New College of California - Notable Faculty

Notable Faculty

• Peter Gabel, Ph.D., was a law professor at New College of California's Law School for 30 years, and served as President for 20 years.

• Harry Britt, gay political activist and former Supervisor for San Francisco, California. He was first appointed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in January 1979 by Mayor Dianne Feinstein, succeeding Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in City Hall along with Mayor George Moscone by Supervisor Dan White. Britt was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1980, 1984, and 1988. Britt served as president of the Board of Supervisors from 1989 to 1990. Britt chose not to run for reelection in 1992. Britt ran unsuccessfully for the 5th Congressional District of California in 1987, narrowly losing to Nancy Pelosi in a special election to fill the seat left when Sala Burton died. He also was unsuccessful in his race against Mark Leno for the California Assembly in 2002. Britt directed the Weekend BA Degree Completion Program.
• Robert Duncan, founding member of the New College Poetics program. He was an American poet and a student of H.D. and the Western esoteric tradition who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the New American Poetry and Black Mountain poets. Duncan's mature work emerged in the 1950s from within the literary context of Beat culture and today he (like his partner, the artist Jess Collins) is identified as a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance.
• Adam Clay Thompson, winner of the George Polk Award for Local Reporting for his series “Forgotten City,” about San Francisco's public housing, and instructor in the Media Studies Graduate Program.
• David Meltzer, poet and musician of the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance, taught in the Poetics Program.