we are conducting an interview for the Arizona State University retirees
Association video history project. We are located today in the S. U.
Community service building. I am heather who offered an A. S. U. Graduate
and I also worked at A. S. U. For 22 years. A few of those years with our
guest. Today I am currently a freelance writer and today interviewer. The
technical support staff today includes roger carter on audio and camera
and David Shatz lee director. Dr Jankowski, would you please introduce
yourself stating your name and positions at A. S. U. My name is Daniel
Jankowski.
I've I was at AS. U. for 40 years and during that time I was a faculty
member having worked my way up through the ranks. I was also a vice
chairman of Mechanical Engineering, Associate Dean for academic affairs
and interim dean. And I closed my career at A. S. U. With a Uh service as
the coordinator for the 2002
uh accreditation effort. Wonderful when we work together in the
Engineering dean's office, I remember another universities fight song
blaring from your office occasionally on friday afternoons. So I was
wondering if you tell us a little bit about your time before A. S. U. Well
um you're referring to the university of michigan uh fight song and
certainly that was a tradition in the office that all the office staff
loved but I was born in Hamtramck michigan which is a polish enclave
surrounded completely by the city of Detroit. It is a separate city but
surrounded by Detroit. So it's kind of an interior suburb. I was born at
the home of my maternal grandparents. I was educated in secondary and
primary schools that in in Detroit and mostly in in catholic schools. And
so I had the experience at that time of having nuns as teachers and they
were of course there was a lot of discipline and a lot of motivation
available in that setting. And I think it was a good setting for me as an
individual. Uh going through high school, I came to realize that I wanted
to become a college graduate not really knowing what that meant. But I
received no encouragement from my family. My father never finished high
school and while my mother did, she was not the type that really would
think about education in a, in a broader sense and there was also no
chance of any kind of financial aid from them. So I hit upon a plan to
join the army because at that time there was something and there still is
I think called the G. I. Bill And it provided $110 a month for 36 months
for someone who served in the military. And so in september of 19 let's
see, I'm trying to think of the dates now 1958 I entered the army and uh
served until uh roughly two years including time in France. Uh this was a
time when France was not necessarily pro american and in fact I have
pictures home that have hand painted signs on buildings that say yankee go
home because they did not want us there. One of the reasons there, there
were two good reasons uh it was a very heavily influenced areas from a
Communistic point of view. And secondly, during World War Two, The allies
had essentially leveled the town because there's the famous uh UU boat
pens were there and when I was there in the late 50s they were still there.
They had never been able to knock them out. After
leaving the army. I, I had applied to the University of michigan, the
College of Engineering. Uh The only reason I did that was because I knew
there was such a thing as in state tuition and secondly, I had visited the
campus earlier while I was in high school. Uh I was very impressed of
course anyone would be impressed if they've never seen a major university
and it certainly was that in those days and it is more so now I entered in
the fall of 1958
and then a very important thing happened in my life. I got involved in a
wrong number that led to a blind date with my wife who is now my wife
Betty and we became, I used the phrase serious item not too long
afterwards And uh we became engaged about a year later and then got
married in August of 1958
had just started college. Well, I just know, let let me get that, that's
straight 1956,
Um and we, we had Children very quickly, probably too quickly, by today's
standards, but by the time I uh completed uh college, we had three
Children, um we did not have a good life in the economic sense. The, as I
said, the G. I. bill was $110 a month, but I was able to get some work. I
worked at various jobs, I worked at the university as a lab assistant, I
worked as a teaching assistant. And then finally in graduate school, the
the breakthrough came program by the Ford Foundation provided funds to
individuals who were going on into college teaching. And, and for every
year they spent college teaching so much of their loan was forgiven. And
so we, we muddled through, but we, we we did fine. And, and it was not an
unusual thing, so we didn't feel picked upon.
Uh, as I got to the end of my graduate education, I realized of course,
that I wanted to be a teacher and and I didn't really mean that in the
same sense as being a professor because I'm not really sure I understood
exactly what a professor was about, but I didn't, I didn't know I wanted
to teach and I was encouraged in that direction by the department chair of
the academic department I was in, it turned out that Roughly 60% of the
phds from that department were involved in college teaching. So there was
a history of preparing teachers and there was a lot of things that the
department did to do, that graduate students were given opportunities to
teach. Faculty was involved in the planning of classes. And so it was a
nurturing uh experience for those who had a desire to teach. In the spring
of Excuse Me, in the spring of 1964, I sent outfielder letters to a number
of schools, some of which were never answered of course. uh but I did get
three responses
and one of them was from S you. There were two others. One was very
surprising in that I had never visited the campus in my life. They had
never seen me, but they returned a letter with an offer and for various
reasons, I rejected that when I decided that that wasn't a place that I
wanted to go to Cincinnati, they didn't make a, they didn't really look at
me carefully. They hadn't even met me. It's not even over the telephone,
You know, there's no no conversation or anything. Uh The other two schools
I visited. One of them was S you and I visited in the March of Of 1964.
Very pleasant. Oh, is that right? I didn't know that. Um I thought you
were much younger than that. Um
The weather was very pleasant. It was March Day, it was sunny and warm but
not hot. Uh and I was treated very kindly by the faculty, I was being
considered for a position in what was then called this uh faculty of
injuring science and I was very attracted, very much attracted to the
curricular aspects of that program and the opportunities I saw in it, not
only for me as an individual as far as teaching was concerned, but also um
from the student point of view, I thought it provided a very broad
education to undergraduate students and I thought that was a good thing,
the future being an unknown thing. I think the broader the education you
can get even though you're an engineer, it was a good thing. So um and of
course it was a very nice, nice place to live and, and uh so I was given
an offer. Uh I accepted it And in September of 1960 for we came to Tempe
when I say, we it was my wife Betty and my three Children um all pretty
still pretty young. Um I was awarded the PhD in december of that year. I
had completed all the degree requirements before leaving and harbor, but
they didn't, they only awarded degrees at at graduation at times and I was
not able to go back to uh ann arbor for the actual graduation ceremony. It
in retrospect, Looking back, I'm I'm sorry that I didn't do that, but the
economics were such that I couldn't I couldn't afford to to make that trip.
Um
I started at a
rather meager salary in retrospect but I was I was treated well in the
sense that the department or the faculty group there was a nice balance of
of experience and young people. The american universities at about that
time. We're starting to get this influx of government funding. National
Science Foundation had a substantial fellowship program that supported
graduate students. And that meant that there were a lot of phds being
being graduated. And of course not all of them can go to M. I. T. Or or
caltech or stanford so that that there were good people available for
schools that were lesser known and A. S. U. Was just starting into the
graduate of the doctoral level uh education at that point. So it was just
an interesting place. They were very nice to me when I came. Uh Good
catholic boy. I remember Ted Allen who I know you know um taking me out
for dinner on a friday night of course to a steakhouse. Um That was in the
time when Catholics didn't eat meat on friday. He never heard the end of
that one. It was not a malicious thing on his part but it was just one of
those funny things that happened and I was shown around and and everything
was fine. We came to Tempe driving across the country with the three kids
and an on air conditioned car that I'll never hear the end of it from my
wife and we arrived early in september because this academic year was more
traditional than it is now. And I started in and I started in teaching, it
had some teaching experience and uh I was I was happy to do that and I
truly enjoyed the experience of being truly in charge of course and what
the students, the standards and what the, how the material was was
presented. Um I was quickly identified as a a pliable young man. Um and I
was through the years as time went on, I was often asked to teach a new
course or get involved in some new activity. Um I took that as a
compliment
or maybe I was just being a tool, but I taught a lot of different courses
. I taught a large part of what the injury in core was at that time, the
mechanics part of the Engineering Corps. And uh I enjoyed those courses.
They were a natural match with my education. I of course tried to uh get
a research program going uh and and did was able to do some research, but
the teaching responsibilities at that time were a lot more demanding than
they are now. Um it was not unusual then to teach three or even four
courses a semester. Whereas now many of the faculty might teach that in an
academic year. So it was very very difficult to do much in the way of
research. But I managed the the philosophy was a lot different now if you
go over to the the engineering center and walk through the buildings, the
facilities are a lot nicer. All we had when I first came were the low
buildings, the one story buildings along Palm Walk that still exist after
A the A. B. And all those wings whatever they are. And then there was the
G. Wing. Well the G. Wing was a building paid for by the National Science
Foundation and I was I was one of the first to have an office uh in the in
that building when I came. The bad news is I had to share that office with
another individual. And so for a long time the goal was to get a single
office to get a private office. Um Not even a window. Well that was first
the private office then I I went ahead and and I kept pushing and I got an
office with a window. But it was in the a wing you know the one all right
across from the bookstore. In the in the computer commons. But it had a
window and it was a pleasant office and I was very pleased with that. But
through the years I I must have been in half a dozen different offices. In
fact I was in the a wing and I was taken out of the a wing and then I was
put back in the a wing and that was that was in fact you know when you
remember that big cart they built To carry books around because it was
moving time every summer there wasn't moving day and they'd shuffle people
around and there was probably a reason for it but I really never
understood it and always summer when it was 110. Yes.
But anyway I think I was reasonably successful as a teacher. Um I
certainly prepared. I worked hard. I can remember ah there was a period of
time when I got involved in experimental work as a research activity and
my background was not as an experimentalist. But when you're trying to do
research you kind of go where the problems take you. And there was an
interesting problem that identified and there was a student who had good
talents as far as experimental things went. And so my first real research
effort was was in this experimental area. And as as I was I started to say
and and got sidetracked by my own thoughts. The engineering center at that
time. Where were these these low buildings? And then the three story G.
Wing and the administrative offices for the entire engineering effort.
We're on this one floor on the on the first floor that everyone, all the
all the various mechanical engineering. Electrical engineering said were
there. And the dean's office was there, There were there were two deans,
there was one bookkeeper kelly, Carolyn Brown as you know, and it was
really a much more
uh family type arrangement. You could you could go to talk to people
directly without making appointments and and worrying about schedules and
things like that and who was responsible, You knew, everybody knew who was
responsible. So the one of the nice things that that has since been done
away with was the laboratory for the thermal sciences, which is fluid
mechanics. My area, he transferred in thermodynamics. They were all in one
huge building, a big bay building. It had a high ceiling and it was
everyone, all the graduate students doing experimental work with some some
exceptions were in this big building. Well this meant that those students
always interacted with each other. You know, they would talk to each other
about the problems they had, they would talk to each other about their
successes, the mature students would help the incoming students. And that
was such a nice uh situation at all. I enjoyed that very much as time went
on, that changed. And now if you go over there, you'll see that every
professor again with some exception has a single laboratory, you know,
with a locked door and you don't go in there unless you have permission
and it has changed the the atmosphere a great deal. I was I was
disappointed in that the reason we had, that was one of the faculty
members who came from stanford. Um that was what this system was at
stanford, this big open bay thing where students could interact and I
thought we always, I thought we lost something by doing that. The college
administration at that time consisted of lea Thompson
uh and George meekly,
lea Thompson was dean and there's the controversy of course as to who was
supposed to be dean, Was it supposed to be lea Thompson? Or was it
supposed to be George meekly. I I don't know, that was all settled before
I got there, lea Thompson was a,
it wasn't, it wasn't a nice man, a nice person, but I think
he he was and he was, he was his, I think his most significant effort was
his support of what was called the injuring core. And this was the common
set of course, is that all engineering students had to take, whether it
was a mechanical engineer or an industrial engineer. They, they had to
take this set of courses. And of course what it meant is you have this
broadly based engineering group and that was good for the students. It was
certainly uh well thought of Uh externally and in fact in about, oh I
don't know, maybe about 1990 George meekly established a report, a
significant survey of the alumni of the, of the college asking their
opinions and of course it was, they were favorably impressed with that and
how how much that particular style of education had helped them in their
careers. And that was one aspect that drew you to. That was one of the
things that that drew in here because I agreed with that too. My my
undergraduate education was an aeronautical was aeronautical engineering.
Michigan has a has a longstanding uh strength in that area. In fact
there's a building on on the main campus uh where there's a wind tunnel
that goes back to 1912. And you you can imagine the history of of that and
the and the people involved in that. Now the the injuring uh effort at in
ANn Arbor has moved to a separate campus which is called the north campus.
Uh It's some distance away from the main campus. Uh Of course the place
has grown just as A S. U. Has grown and and the core is not in place
anymore right there is the core eroded over time and eroded is maybe the
good word more and more options were put into it. And as these options
were poured in various people were either relieved of of of certain
courses or they were allowed to take another course. That was really not
the same. It wasn't an or between two different fluid mechanics courses.
It was an entirely different or and the reason for that is that the most
of the faculty had been educated in electrical engineering or in
mechanical engineering, our industrial engineering and they did not have
in their background this cross fertilization that, that led to the idea of
the core. My education on the other hand, was initially an aeronautical
engineering. But then I went into a subject called engineering mechanics,
which is also defunct. Now, uh, there are very few engineering mechanics
or applied mechanics programs in the country. It's a very kind of
specialized program. It's usually a very difficult program. Ah, but it
does get you to appreciate breath. Uh, what I had to do as a, as a
graduate student, for example, is I have to take courses in more in other
than fluid mechanics, which was my major area. And so I, I had a sense of
that and I thought it was this, this uh, the broad education before I
started teaching and I really thought it was a good idea. But as I said,
the faculty educated in a different way. They, they put pressure on the
dean, they put pressure on George meekly who was the associate dean who
essentially was in charge of the core. And as time went on, it kind of
eroded until near the end. It was, it was not truly a core. It was, it was
a Sudoku or um, that as the dean's changed, they brought with them
different attitudes about the core also. And finally, the uh, the dean
that uh, I worked who was in in place when I retired, essentially said, we
don't have a core anymore and they did away with it. What it what it did
is I think it it destroyed a certain Educational Philosophy which I
thought was a good one. But it also gave the uh departments more strength
because they absorbed those those credit hours and those opportunities to
teach. And so there was no longer uh the idea that you could take a course
that was of interest to a civil engineer being taught by a mechanical
engineer and that sort of thing I believe is good and it's healthy but
that isn't the way it was viewed across the board. And so the core went
away. Very disappointing thing to me. In fact you and I if you remember
worked on what we called a modernization of the core where we tried to
provide some flexibility which is what the departments wanted but at the
same time maintaining the spirit of that. And of course uh because of my
eloquence that went nowhere. So but those were the days and it's it's a
shame but I guess maybe that's uh some people would call it progress. I
would not. I think I think there's a driver here ah when you anytime you
try to educate students differently that means people have to do certain
things differently. And in a in a system not only here at a. S. U. But at
other schools where the research is the driver of of the of the faculty In
large part they want to devote their time to the research because
realistically that's where the rewards are and that's really what the
goals are. Ah The it's unfortunate I think it was not really like that at
the beginning years but the pressures and the wanting to be like stanford
or michigan led leads you in that direction. And of course there's a big
difference between stanford, a very highly selective school and even
michigan which is a pretty selective school. In fact I was surprised I got
in though I had done I had done well in high school but I but I you know I
was just very surprised, maybe frightened too. Can you talk a little bit
about the academic structure within the college when you first started?
Because I think that was very different. Um lea Thompson would would not
at that time allow the use of the word department. So there was no
department of injuring science, there was a faculty of injuring science
and what he what he was trying to do I believe was to uh strengthen this
concept of a core. We're all just faculty members were all just
engineering faculty members. Now there have to be some divisions but this
idea of departments and with as there are now departments have had have
autonomous budgets. There was no such thing in those days there was no
budget, you wanted something, you went to the dean's office and asked for
money or permission to do whatever and he was very strong in that. But
again, he got worn down because the faculty, he was hiring and of course
there was a lot of hiring done in those, those early years. Schools
growing more and more phds, as I said earlier, are, are available and
there were good people on the market. Uh, there was the pressure to, to
let go of that. It was so ridiculous that in those days of course there
were no computers to type with and, but there were typists and they were
instructed that if if, if somebody wrote a paper and and gave it to them
to type, they could not usually you start off by saying your name and your
address, you could not say Daniel F Jankowski Department of Engineering
Science. If you did that, they wouldn't type that. They would type faculty
, they were instructed to do that. So it was kind of a game. But the
history indicated that that wasn't going to last. It was, it was not going
to be, so were their faculty leads within the difference since there
weren't department chairs were there, there were, there were, there were
people like Ed Wallace was, you know, Ed was the chair of the faculty of
injuring science And, and, and, and, and they were largely responsible for
the core, not completely, but largely and, and that was good for me
because it gave me a chance, I'd like to teach different things. Um, I
tried to take my teaching seriously and I thought the students at that
time were pretty good. The, The any class of whatever number you might
pick 20 or 30 or 50 or 100 there'll be some percentage of them that are
not very good. And, and it, there's a lot of reasons for that. You know, I
don't mean good as individuals. They, they, they loved their mother and
they adored their father. I don't mean in that sense, I mean, that they
were really not prepared or even had, uh, uh, a way of connecting with
engineering education. And, but those in those early years, those students
were actually very few in a given class and there were more students,
there were a lot of good students and a issue does get good students.
There are good students here. What has changed though over time, there's a
change in the, in the percentage of those who are, are good and the ones
who are coasting or trying to coast coast and a turning point for me came
, this was, this was some years, uh, after teaching, you know, that years
kind of run together and I'm not good at dates and things like that. I
never kept a diary or a journal. Um, I was always too busy to do that. Um
,
but I had some students in one of my classes that I had previously had in
a, in a, in a prerequisite class maybe to two or three semesters
previously. And I, one of the first things you do of course is you look
down your class roster and see is there anybody in here that I know? Well
it was very heartening to see these names of students that, oh gee joe
doakes was really good in course X. That's gonna be good for me. Well it
comes time this course starts and you, you start doing your thing and and
one of the things I do is I ask a lot of questions ah I it's some kind of
minor league Socratic method, you know, nothing, nothing spontaneous
questions are usually not necessarily planned out questions though, that
changed as time went on and I started asking questions and I realized that
those several students that I had thought earlier had done so well, I
didn't really know anything they had forgotten or never knew. And there's
a, there's a problem there with students learning for the moment, learning
for the next test, learning for the final exam ah and these students, it
was a big disappointment to me it truly was. And so I started, I did
things a little differently. I made a twist a change in my style and and
I started using three x 5 cards
and each class of whatever number it was, each student had a card with a
name, his, his or her name on it and if they wanted more than one, they
could have more than one, most, don't want more than one. Uh though,
though occasionally a student will want more than one. And so this is the
way it works in class when I come to a moment or a time when I think ah,
here's a good question. I will look at my stack of cards and I will say
john smith and I will oppose the question too. And it typically will not
be a question that has an answer. That's uh, you know, spit back answer.
It's a, it requires some thought and, and I'm, and I'm trying to get them
to say something intelligent about the topic and sometimes they do, but
sometimes they won't even make a good try. Well if they do, I just take
the card and I put it at the bottom of the stack. On the other hand, if
they just completely flub it and don't have anything reasonable to say,
then they go back somewhere else in the stack. And so there's a, there's
an opportunity for them coming up sooner than would normally be the case.
And students, even in my last days, I would occasionally get letters from
students talking about those cards and they know Jankowski's cards were
well known. I don't know if there's anybody else who did that sort of
thing, but I did it religiously, I did it every class, every class had,
had, had these cards and I felt they were just a great thing that you
could not be, you could not sleep in my class. You could not uh, not be
trying to pay attention. And I was not, I didn't use these cards had
nothing to do with grading. They, you know, that there was no attempt to
grade or to give points for this. It was just part of your, you
participate in this class. This is one of the things you do. And I
remember one letter I got from a former student and he said,
I don't, I don't remember the entire letter, but the last question or the
last comment he made was when I was a student,
I I I thought that these cards were just a bunch of nonsense. And then he
said, my students today say the same thing and he was, he was, you know,
it was, I thought I took that as a compliment,
but I still use them. The the overwhelming opinion was that that they were
harassment, they were unfair, they were this or that uh, it didn't, that
was just that was an obligation in my class that that was gonna be there.
Well, in a sense, because the student body changed the earlier days, I
remember I made comments that, that there were these varying numbers. Well
, these numbers changed. The numbers changed too fewer interested students
willing to work hard, willing to strive to learn and and all the rest. And
there was much more indifference. I I think I used the language they
became customers as opposed to participants in a in a in a struggle
together. Um and it became harder and harder and there was more and more
complaining to me personally. And uh huh about these cards because they
were unfair and the harassment. And
I remember one young lady,
very pleasant student in general, but after the semester was over, I
happened to run into her in the hall. And I, you know, I I made some
comments. She said, you know something and I said, no, what, what are you
saying? She said you terrified me with your cards. And I I that really it
was a hurtful comment. I didn't say anything to her. It was heartfelt, it
wasn't the intent, but it to say terrified. That's just such a strong word.
Um, but it was while they were not used to it and and they were not
flexible enough to respond to it. You know, all they have to do is
essentially be prepared, pay attention, do their work. Uh, another thing I
I'd used during the years as, as I tried to motivate and encourage
students was instead of grading a paper. I would I, and this is one thing
I did throughout my years, I
Probably 98% of the time graded all the work in all my classes. So I
created exams. I graded homework problems and that that doesn't mean just
the answer. They were all red. They were comments were made about the
english about the writing about the correctness of the mathematics, about
the answer about the conclusion. And of course I spent hours and hours
doing this. I'm not sure it was appreciated. It's not the norm. If you if
you look around the college, even today, you'll see outside of doors,
you'll see stacks of stuff and if you look at it, there will be a
checkmark at the bottom for the answer. Well, the problem is today,
solution manuals for textbooks are are available. You can get them on the
web. You can, you know this homework from that in that perspective uh
doesn't really mean a great deal. They they copy from the Solution manual.
And of course an experienced teacher picks this up immediately. But what
I did is I I required that they actually use words. I they it wasn't just
a series of mathematical steps, but it was why did you do this? And what
was the reason for this step? And why did you start at that point? And
those sorts of things, what I expected. Uh I think it was good for them
and again, it was something I think they may be appreciated a bit more
after the fact than than during the time. But to get back to the this
homework, what I used to do is if they met a certain level, I would just
grade it and the grades are very simple on a homework problem. You've
either got a zero, you got a half, you gotta one, you've got a 1.5. And on
rare rare occasions you've got a two. And that's of course A B C D E U C.
And I was telling that that that's essentially what we're talking about
here. But if the if the work was was too bad, what I would do is I would
instead of putting a number one of those numbers, I would put an R. On the
paper. And that meant that at the next class they had to return a new
version of that assignment. And this is a truly hated this. It was it was
unbelievable the negative response. Um I got about that, but there was no
great penalty. You know, the the new the new version was graded as if the
other one didn't exist. And for many students it did help because they had
they had the help of my comments that I made on the first version and they
could of course call talk to their their their friends about it if they
wanted to. And so I continued to use that for for several years. But then
it got to be too big a burden. I was essentially uh increasing the
teaching load on myself and not only that, but keeping track of this. You
know, you have to if you give somebody an r, well you got to keep track
that you gave that are and, and it wasn't and they get it back to me and
the logistics of that become very difficult. Um, in spite of some of the
negative comments and working them hard and everything, I think you
received some recognition for your teacher. I did receive some recognition.
I I I think for the mature students, uh, or the ones who really cared. I
think they enjoyed what I was trying to do. I always tried to explain why
I do these things that that, you know, why do I have the cards? Why do I,
why did I use this arm method? Why do I grade the homework personally
Instead of giving it to a greater who, who may or may not do a good job.
And not only that, but there was there was typically insufficient
resources for a,
a reasonable number of hours to grade the class. You know, if you get say
40 students in a class and you assign uh, oh, I don't know, 345 problems a
week. You think about what that all takes if you expect the person to
grade carefully. Now the times I did get a greater was when I was in the
Dean's office and Associate Deans office because I, I just, I mean I was,
you know that how much time I spent there. In fact I used to get calls
from you about restaurants. Uh, you were always there when I left. They
were still there. But so, but there were, there were times when I just had
to use a grater and not many. But, and it was, I always picked the best
students who normally would not
do this. But they did it for me because they knew that it was an honor
that I was asking them to do this because they knew I normally did it all
myself. And so they typically did a good job and, and they was, they were
proud to do that.
I remember various awards I got. I was
at one point I received a award for the outstanding teacher for the period
in 1960 to 1980 But I didn't come here till 1960 for, so I thought that
was pretty good. And I got some kind of plaque or parchment, you know, and
, and I got these things regularly. I, I think that I, I did make an
impression on many of the students and and positive impressions. I,
I took my responsibility seriously. Ah, I tried very hard to understand
the issues that they had. Uh, I would think nothing of repeating a lecture
when there was a, ah, a group that was, was having trouble and it was
clear they were having trouble. Well, we can do it again And I try to do
it in a different way. You know, and, and I did things like that.
Typically my classes I never got as far into a book as most people did.
But what I did do I I I think the idea of education and this is not I wish
I had thought of this these words but it's not to cover material, it's to
uncover material and there's a there's a subtle difference there that uh I
believed in and I and I wanted to use that. I
I continued trying to do research and I did do some uh nice research. Um I
was never a superstar researcher but I but I did do research, I certainly
did a lot of research with paul paul nitze who you know and we were I
still talked to him several times a week uh since he left A. S. U. Uh one
of the several people that that came and left and that was that was bad.
It was it was it was difficult. There's there are some problems with
retaining faculty keeping them here. It's unfortunate but there are
reasons for that. The thing is there's always in this current market
there's always people that are willing to to come come. You know? And and
uh
and I think dr knight cell would be somebody in my next question. Was
there a mentor colleague and I ask you who most inspired you think
definitely he's one well he was a colleague not a mentor. I in fact I
mentored him because he came he came several years after I came and I
mentored him, I particularly mentored him about about teaching. Uh He was
he was a good teacher, he's a he's a conscientious teacher, he's now an
administrator teacher at Georgia tech and he's doing very well. Um But
s. U over time moved in the direction where
there's a lot of people that would not agree with this statement but where
the important thing, particularly in subjects like science and engineering
that you strive for sponsored research because the money coming in is very
nice and it's in some minds a measure of how good you are, but you still
have to teach you know this this is still a public institution, you have
to teach now, you don't teach as much as I taught in my early days but you
do have to teach and I I mentored him in the sense of that, he was
conscientious, he wanted to do a good job teaching, but teaching is the
kind of activity that will take all the time you put into it. I mean it
you can always say I gotta make this part of this class a little better
and I've got to make this part a little better and I got to change this
and you can go on and on and on in that spirit and of course you just
can't do that and what I mentored him and I would say that to any young
faculty member, you've got to decide on a reasonable amount of time that
you are going to put into your teaching and stick to that. And if it turns
out not to be enough or it's too much well you adjust but don't don't give
it all the time it needs because that's too much for the other things. And
when it comes down to promotion time you're not gonna get promoted because
you're a good teacher. I must say that I was promoted. My first promotion
was because I was a good teacher but that would not happen today. That
would just wouldn't Um your career spanned 40 years. 40 years. Yes. Yes.
You I was 12 years old when I started. And for you, what years during that
time span would you say? We're a sus best like that just felt
um Well I I think the best years I do not mean any criticism of of
individuals, but I think the best years were the years during the Rolling
Hayden era. And then and the Dean as Dean of Engineering. Roland Hayden
was not a diplomat in his early years. He was a very
high strung individual. I can still remember him firing one of the
department chairs at that time. We had departments in the in the hallway,
in the G wing on the first floor of the G wing yelling down the hall,
You're fired. And of course he didn't mean that you know it was just just
that. But he he stirred things up. He got he got people more interested
and more involved in research. He expected them to do it whereas before
faculty members did it but they did it because that was part of their
culture. You know that they were they were educated to do research. I mean
PhD is a research degree and and so they wanted to do research. But now
the pressure was on not only are you gonna do research but you're gonna do
research. That's good enough to be recognized by NSF or the D. O. E. Or
somebody General Motors or you know whoever it might be that to give you
money to do something and you're gonna you're gonna put students in these
positions working on this stuff and in helping their education. And this
was you know normal. I mean this was not an unusual thing I think
sometimes now it has probably gone too far. I think there is there is uh
given the the nature of S. U. I think there's there's too much emphasis on
research given the need to educate large numbers of students uh many of
whom are not necessarily well prepared for college level work. I think uh
the educational system in in uh Arizona I find it very unusual. My
Children of course were all educated here, I have grandchildren who are in
the various school systems and that's gonna be starting and I have a
granddaughter who is going to be starting and she just heard yesterday
that she's going to be in barrett. So she's very happy with that And and
we are too, she's a good kid and I and she's heard a lot about working
hard and doing well in school, not for me but for her sake. And I think
she is going to try and she's going to do a good job. We have just a few
minutes left and could you fill us in on what you've been doing since you
retired? What have I been doing? Well, I, I retired after I finished the
the accreditation thing in 2002 or three in the spring of 2003 I guess it
wasn't and but I, I continued for another year and then I retired. That
was a time when the university had this program where they essentially
would give you a year's salary and I took advantage of that. I really, I
really, uh, I wasn't quite ready to retire, but I didn't want to be one of
these guys to stick around and be in the way, you know, so to speak. Um,
there becomes a time when you, you are, you are more than an elder
statesman and and they had done, you know, what more could I have done? I
was, so I had been associate dean and successful. I will say that the
successful associate dean, I was an interim dean and I did, I did well in
that position. I did, I ran the accreditation effort and you you were not
working on that too. You know, the big job that university was accredited.
So you know, um I they had a, I didn't write this in in my comments that
I gave you earlier, but they established a an award in my name that is
successful and now and is working two, it's an award financial award too.
Uh faculty members who
I think we're that we're trying to do the things that I tried to do. They
were they tried to be successful, they were successful in teaching and
research and service and so you know, things were there have been a lot of
nice things that have happened here for traveling, doing a few things and
I think you're also working on a textbook. Yes. Um the books that she will
never be finished. Um yeah, I've, I've, through the years I've had an
opportunity to review many textbooks and of course I taught for many years.
So I kind of saw how the field fluid mechanics, uh what was evolving and
I always, I was never totally satisfied with other people's work. Ah there
were many good people who wrote books, but there's a market a certain
expectation of the market and the many of these books are essentially the
same thing. They're just, you know, there will be some tweaks here and
there, but they are essentially all trying to write the same book and I
think it's not the right book. It's not the correct book. It's not the
book that is needed at this particular time. So I'm trying to write
something different and of course that that's hard to do because there are
no models. I'm creating my own model as we go along. So I I write pages
and then I throw them away and I write pages and I throw them away. Um but
it's good for me. It keeps my mind active, uh keeps me away from my wife
at times because I I still have an office and I go there and I sit and I
think and I write and it's it's good for me intellectually. And uh
and I I but as I said, it might never be finished, but that doesn't bother
me. I'm doing it really for myself. Wonderful. And just a wrap up, you and
I have had lots of talks about student changes in the student body over
the years and you've been here a long, long time. And I wonder if you want
to finish up with some comments on that. The students have changed as the
society has changed the the
in in his early years. Uh there was an element uh I've already kind of
talked about the different groups in a in a class, but there was an
element of that George bickley had arranged. It was called the Aphids
program. It was military officers, Air force officers who came to s you to
get a degree at that time. The military was requiring their pilots to be
have degrees. And if they didn't they were sent to S. U. And and maybe
other places, I don't know. But the issue was a desirable place because at
that time we had two air force bases, there were opportunities for them to
fly. And uh these individuals, their career was on the line, they were
going to get that degree in in this time period no matter what because if
they didn't they were out And so they came and there weren't, you know,
there'd be maybe three or four of them in a given class of 20 or 30, but
they set the tone. They could not be beat as far as working hard and being
involved. They were also more mature. They were older than the typical
student. And they they lifted the levels of of classes that of course as
government programs do win away when the program stopped. Um but that that
element was lost. And then there was just this general feeling of of the
students that has has changed. I think we we all see the the numbers in
the in the press about where where this elementary and secondary education
of the United States is compared to other parts of the world. Uh not all
students fit that, but many of them do. And so you have a general, I don't
want to say dumbing down. Um, indifference is maybe a better word there.
They're not turned on by learning. They're not excited by, by things as
much. Um, and it's hard to, to change that. And I think many of the
faculty, uh, here and elsewhere, there were certainly not alone. I told
you about my friend, you know, my friend paul Night cell and I, we talked
about that very thing at Georgia tech and Georgia tech is considered an
elite school. There's just an element that is not really interested in
learning. And we're talking about a subject like engineering, which is
difficult, demanding and you need this, this commitment by the students
and you don't get that anymore. Of course, the administration is wanting
to keep the students happy. I hate to say that, but I think that's the
case. And so there's a conflict and of course the individual faculty
members caught in between, There's no way I would get a teaching award. Uh
, now, whereas I was, I had a list of them in the old days. So that's a
difficult thing. I don't see how to resolve this issue. I think there
needs to be a,
someone needs to be the boss or the standard Center for Education and what
I think about make the standards high to get into the universities.
That is going to require everybody in the community colleges, high schools
and the elementary schools too do the same. And I don't think we have that.
Everybody kinds of kind of does their own thing. And then standards are
adjusted, for example, you can get an engineering degree now For 120
credits When I first came here, it was closer to 140. Now, how do you, can
you Intellectually say that the student who completed 120 credits is as
prepared as the student who completed nearly 140.
That's a tough one for me. And I'm not smart enough to know the answer,
but I think I'm bothered by the fact that these sorts of things are not
discussed.
And when I was growing up going to college was I was told it was a
privilege. And now it seems that it's more kind of a right. And so it's it
to have to change to meet the student demand and, and personality is a
challenge. Well, that's, there's, there's a lot of, a lot of students that
get that. It's unfortunate. It makes it harder. Makes it not as much, not
as rewarding as it used to be. Is there anything we didn't cover that you
want to make sure, you know, I'm not sure. I wonder, we've certainly
covered a lot. I hope we've uncovered something. Thanks.
I've got a few comments here. Okay. You and I have something in common
with
12 Years of Nuns. University of Michigan. Uh, and I was one of those
aphids students that was here,
uh, back just before you got here, I left, but You did mention that you
went in the army in 1958. Actually, that was incorrect. I went, I after I
said that I, I was thinking I was incorrect. I went into the army in the
in 1954.
Okay. And I got out of the army in 56 and got married in 58. Okay. Well
that's, I was gonna say you might have a problem with your wife, right?
Yeah, yeah. She, she, Yeah, she would, she, she keeps me straight on. So
many things. We've been married 50 plus years and still argue every day.
Um, but I would be lost without her and she was just a, a great help to me
during those years when, when life was not as good as it is today. You
need somebody at home watching things there while you're paying attention
to other things. Uh, some of the names I might mention, you might comment
on, You did mention the engineering labs and what was going on out there.
You must have spent a lot of time out there with PhD students
were some of those lab people that were very helpful. Um, it was just the
greatest guy in the world. He was an old navy chief and you have to let
him chew on you occasionally if you did something that he viewed as stupid
, but I didn't mind that. I mean he was always helpful to me. I remember
one time I was working on a project with a student for what was then air
research and we were doing some experiments and we we because of the where
we had we needed a special facility and it was in one of the civil
engineering labs that's that's now long since gone. But uh we were going
to work on a weekend because that was the only time we could we could get
in and he gave us a key to his machine shop so that we could have access
to any tools that we might need to get this experiment going. Now I was
that was just you know, I didn't ask for that, you know, but he gave it to
us and and I thought that for Jim that was a big thing. Jim was a great
guy, he had a lot of enemies but he was just doing his job and he did it
very well. And so I went through the engineering corps and ted Allen, he
was thrown, he was thrown erasers. Yeah. Ed Wallace ahead for partial
difference equations
but jim Turnbow Jill. Turnbow was a guy that was set the standard for
discipline. Jim, jim Turnbow was the only professor I I've ever known that
could draw a perfect circle freon, his lectures,
I used to occasionally, as the circumstances would would allow it. You
find yourself in a coming into a class after
a gym Turnbow or somebody like that and so you can see the lecture and
jim's were always just, I mean they were, they were just amazing. I mean
it was Jim was a good guy. Jim was, Jim was one of the, one of the
teachers, You know, that's what he did, He was a teacher, but he was an
excellent teacher and he and he required, he required performance from the
students. I don't think you can do that today. I just do not. I mean, I
just don't think the atmosphere is the same and you're you're more apt to
be criticized than you are congratulated for for what you've been able to
accomplish with the students. Jim, Turnbow dictates worth Warren Rice.
These are names from that era. People are right,so