Former university president writes of incredible journey
In 1993, this newspaper’s reporter Larry Mitchell, in his profile of one of the candidates to succeed Robin Wilson for the Chico State presidency, wrote: “No one in Manuel Esteban’s high school graduating class ever predicted he’d be in the running to become a university president. That’s because Esteban had no graduating class. He never attended high school.”
“Who could have imagined?” writes Emeritus Professor of Sociology Walt Schafer in his foreword to Esteban’s newly published autobiography. They became close friends during Esteban’s decade-long presidency.
Later, Esteban and wife Gloria moved from Chico to Santa Barbara and eventually to Academy Village in Tucson, where he completed his memoir.
“An Incredible Journey: From A Barcelona Eighth Grade Dropout To An American University Presidency” ($14.50 in paperback, self-published; also for Amazon Kindle) is a chronological account mostly focused on Esteban’s academic development, guided especially by his younger brother, Julio, who tutored him for the high school equivalency exams.
He rose in academic accomplishments, living in France, Canada and the U.S., becoming a tenured professor and then an administrator.
The last half of the book is devoted to Esteban’s Chico State presidency and his efforts to move away from the party school image, instituting a speaker series featuring seven Nobel Prize winners and reaching out to the community to restore towngown relations. At first Esteban as the new president was the toast of Chico, but “then I made a very stupid mistake” complaining about being the lowest paid California State University system president.
That set off a firestorm of criticism, especially in this newspaper. History Professor Joe Conlin became his bête noir, and Esteban’s account reveals his own thinking in response to what one reporter called Conlin’s “witty excesses.”
Yet as the years passed even partisan media grew in respect for Esteban’s efforts. In “lessons learned,” he writes that “even if you are convinced that yours is the right action to take, you are never certain that those you are expected to lead will follow you.” So, he writes, “take time to listen, learn, consult, and build alliances.”
Wise words from a kid uninterested in school. Who could have imagined?
Dan Barnett teaches
philosophy at Butte College. Send review requests to dbarnett99@ me.com. Columns archived at https:// dielbee.blogspot.com