Walter Capps’s Legacy to Be Celebrated at Two-Day Conference at UC Santa Barbara

In life, Walter Capps was quite the Renaissance man. He was a husband, father, professor, congressmember, humanitarian leader, deep thinker, author, and tuba player. He taught religious studies at UC Santa Barbara for more than 30 years, leading two of the most popular courses in the school’s history, before retiring from the classroom for a short but influential time in office.

It’s been 26 years since his passing, and for those who knew him, a celebration of his legacy was long overdue. That is, especially for his wife, Lois Capps, who won his vacant seat after his sudden death from a heart attack in 1997, and his daughter Laura Capps, now a Santa Barbara County supervisor.

Both will take part in a two-day series of events this Friday and Saturday — Celebrating the Legacy of Walter H. Capps: Professor, Humanist, Public Servant — to remember Capps, his work, and his impact on family, friends, colleagues, students, and strangers, hosted by the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life at UCSB.

Founded a couple of years after Capps’s death, the center looks at the pressing issues of today, such as the environment and immigration, with programming and initiatives that connect the university with the larger community through public dialogue, civic engagement, and public service. 

“From the classroom to scholarship to humanities to political life itself,” stated Greg Johnson, the center’s director, “the different areas of his legacy are the perfect way to organize a conference. 

“When the community and the university come together — that’s what Santa Barbara looks like on its best days.”

Part of the conference will focus on Capps’s internationally recognized course, Religion and the Impact of Vietnam, which was so popular that it was filmed by CBS for 60 Minutes and broadcast around the country. Capps brought in guest speakers from all sides of the conflict, including veterans who shared firsthand accounts of the war and its aftermath. More than 15,000 students took the course over 16 years. 

“He helped destigmatize veterans’ issues,” said Dusty Hoesly, associate director for the center. “His courses would definitely still hold relevance today.” 

His other popular course, Voices of the Stranger, based on the work of a Trappist monk, would fill Campbell Hall to capacity. It allowed students to critically examine the concept of “difference” in society, and learn the stories of people who overcame major life obstacles. Guest speakers included people who had AIDS, people who experienced homelessness, people with disabilities, and incarcerees — Capps even took students on field trips to the Lompoc federal penitentiary. 

Johnson said he now frequently runs into former students of Capps around the community. Beyond the classroom, Capps made an effort to engage the students living in Isla Vista, including going door to door to encourage them to vote. 

Those efforts are what helped Capps, a Democrat, get elected in 1996 to represent California’s Central Coast district in Congress, a seat that Republicans previously held for decades.

“He resisted black or white, for or against, and really tried to approach politics from a bigger, more holistic point of view and ground his new life as a candidate and congressperson in history and intellectual thought,” Laura Capps told Keith Hamm for UCSB’s The Current. 

“If he were still alive, he’d still be looking for ways to ground political discussions in meaning and value. That’s something I try to do as well. When I think about what my dad would do, it often leads me to, ‘What are my own values?’ And it helps me to connect to others, even those with different perspectives.”

This weekend’s event at UCSB is free and open to the public, taking place on Friday, November 10, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the McCune Conference Room in the Humanities & Social Sciences Building, and on Saturday, November 11, from 9 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. at Campbell Hall. The event will be livestreamed on the Walter H. Capps Center’s YouTube channel. In-person attendees are encouraged to RSVP. 

Panels will cover Capps’s contributions to the study of religion, his career in politics, the courses he taught, and the value of the humanities and public service in today’s society. 

Speakers and panelists include former U.S. senator and Nebraska governor Bob Kerrey, former U.S. Representative Lois Capps, Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps, and UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang, among many scheduled scholars, politicians, and former colleagues and students. The full program is available here.