Southwestern College was hatched from a golden egg with much promise in the fall of 1961 with twelve full-time instructors, and three or four administrators, some hens and some roosters. I was hired to teach graphic design after teaching art at Newport Harbor High School for two years and Santa Monica City College for one year. Dick Robinson and John Clark, local high school art teachers, were also hired by temporary President Bill Kepley to teach fine art and art history part-time that first year.

Our new two-year community college shared classrooms with Chula Vista High School and had one exclusive small administrative building for the bookstore and faculty/administrative offices. My first goal at the college was to establish an art gallery,which I believed to be critical to the education of art majors as well as the general student population. Exposing people to contemporary art and ideas became one of my missions. In our L shaped building was a hallway with student lockers. The walls and lockers were quickly covered with 4'x8'x1/2" sheets of white fibreboard creating the first art gallery at Southwestern College. The first exhibition consisted of paintings and drawings by John Baldessari, November 13- December 8, 1961. Nine shows followed that year including one-person shows by Ethel Greene, Joyce Fitzgerald, Richard Allen Morris and Harold Gregor. I was now acting department chair and the gallery director, with no formal exhibition/museum/gallery education or experience.

The Baldessari show of non-representational images set the stage for the future controversial direction of the art gallery program and perhaps the department itself. Many faculty, students, administrators and public were outraged.

In the spring of 1962, the Southwestern College Art Department created what was to become for many years, the annual “Film as Art” program.

Meanwhile, Bill Kepley returned to his permanent position, one year early, in Lancaster. Superintendent Joe Rindon hired Chester De Vore, a Chula Vista high school principal and football coach as the new president. Dick Robinson joined the full-time art faculty.

During the 1962-63 school year, there was, among others, a four potter show with Jean Balmer, Mark Flemming, David Stewart and Val Sanders, a one-person show by Pat Nelson, a Mexican Folk Art show, and the first Annual Purchase Award Show juried by the director of the San Diego Art Musem Warren Beach. A painting by Dorothy Stratton won first place and Russell Baldwin won second prize with a bronze sculpture. Both pieces became the first acquisitions in the new permanent collection. The Film As Art program was continued.