President Robert
Gordon Sproul
From the California Monthly's, Our Distinguished Faculty
1951
It is scarcely necessary to identify the picture appearing on
the cover of this issue of CALIFORNIA MONTHLY as that of California's first
citizen, Robert Gordon Sproul '13. But it may be news to most that on July 1
last he began his twenty-first year as president of the University, and
thereby shattered the long-standing presidential endurance recorded for the
Golden Bear course established some time ago by his greatest predecessor, the
beloved Benjamin Ide Wheeler.
This is quite an achievement for a young fellow trained in
civil engineering who as an undergraduate functioned as drum major for the
band, and ran the two-mile for the track team. It is not easy to administer
the largest university in the world for twenty years and do it to the
satisfaction of twenty-three fellow Regents, not to mention what is perhaps
the largest, finest, and most discriminating company of scholars at any
university in the world.
There are some 900 years of tradition behind the concept of a
great university, and every faculty with any pretensions of greatness knows
that it must carry a torch for the fundamental principles involved.
There is often a tendency to view with alarm any president who has not
had an early background of teaching and research, because he might fail to
understand the teacher's approach or to appreciate the importance of the intangibles
upon which greatness rests. Faculties have usually preferred to select a
scholar as president and take a chance on his administrative ability.
This procedure worked with fair success in past years, but in
the present day of very large, highly complex universities, a president
without administrative experience or skill would soon find himself too snarled
up to even think of greatness.
The more one reflects upon such facts, the more he comes to
appreciate what Robert Gordon Sproul has meant to the University of
California, and to know why the faculty and the regents have consistently
joined forces to hold him whenever attractive opportunities to go elsewhere
presented themselves.
It was outstanding administrative skill, demonstrated as
cashier, comptroller, and vice-president, during the years 1914 to 1930, which
won for Robert Sproul the confidence of the Regents. It was his consistent
deference to the opinions of the Academic Senate, and his ability to represent
the University brilliantly and successfully on every public front, which won
him the respect and loyalty of the Faculty. He not only demonstrated an
understanding and appreciation of true greatness in a university, but he
provided the practical ability to maintain and increase that greatness. It has
been his privilege to count as friends a tremendous number of those leaders
who control sources of support, both public and private. No man could have had
a greater test of loyalty than was provided by the unfortunate loyalty oath
controversy.
On occasion "Bob" Sproul has smilingly said that he
would never have survived the demands of the presidency without the Latin
which he learned in high school from Monroe E. Deutsch '02. Later of course,
he was bolstered by having fifteen universities confer doctors' degrees upon
him, honoris causa, including the far-famed academic Emily Post,
Harvard. If the truth must be told, his success results from nothing more than
an extraordinary friendly personality and a wonderful sense of humor, backed
up by a remarkably clear and quick mind, a phenomenal memory, an inexhaustible
store of energy, and a larynx commanding quality.
When "Bob" Sproul became president in 1930, there
were a good many people who felt that the concept of a single great university
for the State of California, however desirable it might be, would soon be
destroyed by a lack of confidence on the part of Southern California in any
institution closely associated with Northern California for almost two-thirds
of a century. If any single factor is responsible for the survival of the
University of California, it is the confidence which "Bob" Sproul
has won personally from the thoughtful and far-seeing leaders in the South.
"All-University Week End" a modern California
tradition sprung straight from the core of the University family philosophy in
an annual tribute to President Sproul, that philosophy's strongest advocate.
It was significant, then, that students, faculty and alumni chose those few
days last year to celebrate his twentieth year as president. This was the
second major tribute among innumerable smaller ones that has been paid to
"Bob" Sproul by students and alumni. In 1946, they awarded him the
"highest honor at their command" the alumnus of the year award for
his "manifold services to University, State and Nation."
This brief sketch cannot hope to cover the subject of
President R. G. Sproul. For a complete list of honors and achievements, see
"Who's Who in America." We prefer the epitome coined by the late
Professor Dixon Wecter, who said that God doubtless could have made a better
university president than Sproul, but doubtless God never did.
__________
_____. "Our Distinguished Faculty:
President Robert Gordon Sproul." California Monthly.
Vol. LXI, Alumni Publication, University of
California, No. 5 (January 1951), p. 12.
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