Seventy-five years--and still going strong! A chance to celebrate one of the university's oldest organized research units--one that started as a small reference collection in a corner of the basement of Doe Library.
And that was my first contact with the Bureau of Public Administration--as a graduate student in 1946 seeking material for a term paper. And my most recent contact with the now Institute of Governmental Studies some 50 years later is similar--as a professor emeritus looking for the latest word on a problem of state politics. So, high in our celebratory tributes is the IGS Library, grown form a handful of documents and pamphlets to one of the nation?s outstanding repositories of information on government and public policy.
No one would be prouder of this achievement than Samuel C. May. Energetic, feisty, creative, May was remarkably foresighted in his emphasis on objective, fact-based research. A leader in education for the public service, his students held leadership posts in the public sector--city managers, state agency heads, federal bureaucrats--while others went on to develop academic programs in public administration across the nation.
In 1951, I called on May to seek his advice: Should I continue as assistant to the city manager of San Leandro, or become a member of the first class of the newly formed law school at UCLA? "Neither," suggested May. "You should come back to Berkeley and get your Ph.D. in political science. And there's a job for you at the Bureau to pay your way."
Thus started my career at the bureau as a public administration analyst, one of several graduate students assigned to prepare research reports for the state legislature. Little did I know then that this relationship with the bureau and Institute would dominate my professional life and that, save for tours of duty with Chancellor, then President Clark Kerr, and a year in an ill-fated gubernatorial campaign, I would be affiliated with the Institute (and the Department of Political Science) until retirement (and after!).
What stands out in memory over the intervening half-century? First, the student/analyst period, when I was assigned responsibility by May for the bureau's Sacramento contacts. My contacts and "teachers" in California state and local government were such giants as Legislative Analyst A. Alan Post, Legislative Counsel Ralph Kleps, League of Cities Director Richard Graves, and the league's lobbyist Richard Carpenter. What a team of young graduate students! And fond memories of riding "The Senator," when the train still offered a convenient and much-preferred alternative to the freeway.
The formal Sacramento program ended when the legislature developed its own research capabilities and the need for assistance diminished. But several years later, Chancellor Albert Bowker enabled the Institute to increase greatly its service to state and local government with the appointment in 1973 of John Cummins (now assistant chancellor) as "public service coordinator." Within a year, IGS had sponsored 11 UC legislative conferences on problems of statewide concern.
This led to the establishment in 1976 of the California Policy Seminar, a universitywide program administered by the Institute, which has led to scores of faculty research projects on state issues. I am proud that the Institute played a critical role in the establishment of what has become a nationally recognized program of university/state cooperation.
Another permanent university program, originated at the Institute by then professor William Bicker in the late 1960s, was a political data bank. Initially built around the Field Poll, with the superb cooperation of its director Mervin Field, the project was eventually transferred to the Survey Research Center (where it is now known as UC DATA), one of the outstanding collections of political polling information in the country.
IGS can take great credit for creating and nurturing a number of ongoing programs that it no longer administers. The Institute took a similar leadership role in the organization of three briefings in the 1970s for newly elected members of the California Congressional Delegation. As a result, I was invited in 1978 to serve the bipartisan delegation in Washington as a staff consultant and--consistent with the Institute's reputation for objectivity and partisan neutrality--to regularly attend the respective party caucuses.
While addressing these state and national concerns in the 1967-88 period of my directorship, the Institute continued its historic interest in local and regional government. Under the leadership of Stanley Scott and Victor Jones, a series of UC Press volumes were commissioned on the governance of metropolitan regions around the world. Paralleling this international focus, the Institute published a series of monographs on policy issues facing the Bay Area.
A conference on Bay Area regional organization drew over 700 citizens, while--in the back rooms of the Faculty Club over the ensuing months--the Institute hosted off-the-record meetings of key decision makers in an attempt to develop a political consensus on a viable regional political structure. Jointly chaired with Assemblyman John Knox, it is a source of personal regret that we were unsuccessful. On the other hand, Mel Scott's pioneering 1963 report, The Future of San Francisco Bay, was a critical factor in the creation of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, a very successful experiment in regional government.
Other events of note in the 1967-88 period would include the inauguration of an annual symposium on the presidency, repeated for the thirteenth time in 1995; conferences on research needs in California government and politics, attended by scores of faculty from UC, CSU, and private institutions; conferences on American federalism; and an experiment in "public service television," two hour-long programs viewed by hundreds of thousands of Californians.
In 1986, all of this and related activity was acknowledged--and rewarded--by the establishment of the Joseph P. and Polly Harris Trust, an endowment of $2.7 million left to the Institute by Professor Harris upon his death. A pragmatic political scientist, a believer in hands-on experience as part of the educational process--Harris' fortune derived from his invention of the Votomatic punch-card voting machine--supports faculty and graduate student research and other Institute programs.
What is most gratifying of all is to see the development and vitality of the Institute since 1988. The library is at the forefront of new technology; California studies under Associate Director Bruce Cain involve more students and more research than ever before; publications has taken on new life, led by Jerry Lubenow; and the focus of Director Nelson W. Polsby on the national and comparative scene has brought scores of visiting scholars to the Institute from across the nation and abroad.
It is wonderful to have contributed to and to continue to be a part of this exciting enterprise. Here?s to the next quarter century and the centennial!