Interview with Lee F. Browne - Caltech Oral Histories

Browne–31
COHEN: Were you having fun? Did you enjoy it?
BROWNE: Oh, yes, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it because I thought I was doing the kind of thing that
I was motivated to try to correct. And I thought I was being fairly successful with that, and I had
a lot of success with the parents. You see, I couldn’t get many minority students because their
parents thought they should have had all of their fees paid. If the kid was very bright, then they
wanted you to pay the whole fee. I’d say, “Well, that’s not what people do at this place.” And
they had difficulty seeing that. They would be struggling middle-class parents. But they thought
that because they had struggled and put all this work into their kids that they should be paid—or
that their kid should be paid—for that. I’d say, “Well, we’ll try to get him half of it.”
COHEN: Did you actually lose kids because of this?
BROWNE: Oh, yes. For instance, Adam Clayton Powell III wanted to come here. He was in
Milpitas. And I finally talked him into applying and got him admitted. And I’m going to say
something about a faculty member now. And this stuff goes on still on the faculty. This
particular faculty member—I don’t want to name his name—
COHEN: Whatever you want.
BROWNE: Chris Brennen. Have you ever heard of him?
COHEN: Oh, yes.
BROWNE: That was his territory.
COHEN: Yes.
BROWNE: So I told Chris, “Look, this boy is in mathematics and is a good kid. He does physics
and chemistry. And he wants to come to Caltech. All he needs to do is to have somebody come
by there and tell him he’s going to live in a regular dormitory and he’s going to get twenty-five
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