60 Years In, Here's Why City College's Madeline Mueller Won't Quit

The City College of San Francisco’s longest-tenured professor Madeline Mueller isn’t going anywhere, at least not until the new performing arts center is completed.

Mueller first discovered her passion as a pianist at four years old while living in Bakersfield, taking lessons and picking up on sight-reading quickly. Though she didn’t like practicing, she knew she wanted to excel at playing piano. In 1965, after being an accompanist at her alma mater UC Berkeley and other places, Mueller started her career at City College after earning a junior college teaching credential at San Francisco State University.

“I realized that if I pursued my career, which I was ready to do as an accompanist on tour and all that sort of stuff, that's hard work,” Mueller said. “What I found out was I love students and I love teaching and they were wonderful audiences so I didn’t have to tour to get an audience.”

As the department chair for both the Music and Theatre Arts departments, the 84-year-old has a full schedule of advocating for resources for both departments and tackling the college’s need for a performing arts center, a project that has been decades in the making. Ever still, she remains optimistic for the future, noting how the students, the music and her family’s genes of living to at least the mid-90s keep her motivated to continue her work.

“There are things that do happen as you get older and it makes a different perspective on things,” Mueller said. “That's why I tell how old I am because they [people] say, ‘Oh, good’ because they don't want to think it's all decrepit and negative stuff. It's not. It's pretty exciting.” 

The Ingleside Light caught up with Mueller to check in with City College’s most senior instructor. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

What does a typical day look like for you? 

I try to map out each day. Now my problem, I have two.  First, I don't consider it a problem. The rest of the world is out of step. My natural biorhythms, I found out, especially during COVID, is to go to sleep between three and four in the morning and get up around noon. I've noticed that's not true of everybody and that can get in the way. Most people who know me know don't call her before noon and I've learned not to call them before eight at night. Some of my best contacts have just completely different hours so that's an issue.

The other is that when I was around 19, I woke up one morning and everything was pink and I thought, “That's strange.” We went to the eye doctor. I had a spontaneous, no reason, eye hemorrhage in [one] eye. If I look at you, I actually can see around but it's my brain making it up. I think I see a tree out there but I can't see a hand and I know my hand is out there but I can't see it. So I have perfect vision right here but not to the side. This [other] eye supplies all of this. For many decades I accommodated but as I got older, cataracts started in.

How many classes are you teaching?

Right now, because I'm chairing two departments, they give me reassigned time, which I can then book part-timers because I don't want the extra pay. And then they gave me some reassigned time to check the theater which at first people were going, “Oh, it's flooded. It's over the hill.” No, we had to clean up the scene shop so that students taking drama degrees would have the one required course in technical theater. That was a big chore. I had to make sure that the mural was safe, is safe, and is moved safe. So my reassigned time really added up to that I couldn't teach last semester. I thought I couldn't teach this semester but now I'm a subbing teacher who collapsed so I am teaching no, the one class. I sure would prefer to teach but there is paperwork.

What motivates you to keep pushing for the performing arts building?

Stubbornness. If people say they're going to do something they should do it. I'll be so happy. I could practice. It's more than time but if I'm the only thing that keeps you thinking about this, sometimes it feels that way, I'll stay and see it through because I've said I'll stay until it's alright but it's tricky. Why should we, the College of San Francisco, the center of the arts in the world, be the one community college out of 116 that doesn't have an auditorium?

The state used to tell me this. There was a really nice guy and he was in charge of facilities and he said you've got to keep nagging because City College is an incomplete campus. It's the only one on our list because it doesn't have the facilities for performing arts students because accreditation says if you are offering a major let's say Horticulture, you've got to have greenhouses. You can't just talk about it. You have to do what the skill set calls for so City College is incomplete.