When Your Professor is a Former Univesrity Chancellor

This quarter, one of the classes I've taken is called, "The 2008 Presidential Election."  I remember sitting in a hotel lobby in Spain over the summer, enrolling in courses and I saw the name of the instructor listed on the course.  "Who is this 'C.E. Young?" I asked myself.  It dawned on me a few months later that it was Charles E. Young - the same former chancellor whom a research library in the north part of campus and a road that wraps around camp is named after.

Young was chancellor of UCLA from 1958 to 1997 and was responsible for developing the school into one of the nation's top research universities. He was the youngest person, at age 36, to run any American university and retired after an almost 29 year career.  I had known that he was still involved at UCLA through the School of Public Affairs and last year, he was a guest speaker in one of my classes. However, I did not know he was still teaching.  In fact, up until this semester, he was not teaching. Chancellor Young came out of retirement (for the third time) to teach the course, because, as he said to our class, "it was such an important historical election."

The course itself was a hybrid of a lecture and a seminar. We met once a week and Young would lecture, but the last hour of the class was reserved for a class discussion on the latest in the current election: we talked about everything from poll numbers to major moments in the campaign and historical parallels to previous campaigns. With about 30 or 40 students in the class, the environment was pretty intimate and we were able to share our thoughts about everything leading up to the election, as well as the upcoming administration. The focus on the course and the election was from a historical perspective, so the readings were focused on the development of the office of the presidency and how parties and elections have been shaped over time.  

The class also received a great deal of attention, with reporters from the school newspaper, The Daily Bruin and the Los Angeles Times sitting in and writing stories. Though Dr. Young said to the class that he has had to deny several requests for guests to observe a lecture or two, there were two exceptions he made: one for his granddaughter, a UCLA alumna who had recently graduated, and one for two of his friends: famed Hollywood producer Walter Mirisch and Academy Award-winning actor Sydney Poitier. It was an unusual, but memorable experience.

What was most remarkable, though, was that toward the end of the quarter, as we reached the modern age of the presidency, Dr. Young actually was personally familiar with many of the figures we talked about - from President Lyndon B. Johnson to President Bill Clinton.  He could personally attest to the characteristics of each president, having at least met them at one point or another. Dr. Young was most familiar with President Reagan, who had been governor of California while he was Chancellor, and he admitted that they sometimes butted heads over some issues.

Being in the class was a prime example of the type of unique academic experience offered at UCLA. Dr. Young was responsible for developing the university into what it is today and his class shows how undergraduates have the opportunity to be exposed to knowledge from the best and the brightest. It's true that this presidential election was rather historical, but the class I took on it was just as memorable and interesting.

- Edward Truong

Comments

[Used cars]

Quite a character I must say, and also looks like a great guy and interacting with him would really have been an experience of some sort.

[eric]

Great story Edward! It would have been great to met such a renowned man. Keep up the stories!

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