Staff Members Remember

Longtime staff members Sharon Perry, Joan Monteverde, Linda Ford and Norma Morris reflect on the growth of Cal State Fullerton

August 27, 2007

By Pam McLaren

One benefit of the loyalty that Cal State Fullerton engenders in its employees is the many veteran staff members who have witnessed much of the university’s 50-year evolution.

Sharon Perry, university archivist and special collections librarian, attended CSUF as a student, then joined the library staff in 1969.

Her best memories: “My colleagues’ graciousness and patience in welcoming me when I began as a brand new librarian. They became my mentors.”

Norma Morris, who joined the university staff in 1966 and the President’s Office in 1980, said she also remembers “how conscious everyone seemed to be in those early years that we all had to work together to build an outstanding university.”

Arriving from the University of Minnesota in 1969, Joan Monteverde recalls being shocked at first sight by the small scale of the under-populated campus.

“I thought I had misread the directions and had arrived at the local high school,” said Monteverde, a credential analyst within the College of Education.

For Linda Ford, the library’s coordinator of acquisitions and database services, the “First Intercollegiate Elephant Race” on May 11, 1962 is her earliest memory of the campus. Ford, who had been a library volunteer for several years before joining the professional staff in 1967, remembers “rigid dress codes — dresses or skirts; no pants allowed, until a particularly cold winter, when we received permission to wear pants and never looked back.”

Morris and Ford remember Ronald Reagan’s campus visits, first as the state’s governor and then as the nation’s president.

“The first visit in 1970 led to some scary protests and confrontations, with helicopters flying overhead and helmeted police officers attempting crowd control,” Ford said.

“I remember standing on the balcony of the Humanities-Social Sciences Building and watching students being arrested,” Morris said. “Years later, when he visited as the President,

I made the arrangements with the Secret Service.”

All four staffers allude to the increasing number of buildings, faculty and students as a continual reminder of the university’s transformation over the decades, and point out that the university’s adoption of new information technology as the latest example of CSUF’s continuing quest to significantly expand access for faculty, staff and students.