Irwin Mark Jacobs, founder, CEO and chairman of San Diego’s Qualcomm, was professor of computer science and engineering at UCSD from 1966 to 1972. He and his wife endowed UCSD's first faculty chair and in 1998 pledged $15 million to the engineering school that bears their names.

"By the time I came in '66 the (academic) focus had already been broadened to the arts, sociology, music, the visual arts. I joined what was then called the Applied Electrophysics Department. The intent was to differentiate UCSD from the standard electrical engineering major . . . by having a bit more physics and math in the curriculum than usual.

"The campus had its issues in the late '60s and early '70s. A Marine recruiter came to campus and a student group, the Students for a Democratic Society, I think it was, pushed the guy around. Well, someone read the rules and decided that the students had a right to trial by the Student Conduct Committee, which I was a member of. You see, you get appointed to these committees by a letter from the chancellor appointing you. If you don’t respond by saying no, you’re on the committee, and that’s how I got on the Student Conduct Committee.

"So we met in a Quonset hut on the Matthews campus. There were many students there when we arrived, but each student was only allowed to bring two others in with them. The students outside climbed the roof of the Quonset hut and started banging on it. It felt like we were inside a drum. So we overruled the chairman and moved the meeting to the chancellor's conference room.

"A number of students were being accused based on hearsay. So we tried to excuse as many of them as we could based on lack of proof. But some students refused to be excused. They wanted a hearing. So we decided to allow the students to talk as long as they wanted. We went until two in the morning.

"We found a number of students guilty, but gave them suspended sentences. I think the key was that we allowed them to speak their minds for as long as they wanted, and as I recall, there was no negative reaction following it."