today is thursday thursday March 29th 2012. 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 am dr BJ teatro strategic planning and evaluation consultant and I
worked closely with our interviewees during the time she was at a a ship.
The technical support staff today include David Shatz Lee director who
will be operating the camera and linda Vance. Coy linda is the chair of
the Arizona State University retirees Association video history project
and linda will be on audio today and now for our guest. Um Betty would you
please introduce yourself, starting with your name and then the major
positions you held at A. S. U. Alright, my name is Betty de Gras. I came
to A. S. U. In 1986 and started the downtown center in downtown phoenix
and I also served as associate dean and dean of the College of Extended
Education. I retired in 2005 and now I'm Dean Emeritus and Professor
America.
Okay, so um Betty trace your life path um starting with where you were
born and raised. Well let's see, I was born in philadelphia pennsylvania
on the west, the northwest edge of the city in an area called west Oak
Lane. I was the youngest of three Children. Very traditional family. My
mother stayed at home and raised the kids and my dad worked for the
telephone company for 46 years and he was a very avid fishermen. So for
vacations we had to be somewhere around water. So we used to go down to
the shore, the Jersey shore for several years and then we went to the
Adirondack mountains in upper new york state because there was water. So
we had to be so important, very important. Uh Then I went to college in
Western Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh And came to Arizona in 1972 at
the Tender age of 25. There you go. So our first theme today is your path
to A S. U. You've told us a little bit about where you were born and
raised. So now tell us a little bit more about the path through schooling
and jobs until you arrived at A. S. U. Who and what influenced you and the
path that you took. Mm Okay, well let's see. I attended public schools in
philadelphia and that included the girls school that I went to for high
school. And I know you went to a girls school to in Louisville Kentucky.
Uh The school I went to was the academic preparation high school called.
Uh Originally enough Girls High,
they're not too creative there in philadelphia. Um It was quite an
experience. And after that I went to college in Western Pennsylvania thiel
College in a little town called Greenville Pennsylvania. Uh that was the
farthest that my dad would let me go. He told me I could go like five
hours away from home. So I drew, I put a pin in philadelphia and draw a
little circle around to see how far I could go. So western pennsylvania
was it? And that was as far west. I mean that was pretty far west for a
kid from, from philadelphia. Um So um let's see my my brother was a
presbyterian minister and when I was a senior in high school he invited me
to go on a retreat that he was having for his youth group about careers.
And he knew I wanted to be a social worker and there was going to be a
social worker there in attendance. So I went on that retreat and he made a
point of introducing me to one of the young men and his youth group. And a
couple of years later I married that guy is rick DeGraw. And uh so I have
my brother to thank for that. Um In the we got married in between our
junior and senior years in college um during the summers that I was
working in in college I had a couple of jobs. One was that I was a fudge
cutter for steals fudge. My first job it was great. I was a fudge cutter
for steals fudge in Ocean City, New Jersey. And then I was a bank teller
and that'll come into play later As a bank teller for 1st Pennsylvania,
Banking and Trust Company. I just learned from the fudge cutting comes in
later. The fudge cutting never really came in later, but it was it's the
only skill I really ever had. I think I can cut a perfect pound of fudge
still to this day. Uh huh.
Let's see. I graduated from teal in 1968 with a degree in sociology, minor
in psychology. And then my husband and I went to Princeton, New Jersey
where he attended Princeton Theological Seminary. So this was, let's see
the late 60s and uh we both became very active in the antiwar movement. It
was the era of Vietnam. I know you recall that even though you're a little
younger than I am. And uh so I wanted to be a social worker. So I found a
job with the department of mental retardation in the state of New Jersey,
another creatively named organization. It was called the Department of
institutions and agencies. Very, very, very creative, very, very common.
Yeah. So I was a social worker for a caseworker for mentally retarded
adults and Children. I worked in the field services division and our job
was to go around and work with families who were waiting for their
Children's name to pop up on the waiting list for institutions. You
remember back then, mostly mentally retarded folks were um
institutionalized. I also got to help people who came out of the
institutions and we're trying to acclimate to the community. So I did that
for two years. And what I learned from that was that I didn't want to be a
direct service worker and I got pretty frustrated by the inability of the
system to provide for the Children and adults that I was working for. So I
started to get really interested in politics and how to influence public
policy. Um so um all right then, uh I decided to quit my job and go back
to school to get my Masters in social work and I went to Rutgers. My
husband at the time was in a joint program where he was getting his
seminary degree as well as a social work degree. So we went back to school
together and there was no way I was going to study direct casework after
my experience. So I went into a a specialty on policy development. So as a
result of that um activity and Rutgers, I wound up as an intern at the New
Jersey State Legislature and there I attended a seminar in atlantic city
New Jersey and met a fellow who was writing a federal grant to provide
staffing to the Arizona Legislature in human services. So we got to
talking and and he said, you know, why don't why don't you come out to
Arizona and I said Arizona gee, that's further than Pittsburgh, isn't it?
That's really far away. So he said come on out for a conference. And uh so
rick and I went out for a conference to Tucson, I think it was in November
of 1971. Well, you know, the weather in Philadelphia in November is so
great. And so here I showed up in Tucson and the sun was shining and there
were these huge cactus and mountains and I thought, wow, this is an
interesting place. Did your dad say you could go? Uh
well, let me tell you, I was afraid to tell my mother that we were moving
out to Arizona. I did tell my father first and I had to get his permission
to even tell my mother because I she was not happy with this, But it was a
two year grant. So that was 1972. So we came out here for two years in
1972. Funny thing is I'm still here so Well, that was interesting. Anyway
, I got here in February of 72 and the sun was shining. We were in the
middle of a big drought, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Um It
never rained from february until june now I know that's a problem and not
good, but I still remember uh I was working at the legislature then and
people ran out into the courtyard between the house and the Senate
building and they were all looking up at the sky and say, look, there are
clouds and I thought these people are really strange here.
Really strange, but now I get it now I'm excited on a cloudy day after,
you know, 40 some years. Um Well, let's see what happened after that. Okay
, so I was working at the state legislature. I was staffing the health and
welfare committee in the House of Representatives that was chaired by Sam
McConnell from Flagstaff. And that was when Tim Barrow was speaker of the
House. I did that for about two sessions and then I came over to the
Senate and started working for Sandra O'Connor, who at that time was the
majority leader of the Senate, and Bill J. Quinn was the president of the
Senate. Um
Sandra also had me providing staffing assistance to the Health and Welfare
committee in the Senate and that was chaired by Doug Holdsclaw. The first
assignment that I had in both the House and the Senate was to really look
at state government reorganization first in the House And Senate Bill 1068
was my big project. That was the bill creating the Department of Economic
Security, which we both worked for years later. So I got to Actually
helped write that legislation to create that department. When I came over
to the Senate, they were looking at getting into Medicaid, which was title
19 of the Social Security Act. Arizona was the last state and territory to
join Medicaid. And it was a long, hard battle and I think, you remember
parts of it certainly indeed. Um
in 1974 and the elections in 1970 for the dems took over. The democrats
took over the state Senate and the gubernatorial uh role Raul Castro was
elected. Um It was a time of a lot of change. The Republicans had been in
charge of both the House and Senate and Governor's office for um some 10
12 years since about 19 well maybe longer since about 1966 68. So this was
a big change to have the democrats in control in the Senate. The House was
still controlled by republicans and we had Raul Castro's governor, Alfredo
Gutierrez became majority leader and he asked me to become his special
assistant. So that's when I went from working with the republicans to
working with the democrats. I did that for four sessions. And then uh
that's then at that point I got recruited for my first time at A. S. U.
And that was in 19
Let Me Think 1978.
Yeah 1978. So um I came to A S. U. To head the title 20 manpower project
for the School of social work, do you know Miguel Montero? Okay, well
Miguel was a professor in the school of Social work and he Asked me to
come and run this project at the time. It was almost 50% of the school's
budget and we were employing 25 faculty members. The project was designed
to recruit and train social workers primarily for minority and rural
communities. So that was a very interesting thing to do. Yeah. Was that a
full time job was a full time job. I left the Senate to do that. So I did
that for mm hmm. A little over six months when Bill Jamison came knocking
on my door and I have to go back a little bit. Um Raul Castro who was
elected in 1974 served for a couple of terms. And then Jimmy Carter
appointed him as Ambassador to Argentina Argentina. And so
let's see West Bolin became governor because he was secretary of state.
Excuse me. But then West boland died after five months in office. And so
Bruce babbitt was Attorney general and he became governor Bruce bat that
Bruce babbitt appointed Bill Jamieson. This is now 1978
I guess. And Bill was putting together his team at the Department of
Economic Security And he wanted me to come and run the planning and budget
entitled 20 and staff development and training. So I left A. S. U. After
only six months and Miguel said go go. I understand. And I went to D. E. S.
And of course it's at DS where we actually met. Yes, we did. What year
did you come to 76 76. Okay. So I actually started there in 79 and you
were in the developmental disabilities division, developmental
disabilities. And uh you know that was mental retardation was my first job.
So I felt a particular affinity for developmental disabilities and one of
the things that we did in planning and budget for D. E. S is we pretty
much adopted all the planning and budget um processes that you were using
in the division and that I know you were greatly involved in. You did
would you evaluation at that point. Where were you you were evaluation for
my first job and so I was assistant director for four years and
we let me see when babbitt's second term when he was elected to a second
term, he um pulled Bill Jamieson over his Department of Administration
Director. And so there was a search Douglas. Patino was brought in and
Douglas asked me to be his deputy Director at D. E. S. Um And at some
point along the way we made you Director of service delivery assessment
for the entire department at some point that the department created the
Office of Program evaluation. That was actual official name. That's okay.
Um and then I moved from dee dee over to there but I've been doing a lot
of that even in D. D. D. Because there was nobody at this department level
to do that. So yes, so that was really the start of my reliance on you and
it continued on and continues to this day. So I'm really glad you're doing
this interview, you know, all of this history. So you didn't leave me
behind when you left the E. S. I did not leave you behind when I left the
ES so I I was deputy Director for about three years and then babbitt's
term was coming to an end.
So at that point Brent Brown recruited me for, I ask you, well we're going
to turn to our second theme then the first being the path to A. S. U. The
second thing what happened at A. S. U. It sounds like
a scary topic, doesn't it does so much happened. Um You've told us that
you were there in the late seventies and then you came back um What
happened once you arrived back in 86 what was a S. You like then who were
the players that you interacted with? And then we'll talk a little bit
next about how your career and focused evolved. But basically what
happened when you got back
In 1986, Brent Brown was working, he was the vice president for university
relations. And jay russell nelson was president ah I think the session
before that the legislature had passed with a footnote some money to
create a downtown center in downtown phoenix for A. S. U. And President
nelson was not that anxious to really get moving on that. And there was
some pressure from downtown business folks. And so Brent finally went to
President nelson and said we really need to move forward on this. So Brent
recruited me for that position. And and I came into to start the downtown
center. I did have one brief period away from A. S. You between 86 2000
and five. That was in 1988 after Evan Mecham had been impeached, Rose
Mofford became governor and I served for about half a year as her
executive assistant charge of health and welfare. So there was some little
break but not much. Um so at A. S. U. At that time there was,
I think Jack Kinzinger was provost at that time. Um and then right around
the time I came in, Roland Hayden became provost for a while. Um Mhm Brent
was enormously supportive of creating the downtown center. Um Alan Price
was working with him and of course we've lost both Brent and Alan within
the last couple of years and that's been a terrible loss. But Brent and
alan were my primary advocates and helpers during those first couple of
years. When we started the downtown centre, Brent had signed a lease with
Phoenix Union High School for five years And we were tucked away in a
corner of the Old Phoenix Union High School campus, northwest corner of
7th and Vampire. That's right. And uh I remember when Larry Core first
came to visit when he was appointed in 1990, he said it was the only
center in the university where you needed a degree to find the front door.
It was really tucked away from, it wasn't much of a front, it was really
tucked away. So uh we didn't have a lot in the way of resources. We had
maybe seven classes from the School of public affairs that were, um, being
held there. The School of public affairs was, I think along with the
College of Engineering, the, they were the two colleges or the schools
that were most interested in reaching out to the community. Engineering
had a long tradition of providing televised courses in corporate locations
and the School of public Affairs had a very long history of providing off
campus courses. So when you first came to the downtown center, basically,
the classes were offered at the center. Yes, they had previously, they
were offered in state government conference rooms and all over the place
and we consolidated most of them at the downtown center, the engineer, we
had an engineering, um, television site there, but the classes were still
being broadcast to corporations and um, So it was a place, it was a place
, it became a center, a place for off campus activities. I do remember the
first um, school year that we opened in 1986, I brought over Margo Rivero
Wilson from at D. E. S. That was one person I brought over Fran. Marcus
was our executive assistant and we right before classes started, we
realized that we needed chalk for the uh, blackboards and we needed a
racers and we had to run out to a supply store and uh, and get those
things so that we were ready for the, for classes. It was dating yourself
, but it was, it was, it was the start, so we had quite a difficult time
trying to convince faculty members to come and teach downtown. So I
started spending a lot of my time going around and meeting with schools
and faculty and deans and saying, you know, come on down to the downtown
center. It's a great place to teach. Will provide coffee for the faculty,
we'll, we'll we'll set up your classrooms, all of the things that will
provide the chalk. We we moved to white boards and we provided the markers
ah L. A. Wilson, who taught at the School of Public Affairs, used to call
it down home. You remember that because we made it really comfortable and
, and and nice for the faculty to teach there. So we got more and more
interest in people teaching off campus. Um
so a year or so went by and Roland Hayden became provost, he set up a
committee to look at off campus programs. And lou Wessler who at that time
was dean of the School of public of the college of Public programs rather.
And Miguel Monte. El again, Miguel shows up in my life, he was um at the
time assistant vice president and working in the provost's office. So the
two of them co chaired this committee on off campus programs and I was on
it. Uh uh and they're there, I think there were 22 people from all over
the university. So that committee was charged with looking at off campus
programs and figuring out if there ought to be a more coherent way to
organize them and and deal with them. Um There had been a presence of
extension was called extension and And summer sessions but had been
decentralized in 1983.
Ah President Nelson was the president of A. S. You when A. S. U. West was
created. And that came about through a lot of pressure from the
legislature and through the Westside community. Again, there was
resistance from the university. So back in those times, back in those days
, that was in the early eighties. Um The extension program provided a lot
of the off campus classes for the west side. A. S. U. West was created in
1982 and all those classes went to West. Um So there was very little left
for extension to do and it got decentralized in 83. So here it was now in
1987,
And the university was again looking at what do they need to do about off
campus programs. So the report was issued and it was suggested that a
college be created at the or a senior level position be created for
extended education. Um I think at that time then about 88, Dick Peck
arrived on the scene as provost and he was from the University of Alabama.
He brought in as one of his assistant vice presidents, Dennis Priske also
from Alabama who had run continuing education for Alabama. And so That's
when the idea came about for a college of extended education and about
that time frame 88 89. Um,
meanwhile, back at the downtown center, I took on another role and that
was overseeing Project Prime, which was a program um,
focused on hispanic students in high schools, primarily looking at
intervention programs to help them do better in school. It was funded by
the college board and Gary Gary Keller Professor and I believe he's in the
liberal arts. Uh, he was the co director and again, Miguel Montiel was
involved in that as well. So that was housed at the downtown center. And
uh, we brought in john Lincoln to run that program and uh, that was part
of my operation for several years until we could spin it out on its own. I
was responsible for the downtown center and Project Prime. Um, when Dennis
Priske arrived,
I got to talking with him, he had to create a plan for creating the
college. And so he was going around and figuring out what units he thought
ought to be in the college to the college wasn't college wasn't created
yet.
So he talked to me and I thought it would make a lot of sense for the
downtown center to become part of the college. He also pulled in the
remnants of extension that was still around and also the american language
and culture program, it was called at the time. So in 1990
um boy it was, it was a crazy time at the university, I think jay Russell
nelson left in 90 Maybe. And Laddie Corps arrived right around that time,
there was a period of time where Dick Peck actually was acting president
during that whole period of time before, between Russell Nelson and and
larry core.
So when laddie arrived, it was co terminus with the
Creation of the college and I believe the region's create officially
created it. In June of 1990,
Dennis asked me to be his associate dean of the college. Dennis became the
dean, I became the associate dean and Geneva Duarte became the director of
the downtown center. So
that was how I started out with college. Dennis left after about a year
and a half. Soon after milk click arrived as provost and Milt
asked me to be dean. Okay, so in 91 I became dean and milt was then in
places as
provost and Laddie had brought with him from the University of Vermont,
a gentleman by the name of Ben Forsythe and Ben took a lot of interest in
extended education and was trying to figure out,
he was trying to figure out how we could use extended education to create
more student credit hours for the university because our funding at that
time was based on the number of student credit hours that we could
generate. So I remember him going over and working with Elaine Sweet, who
at that time was in the, the university budget office and she had been the
, the analyst who worked with both the downtown center and with the
college. And Elaine and Ben came up with this idea of giving the college
some money for us to go out and convince colleges to hold courses off
campus and through technology and thereby create more student credit hours.
So he came to me and said, are you willing to try this? And I said, sure
, I'll give it a try, you know, with your help and encouragement. So off
we went at that time, the student credit hours generated through extended
education where maybe Under 2% of the university student credit hours. And
By the time we got done, we had gotten that percentage up quite a bit to
more than 8% of of the student credit hours. So we, we had a mission. Ben
asked us to go out and see what we could do. Um I started really um
talking at great length with all the dean's, talking to them about how we
could do this together, how the expertise that my folks could bring to
them would make it easy for their faculty to go out and teach off campus
or teach through technology and we bring in more student credit hours and
then the colleges at that time were rewarded for their student credit hour
production by more money. So it was a good deal. And I developed wonderful
relationships with the other deans, they were, most of them were willing
to play to figure out how to do is that when you started the dean's dinner
, that's well, it was, it was around that time we uh, the dean's used to
get together, we'd all, we'd all take turns hosting the dinners at some
really nice place where we could have a private room and we would get
together and have these lovely dinners and drink wine and plan what we
were going to do. It drove milk crazy. And one time we invited him to come
with us and it changed the whole dynamic because we were all afraid to
talk, you know, so,
but but we we had was not only social as I recall the stories, but it was
really important that college, it seems to me couldn't really accomplish
its mission without being in partnership with the other. The other.
Absolutely, absolutely. It was very important was the only way you could
accomplish your job. Absolutely. Um,
that was one of the challenges that we faced. And um, okay, we, we really
had very little control over the final product. We could only try to
convince cajole and explain to folks how important it was, it was very
important at that time to have laddie cours support and milk support Ben's
support. Um, everybody was kind of behind us and if we could make this
happen and and and we did. So that was that was very very very exciting.
Um I think one of the the real challenges for
extension, continuing education, extended education, whatever name you
want to give it, one of the real challenges for that activity at A. S. U.
Has has been that it has a long history. Um
Actually, the first extension class was created in 1927, believe it or not
, was that correspondence? And no, that was correspondence came along in
1935, but in 1927 there was, it was actually an extension course offered
off campus somewhere. I don't know what it was, but I know it happened. Um
and And as you mentioned, correspondent studies started in 1935 and then
in 1955, um educational tv started. So there's a long history uh for most
of the history, there was a senior executive responsible. Uh Denny Keegan
was the director or vice President, I think that was in charge of
extension and summer sessions and he did it for many years. Um but he
retired in 1983. And at that point, as I mentioned before, a rescue west
came in and kind of all all dissolved. So there was a long history, but
not
not a really deep history of it being run the same way in the university.
It um it wasn't really embedded as deeply as I think it could have been.
It was very subject to the whims of whoever was leading the university and
also to the external factors like the creation of additional campuses. We
talked about a sus A. S. U. East came along now called the polytechnic. Um
when A S. U. East was being started again. Extended Edwards looked to and
we sent folks out to really get it going before we moved courses. I
remember Jim Patzer used to go over and and and and hold the programs
there before A. S. U. East officially open to get people used to coming
there. So it's had a long history of being a real Trailblazer. Um but then
you know what happens? And it happened in 1983 and I think it happened
again um after I left the colleges get really interested in controlling it
themselves. Why do they need help? And yes why do they need that? And so
it's had that kind of um cyclical development all during the time at A S.
U. And that was one of our very big challenges and keeping and keeping it
going and continuing to do our lectures. And then you've talked a bit
about challenges. Were there other challenges that you face that you
haven't mentioned so far? Well I think the biggest challenge was that
there was just constant change. My title stayed the same for a lot of
years. But my job changed just about every year between Ben and Milton
Laddie and Brent they'd come up with a new wrinkle of how we needed to
move extended ed for a particular university need and that's that's the
way it ought to be used. So that was good, but it was never boring, it was
never boring. And you mentioned how we met at D. S. And continued our
association since then, um you were with us the entire time is our
strategic Planning and evaluation consultant. Um You you helped us focus
on what Laddie, Ben and Milt one and from us and then we would structure
our entire plan for the year and for the coming years around what they
needed us to do and of course we go back and revisit the plan each year
and shift and move and we we did very specific planning very we were very
intentional, we were very values driven to to make sure we could deliver
what needed to be delivered because it was a very amorphous situation. We
were a college but not like the other colleges. Uh it was a dean, but not
like the other deans. So it was it was a challenge. I I don't know if
you're planning to talk about this and I'm just throwing you a curveball
here, but um you know, I remember a conversation over the years about
whether the college should have its own programs versus just supporting
what the other colleges do because some um extended education institutions
do that. So there were a lot of conversations over the years about
different models as I recall. Right? That's absolutely true. And um when
um when President Crow arrived in 2002 I think that conversation really
intensified because he was trying to figure out exactly how he wanted to
do it. And um I remember we went around to different universities looking
at particular models, trying to see which one was going to find a home at
A. S. U. And of course the one that actually emerged subsequent to my
departure, it was a hybrid of many of the models that we looked at. So
there are a variety of approaches to extending education. One was through
distance learning technology. The other was through in the early days the
correspondence which I assumed doesn't exist anymore, went away. Um And
then the off campus site so there were a lot of different strategies for
extending A. S. U. Into the community, be it local or national or even
international. I know you did some things internationally as well. Right?
That's absolutely correct. The reason that laddie and Ben and Milt focused
in on the giving us money to create student credit hours was because of
the funding formula that A. S. U. Has that the universities have in
Arizona many of the other models that we visited in other states have
different funding formulas. And so it didn't make as much sense. And, and
of course there's been such a struggle with the economy and with
university funding and more recent years that it's even been more
difficult perhaps more than any other college. It's really context driven
, environment driven in a lot of ways. Absolutely, Absolutely. That's true
because it's got to fit what the administration is is going for and uh,
that's the great utility of it. But also the great challenge, right?
Because it doesn't have its own independent. How do you do a five year
plan when every year? Every year is different? Right. Are you ready to
talk about the hallmarks of the downtown center and the college of
Extended education? So what would you say set apart? You want to talk
about them together or separately? Talk about them together. Okay. So what
do you think set them apart was distinctive about those entities? Well,
we've touched on some of it because we didn't have a life independent of,
of what the president needed us to do and given that as the context, we
really, we're very purposeful in working on our values first and figuring
out the commonality of our values and the commonality of what we brought
to the table. So we, we were very conscious whether it was three of us at
the downtown center buying chalk and racers in the, in the early days or a
staff of 100 in the college and when it was at its at its greatest. So um
we we started with that every year mostly with your guidance, really
probing us to, to put our values on the table and to uh enumerate them and
uh talk about them. It was really true that the, the value statements were
not just, you know five or six bullet points on a piece of paper, every
word and every statement had meaning and there was a whole conversation
behind every word and phrase. Um but the the time that that jumps into my
mind is one of the retreats. We actually took the values and used them as
evaluation criteria and determine what was it that the college was doing
that was evidence of behavior consistent with those values. And on the
other hand, where were you not performing up to the level that your values
would suggest you might, what were the new ideas. So it was interesting
that it was, you know, like I said not just bullet points on a piece of
paper but both the planning and an evaluation tool. We, we did try to live
that um, I think of Ron Alvarado Ron. We also lost last year. Ron was our
very first associate dean in the college and what a dear man, he was from
the College of Liberal arts and Sciences very wise.
When I first came up with the idea of having an associate dean, I asked
Milt who he thought might be good and he told me to go talk to the dean's
. I went to Gary Crandell who was the dean of Liberal arts and Sciences
and first name out of his mouth was Ron Alvarado. And so you know I called
Ron up and we went to lunch with them. He he was just the most wonderful
addition to our college. Um He um I remember it retreats. He would really
focus on the words do you remember? He was a great wordsmith alignment,
alignment alignment the right word. We he he he slept on that overnight to
make sure that was the right word. He he really was a thoughtful fellow.
And uh of course Ron is behind one of the things that I think is the
hallmark of the college and that was his focus on creating consistent and
predictable degree programs for uh part time working adults Ron because of
his the depth and breadth of his experience at at A. S. U. And with the
college of liberal arts he knew that we had to really get down into the
nitty gritty of when we're the courses offered that were required for
degrees. And he did this very intensive review of evening degree programs
at liberal arts and sciences. You remember that and there were a lot of
students at that time who were stuck in in parts of their academic career
and they couldn't they had a lot of student credit hours but couldn't
didn't have enough to write degree, get out the door with a degree, right
? And one of the things Ron found out was that you could get almost all
your courses in the evenings and the weekends for certain degrees in
liberal arts, but there were certain courses that were never offered it at
either nighttime or weekend time. So if you could only go on nights and
weekends, you couldn't get a degree. So there were a bunch of these stuck
students. Well, that was a really big problem for Milk Glick and for
laddie that we had all these students who were stuck. So Ron created this
wonderful evening degree program that we paid the College of liberal arts
to offer the courses that were the bottleneck courses on evenings and
weekends. We paid them additional money to sweeten the pot and all of a
sudden we were able to get all of these students through with their, with
their degrees. So that's an excellent example of how extended ed could be
a tool to solve some of the university problems. Degree completion degree
completion was a big problem, so that I think was one of the hallmarks was
creating these uh depend on predictable uh predictable schedules for
people to complete their degrees. Um That really is the underlying um
commitment that I think the college had and the downtown center had as
well. That commitment to do what needed to be done for students who can't
go full time, the part time working adult, uh, the university is not set
up for them at the universities are set up for full time students, Faculty
really like the full time students because that's how they earn their
bread and butter these, these part time students are much more challenging
for the faculty. And so we did everything in our power to try to make it
easy for the faculty to serve these students and to make it easy for the
students to access the university. I think that is a tremendous hallmark
of, of the two entities that, that I was involved in. Another hallmark, I
think is our connection to the community. We were, the college itself was
housed in the downtown center in downtown phoenix, so we were right there
in, in the middle of the action. Uh, there were 100,000 people a year that
came through the downtown center. I can remember frank Fairbanks saying
that they had most of the city meetings that they needed to have outside
of, you know, a little conference was with the city of when he was, when
he was, thank you when he was city manager for the city of phoenix. Um,
The city was just constantly in and out there. We housed the downtown
Phoenix Partnership uh, in, in our location of the more we did move in
1990, when our 91. Yeah, we moved from the campus of phoenix union high
school district. When our five year lease was up. We moved over to the old
Mikado and redesigned it for the downtown center and eventually a few
years later we actually even bought the property and it became of course
the Foundation for a sus downtown campus now. Um So that's I think another
important hallmark and everybody on earth in downtown phoenix used the the
building for their meetings. Absolutely like you said people were in and
is bringing a sus an awareness of A. S. U. I think to government agencies
and nonprofits, nonprofits businesses. Absolutely. Yeah it was it was that
community connection was was very very important. I think another hallmark
is our uh need and desire to work very collaboratively to work with others
in partnership. We created so many partnerships, do you remember our
retreats? We would just be taking white paper after white paper. The
partnerships that we created, we had a son cities office for a while and
provided provided classes for retirees. We had partnerships with various
corporations, not only through the College of Engineering and Sciences but
also through other colleges. We Ron got the Bachelor of interdisciplinary
on Alvarado, got the Bachelor of interdisciplinary Studies really going
and that became a very good degree for part time students and we had uh
programs that we were offering in municipalities way out and Chandler and
Mesa and Tempe. And so we were making it really possible for working folks
to get their degrees. Um
the the other really terrific thing I think we did, that's a hallmark is
that we did increase the student credit hours that were delivered Um
through off campus activities, both technology and uh and physically off
campus. We went from, as I said, under 2% to over 8% and that was a very
big sea change in how things were done it while you're on that. You might
also comment on the fact that data was really an important part of of the
college. I mean, collecting, collecting detailed information about all of
variety of things that you were doing. That's a student credit hours.
That's a really good point. Milk Glick was a very detail oriented guy and
he was in charge and of course we've lost milk too. I just breaks my heart.
Two have all these folks gone from us uh Milt was in charge of the budget
and he worked very closely with Alan price and figuring out how to
maneuver with the budget. With my experience at the legislature. I was
very interested in the budget as well. It had been my job at DS as well.
So I'm inclined that way. Anyway, I brought Elaine sweet over from the
budget office to become Assistant dean of the college to help us we melt.
Really liked metrics. He wanted to see the data and so we produced it for
him and we showed him what was happening and that's why milk kept
supporting us because we were able to deliver on what we said we would
deliver and of course you helped us in pulling all of those things
together, making sure that we could evaluate what we were doing, making
sure we were collecting the data that we needed to report. I can remember
meeting after meeting where we tried to figure out what data was important.
What could we collect? How did we collect it? How do we make sure it gets
collected? It was it was quite an effort built in the college by extension.
No pun intended. Yeah, we're into data before dashboards were cool. Right.
They were but he was definitely always into data. Um So um so I think
then just to wrap up the the question about the hallmark, the I think the
biggest hallmark was that we really tried to leverage our resources to
help the other colleges do what we were trying to do for the provost and
the president. So it was a way of getting resources from the president and
then using them as leverage to help the other colleges do the things that
Milton Larry we're wanting them to do. So it was a it was a good
relationship and a good partnership. Great.
Are there any other people would like to mention?
It's all such a complicated where I have a million of them to mention who
haven't I mentioned
it's just that the players kept changing and the, you know, I mean, I
don't know why you couldn't have recapped your life history minute, see
what I mean about it being so complicated and everybody, I mean I kept the
same job but it was always different. It's always different. Never boring
linda lived through all of it all sounds familiar, doesn't it? I remember
one year and every year we would have this detailed operational plan that
the staff reported on and we would do um that we would have the retreat
and the first day would be have we done and what we committed to do this
year and then what are we going to do next in the next year. And it was
one of those years when everything just changed on a dime and I started
going through the, the objectives and I'd read one, how do we do on that?
Look at me, I read the next one, look at me, I finally said did you guys
do anything? It was like, and then it got so bad. It was like not only had
they not done the objective the work, but they said, what did that
objective mean? We didn't even remember what it meant, you know, I mean
when things would change and we just have to, you know, move because
usually they were so good about accomplishing their objectives. But that
one year, I'll never forget that I was like talk about a deer in the
headlights. I remember it was like I didn't write these. You guys did.
Well it was a busy year missing. Thank you along the way. Right, Roger was
our distance learning with Roger and Barbara the other day. Yeah right
there. They're good people then john mcafee good people. Mhm.
When my husband passed away we had a storytelling, the first annual or the
memorial storytelling event and um ride your videotape the thing and did a
DVD and did original music to it and it's really cool. Fabulous job. Yeah
, he is good. Mm. Okay. Um Betty who were some of the pioneers and
extended education at issue. That's a great question. Well thanks to Ron
Alvarado, who did a really extensive history of extended edit A. S. U. I
can actually answer that question. Um Back in 1955
the A. S. You pioneered televised courses and the first course was offered
by a young assistant professor of art by the name of Gwen Burgess. And it
was offered over KphO local tv station. Another pioneering TV instruction
was Dr. Kino Martinez. He taught elementary spanish from 1959 to 1970 wow
and played an important role in establishing K. E. T. Which was founded
channel eight at A. S. U. In 1961. Um That's pretty cool. I think that
folks are doing it then. And of course television we still do have an A. S.
U. Channel that's offered through cox, there is still coursework
delivered via television, but of course the internet eclipsed tv pretty
much. And A. S. U. Online has been our way of delivering online classes
for some time now at at A. S. U. And the, I mentioned that the College of
Engineering was really the pioneer of, of going out to corporations and
Donovan Evans who was a faculty member who did an awful lot of course is
over over both tv and internet. So there's some of the pioneers that we're
really grateful to, mm hmm. Roger carter who's involved with the CSU
retirees association wasn't able to be here today, but he was of course
one of our key players in distance learning technologies as well as john
McIntosh. So I, I think it's good to mention those two folks even though
they're not here with us today. Um, are you ready to move to theme 3?
Alright. And we'll be talking about distinctive contribution and legacy in
this section. It's been seven years since you retired? All right, time
flies when you're having fun. How have programs and structures for part
time students evolved since then? Well, I do try to keep in touch a little
bit to know what's going on, even though I've moved on to other things. Um
, I uh, I was actually looking at the A. S. U. Website last night to just
see what I, what I could see. And of course a. S. U. Online is alive and
well and um fill the gear is now the dean of I believe that's what it's
called A. S. U. Online. Uh It is actually evolved as a separate program.
Their students are separate um Their degrees and and programs are fairly
separate as well. Patty Feldman who ran instructional programs for the
college since its very beginning is still involved in her role as I think
she's assistant provost or associate provost at A. S. U. Online right now.
Um They still talk about the extended campus. Would you remember we
created the term extended campus for the network of scheduled sites
technologies that take a sec all over A. S. You all over the place. That's
what we called it when the extended campus is still the terminology that
they use. So I think that it's very interesting that those things are
still continuing extended it as we knew it does not exist anymore. They're
not money being given to an entity to create student credit hours. The
whole financing structure, the university's changed so of course extended
it had to change this with it. Um One other thing that I learned just this
week is that one of the units of the old college that's now in A. S. U.
Online is called the american english and culture program that's a
program that trained trains international teaching assistants so that
their english is better and more easily understood as they teach courses
for the university and also brought a lot of international and still bring
a lot of international students to the university to study english and
then hopefully we recruit a number of those students to stay here. So
that's been around, that's been around for a long time and it's strong and
it's growing. Mark Van Mark rents is the director of the american english
and cultural program. Um Mark Van Horn, who I started to mention uh the
other Mark, he's um leading a lot of the technology issues with a S. U.
Online. So a lot of the players are still intact. Um
University College was a new college that was created when uh Michael Crow
after a couple of years of Michael Crowe being president. And university
college now houses a lot of the programs for part time students and the
Bachelor of interdisciplinary studies that Ron Alvarado was so
instrumental in creating uh that's part of university college. And um one
of the things that uh huh that I really fostered when I was Dean was
trying to create some scholarships for part time students because there's
very little out there for part time students if you're working and just
managing to put food on the table and take care of your kids. You don't
really have um spendable income, disposable income to put into the cost of
student credit hours nowadays. And a lot of people don't realize that
working folks need scholarships just the same as folks who are going to
school full time. It used to be that a lot of employers would pay to put
their employees through school but those days are long gone. Yeah not so
much anymore. So we were able to create several scholarships that are
still going strong and so I'm very pleased about that. I actually created
one in honor of my parents and still contribute to that. And they just
awarded three more scholarships in Australia. The feathered DeGraw uh
scholarship for working adults. Yeah. Um So interested viewers could make
a contribution. Certainly could. They certainly could. Yes, it's at the A
. S. U. Foundation. No problem. Um Are you ready to talk about distinctive
, are you unique contributions of your work and ask you
humbly humbly. Of course. Well I think the first thing is that we laid the
foundation for a sus downtown campus through the strong presence of A. S.
U. Many many years in in the downtown area and I'm very proud of that. I
have an office there at university center um In in university college
actually Dean fred Corey is very kind to me and I tried to help him a
little bit with scholarships and he the college actually university
colleges housing scholarships for part time students and making sure that
they're available throughout the university and it's a little easier to
find and rescue downtown. It is a little easier to find. As you. Yes.
Absolutely true. Much easier to find it nowadays. Um Another contribution
was starting A. S. You online and we just talked about that, it's still
going strong and doing well. I also taught classes using A. S. U. Online
so that was kind of fun too actually use it and see what it was like as a
faculty member. Um That was a good experience. Another contribution is
that we really um created awareness I think in the university about the
needs of working adults and um we then found ways to have the university
respond to their needs and certainly the online degrees now and also the
evening degrees that were created so that students could get through and
get through this bottleneck courses. That's another really important
contribution and I know you continue to try to encourage part time
students to complete their degrees today. I do I do continue to do that as
you know, just recently my dad passed away in december and we were at a
hospice facility, coronado house. The nurse that took care of my, one of
the nurses that took care of, my dad was actually with him the night he
died. It was a young man that I think has a lot of potential and so I was
trying to talk him into coming back to a S. U. For the uh the the BSN too.
Uh I'm losing the name of nurse practitioner, the BSN to nurse
practitioner and I also encouraged him to apply for the scholarship. So I
I live that, I mean that's just part of what I do. Um So other
contributions you'd like to highlight. Um One other contribution that I
think is important. We were always looking for ways to have an easier
entree into academia. Not easy in terms of not meeting academic standards
but easy in terms of not being so scary. The university can be a scary
place for people who haven't been to university. And so we found ways to
use certificate programs and conditional admission um to be a way to help
people feel comfortable to take some courses not be so threatened and then
decide that they want to go on and take a degree. Another thing that I'm
very proud of is that our role in helping to launch a. S. U. East now
polytechnic uh And also our work and trying to really create more
international partnerships and relationships for s you. I'm always happy
when I see in the paper that another international partnership has been
created. The College of Business has been a big leader in that and had
been for a number of years. So I I always enjoy seeing that that that's
still of interest. Well something you mentioned earlier that probably
bears repeating here is the predictable degrees. Yes. Absolutely that
really made a difference. It makes a difference if people know that they
can actually finish their degree. I mentioned Margo Rivera Wilson who was
my assistant for many years at DS and then has had various roles in the
university now working and it's still there now working in President
Crow's office. Uh She took one course each semester and it took her
forever and I was never prouder of anyone else than than someone who could
one course a semester for all of those years and she made it through and
and did a great job. I'm just so proud of her. That's the best. And now
she's working in the President's office. What what could be better? That's
a good story. It's a good story. Good story. Um So are you ready to talk
about you again I'm getting tired of talking about me. But yes we can. How
did your experiences at A. S. U. Influence who you are today and how have
you spent your time since you retired?
Okay. Well
let's see. There's a book that you and I have in common that we've read
and talked about and it's called composing A Life by mary Catherine
Bateson. And I always think that's such a good ah story about how lives
and careers develop. Um What what baits and talks about is how especially
women's lives although can certainly be men or women but in many cases
women's lives are not a straight line path. They take a lot of curves and
loops and dips and um and certainly I I always reflect on my own life when
I think of that because it has been a very circuitous path, A lot of it
very dependent on what was happening in politics or in positions here and
there. And it it changes things, you know, it changes things. Um
She always talks about baits and talks about a person's life developing
more like a jazz improvisation as opposed to a a straight line path. And I
think that's a very good description. My time at A. S. U. I was at A. S. U.
For 19 years, so it really was a substantial part of my career. 20 If you
count the time it's a school in and out here and there.
But it was a big part of my career and one of the things that I'm very
grateful for is when Brent Brown hired me to start the downtown Center. He
also convinced me to pursue my own education. And I I got my PhD through
the School of Public Affairs at the same time that I was working. So I got
to experience being a working adult attending school part time. So that
was a very important lesson. And of course I'm very happy to have that
degree. It served me well. I had the opportunity to teach for many years
through the school of public affairs and I continued to teach after I
retired. So um that that's a very important influence that a s you had on
my life. Um The another thing that I did after I retired is I was
continuing to work for ladic or the one he left in 2000 two as president,
he created the center for the Future of Arizona and it's housed in the
downtown center. All roads lead to the downtown center at the Mercado. Um
, and I had the great pleasure to work for him for a number of years. I
actually did a a sabbatical with him uh, and then continued after I
retired to work for him for several years and to work on some very
interesting projects. So that's uh, another thing I did when I retired, uh
, I mentioned to you that I've been active trying to recruit students as
part time students to the university. And and also in trying to make sure
that we maintain the scholarships for part time students. So I've been
doing that
the, when I was planning to retire, I invited Don klein to tell him that
he was the chair of our community advisory dean's Council, our community
advisory council. He had co chaired that with Burton Bar for a number of
years, but then Bert died
several years, several years ago. And so Don said to me, you know what, I
have just the thing for you to do in retirement. I'm starting a bank and
I'm pulling people together to fund this bank. And I'd like to invite you
to join in on starting this bank and I said a bank. Um, well, you know
that sounded interesting to me because it was so different from anything I
had ever done. So I
put in some money and I joined the bank board and we started a bank. And
um So that we started work on the bank in 2004.
The bank opened in 2007 and we're gonna have our fifth anniversary this
may. Did you get some kind of award? We just got some recognition. I'm
very pleased with that. Uh we were just named number 23 of all of the
banks across the nation that are under 500 million in in size. So that's
quite a wonderful honor. In fact there was our bank. Republic Bank Az is
the only bank in Arizona in the top 100 of those banks. So I'm pretty
pleased about that. So that was an interesting learning experience and
I've been doing that since I retired. Um Another activity that that a s
you actually pointed me to and that I've been doing since I retired is
that I'm president of the Monsignor Edward J. Royal Fund and Monsignor
Rile was known to many of us. He was the lobbyist for the catholic church
during much of the time that I was both that D. S. And and at A. S. U. He
was very helpful to me at A. S. U. He would always come in and give a
lecture on ethics to the classes that I taught. Um he was a very dear man
, very committed to social justice. So when he died several years ago we
created a fund in his name. And we are um trying to do everything we can
to bring the discussion of social justice again to the legislature. It's
been a tough slog. There have been a lot of other pressures on people's
plates in terms of the budget. So we are we are working hard with that
again. We've created a scholarship fund there and are are having some
folks trained to come back and be advocates here in Arizona. And we also
created a seminar series for current faith leaders to teach them about
public policy issues. So again a consistent theme from my time at A. S. U.
And then finally the most important thing that I did since I retired was
take care of my father And I'm who took care of well he took care of me
but it was my job to take, he did take care of me, but it was my job to
try to take care of him. And that's one of the reasons I did retire in in
2005 because he moved to Arizona at the time he was 90, I want to say 93
and
He died just 20 days short of his 100th birthday. So I don't regret a
single day of taking care of him and and him taking care of me. I couldn't
keep up with either one of them. He kept me very busy. He did keep me very
busy and and that was quite an honor. We would we would go out to dinner
sometimes and then I'd say, okay, well I'm gonna go home now. And they
said well we're going to the casino. He loved to go to the casino, he
loved to go to the casino, okay, not me, I'm out of here. He went down on
his own at least once a week. I took the bus down and then I'd take him
many other days, many hours in the casino with him.
That in itself was an education. It was an educational experience, but I
don't think, I guess you really did anything to help me get ready for that
one. So anything else that you'd like to share with? Anyone who may be
reviewing this in the future? Well, you know, I guess the most important
thing that I've learned throughout my career is that it really matters
who's in what position people do matter. And individual people make a big
difference in the world. And I guess that's the most important thing. It's
all about connections. It's all about connections.
Well, thank you. Thank you. It was great to hear the story, most of which
I knew and some of which was moved to leave. Thank you.Yeah