Dyer:  [If you were] to characterize your style of leadership, what kind of words would you use to describe that?  Some adjectives that would indicate your style to be.

Becker:  I think ‘involvement,’ ‘outfront,’....I’m looking for a good word for ‘strong’....I think that I’m not sure what I want to say yet for an adjective there yet but once I get set on what is right and what is bad, why I think (that) my leadership style is to see it true no matter what it takes.  Again, I think you mentioned it a second ago about loyalty and loyalty runs very high with me and I think that, as I said at my graduation speech, loyalty goes both ways.  I think that I give loyalty but I expect loyalty and I think that I’ve been very fortunate to have that occur at Columbia.

Dyer:  It’s perhaps that family relationship we have since we are small we know everyone.

Becker:  Yeah.  People don’t mind telling you “hey, that’s not right, it’s not working correctly” and I am willing to accept that.  You know, my toes get stepped on in occasion but I’m willing to step back and look at it and say “you’re right” and make a quick change.  I believe in ‘persimmon’...I can’t say the word....participatory very much.  You cannot, in my way of thinking, do it on your own because as soon as you do, especially in an atmosphere like Columbia, you have lots of sleepless nights.

Dyer: I believe that Columbia administrators have to say ‘no’ and sometimes have to say ‘no’ sharply and have to have to be critical to their chagrin here.  Is that a difficult thing?

Becker:  No, it really doesn’t bother me.  I have done that and I have said “no, we just can’t do it,” and having a lot of problems with that.  Sometimes I’ve been wrong and been re persuaded to make some kind of change with it.  But, for the most part, it’s tough to say ‘no’ I suppose.  I found everybody who (were) involved with it went along with it or did it right then to make some changes.  You always had to say ‘no.’  You’d like to be a nice guy all the time but you’re getting paid to say ‘no’ once a month, I guess.

Dyer:  It seems that you are very flexible, very liberal, almost excessively generous when students ask for exceptions to the rules.

Becker:  I get teased about that, you know.  We have very strong rules that are established in society and so forth and a student will go to the admissions office and be told there’s no way in but he’ll see Mister Becker.  So they’ll come in here and I think there are extenuating circumstances and there are good reasons for making exceptions to the rule.  We’re all human beings.  We’re all a little different and we’ve all had terrible things - they happen!  So I missed a deadline.  It’s not like missing a train where you can catch it, but you know, we’ve got a lot of people out here who are sick parents and gosh you don’t know what’s happening in their home and with their child and so forth and then they get here a day or two and miss a day once in a while.  Why should we penalize them if it’s not going to hurt the total operation?

Dyer:  Do you get a lot of this in counselling?

Becker:  Yes, I do.  The walk-in type of counselling.  That’s the other thing - I;m always open-door and always have been open door.  And so students have learned to just come right through the door and bust in at any time.  And I always told my secretary, you know, when they want in, they’re going to have to come in first.  Sometimes I get a little upset when that happens because I have so many crises that are happening but I think that [builds them up] and I give them as much time as I can to help.  And I usually feel good about it when it’s over.  I’m usually upset in the first bit but when I’m through with it I say to myself “I did something good.”

Dyer:  You find any two days in a given week to be the same?

Becker:  No!  Not two hours!  It’s all the different things that you’re covering, why it’s just too varied.  But that’s the beauty of it. 

Dyer:  It’s frustrating, but it’s also the beauty of it.

Becker:  I would be very bored anymore being a teacher.  I think you are.  You start at eight o’clock and you do that whatever you go through when you’re teaching and you start doing the same thing over and over.

Dyer:  But in that block there are some unexpected things too.

Becker:  I would hope so.  But I think that’s another word I’ve been accused of, being flexible, at least for students.  The staff, I’m not too flexible for them.

Dyer:  Well, this was my next area.  I don’t hear any criticism from your staff, either directly or indirectly.  It seems that there’s a very strong sense of family within a family.  You get together socially and although you’re very professional and very demanding, it’s not unreasonable.  Is that again just your style or is it something that’s evolved--?

Becker:  --It goes back to how I look for loyalty and expect loyalty and I think that I try to demonstrate loyalty and when I do that, your staff will stick together.  Now, we don’t always have a happy staff--believe me!--we have a lot of disagreements on occasions that for the most part I think you’re right, it is a kind of family within a family.  We’ve always had a Christmas party in my home with a one hundred percent turnout with a little gift exchange then we’d have a student services picnic at someone’s home that’s the whole family counting the kids and everything.  I think those kinds of things help to keep up this [supreme core] and I think that’s particularly important, particularly in smaller institutions.

Dyer:  What do they say when you ask them to come in on a Saturday or Sunday?

Becker:  You know, it’s funny.  Most of them volunteer.  They say “we’re not going to get this done in time.  I want to come in on Saturday or Sunday, is that okay?”  That kind of situation.  They’ve been wonderful; they’re wonderful people.  And I think that what happens too is that a lot of people come in and I don’t even know it.  And I know they’ll stay late and I know that they’re just trying to do their job.  If they’ve gone behind or something, then they will come in on their own a day late or early.  I don’t think there’s a lot of Saturday and Sunday goings anymore.  There used to be until we got a computer system working out, but, basically, I think there’s a lot of [work].

Dyer:  As I look ahead, Paul, you mention that the computers.  Do you see a lot of changes in student services at Columbia in the next few years?

Becker:  It’s on the horizon, obviously, but the near horizon is matriculation, which is mandated by the state and the plan will start to be put together here in a few months, in the Summer, in fact.  But that is a state-wide program.  The main difference that will mean for Columbia is that we’re doing a sort of the plan now, but we’re doing more testing of students for entry-type tests.  And the other thing is that there is going to be a lot more follow-up and research.  I like the follow-up and research, but I especially have some concerns with testing.
            At this point in time, the exceptions to approve who gets in and who doesn’t is strictly up in the air.  They say everybody should be tested and, you know, we have a lot of adults that are in the adult fitness program (and) special other types of classes that you don’t need a test for but they’re at this point where we can’t give an exception.  I’m concerned that there will be exceptions worked out.  I have never, ever watched testing to keep students from coming to college and there’s always a concern of mine that whenever they hear that they have to take a test, we have to explain to them that the test doesn’t mean anything; it’s for your benefit and they say “hey, not me.”  I want to avoid that.  I think I see that as a difficult problem to overcome.
            The other thing that it’s going to affect is the instruction program for a while.  For a while, the English classes, the math classes, will change.  There will be [many different] students there learning skills.  Learning skills is going to be very, very big.  Until the thing is settled down and the pattern is established, there will be those who need some remedial help before they can go on.  Columbia has been famous for no testing.  Columbia has been very successful with no testing.

Dyer:  But can a test be some way balanced with other criteria to measure whether or not the person is capable of doing the work of a specific class other than just the testing?

Becker:  That's the battle.  You see, English is doing two things.  Now they’re doing the test and the writing sample.  And they will continue with that.  The math department is having a great difficulty of what kind of a test to come up with because they feel that they test in the classroom now when they come in.  Maybe we can bring the students in before they register and have them sit down and take a test and see if they can make the decision on what course to take.  The college has never done that and I’m hoping that they’ve move very gently, very slowly into that and not turn off what we’ve got going here now.

Dyer:  Step by step before we have an institution.

Becker:  Right.  We can’t do it alone.  We can’t do it all in one lump sum.  It bothers me, but that matriculation is going to very good because we misplace students and do get them in over their heads and they do become dropouts.  I don’t think Columbia has a lot of that because the faculty here are, generally speaking, very good about keeping students in but that’s going to be a major change to student services.

Dyer:  And that’s mandated too.

Becker:  yes, it’s mandated; it’s getting funded now.

Dyer:  Will it be supervised?  Will there be overseers in Sacramento?

Becker:  Well, there will be a lot of reports we have to send in every few days because it’s mandated.  What’s good too is that it’s going to give some additional funding to the college.  I think that will help us and the students services area because that’s where matriculation will be.  We’ll be able to get some people that are badly needed.  We’re going to have to get some testing crew and get some testing officers and have some more counselling available and some more staff to support those.

Dyer:  So at least another full timer?

Becker:  I’m not sure yet.  I look at it and I see one clerk as a kind of an evaluation kind of person.  I can see a counsellor responsible for the over-all additional counselling required for the over-all matriculation plan.  And staffing to support that being another secretary or two and whatever else support body.  But what we face is how is Columbia going to house these additional people who we are legally required to do this thing.

Dyer:  And the state won’t put up enough money to put a new building.

Becker:  No.  And that’s going to be some moving around, some shifting, I think in order to accommodate.  I worry, Dick, about the rotunda.  I like the rotunda for what it is.  IT’s our art gallery, it’s our core study area, it’s an extension of the [learning skills], and I’ve fought since I’ve been here to keep that.  There’s been lots of talk about “well, we can put a room in here for this or that.”  I hope that we get to have it.  It’s such a nice spot.

Dyer:  We all need space.

Becker:  We need something like the rotunda.  This college needs that.

Dyer:  No, I mean that we need open space.  A kind of place where you can be in that nice environment without being bumper-to-bumper with someone else.

Becker:  I worry that losing that space to something like a student lounge would be a loss for me, just a keep cutting back and a keep cutting back until we virtually don’t have one now.  That bothered me a lot.  First we needed that instruction space for the hospitality management program and the students had to take the short end of that stick.

Dyer:  What about ahead as far as the growth of the college.  We’ve touched on some changes that will occur with the state-mandated testing and probably some of the funding, but what about some things like our physical education facility or other buildings that might be on campus - the daycare center?  What do you see done in the next seven years or so?

Becker:  Well, I really think that it’s all setting up for the ? Purpose] facility, which is the PE facility.  That looks like it’s all set up and I suspect that the money will be released January and start going from there.  So that will take a while but I would guess that in a couple years the [site] will be pretty well finished.  The childcare center is going to have to be here.  It’s some-what mandated too and that is already being looked at and being located so I suspect that will be put on--

Dyer:  --There’s funding for that?

Becker:  Yeah.  It will come from the state; there will be state money for that as well.  I think we really need some general classroom place as well.  But, in my own personal bias--and selfishness, I suspect--it would really be nice to have a student services center; a place where we can put all the admissions and records, you can put the cafeteria, you can put the bookstore, you can put the real services like the health services, those kinds of things, into one building.

Dyer:  Which means another building?

Becker:  What I’m talking about is an entire building, so, right.  And this can be opened up for other kinds of things, but I’m sure that even you as a young person won’t see that on the campus because of all the other needs that come before that and students will always be [caught in a hole] where they have to find where financial aid is.

Dyer:  There’s a lot of little holes around here!

Becker:  More to look out of, you know.  That kind of thing.  But I think that there is going to be continued growth with the college.  The college is becoming more and more popular.  We have student housing, the younger hostel program here.  I just finished a wave to a lot of people around the state that said “Go to Columbia!  Go to Columbia!”  And that growth is going to continue.  We’ve had a six (or) seven percent growth this year.  After an [interval] it will be fairly stable and I think you’re going to see that it will continue, putting pressure on the institution to give us space.
            I’m anxious for that to happen because I’m anxious for new faculty to come forward.  I think we need some new faculty, some new faces for...I think we’ve missed your friend Bob [Hamilton?].  I think we never [have seen him in that position and that hurt].  Money appears to be loosening up a little bit for community colleges.  If that continues to happen, I think we’ll go back into a good, positive initiative.

Dyer:  I hope so!  It’s been a long ten years since - well, ten plus years since Proposition Thirteen.

Becker:  Right!  We’ve just been stalemated.  It’s crazy so see that we have survived as well as we have, I think.

Dyer:  Who are the people you remember, especially those individuals that never you never forget because of your [infatuation] with them?

Becker:  Well, of course there’s Dick Dyer.  I mean, the faculty, staff, people like that…--

Dyer:  --People.

Becker:  You know, I’ve made some really close friends, you know.  John Myer and I are very close.  My secretary and I are have a very close relationship.

Dyer:  Dorothy Danse?

Becker:  Dorothy Danse.  She has just been a wonderful secretary for me.  I’ve used her less as a secretary and more of an administrative assistant but I couldn’t ask for [someone better].  Another person I [can’t not] remember is our former president Dusty Rhodes.  Dusty and I have maintained a good relationship.  And [Indy Cunningham] and I are very close.
            I guess probably much of my close friends are the people, faculty, and staff here.  I’ve got Mike [Kabuszaloki] and we’re good friends.  People that I have worked with and socialized with, you know…

Dyer:  [Was it Giuetta] who said that you can work together and still socialize?

Becker:  Yeah, and I think that’s good because sometimes you can go out to dinner together and the next day you can do a reprimand on him.  Two days later you can….It just doesn’t break the relationship apart at all.  They’re friends; they’re more just than employees, they’re friends.  That’s what I like about Columbia.

Dyer:  We all [get to know] who we work with and--

Becker:  --And they’re still friends.  You might not socialize with them all the time, even I don’t, but [someone who’s classified] as a close friend is still classified as a close friend.  I’ve got a lot of people in staff like that.  Bill Wilson, Ben [Suber], the former coach as you know, Steve Sullivan, and Bob Thompson.  Still very close friends.  Besides, it’s kind of an interesting thought and I pose that to think about those kinds of people that are so much a part of my life and still be in a good working relationship.  And I--

Dyer:  --Well, it takes a special individual to be able to do both of [those].

Becker:  My friend Collin, you know, I couldn’t have a better friend.

Dyer:  And yet you competed for the same job!

Becker:  Right.  But she was probably my best supporter!  I remember being there, telling the story that day you got the job and the first day on campus you went right into [Judy]’s office to clean up.  And I said “I want you to know Paul Becker was my choice!”

Dyer:  Isn’t that something?

Becker:  [That’s a doozy]!

Dyer:  Well, when we reflect back on your tenure here, how would you like us to remember you?

Becker:  I think a honest, hard working, friendly, faire, mild person is what I want.

Dyer:  Are you really that good?

Becker:  I don’t know.  I’m honest and that’s what I would like to have people look at me, you know.

Dyer:  I think we’ll even add to that.  Well, I feel a little sorry about the person who will be replacing you because it will be difficult for her first year even if she could walk on water, it’s just that this has been tailor-made for Paul Becker.

Becker:  Well, I’m sure that she’ll be successful too.  It takes a while.

Dyer:  It will take a while, that is true.

Becker:  If you’re meant to be in a place like this, then you’re meant to be here.  If you’re not meant to be here, then you’re not.  You’re in a hurry, so I don’t think you’ll be here for long.  Either you’re one hundred percent here, I think, or you’re out [and it happens].  At least it’s that simple to me.

Dyer:  Then, in conclusion, looking ahead a little bit, you’re not leaving Columbia College.  Could you elaborate on what you see for yourself here at the college?

Becker:  Now this is home, it has become home and I’d never see myself leaving here.  I have a post-retirement contract with the district where I’ll be assisting Doctor Cunningham wherever his needs might be.  As you know, I just finished the [Alderhoff] program and will continue to be a fitness coordinator next year.  He’s talked to me about doing some recruiting things for him and one thing he’d like to do is get more students here so I will be looking at how to increase that with the housing facilities because it seems to me that it is a logical thing to do and help with the cultural situation for all of our students.  So, you all are not really going to be rid of me for a while.

Dyer:  Well, you’ll be teaching also, won’t you?

Becker:  Well, I might have an assignment this Fall with something about a general fitness class, which I would very much enjoy, but I don’t have any assignment set before this year turns out or the next year in mind.  I think it would be really fun, really something I would like doing.

Dyer:  Well, you had quite a following across the par course at the [elder hostel?].  Did you keep up with them?

Becker:  Some of them went along really good.  The problem with that is keeping up with the front of them and staying in check with that so I had to do double back because I didn’t want to lose anybody.

Dyer:  Paul, what about your community activities?  You’ve been a longtime member of the Lions.

Becker:  Yeah, I again like this community so well that I want to serve it a little bit more too.  I was the founding director of United Way and I worked with the Boy Scouts and of course with the Lions Club thing.  There's been other kinds of activity that I work with and support.  And I think that I don’t want to get tied down with a lot of community things that I can’t do the other things I want to do but I do want to be a part of the community and be volunteering and support the activities I enjoy and maybe help the….continue making it a great place to live.

Dyer:  With all your gifts and talents, you’ll again have to cultivate the use fo the word ‘no’ I guess.  Once you get the phone ringing…

Becker:  I have certainly done some of that.  It was real interesting.  I got someone from the advisory board for maintenance out here and oh my gosh before I knew what I was doing I told him ‘okay.’  Then somebody else came along then all of a sudden I heated up before I [knew what hit me].

Dyer:  That was alcohol and drug rehabilitation, yes?

Becker:  Uh-huh.  Which I think is a real fine program and we had started an advisory committee and somebody asked me to do it so I blew up too many times before all of that was over.  Let’s see how far that goes as community involvement!

Dyer:  Well you and Sunny will probably plan to do some travelling and other activities?

Becker:  Yeah.  She’s going to continue to work for a while but we’ve been making some long-range planning, mainly in the United States.  I’ve been to every state but Alaska but what I would like to do is get a van and stay off of as many freeways as we can and just go for three or four months and see the place.  It’s a great country and we don’t have a lot of concern about going overseas--we’d like to see some spots there--but I think that America comes first for us.

Dyer:  Well, since you’re a country boy, is she a country girl?

Becker:  No, she was born and mostly raised in New York City.  But I think from the time she was about thirteen or fourteen she’s been in Sonora so she can’t deal with the big city too much for herself other than just a few days at a time.  Oh, and the shopping malls.

Dyer:  Well I hope your retirement benefits can maintain your marital relationship!

Becker:  Our first year, we’re not kind of making big changes.  We’re just going to kind of play it day-by-day week-by-week as she’s still working.  And the only thing I have planned is the last of August my four brothers and I are going back to Colorado to our woods.  We’ll leave our wives at home and just the four of us there are going back to kind of see where we got our start and lived and so forth.  We haven’t been back there for a long time so we’re looking forward to that.  That’s the only plan that I have.

Dyer:  Paul, we’re almost out of tape!  I didn’t realize that you were going to be so chatty.

Becker:  I’m a talker!

Dyer:  We thank you so much and I’m sure they’ll all enjoy listening in to Paul Becker when we pick up the tape from the [printer].

Becker:  Thank you, Dick, very much.

END TAPE
Interviewer: Richard L Dyer
Interviewee: Paul Becker
When: 1987
Transcriber:  John P Hire
Transcribed: 28 May 2020