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Finding Aid to the David P. Gardner Papers, 1949-2005, bulk 1983-1992
BANC MSS 2004/249 c  
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  • Collection Summary
  • Information for Researchers
  • Administrative Information
  • Biographical Information
  • Scope and Content of Collection

  • Collection Summary

    Collection Title: David P. Gardner papers
    Date (inclusive): 1949-2005,
    Date (bulk): bulk 1983-1992
    Collection Number: BANC MSS 2004/249 c
    Creators : Gardner, David Pierpont, 1933- Gardner, Elizabeth, 1935-1991
    Extent: Number of containers: 17 cartons, 3 boxes Linear feet: 21.25
    Repository: The Bancroft Library
    University of California, Berkeley
    Berkeley, California, 94720-6000
    Phone: (510) 642-6481
    Fax: (510) 642-7589
    Email: bancref@library.berkeley.edu
    URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
    Abstract: Contains personal, professional, and family papers (including correspondence and papers of his wife, Libby Gardner) of David Pierpont Gardner, including writings, speeches, correspondence, committee papers, and photographs.
    Languages Represented: Collection materials are in English and Japanese
    Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.

    Information for Researchers

    Access

    Collection is open for research.

    Publication Rights

    Materials in these collections may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction of some materials may be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
    All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000. See: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/permissions.html .

    Preferred Citation

    [Identification of item], David P. Gardner Papers, BANC MSS 2004/249 c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

    Alternate Forms Available

    There are no alternate forms of this collection.

    Related Collections

    Office of the President Records, CU-5

    Separated Material

    Printed materials have been transferred to the book collection of The Bancroft Library.
    Videotapes/sound recordings have been transferred to the Microforms Collection of The Bancroft Library.

    Indexing Terms

    The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
    University of California, Berkeley--Presidents--Biography
    University of California (System)--History
    Gardner, David Pierpont, 1933--Archives
    Gardner, David Pierpont, 1933-. California oath controversy
    Gardner, David Pierpont, 1933-. Earning my degree
    Loyalty oaths--California--Berkeley
    Photographs.

    Administrative Information

    Acquisition Information

    The David Pierpont Gardner papers were given to The Bancroft Library by David Gardner in 2004.

    Accruals

    No additions are expected.

    System of Arrangement

    Arranged to the folder level.

    Processing Information

    Processed by Bancroft Staff in 2007

    Biographical Information

    David Pierpont Gardner was born in 1933 in Berkeley, California to Reed S. and Margaret Pierpont Gardner. In 1958 he married Elizabeth (Libby) Furhiman, and they had four daughters together: Karen, Shari, Lisa, and Marci. Libby died in 1991, and Gardner married Sheila S. Rodgers in 1995. Her son, Matthew, was twelve at the time.
    Gardner earned his bachelors degree with majors in political science, history, and geography at Brigham Young University in 1955 and his M.A. in political science at the University of California, Berkeley in 1959. He earned his Ph.D. in higher education at U.C. Berkeley in 1966. Even before completing his Ph.D., he became Assistant to the Chancellor at U.C. Santa Barbara (UCSB) and then in 1967 accepted a joint appointment as Vice Chancellor and Professor of Higher Education at UCSB. In 1971 he moved to the U.C. Office of the President as Vice President for Public Service Programs and University Dean of University Extension.
    In 1973 Gardner left the University of California to become the president of the University of Utah, a position he held until 1983 when he became the 15th president of the University of California System. After his wife Libby's death in 1991, Gardner chose not to continue as U.C. president without her and resigned in 1992. He became the president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in 1993, leaving in 1999. In 2001 he returned to the University of Utah to become a professor of educational leadership and policy in the Graduate School of Education. Gardner also served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles and as a member of the Governing Council of the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology.
    During Gardner's career in higher education, he served on several national commissions. He was chairman of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, whose 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, helped spark the national effort to improve and reform schooling in the United States. He also served on the National Commission on Student Financial Aid, and on other such committees and commissions for the major national educational associations in Washington, D.C. He wrote the seminal work on UC's loyalty oath controversy, The California Oath Controversy, as his doctoral thesis, published by the University of California Press in 1967. After he left the UC presidency, he was the subject of an oral history at UC Berkeley, and later wrote his memoirs, Earning My Degree: Memoirs of and American University President, published by UC Press in 2005.
    Gardner's honors include election as a member of the National Academy of Education and the American Philosophical Society, as a fellow of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Public Administration, as a 40th anniversary Fulbright Distinguished Fellow in Japan, an Honorary Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, and as chairman of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values. He was Cal's 1988 Alumnus of the Year.

    Scope and Content of Collection

    The collection contains personal, professional, and family papers (including correspondence and papers of his wife, Libby Gardner) of David Pierpont Gardner, including writings, speeches, correspondence, committee papers, and photographs.
    David Gardner's interests in the study of issues in higher education are reflected in two series: Earning My Degree and the Loyalty Oath Controversy. Earning My Degree: Memoirs of an American University President is an insider's account of the evolution not only of Gardner's own career in higher education but of the institutions of higher education over his career. His PhD dissertation, The California Oath Controversy, covers a seminal period in the history of the University of California and in the struggle for academic freedom in the United States. Both series include background materials such as copies of university documents, oral histories, and related correspondence. Gardner also chaired the National Commission on Excellence in Education, which published its influential report A Nation at Risk in 1983.
    The collection is organized into twelve series: Appointments and Inaugurations, Articles about/Interviews of David Gardner, Biographical Information, Conferences and Meetings, Correspondence, Earning My Degree, Libby Gardner's Papers, The Loyalty Oath Controversy, Organizations, Speeches, Writings and Published Works, and Photographs and Scrapbooks.