Stanley Duff Hopper, emeritus professor of political science, died of cancer on February 5, 2010, his 59th wedding anniversary, in Palmdale, California, where he had lived near one of his sons after retirement. He was 81.
Born in Boston, Stan graduated from high school in Madison, New Jersey, and attended Allegheny College for three years after World War II. He received his bachelor's degree in social science from California State University, Fresno, in 1950 and his master's in political science from Harvard in 1954. He then entered the Marine Corps, graduating first in his class from Officer Candidate School at Quantico in 1955, and was commissioned and stationed at Camp Pendleton. After two years of active duty, he joined the reserves and the California State University, Los Angeles, faculty in 1957. He continued in the reserves, rising to the rank of major, until 1967. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University in 1971.
At Cal State, Los Angeles, he taught a variety of courses in the American and California government and politics areas, specializing toward the end of his career in a lower division writing and research seminar required of all political science majors. He chaired the department of political science from 1977 to 1980, the era when Proposition 13 was passed and led to many cutbacks, and he was associate chair both before and after his term as chair. For many years, he was the interdisciplinary social science adviser. In many ways, he was a faculty member's faculty member, the only person who, in the memory of the department, ever systematically straightened out the student files, and a wise adviser to several department chairs. His knowledge and advice regarding department, school, and university internal politics was superb. Several faculty from his era remember his wise counsel and encouragement of good quality instruction and rigorous research. Many faculty who served with Stan on campus committees may remember his wonderfully roundabout mode of speech, in which he would discuss a problem by talking about something seemingly unrelated, and then several minutes later, you would realize that he had been circling the problem, producing insights you never realized were there.
He sat on several university-level committees, including faculty affairs, the committee on committees, fiscal affairs, and academic freedom and professional ethics, as well as numerous school-level committees and every committee in the department. He advised in the university's academic advisement and information center. He was a member of the Advisory Committee to the Joint Legislative Committee for the Revision of the Election Code of the California state senate and assembly in 1973 to 1974, as well as the Los Angeles County Citizens Planning Council in 1972 to 1973. He was an active member of the AAUP campus chapter and served on its executive committee.
He authored articles on cross-filing, the history of the Republican party in California, and partisanship in the U.S. Senate in the nineteenth century in the Western Political Quarterly, the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, and Social Science History.
He is survived by his wife, Carol, three brothers, four children, 11 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. A memorial service was held on February 14 at Palmdale United Methodist Church in Palmdale.
