Introduction

The Regional History Project conducted eight interviews with UCSC Chancellor Karl S. Pister just prior to his retirement on June 30, 1996, as part of its University History series. Pister was originally named as the campus’s sixth chancellor for an interim two-year appointment by UC President David P. Gardner in August, 1991, after the resignation of UCSC Chancellor Robert B. Stevens. In March, 1992, the UC Regents approved President Gardner’s recommendation for Pister’s regular appointment as chancellor.

Prior to his appointment, Pister had spent his entire academic life at UC Berkeley—thirty years as a faculty member and fifteen years as an academic administrator—and as a seasoned veteran of the UC system and its bureaucracy, he knew the workings of the Academic Senate, the key figures in the University administration, and the institution’s policies and culture, all of which stood him in good stead at UC Santa Cruz.

Born in Stockton, California, Pister received his B.S. (1945) and M.S. degrees (1948) in civil engineering at UC Berkeley. In 1952 he received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in theoretical and applied mechanics.

He began his career at UC as a lecturer in 1947, and in 1952 joined the faculty of the College of Engineering where he had a distinguished career as a professor of engineering. He served as dean of the college from 1980 until 1990.

He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and in 1993 was appointed chair of the section on engineering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics, of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and in 1995 was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Pister begins his narration by describing the circumstances which led to his interim appointment at Santa Cruz, and the difficult situation he found upon his arrival. As he explained, “the campus was in such disarray that [President Gardner said he] couldn’t go out and recruit for a permanent chancellor.” Before accepting the offer, Pister consulted with former UCSC Chancellors Robert L. Sinsheimer and Angus Taylor, and with former UC President Clark Kerr, all of whom encouraged him to take the job and considered him the ideal candidate who could stabilize the campus.

When he arrived at UCSC he encountered a number of institutional conflicts. He found this campus to be very different from its sister institutions and worked to reconcile its unique college system and emphasis on undergraduate education with the University’s research mission. He faced controversy over campus building projects—the founding of Colleges Nine and Ten and a music/performing arts complex—and became aware of how sensitive an issue campus development had become. Pister’s approach to building in a campus area known as Elf Land and the proposed extension of Meyer Drive and its impact on the Great Meadow led him to develop a long overdue update of the campus’s long range development plan and the protection of the meadow.

Severe, unprecedented budget cuts at UC from 1991 on, brought on by California’s recession, had a huge impact at Santa Cruz. Pister’s approach to reduced funding was a rational retrenchment process which included the entire campus in budget deliberations, which maintained morale and imparted a sense of equity and fairness among faculty and staff during this difficult period.

Another significant topic Pister addresses is the difficult state of town/gown relations when he arrived. The major issue he faced was the controversy over the rate of the campus’s growth (capped at 15,000 students by his predecessor) and its implications for the surrounding community’s housing, traffic, and water resources. Pister’s achievements in toning down the rhetoric and establishing cordial relations with the city and county of Santa Cruz have promoted a new spirit of cooperation.

Pister discusses his devotion to and advocacy for improved K-12 education in the region and the role of UCSC in the Monterey Bay Educational Consortium, which has fostered collaboration among UCSC and public schools. Another area he worked to develop is his outreach to the regions’ thirteen community colleges and the Leadership Opportunity Awards program he instituted for assisting community college students transferring to UCSC.

Pister discusses UCSC’s role in the Fort Ord base conversion project; the new state university at Ford Ord, CSU Monterey Bay, and UCSC, have become partners in the Monterey Bay Education, Science, and Technology Center, along with local governments and agencies.

The narrative also includes Pister’s detailed commentary on UCSC admissions strategies subsequent to the outlawing of affirmative action in admissions at UC by the UC Regents, and the role he played in joining with other UC chancellors in a unanimous public statement opposing this decision. Pister said of the regents’ decision, “In all my years at UC this is the worst day of my life, ”because he believes it is the mission of the University to reach out to all the people of the state; that affirmative action “is not just for the people that it helps but for the society as a whole.”

These tape-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim, edited for continuity and clarity, organized into chapters and the transcript returned to Pister for his editing. He carefully went over the manuscript line-by-line and provided many written amendments and clarifications which have been incorporated into the manuscript. My thanks to him for his great care in assuring the accuracy of his narration.

Copies of this volume are on deposit in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley; and in Special Collections, McHenry Library, University of California, Santa Cruz. The Regional History Project is supported administratively by Christine Bunting, head of Collection Planning, and University Librarian Allan J. Dyson.

Randall Jarrell

December 12, 2000

McHenry Library

University of California, Santa Cruz