Today is Friday April 19, 2019. We're conducting an interview for the
Arizona State University retirees association video history project. We
are located today in the A. S. U. Community services building. I'm Gary
Kraehenbuehl a former faculty member and administrator at A. S. U. And
people here today and supported this project are john McIntosh on the
camera, roger carter on audio linda vance coy, Director of the project and
David Shatz Lee chair of the video history project.
Now I'd like an interview if he would to introduce himself and tell us uh
the position he held when he left or maybe the positions you held and then
the position you were in when you left A. S. U. Okay, I'm brian Foster. I
came to a. s. U. in 1980. Um and I was here for 14 years, I was a couple
of years. I came in, the anthropology department was for a couple of years
, I was an associate professor in anthro and then I Went on to become
chair of the Department for four years And the job I never wanted. But
that pushed into it because the chair left and nobody else wanted it. And
then I became then I was nominated for a graduate dean job and and wasn't
very interested in that either. But I ended up getting that too. And so I
was graduate dean for eight years and left in 1994
brian, would you tell us a little bit about your early life uh where you
were born and raised and a little about your family life. Well kind of
complicated. Um I grew up in a little town in northern Illinois Town of
about 5000 people about halfway between Chicago and the quad cities. Uh
And um uh well we had a tough time. My dad had a business that failed and
um And I ended up, when I graduated from high school, I was a good high
school student. I always wanted to go to college, but my dad had quit
school in seventh grade and and mother had gone to a tiny little school
with 20 students or something and it was, you know, I always wanted to go
to college, but I couldn't because I ended up having to support the family
because his dad's business failing. Anyway, I didn't get to undergraduate
school until my late 20s. And then you know, kind of took off from there.
I went to northern Illinois, had a fire and casualty insurance agency in
Dixon Illinois, Ronald Reagan's hometown. And so um you know, that's sort
of where it came from. Um been um tell the story about how you ended up in
higher education. I like that story. Well, like I say, I just wanted to go
to college and in fact, you know, I had actually a, I was a good high
school student like I say, and and
two years ago I had this moment that made me almost cry, I ran across my
high school yearbook and opened it up and a letter fell out of it and it
was my acceptance letter from the university of Chicago. And of course I
wasn't able to go because I was supporting the family at the time. But
anyway, um I hadn't ended up with the fire and casualty insurance agency
like I said, and uh one day I was settling a claim in a little town about
halfway between Dekalb where northern Illinois university is and Dixon.
And And I remember I was on route 51 facing north Uh right around 30 and
if I turned left I went back to home to Dixon. If I turned right, I went
to dekalb to take a night class and try to start something, ended up
turning right and uh ended up going to Dekalb and found the admissions
office, I'm not even sure how I did that because I probably didn't even
know what admissions was, but but anyway, I found the admissions office
and there was this incredibly, really supportive, helpful encouraging
person in the admissions office and I left two hours later, a full time
student. And uh and without, you know, had no planning whatsoever. And so
I had this business and I commuted for about a year and a half from from
Dixon where my business was and of course my business didn't do well to
say the least, but when I finally sold it I moved to Dekalb, I worked 48
hours a week as a night clerk in a hotel because I had no money as a
student but you know it all kind of worked out and and I nobody could have
predicted. I mean the first course I signed up for was anthropology
because I didn't know what it was and now I'm an anthropologist and uh I
was an anthro miner and a history major because they didn't have an
anthropology major. But you know it's really
Well one I'll add one other kind of uh one other little note to this uh
when I grow up I was a good student but like I said working 48 hours a
week, I wasn't exactly part of student life and that sort of thing which
actually will play a role in some of the things I'll talk about because I
never had a kind of what you call a standard undergraduate experience. But
um anyway uh when I was graduating I was I had like my G. P. A. Was like
1/10 of a point below the highest one. I was second highest in the class
and and two I had two mentors, one in anthro and one in history and they
both nominated me for Woodrow Wilson fellowship and I didn't know what a
fellowship was and accept that it had something to with money and I uh I
ended up you know that was interesting because I wasn't sure what I was
going to do after I graduated I didn't even know what graduate school was
really. I mean sort of but not really. And so this was kind of interesting.
And so then I got a call from the Woodrow Wilson people and they said
nobody from your institution ever had one of these so you need to you need
to take the G. R. E. At least so we can validate your credentials. And so
I didn't know what the Grd was and I looked into it, it was too late to
take it. And so I just I gave up. But then it turned out I ended up
getting the fellowship and I was able to pretty much go anywhere I wanted
to to graduate school. So just you know but just it's a random walk you
know that's the way my whole career has been. As you'll see just a random
walk we'll continue to walk for us uh then about your graduate training
and so on up to the time that you came to A. S. U. Well one of the things
that happened when I was in the night clerk in the hotel was retrained
Peace Corps trainees that we're going to go to Thailand. And so that's why
I did research in Thailand for two years. So that was my introduction to
Thailand all very planned again you know just like everything else. And uh
but anyway um I ended up doing my PhD at the university of michigan um it
was the best fit for me because they have one of the best Southeast asia
programs in the country, but also arguably the best anthropology program.
And so it was it was a great fit for me and I had a great experience at
michigan and uh did research in Thailand for a year and a half as part of
my my ph d finished within five years and uh and got off in the higher ed.
But again, you know, I couldn't have predicted this, you know, 67 years
before because I didn't even I didn't even understand what these options
were, let alone how I do them, you know continue then with the story of
where you started your career as a faculty member and then a little bit
about uh coming to a. S. U. Who hired you and what what position you held
initially and what kind of a university you found here. Um That's three
questions. If I forget one of them, you have to remind me. I
as I was finishing my dissertation, I got a call from Suny Binghamton
which I had never heard of. Uh and uh and bring up to new york. And uh
they said we have a one year position available here and we wonder if
you'd be interested in it, I have no idea where they got my name or
anything. And uh I thought about it a little and I thought no I don't
think I want to do a one year position, I'll wait and try to get a real
position. So I said no and thank them. And then a few weeks later I got a
call and said hey now we have a tenure track position available, would you
be willing to take that? So I ended up taking a tenure track position at
Suny Binghamton. Never even applied for a job. It's just crazy. I have no
idea how they ever found me or anything and ended up going to Binghamton
which was at that time a I don't know it was an emerging university, very
high high quality um Right a very high quality institution, very um
high high quality in all of the sort of standard measurements, you know of
you know restrictive admissions and all of that, we'll get back to the
restrictiveness issue later but very high quality and I liked the place
but it wasn't exactly the sort of thing, it wasn't the kind of place I
came from. I mean my my background didn't fit with the kind of people that
were Binghamton, they were much more elite. Um Very many of them from the
city and but I but I had a good time there and had some very close friends
, I was there for eight years and ah well really became that was how I got
socialized into being a faculty member but like I said it wasn't quite
where I came from. I came from this little town in northern Illinois and
that's like a different planet than new york. And uh so anyway I was there
for eight years did well and uh had a very close friend who was a very
distinguished anthropologist, a guy named fred plug And Fred left
Binghamton and came to uh s. U. in probably about 1978. And so In 1980 and
he became chair, he was chair of the Department at issue. And in 1980 he
recruited me to come here. And that's how I that's how I got to a S. U. I
mean it was really a very close connection with with a friend who was a
very distinguished anthropologist. And and so I came here and and this was
well it was a hugely better fit in a sense than for me than Binghamton.
And because it really it served people like me, which is not what
Binghamton did. And
it was large.
Very much a public university, public with a capital p really public
served the state, served the people of the state all kinds of people, not
just elite people. And I really related to all of that. And that that kind
of defined in many ways my time at a. S. U. Was was coming into that
environment which was so meaningful to me given my background. And uh are
there any other thoughts you have about what A. S. U. Was like other than
being big and public and accessible and so on. Were they the main
characteristics? Or is there anything else that stood out well and very I
think I thought it was a very um accepting social environment as well. And
there again that worked for me in ways that didn't work quite as well at
Binghamton. I mean Binghampton it was just a little more elite and I just
didn't come from that kind of the background and I was just more
comfortable here put it that way and in a sort of social sense. And that
was a big thing for my whole time here. I had it was socially a really
great environment for me. And so I loved it that way. Um The department
was a good department. That was another thing. I mean it was a big
department much bigger than the one at Binghampton. More diverse and some
very very strong people. It was all four sub disciplines were fully
represented within the department. And that was a good thing. So yeah it
was it was just a good fit in general. And you said fred was the
department chair that brought you here. Who are the other people sort of
up the line at that time? Well you know, I don't remember some of their
names. I won't even try to do that because I will I'll be cherry picking
in some hard way. But it was a like I said a very diverse group of social
and cultural anthropologists and biological and archaeology and some
linguists and uh it was much more diverse anthropology department than the
one of Binghamton and that was a good thing. How did your career here then
progress? Um you, did you come as an associate professor? I came as
associate, right. And well, two years after I came fred decided to leave
and moved to new Mexico state. For what reason? I have no idea. I've never
ever understood why fred decided to leave, but he decided to leave. And so
they did a new chair and there was really no one in the department that
wanted to be chair including me. And uh, but I got kind of pushed towards
being chair and ended up deciding to accept the job, not even really quite
knowing what it was and and did become chair and and what year would that
have been? It would have been 82 82. So guido wagon he hired me I think
and he would have been still the Dean in 82 I think. Yeah, but it was end
of 82 I think uh you know, it was his successor that I worked with Sam
kirkpatrick that I worked with. But uh, well, and then, you know, he was
here what for seven years 66. Yeah, so he was there for my whole time as
chair and the ah my naivete and getting into this chair position was
boundless. I had no clue. I mean I I remember an incident for instance, it
just ah it sort of shaped my my sense of being chair. But I was in a
meeting with the uh with the other chairs in arts and science and there
was something going on with the dean or with somebody that I can't
remember what the issue was. But anyway, they were trying to figure out
how to deal with it and and my take as as a naive new chair was, well,
well we'll just we'll just resist and do whatever we want. And of course
they just rolled their eyes.
But it was, you know, it's one of those kinds of you know moments, you
know where I really kind of began to understand that I was in a much more
complicated job than I had any idea. And uh and I learned to be chair and
and you know in some ways my business background and other things were
actually helpful. I mean I knew how to manage money for instance and
things like that. But uh but I I, you know, I got into being chair and it
wasn't my life's desire, you know to be a chair. But but I think it went
well and
well and then four years later, like I said the earlier the I was
nominated to be graduate dean. And uh I mean I really didn't know what
that was about either and I wasn't interested at all. But I have this
memory of vague memory. Well in some ways it's it's it's not vague at all.
But I don't remember even who was present but my wife and I were up north
in some some little area for a long weekend just having a good fun weekend.
And and I would have been nominated for this job and I ended up talking
with the friends that I was there with about it and I was not very
interested in. And somehow they kind of convinced me that maybe I had to
think about it. So I came back and eventually decided to go ahead and then
throw my name in the in the game and ended up getting the job as graduate
dean. And again I had very little idea what the heck I was getting into.
But uh but that interestingly worked out and I ended up I ended up loving
that job. And in a lot of ways the graduate dean job I was graduate dean
for eight years. And in a lot of ways that graduate dean job was my
favorite job I ever had. And one of the things that I liked so much about
it and again this has something to do with my time at A. S. U. But one of
the things I liked so much about the graduate dean job was that You were
in touch with the whole university, you know and you could sort of see the
whole university from 20,000 ft level and see how all the pieces fit
together And all that was really exciting to me. I mean that and that will
come back to this maybe later, but that's just the way I'm wired. You know
, my brain is wired and I'm not a detail or a fax person down in the weeds
manager or anything. I'm more a sort of 30,000 ft manager that my, what
I'm best at is kind of fitting all the pieces together and having a vision
and that sort of thing. That's, that's what I'm good at. And the graduate
dean job had this big broad institutional focus, but it didn't didn't bury
you in the weeds of running the darn place in the same way. Say that a
provost job or a dean's job.
But anyway, I loved that job. It was, it was a great job as department
chair. And and then as graduate dean were there events that stand out in
your memory that uh seemed important at the time or people that shaped how
you saw things or that uh stick out in your memory. Well, one of the
things when I was chair, one of the things that really sticks out in my
memory in the anthropology department, we had a museum and the museum was
kind of a mess. And uh and it also had, I mean it just wasn't very well
exhibits weren't very well done. and there were some sort of serious
issues on on heritage preservation and that sort of thing that the
university had gotten into, that the department had gotten into through
the museum collections. And uh and working through all of that became very
interesting. And we actually I think made some huge progress on improving
the quality of the museum, increasing number of visitors and settling all
of these uh these problems with the without the human remains and and
antiquities had been managed. And that was that was very that was very
satisfying. It was tough stuff. I mean, very technical, difficult things,
but we I think came out of that well, so that was one thing it was,
but I think was a very positive outcome as chair. Another thing that was a
very positive outcome as chair was I kept my Binghamton ties going and
hired Chuck Redmond who came from Binghamton also and chuck you probably
all know chuck, I mean he's been around now for a long time since probably
about 19 oh gee 1983 or four
and you know, and he's had a big impact here and he's and he's still
around and he was he was a great hire chuck's superstar. He's really,
really good
in the graduate school, a couple of things, stick out. Do you want me to
go on and talk about remember that, that I think were really important one
was when I first got there literally, I mean just barely walked in the
room, It turned out that somehow the admissions process had just gone
completely berserk. I mean it just wasn't working at all and we didn't
have any graduate students coming in for the following year, It was this
was in the spring and it was getting late and uh and I can't remember what
the exact details were, but the whole system just broke and so we had, we
had to do something really fast and really, really have a big impact and
and so we did two things. First of all, I just told him to admit everybody
that applied because we just needed to get students which which turned out
to work fine because we ended up with a good class. I mean it was really
interesting, but the other thing we did and this this had a longer term
impact was I set up a continuous improvement program, a formal continuous
improvement program to take a look at at what was wrong with the system.
And um and we totally redesigned the admission system and we remember one
of the problems was that people could never get on the phone call, you
could never talk to anybody because all the phones were busy and they just
ended up getting put it on hold forever. We we did a And an improvement
project on telephone on the telephones and we we our goal was something
like a maximum 15 2nd weight or something like that, which we achieved.
And uh anyway working through this, we established this this culture of
continuous improvement and in a formal sense that I think was really,
really valuable and really helped the operations and not just admissions
but all the operations in the graduate school, it was a very very very
successful. Do you recall the people above you in the chain of command,
who the provost were during your different stages and so on? Yeah, well
when I came and was hired by fred fred was my boss. And and frankly at
that point, like I said, I was pretty clueless about administration and
all, I doubt if I even knew who the dean was at that time um or the
provost um probably knew who the you know the president was, but not not
that I wouldn't have known what a provost is and I said literally I
wouldn't have and but then when I was hired for the graduate dean job um
like you say, I think it was guido that hired me, but then I really worked
um
provost for Jack until and then for Dick peck for a little while and then
four course for milk and uh so there's quite a bit of turnover and all of
these higher level jobs, Suada was president when I came and then of
course Russ and then well then acting uh Dick for a little bit acting and
then six months or something like that. And then of course laddie laddie.
So there's quite a bit of turnover in all of those positions and those
were all people that I had relations with. Um the other was Dick pecs
still at New Mexico when you uh were there as provost. He was still living
in New Mexico but was no longer active at the university. And actually he
and I did kind of disconnect. I mean did kind of reconnect. He lives in
proceedings very near actually a very close friend of mine. And and we've
reconnected several times. Not nonetheless not in the last four or five
years but reconnected several times. Dick peck used to like to say talking
about turnover that when he was hired to be provost, he came and a week
later rushed to step down, which he said he always thought was an
overreaction.
Are there people that you especially enjoyed working with or that uh made
it influenced you in significant ways you can think of either reported to
you or that you were just uh sort of on the same level as you or above you
in the university? Um You know, very very diverse set of people. I mean
I'll start with one that that you would probably never expect. But it was
my uh senior assistant in the anthropology department who was just
incredibly smart and incredibly
um capable. She just made everything work. And and she helped me
understand what that job was about. And uh and actually she and I have
remained in touch all these years. We're still in touch and uh the name
incidentally that person is Philomena bell. Oh yeah I remember that I
remember absolutely. Yeah. I mean
did she, yeah she was incredibly capable, nice person. But she and I have
stayed in touch all these years.
I was very inspired by both Ross nelson and laddie. I thought they both
and we'll get back to this later. But I mean they were the visionary kinds
of leaders that I think positioned ASU for the kind of incredible
incredible success, incredible advance that that A. S. U. Has experienced
A. S. U. Is is one of a handful of leaders where higher education is going
and it's not going where it used to go. It's really really different but
they they sort of set the foundation for that for that new the new A. S. U.
And the kind of impact that it would have. And they were able to kind of
get out of the box out of the out of all the sacred traditions and
everything that burden
so many universities. Well they're one of my mantras about this actually
and and this I think is a very very important point and it has something
to do again with my good sense of ASU. Um If you if you today now looking
back you look back for the last 10 years at the institutions that are
really defining the future of higher education, almost all of them are are
new and quotes new institutions. They're they're not the old ones that are
burdened with centuries of tradition and uh they're they're the ones that
that can get out of the box and do things new. So it's a S. U. It's U. C.
Irvine, it's George mason, it's central florida. It's you know, there's a
there are a bunch of them but not a whole lot. But there's several of them
that are really setting the mm hmm defining the future of higher education
and I think it's the new institutions that weren't burdened with all of
those sacred traditions that are that are really defining the future and
the issue is really out in front and all of that. But again, I go back and
say that, I think that both Russ nelson and laddie had that kind of vision
of getting out of the box and they were never stuck in with all the
traditions of what makes prestige in higher education might be a good idea
brian um for you to talk about where you've been since you left a s you
because your remarks have more credibility if in the sense that now you've
been other places and seen the world, you know, from yet other
perspectives and very different kinds of places. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's
a good point. Um well I was here, I was here until uh 1994. And then I uh
like I said a few minutes ago when you get in a job like the graduate dean
job, you got headhunters all over you all the time. And uh and I really
didn't want to leave, but I ended up deciding to go and move to university
of Nebraska Lincoln. I was Arts and Science Dean there for six years. And
that again, boy, that was another year, another world in in several ways.
I mean, I love I love Nebraska and loved Lincoln, but University of
Nebraska is is very different kind of place again and the arts and Science
dean job. My goodness. I mean, that had nothing to do with being graduate
dean. There's no, there's virtually no overlap. And so again, here was a
brand new experience just trying to learn. I mean, the diversity of the
disciplines for instance, and the way people think about things and the
different disciplines and higher in in arts and sciences, breathtaking,
you know, the differences in music and physics and english and psychology
, I mean, just to take four, I mean, they're just so different. It's just
unbelievable. And so that was I and I and I found that very interesting
actually, that diversity of, of mindset you might call it um was one of
the things I really enjoyed about the arts and science experience, but it
was a very different kind of experience too in the sense that the
operational side of it was a huge part of the job, which wasn't the case
with the graduate dean job there. I mean you're dealing with personnel
issues and very complex curriculum issues and lots of different
constituents from all the different disciplines and and you know, it was
it was a totally new experience again, but but a very valuable one. And
then I went from there in 2000 um to University of New Mexico as provost
and and the arts and Science deanship is a good, is a good preparation for
a provost job because again, of the diversity of of different disciplines
and professions in the in the broader university that the provost has to
deal with. They already got a good introduction to all of that in arts and
Science and uh and I but new Mexico was, I don't know if you know anything
about New Mexico but New Mexico is is another world from anyplace else in
the US. I mean it's it's really different in Northern New Mexico. You may
not know this Northern New Mexico was settled In 450 years ago by land
grants from the Spanish crown. And so from people from Southern Spain,
whole villages from Southern Spain moved there and the the northern
Northern New Mexico has a mediterranean culture. It's just a wildly
different kind of culture, very different than Southern New Mexico which
is more like Mexico or southern texas or southern California. And so that
was an interesting cultural environment to be in two. And I have a real
emotional attachment in New Mexico actually. But that was incredibly
interesting job at the intersection of all of that cultural stuff along
with. Uh huh. You know the approvals job being a different job and and and
I kind of have I was a very anthropological administrator, I was very
interested in all these things like these these big mindset differences
and cultural differences and all the you know so it's sort of like
diversity in a different dimension you know that and then I went from
there to the University of Missouri In 2005 as provost which again very
different kind of more elite kind of institution has been an au member for
over 100 years and it's uh it's it's it's a good place and very diverse
set of professional programs and everything very again very interesting
move. But I but given all of the background I came to that one I think
ready to be provost there and that was given all the other jobs and
different kinds of institutions I've been at. Thank you brian that I'm
glad you carried us forward through the end of sort of the rest of your
career and now if you if you come back and talk a little bit more about
what you what you see happening now at a. S. U. And some other places that
um seems to be leading where higher education is going. Because you really
do have a fairly unique perspective. I would say having been to so many
different institutions and played different roles. Um Let me go back to a
point that I just mentioned briefly, but I think it's absolutely critical.
Um the for higher education broadly, even even outside the Research
University uh sector uh for higher education broadly, prestige has been,
well, it comes from Harvard basically and prestige is defined prestige
quality defined by restrictiveness, right? I mean, how do you know if
you're a good school, how few people do you admit? You know that sort of
thing? And restrictiveness is just is just at the core of the mindset of
so much higher end. And what I think what I think both Russ and laddie
brought to A. S. U. Was getting out of that box, that restrictiveness box.
They were ready to serve people all kinds of people, not just they were
ready to serve elite students too, but they were ready to serve students
that weren't elite also there and all kinds of students. And I think I
think that's one of the really big things that's going on in higher ed
today is getting out of this this this incredibly restrictive way of
thinking about quality as being restrictiveness. Um but it's hard to go,
it's hard to make the case to someone that um having a student body that
reflects the the same at a public university have a student body that
reflects the state demographics is almost a definition of failure of of
not being a high quality institution. And so uh A. S. U. Has been one of
the few that's been leading the way to getting out of that mindset. That
restrictiveness mindset. I've heard Michael say that in a very very
explicit way that um but he's been told that um organizations like the au
you know aren't going to be very interested in A. S. U. Because a sus
student body reflects the the state population and state demographic well.
But that that's an incredible plus in my view and and in a lot of
people's view these days that's different but it's just different from the
past. So that's that's one of the key issues that's going on at A. S. U.
And and and some other institutions. But only a few. Another thing.
Another thing let me just absolutely that's huge. I've talked about how
different all the disciplines are and all the you know the different
different academic fields and professions and different mindsets and
everything well from uh that's produced in most of higher ed. A very very
strong silo structure everything fits in a silo and and bursting out of
that silo that silo structure that silo mentality is one of the other big
things that's going on today. And that takes a lot of different forms
including of course interdisciplinary kinds of uh research programs and
education programs And uh again that was something I got going here fairly
early. Uh Some getting out of the silos. Um And uh and that you find in
I'd say that's that's about as big uh about as big an issue as the
demographic issue. One of the things that people tend to miss about
getting out of the silo mentality is you don't want to get rid of the
silos. You have to, it's bridging the silos. That's important. The thing
that makes interdisciplinary research and scholarship and and education
work is bringing together people that are different and it's the
differences in the in the different fields and the different disciplines
and professions. It's those differences that create the sparks and and
create the really big important ideas. It's one of my mantras is you don't
learn much talking to people that know the same thing, you know? You know
it's you you learned from talking to people that are different and that's
what creates the big ideas and so interdisciplinary things are big. And
again that was another thing. But getting out of that that that sacred
silo mentality was a very very big issue here at A. S. U. Right?
Thinking about your time at A. S. U. Um What were some of the changes that
stand out that occurred from when you arrived in 1980 until you until you
left. Ah were there changes for example in the interdisciplinary work that
was going on or the ease with which that occurred or are there other
things that stand out in your mind as being different? I'd say that a
couple of things, you know, the growth was huge. That was that was a big
issue that the university grew. And um The second thing I think that was
really really important was as it grew and it built on its relations with
the Phoenix community, it got positioned in the state such that it could
compete with U. Of a in a way that hadn't even been thinkable, you know,
15 years before and and that that affected everything. So as you became
competitive and that was a very very big deal. And so I'd say those are a
couple of very very important things that happened the but the other and
the other and the other thing was growth in research, growth in research
and graduate education. I mean those are those are things that get your
national recognition and and and A. S. U. Is over the you know, over the
years this has grown in and then amazing degrees but in the last few years
of course has just taken off. But uh it's uh that positions the university
totally differently in the international scene. I'm reminded of Russ
nelson who uh was able to say one year, he called it an rpm year and our
stood for the Rose bowl and p stood for the Pulitzer prize, read a double
on that and m stood for to macarthur award winners. Um and you know, for
this place at that time that was that was pretty significant. Those are
very, very important national national connections and connections in in D.
C. Are really really critical for any, anything that wants to think of
itself as a research university. I think one of the things that I brought
into the to when I was in the graduate school as dean, I was extremely
active in all the big national associations and it gave a S. U. A kind of
visibility, just hadn't been there before. And I mean I was chair of the G.
R. E board and I was on the tofu board for a couple of terms and I was
head of the board for um academic board for and graduate board for um um
nostalgic. And so you know, several of these, a lot of these big national
organizations being there and being a presence and being active being on
the boards, that sort of thing really gives the institution visibility
that it that it can't otherwise have visibility in the higher ed world
with people that matter. And that has a huge impact on the ability to get
grants, the ability to hire people, you know, just reputation in general,
very, very major way to make connections with the federal agencies, which
is of course the way you get money. Well, you've given us a good sense of
the richness of your career in terms of institutions and positions held
and so on. It might be fun to hear a little bit about your administrative
style as you see it and how you approach leadership and problem solving.
Well, my, like I said a little bit ago, I was very anthropological
administrator and then I really mean that in a very explicit way, I mean
anthropology,
the mindset of anthropology is to look at how cultural norms and
traditions and values and things all come together and affect how things
operate and how different people come together. And
excuse me. I mean that's the anthropological mindset in a sense and it's
very holistic, it looks at how the whole big institutions come together,
that sort of thing. And that's been the way I've, I've than an
administrator. I've always looked at how to bring the pieces together to
make a coherent institution, a coherent college, whatever.
But how do you, how do you bring the pieces together, make them function
and add up to more than the sum of the parts. That's been my style for
administration, always. And I've not been down in the weeds kind of
administrator. So I'm and of course you still have to mean the operations
still have to work. I mean people have to get paid and you gotta, you
gotta, you know, keep the buildings in good shape and you've got to buy
the equipment you need and and you gotta hire the people you need and all
that, all of those operations are incredibly important, but they're
important because they support this bigger view. So I was a very, very
strong delegator. I mean I delegated the operations really, really
strongly, I hired really good people and I I didn't try to mess around
with their jobs, they did their jobs and and
we created an environment such that all of those people, those those
administrators that were that that I delegated all of the operations to
would come together in staff meetings and and we'd talk and everybody,
everybody knew what everybody else was doing. Uh We and we always focused
on how it all supported the big vision, the big broad vision of how all
the pieces fit together. That was the, that was the way the staff meetings
worked, how do things fit together and we had a culture, we created a
culture where people could come together and challenge each other and and
have an argument and leave friends because there was trust and they all
had bought into this idea that what it was all about was this big vision
of how all the parts fit together and you know, their job was to make all
the different parts work and and fit together. And that was sort of my
dynamic senses, that was my kind of my administration style. Now that
doesn't mean, I mean I had to have some of course be informed at some
level about the operations. But but running things was not my style,
that's just not what it seems to me like. Um The anthropological approach
plus your business experience made a nice marriage in a way. I think
that's right. I think the business experience actually was a good
contributor to some of this. Let me go back just to give an example of
something I think brings things together like this. One of the projects
that we did when I was a graduate dean here at A S. U. That I really felt
strongly about was it came somebody did some research and found that none
of the local hispanic students were they a lot of them would transfer from
the community college, they go to the community colleges, they transfer
here to a four year degree, but they never went on to graduate school or
do a PhD. That just didn't happen. And the question from the graduate
school point of view was how could you get them engaged? And so that some
of them, so we started a program that worked not just with the students,
but with this the high level students in the community colleges for the
local students. Um and with their parents To engage the parents on the
possibility they go beyond the four year degree. And this program went on
for a few years when I was in graduate school. And interestingly several
years after I left, I was talking to somebody from here that said that at
the graduation that year there have been three or four local hispanic
students that have graduated with phds and every one of them had come from
that program, but an interesting kind of, you know, it's an interesting
kind of way of bringing these things together, you know, the demographics
, the operations, uh you know, all of this stuff came together and that
programs seem to actually kind of work, I don't know what happened to the
program, but Uh huh. It was, I thought just an interesting example. Sure.
I'm curious your life has been spent mostly with um live instruction. Um
but of course there's a big move now for distance learning. Do you have
any thoughts about, about that? Uh from from the places you've been and
what you see happening? I think distance learning is an important um an
important service to offer. Um I don't see it necessarily as a substitute
for face to face learning. I mean, it seems to me the really big,
important change that's going on in learning today is the move towards
active learning towards um engaging students. It's not just pouring
knowledge in their heads, but actually helping them learn to use the
knowledge and solve problems and make decisions and that sort of thing
based on that knowledge and so I think active learning and in many, many
forms, I mean, some of it is, some of it is digital, I mean, it's working
with simulations of complicated, realistic things in the world and working
through the problems, but it's also community service, its economic
development and it's uh it's study abroad and and working in corporate
settings and internships, all kinds of stuff. And I think that's where
we're going is to have this much more active learning such that the
pouring the knowledge into the head is going to be more like distance
learning. But what we do at the university is going to have to be take
that knowledge and teach people how to use it. But to do it in an
experiential way. Well, thinking back over your career and thinking about
the young person starting out a career, what advice might you give to
someone who was thinking about a career now as a faculty member and
potentially an administrator? Well, I guess the people are, people are all
wired differently, their brains are wired differently. And and I think one
of the most important things we do at a university or a college, any kind
of higher ed institution is to help people explore their options, try to
find out what's a good fit in the end, it's what's a good fit for you that
really matters. I mean, I I don't think you can overstate how important it
is, how, how different people's brains work. Uh You know, I mean, some are
interested in the arts, some are interested in science, some are
interested in mechanical stuff, some are interested in accounting, some
are interested and those are just things that are just kind of hard wired
in them and you've got to help them explore what they're their passion is
and what they're good at. And uh and so I say one of the major things we
can do is to help people explore their options and both in the sense of
what they are passionate about and what they're good at. And uh and and
the other thing I would say is this, I think it's a an absolutely horrible
the problem that we have in higher ed to think that everyone needs to go
to higher ed, that's just not the case. There are all kinds of people that
have other things they want to do and that's what we ought to be able to
respect that. And uh and I mean, not just respected in the sense of not
denigrated, I mean, really respected that there are a lot of different
things. One of my favorite stories along this line.
Yeah. Uh well, a good friend, rob Duncan who is a physicist, he, one of
the smartest people I've ever met. I estimate his I. Q. In about 800. He's
just amazing. But anyway, he uh he he was having this problem with his car
and he drive the car 500 miles and there was some peace in the end it that
got all junked up and the car would stop and he'd have it towed to a
garage and then they'd look at it And the mechanic would find this gunk up
piece and they'd replace the peace and he'd drive 100 miles and 500 miles
would be dunked up again. And this happened over and over again. And
finally he, this happened one time in Northern New Mexico and and he got
towed to this tiny little town of like 100 10 people or something. And
there was one auto mechanic in town and there's one little auto mechanic
store or place where he was the only person they're working in it, they
would rob explained to him the problem and this guy thought a second, he
said he said um he said I got a hypothesis, let me test it. So he tested
the hypothesis and it turned out that his hypothesis was right and he
fixed whatever the problem was and rob never had a problem again. But it
turned out this guy had grown up in this little town and this uh but he
got away and got a PhD in physics and uh
his dad had owned this little repair shop and when his dad passed away he
just decided if he couldn't be doing auto mechanics in this little town,
life wasn't worth living. So he left his academic job and moved back to
that little town and he was just happy as a mechanic. And I think that
says so much that that was that was what he was made for.
We've covered a lot of ground. Other other things you'd like to talk about
that haven't come up or other observations you'd like to make.
Maybe one thing I'll mention is that hasn't come up at all. It's how my
own research fit into this. Um I did, when I uh when I did my dissertation
research, I ended up going to Thailand. I worked, I did research for a
couple of years in Thailand. And my my dissertation research was based on
, I studied a group of minority people that had come from southern part of
Burma to Thailand. When the burmese moved south, they pushed a bunch of
and what was interesting was Mon M. O. N. Mon people. What was interesting
was that all of these mon people when they came to Thailand there was,
most of them just became tie thai peasants. You know the culture was just
like the thai culture, lowland Theravada buddhist southeast asian peasants
and they spoke a different language and they just became tie. But there
was one small group that had that made and distributed sold uh utility
ceramics on the rivers and boats. And uh these people all remain long. And
the question was why did they remain long? And this fit into a a it's a
pan human phenomenon that in traditional societies, traders are always
from a different group, there are outsiders. And so the question was, what
was going on here? The literature at that time about about why this
happened these that the outsiders were the traders in traditional
communities was that that they came from cultures that were more
entrepreneurial and uh you know like this came from the jewish traditions
in europe and the U. S. But this didn't work in this case at all these
people were just like the tie. So what was going on? So my theory
basically was in general that that the ties that that if you trade for
profit in a traditional community violate all the norms of reciprocity and
community and family and all of that. And so and and all the informal
social sanctions just make it impossible for you to do it. So who's the
best person to do it? It's an outsider, you know, I was never going to
marry the head man's daughter anyway, you know, and uh so anyway this this
was my theory and it got me into thinking about, Well let me, I was there
in 1970 and studied these things in 1980, I went back and they built a big
road system in Thailand And trading on the river didn't make a lot of
sense anymore. And so this one big village of traders, nothing but traders
, mon traders um I went back to that village 10 years later and about half
of the people would quit trading and they bought, but they were still on
the river. They bought barges and they were hauling construction material
and things like that up and down the river. And um, but not trading. And
to a person, all of those people that have gotten the barges became tie,
You know, 10 years ago I said, are you monetize I'm on today? You monitor
. I I'm ty but all the ones that were still trading were still more mm
It's almost like an experimental kind of thing. And the one kind of
anecdotal thing that I really loved was one case was an exception case was
a thai person that married a modern woman from a trading family and he
became on.
But anyway, what this got me to thinking about was how people manipulate
their many identities. And it was it was a way of thinking about diversity.
It's a little different than the normal way of thinking about it. And
that became a core piece of my research for a long time. But also it was a
very major important way that I thought about all the differences in the
disciplines of racial and gender and other differences. And so a main
focus of my administrative career. Uh I was actually on diversity and
identity manipulation and that sort of thing that came out of this
research and more than most chairs or most administrators. Um you're more
thoughtful about how your discipline influenced your style. I mean, I, I
think most people don't think about that much. They just are what they are
, where you've, you've already thought about it. Some actually wrote a
paper about that a couple of years ago about how people's disciplines
affect their administrative styles. Yeah. And I think they really do in
powerful ways. Yeah. I think anthropology is one of the best chance to go
lead into administration because you have such a wide knowledge of human
behind him. I think it really is a it's well, it brings a certain kind of
value to it and that depends. I think on the nature of the job. I mean
there's some jobs that really do require just
well getting into the, the details and that's not where I come from. And I
think probably not where most anthropologists come from, that's just not
what anthropology gets you into. You know, Did you have to learn the
language in Thailand when he went and did all that research?
I worked out in the country. I mean, you spoke tired, you didn't speak.
Yeah.
Did you, did you take uh southeast asian languages at northern? I know
what I did at the University of michigan. I studied Tai for three years.
Were they having that summer program then they used to have a summer
program where you could get immersed in different southeast asian
languages. I never really got into Southeast asian studies much. Okay,
okay. Which is kind of odd because they do have a, oh, it's a major center.
I'm actually going to donate all my research archives to them. Right?
Yeah. They'll, they'll appreciate that. Yeah, they're, I think they're
interested in it. It's almost of an entire language and I should add. Oh
really? Yeah, wow. Yeah.
Fast forward to today now. Um, what occupies your time and what are some
of the things you're pursuing in your current life? Well, I, I retired
five years ago about a little more than five years ago When I was 75 years
old. And, And I tell people, I cut way back to 60 hours a week.
And I've one of the things I did when I retired was I, as I said, I've
been an anthem, very anthropological administrator and I've been very
active and lots and lots of national organizations.
I mean, a lot of them from all of these different jobs had been in. And I
gave probably got at least a couple of 100 papers at meetings and that
sort of thing over these years. And they were all very anthropological
about a higher ed. So when I, when I retired, I thought it would be
interesting to uh set up a little cluster of sessions at the Society for
Applied Anthropology on an anthropological perspective on all the chaos
and higher education these days. And my my basic to go back to, I've said
this in 100 different ways now, but to go back to that, I mean my basic
rationale for all of that was this that that most of the research on
higher ed looks at some little slice of it, you know, you look at
admissions, you look at you know, this or that or the other thing. But the
fact is all of those slices interact and if you just look at one slice at
a time, it isn't very meaningful. And anthropology brings this big, broad
holistic view to all of this. And the idea was that that this
anthropological view of all the chaos, all the volatility and higher ed
could begin to bring all the pieces together. So anyway, I organized three
sessions for the Society for Applied Anthropology before sessions. And um
my God, did they ever get a lot of attention? It was just unbelievable. So
within a few months I set up what they call a topical interest group
within this organization, Society for Applied Anthropology. So for the
last four annual meetings, we had over 100 presenters At each of the
meetings. And um we've got a book that's out and a special issue of the
journal. Another book that's about to come out to other books that are in
the works, a special issue of another journal that's in the works. And
it's really, really taken off. And it's got you've got 450 affiliates to
this group now. And uh and it's very interdisciplinary. That's the other
thing that I like about it. It's not just anthropologists it's we've had
higher ed people and engineers and librarians and and uh agriculture
people. I mean just from all over the university, political scientists,
sociologists from all over the university it's really been an interesting
uh uh an interesting uh initiative and I think it has the potential to
have some effect. One of our goals in order to try to have some impact on
policy is to organize sessions from our group and other other kinds of
higher ed organizations, you know like disciplinary groups or a ce or
counselor graduate schools. We did one session at N. C. C. I. A couple of
years. A couple of summers ago was our first one of this sort and try to
get to get the word out to those people that have policy impact and both
institutional level and and broader. So that's that's eating me alive. I
think that's fair to say. And then I've been on two or three other boards
. I was on the ST louis board of the ST louis College of Pharmacy. I've
been on the board of, it's the school for advanced research in santa fe
it's a over 100 year old think tank in uh in an anthropological icon
really in santa fe it's been there over 100 years and deals with
indigenous peoples and arts and so I've been on the board there and well
rotated off and I'm back on the board there. So you know I'm on the board
of Museum of Art and Archaeology and chairing a committee to try to
establish a museum district within Colombia. There would be a destination
for tourists and others. And so you know I've got a lot of stuff going on
but it's kind of a lot of, it all just kind of comes from this background
that I've had
anthropology in general.
Well you'd be surprised actually very surprised. A very large number of
anthropologists are medical anthropologists that end up in the healthcare
industry and they're in all kinds of things ranging from hospital
administration and clinical administration jobs and doing cultural studies
of hospitals and how you can make them work better and serve people better
and all that. That's a very big medical anthropology is a big deal.
Another big deal is there's something like 3000 anthropologists that do
corporate studies studies of corporate culture worked for big corporations.
And the idea is how do you adapt the culture to all the changing
circumstances, technologies and illegal backgrounds and all the other kind
of stuff that's going on. So uh one of, one of my students was actually an
early person that did this PhD from here actually from A. S. U. That was
something else I should have said. One of my big things was I had some
fabulous students for graduate students that have gone on to have
incredibly successful careers. Um, but anyway, one of them, um, Patti san
Antonio was her name, she did her dissertation in Japan funded by intel
and intel has just opened their, their presence in Japan and they opened
it with the idea, they were going to run it with american management style
and it was just catastrophic. And so patty with Patty's dissertation was a
study of how their corporate culture could be embedded in Japan, japanese
culture and that totally changed the way they do business there and uh,
but isn't that interesting, but there's a lot of anthropologists to do
that kind of work. So there's, you know, there's a very broad range of
applications,
anthropologie, just like I'm applying at the, you know, higher ed
administration in a sense and there are a lot of applications like that,
that where anthropologists are working in another in social service areas
, a lot of a lot of things there and adapting programs to local cultures,
that sort of thing. Very, it's very ah, very diverse set of employment
opportunities.
Well, that's another interesting. My wife is german and she grew up in and
Swab eah and Heidelberg in Germany and she was a teacher in Germany and
then she met the, the president of Hastings College in Nebraska Hastings
college at a meeting in Germany at a conference one time and he invited
her, they, they kind of connected and he invited her to come to Hastings
for a year and teach and take a couple of courses and you know, just so
she did and she loved it. And so she stayed for another year and finished
a bachelor's degree and then she went on the University of Nebraska and
did a graduate degree in german and then she had a job at northern
Illinois teaching german at northern Illinois. I met her one night at a
party when I was a student there.
Yeah. Crazy. Huh? It is. I mean it was the odds were long that you were
going to be there and even longer than she was going to be there. So,
well actually I had a timeshare in Scottsdale that I gave my kids, they're
not using it this year, so I may just come and use that for a week. Your
present home is where Columbia Missouri and that's where you're gonna
retire. Actually. Actually, maybe not. I'm actually gonna probably move in.
I've got all kinds of health issues and I'm actually gonna probably move
into a senior living facility and I think I'm leaning right now to moving
to Ann Arbor where my daughter is. And
so we'll see, I'm on the waiting list of one of a place in Colombia and
another one in Ann Arbor. Well we'll just we'll see it's a year or so
until they say until they'll have a spot open and I'm beginning to try to
downsize and we've got a fairly large house that hasn't got an empty
square inch. You mentioned a daughter, how many Children do you have? Two
kids? One she's a physician in ann arbor son who's very successful
journalist who lives in austin texas
and our daughter was super super overachiever and her younger brother just
refused to compete with her. So he was an absolutely compulsive
underachievement. He worked at it you know he'd do his homework and not
turn it in and things like that. And anyway we thought he wouldn't
graduate from high school. It was just it was really it was really
challenging. And then he got a 35 on the AC. And so he got into every
college
and and he went to ended up going to trinity in san Antonio which is a
good liberal arts college. And then he got out and he screwed around and
tended bar for 23 years. And then one day he called me when I was in
Nebraska and he said dad I finally decided I want to be a magazine
journalist. He'd never had a journalism class or anything and I called the
Journalism dean and we got it fixed up. So he came and took classes for a
spring in the summer at Nebraska and journalism and my God he worked like
a demon and blew the top off the G. P. A. And then he went to Missouri
which is a very famous journalism school and did his graduate degree there
and he's had this incredibly successful career. He's been editor in chief
of several national magazines and he's now a senior 45. What's the
difference between three years and uh Yeah the girl being the older one
and she was she wanted to be a doctor since she was about three years old
and uh just you know, but he just he just found this when he was don't
remember.
She went to medical school at U. Of a actually and then she did a
residency in michigan and she's been there in in the ann Arbor area ever
since mm hmm.
To think of what's going on in downtown and around the lake and the issue
here at, well I hadn't been here for quite a few years and I was here what
, 23 months ago, three months ago. To mainly just basically to see friends
and Kathy and I reconnected there and several other friends and and well
we connected there had a nice visit one night and and the first time I've
been here in a long time. I mean I was just blown away. I just couldn't
even believe it how much it has changed. It's just just it had no there
was no sense of familiar to me at all. None. And it was really interesting
And I lived here 14 years. I mean it wasn't like I said, well that's
longer
until I don't recognize it. What about you?
Yeah I was just blown away. Mhm. But but I'm glad I came and that was, it
was a really fun visit and I think I may try to come and spend a week here
so sometime later in the spring or in the fall. And if there are no other
questions brian thank you so much for joining us today and for agreeing to
be part of the Hay issue video history project. We appreciate it. Thank
you. It's a very impressive project. Thank you. Very good. I said I've
never seen a project like this is this other places. There's a wonderful
collection that's been put together and what I've seen, it's you know it's
too bad. It wasn't started earlier because you know a few people that have
been really interesting were either gone or gone before you can do it
right here is a
oh thank you. Thank you campus. Oh thanks. So that's so that's nice.
One of the things that people like to recall their memory is this uh
timeline of let's see here. well this is when the buildings were built a
year up to 2000 when this was published. But all of the
Presidents Deans, these are all oh my gosh.
Oh yeah, interesting, interesting. Yeah.
Yeah that isnice