It is Tuesday, January 23rd of 2007. And uh we're here to do a, an oral
history interview or the living history video project of the Arizona State
University Retirees Association. Uh I'm Pam Stevenson during the interview.
And Manny Garcia is our videographer and I'd like to let you introduce
yourself. So we get that pronunciation. Right. I'm uh Elmer Gooding and uh
retired from a su
let's start off with talking about your early life. And we started the
beginning when and where were you born? I was born in Lawrence, Kansas in
1941. And about five years after that, my parents moved to a little
community called Tampa Kansas. And that's where I grew up. They moved
there because my grandfather passed away and they um
there so they could take care of my grandmother and my father had a small
produce business and that's where I grew up and went all the way through
high school.
A lot of
this was a very small farming community and a very small high school and
it was the kind of high school where you could participate in everything
because there were so few students. So you could be in the band, you could
be in the choir. You could be out for all athletics and they scheduled
around everything so that all students could participate
a good solid beginning education there. Your family wasn't farming. No, we
, my father had a business produce company and purchased eggs and sold
chicken feed, cattle, feed, things like that.
Oh, I see. They purchased eggs from the farmers and then wholesaled them
out to some, to Oklahoma and some to Kansas City had a truck. We hauled
them up there. That was when I decided I didn't want to be a truck driver.
Did you do some truck driving? Oh, yes. Yes. During that time I did, um,
you say it was a small school? How small was your class? My class had 10
students at 10 in the graduating class. That is small. It was very small.
And so going to school, what was your favorite subject?
Um, I enjoyed math and, um, enjoyed, uh, literature. Uh, probably two of
the things that I enjoyed most of that time. Talk about all the other
activities. Were you involved in the? Yes, I was involved in all the
sports that they offered baseball, basketball
and participated in the choir and a men's chorus. Uh, one act plays. We
had competition for those in the district that we were in. Got a chance to
do a lot of things
and growing up, what did you say? You knew you didn't want to be a truck
driver. What did you think you wanted to be? Well, I thought I wanted to
be a teacher. I kind of liked working with people and working with
students. And so I thought a teaching career was probably something that I
would pursue. I didn't know for sure. I thought it was either that or go
into business. Probably teaching.
And when did you decide to go to college and that sort of thing? Well, I
had a pretty good academic record. So I got communication from a lot of
schools and offers and scholarships and things like that. So my parents
were fairly poor. We couldn't afford to go to school or at least, didn't
think we could. But then when we got the scholarships I could. So I did
and I ended up going to mcpherson College, which is only about 40 miles
from where I grew up and they offered me a nice academic scholarship. So
it made it attractive to go there. Had your parents go to college?
I think my father would like to have been an attorney but never had that
opportunity.
Did you have brothers and sisters? Yes. I'm the youngest of five. I had
two brothers and two sisters and then me
had one sister that went through nurses training and the rest of them all
went through high school.
Well, I guess so. Although I had always been kind of academically oriented.
So, I think they weren't too surprised. I think when I went,
what was that? Like
mcpherson College? It was a small liberal arts college located in
mcpherson, Kansas and it was a good opportunity, good solid education. Um
,
small enough that I think the enrollment at that time is around 500 small
enough that you got to know everybody
had a good experience there. What did you major in? Economics and business
?
Well, I had one professor that was particularly kind of a mentor for me
and
he encouraged me to study economics. And in fact, he was the dean of the
college. Um
the first economics course I took, I wasn't too enthralled with it and
then took the second one and began to get more and more interested in it.
And so I enjoyed the business curriculum and the economics curriculum.
This particular professor was dean at that time and he was fairly busy in
his schedule and traveled a little bit and on a couple of occasions, he
was gone from the campus and asked me to teach his class when I was a
senior. And I thought that was a big thrill.
He called me into his office one day and said, you really need to go to
graduate school. And I said I can't afford to go to graduate school. And
he said, you can't afford not to. And so he encouraged me and I ended up
going on to graduate school. Largely because of his encouragement and we
stayed in contact over all these years. Been a real mentor.
He is living yet and just communicated with him a couple months ago. Why
did he think it was so important for you to go to graduate school? Well, I
think he, I don't know, I think he was, shouldn't use the term impressed
maybe, but felt that I had the academic ability to go on and I should
explore that and pursue higher education.
What did you think of that coming from a family where people didn't go to
college? That must have been kind of a radical idea. Well, it was a little
bit, although as I said, I was always kind of academically oriented and
was valedictorian in high school and all those kinds of things that kind
of encouraged me to go along. And so the thought of teaching at the
college level was kind of intriguing. And so I thought, well, this is good.
Let's try it. And it worked out well. Where did you go to school? I went
to the University of Kansas at Lawrence. And I had,
I met my wife when I was in high school and she attended another small
school close by where I went to school. We were in the same conference so
we got acquainted.
Uh then uh she ended up going to Selena to a business college and then she
worked in an insurance office for four years. In mcpherson while I was
going to school at mcpherson College. So that worked out well. And then
after my junior year, we were married and so
we were married for one year then in mcpherson, and then we moved on to
Lawrence together. So I was a student by the time I got to graduate school.
And what was graduate school like? It was very good. We had an excellent
faculty there. A large number of faculty had come from other institutions.
They had a hiring influx of some very, very good faculty. So it was a
good experience was a big college. The University of Kansas was at that
time, probably 12 or 13,000, maybe it was a much larger institution.
So what were your goals then in going there? Well, I wanted to become a
professor that was pretty clearly what I wanted to do. At that point. I
pretty well made my decision and they gave me several teaching
opportunities while I was there at the University of Kansas first as a
teaching assistant. And then they gave me classes of my own. And in fact,
in my last year, I was teaching the class that the phd in business
students were taking in macroeconomics. The economics department and the
business College were located in the same building, but economics was
actually in arts and sciences there. So each of the phd in business
students had to take a macro and micro theory class and So, during my last
year there, I stayed there working on my dissertation. They had me
teaching that class to the other phd students. That was quite a thrill.
You were already, I was teaching before I left there.
Well, I left there in 1967 and came to a U. I actually had finished my
master's degree and I had everything finished. But my dissertation, I was
a BD at that time and it was kind of the pattern in those days to hire
people before they finished their dissertations.
So I was brought here or I came here and I actually finished my
dissertation the following year. And then actual graduation was actually
in 1969. 2 years later, I finished that spring. What was your dissertation
on? I put together a general equilibrium analysis of a three country two
commodity model to look at the process of trade discrimination and try to
analyze the impact of maybe discriminating in favor of one country and
against another to see what impact this might have. It was an interesting
model and how did you happen to come back to a SU I went to San Francisco
in the, well, I was around January, December, January of 1960 in December
or January of 1966 67. And they were having the American Economic
Association meetings there and there was a group from A U that was there
interviewing people. So you had the opportunity to schedule interviews
with a fairly large number of institutions based on prior contacts. And so
I had scheduled to interview with people at, I thought it would be a good
institution to come to. I didn't know that I'd end up here. What did you
know about a su at that time? Well, actually
not a huge amount. I knew that I knew of a issue and one of my professors
in graduate school had been here to visit, not on the faculty, but had
been here as a visit. And he had said, oh, that's a good place for you to
go and be sure to interview with them. And so I did and I thought it was
an institution that if I decided to move and go somewhere else I could
move from here because it was well enough known. And so that's about what
I knew about it at the time. Mostly second hand information,
Arizona or Phoenix. Well, not a lot. But as always before an interview,
you always do some research and try to find out as much as you can about
the place and try to learn as much as you can before you go into an
interview. So you don't, don't appear that you're not prepared.
What did you found out about it? Well, it looked like it was a growing
place, the climate looked wonderful and it looked like it would be a very
desirable place to live
as far as the faculty, I really hadn't learned a great deal about the
faculty that were already here that came in my study before I came for an
on campus interview later in January.
So you interviewed in San Francisco and then they invited you here? Yes.
In fact, I got back home and John Cochrane was the chairman of the
economics department at that time. And he called me almost as soon as I
got home and wanted me to come out immediately for an interview. Well, I
had some other institutions that I wanted to take a look at. And so I kind
of held off for a little bit until later in January. And then I came out
for a visit in January when I came out here, it was beautiful and the
sunshine and my wife was at home scooping snow. So it made quite an
impression on me
that no, I didn't. It was beautiful. It was warm shirt sleeve weather in
January.
What other universities were you looking at?
Oh, I looked at Texas Tech and North Texas State and uh
there were several unsolicited offers that I got in places that I never
went to visit. I was interested at that time in looking at schools that
were in states that were kind of adjacent to Kansas because that's where
all of her family was from. As I mentioned, my family was a family of five
and my mother and father were still living and my wife was from a family
of seven Children. She was 1/5 of seven. And so we thought, gee, it'd be
nice to be in Nebraska or Colorado or Missouri or Oklahoma or maybe Texas
not get too far from home. But, but then the opportunity came here at
Arizona State and it looked like it was a good career move for us.
He didn't consider staying in Kansas. Well, I had talked to the people at
Wichita State in Wichita. And in fact, after I accepted the position here
, they made me an offer and that was a very tempting thing because that
would have been very close to home and family. But ethically, I thought I
couldn't back out on something I had already accepted and it turned out
well, that we stayed with our initial offer and acceptance. So when did
you actually come to in August of 1967?
But it was a lot different than January when yes, it was, we rented a U
haul truck without air conditioning and we came down to got as far as
Holbrook and they recommended we just turn south and cut across and come
on down through Payson. So we did. And as we came down the hill, it kept
getting hotter and hotter and hotter. And my wife looked over at me and
she said, where are you taking me? Because it was well over 100 degrees
that day. When we arrived here,
it was hot and humid that day being hot and humid. Well, we were, we were
kind of fortunate because we put an ad in the paper here and we told who
we were and we were looking for a place to live and a faculty member from
ASU called us and he and his wife rented their home to us sight unseen.
And so when we arrived, they were gone, they had gone on sabbatical and
they left the key with the neighbor and we picked up the key and rented
their house. It had a pool. And so we thought that was kind of nice.
Although we realized after a while that cleaning the pool wasn't much fun.
Back in those days, there weren't automatic pool cleaners and things. So
we had a place to live immediately when we got here,
it was in North Tempe. And then we started looking for a home and we found
a home on Loyola which is just north of southern, off of rural. And I
remember at that time, my wife asking me, are you sure you want to live
this far out?
Because it was anything south of us was pretty well agricultural land and
undeveloped. And so she said this is a long ways. And I said, well, it's
only a little over two miles from the university. And she said, well, I'd
be ok.
We had two Children. Our first daughter was born in 69 and her second
daughter in 72. So they're both Arizona natives and now I have six
grandchildren.
Didn't have little Children on that first trip out. No. No, that's right.
So, what was your first position? What were you doing at when I came here
as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics? And so that's
where I started out. And what were you doing as I was teaching, I think at
that time we taught 12 hours, four courses. And they had known that I had
taught before. And so they gave me some theory courses to teach at the
upper division. But then they also gave me a couple introductory courses
that were down in what's now was known as the ASB building. They were long
narrow
classrooms that kind of were elevated as you went toward the back. And um
I think they about 150 some students, but the acoustics in the room were
absolutely awful. It was like talking into a barrel and of course, you had
a microphone, but at that time, we didn't have wireless mics. So you had
to make sure you turn the same way each time. Otherwise you get wrapped up
in the cord. It was quite an experience, but it was good.
Your office in that same building. Yes. At that time, we were in a large
classroom that had been divided into offices. So the walls went about half
way through the ceiling. So anytime anybody else was interviewing a
student while you were right in the midst of it, whether you wanted to be
or not.
How was the economics department? It was the Department of Economics in
the college? Business. And I would guess I didn't go back and count, but
we probably had about 12 or 13 members of the faculty at that time.
Mhm. What, what was a su like you mentioned your building? But what was a
su in general like, well, um
Goodwin Stadium was still here at that time. The football stadium that now
exists had the two sides without the end zone enclosed,
the classrooms were fairly old needing improvement. And of course, it was
only a couple years after that, that they built what was in the new
business building and then in 71 then they added on to that building. So
the first three floors were built, I guess it must have finished about 69.
And um so we had nice classrooms in that building. It was a wonderful
place to teach. It was quite an improvement. Overall. The university was
probably about 15,000 at that time in Round Numbers, City of Tempe was
probably 50,000, something like that.
Who was it from the department that hired you? Well, John Cochran hired me.
But then when I came here, Martin Ferris had become chairman of the
department by that time, and Glenn Overman was the Dean of the Business
College at that time. And Homer Derm was president.
That was about the time of some of the Vietnam war protests.
Yes, it was. Well, I became an assistant dean in 1969 and I went to the A
ASB meetings in San Francisco with, with the dean, I was assistant dean at
that time. And I remember we were talking with another dean and he was
describing how the students had brought in a bucket of chemicals and they
were tempted to throw it not here, but they were tempted to throw the
chemicals on the floor. And he remembered how he told us how he and
several other faculty members locked arms and finally got them to leave
the building. And so I came back early from that with that vivid memory in
mind and I came back early and the dean stayed on for the rest of the
meeting. And sure enough a day or two after I got back, a group of, I
think it was mainly high school students and others that decided they were
going to march through our building. And so I decided that I would go with
them and try to keep them from bothering the students in the classroom.
And so they opened a couple of classroom doors and I told them, I said,
you can't do that. I didn't have the authority to stop them. But I told
them, I said, you can't do that. And sure enough, they listened to me and
then they went on down the hall and they didn't do any damage or anything.
That's about the only incident that we had in the business building. I
know there were a few protests on campus but I think by and large a issue
is fairly calm during that whole time period. Relative to a lot of other
places in the United States. Why were they targeting?
I don't know that they targeted the College of Business. It happened to be
located at the south end of campus. And if they entered the campus from
that end, it was one of the first buildings they came to, I don't think
there was any targeting, taking place at that time. I was going to UCL A
and they, the Bank of America was a, oh, really?
I don't know what I think for some of them it was just a lark just to get
out and do something exciting.
Was the president? Do you remember? What was he like? Well, he was a very
soft spoken person as a young assistant professor. I didn't get the chance
to know him as well as some of the others. I'm sure did, but he was very
soft spoken and serious. And like I said, I didn't have a lot of personal
contact with him as a new assistant professor just coming to campus. I
know I heard stories that he and his wife would invite people to come to
their home on a Sunday evening. Sat around on the piano and sing and
things like that, but I never was part of that group.
You moved up pretty quickly
to the, well, I did, I was kind of surprised by it myself. In fact, the
dean had talked to me even before I finished the dissertation, I finished
it. And I defended in the spring of 1969 after being here a year and a
half, a little over and he encouraged me. He said, get that dissertation
finished. He said, I've got some things in mind for you. And sure enough,
the minute that was done and I had the phd in hand, he offered me the
position for assistant dean in the college and I was only 29 years old, I
thought, well, I don't know if I should be doing this or not, but it was a
good learning experience and enjoyed the experience there. I stayed on in
the dean's office for 10 years until 79. And I had a lot of different
responsibilities during that time, primarily
managing the graduate programs, started with the assistant dean for
undergraduate studies and then became assistant dean for graduate studies.
And then I think it was about 1975. He made me associate dean and I felt
that was a nice promotion as well. Did you get a nice raise to go from
being an assistant professor to an, well, I get to go to a fiscal contract
rather than an academic contract. So, what they did is they took your
contract and gave you 12 10th of what that was. And then I think I
probably got some decent raises during the time period because he worked
me pretty hard.
Do you remember what the salaries were like back then? Yes, I came here
for 10,500. That was my beginning salary. The issue, which I thought at
that time was a lot of money because as an undergraduate I had worked in
the business office at college mcpherson College and I got a dollar an
hour there. And so to come out here and earn $10,500 I thought, I told my
wife, I said, if we could just continue living at the level, we lived as
graduate students for about two years. I said we could even put some money
away at that salary didn't happen. We bought a home as everybody else did
and had Children and had Children that, that changed everything as well.
Mhm. What was the department like when you got here? You talked about how
big it was? Well, there were a group of very, very nice colleagues here
and, um, they were all kind of a good team. Everybody worked together some
economics departments. There's a lot of dissension and debate about what
kind of economic theories you believe in and all that. But I didn't see
any of that here. It was really a nice team effort. They all worked
together and there was a lot of collaboration among faculty.
Then I left the department and still continued teaching one course each
semester while I was assistant dean. So I still kept some contact with the
department but not as close as if I had stayed in the department full time.
The dean insisted on it. And the busiest part of being assistant dean or
the most time consuming was that we were interviewing so many faculty
members, we were going through a growth spurt during the seventies. It was
just unbelievable. We probably went from in round numbers probably 4000 to
10,000 students during that time period. So we were hiring faculty very,
very quickly. And Dean Overman insisted that I interview all the faculty
members of all the departments that came in for interviews. And so I would
spend countless hours not only interviewing them, but then of course,
there were receptions almost every evening. It seemed like for the
visiting people. So it was a very busy time. It was during that time that
we hired Lonnie Ostrom. And so Lonnie worked with me in the dean's office
for a good number of years and that was a great experience, a wonderful
guy to work with. We had a really great relationship.
When did you interview them one at a time? Well, the committees did, but
the dean at that time insisted that all the department chairs interview
all faculty from all departments. I remember when I came out for an
interview, I thought it was an endurance contest because I had to go talk
to every department chair all the way from management and marketing and
finance to whatever. And then also there was a committee uh in the
department and then, uh and then of course, you interviewed the dean and
all the associate deans and that, so it was kind of an endurance contest.
People held up pretty well. We knew they had a lot of depth.
Did you all get together and compare notes on it? Oh, yes. After the,
after the interviews in, there was a meeting in the Dean's Council where
we would all go in and everybody would share their insights and uh and
then a decision would be made by the dean and the department chair. Well,
tell me about hiring Lonnie Ostrom. How did that come about? Well, we were
looking for another person and he was actually hired by the marketing
department and then
he interviewed very well and I think we were also looking for another
assistant dean at that point. And so Lonnie was the one that was chosen
and it was a good choice.
What do you remember what it was about him that impressed you? I think
Lonnie's got an unbelievable personality.
I think his academic record was strong as well. But I think his
personality probably was one of the big things that encouraged us to bring
him aboard.
He just works so well with people and he just had a knack of saying the
right thing and treating people with respect. And that's what we were
looking for in the dean's office. We wanted people that could meet the
prospective students and talk to them and handle them. Well,
so you say you stayed in the dean's office for about 10 years. Where did
you go from there? Well, from there, I went to the Provost office, Paige
Mulholland was Provost at the time and he was looking for an assistant
Provost. And at that time, I was looking at the possibility of
interviewing for a deanship somewhere. And then that opportunity came and
I thought, well, gee this is a great chance to do something in the
university administration here rather than having to uproot the family and
move somewhere else. So
fortunately, I guess page decided that I was the one that he wanted. And
so he hired me to be his assistant Provost back at that time. What did you
do as an assistant Provost? He gave me responsibilities at that time with
the personnel committees and handling the promotions and tenure things of
that type. And then later I moved over into the budget area because of my
economics background, I guess. So he really was, he was the kind that
allowed me to do whatever I wanted to do. He was a good man to work with
budgets don't sound like much fun. Did you choose to do that? Well, yeah,
I kind of enjoyed that part actually because I, I don't know, I guess I
enjoyed working with numbers and doing planning and things like that. So,
allocating resources and trying to find a fair way to allocate them was
always a good challenge. So, I enjoyed doing that as well.
When I first came to the provost office, there were very few computers. In
fact, I had, I had been editor of our school newspaper when I was in high
school. And so I knew how to type and all that. So when I went to the
Provost office, I took an electric IBM typewriter with me and I would sit
down and type out notes real quickly and people said you're supposed to
dictate things and give them to a secretary to do. And I said, well, I
said, I'll do that with letters and things. I said, but quick notes, I
said I can do it faster and just hand it to you and be done with it. So
there weren't very many computers. And then
Jerry Gold Fter was the lady that I hired to be my administrative
assistant. And we got her a memory typewriter and she liked that very much
thought that was really a great thing because you could actually type some
things into memory and then it would type them back. But then it was
probably about four years later than that, probably about the mid
seventies
that we actually began to get computers and I adapted immediately to that
. I love computers because I already had the keyboard skills. So it was
easy to make that transition. So at the time I moved to the provost office
, there were very few, there were very few personal computers. There were
, of course, the big machines,
maybe I should back up a minute and tell you about that when we built the
business building, one of the things that we did was we put in some large
, some big glass windows and we set the computers behind that. And that
way when the parents came to visit, they could see that we were doing
computers and had the computer age and they were the big vacuum tube types
and that whole room full of computers would do less than what one laptop
would do today. Just phenomenal. The change that has occurred,
the big tapes and the punch cards.
That's right. It had to be climate controlled and everything. And so it
was, it was kind of the showcase when people would come to visit the
college business. They would see, not only that, but they'd see the
beautiful classrooms because the, the dean back at that time had decided
that if the state could build the building, then he would get people to
furnish all the classrooms. So virtually every classroom in the building
was sponsored by somebody and they had carpeting and they had U shaped
desks where the students would set. So when you're teaching, you could
walk right up in and only have about three or four rows deep even though
you had 50 people in the room. So it was a nice environment to teach in. I
look. So going back to, you know, you're working as the, the Vice Provost
for budgets. Um was that a period where the budgets were growing?
Well, that was always one of the challenges because we always had to grow
before we could get the resources. So we were always behind in terms of
getting the resources
over the 12 years that I was in the Provost office in a minute, I should
back up and tell you what progress got me up to that point. But in the 12
years that I was there, we had reverts, they were called for about 10 of
those 12 years. And what would happen would be that the legislature would
always vote last on the budget for higher education. And if they didn't
have enough resources, then the J LBC staff would always overestimate the
amount of tuition revenue that we were going to get in order to make up
for the appropriation that we were supposed to get knowing full well that
we would never get it. And so when we didn't have as much money coming in
from tuition and the legislature hadn't appropriated as much as what we
thought they were going to or what they should have in my opinion. Then
about mid year, we had what was called a revert and we'd have to go back
and cut budgets. And some years we had to cut as much as $10 million back
from the budget. Well, by the time you get to the middle of the year, it
was very difficult for us to cut the budgets back because commitments had
been made for all year long, the faculty had been hired, commitments had
been made to faculty associates, the students were there and that was one
of the greatest challenges that we had, having to continually hold back
resources. So finally, toward the end of that period, we began to withhold
some of the resources in anticipation of the reverts that we thought were
inevitable. So it didn't make such a negative impact on the departments to
try to come up with money at the last minute,
which which years were those
ok? Between 1979 and 1991
there were reverts I believe for about 10 out of those 12 years that I was
in the promos office
and talk about how well I kept getting these opportunities to do things
and got additional challenges.
Let me just kind of chronologically see if I can remember what happened.
But 79 Paige Mulholland hired me to be his assistant Provost. And then in
81 he became
Executive Vice President I should say. And then they reorganized and
instead of Provost's office, they changed it back to an academic VP office.
And so in 1981 and 82 I was the uh acting uh academic VP. And so I held
that position until 82. And then they hired Jack Kinzinger
as academic VP. And then I worked with him until 1987.
And in 87 I was a loan executive to the Arizona border regions. So I got a
chance to work at the board level and work with all three institutions.
Then I came back at the end of that time period and resumed the vice
Provosts role. And then Dick Peck came and in between there, Roland Hayden
was acting VP for a time and I was his associate VP and then Dick Peck was
hired as Provost and I thoroughly enjoyed working with Dick Peck. He was
just a wonderful man to work with a me. But um then um it would have been
in July of 89 until January of 90. Dick was the acting president because
we were between Russ Nelson and Lady Co and so since Dick was the acting
president during that time, I was the interim provost and then Dick came
back to the office after Lady was hired and, but the following May, he
left to go to be president of the University of New Mexico. And so I was
made interim Provost. Then again, for the time period from May
May of 90 until August of 91. And the interesting thing that happened
during that time is that I was the interim provost. And then in February
of 91 lady core had a heart attack. And so they made me acting president
as well. So I was kind of wearing a couple of acting hats at one time and
then lady was able to come back and he was out from February to April as I
recall. And so he was able to return and resume his duties at that time.
And then I continued on as interim promos until August when they hired
Milton Glick at that time, then I went back to teaching all those
positions. Did you ever try to get the full position? Yes, I applied for
it, but it seemed that ASU had a tendency to want to hire people from the
outside in those kind of roles. And so I was, I was always good acting.
Well, it was in a way, but I also understood the motivation institutions
usually like to hire some of their leadership roles from outside rather
than grow their own. I'm not sure why, but that's the way it was
um, all that time at the Provost office. And where was, was that located?
Well, we were on the second floor of the administration building during
that whole time period.
I wasn't required to, but I did go over and taught a course periodically
just so that I could keep my hand in my academic area. But I wasn't
required to teach classes. I was so busy over there that it was a full
time job. So,
being a loan to the regions.
Well, it was a new program they had started and I was the first one and
they wanted to bring some people from the campuses occasionally to do
special projects and things of that type. And it was an opportunity to
learn more about all three campuses and how the board operated. And I had
attended board meetings in my role as a vice provost anyway, so I wasn't
unfamiliar with the board and the people at the board office knew me. And
so they invited me to come down and spend about nine months with them.
It was full time during that time, I was given release time from the
campus and I commuted downtown Phoenix all the time. And what did you
learn about the border regions from being inside sort of? Uh Well, I
learned that there was a lot of politics.
I learned that there was a large influence from the University of Arizona
on a number of the board members. And there were some board members that I
thought were really so committed to the U of A that they really didn't pay
too much attention to the other two campuses. Maybe that's being a bit too
blunt, but that's the honest answer. I thought there were always more
board members that were affiliated with the U of A than there were with.
Or I think you probably knew that before. I knew that before I went there.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Just the passing.
Was there anything else you learned from being inside a different
perspective? Well, it did give you a different perspective on things
because you found that you were being a supporter of all three
institutions, not one. And of course, so much of my career up to that
point had all been an issue. So it was a broadening experience for me. And
it really helped me to further realize that students in Arizona have a
wonderful opportunity because we have three great campuses. It's not just
one or two, but there are three different ones with three slightly
different missions. So it's a great opportunity for people from Arizona to
send their Children. They don't have to go somewhere else to get a good
education. It's right here.
Did you learn a little bit about the relationship of the legislature? Yes
, I did. And one of the big issues back at that time was that we were
being pressed politically and otherwise by the University of Phoenix to
accept all of their credits and things like that. And that was a problem
for our faculty, for our administration and all of that. So we finally
decided that we would evaluate students on a course by course basis. And
try to find out what they had really done or not done in the courses that
they had taken there. There was a lot of political pressure at that time.
From the University of Phoenix. Oh, they're advocates. What about the
community colleges? Well, uh, we had a good relationship with the
community colleges. Uh, we had, uh, we had worked
articulation agreements with the community colleges for many, many years.
In fact, even when I was back in the Business College, we would invite the
community college, business leadership to come and talk about curriculum
and things like that. So I felt that we've always been a good partner with
the community colleges. What was it about the University of Phoenix that
made them different? And you like to accept credit? Well, there were not
the contact hours, they had no full time faculty. They hired people here
and there to offer their courses. We felt there was a lack of quality
control and that's probably all I should say. We just felt that they
weren't up to the same standard as what we were requiring for our students
to do. What about the regions themselves? Did you get to know some of
those people? And the regents were very, very nice. I think they were very
good to the board staff.
They were very open and they'd have receptions and things at the board
meetings and things like that. And most of them were just really fine
people So, yeah, I enjoyed, enjoyed visiting with them as well. How do you
feel about the, the whole system of how our universities are run by the
regents and how the regents are appointed in? Well, the current system I
think is a little bit political and I think from time to time we've seen
some regions that have been appointed because of their support of
politicians and things like that. So any time you have a single board of
regents that's appointed by the governor, you're going to find that
they're going to reward some of the people that have supported them and
that sort of thing. But that's just the real world. I think a lot of times
some of the regents may have come to the border regions with a particular
agenda in mind. But I think after they got there and they got involved,
they begin to feel the, the need to support higher education. And so I
think most of them have turned out to be positive supporters of higher
education. Most of them take that job. I think so. I think they take it
quite seriously.
What year was it that you were working at the border region? That would
have been 1987.
Molly Broad was the executive director at that time and Otis Elliott was
the associate director and I worked with both of them.
I don't believe me was an officer. I don't recall who the governor was.
Wait a minute. That may have been. That was an exciting time politically
as well. I was trying to remember what year that was, it all runs together
after a few years.
Ok. That would have been about right then. Yeah. Was Herman Janet on the
board at that time. Yes, he was. In fact, one time we went to a meeting at
the U of A and Herman invited us to ride in his private jet. Never got to
Tucson so fast in my life. Yeah, that was my only opportunity to ride in a
corporate type jet and it was quite an experience. It was quick. So you
didn't really deal much with the governor or the governor's office. I
didn't know I was more doing support, work inside the office and things
like that.
I noticed another thing it mentioned, I was looking through your volume of
information here that you were in charge of summer sessions
when I was in the Provost's office, Dennis Keegan was running the summer
sessions and his office reported to me at that time. And another wonderful
person. I mean, gosh, I just think of all the great people that I've had a
chance to work with and Dennis is just such a positive person, great to
work with always positive and ready to do whatever needed to be done. And
the same as I mentioned, Lonnie Ostrom, the same way Matt Beth is the same
way. I mean, they all just great folks to work with. Um, I was just
interested, it seems like summer sessions were almost like a separate,
they had to float on their own bottom financially. And so summer sessions
had to generate enough support in order to pay the salaries for the
faculty during the summers and the support monies and things like that. So
, yes, they did have to support themselves but Dennis managed them very
well and they did, in fact, occasionally we even had a profit from summer
sessions which allowed us to do some other good works in the university.
That was sort of a whole separate, run separately from all the other
classes. Well, it was because if you had a regular academic contract as a
professor, then if you took a summer appointment, then that was a separate
contract just for that course or two courses, whatever you decided to
teach. I remember the first year that I was here, we were very poor and I
had the opportunity to teach a summer session. So I taught two courses
each summer session, 25 week sessions back to back. And by the time that
10 weeks was over, I was totally exhausted. It was because you met for
several hours a day in each class in order to get in the contact hours
that you needed to have for the class. It was very challenging.
Has that changed or is it still done the same way? Well, I haven't been in
the administration now since 1991. So, I don't know for sure what they're
doing now, but I assume that they're still, they also have an eight week
session. Now, I know that they didn't have before and I assume it's
handled similar to that. People might think that in Arizona because it's
so hot here in the summer that not many students would even want to go to
school. It was surprising the number of students that wanted to catch up
during the summer or get ahead during the summer and we would have
enrollments of fairly, I don't know the numbers. Exactly. But I would
guess maybe head count, maybe 1/4 of what you would have during the
academic year or maybe 1/5. I thought it was pretty good enrollment in the
summer and of course, for the faculty, it was nice if you taught in the
summer because you could teach for five weeks and then you could be gone
the other five weeks. I only did one summer session where I taught twice
in the same summer. That was too much.
Are there any special events that stand out for you during your career? Oh
, wow. There are so many, uh, uh, we held all kinds of events in the
College of Business
when I was there. The university. Goodness, I can't even begin to count
all the number of things that I went to every evening. It seemed like
there was something I remember one thing when we first decided to offer
some off campus courses. And Metro Center was a place where we offered
some of the first courses before we had a West campus. And of course, we
had a big opening celebration over there. And then I remember when we had
the opening for the west campus, I went over there and I think all there
was was a flagpole and a big white tent. And so we went over for the
celebration that was during the time that Paige Mulholland was provost in
the early eighties.
And um I don't know, I've just been to so many commencements. I
purchased a cap and gown many, many years ago and I think I've amortised
it out because I went to three commencements every year, one in the fall,
the spring and the summer. And so for all the years, I was in the Provosts
office, I attended all the commencements all that time. It was busy.
No, they don't. They stay the same.
Were you involved at all? With the creation of?
Well, I was involved somewhat in it but it was more in the president's
office that was taking place and the provost at that time, but I helped
provide some of the support and helped with some of the early curriculum
when it was being offered essentially from our campus. Do you remember how
it came about that? That it seemed like it came up kind of suddenly. Well
, I think the people on the West Side had a very strong desire to have a
presence over there. And when the land became available to ASU, there were
a number of politicians that I think were really pushing as U to have a
presence over there. And I think it was a good move. I really supported
the idea because if you think about it, if a student from way over in the
Northwest Valley is commuting over to U that's a long commute each day
just to go to classes. So I thought it was great that we established the
campus there,
the College of Business get involved.
They were offering some courses over there because at first when we
started, we were doing just upper division because we didn't want to
compete with the community colleges because they were very sensitive to
that. So we just offered junior and senior level courses. So there was
some involvement of most all the colleges in campus.
You left the administrative area in 1991. What did you do after that? I
went back to full time teaching in the economics department at that time.
And the department had a policy of not having teaching assistants, a lot
of teaching assistants teach the introductory classes. And so they asked
me to teach some of those classes. I didn't mind standing in front of a
large group. And so typically in a semester, I would teach maybe an upper
division theory class and then a couple of large lecture sections and I
taught over in Murdoch Hall where they seated about 450 students. And so I
usually have a student of about 900 students.
That was kind of a neat experience. The only thing I didn't like about it
is that I wasn't able to get to know the students as well as I would have
liked.
You get to know some of them, some of the really good students that come
into your office to clarify things and the other end of the spectrum, the
ones that are in trouble. But the bulk of the students, you don't get a
chance to know them. But, um, it was a good experience and I, I enjoyed
teaching. Why did you leave the administrative area? Well, I had been in
the provost office for 12 years and, um, as you asked earlier, I had, uh,
been a candidate unsuccessfully for a couple of three times to get the
provost position and it was time for a change. And I always did enjoy
teaching people, always laugh when you say you're going back to your first
love. And I'm not saying that's what I was doing necessarily, but my
department welcomed me back and I was very pleased with the reception that
I got when I came back. So it was time for a change in my career and I was
ready to go back to that
in fact, in 1995 1 of the thrills that I got is that I got the uh
outstanding undergraduate teaching award. I, I thought that was uh kind of
a, kind of a neat event after having been in administration all those
years to come back and, uh, and then be recognized for, uh for, for
something else. What is it that you like about teaching? Oh, I love the
interaction with the students. Um, in fact, I was the advisor for Alpha
Kappa Psi, uh, Lonnie Ostrom and I were co advisors back in the seventies
for the, uh, professional Business Fraternity. And then after I returned
to teaching, the students approached me again and asked me if I would be
their advisor. And so I went back and was their advisor for a number of
years after that, uh, just as a volunteer thing. But, uh, it, it's just
evidence that I enjoyed being with students, enjoy working with them. Have
you seen students change over the years? Well, yes, there have been some
changes from time to time but I, I've generally found that the, um, but
the business students were pretty serious about careers and things like
that. So, uh, sure I was in this business, you know, through the sixties
and, uh, the flower Children and all that sort of thing. But, uh, I, I
really felt that, uh, most of the business students that I dealt with most
of the time were were pretty serious about their education. They're fairly
career oriented. So, yeah, there have been changes and faculty, there are
changes too. I think back in the days when I first came here, you tended
to ask the question, what can I do for the institution? And uh I feel that
some of the younger faculty that have come more recently, uh asked the
question indifferently and that is what can the institution do for me. So
I've seen some changes over that time talking about the whole College of
Business, the whole college seems like it's changed somewhat too. It has,
it has taken on, I think more of a research orientation which has been
good in terms of national publicity and the MB A program I think has
gotten a lot of additional visibility nationally and internationally. So
there have been a lot of changes, but most of them have been good quality
changes for continuing improvement,
more older students coming in not coming straight from college. We always
had in the business college, we always had a lot of older students that
came back at night. We ran a very large night MB A program during the days
that I was there, that was even in the sixties and seventies. And we still
see that the executive MB A program and others like that. So there's
certainly a place for this returning student that wants to enhance his or
her career
promoting, they're doing more online and you don't even have to come to
campus. Well, that's true. And I think the technology is wonderful. I
think it's great. In fact, even when I was teaching the classes with 450
students, I would put my lecture notes ahead of time up on the internet so
the students could download them before they came to class. So they would
not have to sit there and spend all their time copying down what I put up
on the slides up on the screen, but instead they could fill in around that
with the lecture notes. And so I think the technology is wonderful. It's
amazing what you can do now. And I almost wish we'd had that when I began
back in the sixties. Some people are actually teaching classes online.
I haven't, I haven't actually taught online. That's an experience that I
haven't had yet, but it would be an interesting thing to do. It kind of
reminds me you were talking about the University of Phoenix. They
pioneered in some of those they did. And I think it's become a lot more
acceptable now than what it was back at that time. And I think there are a
lot more quality controls now in terms of testing and things like that
than what there might have been early on.
What about the, the 10 the trend of uh the fundraising for the colleges?
The, the business School now has a name, the $50 million donation. When
did that start happening? Well, I think fundraising was taking place many
, many years ago. It's just that it's now reached a new level. I think
that back in the days I mentioned earlier when the at that time, new
business building was built, that we had sponsored classrooms and things
like that.
And I think the level of requests and the level of support that
fundraisers were asking for was much, much less in the past than what it
has become more recently. And of course, there have been naming
opportunities like the College of Law and the College of Business and
Education and Engineering. And well, I think all but one of those came
with a pretty significant financial donation to the campus. And how do you
feel about that? I think anything we can do to get more funds to help
education is ok and the state has had a difficult time
maybe offering as much support as it can for higher education. And
therefore, I think it's been incumbent on us to fill in that gap and to
raise more funds. Unfortunately, some of the additional burden has been
placed on the students because I think tuition in Arizona used to be one
of the biggest bargains you can imagine particularly the in state tuition
and now it's become much more expensive for students to go to school. So
to the extent that the state couldn't provide that support, students have
had to pick it up with higher tuition and we'll probably see more of that
and we've been hearing a lot lately about the students that leave school
with huge debts. Yes. Yes. That's a, that's a real problem. Do you think
anything can be done about that or anything? Well, I don't anticipate that
the state will start reducing tuition. I think the trend is there and it
will probably continue to increase.
Hopefully we can continue to find sources for some reasonable cost loans
for students. But I think it will probably continue to cost more and more.
Looking back. Do you think you would have been able to go to college if
you'd had to take out loans? Well, I did take out loans for graduate
school and we came here with some debt so I can relate to the students.
The amount that I had dollar wise didn't sound like much, but at the time
, it seemed like a lot to us. So it took us a few years to get out of debt
back at that time, they had the National Defense student loan program and
with that program, you could borrow funds and if you taught five years,
you could get 10% of your debt forgiven for each of the five years. So
half of the debt could be forgiven. In fact, when I was an undergraduate
and I told you I worked in the business office there, I was in charge of
monitoring those programs. The other interesting thing I did as an
undergraduate is that I wrote out the checks for the faculty. They all had
to be written by hand in that small college that I went to, I didn't have
the authority to sign them, but I had to calculate all the checks and
write out their payroll checks. So they all knew that I knew what they
were getting paid
as a student. It was.
yeah, it seems like we're talking about trying to get more good quality
teachers. Maybe that would, the forgiveness of the debt would be. Well, I
think it was, I think it was a very, um, uh, very inventive program and I
hope that we can come up with something like that to encourage people to
go into teaching careers that was applicable, not just to college teaching
, but people that went into high school and elementary teaching as well.
Back at that time, they called it the National Defense Student loans. And
then I think they changed it to National Direct Student Loans. They kept
the same acronym but changed the name of,
um,
30 something daughter. She's still,
I believe in it. And the students that go to private institutions, I mean
, they come out with like $100,000 in debt and just think that's almost
the price of a house just in debt that they're paying off
the interest rate. It, yes, it does. Yes, it does.
What, what is it that the time that you were here at the su um, when did
you retire actually? Are you, you still teaching? No, I'm retired. I, uh,
I, I retired in May of 2004.
And, um, then the department chair during that summer contacted me and
asked me if I would be willing to come back. We had the untimely death of
one of our faculty members in the economics department. And he asked me if
I'd come back and teach during the fall of 2004. So I actually ended with
38.5 years and that half year was coming back to assist for an additional
semester because they were shorthanded. Looking back over all those years
, is there any particular um accomplishment that you're proudest of?
I don't know, that would probably sound arrogant to think that I made a
difference, but I hope I made a difference in the place.
Well, I tried to provide some leadership. I tried to treat people fairly.
I think um the different opportunities that I had to serve in
administrative roles. I, I think I made a difference.
What about your department? Is there anything special about the College of
Business that if you were to tell someone coming here, what, what makes
that special? One of the things that the department does is they put full
time faculty in the introductory courses. And I think that's something
that universities get a lot of criticism for if they don't do that, some
put teaching assistants in charge of the introductory courses and you
never see a full professor until you're in the junior or senior year. And
our department has made a conscious effort to put some of the regular full
time faculty in front of the new students coming in. And it's made a
difference in terms of majors because students are more attracted to
accept that as a major. If they've had a good experience with one of the
faculty in the introductory courses.
How about that? I don't know. I think there are some of us that didn't
mind it at all. I think there are others that would much rather deal with
graduate students and upper division students than have to deal with the
introductory level student. But I didn't mind it at all. Um You work with
a lot of the presidents over your career, could you reflect on each of
those and what your impressions were of them? Um Well, Homer Derham was
president when I came
and then when he took a position in Utah, Harry Durn became president and
I wasn't really involved in administration, so I didn't really get to know
Harry very well.
And then John Wade came after Harry and President Sua was here for, gosh,
I don't know how many years, probably 10 years or so.
It was um well, let me finish this scenario. Um Then um la
no, I meant sorry, Russ Nelson was next and then Lady Core and each of
them had something to bring to the table. I guess. It's kind of amazing
how it works out that as each institution evolves each person that they've
hired, I thought had some good things to bring to the table.
John Schwa was a little bit more of a person who was more close to himself
and not as outgoing as a couple of the others that followed him.
Russ Nelson was a wonderful person to work with. I enjoyed him very, very
much Russ was when he was in public and he was speaking and all that, he
was very proper and all of that.
But when you were in private, you found out that beneath all that was a
very wonderful sense of humor and very quick wit. And so it was fun to
have worked with him and then I worked with Laddie only for a short time,
but lady had a very
unique ability I think to reach out to and appeal to the community. And so
I think each of them had something to bring to the table. I think Russ
brought the research capabilities of the institution up. In fact, I think
we became research one largely as a result of a lot of what he did. So
they all have something to bring. And with Michael Crowe, I was retired
before he got here. So I don't know as much about Michael other than what
I read in the newspapers,
a lot of people have opinions about Michael Crow. Well, he's a very
proactive person and he's an entrepreneur and willing to take a lot of
risks. And I think that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Sometimes
goes back to what you said about the university tends to want to bring
people from outside. I think that's a typical pattern, not only at the U
but in many other institutions. And if you look at somebody that's had a
certain level of experience at another institution and you say, well, gee
maybe they got something they can bring. So it's not unusual,
was kind of unique in that he had roots here in Arizona. Yes. Yes, he did.
And I thought he use that to his advantage and to the advantage of the
institution.
Yeah. About the growth and change of the university that you, oh, wow.
It's been phenomenal. Not just the university but the community and all of
that. I remember when we, when we used to go into Phoenix, when we first
got here, we had to drive west on Broadway quite a ways before we could
ever get to the four lane highway which is interstate 10. And when you
went south, like on rural and mclintock, those streets became narrow, two
lane streets very quickly as you were going south. And now the development
has just been phenomenal
and the same thing with the university, it's grown quantitatively and
qualitatively so much during the years that I was blessed to be here.
I thought ASU had kind of a unique experience because we continued to try
to serve the community, continued to try to allow students to be here
because we were the only state university in the area. And still, at the
same time, I tried to enhance the research component of the institution.
So it was a delicate balance. I think that that we handled. I know today
they talk about the new university doing that, but the reality is we were
doing that for years. That's
co could you um just in fairly short sentence of say when you came here
about how many students and how much faculty and then when you left about
how big it was. I think when I first came that the institution was about
15,000 head count compared to what 65,000. Now on all the campuses
combined
the number of faculty total university. I don't know what that was at the
time I came, but it's easily quadrupled during that time period.
The Business College I know went from about 4000 students at the time I
got here or fewer to up over 10,000. By the time I moved over to the
provost office, we had more students than we gained in a year than what
the size of some smaller institutions were in total. It was like taking on
another university. In a year's time. And of course, the resources, as I
said before, they always fell behind because we never quite caught up with
the formula for funding. What was the biggest challenge that you faced
over your career here? I think one of the biggest challenges was that the
financial strains that we went through. We were trying to grow. We were
trying to get the resources we needed. We were in a space crunch. We were
in a financial crunch.
Economics talks about allocating scarce resources. And that's literally
what it was not only financial but space. I remember in the College of
Business, we were so tight on space that that after registration closed on
a given day, Lonnie Ostrom and Bill Heising and I would sit there until
sometimes the wee hours of the morning making up signs to move all the
classrooms around. We had a great big spreadsheet and we would move the
classrooms to accommodate the students rather than turning a student away
because we had reached capacity in that classroom. We would reorganize it
so that we could move that class to a larger classroom and swap them
around. The faculty would arrive the next morning and they would go to
their classroom and they would find a sign on the door which said your
class has been moved. Well, we would also put it on their office, but it
would say your class has been moved to B A 132 or something like that. And
they did it just routine. People just accepted that and they said, hey,
we're trying to accommodate the students needs. So I think the toughest
balance has been trying to balance out the finances and the space and
those were two areas that I worked a lot in the provost office.
Are there any particular students that you had during these years that you
remember
a number of them? In fact, I just got an email from one yesterday that
invited me to lunch. And two weeks ago, we went to the wedding of one of
my former students and I still get emails from a number of the students
that were involved in Alpha Kappa. I, when I was an advisor for that
organization and there are a lot of contacts I've retired but I haven't
disappeared and I still have the same email address that I had when I was
a faculty member. And I thought that was a blessing because I can still
send an email and say, oh, you're still there, you know. So it's good. Are
there any particular ones that they become successful or done? Notable
things that you can? Oh, yes. When I was in the associate dean position, I
was in charge of graduate programs in the doctoral program. And we had so
many of those people that had gone on. In fact, Steve Brown, one of our
own faculty members was in the doctor program at the time that I was
directing that program and he went somewhere else to Louisiana LSU. I
think it was. And then we hired him back because he was such an
outstanding faculty member. So any number of those, I wouldn't try to give
you a whole list of them. But Steve is a good example. What about
successful business people that went through?
Sure. There are a lot of those John Beling was one of my former students
runs Tempe decorating
here in Tempe and two or three other locations. And I had a number of
students that went on when you're teaching the large lecture sections, you
don't get the chance to get as close to some of the students as would
otherwise be the case. But in spite of that, I've had a number of students
that I directed their honors thesis and things like that, that I worked
with
one of my sons and I was in the business college and
he was in a program where he actually sort of designed a business. Uh I
mean, he came up with and I think with the small business and he came up
with it and when he graduated a couple of attorneys in Phoenix funded it
and he started the business, which became pretty,
that's great. Was that something that you did? Well, there was a small
business division within the college. I wasn't participating directly in
that other than maybe teaching the classes to some of the people that were
in the program, but I wasn't involved in running that program. But I think
that entrepreneurship was one of the greatest things you can teach our
youngsters because they learned how to do a business, how to develop a
business plan and hopefully succeed. Sounds like your son did. He, uh, he
, he, upon graduation, he, he went and built that business. It, they've
since sold it, but, uh they've got like five stores in the area and that's
great, you know, and a great big uh uh distribution center on Broadway
there.
Put his education to good use. That's great. Um Are there any other
memories you have of a su that you wanted to be sure and mention for?
Well, I think the memories
probably the people as much as anything because I just had so many
wonderful people to work with while I was in the Provost office. Matt
Betts was there, Joyce Foster.
Matt was a very wonderful person to work with. He was always there. He was
a lot of times the guy behind the scenes, but he's one that I would have
described as the one that would say, what can I do for the university? Not
what can the university do for me? Linda Vanoy was kind of my right hand
person for many years. All the 12 years I was in the Provost office and a
wonderful asset to the institution. So there are just so many people like
that. I run the risk of starting to name people and I know that I'm
leaving out somebody that I should have mentioned. But I think that's the
best memory I have of people that I worked with
things that happened that uh you, any of those you want, I hadn't tried to
even categorize any single thing because I guess the total picture is much
greater than the sum of the parts. It's been a wonderful experience and
the university gave me a lot of opportunities to do a lot of things while
I was here and I appreciate that I didn't have to move in order to get a
promotion or to get a different opportunity. And, and that was nice
because our family was here. Our Children were here and they're both
married and they're here with their kids. And then I got to thinking about
it and I said this is a place where everybody else tries to move when they
retire. And I said I'm already here. So what could be better than that?
No, no, we're here. We're here for the duration.
Well, they come to visit a lot. It's a good place to vacate in the winter
time. It's a good place to vacation. We discourage them from coming in the
summer. Um, well, what kind of advice do you have for young people that
are trying to decide what they wanna do with their lives?
Well, that's a good question. And I've answered that question to students
on several occasions. Basically, what I would say is this, they should do
something that they, like I said, I can't imagine anything worse than
going to work each day and not wanting to be there. So, don't look at what
the salary of the job is. Don't look at all of the financial implications
as much as you look at the satisfaction that you get from the job. Because
if you like to go to work and you like what you're doing, you don't mind
Monday mornings it's ok. It will be great and you'll have a happy life.
But if you just try to pursue something, well, I don't really like this
but I think I can make more money at it. You won't get the satisfaction
out of your work.
Anything else that you wanted to tell us that I didn't ask you.
You've been very thorough and I think your questions have been very
appropriate. I hope I've been able to answer them for you. You bob
anything that you wanted to ask. I can't think of anything right now, but
that's, it's been a wonderful interview. Thank you. Thank you.
The only, the only thing I would ask, we talked a little about the
presidents, but I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about some
of the themes of the college. Um And then what maybe from your viewpoint,
each of them kind of brought at that particular time to the column. OK. Um
Well, I worked with a lot of the deans. In fact, all the deans reported to
me from time to time, Alan Matheson, I thought was an absolutely
outstanding educator and administrator. I thought that he brought a lot to
the College of Law in all the years that he served in the dean or acting
dean role. I worked with Roland Hayden when he was Dean of Engineering, I
thought he brought the engineering college uh forward with the engineering
excellence program. Um worked with Gary Crayon Beell and I thought he
provided good leadership in liberal arts. Um Jules Heller in fine arts.
Jules was a very interesting person. He was a paper maker. He would make
his own paper for his artwork. But yet it was a good administrator.
George Amberson wasn't a dean, but he was a school director and I thought
George did an outstanding job with the students and with his faculty,
I should have prepared a list trying to remember all the
well in the business College Overman was dean for 25 years. And then when
I was in the provost office and Bill Seaman came in and Bill was here for
a short time.
He had come from Phelps Dodge didn't have a huge amount of educational
leadership experience, but he had a lot of CEO type experience and I think
he related pretty well to a lot of the businesses in the community. Then I
think after a short time, he went back to Washington to take a position
back there. That was back at the time when the savings and loans were
going through all of the turmoil. And they put him in a leadership role to
help resolve some of that issue.
And then Bill Rife took over temporarily after Bill Seaman left. And then
John Kraft was hired after that, John Kraft came from Florida and Kraft's
motivation was probably about 180 degrees from where Overman was. Oman was
interested in growing a larger better college and trying to serve all the
needs. Kraft was more interested in downsizing the college and forcing
more qualitative
improvement without serving as many students.
And then Larry Pendley came in and I thought Larry did an absolutely
wonderful job he was great to work with. And then after I started teaching
to work for,
the only thing he did was he asked me to write the accreditation report
after I came back to the college that year back for a couple of years and
I agreed to do it so it was ok, but it turned into a huge job, but Larry
was wonderful to work with and I thought that he did just a super job and
then he went on to become president at Colorado State that shows something
about his leadership as well. Um So those are the ones that I worked with
during that time period and I'm sure I'm leaving out some of the other
deans. Let's see, John Kraft was trying to downsize, that seems very
unusual that anybody would want to downsize. Well, that was his way. I
think of addressing the resource question. He said, if we don't have the
resources, then we're just not going to serve as many students. So I think
he took several actions which tended to make the college smaller. And then
after Larry Pendley took over, then I think the college grew again, just a
different approach to trying to solve a difficult problem.
It didn't fit quite as well with the Arizona needs is what some of us
thought it should. It seems like deans have become fundraisers more and
more over the years. And I think that probably that trend will continue.
It appears that that's what's going to be a large part of their task is to
generate the funds to help run their colleges. How do you feel about that
? Well, it means that they have to surround themselves with some very
capable people to run the inside of the colleges. And I think that's kind
of the model that we've seen in the business college now with Phil Over
gear doing a lot of the internal work for the
probably a trend we'll see more of.
I think that's probably going to be true in so many places because so many
states really don't have the resources to pour into education because
they're suppressed with other needs, transportation, whatever else. And
then of course, a lot of pressure in K through 12 to continue raising the
funding for that. So you think so the people that want to become a dean
have to think of it as being a fundraiser rather than, I think a good
portion of their task will be for fundraising. Yes, I really do rather
than doing more of the hands on leadership. I think, as I said before,
they'll have to surround themselves with good people to do the internal
work.
University presidents. Yes, it is. Is that a change? Well, I think the
president has always been kind of the external person and I'm sure Lonnie
and the foundation people could tell you more about that, but they always
want to get a bigger and bigger share of the president's time because when
it's time to close a deal, so to speak for a huge grant, it's usually the
president that the donor wants to give it to. And that's not been unusual.
Anything else
you have anything that you thought you want to add? I think you've been
very thorough and I appreciate the opportunity to have done this. I think
it's a great project and I hope that the video history project can help
preserve some of our history. Thank you.