This was one of the biggest demonstrations of my time at Hayward State. The President of the local California Apathy League called it, "a frightful void of disinterest that quite alarmed me. I hope we shall never see its like again."
Inspired by my friend Cassandra's blog about the beauties of Cambridge University in England, I decided to show some pictures of my own university, where I spent the two and one-half of my higher education years. My major was political science and my goal was to become a teacher ... but I went in other directions and... well, let's not go there right now. Instead, let us look at this beautiful campus and maybe you will feel better that you got to go someplace else.
From Wikipedia: "The university has undergone numerous transitions in its history, making name changes accordingly. In 1961, the school was moved to its present location in the Hayward Hills and renamed Alameda County State College. In 1963, the name was changed to California State College at Hayward. The school was granted university status in 1972, changing its name to California State University, Hayward. In 2005, the university implemented a new, broader mission to serve the eastern San Francisco Bay Area and adopted the name California State University, East Bay. The proposal to rename the campus to California State University, East Bay was approved by the California State University Board of Trustees on January 26, 2005."
Ah, what's in a name? Some universities maintain the same name for centuries. But in the tradition of "nothing is sacred if it can be marketed better', Hayward State is no more. Too bad really. I suppose it will be called something else in a few years. Like Swartzenegger Technical Lab For the Decline of American Civilization or something equally grand!
Except for a new bookstore, the place look awfully similar when I last saw it a few years ago. (This pictures are courtesy of Flickr.)
What a lovely and relaxed looking campus. Go, Cal State Hayward!
ReplyDeleteThanks Red. Yes, the team is called the Pioneers. I like the last building there on the right, the liberal arts center, Meiklejohn Hall.
ReplyDeleteThe University administration's greatest claim to fame--ignoring the fact that thousands of people are studying on top of a major earthquake fault.
ReplyDeleteIt's this kind of minimalist protest that really gets their backs up Doug, they never know where to lob the tear gas on demos like this.
ReplyDeleteThe riot squad just look silly talking to each other through megaphones, well done Hayward State.
As the old Kung Fu masters always say 'to defeat the enemy, go beyond his experience' and since nobody ever had to suppress a protest like this before, it was clearly a moral victory of immeasurable significance I think. Bravo!
This building has the intriguing appearance of having been built from the top down, when the ground floor is completed it'll look really great I think Doug....Walter Gropius eat your heart out.
ReplyDeleteI really like the colour of this sign Doug
ReplyDeleteIt really isn't as bad as I had expected from your description, saved probably by the landscaping and greenery surrounding the campus. The bookstore certainly seems to be very popular.
ReplyDeleteNeo-fascist look? I must use that term with my students, that will amuse them.;-) It is often the people who share their knowledge with you that make your time in a building worthwhile. After all only a privileged few are educated at Oxbridge. However, we can all share in the history of the building with the arrival of the internet.
Interesting Doug. Thank you.
There seems to have been a glut of salmon pink paint at East Bay, personally I find the colour quite delightful. But having said that I'd still rather get my books from City Lights given the choice of course.
ReplyDeleteHigh praise indeed given your wide experience in the more traditional "activist" approach to hamstring the local coppers, AA.
ReplyDeleteWe knew we had the riot squad in trouble when they called the student organizers and begged them to gather a crowd!
Indeed, it was this Zen-style approach which I believe shortened the Grenada War by a good fifteen minutes!
LOL! Nothing escapes your eye when it comes to modern design, AA. It took two semesters for yours truly to notice there was no ground floor. I don' know how many times I walked around Warren Hall looking for the way to get in. How I managed to get a "C" in a pre-law class I never actually attended still amazes me.
ReplyDeleteI think they ran out of funding from the State Board of Education --it was either put in a ground floor or finish the elevators for the upper suites for the university department chairs. And you know how those old professors hate to take the stairs.
I do, too. The original "Cal-Hayward" sign was a nice gunmetal grey that would not have been out of place in an upstate medium security prison. To be fair, I'm told the prisoners had better food in their cafeteria.
ReplyDeleteYes, to be fair, Cassandra, the campus is a beautiful grassland/hillside site for a college.
ReplyDeleteThe new bookstore didn't exist when I was there. The original was much smaller, with students crammed like refugees in the queues to buy books come new semester time. (I tried to buy my books outside the U-C bookstore in Berkeley because there was a better selection of second-hand copies of textbooks I needed. )
Some of the buildings like the cafeteria have been retro-fitted and given nicer facades, like the new bookstore.
The Internet is great as far as giving people a chance to see places like Cambridge or Oxford not for tour brochures but as students experience the place.
Me too, AA. I got some of my class books along the many bookshops like "Moe's" and "Shakespeare and Company" along Telegraph and College Avenue outside UC-Berkeley, which was about twenty miles and a few BART rail transit stops up the road from Hayward.
ReplyDeleteCity Lights eclectic collection--and its storied history--was unsurpassed of course.
The old bookstore looked like a train station in a small town in Bulgaria.
very nice pics
ReplyDeleteThank you Heidi.
ReplyDeleteCud do with a few trees
ReplyDelete:-)
Hey, where the trees?
ReplyDeleteTrees I think would spoil the effect of the asphalt, Frank.
ReplyDeleteI think the planners thought trees would spoil the effect of ennui the California students always crave in a place of higher education, Frank.
ReplyDeleteOur botany class professor organized trips off campus for us to see these things you call "trees".
ReplyDeleteMy college is surrounded by 400 year old oaks. Never hurt us. ..
ReplyDeleteWe used to dream about being near oak trees, but we was too poor :-(
ReplyDeleteSeriously, that must have been beautiful, Frank. I love oaks. Have a grand one near my hovel now. Not the 400 year old kind, but plenty of shade. Which college did you attend?
I would rather have a baldly designed building in a lovely setting, than a gorgeous place in a horrible area. What I look out on affects how I feel.
ReplyDeleteHahaha, they seem to have made a few improvements since you left. You didn't graffiti the walls did you?
The internet helps us to get a sense of the place until we can get there ourselves. I really find it so much easier to climb mountains that way! ;-)
Talking about mountains, tell me would you do this walk, Doug. I have a fear of heights but I am compelled to watch this video quite often.
ReplyDeleteI know Frank will do it.
http://eyhdi2cassandrias.multiply.com/journal/item/153/Living_on_the_edge
Trinity College Dublin. ..
ReplyDeleteI'm preparing already. ...
ReplyDeleteOscar Wilde, when visiting the San Francisco area back in 1882 or 3, said that the city was "like Italy, but without the art."
ReplyDeleteOf course now San Francisco has its art galleries and opera houses and such, Cassandra, but I think Wilde's summation from another century would apply to Hayward and its university a century and more later.
Most of the state university system at a time when California's population was rising rapidly in a boom-time era (the early 60's) I think they were just trying to keep pace with the need to build places of higher learning at a time when there was a mushrooming number of students taking advantage of the low-costs for a public (state) university education. Certainly a lot better situation than before World War II, when a college education was hard to be had for people of ordinary means.
It does seem the State Education types have "gilded the lily" at dear old CSUH since I left. I never did graffiti the walls, however, as that would have cut into my nap time between classes over in the library. ;-)
Its a bleeding outrage with all that EU finding the government of Andalusia gets it has let the walkway fall into such disrepair. I know the area quite well, there is no way that I would venture along camino de la muerte and so I admire their craziness but am covinced it is very crazy.
ReplyDeleteNow that's a sensible idea, AA: fix the walkway so hikers could access it with reasonable safety and admire the original determination of the people who risked their lives to build that walkway in the first place. Obviously the restrictions on access don't work.
ReplyDelete