intense back then, according to Dale E. Treleven, director of UCLA's Oral History Program for the past 17 years. "I think part of the dynamic was, 'Look, they have a project in Northern California at Berkeley, so we've got to have one in the South at UCLA.' And that's been a strong driving force for a lot of things at UCLA."
Last month, alumni, current and former campus leaders, staff, faculty, some prominent Los Angeles personalities and other guests gathered to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Oral History Program, the only sustained university-based oral history program in Los Angeles. The reception, held Oct. 27 at the Faculty Center, drew more than 100 people, some whose own oral histories are part of the UCLA collection.
"UCLA was very much responsible for events leading up to the creation of the National Oral History Association, so (UCLA) in that way, early on, took leadership responsibilities in the field," Treleven said.
With a collection made up of interviews with more than 800 people, including John Wooden, Franklin Murphy, Ray Bradbury, Bella Lewitzky and Diane Watson, 6,000 hours of audiotaped interviews and 200,000 pages of transcripts, the UCLA Oral History Program has contributed vastly to the documentation of UCLA, local and state history.
"To look through the histories of my predecessors, all these important people who made this place what it is today, is just fascinating," said University Librarian Gloria Werner.
Support for the program came from a variety of sources. In the '60s, then-Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy added $5,000 to the library budget to support oral history.
"It's significant today because that represented basic funding for the program and shows that support for the Oral History Program has come and continues to come from the Office of the Chancellor," said Treleven.
Administrative support and human resources are funded through Library Development, but the program has also been successful in raising extramural support.
Its best supporter is the Gold Shield, Alumnae of UCLA, which in 1971 established a paid internship for graduate students in the Department of Information Studies to be trained in oral history. When the Oral History Program began an endowment fund in 1991, Gold Shield contributed the lead gift of $10,000.
The program is housed in Bunche Hall and is staffed by six full-time employees, including Treleven, and several part-time student transcribers and editors. But it lacks the resources to do interviews with all those who should be represented. Instead, its first priority is to strengthen certain areas of the collection before moving into other areas, according to Treleven.
The collection's strength has been in the fields of UCLA's history, fine arts and architecture, politics and government, science and African-American history.
A chancellor-appointed faculty committee acts as an advisory board to the Oral History Program and assists in developing ideas and suggesting individuals for interviews. Staff members or, on occasion, graduate students who are specialists in certain subject areas do the interviews, which are usually conducted over several sessions. The work is then transcribed, edited, indexed and prepared for binding.
"It's a very serious, research-oriented operation, with the processes that take place after that — the editing work, the preservation — consistent with the highest standards in the field," said Treleven, whose staff members sometimes serve as guest lecturers for classes and lead oral history workshops in the community. They are also actively involved in regional and national organizations.
In the last couple of decades, oral history methods have been gaining wider acceptance in scholarly circles as well as credibility as an academic discipline, according to Treleven.
Currently, one of the major issues facing the field involves ethical considerations in making oral histories accessible on the Internet. Although the UC regents own the rights to the collection, there's a conflict between the desire to protect the best interests of the interviewees and the intent to provide better access to these library materials.
"So we within the oral history community are trying to think these things through and come up with some guidelines and standards that are acceptable," said Treleven.
Dale E. Treleven, director of UCLA's Oral History Program, has seen the collection expand to more than 6,000 hours of audiotaped interviews with more than 800 people.
ne operator said, 'University of California.' And I said, 'Is this Berkeley?' She said, 'No.' I said, 'Well, who have I gotten to?' 'UCLA.' I said, 'Why didn't you say UCLA?' 'Oh,' she said, 'we're instructed to say University of California.' So the next morning I went to the office and wrote a memo; I said, 'Will you please instruct the operators, as of noon today, when they answer the phone to say, "UCLA."' And they said, 'You know they won't like it at Berkeley.' And I said, 'Well, let's just see. There are a few things maybe we can do around here without getting their permission.'"
goes back to the beginning of plant study, or the beginning of botanical study in this country, because that was considered a proper, appropriate thing for a young girl to study. Animals were not quite as nice as plants — plants were delicate and so on. There are some marvelous statements in Mrs. (Almira) Lincoln's "Botany" ["Familiar Lectures in Botany" (1829)]. Mrs. Lincoln ran a female academy way back in the 19th century, and she wrote a botany book which was a text ... One of the famous quotes was how very healthful it was for the young ladies to study the plants and get out in the fresh air ... It was an appropriate thing for them to do." 
UCLA all worked hard to do well and make the courses strong, and as a result it was harder to get an A at UCLA than it was to get it at Berkeley. Now, I know this by one instance that we had a chap — Earle Gardner was his name — who went to Berkeley for his first year and was on the freshman football team up there and a good student. He changed and came to the Southern Branch for his second year, and he eventually became captain on the football team. He told me, after he'd been at UCLA for a time, that it was much harder at UCLA than it was at Berkeley in all the courses he'd taken." 
"When I was preparing my program for the eighth and ninth grade in junior high school, I had to make a choice between academic or industrial courses. When I said I wanted to take an academic course, because I knew that that would be necessary in order to go to college, this counselor said to me, 'Don't waste your time. You'll just break your heart. You're doomed to be denied that opportunity to go to college. You ought to prepare yourself for a job. Take some studies that are going to lead you to manual labor because that's about as much as you're going to be able to hope for.' I don't suppose that this was any sense of prejudice or an expression of discrimination. It was a reality as far as that counselor was concerned, and I suppose that the counselor was trying to avoid heartbreak for me. But it was the determination, the decision made long ago that I was going to college no matter what, and the fact that my parents had instilled that in me so firmly that nobody could have shaken me (that) prompted me to disregard that advice."