My Back Pages–Grad School, by Stephen Harding

I enjoyed my days as a graduate student. In some ways, it had a lot to do with being a Graduate Research Assistant (GRA). This is when and where I began to finally come of age, as a student, and, as an adult. Three years out with a B.A. in political science, I could be found trapsing about Arizona selling personal care products for Colgate Palmolive. What the hell was I thinking. Ah, that’s the real question, I wasn’t thinking. My undergrad days were filled with distractions like drumming, studio singing, racing cars, hanging on the “Strip,” living on the beach, and oh yes, working and paying rent. Somewhere in there I was also supposed to be a student. That required focus and fewer ants in the pants. Truly, I could blame it on my very transient low-income familial blue-collar roots, a dysfunctional mother, a PTSD alcoholic, sometime violent, WWII Marine Corp father, and of course, the tried and true first in the family to go to college. Yes, all true but no, I owned this. After all I took on the responsibility of adulthood by beating it out of town at 17. Eating and earning a living were now on me. I could do it, prove my independence. Everything was paid for including the cold beer in the fridge and the new wheels in the carport. For the time, I was self-sufficient. Still, being able to pay the bills is one thing. Having an actual career is something else. Looking just at compensation was not the way to go. Back then, entry level government jobs didn’t pay much.

Then came the epiphany. It hit me in the 100-degree heat while motoring across the desert; what in the hell I’m I doing? Selling case packs of toothpaste? Really? Toothpaste, shaving cream, and razor blades? This is it?? Maybe money isn’t everything. Didn’t I go to college? Didn’t I study political science, economics and history? Yup, and I enjoyed the big picture stuff. Maybe, but apparently not enough. Not motivated by grades, I just wasn’t that good of a student. I didn’t read the assignments, study, or even write my term papers until the night before. I told myself I was too busy making a living working a couple of jobs and playing in rock bands. Well, how long can that last? No, I needed to rectify all of this, put on my big boy pants. My transcripts didn’t lie. I got out of it what I put into it. After kicking myself more than once, I realized I needed a second chance, academically that is. Driving those long desert highways gave me way too much to time to think. I had to go back. It meant giving up my well-paid full-time position as a regional sales rep of a Fortune 500 company to return to the rank of a poverty-stricken student. Since I was platooning my life between Tucson and Huntington Beach, I could apply to UC Irvine for a second B.A., redeem my GPA, or take a chance and apply for an MPA at Long Beach State. (Yes, I am old school-It will always be Long Beach State). I was accepted at both. Except this time, I had to put some effort into it, be pragmatic, be career focused. With the reality of being 25 and the old guy in the room, returning to the undergrad ranks just didn’t seem to fit. I know, grad school, that’s the ticket. I just had to find something that was still intellectually interesting but was also pragmatic in application. With “Poli-Sci” firmly encrypted in my brain, I decided to take another look at working in government. Public administration seemed to be the ticket. After all, my GPA wasn’t that bad. Still, I was a debt adverse. No loans and hence no USC for me. Thus, it was onward and upward scaling the ramparts of the brand spanking new Graduate Center for Public Policy and Administration at Long Beach. For those pursuing jobs in local government, it was the place to go. Afterall, It was the brainchild of then President Steven Horn and the Center’s first Dean, Mel Powell.

From the beginning, I was one lucky dude. I was appointed as a Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) for the “Center.” At the time, I could be described as a pre-service outlier.  As was the case with most public administration graduate programs, most students were part-time and in-service, i.e., already working in government. There was just a handful of us without prior government experience. Regardless, I was not a clueless student aide bored to tears while sitting at the front counter waiting for the phone to ring. No, I had responsibilities. Thanks to the Dean, I had assignments, and they complimented my undergrad studies in political theory, the constitution and comparative government. As an undergrad, I had even taken classes in local and state government. For those old enough to remember the iconic UCLA professor John C. Bollens, he was my professor for both. (Poli-Sci Bruins will remember). He co-taught the California State Government course with retired Governor Edmund “Pat” Brown. I’m guessing that my reference to these experiences is what got me the GRA position at Long Beach.

Although occupying the lowest rung on the departmental ladder, I got more than a glimpse of the form, structure, budget constraints, admission policies, and of course the politics associated with running an academic program. Between conducting research for the Director, serving as the assistant editor for the programs quarterly journal, and assisting with all that goes into putting on two annual conferences, I had a view of this world that the greater cadre of graduate students did not.

This was the “Center” in 1975. Ours was the new unorthodox upstart public administration program in southern California. In addition to the core full-time faculty of six, the program boasted upwards of twenty practitioner adjuncts. All held senior, executive, or elective level positions in the larger more complex governmental agencies in the region. Through the decade between the mid 1970’s and early 90’s, it was one of the largest and more respected PA programs in the country. The Center received more than its fair share of recognition from the national and L.A. chapter of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). The then Dean at USC made comments something to the effect–“If a student wants to go into city management, Long Beach State was the place to go.” Years later the Dean of the University of La Verne’s PA program said the same thing. During those times, Long Beach had the best local government focused MPA program in the region.

From the Centers beginning, there were only five core classes. Acceptable electives were greater and could be taken from various schools around the university. The major difference between then and now, were the comprehensive exams. We sat for two and half days taking three-hour comprehensive exams in each of the five core subject areas. It was the days of the Blue Book and PA’s version of the BAR. For each individual exam, two full-time faculty members served as readers. As they say, the pressure was on. The collective fifteen hours of “Comps” were exhausting and not even the end. Some 33 units later, 41 for me, students still had to write a capstone research paper. In reality, it was a thesis without an oral defense. Mine was somewhere around 60 pages not counting notes and references. For us pre-service types, we also had to participate in an obligatory internship in a local government agency. This was the time and age, especially for a program rich with CEO’s and city managers as adjuncts, that provided a meaningful opportunity to land a spot in county or city government. Where else was a student going to have access to so many individuals that had the keys to the employee entrance? Even the internship coordinator, a volunteer retired city manager and an International City/County Management Association (ICMA) President Emeritus, made sure of our placement. He had all the contacts. People actually called him back. If I recall, of the eight interns without direct governmental experience, each one of us eventually became city managers. Almost unheard of today, I even started out with a six-month full-time paid internship. I just didn’t know where to spend that $600 monthly paycheck. This was a major pay cut from my time driving in the company owned 1972 Chevy Impala selling Rapid Shave. As it turned out, that internship turned into a full-time permanent administrative position. (Even that paid considerably less than my position as a traveling salesman).

Yet I stayed the course. As they say, the rest is history. I would go on to darken the doorways of city halls for the next 38 years. My only regret was not pursuing a Doctor of Public Administration (DPA) at USC when I had the chance and the time. The twists and turns of life, economic downturns, family responsibilities, and the expanding time demands of each promotion seemed to always make this decision problematic. There was always a rationalization. There will always be time. I just really enjoyed the classroom yet had no interest is being an academic. That would have meant pursing a Ph.D. It was way too late for all of that. Besides, I had become accustomed to eating. There were just too many bricks in the wall!

Much, much, later, a good friend with a CV far more impressive than mine, would later define me as a policy wonk. Ironically, he meant it as a compliment. Yet to prove his point, I never got my GRA experience at the Center out of my system. It was a naiveté that I never really let go of. Not counting my first time teaching an extension course, I started as an adjunct instructor at the University of la Verne some 27 years after those days in grad school. Later to be joined by like positions at Cal-State Northridge and Northwestern University, my time at the podium would complement, and for fourteen years, overlap a near 39-year career in and around government. Ironically it produced a sense of permanence as my day job caused me to go up, down, and back up multiple corporate ladders. By 2014, I decided to vocationally call it a day. My imprinted nomadic DNA tendencies were mostly over.

As was my good fortune so many years ago, it was my pleasure to pay it forward, to serve the next generation of public servants. For me, I had averaged just a tad over three courses per year. More than fifty classes and some 900 students later, it was just time to do a little reflection, appreciate those times, the lunches, and the meetings with Dean Powell, President Horn, and the likes of professors Shaw and Bloomberg. The memory of those times is indelible. I was finally pointed in the right direction.