and pam. The tape is rolling. We're two seconds in. Okay. The first thing
I always want to do is identify on the tape that today is. What is this
Tuesday january the 24th of 2000 and six. And I'm pam Stephenson doing the
interview. Manny Garcia is our photographer and we're doing a an interview
for the living history video project of the Arizona State University
retirees association. We are at the visitor information center at rural
road and Apache boulevard. Um I would like to let you introduce yourself
and give us your full name. I'm ladd Ef core junior. Um
It's my proper name, my father and I bear the same name and I guess with
full name my middle name is Finch, but I am a junior proudly. Why don't
you tell me where you were born? And when you were born, was born in
phoenix september 26th 1936. Uh And grew up in Avondale. My mother and
father were grade school teachers. They had, my father went to a. S. U. In
1928 and 29 for his first degree. When a two year degree was made him
eligible to teach, did his practice teaching at the rural school on what
really should be called rural school road because that's why rural road
was named rural road. And he then began teaching at in the Kyron schools
where he met my mother, she had both had gone to phoenix union high school
but she had then gone to uh what was then called Redlands college now, the
University of Redlands for her teaching certificate. My father then
returned to a S. U. Subsequently to do his third year when that was
required for a degree I think in the early thirties. And then he got his
bachelor's in 1936. My parents moved after they were married in 1931 to to
Wickenburg where my older brother was born. He actually was also born in
phoenix, but they lived in Wickenburg. And then the year I was born my
parents moved to to Avondale and that's where I grew up in, where they
continued their professional life for the rest of their careers. Just for
a little background uh where your parents were also born,
neither of my parents were born here. My mother moved here when she was
one year old in 198, so it was still territorial days and she grew up in
Phoenix. My father was the next to the youngest of 13 Children. Um And
they moved here in stages from central texas. A little town called Iola
texas. Beginning in about 1910 1911 my father moved here to stay when he
was still a youngster With his mother and father moved to Peoria. 1st
Glendale and into Peoria In about 1914,
After, after it was a state. Right, we'll talk a little bit about your
growing up years, you grew up in Avondale, what was Avondale like then
very much Avondale was very much a migrant labor community heavily.
Hispanic with strong sense of itself as an agricultural community. I can't
begin to estimate how many people, but not many actually, the town when I
was yet a very small child, it was called Cold Water. And when it came
time to get a post office, the locals thought cold water sounded a little
hick I guess and named the post office for a ranch, Avondale ranch, which
was one of the ranches in the area. We lived first in town at a home. My
father and a cousin of mine chauncey core uh built right in the center of
town telephone. I remember it clearly because the same phone at the school
was the phone in our home, the number was 516 and it rang both places. uh
and that was in the 40s and then in the late 40s my my parents bought a
farm at the corner of Desert Road and Van Buren and we moved
2/3 of a prisoner of war barracks from Papago Park. The old German
prisoner of war camp, uh, to constitute our home. And we, my, my parents
and again, my cousin chauncey and others built that home where we then
they then lived until they retired. I went to high school in litchfield
park. There was no high school in Avondale um litchfield park then too was
very small, a company town really for Goodyear farms And the high school
was small, about 200 students all together. I graduated from Lakeville
High in 1954 and uh went to n au, then called Arizona State College,
Flagstaff
luke Air Force Base was there through all of the war years. As a child on
our farm Probably in about 19 in the, in the 1940s, uh, I saw a jet
airplane before it was ever publicly disclosed that such things existed
And the, what is now the called, I guess the phoenix Goodyear airfield was
the litchfield Naval Air Station. Uh, they're on near highway 80 in, in,
in what is now a good year, paul W litchfield was an interesting force in
that era. He first began
activities in Arizona with Goodyear farms and what is now Okoto near
Chandler because they, in the first World War they couldn't find uh long
enough strands of cotton, long staple cotton, which was called Egyptian
cotton because North Africa was not available. And so he said, find me a
place like Egypt and will go grow cotton there. So, beginning there and
then moving out to the west side, they began, what was first just Goodyear
tire and rubber companies farms and then created subsidiaries, Goodyear
farms and then Goodyear aircraft in the Second World war, which was
adjacent to the litchfield Naval Air station and uh, then the wigwam and
all of the things that went with that. So that evolution was very much
part of my life as, as actually Goodyear was created. The town of Goodyear
was created overnight in the second World war when many people were
brought from Akron Ohio, the headquarters of Goodyear tire and rubber to,
to do, to build blimps. Uh, it in the Goodyear area, you were pretty young
during those war years, but do you remember what it was like throwing out
there quite vividly and two things I guess come to mind. Um, there was an
italian prisoner of war camp out in our area. I don't recall exactly where
it was, but it was in the litchfield road um, and olive area and J. O
combs, a member of the Avondale school board and standard oil distributor
took heating oil out to the, to the prisoner of war camp and I would go
with him. Uh, and I guess my most vivid memory of that was to realize I
was here with the enemy because we sang songs in school about the Italy
the enemy mostly about Hitler but Mussolini as well. And here were, these
look to me like adults, they were obviously young men Who were lonely and
who who taught me to count to 10 in Italian and probably most memorably uh
carved for me a crash that they used in the christmas season Sangha Desta
Fidelis with tears streaming down their eyes and then they gave me the
crash. So it was quite moving. The other memory I have was of the a
caregiver and later the wife of the editor of our weekly newspaper. She
had come to the United States from Germany and the 30's Eugene Ely was the
editor and he was paralyzed from the neck down. Uh, and uh needed
assistance at all times. So his
caregiver and later wife Emmy, it was his was came from Germany to be his
caregiver. Her brother was a luftwaffe pilot who was, who was captured and
was put in the prisoner of war camp at Papago park. So here again singing
these songs and knowing that Hitler was the enemy, I would go with me to
visit her brother who was obviously a family member and hardly looked the
role of his evil enemy that we saw. I also remember the speeches at the
time but vaguely at the time of Pearl Harbor president Roosevelt and uh
and the loss of a very favorite cust of mine who was, who died in France
in the war. So it was that mixture of things went ahead. I guess One other
thing, I remember two other things, I remember the victory gardens that we
planted on the school grounds. They plowed up one of the, one of the
playgrounds and we all had little plots that in which we grew vegetables
and and another very vivid memory. I
went to school one day to discover that my classmate buddy ito, the family
that lived on the farm next to us was gone And no one would really tell us
while they were gone. We all now know they were taken As the Japanese
Americans were incarcerated in 1943. But all we knew was that Buddy and
his brothers and sisters and the whole family were simply gone. And it was
years later I I did hear of them because they moved back to Arizona, they
lost the farm that they moved back to Arizona. And At my father's funeral
in 1991. Um, several members of the family came including including Buddy
. I did later learned. My father fought very hard to try to keep them from
being incarcerated but unsuccessfully
story. You say you actually, I've heard a lot about the path part
we visited. I visited there and of course there's the infamous story that
is based in fact, although it's been embellished, I'm sure of the two in
prisoners who had a map that showed salt river and the tunnel they built a
canoe and tunneled out under on the grounds that they could run down to
the river and canoe away. Only to learn once they got there that Arizona
rivers often have no water and they were at least as I understand the
story were captured a few miles away. Their canoe was still on the river
but I did actually visit it, remember what it looks like. Yes, it was
pretty good size. It's in, it's on the site where the national guard
facility is now and the the barracks were 100 ft long that I know. Uh, and
it looked like a military installation, looked very much like luke? Air
Force Base looked at the time. My father, I guess had a penchant for these
barracks because with the war and the Goodyear aircraft growing, which was
in the elementary school district in Avondale, they had a cute space
shortages. And my father went down to the Air Force base at marana and
bought several of those barracks and moved them as school buildings to
Avondale. Uh, right, right after the war. So it looked at it, the prisoner
of war camp looked like a military base, just long barracks and I don't
frankly recall any and major fence and there were fences around it, but it
wasn't like a prison fence. And the, and, and I know, I guess the german
prisoners did. I know the italian prisoners went out every day to work in
the fields, in the agricultural fields. Mm hmm. Mhm. As you were growing
up then, your parents were teachers obviously. Were you a good student? Uh
, when your father is principal of the school, you are a good student. I
was a pretty good student. Yeah, I was, I I was active in student politics
all my years, but I was, I was, I was uh salutatorian of my high school
class and my lifelong friend uh Berlin. Soto Marino was the valedictorian
in our high school and uh, again and she went to college also in Flagstaff.
So but I I was I was pretty good student, What was your favorite subject
? I always loved history and uh and and and social social science, social
issues. Uh huh. Yeah, I just, I was intrigued by the window it gave into
the world but I tended to be captured by teachers I liked. So I had a math
teacher, keith Weston high school that intrigued me and I got very much
interested in that and a my spanish teacher, Francis Ibarra Amavisca, she
was just one of the greatest people. And so I got pretty deeply involved
in in spanish and studying spanish.
What is a boy growing up? What did you plan to do?
Um had been involved politically on campus politics but also in some
larger issues and I plan to go to law school when I went to college, I had
the good fortune of of receiving a Phelps dodge scholarship and in the in
the fifties that was quite significant, Phelps dodge. Company gave two
scholarships a year to each of the three Arizona universities and the
universities awarded that they were not only full value, they provided
tuition room and board uh to the schools, but they were they were quite
prestigious. And so every year The company would take all 24 of us before
Years, Times two on each of the campuses to one of their facilities and We
went to a hoe and went to Bisbee Douglas and Clinton Morency and actually
went to the reduction plant in El Paso one year. And it was through that
that I really kind of decided in meeting with other of the Phelps dodge
scholars that I would go to law school. And then I thought potentially of
a political career just because there were things I was doing, but my mind
was changed. You know, one of those burning bush moments that we should
all be aware of those of us who have the privilege of living in
universities. Uh in a sophomore course I took in sociology and I was so by
a brilliant professor named ed walker who had come to N. A. U. For his
health, had been a faculty member at stanford and lost a lung and had to
live in a high, dry climate. I was just so taken with the whole world of
of intellectual life. I've never even thought of graduate school, really
didn't know what it was, but that changed my view. And I've been by my
sophomore year into my sophomore year and decided I wanted to go into an
academic career. Mhm. And what field were you going to do that in
political science? Which is what I did interestingly ed in this. Uh
Flagstaff had 800 students when I went as a freshman and it was openly
avowedly a teacher's college. So very few students, I think only five of
us in my graduating class took a B. A. Everyone else was in a Bs in
education program. And there were about five or 6 of us who had been
students of ed walker who went on to academic careers. I couldn't major in
political science, but I majored in social science and then went on and
did my graduate study in political science. So what were your thoughts
then of what your career would be? I was so moved by the power of uh
intellectual exploration that I absolutely completely planned to be a
faculty member. I
as a young person, you don't know much about the way universities are
organized. So the idea of academic administration, it was not something
that I just that even occurred to me it was to graduate school and to a
faculty position that I that I that I intended to go. Mhm. So where did
you go after any? I went to Washington University in ST louis. That was at
Ed walker's suggestion. He'd grown up in Missouri. Uh I knew I had some
gaps because the program while qualitative at N. A. U. Was not a full
program that would uh
we're talking about when you went to graduate. I am can I applied to
Washington University at at ted walker's suggestion? He'd I had grown up
in Missouri, he knew the university well and he knew there were some gaps
in my preparation simply because the program was more limited. I had
already decided where I wanted to apply in every one of the universities
to which I applied were in the west. That was in an era by the way, when
back east was meant anything east of Albuquerque and well, I don't think
we were overly parochial, they just didn't think about it. It turned out
to be an absolutely splendid choice for me. I got a a graduate teaching
assistantship there, which was helpful. It provided me tuition and a a
modest but nevertheless functional stipend I could live with. And very
importantly, the um chairman of the department who who who granted me
admission and recruited me, became a very significant part of my life
after that. His name was Tom Elliott. He was the grandson of the great
Charles w Eliot of Harvard. And he had himself grown up in the Harvard
environment and in the congress had been actually a young lawyer with
Frances Perkins in the new deal when the Social Security Act was written
and then had gone on into an academic career Tom later became Chancellor
of Washington University after I had finished my PhD and was on the
faculty. And it was he who uh lured me into academic administration at a
very young age. So it was not only a very good university with a very
strong department of political science, but a and experience. I stayed 18
years after I went to Washington University and experience. That was very
, very good for me personally and professionally.
Um So you were there through the 60s and I was, I took my master's degree
in Russian studies uh From 1958 to 1960. I uh I finished my PhD in 1960
for in american politics, specializing on the president 1964. Excuse me,
Did I say 18, Not that old, 1964. But I've had an interesting little
interlude which affirmed my interest in university life and probably cast
my interest in academic administration more clearly in my own mind. After
I had done all of my coursework for my PhD, I had taken my comprehensive,
had taken one of the two languages that one had to have in order to get a
PhD. At that time. I became I was research assistant then, no longer
actually teaching in the as a teaching assistant. And uh we were doing a
study of state politics in the public schools with something about which
there's not been much work done before. Tom Elliott and some very good
people from the Maxwell School in Syracuse had gotten a major grant from
the Carnegie Foundation to do this study. And we were doing a comparative
study of Missouri Illinois and michigan and I was assigned michigan to go
do the field work to interview all of the key people, the Superintendent
of public instruction, the chairman of the House and Senate appropriations
committees and education so on. And so I was to go up there for a month or
two to do the interviewing well, as a pipsqueak graduate student trying to
get appointments with these people in advance. It was just impossible I'd
call and they wouldn't call back. And so I finally decided, well, I'll
just go up there. So in february Of 1961, I went to Lansing with plans to
stay a month, arrived on a Tuesday night, uh checked into the Jack Tar
hotel right on the main plaza next to the capital. Lights were all blazing
in the capital. I walked into the Senate Chambers in the House Chamber is
not a soul. About 88 or 83 walked into the governor's office, which was on
the same floor and Mennen Williams, G. Mennen Williams, who had been
governor for 14 years, had just been appointed by President Kennedy to be
undersecretary of state And a 34 year old named John Swainson double
amputee and the Battle of the Bulge of the Second World War had been
elected governor. The last two terms governor. Last two term period in the
in michigan's history and the pictures, Mennen Williams, pictures are all
still on the wall. He had just left and here, this young governor had just
come in, no one in the outer office. I walked into the inner office and
here was this young governor flanked by a secretary on each side. I just
brashly walked in and introduce myself. And he asked what I was doing
there and I told him, he said I could use someone like that on my staff.
And I said, I'll join it free of charge. And by friday I was assistant to
the governor part time, nope with an office. And uh, it was actually
helping him write a speech for for a major convention. He was speaking to
that weekend in grand rapids. So I stayed six months by that time. By the
way, all these people were calling me that I was trying to set
appointments with, did did the study wrote what turned out to be a chapter
and went back to ST louis to complete my work and finish my other
requirements except for the dissertation, my other language and so on. I
went back in october with the galleys to just check the quotes and make
sure everything was in hand. And john john Swinton was the governor's name.
John said my administrative assistant has just gone to Washington to work
for a minute. Uh Would you be my administrative assistant? I said john I'm
25 years old. I'm 10 years younger than anyone else. I'm I live in ST
louis, I'm a legal resident of Arizona. I drive an MG, you know, in, in
michigan I said with an Arizona plate on. I said, I can't imagine that
would work. And he said, no, you hide your car. But I come to work. So I
then worked 14 months for John who was defeated in his bid for reelection
by George Romney. It was the beginning of that big new era. But it was an
, it was an extraordinary opportunity for me, including
in addition to my professional responsibilities as an administrative
assistant of the governor. I got involved in his reelection campaign And
was responsible for northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. So three or
4 afternoons a week, we'd take off in a small plane and go up and make our
way through. It was kind of magical towns way north. Uh, it was in that as
a result of that experience, I had many opportunities to to stay in that
political life both in michigan. There was even a movement which I never
really probe. So I don't know how serious it was to get me to run for
Congress in one of the districts where there were some people, but more
importantly, there were some things in Washington, including the newly
created department of it was then called Housing and Home Finance Agency
was about to become Housing and urban development. And I, uh, it was clear
to me that was not what I wanted to do. I had a chance to experience it. I
enjoyed it, but I was really far more interested in in university life and
fortunately for me at the same time
tom Elliott, this department Chairman of Political science who recruited
me now almost three years later had become Chancellor of the university
and he called me right after the election, reminded me of a Blinken is
great story about losing that. It uh too big to hurts too much to laugh
and he's too big to cry. So and offered me half time job as assistant to
him as chancellor while I came home and finished my dissertation, started
and finished my dissertation. So I did that. I went back In January of
1963
and over the next year and a half finished my PhD and worked as assistant
to the Chancellor. Did you keep up your connections with Arizona at that
time you mentioned you still have the license plate. I did. I came out
every christmas my mother was an inveterate party giver. We had a huge
farmhouse and so all of them family and friends and so on would come. We'd
have a big party at the house between christmas and New Year's. I came to
hike regularly. I've always, I've never been able to not hike in Arizona
so I would come at least once a year and and go somewhere. So I did, I
kept ties, although when you get so immersed in something, my, my life
really moved pretty, it moved substantially to ST louis and uh, And that
did become my home for the 18 years I was there and And you didn't go to
Washington after all. I did not know I could have changed your life too.
So you were there during the 60s. I know a lot of campuses had a lot of
protests and things going on that it was true at Washington University, I
was as a young faculty member, pretty deeply involved in the civil rights
movement.
There were still segregated restaurants in ST louis, including some around
the campus. I got involved in two ways, I got involved with those who were
trying in a constructive but forceful way to persuade these owners to to
integrate their restaurants. And uh Washington University as most was
pretty lily white at the time. And I got involved in a very constructive
program to identify and help recruit minority youngsters, mostly black
youngsters from ST louis into the university, through the use of saturday
seminars and preparatory things during their, their high school years. So
I I personally, during that period from 1964,
After I finished my PhD until 19 69, I was on the faculty, I did
administrative things I was director of but but but the administrative
things were always part time as director of international Studies for a
couple of years, I was Assistant dean of the Graduate school. Um, but and
on the faculty, I did that combination of things. Um in addition to that,
I got pretty deeply involved in the the Vietnam War issue as Assistant
dean of the graduate school. I had a lot of young men coming to talk about
their desire not to serve in the military as either conscientious
objectors or those who opposed the war, including some who uh sought to
leave the country go to Canada as some of them did, and some even who who
um talked about physically harming themselves, so they would be ineligible
to go. So it was a wrenching, absolutely wrenching wrenching period. In
addition to that Washington University, uncharacteristically for such a
conservative, fairly staid city at the university, in a fairly staid city
really became the hotbed of some major radical activity. And Um, I was
fortunate enough in 1969 to be appointed Vice Chancellor. Um, the position
was a combination of responsibility for all of the professional schools on
what was called a hilltop campus, Washington University has a medical
campus,
the east end of forest Park, a beautiful big public park, and then the
hilltop campus where all of the non health science endeavors were. And I
was responsible for all of the professional schools on the hilltop campus
, Law, engineering, social work, business, etcetera. But I was also
responsible for the um major non academic non business functions. So
student affairs, campus life campus police, etcetera, which translated
very quickly into being Vice chancellor in charge of trouble because we
had over the period of about two years, a building burned to the ground,
an ROTC building with major federal involvement and prison terms up to 25
years for some of the protesters, we had Um, buildings occupied and
buildings damaged one night, $10,000 worth of plate glass was broken out
of the main library, that kind of thing. And so I got very very deeply
involved in all of that. Mhm. Did you other than protecting the campus
where you also taking sides? And I was I became convinced that our
involvement in Vietnam was wrong and I did join not with the radical
elements but in the electoral process with those who were supporting
candidates opposed to mr johnson's reelection. So I got pretty active yet.
Did you ever think about getting more involved in politics again? No,
never have. It's very interesting. I've been asked that all my life, no,
after my youthful exploration it was nothing more than that and my chance
which was my chance to experience it in michigan which was a favorable
experience. So I didn't it wasn't a negative experience. Hi. I knew deep
down I knew deep down something I discovered the first day I walked onto
the N. A. U. Campus.
Um Yeah, I think back to Arizona in the 19 fifties there there were two of
physical locations in Arizona that had this quite remarkable silver and
like quality one was the courthouse in Prescott and the other was the N. A.
U. Campus. The N. A. U. Campus was only that part that is called the old
campus now and I walked onto that campus and said I'd like to spend my
life at a place like this. And that was before I had really realized my
interest in academic life. And so that combination of really loving what a
university is and then having the personal conviction about the value of
an academic life has, has really defined what I want to do. And has ever
since, even with the depth of my conviction about the Vietnam war, I did
not have any interest in going on beyond. I actually got involved in in
the delegate selection process for the 1968 Convention in Chicago and had
an opportunity to go and said, no, I don't, I don't really want to do that.
I want to get the issues up in a constructive way. But I, my life is a
university that's where I want to stay. That would have been an
interesting convention to attend. It would have been. Mhm. So it sounds
like you pretty much made your life there ST louis did did you consider
coming back to Arizona? I have always loved Arizona. As I say, I've hiked
here, I always have to have a large family here have come to visit the
family. But I am so I've had the privilege all my life of being so
immersed where I am, that that's my home and so I didn't hanker to return.
Ah there were far greater opportunities for working in major universities
and being a part of shaping the larger agenda. Universities were just
beginning in that era to connect with the larger issues of society, not
just with civil rights, but with the economy and the shaping of the
housing public policies in the area. And that was where I really was
absorbed. So I didn't, I didn't hanker to return to, to to Arizona. So you
got your PhD there. And what was that in political science exactly?
President and Congress, actually, my my my my dissertation was entitled
the increasing vulnerability of the american governor. There was a period
of time when american governors were being defeated at abnormally high
rates when they ran for re election. And uh my my hypothesis, which I
think was supported by the work I did is that there was this period of
about 20 or 30 years where they were expected to do a lot more than they
had the capacity either financial or legal to do. And so people expected
them to solve things. and they did not, there was a period therefore,
until Ronald Reagan received a nomination where governors no longer were
even considered as candidates for president. Uh
Congressmen, senators were. And uh it was that era. So I that was my study
and I looked, I did a study over about 50 years Governors re elections.
And what happened to them. But my primary interest in my teaching was in
the role of the president and Congress and uh the the realities that are
so different from the kind of textbook the legislature legislates and the
executive executes as the evolving nature of those two institutions grew.
So that's what I thought. I did major courses in policy. I really focused
on undergraduates, that's where I I had my greatest interest got involved
in creating some, I think rather innovative ways of organizing
undergraduate courses where for about five years, four of us in different
fields chose uh an organizing topic like conflict resolution uh in society
and the same students would take uh the political science course for me,
the philosophy course from X, uh of course in psychology, from why, of
course in social behavior from Z. And uh we then would gather all of those
students into 1/5 course, which was a seminar of those students and the
five and the five of us are the four of us, pulling them together. So I
did a fair amount of that and I got pretty deeply involved in some issues
related to advising undergraduates who hadn't declared a major then, as
now they tend to be overlooked, they don't get picked up until the
department takes ownership in them. So I I that's I spent, that's that's
where I really focused my teaching efforts. What were your goals at that
time, then we're just going to plan to stay there. I was clearly intrigued.
First of all, it was a typical to take a faculty position where you get
your PhD, that's not normally the case and I guess it was uh, it was less
clear to me than it should have been that my involvement and
administrative things as assistant to the chancellor. While I was
finishing, my PhD had
awakened me to academic administration, Washington University
was a high quality, unrecognized
university. Its medical school was recognized around the world, It was
still primarily local Undergraduate and graduate student body. And in the
10 years From roughly the 16th, during the 60s, It went from 80% of its
students coming from a 50 mile radius undergraduates two, It moved to a
national student body and did some really quite remarkable things and I
was able to be a part of that at the early stages. So I thought it was
already clear to me. That was interesting. So when it came time after I
finished my PhD to decide on a faculty position, I had to opportunities
that were, that were intriguing to me. One as a regular faculty member,
one at Tulane University and one at what was then the University of
Buffalo, it was becoming, was a private university, becoming the public
state University of new york at Buffalo. But I decided to stay at
Washington University, recognizing that if I did, I would more likely
gravitate to administration and just a pure faculty role. And that is what
happened As I mentioned in 1969, I was appointed Vice Chancellor. I was
only 32 years old then. So it really meant in effect abandoning
my academic life as my central purpose and moving into administration and
that I continued to teach all my years there and I actually taught most of
my years when I was president of University of Vermont, but my principal
endeavor was, was, was my administrative role.
So how did you happen to go to Vermont? I am um served
yeah two years as vice chancellor with Tom Elliott, the the fellow who had
recruited me and then my uh fellow vice chancellor whom I had the highest
regard for Bill Danforth, he'd been vice Chancellor for medical affairs,
was named chancellor and I served five years with him and very much
enjoyed what I was doing, but I was already beginning to think, wouldn't
it be interesting if there were having watched what we did to transform
Washington university into a really highly visible competitive place if
there might be a place or two like that. And and by that time as happens
in these jobs, I was beginning to be approached by universities to
consider a presidency.
And so I, I did, I talked with some, I didn't begin exploring that and,
And and decided it would be, I was still young, but I was nearing my 40's
that sometime within the next few years it occurred to me it would be, I
would be interested in in, in, in being a university president, Vermont uh
absolutely captivated me. Uh it uh I knew it would be a wonderful place. I
had three Children by then. Uh it would be a wonderful place for my
Children to grow up. It was a university that had the most unusual set of
properties. It's legally private and yet it served in this public fashion
and I could see that it was underperforming in terms of what it could be.
And so it was irresistible for me when they asked me to be president. And
so I went for somebody that thought anything east of Albuquerque was East
Vermont must have been quite, it was quite a change though, both
geographically and in terms of climate, but but it was a wonderful place.
I was there 13.5, almost 14 years. And it was just a wonderful place for
my Children and for me and for for everything unfortunately I, my marriage
came apart there and I got divorced about halfway through my years there.
Um but it it was, it was just a wonderful place altogether, what was so
wonderful. Um The, the Northeast has one of the most vital uh an
interesting uh university environments in the world Boston for example,
has 250,000
college students. And so you've got these institutions largely private,
although there are some good public ones there that are the ferment is
just something very special. What was most intriguing to me about Vermont
is that it had the profile of a major public land grant university, a
college of agriculture, a college of medicine schools of engineering,
education, business.
And yet it had the ethos of a small liberal arts college and it was the
challenge which I others have to judge it, but I think we rose to, was to
blend those in ways that reinforced one another. Um Vermont estate is both
small half million people And poor 47th in per capita income. So there was
no way the state could support a university of the quality and nature of
UVM
in conventional public dollar terms. In fact, When I first went to the
University of Vermont, only 18% of its budget came from the state and I
hope it wasn't a sign of failure on my part, it was just the movement In
in in key ways, it was only about 10% when I left. And it's less than that
now, about half of the students At the University of Vermont come from out
of state actually as as much as 60%. They come as private university
students, they pay private Tuition levels 20,000 25,000 a year in tuition.
Um They come largely from the private prep schools, the most competitive
schools in the country. Uh, and they bring both a background and a blend
of interests that are something at the same time, we had these diamonds in
the rough from the tiny towns of Vermont. It is still a courier and Ives
state. You've got these just little gems of places in, in a, with a good
school system, although um a
uh, a state that doesn't have a lot of funds for that kind of thing. 70%
of the high schools in Vermont when I was there, still taught Latin for
example, just part of that classic legacy. And to be, it was a very
appealing notion to try to blend these creatures. The only one like it
really is Cornell and even it's different because it's much larger and
much better funded given the state of, of new york. And so that's what we
set out to do. And I will say with great pride when a quite influential
book was published in the, In the mid 1980s called the public ivies. Of
the eight universities chosen and neighbor institutions like the
University of Virginia. Uh University of Vermont was one of the public
ivies. And because unlike large western universities like a shoe where you
simply expand when you have a greater demand. The tradition in New England
was to keep the same size and you just simply have a deeper applicant pool
at the time I left the University of Vermont, we were running about eight
applicants for every available space. Even with those rather substantial
prices from out of state for in state we had an absolute criterion for
admission. It was a high standard, but a, but a reasonable standard and I
think we found an interesting mixture. It was, it was just, it was, it was
a place that when it was very small, it knew what to do, but it was kind
of caught in this evolution as it moved to a larger university. And I
found it quite intriguing and
it was rewarding for me. And I think I, from all I hear from folks there,
they continue to think they were good years for UVM.
University of Vermont has about 9000 undergraduates and about 1500
graduate and medical students. So 10,010 or 11,000 a little smaller than
an issue about the size of Washington university, Washington University
Had then and does now 4000 undergraduates and 4000 graduate and medical
students.
So that those were good years. And you like Vermont, why didn't you stay?
Uh I'm a great believer in cycles, cycles for universities, cycles for
individuals. Uh there's no absolute uh but a cycle in the university is
more commonly, 10 ish year cycle. Again, it's, there's no absolute to that.
But the momentum, the shaping the movement, the energy that happens,
tends to be framed more in that way. And I will just speak personally. I
find myself, I function now that I've had a chance to experience it in
three different settings in that kind of cycle as well. I had served as
president of the University of Vermont For 13.5 years. We were doing well.
I'd actually committed to To staying through the university's
bicentennial. I mean, imagine that that university was founded in 1791.
Beautiful campus overlooking lake champlain was requisitioned by the US
army to house the american troops in the war of 18 12, most of which a lot
of which took place right down on lake champlain. And so we were going to
the fifth oldest in New England only Harvard, Yale Princeton and Brown
Harvard. Not for instance, not Harvard, Yale, Brown Dartmouth and in
Vermont. So it had this wonderful lineage and I was going to stay as we
put that together. But I realized that it was probably about time about
time for me and about time for the university. Having said that I really
did not intend to take another presidency. So my thinking which was very
personal was that it was about time for me to start doing something else.
What else were you thinking of? I had formed uh the elements of a
technology transfer group. The um promised at at Uvm nuclear physicist who
I had recruited from Ohio State had served for 10 years and had gone back
to the faculty, a senior vice president who was an infectious disease
specialist, formerly Associate dean of the medical school And the chair of
three departments, physiology, biophysics, obstetrics, gynecology, mm hmm.
And I now forget the third we're all interested in joining together. We
were going to join together as a research technology transfer corporation.
And a the head of IBM Burlington, the major IBM facility in Vermont
12,000 employees. So it was a big endeavor formerly head of IBM Germany
and self um german national who had become an american citizen. We were
all thinking we put that together and we're looking for some capital to
try to make it happen and why didn't it happen? Uh I um I was approached
by a S. U. Um I knew Heidrick and struggles. I knew Bill Bowen
representative very well had known him for years
and um and because I really want to things I was persuaded I really did
not take another presidency was right. I was just I loved these are not
jobs, these become,
you become so completely bonded to the community. I just couldn't imagine
uh being a president in another community like that secondly my daughter
um My I have three Children 11 years apart of seven between the oldest in
the middle and then four between the middle and the youngest. My two
oldest sons were what one was in college and one was in prep school, a
boarding school and my daughter was still at home. I had promised her we
wouldn't move until she got out of grade school because there she had
already been through the to multiple divorce. And so I just so so it's
both of those led me to say no when I when I when I was first approached
I guess in retrospect, I realized they thought I was being coy, but that I
wasn't, I just didn't, I didn't, I really didn't think it was the right
thing for me, interesting how uh how that changed. Well, I guess one other
part of the, but the lesson, Herman Channon was chairman of the committee
. I didn't know him at all, but he, I later learned it was him. Just kept
after the search consultant came back to me again a few months later and
asked me to consider
and I and I just said no, I was not, I was not something I was going to do.
But they offered, they asked if I would spend an hour with some of the
region's in boston. They were at a meeting there for the association of
governing boards and it so happened, I was on my way to one of the spring
break
fundraising runs in florida, which was de rigueur for Northeast university
presidents. And my son who was in my middle son in prep school was home
for spring break and he was going to accompany me for this trip to florida.
I agreed without telling him what I was doing. He'd go ahead and fly on
to Pittsburgh. I'd leave earlier on a sunday morning went to boston. Met
with What turned out to be 22 regions herman and Donald Pit and molly
broad who is executive director of the board Esther captain was to be
there, but her husband had just died and she obviously understandably
couldn't come and I spent an hour with him and then went on and cut my
plane to meet my son in Pittsburgh and we went on to florida.
Ah I um I wasn't I what what were my feelings at the time? It was clear to
me this was not the A. S. U. I had known uh 20 years before that there
were some opportunities, there was something happening but but I was still
it was still not something I was ready to put on my agenda.
My Children and I developed a habit of gathering in new york ah two
weekends a year. My oldest son then was studying at the Sorbonne in paris.
My middle son was in boarding school in Connecticut, my daughter and I at
home. And uh we just always made a deal, we would gather there and about a
month and a half for a month after I had made this visit in boston, we all
gathered and we, that was the year we stayed at the new brand new Marriott
to Times Square. We arrived at different times. My daughter and I drove
down son from Connecticut came in on the late train and I guess my older
guy had come in the day before. So we finally gathered and we're having
breakfast the next morning in this very casual, uncrowded, unhurried way,
just catching up with one another,
It might be good to give your Children names. Sure my oldest son is
Kendall, age 41. My middle son is Colin age 34 And my daughter is feral,
age 30, okay. And you were mentioning about meeting up with new york. I
was and it was at that breakfast I broached the subject of a a shoe, but I
I would like to insert an experience we had together about a year and a
half before A. S. You began talking with me in the spring of 89 In the
summer of 88 with no idea about ASU. I realized my Children were growing
up, they knew Arizona through visiting their grandparents and families and
occasional visits we would make, but they really didn't know the Arizona I
had grown up in and I kind of wanted them to have it as part of their life
whatever they wish to do with it. So We uh loaded up all of our camping
gear. I had been us areas most frequent flyer out of Vermont for years
because 90% of all of our development prospects lived outside the state
and I could do a half day in Manhattan and still come back to the campus
or boston or wherever. So I was on very good terms with all of the staff
at the, at the local airport, we shipped eight man tent uh dutch ovens. I
mean we shipped everything and rented a four wheel drive vehicle at
phoenix Sky harbor and spent almost three weeks traversing. Uh, First we
started up in at the Apache nation in White River. Uh, my parents have a
cabin in Pinetop and then over the next three weeks we spent time often
visiting classmates of mine in Navajo or Hopi. I went up to Lake Powell,
went to Grand Canyon, went to slide, rock, went to all of those places and
had, had just an extraordinary experience. Cousin of mine was on the staff
of the Hopi Nation and helping them with education. And she was living in
Kings Canyon and just to give a flavor of the trip. My daughter then in
the fifth grade asked as we were planning this trip. Oh, she said, daddy,
I'm studying hope the indians. Would we meet some? Well, when we get to
Kings Canyon, Karen Who's on a nine month contract, uh, living in a
trailer house, needed summer income. So she would make burrows and sell
them uh, in the parking lot at Kings Canyon at the trading post. And so
within an hour of arrival, uh, one of my sons, I think Kendall and I went
up to put a pitch our tents and the other two kids went to work helping
Karen make burrows and then went out and with a bucket, sold them in the
parking lot and we then saved a few and went up to uh, to Wall P, Which
has only six permanent residents. And a great friend of Karen's a pot
maker. We sat and ate the remaining boroughs looking out over looking out
over the sunset and I said to Pharrell so now have you think you've met a
Hopi do you know what this life is like? So it was an absolutely wonderful
camping experience as a result of that. My Children had this very fresh,
vivid picture of the Arizona I love. And at breakfast I approached the
topic, I said uh a issue has come to ask me if I would consider being
candidate for president. And my daughter burst into tears. I said Honey, I
mean she was 14. I said honey. I said no because I promised you we're not
going to move, we'll get you through school and out of the mouth of babes.
She said dad don't you know, time for us to start a new life.
And I've been reflected on that and agreed to come out for a visit when it
was all under the radar.
And that really began my conversations. I was only here a half day,
probably March. Come to phoenix from Vermont in March. It's pretty, pretty
intoxicating
and molly broad. Who lived out in the mummy mountain paradise valley or
you had a had a little dinner for me that evening because it was just half
day and then I left and Rose Mofford was at the dinner and I had never met
her but I knew who she was And she opened the conversation, you know, your
life, 32 years somewhere else kind of all comes back. She said, You know,
I just, I was talking with chauncey yesterday, but chances my cousin, he's
the one that helped my father built our house when I was a child and was
mayor of Goodyear, had been mayor of Goodyear for 20 years and then
Governor Mofford went on to tell me that her brother, Jim had been a had
been paired with my uncle, hence when both were on the Arizona highway
patrol and had responsibility for Everything west of 35th Avenue in
Maricopa County. And I remember as a youngster, uh, my uncle Hansen, this
other fellow who obviously was Jim uh, forget what roses maiden name is,
but her brother would drive up to our little house in Avondale on their
way out here, Robin as they covered all of that territory. So it was a, an
interesting mixture of reconnecting with with Arizona, but most
importantly, really getting a sense that this university uh, just had such
extraordinary potential and the combination of those things, including the
advice of my daughter, that it was time for us to consider something new
in our life, led to a series of conversations and over the next couple of
months that resulted in my appointment. What was the issue like at that
point? What made you think that this was the right thing? Two things far
better than its reputation
and I guess that can vary by who is making the judgment about the
reputation. But the larger community did not understand the treasure. Uh,
I think even the larger academic world did not understand just how
significantly ASU had evolved in its quality and in its nature. And
secondly, uh, it is, it was then, and I think remains today the most
attractive uh public university franchise in America because it is the
university
in one of the great new cities of America. And that's rare ST louis, which
is now smaller than phoenix, had 30 for colleges and universities, Vermont
half million people Had 22 or 23 colleges and universities. And here was
an opportunity not to make it a monopoly, but to use it as a lever to say
, how can we serve in a contemporary way, the evolution of this great city.
And those were compelling interestingly, and I don't want to diminish or
even pretend to myself that my love of Arizona wasn't a factor, but, but
but those were the features that were far more interesting to me than the
fact that it was Arizona, it was being Arizona was a bonus for me, but it
was the realization that I not had before that this was a very
significant university with a lot of potential and going back to my
experiences and ST louis my experiences in Vermont, I'm a real junkie when
there's potential that you can really get hold of it, Something can really
happen. So that's what, that's what captured. Even though you said you
didn't want to be a university president. Again, that's an interesting
question and an interesting observation. I guess we all tend to
rationalize over time, so I can't tell you how pure my view is here, but I
think it's pretty valid. I realized That these were two totally different
entities and that I could treasure, as I still do uh my years in Vermont
and what we did there. But this was a totally different presidency and
that uh as a result it represented a new set of challenges which was
intriguing, but also a different set of experiences that while there were
some parallels were far fewer than would have been the case had I gone to
a similar kind of institution elsewhere. Yes, you certainly was different
not only in size but you have an athletic department, all those sorts of
things that I don't think that's right, we'll have an athletic department
, but not a major intercollegiate football football. University
of Vermont, my predecessor is his last act, became the first Land grant
university in America to eliminate intercollegiate football. So no, it was
very different. So what was it like coming back to Arizona and to the
presidency of um what year was that? I accepted the appointment, I was
appointed In, in May of 1989,
But I did not come until January of 90. I just couldn't walk off. I
couldn't walk out on you. Vm. We had wrap up business and pave the way for
a successor and next generation of leadership there. Um three impressions
uh
that I guess uh and in terms of the the question you posed to me, that was
the question wasn't, what were my impressions or what what what what what
was the university like at that point? And what were your impressions and
you're
and and and and kind of what what what did I find? Um
There was
far more personal ah
uh connection than I expected. Uh
My impression of Arizona is that it it was populated by newcomers and it
is largely but I had forgotten that
kids that I grew up with mostly tended to stay here and grow up as well.
Uh and I found uh day after day in the first few years and then less
frequently but still occurring people coming up to me who might've known
or had had ties with that. Uh We're we're we're very rewarding to me. Give
you two or three quick examples, A new president meets with a lot of
different people, especially a lot of the groups that care a lot about the
university, both within and at the university and in its support groups.
One of those with which I met early on was the a issue. Native american
alumni and jefferson begay whom I had not met before was the chairman of
the group, A builder who lives here in Tempe. Peterson saw was the vice
chair and Josiah moore was a member of the group. Um neither Peter nor
Josiah were then in office. It was between the time that Pete had been
chairman of Navajo and then was elected later as president. And Josiah had
been chairman of town odom and was working with the state Department of
Education and was later after I got here elected chairman again, they had
a very good agenda, we got our business done. And uh, Josiah, a very big
man. I looked over at me and said,
you play football little real high.
He said, you know, the only touchdown I ever made in my life was against
litchfield.
I said, you go to our home,
I said you Blankety blank. I was the guy, the pulling guard. You creamed,
I can see it today. This huge guy squashes me, goes and knocks the ball
loose from the quarterback, grabs it. And and
it was not, it was not a fast run to the goal line, any wins. Uh, well now
that just was totally unexpected for me, had a similar experience. Uh, at
White River, I was going up to meet the tribal council because I was
trying to meet people uh, all over the state, and I was told the committee
, the Secretary of Education for the tribe would uh, meat would meet me
and I drive up the tribe, They were in the old headquarters right on Main
Street at the time. I drive up and
there's Wesley beneath standing on, standing out there. I haven't seen
Wesley since he lived across the hall from me at N A. U. He said, well
what are you doing here? Well, I'm Secretary of Education for the Apache
nation have been for 20 years or something. And the last little vignette
all gave it. But it was true, it's just true in all kinds of ways. I was
meeting with the and the Hopi elders hope he has a restaurant. They're on
2nd Mesa where they also have a kind of a curio shop. And we were seated
all of the members of the tribal council around the table. And vernon
messiahs, for whom I had never met before, was
was there, he was chairman of the we were we were visiting uh but I had
learned is that vernon's wife Becky. Uh
What was was the classmate of Willard sipc Ottawa who had been a classmate
of mine. It was a brother. It was a sister of Willard. Willard said, So
we're sitting there having a visit and Willard comes in. I haven't seen
Willard since I was in college, He went off to a career as a banker and
gallop, I think other places and had come back to the tribe. So he sits
next to me and in a stage whisper, I don't think he was intending for
others to hear it. He started to do you remember the time we dropped the
frog down? The Dean of Women's dressing in a huge, I said Willard. I did
meeting the tribal elders. Just stop that. So there are a lot of those
kind of unexpected and wonderful things that you could pronounce their
names too. Well, that's true, that, that I could. And it has not been uh,
and important to me. I it's not been unimportant to me that I also had a
substantial amount of experience with spanish as a youngster, both people
and others. In fact, one other event I will relate during the search
which, which I guess also surprised me. And so I underscored here because
it was the nature of the university that so captivated me. Uh, the when
when candidates come, they, you meet everybody who's ever been born. So I
was running from meeting to meeting to meeting son Angel foundation and
faculty council councilor deans and so on all in one day. And I was on a
late flight back to Vermont When running about 45 minutes late, I was to
meet with the minority community. That's what it was described as.
When you're not a member of a community, you don't even quite know the
nuances. I mean, is it latino or hispanic? I mean just those things evolve
and change. And so I knew here I am now in a setting that is very
different than the setting I've come from. So I was tired, I was running
late, but I was a little uh apprehensive, Let's put it that way, just
because I didn't know the people and there had been some rather raw issues
that had come up. There had just been a 21 point program that President
Nelson had agreed when there were some conflicts on the campus between a
group of white fraternity members who had assaulted a couple of black
students. So I knew there were tensions on the campus. We went to, uh, at
the time, the issue downtown was in the old phoenix union high school
building. So I'm being driven from, I think we were coming from the son
Angel foundation offices up north north of there, I was being driven in
and people are talking with me and I look out the window and I see these
old phoenix again high school building, that's where my mother and father
went to high school. So I'm looking at that. Then we went in through this
rabbit warren, which is what those buildings were at the time And into a
room that was packed about three deep with people who have been waiting. I
did not know any of them personally and because they were waiting and
there were lights on because it was one of the, I guess convenient times
when the tv coverage could take place and so I was kind of ushered into
the middle of the room and just I forget who introduced me, but just me
and whomever introduced me now, if you think about the environment and not
knowing a lot about it, knowing there had been some tensions here, I was
standing right in the middle with all of these people around me and it was
a transcendent, transcendent moment for me. I looked
and I knew who they were because I knew having been a part of this society
in an earlier time, we knew one another, I guess that's the best way to
put. So we had this very, um, moving conversation for me very moving
conversation about the issues and about the hopes and aspirations and I
don't know, 30 minutes, 45 minutes. So you can't cover a lot of ground.
But it was,
it was a deeply moving experience range. So that's the first of the
impressions I have. The other two, uh, were the
eagerness, the hunger
of the faculty and leadership of this university to be somebody
and because they were better than they than they were believed to be. It
wasn't a false uh, effort to make that there was, it was providing ways
they could be. So that appetite, which remains, I think one of the issues
, greatest assets. I was very uh aware of. One of the members of the
search committee described it as coil spring ah and the other impression I
had
was the
isolation
of the university from greater phoenix. I've had a faculty member say, you
know, one of our greatest weaknesses is that we don't have the phoenix
address. You want to see if you can get a mailbox in phoenix. And I said
no no no we are the university of greater phoenix, you don't get a mailbox
somewhere, you build connections. And I didn't know how to read the
willingness readiness receptivity
of the larger community. But I soon found that there was a great
receptivity and I think if we look at where the university is today and
where it's headed bonding of the community and the university not just
with a S. U. West was up and running at the time. They had actually moved
mostly uh to the to the new campus. Uh Yes you east now, yes, you
polytechnic hadn't been created yet and and the downtown center hadn't
moved into the mercado. It's not, but it's not just those things, it's the
deeper bonding of the university and the community and I could really
sense the possibilities of that.
So what were the first things that you set out to do and yeah I um okay I
lived through that turbulent campus era when inaugurals were looked down
upon because they cost money and they were out of character because they
were medieval pageantry and in whatever you fill in the blank and a period
of austerity or of the rest.
An inaugural
is one of the most important bully pulpits. The new president has, it's
also a moment when a university can strut its stuff and remind everyone of
what it is. This traditions, I mean, so the gowns may look medieval, they
are, the hat may look silly. It is, but it is a tradition. Only
universities in the church in western society have a lineage that is
unbroken back For the universities to the 7th or 8th century churches even
longer and an inauguration is a way to do that. So I, uh, learned in my
years at Vermont and had used an inauguration is for the same purposes
that, uh, that the inaugural was an important moment to put an agenda on
the table. I chose March and I've had the opportunity to visit during the
interregnum between my appointment and my arrival, I came nine times in
the fall and it's uh, it's a very valuable thing because everybody knows
you're the president, but you're not the one right there right then making
decisions and I spent a lot of time meeting with people. I'd come for
three or four days at a time and I would fill my days with meetings, deans
and faculty members and various people all around us and, and community,
but I really focused largely on the campus and from that I was able to
derive and put in a framework that was important to me views that I
thought were consonant with interest in the campus, but that could be
couched in terms of aspirations for the university. I'll tell you an
interesting thing about that. I had four points. Um
They became known and were known throughout my presidency as the four
pillars. I never used the word pillar, but the program had the Doric
columns from a from west hall Pictured and there were four columns. So if
you ever need an example of the power of visual imagery, those columns,
that has to be what it was. And the four points kind of got blended so
that The four Pillars became a framework into which we could launch a
variety of initiatives. Some of the things I proposed, what were the four
pillars, undergraduate education, graduate education, research and
economic development and connection to the community and uh under
connection to the community where issues related to minority, minority
aspirations, minority achievement and under each of them, I really posited
some major goals that I thought we should accomplish. Uh one that was that
I never, that was wrong. It just turned out to be, not accomplish a ble,
was to try to reduce the size of this campus and numbers without reducing
the state appropriation. The two are intertwined and it turned out just
not feasible to reduce the size in other ways, but there were a whole
series then of, of, of, of challenges that required a response uh, from
throughout the campus as part of that inaugural. And then I followed it up
with more detailed
kind of plans that we entered into the various governing councils of the
university. I also began talking right then and there about a capital
campaign, curiously. No one ever asked me about a capital campaign when I
was recruited. That's unthinkable today. The board of regions didn't, the
search committee didn't to, no one in the support groups here because
Arizona is still a young place and public universities were not viewed
here, at least in being places where a capital campaign. But I knew no
matter how well we did with public support, that we would have to have
private support as well. And I also placed a great deal of emphasis on
building our research capacity. Two position us to become a research one
university, which was a designation that had great meaning both in the
larger academic world, but also in this community, explain that what is
the meaning of being a research one university. It has changed now because
they changed the methodology, but in that era, the Carnegie uh Foundation
for the Advancement of teaching, one of three Carnegie entities, not the
Carnegie Corporation, but a very important one um run at the time by Ernie
Boyer, one of the giants of american higher education had a set of
classifications for universities, um comprehensive doctoral masters and
research. One was a category that that signified uh a substantial um
combination of research of of of of earned competitive research grants in
volume and number of doctoral degrees conferred. Uh even Ernie knew at the
time, it it it had been established by Clark Kerr when he was chairman of
the commission 20 some years before it has been acknowledged by was
acknowledged by Ernie Boyer to be a rather arbitrary set of rules, but it
was the measured mile. It was the um the poll for a high jump pole vault
that you had to enter clear in order to be in that category. And because
the issue
was better than it was known to be that badge coming at an unexpected time
, I think people thought, yeah, yeah, it's growing 10 years from now,
it'll make it, it was an immensely important thing to us. And so we
focused our attention on getting it. They only they only ranked them every
eight years And we, I knew one was coming up, I forget what year it was,
but it was probably about 94, And uh we focused our energies on that,
including we had Ernie Boy around here and he talked with us and he saw
what was going on and we uh really engaged, I had known him a number of
years, so I was perfectly comfortable knowing he would not jigger anything
, he just would have a chance to size this up. And it turned out that
getting that was a big, a really big kind of deal. I'm gonna say one other
thing about the inaugural
because I think it is symptomatic of the, the complexity of taking an
institution with perceptions that are historic based in history and um,
connecting it with aspirations. I used in my inaugural the term world
class university to me that is standard when people talk about what issues
becoming and can become. I had a person who I treasure and think the world
of and we'll leave unnamed who, who urged me having seen the draft not to
use it. I thought it was, I don't know what, how it was not appropriate
for us to be thinking in those terms. And it wasn't a mean spirited
observation, it was just
kind of remember who you are and uh, and I, and I and excited because it
was not deprecatory, it just was not ah, it did not recognize our
potential and where we were going. And I believe that remains an issue to
this very day for the university and for this community done right. This
will be one of the great cities in America. It's got all of the elements,
they're starting to come together and done right. This will be one of the
great universities in America and I think it's on its way. I think The
evolution over the last 20 years and the very clear, focused ambitious
plan that Michael Crowe has in the new american university all give it
chance to do that and be that. I guess what I'm most gratified about is
that I think now people believe it, they don't think that it was that it
would be inappropriate to say or uppity to say you're going to be a world
class university. Yeah. The expansion of the university beyond this campus
really we mentioned sus had already started, but it was pretty small. When
you got here, the library, I think talk a little bit about how the campus
group from, from the tippy campus. Mhm. It's A S. U. West had been created.
Bye Leaders in the West Valley. It was not created by the border regions.
Was not created by a shoe. There was an early attempt in the early 60s
when Litchfield Park and Goodyear Farms offered land to put the campus
there. And there was, there was substantial movement to put it there when
a legislative reaction to an anti war moonlight candle parade derailed. It
probably suggests it wasn't right if one event derails it, but it was
there. The West Valley leadership decided they wanted a campus in the west
and and and drove the process quite extraordinarily, I must say it's rare
to have full facilities and a full faculty before the students are there.
Normally you have students hanging out the windows before you get and a s.
You embraced it. I believe that Russ, nelson embraced it, Dicker Rebus
who was then on the faculty in architecture went out to west and did a
plan. And so it had been, um, it had taken a step of evolution as a, as
something more than a quote branch campus closed, quote, but it was still
a campus. So there was the campus in Tempe and the campus there, my view
very strongly right from the beginning was that we should be, uh, a, a
university that serves the whole of greater phoenix. The term we came to.
Not immediately, but fairly soon after I came, was one university
geographically distributed Michael Crowe. I think it's more more, uh,
language that is better understood as, uh, one university, uh, in, in
multiple locations. Actually, the little tagline for ours was a issue, one
university all over the place, but it was that west end this campus and
then in time east would be part of a university even as they had
distinctive features.
That's what led me to, uh,
at least the facilities at the Mercado, they had not a issue was not there.
In fact, my first visit to downtown phoenix after I
came as president was with Terry Goddard who was then mayor. He led me all
over, we walked, we did a walking tour of downtown and we ended up and he
said, you should reach this building and move the school of continuing
education there, there's a great big sign out in front said Symington and
company and both Terry and wife had already announced for governor and my
answer was don't you feel a little silly about plumping a building for
your opponent in this race? We did lease that facility and have since
purchased that entire site. That was all part of this notion of building a
presence
uh and an access set of access points throughout the valley.
Well, he certainly was arguing for actually Brent Brown who was then the
vice president for university relations and now institutional advancement
was arguing very strongly for it. So there were strong voices within. But
Terry was anxious to have us do that. And how about the east campus? How
did that come? Um My third week, second or third week as president, I in
my efforts to meet people all over the valley took place at the Chandler
performing arts center. The East Valley Partnership chaired the meeting
hosted the meeting. And uh I had been alerted by Brent that there was very
strong feeling about an A. S. U. East campus and in a fairly
uncharacteristic way. I'm a pretty cautious decision maker. I'd like to
take bold steps but I really like to sort them through. I like to I like I
like to have a fuller understanding of the larger environment before I do.
But I had decided that if we have if the west campus was going to
flourish as we had hoped for it to that there did need to be an east
campus. So I'd already decided that my mind, but I was kind of hoping I'd
have a little time to work it out appeared very lively discussion, Eddie
basha, not then a region, but obviously then as now a major leader in the
East Valley was chairing the meeting and uh ready it can be pretty direct
at times. We got to a point in the meeting and he said, now you support
and East Valley campus.
And I said yes
and there was no more discussion that yes, I said, um, so we didn't even
get into where because in my view, the biggest Issue, the one I wished to
avoid. It was a battle over over where it ought to be. Her drink water was
already her drinkwater had this uh laser like passion that we should
create a medical school and put it in Scottsdale everywhere. I went my
first two or three years here, that herb introduced me, he would say, and
you've got to join me in getting issue to build a medical school and
Scottsdale including the day he introduced me when I was keynote speaker
to the groundbreaking for the new research building at Mayo. He got up and
said that um, Williams was not on the screen at the time. Um, there was
great concern about it being um, uh closed as a military base, but well I
did say yes. And we started, uh, we started planning uh, Elmer jaden and
his team suburban, the provost's office, we started looking at what some
of the elements really ought to be. Um and then in due course and I don't
recall exactly how soon, but within a couple of years, Williams became an
option and it just seemed a natural for us to hook the two together. But
by then we had been able to do a fair amount of um more careful thinking
about what we would like it to be.
What do you see as sort of your style of the presidency and talk to other
people and they describe the different presidents. Um how would you
describe your style? I um I believe that the
best way to proceed given who I am and the the way I try to go about
things is to set a clear agenda
to to not ah
a bold agenda and to but not create it without some consultation.
Uh So it's not just my agenda, but an agenda that is drawn with a lot of
um consultation where there are a lot of fingerprints on it of people
whose judgment I think is valuable and then in setting that bold agenda.
Two
give a lot of room to all of the parties who can make it happen to make it
happen in so doing however, I believe strongly in insisting that we keep
making progress toward that goal. So if way in which the parties are
working toward the goal is either diversionary or not as making as much
progress, I like to pull all the parties together and have a kind of
moment of truth about where we ought to go. I also believe that none of
this progress gets made without a lot of discussion. I was asked when I as
a young man moved from the faculty to the administration if I'd missed
teaching,
and I said, well, you don't understand
what I'll be doing in administration. It's a teaching job, as well as a
leadership job. Uh huh. Talking about why we're doing it and what we're
doing and meeting over and over again with various constituencies to work
through what the meaning is, because you learn in the process, but you
also help others learn where we're going. Let's take this issue.
The university's role as a significant engine in the economic dynamics of
this community. It's still evolving how it is what it is. How does it work
with tgn, how does it work with bioscience? How does it work with the
technology transfers going on at the Sky Song campus? So there are
tangible elements that were not foreseen 10 years ago
having people understand
that those tangible elements can develop and and to understand what kind
of interplay needs to take place within the university and therefore why
research and why technology transfer and why a series of these things
where you're bringing very talented people here is important. It's
interesting uh every most, everybody in a leadership position has a
personal experience with education.
They went to college, they went to college. That's a that's an important
experience. We do a miserable job of teaching our students what the larger
set of things are going on around them as part of the university and as a
result of that, people think of their college experience. I'd like to
assume it's a good, it was a good experience and that's what they think of
as what the university is. Well, it is that, but it's substantially more
and so yeah,
finding ways both for the university and its own community where people
are, are historically trained to be focused on very specific problems
to have helped them understand how it connects not only with other
disciplines, but to the larger issues of society and to have the community
understand not only how good these people are, but how relevant they are
is an ongoing teaching job, I believe. Just to give you an example of what
one would not normally think of, that. One of the most significant ways in
which a issue has advanced that understanding in this community is the
President's Community Enrichment Program, something that my wife, Elva put
together where faculty members go out into people's homes in the community
and lecture on everything from the origins of space and origins of life
and origins of society. I mean, experts, world class experts that we have
on this faculty, two issues of Iraq and religion and conflict and all of
the things that go on in that endeavor, it's uh stimulating to our
community visitors because it's stimulating their interesting topics. It's
impressive because they see these very, very bright able people. It's also
instructive that they see, oh I see how that set of things leads to a
strength at the university and exploration of mars and interplanetary
science. I see how that can relate to space science as part of an economy
etcetera etcetera.
I was at Channel eight when you came here and I know one of the things
people noticed immediately was that you came and you talked to everybody
from students to staff that will be um is that just part of your style?
Absolutely. I it's uh I learned so much that way. I made it a point when I
could, which meant I was on campus to walk around the campus twice a day.
You can't imagine how hard that is because the president's life Is
measured in teaspoons. I mean it's 15 minutes here and it's you're always
people are always waiting. People always want longer. All of these things
to try to run a day. But I I would walk around the campus and it's
interesting for a while. At first I didn't, people didn't know who I was
and then I think they were kind of, but as time went on, people would walk
up and
it's it's it's not a scientific poll, but you but you learn things, you
hear things and I found that wherever I went, that's why I did try to talk
with as many people in. It's it's like a courteous person, a courteous
friend who won't tell you you're full of it in a rude way. But they'll
alert you in a kind way that there's something you ought to be thinking
about. And I found that I still find it to this day are very, very
valuable. Uh huh. Part of leadership. I also think ah given the way
universities have been viewed over history and over time that's kind of
remote and kind of
um um Hierarchically different that that people ought to know. We're
people that the president is a person and that the people within our and I
find that simply talking with people regularly kind of helps in that way
as well. What about your relationship as president with the the
legislature? That's always been interesting for all the presents. Thank
you. The
nature, the stylized and limited nature
of the official transactions of a university President and the legislature
are not designed to allow the kind of building of bonds that work well
over time. Ah When you take an $800 million dollar budget now a billion
into a hearing room along with two other universities
and you are given three hours before a committee that is facing hearing
after hearing after hearing after hearing, you cannot have uh very good uh
The relationship is stylized by that act itself. So what I tried to do and
it is time consuming but important is to try to build ties outside the
actual decision process and to do our best to have legislators understand
many of the same things about the university that I've just described.
We'd like leadership in general to understand uh, the Arizona legislature
has uh, has been reasonably supportive of university. So I don't want to
um, I don't want to, I don't want to understate the value. I don't think I
succeeded and I don't think we have fully succeeded, although I'm
impressed with the head weight that's being made right now, Michael Crowe
and others that are really with the governor's active involvement,
deepening this understanding about the nature of investment. I don't think
we made nearly as much headway in building that understanding as we should
, but that was our effort and we had some successes. Um, I wish we'd had
more many of the people we've interviewed have talked about the
relationship of of A. S. U. And the U. Of A. And sort of the day as she
was sort of the underdog and going to the legislature and the and the
border regions. Did, you know, I've never really, I found that to be the
case.
I and I don't quite understand why this animus, this sense of uh,
competition beyond the normal, healthy competition
endures as it does. Uh There is an historic feature that the University of
Arizona which was funded in a different era. Even accepting the medical
school has a different per capita level of funding than students at A. S.
U. That's just an historic fact. If the tables had been turned probably be
the same way and the people in turn we'd fight to protect it as hard as we
could. But it's that's just that's in my view analogous to one of the
siblings being 62 and the other being 58. That's what it is. That's just
the way it is. And so you you live with it. I am aware that the regions
until recently, uh we're more heavily represented by people who were
supporters of or at least identified with the University of Arizona. I did
not find that in my presidency.
Yes, there were obvious moments where affiliation uh showed itself in
interest and I think there were moments we
explored and put on the table a proposition to create a medical school
here In about 93 and 94. And it got gunned down by the regions and it was
the it was the Tucson delegation that gunned it down. I will tell you,
having spent most of my professional career before coming to Arizona
in universities with medical schools, There's never been a new medical
school created that an existing one didn't opposed. So that's that so that
that happened. And again I would suggest had the tables been turned, it
would probably have been the same thing, but I do not find a systematic
bias. I do not, I think
in general there is a perceived difference uh, in general about the nature
quality and direction of the two universities. And I found during my
presidency more evidence of willingness to work together, especially at
the faculty level. Remember faculty members want colleagues And when you
have colleagues 90 miles away, that's an asset. That's something that
people I want to work for, work towards. My prediction is more and more of
that. There will be bumps and dents and probably will be over the medical
school issue. That's a very complex issue, very complex issue. But my
prediction is there will be greater oh, Strengthening other relationships
both between the two universities and between the two communities in the
years ahead.
You mentioned the capital campaign
talk a little bit about your role as a university president as a
fundraiser. Is that something that you, I had seen change from the time
you were in ST louis and then in Vermont and here to be fundraiser as well
as the university. It has certainly grown In all universities over the
last 30 years. Oh, my first experience with a campaign was at Washington
University When we launched a campaign called 70 x 70 launched at 1967.
And we wanted to raise $70 million 1970 and we did and I was ah I was a
young faculty member and then, uh, a vice chancellor in the course of that
campaign.
Um, University private university have been raising money for quite a
little while, but it was kind of a newer part of the focus and the, and
the chancellor president and other institutions was central to that. Since
that time, university like Washington University's movement, its endowment
, when we finished that campaign was $280 million. Its endowment today is
about $4.5 billion. So it has continued to build over time public
universities with the exception of michigan, which is the university of
michigan, which has been long a public private entity.
Uh, and a few others, uh, university of Minnesota among them have not have
come about this more recently. Um, I believed a issue was a little late in
recognizing that. And I simply just note it was the newness of the
university and the newness of the community. Even the University of
Arizona, which had been engaged in sets of things, especially in the
health sciences. That expected major campaigns had had rather modest
campaigns, 100 million, 150 million thereabouts. Prior to the time we
launched our uh, major campaign,
let me say a word about fundraising and campaign. That is not intended to
romanticize it, but I think it's a far better way to think about it than
we often do. We often think about it as running around with a tin cup. Uh
, when I was asked by tom Elliott to be a vice chancellor, I said, uh, yes
, I'll do that as long as I never have to raise money. And he gave me this
knowing smile and said, as you wish. Well, what I discovered, I especially
discovered at Vermont
is that a campaign is successful
when the major players all bring their capacities to the table and weave
them together for a goal that all believe the university brings its
insight into the future and its faculty and it's, it's talent to the table.
Ah individuals, corporations and others bring money, resources, that's
very important. But they also bring other features, including their own
reputations, their own interests, their own sets of things that can help
shape and accomplish a larger goal. Um, I I believe that a university
president has a central responsibility to identify those larger goals and
to bring all of the people together, fundraising becomes a piece of that.
It's an important piece of that. I dedicated probably, uh, half to three
quarters of my time To the campaign during its first two or three years
here because it was such a bold goal. 300 million people gasped if you'll
think back to that our are consultant said 138 million and I just, that
seemed to be just unacceptable. And as you know, we ended up almost at 600
million by the time the campaign was over. Yes, I spent a lot of time on
that, but that's what that was as much because it was a new phenomenon
here and people needed to understand why why would you be doing that,
aren't you? A tax supported institutions to a public institution? But the
real heart of that campaign was bringing these together. And so I viewed
then as I view now the President's role in identifying the resources and
and and and and and ensuring those resources are, are gathered to
accomplish the larger goals. Same thing happens in terms of making sure
that we have our best foot forward in competitiveness with the National
Science Foundation. The the the the grand application has to stand on its
own merits, but the university's reputation and it's the view with which
it's held is a is an important part of the, of the President's
responsibility.
We were just talking about the successful capital campaign. Um
Let's see what, what were your greatest challenges during your time as
president
Time management personally,
because there was so much to be done. And while I am a very
strong delegator, I believe in giving the leadership on the team a lot of
running room. Ah This presidency took a lot of personal time ah ah
ah secondly, getting um
a reasonable uniformity of understanding ah and expectation about what
this university was and what it was doing. I think that's true for any
university, but it was especially true here, that it was important to me
that our ambitions be known, but that may not look artificial or
inappropriate. And uh that was a fine line finding that fine line was, it
was not easy. It's not uncommon. I had experienced much the same thing in
Vermont
with different variables in different circumstances, but that was a, a
major challenge here.
And third, uh
defining quality
in an entity that
was substantially
defined by quantity.
Ah Let me give you a couple of examples of that.
I can't tell you how often I heard the lament as I was getting acquainted
around town the first year. Uh huh. Long lines,
large classes, uh, inattentive instructors,
the set of characteristics that made us look like a huge factory that was
not being very customer attentive.
Ah As with all things, there were elements of truth to that. There were
some rather significant ones. And and there was also a perception built
out of the fact that we were big and if you're big, therefore you're
supposed to be that way. I found it very important As one often has to
where you've got a limited opportunity to enter into people's view of
something and have them change it. That's that's very hard to do when
something is fixed in people's minds to
make some fairly visible, substantial changes at the same time, we were
correcting some other things. One of the visible changes was to get rid of
as many of those long lines as we could. And we were doing some not very
smart stuff. So entering freshmen in the, the hottest time of the year, in
the middle of august would stand in long lines to do the registration and
in long lines to do their financial aid and in long lines to get their
parking permit and in long lines to get their room assignment, you name it.
And we had the technology and we're able to use the ingenuity to
substantially
change the way in which those transactions were done. And within a year or
so, we were actually having
meetings all around the nation at which parents and freshman could come to
the meetings and not only meet people, but for a lot of that transaction
could be started and they could be connected into ways that it could be
done electronically. So the perception of that kind of warehouse stuff, we
were able to at least make a substantial uh some substantial headway
wasn't easy and it wasn't perfect, but if we changed people's uh kind of
sense of who we were, secondly, finding a way to have people realize that
you can be very large and still have highly regarded
uh qualitative programs within the university. And hands down the barrett
honors College is the best living example of that, The roughly 3000
students and I don't know how many there are now in that barrett honors
college, if you look at their entering profile board scores, high school
rank,
uh their basic qualitative characteristics that would be used to judging
admission and compared them with the most competitive liberal arts
colleges of 2 to 3000 in the country. And Remember I lived among those for
14 years before I came here, you couldn't tell the difference the same
thing about the postbaccalaureate experience placement in graduate school
, medical school, law school, whatever it was those as well that getting
people to understand that and having that word get out that, wow, you've
got an honors college that has these qualities. And then we later were
able to augment it with number of national merit scholars, one of the
highest proportion in the nation. And then we would get marshals and roads
and a lot of these posts, these uh undergraduate awards for
postbaccalaureate study uh get provided a tangible thing people could see
and would then enable them to size up other programs in a different light.
Uh that was a very big challenge and uh I uh I mentioned earlier the
President's Community Enrichment program, it played a major role. We also
had something we call sneaker tours that we started with, where we would
invite people to come for a half day and have them go around two classes
and it was just like the white coat experience and hospitals are principal
for a day in a school that really gave them up feel for who was here and
what was here. You mentioned trying to balance your personal time was a
challenge and I think you're probably the last president who lived in the
president's house here adjacent. Again talk about that kind of experience.
I'd be happy to the president's house. Uh, at Broadmoor and college was,
was a welcome place for me. I moved here with one child. My daughter
Farrell, Who was in the 8th grade, the last semester of the 8th grade. She
had never lived anywhere else than Vermont even though she traveled and
had other experiences to live there with friends and classmates. McKamey
Middle school was right across the ST joseph R. Kelly was the principal,
one of the most lively, wonderful principles I've ever met the school and
an interesting romantic twist. Harvey Mackay me before he was, it was, it
was named for Harvey Mackay me superintendent of schools in Tempe before
he was superintendent of schools in Tempe. He was principle of Kyrenia and
it was he who hired my mother and my father and where they met. So here
their granddaughter is in the school name, but here was the school right
across the street and it really worked very, very well. I was divorced at
the time but I had a housekeeper who had been with me in Vermont for Uh,
12 or 13 years. She moved here with me. So we had, we were able to provide
the stability and used the house a lot for entertaining. But it was also,
there was a huge meeting room that I think had been added by Russ and
Benita nelson where you could have conferences and so on. It was the most
stunning place for a cast party that you've ever seen. So we actually
learned the boundary of how many pizzas you can order at one time 10 by
the way for whichever company we ordered them from. And then they would
always call back thinking some undergraduate was playing a trick ordering
10 pizzas for the president's house. And so it was a very comfortable in
good place to, to, to live. Um, it also had another interesting value for
me. It's fortunately been forgotten by most I had a heart attack my 15th
month here unexpected, never had any of those kind of health problems and
but it was, it took me out of circulation for a couple of months and I was
able to work out of that house as I regained my physical strength. It was
just, it was this protected little island in the midst of a city. So it
was a wonderful place to be Farrell then went on to Tempe High And so it
was good place for her and we were still living in that house when she
finished her high school year. She did her high school senior year as an
exchange student in Germany. So she, she lived in that house all the years
of her finishing middle school and going to high school. Um I got married
uh in 1990 in December of 1994
to Elva, my wife, Elva and I had met in college,
both kids from small town. She came from Camp verde she was a freshman
when I was a senior. We had no romantic involvement, but we knew one
another and we hiked, which was Doly unusual in the 50s. People didn't
hike, especially if you grew up on a ranch or a farm. If you couldn't ride
your horse to it, you didn't go. We uh and she had been divorced several
years when I moved here. I I had not seen her for 30 some years, but I had
known her, she after I graduated and went to graduate school, she left in
a you and went to work in Barry Goldwater's office, worked for about three
years, four years before she got married and went to a issue for a year.
During that period of time when we got married we decided that it was
time for us to have our own home. I had lived in an official residence by
then almost 20 years and uh while we loved the house, it was good for
entertaining. We kind of wanted our own home. So we built our own home in
south phoenix up against South mountain and moved a year later when the
house was ready. Do you think that university campuses will lose something
as most presidents don't live on campus? No, I think it was an artifice
here. If you're at a midwestern university where the big, huge president's
house is the center of everything. So if you're in Iowa city or
aims or one of those, I think it has a very, it plays a very substantial
role.
The president's residence at Vermont was right on the edge of the campus,
so it was functionally in the center of the campus and I think there was a
symbolic value. We would have a series of receptions. We no longer, even
at Vermont could have freshman reception and it just wasn't possible. And
what we've discovered both there and here is that there are so many
magnificent spaces on campus, the art museums and the various things to
host functions. I say it was an artifice here. I think there were those
who enjoyed the events we had at the president's house, but I think it had
a limited value, virtually no value for undergraduates and a very limited
value for most of the faculty and staff. I guess I have the adverse side
and I think presidents residents
are
easily misunderstood by the public and our more negative than positive
ken Keller, who I tried to recruit for Vermont when he was dean of
engineering at Minnesota was named president there and left after six
months because the substantial renovation of the president's home was
viewed as and embellishment for personal purposes? There are numbers of
presidents where that has happened of derek bok was once asked to describe
what a, what to describe the role of a university president. He said one
who lives in a large house and begs for a living. Well the large house
part is what people I have thought of. I think it's not uh accidental that
none of the three Arizona universities have residents now. Uh Lawrence
walk up, moved out of the official residence at N. A. U. It's now the one
of the central buildings of the inn at N. A. U. Um ah Manuel Pacheco had a
university furnished home for a while at the U. Of A. But it wasn't right
on the campus. So I don't know. I don't think so. I think campuses
certainly an urban campus like this is just much more diverse and
variegated then then where where, where the role of the president's house
doesn't play a key role. Were there any surprises for you during your term
as president thinks that you,
I I think the
the extent to which we uh ah had difficulty developing an understanding of
the role of the university took a little longer than I thought. That was a
surprise at the front end. But I think it it came along. I was so taken
with the vitality of phoenix. I thought it was a bit more advanced in its
understanding about how these things would work.
I think the abrasions racially surprised me, the regions had just adopted
one of the most important things. I believe the Arizona university system
is done in terms of minority recruitment and involvement on the campus and
that was to increase Minority undergraduate enrollment by 10% per year
Over a period of five years, ended up being six. And if you compounded, it
led to almost a 70% increase and there were those who really felt it was
wrong. This was in the heat of the debate over the martin Luther king
holiday
holiday. I publicly endorsed and was surprised. That's a surprise that I
didn't get more criticism over doing it because I don't normally I have
From the day I took a public university presidency in 1976. I have
registered as an independent. I believe that's I should not put the
university in play out of personal political beliefs and I have therefore
rarely
taking a highly visible position on an issue of that kind. Um, so I guess
I just tuck in the surprise that I didn't get more criticism for that, but
I was surprised at the lag and understanding of why it was so important to
really incorporate the full range of diversity in this state in our
universities.
But there weren't, there weren't other surprises that this is to use the
modern term transparent, this was a transparent
place, what you saw was what it was, that there weren't deep faulknerian
convolutions, there weren't forces that were lurking ready to pounce on
the university. Um And so there weren't that that that the the reason I
paused when you asked the question, it's a good question is that there
really weren't many surprises because it was so clear and evident to me
when I came what the what the landscape was and what the issues were. One
of the things you had to deal with was the athletic department and things.
And I know I'm doing a little research. I came across some old news
release of a statement about the athletics and gambling that you were
involved in. Did that take up more of your time? Not as much as I thought
it would. I um Asked two or 3 People who buy new since I had never been at
a Division one school I've been deeply involved in affairs because a
school like Vermont which had eliminated intercollegiate football was
really kind of left in a no man's land and so establishing a rightful
place for that kind of institution for its dominant sports which for them
were hockey and men and women's basketball, skiing. That kind of thing. I
had I had a lot of involvement but I have not personally been at the
Division one University. So I asked two or three people, a couple of
presidents and an N. C. Double A executive director whom I'd known, former
athletic director. Ah
And they warned me that this was a far more um
difficult place athletically than most. Ah
Oh they believed that the control by the boosters was unhealthy.
They believed that the university had put its athletic success out ahead
of its academic success of athletes not uncommon but that it had been done
at a substantial level and that uh it was uh that there were major dangers
in the program. I also was aware that Charles Harris, whom I think was is
a greatly unsung hero for this. University had been appointed to clean up
a lot of the difficulties. He had done an admirable job of that. He'd
earned some enmity in doing it and had just been reappointed by Russ
nelson to another three year term which some said to me they really
resented. And I did not, I would have done the same because I thought he
was doing such an important job. Uh When issues like uh gambling or
personal assaults or personal lifestyle behavior ah flared up and they did
,
it did take a lot of time.
I am not going to get on a high horse about society's values. But I
guarantee you we had five times the number of press present for one of
those conversations than we ever did for any other major news event at the
university. That's just the way society. That's that's that's the way it
is. But it did not take an inordinate amount of time. It took time. It had
to be a high priority. I questioned when I first came why you have the
athletic director reporting directly to the president, You don't have the
Dean of Engineering reporting directly to the president. And I came to
understand why, yes, you had really put an immense apparatus together,
including a national, very expensive national consultant who monitored
every activity within the university. And I came quickly to realize that
was a very wise thing to do. In my time. We had good athletic directors
Charles was a very good athletic director. Kevin White was a very good
athletic director jane smith. So I did, I do not feel that it took uh an
unexpected or even necessarily inordinate amount of time from, from, from
for me. But you do feel that kind of universities get their reputation
based on their support teams to some part of the public. At least it, I
guess there are two ways I would describe it. There are universities whose
reputation is their athletic team and there are universities with major
athletic teams whose reputation as a university are blended with them. So
let me not be naughty and identify the former, but the latter include the
dukes and the michigan's and the Stanfords and the USCs of the world. I
think it is a major
uh struggle for a university that is on its way up academically building
its reputation to find the right balance to hook those together.
A. S. U. Not uncommon. Notre dame did the same, had an athletic reputation
that grew faster, more visibly nationally than its academic reputation.
And that was never more evident than when We entered PAC 10 in 1978.
John Shaffer, president of you really, really engineered that. Thank
goodness. It was one of the most important things that could happen to us
, but it was a struggle for us and and it still is evident when you look
at graduation rates and all of the rest of that. But it's the kind of
struggle that I think can be reconciled, but it takes a lot of effort and
energy over time to reconcile them. What do you look back and see as your
greatest accomplishments, the things that you're proudest of, when we
remember the reputation of this university in this community and in this
community and as a corollary, the growing recognition nationally that a
major successful new university uh is emerging in greater phoenix.
Tell you a little sidebar about my
candidacy. Herman Chanin first heard my name from Clark Kerr and I'll tell
you how that happened. Clark Kerr was the great president of the
University of California Ronald. Reagan didn't think he was so great,
fired him when he was elected governor. But he was, it was a giant through
all of that era And he was and after he left the presidency did this 12 ft
shelf of great books on american higher education, the Carnegie Foundation
funded clark was invited here. Mm hmm. But it's just incidentally, I think
after Russ had announced his retirement and while the search was going on
for a successor, I think very early in the search and he gave a lecture, I
don't even know what the, the reason for the lecture was in which he said
, I've gone back and retrieved the notes and find it just fascinating in
which he said, um, there will be very few great new universities in
America. They are too hard to build the great ones there too, there are
too many other competing things to really be able to, but there will be a
few. And then he laid out the characteristics, they will be public, they
will be in the sun belt, they will be in a major urban area. And so we set
these carrots, they will have an established base on which they can build.
And it, I mean, you read it and you say it's a issue, there's a issue now
, Clark Kerr is not the kind of person who would pander. So he didn't just
say that because he was here and they had a dinner at the president's
residence following that. And as Herman who had already been asked to be
chairman of the search committee walked clark out to the car, he said were
we're looking for a new president, you have to have any uh, any
suggestions. But I'm um, reporting what herman said, but I have a little
interesting corroboration from clark um Clark said lady core in Vermont I
don't think you can get him now, that's the first time Hermit had heard.
And so they started doing all that stuff uh after I'd been here about a
year or so, Dick Atkinson, who was then president of the University of
California, it would have been a little later. Dick was U. C. San Diego
before, so it was probably five or so years after I'd been here, invited
me to dinner to meet with a group of rectors of german universities, That
great hotel in Oakland, the one upon the side of the hill whose name, I
forget one of those old great 19th century hotels and my flight arrived a
little early, I went to the hotel, I was there an hour or so in advance of
the dinner and there was clark sitting in the big overstuffed chair in the
lobby, one of these grand old lobbies. So I went over him, we chatted,
I've had the privilege of working with him and knowing him for a lot of
years. So we chatted, he was doing his he's now gone, but he was doing his
autobiography and we talked about that. I said clark, do you remember when
you was today issue and giving my name to the
he said I'm glad you went there. I said did you know when you gave them my
name that I've been born and raised in Arizona? No, no, he said I thought
you were from ST louis. So he had absolutely no idea in putting that name
on the table that it had been there. That reputation I guess again, I just
know that I, the university's reputation and proudest of because those
elements were here and I think we've
been capitalizing on them, we're not there, but we've, I think made, I'm
proudest of the fact that we found ways to capitalize on them and build
this space. That's why I say first before national reputation, our
reputation in the community.
Are there any things that you hope to accomplish that you weren't able to
do?
I had hoped to establish
an opportunity for every undergraduate
to have an overseas experience.
Ah I realized it was a great big place. So I knew there are more freshmen
at a issue almost in there are undergraduates at the University of Vermont
so I knew the logistics would be high. But I was struck when I came here
by how limited the
undergraduate experience in foreign travel was as compared with the
experiences I've seen in in New England and Northeast even among
youngsters from small town rural areas
and so I pursued for a while but simply other, other things pulled me away
and I didn't do anything more with it, ways in which we could get major
companies that had presidents here. Toyota with its big proving ground
here America west with its air
international companies like Intel Motorola and others where where we
could arrange for families in other countries to host issue students just
for a couple of weeks. It's very hard to have a mass group go for a whole
semester. And uh I did, I did I did pursue that pretty actively for a
couple of years and realized it just wasn't feasible. So I'm sorry why did
you think that was important? Ah We today you and me most of the people in
this community and on this campus even don't realize just how
international everything about our life is and for a young person
especially it's life changing for them to see that and know that it can't
be a cameo visit. It can't just be visiting
looking through a tour bus which is not that different than looking at it
on a television screen. It needs to be a direct transaction. I just think
that's very important. And uh it struck me as I talked with a lot of
students and especially Arizona student
that many of them hadn't done that. That's why it was a little idealist.
It's a big group right now. That was big. I would have probably been
wiser
to have. He started it with a few and kind of build on it even if we
didn't
get the whole
other disappointments. Um No
no and I say that having
join this magnificent university with very high expectations.
Oh sure. And as in every life, it's like everything you wished you would
Had had 100% on all major fronts. But I also know that at this stage of
life, if you aren't realistic, you've not learned your lessons. I think we
established ambitious goals and
I had a, a high success rate in all of them and I think we did it in ways
that were true to our heritage. I
I
and powerfully
influence to this very day by the, by the people who shaped this place, by
the, by what Arizona was when it shaped this place and by the, the footing
it gave us
there
to make sure we ah
continue to respect that and even as it evolved, has, has meant a great
deal to me and I think we have, I think we have done, I think we also uh
have succeeded thanks to the board and the search committee and the search
process in a transition to new leadership with President Crow and his team
that really keeps and moves and accelerates the direction we had. I it was
more prescient than I
had any reason to be When I came here, I said quietly to a few friends, if
you could put two decades back to back of clear, focused um,
effort, it will be one of the great universities can't stop them. But it's
, it's a little like a hydrofoil, it will be up on
a plane that it well will enable it to compete effectively and I'm deeply
pleased at that I for reasons I don't fully understand but I'm not one of
those who goes around wearing a hair shirt where it's not absolutely clear
I should, my succession the succession Ed Vermont was less good than here.
There is a very good president, they're now 20 five years later But they
went through four or five presidents to get there and universities are
pretty, endure pretty durable endeavors but entities, but if you're going
to have high aspirations, you can't have major hiccups along the way.
There are enough things to move you off track and it's immensely rewarding
to B to C. That the direction and the energy and overall place of this
university here in this community, this state is continuing that direction.
Starting with your term, you mentioned you've retired as president, but
you haven't retired. You want to talk a little bit about what you're doing
now. one of the great um privileges of this profession is that for the
most part, most parts, you start as a faculty member as did I. And then
even after whatever length of time is a an administrator, you get the
privilege to return to the faculty if you choose. I did not teach actively
here when I was president, I did when I was president of Vermont and I
would have here but I just realized I would have not been benefiting
either the students or my other responsibilities.
But I have long um been interested in ah
teaching as part of my post presidential life. I did not have a carefully
laid out plan for what I wanted to do after being president. But two or
three things were clear to me first that L've and I would remain in this
community, we love this community, it is our home, not just our birth home
but our home. Secondly that I wanted to remain active
and remain active with issues of importance to me for uh this community
and for Arizona,
Arizona has been very good to me and to my family and I would like to do
what I can to make sure is good for other people as well. And third, if I
could combine that with teaching uh an active role on the faculty, that
what what was the ideal without even thinking a whole lot about it. Um a
couple of years before I stepped down as president, uh I began working on
an ocean uh
of of ways to connect the richness of the university's research and
recommendations to actual implementation. Universities are very good at
recommending things. That's what they do. But there's usually a mismatch.
There's usually a gap between the folks that have to carry all this stuff
out and those that and so I was interested and seeing what we could do in
that gap, I had the privilege of serving on a commission that the Kellogg
foundation put together called the commission on the future of american
public universities, 25 University presidents together over five years. 25
University Presidents. Everybody talked and no one listened. It took a
while to get that straightened out. But we fashioned a new concept to
teaching research and service. And it was Discovery learning. Excuse me.
It was uh ah learning uh Discovery Learning for teaching. Discovery for
research and engagement for service. I believed we needed to have better
ways to engage the capacities of the university with the community,
especially as it related two Issues of the Health of Society.
And I kind of tinkered with what kind of organization it might be and
talked with a few people about it um in the year following my announcement
and the search for my successor, two or three of those with whom I talked
said that's you, you ought to do that. And indeed it did. It was clear to
me that if we could put together the right organization that I would be
willing to spend some time with it and we did, we created five oh one C
three called the center for the Future of Arizona. I took the position of
chairman and CEO on the grounds that in time I'd like if we're successful
to have a Ceo take over and I would continue to work with it and raised
money and leased space. And because I also believe strongly much as I
admire and support what Michael Crowe is doing. I think the used president
ought to get out of sight when a new president comes and so I moved
downtown and leased space and they they they they they they renovated it
and got it all ready for us to start six months after I left the
presidency. It so happens that my faculty appointment and I've had a
faculty appointment all along. It's one of those things that happens when
presidents are recruited because I'd come from an academic background was
in the School of public affairs and most of the teaching of the school of
public affairs is at the downtown campus. And so it turned out to be
perfect for me to combine my offices as professor and with the center. So
part of our operation is funded by the center by our private funding and
part of our facilities and and activities are funded by the university. I
also had the very great of receiving an endowed chair and there are two
things about that I'll mention first, an endowed chair Gives one the
freedom to really mhm work across the university to find things that would
really be appropriate in President Crow made it very clear he thought this
center was an important part of that and what I've done or I teach
graduate seminars uh in the School of public Affairs for as part of my
teaching related to the secondly the chair that I was given his name for
Ernest Mcfarland, whom I knew as a youngster and so and who I think is a
far greater figure in the history of this state than many people realize.
And so I i it gives me an inspiration to even more. So continue the
combination of activities that I'm trying to do with our center and with
the teaching I'm doing. So, it's for me, a wonderful way to stay engaged
and to pursue some of the agenda that I believe strongly and remain a part
of the university. And of course there's a building on campus now with
your, that's quite a, that's quite an experience. I had never seeing the
actual sine Elva and I have been walk through the building by Eddie jones
a month before the dedication. So I saw what it was, but I've never seen
the sign until I walked up for the dedication and it's kind of an out of
body experience. I mean, you tend to think of those as for someone else
and they're often for, for people who are dead, so that even added to it,
but I do, and I'm deeply touched
by the university to again, do you think that's an appropriate building?
Oh, well, no, they didn't ask me, they said they were going to do it.
Absolutely, that's a teaching building, that building uh over 20, some
classrooms are in that building, it's it's a, it's a wonderful building,
It's a big building. It's a, I rather like it, but it's a, it's a kind of
a utilitarian building. It's uh, I like all of those features of it. So I
think it's terrific. I forget what fraction of the undergraduates at any
given hour are taking a course in that building. But it's, It's a large
percentage, it's 10:15 when you consider the size of this campus. So yeah
, I'm, I'm very pleased that that function being there. They didn't need
to make it quite so big. But if you know the history of it, we had a
different building in mind when I had nothing to do with this building or
its naming. But we have the problem we were working on, when I stepped
down as president, we had in mind a new building, we've had a couple of
architectural renderings and had decided not to go forward when the, the
social science building, the one where then the Dean of Arts and Sciences
was located was discovered to have a serious structural flaw. And at least
at the time we knew we we thought we'd have to replace it. So both
projects were put together and hence this very big building. Elvin, I took
some time away after I left the presidency and my first day back to campus
, I was meeting with a faculty member of the superstructure was pretty far
up by then. And his comment to me was Good Lord. Now, we'll never get out
from under your shadow.
Okay,
You're still, you know, teaching and dealing primarily with graduate
courses you're teaching. I am master's and doctoral students in the School
of Public Affairs. Actually, do you teach the seminar I'm doing this
spring is focused on the question of how does one create a vision for
Arizona? It's ah, there's a companion. It's the work I'm doing in our
center. Uh, surprisingly, I think to most people states don't have visions.
And yet we all know that organizations and highly competitive
environments can't function without a vision. And so in our center, we've
set about trying to do something about that. And having examined a whole
lot of different options. We created a vision by Taking significant policy
reports from all quarters over the last 15 years and comb them for their
recommendations. Arizona, town hall Morrison Institute, Goldwater
Institute, Udall Institute gubernatorial Commission And we came out with
200 recommendations that came out of those 50 reports Over the last 15
years and we organized them in a single page and we said you did this, you
did it in a little different way. This is derivative. But here's a vision
for Arizona
to give it some legitimacy. We then went around to cities, counties, towns
, chambers of Commerce, leadership, organizations like greater phoenix
leadership and greater phoenix economic council and got them to endorse it.
So now in the center where trying to figure out how do you do something
significant with that And our basic belief is you Tease out two or 3
breakthrough strategies, Jim Collins in his book, good to great cause of
big hairy audacious goals that you set for the state and you go back. So
that's the work we're doing in the center and we're in, we're engaged in a
lot of communities around the state doing that. The seminar is uh an
examination of the conceptual and practical questions of Mhm Can you, what
kind of leadership models do you have to create a functional vision in
Arizona? And so I'm using the different format this time I taught always
in the past um in in this, in my new role. Um one hour or excuse me one
night a week, the three or four hour seminar. I'm using the intensive
format where we do
two, three day weekends, eight hours a day separated by a month in which
we tackle the whole thing. And I'm, my first session is in two weeks and
I've been in touch with the students by the magnificent electronic
capacities of a program called blackboard that instructors use almost in
all classes. And so I got them reading and we were communicating with one
another and posing questions and I've given some assignments and so we'll
tackle the theoretical parts the first day and then, well I'm bringing in
some visitors who can give us examples of major visioning activities and
we'll set about seeing what we can learn from all of that you're
definitely into the electronic age of teaching. Oh, I think it's one of
the, it's one of the things that often I think people outside the
university don't fully can't can't fully understand you think of
electronic, it's all distance delivery and that does happen. But this
process I mentioned blackboard uh just allows you in a capture, just just
the students and I contact one another. I can give them exams. They can
send me papers, it's all secure. I can have a simultaneous conversation.
We can say from 12 to 1 we're all gonna be on and we're gonna talk more
often. We use asynchronous. So I have a discussion board and I say here
and I tailored the assignments to every one of them. And I say now start
talking with each other about where you see some overlap and the and you
can put all kinds of, you can attach all kinds of links. So if you if you
want them to read a dozen reports which I do the reports are all there
electronically. So it is, it's a wonderful tool and it's it's a good
example of the kind of way that a modern university through its electronic
capacities make these work and these students, they they make power points
and they all did a homepage for me. So I know who they are. I mean they
just, they take to it like a duck to water changing world. One of the
things I'd like to ask everybody before we wrap up here is what advice do
you give to young people today who are trying to decide what to do with
their lives, what's going to go to, what career to pursue?
I am the easiest thing to say to them. Well, yeah, the easiest thing thing
, but the hardest for them to understand. So I couple it with another
observation is to really follow their passions. It's hard for a young
person to understand why you didn't follow my passion. It's hard because
first of all, they don't fully know they're they're still trying on
identities and experiences,
but but if they'll try to develop that internal gyroscope that keeps
asking what is it I really like to do, what is that I really want? Do I do
I want to build things, do I want to work with people? Do I want to make
an impact in society. Do I want to have a high quality lifestyle that I
want an income that does that I want to create a company. Do I want to
teach what what to to to to keep thinking about that? Not just young
people, all of us keep thinking about that. What is it, but I couple it
with advice that I have found has not only served me well, but I have
found works well with legions of students with whom I've talked over the
years. Then go try on various experiences that are related to that. Almost
anything you think you might want to do, you can experience as a volunteer.
Let me use myself as an example. I thought about politics, I thought about
teaching and I thought about academic administration
and I had an opportunity in my still formative years
to try each of those on. And that really allowed me to understand what it
was now. I had narrowed already by the time I left college. 2-1 of those
strands. So choices have to be made. I had um I took an unusual set of
advisers when I was first started teaching pre med students who were
undeclared majors. That's really unusual. Uh that's just unusual. Usually
they're majoring in biology or something else. And I discovered when I
really got acquainted with these students, they basically fell into three
groups. Those that I really wanted to be a physician and take care of sick
people. They wanted to work with sick people, those that wanted to help
other people and those that wanted to be independent. Ah When I would ask
them to their parents chagrin. So if you're not a position, what would you
like to be interesting things would come out. The latter group wanted to
be an architect or a lawyer because they'd have some independence. The
middle group would like to do other human intensive professions. The first
group often would say, well then they'd like to do research. They couldn't
be that they'd like to do research. What I did with all of these students
was make sure they all experienced
the basic aspects of what being a position was. I mean it's a little
awkward for a 17 year old to be a candy striper, but I'd arranged for them
to go down to the hospital and spend time. I haven't come back said, I
don't know, I like being around sick people really bothers me. Well,
that's a clue. And so experiencing those things in a variety of ways. One
can, that's where service learning these projects that allow you to go out
and tutor youngsters in an inner city that allow you to be an intern with
a company. Um, sometimes you get paid, Sometimes you don't, My
recommendation is, I know you got to worry about money but don't make that
the primary, if you will experience those things that will help sharpen
What you are. one final piece of advice I give students regularly.
You really never know what the landscape looks like until you reach the
next step on the platform. So if you're
struggling to finish high school, you need to try to think what it's going
to be like when you finish high school and look at the opportunities that
are there and look at what it's going to be like when you finish college
and realize that having done that, you might take a job, but you also
might go to graduate school. You might go on to do so accomplishing things
and having the footing from which to then reassess yourself is also part
of what I would advise you.
Very good. I think I've gone through most of my questions. Was there
anything that you thought I was going to ask you that? I didn't. No. I
think we've covered a lot of territory and she held up a lot of tape. I
thank you all for doing this project. I I hope you will
put a good archive.
Yes.