If there's one thing that becomes immediately clear about the Chancellor, it's how well respected he is. From faculty to students, everybody The Fish Rap contacted mentioned his seriousness of purpose, his commitment to education, and his ability to see things from everybody's perspective. Former SUA Chair Brant Smith said of Pister, "I came into this process as a big critic, and what Pister has done in the last year, two years, has revolutionized this campus and set it on a path that I don't think anybody else could have. Pister came along with open arms, brought people together, brought them into the process-he honestly wanted to have people involved."Pister's rise to Chancellor did not come without a heavy price. The job requires most of his attention, and when asked what he does in his spare time, Pister said, "I eat and sleep, occasionally I walk with my dog and my wife. My day starts, typically, at six in the morning and finishes sometime late in the evening. Aside from the time I'm eating, I'm basically working. I've never had a more demanding job."
Pister regrets the demands the job has made on his family life. He considers his family of utmost importance, saying "my six children and my family life is unquestionably my greatest accomplishment," but he has difficulty finding time to spend with them. The pressure of the job has robbed him of that opportunity.
Some might call him a workaholic, though George Lietmann, associate dean of research at the Berkeley College of Engineering, was quick to point out that he does not work for the sheer joy of the labor. Rather, he feels a strong commitment to get things done, said Lietmann, Pister's right hand man throughout his ten years as Dean of the College of Engineering. Nevertheless, Pister is often criticized for his inaccessibility to students.
Pister's time crunch has caused him to eliminate his student office hours, which were once constantly full. This is the major student criticism of him, and it's as salient a topic for many students as his disarming personality. According to SUA Chair-elect Eli Ilano, the Chancellor thinks his communication with students is satisfactory. But most students are not satisfied. "It's unfortunate that he doesn't have office hours, "said former SUA Chair Brant Smith, "and if I were [still] SUA chair, I would be urging him to do that. That's something that the SUA and college councils should be asking him to do. Allowing open hours gives him credibility. I realize he's a busy person, but part of his duties is listening to students."
Pister also addressed student concerns with his performance, emphasizing his commitment to validate the opinions and ideas of diverse groups on campus. "I've been concerned that some of the student groups here seem to feel that I'm not dealing with their issues. I don't agree with them. I think we are. But I think they feel this way because I'm not solving their problems the way they want them solved. They are looking at a problem from one perspective and there are many perspectives."
Engineer and Scholar
At 68 years old, Karl Pister can look back on a productive career. In addition to national recognition as an academic engineer, he has spent the majority of his career in public service to the UC system through his committee involvement's and administrative positions. Everywhere he has gone, things have evidently turned to gold.
Pister has spent the better part of his life trying to add his vision to the evolving UC system, starting with his undergraduate years at Berkeley in the late `40s, and he has been very effective. It may come as a surprise to some that his vision is forward-looking, and often progressive, but Pister's record on diversity issues and the faculty reward system prove it. The faculty reward system redefined the basis on which faculty got appointments and emphasized that boards should appoint professors based on excellence in teaching as well as scholarly publications.
Pister's life-long love affair with engineering began quite accidentally the summer before he went to college. "I had enrolled at Berkeley in the College of Chemistry from high school," he said, "but I had the good fortune of spending a summer between my high school and college working for the State Division of Highways. I worked on a survey party, and I said `this is the life for me.' So I went into Civil Engineering instead of Chemistry." Pister has an affection for engineering that has lasted almost fifty years. "I haven't really ever considered leaving engineering. Not once. I wouldn't give it a second thought."
Since that fateful summer, Pister has given a lot to the science of engineering. His list of awards and honors spans two pages on his résumé, he is a member of four honor societies, has chaired dozens of committees and authored or co-authored over 145 papers in his chosen field.
He has also shown a commitment to the political side of the UC system. Lietmann described Pister as "an activist", referring to scores of positions in University governance, including Chair positions on some of the most powerful Academic Senate committees and faculty representative to the Board of Regents. Pister has also held a number of administrative posts, most recently the aforementioned administration of the UCB Engineering program. Ten years later, he received an unexpected phone call offering him the Interim Chancellor position here at Santa Cruz. The next year, he was inaugurated as a full Chancellor of the University.
Why accept the Chancellorship?
He didn't take the job for the money. Pister's salary peaked in his Dean position, and he can never earn a higher income in any UC position. In fact, he could be making considerably more money working for the private sector and, while he has worked as a consultant, higher education is where he wants to be. Santa Cruz was a tremendous opportunity for Pister, and it was totally unexpected. Despite the increased workload, he found the job hard to pass up.
The natural beauty of the campus is a large factor in his appreciation for Santa Cruz; he has always savored the close company of nature. Pister explains, "I really enjoy the outdoors, the mountains especially. That's why I like the great meadow so much. I like to walk in the great meadow." During his investiture speech, Pister explained how this drew him to Santa Cruz. "The unrivaled magnificence of its setting … is self evident. It is therefore fitting that it enjoys a uniqueness among its sister campuses. Although bound by the unity of purpose of our university, our diversity is reflected in countless dimensions, not the least of which is our setting, our traditions and our academic and collegiate structures."
The collegiate structure was also a facet in the draw of Santa Cruz. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't think the ideals upon which UCSC was founded made sense. That's what appealed to me to come here. I think the major ideal is the college system and it's a resource that this campus has that's not being well used right now."
Despite the commitment to the college system he has consistently expressed, several people have criticized his results. Pister admits, "It's something that we've got to figure out better. One of the real frustrations I've had is that we haven't really made a lot of progress in bringing the college system more effectively into the academic mission yet." Smith agreed, saying, "Pister is the only one who actually cares about the college system, besides the Provosts. I'd like to see the people below him follow his lead on this issue."
Pister also shares an appreciation for the Narrative Evaluation System with the students. He says, "[NES] is a quality of this campus that is highly valued by it's alumni and the students who are here now. How well the Narrative Evaluation System is working right now and what will happen in the next few years-that's a different issue." That decision is in the hands of the UCSC Academic Senate.
Berkeley's Dean of Engineering
Pister had the opportunity to put his educational values to work in the eighties, when he was Dean of Engineering. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was the Minority Recruitment Program. According to Lietmann, Pister "became in a sense a missionary: not every faculty member was enchanted by the program, putting him at odds with a portion of the faculty. But the statistics show it worked."
Pister still makes this an important goal. According to Pister, "The minority program at Berkeley, and here, is a priority for me because it is the future of this state and this nation. And if one doesn't understand that and respond to it, we're doing an enormous disservice to future generations of Americans." To Pister, this is obvious, "It's common sense, but it's part of my value system."
The program was based upon finding qualifiable minorities, hopefully as early as high school or before, and putting them on the track to engineering. Funding was tight, but he was able to raise over $1 million per year, according to Lietmann. The MESA program has become a model for similar programs across the nation.
Pister had clear objectives for the College of Engineering. He wanted to broaden the scope of the undergraduate program and start focusing the education in graduate school. This too met with stiff resistance and became his greatest frustration. Pister explained, "The thing that has frustrated me the most is having very clear personal views about engineering education and not being able to get those views accepted by my colleagues." Yet as he pointed out, his position on a national board of engineering education allows him to pursue these goals on an even broader level.
Values and Ideals
His sense of ideals has always been a powerful part of his persona. According to Lietmann, "Pister's greatest strength is his sense of morality: He is very tolerant, but has a strong view of what is appropriate." Lietmann went on to speculate that Pister's Catholicism was at the root of his concern. Likewise, according to his Executive Assistant Billie Greene, "He is a very spiritual man." However, Lietmann explains, Pister's commitment to his ideals makes him worry too much. "Pister's weakness is, because he takes things so seriously, he's easily hurt." Lietmann explained. "Nothing upsets him more than someone who does not take an issue seriously."
Despite his often progressive proposals, the Chancellor is far from a Santa Cruz-style liberal. "You've got to understand my value system is a value system that I acquired in the early part of this century from parents that were born in the last century. I think my value system has evolved but has not been seriously changed over my lifetime. Whether or not I would be regarded a progressive in all areas is difficult to say, but I certainly wouldn't call myself a conservative."
Early Life
His history begins long before the lifetimes of most students, undoubtedly affecting his perspective on the world. Pister was born in late June 1925, under the hot sun of California's central valley. At the time, his home town of Stockton was a farming community, Highway 5 had yet to be built, and the roaring twenties were in full swing. But the roar soon faded and Pister grew up in the long depression that followed, beginning his college career just as the Second World War began to boil.
During the war, he served in the Naval Civil Engineer Corps while completing his bachelor and masters degrees at UCB. Many of his educational values took root in the post-war period, as he became a full professor at the University of Illinois. Pister returned to the Bay Area to weather out the McCarthy era, the assassination of JFK and the start of the war in Vietnam, becoming a full professor in 1962.
When the 1960s rolled around, Pister was already a distinguished teacher at Berkeley and had enjoyed a long career as a civil engineer with the Naval Reserve. This role conflict, and the political climate at the time would serve as strong challenges to his personal and political values.
Berkeley in the Sixties
Berkeley in the sixties was a trying time for Pister. He remembers, "It was a very unsettling experience for all of us … I got tear gassed at Berkeley. Not just once, regularly-the tear gas got all over the campus, either from the Air Force helicopter that came in and sprayed us or the police." The free speech and anti-war movements came and went during his stay, as the Berkeley political climate shifted to the left. Originally a Republican, Pister joined the Peace and Freedom Party during this period, though he later left to join his third political alignment. Pister explains, "I saw the folly of staying with that party, and I became a Democrat." Now he is an Independent, feeling that his position should be apolitical.
As the movement against the Vietnam War grew, Pister found it difficult to weigh the dichotomies of the era. His commission in the Naval Reserve was especially troublesome; "It really tore me during that time because I was very much anti-war." Eventually "being involved in the Naval Reserve at the same time as basically being a part of the peace movement … was too much of a conflict." Pister retired from the Reserve in 1969 with the rank of Captain.
Before retirement, he commanded a group of men and was responsible for their training. The domestic ideological conflict stemming from the Vietnam war came through clearly in his soldiers. Pister remembers how difficult it was "to try to explain to them what was going on at the Berkeley campus in a way that they would try to understand." Despite his endeavors, "[his trainees'] reaction was `let's kill all those bastards.' They had no sense of `Hey, we're all part of one society and we're trying to learn how to live through a very rending experience in our society.' Neither would tolerate the other."
This attempt to reconcile opposing perspectives is characteristic of the Chancellor. While he was unable to accomplish his goal with his Naval trainees, Pister has continued his endeavors through today. According to Greene, "He has a tremendous ability to see both sides of an issue. He consults broadly, and is able to bring people to consensus on issues. I have never seen [this strategy] fail." Despite Greene's optimistic outlook, the rifts within the campus community remain. However, judging from his record, the Chancellor will strive until he succeeds or he leaves his office.
Faced with a tough job and the limits of a mortal, the Chancellor doesn't know how much longer he'll keep his position. Right now he says he's taking it one year at a time. "First the decision is up to God, second, my wife, third, the Regents, fourth, me, and fifth, the campus constituency. If they disapprove of what I'm doing, I'm not going to stay in the job for a long time. It depends on my sense of what I can do for the campus."