Oral Histories

Interview of Paul A. Dodd

Dean of the UCLA College of Letters and Science and UCLA professor of economics. Director of the UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations and chair of the President's Emergency Railway Labor Board.
Subtitle:
Patient Persuader
Series:
Z: Orphan Interviews pre 1999
Topic:
UCLA and University of California History
UCLA Faculty
UCLA Administration
Biographical Note:
Dean of the UCLA College of Letters and Science and UCLA professor of economics. Director of the UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations and chair of the President's Emergency Railway Labor Board.
Interviewer:
Bertonneau, Thomas
Interviewee:
Dodd, Paul A.
Supporting Documents:
Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.
Interviewer Background and Preparation:
The interview was conducted by Thomas Bertonneau, assistant editor and interviewer, Oral History Program, UCLA. B.A., Scandinavian languages, UCLA.
Language:
English
Copyright:
Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
Abstract:
The Dodd family; Park Academy; Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; completing a Ph.D. degree in economics at the University of Pennsylvania; traveling through Europe in 1932; putting future hopes and dreams into UCLA and what it could become; the tremendous impact of Franklin D. Roosevelt; calling for compulsory health insurance program in California; medical care and the free-market system; Rockefeller Foundation grant to study industrial arbitration systems in Australia and New Zealand; Harry Bridges; appointed associate member, National War Labor Board; dealing with strikes; the National Shipbuilding Commission; labor arbitration; correspondence between Robert Gordon Sproul and William H. Davis; regional war labor boards; Clark Kerr recruited as wage stabilization director of the Tenth Regional War Labor Board; the University of California establishes Institute of Industrial Relations at Berkeley and UCLA at the end of World War II; serving on UCLA budget committee; faculty salaries and pensions; presidential reorganization committee; establishing the College of Letters and Science; establishing the College of Fine Arts; Clarence A. Dykstra; becoming dean of the College of Letters and Science; Vern O. Knudsen and the Graduate Division; Edward Teller refuses to come to UCLA because of the loyalty oath; Dodd forced to sign loyalty oath; critical review of administrative deans every five years; reviewing the administrative structure; rapid expansion of student population anticipated; a more mature student body in the postwar years; adding options; working closely with Clark Kerr; the university's responsibility to the community; arbitrating labor disputes at the Bethlehem Steel shipyards; Harry Bridges and longshoremen strikes; arbitrating labor disputes at Southern Pacific Railroad Company; growing acceptance of the principle of voluntary arbitration in the United States; recruiting division deans; William G. Young; securing a cyclotron facility; the paramount importance of developing UCLA's academic stature and rank; recruitment; Gustave E. von Grunebaum; the von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies; recruiting Stafford L. Warren; determining the location of the UCLA medical school; laying the foundations of the UCLA medical center; founding the law school; L. Dale Coffman; Lawrence Clark Powell; building a strong research and reference library; establishing the Graduate School of Library and Information Science; founding the Graduate School of Management; the Harvard endowment fund; faculty salary levels; removing Coffman as dean of the law school; Lulu Wolf Hassenplug; the College of Fine Arts; the most important qualification for a dean is academic distinction; Dykstra's death; putting out "fires"; more on the loyalty oath controversy; changes in the University of California; affection for Sproul; retiring from the university; activities since retirement; student unrest in the sixties; Kerr's dismissal.