Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], CSU Public Affairs Photo Collection, Courtesy of the Department of Archives and Special Collections.
University Library. California State University, Dominguez Hills.
History
"Don't ever dare to take your college as a matter of course--because, as with freedom and democracy, many people you'll never know...have broken their hearts to give it to you."-Dorothy Donahoe
In the 1959
session of the California legislature, twenty-three bills, three
resolutions, and two constitutional amendments
were introduced calling for
changes in the structure of public higher education. The public document
embodying this structure
was called the California Master
Plan.
California
Assemblywoman Dorothy Donahoe, chair of the Assembly Education
Committee, passed away on April 4, 1960 after sponsoring
the resolution (ACR 88) calling
for the creation of the Master Plan and lobbying tirelessly for its
adoption. The California
Legislature honored her memory by
renaming the Master Plan legislation the Donahoe Higher Education Act.
With this act, the
California State college
system--which would later evolve into the California State University
(CSU) system--was established
on July 1, 1961 under an
independent Board of Trustees.
The Donahoe
Higher Education Act clearly defined the roles and functions among the
three segments of California's public higher
education: the University of
California, the state colleges, and the community colleges. A
Coordinating Council for Higher
Education as a voluntary
organizing body composed of segmental and public representatives to
advise the governor, legislature
and segments was created. The
functions of the California state colleges were defined to include
undergraduate and graduate
programs in the liberal arts and
sciences and applied fields and professions leading to baccalaureate and
master's degrees
and to joint doctoral degrees
with the University of California. The selection of students for the
California state colleges
was redefined to set eligibility
for freshmen at the top third of secondary school graduates and lower
division enrollment
to 40% of undergraduate
enrollment (the University of California accepting the top eighth), thus
diverting substantial number
of lower division students to
community colleges.
The
implementation of the act was not simple. The history of state colleges
in California at that point went back over one
hundred years beginning with the
founding of the first State Normal School founded in 1857. Like other
state colleges at that
time, California's first state
college began with a mandate as a teacher training institution. This
campus was originally
located in San Francisco then
transferred to the city of San Jose in 1870. Over the next 70 years,
population growth in California
brought the need for various
branches of the school to open throughout the state: Los Angeles, in
1882 (transferred to the
UC system in 1919); Chico in
1889; San Diego in 1897; San Francisco (re-established) in 1899; the
California State Polytechnic
Institute at San Luis Obispo, in
1903; Santa Barbara in 1909 (transferred to the UC system in 1944);
Fresno in 1911; and Humboldt
in 1913. As these institutions
were created, administrative reorganization was taking place at the
state government level.
In 1921, the
legislature reorganized policymaking structures for education. A system
of dual or shared authority between the
State Department of Education and
the State Board of Education was created to administer the state
schools whose role was
redefined as constituting the
first two years of college or university instruction. By 1935 the state
teachers colleges enrolled
more than 7,000 students and were
gradually independently evolving into serving the diverse needs of
their regional districts
as well as responding to local
labor needs and desires of Californians for post secondary education. At
this time, the legislature
again changed both names (each
was named for its location) and functions (offering undergraduate
liberal arts majors in major
teaching fields for secondary
schools) of these institutions.
After World War
II, enrollment expansion continued in California, many new students
being veterans paying tuition using the
GI Bill. In 1946, the programs
leading to a liberal arts degree, without reference to teacher education
were authorized by
the legislature. In 1947, a
master of art degree in teaching was authorized and by 1955 the master
of sciences degrees in
vocational fields. New campuses
were established between 1947-1949 in Sacramento, (re-established) in
Los Angeles, and Long
Beach. By the late 1950s, the
state colleges had experienced substantial uncoordinated growth and
expected explosive expansion
in the 1960s because of the
coming tidal wave of students; their programs were developing in a way
that officials at the University
of California found threatening.
This was the background for the Donahoe Education Act. Under this act,
new institutions of
higher learning in California
would be systematically planned and then opened.
Between 1957-60
new Cal State campuses were planned at Fullerton, Hayward, Stanislaus,
San Fernando Valley (later "Northridge"),
Sonoma, San Bernardino and
Dominguez Hills, and it was decided that these new schools would be
subject to the Master Plan
and the newly formed CSU System.
Other CSU campuses later opened in Bakersfield in 1967, San Marcos in
1989, and Monterey
Bay in 1995. A Board of Trustees
took the responsibility for the newly created California State System in
1961, and their
first task was to create a
chancellor's office and staff. The board located the first office in the
Los Angeles.
In the mid-1970s,
a new CSU headquarters would be erected in Long Beach. Buell Gallagher,
formerly president of City College
of New York, was selected by the
trustees to be the first chancellor. Attacked by right-wing critics as
being "soft" on communism,
and urged by family members
unhappy in California, Gallagher returned to his old job after only
serving eight months. The
Trustees then turned to Glen
Dumke, who had been Gallagher's vice chancellor for academic affairs
and, before that, president
of San Francisco State. Dumke was
an published historian before becoming an administrator, and had been
part of the joint
team that drafted the original
Master Plan. During his 20-year tenure, the chancellor survived campus
riots, budget cuts that
followed Ronald Reagan's election
as governor in 1966 and at least one attempt by board members to oust
him. However, during
the Dumke years, the CSU system
grew, both in size and academic reputation.
In 1971, Dumke
won an important political victory in Sacramento, when Governor Reagan
signed a bill changing the system's
name to the California State
University and Colleges. (Later, "colleges" was dropped.) Dumke and the
Board of Trustees thought
this was important because the
term "university" officially recognized that state faculty members were
capable of doing research
and teaching advanced graduate
students.
As the civil
rights movement of the 1960s evolved into the Vietnam War protests of
the early 1970s, civil unrest erupted nationwide.
On Cal State campuses,
administrative offices were burned at CSU, Northridge, computer
facilities were destroyed at Fresno
State, and at San Francisco
State, minority student protests led to violent clashes with the San
Francisco police. Dumke's
20-year run as chancellor was
astonishing, coming at a time when campus presidents and system heads
all over the country were
resigning, or being asked to
resign, after five years or less. Even Dumke's harshest opponents among
the faculty marveled
at his tenacity. Dumke eventually
stepped down and was replaced in 1982 by Wynetka Ann Reynolds, the
former provost at Ohio
State University--characterized
as an brilliant, dynamic, enterprising woman with an fiery temper and a
manner that many people
found abrasive.
Reynolds'
appointment was narrowly confirmed after a tumultuous selection process,
a disheartening beginning, some of her
supporters believe, she never
quite overcame. Nevertheless, the new chancellor had vision for the Cal
State system and made
considerable progress during her
eight years in office. CSU admissions standards were raised. Teacher
preparation was improved
in a system that produces about
60 percent of the California's primary and secondary teachers. "Magnet"
high schools were
opened on Cal State campuses, in
collaboration with the Los Angeles public schools--performing arts at
Cal State Los Angeles,
science and mathematics at Cal
State Dominguez Hills. Reynolds encouraged minority recruiting efforts
and provided strong
system-wide support for both fine
arts and performing arts, areas that had been neglected on many Cal
State campuses. She
pushed for higher salaries for
campus presidents while, at the same time, started a formal process of
evaluating the performance
of the campus chiefs. However,
her accomplishments were overshadowed by a personal style that many on
her staff and on the
campuses found boldly offensive.
Some think Reynolds' problems with others were caused by her inability
to grasp that the
Cal State System was federation.
Key trustees were convinced that Reynolds was trying to concentrate
power in the central
office and that too much of the
board's business was being conducted in secret. In her defense, others
stated that Reynolds
problems with others were due to
sexism. "A woman can do the same things a man can do but she will be
seen differently," said
Trustee Blanche C. Bersch of
Reynolds in a 1996 interview, recalling the Reynolds chancellorship.
*
By 1987, general trustee opinion
was shifting against Reynolds and she left three years later.
In April 1990,
Ellis McCune left the presidency of Cal State Hayward to be interim
chancellor until the arrival of Barry Munitz
in August 1991. McCune, who was
reluctant to keep the job permanently, nevertheless provided a calming
influence on the CSU
system by smoothing relations
with most CSU trustees contrasting to their relationship with his
predecessor. He also shortened
the amount of reporting from
individual campuses to the central office, a burden that McCune and
other presidents had been
complaining about for some time.
Munitz brought a varied background to his new post. He had been
chancellor of the University
of Houston's main campus from
1977 to 1982, but then resigned to became vice chairman of Maxxam Inc., a
large Houston-based
conglomerate before returning to
academic leadership at CSU. The chancellor's corporate past was the
target of protests by
environmental groups because of
Maxxam's takeover of Pacific Lumber Co. in Humboldt County, and the
clear cutting of old growth
redwood trees that followed.
However, Munitz defended himself by stating that his former job largely
involved dealing with
governmental agencies and other
external relations and that he had little to do with making company
policy. The trustee committee
recruiting the chancellor found
nothing to persuade them against hiring a chancellor with both higher
education and corporate
experience.
As chancellor,
Munitz immediately set about rebuilding Cal State's reputation
Sacramento. He established good relations with
Governor Pete Wilson and he
managed to stay on reasonably good terms with both parties in the
Legislature. His dedication
to decentralizing the 22-campuses
and promoting "charter campuses" that would be free from many
system-wide regulations deliberations
was popular; although his
introduction of "merit pay" for the Cal State's faculty salary was not
popular with the faculty
union. During his chancellorship,
the opening the new Cal State Monterey Bay campus, the acquiring of the
California Maritime
Academy, and the planning a 23rd
campus in Ventura County occurred. In 1988 he resigned to head the J.
Paul Getty Trust.
Dr. Charles B.
Reed, former chancellor of the State University System in Florida, took
over in 1988 and is the current Chancellor
for the California State
University System. He heads a system that has grown to be the largest
university system in the nation
and has over 40,000 faculty and
staff and almost 360,000 students on 23 campuses and five off-campus
centers. The CSU annual
budget is approximately $5.5
billion; it administers approximately 1,000 bachelor's degree programs,
600 master's programs,
and 16 joint doctoral programs in
240 areas. Each of the colleges has a separate history, operates more
independently than
the branches of its counterpart
in the University of California system, and considers itself part of a
greater federation.
The CSU system
produces more college graduates in California than all other
universities and colleges in the state combined,
and its endurance is a testament
to foresighted, higher education planning embodied in Donahoe Act and
the strength and will
of key individuals that created
the system and maintained it.
Note
*Background information on the four chancellors was complied from this source: Trombley, William. "CAL STATE TRUSTEES: A new
"corporate" style" in The California Higher Education Policy Center Newsletter, 1996.
Scope and Content
The CSU Public
Affairs Photo Collection (1.5 linear ft.) encompasses photographic
material from the late 1800s to the early
1990s. The bulk of the photos
contained here date from the 1960s-to the 1980s. The photos in this
collection were created
or gathered by the CSU Public
Affairs Office, which provides consultation and advice to the Trustees,
Chancellor, and other
staff. The Public Affairs Offices
oversees publications and reproduction Centers, responds to press and
other media inquiries
as well as to information
requests by the general public, and works cooperatively with campus
public affairs offices on areas
of mutual interest. Many of the
photos here were previously published as part of informative brochures,
fact sheets, and other
publications relevant to the
public about the CSU. Unprocessed, this collection was approximately 3
liner feet. However, due
to the limited space in the CSU
Archives and professional archival judgment based on standard appraisal
procedures, duplicate
photos, non-photographic
material, and items not relevant to the mission of the CSU archive's
mission--that is, having no
CSU system-wide
significance--were removed. (Please see further comments in the
individual series descriptions.) The collection
is divided into two series
correlating to the CSU system as a whole and to individual campuses.
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