Alden, Donald H. (1905-2001)
Date Updated
8-10-2019
Department
English
Academic Rank
Professor
Year Retired from SJSU
1970
Educational Background
Yale University, 1933 Ph.D.
Stanford University, 1928 MA
Stanford University, 1927 BA
Haverford College
Teaching Experience
San Jose State University, 1946-1970
Los Angeles Junior College, 1933-1946
(USNR while on leave from LACC), 1943-1945
Sacramento Junior College, 1928-1930
Files
Personal Commentary
There are a few of us who remember Washington Square as it was under the direction of President MacQuarrie at the end of WWII. We are feeble links with a past when we shared the Square, between 4th and 7th, San Fernando and San Carlos, with the local junior college and the Carnegie Library. Offices of the English Department were on the second floor of the Home Economics Building on 7th Street and were a mite crowded. Since then the little square has grown into a beautiful campus.
Some time before coming to San Jose to teach, I was used to riding the main line of the Southern Pacific along 4th Street past the college; but when I joined the faculty, we were proud of a new railroad station on Montgomery Street to which I could walk down San Fernando for a commute train. Now much of the city, between the college and the railroad station, has been beautifully rebuilt.
In the story of our times, most highlights have had their reflections in the stories of San Jose State, of course, from the cold war through the angry sixties. 0 tempora! Or mores! as old men were said to have said in a deprecatory tone. My great great grandfather, when writing about his stay in San Jose about 1854, used the tone if not the words, when describing why he contributed land to help start a college here. (It wasn't San Jose State, which wasn't around yet.) I'll say the words, too, but in a tone to express surprise, not to say amazement. 0 tempora! 0 mores!
Date completed: 7/96
Adapted from: Biographies of Retired Faculty San Jose State University 1997: A Project of the Emeritus Faculty Association of San Jose State University. San Jose, CA: The University, 1997.