Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Bob Parsons interview in OC Reg

Bob Parsons, who has taught at Saddleback College from the beginning (in 1968), was interviewed by LINDSEY BAGUIO:

He's the guy who has talked for thousands of hours:

Q: What was the atmosphere on campus 40 years ago?
A: It was really right wing and there was a dress code.... People who wanted to register had to cut their hair. During the time, there was a lot of student unrest at ... Berkley and Santa Barbara; this board (in 1968) was determined that they wouldn't put up with it. It was a different place. What loosened it up were the veterans who came back from Vietnam. A lot of them were older than the average student....

Q: What was it like having those veterans on campus?
A: When someone looked them in the eye and told them they had to get a haircut, they said, "Oh yeah?" It was a different attitude. A lot of them went along with it; we became their school. ... The college used to play the "Star Spangled Banner" in the morning. Some UC Irvine students came over in a bus and wanted to put a stop to it. And the vets came and threw them out and told them to go back to UCI. It was a different place, and started by people who were very conservative.... 

Q: How are the students today different from back then?
A: Everyone walks around with a cell phone...and you have to make them turn it off in class. They're just generally more relaxed than they used to be. I don't think they've quit studying. They are working really hard....

Q: What do you think has been the biggest change on campus?
A: It's gotten big. Traffic is a nightmare....

Q: How has the way you teach class changed?
A: ...I taught slide rule and now that's completely extinct. I had a budget of $1,500 one year for student supplies. I took it all and bought an HP calculator. That's the biggest change from a slide rule to a hand calculator.....

Q: How have you seen the field of physics change?
A: It's fun to keep up now ... --for example, energy is a big conversation, but my subject matter was worked out in 1865 by James Maxwell and Newton's Laws of Motion haven't changed. I do talk about relativity and the Large Hadron Collider. 

It's a frontier but you've got to be a PhD to be doing that. It's not the perpetual novelty that keeps me going – it's the students.

GOLLY!

Old Town Tustin on television:

Huell Howser's "California's Gold" show on Old Town Tustin airs on KCET at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Howser visited Old Town in July for a trip around the Historic District, starting at the Tustin Area Historical Museum, stopping by the Tustin Blacksmith Shop and the Wooden Indian, and ending at the Beach Pit BBQ.

No comments:

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...