Hello. Uh today is Wednesday March 30th 2011. We are conducting an
interview for the Arizona State University retirees Association video
history project. We are located today in the interdisciplinary studies
building boardroom? I'm Robbie Sherwood. I am the uh founder and owner of
earned media consulting and I also am a contract public information
officer for the United States Attorney's Office district of Arizona. The
technical support staff we have here today as john macintosh operating the
camera, roger carter carter, excuse me monitoring the audio and also in
attendance is linda Vance coy, chair of the S. U. R. A video history
project. And with us we have Doctor Albert McKinley. Could you please
introduce yourself and state your name and position here at issue. I'm Al
Mchenry and right now I'm a research professor in the Hispanic Research
Center pursuing a long term NSF project That I've been engaged with for
over 20 years that is focused on improving the number of stem graduates
seeking a position in the professorial. So we're working at the doctoral
level right now, extremely important stuff for our, our university and our
economy to begin with. Let us know a little bit about uh, before you got
to issue your, your earlier, where, where were you born and where did
where did you grow up? Well, I'm uh person who was born right at the time
of the beginning of World War Two in rust in Louisiana. Born in 1941 with.
Tell us a little bit about what Reston for people not familiar. What is,
what, what is rusting like? Rustin is a small town uh in in the middle of
north Louisiana right on interstate 20. It has Grambling and Louisiana
Tech, Both located within four miles of each other. And so it's sort of a
north Louisiana education center and it is rolling hills with tall pines
and is the center of the peach growing part of the state. And we have the
peach festival uh in Rustin and report annually to celebrate that. I
happen to know that you come from a very strong educational background,
but tell us a little bit about your your your family life and your
circumstances and you know where you come from a rich family, poor family
, where where did you fall in that? Well, I was I was born into a family
that valued education very highly. Uh My father was the first person in
the family to seek higher education and he holds a bachelor's degree from
Grambling and a master's degree from the University of michigan and he
influenced all of his Children and his nieces and nephews toward higher
education. So our family has uh several lawyers and several ph D. S in it.
Uh And of course my wife and I both have phds and uh our Children all
have had aspirations for higher education and they hold degrees that are
masters degrees at least and several in the professional and what did you
tell your undergraduate? I went to southern university, I couldn't go to
grambling or Louisiana tech for various reasons. And uh I went to southern
, which is 200 miles away and that's a little better. And and uh you you
started your your academic career there as well, is that right? I did uh
well I had had some serendipity. Uh I graduated and went to work for the
Boeing company and transferred from Seattle to Miss You, which was just
outside of New Orleans and was the Saturn five booster program site. He
worked for the space program. I worked for the space program and one day,
one afternoon in early fall, my dean, my former dean since I moved on
Henry Lewis terman showed up at my door at my, in my apartment late in the
afternoon and said let's take a walk and I'll go out and have some supper
and talk. And so I did that. And what he did is he offered me a teaching
position that it was really a replacement temporary replacement of my
former major professor at seven because he had precipitously died and I
didn't even know that he had passed away at the time. I thought about it
for about 15 minutes and took the job, but only 15 minutes. You're going
to walk away from uh probably a very lucrative career and industry to go
back to this small historically black historically African American
college which you attended for a teaching position. Help us understand why
that was not a more difficult.
Well I was I was brand new at the industrial job. I had been there a
little over a year and I had learned about the whole process of space
Production. We were gonna build 12 Iterations of the S. one c booster And
we had built two already. And there was a little inside joke that went on
by among us folks who were building those, we call ourselves space gypsies
because we were looking for the next one and so far there hadn't been the
next one. The shuttle was not, the shuttle was on the drawing board but it
had no contract had been led and nobody knew when the next one was coming
along. So I thought well I can I was very altruistic about helping my
university. That that's one of the overriding things. But I also I felt
that there was no permanent job associated with the space activity at that
time. And so it was an opportunity to still find my way. I hadn't totally
found that way. And then let's let's jump ahead a little bit of the
understand you're at southern for a while, approximately how long 12 years.
I was at southern for 12 years including uh one of the years. I was in
graduate school here. So what then brought you to Arizona State University
of Louisiana boy in essentially his his backyard and probably a certain
amount of comfort zone too. Pick up a young family by that time I think
you probably had your your Children. And and uh it's settled down. What
what what brought you to a S. U. In Arizona? Well I had grown to really
love teaching in higher education activities and higher education
institution. Um I'm sort of a person who is a workaholic and who takes
life very seriously. And by that time I had evolved into a situation where
I was being pressed by the university to get involved in many more things.
Many more activities, represent the university on committees and and to
travel some representing the university abroad in the country. And and I
would be embarrassed because they would introduce me as dr Mchenry and I
had to step back and say no I'm not dr Mchenry. And so I decided that I
needed credentialing. And so I started looking for institutions that would
deal with me the way I was because I prepared myself for an industrial
career and I had a degree uh that didn't necessarily comport with doctoral
study. So Arizona State was one of the few institutions in the country
that had a pathway for me to get a dark road degree. I found about, I
found about seven of those and I applied to them all and Arizona State
University was the first one to get back to me and was the first one to
offer me money as a scholarship. And this was an engineering or this, this
was in engineering technology as you had an engineering technology program
with a master's degree, no doctoral degree. And they offered me a job as a
graduate assistant teaching in the engineering technology program which I
was doing at Southern. That is what I was doing. It's a teaching
electronic engineering technology describe for us, if you can remember
those times well what the issue was like at those times, I'm convinced it
was very different. She was very different then. Um at issue was an
interesting institution because of its evolutionary history, going from a
normal school to the bellwether school in the primary population center of
the state was a very significant part of a sus development. And in doing
so it had programmatic structure that was different from the land grant
issues, not a land grant institution. So it s you did not follow that
trend to build the research infrastructure around agriculture and that
sort of thing that the U. Of A. Did for example, which was a moral act
school. And as a result it had programmatic structure that would enable me
to take the engineering technology program which did not exist anywhere
else in the west. Uh with a master's degree, there were schools in the
midwest that had that Purdue Northwestern
several others. And and quite frankly, I like the warm and so coming to
the son was a good thing. And I also was looking for an opportunity for my
wife who had ambitions to get a doctoral degree as well. And there was a
higher education administration degree program at A. S. U. Which fit what
was the
the department like at the time. Was it was it knew was it had been well
established or was I mean did it kind of grow with you or it was a very
interesting construct because at A. S. U. The industrial technology
program existed before the engineering college did. And as A. S. You
started to evolve towards the research enterprise. Uh Those activities
pushed the development of an engineering program which was built inside
the engineering technology activities that were part of the industrial
technology college. And so when I got here which was 19
1974 75, that's when I was applying. And and arriving.
And so what happened was the engineering college was built on top of the
technology program at issue. And when I got here it was the College of
Engineering and Technology which was the same way it was at Southern. It
built the same way with the name being the same College of Engineering and
Technology. So I was teaching in an engineering college. Uh And the
construct was such that the technology program and the engineering program
at Southern had the first two years, pretty much the same. And then the
students would break out into their more formal pathways and it s you it
wasn't quite that way, but there was a very heavy engineering faculty
emphasis on the technology program here at the issue. And there was also a
connection with the education college, which was good for me because with
my strange way of thinking, I had put those two things together that
engineers needed to learn some education. They needed to learn how people
learn and to use learning theory as a basis for teaching engineering. Now
it sounds like a very uh good academic describe
a little bit about how it was to move here from a cultural standpoint. Uh
, you you came from a historically black institution, extremely diverse
state and not that Arizona is not as diverse, but assuming that there was
some, some cultural adjustments you made. Tell me about, about, you know
what kind of adventure that was? Well, it was, it was interesting, the
campus life was not that much of a change. The, the hues in the faces of
the people were different, but the people were pretty much the same. And
I'm one of those people who gets along with people no matter who they are
, where they are. Uh, and and we see the world pretty much the same. Uh,
the, the social life in the community was different, however, because the
black population of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area was probably something
in the neighborhood of 2% at that time. And the The black population of
Mesa where I chose to live was probably like a .45%,
barely measurable, but there there was a little section of town that was
called the village and yes, in Mesa and and so I got to know those people
uh but I also got to know my nearby environment residents and and had a
lot of friendships and still have many of those friendships uh and and
enjoyed them greatly. I thought that I was um
supported and given the welcome to the community about as well as anybody
else gets it. And my kids went to Mesa school, Mesa public schools and my
wife uh was engaged in the community a bit and we we had a good time there
and and we still do, we love mason. Uh back to issue who, who was running
your department at that time and who was the provost and msu president,
kind of, reminder reminder folks of who was in charge during that period.
Well that was President Suarez period and uh the College of Engineering
was being run by, oh, the founding Dean of Engineering
and I'm struggling for his. Yes li p Thompson was was the dean of the
College of Engineering and the School of Technology was being run by a
group of of really top draw professors who mostly came from the University
of Missouri. And in my master's program, my major professor was thomas
conman, thomas able conman who became a mentor. I'm gonna ask you if you
had a mentor, but let's let's talk about my personal, my personal friend,
he was a basketball fan and a baseball fan. We shared going to games
together and that sort of thing. And his, his entree to all the university
was really helpful to me. And that's the, the definition of a mentor for
you. He, what what other type of guidance did he provide for? Well, he he
also
introduced me to the processes of a major university more than anyone else.
Uh He made me understand the need to publish, uh he gave me uh entree to
the national organizations that he belonged to and we had another very
close friends. So the three of us became sort of a triangular writing
group and we critiqued each other and we we co wrote things together. His
name was lying mccurdy who recently retired from cal poly pomona. Okay, so
that that was, that was a good thing. So, so you matriculated you get your
your your doctorate here? Well that was the master's degree program that I
just described the doctoral program. Um I decided to stay and go on for
the doctoral degree. And and uh the department chair of the secondary
education program became my advisor and my mentor in that program because
I wanted to focus on learning theory. Learning psychology. And uh that was
john Bell john Bell is still in the environment right now. We sit together
at football games most of the time And uh we had a really strong personal
relationship. Is it, was it typical or is it typical now to stay at the
same institution for your masters and your doctoral? It is it is not
necessarily typical. However, because of the strange uh kind of put
together that I was creating for a doctoral degree. This was a wonderful
place to do it because the College of Engineering due to its industrial
technology founding had a direct relationship with the College of
Education and there were a number of people who were getting degrees
in education in collaboration with the technology programs. And that was
not abnormal at the time. So, so it worked out well here. There were a few
other institutions around the country that that invited me. But when I
looked at it carefully, I wanted to stay here. Oklahoma State for example
, is one of those institutions that was doing that kind of thing. And I
know it is rather atypical. Also, once you have a doctorate to begin
teaching at that same university, I probably don't understand why that's
the case. But but you were an anomaly there as well because you started
your academic career where you started a new academic career, remember I
started teaching and the program With my master's degree in 1970s and 1975.
And so by the time I got my doctorate in 1980, wow, I was really
entrenched in the program. I have been, I have been teaching in that
program for five years and I had rave reviews and I had students who have
graduated who thought well of me and when there were several positions
because we were in a growth phase, there were several positions open. Uh I
actually was asked to apply for one and uh that that might have been an
affirmative action step because at the time I was the only person of color
in the program and if I left there would have been none. So what was the
program that you started? It was the department of electronics at the time
? Yes. In the in the School of Technology, in the College of Engineering,
did you feel a sense of responsibility uh to uh to perform and to you know
, to uh you know, knock it out of the park if this was indeed an
affirmative action hire? Well,
it is, it is sort of my nature to try to do well. Oh, and so I have been
doing well anyway uh to give you an example of that. Uh I had no summer
commitment that from from the school. And so I maintained my office during
the summer and I came to work every day. And since I was at work and the
students would see me at work, they come in and asked me to do their
advisement or to tutor them on some issue and I would do that and I didn't
expect them to pay for that. I was using the office as a place to do my
own thing. You're saying this is your leisure time. That was my leisure
time. That's correct, More work. And so no, my, my mentor Tom conman who
was also the department chair, saw that and he had a little kitty on the
side of $1500 or so to buy some things and one summer he just paid me the
$1500 because he felt sorry for me. Probably, let's talk about your, the
progression of your Career from the, where did, where did you go from that
first position? Uh well in 19, in 1980 I was hired and became a member of
the regular faculty and you know what happens? You get a full load now.
And so the first thing you do is you put your nose to the stone to teach
those four courses that you have to teach, including the labs. And so I
did that really? Uh oh dedicated in a dedicated way. And then the first
thing that happened of course was tenure. Uh And so I wrote a pretty
decent tenure document,
went for tenure After being here for three years. And so I got tenure. And
of course, uh, I had, I had a lot of teaching experience by that time. I
had taught at southern for 12 years and of course I had taught, it hits
you for five years. So I had a lot of experience and I knew how to do that
and it came right in in due course. No, no hitches, no glitches. I had tom
had taught me how to publish and I was, I was a big time publisher and
some of my stuff still holds up today in the literature. And and uh when
did you move into administration? When Uh in 1986. So this is 11 years
after coming to AS. U. Uh tom decided that he would move on and he moved
to University of san Francisco where he became the founding dean of the
engineering program. And uh the position was open and I applied for it and
Dean Roland Hayden uh decided that it would be a good thing to keep me on
as the department chair. And so I became the department chair at that time.
The university at that time, if if you Think about where the university
was going was really growing. When I first came here, we were about 33,
And by that time we had reached about 40. And the mission of the
university had changed the mission of the university had become to become
among the best public research universities in the country. And so at that
point, my department now was under some new pressures to make that change
to get involved with research uh to make sure that we still served our
primary master because the whole technology program was aimed at
developing people for the workforce in the field of electronics and to
serve the big industry that we had here at that time which was Motorola
intel Honeywell um G was here. So we had we had a big big thing going on
and my graduates were people who populated those industries in in the
primary positions. And to some degree they still do today. And so you were
responsible for directing a kind of a change in focus to to the workforce
to research from two research.
Tell me at what point did uh Because I know we're getting into probably
close to the early 90s. Ah isn't that when a issue decided to open an east
campus or how did how did that happen? Well that was an interesting period.
The university, I had a new leader at that time who was glad the core and
dr core as part of his original formulation of how he was going to move
the issue forward under the new mandate uh indicated that he wanted to not
only develop the Tempe campus and the west campus which had already been
founded at that time but to also create an East Valley entity associated
with S. U. And had set up an exploratory committee to sort of look at it.
And the leadership of that was primarily founded in the College of
Engineering and I knew those people and had served with them for a long
time. And there was a lot of talk inside the college about taking uh three
of the colleges units and spinning them off in some way and the three
units were uh technology agribusiness and construction.
And by that time we had become the School of Construction and Technology
as part of the thinking around, how do we get our arms around this? And
agribusiness was still sort of sticking out there as a 5th wheel and uh
that was in the mix during that period and the opportunity to actually
fulfill it came about with brak um activities which set up transferring
military property, closing down military bases and transferring property.
Williams. Air Force Base was selected for the BRAC Project process was
slated to be closed down and there was this policy decisions all across
the border of what are we going to do with this with this Air Force base,
but what are we going to do with this Air Force base? And Charles bacchus
, who was Associate dean of Engineering at that time, was on the
repurposing committee, appointed by the governor. And so one day I was
walking down the mall toward the technology center and he was coming out
of the engineering building which I had to pass and he said, oh come over
and sit down with me and let's chat for a minute. And so we sat on one of
the little benches that that's out in front of the engineering building
and he said at that time I was director of the School of Technology and
construction. He said we're going to have this opportunity to create an
institution at William. Would you like to be involved in having your
flight program go there? Because at that time our aeronautical program was
was really all over the valley, we were flying out of Goodyear, can you
imagine that as kids driving all the way to Goodyear to fly? And he said,
you know there there's a beautiful runway out there and all the facilities
set up to do the flying right out of there. So it's a sales pitch, right?
So it's a sales pitch. How how persuasive was dr Baccus. He seems a bit of
a character I don't know. Well chuck is one of my best friends in all the
world and a great, great guy and he and I had a good relationship all this
time and he knows me well enough to know that I don't equivocate came very
much and I told him almost without taking a breath that we would love to
do it. But we don't want to just put the flight program out there. We'd
like to have the whole technology program go out there and maybe the
construction program if they would like to do that.
What was his reaction? He got very excited because he was thinking of that
campus as being uh educational mall with a lot of choice. Well just having
the aviation program would not have been much choice, but the method in my
madness was that it would give us an opportunity to separate from
engineering because engineering and technology are focused on the same
topical content with different different educational approaches. And and
it it would develop better, we would have better support and better uh
control of its own destiny if we would just move a bit away from. So it
sounds like the the genesis for what has become a issue polytechnic was
largely launched on a park bench that every day is on the mall. A pretty
offhand conversation with
my sort of knee jerk responses to incite. So so you you packed up an
entire school is actually, it didn't happen quite that easily. I mean the
the world doesn't move, you know, because two people say it should uh we
ended up having to deal with the politics and the policy in order to make
that that happen. And it was it was not as intuitive as as my knee jerk
thing. And so we had to sell it, we had to sell it first inside and and
the attitudes inside was that we're taking a s you apart, you know, we
really don't want to take a s you apart. What we want to do is create
something new out there, but we we had the feeling that maturity of
programs is part of the formula for success of growth and immediate
routing and getting on with with the activity of building the new campus.
And so we were able to sell that. Uh, I think laddie bought it almost
immediately. It took milk a little while. Bill did not like taking his
main campus apart. He did not like that. But uh, I see him from time to
time now part of my present project is with his university and uh, we have
come to the conclusion that I was right. When when did you open your
doors at CSU East as it was called then before it was polly. Yes. So we
loaded up lock stock and barrel in The summer of 94 and moved down the
highway to now describe subscribe if you can some of the challenges that
creating an academic environment out of the corpus of, of retired military
facility and all the challenges that you had to have their and give us
some examples of some of the things you had to overcome. Well, it's, it
was a big challenge in some respects and others. It was a pleasure. First
of all we had a very mature faculty who wanted to do this. The faculty
ended up voting to do this to go. I mean, just the fact that two people
sat on a bench and decided that we ought to try.
What was it was just that was just that, I mean, we, we decided we ought
to try to do this, that we ought to advocate it, but in the final analysis
, uh faculty members almost unanimously, only a few decided to take early
retirement and mostly because they were right at retirement and they lived
over in the far West Valley and, you know, the transportation would have
been difficult, they weren't really interested in selling out their homes
and moving, and that's what sol funeral did retire. But most, most, all of
the faculty moved and most all of the staff moved and so that part went
easily. They got better office space. The military knows how to create
good office space for their people. And so the base was very accommodating
in that way. Um the, the idea of free parking, you know, it was a big, big
help for them. Um we also had to convince our students who were in
progress that this was not a step backwards. And so we actually loaded
people up on busses and took them on tours to the good facilities that
were there. The Williams Air Force Base was the most effective and
aggressive
educational system in the Air Force because it was first level jet pilot
training and those folks got treated well and they had good classroom
facilities with good presentation capability and we really didn't have to
do much in order to have, so the infrastructure lent itself to, the
infrastructure worked out very well uh for the first few years until we
started to grow of course, and then we had to think about how we were
going to expand. Right? But that that that first two or three years went
very well and then we got into the growth period and of course now we
gotta struggle for money and we've got to find out how we're going to grow
the facilities in order to accommodate the greater ambition. And so we did
that we we got state appropriations uh to renovate several of the
buildings and we got buildings renovated and upgraded. I can I can
remember me appearing uh in a article in the tribune in a bunny suit uh
and standing in the middle of an empty teaching factory that we were
repurposing for for semiconductor
education. Uh you know uh I think that this this program would like to
know about, you know, notable achievements. Would you rank this as one of
the more notable achievements of your career? Where would it rank having
to start this campus and and and help get it going and to see where it is
today? Well, I think in the greater scheme of things, it it was the the
primary a gift that I made to the university and to the state of Arizona.
Oh of course I did not do it alone. I did it in conjunction with a lot of
other very brilliant and dedicated people,
my friends chuck bacchus and terry ISAAcson. We're very, very
implementation this about this whole thing. I mean they these guys gave of
themselves 24/7 and helped to make this happen and of course the faculty
of of the College of Technology and Applied Sciences, which we became
almost immediately after getting there were people who gave unselfishly of
themselves and made that happen and you had the honor of serving as
provost. When was that? Well, that that sort of came in due course of the
new administration. One of the things that occurred almost immediately
after we got our feet on the ground out there is we had a new president, I
served on the search committee and the new president of course is dr
Michael Crowe who's, who's here today. And Michael had yeah, a good
understanding of what we were trying to do with that campus from the
moment that he set foot on it, he walked in and we made presentations to
him and he got it, he understood what we were trying to do and of course
his whole idea for the university was to accelerate the university in
every way, I mean and uh accelerating poly was a good thing. We, we we
needed accelerating, no doubt about it and ah he helped to lead the fight
to get more funding, he helped to lead the fight to get more facilities
and as as that happened, uh he was always interested in finding the people
who could move the program forward and of course chuck and I were pretty
long in the tooth at the time chuck's a little older than I am. So uh
chuck was the first person to decide to step aside and and leave the uh
that part of the university activity. He did some other university
activities after that. But uh he he stepped aside and and we hired a new
provost who then had his ship to come in because he came to A S. U. And he
left A. S. U. And very short tenure. Their dream job I guess he got his,
he became president of Rose Holman in indiana and he's Ohio. And so going
back to that part of the country was a good thing for him. He also got a
boatload of money to do that. But in the final analysis that left a sort
of a vacuum and uh I feel that vacuum as interim. And then when the
interim period sort of started to linger, I was made the titled right vice
president and executive vice provost. And that that went on for three
years and he talked about the arrival of dr Crow and and we all know that
what a change agent he is he has been. And uh sometimes when somebody like
that comes into an existing situation holdover faculty might feel a bit
threatened but you seem to have bonded fairly quickly with him. And I
understand there's a funny story behind that. I don't know if you don't
want to share that that that story
I have never told but I guess for this occasion I'll do that. Ah I had
been selected by the search committee to be one of his escorts when he
made the rounds of A. S. U. And made presentations to the faculty and
staff and students and on the day that he was scheduled to make a
presentation in the union to primarily faculty. Uh I escorted him and
introduced him to the group and we sat together on the stage behind the
makeshift desk. You know how in the emu they put that platform and we had
chairs and he I had made a wonderful presentation and he's an exuberant
kind of guy you know and at the moment that he finished he just sort of
pushed back like that and the chair legs went off the edge of the platform
and he started over and I was sitting right next to him to to his his
right and and as the chair went over of course I tried to save him, you
know being the hero that I am. Uh and he's as big as me mostly. And so I
reached over and grabbed him and both of us went on over heels up and I
think luckily we didn't hit our heads too much but we both got a little
bang on the back of the head and on the wall and of course here we are
with cameras rolling feet up in the air. So
somebody claims I shoved him off. Well we now have it on record that
that's not what happened. But you know, he says I tried to save him what
other, you know, special memories or anything else that we didn't touch
upon and you know through your history that you you you you want to talk.
Well I really have lots of pleasant memories of S. U. And among those or
my service to the athletics program. I served as chair of the I see a
board For a period of about three years. I also served as a member of the
board for a period of about 11 years which is sort of unheard of. But
during that period we won the Rose Bowl and we we went to many other bowls
during that period of time. We had some interesting times with basketball.
Basketball has always been a challenge at issue and continues to be.
Although we're probably better now than we've been in a long time. Uh we
had just a wonderful baseball team. We won lots of championships. And uh
we had interesting times with baseball as well. Probably probably the
worst time I had during that period was I was uh working on a project that
we had in the College of Technology and Applied Science and I was in
Turkey. And uh we picked up a newspaper and the newspaper said a S. U.
Under investigation for the Nordle scandal and I I didn't even know what
nor deal was, you know, and so I ended up having to come back home and
deal with the Nordle scandal as chair of the, I see a board of,
But among among those, I had a chance to work with up close with three
presidents that I thought was as about as good as any presidential group
to serve any university in the country over a period of 20 years. And, and
that was Russ, nelson, Russ, nelson was a consummate professional who
thought through everything. He used all the talent around him well and he
did, uh, a wonderful thing in executing the mission of the university.
Just a tremendous person. And I had a chance to work with Larry core.
Actually went to um, his home school and ask questions about him as part
of the search committee that brought him here. And Laddie is, is probably
the most conscientious, most forward looking person that I've ever worked
with and worked for from a positive point of view. And of course, I then
served on the search committee for Michael. And Michael is high intellect
, hi work level and a person who has goals that probably would not occur
for the average person because they just wouldn't take it on, Michael will
challenge and be successful About 65% of the time, most of the most
difficult problems that the university faces. And as a result of that,
he's the one who moves you forward more than anybody else, but the
university was really tremendously blessed by having those three people
run it. And we are now still doing well even in the current environment
because we had those people and you're now retired and I use the little
quote marks because you basically still work all the time. Uh tell us
about what you are now doing in your retirement post services provost.
Well, I've always had a passion for education in general and for higher
education specifically. And about 21 years ago, ah my colleagues in the
Hispanic Research center, Gary Keller, uh his leadership came to me and
said uh we are interested in these programs that are being offered in the
human resource development part of N. S. F. That is going to develop
underrepresented minorities for positions in the professorial and we would
like to have you join us. I was already doing a lot of this, but it was
without a big partnership. I was doing it in the College of Engineering
with many heroes who some some people may not remember working on
sustaining matriculation and trying to make sure that underrepresented
minorities went through the process and graduated and uh they had found
out about that. And so they asked me to join and and we wrote proposals
and we one The proposals and we have a string of them over the period of
21 years or so. We brought in something like 50 $51 million for the
purpose of supporting those programs, not only at A. S. U. But in our
entire Rocky Mountains Southwest environment. And uh that program is alive
and well. And I am now the program director for the uh graduate effort at
putting underrepresented minorities in a position to receive phds in stem
and then to have their mentors nurture them into positions in the
professor, professor at with tenure. And so that's going on. It's it's a
good program. It is likely to get some additional emphasis because of the
current goals that are going on in our society in general. Well, I think
we're we're almost done here. But I think uh tell us, you know, of all
your accomplishments issue, you know, what do you do you feel the most
satisfied about? Well, I have, I have always been a devotee of using
higher education for getting people into the applied side of engineering
activity. That's why we're called technology.
And it has been not the easiest slog in the world because
the the intellectual fervor of my engineering colleagues would like to
choke us to death. They would like to to eliminate that and put all the
money into the PhD effort which is aimed at narrow gauge research based
learning and not creating competence to implement technology. So I have
been one of those people with the finger in the dike trying to keep that
that part of higher education going, not, not that anybody would like to
get rid of it, they'd like to relegate it to the community colleges.
However, the community colleges cannot do it. Uh The world moves too
quickly and the under just to understand where today's technology is, you
have to still have the basic underpinnings of math, science, including
physics and chemistry. And you have to be able to have the skill to go
along with that to be competent in implementing the technology. And you
also need to be able to form those partnerships with industry and and the
prestige of the universe. Absolutely. You have to, your goal is to work
with industry and to meet their current needs. And of course, industry
right now will tell you that they're having to go abroad to find people to
meet that need. There's not enough people serving the need of the day to
day running of the factory environment at the price that they like to do
it. Of course, that's one of the problems of dealing with the industry.
You have to accommodate some of their um more difficultneeds