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412342. OK, this is Harvey Schwartz and I'm in um El Cerrito, California with Julian Randolph, and today is the 5th of June of the year 2000. And June, I was gonna ask you if um You can, you can just, uh, kind of go back a little

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bit from your outline, just a little bit, maybe give date of birth and where you were born and when you were so forth. Sure, I was born March 18th, 1936 in Long Beach, California, so I'm a native Californian. What was it like growing up in Long

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Beach? Uh, it was, uh, a very small city at that time. Uh, most of the surrounding area was in orange groves and, uh, wetland. Uh, one of, uh, one of our favorite pastimes as kids would be to ride out on our bikes and, uh, go tadpole

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hunting. Of course that's all paved over and all, uh, all housing developments now so that you really wouldn't recognize it. The downtown area of Long Beach is, um. Has virtually disappeared. It's all been reconstructed and turned into malls and high rises and major hotel areas and

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so on. So it's, you know, it's a very, very different place. Did you have any connection at all with the waterfront because the waterfront's quite famous down there, Pedro, and no, not really. The only, the only very remote connection with the waterfront would have been through

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my dad. My dad was an electrical engineer. And uh he did the design work for the Commodore Heim Bridge, uh, the electrical portion of the Commodore Heim Bridge, and, uh, you know, for a long time that was one of the most recognizable landmarks in the whole

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in that whole area. It's interesting. Um, what countries did your parents come from? They're both from the United States. Uh, one was born in Newtown, Iowa and my dad was born in Newtown, Iowa. Uh, my mom was, uh, born in Poplar Bluff, uh, Missouri or Missouri,

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of course, as they would say, uh, so you know they're, they're old, old, uh, uh, as far as American standards go, old, old, uh, uh, American stock really, um. My dad, uh, both of my parents, uh, were, I guess somewhat unusual for, for their generation because

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both of them were college graduates. Uh, my mother graduated from the University of Redlands, uh, and my dad graduated from Caltech. Uh, so, you know, it was, it was an unusual combination in, in all kinds of ways. Yeah, um, where'd you go to school? Well, I

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was, uh, in, um, all of my growing up years were in Long Beach, uh, at several, several different locations, but, uh, grammar school, uh, um, junior high and high school were in Long Beach, and then, um, I, as a graduation present, I got a trip, uh,

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during the summer to attend summer school at the, uh, uh, University of Mexico. As a result of that trip, I contracted hepatitis, uh, and, uh, I had been planning to go to UCLA in my first year as a, as an undergraduate. Uh, the doctor said, no,

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you better stay closer to home, so I wound up being in the first freshman class at Cal State Long Beach, uh, and that was only about 4 blocks away from where I lived. I always hasten to add that. Those 4 blocks weren't in the direction one

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goes to get to Pill Hill, that is the high, the high cost area. We were on the other side of the tracks, so to speak, on the other side of 7th, 7th Street. Hm Then I went to UCLA for my MA, BA and MA, 2 years

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in the army, ah, and then did my PhD work at the UC Berkeley. Um, where did you teach initially? Did you go right to SF State? That was my first full-time position. Yes, and that's where I have spent all my professional life. OK, um. Was there

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any union activity at all in your family's background or in your background before you arrived at SS State? Absolutely zero. There was no, you know, I had no, no parental model to follow. Ah, I've often wondered how it has been that, ah, ah, as time goes

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on, not only have I become more involved in the union, but more particularly in, um, in the grievance area and the closest I can come to any kind. Genetic explanation is that my grandfather was justice of the peace for many years in in in Redlands, California,

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where you know they had lived for many, many years, and so I, you know, I think it's maybe the justice strand coming from my maternal grandfather that must have something to do with it. That's great. Uh, OK, I guess the question is, you arrive in the

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fall of 1968 at SF State. Um, what is going on there? You're, you're really walking into, um, what will become a beehive. Well, I, and I walked, you know, it was kind of fermenting at. At Berkeley at that same time too, it was on the verge

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of having the overflight of the helicopters and the gassing that I just barely escaped. As a matter of fact, I happened to be there one day on campus and they were flying low, but They weren't releasing the tear gas at that time at San Francisco State.

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It was, it was sheer utter chaos. Let me go back just a second. Were you involved at all in the student movement at UCB that was all going to go, not at all. Not at all. OK. So you say it's verging on chaos when you get

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to SF State, when I get to SF State. Ah, many, ah, day-long meetings off campus, ah, by both junior and senior faculty trying to decide what was going to be the best, ah, approach to, ah, to dealing with a situation that was, ah, you know, just

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simply impossible. Ah, I wondering from day to day if I was going to have, ah, a class the next day or, you know, what was going to happen. But, um, and you know, as I, as I said before we started this session, it was, it was

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really a watershed event for me. It was from that moment that I really, I think for the first time realized that being a young Republican for the Eisenhower campaign was not the right direction for me to have taken, you know, this was when I was in

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high school. And so that was, that was surely one of the defining moments in not only the way I viewed students, but the way I viewed society as a whole and the way I viewed my own discipline, you know, it was a foreign language as you

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may or may not know, is of all academic disciplines the most conservative. That's from, you know, I'm just speaking from an academic point of view. And I fit that pattern quite well until I got to San Francisco State and things changed dramatically. Let me ask you

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now why. Why would you go? In a sense toward the left gravitate, gravitate more toward, toward, toward the left. I mean, why didn't you look at the whole thing and say, um, hey, these folks are crazy and, um, I'm gonna move in a more conservative direction

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in my thinking. Who knows? I mean, I don't have a, I don't have a ready answer to answer to that. The another a partial explanation, I think, is that. Ah, well, I had courses in my PhD program at Berkeley, ah, from world renowned figures, um, I

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didn't think that they were really all that concerned with students. And I knew that San Francisco State was student centered, you know, that's the way it was historically. That has changed considerably over the past years, but at that, at that point it was still small enough

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and still didn't have pretensions about pretending to be a university, and I wanted to, I wanted to, 1, learn how to teach. Ah, because no one in no way in any of my previous preparation had shown me how you can really reach students who come from

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a variety of backgrounds. Ah, so, you know, I think that again, the defining moment coming to San Francisco State at that time. Had I come in the mid-fifties, I would probably to this day be an Eisenhower Republican, I suppose. OK, um, that's all very, very helpful.

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Um, comes the strike comes the student strike and the faculty strike. What is your experience then and what is your activity then? Well, we're talking 69 and 70. Yeah, I still was not, uh, I still was not a, a, an activist in, in union activities at

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all. Uh, I did join one of the then, uh, current faculty unions, the United Professors of California, UPC. Uh, because I thought they were, and again, you know, it's, it's, it's funny thinking about this now, but I figured that the UPC was much more committed to

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social justice and to activist agenda than the Congress of faculty associations. That is what eventually became CFA. Uh, but I, I was, uh, having said that, I was nothing more than a nominal member, you know, I was, as I say, I was not an activist. I

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didn't attend union meetings really except as they might have, uh, merged with and been the colonel for much larger general meetings of faculty, so, um. And you know that's, that's the way that happened, OK, actually. It's the AFT local and then it becomes the UPC right

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a bit after the strike, um. Did let me put it another way, um. You joined, did you join during the strike, during the student and faculty strike and at the end of the year '69 and ended 1970, did you join the AFT local? I think so,

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but you know, I really don't, I don't remember specifically when I joined. What, what was your, what was your thinking if you were, were you following what was going on? Um, I mean, there were all kinds of issues and crisis points during 1969 and 1970 when,

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when did you strike? Let me ask you that. Oh yeah, OK, so you're one of the, you were on strike, um. How did you see the strike and experience the strike and what did you do during the strike? Well, it was, you know, it was a

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very upsetting and distressing time because I coming to my first job, had expected that this was going to be the ivy covered academia, although student centered. And it turned out to be something very, very radically different. It was, it was a day by day getting through

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and coming to grips with the uncertainty of what was going to happen and how everything was going to finally sort itself out. Did you, um, did you meet with your students off, off campus? Some people did. Some people met off, off the campus. Some people, people

00:12:00.830 - 00:12:17.190

off students. OK. What was that like? Can you, can you recreate the tone of that? Well, it was a, it too was a kind of an upsetting experience because you knew that as you were meeting with them, uh, uh, you were doing, you were, you were

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again walking the line between. Well, you know, you're pretending that things are normal when they really aren't, uh, and you, on the one hand, you're trying to help the students make progress so that they can get out and, uh, start that, uh, climb up the social

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ladder, um, but knowing that by doing that, why you're sabotaging, uh, the effort in a, in a certain sense, you know, because you are pretending that things can go on when really they, uh, they, um. Under another light, they really shouldn't be going on. How about

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your economics at the time? I mean, you were you collecting a salary? Oh yeah, you were collecting a salary. Absolutely. OK. So it was, you know, economic hardship was never, was never an issue. OK. Did you have any thinking about the, you know, the, the argument

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that went back and forth we should really strike totally, we should only partial, I mean, you know, did you think at all about that? How'd you reflect on that? A couple of the people who were central activists in the movement were, you know, considering that for

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many years, you know, what, what was the right tactic and so on. I don't remember that as being a problem for me. I, I, I just don't have any recollection of that at all. What about the settlement? What was your, what was your thinking about the

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strike settlement? Did you think that the, the faculty won or lost or gained or, you know, broke even or what? I'm not sure about the fact that I think the students gained. I think the students gained in a, in a way that um uh carried uh

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San Francisco state forward for a couple of decades anyway, uh until uh say the, well, uh the early 80s uh when the administration changed, uh, the, the general culture changed and the student culture changed in a way that. Uh, now has a much more passive, uh,

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student body. Uh, most activism seems to be centered on, uh, local campus issues and rather rather than on broader, uh, social issues, um. They, they got a, they got a black studies program. Absolutely. What other kinds of gains did you, did you think that they made

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that were significant? Well, but they, it was the black studies program and a school of ethnic studies at the same time. That was much more than just that. I mean, it was, it was symbolic of how students could determine their own destiny if they worked together.

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It's the old song of in in union there is strength, and you don't have union unless you have solidarity, and you know, I think that's that was the important message, and it was clear to Uh, several generations of students that that, uh, that was what they

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were proud to be a part of and continued to contribute to as they went through San Francisco State. OK, um, how about the faculty and how they came out? Uh, it was terribly destructive to faculty. Ah, it, ah, because it, ah, turned faculty against each other

00:15:37.270 - 00:15:55.890

in ways that probably only in the past 5 years have have, ah, divisions that have finally, finally, ah, seemed to melt away, but it's not because anybody has become more tolerant or more forgiving or more understanding. It's because we all are getting older and more and

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more are dying or retiring. So there's been just, you know, it's taken that, but it's taken that long to, to change and to overcome the, the, the very, very vicious kinds of ill will that existed for generations between different groups of faculty. Um, strike strike to

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the strike, the strike, OK, more particularly than than to the CFA election. Oh yeah. Sure. Can you kind of outline the different factions as you see them that that resulted as a result of the strike? Oh, well, the two polls, I think, are those who believed

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it was a cave-in to social activism to even allow a separate. Uh, black studies, let alone, uh, school of ethnic studies, because those were supposed to be integrated into all of the, all of the disciplines that were already existing. So these new disciplines are bastards, you

00:17:02.020 - 00:17:15.180

know, they, they have, they have no scholarship. They have no history to them. What, how in the world are you going to, what are you going to teach in black studies or ethnic studies or La Raza or Asian American studies? You know, that's all anthropology or

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it's all history and So that's the one faction. The other, the other side says, but now wait a minute. We have lived in this country, some of us for 200 years, and you've been giving us the same line of bullshit for those 200 years, and we

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still don't see any difference. We see enormous discrepancies between what we're able to earn and what you white folks are able to earn. Give us a chance to show that we can be everything you are. We can be just as academically sound as you can. We

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can develop and evolve our own disciplines just as you folks did when you first started. So you know, I think those are the those are the two poles really. OK, um, is there any relationship of that to um. The faculty Bread and butter union issues in

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the strike. In other words, is there, does this factionalism relate any way to um. The the uh the union. Issues facing the AFT in their strike, which follows the student strike by not much time. I don't know. I can't, you know, I, I, it doesn't ring

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a bell with me, but, you know, that simply, simply means that it doesn't ring a bell. Yeah, no, that's OK. I'm not one of those issues that that has any kind of resonance for me, for better or for worse. That's interesting. That's interesting. OK, boy, that's

00:18:46.800 - 00:19:18.430

real good. All right. Mhm. I guess maybe what we should do is move on toward the importance of Gordon Shadwick. You had noted he was very important. Yes, indeed. He was one of the two or three most important individuals in how I became involved with the

00:19:18.430 - 00:19:38.480

union and how I continued with the union. Gordon was a real schmoozer. I mean, he was a perfect time out for a second. Yeah, Gordon was a, you say he was a good talker, was a, was a model schmoozer and a very convincing type. Ah, he

00:19:38.480 - 00:19:59.150

was the one, as a matter of fact, who persuaded me to ah leave UPC ah and to become a member of the Congress of Faculty Associations, ah, and, um. So that in itself, you know, to me was was very important, but was he in your department?

00:19:59.680 - 00:20:19.670

No, no, Gordon was a was a staff person. And uh uh one of the old staff uh people in the sense that he had already some years of association with San Francisco State as a matter of fact, he started with UPC. Um, and I'm not sure

00:20:19.670 - 00:20:38.130

why he left. It may have been in part because of some financial, uh, difficulties that both he and his wife, uh, had with UPC, um, but, uh, he was, uh, he was a good talker. He was very persuasive, uh, from my point of view, and he,

00:20:38.340 - 00:20:56.980

uh, he, what he played, uh. Ah, the, the, the strings he played in my case, ah, were these. Well, Julian, you know, really you have had a lot of experience. In the academic Senate and the union that makes the most sense then for you really is

00:20:56.980 - 00:21:17.460

not UPC but the Congress of Faculty Associations because it's more center of the road and you can use your your academic Senate experiences to help the union work together as we go into the two areas of responsibility that is hours and wages and other terms and

00:21:17.460 - 00:21:36.930

conditions of employment. That's union. Uh, criterion standards, that's academic Senate, uh, and having been chair of the Senate, while you can, you can bring your stature, uh, to bear to make it easier for those folks who still have problems with the union, uh, understand that unionism

00:21:36.930 - 00:21:50.020

can work with the academic Senate. So, you know, with that kind of, uh, that was kind of, it was that kind of approach and of course it made, uh, made good, uh. Good sense to me. Can I ask you a question? Why, why would the CFA

00:21:50.020 - 00:22:09.820

have be more appropriate for the, you know, hours, wages, and bread and butter kinds of issues than the UPC. Well, I'm not sure I'm not sure it would be, uh, but, uh, you know, again, remember where this was in my history. This was, uh, my first,

00:22:09.840 - 00:22:30.760

uh, this was really my first experience with unionism, no parental background, no relative of any kind ever in a union, and, uh, it seemed that. Given the nature of the CFA at that time, and forgetting for a moment what the membership actually looked like, but given

00:22:30.920 - 00:22:49.400

the kinds of things that it pulled together, it seemed more academic to me, and you know that's that really was what what I think attracted attracted. Me to it, but also it was because of of Gordon Chadwick's personality and the kinds of things that he was

00:22:49.470 - 00:23:07.560

interested in doing. Did you ever have any discussions about any of this with people like Berman who were active in the at that time in the in the UPC? No, no, I, I only knew Art by reputation and he probably doesn't know me from Adams off

00:23:07.560 - 00:23:24.960

Ox, you know, even after all these years if he's still around. Um, how about, uh, Peter Radcliffe? Did you know him? Ah, yes, but only in later years, ah, and, ah, only because of some issues that he brought to, ah, the CFA executive board. But you

00:23:24.960 - 00:23:41.470

know this is many, many years after the strike. So, ah, again, you know, I, I simply, I'm, I was not associated in any way, shape or form with, ah, any of the, the leadership in, in UPC. OK, OK, that's real, real helpful. Um, when, when did

00:23:41.470 - 00:24:03.280

you, do you remember when you left the, um. Um, UPC to join CFA. Do you remember what year? Well, it would have been probably 81 or 82. It would have been very close there anyway. Ah and ah I left UPC. Bob Chope, who was then the

00:24:03.280 - 00:24:25.160

president of the California faculty of the Congress of Faculty Associations, ah, persuaded me to. Ah, um, be appointed vice president of the, of the chapter. How, how come? Why did that happen? I noticed that happened at he, um, my best recollection is that, ah, he wanted

00:24:25.160 - 00:24:40.880

to, ah, move on, you know, he wasn't interested in being in leadership anymore. And he was, was, as I recall it anyway, his pitch to me was, well, you know, you can be vice vice president for a year and then we're going to have elections next

00:24:40.880 - 00:24:57.320

year, so, ah, ah, and we'll put you up for, for president, and you'll undoubtedly be elected, and you know that sounded reasonably attractive, right? But the question I'm, I'm trying to get at is, um. You're becoming active and how is it that you become How is

00:24:57.320 - 00:25:12.130

it you get to the point of becoming active? You know, you've been, you've been an observant member all these years. You've joined CFA but not in a leadership capacity as far as I can tell, but because of your thinking and the thinking of Gordon Shadwick, um,

00:25:12.470 - 00:25:28.420

and how do you switch from being a member to being an activist? I don't know that I have, I don't know that I have an answer to that. Um, the, uh, I can, I can suppose though that, uh, another individual who was very active in, uh,

00:25:28.940 - 00:25:48.430

uh, in the strike in the union, I believe, but who was more instrumental in my life because of his academic Senate roles, and that's Dick Axon, uh, Dick Axon, um. Even when I, when I was Senate chair, uh, Dick Axon was the biggest thorn in my

00:25:48.430 - 00:26:06.980

side. Uh, he was always raising the uncomfortable questions and always, uh, intimating that I was in bed with the president, um, and with and with the administration generally, you know, um, and, you know, it was, I really had very little appreciation for him at that time.

00:26:07.080 - 00:26:23.480

I stayed with the Senate. Yeah, Axon was with the Axon had been one of the first chairs of the academic Senate at San Francisco State. Uh, and, uh, as, as I, as I matured, I suppose part of it has to do with that as I matured

00:26:23.480 - 00:26:43.780

as a professional, uh, I came to appreciate axons being there and asking those questions and, uh, being outraged at the, the slimy answers that the administration would give to issues that that simply did not, uh, compute and, uh, so it, you know, he and I then.

00:26:44.540 - 00:27:06.530

worked very closely together in Well, in, in the mid 80s, I guess, or early mid 80s, um, ah, securing enough signatures to have all university meetings, ah ah called ah by perforce by the academic senate, ah but forcing the Senate to have ah all university meeting,

00:27:06.620 - 00:27:23.770

for instance, on ah administrative selection and review, um, and you know, it, it may have been, I, I simply don't, don't remember and it wasn't, I wasn't conscious of it at that time. But it may have been Axon's influence that moved me more into activism than

00:27:23.770 - 00:27:42.080

I had been before. I was wondering if it might also have some relationship to your activity in the academic Senate. I mean, You know, you've had a central position. Not as union activists but in a position that runs parallel and might be beneficial. I mean maybe

00:27:42.080 - 00:28:05.120

that it all sort of fits really. Yes, there probably is something to that observation too, but remember though that we're talking about A time we're talking about those critical years as we're verging towards the faculty having to make a choice. It hasn't and it hasn't made

00:28:05.120 - 00:28:28.820

a choice yet and Uh, it may have, uh, part of, uh, I'm sure that part of Gordon Shadwick's thinking was Julian has a good solid academic reputation in governance. And you know if we can get Julian's on all the campuses, then we might win the election

00:28:28.840 - 00:28:41.670

when when Perb has to make the decision, you know, has to decide, you know, who the who the bargaining agent is going to be, right, right, right, um, before we move on to that, I had one little question that relates really, uh, there was a collective

00:28:41.670 - 00:29:01.900

bargaining bill passed in 1978. With UPC support, um, did you have any take on that? Did you notice that as being something of, of importance? No, I'm, yeah, that, uh, that's again something that doesn't resonate with me at all. OK, OK, um, now you mentioned here

00:29:01.900 - 00:29:19.150

a major work membership in organizing this. Toward the election and I presume before the election. Yes, indeed. OK. Can you kind of describe all that? You touched on it already, but you know that's that's again that's that's Gordon that's Gordon Shadwick's work that I'm talking about

00:29:19.170 - 00:29:40.470

there. OK, OK, and how important, how important he was. He was, you know, he did a lot of the work that over the years now more and more individual faculty have taken on as far as Membership work and grievance representation kinds of activities, you know, clearly

00:29:40.470 - 00:30:01.300

it was in in the pre-election time why he wasn't actually doing any grievance work because everything was being handled under the academic Senate grievance grievance policy, but it was, he was he was crucial and instrumental in getting the membership up to the point where, you know,

00:30:01.320 - 00:30:19.570

it helped, it contributed to. Uh CFA winning the representation election. OK, yeah, that's an important point. Um, OK, so you're appointed uh vice president fall of '82. Um, you will be uh president um of the CFA 83 to 85. What are you doing in the fall

00:30:19.570 - 00:30:45.840

of '82 and after the next several months, what are you doing? In that office Virtually nothing. No, in, in 1982, my recollection is something like this. Yes, I accepted that, that appointment, uh, and at that time the, the vice president was really supposed to be also

00:30:45.880 - 00:31:03.160

in charge of membership, but you know it was Gordon Shadwick really who was doing all of the legwork and all of the, the arm twisting and so on. I was engaged in. In doing a uh uh a program review for the Department of Foreign Languages at

00:31:03.160 - 00:31:21.690

CSU Chico, um, one of the reasons, as a matter of fact, that I, that I had accepted the vice presidency, uh, from, um, uh, from CHOP was his assurance that the, uh, representation election wasn't going to happen for, for some time. And so, you know, I

00:31:21.690 - 00:31:35.680

thought, well, OK, we'll, we'll do a bit of organizing and uh get our or in and so on. Well, I was up at Chico State when I got a call. Well, guess what, uh, the election has taken place. Uh, the decision has been made and CFA

00:31:35.700 - 00:31:46.770

is going to be the represent the, the union representing the faculty, which came as, uh, uh, of course it was a pleasant surprise, but it was a shock also because I had not expected.