Jasper Rose: Rice
University, Houston, Texas
Jasper: "Through a friend [at Cambridge] came and offer from a Houston
University [in the United States]. They [Rice University] offered what
seemed like an astronomical figure, three times what I was getting
from Cambridge. We went off knowing nothing about Houston or America,
with a two-year-old child and one six months old." Jasper taught at
Rice University as a "Visiting Associate Professor in Fine
Arts." Just prior to leaving for Rice, Jasper went on a visit to Italy
to study first hand important objects in the history of art in
Florence. It was only his second visit to Italy.
(John O'Neil, Professor Emeritus of Art and Art History at Rice
University said:"Jasper Rose, a visitor from England [held] a one-year
appointment at Rice [teaching art history courses]. Jasper had also
taught a painting course at Rice, and at the end of the 1964 academic
year, staged the first-ever art students' exhibition. Jasper departed
in 1965 to accept an appointment to the instructional staff of the
University of California at Santa Cruz, but not before he had
surprised the Rice campus by wearing academic regalia to his classes.
Once striding across the quadrangle in his vivid and flowing robes, he
encountered the then president, Kenneth Pitzer, who asked him what the
festive occasion was. Jasper replied, 'Oh, I'm pretending that this is
a university!'")
Bert Kaplan at Rice
University
Bert Kaplan chaired the Psychology Department at Rice University, and had made a
firm commitment to join the new faculty of Cowell College at the
University of California Santa Cruz, which would be opening in 1965.
Bert and his wife Hermia had become very good friends with Jasper and
Jean. Bert persuaded and convinced Jasper to join him as a faculty
member at Cowell College at UC Santa Cruz.
