Berkeley Honors Grad Was One Poor Student

In the celebrity-laden world of college commencement speakers, Duane De Witt is hardly marquee material.

But along with his borrowed cap and gown, what De Witt brought to the stage when he recently addressed 2,000 fellow UC Berkeley graduates was nearly half a century of experience on the rough margins of society. Standing nervously on the podium, the soft-spoken 48-year-old Army veteran was an oddity in a university filled largely with the sons and daughters of privilege, one whose odyssey of uncommon persistence included nearly an entire semester spent sleeping in local parks.

De Witt had rebounded from a career of low-paying jobs and repeated rejection to graduate Phi Beta Kappa from one of America’s top universities. He finished with a 3.8 average, scoring A’s in all but one class, a B-plus in “Scandinavian Welfare Systems.”

“I came to school homeless and here I was speaking to my graduating class,” he said, shaking his head in amazement. “I went from sleeping in the park to speaking on the stage.”

For classmates and instructors alike, De Witt’s sheer will to succeed at Berkeley reasserted the values of the academy more than any politician, celebrity or academic speaker could. “I’ve never seen anyone who worked so hard and was so appreciative of his chance at an education,” said Helen Johnson, director of a program for university reentry students. “Duane always says the university is like a chocolate factory -- there’s so much to learn, so much to enjoy.”

Yet De Witt’s journey almost never got its start. For years, the Santa Rosa native was repeatedly rejected by UC Berkeley officials until, in May of 2000, he became so frustrated that he made a personal plea to the UC system’s Board of Regents that he deserved a chance.

While competing in Berkeley’s academic pressure cooker, De Witt made frequent trips to a Santa Rosa convalescent home to visit his mentally ill mother, a manic-depressive who also suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. At night, he slept in a grove of redwoods near the campus’ Strawberry Creek, just steps from the classrooms he shared with students who arose each day in cozy apartments and dormitories.

As many classmates concerned themselves with football games and fraternity rushes, De Witt fought to keep his fragile grip on university enrollment -- especially after thieves broke into his 1986 Subaru station wagon, stealing not only his meager belongings but all of his textbooks and class notes.

“I just told myself that this is what I have to endure to achieve what I want to achieve,” De Witt said. “I had to stay in school at any cost. I knew that I’d never get another chance.”

With a personal loan from an empathetic university housing official, De Witt bought new books and moved into an apartment. Years later, he’s been accepted into UC Berkeley’s prestigious graduate program in city and regional planning.

On May 22, he shared the speaker’s spotlight with best-selling author Anne Lamott, who wrote “Traveling Mercies” and “Crooked Little Heart.”

“He kept following this song he heard deep inside of himself,” Lamott wrote in an e-mail. “That was the song of ‘Yes’ and of all things that are possible, if you don’t let the world tell you who and how you are. What a victory.”

For much of his life, even De Witt would not have thought such a triumph possible. He grew up the only child of a single mother who frequently lost jobs and apartments due to her mental illness. After spending several years in the care of his grandparents, De Witt joined the Army at 18 and was trained as a certified respiratory therapist.

When he left active duty, De Witt studied briefly at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, where he was amazed by a social safety net where few people -- even the mentally ill -- went homeless. The idea inspired him to one day pursue a career in helping American poor acquire the same adequate low-cost housing.

Moving back to the Bay Area to care for his mother, De Witt continued to struggle, failing to find a full-time job with benefits. For two decades, he worked a succession of part-time positions, never earning more than $27,000 in a year.

He began taking classes at Santa Rosa Junior College and eyed a move to UC Berkeley. Not only was the school close to his mother, but it offered numerous courses in Scandinavian language and culture, which he thought would help him return to Denmark to further study its public housing system.

That’s when De Witt learned a frustrating reality of the state university system. While trying to attract the attention of UC Berkeley recruiters, De Witt tutored several foreign students in Santa Rosa. Despite their limited English, three students were admitted to UC Berkeley through the state’s Community College Transfer Preference Program. Meanwhile, De Witt pressed those same officials with personal letters of recommendation from politicians. He had gained some local attention as a housing activist in Santa Rosa -- once helping to save a senior citizen mobile home park from demolition.

Still, the university rejected his application on four separate occasions, citing “severe enrollment constraints.” Rather than quit, De Witt enrolled in a Danish language extension class at UC Berkeley, making a seven-hour round-trip bus commute from Santa Rosa three times a week for the one-hour class.

In the spring of 2000, after his fourth rejection, he decided to confront the regents, a board of elected and appointed officials. Dressed in a blue blazer and American Legion cap, he “played the veteran’s card. My whole theory was not to get mad but to get determined. I got one minute to speak so I made the most of it.” On May 1, his 45th birthday, De Witt received notice he would be admitted for the fall semester. “I still have that letter as a keepsake,” he said. “It’s the best birthday gift that I have ever received.” He entered the school’s interdisciplinary studies department, combining regional planning with Scandinavian studies and journalism.

Although fellow veterans gave De Witt a deal on a car to make the daily commute to Berkeley, he soon realized that -- even with student loans -- he couldn’t afford the gas, let alone a deposit on an apartment. With all his belongings cramping the car, he preferred to sleep in area parks, often struggling to get a good night’s rest. Rousted by police, he often awoke groggy and tired. He washed each morning in a university restroom, occasionally having to explain to a teacher or security guard that he was a student at the school, not an interloper.

But he was too proud to admit to anyone that he lacked the money to provide a roof over his head. On many afternoons, he fell exhausted onto a couch in some library or recreation center. Yet De Witt was so excited to finally be at Berkeley, he regularly sneaked into classes he was not registered to take -- including several in the university’s law school -- just for the sheer joy of learning.

Then came the car break-in. “They took my clothes, my tools, my sleeping bag, even my class notes and textbooks,” he recalls of the October 2000 theft. “Why steal a Danish book? Who could use that?” Scouring the neighborhood after the theft, he located his discarded book bag, now empty and ripped. He taped up the handle and went right to work putting his life back together.

That’s when Michelle Kniffin, an assistant director of university housing, took an interest in De Witt. She had seen him around and knew there was something different about the balding man with long sideburns who bears a slight resemblance to actor Robert Duvall.

“He was just so focused on this dream of his,” Kniffin said. “Unlike a lot of other young undergraduates, he never complained and always tried to turn everything on the bright side. Even after his possessions were stolen, he would say ‘All my stuff is gone, but don’t worry, I’m going to be fine.’ ”

Using money her mother left her in her will, Kniffin lent De Witt $1,500 to buy new books and rent an apartment. She told him “Now you have to promise to graduate.” De Witt plans to return the payment when he gets out of school, and hopes to start a foundation for disadvantaged students in Kniffin’s mother’s name.

Two years later, Kniffin sat in the audience as De Witt addressed fellow graduates. “For Duane, the whole thing was like an end of a journey,” Kniffin said. “I cried like his mother, even though he’s older than I am.”

An assistant dean at Berkeley had chosen De Witt’s proposed commencement speech from those by a flood of graduates who wanted to speak, saying he was impressed by the streetwise wisdom in the message.

De Witt actually gave two addresses: one to graduates from his and four other majors and one for reentry students. In his brief address, he urged fellow graduates to give something back to Berkeley -- in money or time -- to make it possible for disadvantaged Californians to follow in their footsteps.

His voice breaking, he then thanked all the people who made his success possible -- at one point becoming so emotional he couldn’t continue. “Take your time!” someone in the audience yelled.

Wearing a lei that Kniffin had given him, De Witt stressed that “this university has been wonderful to me. This school is where the old folklore proverb ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ is proven a false belief every day.”

Ken Gonsalves, a university outreach coordinator, said De Witt represents all older scholars who don’t fit the image of the 21-year-old college student, but who routinely beat the odds. “Duane is Joe Everyman, the real thing,” he said. “He was determined to get here and once in, he was determined to stay. What he has accomplished is quite remarkable.”

De Witt worries he will not be able to secure enough student loans to continue his graduate studies, and knows that if he finishes graduate school, he will have amassed $80,000 in debts.

But if he can hang on, he wants to earn his doctorate and perhaps one day teach at Berkeley. “I want to become a scholar on homeless issues so I can go toe-to-toe with city planners and politicians who make the decisions,” he said. De Witt already has begun to teach.

Asked to address an undergraduate class on housing issues, he showed up in a suit and tie and asked students if they could identify him.

“I said that standing before them was a guy who used to be homeless,” he said. “I told them looks can be deceiving, that the worst thing you can ever do is judge a book by its cover.”