John Greenlee; Former President of Cal State L.A.

John A. Greenlee, an outspoken educator who presided over Cal State L.A. during a period of enormous growth, has died in a Pasadena hospital.

W. E. Lloyd, a former publications editor for the sprawling campus perched above the San Bernardino Freeway east of downtown Los Angeles, said Greenlee was 81 when he died Monday of a heart attack.

Greenlee came to Cal State in 1965 as acting president and assumed the presidency six months later.

He said shortly before his retirement in 1979 that he had developed a keen respect for the more than 25,000 students on campus. There were only 15,000 when Greenlee arrived.

Compared with many schools, where campuses are filled with would-be scholars who have found what he said was “a nice way to be supported” by their parents, many of his students went to school part time and worked full time.

“They are very motivated,” Greenlee said. “They come here under very difficult circumstances and with real sacrifice.”

Greenlee was a major voice for student affairs during his 14 years on campus. While other colleges and universities were rocked by unrest during the turbulent 1960s, he maintained a relative calm at Cal State L.A. by rooting out people he described candidly as “being more interested in unrest than education.”

He carefully selected the prospective employers he allowed on campus during the Vietnam War protest years and took pride in the fact that although the Los Angeles Police Department had gone on alert several times “they never had to come on campus.”

But he had his detractors, among them some members of the Board of Trustees of the State University and Colleges. Although he had widespread support at the university, judging from the faculty and student accolades heaped on him at retirement, many trustees objected to his independence, and he twice was denied pay raises.

“He did insist that law and order had to be maintained but not at the expense of the dignity of any group,” said Marcella Oberle, professor of speech communications and president of the campus academic senate when Greenlee retired. “Greenlee was open to faculty and student views to a greater degree than presidents on other campuses.”

Greenlee earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in history and government from the University of Iowa and taught high school and junior college in that state before joining the faculty of Iowa State University in 1940.

He left academics to become education director for Collins Radio Co., where he worked six years before coming to Cal State.

Since retiring, he had worked as a consultant and helped establish Christ College, a Lutheran school in Irvine.

He is survived by his wife, Lillian.

A memorial service is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday at First Lutheran Church of Pasadena. Donations in Greenlee’s name are asked to the Development Office of Cal State L.A. for the Emeriti Faculty Fellowship Fund.