Years of Yearning – A Book About the Making of Modern Saint Mary’s College

Br. Mel Anderson at Saint Mary's College

When he walks about the college where he still lives and teaches The Great Books, the tall silhouette of Brother Mel Anderson cannot be mistaken or ignored.  But many of the students who roam the grounds today ignore that this man led Saint Marys for nearly 30 years (1969 to 1997) and slowly and steadily stirred the heavy boat over the troubled waters of the 70s, 80s and 90s, introducing such novelties as co-ed, bigger and better business schools and school of education, resisting the attraction of extreme change where he thought the College would lose its soul, turning it into a profitable institution, and shepherding the emergence of the mission statement of the college, words that he would hope to see turning into reality in the 21st century.

The book he wrote about his presidency, Years of Yearning, is a personal depiction of the challenges and the politics that exist in an higher education institution.  It tells a large part of the history of the local College.

 “I was asked to take the Head of the College starting in 69, at a time of great societal changes,” said the Brother during an interview.  During the 60’s the college moved away from the Catholic tradition that had been his since its establishment.  It was the time of the in the civil right movement, the nearby campus of Berkeley was a center for students and faculty activism against the Vietnam war and Saint Mary’s was pulled in the same direction.

“My view was more traditional,” said the Brother, “changes were becoming too drastic, the teachings too secularized.  It was a time of chaos in Higher education, and I was told that I was chosen as President because of my understanding of the philosophy of the college.”

Maintaining the core ethos of Saint Mary’s is the string that follows Brother Mel’s action all along his life; how Christian values can shed their light in Liberal education; invite discussions and debates, while staying true to the Gospel of Christ.  “There are some important questions that are raised today in the world,” he says, “a Catholic Liberal Art University has the mission of making sense of our world from our religious perspective.”

This does not mean that Brother Mel didn't want change, in fact he invited it.  “I knew that this College had to become Co-ed,” he says.  The transition from a male only institution to one that welcomed women was not too hard.  Brother Mel remembers a few acerb remarks the first year, such as “here come the skirts”, but they were soon forgotten and today Saint Mary’s, like most colleges, has more female than male students.

Accepting women allowed the Brother to revitalize a program that was limping along: the school of education.  “There was no high quality school for future teachers in Contra Costa,” he remembers, “but I had to change the leader of the education program and that could not happen before the end of his contract.”

After the School of Education, Brother Mel wanted to start an MBA program. “The idea was opposed by some members of the faculty assembly who said that business did not have anything to do in a liberal arts college,” remembers Brother Mel.  But the MBA project prevailed and was started with teachers from the Haas School of Business (UC Berkeley).

Brother Mel was the initiator of other innovations on campus such as the School of Nursing, the internationalization of campus, and a vocational program for older adults that was partially transferred to the University of Phoenix.  “As we added students and schools, we had to build new structures.”  The President tried to keep the campus as a work of art and hired a Japanese architect that had a sense of John J. Donovan’s original design.

In his book, Brother Mel shows how each inflection of direction required balancing of the dynamic of the different powers on campus.  Even a Brother President is not God, the extent of his power is hiring and appointment.  Brother Mel explains that the major changes are decided by the Board of trustees, and that when faculty votes, the President simply has a veto power.

All the while, as the college developed, Brother Mel said that he strived to maintain the spiritual focus of the college.  “We needed to clarify our vision as the college grew,” he said.  He refers to Pope John Paul II text Ex Corde Ecclesiae that says that from the heart of the Church comes the University.  “We need controversy and adversary position, that makes the Church stronger,” says Brother Mel, “but we need to have a strong core of Catholic thinkers in the college who represent our Lasallian values.”  Brother Mel explains that the Lasallian values teach that the students are images of gods, “we look at them that way, they have a soul,” he says.  Brother Mel believes that salvation through Christ is the ultimate goal, but the College does not practice proselytism, “There is no chapel talk, we let it happen, or not, naturally.  We teach through our Christian attitude and eventually some students come around, we just plant a seed.”.

As part of the preservation of the spiritual persona of the College one of the most important task of Brother Mel’s tenure was the definition of the mission statement: “To probe deeply the mystery of existence by cultivating the ways of knowing and the arts of thinking.  To affirm and foster the Christian understanding of the human person which animates the educational mission of the Catholic Church. To create a student-centered educational community whose members support one another with mutual understanding and respect.”

Brother Mel says he would have liked to preside the implementation across the board of the mission, “those who sow the seeds are not those who reap the harvest,” he said. And this is where the title of his book comes from, the yearning that is still his to see his dream finally take shape.

Today Brother Mel continues to live on campus and participates in the Great Books program that’s opened to students, alumni and the community.  His book can be purchased at the campus’ bookstore.