A brief biography of Joseph P. Harris framed in the Harris Room at the Institute of Governmental Studies describes him as a teacher, researcher, writer, editor, administrator, consultant, inventor, and university benefactor. His students, his colleagues, and the university all benefited immensely from the wealth of scholarship and experience he brought to these many roles. IGS, as a special recipient of his generosity, has been blessed twice.
A native of North Carolina, Harris earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Kansas and, four years later, a doctorate from the University of Chicago. He was a flight instructor in the U.S. Army Air Service in World War I and financed his graduate studies by shuttling air mail between Cleveland and Chicago. He began his teaching career at the University of Wisconsin and spent four years at the University of Washington.
Harris went to Washington in 1934 as assistant executive director of the Commission on Economic Security. He was appointed Director of Research for the President's Committee on Administrative Management and served as research director for public administration of the Social Science Research Foundation.
After short-term appointments at Berkeley and Northwestern, Harris became a permanent member of the UC political science faculty in 1941. Following the death of his only child, a naval aviator who crashed while on a training mission in 1942, Harris returned to military service, teaching in the School of Military Government in Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1944-45, he went to Europe to direct personnel and training for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
Returning to Berkeley in 1946, Harris taught a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses and seminars in American government, politics, and public administration. His scholarship included The Advice and Consent of the Senate, Congressional Control of Administration, Congress and the Legislative Process, Election Administration in the United States, and many other articles and books. He was largely responsible for establishing the California Assembly Fellowship Program, the first state legislative internship program in the nation.
While doing research on voter registration and election administration as a graduate student, Harris had developed an interest in voting machines. He began toying with a system based on a punched paper roll similar to that used in a player piano. It took computer technology more than three decades to catch up with Harris, but once it did, he soon perfected the Votomatic punch-card balloting system. It was an instant financial, as well as electoral success, and Harris? skillful investment of the proceeds from the sale of the machine made possible a generous gift to the university. The Joseph P. and Polly Harris Trust is an endowment given to the Institute of Governmental Studies to be used in support of graduate fellowships, faculty research, and other academic programs in government and politics.