After a 40-year career in politics, which included recent work in creating housing opportunities for San Jose State students and faculty members, California state senator and SJSU alumnus Jim Beall is retiring on Jan. 3.
Although Beall always knew he wanted to be involved in politics, he didn’t know what specific area he wanted to focus on when he started college.
“I didn’t know exactly what my role would be in giving my life to public service, but I decided that I would study urban planning and political science,” he said over the phone.
The San Jose native got into politics when he attended SJSU in 1970, a decade after the civil rights movement in the 1960s, which inspired his passion for politics.
“I was committed to having equal opportunity for everybody,” he said. “I had a strong social justice motivation to get into politics.”
As an undergraduate, Beall dedicated his time to helping his fellow students, who were facing housing insecurities.
“I was the housing coordinator and I worked with students on their housing problems,” Beall said. “I worked with transit and housing and I worked hard on that.”
Terry Christensen, a retired SJSU political science professor who taught Beall, said that ever since Beall walked into his office hours, he could tell Beall was passionate about politics. Christensen said Beall had a deep interest in learning how cities and counties function.
Christensen also said he was glad he could be a mentor for Beall and teach him about local government politics.
“Jim was a part of that kind of group of students that would go to city council meetings, planning commission meetings or look at whatever campaign,” Christensen said over the phone.
After graduating from SJSU in 1974, Beall immediately began working in urban planning in San Jose. Throughout his years of political work in California, he never forgot his time at SJSU.
SJSU President Mary Papazian agrees that Beall has had a great impact on SJSU and its students.
“Jim’s work grows out of his own experiences as a student at SJSU,” Papazian said in an email to the Spartan Daily. “He has compassion and empathy for the challenges our students often face, particularly our underrepresented and most vulnerable students.”
Along with providing SJSU students with hands-on experience as paid interns at his district office in Sacramento, Beall has continued helping out students at his alma mater.
Papazian and Beall recently worked on housing solutions which will provide short- and long-term housing plans for students, faculty members and staff.
During a Jan. 27 news conference, Papazian announced various comprehensive housing solutions, which will have six major components, including more than $3 million in grants from the California State University Chancellor’s Office.
The comprehensive housing solution will include a housing grant program for SJSU students, who have the fewest financial resources.
It will also include the planning and development of the Campus Village 3 residential housing facility. Another component will be to explore the discussion of a comprehensive multi-sector residential community concept off-campus and concrete measures to address student housing insecurity issues.
Transforming the Alfred E. Alquist Building in Downtown San Jose into housing for the future SJSU community is the last part of the comprehensive housing solution.
Papazian said Beall’s work would have a lasting impact on the SJSU community because he has put so much of his time and energy into helping students facing housing insecurities.
“Jim has been a great partner and one of the ways he has impacted my presidency is by sharing his deep experiences with SJSU and the city of San Jose,” she said. “He has such an incredible understanding of our university’s rich history and legacy, and it was generous of him to share much of that with me when I arrived in 2016.”
Although Beall is retiring soon, he still has some SJSU projects he wants to work on, such as creating a bike trail from SJSU to the Berryessa BART station with Christensen’s help. Neither Christensen nor Beall said when this would be completed.
“We’re going to miss him,” Christensen said. “We’ll see how his replacement does, but nobody is going to be another Jim Beall.”
