Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 19:40:34 +0100
From: Merrilee Proffitt <mproffit@library.berkeley.edu>
Subject: New Collection Available
The Regional Oral History Office and the Free Speech Movement Project of
the Bancroft Library are pleased to announce the availability of the first
on-line offerings from ROHO'S University History Series, the oral
histories of Edward Strong, Katherine Towle, and Arleigh Williams. The
oral histories of these three Berkeley campus administrators discuss their
roles in events during the 1964 Free Speech Movement in addition to other
apects of their long careers at Berkeley. Their oral histories are made
available as part of the Free Speech Movement Project, which collects,
preserves, and makes available documents related to the Free Speech
Movement (1964-1965). This work has been made possible by a generous gift
from Stephen M. Silberstein.
The oral histories are available online at:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BANC/ROHO/ohonline/unihist.html
Edward Strong joined the Berkeley philosophy faculty in 1932, and until his
retirement as Mills Professor Emeritus in 1967 he played a vigorous role
both on campus and nationwide as a University representative, leading
philosopher, and authority on higher education. A major interruption in his
teaching and scholarly duties came early in World War II, when his friend
Ernest O. Lawrence asked him to manage the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory
facilities. After the war, when he returned from "the hill" to campus and
administrative duties as associate dean of the College of Letters and
Science. He was both a participant in and observer of the loyalty oath
events when the faculty stood united against a threat to their academic
freedom and tenure. His years as Chancellor, 1961 to 1965, culminated in
the FSM events that shook the University.
Katherine Towle graduated from the University of California Berkleley in
1920. After graduate work at Berkeley and Columbia she joined the staff at
the University of California Press (1935-1943). During World War II while
on military leave from the Press, she became one of the first eight women
captains in the Women's Reserve. In 1946 she briefly served as Senior
Administrative Assistant to Vice-President and Provost Monroe Deutsch and
Dean of Women before returning to the Military to become the first Director
of the Women's Marine Corps. After her
retirment from the military she again served as Berkeley's Dean of Women
and then as Dean of Students. Towle retired from the University in 1965.
Arleigh Williams' association with the campus began when he was a freshman
in 1931. He was president of his class and an All-American halfback on the
football team. In 1957 he was appointed director of student activities for
the Berkeley campus, and then went on to become dean of men and later dean
of students during the heyday of student activism in the late sixties.
Williams then served as assistant vice chancellor for student affairs in
the seventies. Widely acknowledged as one of the few to emerge from the
turbulent days of the student movement on campus having retained the trust
of students and administrators alike, William's oral history is an
important source for researchers of these times.
The University History Series is the longest established--and perhaps the
most diverse--series of oral history interviews conducted by the Regional
Oral History Office.
For other oral histories available online, please refer to:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BANC/ROHO/ohonline
More information about the Free Speech Movement Project can be found at:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BANC/FSM
Merrilee Proffitt, Electronic Text Unit
Ann Lage, Regional Oral History Office
Elizabeth Stephens, Free Speech Movement Project
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