The records of the SIO Staff Council document the Council's organization, membership, and the areas of oversight.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Staff Council Records, 1907-2002, bulk 1957-2002 (SAC 22)
Extent: 3.6 Linear feet (8 archives boxes and 1 card file box)
Since the founding of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1903, staff meetings have been held regularly in one format or another. Founding Director William E. Ritter preferred formal, weekly meetings that included faculty, staff, and visitors. During the 1920s, several administrative committees were formed by the Director, and representatives of these committees participated in the formal weekly meetings. In 1936, Director Harald Sverdrup began organizing informal, weekly staff luncheons, and this practice continued until 1960. By 1957, however, Director Roger Revelle felt the need for a more formal organization.
Revelle suggested that an Administrative Council be established that would advise the Director and would perform duties delegated to it by the Director. Professors Carl H. Eckart, Walter M. Elsasser, and Claude E. ZoBell were appointed to a committee charged with outlining the responsibilities and procedures of the Staff Council. Their draft bylaws of February 26, 1958 were adopted by the SIO Staff Council January 12, 1960. The bylaws state that the SIO Staff Council is an organization of certain SIO faculty and staff, that it functions as a forum for its members, and that it advises and aids the SIO administration.
On May 11, 1960, a joint meeting of the Faculty and Staff Council of the University of California, La Jolla (as it was then known) convened. The Committee on Committees proposed a roster of committees for the campus. Some of these committees were concerned with campus-wide issues such as budget and educational policy, and these eventually became committees of the Academic Senate. Others, referred to as Administrative Committees, were concerned with SIO business and became committees of the SIO Staff Council. Some of these committees, such as the Library Committee, were longstanding SIO committees that were subsumed under the SIO Staff Council.
The records of the SIO Staff Council document the organization, membership, and areas of oversight of the Council. The records include bylaws, meeting materials, and the files of two of the Council's administrative committees, the Library Committee and the Marine Operations Committee.
In 1959 and 1960, the SIO Staff Council and the Academic Senate met jointly. Therefore, the meeting minutes for those years document the actions of both the SIO Staff Council and the Academic Senate. This practice ended on May 19, 1961 when both groups acknowledged that the faculty of the campus reported to the Chancellor, while the SIO Staff Council reported to the Director of SIO.
In November 1995, SIO Staff Council began making its minutes, committee records, and other documents available to the SIO community by posting them to the organization's website.
Arranged in two series: 1) MEETINGS, and 2) ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEES.