Bernard Hyink, 91; Political Science Educator

Bernard L. Hyink, a prominent educator at USC and other California universities who co-authored the popular textbook “Politics and Government in California,” has died. He was 91.

Hyink died June 24 in Fullerton of internal bleeding, said his daughter, Shirley Kramer.

The political science expert’s long academic career was frequently interrupted by assignments for the U.S. and California governments beginning in the 1940s. Then a professor of political science and assistant to the president at the University of Redlands, Hyink went to Washington, D.C., for the U.S. Civil Service Commission, recruiting personnel for agencies involved in World War II. He also aided Army and Navy officers in setting up orientation programs for recruits and wounded servicemen.

Hyink later returned to Washington in the late 1940s as an educational counselor for the National Institute of Public Affairs, and in 1956 was a professor at the University of Tehran. For California, he subsequently served as a consultant to the State Constitutional Revision Commission and to the California Fulbright Commission.

Born in Hawarden, Iowa, Hyink studied at Antioch College, earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Redlands, master’s from UC Berkeley and doctorate from USC. He taught at Redlands until 1948, and from 1949 until 1956 was dean of students at USC where he taught political science from 1957 to 1960.

After teaching for a decade at what is now Cal State Fullerton, Hyink served as president of Cal State Sacramento from 1970 to 1972. He then returned to Fullerton to teach until his retirement in 1983.

In 1959, Hyink wrote his seminal textbook, which has gone through some 15 editions and has become a major teaching tool for state government, with co-authors Seyom Brown and Ernest W. Thacker. Hyink also co-authored “Government in the Golden State” in 1968 and “Issues in California Politics and Government” in 1977.

Information on survivors other than his daughter Shirley was not immediately available.