A Golden Age
When founding faculty member Lawrence de Graaf walks Cal State Fullerton’s rather crowded paths today, he experiences a campus of more than 35,000 students – and recalls a simpler time.
De Graaf, professor of history emeritus, remembers the 1960s campus of Orange County State College, where wide open spaces were ringed by orange groves and fields, where rabbits and other wildlife were common sightings. He remembers flushing pheasants off the land where the Fullerton Arboretum is now located.
Amid that rustic beauty was a close-knit community where students, staff and faculty were likely to know each other on a first-name basis. Those were the days when professors were required to pitch in during student registration, and expected to advise students not only in their majors but in other subjects as well. “There was an informality to a lot of things,” he says. “We were very aware of what was going on in other departments.” But it wasn’t always work inside the classroom that occupied de Graaf’s time.
“People always talk about the 1962 elephant races, but they forget that for years there was Day of the Titan, a day when we all let our hair down,” he says. He recalls one particular Day of the Titan when he dressed as Little Boy Blue and faculty members and students took part in sack races and intramural softball games.
When de Graaf arrived in Fall of ’59, lessons were taught in early buildings at Sunny Hills High School. It was Fall 1960 when classes were moved to 12 one-story “temporary” barracks set up on the college grounds.
At first, there were 452 students and a handful of faculty and administrators under the watchful eye of founding President William B. Langsdorf. When the “temporaries” were put up, faculty members, staff and students enjoyed their meals together in an outdoor lunch patio with little to no thought to each other’s status. Part of that ease came from the fact that some of the instructors, de Graaf included, were younger
than many of their students. At that time, Orange County State College took upper-division students only, and many were adult reentry students. “At times it was hard to tell who was who,” he recalls.
That ease permeated all their dealings, de Graaf remembers. Students, faculty and staff members could walk right into President Langsdorf’s office and express opinions about campus issues. This continued as Langsdorf set up the beginning of what eventually became the Academic Senate. At the same time, de Graaf worked on the Associated Students Constitution with the first A.S. President, Joe Stephens.
De Graaf is the last of the original faculty to remain active in campus life. Though he no longer teaches, presently he is chairing the history subcommittee of the university’s 50th Anniversary Planning Committee. He also is under contract to write several books, and produce some projects through CSUF’s Center for Oral and Public History, including completing oral interviews with the university’s present and former presidents.
As some members of the first faculty left the campus in the late 1960s, de Graaf was not tempted to move on to greener pastures. “I never had much reason to want more than what I had here,” de Graaf says. “Cal State Fullerton pretty much satisfied me. My 12-unit load of four different classes wasn’t outrageous, and the camaraderie was outstanding.”
He recalls that Cal State Northridge set up a History Forum for Southern California campuses in the 1970s, and through that he noted that Cal State Fullerton’s History Department was friendlier than that of most other campuses, something that encouraged him even further to stay put and enjoy his position at CSUF.
Over the years he has worked with each of the university’s five presidents, including President Milton A. Gordon, whom he finds “capable, kind and congenial.”
Collegiality campus-wide paved the way as de Graaf helped establish the History Department and its curriculum, set up the first archive on campus and served as the university’s first archivist. Over the years, he’s become a specialist in Orange County history and the role of African Americans in the modern urban West.
In 2001, de Graaf co-authored “Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California,” published by the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in association with the University of Washington Press. A collection of essays describing the migration of blacks into California in the 19th and 20th centuries – their triumphs and hardships, successes, discrimination and disappointment – the book remains in print and is considered “a major contribution to black history and history of the American West.”
He most recently won an award from the Los Angeles City Historical Society, recognizing his many books, articles and essays on Western and Los Angeles African American history, as well as his work with community groups preserving ethnic history. He received the organization’s Miriam Matthews Ethnic History Award, presented for “outstanding works recognizing the ethnic diversity of Los Angeles” last year.
When he looks ahead, as both an historian and emeritus professor, de Graaf wonders about Cal State Fullerton’s future, particularly in light of its burgeoning growth.
At the same time, he is excited about the electronic revolution, something that arms professors with the necessary tools to take students well outside the classroom as they pursue their studies in many different disciplines.
And as an historian particularly dedicated to diversity, he is enthused about international education and CSUF’s ongoing commitment to globalization. “We’re broadening our base of operations – and that could be the thrust of the future.” 
