Author: Paul Burnett
Exploring Law and Educational Finance Reform: Jack Coons and Stephen Sugarman
Jack Coons: Law, Ethics, and Educational Finance Reform
Stephen Sugarman on Jack Coons and Educational Finance Reform
Few intellectual partnerships have been as durable and productive as the one forged between Berkeley Law professors Jack Coons and Stephen Sugarman over the past half century.
Coons was born in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1929. He received his B.A. in history at the University of Minnesota, Duluth and graduated from Northwestern Law School, where he was Order of the Coif and managing editor of the Law Review. After practicing before the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, he returned to Northwestern, where he taught for 12 years. In 1968 he joined the faculty of the Berkeley Law School and stayed there until his retirement in 1994. Sugaman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended Northwestern for both his undergraduate and graduate degrees. After working in a private law practice, Sugarman was recruited to the faculty of Boalt Hall, where he continues to teach today.
The two met while Coons was a young professor at Northwestern and Sugarman was in the process of deciding on what law school to attend. Although Sugarman was admitted to Harvard, he chose Northwestern based in part on the climate and opportunities represented by productive scholars like Coons. They worked together on several research projects and eventually jointly authored several influential studies on educational finance reform, including: Private Wealth and Public Education (1970) and Education by Choice: The Case for Family Control (1978). In these two interviews, Coons and Sugarman discuss their education, their years at Northwestern Law School and their introduction to the system by which schools are financed and the subsequent development of ideas for reforming that system. They also tell of their role in several important legal cases pertaining to school financing, including Serrano v. Priest (1971) and San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez (1973), and their shared interest in creating a system for providing parents with vouchers to send their children to a school of their choice.
Announcing the 2016 “Class of ’31” Interviewee in University History: Professor Susan Ervin-Tripp
This year the Oral History Center received many nominations for the “Class of 31” interviewee in oral history. The field of nominees was very distinguished and we wish we could interview every one, but this year the honor goes to Professor Susan Ervin-Tripp. One nomination read:
Professor Susan Ervin-Tripp is long overdue for an oral history. She is certainly one of the longest serving women faculty members on campus. Much more importantly she has left her decisive mark on every area in which she has been involved. That her scholarship is path breaking and prodigious is a given…. Sue has a long track record of starting the first or one of the first organized groups of faculty women in the US in the 1970s to work for equal pay, job titles, hiring and promotion…. She also was instrumental in getting the Women’s Studies Program launched. She saw her role as helping others solve problems as particularly exemplified by her time as student ombudsperson.
Join me in both congratulating Ervin-Tripp for this honor and thanking her in advance for contributing once again to the university by agreeing to sit for this oral history interview.
Previous “Class of ’31” honorees include: Professor of Anthropology Laura Nader, Emeritus Director of the Pacific Film Archive Edith Kramer, and Pat Pelfrey (interview still in progress), who is a scholar of higher education and served as a speechwriter for UC Presidents.
From the Oral History Center Director: Martin Meeker, our New Director, Recalls His First Interview
Recently I was asked, “What was the first interview you conducted?” After a moment mentally scanning through college and grad school research projects, I realized that I undertook my first proper interview years earlier, when I was a junior at St. Francis High School in Mountain View, California. Entirely out of step with my Catholic school education, I choose to write my junior year research paper on that recently departed rock ‘n roll alien David Bowie.
The teacher insisted that we conduct an interview “with a real expert” as part of the research process. Not being the most ambitious student, I was at a loss: who did I know that might qualify as an expert? A friend of a friend was a die-hard fan, but even then I knew that choice wouldn’t win me any rave reviews. I had been reading a recently published biography of Bowie and resolved to try to locate the author, Jerry Hopkins. I sent a note and then called his New York publisher a few times. Finally I got someone on the line and asked, “Can I have Jerry Hopkins’s contact info? I want to interview him.” The voice on the line hesitated and said something like, “Oh, Mr. Hopkins. He lives in Hawaii. But we cannot give out contact information for our authors. Please send us a note and we’ll forward it to him.”
In hindsight I suspect that deadlines were looming and I certainly knew mail was slow. Armed with that one vague piece of information, I called information in Hawaii and, sure enough, there was a Jerry Hopkins of Honolulu listed. I called and left a message, explaining my project (and hoping that this was the correct Mr. Hopkins). A few days later, Hopkins kindly returned my call. At the beginning of what I remember to be a long and substantial conversation, I admitted that I was incredibly nervous. Hopkins was kind, telling me that he “still gets anxious” when doing interviews. With those reassuring words, I immediately found my footing and I began my first interview.
Yes, I enjoyed the experience of discussing Bowie with a bona-fide expert, but never did I imagine that interviewing would become my career — my vocation. I arrived at the Oral History Center (then known as the Regional Oral History Office) as a postdoctoral fellow in July 2003 and then a year later began as a historian/interviewer. Since that time I’ve had the opportunity to work of many, varied projects — from Kaiser Permanente to federal fiscal policy — and interviewed well over 100 individuals (many for long, life-history interviews of a dozen hours or more). The experience of conducting these interviews has taught me much about scores of different topics. Perhaps what has become clearest to me through the years is simply how much I enjoy the interview process, hearing different stories, and doing my best to get people to think about their own lives and contributions in sometimes new and unique ways. So, now I get the opportunity to lead the place that has given me so much.
In the months ahead I will begin to lay out my agenda for the coming years (in this newsletter and on our blog), but for now I just want to thank those who have supported me — and the Oral History Center — up to this point and invite you to join me in looking ahead to the next chapter. My office is always open to people who want to engage with us, learn more about interviewing, or just talk history.
And in closing I want to offer my sincere and profound gratitude to Neil Henry, the outgoing director of the Oral History Center. Neil came aboard at a particularly challenging time for the office and provided sage leadership, always with good humor and a gentle touch. I learned a lot from him over the past few years and wish him the best in his well-earned retirement. Thanks, Neil!
Martin Meeker
Charles B. Faulhaber Director of the Oral History Center
Oral History Center — and Bancroft Library — Open House Friday 2/26!
This Friday — February 26th — the Oral History Center along with The Bancroft Library overall welcomes you to our annual open house. In addition to exhibits of rare and fascinating items from the archives, Oral History Center historians will be presenting on four major oral history projects: Rosie the Riveter, West Coast Cocktails, Chicago Economists, and Freedom to Marry. All presentations are set to take place in the Oral History Center conference room, Bancroft 267, on the first floor of the Bancroft Library.
Two Pioneering Women in California Wine: Zelma Long and Margrit Mondavi
We are pleased to release two new oral histories today as part of long-running series on the history of the California wine industry. Many know Margrit Mondavi as the wife of Napa Valley great Robert Mondavi, but what you might not know that she herself had a major impact on the wine industry: she was an early leader in innovative strategies to educate Americans about wine, food, and culture and to market California wine to taste-makers around the globe. Zelma Long, who we first interviewed in 1991, has left in indelible mark on winemaking in California through key posts at Robert Mondavi, Simi, and Chandon Estates, and, over the past twenty five years, on the global wine industry through consulting work in Germany, Israel, France, and her own estate, Vilafonte, in South Africa. These two interviews also mark the beginning of what we hope will be a reinvigorated wine oral history project — stay tuned for more!
Margit Mondavi was born in Switzerland in 1925 and raised in northern Italy. She married an American serviceman who brought her to the United States in the 1950s. In the early 1960s, they moved to Napa Valley, where her life?s work would really begin. She joined Charles Krug winery (owned by the Mondavi family) as a tour guide and, while there, pioneered the presentation of performances at the winery. She followed Robert Mondavi when he left Krug and started his own winery. A budding romance followed and she eventually married Mondavi in 1980. In this interview, Margrit Mondavi discusses her contributions to the development of wine education, marketing, and sales; she also discusses her combined interests in wine, food, and the arts, and how she brought those together at the winery.
Zelma Long, born in Oregon in 1945, is an American enologist and vintner. She attended the UC Davis School of Enology and Viticulture and worked for Long Vineyards and Robert Mondavi Winery, which she served as chief enologist during the winery?s 1970s heyday. In 1979 she was hired to be chief winemaker at Simi Winery in Sonoma County, eventually becoming president and CEO of the winery. While planning for her retirement from Simi in 1996, she and her husband, viticulturalist Phil Freese, started Vilafonté winery in post-apartheid South Africa. In a separate interview released in 1992, Long discusses her years at Mondavi and Simi; in this interview, Long reflects on the history of winemaking in California and the role of women in the industry; the focus of this oral history, however, is the building of Vilafonté and her work as a consultant to many wineries around the globe.
Protecting the California Coast: New Interviews with Joe Bodovitz and Will Travis
Just over 50 years ago the California State Legislature established the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). This commission was charged with protecting the San Francisco Bay from unchecked development and with providing access to this great natural resource. In 1972, citizens throughout California voted to establish the Coastal Commission, which had a charge similar to the BCDC but its authority ran the entire coastline of California. Today we are pleased to release to new oral history interviews with two of the most important figures in both of those organizations: Joe Bodovitz and Will “Trav” Travis.
Joseph Bodovitz was born Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1930. He attended Northwestern University, where he studied English Literature, served in the US Navy during the Korean War, and then completed a graduate degree in journalism at Columbia University. In 1956 he accepted a job as a reporter with the San Francisco Examiner, reporting on crime, politics, and eventually urban redevelopment. He then took a position with SPUR (San Francisco Planning and Urban Research) where he launched their newsletter. In 1964 he was enlisted to lead the team drafting the Bay Plan, which resulted in the creation of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) by the state legislature in 1969. Bodovitz was hired as the first executive director of BCDC. In 1972 he was hired by the newly-established California Coastal Commission to be its first executive director. He left the Coastal Commission in 1979 and shortly thereafter was named executive director of the California Public Utilities Commission, a position he held until 1986. He served as head of the California Environmental Trust and then as the project director for BayVision 2020, which created a plan for a regional Bay Area government. In this interview, Bodovitz details the creation of the BCDC and how it established itself into a respected state agency; he also discusses the first eight years of the Coastal Commission and how he helped craft a strategy for managing such a huge public resource ? the California coastline. He further discusses utilities deregulation in the 1980s and the changing context for environmental regulation through the 1990s.
Will Travis was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1943. He attended Penn State University as both as an undergraduate and graduate student, studying architecture and regional planning. From 1970 to 1972 he worked as a planner for the then nascent San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). In 1972 moved to the newly established California Coastal Commission, where worked in various capacities until 1985. In 1985 Travis returned to BCDC first as deputy director then as the agency?s director beginning in 1995. He retired from BCDC in 2011 and continues to work as a consultant. In this life history interview, Travis discusses his work both the BCDC and the Coastal Commission, focusing on accounts of particular preservation and development projects including the restoration of marshland areas around the San Francisco Bay. The interview also covers in detail Travis?s work documenting the threat of sea level rise as a result of climate change and how the Bay Area might plan for such a transformation.
Ed Ruscha: A New Oral History with the Artist
In partnership with the Getty Trust, we are pleased to release a new oral history with the famed artist Ed Ruscha. Ruscha is an American artist who has specialized in painting, drawing, photography, and books. Born in 1937, Ruscha moved to Los Angeles to attend school at Chouinard Art Institute in 1956. In the early 1960s, he contributed to the birth of “pop art” and his work was featured in the famed 1962 exhibition “New Painting of Common Objects.” In the 1960s, he painted canvases that have since become iconic, including Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights (1961), Standard Station (1963), and Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Fire (1965?68). A signature of his work has been the use of words and phrases, such as in the paintings Optics (1967), Brave Men Run In My Family (1988), and many more. Ruscha also produced an influential series of books based on his photography of the built landscape of Los Angeles, and his continues to document vernacular Los Angeles through photography to this day. He was represented by the Leo Castelli Gallery beginning in the 1970s and then moved to the Gagosian Gallery, which continues to show the artist today. In this interview, Ruscha discusses his art education and influences and his introduction to the burgeoning art world of 1960s Los Angeles. He reflects on the transformation of art after the 1960s with the rise of conceptual and political art and his continuing interest in painting during that era. Finally, Ruscha discusses changes in the art world in the 1980s and 1990s, retrospective exhibitions of his art, the transformation of Los Angeles, and how artists might think about their legacy.
Edith Kramer, Director Emeritus of the Pacific Film Archive
This week UC Berkeley proudly opens the new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive building in downtown Berkeley. As our contribution to the celebrations, we are thrilled to release our interview with Edith Kramer, Emeritus Senior Film Curator and Director Pacific Film Archive.
Kramer has been associated with the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive since 1975 when she joined the staff as Assistant Film Curator. In June 2003, the University of California, Berkeley, awarded Ms. Kramer The Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award. Ms. Kramer holds an M.A. in Art History from Harvard University, and a B.A. in Art History from the University of Michigan. She has taught film history at the University of Oregon, UC Davis, and the San Francisco Art Institute. Upon arriving in the Bay Area in 1967, she managed Canyon Cinema Cooperative and was instrumental in the founding of Canyon Cinematheque (now the San Francisco Cinematheque); and she served as Film Curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
In this interview, Kramer discusses the growth of film curation as a profession, the establishment and growth of the Pacific Film Archive, and the transformation of film curation as a result of changes in technology and distribution. Moreover, she details the films that were most influential to her and how she brought those films to audiences in Berkeley and beyond.
From the Oral History Center Director: Looking Back on 2015 and Ahead to the Future
When Shelley Stokes, a recently retired librarian at Howard University in Washington, DC., decided to write about the life of her father, Maurice Stokes, Cleveland’s first African-American mayor, she knew she need to develop her interviewing skills. Several years ago she discovered on the Web a summer workshop held annually at UC Berkeley’s Oral History Center geared to educate participants in just that.
So when Stokes retired last spring, she decided to sign up for the workshop in Berkeley — and is she glad she did.
“I wanted to learn how to do a better job of conducting interviews, how to convert tapes to CDs, and preserve oral histories,” she wrote to me recently. “I enjoyed connecting with other people, and I received meaningful solutions and was encouraged to purse my projects and dreams.”
Stokes was one of about 40 people from across the country and overseas who attended the August institute, which featured lectures and hands-on guidance to participants about their oral history projects. It was just one highlight of a year at the Oral History Center that saw the office undertake exciting new projects ranging from the history of the freedom to marry movement and economists at the University of Chicago, to the West Coast cocktail project and many individual histories in our University and Community history series.
The chief reason the office continues to attract interest from people like Stokes and benefactors behind the new projects is the sterling reputation for professional excellence OHC has burnished and proven time and again. This work is done by one of the most accomplished staffs in the world. Linda Norton, an award-winning writer, is an outstanding editor with OHC, who tirelessly puts the polishing touches on innumerable oral histories for the Library’s archives each year. David Dunham is a technical marvel who helped spearhead the design and production of OHC’s new website (See http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/libraries/bancroft-library/oral-history-center). Julie Allen is a topnotch editor and administrator who keeps the office humming, while in Paul Burnett, Shanna Farrell, and Martin Meeker the office has the most skilled and intellectually gifted professional interviewers the nation has to offer.
At this time of year, we take a moment to appreciate the road we have traveled, while looking ahead with joy to the challenges ahead. Since we receive very little state funding, and must rely almost exclusively on private donations and grants to do our work, It would be great if you could take a moment at year’s end to remember us in your gift giving thoughts.
Neil Henry
Charles Faulhaber Director of the Oral History Center
The Bancroft Library
A New Initiative on the Women Leaders at Berkeley Launched
We are pleased to announce the launch of a new project, one that is long overdue. Elaine Tennant, Director of The Bancroft Library (TBL), has created a fund for oral history interviews with women who helped to build and bolster UC Berkeley. While we have a long tradition of interviewing male leaders from around campus, women leaders have been underrepresented. It is now time to conduct more interviews that reflect the invaluable contributions of such women.
Tennant gathered a multitude of women who are tied to campus: professors, philanthropists, advisors, friends, researchers, and staffers for a lunch on December 1, 2015 to begin a conversation about the strength of the women builders of Berkeley. These women, of whom included several of our staff, both current and retired, as well as with women whom we’ve interviewed, convened at The Bancroft Hotel. Kathryn Neal and Theresa Salazar, TBL archivist and curators respectively, pulled several treasures from the library; these items were on display and drew a large crowd at the start of the afternoon, indicating the reverence for TBL’s collection.
Dr. Sandra Epstein gave a lecture entitled “Neglected Women: Philanthropy and the Growth of the Berkeley Campus.” Dr. Epstein, who used TBL’s collections in the research of her books, Law at Berkeley: The History of Boalt Hall and Business at Berkeley: The History of the Haas School of Business, spoke about several acclaimed women who helped to make Berkeley what it is today, through both their intellectual and philanthropic contributions. One thing was abundantly clear at the conclusion of this presentation: the history of women at Berkeley runs deep.
After the presentation, Tennant took the stage to discuss the importance of documenting the history of women on campus. Oral histories, she posited, are a very dynamic way to illustrate their significance and preserve their legacy. She announced the creation of the Women Leaders of Berkeley Fund, which will help jumpstart this process and served as a call to action for many of the incredibly talented women in that very room.
If you, like us, believe in the value of this project, please consider giving here, or contact us for more information.
Shanna Farrell
Historian/Interviewer
Oral History Center
The Bancroft Library