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REMEMBRANCEJim Shenton and Columbia’s Double Discovery CenterBY STEVE WEINBERG '66Very little probably is known about Jim Shenton ’49’s key role in starting Columbia’s Double Discovery Center, then known as Project Double Discovery (PDD), in 1965. I guess it’s mostly my fault. Shenton was an active supporter of constructive student activism during the ’60s. As chair of the College Citizenship Council in 1965–66, Shenton included me in the circle of students that he would occasionally take out to dinner in order to show an interest in their work. In his support of student activists, he often played a key role in campus developments, but remained behind the scenes, allowing student leaders to get the credit for things that he helped move forward. Such is my story. All these years, I and Roger Lehecka ’67 have been getting credit as the students who started PDD. In fact, we were but the agents of wily Shenton. Shenton may not have been altogether altruistic in his motives. Sure, we put together a great proposal, and he got Sargent Shriver and his new Office of Economic Opportunity (the Johnson “War on Poverty” headquarters) to fund 160 students at Columbia. But after we got the funding, found the students and hired the staff, Shenton gave one of his best lectures ever to those 160 PDD students — a lecture about America and the history of opportunity and how they needed to follow the legions of Americans before them and take this opportunity to rise above their circumstances, get the best education they could and become a significant contributor to our “Great Society.” What I’m now realizing is that Shenton paved the way for PDD in order to give that inspiring lecture to that special audience. It brought him such pleasure. Very sneaky! One night in late March or early April 1965, I was crossing College Walk from Broadway toward my room in Hartley. Up the steps, coming from Hamilton, bounced Shenton. The Johnson Poverty Program recently had been adopted, and the vague outlines of its early programs were just reaching the newspapers. There, next to the Sundial, Shenton stopped me. “Steve, the Federal War on Poverty is just starting up, and I’ve been talking to Arnold Saltzman ’36, one of our alumni who’s close to Washington, and to our Columbia administrators about a role for Columbia. One of the program initiatives is for bringing talented but underachieving high school kids onto college campuses over the summer to give them a kick-start toward improved academic achievement. Arnold and I were wondering if the Cit Council could replicate the kind of educational programs it’s been doing these last years in Morningside Heights and come up with a Columbia proposal for one of these summer anti-poverty programs.” “Do you really think that we could get it funded?” I asked, incredulously. “Don’t you worry about that,” Shenton said with a wink and a smile. “I have that covered. Do you think you guys can develop the program model for a good Columbia proposal?” We spoke long enough for me to realize that Shenton was offering me a leadership role in a program that could use all the resources of the Columbia campus to run a summer camp. He promised to get me the federal proposal guidelines by the next day, which he did. I promised him that the Cit Council could produce a proposal that the University could stand behind, and could produce it quickly. As luck would have it, I’d spent the previous four summers as a Boy Scout Camp leader. We worked up an outline of a “Columbia camp” that substituted remedial reading and math for knot tying, campfire building and backpacking. We kept the swimming (at the green swamp, of course) hiking and camping (well, field trips all over the city with the help of the subway system), campfires (talent shows) and an intimate 4:1 camper-counselor ratio that gave the student counselors maximum chance to impact their campers. Of course, the impact went the other way, as well — the student counselors learned a tremendous amount from the campers. That’s why we called it Double Discovery. Shenton loved that name. He was proud and supportive of us and our work. Roger and I marched into Shenton’s office with a finished proposal barely two weeks after that College Walk encounter. Writing the proposal was the easy part. “OK, sir,” I said, “here’s the proposal we promised. But exactly how does one get a proposal for $160,000 to Washington and get it funded in about eight weeks?” “Not to worry,” said Shenton. He picked up the phone and spoke for a few minutes to someone in layers of the Columbia bureaucracy, who we never knew existed, who managed grants. “Steve,” he said as he hung up the phone, “Columbia wants you to take this proposal to Washington yourself and make sure it gets funded. Come by tomorrow, and I’ll have your ticket.” Thanks to Shenton’s mysterious intervention and the support of Saltzman, I spent a day roaming the halls of the new Office of Economic Opportunity making sure that the right folks saw our proposal. I even dropped in on the boss, Shriver, with greetings from Shenton. Project Double Discovery did get funded that first summer, thanks to much behind-the-scenes maneuvering by Shenton. He and Saltzman got Washington, D.C., to give us the money, and made sure Columbia accepted it. And Shenton got to give his stem-winding lecture that first summer, and for each summer thereafter. He enjoyed that so much. Jim Shenton really deserves most of the credit for starting the Double Discovery Center, which has benefited thousands of struggling city youth and Columbia-Barnard students since 1965, and stands as a prime example of how Columbia serves the people of the City of New York — which it owns.
Steve Weinberg ’66, AC ’70, directs Community Action Services, a community and economic development consulting firm specializing in affordable housing. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Dorna, and keeps track of their four grown children, including Abigail ’92 Barnard.
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