UCSC Faculty

Above: The founders of Cowell College, taken in UCSC's first year 1965-66.

Front row, l-r: Jack Michaelsen, Richard Randolph, George Benigsen, Bernard Haley, Manfred Shaffer, Harry Berger, Neal Oxenhandler, Mary Holmes, John Pierce, and Jasper Rose;

Second row, l-r: Thomas Volger, Robert Werlin, William Hitchcock, George Amis, Todd Newberry, Raymond Nichols, Bruce Larkin, Ronald Ruby, Michael Brailove, Gudrun Kamm, Paulette Fridling, Bert Kaplan, and Bhuwan Joshi;

Third row, l-r: Marshall Sylvan, Ronald Larsen, Carl Morris, John Dizikes, Leonard Kunin, Roger Keesing, Herman Ammon, Charles Daniel, and William Doyle;

Last row, l-r: Richard Mather, Karl Lamb, Glenn Willson, Betsy Avery, Provost Page Smith, Maurice Natanson, Siegfried Puknat, Elizabeth Puknat, and Gabriel Berns.

Above: Close-up pictures from the group photo. Bert Kaplan had become good friends with Jasper at Rice University, and Bert persuaded Jasper to come to brand new UC Santa Cruz with him. Jasper joined the pioneer Cowell College Faculty in 1965. Jasper would become the second Provost of Cowell College (after Page Smith). Fellow artist and art historian Mary Holmes quickly became a good friend of Jasper's at UCSC.

Above: Jasper lecturing in his academic attire in 1985.

From the main biography page of this site:

Herman Blake on Jasper Rose...

Herman Blake said Jasper would have "…All the students—they would learn The Messiah. And he'd be coming out of the dining room at Cowell practicing. (howling) He's got this thing in his hand [presumably resembling a conductor's baton], the [sheets of] music, and he's practicing, singing to himself."

Herman went on to say: "Jasper Rose, who was crazy in the most beautiful way. We'd have a faculty dinner and Jasper was always serious about these faculty dinners. Get ready for faculty dinner. You'd be in your office at eight o'clock in the morning on the day that the faculty dinner was going to be at seven o'clock. Jasper would go around and visit everybody and say "Hello," [in a British accent] and greet you, and have a greeting about something or other. He'd have a miniature, miniature rose in his lapel. An hour later here Jasper would come saying "Hello," and greeting you, and he'd have a little bit larger flower. An hour later here comes Jasper again, with a little bit larger flower. By the end of the day he'd have this huge dahlia on his lapel, pulling his coat down. And you never said a word about the flower. You'd have this conversation about some concept or idea. You can't take yourself seriously in that setting, but at the same time you got to take ideas seriously in that setting, but seriously in a human and a humane way. "

Herman continues: "So we'd have the faculty dinner, and Jasper, with his big dahlia, would sing German lieder (songs). He'd sing German lieder. And he'd go find a secretary from the office to accompany him on the piano. He'd always find a secretary who hadn't played the piano in forty years, who was leaning over this music, tinkling at this stuff, and Jasper would just sing German lieder (howling/singing). He's just going on. He'd finish and we'd clap real hard. And somebody would say, 'Don't clap too hard or he'll do another one.' So we started clapping real silently and Jasper would look at us over his glasses and say, "There's more." And you'd have more."

Above Left: J. (John) Herman Blake in 1966, was the first African American faculty member at the University of California, Santa Cruz. During his eighteen years at UCSC, he also became the first Provost of Oakes College. He later served as the President of Tougaloo College in Mississippi, held positions at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, served as Vice Chancellor at Indiana University, as Director of African American Studies at Iowa State University, and as Humanities Scholar in Residence at the Medical University of South Carolina. Above Right: Cesare Lombardi "Joe" Barber in the mid-1970s was very well known for his book entitled Shakespeare's Festive Comedy.



Above Left: Maurice Natanson in 1965, was a founding faculty member of Cowell College. He left UCSC in 1976 to join the Philosophy Department at Yale University. He retired from Yale in 1995. Above Right: Hermia Kaplan in 1964, was a practicing attorney and married to Psychology Department Professor Bert Kaplan. The Rose and Kaplan families met at Rice University in Texas. Bert was the Psychology Department Chair at Rice. Jasper was teaching Art History and Painting at Rice.