Today is Thursday March three 2016
and I am Zeke Proust professor emeritus and with us today we have a
technical support staff. They include john McIntosh on camera, roger
carter audio linda vance coy director and Dave shortly chair of the video
history project. So at this time I'd like to introduce dr Hal Harold White.
I'm Harold White, my friends call me Hal I'm professor of management in
the College of Business now the W. P. Carey School of Business. I joined
the faculty in 1966, retired in 1993. I was born in 1931 in Colville
Washington Which was the county seat of 2500 population in northeastern
Washington. My father was in the automobile business in Hudson's which is
history with his father and sister and her husband and great life. The
little town just get all over, do everything very informal, spend a lot of
time in my father's garage
and when I was 10 years old my father went off on his own, we went to
Walla Walla Washington and the town they liked so well. They named it
twice and it was a county seat and southeastern Washington of 25,000
population agricultural area right. And I was there through the junior
year in high school. My father's business. We got there in 1941 early and
by the end of the year the Japanese had attacked and it could no longer
get new cars and that was a pretty difficult way to start out of business
and but he figured that if you couldn't buy new cars, you had to repair
the ones you had. So we made sure he had some good mechanics and he was
able to start a cab company of just two cabs. But they established Air
force just outside of town and a lot of the service people didn't have any
automobiles. So that gave more business to that and that people didn't
have the cars, didn't have the gasoline. And my father died when I was in
high school And a year later my mother remarried and moved to Pendleton
Oregon, which was 45 miles away, which was a county seat of 15,000.
And I really wasn't very eager to leave Wallawalla because when I was a
freshman, I got sweet on this gal Lucille angel and I was too shy to let
her know about it. But when my senior year I got enough Strength and I had
my own automobile. I drive over the 45 miles to see her and she was always
out with some guy, okay. And the end of the year, she went to college and
Whitman College, which is a small liberal arts school in Wallawalla and I
went to University of Oregon and I'd get home and I'd go and see her and
she was very interested. So
she didn't ever, she told me she didn't like me to tell the story, but she
never told me not to tell it when I got sweet on her was when in spring of
our freshman year in high school. And the last class we were standing out
in the hall and she said well I'm going to get my hair fixed and how do
you think I'm gonna look? And I wondered all week and she just looked
great. So
he said don't tell that it's that embarrasses me but she never said no
doubt don't tell it. So anyway when they got to be the august before we
went back to school in our sophomore year, I he said well I want you to be
my girl, you don't want to be and it's making both of us uncomfortable so
I'm just not going to come back anymore. So I've I've given up the field
and thanksgiving came along and I was back to Pendleton for the holidays
and I thought I'm I'm really gonna tough this out. I'm not going to go see
her. And she called me and so she was my girl ever after that. So that was
the end of that and I, the end of my sophomore year in college I started
out as an art major and I found out I wasn't an artist so I transferred to
business because of my family's business and
the end of my sophomore year I was vice president of my fraternity. I was
accepted into the advanced R. O. C. D. R. T. C. Program which would have
led to a commission. I was sick of school I had the girl of my dreams and
I had a family business to go to. So who needs college. So I dropped out
and
lucy dropped out and we were married and the family business almost
immediately went downhill. Hudson wasn't surviving and bad decision. So I
stuck it out for a few years and finally we said, we just got to get back
to school again and I had no intention of doing any more and getting a
bachelor's and and getting a job. My wife was a legal secretary and then
later on with secretary at uh the Language institute at the University of
Oregon. And I got a job as uh working in a service station when it was
really service stations and old guy owned it. And a couple of times I go
down to work and he, he went through about a bottle of scotch today I
think. And a couple of times I told him one of us is gonna work here today
, you decide which one. So he'd go back in the car and he'd sleep it off
and things were slow at night when I worked. So I got a lot of homework
done and that situation,
but about the time I got my bachelor's degree one night fellow came in and
won the car, have his car lubed and oil change and we were just chatting
and he was on the faculty at caltech.
He said, I think you ought to go into teaching out of the blue. So that
sounds pretty good. I've been the National Guard. And I started out in
high school and by the time I went back to school I had a had a commission
through the guard and I was active in the garden Eugene when I was there,
which it was extra income. That was helpful too. And the so I went to my
advisor and I said well what about this thing of teaching is I've been
pretty successful and the things I've done in the military teaching. And
so he gave me this advice what to do with the master's program.
I couldn't have gotten worse advice. Absolutely not worse advice. I went
through this whole thing as an aside as a professor, you appreciate this
kind of thing. I had one class. They were they were in a not a semester
system in the quarter system and there's one course, there was money and
banking. I got in on that thing and the second quarter. Well it didn't
seem to write but they sign me up and put me in. I averaged bees the end
of this quarter. I got to see and I went in to see the professor and I
said, you know, I was with my grades, let's just see. He said, well no,
it's impossible for you to get better than a C if you missed the first
quarter.
Okay so I'll live with that. You don't want to see in the graduate program.
Right? So the next quarter I got all aids I got my grade at the end of
the semester as a B. And I went and I said well how come I gotta be? And
he said well it's impossible for anybody to get over a B that isn't an
economics major. Yeah it's wonderful. So I I survived through that thing.
But the bad advice was when I got all through getting rid of the program
, I started sending out letters of applications to schools. And I've heard
students say since then I've been at A. S. U. That they'll send out
letters and they won't hear back from schools. It's just that's the end of
it.
The 1st 20 responses I got were all knows and here I was a wife had a baby.
Yeah. Yeah keeping them pretty poor all these years. And the four year
schools want a PhD and I didn't have one. The junior colleges wanted the
teaching certificate at night and have that and I was neither and or
fishing or follow on this thing. And finally Idaho State College in
Pocatello was desperate enough for faculty that they hired me. So that and
that was that was a great experience and I just I enjoyed what I did. I
thought I made my mistakes there which was which was fortunate for later
times And then I lucy and I my wife and I had agreed that I'd stay there
for three years and see if I liked the teaching. And so
After at the end of three years I began to apply for schools to go to. And
the best offer I got financially, which is important was at the University
of florida, Gainesville. So we went there while I was teaching. My wife
finished up her degree in education. So when we went to Gainesville, she
got a job teaching the first two years in first grade and that last year
in the fourth grade when I walked in the department chairman's office at
the University of florida, I felt like he knew that I was going to get my
doctoral degree. He just made me feel so comfortable and I got my
assistantship at the teaching hospital associated with the university.
And the director of that treated me like I was one of the guys. So it was
just a kind of a comfortable grown up experience for me to go through that
thing and had a chance to teach. And the dean was good enough and share
good enough to me that he got extra money for me somehow. I never asked
for it, but I was well pleased to get it. And so I began to apply for
teaching positions. I was finishing up. I couldn't do it anymore, but I
did that the world's changed, but I got my degree in three years when I
went there and there were guys that were there before I got there and
we're still there afterwards.
But I was given an office that had had three of the doctoral students in
it and I gave it up after a few days because they were all talking another
doctor. Yeah, you're not in your head, huh? You see that and I want to get
the heck out and get to work and then get on with my life. So ah I began
to find out when I was applying for jobs, I was just provincial enough. I
wanted to be west of the Rocky Mountains, that was home and my preference
was the University of Washington. And I interviewed there, They had four
positions and they didn't give me an offer and I went to the regional
meetings of the Academy of Management, which is our club in Miami and my
chairman, Bill Will Wilma, He introduced me to Keith Davis and he was at
eight issue and he was a hotshot in the management had successful
textbooks and had been the national president of the Academy and all this
stuff. He could have gone a lot of places, but he liked the sunshine and
he and he was an expert in Citrix and he grew he was all his backyard, he
won competitions at the state fairs
and so I was impressed with that. So um he said good things for me at uh
at a S. U. And then there was a national meeting in the academy of new
york and I went to that and Glenn Overman who was the Dean. And joe shea
backer who had been the chair at in my department management at A. S. U.
At that time was business vice president. And they were there and I
interviewed with them and after that they invited me to come to you as you.
So I I came here and
conducting the interview and I made one of my mistakes and and it
Olbermann, the Dean said how much money do you want? I haven't even
thought about it. And I said well I wouldn't want to take any more than X.
He said we'll give you X. I wish I would have said X plus one. And I
wasn't smart enough to do that. So I guess I lost that much every year. As
long as I was at a issue at
when I got here. The thing is just I just fell in place for me keith Davis
was teaching the kind of courses I wanted. But he reached the point he
didn't want to do those anymore, that's what I wanted to teach. They had
an active program for non non degree courses for like mental management
and in one area that why keith was teaching that and he didn't want to do
that anymore. And I stepped into that and this is moonlighting now and he
did some stuff with Motorola when was Motorola was Motorola's. And
so I took over over that part. And my comment earlier was I made my
mistakes at Idaho State and I was really, I think in pretty good shape
when I came in here do those kinds of things. And I was I was popular with
the students, I was popular with with the managers and the dean like this
stuff with the community. And so that day, so I was popular with him. An
interesting part of politics for me though, we go to a social gathering
and Glenn Overman, he looked right through me. He didn't like he didn't
have anything to do, you know, couldn't contribute anything to his
politics, but he knew what I was doing and I came in. Assistant professor.
Two years later, I was associate. Four years later I was a full professor
, which is about as fast track as I've heard anybody do and enjoying
myself all the time. So I was at The University of Florida,
66. Came came here directly and
they're coming about Dino vermin
in management. We would call him a benevolent autocrat. He did everything
for the College of Business. He was 25 hours a day, days a week for that
college. But he controlled everything. Absolutely. And we had a memo come
down one time from the President's office, trying to distinguish between
what colleges could and couldn't do and what departments couldn't couldn't
do. And we had monthly meetings with the college. That's what Dean wanted
to do. And one of those meetings then said with you got this memo. Now he
said, whenever you see on that document, it says department reed college,
he wasn't going to delegate anything beyond on his office. He made to work
and
he was good. The Dean was, was sensitive to the people. A lot of people
didn't like the social aspect, but he'd have a punching cookie activity at
the beginning of the year and the end of the year. And at later times,
Dean's would get forced string orchestras to come up and play at the
christmas parties and so on. Dean would call up one of the wives and say
get some of the ladies together, make some cookies, put together the punch
, you know, and but those were good times. But then the layout, name tags
on the table outside the rumor, we'd meet and then he'd come at the end of
the meeting, he'd pick up the tags and make sure who, who didn't go to the
parties. So then some college, you know, always say, well the charlie
Sadie's not coming. So they pick up their tickets. You know, the name tags
he had for several years. He would have a at thanksgiving time. He said
everybody's new schools growing rapidly. Nobody's from around here. You
know, people don't have families. And so he just proposed anybody wanted
to do it. We didn't reserved space at South Mountain and we go down there
and everybody bring their own fixing their own party. And we we could
visit that way. And that that was good. We had
once a year have a formal party.
When I first came department of management. We had 12 faculty members, all
men, all married, all Children. All had been in the military one way or
another. And
That was the change over time. We began to grow. It was easier to know
people when there's 12 and you get larger. It's harder to know more people.
And then there was the pressure on we've got to diversify. We gotta get
women in and minorities.
Well the problem with that was that women didn't think there was much
opportunity to be in business. So they weren't going on to doctoral
programs. And it's the same for a lot of the minorities. When I was
teaching at Idaho State, almost all of the students were men. and I
remember one class that there were two women in the class of about 35.
What was the size of the your department when you came in here and the
size of the college. How many know enough students? Student student majors
that you had? I couldn't tell you seek. I don't know. There were about
18,000 students at A. S. U. But I don't know. You have no idea what the
numbers that were in the college. It was one of the largest college
besides liberal if I recall you were growing very rapidly as many other
colleges was a popular degree and people want to get into it. I'm gonna
back up a little bit though on a couple of things that I personally I'd
like to know about. Maybe some other people that look at this would like
the same. And that is lucy was always lucy or was it Lucille? Well it was
Lucille in school and I started calling her lucy. I don't know if you want
to do something sort of affectionate I guess. And it got around to the
point where we'd be at a social gathering and I'd say this is my wife
Lucille and I'd call her lucy. And I said well now what is it So lucy? And
I had to talk about this and said we might as well introduce you as Lucy.
Right. Save all the confusion. So that's what it was in 1950 to 1950s.
Also
I noticed that your mother's name was Lucille but my Lucille had one l and
my mother had to. Well yeah I can tell them apart that I was wondering
that I thought was a little unusual. Well I was sort of insulted one time
an adult lady said when she found out with the name of my fiancee, she
said isn't it interesting how often men married women with the same names
as their mother And that sounds sort of sick. So I didn't know you
mentioned one child. Yes. How many daughter? Daughter, Daughter Angela.
That's one child. All right. And she was born
and what's
in Wallawalla? We were living in a little town in Oregon, but the best
hospital was in the Wallawalla. So that's well
you did you were you the only one in your family then? Do you have
brothers? No, I have a I have a brother that's eight years younger than I.
And that was it. And then when my mother remarried, she had one son. So
I've got a got a half brother. And
and we keep in touch with the three of us all of that. But between I was
22 months from graduating from high school when this half brother was born.
So he's closer to my daughter's age than he is to my age. And and they
have a good relationship too. So yeah, okay, now they live in other parts.
Yeah, my my brother lives in Taggart which is just outside of Portland
Oregon. And he was mostly in
medical sales field and selling equipment and services and so on. And he
was a salesman like my father, I never had that touch that do that. He's
one of these guys that said, you know, I don't sell the steak, I sell the
sizzle and he just had fun with that. And the half brother is retired from
the Marine Corps. He was uh gunship, helicopter pilot was retired as
lieutenant colonel. He had he had a good service, very good, I just wanted
to know more about it. I thought others would be interested in your family
as well. We're talking about the family lucy had two sisters, an older one
married
fellow from her college while the wall there
that three sisters and both of the husbands and the other two all went to
this Whittman College and they turned out some pretty good people have one
brother who just died ah retired as a marine Major General and it was fun
watching him from, I knew him when he was courting my sister in law and
all through his career to see that. And the other one was from California
, married the younger sister and he was among other things Superintendent
of Banking and established a bank. So uh
they did well now you said you were buried then when you went after your
doctorate and even with your masters, you know people say my wife worked
me through college, my wife worked me through three degrees. Okay then I
was also interested in lucy about when is it time that she took up the
harp, harp? Well, she was pretty accomplished in violin as a kid even. And
Wallah Wallah as small as it was. And because it had a university and the
college had had some musical skill there as well as people in the
community. They've they've had a symphony orchestra in the town for over
100 years. And even as a kid she played in that and when we recording she
said I'm I'd like to have a harp and it was sort of like on bended knee
and tongue in cheek, I said marry me and I'll buy you are who you know and
has a heart, you know, we both know nobody has harps and
Mhm. Our daughter was in college, Angela was at any you and this was in
Early 70s and Lucy said I still want to play the heart
and I said we can do that. So she hunted around and she found Esther
Mclaughlin who had taught heart at A. S. U. But the music school had
discontinued the heart for whatever reason. And so she was playing
professionally and and teaching students and lucy they became fast friends.
That was a special relationship between the two of and lucy got she lucy
new music theory, she knew music, she was so enthusiastic. three years
after she started teaching she was playing for real money and if people
would have known she would have paid them to play, she just loved to be
out there and do that. And as part of that with a S. U. For 23 out of 24
years she played at the annual Christmas Party at the Emu and the one year
she didn't It was getting kind of close to the end of the 24 she sprained
her wrist
and they had a sign outside the the room where the party was
and said lucy angels not white isn't gonna be here because she sprained
her they knew people were gonna be looking for when she first started
doing that and I helped her move the harp up.
I told her she should have stayed with the violin, it was easier to move
than the harp. But when we first she first started doing it they set her
up in the middle of the room and it was all decorated with the christmas
stuff
and to tell the historic story for people that might not know that that
thing that draws thousands of people every year with punch and cookies and
people come up and talk to her lucy's talk and she'd chat with she's loved
it, they want to talk about the harp friends that come over and strangers
come over and they talk I thought you know the administration, the emu is
not gonna be happy with this. But she went through three directors of the
Emu including Floyd land you know and they just loved her and they loved
it that they people cared about. So yeah it was just she was a good deal
but she played up to 12 account kept track up to 12
different activities on at A. S. U. The college would have a social
gathering or they'd have it do something else. She played at
one of the dinners for the honorary doctorates you know and that's what
she she played for the alumni association and so on. Yeah and her gift was
the issue was played the christmas wonder when the next the other one she
built them. But she did that well I know her as a very special person to
just as you. So switching again then back to another
era of the errors and that is who really hired you and your, was it the
dean who did all of that? Well it would be the glen Overman was really the
final authority but how Ferran It was one of the chairman and he came in
1960 so that was just six years before me. He and he had just been made
chair. They'd search for a chair apparently and couldn't find it good fit.
So he said I don't want the job and he told me he said I told him I take
it for three years he did it for 14 so he got to find find a comfortable
place that to be there and in the old days
that here I was an assistant professor coming in and Carl Dannon felt he
was the vice president of academic affairs interviewed me. Oh he's the one
who did yeah so you know I can't imagine they do that with many faculty
anymore. Devin the progressing review but and that was good because Carl
and I had a good relationship and and he put me on a lot of committees and
so that's, that's got started off well. But I'd say glenn really what was
your impression of a s you when you first came on campus? I went home and
I told lucy I said it's it's a little campus and I walked down Apache and
part of that on the south side there wasn't even a sidewalk
and I said it's a dusty little place and I really feel comfortable there.
I'd like to go and she said, well let's let's do that. So she was always
so supportive.
They the campus was college avenue run through north south. And I guess it
was Orange street that ran east west and
we were on the, what they call it now the administration building at the
time. I was on the, on the west side of college. If we wanted to go with
the emu to get a cup of coffee, we had to wait for the traffic to go by,
you know. Right, okay. Mm hmm.
When you made a decision to come here, you had in mind strictly management
or were you looking for other types of position at the issue? No, I was
management specifically. Okay. You also mentioned and what I read that you
were involved in mediation arbitration and so forth.
When I was at florida, my management was the major and I had a minor in
labor economics, which is union and um social psychology so that fit into.
Because what I thought of the management was mostly the quote behavioral
stuff, anything we could steal from psychology and sociology and put it in
the business situation. So when I came
when I first came I found out That five faculty in the department had left.
And I've reflected since I wonder if I would have come if I would have
known there was gonna be that kind of turnover. But they hired five new
ones of us when we came in. Well one of them had left. I was teaching the
union management course. So I said yeah I'll teach that. Well then the
students started asking me about what was I? A labor arbitrator and I got
to be a little bit embarrassed about it. But shortly after I came one of
the new faculty members was associated with.
I've got to contact with faculty member and economics at the University of
Arizona. And a fellow who was the head of the Federal Mediation
Conciliation Service for Arizona and new Mexico. Um and they their job is
a federal job but their job is to keep union and management from going out
on strike. So and they they wanted to form an association. So they invited
me to join the group. So I was one of the four originators of that group
and the second president of it. And so the students were asked, started
asking you labor night and and labor report traitor. But I thought I'd
better do it. So I needed to have some acquaintance with people in the
management side and the union side and the independent side like Federal
mediation is the national labor Relations Board, that sort of thing. So I
knew all those people. So I hear I was a college professor. I knew the
bright people and so that automatically made me an arbitrator. So And I
did that for 30 years.
Another point then when you came to a S. U. Was there anything that you
felt was very special to you?
I guess the special part was
that I got my own way. Yeah that that may sound like I'm dodging the
question but it was it was a comfortable thing. I was told for a long time.
I hope I'm answering your question. I was told for a long time that there
was politics at Arizona State University
and I believed him because they told me but I never saw it in later years
I learned about what where I learned what politics was. There's no
politics when you get what you want. There's politics when you don't get
what you want. Unfortunately early I got what I want later on I didn't
always get what I want but I was where I wanted to be. So that wasn't so
bad. Yeah there were certain college that worked with each other.
Yeah I people people tell me about it that here. I got a bad chairman, I
got a bad dean. I got a bad this and that. And I thought, you know, that's
mostly over in liberal arts, fine arts. They don't, they don't like
authority anyway. Right. So they don't understand about this thing, but I
was on some grievance committees and I found out they really had some
legitimate complaints, you know, and I was very fortunate And I think in
the, in the whole college of business that we had some pretty reasonable
chairman and dealing with problems, faculty, was there any event today
issue that really impressed you?
I don't know.
Again, I'm not asking your question. I guess just the whole atmosphere is
just comfortable. Yeah, this was, it was a family type. Well, it it was
earlier until it began to change. I mentioned all these married guys.
We're a small department. But as we grew ah and this is not a value
judgment, but it's as we grew, we got hard to get women because there
weren't many and there was all that competition nationwide.
But of the 3 1st women, we hired, two of them were already divorced and
the third one divorced after she came and we began to hire some guys that
were divorced. And then we had some of the people that one was here even
before I came that eventually divorced. Another guy did, it changed. Ah
sort of what words? I remember 11 day, three of the divorced guys on a
monday morning, the faculty were out in the hall talking about the wild
time they had over the weekend. Well, his old married guys better not talk
about things like that, you know? So it was it was a different deal. But
there was a lot of socializing.
I made the comment one time, lucy and I were either going to a party or
giving a party. And there was there was there was a lot of that was good.
Yeah, we had a had a party one time. We hadn't been very long. We came up
with a list of 100 and we said, you know, we can't have 100 people in here
, but we didn't know who to leave off. So he said, well, well Time it will
have two hours and we'll have 50 come in and then we'll have next to ours
, another 50 come in. The first two hours was over in the 1st 50. Never
left. And we went, I
think that said a lot for the environment, you know, the people that just
didn't want to make a showing and take off. Yeah. But Glenn was out in the
backyard with his department chairman doing business at that party. Okay.
During the time in your department, what do you think was the greatest
achievement of your department And how you were you were you involved?
Well, 1, 1 role is that we taught two courses ah basic management course
and for freshmen and we caught one course which was called Policy which is
now strategy. I think that's the current name ah which was a case course
given stories about real businesses and what's good and bad about it and
what would you do to fix it? And
the nature of our department early was that all of us taught both of those
courses, Not all the same same semesters but there was there was kind of a
common bond that was involved with that I think a sense that we were
giving a service to the total college and then even later on that more
departments around the campus, certain majors like communication, it was a
requirement to take some management courses and
I I think the growth um health Iran and I'll give him credit for us. We
had once we lost a couple at first to five that were hired when I was left
soon we had a very stable department and I think hal created that sort of
environment for us. So what's the big accomplishment? I guess this is just
the sense of service that we were doing our job. And did you ever do any
follow up with your graduates? You know I I admire these people. I hear
about you know they talk about them later. I I wasn't involved with the
doctoral program but I shared six dissertations and
six of them. That was I was God I bet. And close to four of them. That's
that's good. But I don't know what that other magic touches some of my my
friends. That's an ongoing thing. I really admire that. I think that I had
good relationships while they were there but I didn't continue much beyond
that.
What advice would you give to young people today that are anticipating
coming to A. S. U.
Well I'll tell you given what I've seen here. I've told people I retired
from a different institution that I joined.
And certainly since I've been retired there's been a world of difference
and and what's going on? I'd say you better be adapt
until what yeah. To the change. Try to anticipate it if you can stay up
with it if you must and try to make some of it happen if it's if it's
possible to. But yeah it's just it's not going to stay the same. And
certainly I think the way our world is it's going to be even more of a
change in the near future. I'm gonna change again a little direction too
to the retirees association. I know you had a lot of influence in very
aspects of this organization.
What was your feeling really about the association and what was the
greatest input that you feel you had. Well it was I think probably in
existence about 23 years before I retired and I didn't even know it
existed matt that's called me, asked me to join the board and I didn't
even know it was there and I was trying to undo some of the things I had
out in the, in the community that I associated with teaching and it takes
a little while to. So I told him no. So he asked me three years in a row,
so the third year I accepted and then I was on board immediately, they
assigned me to be the treasurer. Mhm. Because I was in business right?
Somehow, rather a year of accountant made me qualified treasurer for most
organizations I've been. And then the next year, this part of the humbling
thing that goes on in life, ah they were alternating between staff and
faculty to be the president of the association.
And it came up and he said, well,
so, coming into my second year, I said, well now, you know, Sadie would
you do it? And I don't wanna do it, charlie you do it and I don't want to
do it. And they ran out of people and they asked me if I do it and I'd say
yeah, I'll do it. So that's how come I wound up being this chair elect and
then the chair of the group for a year. And
so We were getting close to the 10th year of the association and I think
that maybe the contribution I made was I proposed to the board. How about
we have a 10 year history while people are still around Diana Riegner who
was one of the early ones, a good friend of mine before I retired, she was
in student advising and job placement. And
but everybody, everybody else was alive. And I said we got to do this
board was agreeable to it. I went to Dean smith asked him if he'd write it.
I didn't realize how complicated the job was going to be and
he had the june pain to help him. And then I was off the board. So the job
got to be done. So you were instrumental in getting that thing published
along with some other people. And I'm glad it was done. I don't know
whether anybody has ever read that beside those of us who are listed in it
, but I'm I'm glad the document was done. And then more recently with the
20th year, the book has come out too. So I think that's a good set of
history.
Were you involved at all at the layers on relating to legislative
activities
right after.
Can I go back
early when I was at a S. U. For some reason or other, I was asked to run
to be um Senate President, faculty Senate. It's gone through a couple of
name changes, they call it university's Senate now and it was one of the
best of the best kept secrets in campus. I lost that one. Hands down and a
couple of other years I was asked again, but for professional or personal
reasons I turned him down. But I was asked then again and to run and I did
run and I won that time
and
I was president 89 90.
And so the one year is chair elect
and christian valentine from the performing arts was the president and she
was great upbeat, you know, just just fun to be with the previous year and
this is part of the A. S. U. History. The previous year, Michael Nielsen
had been president of the Senate and he was instrumental in working with
the three universities to come together to go to the regions and say
faculty ought to be represented at the region's meetings and they just
didn't. I like the idea there. How come it was that you didn't want to
talk to faculty when the whole thing was about students and faculty that
everyone can do that. And
so anyway, they said it's okay. Finally they agreed that we do it. So when
I was chair elect, it was the first time that we showed up at the region's
meeting. So the three universities had representatives there and nobody
talked to us. You know, we just show up and we'd sit on the back bench and
a lot of the stuff was closed meetings. So we didn't see. But when it was
open, extremely formal, couldn't believe it. I just, I couldn't, but I
never saw anything like it before. They were around a long table. The
president be at one hand and then the other end was an open chair and the
rest of down the side of the table so they call some staff person and to
make a report.
And I saw somebody to ask a question. It was region jones. That's the
question. So the respondent the staff guy would say
ah chair smith regent jones answered the question. I would have forgotten
what the question was by the time I went through that formality that's the
way the thing was stiff. one of the regions as a lawyer and he had a wife
who is a student at A. S. U. He talked to us but he was the only one who
did that. But it was good communication. We talked to the representatives
of the other two colleges
and then
uh there was there was a one or two openings that came up and there had
never been in a S. U. Graduate on the regions but there had always been
several from the U. Of a. So Rose Mofford was the governor at the time. I
wrote her a letter as I'm sure lots of people did and I says about a Sgs
time, she never responded and they didn't she didn't appoint a sus but she
appointed ah
Eddie basher
and of the grocery store fame. He got the round head bit overweight
boisterous guy. All this formality going on
and I just loved it. Eddie would sit there, it's a chair and somebody
would come up with, well we're going to cover such and such an agenda and
and said where is it? I never heard anything about that, we're gonna get
some staff guide come rushing up and giving the paperwork. He said, well
let me take a look at this before we get started on. It wasn't long that
he was when he was on one of the committees for the regions and I sat in
on this thing and the chair,
I couldn't be there. So Eddie was the chair of this, this committee,
his big round head and the glasses up on his head, he said call me Eddie,
he just broke down the barriers on that thing and I'm sure if I thought it
was dumb, I'm sure a lot of the region's did as well and they just gave up
on all the formality. I they may have said something in the closed session
but it was an entirely different, different kind of atmosphere. When
Herman Shannon, the construction guy was on regions and he took a shine to
kristen valentine. And a couple of times he flew her down and his private
just when they rotated these board meetings between the three campuses
regions meetings. So he flew her down a couple of times, I think that
helped communication immensely. And at the last day that she was the
president in the spring, why he gave her a hug.
So the next year I'm just, I was the president and they were a little
border region is a little bit more open, but but not much. And at the last
meeting, Edith slander was the chairman and I asked God, I put together
that I gave to the the senate faculty senate and a group of cartoons as a
professor of management accumulated stuff had to do with management and
organization and stuff that I thought had to do with what I've been doing
the year of the region's just goofy stuff. And so I had so I asked also, I
wonder if I could hand these out to the regions. He said, well why don't
you say something to the group? I didn't intend on doing that. So I sat on
that empty, empty chair and I made some comments about what I thought was
wonderful about the fact that the faculty was here and we could share what
was going on. And I thanked him for doing that and I said, one of the
things I thought was nice was region Chanin giving Christine valentine a
hug. He said, hell, I'm not going to hug you. I said, I understand Edith
Auslander came around the chairs around the table and gave me a hug. You
know, these are good things for communication. So yeah, another thing
about being a mom, I may have not answered your question that I think
about being on this thing with, with the regions. They required that each
of the three universities have a luncheon
and with the regions and quote faculty leadership. So I hired all the,
they board of directors for the, for the senate to come to this luncheon
and
half of the region's showed up. I thought, you know, isn't this, they're
requiring a university pay for this thing and then I'll let all of them
show up in the first place. But I was asked to make the presentation. So I
told him, you know, I don't know, I'm trying to think what I would, I
should say at this and I decided I'm going to tell you regions what I tell
you if I had a chance to tell you. And there was a lot of concern at the
time about
micromanaging on the part of the region's what was going on. And
so I told him about that among some other things. And I think I got my
message over because when the luncheon was over, the faculty applauded and
the region's didn't. So I
thought, I thought it worked well.
Did you ever go down to the legislator legislator?
I was convinced
that
the three university press, the little I saw while I was visiting the
regions for two years that, that the university administration was not
representing as well in the legislature.
I had the benefit when I was president
Russ nelson was just going off
and president ladic or had been appointed in june to be the president. But
he couldn't come in until the middle of the year at the beginning of
spring semester. And Dick peck, who had been on board for a year as the
region's was as a progress, was assigned as The president for that six
months. Dick pecs, the only guy I've ever known in my life that I could
have disagreements with enjoy every minute, that he was just just a great
guy to work with a fun humor. He had a lot of loyalty to the institution
and
we worked worked well,
Russ nelson turned down almost everything that the, the Senate proposed.
And so I'm getting up to your question. And
so by the time Christine and I were doing faculty were saying why in the
world should we be wasting our time being on the Senate that no matter
what we proposed nothing that wouldn't get anything done. So Christine and
I went to Dick pic while he was still progressing and said, what do you do
about this? He said, well, the president usually makes his decisions based
upon what his staff recommends to him. So I said, if he turns down
something, why don't you go check with them and see what you can do? So
that's the way we handled it and we massaged it and then we run it through
again and we got a lot of that stuff past well when I took over as
president and peck was just taken over to be the the president for that
six months. I said, let's take this a step further. How about if we
propose something, we go to the staff before we bring it to you? He said
that sounds like a good idea. So I told that the executive committee, each
member was in charge of some committee for the for the Senate. So we all
agreed that we we do that sort of thing the way it worked out. But they go
they go to a staff person
and most of the time the staff person and say, well, we didn't know about
that, we can fix it. Or they say if if you want the president to prove it
, you better state it this way
we propose, presented hardly anything to the president for for that year.
It was all done by the staff. We got it done. The faculty on the Senate.
We're pleased that you know what, what they wanted to do was was getting
done. And when I retired larry Penley, they had a luncheon for the retired
faculty. Larry Penley. Yeah, recognized that what I did when I was on the
Senate was to improve communication between the faculty and then I really
was pleased about that. And it made life just so simple for me and I'm
gonna do something and we just get it done now. Legislature
during that period of time. I got convinced that administration was really
not. This may not be fair to them, but that's the way I saw it.
So I went to laddie Cora and I said this is what I propose. I know we
can't lobby as state employees but we could probably work something out
that we could make our presence known and what we're doing and we weren't
getting any money that's school was school weren't getting any money, the
faculty and staff weren't getting any pay increases and suddenly he said
yeah go ahead with it. Suddenly I had a staff lady from Brent Brown's
office when then
public relations or whatever it was and
People from around there were six of us around campus including Alan
Matheson who was one of the most respected people I know on campus and we
were on the on the committee and we were getting this support from the
administration and so on. All I did was propose an idea and it was all put
in place for me. I found out about six months later that when ladic or was
president of University of Vermont he created that same sort of group, he
was just waiting to sign somebody and I came up and and offered my
services and the way we work that was that I guess we stayed within the
bounds of legal legal bounds, but they made appointments for me to have
lunch with some of the legislators and where I think the administration
has to be pretty careful about their their politics working with the
legislature's I I told these legislation, how come you're beating up on us
? What are you talking about? Don dots told me one time about the director
of the alumni association, he said he was talking to one of the
legislators and I'm not going to give the A. S. You any money because
they're running around here with Cadillacs and Mercedes
cars with a S. You license on them and these, these vanity plates that you
buy. Well, he was on the legislature that voted that to be legal in the
first place. That legislation didn't even know what he'd voted for. So
those kinds of things we could kind of correct right, getting back to what
is important within your department,
some of your faculty members as well as the leaders of the department.
What outstanding
activities? That really changed
thinking within the department
philosophy and so forth. Well, what really happened, I mentioned keith
Davis who was an attraction to recruiting a lot of faculty and several
faculty early. How fair on the chairman was involved with nationally with
the purchasing association and I never fully appreciated first. What what
sort of a big deal that was, but I guess you're purchasing billions of
dollars of stuff. It's good to know if you're doing it correctly correctly
, but he was, he was a leader in that group. He was the first editor of
their
journal and I was pleased to get a couple of my articles in that overtime.
And eventually after these 14 years that he was the chairman ah
and Bill Reiff, who has been in our department, was acting dean while they
were going through a dean search and they worked out a deal that they form
another department which was purchasing transportation and operations. And
so there was a spit off and how moved from being chairman of the
management department or the and this, this had a national impact and they
moved down to the industrial park, one of the, perhaps of the first
occupant down there and that is eventually morphed into a national
movement about the
playing change management. And so that's that's that's a that's that's a
big deal, it's a it's a big focus on in business now. So yeah, that that
was a major thing. I I got to the College of Business magazine a couple of
years ago and it listed one of the colleagues um who had gotten an award
in the management department, he was there when I was there and I
contacted him, I complimented him for it and
he said that the Department of Management now As recognized as one of the
top 10 departments in the, in the in the world and universities for the
quality and the quantity of its publications
and that's come a long way from the time when I showed up and I was on the
campus about two months and Hal Faron called me and he said, well if you
want to stay around here, you better get something published every year.
But it was kind of the whole home and it it didn't make any difference
what it was in. But it you know, you get to get something that had the
binding to it that you could do it. And by the time I retired, why it was
mm hmm. New doctoral Canada people they had to publish already before we
ever saw. So that was a so I I think that's part of the change to, you
know, just the whole dynamics of what was going on.
It appears that in many areas the advanced degree doctorate in this case,
the
manner in which
they do various types of activities certainly have changed.
Yeah. It was important that I get out in the business community and
and a little sarcastic on my part. But I said we used to need to know
about business now. We need to know about statistics. But the fortunate
thing is there was a survey not long after I retired by one of the faculty
members that correlated the teaching evaluations with the quality of
publications. And there was a hype high correlation. They weren't giving
up the quality of teaching for the quality of the publications, good
people were good people. Mhm.
You know, we've talked about many, many things here of interest to all of
us certainly. But are there any other points that you can recall that we
would like to know about?
Well one of the things you have nothing to do with
with what we've been talking about it. It's got everything to do with me.
And I brought this thing up.
This is the Catherine Gammage Stories, it was magic bye sally y mm. Okay
stuff. I Catherine Damage was the second wife and widow of Grady Gammage
and
I had never met her but I told I was told about how loyal she was, how
active she was. He was on the payroll at ASU how
enthusiastic she was about everything. I never met her about the time I
was getting ready to retire. I was at three different social gatherings
and each time she asked me to invite her out to lunch. Well the first time
I thought she was just being polite about this thing
and and about a third time I said I'd better take it seriously. She was
living at an apartment in Friendship Village retirement community. So I
went to pick her up and this sally y and that's her legal name, she want
to make sure I understood that about her.
Gonna find my quote here.
They had a she wrote this book and Catherine Gammage and she
we're at a book signing in the Memorial the Union and I was invited to go
to that. I had this book
and
sally showed me one particular page and I won't read the whole thing. But
this is a quote
big print entitled the mystery man.
Um
friday lunch date. I have a date with a mystery man. Maybe I made it up.
I've done it before. Maybe they forgot they made a date with me. Oh he's
here, my mystery man. I'll say it's good to see you. I've been looking
forward to this whole week. And that sounded like the Catherine damage
that I'd heard about. Sally told me at that point, she said when
Catherine Gammage was looking forward to waiting for me to come, she said
I got a lunch date with somebody. I don't know who it is, but it must be a
man because I got a headache. Yeah.
And we had a delightful lunch, but she was at a point
she appreciates this. We both lost our wives through Alzheimer's disease
and canned and this was before then. But Catherine at the over lunch, just
so enthusiastic telling me about her grandchildren several times and each
time she did with the same enthusiasm just had to deliver. She was one of
those individuals at friendship village that everybody I really love.
I'm trying to think of some of the things that you and I were involved
with and so forth. Oh you you got condemned to a deal when I was president
of the retirees association has said to Zeke, will you be the the vice
president? He said, yeah, he didn't know until the end of the year that
meant he was going to be president the next year.
Yeah. He did a good, good, good job. Oh, what, what Yeah, I think I could
add and this is a very personal kind of thing. But I was reflecting on
this and this is a big deal for me to be here today. But I was reflecting
on this
and as I was thinking through the experiences I had, how many people came
to mind that have already been interviewed by you folks. And I really feel
fortunate that I've known the kind of people that are considered to be the
movers and shakers of this institution. Yeah. This is great. Thank you.
Thank you for the time. Yeah. Friend.
Everything. That's very good that I had this opportunity.
Oh well, well I give credit to more people on that sort of thing. I was
president of the Senate at the time
and as you'd expect a lot. He was just just great to work with and he
asked that I share the inauguration. I don't know beans about what, what
do you do with an inauguration
And I was assigned an bergen in the President's office to assist me and
it's just beautiful. You know, she's, she's been in the president's office.
She knows what's going on. She knows where everybody is. You go to the
universe. You want to have a party in university, you've got food, you've
got room, you've got bands, you've got all this stuff and she'd call up
and she said this and Bergen is from the President's Office, nobody ever
said no, you know, you had it all and we had a few false starts to get
that thing going and
eventually put it together and it was three days something going on every
day.
The
director of the Symphony Orchestra,
what is his name?
Strange? No, after him straight um
Henry smith and there was another name. He came up with the idea that
laddie core ought to, he was going to do the piece of the ah the
Children's Symphony and it had a speaking part to it. I said, I think it's
a good idea of glad he would do that part.
Yeah, it was the same time that there was the dedication to the
golf course and they hadn't had a building yet, but they had a big tent up
and had all the dignitaries there. I got invited, all kinds of things that
I would, I never did before, didn't after, but it was, it was fun to do it
for a year or two. And so I saw a convenient time to guards. See laddie, I
said this has been been proposed by the director before. I could, he could
say anything, his mother was there and she had, oh, he'd be good at that.
You've got a lot of mothers like that, right? I'm glad he did it. And
everybody recognized he's a bright guy. But he went over and he went
through it one time. That was that was all that either do it and I was
there and it was just a flawless kind of thing.
That was that damage. And another big part for me on that is is
my wife lucy was contacted to be the representative of Idaho State
University that so we could process together, you know, different places
in the deal Lincoln Ragsdale who was
big time businessman in phoenix um war hero during the Second World War. I
had his son in a classic good guy, good guy. Anyway, Lincoln Ragsdale want
to have his picture taken with my wife and that's in our album. That those
those little, those little things that you go through life on campus that
make it fun. Mhm. So the inauguration was a big deal. We had the speaker
of the,
for the alumni association,
the student
body president
ah Edith all slander the the regions. And I spoke
and Rose Mofford has the governor spoke. She finished her talk with,
because laddie was an Arizona native, grew up in Western part of the
valley, graduated from N A. U. So Rose finished up with welcome home son.
And afterwards, one of the secretaries told me that one of the other
secretaries would say. I didn't know Rose Mofford was Lanny cora's mother.
So this has been a fun place for me. Okay. That's wonderful. Okay, well I
believe that then closes the interview. At this point
I'm going to have happy hour with an this afternoon and good good. I'm
about due to call her up for lunch too. So we've got one more thing we'd
like to get on a cliff. You usually get it to start and that's where you
introduce yourself. My name is. How White Professor of Management
Business From 1966. Something something short. We use it in our annual
meeting people we had just interviewed. Sure, okay, whenever you're ready
, uh I'm Harold White. My friends call me hal I'm professor of management
in the College of Business now the W. P. Carey School of Business. I
joined the faculty in 1966, retiredin