Founders honored at UCI School of Biological Sciences
By Peggy Goetz
Irvine World News
[Picture]Peggy Goetz/Irvine World News
Stuart Krassner (second from left) laughs as Mabry Steinhaus (left) comments on the dedication proceedings. Next to Krassner are fellow founding UCI faculty members Grover Stephens, Norman Weinberger and James McGaugh.
It was a day of remembering for a handful of men and women who had come to that place some 37 years ago.
The men had been mostly eager and young in vision if not in years scientists lured by the exciting prospect of working in a new place with revolutionary ideas about what a school of biological sciences should be.
The women were their wives who came from far and not-so-far, with and without children, to also be a part of something new.
Almost all are gray-haired or white-haired now and a number are widows, but all remembered last week what UC Irvine was like in 1965, when the campus opened.
The UCI School of Biological Sciences held a dedication ceremony last Thursday to unveil its founders plaque on the side of Steinhaus Hall. The plaque lists the names of 17 faculty members, the founding dean, and the founding chancellor and honors them for "their visionary legacy of research, teaching and public service."
In her opening remarks, Dean Susan V. Bryant said the plaque was the idea of Irvine resident Mabry Steinhaus, widow of the founding dean, Edward A. Steinhaus, and the school's "first First Lady."
Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone reminded the 75 or so guests that the founding faculty did not have to come to this unknown, new and untested campus. With their qualifications they could have gone many places, but instead came with a "bold and creative spirit" to a place with an "avant-garde vision of biology" that is now a hallmark of the school.
The new concept was the vision of Dean Steinhaus, who saw biology based on structural and organizational levels across all living things, a sort of unified theory of biological sciences.
There were four departments in the school, molecular and cell, organismic, population and environmental and the revolutionary psychobiology, or biology of behavior. This newer way of looking at the study of life continues to be applied across most of the academic world now, said Cicerone, but at the time the campus opened it was unique.
Mrs. Steinhaus came forward to thank the founding faculty for the courage they had in taking a professional risk to come to the new campus.
Founding faculty member Stuart Krassner, now professor of developmental and cell biology, came forward and said it took no courage at all. When Grover Stephens called to ask him to come to the campus in summer 1965, Krassner had just heard renowned urban planner Lewis Mumford speak about a new experiment in city building and education going on at Irvine in California. Krassner said he couldn't accept the offer to come to UCI fast enough.
"I feel fortunate to have played a roll in the building of this dream," he said at the ceremony.
Grover Stephens, now professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology, said he did not have nearly enough time to tell all the stories he has about coming to the infant campus. Unique in many ways, its planners had the philosophy that although students would each have a faculty member as an adviser and a kind of mentor, even undergraduates should be treated as independent young adults and be responsible for reading the catalogue requirements themselves and living in dorms that for the time were only minimally supervised.
Stephens told the story of arriving at his new residence and having no appliances. He set out for the nearest Sears, located at the time on Main Street in Santa Ana. When the credit representative looked in the phone book to find the University of California Irvine, he found no listing and told Stephens there was no such place. To get his appliances, Stephens had to ask Chancellor Daniel Aldrich for confirmation of his employment on university letterhead. He eventually did get his appliances.
Stephens glanced at Steinhaus Hall behind him as he spoke and recalled moving into the building in late 1964. He said the interior of the building had been designed by a chemist who had little idea of what biologists did, thinking they were mostly in the business of leaf and insect collections. The laboratories had been designed without fume hoods, which were standard laboratory equipment needed for safety.
Stephens said that when developers planned to cement in and develop 21 miles of waterfront property around Newport Back Bay, faculty members were active in speaking out for protection of the sensitive habitat. He said developers called Chancellor Aldrich and asked that the chancellor "reign in" Stephens and his group. Stephens said that the chancellor responded to the developers with, "Let me tell you about academic freedom ."
Norman Weinberger, now professor of neurobiology and behavior, said he had not hesitated to come to UCI. He said it was the most exciting situation he could imagine as a young scientist, "a new type of department (psychobiology) at a brand new university."
He made the trip for his final job interview with "the dean" and had to wait an hour in the outer office after a 2 _-hour drive from UCLA before the San Diego Freeway was built. The dean apologized for the wait and then asked one question, "Do you like to teach?" Weinberger had never taught. But he figured this might be an important question and responded that yes, he liked to teach, thinking earnestly that indeed he would like to try teaching. He was surprised when the dean then shook his hand and thanked him for coming. It was what Weinberger called his "30-second interview."
Weinberger recalled that establishing this new department of the biology of behavior was controversial, even at UCI, and that the department had been established with the minimum number of positions, three. At the time he accepted the position he was unaware that they had been given three years to justify their existence as a department.
Today, the UCI Department of Neurobiology and Behavior is a world leader in the field and still on the cutting edge of science.
Jim McGaugh, director of the Center for Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and research professor of neurobiology and behavior, came to UCI to head up and develop that new Department of Psychobiology.
He recalled that 39 years ago, as a young researcher he got a call from a colleague at Berkeley saying he had been nominated for the position at UCI and to expect a call for an interview. McGaugh said that when Dean Steinhaus called to ask him to come in for an interview, it took no courage at all for him to brave ice storms on the Portland runways to fly south for the occasion. He said he felt like a 6-year-old taken to Toys R Us on Dec. 15.
"I couldn't believe I had this chance," he said. "It was joy and excitement and just plain fun."
Working at a new university was much more involved than most of the young faculty members anticipated. Weinberger said that every single issue had to be raised and disputed and decided anew. They had to decide on graduation requirements and classes to be given in each new department and what order they should be offered.
Everyone knew everyone else and every school was represented on every important committee campuswide, said McGaugh, admitting that he hadn't given a thought about what it would be like to plan a new campus when he was hired. Weinberger said he recalls still the spirit of everyone working together for the academic good of all.
At the close of the ceremony, Mrs. Steinhaus and Chancellor Cicerone unveiled the plaque. Faculty members listed include Daniel G. Aldrich, founding chancellor, and Edward A. Steinhaus, founding dean, and the following 17 men, all young in vision if not in years: Gilbert W. Bane Jr., Arthur S. Boughey, Richard D. Campbell, Ralph W. Gerard, Leland Hartwell, John J. Holland, Keith E. Justice, Donald R. Kaplan, Stuart M. Krassner, James L. McGaugh, Calvin S. McLaughlin, Grover C. Stephens, Norman M. Weinberger, Richard E. Whalen, Robert H. Whittaker, Clifford A. Woolfolk and Daniel Wulff.
