WEBVTT 00:00:00.140 --> 00:00:06.117 Hello. Uh today is Wednesday March 30th 2011. We are conducting an 00:00:06.150 --> 00:00:11.086 interview for the Arizona State University retirees Association video 00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:14.927 history project. We are located today in the interdisciplinary studies 00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:21.727 building boardroom? I'm Robbie Sherwood. I am the uh founder and owner of 00:00:21.760 --> 00:00:25.756 earned media consulting and I also am a contract public information 00:00:25.789 --> 00:00:30.067 officer for the United States Attorney's Office district of Arizona. The 00:00:30.100 --> 00:00:34.527 technical support staff we have here today as john macintosh operating the 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:39.807 camera, roger carter carter, excuse me monitoring the audio and also in 00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:43.237 attendance is linda Vance coy, chair of the S. U. R. A video history 00:00:43.270 --> 00:00:46.836 project. And with us we have Doctor Albert McKinley. Could you please 00:00:46.869 --> 00:00:51.656 introduce yourself and state your name and position here at issue. I'm Al 00:00:51.689 --> 00:00:55.997 Mchenry and right now I'm a research professor in the Hispanic Research 00:00:56.030 --> 00:01:02.497 Center pursuing a long term NSF project That I've been engaged with for 00:01:02.530 --> 00:01:09.307 over 20 years that is focused on improving the number of stem graduates 00:01:09.340 --> 00:01:14.236 seeking a position in the professorial. So we're working at the doctoral 00:01:14.269 --> 00:01:18.367 level right now, extremely important stuff for our, our university and our 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:26.087 economy to begin with. Let us know a little bit about uh, before you got 00:01:26.120 --> 00:01:28.846 to issue your, your earlier, where, where were you born and where did 00:01:28.879 --> 00:01:36.879 where did you grow up? Well, I'm uh person who was born right at the time 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:45.120 of the beginning of World War Two in rust in Louisiana. Born in 1941 with. 00:01:46.239 --> 00:01:49.626 Tell us a little bit about what Reston for people not familiar. What is, 00:01:49.659 --> 00:01:56.007 what, what is rusting like? Rustin is a small town uh in in the middle of 00:01:56.040 --> 00:02:04.040 north Louisiana right on interstate 20. It has Grambling and Louisiana 00:02:04.159 --> 00:02:11.747 Tech, Both located within four miles of each other. And so it's sort of a 00:02:11.780 --> 00:02:19.606 north Louisiana education center and it is rolling hills with tall pines 00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:26.626 and is the center of the peach growing part of the state. And we have the 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:33.177 peach festival uh in Rustin and report annually to celebrate that. I 00:02:33.210 --> 00:02:36.057 happen to know that you come from a very strong educational background, 00:02:36.090 --> 00:02:38.626 but tell us a little bit about your your your family life and your 00:02:38.659 --> 00:02:42.957 circumstances and you know where you come from a rich family, poor family 00:02:42.990 --> 00:02:49.256 , where where did you fall in that? Well, I was I was born into a family 00:02:49.289 --> 00:02:56.247 that valued education very highly. Uh My father was the first person in 00:02:56.280 --> 00:03:01.577 the family to seek higher education and he holds a bachelor's degree from 00:03:01.610 --> 00:03:05.686 Grambling and a master's degree from the University of michigan and he 00:03:05.719 --> 00:03:13.566 influenced all of his Children and his nieces and nephews toward higher 00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:20.207 education. So our family has uh several lawyers and several ph D. S in it. 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:27.297 Uh And of course my wife and I both have phds and uh our Children all 00:03:27.330 --> 00:03:32.737 have had aspirations for higher education and they hold degrees that are 00:03:32.770 --> 00:03:36.827 masters degrees at least and several in the professional and what did you 00:03:36.860 --> 00:03:40.897 tell your undergraduate? I went to southern university, I couldn't go to 00:03:40.930 --> 00:03:45.096 grambling or Louisiana tech for various reasons. And uh I went to southern 00:03:45.129 --> 00:03:50.747 , which is 200 miles away and that's a little better. And and uh you you 00:03:50.780 --> 00:03:55.876 started your your academic career there as well, is that right? I did uh 00:03:55.909 --> 00:04:01.686 well I had had some serendipity. Uh I graduated and went to work for the 00:04:01.719 --> 00:04:09.719 Boeing company and transferred from Seattle to Miss You, which was just 00:04:09.759 --> 00:04:15.356 outside of New Orleans and was the Saturn five booster program site. He 00:04:15.389 --> 00:04:19.926 worked for the space program. I worked for the space program and one day, 00:04:19.959 --> 00:04:27.959 one afternoon in early fall, my dean, my former dean since I moved on 00:04:28.379 --> 00:04:34.676 Henry Lewis terman showed up at my door at my, in my apartment late in the 00:04:34.709 --> 00:04:39.577 afternoon and said let's take a walk and I'll go out and have some supper 00:04:39.610 --> 00:04:45.926 and talk. And so I did that. And what he did is he offered me a teaching 00:04:45.959 --> 00:04:53.087 position that it was really a replacement temporary replacement of my 00:04:53.120 --> 00:04:58.986 former major professor at seven because he had precipitously died and I 00:04:59.019 --> 00:05:03.796 didn't even know that he had passed away at the time. I thought about it 00:05:03.829 --> 00:05:09.777 for about 15 minutes and took the job, but only 15 minutes. You're going 00:05:09.810 --> 00:05:13.447 to walk away from uh probably a very lucrative career and industry to go 00:05:13.480 --> 00:05:17.986 back to this small historically black historically African American 00:05:18.019 --> 00:05:22.606 college which you attended for a teaching position. Help us understand why 00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:26.937 that was not a more difficult. 00:05:26.970 --> 00:05:31.346 Well I was I was brand new at the industrial job. I had been there a 00:05:31.379 --> 00:05:39.379 little over a year and I had learned about the whole process of space 00:05:42.339 --> 00:05:50.267 Production. We were gonna build 12 Iterations of the S. one c booster And 00:05:50.300 --> 00:05:58.300 we had built two already. And there was a little inside joke that went on 00:05:58.370 --> 00:06:04.067 by among us folks who were building those, we call ourselves space gypsies 00:06:04.100 --> 00:06:07.726 because we were looking for the next one and so far there hadn't been the 00:06:07.759 --> 00:06:11.806 next one. The shuttle was not, the shuttle was on the drawing board but it 00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:16.046 had no contract had been led and nobody knew when the next one was coming 00:06:16.079 --> 00:06:22.416 along. So I thought well I can I was very altruistic about helping my 00:06:22.449 --> 00:06:28.906 university. That that's one of the overriding things. But I also I felt 00:06:28.939 --> 00:06:34.246 that there was no permanent job associated with the space activity at that 00:06:34.279 --> 00:06:39.377 time. And so it was an opportunity to still find my way. I hadn't totally 00:06:39.410 --> 00:06:42.866 found that way. And then let's let's jump ahead a little bit of the 00:06:42.899 --> 00:06:47.866 understand you're at southern for a while, approximately how long 12 years. 00:06:47.899 --> 00:06:53.147 I was at southern for 12 years including uh one of the years. I was in 00:06:53.180 --> 00:06:57.937 graduate school here. So what then brought you to Arizona State University 00:06:57.970 --> 00:07:05.970 of Louisiana boy in essentially his his backyard and probably a certain 00:07:06.550 --> 00:07:12.156 amount of comfort zone too. Pick up a young family by that time I think 00:07:12.189 --> 00:07:16.056 you probably had your your Children. And and uh it's settled down. What 00:07:16.089 --> 00:07:22.567 what what brought you to a S. U. In Arizona? Well I had grown to really 00:07:22.600 --> 00:07:28.007 love teaching in higher education activities and higher education 00:07:28.040 --> 00:07:36.040 institution. Um I'm sort of a person who is a workaholic and who takes 00:07:36.060 --> 00:07:43.656 life very seriously. And by that time I had evolved into a situation where 00:07:43.689 --> 00:07:48.967 I was being pressed by the university to get involved in many more things. 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:53.556 Many more activities, represent the university on committees and and to 00:07:53.589 --> 00:07:59.507 travel some representing the university abroad in the country. And and I 00:07:59.540 --> 00:08:04.406 would be embarrassed because they would introduce me as dr Mchenry and I 00:08:04.439 --> 00:08:10.817 had to step back and say no I'm not dr Mchenry. And so I decided that I 00:08:10.850 --> 00:08:17.207 needed credentialing. And so I started looking for institutions that would 00:08:17.240 --> 00:08:21.726 deal with me the way I was because I prepared myself for an industrial 00:08:21.759 --> 00:08:28.546 career and I had a degree uh that didn't necessarily comport with doctoral 00:08:28.579 --> 00:08:35.677 study. So Arizona State was one of the few institutions in the country 00:08:35.710 --> 00:08:43.557 that had a pathway for me to get a dark road degree. I found about, I 00:08:43.590 --> 00:08:48.996 found about seven of those and I applied to them all and Arizona State 00:08:49.029 --> 00:08:52.717 University was the first one to get back to me and was the first one to 00:08:52.750 --> 00:08:58.317 offer me money as a scholarship. And this was an engineering or this, this 00:08:58.350 --> 00:09:04.807 was in engineering technology as you had an engineering technology program 00:09:04.840 --> 00:09:11.417 with a master's degree, no doctoral degree. And they offered me a job as a 00:09:11.450 --> 00:09:15.457 graduate assistant teaching in the engineering technology program which I 00:09:15.490 --> 00:09:18.516 was doing at Southern. That is what I was doing. It's a teaching 00:09:18.549 --> 00:09:22.687 electronic engineering technology describe for us, if you can remember 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:27.217 those times well what the issue was like at those times, I'm convinced it 00:09:27.250 --> 00:09:32.917 was very different. She was very different then. Um at issue was an 00:09:32.950 --> 00:09:37.876 interesting institution because of its evolutionary history, going from a 00:09:37.909 --> 00:09:44.766 normal school to the bellwether school in the primary population center of 00:09:44.799 --> 00:09:51.726 the state was a very significant part of a sus development. And in doing 00:09:51.759 --> 00:09:57.677 so it had programmatic structure that was different from the land grant 00:09:57.710 --> 00:10:02.967 issues, not a land grant institution. So it s you did not follow that 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:08.866 trend to build the research infrastructure around agriculture and that 00:10:08.899 --> 00:10:14.217 sort of thing that the U. Of A. Did for example, which was a moral act 00:10:14.250 --> 00:10:21.177 school. And as a result it had programmatic structure that would enable me 00:10:21.210 --> 00:10:25.417 to take the engineering technology program which did not exist anywhere 00:10:25.450 --> 00:10:32.116 else in the west. Uh with a master's degree, there were schools in the 00:10:32.149 --> 00:10:38.557 midwest that had that Purdue Northwestern 00:10:38.590 --> 00:10:46.307 several others. And and quite frankly, I like the warm and so coming to 00:10:46.340 --> 00:10:52.087 the son was a good thing. And I also was looking for an opportunity for my 00:10:52.120 --> 00:10:56.876 wife who had ambitions to get a doctoral degree as well. And there was a 00:10:56.909 --> 00:11:03.756 higher education administration degree program at A. S. U. Which fit what 00:11:03.789 --> 00:11:06.207 was the 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:09.976 the department like at the time. Was it was it knew was it had been well 00:11:10.009 --> 00:11:15.797 established or was I mean did it kind of grow with you or it was a very 00:11:15.830 --> 00:11:20.516 interesting construct because at A. S. U. The industrial technology 00:11:20.549 --> 00:11:27.246 program existed before the engineering college did. And as A. S. You 00:11:27.279 --> 00:11:35.279 started to evolve towards the research enterprise. Uh Those activities 00:11:35.889 --> 00:11:41.026 pushed the development of an engineering program which was built inside 00:11:41.059 --> 00:11:46.106 the engineering technology activities that were part of the industrial 00:11:46.139 --> 00:11:54.139 technology college. And so when I got here which was 19 00:11:55.779 --> 00:12:00.646 1974 75, that's when I was applying. And and arriving. 00:12:00.679 --> 00:12:06.587 And so what happened was the engineering college was built on top of the 00:12:06.620 --> 00:12:11.776 technology program at issue. And when I got here it was the College of 00:12:11.809 --> 00:12:15.947 Engineering and Technology which was the same way it was at Southern. It 00:12:15.980 --> 00:12:19.746 built the same way with the name being the same College of Engineering and 00:12:19.779 --> 00:12:25.047 Technology. So I was teaching in an engineering college. Uh And the 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:29.616 construct was such that the technology program and the engineering program 00:12:29.649 --> 00:12:34.276 at Southern had the first two years, pretty much the same. And then the 00:12:34.309 --> 00:12:39.496 students would break out into their more formal pathways and it s you it 00:12:39.529 --> 00:12:43.996 wasn't quite that way, but there was a very heavy engineering faculty 00:12:44.029 --> 00:12:50.047 emphasis on the technology program here at the issue. And there was also a 00:12:50.080 --> 00:12:55.846 connection with the education college, which was good for me because with 00:12:55.879 --> 00:13:00.776 my strange way of thinking, I had put those two things together that 00:13:00.809 --> 00:13:05.087 engineers needed to learn some education. They needed to learn how people 00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:11.386 learn and to use learning theory as a basis for teaching engineering. Now 00:13:11.419 --> 00:13:17.886 it sounds like a very uh good academic describe 00:13:17.919 --> 00:13:21.697 a little bit about how it was to move here from a cultural standpoint. Uh 00:13:21.730 --> 00:13:27.736 , you you came from a historically black institution, extremely diverse 00:13:27.769 --> 00:13:32.396 state and not that Arizona is not as diverse, but assuming that there was 00:13:32.429 --> 00:13:36.006 some, some cultural adjustments you made. Tell me about, about, you know 00:13:36.039 --> 00:13:40.136 what kind of adventure that was? Well, it was, it was interesting, the 00:13:40.169 --> 00:13:48.169 campus life was not that much of a change. The, the hues in the faces of 00:13:48.730 --> 00:13:53.057 the people were different, but the people were pretty much the same. And 00:13:53.090 --> 00:13:57.896 I'm one of those people who gets along with people no matter who they are 00:13:57.929 --> 00:14:03.457 , where they are. Uh, and and we see the world pretty much the same. Uh, 00:14:03.490 --> 00:14:08.437 the, the social life in the community was different, however, because the 00:14:08.470 --> 00:14:13.356 black population of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area was probably something 00:14:13.389 --> 00:14:18.587 in the neighborhood of 2% at that time. And the The black population of 00:14:18.620 --> 00:14:26.620 Mesa where I chose to live was probably like a .45%, 00:14:26.990 --> 00:14:32.307 barely measurable, but there there was a little section of town that was 00:14:32.340 --> 00:14:37.697 called the village and yes, in Mesa and and so I got to know those people 00:14:37.730 --> 00:14:45.730 uh but I also got to know my nearby environment residents and and had a 00:14:47.269 --> 00:14:52.797 lot of friendships and still have many of those friendships uh and and 00:14:52.830 --> 00:15:00.006 enjoyed them greatly. I thought that I was um 00:15:00.039 --> 00:15:07.327 supported and given the welcome to the community about as well as anybody 00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:13.667 else gets it. And my kids went to Mesa school, Mesa public schools and my 00:15:13.700 --> 00:15:19.866 wife uh was engaged in the community a bit and we we had a good time there 00:15:19.899 --> 00:15:25.266 and and we still do, we love mason. Uh back to issue who, who was running 00:15:25.299 --> 00:15:28.866 your department at that time and who was the provost and msu president, 00:15:28.899 --> 00:15:33.217 kind of, reminder reminder folks of who was in charge during that period. 00:15:33.250 --> 00:15:40.077 Well that was President Suarez period and uh the College of Engineering 00:15:40.110 --> 00:15:48.110 was being run by, oh, the founding Dean of Engineering 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:54.677 and I'm struggling for his. Yes li p Thompson was was the dean of the 00:15:54.710 --> 00:16:02.710 College of Engineering and the School of Technology was being run by a 00:16:05.950 --> 00:16:11.486 group of of really top draw professors who mostly came from the University 00:16:11.519 --> 00:16:19.519 of Missouri. And in my master's program, my major professor was thomas 00:16:20.480 --> 00:16:25.896 conman, thomas able conman who became a mentor. I'm gonna ask you if you 00:16:25.929 --> 00:16:29.646 had a mentor, but let's let's talk about my personal, my personal friend, 00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:36.766 he was a basketball fan and a baseball fan. We shared going to games 00:16:36.799 --> 00:16:44.799 together and that sort of thing. And his, his entree to all the university 00:16:45.409 --> 00:16:50.276 was really helpful to me. And that's the, the definition of a mentor for 00:16:50.309 --> 00:16:55.606 you. He, what what other type of guidance did he provide for? Well, he he 00:16:55.639 --> 00:16:57.667 also 00:16:57.700 --> 00:17:05.700 introduced me to the processes of a major university more than anyone else. 00:17:06.650 --> 00:17:14.650 Uh He made me understand the need to publish, uh he gave me uh entree to 00:17:14.700 --> 00:17:20.207 the national organizations that he belonged to and we had another very 00:17:20.240 --> 00:17:24.786 close friends. So the three of us became sort of a triangular writing 00:17:24.819 --> 00:17:30.826 group and we critiqued each other and we we co wrote things together. His 00:17:30.859 --> 00:17:37.127 name was lying mccurdy who recently retired from cal poly pomona. Okay, so 00:17:37.160 --> 00:17:41.276 that that was, that was a good thing. So, so you matriculated you get your 00:17:41.309 --> 00:17:46.836 your your doctorate here? Well that was the master's degree program that I 00:17:46.869 --> 00:17:52.427 just described the doctoral program. Um I decided to stay and go on for 00:17:52.460 --> 00:17:58.707 the doctoral degree. And and uh the department chair of the secondary 00:17:58.740 --> 00:18:04.526 education program became my advisor and my mentor in that program because 00:18:04.559 --> 00:18:09.236 I wanted to focus on learning theory. Learning psychology. And uh that was 00:18:09.269 --> 00:18:13.367 john Bell john Bell is still in the environment right now. We sit together 00:18:13.400 --> 00:18:19.657 at football games most of the time And uh we had a really strong personal 00:18:19.690 --> 00:18:24.127 relationship. Is it, was it typical or is it typical now to stay at the 00:18:24.160 --> 00:18:28.526 same institution for your masters and your doctoral? It is it is not 00:18:28.559 --> 00:18:34.147 necessarily typical. However, because of the strange uh kind of put 00:18:34.180 --> 00:18:38.867 together that I was creating for a doctoral degree. This was a wonderful 00:18:38.900 --> 00:18:45.437 place to do it because the College of Engineering due to its industrial 00:18:45.470 --> 00:18:51.016 technology founding had a direct relationship with the College of 00:18:51.049 --> 00:18:55.986 Education and there were a number of people who were getting degrees 00:18:56.019 --> 00:19:03.286 in education in collaboration with the technology programs. And that was 00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:08.796 not abnormal at the time. So, so it worked out well here. There were a few 00:19:08.829 --> 00:19:13.357 other institutions around the country that that invited me. But when I 00:19:13.390 --> 00:19:17.236 looked at it carefully, I wanted to stay here. Oklahoma State for example 00:19:17.269 --> 00:19:21.246 , is one of those institutions that was doing that kind of thing. And I 00:19:21.279 --> 00:19:27.746 know it is rather atypical. Also, once you have a doctorate to begin 00:19:27.779 --> 00:19:31.677 teaching at that same university, I probably don't understand why that's 00:19:31.710 --> 00:19:36.207 the case. But but you were an anomaly there as well because you started 00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:39.897 your academic career where you started a new academic career, remember I 00:19:39.930 --> 00:19:47.930 started teaching and the program With my master's degree in 1970s and 1975. 00:19:48.579 --> 00:19:54.847 And so by the time I got my doctorate in 1980, wow, I was really 00:19:54.880 --> 00:19:58.617 entrenched in the program. I have been, I have been teaching in that 00:19:58.650 --> 00:20:05.157 program for five years and I had rave reviews and I had students who have 00:20:05.190 --> 00:20:10.897 graduated who thought well of me and when there were several positions 00:20:10.930 --> 00:20:15.957 because we were in a growth phase, there were several positions open. Uh I 00:20:15.990 --> 00:20:23.256 actually was asked to apply for one and uh that that might have been an 00:20:23.289 --> 00:20:30.806 affirmative action step because at the time I was the only person of color 00:20:30.839 --> 00:20:35.816 in the program and if I left there would have been none. So what was the 00:20:35.849 --> 00:20:40.066 program that you started? It was the department of electronics at the time 00:20:40.099 --> 00:20:46.806 ? Yes. In the in the School of Technology, in the College of Engineering, 00:20:46.839 --> 00:20:53.437 did you feel a sense of responsibility uh to uh to perform and to you know 00:20:53.470 --> 00:20:56.717 , to uh you know, knock it out of the park if this was indeed an 00:20:56.750 --> 00:21:00.806 affirmative action hire? Well, 00:21:00.839 --> 00:21:06.796 it is, it is sort of my nature to try to do well. Oh, and so I have been 00:21:06.829 --> 00:21:13.986 doing well anyway uh to give you an example of that. Uh I had no summer 00:21:14.019 --> 00:21:22.019 commitment that from from the school. And so I maintained my office during 00:21:22.299 --> 00:21:26.637 the summer and I came to work every day. And since I was at work and the 00:21:26.670 --> 00:21:30.036 students would see me at work, they come in and asked me to do their 00:21:30.069 --> 00:21:35.786 advisement or to tutor them on some issue and I would do that and I didn't 00:21:35.819 --> 00:21:40.336 expect them to pay for that. I was using the office as a place to do my 00:21:40.369 --> 00:21:43.266 own thing. You're saying this is your leisure time. That was my leisure 00:21:43.299 --> 00:21:51.299 time. That's correct, More work. And so no, my, my mentor Tom conman who 00:21:51.750 --> 00:21:56.947 was also the department chair, saw that and he had a little kitty on the 00:21:56.980 --> 00:22:02.506 side of $1500 or so to buy some things and one summer he just paid me the 00:22:02.539 --> 00:22:09.006 $1500 because he felt sorry for me. Probably, let's talk about your, the 00:22:09.039 --> 00:22:12.387 progression of your Career from the, where did, where did you go from that 00:22:12.420 --> 00:22:20.420 first position? Uh well in 19, in 1980 I was hired and became a member of 00:22:20.890 --> 00:22:26.796 the regular faculty and you know what happens? You get a full load now. 00:22:26.829 --> 00:22:30.357 And so the first thing you do is you put your nose to the stone to teach 00:22:30.390 --> 00:22:34.836 those four courses that you have to teach, including the labs. And so I 00:22:34.869 --> 00:22:42.556 did that really? Uh oh dedicated in a dedicated way. And then the first 00:22:42.589 --> 00:22:46.467 thing that happened of course was tenure. Uh And so I wrote a pretty 00:22:46.500 --> 00:22:49.407 decent tenure document, 00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:57.440 went for tenure After being here for three years. And so I got tenure. And 00:22:57.819 --> 00:23:01.947 of course, uh, I had, I had a lot of teaching experience by that time. I 00:23:01.980 --> 00:23:06.687 had taught at southern for 12 years and of course I had taught, it hits 00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:11.996 you for five years. So I had a lot of experience and I knew how to do that 00:23:12.029 --> 00:23:18.306 and it came right in in due course. No, no hitches, no glitches. I had tom 00:23:18.339 --> 00:23:21.877 had taught me how to publish and I was, I was a big time publisher and 00:23:21.910 --> 00:23:27.897 some of my stuff still holds up today in the literature. And and uh when 00:23:27.930 --> 00:23:35.930 did you move into administration? When Uh in 1986. So this is 11 years 00:23:35.960 --> 00:23:42.476 after coming to AS. U. Uh tom decided that he would move on and he moved 00:23:42.509 --> 00:23:47.097 to University of san Francisco where he became the founding dean of the 00:23:47.130 --> 00:23:53.927 engineering program. And uh the position was open and I applied for it and 00:23:53.960 --> 00:23:58.707 Dean Roland Hayden uh decided that it would be a good thing to keep me on 00:23:58.740 --> 00:24:03.707 as the department chair. And so I became the department chair at that time. 00:24:03.740 --> 00:24:10.276 The university at that time, if if you Think about where the university 00:24:10.309 --> 00:24:15.907 was going was really growing. When I first came here, we were about 33, 00:24:15.940 --> 00:24:20.887 And by that time we had reached about 40. And the mission of the 00:24:20.920 --> 00:24:27.016 university had changed the mission of the university had become to become 00:24:27.049 --> 00:24:34.526 among the best public research universities in the country. And so at that 00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:42.559 point, my department now was under some new pressures to make that change 00:24:42.809 --> 00:24:49.036 to get involved with research uh to make sure that we still served our 00:24:49.069 --> 00:24:53.546 primary master because the whole technology program was aimed at 00:24:53.579 --> 00:24:58.697 developing people for the workforce in the field of electronics and to 00:24:58.730 --> 00:25:03.556 serve the big industry that we had here at that time which was Motorola 00:25:03.589 --> 00:25:11.589 intel Honeywell um G was here. So we had we had a big big thing going on 00:25:13.660 --> 00:25:20.607 and my graduates were people who populated those industries in in the 00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:26.357 primary positions. And to some degree they still do today. And so you were 00:25:26.390 --> 00:25:31.357 responsible for directing a kind of a change in focus to to the workforce 00:25:31.390 --> 00:25:35.407 to research from two research. 00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:40.217 Tell me at what point did uh Because I know we're getting into probably 00:25:40.250 --> 00:25:46.667 close to the early 90s. Ah isn't that when a issue decided to open an east 00:25:46.700 --> 00:25:52.187 campus or how did how did that happen? Well that was an interesting period. 00:25:52.220 --> 00:26:00.220 The university, I had a new leader at that time who was glad the core and 00:26:00.640 --> 00:26:06.347 dr core as part of his original formulation of how he was going to move 00:26:06.380 --> 00:26:12.367 the issue forward under the new mandate uh indicated that he wanted to not 00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:19.147 only develop the Tempe campus and the west campus which had already been 00:26:19.180 --> 00:26:25.256 founded at that time but to also create an East Valley entity associated 00:26:25.289 --> 00:26:31.897 with S. U. And had set up an exploratory committee to sort of look at it. 00:26:31.930 --> 00:26:35.867 And the leadership of that was primarily founded in the College of 00:26:35.900 --> 00:26:40.107 Engineering and I knew those people and had served with them for a long 00:26:40.140 --> 00:26:47.117 time. And there was a lot of talk inside the college about taking uh three 00:26:47.150 --> 00:26:51.576 of the colleges units and spinning them off in some way and the three 00:26:51.609 --> 00:26:58.407 units were uh technology agribusiness and construction. 00:26:58.440 --> 00:27:04.076 And by that time we had become the School of Construction and Technology 00:27:04.109 --> 00:27:09.187 as part of the thinking around, how do we get our arms around this? And 00:27:09.220 --> 00:27:15.066 agribusiness was still sort of sticking out there as a 5th wheel and uh 00:27:15.099 --> 00:27:22.927 that was in the mix during that period and the opportunity to actually 00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:30.960 fulfill it came about with brak um activities which set up transferring 00:27:31.380 --> 00:27:35.407 military property, closing down military bases and transferring property. 00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:41.187 Williams. Air Force Base was selected for the BRAC Project process was 00:27:41.220 --> 00:27:45.347 slated to be closed down and there was this policy decisions all across 00:27:45.380 --> 00:27:48.286 the border of what are we going to do with this with this Air Force base, 00:27:48.319 --> 00:27:52.306 but what are we going to do with this Air Force base? And Charles bacchus 00:27:52.339 --> 00:27:58.006 , who was Associate dean of Engineering at that time, was on the 00:27:58.039 --> 00:28:05.887 repurposing committee, appointed by the governor. And so one day I was 00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:10.286 walking down the mall toward the technology center and he was coming out 00:28:10.319 --> 00:28:15.546 of the engineering building which I had to pass and he said, oh come over 00:28:15.579 --> 00:28:19.707 and sit down with me and let's chat for a minute. And so we sat on one of 00:28:19.740 --> 00:28:24.607 the little benches that that's out in front of the engineering building 00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:30.336 and he said at that time I was director of the School of Technology and 00:28:30.369 --> 00:28:35.617 construction. He said we're going to have this opportunity to create an 00:28:35.650 --> 00:28:43.377 institution at William. Would you like to be involved in having your 00:28:43.410 --> 00:28:50.076 flight program go there? Because at that time our aeronautical program was 00:28:50.109 --> 00:28:53.697 was really all over the valley, we were flying out of Goodyear, can you 00:28:53.730 --> 00:28:59.726 imagine that as kids driving all the way to Goodyear to fly? And he said, 00:28:59.759 --> 00:29:03.976 you know there there's a beautiful runway out there and all the facilities 00:29:04.009 --> 00:29:07.637 set up to do the flying right out of there. So it's a sales pitch, right? 00:29:07.670 --> 00:29:12.536 So it's a sales pitch. How how persuasive was dr Baccus. He seems a bit of 00:29:12.569 --> 00:29:17.427 a character I don't know. Well chuck is one of my best friends in all the 00:29:17.460 --> 00:29:22.486 world and a great, great guy and he and I had a good relationship all this 00:29:22.519 --> 00:29:28.036 time and he knows me well enough to know that I don't equivocate came very 00:29:28.069 --> 00:29:36.069 much and I told him almost without taking a breath that we would love to 00:29:37.200 --> 00:29:42.016 do it. But we don't want to just put the flight program out there. We'd 00:29:42.049 --> 00:29:46.697 like to have the whole technology program go out there and maybe the 00:29:46.730 --> 00:29:51.187 construction program if they would like to do that. 00:29:51.220 --> 00:29:57.177 What was his reaction? He got very excited because he was thinking of that 00:29:57.210 --> 00:30:03.467 campus as being uh educational mall with a lot of choice. Well just having 00:30:03.500 --> 00:30:08.576 the aviation program would not have been much choice, but the method in my 00:30:08.609 --> 00:30:13.437 madness was that it would give us an opportunity to separate from 00:30:13.470 --> 00:30:19.397 engineering because engineering and technology are focused on the same 00:30:19.430 --> 00:30:25.806 topical content with different different educational approaches. And and 00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:30.957 it it would develop better, we would have better support and better uh 00:30:30.990 --> 00:30:35.357 control of its own destiny if we would just move a bit away from. So it 00:30:35.390 --> 00:30:41.107 sounds like the the genesis for what has become a issue polytechnic was 00:30:41.140 --> 00:30:47.697 largely launched on a park bench that every day is on the mall. A pretty 00:30:47.730 --> 00:30:51.967 offhand conversation with 00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:59.556 my sort of knee jerk responses to incite. So so you you packed up an 00:30:59.589 --> 00:31:05.776 entire school is actually, it didn't happen quite that easily. I mean the 00:31:05.809 --> 00:31:10.947 the world doesn't move, you know, because two people say it should uh we 00:31:10.980 --> 00:31:16.897 ended up having to deal with the politics and the policy in order to make 00:31:16.930 --> 00:31:24.486 that that happen. And it was it was not as intuitive as as my knee jerk 00:31:24.519 --> 00:31:29.526 thing. And so we had to sell it, we had to sell it first inside and and 00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:33.927 the attitudes inside was that we're taking a s you apart, you know, we 00:31:33.960 --> 00:31:37.387 really don't want to take a s you apart. What we want to do is create 00:31:37.420 --> 00:31:45.420 something new out there, but we we had the feeling that maturity of 00:31:46.579 --> 00:31:53.226 programs is part of the formula for success of growth and immediate 00:31:53.259 --> 00:31:59.326 routing and getting on with with the activity of building the new campus. 00:31:59.359 --> 00:32:04.407 And so we were able to sell that. Uh, I think laddie bought it almost 00:32:04.440 --> 00:32:08.816 immediately. It took milk a little while. Bill did not like taking his 00:32:08.849 --> 00:32:13.996 main campus apart. He did not like that. But uh, I see him from time to 00:32:14.029 --> 00:32:20.316 time now part of my present project is with his university and uh, we have 00:32:20.349 --> 00:32:27.637 come to the conclusion that I was right. When when did you open your 00:32:27.670 --> 00:32:33.086 doors at CSU East as it was called then before it was polly. Yes. So we 00:32:33.119 --> 00:32:41.119 loaded up lock stock and barrel in The summer of 94 and moved down the 00:32:41.130 --> 00:32:49.130 highway to now describe subscribe if you can some of the challenges that 00:32:50.640 --> 00:32:58.086 creating an academic environment out of the corpus of, of retired military 00:32:58.119 --> 00:33:01.607 facility and all the challenges that you had to have their and give us 00:33:01.640 --> 00:33:06.697 some examples of some of the things you had to overcome. Well, it's, it 00:33:06.730 --> 00:33:12.786 was a big challenge in some respects and others. It was a pleasure. First 00:33:12.819 --> 00:33:17.586 of all we had a very mature faculty who wanted to do this. The faculty 00:33:17.619 --> 00:33:22.617 ended up voting to do this to go. I mean, just the fact that two people 00:33:22.650 --> 00:33:27.127 sat on a bench and decided that we ought to try. 00:33:27.160 --> 00:33:31.086 What was it was just that was just that, I mean, we, we decided we ought 00:33:31.119 --> 00:33:34.976 to try to do this, that we ought to advocate it, but in the final analysis 00:33:35.009 --> 00:33:41.627 , uh faculty members almost unanimously, only a few decided to take early 00:33:41.660 --> 00:33:46.036 retirement and mostly because they were right at retirement and they lived 00:33:46.069 --> 00:33:50.976 over in the far West Valley and, you know, the transportation would have 00:33:51.009 --> 00:33:54.657 been difficult, they weren't really interested in selling out their homes 00:33:54.690 --> 00:33:59.836 and moving, and that's what sol funeral did retire. But most, most, all of 00:33:59.869 --> 00:34:04.957 the faculty moved and most all of the staff moved and so that part went 00:34:04.990 --> 00:34:09.546 easily. They got better office space. The military knows how to create 00:34:09.579 --> 00:34:14.907 good office space for their people. And so the base was very accommodating 00:34:14.940 --> 00:34:22.940 in that way. Um the, the idea of free parking, you know, it was a big, big 00:34:23.329 --> 00:34:30.736 help for them. Um we also had to convince our students who were in 00:34:30.769 --> 00:34:38.157 progress that this was not a step backwards. And so we actually loaded 00:34:38.190 --> 00:34:42.026 people up on busses and took them on tours to the good facilities that 00:34:42.059 --> 00:34:50.059 were there. The Williams Air Force Base was the most effective and 00:34:51.340 --> 00:34:53.606 aggressive 00:34:53.639 --> 00:35:00.106 educational system in the Air Force because it was first level jet pilot 00:35:00.139 --> 00:35:05.126 training and those folks got treated well and they had good classroom 00:35:05.159 --> 00:35:10.847 facilities with good presentation capability and we really didn't have to 00:35:10.880 --> 00:35:15.677 do much in order to have, so the infrastructure lent itself to, the 00:35:15.710 --> 00:35:21.177 infrastructure worked out very well uh for the first few years until we 00:35:21.210 --> 00:35:24.336 started to grow of course, and then we had to think about how we were 00:35:24.369 --> 00:35:31.177 going to expand. Right? But that that that first two or three years went 00:35:31.210 --> 00:35:37.267 very well and then we got into the growth period and of course now we 00:35:37.300 --> 00:35:43.807 gotta struggle for money and we've got to find out how we're going to grow 00:35:43.840 --> 00:35:49.956 the facilities in order to accommodate the greater ambition. And so we did 00:35:49.989 --> 00:35:55.376 that we we got state appropriations uh to renovate several of the 00:35:55.409 --> 00:35:59.747 buildings and we got buildings renovated and upgraded. I can I can 00:35:59.780 --> 00:36:07.780 remember me appearing uh in a article in the tribune in a bunny suit uh 00:36:08.420 --> 00:36:11.856 and standing in the middle of an empty teaching factory that we were 00:36:11.889 --> 00:36:16.137 repurposing for for semiconductor 00:36:16.170 --> 00:36:23.497 education. Uh you know uh I think that this this program would like to 00:36:23.530 --> 00:36:27.097 know about, you know, notable achievements. Would you rank this as one of 00:36:27.130 --> 00:36:31.856 the more notable achievements of your career? Where would it rank having 00:36:31.889 --> 00:36:36.486 to start this campus and and and help get it going and to see where it is 00:36:36.519 --> 00:36:43.197 today? Well, I think in the greater scheme of things, it it was the the 00:36:43.230 --> 00:36:50.396 primary a gift that I made to the university and to the state of Arizona. 00:36:50.429 --> 00:36:54.967 Oh of course I did not do it alone. I did it in conjunction with a lot of 00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.396 other very brilliant and dedicated people, 00:36:59.429 --> 00:37:04.217 my friends chuck bacchus and terry ISAAcson. We're very, very 00:37:04.250 --> 00:37:09.876 implementation this about this whole thing. I mean they these guys gave of 00:37:09.909 --> 00:37:15.137 themselves 24/7 and helped to make this happen and of course the faculty 00:37:15.170 --> 00:37:19.967 of of the College of Technology and Applied Sciences, which we became 00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:25.646 almost immediately after getting there were people who gave unselfishly of 00:37:25.679 --> 00:37:30.497 themselves and made that happen and you had the honor of serving as 00:37:30.530 --> 00:37:37.197 provost. When was that? Well, that that sort of came in due course of the 00:37:37.230 --> 00:37:42.186 new administration. One of the things that occurred almost immediately 00:37:42.219 --> 00:37:46.477 after we got our feet on the ground out there is we had a new president, I 00:37:46.510 --> 00:37:50.836 served on the search committee and the new president of course is dr 00:37:50.869 --> 00:37:58.787 Michael Crowe who's, who's here today. And Michael had yeah, a good 00:37:58.820 --> 00:38:02.606 understanding of what we were trying to do with that campus from the 00:38:02.639 --> 00:38:07.666 moment that he set foot on it, he walked in and we made presentations to 00:38:07.699 --> 00:38:13.727 him and he got it, he understood what we were trying to do and of course 00:38:13.760 --> 00:38:17.747 his whole idea for the university was to accelerate the university in 00:38:17.780 --> 00:38:24.456 every way, I mean and uh accelerating poly was a good thing. We, we we 00:38:24.489 --> 00:38:30.686 needed accelerating, no doubt about it and ah he helped to lead the fight 00:38:30.719 --> 00:38:35.936 to get more funding, he helped to lead the fight to get more facilities 00:38:35.969 --> 00:38:43.776 and as as that happened, uh he was always interested in finding the people 00:38:43.809 --> 00:38:49.396 who could move the program forward and of course chuck and I were pretty 00:38:49.429 --> 00:38:53.227 long in the tooth at the time chuck's a little older than I am. So uh 00:38:53.260 --> 00:38:58.706 chuck was the first person to decide to step aside and and leave the uh 00:38:58.739 --> 00:39:01.776 that part of the university activity. He did some other university 00:39:01.809 --> 00:39:07.146 activities after that. But uh he he stepped aside and and we hired a new 00:39:07.179 --> 00:39:13.827 provost who then had his ship to come in because he came to A S. U. And he 00:39:13.860 --> 00:39:20.186 left A. S. U. And very short tenure. Their dream job I guess he got his, 00:39:20.219 --> 00:39:26.236 he became president of Rose Holman in indiana and he's Ohio. And so going 00:39:26.269 --> 00:39:30.046 back to that part of the country was a good thing for him. He also got a 00:39:30.079 --> 00:39:37.537 boatload of money to do that. But in the final analysis that left a sort 00:39:37.570 --> 00:39:43.756 of a vacuum and uh I feel that vacuum as interim. And then when the 00:39:43.789 --> 00:39:51.789 interim period sort of started to linger, I was made the titled right vice 00:39:51.989 --> 00:39:57.267 president and executive vice provost. And that that went on for three 00:39:57.300 --> 00:40:01.896 years and he talked about the arrival of dr Crow and and we all know that 00:40:01.929 --> 00:40:07.057 what a change agent he is he has been. And uh sometimes when somebody like 00:40:07.090 --> 00:40:12.077 that comes into an existing situation holdover faculty might feel a bit 00:40:12.110 --> 00:40:15.836 threatened but you seem to have bonded fairly quickly with him. And I 00:40:15.869 --> 00:40:19.447 understand there's a funny story behind that. I don't know if you don't 00:40:19.480 --> 00:40:23.697 want to share that that that story 00:40:23.730 --> 00:40:31.730 I have never told but I guess for this occasion I'll do that. Ah I had 00:40:32.039 --> 00:40:37.236 been selected by the search committee to be one of his escorts when he 00:40:37.269 --> 00:40:40.956 made the rounds of A. S. U. And made presentations to the faculty and 00:40:40.989 --> 00:40:46.077 staff and students and on the day that he was scheduled to make a 00:40:46.110 --> 00:40:52.916 presentation in the union to primarily faculty. Uh I escorted him and 00:40:52.949 --> 00:40:59.137 introduced him to the group and we sat together on the stage behind the 00:40:59.170 --> 00:41:04.686 makeshift desk. You know how in the emu they put that platform and we had 00:41:04.719 --> 00:41:11.327 chairs and he I had made a wonderful presentation and he's an exuberant 00:41:11.360 --> 00:41:15.617 kind of guy you know and at the moment that he finished he just sort of 00:41:15.650 --> 00:41:23.650 pushed back like that and the chair legs went off the edge of the platform 00:41:24.809 --> 00:41:30.336 and he started over and I was sitting right next to him to to his his 00:41:30.369 --> 00:41:35.697 right and and as the chair went over of course I tried to save him, you 00:41:35.730 --> 00:41:41.236 know being the hero that I am. Uh and he's as big as me mostly. And so I 00:41:41.269 --> 00:41:48.407 reached over and grabbed him and both of us went on over heels up and I 00:41:48.440 --> 00:41:52.477 think luckily we didn't hit our heads too much but we both got a little 00:41:52.510 --> 00:41:57.227 bang on the back of the head and on the wall and of course here we are 00:41:57.260 --> 00:42:03.896 with cameras rolling feet up in the air. So 00:42:03.929 --> 00:42:09.447 somebody claims I shoved him off. Well we now have it on record that 00:42:09.480 --> 00:42:15.336 that's not what happened. But you know, he says I tried to save him what 00:42:15.369 --> 00:42:20.157 other, you know, special memories or anything else that we didn't touch 00:42:20.190 --> 00:42:24.867 upon and you know through your history that you you you you want to talk. 00:42:24.900 --> 00:42:32.900 Well I really have lots of pleasant memories of S. U. And among those or 00:42:34.829 --> 00:42:40.566 my service to the athletics program. I served as chair of the I see a 00:42:40.599 --> 00:42:46.347 board For a period of about three years. I also served as a member of the 00:42:46.380 --> 00:42:52.066 board for a period of about 11 years which is sort of unheard of. But 00:42:52.099 --> 00:42:57.217 during that period we won the Rose Bowl and we we went to many other bowls 00:42:57.250 --> 00:43:04.420 during that period of time. We had some interesting times with basketball. 00:43:04.599 --> 00:43:06.599 Basketball has always been a challenge at issue and continues to be. 00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:14.657 Although we're probably better now than we've been in a long time. Uh we 00:43:14.690 --> 00:43:21.137 had just a wonderful baseball team. We won lots of championships. And uh 00:43:21.170 --> 00:43:26.376 we had interesting times with baseball as well. Probably probably the 00:43:26.409 --> 00:43:33.526 worst time I had during that period was I was uh working on a project that 00:43:33.559 --> 00:43:37.436 we had in the College of Technology and Applied Science and I was in 00:43:37.469 --> 00:43:45.106 Turkey. And uh we picked up a newspaper and the newspaper said a S. U. 00:43:45.139 --> 00:43:51.296 Under investigation for the Nordle scandal and I I didn't even know what 00:43:51.329 --> 00:43:56.157 nor deal was, you know, and so I ended up having to come back home and 00:43:56.190 --> 00:44:04.190 deal with the Nordle scandal as chair of the, I see a board of, 00:44:05.190 --> 00:44:10.677 But among among those, I had a chance to work with up close with three 00:44:10.710 --> 00:44:18.710 presidents that I thought was as about as good as any presidential group 00:44:18.989 --> 00:44:26.137 to serve any university in the country over a period of 20 years. And, and 00:44:26.170 --> 00:44:31.506 that was Russ, nelson, Russ, nelson was a consummate professional who 00:44:31.539 --> 00:44:36.336 thought through everything. He used all the talent around him well and he 00:44:36.369 --> 00:44:41.387 did, uh, a wonderful thing in executing the mission of the university. 00:44:41.420 --> 00:44:47.856 Just a tremendous person. And I had a chance to work with Larry core. 00:44:47.889 --> 00:44:54.217 Actually went to um, his home school and ask questions about him as part 00:44:54.250 --> 00:45:00.977 of the search committee that brought him here. And Laddie is, is probably 00:45:01.010 --> 00:45:07.657 the most conscientious, most forward looking person that I've ever worked 00:45:07.690 --> 00:45:14.336 with and worked for from a positive point of view. And of course, I then 00:45:14.369 --> 00:45:20.347 served on the search committee for Michael. And Michael is high intellect 00:45:20.380 --> 00:45:28.380 , hi work level and a person who has goals that probably would not occur 00:45:30.690 --> 00:45:35.956 for the average person because they just wouldn't take it on, Michael will 00:45:35.989 --> 00:45:42.847 challenge and be successful About 65% of the time, most of the most 00:45:42.880 --> 00:45:47.856 difficult problems that the university faces. And as a result of that, 00:45:47.889 --> 00:45:52.977 he's the one who moves you forward more than anybody else, but the 00:45:53.010 --> 00:45:58.546 university was really tremendously blessed by having those three people 00:45:58.579 --> 00:46:05.287 run it. And we are now still doing well even in the current environment 00:46:05.320 --> 00:46:10.126 because we had those people and you're now retired and I use the little 00:46:10.159 --> 00:46:14.436 quote marks because you basically still work all the time. Uh tell us 00:46:14.469 --> 00:46:18.747 about what you are now doing in your retirement post services provost. 00:46:18.780 --> 00:46:25.227 Well, I've always had a passion for education in general and for higher 00:46:25.260 --> 00:46:33.260 education specifically. And about 21 years ago, ah my colleagues in the 00:46:33.320 --> 00:46:39.267 Hispanic Research center, Gary Keller, uh his leadership came to me and 00:46:39.300 --> 00:46:46.097 said uh we are interested in these programs that are being offered in the 00:46:46.130 --> 00:46:52.947 human resource development part of N. S. F. That is going to develop 00:46:52.980 --> 00:46:59.356 underrepresented minorities for positions in the professorial and we would 00:46:59.389 --> 00:47:04.046 like to have you join us. I was already doing a lot of this, but it was 00:47:04.079 --> 00:47:08.546 without a big partnership. I was doing it in the College of Engineering 00:47:08.579 --> 00:47:15.046 with many heroes who some some people may not remember working on 00:47:15.079 --> 00:47:20.057 sustaining matriculation and trying to make sure that underrepresented 00:47:20.090 --> 00:47:24.947 minorities went through the process and graduated and uh they had found 00:47:24.980 --> 00:47:29.727 out about that. And so they asked me to join and and we wrote proposals 00:47:29.760 --> 00:47:36.046 and we one The proposals and we have a string of them over the period of 00:47:36.079 --> 00:47:41.876 21 years or so. We brought in something like 50 $51 million for the 00:47:41.909 --> 00:47:47.117 purpose of supporting those programs, not only at A. S. U. But in our 00:47:47.150 --> 00:47:53.657 entire Rocky Mountains Southwest environment. And uh that program is alive 00:47:53.690 --> 00:48:01.146 and well. And I am now the program director for the uh graduate effort at 00:48:01.179 --> 00:48:06.617 putting underrepresented minorities in a position to receive phds in stem 00:48:06.650 --> 00:48:11.586 and then to have their mentors nurture them into positions in the 00:48:11.619 --> 00:48:16.947 professor, professor at with tenure. And so that's going on. It's it's a 00:48:16.980 --> 00:48:24.296 good program. It is likely to get some additional emphasis because of the 00:48:24.329 --> 00:48:30.247 current goals that are going on in our society in general. Well, I think 00:48:30.280 --> 00:48:34.677 we're we're almost done here. But I think uh tell us, you know, of all 00:48:34.710 --> 00:48:38.727 your accomplishments issue, you know, what do you do you feel the most 00:48:38.760 --> 00:48:46.760 satisfied about? Well, I have, I have always been a devotee of using 00:48:47.190 --> 00:48:54.736 higher education for getting people into the applied side of engineering 00:48:54.769 --> 00:48:59.037 activity. That's why we're called technology. 00:48:59.070 --> 00:49:06.086 And it has been not the easiest slog in the world because 00:49:06.119 --> 00:49:12.997 the the intellectual fervor of my engineering colleagues would like to 00:49:13.030 --> 00:49:17.947 choke us to death. They would like to to eliminate that and put all the 00:49:17.980 --> 00:49:25.980 money into the PhD effort which is aimed at narrow gauge research based 00:49:26.710 --> 00:49:34.710 learning and not creating competence to implement technology. So I have 00:49:36.219 --> 00:49:40.666 been one of those people with the finger in the dike trying to keep that 00:49:40.699 --> 00:49:45.467 that part of higher education going, not, not that anybody would like to 00:49:45.500 --> 00:49:49.336 get rid of it, they'd like to relegate it to the community colleges. 00:49:49.369 --> 00:49:54.947 However, the community colleges cannot do it. Uh The world moves too 00:49:54.980 --> 00:50:02.236 quickly and the under just to understand where today's technology is, you 00:50:02.269 --> 00:50:07.046 have to still have the basic underpinnings of math, science, including 00:50:07.079 --> 00:50:12.927 physics and chemistry. And you have to be able to have the skill to go 00:50:12.960 --> 00:50:16.657 along with that to be competent in implementing the technology. And you 00:50:16.690 --> 00:50:19.956 also need to be able to form those partnerships with industry and and the 00:50:19.989 --> 00:50:26.046 prestige of the universe. Absolutely. You have to, your goal is to work 00:50:26.079 --> 00:50:31.416 with industry and to meet their current needs. And of course, industry 00:50:31.449 --> 00:50:35.756 right now will tell you that they're having to go abroad to find people to 00:50:35.789 --> 00:50:42.006 meet that need. There's not enough people serving the need of the day to 00:50:42.039 --> 00:50:46.427 day running of the factory environment at the price that they like to do 00:50:46.460 --> 00:50:49.217 it. Of course, that's one of the problems of dealing with the industry. 00:50:49.250 --> 00:50:55.320 You have to accommodate some of their um more difficultneeds