Regional History Project Oral Histories

John Dizikes first saw UC Santa Cruz when it was still rolling hills and the buildings were only artist’s renderings.  He agreed to stake his career on this new, untried campus because he understood the vision of UCSC as a place where higher education would be reformed and teaching would be a priority—and he followed through on the gamble, coming here as one of UCSC’s founding faculty in 1965. In his ensuing thirty-five-year career at UC Santa Cruz, he was a professor of history, a professor and co-founder of the American Studies Department, a provost of Cowell College and chair of the Council of Provosts, and throughout and above it all a dedicated educator and an ongoing student. This oral history was conducted in 2011 by Cowell alum Cameron Vanderscoff for the Regional History Project.