S. I. Hayakawa in Conversation (Studio Portrait)

President Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa, was born in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1906.He was educated in Canadian public schools and received his Ph.D. in American Literature and Linguistics from the University of Wisconsin. S. I. Hayakawa had achieved renown as a semanticist before he came to San Francisco. His book,Language in Action, published in 1941, made him an international authority on semantics, the study of meanings in language. Dr. Hayakawa came to San Francisco State as a faculty member in 1955, and was appointed Acting President in December,1968 upon the resignation of Robert R. Smith. He served as Acting President until July, 1969, when the Board of Trustees officially appointed him to the position of President. During his term as President, San Francisco State went through the most turbulent period of its history. It was during his term, too, that the name of the University was changed from San Francisco State College to California State University, San Francisco. Dr. Hayakawa retired as President in 1973. In 1976, he ran for the U. S. Senate and won. He served as a U. S. Senator from 1976 through 1982.He died February 27, 1992.

Credits: S. I. Hayakawa's bio was provided by Meredith Eliassen and some descriptions were developed with the assistance of ChatGPT, an AI language model by OpenAI.