Lawrence Baca: On UCSB, Personal Success, and American
Indian Issues prepared by Lawrence Baca
in consultation with Pete
Villarreal and Laurie Hoyle
Lawrence Baca, a Pawnee Indian, is Deputy Director of the Office of Tribal Justice,
U.S. Department of Justice. An alumnus of UCSB (class of 1973), Baca received his
B.A. in a major of his own design (individual major program) in American Indian
history and culture. He taught two courses on Indian issues during his senior year
at UCSB, then attended Harvard Law School. While in law school he was a Harvard
Teaching Fellow in American Indian history at Harvard University. He also taught
Perspectives on the Historical Development of American Indian Policy and Law at
the Harvard University Extension School. Upon graduating from Harvard Law School
in 1976, he was the first American Indian hired through the Department of Justice’s
Honor Law Program.
I recently had the opportunity to talk with Bill Villa over lunch at the University Center. I was hoping to find out how Bill—whose long and distinguished career at UCSB ranged from graduate student and administrator to staff member emeritus—was faring with retirement and with the acknowledgements that come later in life (like having the departmental Bill Villa Service to Students Award named in his honor.) If you’re an alum from anytime between the late 1960s and the year 2000, you probably crossed paths with Bill, either in the EOP office (where he served early on as Associate Director) or by virtue of him signing your admission letter (during his tenure as Director of Admissions during some particularly tough times, including the passage of Proposition 209). My conversation with Bill was a time for him to reflect on his experiences at UCSB. Knowing Bill for over 25 years, I knew his story would be a heartfelt journey of love. I’m pleased to share it with you. And I look forward to sharing many more of our alums’ stories about where they’ve been and what they’ve done since—and because of—their time spent at UCSB in EOP.
