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Activist Sylvia
McLaughlin Cares for Berkeley
Since the Late 1950s,
North Berkeley Resident Sylvia McLaughlin Has Been a Dynamo
of Environmental Activism and Concern for the Campus and the
Community
By
Sunny Merik, Public Affairs
It's 9 a.m. Monday and already Sylvia McLaughlin has been
pruning and weeding her garden. She's filled two vases with
fresh and fragrant roses, done household chores and started
telephoning. By 10, she will have completed a newspaper
interview, set up a meeting with a woman seeking data on the
environmental movement, and finalized plans to attend a
four-day environmental conference in Santa Cruz.
At noon, she'll head for the Berkeley campus, where she
lifts weights three times a week in the Cal Fit program. "I
do strength training. It's a wonderful program," she says,
bright brown eyes framed by a halo of white hair. "The
people are all so congenial."
For nearly 40 years McLaughlin has worked with city
officials and university administrators to preserve and
improve both the natural and architectural beauty of the
area. At 81, she is a local institution, her energy and
influence legendary.
A Colorado girl who in the late '40s married UC Berkeley
geology professor Donald McLaughlin, Sylvia found herself
appointed to numerous university and civic committees once
her husband, formerly Dean of the College of Engineering,
was appointed a UC Regent. The committees led to new
friends, new concerns, and the discovery that environmental
activism suited her energy and interests.
Sylvia points out that in the late '50s and early '60s,
40 garbage dumps ringed the Bay. "And at night, many of them
were burning," she said.
Then came news that the city of Berkeley and land-fill
developers were planning to fill in 2,000 acres of the bay.
Sylvia found a kindred spirit of concern in Kay Kerr, wife
of then-Chancellor Clark Kerr, and Berkeley resident Esther
Gulick. The three women launched "Save the Bay," and from
1960 to 1969 educated city officials, state politicians, and
Bay Area citizens about the perils of filling in the bay.
Today, all Berkeley streets leading to the bay bear
witness to the women's success. The blue gray waters
sparkle, the boats sail, the view inspires.
Sitting in her study, surrounded by books and family
photographs, a fireplace mantel covered with rocks, and her
morning roses, Sylvia talks about how the university has
improved the city, and how the citizens have tried,
working with both the city and the university, to keep
Berkeley liveable.
"There is quite a history here of faculty and staff
serving on city task forces and commissions to help solve
problems of mutual concern," she said.
Citizen groups have taken special interest in maintaining
the beauty and historical integrity of the campus. For many
years Sylvia has worked with the Berkeley Architectural
Heritage Association (BAHA) to protect city and campus
architecture, helping preserve and enhance those buildings
that add beauty and uniqueness to the area.
"In the late '60s there was a proposal to tear down the
university's women's faculty club, designed by Bernard
Maybeck, and to build in its place a glass and steel
extension of the men's faculty club," says Sylvia. A North
Berkeley resident and women's faculty club member named
Florence Minard worked with Sylvia and others to save the
club. Their efforts succeeded.
Later, when the campus planned to fell a grove of
redwoods for a new library and access road, concerned
citizens joined with faculty and staff in urging that the
plan be changed. It was. The redwoods still stand, casting
their majestic shadows.
In 1997 the university began planning the upgrade and
retrofit of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building, the
architectural gem listed on the National Register of
Historic Places. Sylvia invited the university design team
to meet with BAHA members at her home. Other meetings
followed, and the restoration plans developed to assure that
the beauty of the original structure would not be lost in
the seismic upgrade.
"This renovation may prove to be a model of how careful
preservation and restoration can provide for teaching and
research requirements while simultaneously preserving the
intrinsic beauty of the building," she said.
Sylvia's passion for nature or architectural beauty
sparkles from her eyes and her words.
"I've often thought how lucky I am to live in a city like
Berkeley, with its natural beauty, and its university," she
said. "I'm interested in urban and regional planning, and in
many other things. The city provides so many ways to be
involved if you're interested. There are projects concerning
the bay, the shore line, the watershed, the educational
future of the schools. Berkeley is really a fascinating
microcosm."
And Sylvia is an excellent example of the many people who
help keep Berkeley vibrant. 
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