RICHARD DYER: This interview in the History of Columbia Junior College series is with Richard A. Dodge, dean of Science and Natural Resources.

DYER: Dick, why don’t you take a moment and explain to us what your position was during the formative years, 1967 to 1968?

RICHARD DODGE: I think my involvement with Columbia Junior College actually began when I was an instructor at Modesto Junior College, and came to know Dr. Rhodes through my teaching in the adult evening program there. And I did teach three or four classes here in Sonora out of that initial operation.

DYER: Now you were an instructor at Modesto

DODGE: I was instructor of botany at Modesto. And obviously knew the principles involved through that activity. Frankly, in the fall of ’67 I was teaching a class up here in biology on Fridays, and commuted with Bill Haskins back and forth between Sonora and Modesto. And as I recall, a dean of Science and Natural Resources had been hired in the previous summer, but for some reason or another he did not come and so they withdrew the offer of appointment to him, and I don’t know whether it was because I was on the scene at the right time or something I had said to Mr. Haskins about the development here, anyway he asked me to review the architectural plans for the science facility. And over a weekend I completely redesigned the science facility and developed a philosophy for the suggestions I had made. And whether or not these impressed the powers at be or they were badly in need of someone to take on responsibility there I don’t know. At any rate, Bill suggested – asked me if I would be interested in coming to Columbia and as we discussed it I began to see a real opportunity for a great deal of program development. The excitement of building a new college and hiring staff and developing curriculum was more than I could turn down. And so I continued as a – well, as a volunteer consultant really, through the fall and early winter of ’67. And in February ’68 was assigned full-time up here as the dean of Science and Natural Resources designate, and then did come to work full-time here in February of ’68. This then, of course, my responsibilities were to coordinate the facility design with the architect, develop budgets and begin ordering supplies, capital equipment and materials, and begin identifying faculty and staff, and on about that time we realized that the construction of the campus would not be completed in time to start the new college on campus in the fall of ’68. And so we began scouting about for alternate facilities and in all honesty, I think I was the one who suggested we use Eagle Cottage. And I know I did negotiate with Neal Powers, in the State Historic Park, for Eagle Cottage, Oddfellows’ Hall, Angelos Hall and what other facilities we could find in Columbia Park area.

DYER: So then actually your role was as a college instructor as well as a college consultant.

DODGE: Yeah, during the fall of ’68 and early winter I was teaching full load at Modesto and working up here I had all day Fridays to work up here, and Saturdays and Sundays of course too. And did that frankly as a volunteer, until February.

DYER: Dick, what was your position during the Eagle Cottage days?

DODGE: Well, I was dean of Science and Natural Resources, which was a division created, if I might inject, because no one else knew what happened in Science and Natural Resources, so we had that third division created, in all honesty. At the time we figured it would be a terminal position once the operation began. We moved into Eagle Cottage – we finally made the decision about the First of June, ??? ??? ??? I guess, because we were – we had done some work before the University of the Pacific moved in for their summer program. Eagle Cottage had a dirt basement, there was no floor in the basement at all. And I realized very early if I was going to have any kind of a science program, I was going to have to find a laboratory somewhere. And so one way or another, we finally got the district maintenance staff – Mr. Bradley’s staff – to put in a cement deck, a cement floor in the basement of Eagle Cottage. We had to obviously negotiate with the University of the Pacific, since they had the building as their responsibility, we had to negotiate with the State of California because it was part of the state park structures, and we had to negotiate with our own staff because we knew we’d be preparing this, and then turn it over to whoever was responsible for Eagle Cottage. So it was a matter of the investment for one year’s operation of the program.

DODGE: Well, once we got the floor in we put in temporary partitions, and we shared the basement – we had a science lab there and we shared that with the library and the bookstore. And the library was a little bit distressed with us because some of our critters would get away every now and then, and they would find them curled up among the books, as it were.

DYER: One of the students talked about the snake that got out into the library and discovered more than they bargained for when they went for books.

DODGE: Yeah, yeah this happened a couple times, really, and you know, we could always tell when it happened because we would hear shrieks across the partition, you know.

DYER: At least it locates your critters.

DODGE: Yeah, right. Our laboratory was rather interesting; we had a very small facility. And recognizing that size we had to work with, you know, this was imposed upon us early, we began to look about for a means of operating laboratories in a facility you couldn’t get more than ten students at a time into. And this is how we began the audio tutorial experience.

DYER: So you think that the fact that you had the limited facilities at Eagle Cottage conditioned your direction?

DODGE: Oh, by all means. I had, in all honesty, designed the science lab in the new building on campus from a traditional standpoint, recognizing that the lab was going to have to serve several fields. Biology, chemistry, geology, physics, and so on. Natural resources and forestry. I had made some changes which left the whole center portion of the laboratory free, in other words, the lab working stations were along the perimeter of the building, with the idea that each instructor could go in and do his lab thing for three hours and have all his materials on carts. IN the meantime the other instructor could be preparing his cart in the back prep room. Well, this was fortuitous for a couple of reasons, but mainly it left the whole center section open so once we decided we liked audio tutorial, because of the Eagle Cottage experience, and the students liked it and responded well to it, we had plenty of room to put study carols and tutorial carols in this space that was originally designed for another purpose. That was luck, frankly.

DYER: A blessing in disguise.

DODGE: Yeah, right.

DYER: Did you have laboratory facilities in some of the other buildings?

DODGE: No, we offered lectures in the Oddfellows’ Hall. Our first biology, and that was where my major input was, our first biology, seems to me, had about 50 students in it. This was one of those courses that, you know, we had not been able to offer in the MJC extension that we offered at Sonora, which we’d begun offering a number of years beforehand. And so we had a great number of people who needed laboratory for their general education transfer. And so once we had began to offer a laboratory science up here we had a very large enrollment to begin with. And I think we had about fifty in our first biology class, which incidentally Don Jones, Ross ??? and I team-taught. Which in itself was a good and an interesting experience. I do wish we could get back to that. It worked out real w-

END OF FILE

General Information:

Interviewer: Dyer, Richard

Interviewee: Dodge, Richard A. (Dean of Science and Natural Resources)

Name of Tape: (a section of) History of Columbia Junior College (CC_hist_5_0)

When: Late 60’s early 70’s

Transcriber: Alden (3/31/08)

Transcriber’s Note: n/a