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Taking Pleasure in Giving

Russell Ellis spent 20 years teaching sociology in Berkeley's School of Architecture before he was tapped to navigate the sociology of the University itself, as Cal's vice chancellor for undergraduate student affairs.

Ellis negotiated with student anti-apartheid demonstrators, faced budget cuts and recession anxiety, and later, as the Faculty Equity Associate, maneuvered the aftermath of Proposition 209, the state ballot initiative that outlawed affirmative action in admissions and hiring.

Ellis, now a professor emeritus, says he is grateful for the varied views he has had of UC Berkeley. "I saw from the inside that in spite of some failings, the University has been a major force for good," he says.

Ellis says one of his proudest achievements is his work with colleague Maryellen Himmel to develop the Incentive Awards program that helps give talented low-income kids better access to UC Berkeley.

Ellis himself carved a path through the challenges of poverty and racism to emerge as a groundbreaking academic. The Great Depression and then World War II crashed down on his boyhood. At age five, his mom took off for New York and his dad went to war, leaving him with church friends Eddie and Josephine "Mama" Joiner in Fontana, California. In the shadow of the towering San Bernardino Mountains, the family grew or raised everything they ate.

Ellis's father returned seven years later and brought Russell home to the Southeast side of Los Angeles. Ellis ran track at Compton High School, excelling at what's now called the 800-meter and earning a four-year scholarship to UCLA where he ran the 400-meter. He missed the 1956 Olympics by a spot, while his classmate Rafer Johnson went on to win the decathalon. "It took me a long time to get over that — when you get close, it hurts more," says Ellis.

Ellis says he always attended integrated schools, but de facto housing segregation meant that his life was divided into the world he went home to and the world he went out to. Housing in Westwood was unavailable to African Americans, so at UCLA he lived in cooperative housing before living in the Jewish fraternity Sigma Alpha Mu, called the Sammy house. "It helped my sociology a lot," says Ellis, with a chuckle, staring out the window of his south Berkeley Craftsman. "I got to stand on social borders and look at both sides."

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