Malcolm Andrews Love 1904 - 1990

LOVE, HALE

Posted By: Jerry Hale (email)
Date: 4/20/2002 at 09:41:08

MALCOLM LOVE DIES AT 86; HEADED SDSU
Popular leader guided teachers college to university status in 19 years at helm.
By John Gaines Staff Writer
May 13, 1990

Malcolm A. Love, who in nearly two decades as president of San Diego State College helped shepherd it from a fledgling campus into the major university it is today, died at 2 p.m. yesterday at Hillside Hospital. He was 86.

A handsome, silver-haired man whose dignified appearance exuded “president” to the people around him. Love had suffered declining health for several years and rarely was seen at campus or civic events, friends said.

Love arrived at San Diego State in 1952, when it was still publicly perceived as a teachers school. An unusually popular leader, he preached to the faculty and in public appearances that his was a well rounded “university” in everything but name the flagship of the state system.

The state Legislature bestowed that new status the year he retired and it eventually was renamed San Diego State University. It was a triumphant departure for Love.

Thomas B. Day, SDSU’s current president, said in a prepared statement that the university community was saddened at the news of Love’s death.

“For 19 years, Dr. Love guided this campus through some of its most difficult and important times,” Day said.

“He was a giant. We hang our head in prayer and sorrow at his loss.”

Love was the school’s fourth president. His administration began with the McCarthy era and lasted well into the Vietnam War – a period of remarkable growth in enrollment, faculty and academic diversity.

When he arrived in 1952 from the presidency of the University of Nevada, San Diego State College had an estimated 5,000 students, 161 full time faculty members, no research grants and 11 graduate degrees.

By the time he stepped down in 1971, the college had more than 25,000 students, 1,128 faculty members, more than $6 million in research grant money and a graduate program that offered 52 degrees.

Some among the faculty questioned the speed with which Love led the shift toward research, but the president kept the respect of his faculty, and returned it.

“In retrospect, I don’t know many faculty who disliked him or were in any way bitter toward him. I think he was able to avoid that,” said Charles J Stewart, an SDSU chemistry professor for 35 years.

In March 1971, the school opened its five-story, $8.5 million library – the academic and geographic hub of the campus – and named it the Malcolm A. Love Library.

Politically influential and yet forthright in his speech, Love maintained his popularity with students as well. In 1970, when college leaders everywhere were besieged by conflict growing out of Vietnam, a more moderate San Diego State student body joined the faculty in asking Love to delay his retirement a year so that an acceptable successor could be found.

“We got on well together,” Love said in a 1985 interview, “I liked the students, faculty and I liked people, the city, the college. We had everything our way, so why shouldn’t we get along well?”

Love was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1904. He received his bachelor’s degree at Simpson College in Iowa and his doctorage at the University of Iowa. In 1927, he married Maude Hale, and next month they would have celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary.

Love began his career with administrative jobs at two small Midwestern colleges. During World War II, he was an executive officer of naval training schools at Ohio State University and in Gulfport, Miss.

When the war ended, he went to the University of Denver as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and in 1950 he became president of the University of Nevada – reportedly as the highest-paid public official in the state.

At the urging of friends from Iowa, he came to San Diego two years later.

His tenure was marked by a strong belief in self-government and academic responsibility. He also had a mission – “to make this a campus with university stature – and that’s with a capital ‘U’,” said Millard Biggs, a professor emeritus of music at SDSU and a longtime friend of Love’s.

Students and faculty were involved in many of the school’s policy decisions. In 1959, a Faculty Senate was created at his urging.

“He never acted except with the considered opinion of the faculty,” said Henry Janssen, professor emeritus of political science.

In the ‘60s, after the state university system was formed and a push toward centralization began, Love pushed to keep the campus identity separate. His influence was apparent in 1974 when the name San Diego State University became official. Then Chancellor Glenn S. Dumke had wanted the state universities seen as branches, and preferred the name California State University, San Diego, which was the school’s name from 1972 until it became SDSU.

Love also helped the school obtain a number of “firsts” in the state system. SDSU awarded the first honorary degree in 1963, to President John F. Kennedy, and offered the first doctoral degrees in conjunction with other universities in the state.

Away from work, he was described by friends as private but always cordial.

Love reacted cautiously to student demonstrations when the Vietnam era began, often refusing opportunities to characterize them as proper or otherwise. Janssen credited Love’s response with keeping the school’s integrity intact, although he noted that some conservatives on campus must have preferred stronger steps.

“It’s funny, because he had a Navy background, but he didn’t seem to be involved in the ideology of the Navy. He seemed to accept that the students had a right to protest the thing,” Janssen said.

In 1966, the Carnegie Corp. named Love one of the best college presidents in the country.

In addition to his wife, Maude, Love is survived by a daughter, Joan Maher of San Diego; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

At Love’s request, there will be no service.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Malcolm A. Love Memorial Scholarship Fund. Donations, made out to the SDSU Foundation, may be sent to the director of the scholarship office at San Diego State University.

Malcolm A. Love

If the measure of a man's life is gauged by the good that he has done, Malcolm A. Love must be considered a giant.

This gentle, compassionate man, who died Saturday at age 86, will forever be known as the guiding force behind San Diego State’s transformation from a small teachers college to a first-class institution of higher learning and the flagship of the California State University system. During his 19 years as president, he touched the lives of thousands of students, professors and support personnel who cherished him as their president and will surely mourn his passing.

The high regard in which Dr. Love was held at San Diego State was illustrated by the difficulty he had in retiring. In 1970, when many college campuses were besieged by protesters demanding all manner of administrative concessions, the State student body and faculty requested that he delay his departure a year until a suitable successor could be found.

The son of an Iowa newspaperman, Love always wanted to be an educator and his passion for learning was transmitted to those around him. From the time he became San Diego State’s fourth president in 1952, he was readily accessible to students and staff alike. Generous to a fault in giving credit to others for the school’s strengths, he constantly strove to expand and upgrade its programs. Still, he believed that San Diego State should remain a close-knit community where students and their teachers knew each another.

That sense of community characterized the one and only commencement speech he delivered to more than 5,500 graduates in 1971. In this his last official act as president, Malcolm Love paid tribute to them as “the finest generation I have seen.” The collective emotion that suffused Aztec Bowl on that summer’s day was as genuine as the man whose name will always be synonymous with San Diego State University.