Warriors Remember: Jay Christofferson

If Stanislaus State Professor of Zoology Jay Christofferson wasn’t at home, his wife and children knew where to find him.   

“He was holed up in the lab,” said his wife, Jeanne. “I asked them not to put in a shower there or I’d just have to bring him a change of clothes.”   

The dedicated professor emeritus, who taught at Stan State from 1970 to 1996, passed away on Dec. 27 after a brief illness. He was 86.   

Jeanne was at his side, as she had been throughout their 60½ years of marriage. Their love story began when both were graduate students at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where Jay Christofferson earned his master’s and doctorate degrees.   

“We met on an invertebrate class field trip,” Jeanne said. “At the end of the day of snorkeling, I was so tired I couldn’t pull myself into the boat. They pulled it to the coral reef, and I still couldn’t get in. A nice young man came over and offered his knee. I plopped my flipper on it and got in. In the olden days, if a man saw a woman’s ankle, he had to marry her. I had a hole in the back of my bathing suit from the coral. I think seeing someone’s backside is worse than seeing an ankle. He married me.”   

That was the first of many adventures they shared. Over the years, they visited each continent at least twice, and the two participated in the Te Vega research trip, traveling by boat between Kenya and Singapore in the fall of 1964, a trip that inspired Christofferson’s teaching.   

He sent 150 job applications when he completed his doctorate, and Stan State offered the most security – a permanent position at its growing campus.   

Christofferson dived in, connecting with colleagues Pam Rowe, Dave Gotelli, Walter Tordoff and Wayne Pierce, to name a few. He and Rowe took students to study marine life at Moss Landing and created a winter-break trip to Belize. For many students, it was the first time they’d left the Central Valley, flown on an airplane, spent time on the ocean and snorkeled.   

On campus, Christofferson was devoted to helping his students, his family said.   

“People I’ve run into who had him come up and tell me how patient he was in explaining things and making himself available for office hours to go over things,” said Holly Christofferson, the eldest of his three children. “I remember in the late ’80s or early ’90s, he started videotaping his classes so if students missed a lecture, they could access it. That was unusual. He was ahead of his time.”   

His dedication stemmed from his undergraduate experience at the University of Utah, Jeanne said.   

“He had been poorly advised as an undergraduate, and ended up with a fifth year, because he took the wrong chemistry course, so he was extremely careful to understand what a student’s goals were to make sure they were making the right course decisions,” she said.

“He was an awesome lecturer. He did a wonderful job, engaged the audience and was in top form until the end.”

  Holly Christofferson      

Christofferson often credited the trip to Te Vega for impacting his experiential teaching style, Jeanne said. He understood that to help young people understand, they had to experience it. A teacher had to bring science to life. That’s what started the trips to Belize.   

Although Turlock was nothing like her native Chicago or Hawaii, Jeanne Christofferson said it was a good place to raise Holly and sons, Jay and Scott. Scott, the only one born in Turlock, was also the only one to graduate from Stan State.   

If he wasn’t in the University lab, Jay Christofferson could be found standing between two soccer fields, watching his sons play in different games, cheering his children on at swim meets, or seeing Holly competing for —and winning — the local Junior Miss contest.   

In addition to his teaching duties, Christofferson served as chair of the Department of Biological Sciences and associate dean for the College of Arts, Letters and Sciences. He also was a member of the California State University systemwide Academic Senate.   

He left Stan State to become the dean of science at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, then became vice president for academic affairs at the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo, where he had grown up.   

Upon retiring, he delivered lectures on cruise ships, sharing information about the sea life passengers might see or the regions they were visiting. It was a continuation of his life’s work.   

“People would come up to him on the ships and say, ‘It’s obvious you love what you’re doing,’” Jeanne said. “He really did. He was a star on board. In March, we were planning to take a month-long trip to Hawaii and back.”   

Holly never took her dad’s classes, but her memories of him as a professor at Stan State include running down the halls of the Science 1 Building with its unique odors lingering, seeing the lab with the animals and attending the community science event. She later joined her parents on a cruise and watched her dad speak.   

“As an adult, I was so appreciative,” Holly said. “He was an awesome lecturer. He did a wonderful job, engaged the audience and was in top form until the end.”   

Before he fell ill, he was reviewing the PowerPoint he had planned to use on the Hawaii trip.   

“He was truly such a nice, kind person,” Jeanne said. “The world is poorer without him here anymore. I miss him.”