There are thousands of San Jose State University alumni in the South Valley. I'm proud to say I'm one of them. And I'm especially proud this year as SJSU marks the 150th anniversary of its founding.
It'll be a full year of sesquicentennial celebrating kicked off by a gala reception at the campus' Martin Luther King Jr. Library on Friday, Jan. 26 at 6pm. I received the e-mail invite to the event, and I'm considering attending. It might be nice to meet some of my former professors and classmates and see how their lives have gone on since I graduated from SJSU about 15 years ago.
Looking back, my three years at San Jose State went by too fast. Juggling classes with part-time jobs, family obligations and a busy social life, my time passed in a blur. But during those fast-paced college years, I never really stopped to appreciate the quality of education I was getting. Like too many people, I saw SJSU as the low end of the university totem pole in the Bay Area. As a blue-collar university, it seemed to rank in prestige far below Stanford, Santa Clara University, and Berkeley.
It's embarrassing to admit now, but back then I had an inferiority complex about SJSU. I thought of it as just a "commuter college" that I went to because it was affordable and close to home. But in recent years, my esteem for my alma mater has evolved. And a lot of that evolution is due to learning about SJSU's history and the many truly amazing people who passed through its classrooms over the years.
Most of its students and graduates probably don't know SJSU is the West Coast's oldest public university and helped significantly in shaping our nation. As our state's first public university, its founding was the corner stone that helped build the world-respected California State University System, America's largest system of higher education.
My alma mater had humble roots, though, long ago. What's now SJSU got its start thanks in part to the Gold Rush. With pioneers heading west during that colorful time, California's population grew rapidly. Many thousands of families journeyed here to make better lives for themselves. The children in those families needed a good education.
To meet that need, in 1857 George W. Minn established a night-time teachers college in San Francisco. Called Minn's Evening Normal School (a "normal school" prepares teachers for elementary grades), a dozen or so women pupils started meeting in the city's high schools to receive their training.
Minn's experiment in education proved so successful that in 1862 the California Legislature officially turned his teacher training program into the California State Normal School. For want of a permanent location in San Francisco, in 1871 school administrators decided to move the school and its 150 students south to the farm village of San Jose. A couple of blocks east of San Jose's central plaza, 27 acres were set aside to serve as the new campus.
On a side note, San Jose's California State Normal School helped in the founding of a much more famous university, one located in what's now the land of movie stars. In 1881, it opened its first branch campus in a former Spanish mission village named for "the angels." That school would later become the University of California, Los Angeles - or UCLA.
The San Jose school went through several names during its 150 years of development. In 1921, it became "San Jose State Teachers Training College." In 1935, its name was changed to "San Jose State College." And in 1972, it became "California State University, San Jose." But luckily, two years following this name change alumni petitioned to change that awful appellation to the more manageable "San Jose State University."
Over the decades, SJSU played a part in shaping San Jose. With a campus of 154 acres set in the heart of what's now the tenth largest city in the United States, its role in the city is significant. SJSU helped shaped Silicon Valley as well, by providing the Bay Area with more graduate employees than any other university or college. Much of the economic boom our region was blessed with in the last 20 years owes its great thanks to the workforce of alumni coming out of San Jose State University.
Among those alumni are many who stand out for their accomplishments in science, engineering, music, law, politics, the arts, literature and sports. They include Dick and Tom Smothers (the Smothers Brothers comedians), Stevie Nicks (a member of rock band Fleetwood Mac), Dian Fossey (a famous gorilla expert), Christopher Darden (the prosecutor in the infamous O.J. Simpson murder trial), Mike Honda (U.S. Representative for San Jose), Gaylord Nelson (the U.S. Senator who created "Earth Day" to generate public awareness for our planet's environment), Lou Henry Hoover (the First Lady during U.S. President Herbert Hoover's administration), and Amy Tan (the best-selling Asian American novelist). South Valley's note-worthy SJSU alumni include football quarterback Jeff Garcia of Gilroy, and the Chicano playwright Luis Valdez who established the world-famous El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista.
Today, SJSU has more than 21,000 undergrads and about 7,500 postgraduate students who will leave the school with degrees in hand to shape the world in their own unique ways. Who knows what notables will come out of the downtown San Jose campus in the next 150 years? I'm sure the future will see great things from SJSU's alumni.
And I'm also sure that SJSU will continue to dramatically shape the South Valley region in which we live. Because of its close proximity and relative affordability, many of our area's future business people, workers, artists and government leaders will proudly have a connection to the campus.
As for myself, as I said earlier I've grown proud to be a SJSU grad. The education I received there has greatly shaped my life and my way of looking at the world. Happy 150th birthday San Jose State University.
Martin Cheek Marty Cheek is the author of 'The Silicon Valley Handbook.' His column appears every other Friday. You can reach him at martych@gte.net.
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