THE DONAHOE HIGHER EDUCATION ACT
The Master Plan was unanimously approved in principle
at a joint meeting of the Regents of the University of California
and the State Board of Education on December 18, 1959. The completed
report was transmitted to the California Legislature on February
1, 1960. Governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown called a special session
of the Legislature in early 1960 to consider the Master Plan recommendations.
The Master Plan report recommended adoption of a constitutional
amendment containing many of its key provisions, but the Legislature
opted instead to adopt a statute incorporating many of the Master
Plan's main provisions. Senate Bill
33 by Senator George Miller was signed into law by Governor
Brown on April 26, 1960. He called it "the most significant
step California has ever taken in the planning for the education
of our youth." [Read April 27, 1960 news accounts
from the San Francisco
Examiner and the Sacramento
Bee.]
Assemblywoman Dorothy Donahoe, chair of the Assembly
Education Committee, passed away on April 4, 1960. She had authored
the resolution (ACR 88) calling for the creation of the Master Plan
and had been instrumental in the subsequent negotiations leading
to its successful adoption. Thus, the Legislature honored her memory
by renaming the Master Plan legislation the Donahoe Higher Education
Act.
In should be noted that a number of key features of
the Master Plan were never enacted into statute and that many of
the current provisions of the Donahoe Higher Education Act are not
thought of as being part of the Master Plan.
However, a main feature of the Master Plan are the
functions and responsibilities assigned to the segments of higher
education in their mission statements:
Master
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