Arnold John Stafford; Retired CSUN Professor

A memorial service is planned next month for Arnold John Stafford, a retired Cal State Northridge English professor described by associates as a defender of academic freedom and civil rights for both faculty and students. He was 74.

Stafford died Aug. 6 of cancer at his Northridge home, said his daughter, Elizabeth Stafford Belfiore of Minneapolis.

Born in Windermere, Fla., he earned a bachelor’s degree from Maryville College in Tennessee, a master’s degree from Vanderbilt University in Nashville and a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin in 1948. From 1939 to 1958, he taught at the University of Mississippi, Trinity University, the University of Texas at Austin, UCLA and Brooklyn College. Stafford joined the faculty of CSUN, then called San Fernando Valley State College, in 1958--its first year--as a professor of American literature.

During campus demonstrations of the late 1960s, Stafford scorned hard-line attempts to deal with the tumult.

“Most students are not violent in their criticisms of the college. They believe the colleges and universities are not so bad they need to be destroyed,” Stafford said in a 1968 Times interview when he was chairman of the Academic Senate of the State Colleges.

“But frustration with unsuccessful attempts to achieve legitimate reform can lead them to join those students who think the whole system must be torn down to remake it.”

Besides numerous scholarly articles, Stafford wrote a book in 1952 called “The Literary Criticism of ‘Young America,’ ” a study of the relationship of politics and literature from 1837 to 1850. He was a Fulbright professor in France and Japan and a visiting scholar in Vietnam and Iran.

He was past president of the CSUN faculty and past president of the CSUN chapter of United Professors of California. Stafford retired in 1987.

In addition to his daughter, Stafford is survived by his wife of 52 years, Louise Orr Stafford; brother Arthur Henry Stafford of Winter Park, Fla., and a grandson.

A memorial service is scheduled for 4 p.m. Sept. 17 in the CSUN English Department Reading Room, Sierra North Room 311, 18111 Nordhoff St. Donations can be made in Stafford’s name to the CSUN English Department Book Fund.