today is March the 6th 2000 and 10. I'm ruth jones professor of political
science from the school of Politics and global studies at A. S. U. Um
we're here with for the Arizona state University retirees, video oral
history, video project. And in the room with me are linda Vance coy, who
is the director of this project, Dave shots lee who is one of the support
people for this program and john McIntosh to the camera. So
we are happy to have you here and they say that I shouldn't introduce you
, you should introduce yourself. So are. And what your role was at issue
when you were here. I'm Milt Glick. I am now the president of the
University of Nevada Reno And when I was here I was provost and someday
senior vice president and other days executive vice president. And I spent
15 years here in those roles. Mm hmm. Tell our viewers a little bit about
your background, how you uh where you grew up and then how you got into
chemistry and and how you got into academic administration. I was I grew
up in Rock Island Illinois a small town on the Mississippi. My father was
a jeweler there and I always thought I'd go into the jewelry business and
he I thought I could have a better life and kicked me out and I went to
Dagestan at college and made the mistake of going in the chemistry just
because that was the best professor I had. And unlike today students who
don't expect to end up in the same field they started I was the generation
and if you start something you do it for the rest of your life. So after
graduating
with the baccalaureate to create Augustana I went to the University of
Wisconsin where I got my PhD and physical chemistry with
specialty and x ray crystallography. I went on to
10 2 years at Cornell University as a post doc on the first article I
wrote at Cornell of all the hundreds and so articles I've written that's
still the most referenced and I went to Wayne State University in Detroit
. I spent 17 years on the faculty, was active in faculty governance And my
last five years I was department chair. I at that point I realized I was
spending more time not being a faculty member than being a faculty member
that is not being a chemist and I decided I had to become an honest man,
join the dark side. And so I went to the University of Missouri in
Colombia, spent five years, there is dean was offered several provo ship
and finally was offered the Iowa state provo ships. My youngest son who is
going to be a senior in high school said dad this is the right job for you
, you ought to go, I'm not coming with you and he was very wise and I
spent three years as provost there the last year's interim president and
then I was contacted by a search committee to come look at the provo ship
at Arizona State University and laddie courier who was then president had
tried to recruit me as provost at the university of Vermont and I turned
him down and he urged me to at least come get to know the place I got
there and went through the interview process. one of the faculty in the
large open interview, they tell me, asked me why I flunked him in freshman
chemistry and I assured him I didn't flunk him, he must have flunked
himself and I went out to dinner with two members of the search committee.
Three members I think ruth jones sitting by my side
moored mug who is department chair of chemistry and bob Barnhart who later
became vice president for research. And we had a wonderful evening. That's
worth telling about. Uh huh. There are many features that evening. I
remember very distinctly like when I pounded my pork on the table and the
knife went up and over the balcony and when I asked ruth if she knew my
friend who was with Dean and um cell and she said yes his name is jones
when we share a son and we bonded over that and
that's kind of what you write and I got to a S. U. And before I came linda
Vance coy wrote a letter making it clear that she trained every provost
since uh for a long time and that she would shake me up and train me and
after I got to know linda, she, she said she would stay as long as I would
stay. And I think she thought that meant 3-5 years. It turned out it was
15 years and she did train me. And so that's kind of how I got where I am
and tell us what you remember a issue was like when you arrived.
Listen, beautiful climate. Most of the year it was
the president, Laddie courier had been convinced that it had to stop
growing on the main campus. People were obsessed with maintaining it at
whatever the size and we were recruiting students, but we were not really
recruiting great students. We were large.
I think our ambitions, we're good but
they were camped and very nice people, very good feeling among the people
and laddie had done a great job of building
that sense that we didn't go after the best students. We didn't really
have a recruitment effort. We had an admissions effort. And
one of the things that I'd like to take credit for, like everything's
success has many fathers failures and orphans was we decided that we had
to do something to raise the expectations in the stature and
I decided that we needed to go after national merits cobs. We had six as a
way to kind of set the target differently. Obviously we succeeded beyond
my wildest dreams. I mean I think hey issue has Well over 509 and we gave
a credit card to the
director of the honors college dean of the honors college and told him to
pretend he was a football coach, Travel the country to places No one had
ever been and sit in people's home and bring them back alive and we should
recruit top students. The way we recruited top athletes.
I,
one of the ways I characterize a issue as it was is that I took my wife to
Paris for, I think our 30th anniversary, we're in a bistro and there were
two women sitting next to us and we got to talking and they said, where
are you from? And I said, where are you from? And they said Chicago and
they said, you must know I was on a state university. And I said, yeah,
how did you know that was in Tempe where a lot of our students go there.
And I said, well why do a lot of students from Chicago shoe? And she said
, oh, those are the students that want the six year plan.
And we really, I think raise the bar a lot and it's continued to be raised.
And so a issue was a good place. But it was rather a comfortable place
that
I thought it was doing just fine and it was, so there was a big
recruitment effort and I had to keep redefining how we counted students so
that every time we exceeded the cap. President said, we redefined how we
counted students. So we stay under the cap and I'm sure that president
core knew what I was doing. I certainly knew what I was doing. But it was
one of those things,
the theater that we had to go through so he could maintain his commitment
to never go over whatever that number was and I could grow the student
body because it was clear that the way the legislature funded the
university, the only way to build the budget it was by students.
Are there other things that come to mind that you're proud of or that you
thought were a good challenge and worth of fun? Yeah, my impression was we
had a very good back elite, but they were all bit players, they were all
really good at what they did. But what they needed was what I like to call
a franchise player. Two bring in people with steve nash who is not only a
good point guard, but he made everyone around him better. And so we set a
priority in that first capital campaign of endowed chairs to bring in
stars, but the kind of stars that lift other people rather than the kind
of stars that just leech off the university and that they would make that
strong faculty stronger. And I think it took many years to do that. But
over time we made a lot of progress and I know the university's made even
more since I will have our salaries were literally falling off the end of
the earth And that we were probably 20% below the market and 20% below at
other university in the state of get its name. Uh,
and we made the decision that charity begins at home and that it was
really important to change that salary structure. And we did that by
growing and candidly instead of adding to our faculty size, we fixed our
faculty salaries. So that time I left, they were at market or above market.
We probably carried that on too long because We got such a high student
faculty ratio that I think it did damage. Nonetheless, I would argue it
was absolutely the critically right thing to do for 10 years because you
have to take care of the people you have before you start growing the
place. So I believe it was the right decision, but it had consequences
that weren't over. I mean, you have to be a warrior to be a really
successful faculty member because you've got to be discovering and
discovering and discovering if you want to be one of the great ones and
nobody wants to be ordinary. Having said that, it's also a wonderful life
. I mean, you get that study what you want to study, teach pretty much
what you want to teach, helped create the new minds of the future. I mean
, I went to college over half a century ago and I never left and I can't
imagine why anyone does. So yeah, I'm satisfied.
And I don't know what I'd do. You know, as I said, those people whose
advocation is also their locations are some of the luckiest people in the
world. They also face one of the most difficult challenges. If it's who
you are, who are you when you stop doing it. And that just scares the hell
out of me. I just don't know who I would be because I am what I do and
that isn't true of everybody. And I'm not even arguing whether it's a good
or a bad thing, it is who we are.
So I think it, if you had to do over again, you'd still choose alive, but
I wouldn't have been a chemist, I would have waited a long time. In some
parts, I might have get an attorney.
We're a law professor.
I it's been a great run for me, but I was a good faculty member, published
a lot of articles, but I wasn't a creative faculty member. I wasn't going
to be National Academy member. And I waited too long to realize that I
could do more helping people who are smarter and more creative than I was
be better then try to do it myself, that I just don't have that, you know
, the great faculty members, I like to quote Barbara Mcclintock won the
Nobel prize much too late for inventing what she called jumping genes
And we now call her competent DNA. But she invented this and she
discovered this in the 30s. And Barbara mcclintock said, you can't
understand the gene unless you live in the south, that's great scholars.
They live in the south. They dreamed the south that that is, they're
always involved part of their brain. Like Warren Miller is so taken up by
the,
by the pursuit of knowledge that it drives everything else out and That
isn't who I was, my major professor. I went back to speak at his 80th
birthday best shrift this summer where he gave an hour chemistry lecturer
without notes. And Larry lives in the south. He dances with molecules, he
makes love to molecules, He sleeps with them. I mean, that is who he is. I
was never that person. And
but I was fortunate that eventually I found out what I could be. And my
youngest, my eldest son, I was working on his PhD in physics and we went
out for a run one day and I said, David, you know, just because she
started a PhD in physics, you don't have to Do that. You've got 50 years
of work ahead of you, you're like me, 60 years of work ahead of you, make
sure this is what you want to do. And he said, well, you know, dan, I was
going to do what you do and I realized, I have never seen you two signs.
Uh he would, but he would, he had enough of me in him that he finished his
PhD and when you start something, you finish it. But by the time he was
done with his PhD he concluded there were only three people in the world
interested in the project he was working on and he was not among them.
And so he went to amazon dot com which he described as graduate school
with stock options and he's been enormously successful there because he
found a niche. Now did he benefits from having 10 years of undergraduate
graduate training in physics? Absolutely had taught him skills, both
management skills and analytical skills that have held him in good stead.
But he moved on to a whole different life because the life he chose
wasn't the right life for me. And you know, if you want to be a faculty
member that's all you should be. Uh huh. It's a hard life little bit about
how you approached faculty governance. Well, I'd spend my life faculty
governance height land the faculty senate 15 years at Arizona State
University. I'm sorry Wednesday University Where I served as a faculty
member for 17 years and I believed in it. I believe in shared governance,
recognizes the end, the responsibility belongs to the administration and
at the end they have to make the tough decisions and they have to take the
heat. Mhm I found that works for me. Mhm Missouri and Iowa state and it
worked at Arizona state and I thought we had terrific faculty leaders who
engaged and who helped us make wiser decisions. one of the things I
learned as a dean
was that the hard second hardest thing I had to learn place to listen. The
first hardest thing I had to learn was to look like I was listening
because I can parallel processing. Ah And one of the things I found was a
faculty leader. I had a lot of good ideas but even more bad ideas and
people would trash the bad ideas. So unfortunately they never have. I
found as dean and then as provost people are hesitant to trash your bad
ideas. So you have to be much more cautious about laying out ideas. But
you also then have to make it a comfortable place for people to disagree.
You have to create the engagement and make a place that people can
disagree without feeling intimidated without fearing retribution. That
they can really be part of the solution. And that takes a lot of time and
effort and good will to build that where people can feel that they can
actually step and say that's a really stupid idea. Mr provost. And it's a
precious thing and one that has to you have to work at it every single day
because it doesn't take many bad incidents before you kill that off. It's
easier to build that trust than to rebuild it. And so
hi I have always felt that
some days you deposit in the trust bank other days you withdraw you try to
keep the balance in the black. I've told the people in Nevada I've
actually been borrowing from the trust bank. So I think that's a really
important issue that you build trust by giving people reason to trust you.
And then the wisdom of the whole is better than any individual. Although
at the end the whole cannot make the decisions. You cannot create a
plebiscite. So you have to make real decisions and take responsibility for
them and to do that. People will give you a lot of leeway. I've always
I've been impressed by the generosity of the faculty at the A. S. U. And
forgiving some of my really bad decisions.
Let's turn a little bit to the physical part is you you mentioned the
downtown campus, the west campus. But if you've been around the campus
reason well when you left from the time you came to, when you left the
change that you saw and what you think it meant. Well I would say during
the 1st 10 years we did essentially no building at all. We put uh huh. The
latter court living for the social sciences building we built too cheap
respect the buildings. The only building we built for a decade was the
latter core building and then Michael Crowe came in 4.5 years ago. 3.5
years ago. Right oh six
and buildings. Oh I'm sorry I came in 7.5 years ago I left you know six,
he came in in two and all of a sudden buildings sprouted up black tops.
The we built the bio design buildings which are magnificent buildings
built in a whole different way how they built the alum in development
building where all the administrative offices are which is now called the
the the foundation foundation building.
The brickyard was a building we didn't build that. We acquired a building
which had been built during the I. T. Boom and when the startups all
collapsed we were able to buy that building and move our College of
engineering offices there and I think those changed the nature of the
campus. But as much as anything that I think really caused the campus to
have its aspirations raised was the evolution of Mill avenue. It had
already started when I arrived and gone from a street full of dirty
bookstores and bikers bars. Two the idyllic college town that's continued
to evolve but now their residences there. So there are people living there
also The 1970 or so architecture class that had designed the Salt River
project actually happened while I was there and the decision to take the
Salt River in front of the university and turn that into a waterfront lake
after having been dry, What happened two years probably that was a
magnificent dream that thanks to the leadership of the Tempe community and
some of the creative faculty at the university, it just creates a whole
new dimension of the university and that was very exciting. So the
evolution of mill the integration of the university into the downtown and
then the evolution of the lakefront, which I haven't seen recently. So I
don't know how much is filled up there all. We're changing the nature of
the campus. The biggest mistake I think we made was one that I argued
against and lost was allowing the new Cardinal Stadium to be built in
Glendale instead of on our campus. So we could have had this magnificent
dome, outrageously expensive stadium paid for by the taxpayers right on
our campus instead of having Sun Devil stadium, which is a wonderful
college stadium, but one that has had its best years behind it and needs
lots of work and it's really hard on that field in the summer. I think
that was a place we really missed the ball and
we could not convince the athletic director that you could share a stadium
with the cardinals Which we had done for of course, 15 years.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about one of the things what started
happening while I was there was the addition of resort quality dorms. Yeah
, they were completed after I left. I've never lived in a dormitory,
pardon me, a residence hall dormitory students system.
I've gone to a lot of high end resorts that don't hold a candle to the
kind of residents halls they now have and they really are just
unbelievable from a different order actually. We did build two other
buildings in those first years but they were started before I arrived.
That was the computing commons and the law library and the law library. Of
course it was a wonderful building. Computer commons was kind of an
ordinary build. But the law library had some architectural interest and it
worked well and it was a building. I think that lifted you that when you
walked in you felt good about yourself that
uh
I mean they're really, there are certain buildings that make you better
than you are. We've my first year opened the building, two buildings like
that and the University of Nevada reno but we really changed the very
nature of the campus by opening those buildings. You had offices in the
old administration building and then in the foundation building, did it
make any difference?
I had the same people around me. And
what's most important is who the people are not what the buildings like.
Was it nice to come to work in the foundation building and look out at
that beautiful great lawn in front of old main. Just kind of inhale the
site. Yeah, really nice being in the new building and having a decent
office and so on and I enjoyed that but it's still the people around you
that define how well you can do your job, how much you enjoy it. I mean
I've been very fortunate that all my life I look forward to coming in
every morning to see the people that are there. I mean those of us that I
think our vocation is an avocation are among the luckiest people in the
world. Tempe Center was one of the great opportunities that the university
had to really build that connection to downtown. And I think hard eyes got
bigger than our stomach and we brought in a world class architect
architect in norman
norman foster and he had a vision. It was mind boggling. We meet with the
canyons and so on. But it was a vision that was unachievable and maybe if
we'd had a little more modest vision for Tempe center, we might have
actually achieved it because that piece of property is still, I think one
of the most critical properties A. S. U. Owns and we probably also got
distracted by downtown. What do you think
You've been an administrator during hard times and during good times and
now you're an administrator again during hard times, it's 2010 right now,
what do you think higher education will be live when we move into the next
good time? Are we gonna have some fundamental changes because of all of
the economic difficulty we're facing them, certainly all the gurus and
soothsayers say there will be a huge change. There has been little change
since the 14th century. I believe that if there's any organization in the
world other than the catholic church that can resist change, it is higher
education, but I hope it will change in some ways. First of all, we do
have to start doing some of the things we're doing. We're in a position at
my university Where we've lost 22% of our state budget in 18 months. If we
can continue to do everything we're doing with 22% less state dollars,
then we really were over funded and so we're gonna stop doing some things
, but it's very difficult. The bleeding edge is not the leading edge. The
bleeding edge is getting rid of the trailing edge. So I think we will have
recognize that some things that were good and are good, I have to go so we
can meet the challenges of the future. The second thing 20 years ago I
argued and I still argued, but I haven't seen it. Then first let me say
I'm a techno file and a techno skeptic that I think technology has failed
in higher education because basically what we've done with it is we've
done exactly what we always did, but we just do it with extra tools,
whereas the long term future of technology ought to be to allow us to
different things and particularly I started talking about this 25 years
ago, I'm still talking about it as the future. What technology should
allow us to do is mass customize that is we should be able to recognize
that we have,
Our students have somewhere between six and 8 different learning styles
are faculty largely all have the same learning style and we ought to be
able on a mass customization basis to use technology to teach johnny in
his learning style and George and his learning style and judy and her
learning style. And we haven't done it instead. All we've done is use
technology to reproduce what we are and not to change what we do. Uh But
we haven't gone very far. We have not made very much progress and I think
that's something which may or may not happen. But I think it should have
the other thing. We've got to come to grips with some of the crises. I
think facing the United States where once the most educated country in the
world, we're now roughly the ninth most educated country in the world had
a time when natural resources will not drive prosperity,
innovation, creativity, knowledge will drive prosperity. We have lost that
cutting edge. Another concern I have about higher education. If your
family is in the top quartile of income, You have a 75% chance that your
son will get a college degree or your daughter will get a college degree
if they are in the lowest quartile
ah King. The Likelihood your son or daughter will get a college degree is
less than 10%. That's what we're doing with the economically poor of our
society is we're creating generational failure and eventually they give up
trying and what you have is a large segment of the society that is
underperforming under productive and become a burden rather than a
strength of the country. And I like to think at least in theory and to a
large extent in practice, what separated this country from many others was
it didn't matter who your father was or who your mother was, What mattered
is what you did. And if the economic situation of the family is creating
such stratification, it does matter even if you go to the second quarter,
which is clearly above the median income in this country, The second
quartile likelihood of a child getting a college degree, his half as high
as the first quarter, I think we're seeing economic stratification and at
a time when more jobs require education when there are the jobs with a
high school degree or even less, you can have a nice home, middle class
family, send your kid to college. And so if we don't find a way to bridge
that gap and to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to achieve
their potential, I think we have failed as a higher education system and
maybe we should go out of business, it's easier to talk about that than to
do. But and it's not just whether we have enough financial aid, it's
whether we've gotten these kids young enough to convince them that they
can succeed and that they can go to college and that they can become
educated and that they can have a better life. Every generation. I believe
in the history of this country, I have been able to say the next
generation of a better life than I am, it will be more prosperous.
There's real question as to whether our generation we'll have that same
opportunity. And I think that should be a concern for every american,
because we are talking about how we create the prosperity that this
quality of life that this country has always had. And it's not just about
creating a workforce, it's about creating better citizens. We know that
educated people drink less, they're less likely to go to prison, healthier
lifestyles, they live longer and they have a higher quality of life. All
those things are what higher education can do, and if we don't reach that
out to all our citizens who want it and are qualified, I think we have
failed our obligation to the nation. I think we have to understand that
would have been very tough times. Everybody, every place, we have
neighbors who have lost their homes and lost their jobs and it's very easy
for those of us in the university two think about all the things we should
have and we deserve and don't have, but it's still one of the most
wonderful jobs in the world and I I think we ought to be grateful for the
opportunities were given by the society to really have this job that
changes life and lives and changes the world and that largely is. And so
I'm sure glad I came here and I'm glad I stayed here.
I'll also tell you something else that I'm very proud of and I have
continue to carry. That is when the board of regions and ruth remembers
this. Well they said they wanted to regulate our work. Every faculty
member which I think would have been the death knell. We decided we had to
find an alternative and our alternative was that we went to the board ruth
and Kathy and I actually and said I said I did the talking but they did
the prompting. I said any system that tries to regulate faculty workload,
I promise you, our faculty can gain that. Our faculty invented passive
aggressive and it won't solve your problems. Let's together to find what
are the outcomes you want, higher graduation rates, higher retention, more
research dollars. And let's put them on the back of a business card. And
you hold this accountable and that's what you should just us by not by how
many hours dave spends in the classroom, but by whether we are achieving
the goals we have jointly agreed to and then we were expected to define
those goals. And one of the great days that ruth remembers was going down
to Tucson for a board meeting on thursday and the saturday before Kathy
church had locked me in my office and said, you promised you would bring
goals and metrics to be measured by and you now before you go home
saturday you will have to find those schools or I won't let you go home.
And so we defined those goals and we walked in and we presented our goals
and ruth, what did the um do?
They just they just talk and the board came down like a ton of rocks and
paul burgess who's someone you ought to interview, came back and said to
the faculty senate, this was better than beating the you the university of
Arizona in football. It was when I am in some ways it was in the eyes of
the region's when A s you grew up, I really believe that day was a shift
in the perspective of the board of regions. At A. S. U. Was a real
university. I once told a member of the board
who asked me why I had missed the first day of the board meeting. And I
said, well, you know, part of my job is provost is to convince the faculty
that the board is really are good guys on their side and the more time I
spend with you, the more difficult that is to do.
Uh haven't you knows, I didn't become president of eric state University,
but I think the board of regions was a good board. There were people that
were very good and certainly I would point out Andy Hurwitz was one of
those, there were people that were less good, there were people that truly
were catholic in their view of supporting all the universities and there
were others who were very parochial and only cared about one university,
usually the ones in the south. Uh huh. But on the whole, it was a good
board and
if I have my brothers, I'd have my own board because then they become more
like a private university board who think their job is to make you as good
as you can be. Whereas the board of regions in a multi institution state
sees their job as to create balance. And one of the arguments I have with
the board in Nevada is they want the tuition to be the same as the two
universities, Yes, we want to give salary increases and UNLV doesn't they
want us to do it too, saying that there's a leveling effect that's
inherent in their job description. It's not that they're bad people, it's
what the role is. So if I could have my own board, I would like that
better, I might not be better off. Ah one of the problems we have in
Nevada is we have one of the most extreme open meetings, so I can never
meet with the board in private. So they actually, all the interviews in
Nevada were in public with the press, they're all of the interviews with
me and the search committee. They reviewed my performance in public, they
reviewed the chancellor's performance in public, they reviewed the
president of U. L. V. In public for six hours and at the end voted to fire.
No rational system would have you doing evaluations of presence in the
public with the media sitting there, televising part of streaming video.
But
I think that on the whole the board of regions in Arizona, it was a good
board. There were certainly some that I could have lived without. All
right. But I've lived with appointed boards. I've lived with elected
boards. I've lived with single institution boards. I've lived with multi
institution boards
and somehow you work with all of them and their advantages to each and
that was why this incident I described when we really took the leadership
with the board changed. I think a lot I will say Kathie Church
is the reason we now have gone from a low tuition, low financial age
university here to a high tuition, high financial aid university, which
was Michael's idea. It was when Professor Church has the region's always
addressed Stood up and made a 1-hour presentation. That was when they
bought it. one change I have had to make is that as provost I got my job
was to make sure the board didn't do what they wanted to do as president.
I have to play a little more collaborative role.
One distinctive feature that I think is a problem for a shoe that is
different than in about. He has so many in both Nevada and Arizona people
from the university. The historic university have moved to the big city.
So many you of a alums live in phoenix. Many university Nevada alums live
in las Vegas, but the U of a alums live in phoenix never give up their red
and blue because there's such great distance between las Vegas and reno
the university of Nevada wolfpack alums, they really turn in las Vegas
people and that doesn't happen here. And I think that's been a problem
with this university because the leadership of the state still not
necessarily legislative leadership but and maybe they're too, but the
historic leadership of this state, we're all university of Arizona lungs
and I think that was a real mountain that had to be climbed. I think it's
been done, but it was among and certainly when it comes to private
fundraising
historically, the university of Arizona has done that much better. And
even today the private fundraising success is a issues had had not been
permitted to alums. It's been largely from the community rather than the
alums. And I think that's still true
Michael Crowe was at Iowa state when I was hired as provost actually on
the search committee. He was about 12 years old. I think that was my
reaction to him. He was in his early 30s and he was the first director of
the institute Physical Research and Technology, Which was a $50 million
dollars applied research operation built around the Ames laboratory at
Iowa State. And I was introduced to him and the president said, oh, he'll
tell you what you should do. I was very resentful that I had that this
young kid was going to do that. But I came to, he also did our federal
well being for highway State. I came to appreciate that Michael is one of
the most creative, brilliant mm hmm, strategic thinkers I've ever met. And
Michael left when they hired a new president. Michael went east and I met
went west. He went east to be executive vice provost at Columbia
University. I came west to Arizona State, I,
I am basically a step at a time kind of person. I don't have the big
vision and Michael's ours did. And so I asked Michael if he'd come one day
a month as a consultant just to get me out of my one year Framework into
my 10 year frame. And Michael and I where we've spent The last 24 years, I
think arguing with each other. We agree on very little. And so Michael
spent a lot of time looking at opportunities for new men, new ventures.
Hey issue. And of course when retired the board wanted a innovative,
creative visionary,
mm hmm, aggressive. Mhm, decisive, clear. And they chose mike when I I
said to Michael, you know the fact that we've been Known each other for 20
years and your friends should not dictate who your provost is, I will move
on unless you think I'm the right person to help you. He said I want you
to stay on, get the same. Mhm Master at managing limited budgets, which I
was he didn't understand. Uh
And I have put away $5 million uh
and I
I said to him that when you decide it's time for a different kind of
provost, you tell me I will move on. And we worked together for 3, 3.5
years. And then Michael said, I think I want to get the provost for the
next generation. And I did move on. I had no idea it was going to move to
another place. I plan to stay here as the first university professor. And
I was scared to death of that for the reasons that I said earlier. But
that's what I really plan to do. And then this headhunter called me up and
said, would you be willing to be a candidate for President? University of
Nevada where I've never been. And I said no. And he said would you be
willing to
the interview And I said no. And he said would you be willing to come
visit had I did and met with the search committee. And
he just clicked. I later learned I thought it was their normal courtesy
that at the end I got a standing ovation at the end of the interview. It
turns out it wasn't, it was one of those chemical reactions that just
happened. And Michael continues to be someone if I do see him. Which is
very sudden I continue to argue with him but I continue to believe he's
one of the most smartest, one of the smartest, most visionary, strategic
people I've ever known. He takes no prisoners.
Michael and I used to argue, I tell him that his I. Q. Was so much higher
than nine and he would say, but your EQ, your emotional quotient higher
than mine. And I think both of us were right that I have a higher eq and
he has a higher IQ and I could not have been my lifetime envision downtown
phoenix campus that now exists when he first mentioned that I told him he
was learning and it happened. So
you have to recognize that
tell us a little bit maybe if you can about a special memory or a couple
of events or a couple of people during your time here. The issue that
stand up that really you carry with you. As I said, some of the people I
really carry with me, people like than the fruit Kathie church, they were
always there to protect my band and they were also
very pushy. Women didn't hesitate to tell me when I was really wrong, but
they also where people who make sure what I had to get done got done. That
is, it's very easy to make promises. It's much harder to carry them out.
And if you're very verbal as I obviously am, you need people around you
who are willing to actually make sure what you said actually gets put into
place. John thing was someone who I watched make a transition from someone
who was all faculty. My first interaction with john was a, when he was at
NSF and he wrote this very nasty email about how earmarks were evil, that
he was very concerned that we were selling out to the business community
to someone who actually engaged in this stuff. But I was able to balance
still wearing his faculty hat has to the intellectual purpose of the
university and yet understanding they have to make practical decisions and
that you do have to enlist all kinds of constituents.
Several I mentioned do because someone
tried in having taken someone who really had no idea about what it meant
to be a university administrator and two learn and to grow. I think Trish
white who I brought in as dean of the law school, brought a certain life
to that Moscow and the decision making. Her predecessor who remains a very
dear friend of mine and who I was actually on the committee that recruited
me to Nevada Dick morgen. It was a wonderful guy with wonderful values but
he had turned the entire los go over to the faculty so no decisions could
be made. And Trish came in and was able to let the faculty do their thing
and then
somehow get decisions made and move the institution. She had an optimism
that I think some of us get beat out of us. One of the things of course I
remember most clearly is the law school when they admitted James hamm hey
convicted first double first degree murderers who had executed two people
in a drug deal, shot him in the back of the head and our faculty in the
law school and their wisdom admitted them, admitted him to the law school
right out of prison and
to say that was provocative and controversial. Too minimize it. I remember
the night that one night returning over 75 phone calls that have angry
callers who called the President and I answered the calls and I always try
to keep in mind that most of those people just because they were called
back, we're satisfied that somebody actually heard them. Andy Hurwitz was
chair of the board. Yeah, now Supreme Court justice and a wonderful guy
who knew how to build compromise and care deeply about the intellectual
purposes of the university and and the and I and Dick morgen actually
presented to a law Dean seminar this story and every one of them was
convinced we were absolutely
crazy for having done this and we did respect the faculty. We thought they
were wrong, we thought it was a bad decision. But we also thought that in
fact we made a decision, we have the obligation to defend that decision as
long as it was not made on any proper grounds. one of the stories I like
to tell about it, that particular incident is that a few weeks later Dean
morgan was having a party at his house and his wife
had hired a carpet cleaner too
cleaner, carpets for the party. And the carpet cleaner said MS morgen, I
assure you respect your husband. And she said do you know my husband? And
he said yes isn't he didn't morgen or law school. And she said yes he is.
And she said well how would you know anything about him? And the carpet
cleaner said well he admitted James hamm to law school and she said How
would you have an opinion about that? And he said, Oh we were cell mates
for 15 years. So that says it's not so important who your lawyer is but
you really ought to be careful who your carpet cleaner is. You brought in
, you didn't bring anyone with you from Iowa state brought no one with me.
But you then recruited some leadership. What were some of your goals when
you know, you had Gene Deans and department chairs and so forth. Well, our
goals were to bring in people who could build consensus and could set of
vision because I don't set visions. I think that the Wizard of Oz was a
vision problems had that view. But we brought in people like Duke Rider
who could lead
by telling a story. Obviously this downtown campus which have seen for the
first time, a lot of that has to be attributed to Duke's vision and his
ability to visualize and to put in a visual sense. Some of the vision that
Michael Crowe had for a downtown campus and make it real to people. And
Duke could also, and I'm using him as an example as the Dean of
architecture. He could be the architecture critic for the bali without
alienated in the valley. So he was one example of someone we brought in in
liberal arts and sciences. David Young who
had a high level of conceptualization
and was willing to alienate a few people to make that happen. And like all
things when you create change. Some of your decisions work. Some don't and
you celebrate the ones that work and you kind of forget about the ones
that didn't want to. The things that is how allowed me I think too appear
to be successful is that people remember the good things I did. Somehow my
colleagues told me the things that
I was going to, that we're stupid. So they never happened and they forgot
my stupid ideas. I also, I was fortunate to surround myself with people
who were committed to the university and committed to protecting my back.
In addition to linda and ruth, there was Cathy church walter Harris who
went on to be provo standards loyal to new Orleans
chuck now, Charles bands who went on to be provost at Wayne State
University and is now chancellor at Ue Bowie indiana University, Purdue
University at Indianapolis, which I think is one of the great modern
higher education success stories. Gail Hackett who's provost at to
at U M. K C.
So, you know, we take a lot of pleasure, our success stories and people
that have in many ways. I've shown those of us that were part of their he
said we also reorganized one of laddies decisions before I came in was to
place the Vice President for Research under the provost. And
it was absolutely the right decision at the time. But a decision that was
not without controversy and also the Vice President for Student Services
under the program, which I still believe it's the right model. And
I think those decisions were important in creating a unified institution.
We never, I think quite understood what the role the west campus was to be
and that continues to evolve and that was the point of some controversy
and I would imagine still is go back to reflecting on your time and the
issue and what is your well satisfying
accomplishment at that point or what what do you take most pride in? I'd
like to believe not that I don't take pride in these things but that a lot
of people did these things. I think the big changes that I take pride in
our one a issue is now a national destination
for really talented students and it's more than sunlight. And I have to
tell you in the battle when I talk about a. S. You when I say I'm from A S.
U. They say gee that's a wonderful university, I think it was a wealthy
family unknown. Mhm. Have said so I think a issue and obviously it's
continued to rise invisibility. Uh A. S. U. Is a destination for more than
sunlight today. I think it is recognized as an institution on the move
that takes
Intellectual achievements seriously. 2ndly we brought him some wonderful
faculty and created some wonderful research opportunities, some of which
are world changing. You know, I think of when we made the investment. Mhm.
For the planetary laboratory in the more building. And all of a sudden,
not only were we going to mars, but we've known for that, but we were
taking in eight year olds inspiring them. And as you know Phil Christensen
is the pied piper. I mean he creates energy and you can't have 1000
faculty create energy. No one could handle that and you couldn't achieve
it. But having those energy creators around the campus who really excite
people, I think that's great. I also think a issue plays a bigger role in
the economy of Arizona. And finally I guess one of the things I take most
pride in is seeing the people in Tucson look with a little envy at A. S. U.
Because when I arrived at A. S. U. The people at A. S. You were saying
the faculty boy, I wish we could be treated and have the things they have
at the University of Arizona and be like the university of Arizona. I
genuinely believe when I left a issue people in Tucson, we're saying boy
we wish we were at Arizona State University and that transformation,
nobody did no single person did it and it didn't happen overnight. And
part of it was some of the substantive changes and part of it was a issue
built pride feeling of family, I believe a feeling of community
that was not there to the same extent when I arrived. And so over that 15
years uh some of those years more than others I think we built a kind of
family relationship that said we can be better than we are and we're glad
we're here, not someplace else. And the people that wanted to be someplace
else they could go As my grandmother used to say when I want to wait, I
want to run away from home. She'd say milk,
go in good health, I'll make you sandwiches. I never ran away and I think
faculty didn't run away. I think people really came to have great pride in
the institution, much of which they should have always had. But I think
the pride was increase that we learned to stretch together and
I had a wonderful ride and I wouldn't have traded it for anything and I
learned a lot. I think we did a lot. Yeah. I I still think of this as my
home of all the places I've lived on behalf of the retirees association
Milk. We want to thank you for coming back for sharing his thoughts with
us. Being part of this video history project. Thanks a lot. Thank you.
Thank you.