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By Jim Ashford '62, Boalt '67 One morning in September 1958, a brief notice on a back page of the Daily Californian said that the new president of the University, Clark Kerr, and Berkeley Chancellor Glenn Seaborg would hold a joint office hour for students that afternoon, no appointment necessary. Such a thing is unimaginable today, but it was a more simple time then, and I was rather simple myself--a hayseed freshman from the Central Valley, a truck driver’s son, besotted with joy at being at Cal. I thought anything was possible on this campus. It seemed only reasonable that I could stand in line for an audience with the president and a Nobel laureate.
They asked the questions one might expect: Where was I from? Did I have a major in mind? How were my classes going? Then President Kerr asked why I had chosen Cal. I began to babble, to his amusement, I think, ending to the effect: “How could there have been any other choice for a Californian?” Kerr noted that he and I were both starting out in new careers, and said that he was sure that mine would be as fulfilling and enjoyable as he expected his to be. I left the office a foot off the ground. Years passed, the revolution came, and things became less simple for both of us, and for the University in whose light we had basked that autumn day. In the spring of 1967, I was back at Cal, struggling through my last year at Boalt Hall. The nation was at its own throat over Vietnam, and the University, as a locus of political protest, was under siege. A new state governor had been elected on the promise that heads would roll. A friend of mine, who worked then as a Safeway clerk in Brentwood, later told me of pushing Mrs. Reagan’s grocery cart to her car and asking what plans there were for the new administration. She said that the first thing would be “to get rid of that evil, evil Clark Kerr.” The governor leaned on the regents and the deed was done. Mario Savio said: “Good riddance to bad rubbish.” Reviled by the right and the left! Kerr seemed to have been in the wrong place at the worst time. The Berkeley Academic Senate, reacting to Kerr’s dismissal (as well as punitive budget measures and the general demonization of students and faculty for political ends), announced an extraordinary convocation to be held at the Greek Theatre. With speakers the likes of Chief Justice Earl Warren ’12 and economist John Kenneth Galbraith, M.A. ’32, Ph.D. ’34, the event was meant to discuss “the needs and purposes of the modern great university” and to express support for the campus community. A classmate worked for Garff Wilson ’31, then chief of ceremonies for Cal, and he asked her to recruit a couple of other students to serve at a reception for the VIPs after the convocation. She picked her husband and me. On Friday, April 28, 1967, the three of us went to the Men’s Faculty Club, were issued starched white servers’ jackets, and waited alone in a big empty room listening to the muffled sounds of the gathering up the hill. Then there was a knock at the door, and Clark Kerr peered in. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “I’d like to wait here. It wouldn’t be proper for me to be up there.” We stumbled over ourselves to bring him a chair. He sat down and asked us to sit with him. He spoke about how he hoped the University would survive. He said that he was sorry to be leaving, and that he had been wrong in not appreciating the depth of students’ concerns during the Free Speech Movement and thereafter. Things might have worked out, he said. He spoke again of his love for the University and said that he hoped his work wouldn’t be forgotten because of the way his tenure had ended. Given the circumstances, I didn’t think it appropriate to mention our meeting years before and my freshman’s naive optimism then, or to remind him of his wishes for us both. There was a great sound of shouts and applause from the Greek. The convocation was ended. He glanced at his watch and rose. “And how has Cal been for you?” he asked me. “All that I could have imagined, and more,” I answered. He nodded and smiled. “As it was for me,” he said. |
We invite alumni to write about their Cal experiences for “Recalling Cal,” California Monthly, Alumni House, Berkeley 94720. Contributors will be paid $100 upon publication.
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IN THE BEGINNING: Clark Kerr and Glenn Seaborg.
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