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Barnstormer. Few Californians would deny that Bob Sproul earns his $20,000 a year. After his role as papa of the university family, the president considers himself a kind of dignified pressagent—"the symbol of the university to the state and the people, and the spearhead of the university's public relations." To make sure that no bushels hide Cal's lights, Sproul makes at least one major address a month, does a lot of minor banqueting besides. Periodically he barnstorms around the state, renewing his friendships. One "good friend and great alumnus" whom he never neglects: his college chum, Governor Earl Warren.
It helps to have a legislature honeyCombed with Cal alumni (about 40 out of 120). Last year the university was involved in 143 bills introduced at Sacramento, ranging from a "Little Dies Committee" probe to a bill for sardine research. Bob Sproul woos each indifferent and hostile legislator, invites them to visit Cal campuses. There prominent alumni guides point out what Cal is doing to rear the youth and raise the crops, gently remind the visitors that Cal has 190,000 living, breathing, voting alumni. Former students range from Atomic Physicist Harold C. Urey to Radio Actress Vera Vague; include General Jimmy Doolittle, Cartoonist Rube Goldberg, Helen Wills Moody, Jack London, Gregory Peck, Kathleen (Forever Amber) Winsor, and Sun Fo, president of China's Legislative Yuan.
To cope with a major legislative crisis, Bob Sproul always has a secret weapon in reserve: alumni of the Order of the Golden Bears, a pack of onetime Berkeley campus big shots, who come out of hibernation whenever Golden Bear Sproul cries for help. In less than 24 hours, as many as 70 bank presidents, manufacturers, brokers, lawyers and physicians have assembled on call. Once briefed on the crisis, the Bears go back to their plush-carpeted lairs, pick up their telephones and growl at their senators and assemblymen. Since Sproul became president, the legislature has given the university $255,173,885, or more than double the total in all the previous 43 years of the university's history.
Persuader's Job. Some university presidents have dictatorial powers; the president of the University of California is only a prime minister. His educational program must win the approval of the Academic Senate, a powerful faculty body that predates Sproul's regime, and makes California one of the most democratically run universities in the U.S. No new courses or departments can be added, no dean appointed, no new professor called, no academic budget instituted, without Senate action. Says Sproul with a grin: "The faculty can't be driven. It can only be persuaded." Sproul is, of course, a professionally persuasive man.
The 16-man Board of Regents (appointed to 16-year terms and by custom reappointed for life) own the eight campuses, hire & fire university presidents, spend the legislature's appropriations as they see fit. The board is dominated by four conservative members: Bankers James K. Moffitt, '86, and Edward A. Dickson, '01; Lawyers John Francis Neylan (who made a fortune as Hearst's attorney) and Sidney M. Ehrman, '96. At regents' meetings, Sproul waits until his opinion is asked, as he knows it will be.