Crown Recommended Reading the Roots of Crown College- Chap 6
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Seeds of Something Different Volume I For more information on SEEDS, including ordering information, see https://guides.library.ucsc.edu/speccoll/seeds Seeds of Something Different An Oral History of the University of California, Santa Cruz Volume 1 Irene Reti, Cameron Vanderscoff, and Sarah Rabkin Oak Tree, Great Meadow, 2016 Photo by Irene Reti Regional History Project, Special Collections & Archives University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, California Seeds of Something Diferent: Back cover photo: Banana slug weathervane by An Oral History of the Ken Jensen at West Coast Weather Vanes. Photo University of California, by Matt Fitt. Photo copyright by UC Regents. Santa Cruz. Copyright © Communications & Marketing Department, UC 2020 by the Regents of the Santa Cruz. University of California. Volume I. To access the full text of all Regional History oral history transcripts see: https://library.ucsc. ISBN: 978-0-97-233439-6 edu/regional-history-project. Some interviews excerpted here are from oral histories recorded Printed in the United States by students in UCSC classes and are only of America by Integrated available for reading in Special Collections at the Books International. UCSC Library. For a guide to visiting Special Collections see: https://guides.library.ucsc.edu/ speccoll. Library of Congress Control Number: 2019911562 All uses of these oral histories are covered by copyright agreement between the narrators and To contact the Regional History Project: the Regents of the University of California. [email protected] Under “fair use” standards, excerpts of up Regional History Project to six hundred words (per interview) may be McHenry Library quoted without the Regional History Project’s Special Collections & Archives permission as long as the materials are credited. 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MS 002: Ansel Adams Photographs: ms0002_pho_0138. tif. Part I: Where This Dream Begins Campus meadow with wooden fence Circa 1965 Photo by Ansel Adams Coyote, Great Meadow, 2014 Photo by Lee Jaffe Chapter 6 “Amazing People Would Appear” An Unexpected Flourishing of the Sciences It never occurred to us that we were on the humanities campus. We were in the complete university. —Todd Newberry Kenneth Thimann and the Seeds of Science Dean McHenry: Clark Kerr wanted a charter for a safety ofcer and a storeroom for volatile chem- each college, a basic statement of what it was going icals, and that it was very difcult to combine to do and where it was going to go. Kerr felt that living in colleges with the smells of chemical lab- they would, if you didn’t direct them, become peas oratories, even freshmen labs, and the deliveries in a pod. I felt that they all ought to emphasize and noise and busyness and heavy equipment that liberal arts, that their style would come from would be required.1 the personality of the provost, the disposition of If you’re going to have real science, it is sen- the faculty, and so on. I think we compromised sible to have centralized facilities, so that even a somewhat, but the frst three colleges did have this freshman student can be rubbing elbows with, utilitarian feature of rounding out the faculty of perhaps a member of the National Academy. We humanities emphasis, social sciences emphasis, argued about this for some time in the 1961 and and science emphasis. 1962 period. My views were that science had to be Te biggest compromise was over science. Kerr centralized, and as I traveled in Britain and over took the position that these colleges ought to the United States, I couldn’t fnd any scientists be as autonomous as possible, and that students who felt that we could have frst-class science if it in a college should not have to go for freshman were not centralized. Eventually, our compromise chemistry to a distant place. I argued that science was simply that I withdrew my objections to a sci- was so expensive that it had to be centralized, ence-emphasis college, if he would withdraw his that every little college couldn’t have an electron objections to a science center. And we proceeded microscope, that every little college couldn’t have on this basis. 122 SEEDS OF SOMETHING DIFFERENT Ed Landesman: Dean McHenry didn’t feel that letter to McHenry and said that I was interested, comfortable with science. Tat’s not to say he but that I would postpone coming here until I wasn’t in favor of it, but that was not his comfort saw more clearly where his institution was going. zone. His comfort zone was the social sciences and humanities. Jean Langenheim: Although it was a period of change in the recognition of women, as part of George Blumenthal: Nat Sci II [in 2018] is the newly ignited feminist movement, there were nothing but a long corridor of ofces, with almost few women among the UC faculty in 1966. I was no space for people to congregate and talk. It’s the only woman in the natural sciences faculty at a very unwelcoming place. It was designed that UCSC for seven years.3 way because the goal of McHenry was not to have the laboratories to be places where faculty would Donald Clark: hang out. He wanted faculty to hang out in their Dean McHenry had these fresh colleges. Terefore, he wanted buildings like Nat ideas, great ideas. Since this was not going to be a Sci II to be unwelcoming places that were func- science campus, in his early thinking he maintained tional; you could do your laboratory stuf there, that the library here should have much more but he didn’t want them to be the social centers money poured into it than the other campuses. of the campus for faculty. But what it meant for What the laboratories were to science faculty, the scientists was that we didn’t have good spaces to library here should be to the humanities and social interact. sciences, and to the liberal arts, and we shouldn’t be bound by these restrictions. Michael Nauenberg, Professor: I was originally Dean was very strong on the notion that we interviewed by Page Smith. Page Smith told me should have a science reference collection, not a what he thought a physics department should science library. It would contain current journals, be like. At the end of the conversation I said, basic reference tools. We even scaled down the “Well, you mean, you want to have a history of size of the proposed library. physics department in Santa Cruz, not a physics department?” I didn’t like what I heard, and I Ed Landesman: But McHenry certainly made thought, well, I am also interested in research in the great move when he brought in Kenneth my own field, and if this is what his ideas are— Timann. Tat’s what changed it. Timann At the time, there were no scientists here. came in and brought in heavyweights in science. Nobody in the sciences had been recruited yet. And in many cases, they wanted to come here Francis Clauser and Kenneth Timann had not because of the uniqueness of the campus. yet come aboard, or were only being considered.2 It would have been difficult for me to develop my own ideas of what I thought a physics depart- Donald Clark: Ten came the appointment of ment should be like. I decided that with someone Kenneth Timann, an outstanding appointment, senior like Page Smith being the provost, and one of the great leaders of the world in his feld, a having ideas so fundamentally diferent from highly-respected Harvard professor who had pre- what I thought should be done to develop the vious contacts with California at Caltech, even sciences here, it was kind of risky. So I sent a long though he’s from England. CHAPTER SIX – “AMAZING PEOPLE WOULD APPEAR” 123 Michael Nauenberg: A year later, I was invited not into mathematics. And I, as naïve as I was, said back. By that time, Francis Clauser was here as a to him, “What do you do?” And he said, “Oh, I’m vice chancellor for science and engineering, and a biologist. I play around with biology or botany.” Kenneth Timann had accepted the position as He was extremely, extremely modest. chairman of biology and provost of Crown College. But Timann was a superb researcher—a When I spoke with both of them, their ideas member of the National Academy of Sciences— resonated with my own. Tey clearly understood and a frst-rate scientist. He came from Harvard. the role of science. We were going to have a serious At the same time, as much as research was physics department. important to him, I never saw any change in his Above all, I was interested in graduate studies.