I want a master's degree or tape is rolling down. Ok. Well, let's go
ahead and start this. Um I want to identify on the tape that today is
Tuesday, January 16th of 2007. And I'm Pam Stevenson doing the interview.
Manny Garcia is our videographer and we're doing an oral history
interview for the A su Retirees Association Living History video project.
And I always like to start off and let you introduce yourself. Would you
give us your full name, Gail Richards, full name Dale Lee Richards and G
is still Gale.
It's as mass killing as I could get it.
Um, when and where were you born? I was born.
I have a quirky way of describing where I was born. I was born in a board
and ba and painted farmhouse at the head of a holler, a double stone show
from the main southern railroad
that went through that area, which was in Baltimore and Ohio, which is now
gone. Uh Three miles out of town, not in the hospital. My mother had five
Children out of hospital.
And um, what year were you born? I was born in the last day of the, in the
last six month period before the end of the first World War on July 31st,
1918.
Are you hearing me clearly? Yes, I can hear you fine. You mentioned there
were five Children. Where were you in that? The oldest youngest, I'm the
oldest still. I am. They're all over 70 all healthy and well, good, good
genes, healthy and well, as well as closely as you can define it. Um Well
, what was that community like? Where, where you grew up? Did you grow up
there? I spent five years there and then was removed and had all of my
education in Akron, Ohio up through the University of Akron, which was
then a municipal university, but it is now a state part of the state
system. 30,000 students. It's large, like everything else. Uh I, I was
raised in Akron in uh one of the city high schools there. And the reason I
do not show the dialect, the Southern mountain dialect that's
characteristic of West Virginia where I was born. Had I included that. Did
I skip over that? I think you did. This is uh this location was at uh uh
the best I can do it because it was out in the county and not in town was
to describe it as long run, which was the name of the run on which my
birthplace was seed. Why, why was your family out there? What did they do
for a living. My family has been out, has been out there in that location
since 1750.
There was a re fall, uh, a re, uh, which is the German version of the name
in my case, build a fort to protect against the Indians of the Richards
fort about 50 miles due east of the Ohio back up in the Indian hunting
country. And, uh, that location, the location of that fort
is about 10 miles from where I was born. That's the degree of mobility the
family had until my generation, family moved to Ohio and I was raised in
Akron, Ohio. So your whole family moved to Akron, Ohio? And what did your
family do? What did your father do there? A variety of things including
working in the coal mines. But he was a member of a large family that was
quite comfortably well off. And we didn't feel the strain of that until,
uh, depression, things began to build up in that weird, weird period just
before the Second World War. And, uh, uh, my father brought us to Akron
primarily partly because my mother's family, which was also a large family
and very busy folks, very ambitious folks and they had to remove their
kids to Akron because that was the nearest place that she could get a good
education all the way through the steps.
It was for availability more than anything else. But also, of course, that
was the seat of the tire building industry in a period when the cars were
being developed. And so it was a prosperous place relatively for jobs.
And so a lot of them moved to Akron Detroit,
uh Ann Arbor places like that close by. What do you remember about growing
up in Akron? I remember it with great fondness. It has often been,
it was described in a sociologist book, Vance Packard who wrote a book
about Akron as a quintessential uh socially conscious town, you related to
the people that you worked with primarily and in the time slots in which
you worked. And it was a very self consciously, socially distinctive uh
how I once went out several times uh in Miami early in my naval career
with a gal who turned to me because she just remembered that she knew
Martha Firestone and she asked me if I knew Martha Firestone and I giggled
and gave my game away. So I had to explain to her to some degree that I
would not ever have gotten close to Martha because she was not in my
social group. We didn't belong to the same country club.
In fact, I didn't belong to any country called Royal where essentially my
, my dad was a, essentially a blue collar worker. What he wanted was his
eldest son who appeared to be bright enough to do it to go to college and
get a college degree.
So that was always sort of expected of you. And I was a role model. I was
supposed to set the tone for the, it was quite a burden at times.
My father was intolerant.
What about your mother? What was she like? She was the exact opposite and
there were opposites physically. And my dad was a very large man over 6 ft
and my mother was 5 ft two and could walk under his arm. But she was,
she was an intellectual. She was interested in the kinds of things that
were good for kids. And so the kids responded properly
and we all finished high school and most of us finished college.
You mentioned that the depression came along in there. What, what was that
like? For me, it was a lucky thing that uh
Roosevelt is one of my heroes because he paid my way through school with
the NY A program which was a good deal like WP A, it was built like the WP
A except it was for the purpose of funding
education. And then my last years and there I, as you see on the sheet, I
was on scholarship
growing up. What did you wanna be when you grew up?
I wanted to be educated. I assume that. And it was true at that time that
you could tune the uh prospective amount of pay to the number of years of
colleges you had, you could count on an addition to salary of a certain
amount of respect for the 5% of the population who had college degrees was
in that tone frame.
Oh, I guess when you got out of, um, college was the depression still
going on then, or? Oh, no, no, I graduated in 1940
and, uh, we were beginning to move up on the war and the prosperity
economically that went with that. Everybody was busy doing that. So, the
next step after college for me, uh, went in that direction. Do you want,
do you want, do you want the employment? And sure as a boy, did you have
to work to help out the family too? Oh, yes. We spent, my dad went broke
and we spent a period of time on 100 acre farm. And so, yeah, fragile
character you see, pushed a 14 inch turning plow with a couple of horses.
Somebody once described me as having the best, bad back muscles around.
So, how did that work? How did you end up on the farm?
Oh my, I'm sorry. I was not, I did not complete that. Thought I do that.
You promptly so I can get it in. Um,
my dad was AAA an accomplished roofer. He had a friend who had a roofing
business
and uh this friend also owned this 100 acre farm and needed somebody. The
people who were renting, it moved out and he couldn't get a replacement
because it didn't have electricity, you know, and
did and uh immediate heat to the heating system. So there were some
Riggers involved in this, but it was a big old comfortable house and, you
know, we were there for two years and considerable comfort. But then
things warmed up and the job market began. My dad was fairly high on the
list because of his size and strength. And, uh, so he got back to work and
carry it on from that point on. But mostly my education was subsidized.
Mostly I worked part time. I carried 18 semester hours
a couple or three semesters
and then worked 15 hours a week to make money of my own and worked another
15 hours a week in order to, uh, pay for my ny A obligations.
What did ny A stand for National Youth Administration? It was a part of
the WP A.
So did you live at home while you went to school at home?
Rode a streetcar from the edge of the town where the farm was? It was
right on the county line. And, uh, that affected my grade average didn't
matter because they didn't have a five, be a cap I had and, uh, a, it was
that included in that prestigious outfit. We had our own local,
but we didn't have a fire baby camera.
So, what was your major in college? My major in, uh, for the undergraduate
degree was theater. Then this is, this reads into some things about the,
what was going on here because they were after somebody who had been
broadly educated
was essentially a liberal arts degree.
Uh, oh, I was very active in the theater group as an actor for the, in
most of the productions they were in. And, uh
so it kept me tuned up in a movie then during the years
and that the, uh uh
where did I stop now?
My short term memory shorts. How was you're talking about the theater
department and your acting? Um,
oh, I, I was very busy in the theater activity
but I kept my coursework closely controlled. So I had a, uh what the dean
insisted was a happily well balanced liberal arts degree with 24 upper
division hours. And that's it. You spend the rest of the time in
psychology, political science and literature.
And then they had their own general studies program which was carefully
designed for broader cars. How did you think you were going to make a
living with a degree in theater? Didn't worry myself about it. I assumed
that I would. And as a matter of fact, I've never been without a job offer.
Did, did you hope to become an actor? Go to Broadway or? I started my
professional life in the local basic
CBS
radio station. They, I had been doing the announcing for a set of musical
programs and they liked the way I was able to handle the musical
terminology. I had a chunk of background in music history. And composition.
And that so a leg room mouse, Myo so ruled off my tongue freely and they
like the voice. And so instead of reaching out, they reached inside and
hired me.
And this is when my dad really went up for all, when I decided within the
year to take off for the University of Iowa, because I had gotten a
scholarship of fellowship actually from uh the Akron Beacon Journal to do
that along with about 25 other people.
And, uh, so, so my education was subsidized all the way through one way or
another. But my dad got really upset when he lost that voice coming out of
the radio or
the radio station was even close by so I could reach the parking lot in
about 10 minutes. So it was a real convenient thing. But that was the only
broadcasting job I had, it was my plan though to take the master's degree
and go into, back into Chicago and do either writing in, in radio or
production work for which I was suitably prepared that by that time,
but I didn't do that either. You didn't want to be a star? I didn't, I, I
liked the performance and actually I kept performing for some years. I did
a little theater work when we were in Reno.
So you went to Iowa to go to, to continue your, your education. Then after
you, was that after you graduated from Akron?
00. Yeah. So the first year after, and what was your plan in going there?
My plan of going there was professional in broadcasting.
That's what I meant by the, by the production and writing. I was uh as it
turned out rather facile writer. And so they were encouraging me to go in
that direction.
But I, I did,
I did radio production work stu and student productions with
undergraduates and graduates mixed and a new program that they had set up
in, in broadcasting there
that we're, we're talking 1940 now. So I was broadcasting a fairly new
field at that time. Well, first for university study, it was relatively
actually the whole idea of, of studying the oral dimension of inter inter
uh intercommunication among human beings with uh I think I'm need to speak
up and be harsher. Um No, that's fine. So 1940 you went to Iowa, 1940 I
went to Iowa and they brought me back to Akron to teach for a year on the
fact that somebody went to get a phd in Wisconsin. And uh so they put, put
me in, I'm hooked on this. Are we doing it step by step or? Yeah, we're
trying to kind of go chronological if we can. Um So you're a ball game and
I try to play it. Yeah. Um Did you get your masters in Iowa then? Yeah, I
have a master's in doctor for my and you came back, I guess what's
puzzling me is that I sent along a rather extended resume and I thought
perhaps you would skip over this. And so I didn't really quite clean. I
had to clean out my mind to get any kind of remedy. And what I'm saying,
I'm an expansive person. Well, we just kind of want to get it down for you
to tell us in your words. I understand
one thing that you didn't mention there. The, the war started
in. Well, that was the next step after a year of teaching at the
University of Akron, I completed my master's degree, which I still have a
thesis to do at Iowa. And in February of 1943 I went into the Navy through
the Notre Dame Midshipman school which had recently been established and I
was in the second class in that and they immediately went to sea and
stayed at sea and never had anything but a fleet assignment on a ship.
Mostly, unfortunately, rather small ones. Bouncy little devils, you know,
and which ocean were you in? I, I was, uh I was all over the Central
Pacific.
I, my first ride into the Pacific took me 10,000 miles to SaiPan.
I did that twice, not once but twice in a small ship. I was sent out to a
second one to take command of it to replace a guy who was ready to be
discharged. The war was over and things had been cleaned up and he wanted
to get out of there. And so they honored this by sending me out to my
second assignment on the same kind of little 110 ft tub. What did you do?
What kind of work did you do on the? I was an anti submarine warfare
specialist.
I was a sub killer.
Do I look like this?
No, you don't. Because I don't know what one would look like. They told me
I was pretty good at it. I almost sank a ship or two.
How did you learn to do that? That was a special program, which was an
extension of a program
of, of a midshipman school program. Where do you want to go? I would like
to go to sea. Do you like large boats or small boats? I don't know. I
haven't ridden around with any kind of. So they sent me to this, to this,
uh, location in Long Beach where they were building three or four of them
and assigned me to one of those. And that's how I learned from other
people who were as ignorant about sailing in the navy as I was until they
had been trained. I was fully trained. If I'd come out of the college
program, they had one in a number of universities. The ROTC on location.
We have, we don't have a navy one here. We have Air force and army. Mostly
air force. A big one.
And, uh, those are marvelous programs. Those people really train people up
was a very happy experience for me except for the heavy seas. I didn't
like her. These little tubs would roll 35 degrees in this direction, 70
degrees across the line over the other side, back and forth. Like that
doesn't sound too good. That was even worse when you went into it this way.
I wouldn't write up roller coaster for years after.
Was that a minesweeper, sir? What, what designation on the boat? Slightly
smaller than a mine sweep, uh mines sweeps? We were both in the service
section. We both worked for uh for John mccain's grandpa who was a John
mccain one or two or something back there. You know, I think that was
number one. It was a sub.
It did not have a name. This was, this was the lowest, the smallest size
that they, that the navy floated for fleet work. And we, so we were fully
equipped to kill subs if we could find them and stand up to him long
enough to get something in them that would explode them. But if we didn't
, then we all went up together
because among other things, I carried all kinds of weapons of Lord. I was
the first gunnery officer and of course the one that was the most fun was
a £300
uh
de de charge. Thank you. Um
And this was, I was trained to do this and our ship was one of the prize
ones that we went through the training program. We got many,
congratulations for our testing. We never got to kill a submarine. However
, so I didn't have that experience that ever. And they never killed you.
Yeah. Which is more important because the main gun was larger than mine
and they could pick me up further out. Wouldn't have been any fun at all.
So, how many years did you stand out? And once at sea? Not quite three
years, by the time I was through, I had so many points that I came out
with the first group who was discharged and I was back in Iowa by February
of 1945
and working on the doctor and I had taken them some extra hours and so I
was only a year and a half away from filling my requirements.
I mean, what was your doctor again?
The doctor was in communication. We call it now. I, uh, I am probably the
senior, certainly the oldest
but, but there was a possible exception of the chair, current chair. I'm
the oldest living member of the, uh, h down school of human communication.
So, when did you get your doctorate in 1950?
I finally wanna do that. And what, what did you do with that? What, what
did you do after you got out of the war? I guess you came back to school.
But, ok. Uh, I, it, it just continued in the same pattern. I, there were
jobs all over the place. They needed teachers desperately, particularly
ones who are finished with their training and ready to teach full time as
a tenured faculty or whatever. And so I, I finally succumbed to Drake
University, which was close by because I was still writing my dissertation.
When I finished that I got less eager to be there and went to the
University of Nevada in Reno, which was a tiny little school, but a
marvelous school
and taught there for four years. And then, and I, the University of
Washington was beefing up its faculty to accommodate a new doctoral
program. And I went to Washington for six years.
And what I did in Washington got me enough notice. So I came back with a
promotion to us c for seven years there. And I'm still talking to myself
about whether I should have left or not
because it was a good job. But there were some things, there were some
things there and some things here uh tagged in that direction.
So after the war, did you decided you wanted to come out west? Was that a
decision you made or how did you happen to be? I just moved to my sometime
in that uh n period
I switched my permanent address was the Navy to Long Beach and of course,
I am included by the important accomplishment. I got married during that
period of time to one of the local ladies where the ship was being built,
I met her in November and we got together and after the ship had been
transferred to San Francisco, we got together again and decided to get
married and she moved in with me and never went back and I moved in with
her and never went back to Akron in a while.
So a woman had something to do with your decision to move out. We sure did.
And the she was a, a California girl was that she was a native Long Beach.
She was born and raised in the house where I met her. Oh, she was living
in when I met her. She was in the literary,
we met at a,
in a group,
us all time entertainment.
But she was very active and to active. She became a target.
So was she interested in theater like you were? Oh, yes, she's very much.
We have a lot of similar.
Well, this is what nurture do. We only, we were together about six weeks
before we were married. I then
or what they call a shakedown period when the ship was being checked out
was only about six weeks long. And so I've been sent there a month or so
earlier and that was it until I had invited her to come to. No, I came
down, didn't. I, I came down, came in out of the storm of Santa Anna like
we just had over it and uh Malibu
and we caught the tail end of it out there and it got so rough. The
skipper decided he had too many seasick sailors. We were a fresh boat kids
who had never been to sea. It was a mess.
And the minute we hit shore, I hit telephone
and that's really what started it all.
62 years. Pretty good.
So, you must have you, she was back home when you were in, when you were
in Los Angeles teaching at us. C Yeah, she, she was with me. Uh, this was
in 1944.
It was right. It was right in the middle of the, of the pacific part of
the, or W W-2.
I was in places that you would recognize the names for Quadra. I was, you
know, we talked two or three times going back and forth. That's 1000 miles
east of the A and the Marianas.
I've been in Guam, I've been to Iwo, Jima. I saw the flag close up.
We can give that one back
or have anything to do with that little while. That's the meanest piece of
earth I around,
I'm taking the, taking up time with your professional career. Then, um,
you say you went to, to teach in Reno and then you went to Washington
State. No, Washington University of Washington. In Washington State. In
Washington State. I'm sorry, what were you teaching at those schools? I
was coaching debate. Um, that raise a mys mystery where they, I was in
charge at Reno,
that's, that's where I hooked on. They had it to do and nobody else could
do it. So I did it. So I was a self trained debate coach. I had never
myself competed in that sort of thing. So I never would have made the
$500,000. I would have paid the debate coach
if there were computers.
You don't believe that? Do you? Not back then? Not now?
Ok. They don't get paid, like football coaches paid well. And
pardon? If you can throw a rubber ball, they pay you lots of money. Oh,
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But all, but all the kinds of competitive nonsense as
you get there, you get in these, uh, these kids will kill for a win, you
know, that sort of thing. So, um, so you were in Washington then? What,
what brought you to us c, well, my wife went to school. I was part of it.
Uh, and her father went to school there and her uncle was a team physician.
He was a football player.
Uh, you know, it was like that. And I joked that when I left I see, come
over here, somebody asked me why I left. You know, why did I re, uh,
resign from this, uh, uh, the, the program in communication. There is an
ancient and honored one. It's a very good one. So it was prestigious. I
had an offer from San Francisco State University in hand when it came to
me. So I, I actually could have stayed in San Francisco if I had wanted to
and I wanted to, but I didn't want to because I wanted to, I had good
friends in the US C program and I wanted to be there. In fact, when the,
when I left the Dean of the University
honor and you were one of the silliest things I've ever heard anybody say
to anybody, but I think he was desperate for other things to say my chair
was out of town. So I had nobody citing me. When I went in to negotiate
with him, I had a plan and got sort of half trapped in my own plan. I, I
wanted, it was hard to become a full professor at us c and I wanted to get
it over and done with and this looked like the opportunity. And so I laid
it out. You, you quote me or I, I leave because these people are going to
pay me the money eventually, if not now, because that place is going to
grow. And um when I left at the end of all of this was an unsatisfactory
result hanging in the breeze.
Uh As I left the office, the dean said, Yale, I said, yes, sir. He said,
uh you are aware that A SU is not the same quality university as us. C how
would you like that one?
What did you say? I said, yes, sir. I'm well aware of that because I was
one of the reasons I came.
Well, tell me about how did you, why did you come? Because it looked open
to change
wasn't quite true. And there were a couple of untruths that involved in it.
This gets you up into what I, what I took some notes on, I had a mind to
talk about. Um
what year was it that you decided to, to come to? This is 1965.
So I had 22 years of teaching here. 17 out there before I got here, then
you need to take a drink. I think I do and get a drink of water there.
Want it.
OK.
Um The whole thing here at us C I actually went to UCL A. So
I was born in an, I was born and raised in Los Angeles. So I, I knew more
people there than I knew of us. C we did talk at one point about going
there when I had a good friend who was sitting in the chair. I was very
busy in, in uh university and uh professional groups.
Uh I was for getting an award for this or a suggestion about that. It
served as officer, several of these as a demonstration of my uh my uh uh
effort to improve myself professionally. And I got into that habit because
of this debate. Thing. As a matter of fact, I had to self learn and you
didn't do that unless you circulated.
Well, tell me about coming over to a su who offered you a job here. How
did that come about? Did you know somebody here?
Should I take in the whole story here? Do you think
they forgot to tell me one thing?
What's that? They told me shortly after I got here because they still gave
me opportunity to refuse,
but they didn't tell me what. I, I suspect I may have ducked the whole
thing if they had told me that my predecessor had one vote to a nervous
breakdown, not once but twice in the two years. Perceiving my parents on
the scene, the second year patients wore out with a problem.
Has this kind of problem. And so they went out and they,
we were forced to remove them somewhere in that period. Two year period,
they were forced to remove them as chair.
He was a good guy, a real good guy and a fine professional. He was a
speech pathologist had a phd from Stanford.
Uh I knew the man personally with whom he worked there. Uh He was one of
the two people I knew in the department before I came, I met him at a
conference and liked him when we chatted
and he, uh
he couldn't stand the stress that was involved, you know, in, in the
change from the department from a section of English to a full time
department in the regular sense in f, in a new finance college they just
created and the dean was of course, very happy to have this happen because
he was trying to run up his numbers and get more excuse for added
personnel. Everybody was fighting the same battle competitively. And I
expected that I had been, I was familiar with that sort of thing in a big
university. What I didn't like was the failure to warn me that it might be
, may have had other kinds of results. And when I got in and looked, it
looked as much like a challenge as anything else would look like a
challenge. It was underpaid, it was understaffed. It had no senior
citizens who were scholars in the full sense that's going to be required
to say 5, 10 years out there. And uh it's gonna take some mean, hard
pushing to get that money when other people needed it too. So when you
came here, um what was the department that you came to? What was, what was
your, it changed? Uh It wasn't really a department, what it was was the
representatives from what would become three different departments and
those departments uh which now have all have three degrees, they all have
doctorates. Uh our, our theater
communication that is interpersonal communication and uh uh and speech and
hearing sciences
is what I think they call themselves now. And I had background and all of
those I had picked up. In fact, I almost decided to specialize in voice
science. And uh I had, of course, I, my teaching location was in the
communication part of it. And I was a senior specialist in group
communication, which in some programs is, is special and that was one
direction that they, they could go. They had a nice little group of
theater people, a senior member of the group and it was the largest group
in terms of the number of the staff. Uh It was uh
an assistant professor. I had no senior colleagues. Uh When I counted up
the numbers on it, uh I was five years older than the next oldest person
who had been there for 20 years coaching debate that he was my original
contact. This came in off the road. I had done various things which kept
me in contact with the university and with programmed with academic
affairs. I was always
trying to get myself hooked in somewhere where I can affect the way the
programs were constructed because I thought they, that could be improved
as part of the game. So who was your, your immediate superior when you
came over here? My immediate superiors or Carl Dan Feld and the new Dean
of uh Fine Arts who was at the same time as well, the head of the music
department and he was my reporting senior. He was the guy who made the
first decision, then the decision was taken to Carl who then still
a Dean. What was the first guy, Dean? I'm sorry, the first one that you
talked to me, what was his name? Henry Rings. Bru I am
B A. Is that right?
S ma
um sl A um So what, what did you think of a su when you first got here in
1965? What was a su like
the bit about
Bob? All right,
he's, he's dead now. He committed suicide when his son was, was, uh,
killed in Vietnam.
It was appeared in the smallest piece of paper newspaper you could
possibly can see by a very sensitive character who was then the owner of a
, of the T Daily News.
And, uh, he did a nice job on there. Bob
Bob was on campus and he tried to get into the pro back into the program
and I tried to get him back into the program, but the younger members did
not, were reluctant to have him do this. They were afraid he would do the
same thing. And in that period, in between, he was in the library as a
circulation library
one day
decided apparently he couldn't handle it at all. And he went out and
crawled his truck about nine o'clock in the morning
and door LA ca and park the thing there
and uh, pull out again. I was
the glove compartment, he left it open so he knew where he was carrying a
thing. But anyway, he had,
he had this gun that he had been carrying for some time and his wife was
not aware of this
and
he killed himself in the truck.
A sad day. It was bad enough for what it was because, uh, my, you know, I
, I thought he would work fine in the program with compatible people as
this kind of senior citizen. He was a very able professional.
This, of course, was part of the reason why they were interested that I
have this sort of background was because that was a continuation of the
previous chair. And quite frankly, I didn't like that way of hiring. Um I
didn't think that was probably a good way to go
like everybody else. I would have done it differently and probably falling
around my face. Well, what was a su like back in those days? You know, how
did it compare to the US C that you just come from? Well, they were busy.
I will. Uh I, I had a class, I had to call it a class, a group of about
two dozen professionals who were brought in to help service nine doctoral
programs that were started in the previous year and uh a group of
department chairs who needed to be created out of new programs. Homer
Durham was an expansive character and he was expanding the daylights out
of everything and specializing it in the direction of the university
pattern that he had successfully helped. I helped out. He was a great guy.
One of the best presents we had and what were your responsibilities? What
did you do when you first came here? I chaired three.
I don't believe this myself. When I say it, I chair in three
departmental programs that were going to develop over the next 10 years
and then probably become separate. And I knew this in advance and
understood because I had been in a couple of large programs or the, the
theater, for example, at Washington was a totally separate program and it
had been from the very beginning of its existence as a chair, as a, as a
department, as an academic human.
So I had a chance to see what kind of splits would occur and what kinds of
relationships might
and it became, it became the kind of challenge that threatened Bob, I
guess. Uh you had to, you had to be in everybody's lap, solve problems for
everybody and resolve a conflict for everybody. And it was a, a royal pain
sometimes.
Were you teaching? I was teaching half load
and I was not teaching on the year plan. And that was one of the things
that I was upset about and tried to get it changed and got a kind of vague
promise that it would be changed. Never, it took three, took 44 or five
years
before that finally happened.
I claimed I was overworked, the department was overworked and understaffed
and underpaid.
I had to work on all of those.
But that's why I took the job because it was a challenge.
So when did the departments actually split apart? Then when you came to
speech and theater and communications were all one department, right. When
did they say it was called the Department of Speech and Drama? And they
quickly changed it to speech and the theater and then they changed it to
communication
and theater. And still the speech engineering people were not happy.
And so we finally separated them and it took, uh it came after I left the
chair.
So were you still involved with debating back then? No, except the
administrative.
Are there any special things that happen that stand out in your memory of
uh here on campus?
Yeah. Here we go.
Should I say something? He's looking at you? One of the things that was
interesting was that uh Roger Stevens who was head of the Arts uh for the
uh the National Head of Arts was chair of the commission.
Do you want to tell the story because you've got the microphone? She
doesn't. So I see. Right. Right.
Well, a lot of interesting uh Homer Durham particularly was pushy on the
social side, but we had lots of the same sort of academic push. We were
forever going out on the street and picking up uh academ from other big
universities. Who were doing important things and bring them in on some uh
immediate or, or not so temporary basis and then often offering him a job
at the end of it, we were, we were probably madden, a lot of people were
trying to hang on the and of course, our people were open to the same
pressure. I lost as many as I got, uh, after we had had them a while and
brought them along. We've got a college president out there. We've got a
chair and a dean, uh, and Big Un and big public universities
who were stolen back. Uh, they were just bought, they were buying. Uh, and
that was a sense of my exchange with people about how I handle the
retirement. I said I told him I didn't retire from us. C I divorced it.
You didn't tell the story about Roger Stevens and Henry. Oh, that's right
. I didn't get, that was a beautiful example of the kind of thing we had
that and my Henry Loose and Clare booth loose. We sat at dinner with them.
Why did they come here?
Looses lived in, up in, uh, in uh Boomer Hotel region. They had a mansion
up there. They were residents actually
and we, uh we entertained them, you know, I never would have probably
gotten close to anywhere except maybe us c on a kind of sentimental basis
from some things they do over there. But this was uh homer was pushing
this kind of thing, relate yourself to significant people. Uh Roger Steven
Stevens was brought in because we, there was an opening of a, oh, was it
was, uh, was that when the, when the, uh, the, the music building of
course, was built in this period of time, there are all kinds of busy
things going on there. And it was, I think the music building, uh,
celebration that brought, brought him in, uh, remember what Homer Durham,
how he toasted the evening? I thought that was, oh,
Homer was fun. He loved theater, he loved music. He liked musical theater.
So he came to all the performances
and apparently I enjoyed them and was very defensive of their prerogative
to use a certain amount of freedom and the humor, some, sometimes, even in
those days, sometimes the humor was pretty raw and so it was based in
standard literature. It was taught to the students. So it was a point of
some sensitivity
and in this case.
Mhm.
Did I deep track again? I'm sorry. At the dinner he toasted with, let's
see, what did he call it? Um, something ale. Uh, 000, I'm sorry. Yeah. Uh
, his way of handling things was his thumbprint was all over everything
that was done. He pushed everything, uh, and pushed it hard. I don't know
how he got it done in the 10 years that he was here, but he was a real, a
real genius. At this developmental sort of thing. Uh, he is a Mormon as
you know, and, and, um, so he, he, he's caught at the, uh, at the dinner,
which he, to, which he invited us with the, uh, looses because of course,
her, uh, connection with the theater was my connection with the theater.
We had a lot of busy times of that sort for that reason. It was real, real
nice. But, um, he ran hard up against something that was perfectly obvious
at the table which is a club like turn liquor. Uh She was a great drinker
and she would not go to dinner to, to, to a dinner invitation. So which
excluded liquor. And so she had been assured that she would drink liquor.
And so, uh Homer quite appropriately got up and toasted her and what he
referred to as Adam's Ale,
which of course is a glass of water with an ice cube,
but he was his own joke to make it even funnier. He just did not, he was
not threatened by
19
69.
Been about four years after I came three or four years. Do you, do you
remember how much you got paid when you got the big raise? I've forgotten
, but it was uh the raise of some horrendous amount like, you know, $6000
7000 reaped me. I have, I, I stayed on top of the heap for the next 20
years
when you came here. In 1965. Did you intend this to be where you would
stay for the rest of your career?
Yeah, I realize that I might get caught in that position. Yeah.
Not everybody can use a one on one. Wow. Work. Course like me.
Well, what did you like about a su, I like the busy. I like what Bob
didn't like. That was the honest part of the transaction. I liked what was
going on. That was what I wanted to do. I like curriculum. I like a
development. Academic development is an area of concern anyway.
Yeah, even my scholarly work leans this way. I like the editing better
than the writing. Sometimes I like to shave it up into something that will
fit into a category or meet a need or something of that sort. And where
was your first office at a su? It was in the language and literature on
the sixth floor was the biggest office in the building was a huge office.
It was like 24 28 ft in length.
I sat over in one corner and set up a conference area in front.
But because it really technically belonged to the English Department, but
they took it away. It was only two years old, a brand new building. That
was another thing was obviously going to be another eight or 10 years
before c would get around to building a building for the communication
program old as it was
So, did you stay there during your whole career or did you move other
places on campus? Oh, we, uh, we were immediately in plan for a building
here. First, a theater, then a building. So, where was the theater at the
time when you came here, or? Uh, that was, uh, I, I remember in 1939
um, what is the name of that little building over there?
Yeah,
I see. Yeah, that was where productions and the program was good. It was a
good program. They're good people. They're very, very skillful and
effective production people and all of them are individually talented.
Mhm. What did you like best about your job here? The development part,
development part.
Uh that was, uh, as I said, that's what hooked me. I, I'm sure it was that
, uh, that, that part of it was a true bill. They had sensed that that was
what I enjoyed doing. It was why I probably had become a rolling pedant.
Did you ever hear that praise? I was a roving patent. That's, you move
every five years, usually associated with a large salary increase or
promotion.
I was tenured in three universities.
Um, well, looking back, is there anything particularly that you're
proudest of that you accomplished here? Well, I think that I helped them
do what they wanted to do and what the university wanted them to do. I
think they did a very noble job with what they had. They the mistakes they
made were mostly in the direction of things that affected their ego of
speech engineering people I had difficulty with because they felt
threatened by anyone who looked like they might chase around them and take
up a job uh uh somewhere and, and they would have to go through the same
process again. And of course, what they did was simply ensure that that
would happen. I finally got disgusted with that. And I went for a senior
colleague of mine at Washington who was about ready to be promoted to full
professor. And I figured maybe that might tickle his fancy and get away.
And I could have a senior person to talk. I had nobody to talk to. I had
my problems and I had nobody to talk to except a couple of the more senior
ones who were more reflective about it and they were kind, but there was a
limit to that. You get up to a certain point and you got to make a
decision and, and fast decisions. I didn't like all that. Well, and too
many of them came off badly,
you know, under pressure.
Um, I, I guess one way you could think about it is that uh Bob's leaving
the second time must have had a, a kind of depressing effect on the family.
Nobody wants them or nobody wants to deal with them. They don't want to
solve our problem
and what they saw in me. Was somebody I guess who they thought might solve
the problem and they behaved this way. They were very kind to me. I mean,
she wants to know how you feel about the, the university, the contribution
you think the department has made to the university? Yeah. Yes, indeed. It
is fulfill it and tell me how the only places where I would differ would
be professional differences, conflict about the labeling courses and that
sort of inside thing that really is not relevant to the developmental
process per se
right down. Where or, or may we, we have become well known as a program
because few downs in Dallas for 5 million bucks. When did that happen?
That happened the year I, I retired.
When did it become the Department of Communications? When did that change
from that? That was a title change in the department? That was one of
those things that some of the people pushed, some of them didn't push and
didn't care. And so it took time to get it done, time and a little tact.
How did you feel about it? I, I think they did what they should have done.
Which was that? Were you for it or against it? Oh, I think, I think you
should have been in the Department of Communication. I also think that
mass communication should be integrated with it because, uh, uh iit on
toes here because you have background in this area. But, uh, I, I think
the thing, probably that particular conflict between journalism and mass
communication in its other dimensions, um whether that should be
or there should be change, it should all be combined, but it should all be
combined. And I made such a proposal and it was not honored for inside
reasons.
It happened. What happened was, uh, they're in the same shape that they
would have been if they had done it, except they would be, except
journalism would be divided up differently. And that was where the
argument was. We had a lot of news people, we had a lot of people who had
theater backgrounds or entertainment showbiz background.
One of the real good persons as a gal who has quite had quite a career as
a child's
broadcast or who's that? Very well.
Nefarious.
Nefarious. Yeah,
that's Dave's, that's Dave's last name.
You know, she's blonde wears
all the time. Uh Mary Lou. Mary Lou Coalition is the one I know. That's it.
That's her, that's her. That's who we're trying to reach. For. Labels are
hard. How many Mary Lo there could be? Label labels are hard to start with
the hatched it.
Ok. Uh Did you know Hugh Downs?
No, and that's kind of interesting itself because he and I were in radio
stations in the same state about 200 miles separated. He was in Lima and I
was in Akron in the same period of time. We're about the same age.
He's a here are two younger, I think.
Yeah, and a perfect guy to do what he has done, which is become a kind of
walking symbol of sorts of attitudes you should have toward this sort of
thing.
Um See any other, any other me memories that you wanna talk about that you
remember things that happened here,
you went past one there bar that you
did. You make a note of the, the, the loose, I guess we covered that. We
introduced Randolph Churchill.
One of, one of my first uh uh polite courtesy invitations to occupy a
platform was to introduce the nephew of Winston Churchill who was on a
tour
and then it got loused up and somebody dropped the ball organizing the
thing and we wound up with a half empty auditorium with a guy who should
have, you know, he had a big audience for him. He was a good speaker, good
kid, uh marvelous guy. But here I was suddenly, I just come into this
place and here I was up there on the platform
facing the price of early of 3000.
I was a little threatened. But where was it held at? Damage? Damage? There
was a story. I was here in the early days. I, they had billets
but uh it hadn't been used much and they were still working out the use
pattern. And I was involved because my folks used the uh the, the
carpenter shop, a place where we rigged the settings for, for uh, plays
and that was the only place that was big enough to, to accommodate.
They, they did some pretty ambitious things for a bunch of kids. It was a
funny story that, um came out of that. Um, you know, Jimmy was a very
popular janitor. He was in charge of damage during that period and, uh,
the governor was having a luncheon and using it on the stage. Um,
everybody had gathered up there and, uh, Jimmy came in about two o'clock
and announced that, um, they'd have to discontinue
that. Um, and another group coming in,
uh, he's telling the guy you can't continue to use the stages, the
facility for his own purposes.
Yeah, I just checked my watch list again in a long time. It was very brisk
old Jimmy was a character.
Sometimes those people kind of take possession of their building. Well,
yeah, he had his, the director's
support and that kind of got everybody in tow because it wound up with
Dean and, uh, Dave scholar who was the director of damage. Uh, a little,
all sorts of one because Dave had told Henry something that was not true.
They were looking for some programs or something and, and, uh,
Dave cut the dean off very briskly and was annoyed with him. You must have
had an argument with somebody that he didn't want to have an argument with
and I tried to just wiped the Dean off, you know, just dismissed the idea
that anyone would lose this sort of thing that way. And of course, they
found it very close to where Henry thought it was.
And you were involved with a Su West also, weren't you tell me about that
? Well, the there were some programs that were put in over there that had
certain general studies requirements and there were also, there was also
room for some academic development. So we actually develop a program over
there. That was another thing that happened. We developed uh really uh uh
a somewhat broader program
over there that, than we had on campus. We also left out some parts like
it takes expensive equipment to do a speech and hearing program and this
was the impending intense space,
uh intended space for over here. And so we couldn't do it over there. So
you start, were you out there at a Su West when it first started? Yeah.
What was it like when it started there? Oh, you know, some tents with air
conditioning
pretty much actually, I think they were the wooden type. Um, oh, I know, I
know what it was. It was those, remember those rounded things were,
um,
the name for them or something,
right. What did you think of the idea of starting a branch campus out west
? Well, I thought everything was going to expand it matter where you did
it, you do you go to the need unless it is over expenditure of valuable
funds. If you got the money and you got it, all, you, all you need to do
is put the space there. Let's not have people arguing about who does what
with whom?
That's what you do in a quiet room somewhere.
I would never let my people argue those kind of things. We build some sort
of construct that would get it done quietly.
So, did you, I didn't always succeed. I mean, did you do much teaching out
there or did you get involved with the SU Yeah. II I taught uh I had a, a
senior level group course and which emphasized leadership and it was a
departmental requirement for a major a and so I, I would get from both
sides and I'd have a nice size class
and occasionally I would pick up a uh beginning class in a group
communication.
I might say that I probably encouraged some of this development by
appointing some people who are of like mind to uh teach these particular
classes.
But I can't remember for sure you reflect a little bit on the college
program. Pardon?
The college of public programs? Do you remember how that came about? Yeah
, I suggested it to Nick Henry
that he, that he, I suggested that he separate himself from political
science and build a unit around it. That's what he did. Why did you
suggest that? Because I think it was the way to do it,
I'm not sure we did it with the right guy.
I said,
um, any other things that you wanted to? Be sure you talked about, Bob? Oh
, jeez. Let me think, Bob. Do you have any other things? Too minor, kind
of frivolous ideas? You know, things? No, they're not. No. Cut that, that
kid,
you're a veteran.
Can you reflect a little bit on the president that you mentioned? Be happy
to. Our two best presidents were Durham and Nelson. They were good. All of
them were good presidents
and you like to
and uh yeah, there was one dean who with whom I had a love her. But that
was because he too was a uh wasn't an anti submarine warfare specialist.
He had been in command of a destroyer escort. What was his name? Peak?
George Peak. And he was the dean of what he was the Dean of Liberal Arts.
Well, we were good friends because of the navy thing, but I think we would
have been friends anyway because we were, neither of us had anybody to
talk to on the campus during the period when it became important, whether
you were a hawk or not, a hawk in the Vietnam thing.
And I was in sympathy with what the kids were experiencing and what they
wanted to yell about. But I my whole way of thinking was constructed so
that I was hawkish when it came out the other end. For example, I think
the answer to the military resource problem is the draft. It was that way
in 1787 and it's that way now
and what I think they ought to do is make it permanent. And that's where
the kids quit talking to me,
like, better permanent stuff
per of and inclusive.
And, and, and George said George is in full agreement with that everybody
, two years of service
and we'd sit and talk about that, get it off our, out of our hair and then
go on to the next topic. Did you witness some of the demonstrations that
went on on campus during the, the? Oh, yeah, funny things, funny things
happen. But what was funny,
uh,
the kids would do things that were not terribly threatening and, uh,
and certain people on the same people would get upset about it and then
another group of people would get upset because of this reaction. The
first thing, you know, you got a full scale academic battle which has no
academic content to it. Starsky was a good example.
You can set him up with all the sound in the world that he could use to
talk to whoever he wanted to talk and he could talk himself halfway down,
half a mile down into the soil and then it would make no difference at all
because he didn't make much sense.
One thing we're not supposed to be is stupid.
You knew, you knew Starsky then pardon? You knew him personally. I didn't
know him personally. I knew of him. I knew his boss personally. I worked
for him is chair Tom Holt.
He was another one who could get a little irrational in his resistance.
Oh, so I openly insult her.
Uh, our academic vice president, Carl Dan
and become, and you know, Carl was a good guy.
Carl was real upset, asked me if I could do anything about it and I said,
no, I'm as helpless as you are. I may as well climb over the banister and
come out and join you.
Those were pretty interesting days at the on campus everywhere. They were
, they were, they were and uh good places to learn to have, get lessons
for
about how you can handle things that are difficult to handle. It's the
only way is on the ground and busy doing it.
Good places to have some debates too and learn about speech and debating.
I think those are all good things. I'm not sure I was a proper person to
be doing it, but I think I did my part in getting the base laid. I think
that was probably my chief contribution was to get the thing organized so
that you could work out a way of handling whatever you're doing. I think
I'm pretty good at that, the rest of it. I'm not so sure we mentioned
Russell Nelson was one of your favorite presidents. What did you like
about Russell Nelson. He went right to the heart of the problem. Never
horsed around. Give me an example of that.
Well, we had a,
I suppose, well intentioned person here
whom he handles simply by promoting him to a higher position, which had
different duties. Who was that? The name was Mulholland, as I recall.
And, uh, I, I couldn't imagine any sharper way of handling that than he
did put him in charge of the rest of the university except that where he
was raising hair
giving people offset.
Did you know Russell Nelson personally? Yeah, he lives right around the
corner. Do you still see him? Yeah. What, what is it that you, you liked
about him? And you know what kind of a president was? He? He was a very
fine he and Homer D were the two best we had in that period of time in my
and sort of a horse a piece with la cour in there. Who is the easier
standard type one? Who knows about the money?
Now, you got one who knows more about money
and what do you think of Michael Crow?
Well, I think he's what we should be doing at this point in time.
I don't know about that salary, but
I'm a little sensitive at that point. Did you ever think that the campus
would get as big as it's gotten?
Well, that raises you to another level? Uh, I suppose you, if you were
gonna organize it, you would, um,
you know, like the change of the, of the name to Arizona State University.
This is one of those sorts of things. It is a political solution. It's a
political problem. And the reason you go a particular direction is to
satisfy the political requirements rather than to uh, preferences which
have to do with what, what kind of product you will turn out or whatever,
how, how it's best to do that. So, I guess my answer to that would be the
most direct way is the best way. But I don't think you should have any
university if you can possibly avoid it, have any university. That's more
than about 20,000.
It's about twice that just on this campus.
II, I just, if I had it to do over again, I probably would not.
And go find me a nice 1214, 15,000 student campus
and find a guy who could administrative. We, we sent a youngster out who
went from pos T to No, he went from here to, uh, a proposed job back in
Indiana and then crawled up the system
after a brief tour at Wayne State University
and he would make a prize for the right size. Just he'd handle it with his
left hand.
What kind of advice do you give to young people that might be thinking
about trying to choose a college or a career?
Oh, the only thing I quarrel about is tolerance.
I think people should be more tolerant than they are
and that we should teach him in that direction, teach them how to think.
And I think, I think, I think the tools that we're getting are moving in
that direction, uh um business of starting with the basic facts and adding
up to get the total sum rapidly and then get into the problem area when
you, when you know what's there and what's being done and all about it
that you can find out quickly
that would hasten it a good deal for me. Maybe not for others.
There. Any other things you wanted to talk about that? I didn't ask you.
No, I'm sorry, I, I'm a little slow on some of these things. We, we
actually did go over them as you know, but I, but I, uh 11 thing he's
particularly proud about is the fact that through the years, um, there are
large universities that have lost their communication programs and, uh
they really lay the firm foundation here and the fact that it's endured
and uh have become what it is today is a source of time. I think you can
be very proud of it. Yeah, I think a good communication program can make a
, a distinct contribution to the general education of the student
population, which is needful
and the way they're going, it's going to be even more important because
handling information is a touchy area.
Well, that's changed a lot over the years with computers now and the
internet a lot different than it was years ago. You see it in the kids. We
, we have a young grandchild who shows this very clearly.
She talks, talks like that. Like our uncle who is an accountant,
she uses language like a data processor.
They all know more than we do. And
OK. Any, anything else you wanted to add? It was a different world
during this time. It was um personal,
um lots of activity going on. Uh um Everybody got to know one another. It
was, it was different and um then suddenly it all grew into this
impersonal sort of thing. We even noticed a change in the office where
things got closed up and you, you talk to somebody through a little window
, you know, offices weren't open and answered and whether that's good or
bad, Bob anything else you wanted to add or ask,
the only other thing would, would relate to the move of public programs to
the downtown campus. And uh we, you seem to have come from a really
general studies, communication background. All my degrees were in liberal
arts, but it seems that they're moving more in a specialized direction
related to communication where it would be more difficult for people on
the main campus, for instance, where the, the Warts College will be housed
to, to take communication courses or vice versa.
That being the case. And I'm not terribly close to the, to the people who
are in charge now. So I'm not sure what or, or they, they are going but,
and so can't talk for them. But if that's the case, if they really believe
that that's the case, that's what you need to do, then we're in for a
period of time when it might be a little tougher for certain kinds of
persons to affiliate themselves. And so we bring them in and take them out.
There's some indication of that in the current group with, uh, I, I went
for
at least five years without any retirement at all in the program because
they were all so young. And now
that question, should we retain this person and move along and hold them
in place
or should we release him just to other kinds of duty is, uh, is gonna be
fought out somewhere
because that's, uh, that gets down to your personal professional stuff and
we don't deal with that the same way.
Mm. Ok. Well, I think we've pretty much covered it, let's see, have
anything, any,
what's hard to do is be fair to everybody, I think.
Yeah, I'm sure.