Scouts who were on an outing – Richardson had been shot and beaten (Silent). 13:25 - Exterior of a Buddies supermarket is seen from the parking lot (Silent). 13:33 - Quick shot of a map of Grand Prairie, Texas showing boundaries of Walnut Creek Basin, Fish Creek Basin, Kirby Basin, and Cottonwood Basin, with notations which read "Official Corporate Limits of the City of Grand Prairie as Designated by Ord. 2939 Dated 2-11-69 and Validated by State Legislature," "Area Involved in Lawsuit," "G. P. Annexation - 1969," and "Limits of G. P.'s Extraterritorial Jurisdiction"; Grand Prairie and Arlington are involved in legal action spurred by Grand Prairie’s attempt to annex land which Arlington claims as its own (Silent). 13:39 - (February 14, 1970) Brief shot of the exterior of the Carr P. Collins Chapel on the campus of Bishop College in Dallas; the chapel had been the site of a student sit-in protest, which resulted in the jailing of several participants, an action condemned by the group Black Citizens for Justice, Law and Order (BCJLO) which asked that the students be granted amnesty rather than be further punished (Silent). 13:46 - Scene of WFAA reporter Phil Reynolds listening and nodding to an unseen speaker (Silent). 13:58 - (February 15, 1970) Donald Robbins, superintendent of the Wilmer-Hutchins Independent School District (WHISD), says that if his district had not come up with a new plan for integration their case and records would have been submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice; Robbins goes on to say that it seems unlikely that there will ever be natural racial integration in schools as long as there are segregated ''neighborhood patterns''; Cochise Cash reporting. 14:46 – (February 15, 1970) U.S. Rep. Jim Wright of Fort Worth talks about water quality standards in Texas and how the federal government can work with the state to maintain these standards; with him is State Senator Oscar Mauzy of Dallas, a fellow Democrat with whom he is working on a project to curtail further pollution of the Trinity River and its tributaries. 17:13 - An interview with the attorney for Charles ''Tex'' Watson, Bill Boyd, who discusses how he is not trying to keep Watson from being tried for his alleged part in the Manson murders in Los Angeles, but rather that he simply wants to keep him from being tried in California where he feels Watson would not get a fair trial because of an overwhelming amount of mass-media publicity surrounding the case – Boyd is attempting to extend the doctrine of prejudicial publicity to the process of extradition and is asked if there is a precedent for such a maneuver; he is also asked whether he has a preference for any other state as a possible venue for the trial and whether he thinks the case could be tried in Texas. 18:25 - (February 15, 1970) Texas governor Preston Smith is asked about the proposal to reallocate construction funds to keep the state’s welfare fund going and says that if such an action is necessary that he will make sure that the money earmarked for the original construction programs will be replaced; he says that the problem as he sees it that 50,000 welfare recipients have recently been added to the state’s rolls and he wants to determine if that growth is justified; Jerry Taff reporting from Grand Prairie, where the governor had attended an awards ceremony at Hensley Field in Grand Prairie. 19:31 - A disheveled man with a black eye and what appears to be blood on his shirt walks down a hallway with a man carrying a briefcase the injured man stops to pose for news photographers (Silent). 20:02 - (February 15, 1970) U.S. Rep. Jim Wright of Fort Worth and State Sen. Oscar Mauzy of Dallas talk with each other as reporter Teel Salaun takes notes (Silent). 20:23 - A group of people at a table discuss teachers and students needing to have better communication and how this will improve both scholastic work and respect between teachers and students. 21:02 - A woman who is celebrating her 100th birthday is asked about ''stump-grubbing'' back in the days when she lived on a farm and worked in the field, how she prefers city-living to farming, and what advice she would give on living to be 100 years old; also, silent footage from a party in a home with shots of family members standing around a table full of refreshments and a punch bowl; the woman is seen on a couch with a young boy on her lap, sitting next to other family members; Cochise Cash reporting. 22:20 - (February 16, 1970) An interview with Bill Boyd, attorney for accused murderer Charles ''Tex'' Watson, who discusses the next steps he will take in appealing the ruling by Judge David Brown who has denied his attempt to prevent Watson’s extradition to California; he says he will appeal the case to Austin and is asked how long he thinks the appeal process will take and whether he was surprised by Judge Brown’s ruling. 23:09 - (February 16, 1970) The price-tag of a $233,000 full-scale mockup of airport buildings for the new Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport is generating controversy as anonymous sources claim that the need for this mockup is questionable; Regional Airport Executive Director Tom Sullivan has said that an extensive study was made from demonstrations and computer programming in the overall design of the airport, but that now the airport board wants to conduct a ''try-and-see'' approach for some reason; the ''saving grace'' is that the airlines who will be utilizing the airport are paying for the mockup; Gene Thomas reporting from the site of the future Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport. 24:25, 28:49 - (February 16, 1970) A report on ''Maxi-Rap ’70,'' a day-long rap session between El Centro College students and instructors in which students evaluate the school and its staff and offer criticisms and suggestions on campus operations; Don Creamer, dean of students, says that this event is a preventative step to head off future problems and that it is a good way for students and staff to better understand one another; also interviewed is student body president Greg James who says that he is impressed by the response to Maxi-Rap ’70; silent footage shot inside El Centro shows students mingling in a common area and sitting in classrooms ''rapping'' with teachers; Cochise Cash reporting. 25:57 - The Cates Pharmacy at 2101 S. Edgefield in Oak Cliff was robbed twice over the weekend; a woman shows where the robbers entered the drugstore, through a hole in the wall of Lilli’s Beauty Shop; also seen is one of the two safes broken into (one unsuccessfully in the drugstore, one successfully in the next-door Bodiford grocery store, which the robbers entered through a hole in the ceiling); people are seen inspecting the crime scene, with shots of a tool case (Silent). 26:46 - Scenes from the Dallas County Commissioner's Court, including footage of a smiling W. L. ''Lew'' Sterrett signing paperwork, commissioners Jim Tyson and Denver Seale, and others; also seen is a Gray Audograph recording machine (Silent). 27:41 - (February 16, 1970) Charles ''Tex'' Watson is escorted by police out of an elevator with a coat draped over his head to hide his face; later, when news photographers were allowed 30 seconds to take photos of Watson, he is seen in close-up sitting calmly; also seen are exhibits attempting to prove pre-trial prejudicial publicity, including the book ''The Killing of Sharon Tate'' (the story of the Manson murders by fellow Manson Family member Susan Atkins who, in the book, named Watson as the killer of actress Sharon Tate) and an issue of Life magazine with a photo of Charles Manson on the cover; among the courtroom personnel seen are Judge David Brown and Watson’s attorney, Bill Boyd; also seen is footage shot in and around the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney, Texas where Watson’s lawyer was attempting to fight extradition to California because of what he felt was a huge amount of prejudicial publicity about the case, but the appeal was denied by District Judge David Brown (Silent). 29:07, 30:34 - Scene showing the exterior of two houses in a residential neighborhood; the exterior of one of the houses is seen more closely, and two women are seen walking up the front steps at different times (Silent). 29:10, 31:08, 32:55 - (February 16, 1970) A man discusses the events surrounding 40 Dallas families who joined the Block Partnership after they were threatened with eviction by their landlord, Crockett Realty Co., owned by Ben H. Carpenter; the man describes how the company ignored the homeowners’ requests to make repairs to the homes located between Haskell and Lemmon near North Central Expressway – when the city code was about to be enforced, the company decided to tear down the houses rather than repair them; activists Al Lipscomb and Rev. Peter Johnson are seen in silent footage, as is the crowd of concerned tenants; also, an interview with one of the residents who asks that the Crockett Co. extend the eviction deadline in order to give the residents enough time to find new homes and allow children to complete the school year; Bob Gooding reporting. 29:36 - (February 17, 1970) Interview with a man who is involved in complying with the order by federal judge William M. Taylor Jr. that every Texas county must implement a food assistance program by March 5, 1970; the man says that there is not enough time to get all counties to comply; he is asked about the alternatives if the deadline cannot be met and says that a representative for the Attorney General’s office said that if it can be demonstrated to Judge Taylor that everything that can be done has been done, the judge will be amenable to the idea of a deadline extension; officials with the Texas Department of Public Welfare and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are meeting in Fort Worth with members of 31 North Texas counties to discuss their options, including programs of commodity distribution and the issuance of food stamps; Gene Thomas reporting. 31:39 - (February 17, 1970) Texas State Senator Ralph Hall (D-Rockwall) holds a press conference in Austin to announce that, in response to the unanimous ruling of the Texas Supreme Court that he is ineligible to run for governor, he is considering taking his fight to be a gubernatorial candidate to the U.S. Supreme Court but will ultimately rely on legal counsel’s advice on the viability of such a fight. 33:35 - A man is interviewed (Silent). 33:42 - Jack Flanagan and his wife, Marie Flanagan, walk along a sidewalk in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Dallas; the Flanagans, owners of the Rebel Belle Club in Oak Lawn, are currently on trial, accused of robbing the Bank of Dallas on Sept. 22, 1969; the two were ultimately found guilty of bank robbery (Silent). 33:49 - (February 17, 1970) Jean Nidetch, founder of Weight Watchers International, arrives in Texas for ''Weight Watchers Week'' which celebrates the third anniversary of the North Texas chapter and includes free rallies in the DFW area; silent footage shows several women holding up signs reading ''Weight Watchers are Good for Losers''; Nidetch gives her opinion on why Americans are overweight, how food should be perceived simply as fuel, how men benefit from Weight Watchers as much as women do, and how exercise fits into her program; after the interview Nidetch and the reporter leave the American Airlines media lounge and are seen jogging down a Love Field airport concourse together, smiling and waving to the camera as laughter is heard from the crowd
