WEBVTT 00:00:04.940 --> 00:00:06.940 today is March the 6th 2000 and 10. I'm ruth jones professor of political 00:00:10.199 --> 00:00:15.957 science from the school of Politics and global studies at A. S. U. Um 00:00:15.990 --> 00:00:22.576 we're here with for the Arizona state University retirees, video oral 00:00:22.609 --> 00:00:28.306 history, video project. And in the room with me are linda Vance coy, who 00:00:28.339 --> 00:00:33.717 is the director of this project, Dave shots lee who is one of the support 00:00:33.750 --> 00:00:39.307 people for this program and john McIntosh to the camera. So 00:00:39.340 --> 00:00:44.126 we are happy to have you here and they say that I shouldn't introduce you 00:00:44.159 --> 00:00:49.016 , you should introduce yourself. So are. And what your role was at issue 00:00:49.049 --> 00:00:53.946 when you were here. I'm Milt Glick. I am now the president of the 00:00:53.979 --> 00:00:59.307 University of Nevada Reno And when I was here I was provost and someday 00:00:59.340 --> 00:01:04.096 senior vice president and other days executive vice president. And I spent 00:01:04.129 --> 00:01:11.176 15 years here in those roles. Mm hmm. Tell our viewers a little bit about 00:01:11.209 --> 00:01:15.656 your background, how you uh where you grew up and then how you got into 00:01:15.689 --> 00:01:21.697 chemistry and and how you got into academic administration. I was I grew 00:01:21.730 --> 00:01:26.546 up in Rock Island Illinois a small town on the Mississippi. My father was 00:01:26.579 --> 00:01:31.997 a jeweler there and I always thought I'd go into the jewelry business and 00:01:32.030 --> 00:01:37.826 he I thought I could have a better life and kicked me out and I went to 00:01:37.859 --> 00:01:42.447 Dagestan at college and made the mistake of going in the chemistry just 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:48.536 because that was the best professor I had. And unlike today students who 00:01:48.569 --> 00:01:53.986 don't expect to end up in the same field they started I was the generation 00:01:54.019 --> 00:01:58.397 and if you start something you do it for the rest of your life. So after 00:01:58.430 --> 00:02:00.906 graduating 00:02:00.939 --> 00:02:05.346 with the baccalaureate to create Augustana I went to the University of 00:02:05.379 --> 00:02:12.726 Wisconsin where I got my PhD and physical chemistry with 00:02:12.759 --> 00:02:18.807 specialty and x ray crystallography. I went on to 00:02:18.840 --> 00:02:24.696 10 2 years at Cornell University as a post doc on the first article I 00:02:24.729 --> 00:02:29.666 wrote at Cornell of all the hundreds and so articles I've written that's 00:02:29.699 --> 00:02:34.916 still the most referenced and I went to Wayne State University in Detroit 00:02:34.949 --> 00:02:42.949 . I spent 17 years on the faculty, was active in faculty governance And my 00:02:43.889 --> 00:02:50.557 last five years I was department chair. I at that point I realized I was 00:02:50.590 --> 00:02:55.827 spending more time not being a faculty member than being a faculty member 00:02:55.860 --> 00:03:01.807 that is not being a chemist and I decided I had to become an honest man, 00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:08.036 join the dark side. And so I went to the University of Missouri in 00:03:08.069 --> 00:03:13.747 Colombia, spent five years, there is dean was offered several provo ship 00:03:13.780 --> 00:03:19.316 and finally was offered the Iowa state provo ships. My youngest son who is 00:03:19.349 --> 00:03:23.997 going to be a senior in high school said dad this is the right job for you 00:03:24.030 --> 00:03:30.517 , you ought to go, I'm not coming with you and he was very wise and I 00:03:30.550 --> 00:03:35.906 spent three years as provost there the last year's interim president and 00:03:35.939 --> 00:03:43.939 then I was contacted by a search committee to come look at the provo ship 00:03:43.939 --> 00:03:51.939 at Arizona State University and laddie courier who was then president had 00:03:51.990 --> 00:03:56.827 tried to recruit me as provost at the university of Vermont and I turned 00:03:56.860 --> 00:04:02.217 him down and he urged me to at least come get to know the place I got 00:04:02.250 --> 00:04:08.807 there and went through the interview process. one of the faculty in the 00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:15.237 large open interview, they tell me, asked me why I flunked him in freshman 00:04:15.270 --> 00:04:19.527 chemistry and I assured him I didn't flunk him, he must have flunked 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:25.546 himself and I went out to dinner with two members of the search committee. 00:04:25.579 --> 00:04:32.207 Three members I think ruth jones sitting by my side 00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:37.577 moored mug who is department chair of chemistry and bob Barnhart who later 00:04:37.610 --> 00:04:42.317 became vice president for research. And we had a wonderful evening. That's 00:04:42.350 --> 00:04:47.197 worth telling about. Uh huh. There are many features that evening. I 00:04:47.230 --> 00:04:52.976 remember very distinctly like when I pounded my pork on the table and the 00:04:53.009 --> 00:04:59.096 knife went up and over the balcony and when I asked ruth if she knew my 00:04:59.129 --> 00:05:04.536 friend who was with Dean and um cell and she said yes his name is jones 00:05:04.569 --> 00:05:11.207 when we share a son and we bonded over that and 00:05:11.240 --> 00:05:18.226 that's kind of what you write and I got to a S. U. And before I came linda 00:05:18.259 --> 00:05:23.207 Vance coy wrote a letter making it clear that she trained every provost 00:05:23.240 --> 00:05:31.147 since uh for a long time and that she would shake me up and train me and 00:05:31.180 --> 00:05:37.217 after I got to know linda, she, she said she would stay as long as I would 00:05:37.250 --> 00:05:42.887 stay. And I think she thought that meant 3-5 years. It turned out it was 00:05:42.920 --> 00:05:50.920 15 years and she did train me. And so that's kind of how I got where I am 00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:59.106 and tell us what you remember a issue was like when you arrived. 00:05:59.139 --> 00:06:07.139 Listen, beautiful climate. Most of the year it was 00:06:07.540 --> 00:06:11.846 the president, Laddie courier had been convinced that it had to stop 00:06:11.879 --> 00:06:18.127 growing on the main campus. People were obsessed with maintaining it at 00:06:18.160 --> 00:06:23.937 whatever the size and we were recruiting students, but we were not really 00:06:23.970 --> 00:06:28.806 recruiting great students. We were large. 00:06:28.839 --> 00:06:34.207 I think our ambitions, we're good but 00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:42.240 they were camped and very nice people, very good feeling among the people 00:06:42.889 --> 00:06:46.906 and laddie had done a great job of building 00:06:46.939 --> 00:06:52.996 that sense that we didn't go after the best students. We didn't really 00:06:53.029 --> 00:06:59.106 have a recruitment effort. We had an admissions effort. And 00:06:59.139 --> 00:07:04.546 one of the things that I'd like to take credit for, like everything's 00:07:04.579 --> 00:07:11.757 success has many fathers failures and orphans was we decided that we had 00:07:11.790 --> 00:07:19.790 to do something to raise the expectations in the stature and 00:07:20.839 --> 00:07:27.496 I decided that we needed to go after national merits cobs. We had six as a 00:07:27.529 --> 00:07:34.337 way to kind of set the target differently. Obviously we succeeded beyond 00:07:34.370 --> 00:07:42.370 my wildest dreams. I mean I think hey issue has Well over 509 and we gave 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:47.507 a credit card to the 00:07:47.540 --> 00:07:51.627 director of the honors college dean of the honors college and told him to 00:07:51.660 --> 00:07:57.106 pretend he was a football coach, Travel the country to places No one had 00:07:57.139 --> 00:08:03.197 ever been and sit in people's home and bring them back alive and we should 00:08:03.230 --> 00:08:09.106 recruit top students. The way we recruited top athletes. 00:08:09.139 --> 00:08:11.806 I, 00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:18.507 one of the ways I characterize a issue as it was is that I took my wife to 00:08:18.540 --> 00:08:24.197 Paris for, I think our 30th anniversary, we're in a bistro and there were 00:08:24.230 --> 00:08:27.887 two women sitting next to us and we got to talking and they said, where 00:08:27.920 --> 00:08:33.417 are you from? And I said, where are you from? And they said Chicago and 00:08:33.450 --> 00:08:38.506 they said, you must know I was on a state university. And I said, yeah, 00:08:38.539 --> 00:08:42.717 how did you know that was in Tempe where a lot of our students go there. 00:08:42.750 --> 00:08:49.016 And I said, well why do a lot of students from Chicago shoe? And she said 00:08:49.049 --> 00:08:53.907 , oh, those are the students that want the six year plan. 00:08:53.940 --> 00:09:01.506 And we really, I think raise the bar a lot and it's continued to be raised. 00:09:01.539 --> 00:09:08.376 And so a issue was a good place. But it was rather a comfortable place 00:09:08.409 --> 00:09:10.407 that 00:09:10.440 --> 00:09:16.356 I thought it was doing just fine and it was, so there was a big 00:09:16.389 --> 00:09:21.996 recruitment effort and I had to keep redefining how we counted students so 00:09:22.029 --> 00:09:27.606 that every time we exceeded the cap. President said, we redefined how we 00:09:27.639 --> 00:09:33.417 counted students. So we stay under the cap and I'm sure that president 00:09:33.450 --> 00:09:38.417 core knew what I was doing. I certainly knew what I was doing. But it was 00:09:38.450 --> 00:09:41.807 one of those things, 00:09:41.840 --> 00:09:46.736 the theater that we had to go through so he could maintain his commitment 00:09:46.769 --> 00:09:50.707 to never go over whatever that number was and I could grow the student 00:09:50.740 --> 00:09:54.856 body because it was clear that the way the legislature funded the 00:09:54.889 --> 00:10:02.006 university, the only way to build the budget it was by students. 00:10:02.039 --> 00:10:07.417 Are there other things that come to mind that you're proud of or that you 00:10:07.450 --> 00:10:12.717 thought were a good challenge and worth of fun? Yeah, my impression was we 00:10:12.750 --> 00:10:18.756 had a very good back elite, but they were all bit players, they were all 00:10:18.789 --> 00:10:23.596 really good at what they did. But what they needed was what I like to call 00:10:23.629 --> 00:10:30.776 a franchise player. Two bring in people with steve nash who is not only a 00:10:30.809 --> 00:10:35.837 good point guard, but he made everyone around him better. And so we set a 00:10:35.870 --> 00:10:42.317 priority in that first capital campaign of endowed chairs to bring in 00:10:42.350 --> 00:10:47.207 stars, but the kind of stars that lift other people rather than the kind 00:10:47.240 --> 00:10:53.126 of stars that just leech off the university and that they would make that 00:10:53.159 --> 00:10:59.486 strong faculty stronger. And I think it took many years to do that. But 00:10:59.519 --> 00:11:03.746 over time we made a lot of progress and I know the university's made even 00:11:03.779 --> 00:11:10.297 more since I will have our salaries were literally falling off the end of 00:11:10.330 --> 00:11:17.876 the earth And that we were probably 20% below the market and 20% below at 00:11:17.909 --> 00:11:23.506 other university in the state of get its name. Uh, 00:11:23.539 --> 00:11:27.856 and we made the decision that charity begins at home and that it was 00:11:27.889 --> 00:11:33.407 really important to change that salary structure. And we did that by 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:40.256 growing and candidly instead of adding to our faculty size, we fixed our 00:11:40.289 --> 00:11:46.207 faculty salaries. So that time I left, they were at market or above market. 00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:53.157 We probably carried that on too long because We got such a high student 00:11:53.190 --> 00:11:57.726 faculty ratio that I think it did damage. Nonetheless, I would argue it 00:11:57.759 --> 00:12:02.197 was absolutely the critically right thing to do for 10 years because you 00:12:02.230 --> 00:12:07.187 have to take care of the people you have before you start growing the 00:12:07.220 --> 00:12:12.557 place. So I believe it was the right decision, but it had consequences 00:12:12.590 --> 00:12:17.417 that weren't over. I mean, you have to be a warrior to be a really 00:12:17.450 --> 00:12:22.596 successful faculty member because you've got to be discovering and 00:12:22.629 --> 00:12:26.376 discovering and discovering if you want to be one of the great ones and 00:12:26.409 --> 00:12:31.167 nobody wants to be ordinary. Having said that, it's also a wonderful life 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:37.006 . I mean, you get that study what you want to study, teach pretty much 00:12:37.039 --> 00:12:42.986 what you want to teach, helped create the new minds of the future. I mean 00:12:43.019 --> 00:12:49.776 , I went to college over half a century ago and I never left and I can't 00:12:49.809 --> 00:12:56.707 imagine why anyone does. So yeah, I'm satisfied. 00:12:56.740 --> 00:13:01.876 And I don't know what I'd do. You know, as I said, those people whose 00:13:01.909 --> 00:13:06.606 advocation is also their locations are some of the luckiest people in the 00:13:06.639 --> 00:13:11.596 world. They also face one of the most difficult challenges. If it's who 00:13:11.629 --> 00:13:18.537 you are, who are you when you stop doing it. And that just scares the hell 00:13:18.570 --> 00:13:26.570 out of me. I just don't know who I would be because I am what I do and 00:13:27.259 --> 00:13:30.886 that isn't true of everybody. And I'm not even arguing whether it's a good 00:13:30.919 --> 00:13:35.606 or a bad thing, it is who we are. 00:13:35.639 --> 00:13:41.337 So I think it, if you had to do over again, you'd still choose alive, but 00:13:41.370 --> 00:13:46.697 I wouldn't have been a chemist, I would have waited a long time. In some 00:13:46.730 --> 00:13:51.606 parts, I might have get an attorney. 00:13:51.639 --> 00:13:55.307 We're a law professor. 00:13:55.340 --> 00:14:03.340 I it's been a great run for me, but I was a good faculty member, published 00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:08.766 a lot of articles, but I wasn't a creative faculty member. I wasn't going 00:14:08.799 --> 00:14:15.587 to be National Academy member. And I waited too long to realize that I 00:14:15.620 --> 00:14:21.907 could do more helping people who are smarter and more creative than I was 00:14:21.940 --> 00:14:27.376 be better then try to do it myself, that I just don't have that, you know 00:14:27.409 --> 00:14:34.096 , the great faculty members, I like to quote Barbara Mcclintock won the 00:14:34.129 --> 00:14:42.129 Nobel prize much too late for inventing what she called jumping genes 00:14:42.639 --> 00:14:46.547 And we now call her competent DNA. But she invented this and she 00:14:46.580 --> 00:14:52.856 discovered this in the 30s. And Barbara mcclintock said, you can't 00:14:52.889 --> 00:14:59.907 understand the gene unless you live in the south, that's great scholars. 00:14:59.940 --> 00:15:04.636 They live in the south. They dreamed the south that that is, they're 00:15:04.669 --> 00:15:12.669 always involved part of their brain. Like Warren Miller is so taken up by 00:15:12.769 --> 00:15:15.707 the, 00:15:15.740 --> 00:15:22.646 by the pursuit of knowledge that it drives everything else out and That 00:15:22.679 --> 00:15:27.447 isn't who I was, my major professor. I went back to speak at his 80th 00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:33.496 birthday best shrift this summer where he gave an hour chemistry lecturer 00:15:33.529 --> 00:15:40.717 without notes. And Larry lives in the south. He dances with molecules, he 00:15:40.750 --> 00:15:47.067 makes love to molecules, He sleeps with them. I mean, that is who he is. I 00:15:47.100 --> 00:15:51.307 was never that person. And 00:15:51.340 --> 00:15:58.957 but I was fortunate that eventually I found out what I could be. And my 00:15:58.990 --> 00:16:05.386 youngest, my eldest son, I was working on his PhD in physics and we went 00:16:05.419 --> 00:16:10.407 out for a run one day and I said, David, you know, just because she 00:16:10.440 --> 00:16:16.026 started a PhD in physics, you don't have to Do that. You've got 50 years 00:16:16.059 --> 00:16:20.346 of work ahead of you, you're like me, 60 years of work ahead of you, make 00:16:20.379 --> 00:16:23.776 sure this is what you want to do. And he said, well, you know, dan, I was 00:16:23.809 --> 00:16:28.496 going to do what you do and I realized, I have never seen you two signs. 00:16:28.529 --> 00:16:34.287 Uh he would, but he would, he had enough of me in him that he finished his 00:16:34.320 --> 00:16:39.386 PhD and when you start something, you finish it. But by the time he was 00:16:39.419 --> 00:16:44.587 done with his PhD he concluded there were only three people in the world 00:16:44.620 --> 00:16:51.197 interested in the project he was working on and he was not among them. 00:16:51.230 --> 00:16:57.606 And so he went to amazon dot com which he described as graduate school 00:16:57.639 --> 00:17:03.386 with stock options and he's been enormously successful there because he 00:17:03.419 --> 00:17:11.226 found a niche. Now did he benefits from having 10 years of undergraduate 00:17:11.259 --> 00:17:17.516 graduate training in physics? Absolutely had taught him skills, both 00:17:17.549 --> 00:17:24.506 management skills and analytical skills that have held him in good stead. 00:17:24.539 --> 00:17:30.177 But he moved on to a whole different life because the life he chose 00:17:30.210 --> 00:17:35.586 wasn't the right life for me. And you know, if you want to be a faculty 00:17:35.619 --> 00:17:41.677 member that's all you should be. Uh huh. It's a hard life little bit about 00:17:41.710 --> 00:17:47.516 how you approached faculty governance. Well, I'd spend my life faculty 00:17:47.549 --> 00:17:54.316 governance height land the faculty senate 15 years at Arizona State 00:17:54.349 --> 00:17:58.847 University. I'm sorry Wednesday University Where I served as a faculty 00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:06.127 member for 17 years and I believed in it. I believe in shared governance, 00:18:06.160 --> 00:18:13.197 recognizes the end, the responsibility belongs to the administration and 00:18:13.230 --> 00:18:17.046 at the end they have to make the tough decisions and they have to take the 00:18:17.079 --> 00:18:24.187 heat. Mhm I found that works for me. Mhm Missouri and Iowa state and it 00:18:24.220 --> 00:18:28.877 worked at Arizona state and I thought we had terrific faculty leaders who 00:18:28.910 --> 00:18:34.836 engaged and who helped us make wiser decisions. one of the things I 00:18:34.869 --> 00:18:38.407 learned as a dean 00:18:38.440 --> 00:18:44.236 was that the hard second hardest thing I had to learn place to listen. The 00:18:44.269 --> 00:18:48.976 first hardest thing I had to learn was to look like I was listening 00:18:49.009 --> 00:18:55.377 because I can parallel processing. Ah And one of the things I found was a 00:18:55.410 --> 00:18:59.726 faculty leader. I had a lot of good ideas but even more bad ideas and 00:18:59.759 --> 00:19:04.486 people would trash the bad ideas. So unfortunately they never have. I 00:19:04.519 --> 00:19:09.877 found as dean and then as provost people are hesitant to trash your bad 00:19:09.910 --> 00:19:16.407 ideas. So you have to be much more cautious about laying out ideas. But 00:19:16.440 --> 00:19:23.187 you also then have to make it a comfortable place for people to disagree. 00:19:23.220 --> 00:19:30.026 You have to create the engagement and make a place that people can 00:19:30.059 --> 00:19:35.197 disagree without feeling intimidated without fearing retribution. That 00:19:35.230 --> 00:19:43.097 they can really be part of the solution. And that takes a lot of time and 00:19:43.130 --> 00:19:47.447 effort and good will to build that where people can feel that they can 00:19:47.480 --> 00:19:54.586 actually step and say that's a really stupid idea. Mr provost. And it's a 00:19:54.619 --> 00:19:59.667 precious thing and one that has to you have to work at it every single day 00:19:59.700 --> 00:20:07.700 because it doesn't take many bad incidents before you kill that off. It's 00:20:08.109 --> 00:20:15.207 easier to build that trust than to rebuild it. And so 00:20:15.240 --> 00:20:20.407 hi I have always felt that 00:20:20.440 --> 00:20:27.806 some days you deposit in the trust bank other days you withdraw you try to 00:20:27.839 --> 00:20:32.907 keep the balance in the black. I've told the people in Nevada I've 00:20:32.940 --> 00:20:37.917 actually been borrowing from the trust bank. So I think that's a really 00:20:37.950 --> 00:20:45.506 important issue that you build trust by giving people reason to trust you. 00:20:45.539 --> 00:20:51.187 And then the wisdom of the whole is better than any individual. Although 00:20:51.220 --> 00:20:55.607 at the end the whole cannot make the decisions. You cannot create a 00:20:55.640 --> 00:21:03.036 plebiscite. So you have to make real decisions and take responsibility for 00:21:03.069 --> 00:21:10.407 them and to do that. People will give you a lot of leeway. I've always 00:21:10.440 --> 00:21:16.546 I've been impressed by the generosity of the faculty at the A. S. U. And 00:21:16.579 --> 00:21:23.107 forgiving some of my really bad decisions. 00:21:23.140 --> 00:21:28.806 Let's turn a little bit to the physical part is you you mentioned the 00:21:28.839 --> 00:21:33.986 downtown campus, the west campus. But if you've been around the campus 00:21:34.019 --> 00:21:37.917 reason well when you left from the time you came to, when you left the 00:21:37.950 --> 00:21:43.246 change that you saw and what you think it meant. Well I would say during 00:21:43.279 --> 00:21:51.006 the 1st 10 years we did essentially no building at all. We put uh huh. The 00:21:51.039 --> 00:21:58.367 latter court living for the social sciences building we built too cheap 00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:03.566 respect the buildings. The only building we built for a decade was the 00:22:03.599 --> 00:22:11.467 latter core building and then Michael Crowe came in 4.5 years ago. 3.5 00:22:11.500 --> 00:22:15.607 years ago. Right oh six 00:22:15.640 --> 00:22:23.640 and buildings. Oh I'm sorry I came in 7.5 years ago I left you know six, 00:22:23.859 --> 00:22:29.776 he came in in two and all of a sudden buildings sprouted up black tops. 00:22:29.809 --> 00:22:36.316 The we built the bio design buildings which are magnificent buildings 00:22:36.349 --> 00:22:43.457 built in a whole different way how they built the alum in development 00:22:43.490 --> 00:22:49.486 building where all the administrative offices are which is now called the 00:22:49.519 --> 00:22:56.207 the the foundation foundation building. 00:22:56.240 --> 00:23:01.597 The brickyard was a building we didn't build that. We acquired a building 00:23:01.630 --> 00:23:06.897 which had been built during the I. T. Boom and when the startups all 00:23:06.930 --> 00:23:10.536 collapsed we were able to buy that building and move our College of 00:23:10.569 --> 00:23:16.407 engineering offices there and I think those changed the nature of the 00:23:16.440 --> 00:23:22.556 campus. But as much as anything that I think really caused the campus to 00:23:22.589 --> 00:23:29.546 have its aspirations raised was the evolution of Mill avenue. It had 00:23:29.579 --> 00:23:34.647 already started when I arrived and gone from a street full of dirty 00:23:34.680 --> 00:23:42.367 bookstores and bikers bars. Two the idyllic college town that's continued 00:23:42.400 --> 00:23:48.006 to evolve but now their residences there. So there are people living there 00:23:48.039 --> 00:23:56.039 also The 1970 or so architecture class that had designed the Salt River 00:23:58.640 --> 00:24:03.697 project actually happened while I was there and the decision to take the 00:24:03.730 --> 00:24:10.506 Salt River in front of the university and turn that into a waterfront lake 00:24:10.539 --> 00:24:16.006 after having been dry, What happened two years probably that was a 00:24:16.039 --> 00:24:22.506 magnificent dream that thanks to the leadership of the Tempe community and 00:24:22.539 --> 00:24:28.786 some of the creative faculty at the university, it just creates a whole 00:24:28.819 --> 00:24:33.867 new dimension of the university and that was very exciting. So the 00:24:33.900 --> 00:24:40.927 evolution of mill the integration of the university into the downtown and 00:24:40.960 --> 00:24:47.496 then the evolution of the lakefront, which I haven't seen recently. So I 00:24:47.529 --> 00:24:51.847 don't know how much is filled up there all. We're changing the nature of 00:24:51.880 --> 00:24:59.506 the campus. The biggest mistake I think we made was one that I argued 00:24:59.539 --> 00:25:04.566 against and lost was allowing the new Cardinal Stadium to be built in 00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:10.447 Glendale instead of on our campus. So we could have had this magnificent 00:25:10.480 --> 00:25:16.687 dome, outrageously expensive stadium paid for by the taxpayers right on 00:25:16.720 --> 00:25:22.157 our campus instead of having Sun Devil stadium, which is a wonderful 00:25:22.190 --> 00:25:29.697 college stadium, but one that has had its best years behind it and needs 00:25:29.730 --> 00:25:34.657 lots of work and it's really hard on that field in the summer. I think 00:25:34.690 --> 00:25:39.907 that was a place we really missed the ball and 00:25:39.940 --> 00:25:44.677 we could not convince the athletic director that you could share a stadium 00:25:44.710 --> 00:25:51.607 with the cardinals Which we had done for of course, 15 years. 00:25:51.640 --> 00:25:56.467 Why don't you tell us a little bit about one of the things what started 00:25:56.500 --> 00:26:02.607 happening while I was there was the addition of resort quality dorms. Yeah 00:26:02.640 --> 00:26:08.476 , they were completed after I left. I've never lived in a dormitory, 00:26:08.509 --> 00:26:13.707 pardon me, a residence hall dormitory students system. 00:26:13.740 --> 00:26:18.336 I've gone to a lot of high end resorts that don't hold a candle to the 00:26:18.369 --> 00:26:24.026 kind of residents halls they now have and they really are just 00:26:24.059 --> 00:26:29.387 unbelievable from a different order actually. We did build two other 00:26:29.420 --> 00:26:33.617 buildings in those first years but they were started before I arrived. 00:26:33.650 --> 00:26:38.217 That was the computing commons and the law library and the law library. Of 00:26:38.250 --> 00:26:42.367 course it was a wonderful building. Computer commons was kind of an 00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:49.476 ordinary build. But the law library had some architectural interest and it 00:26:49.509 --> 00:26:55.637 worked well and it was a building. I think that lifted you that when you 00:26:55.670 --> 00:27:01.566 walked in you felt good about yourself that 00:27:01.599 --> 00:27:04.207 uh 00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:09.506 I mean they're really, there are certain buildings that make you better 00:27:09.539 --> 00:27:14.867 than you are. We've my first year opened the building, two buildings like 00:27:14.900 --> 00:27:20.177 that and the University of Nevada reno but we really changed the very 00:27:20.210 --> 00:27:26.546 nature of the campus by opening those buildings. You had offices in the 00:27:26.579 --> 00:27:30.687 old administration building and then in the foundation building, did it 00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:34.207 make any difference? 00:27:34.240 --> 00:27:39.806 I had the same people around me. And 00:27:39.839 --> 00:27:45.006 what's most important is who the people are not what the buildings like. 00:27:45.039 --> 00:27:49.806 Was it nice to come to work in the foundation building and look out at 00:27:49.839 --> 00:27:55.546 that beautiful great lawn in front of old main. Just kind of inhale the 00:27:55.579 --> 00:28:01.746 site. Yeah, really nice being in the new building and having a decent 00:28:01.779 --> 00:28:09.207 office and so on and I enjoyed that but it's still the people around you 00:28:09.240 --> 00:28:14.657 that define how well you can do your job, how much you enjoy it. I mean 00:28:14.690 --> 00:28:19.226 I've been very fortunate that all my life I look forward to coming in 00:28:19.259 --> 00:28:26.447 every morning to see the people that are there. I mean those of us that I 00:28:26.480 --> 00:28:31.717 think our vocation is an avocation are among the luckiest people in the 00:28:31.750 --> 00:28:39.657 world. Tempe Center was one of the great opportunities that the university 00:28:39.690 --> 00:28:47.690 had to really build that connection to downtown. And I think hard eyes got 00:28:48.759 --> 00:28:53.377 bigger than our stomach and we brought in a world class architect 00:28:53.410 --> 00:28:56.907 architect in norman 00:28:56.940 --> 00:29:04.940 norman foster and he had a vision. It was mind boggling. We meet with the 00:29:06.240 --> 00:29:12.016 canyons and so on. But it was a vision that was unachievable and maybe if 00:29:12.049 --> 00:29:16.726 we'd had a little more modest vision for Tempe center, we might have 00:29:16.759 --> 00:29:22.066 actually achieved it because that piece of property is still, I think one 00:29:22.099 --> 00:29:27.607 of the most critical properties A. S. U. Owns and we probably also got 00:29:27.640 --> 00:29:32.506 distracted by downtown. What do you think 00:29:32.539 --> 00:29:37.566 You've been an administrator during hard times and during good times and 00:29:37.599 --> 00:29:44.207 now you're an administrator again during hard times, it's 2010 right now, 00:29:44.240 --> 00:29:48.576 what do you think higher education will be live when we move into the next 00:29:48.609 --> 00:29:52.806 good time? Are we gonna have some fundamental changes because of all of 00:29:52.839 --> 00:29:58.437 the economic difficulty we're facing them, certainly all the gurus and 00:29:58.470 --> 00:30:04.597 soothsayers say there will be a huge change. There has been little change 00:30:04.630 --> 00:30:10.576 since the 14th century. I believe that if there's any organization in the 00:30:10.609 --> 00:30:15.457 world other than the catholic church that can resist change, it is higher 00:30:15.490 --> 00:30:22.506 education, but I hope it will change in some ways. First of all, we do 00:30:22.539 --> 00:30:28.816 have to start doing some of the things we're doing. We're in a position at 00:30:28.849 --> 00:30:36.546 my university Where we've lost 22% of our state budget in 18 months. If we 00:30:36.579 --> 00:30:42.076 can continue to do everything we're doing with 22% less state dollars, 00:30:42.109 --> 00:30:47.117 then we really were over funded and so we're gonna stop doing some things 00:30:47.150 --> 00:30:52.637 , but it's very difficult. The bleeding edge is not the leading edge. The 00:30:52.670 --> 00:30:57.607 bleeding edge is getting rid of the trailing edge. So I think we will have 00:30:57.640 --> 00:31:02.086 recognize that some things that were good and are good, I have to go so we 00:31:02.119 --> 00:31:08.717 can meet the challenges of the future. The second thing 20 years ago I 00:31:08.750 --> 00:31:14.947 argued and I still argued, but I haven't seen it. Then first let me say 00:31:14.980 --> 00:31:21.217 I'm a techno file and a techno skeptic that I think technology has failed 00:31:21.250 --> 00:31:26.526 in higher education because basically what we've done with it is we've 00:31:26.559 --> 00:31:33.407 done exactly what we always did, but we just do it with extra tools, 00:31:33.440 --> 00:31:38.627 whereas the long term future of technology ought to be to allow us to 00:31:38.660 --> 00:31:43.467 different things and particularly I started talking about this 25 years 00:31:43.500 --> 00:31:48.347 ago, I'm still talking about it as the future. What technology should 00:31:48.380 --> 00:31:55.147 allow us to do is mass customize that is we should be able to recognize 00:31:55.180 --> 00:31:59.806 that we have, 00:31:59.839 --> 00:32:04.677 Our students have somewhere between six and 8 different learning styles 00:32:04.710 --> 00:32:09.536 are faculty largely all have the same learning style and we ought to be 00:32:09.569 --> 00:32:16.476 able on a mass customization basis to use technology to teach johnny in 00:32:16.509 --> 00:32:21.457 his learning style and George and his learning style and judy and her 00:32:21.490 --> 00:32:26.657 learning style. And we haven't done it instead. All we've done is use 00:32:26.690 --> 00:32:32.526 technology to reproduce what we are and not to change what we do. Uh But 00:32:32.559 --> 00:32:38.157 we haven't gone very far. We have not made very much progress and I think 00:32:38.190 --> 00:32:44.506 that's something which may or may not happen. But I think it should have 00:32:44.539 --> 00:32:48.877 the other thing. We've got to come to grips with some of the crises. I 00:32:48.910 --> 00:32:53.677 think facing the United States where once the most educated country in the 00:32:53.710 --> 00:32:58.776 world, we're now roughly the ninth most educated country in the world had 00:32:58.809 --> 00:33:03.707 a time when natural resources will not drive prosperity, 00:33:03.740 --> 00:33:10.467 innovation, creativity, knowledge will drive prosperity. We have lost that 00:33:10.500 --> 00:33:16.647 cutting edge. Another concern I have about higher education. If your 00:33:16.680 --> 00:33:24.506 family is in the top quartile of income, You have a 75% chance that your 00:33:24.539 --> 00:33:28.707 son will get a college degree or your daughter will get a college degree 00:33:28.740 --> 00:33:32.306 if they are in the lowest quartile 00:33:32.339 --> 00:33:38.117 ah King. The Likelihood your son or daughter will get a college degree is 00:33:38.150 --> 00:33:44.796 less than 10%. That's what we're doing with the economically poor of our 00:33:44.829 --> 00:33:51.637 society is we're creating generational failure and eventually they give up 00:33:51.670 --> 00:33:57.707 trying and what you have is a large segment of the society that is 00:33:57.740 --> 00:34:01.576 underperforming under productive and become a burden rather than a 00:34:01.609 --> 00:34:07.177 strength of the country. And I like to think at least in theory and to a 00:34:07.210 --> 00:34:11.947 large extent in practice, what separated this country from many others was 00:34:11.980 --> 00:34:16.206 it didn't matter who your father was or who your mother was, What mattered 00:34:16.239 --> 00:34:22.666 is what you did. And if the economic situation of the family is creating 00:34:22.699 --> 00:34:28.057 such stratification, it does matter even if you go to the second quarter, 00:34:28.090 --> 00:34:32.137 which is clearly above the median income in this country, The second 00:34:32.170 --> 00:34:37.017 quartile likelihood of a child getting a college degree, his half as high 00:34:37.050 --> 00:34:43.106 as the first quarter, I think we're seeing economic stratification and at 00:34:43.139 --> 00:34:49.626 a time when more jobs require education when there are the jobs with a 00:34:49.659 --> 00:34:54.856 high school degree or even less, you can have a nice home, middle class 00:34:54.889 --> 00:35:02.186 family, send your kid to college. And so if we don't find a way to bridge 00:35:02.219 --> 00:35:07.367 that gap and to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to achieve 00:35:07.400 --> 00:35:13.126 their potential, I think we have failed as a higher education system and 00:35:13.159 --> 00:35:19.727 maybe we should go out of business, it's easier to talk about that than to 00:35:19.760 --> 00:35:24.907 do. But and it's not just whether we have enough financial aid, it's 00:35:24.940 --> 00:35:30.046 whether we've gotten these kids young enough to convince them that they 00:35:30.079 --> 00:35:33.977 can succeed and that they can go to college and that they can become 00:35:34.010 --> 00:35:39.186 educated and that they can have a better life. Every generation. I believe 00:35:39.219 --> 00:35:43.606 in the history of this country, I have been able to say the next 00:35:43.639 --> 00:35:49.606 generation of a better life than I am, it will be more prosperous. 00:35:49.639 --> 00:35:54.396 There's real question as to whether our generation we'll have that same 00:35:54.429 --> 00:35:59.706 opportunity. And I think that should be a concern for every american, 00:35:59.739 --> 00:36:06.626 because we are talking about how we create the prosperity that this 00:36:06.659 --> 00:36:11.217 quality of life that this country has always had. And it's not just about 00:36:11.250 --> 00:36:15.956 creating a workforce, it's about creating better citizens. We know that 00:36:15.989 --> 00:36:21.657 educated people drink less, they're less likely to go to prison, healthier 00:36:21.690 --> 00:36:26.907 lifestyles, they live longer and they have a higher quality of life. All 00:36:26.940 --> 00:36:33.497 those things are what higher education can do, and if we don't reach that 00:36:33.530 --> 00:36:38.606 out to all our citizens who want it and are qualified, I think we have 00:36:38.639 --> 00:36:43.997 failed our obligation to the nation. I think we have to understand that 00:36:44.030 --> 00:36:48.307 would have been very tough times. Everybody, every place, we have 00:36:48.340 --> 00:36:53.077 neighbors who have lost their homes and lost their jobs and it's very easy 00:36:53.110 --> 00:36:59.347 for those of us in the university two think about all the things we should 00:36:59.380 --> 00:37:04.526 have and we deserve and don't have, but it's still one of the most 00:37:04.559 --> 00:37:12.559 wonderful jobs in the world and I I think we ought to be grateful for the 00:37:13.789 --> 00:37:20.236 opportunities were given by the society to really have this job that 00:37:20.269 --> 00:37:28.269 changes life and lives and changes the world and that largely is. And so 00:37:30.429 --> 00:37:37.896 I'm sure glad I came here and I'm glad I stayed here. 00:37:37.929 --> 00:37:42.597 I'll also tell you something else that I'm very proud of and I have 00:37:42.630 --> 00:37:48.947 continue to carry. That is when the board of regions and ruth remembers 00:37:48.980 --> 00:37:55.927 this. Well they said they wanted to regulate our work. Every faculty 00:37:55.960 --> 00:38:00.916 member which I think would have been the death knell. We decided we had to 00:38:00.949 --> 00:38:07.387 find an alternative and our alternative was that we went to the board ruth 00:38:07.420 --> 00:38:14.807 and Kathy and I actually and said I said I did the talking but they did 00:38:14.840 --> 00:38:22.186 the prompting. I said any system that tries to regulate faculty workload, 00:38:22.219 --> 00:38:29.066 I promise you, our faculty can gain that. Our faculty invented passive 00:38:29.099 --> 00:38:35.747 aggressive and it won't solve your problems. Let's together to find what 00:38:35.780 --> 00:38:43.256 are the outcomes you want, higher graduation rates, higher retention, more 00:38:43.289 --> 00:38:49.646 research dollars. And let's put them on the back of a business card. And 00:38:49.679 --> 00:38:55.256 you hold this accountable and that's what you should just us by not by how 00:38:55.289 --> 00:39:00.247 many hours dave spends in the classroom, but by whether we are achieving 00:39:00.280 --> 00:39:07.186 the goals we have jointly agreed to and then we were expected to define 00:39:07.219 --> 00:39:13.427 those goals. And one of the great days that ruth remembers was going down 00:39:13.460 --> 00:39:19.847 to Tucson for a board meeting on thursday and the saturday before Kathy 00:39:19.880 --> 00:39:24.747 church had locked me in my office and said, you promised you would bring 00:39:24.780 --> 00:39:31.137 goals and metrics to be measured by and you now before you go home 00:39:31.170 --> 00:39:36.986 saturday you will have to find those schools or I won't let you go home. 00:39:37.019 --> 00:39:42.887 And so we defined those goals and we walked in and we presented our goals 00:39:42.920 --> 00:39:46.787 and ruth, what did the um do? 00:39:46.820 --> 00:39:54.206 They just they just talk and the board came down like a ton of rocks and 00:39:54.239 --> 00:39:58.447 paul burgess who's someone you ought to interview, came back and said to 00:39:58.480 --> 00:40:06.276 the faculty senate, this was better than beating the you the university of 00:40:06.309 --> 00:40:13.166 Arizona in football. It was when I am in some ways it was in the eyes of 00:40:13.199 --> 00:40:19.267 the region's when A s you grew up, I really believe that day was a shift 00:40:19.300 --> 00:40:23.997 in the perspective of the board of regions. At A. S. U. Was a real 00:40:24.030 --> 00:40:29.677 university. I once told a member of the board 00:40:29.710 --> 00:40:37.710 who asked me why I had missed the first day of the board meeting. And I 00:40:38.699 --> 00:40:45.477 said, well, you know, part of my job is provost is to convince the faculty 00:40:45.510 --> 00:40:50.697 that the board is really are good guys on their side and the more time I 00:40:50.730 --> 00:40:55.376 spend with you, the more difficult that is to do. 00:40:55.409 --> 00:41:01.776 Uh haven't you knows, I didn't become president of eric state University, 00:41:01.809 --> 00:41:07.336 but I think the board of regions was a good board. There were people that 00:41:07.369 --> 00:41:12.506 were very good and certainly I would point out Andy Hurwitz was one of 00:41:12.539 --> 00:41:17.336 those, there were people that were less good, there were people that truly 00:41:17.369 --> 00:41:22.336 were catholic in their view of supporting all the universities and there 00:41:22.369 --> 00:41:27.037 were others who were very parochial and only cared about one university, 00:41:27.070 --> 00:41:33.097 usually the ones in the south. Uh huh. But on the whole, it was a good 00:41:33.130 --> 00:41:36.677 board and 00:41:36.710 --> 00:41:42.557 if I have my brothers, I'd have my own board because then they become more 00:41:42.590 --> 00:41:47.117 like a private university board who think their job is to make you as good 00:41:47.150 --> 00:41:53.217 as you can be. Whereas the board of regions in a multi institution state 00:41:53.250 --> 00:41:59.206 sees their job as to create balance. And one of the arguments I have with 00:41:59.239 --> 00:42:03.807 the board in Nevada is they want the tuition to be the same as the two 00:42:03.840 --> 00:42:11.597 universities, Yes, we want to give salary increases and UNLV doesn't they 00:42:11.630 --> 00:42:15.157 want us to do it too, saying that there's a leveling effect that's 00:42:15.190 --> 00:42:19.626 inherent in their job description. It's not that they're bad people, it's 00:42:19.659 --> 00:42:24.126 what the role is. So if I could have my own board, I would like that 00:42:24.159 --> 00:42:29.236 better, I might not be better off. Ah one of the problems we have in 00:42:29.269 --> 00:42:34.796 Nevada is we have one of the most extreme open meetings, so I can never 00:42:34.829 --> 00:42:40.157 meet with the board in private. So they actually, all the interviews in 00:42:40.190 --> 00:42:44.057 Nevada were in public with the press, they're all of the interviews with 00:42:44.090 --> 00:42:49.467 me and the search committee. They reviewed my performance in public, they 00:42:49.500 --> 00:42:53.146 reviewed the chancellor's performance in public, they reviewed the 00:42:53.179 --> 00:43:00.190 president of U. L. V. In public for six hours and at the end voted to fire. 00:43:00.300 --> 00:43:02.300 No rational system would have you doing evaluations of presence in the 00:43:08.940 --> 00:43:15.166 public with the media sitting there, televising part of streaming video. 00:43:15.199 --> 00:43:18.066 But 00:43:18.099 --> 00:43:24.217 I think that on the whole the board of regions in Arizona, it was a good 00:43:24.250 --> 00:43:29.767 board. There were certainly some that I could have lived without. All 00:43:29.800 --> 00:43:35.427 right. But I've lived with appointed boards. I've lived with elected 00:43:35.460 --> 00:43:39.706 boards. I've lived with single institution boards. I've lived with multi 00:43:39.739 --> 00:43:42.666 institution boards 00:43:42.699 --> 00:43:50.267 and somehow you work with all of them and their advantages to each and 00:43:50.300 --> 00:43:54.717 that was why this incident I described when we really took the leadership 00:43:54.750 --> 00:44:02.456 with the board changed. I think a lot I will say Kathie Church 00:44:02.489 --> 00:44:08.936 is the reason we now have gone from a low tuition, low financial age 00:44:08.969 --> 00:44:15.956 university here to a high tuition, high financial aid university, which 00:44:15.989 --> 00:44:22.046 was Michael's idea. It was when Professor Church has the region's always 00:44:22.079 --> 00:44:29.177 addressed Stood up and made a 1-hour presentation. That was when they 00:44:29.210 --> 00:44:36.057 bought it. one change I have had to make is that as provost I got my job 00:44:36.090 --> 00:44:41.727 was to make sure the board didn't do what they wanted to do as president. 00:44:41.760 --> 00:44:48.756 I have to play a little more collaborative role. 00:44:48.789 --> 00:44:53.706 One distinctive feature that I think is a problem for a shoe that is 00:44:53.739 --> 00:45:01.336 different than in about. He has so many in both Nevada and Arizona people 00:45:01.369 --> 00:45:07.657 from the university. The historic university have moved to the big city. 00:45:07.690 --> 00:45:14.796 So many you of a alums live in phoenix. Many university Nevada alums live 00:45:14.829 --> 00:45:20.997 in las Vegas, but the U of a alums live in phoenix never give up their red 00:45:21.030 --> 00:45:29.030 and blue because there's such great distance between las Vegas and reno 00:45:30.889 --> 00:45:38.486 the university of Nevada wolfpack alums, they really turn in las Vegas 00:45:38.519 --> 00:45:43.506 people and that doesn't happen here. And I think that's been a problem 00:45:43.539 --> 00:45:48.776 with this university because the leadership of the state still not 00:45:48.809 --> 00:45:53.666 necessarily legislative leadership but and maybe they're too, but the 00:45:53.699 --> 00:45:58.206 historic leadership of this state, we're all university of Arizona lungs 00:45:58.239 --> 00:46:01.776 and I think that was a real mountain that had to be climbed. I think it's 00:46:01.809 --> 00:46:07.236 been done, but it was among and certainly when it comes to private 00:46:07.269 --> 00:46:09.447 fundraising 00:46:09.480 --> 00:46:13.907 historically, the university of Arizona has done that much better. And 00:46:13.940 --> 00:46:20.916 even today the private fundraising success is a issues had had not been 00:46:20.949 --> 00:46:25.307 permitted to alums. It's been largely from the community rather than the 00:46:25.340 --> 00:46:30.247 alums. And I think that's still true 00:46:30.280 --> 00:46:38.026 Michael Crowe was at Iowa state when I was hired as provost actually on 00:46:38.059 --> 00:46:43.186 the search committee. He was about 12 years old. I think that was my 00:46:43.219 --> 00:46:50.177 reaction to him. He was in his early 30s and he was the first director of 00:46:50.210 --> 00:46:56.287 the institute Physical Research and Technology, Which was a $50 million 00:46:56.320 --> 00:47:01.717 dollars applied research operation built around the Ames laboratory at 00:47:01.750 --> 00:47:08.916 Iowa State. And I was introduced to him and the president said, oh, he'll 00:47:08.949 --> 00:47:14.097 tell you what you should do. I was very resentful that I had that this 00:47:14.130 --> 00:47:19.146 young kid was going to do that. But I came to, he also did our federal 00:47:19.179 --> 00:47:24.126 well being for highway State. I came to appreciate that Michael is one of 00:47:24.159 --> 00:47:32.159 the most creative, brilliant mm hmm, strategic thinkers I've ever met. And 00:47:33.780 --> 00:47:38.477 Michael left when they hired a new president. Michael went east and I met 00:47:38.510 --> 00:47:43.767 went west. He went east to be executive vice provost at Columbia 00:47:43.800 --> 00:47:50.447 University. I came west to Arizona State, I, 00:47:50.480 --> 00:47:56.686 I am basically a step at a time kind of person. I don't have the big 00:47:56.719 --> 00:48:02.896 vision and Michael's ours did. And so I asked Michael if he'd come one day 00:48:02.929 --> 00:48:09.066 a month as a consultant just to get me out of my one year Framework into 00:48:09.099 --> 00:48:16.387 my 10 year frame. And Michael and I where we've spent The last 24 years, I 00:48:16.420 --> 00:48:22.657 think arguing with each other. We agree on very little. And so Michael 00:48:22.690 --> 00:48:29.436 spent a lot of time looking at opportunities for new men, new ventures. 00:48:29.469 --> 00:48:37.469 Hey issue. And of course when retired the board wanted a innovative, 00:48:38.750 --> 00:48:41.436 creative visionary, 00:48:41.469 --> 00:48:49.469 mm hmm, aggressive. Mhm, decisive, clear. And they chose mike when I I 00:48:50.909 --> 00:48:56.506 said to Michael, you know the fact that we've been Known each other for 20 00:48:56.539 --> 00:49:04.539 years and your friends should not dictate who your provost is, I will move 00:49:05.179 --> 00:49:12.026 on unless you think I'm the right person to help you. He said I want you 00:49:12.059 --> 00:49:20.059 to stay on, get the same. Mhm Master at managing limited budgets, which I 00:49:20.630 --> 00:49:26.137 was he didn't understand. Uh 00:49:26.170 --> 00:49:33.236 And I have put away $5 million uh 00:49:33.269 --> 00:49:36.137 and I 00:49:36.170 --> 00:49:40.867 I said to him that when you decide it's time for a different kind of 00:49:40.900 --> 00:49:48.447 provost, you tell me I will move on. And we worked together for 3, 3.5 00:49:48.480 --> 00:49:52.977 years. And then Michael said, I think I want to get the provost for the 00:49:53.010 --> 00:49:58.997 next generation. And I did move on. I had no idea it was going to move to 00:49:59.030 --> 00:50:06.497 another place. I plan to stay here as the first university professor. And 00:50:06.530 --> 00:50:10.217 I was scared to death of that for the reasons that I said earlier. But 00:50:10.250 --> 00:50:15.646 that's what I really plan to do. And then this headhunter called me up and 00:50:15.679 --> 00:50:22.186 said, would you be willing to be a candidate for President? University of 00:50:22.219 --> 00:50:26.256 Nevada where I've never been. And I said no. And he said would you be 00:50:26.289 --> 00:50:29.026 willing to 00:50:29.059 --> 00:50:32.967 the interview And I said no. And he said would you be willing to come 00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:39.727 visit had I did and met with the search committee. And 00:50:39.760 --> 00:50:46.026 he just clicked. I later learned I thought it was their normal courtesy 00:50:46.059 --> 00:50:50.177 that at the end I got a standing ovation at the end of the interview. It 00:50:50.210 --> 00:50:55.066 turns out it wasn't, it was one of those chemical reactions that just 00:50:55.099 --> 00:51:02.247 happened. And Michael continues to be someone if I do see him. Which is 00:51:02.280 --> 00:51:06.807 very sudden I continue to argue with him but I continue to believe he's 00:51:06.840 --> 00:51:11.657 one of the most smartest, one of the smartest, most visionary, strategic 00:51:11.690 --> 00:51:16.827 people I've ever known. He takes no prisoners. 00:51:16.860 --> 00:51:24.247 Michael and I used to argue, I tell him that his I. Q. Was so much higher 00:51:24.280 --> 00:51:30.046 than nine and he would say, but your EQ, your emotional quotient higher 00:51:30.079 --> 00:51:36.137 than mine. And I think both of us were right that I have a higher eq and 00:51:36.170 --> 00:51:43.686 he has a higher IQ and I could not have been my lifetime envision downtown 00:51:43.719 --> 00:51:51.396 phoenix campus that now exists when he first mentioned that I told him he 00:51:51.429 --> 00:51:56.126 was learning and it happened. So 00:51:56.159 --> 00:52:01.117 you have to recognize that 00:52:01.150 --> 00:52:07.427 tell us a little bit maybe if you can about a special memory or a couple 00:52:07.460 --> 00:52:12.057 of events or a couple of people during your time here. The issue that 00:52:12.090 --> 00:52:17.526 stand up that really you carry with you. As I said, some of the people I 00:52:17.559 --> 00:52:24.427 really carry with me, people like than the fruit Kathie church, they were 00:52:24.460 --> 00:52:31.217 always there to protect my band and they were also 00:52:31.250 --> 00:52:38.657 very pushy. Women didn't hesitate to tell me when I was really wrong, but 00:52:38.690 --> 00:52:46.456 they also where people who make sure what I had to get done got done. That 00:52:46.489 --> 00:52:53.617 is, it's very easy to make promises. It's much harder to carry them out. 00:52:53.650 --> 00:52:59.717 And if you're very verbal as I obviously am, you need people around you 00:52:59.750 --> 00:53:05.986 who are willing to actually make sure what you said actually gets put into 00:53:06.019 --> 00:53:13.657 place. John thing was someone who I watched make a transition from someone 00:53:13.690 --> 00:53:19.486 who was all faculty. My first interaction with john was a, when he was at 00:53:19.519 --> 00:53:27.519 NSF and he wrote this very nasty email about how earmarks were evil, that 00:53:29.050 --> 00:53:35.456 he was very concerned that we were selling out to the business community 00:53:35.489 --> 00:53:41.356 to someone who actually engaged in this stuff. But I was able to balance 00:53:41.389 --> 00:53:46.706 still wearing his faculty hat has to the intellectual purpose of the 00:53:46.739 --> 00:53:52.436 university and yet understanding they have to make practical decisions and 00:53:52.469 --> 00:53:58.717 that you do have to enlist all kinds of constituents. 00:53:58.750 --> 00:54:03.307 Several I mentioned do because someone 00:54:03.340 --> 00:54:08.396 tried in having taken someone who really had no idea about what it meant 00:54:08.429 --> 00:54:16.429 to be a university administrator and two learn and to grow. I think Trish 00:54:17.429 --> 00:54:23.066 white who I brought in as dean of the law school, brought a certain life 00:54:23.099 --> 00:54:28.796 to that Moscow and the decision making. Her predecessor who remains a very 00:54:28.829 --> 00:54:33.816 dear friend of mine and who I was actually on the committee that recruited 00:54:33.849 --> 00:54:40.356 me to Nevada Dick morgen. It was a wonderful guy with wonderful values but 00:54:40.389 --> 00:54:45.256 he had turned the entire los go over to the faculty so no decisions could 00:54:45.289 --> 00:54:52.086 be made. And Trish came in and was able to let the faculty do their thing 00:54:52.119 --> 00:54:54.506 and then 00:54:54.539 --> 00:55:01.206 somehow get decisions made and move the institution. She had an optimism 00:55:01.239 --> 00:55:05.586 that I think some of us get beat out of us. One of the things of course I 00:55:05.619 --> 00:55:13.307 remember most clearly is the law school when they admitted James hamm hey 00:55:13.340 --> 00:55:20.787 convicted first double first degree murderers who had executed two people 00:55:20.820 --> 00:55:27.236 in a drug deal, shot him in the back of the head and our faculty in the 00:55:27.269 --> 00:55:32.776 law school and their wisdom admitted them, admitted him to the law school 00:55:32.809 --> 00:55:37.106 right out of prison and 00:55:37.139 --> 00:55:44.756 to say that was provocative and controversial. Too minimize it. I remember 00:55:44.789 --> 00:55:50.916 the night that one night returning over 75 phone calls that have angry 00:55:50.949 --> 00:55:58.497 callers who called the President and I answered the calls and I always try 00:55:58.530 --> 00:56:02.316 to keep in mind that most of those people just because they were called 00:56:02.349 --> 00:56:10.349 back, we're satisfied that somebody actually heard them. Andy Hurwitz was 00:56:10.719 --> 00:56:17.407 chair of the board. Yeah, now Supreme Court justice and a wonderful guy 00:56:17.440 --> 00:56:22.037 who knew how to build compromise and care deeply about the intellectual 00:56:22.070 --> 00:56:29.807 purposes of the university and and the and I and Dick morgen actually 00:56:29.840 --> 00:56:35.967 presented to a law Dean seminar this story and every one of them was 00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:40.296 convinced we were absolutely 00:56:40.329 --> 00:56:46.157 crazy for having done this and we did respect the faculty. We thought they 00:56:46.190 --> 00:56:50.816 were wrong, we thought it was a bad decision. But we also thought that in 00:56:50.849 --> 00:56:56.006 fact we made a decision, we have the obligation to defend that decision as 00:56:56.039 --> 00:57:00.936 long as it was not made on any proper grounds. one of the stories I like 00:57:00.969 --> 00:57:08.606 to tell about it, that particular incident is that a few weeks later Dean 00:57:08.639 --> 00:57:13.796 morgan was having a party at his house and his wife 00:57:13.829 --> 00:57:19.697 had hired a carpet cleaner too 00:57:19.730 --> 00:57:25.347 cleaner, carpets for the party. And the carpet cleaner said MS morgen, I 00:57:25.380 --> 00:57:32.347 assure you respect your husband. And she said do you know my husband? And 00:57:32.380 --> 00:57:37.197 he said yes isn't he didn't morgen or law school. And she said yes he is. 00:57:37.230 --> 00:57:45.230 And she said well how would you know anything about him? And the carpet 00:57:45.250 --> 00:57:52.876 cleaner said well he admitted James hamm to law school and she said How 00:57:52.909 --> 00:57:56.217 would you have an opinion about that? And he said, Oh we were cell mates 00:57:56.250 --> 00:58:01.677 for 15 years. So that says it's not so important who your lawyer is but 00:58:01.710 --> 00:58:05.537 you really ought to be careful who your carpet cleaner is. You brought in 00:58:05.570 --> 00:58:09.316 , you didn't bring anyone with you from Iowa state brought no one with me. 00:58:09.349 --> 00:58:14.387 But you then recruited some leadership. What were some of your goals when 00:58:14.420 --> 00:58:20.006 you know, you had Gene Deans and department chairs and so forth. Well, our 00:58:20.039 --> 00:58:26.387 goals were to bring in people who could build consensus and could set of 00:58:26.420 --> 00:58:33.347 vision because I don't set visions. I think that the Wizard of Oz was a 00:58:33.380 --> 00:58:38.986 vision problems had that view. But we brought in people like Duke Rider 00:58:39.019 --> 00:58:44.287 who could lead 00:58:44.320 --> 00:58:49.847 by telling a story. Obviously this downtown campus which have seen for the 00:58:49.880 --> 00:58:54.997 first time, a lot of that has to be attributed to Duke's vision and his 00:58:55.030 --> 00:59:03.030 ability to visualize and to put in a visual sense. Some of the vision that 00:59:03.460 --> 00:59:10.086 Michael Crowe had for a downtown campus and make it real to people. And 00:59:10.119 --> 00:59:14.316 Duke could also, and I'm using him as an example as the Dean of 00:59:14.349 --> 00:59:21.186 architecture. He could be the architecture critic for the bali without 00:59:21.219 --> 00:59:28.097 alienated in the valley. So he was one example of someone we brought in in 00:59:28.130 --> 00:59:34.387 liberal arts and sciences. David Young who 00:59:34.420 --> 00:59:37.986 had a high level of conceptualization 00:59:38.019 --> 00:59:44.847 and was willing to alienate a few people to make that happen. And like all 00:59:44.880 --> 00:59:50.967 things when you create change. Some of your decisions work. Some don't and 00:59:51.000 --> 00:59:56.077 you celebrate the ones that work and you kind of forget about the ones 00:59:56.110 --> 01:00:02.157 that didn't want to. The things that is how allowed me I think too appear 01:00:02.190 --> 01:00:09.307 to be successful is that people remember the good things I did. Somehow my 01:00:09.340 --> 01:00:13.577 colleagues told me the things that 01:00:13.610 --> 01:00:17.276 I was going to, that we're stupid. So they never happened and they forgot 01:00:17.309 --> 01:00:24.557 my stupid ideas. I also, I was fortunate to surround myself with people 01:00:24.590 --> 01:00:31.577 who were committed to the university and committed to protecting my back. 01:00:31.610 --> 01:00:36.836 In addition to linda and ruth, there was Cathy church walter Harris who 01:00:36.869 --> 01:00:43.276 went on to be provo standards loyal to new Orleans 01:00:43.309 --> 01:00:48.356 chuck now, Charles bands who went on to be provost at Wayne State 01:00:48.389 --> 01:00:54.416 University and is now chancellor at Ue Bowie indiana University, Purdue 01:00:54.449 --> 01:00:59.077 University at Indianapolis, which I think is one of the great modern 01:00:59.110 --> 01:01:06.867 higher education success stories. Gail Hackett who's provost at to 01:01:06.900 --> 01:01:10.376 at U M. K C. 01:01:10.409 --> 01:01:16.727 So, you know, we take a lot of pleasure, our success stories and people 01:01:16.760 --> 01:01:22.657 that have in many ways. I've shown those of us that were part of their he 01:01:22.690 --> 01:01:30.690 said we also reorganized one of laddies decisions before I came in was to 01:01:32.019 --> 01:01:39.577 place the Vice President for Research under the provost. And 01:01:39.610 --> 01:01:44.037 it was absolutely the right decision at the time. But a decision that was 01:01:44.070 --> 01:01:49.447 not without controversy and also the Vice President for Student Services 01:01:49.480 --> 01:01:55.177 under the program, which I still believe it's the right model. And 01:01:55.210 --> 01:02:01.927 I think those decisions were important in creating a unified institution. 01:02:01.960 --> 01:02:08.787 We never, I think quite understood what the role the west campus was to be 01:02:08.820 --> 01:02:15.066 and that continues to evolve and that was the point of some controversy 01:02:15.099 --> 01:02:20.106 and I would imagine still is go back to reflecting on your time and the 01:02:20.139 --> 01:02:26.666 issue and what is your well satisfying 01:02:26.699 --> 01:02:31.816 accomplishment at that point or what what do you take most pride in? I'd 01:02:31.849 --> 01:02:37.137 like to believe not that I don't take pride in these things but that a lot 01:02:37.170 --> 01:02:42.017 of people did these things. I think the big changes that I take pride in 01:02:42.050 --> 01:02:48.767 our one a issue is now a national destination 01:02:48.800 --> 01:02:55.186 for really talented students and it's more than sunlight. And I have to 01:02:55.219 --> 01:03:01.526 tell you in the battle when I talk about a. S. You when I say I'm from A S. 01:03:01.559 --> 01:03:08.296 U. They say gee that's a wonderful university, I think it was a wealthy 01:03:08.329 --> 01:03:16.097 family unknown. Mhm. Have said so I think a issue and obviously it's 01:03:16.130 --> 01:03:22.157 continued to rise invisibility. Uh A. S. U. Is a destination for more than 01:03:22.190 --> 01:03:27.236 sunlight today. I think it is recognized as an institution on the move 01:03:27.269 --> 01:03:29.666 that takes 01:03:29.699 --> 01:03:34.267 Intellectual achievements seriously. 2ndly we brought him some wonderful 01:03:34.300 --> 01:03:41.077 faculty and created some wonderful research opportunities, some of which 01:03:41.110 --> 01:03:46.867 are world changing. You know, I think of when we made the investment. Mhm. 01:03:46.900 --> 01:03:53.057 For the planetary laboratory in the more building. And all of a sudden, 01:03:53.090 --> 01:03:58.986 not only were we going to mars, but we've known for that, but we were 01:03:59.019 --> 01:04:06.407 taking in eight year olds inspiring them. And as you know Phil Christensen 01:04:06.440 --> 01:04:13.847 is the pied piper. I mean he creates energy and you can't have 1000 01:04:13.880 --> 01:04:18.947 faculty create energy. No one could handle that and you couldn't achieve 01:04:18.980 --> 01:04:25.907 it. But having those energy creators around the campus who really excite 01:04:25.940 --> 01:04:31.686 people, I think that's great. I also think a issue plays a bigger role in 01:04:31.719 --> 01:04:38.876 the economy of Arizona. And finally I guess one of the things I take most 01:04:38.909 --> 01:04:46.767 pride in is seeing the people in Tucson look with a little envy at A. S. U. 01:04:46.800 --> 01:04:53.227 Because when I arrived at A. S. U. The people at A. S. You were saying 01:04:53.260 --> 01:04:58.646 the faculty boy, I wish we could be treated and have the things they have 01:04:58.679 --> 01:05:03.177 at the University of Arizona and be like the university of Arizona. I 01:05:03.210 --> 01:05:09.936 genuinely believe when I left a issue people in Tucson, we're saying boy 01:05:09.969 --> 01:05:15.807 we wish we were at Arizona State University and that transformation, 01:05:15.840 --> 01:05:20.517 nobody did no single person did it and it didn't happen overnight. And 01:05:20.550 --> 01:05:28.550 part of it was some of the substantive changes and part of it was a issue 01:05:28.889 --> 01:05:35.956 built pride feeling of family, I believe a feeling of community 01:05:35.989 --> 01:05:42.706 that was not there to the same extent when I arrived. And so over that 15 01:05:42.739 --> 01:05:49.956 years uh some of those years more than others I think we built a kind of 01:05:49.989 --> 01:05:54.947 family relationship that said we can be better than we are and we're glad 01:05:54.980 --> 01:05:59.526 we're here, not someplace else. And the people that wanted to be someplace 01:05:59.559 --> 01:06:05.186 else they could go As my grandmother used to say when I want to wait, I 01:06:05.219 --> 01:06:09.256 want to run away from home. She'd say milk, 01:06:09.289 --> 01:06:15.287 go in good health, I'll make you sandwiches. I never ran away and I think 01:06:15.320 --> 01:06:20.026 faculty didn't run away. I think people really came to have great pride in 01:06:20.059 --> 01:06:25.217 the institution, much of which they should have always had. But I think 01:06:25.250 --> 01:06:32.916 the pride was increase that we learned to stretch together and 01:06:32.949 --> 01:06:38.017 I had a wonderful ride and I wouldn't have traded it for anything and I 01:06:38.050 --> 01:06:46.050 learned a lot. I think we did a lot. Yeah. I I still think of this as my 01:06:47.360 --> 01:06:52.066 home of all the places I've lived on behalf of the retirees association 01:06:52.099 --> 01:06:55.686 Milk. We want to thank you for coming back for sharing his thoughts with 01:06:55.719 --> 01:07:00.776 us. Being part of this video history project. Thanks a lot. Thank you. 01:07:00.809 --> 01:07:03.460 Thank you.