WEBVTT

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 And I'll start off by identifying on the, on the tape that today is

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Wednesday, December the fifth of 2007.
And we're here at the, the A SU

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Community Services building doing an
oral history interview for the A su

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Retirees Association Living History
video project. Uh I'm Pam Stevenson

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doing the interview and Manny Garcia
is our videographer and I'll let you

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give this your full name Lynn Gordon,
as opposed to Leonard since I came

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here in 67 even the president calls me
Lynn. So I've given up being called

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Leonard. It's Lynn. Ok, I see

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and tell me when you were born and
where you were born. I was born on

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December 6th, 1935 in Detroit,
Michigan. The year that the Detroit Tigers

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won the world championship, the
Detroit Lions won the NFL football

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championship and the Detroit Red Wings
won the Stanley Cup. Very big year.

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And uh tomorrow's your birthday. Happy
birthday. Thank you very much. Um

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, ok, let's talk a little bit about
what was it like when you were growing

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up? Did you grow up there? Yes, I did.
And what was in the middle of the

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depression and I even have memories of
that. It was very tough. My dad and

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my mom were both Russian Jewish
immigrants and didn't have much schooling

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and my dad was a tailor and he was
starting a small tailor men's

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haberdashery store. And I remember the
stories of how he'd go and get used

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clothing and then redo them, clean
them and sew them together and he

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started his business and he just
interacted with people very pleasantly.

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And so customers really liked him and
he did a good job in tailoring. So

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we made a living, but it was, I
remember apartment was above where his

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tailor and haberdashery store was.
And, uh long steps and, uh, my earliest

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memories were being in a crib, uh, and
watching customers, uh, look at me

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as, as I was standing up and my mom
was working in the store selling ties

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and other things. And, uh, and that
continued pretty much. My dad didn't

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find he was drafted in the Navy in
World War Two. And I remember that nice

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letter from President Roosevelt saying
greetings. And we went to the

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Federal building downtown Detroit and
my dad passed the physical and I

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asked him what service he wanted to
be. And he said, I guess the army, he

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said, you're in the Navy. And the guy
behind him said the Navy said you're

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in the army. And so that's the way
they operated. And then after the war,

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they got out in 45

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his business, he worked very hard and
had a nice business and saved up and

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sent my four year old brother to
college. And me and my brother is a

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pharmacist and I developed an academic
career and got a phd in sociology.

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My first two degrees at Michigan and
Wayne State are in history, which for

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me has been a good combination in
teaching

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a little bit about growing up. You say
you had one brother,

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older, four years older, he was a
pharmacist in Michigan for like 35 years.

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And then he and his wife Ruth went
down to Florida. They live in Boca

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Raton and he passed the pharmaceutical
board in Florida. So he, he still

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works as a pharmacist there.

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Although he travels a lot

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growing up there, you say they were
Russian immigrants? Was there a

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community of Russian immigrants? It,
it's quite a large Jewish community

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and I think a lot of us were Russian
or Polish immigrants and it was, it

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was I'm part of the first generation,
born in the United States being in

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Detroit. But I remember before my dad
went in the Navy since he didn't

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have any schooling, he couldn't read
or write. So my brother, he would put

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out the Detroit free press on the
dining room table. And my brother and I

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would take turns reading the news to
him. So he would know what's going on

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and he was very bright, he just didn't
have any schooling. And the Detroit

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was a booming city. At that time, the
factories were going 24 hours a day

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during world war, I, I putting out
tanks and airplanes. And then after the

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war, the automobile industry which I
hope does again, really boomed in

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Detroit and Detroit, the city itself
got to be almost 2 million by the FS

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, not counting the suburbs. So it was
really a dynamic city and it was an

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exciting place to be in some ways. I
remember growing up in Detroit at

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that time, almost felt like being in
Phoenix now with all the burgeoning

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developments, not only in Phoenix, but
of course, in Tempe and Scottsdale

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and Chandler mesa, all the Glendale
all around as a child. Then did, did

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you learn to speak Russian? The rare
of Irish, which means uh hello,

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friend a few a little bit. But mostly
uh the uh my parents, uh when they

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spoke another language that they
thought my brother and I couldn't

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understand it was Yiddish. And uh if
you understand Yiddish, you

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understand German uh a lot. So, uh
when I was going through, you had to

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pass exams in German and French for
your phd. And uh German was pretty

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easy because uh 70% of Yiddish is
German. So, uh that, that, that helped.

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But uh it was, it was English really,
uh mostly it's surprising how many

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people I've interviewed that did have
have their first language was

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another language if they had parents
that were immigrants and John, F

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Long's first language was German.
Yeah. Very common for people who

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immigrated from another country and
for their Children to grow up until

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they went to school, uh, learning,
speaking another language. Um You, you

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sound like you're very vivid memories
as a child if you can remember being

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in a play pin or a crib. Well, that's
my earliest memory. I definitely

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remember that. But there were a lot of
people who would come in and talk

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to me and I'm sure my brother had the
same experience four years earlier.

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What about going to school there? What kind of school did you go to school

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? Was good. The started out at
Greenfield elementary school.

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And of course, at that time, I say, of
course, because it was true of a

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lot of people within eight or nine
blocks. Like there were seven brothers

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and two sisters on my dad's side
alone. My grandparents on my dad's side

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lived right next to the elementary
school. So you could walk and I could

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say hello and get food anywhere I
wanted uh along the way. And that was

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common of Italian families and others
uh in the in the area. So, um and

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then we moved to uh still Detroit but
uh nor Northwest Detroit to a two

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flat. But I was within two blocks of a
high income area and the elementary

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school was Hampton and it was maybe
one of the best around. They already

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were teaching math and languages in
the 7th and 8th grade. So that was a

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great experience. Then I went to
Mumford High School, which we 80% went on

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to college from Mumford and cast a
tech and Mumford were the two major

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college prep public schools in
Detroit. I had really good grounding to go

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to the University of Michigan and
Wayne State University for different

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degrees. And that was a great
opportunity at the time. You say your dad

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was away during the war years. What
was that like? How did you survive?

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Well, my dad's brother was a partner.
I, and so, and my mom worked in the

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store. So I and my Aunt Esther and my
mom kept the business going. And, uh

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, my brother and I, you worked in the
store, you cleaned up the floors,

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you straighten out the, uh, the pants
and other merchandise. So, uh, it

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was a fan and then my cousins, we,
we'd be in, it was really, so it kept

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going. Um, and the, uh, uh, so it was
still an operation and then they

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each established their own stores
after the war. And so, um, it was, in

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fact all the stores were Taylor and
Haberdashery stores. There's seven

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brothers and they all all did the same
thing and a lot of people thought

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it was a corporation, but they are all
individually owned, but they all

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said Gordon Taylor and Cleaners

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when your father was away, were you
worried about him? And I stayed with

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his younger brother Joe, who had
diabetes. And I remember staying one

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summer there and in fact, the cousins,
we had dinners every Sunday with

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all the cousins, the seven brothers
and two sisters, my grandparents. So

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we're still quite close. We get
together in Montana. My cousin miles has

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and his wife have a nice summer place
up there and they still interact. My

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cousin, Milt who's a dentist just came
in. He's coming back with his wife

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, Cheryl. So there's a group of Gordon
cousins that are still very close

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going back to that period. That must
have been a hard time though, as a

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young boy through the war years to
know your father was well, my dad

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because he couldn't read or write, he
learned three words and he sent a

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letter that was eight pages long and
on every page it simply said, I love

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you. And I think six of the pages were
for my mom and the other two for my

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brother and me. No, that's good that
he learned that. Yes. That's right.

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So, where, where did he serve your
dad? Where did he serve during the war

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during the war? Yeah. 4445. You know,
did you know where he was? No, he

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actually, because he was a tailor,
they made him into a tailor and they

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really needed tailors. And when the
kids used to watch movies, like Midway

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and the Japanese planes were attacking
and the guys would be going up to

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mount the guns to protect the ship as
the plane. I said, if it wasn't for

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grandpa, a would be falling down, we
might have lost that war.

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So that's what my kids, of course.

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No, he actually, they kept him at camp
Perry, Virginia, which is a CBS

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camp as guys were getting ready to go
off, he was fixing their clothes.

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I did have a cousin who fought in
Sicily and Italy and it was in right

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after D day. That was a first cousin
who also was Russian Jewish

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immigrants. So it was when you went
into the, for my dad and my cousin,

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you put stars in your window. People
were very proud to be participating

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in the war effort at that time.

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So during those years, what were you
thinking about? What were you going

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to do when you grew up as a boy? I
wanted to play center field for the

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Detroit Tigers or dance on Broadway. I
really like Gene Kelly and Fred

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Astaire and the Tigers had some great
teams. I mean, when I was growing up

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, they won four pennants in two world
championships. And Hank Greenberg,

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their first baseman who's in the hall
of fame was Jewish. He wouldn't play

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on Young Kipper. And, uh, one year the
New York Times read out. Thank God.

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It's young Kipper Greenberg can't play
because he knocked in 100 and 83

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runs. One year, hit 58 homers and
another, I mean, he really was and the

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Tigers had just great teams. So I got
really excited about that. But all

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of my cousins and were going to
college and the two things where you

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become a, a physician or an attorney
and my brother being a pharmacist, my

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dad had the idea of buying a little
building and I would have my medical

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practice upstairs. I'd get the MD. My
brother is a pharmacist and I'd send

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patients down to get their drug, you
know, the prescriptions. And one day

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when I came home and I told my dad,
I'm going to get a doctor's degree and

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he was so happy. I said it's a phd,
not an MD, but my son, Matt is an MD.

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So they were happy that he wanted to
be. So why didn't you want to go and

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become a doctor?

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Rena? My wife, we were teenage
sweethearts and she was so encouraging me

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to be basically anything I wanted to
be. And I was interested in history

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at the time and I was interested in
asking questions about how we got

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where we are, where we are, what we
stand for as a country and what's

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happening in the world. And I learned
what a phd was and that you actually

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could do research and teach in that
area and publish. And I just got

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excited about that, even as I was
starting to go to college. And even

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though I think it initially
disappointed my parents, they were happy over

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time as I did. Ok, I got an early on a
National Science Foundation grant

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when I was 25 and then a Rockefeller
grant and I taught at Wayne State

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University for a few years before
coming here. So they saw that I was

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making a living and doing ok. And so
it worked out.

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So where did you actually go to high
school then Mumford High? And that

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was really a very good college prep
high school. And it had another

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dimension to it. There was a very poor
all black area near the baseline

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Eight Mile Road. In fact, there was a
movie called Eight Mile Road and I

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think started, that's the boundary
between Detroit and the suburbs. And

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about 15% of the students were low
income black students who were in our

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district. So here you had this high
achieving a lot of Jewish students,

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but also high achieving white
Protestants and Catholics at the school. And

00:14:13.038 --> 00:14:16.976
these blacks and they did much better
than I think they would have if they

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had gone to another Detroit school.
And that was a healthy thing because

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we had a mixture racially and
ethnically and religiously at the school.

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And it was a high achieving school. So
I think Mumford and Rene and I were

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in the first graduating class in 53.
So we were always seniors because we

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were the first freshman, first,
sophomore, junior and senior. I think that

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did something to our psyche and that
was our experience. And there have

00:14:45.928 --> 00:14:49.356
been reunions. We were at a number of
reunions of that first class. There

00:14:49.389 --> 00:14:53.186
were about 450 of us in that first
class. You know, there's something

00:14:53.219 --> 00:14:58.086
about starting a new school too, sort
of cader and then it may have

00:14:58.119 --> 00:15:02.145
influenced why I was attracted out
here at Arizona State with the new

00:15:02.178 --> 00:15:05.255
programs we were developing, going to
school. You talked about, you wanted

00:15:05.288 --> 00:15:08.576
to be a center fielder. Did you play
sports? I played in the Detroit

00:15:08.609 --> 00:15:13.236
Leagues for a few years with the
Detroit Giants and in the fast pitch

00:15:13.269 --> 00:15:19.836
league sponsored by the field. Wright
Paint company and, and this is my

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fifth year of softball. So I'm back
playing center field here at El Dorado

00:15:23.450 --> 00:15:26.706
Park in Scottsdale.

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That's right. But you never did make
the major league. My next door

00:15:31.808 --> 00:15:37.275
neighbor Marty Eskin who tragically
was killed in Korea. He went over

00:15:37.308 --> 00:15:42.086
there to fight, but he got three bonus
offers with the Detroit Tigers, the

00:15:42.119 --> 00:15:47.467
Phillies, Philadelphia Phillies and
the Chicago Cubs. And he trained me in

00:15:47.500 --> 00:15:50.856
center field. In fact, his parents
called me over and gave me all. I still

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have his glove and I really was
interested my parents at that time. Ball

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players didn't get paid that much,
believe it or not, even if you were a

00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:05.625
first stringer and even an all star,
you might get 18, 20,000 a year. They

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said if you were a position, you could
earn more than that even then. So I

00:16:10.440 --> 00:16:16.196
just never pursued that. But that was
Al Kine, the Hall of Famer, right

00:16:16.229 --> 00:16:21.047
fielder. He was keen to the Tigers
right out of high school in Baltimore.

00:16:21.080 --> 00:16:24.596
He couldn't relate to the older
Tigers. So he used to come and play catch

00:16:24.629 --> 00:16:28.566
with us at Mumford High school and we
used to sit in right field and watch

00:16:28.599 --> 00:16:32.846
him. He was such a right fielder and
hitter too. He led the league in

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major leagues when he was 21 years old
at 340. So

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maybe in today's environment, my
parents might have thought differently

00:16:44.479 --> 00:16:47.917
because the ball players get fat a lot
more now that they have free agency

00:16:47.950 --> 00:16:51.677
because they can then contract with
different clubs. You couldn't win at

00:16:51.710 --> 00:16:57.385
that time. You were owned by one club,
a whole different world. A rod's

00:16:57.418 --> 00:17:00.525
world. We call it

00:17:00.558 --> 00:17:02.726
um

00:17:02.759 --> 00:17:05.526
oh your, your father didn't want you
to be a tailor and carry on the

00:17:05.559 --> 00:17:12.065
family business. Uh Actually if uh I
think he wouldn't have been unhappy

00:17:12.098 --> 00:17:17.166
if I had taken over the business uh
or, or my brother, but like his

00:17:17.199 --> 00:17:20.867
brothers and sisters, he wanted his
Children to become a professional, go

00:17:20.900 --> 00:17:24.676
to college. And uh it's interesting.
Not in business, but it was

00:17:24.709 --> 00:17:29.835
overwhelmingly either law or medicine
and my cousins, that's what they're

00:17:29.868 --> 00:17:35.196
in. Either they're either physicians
or dentists or in, in law. And, uh,

00:17:35.229 --> 00:17:39.127
their Children, I think are doing many
different things and there wasn't

00:17:39.160 --> 00:17:45.476
anybody going for a phd when I
started, at least in my family and that's

00:17:45.509 --> 00:17:49.647
emerged and now we have a lot of
Jewish faculty as every research

00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:56.127
university does now, but not at that
time, not back in the 50 s.

00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:01.637
Um Well, so once you graduated from
high school, where did, did you decide

00:18:01.670 --> 00:18:05.367
to go to college? Did you, you know,
find different places or actually, I

00:18:05.400 --> 00:18:09.266
started out as a high school teacher
in Oak Park, Michigan, which is right

00:18:09.299 --> 00:18:13.357
outside of Detroit. It was another
high achieving um high school and I did

00:18:13.390 --> 00:18:20.676
that for three years. And uh we were
uh actually, uh I was getting my

00:18:20.709 --> 00:18:26.746
master's, it was I, I graduated early,
I guess I was 21

00:18:26.779 --> 00:18:30.335
and I was hired on the condition that
I had finished my masters that first

00:18:30.368 --> 00:18:36.147
year, which I did. But Renan was 19. I
was 20 when we were married because

00:18:36.180 --> 00:18:43.476
we had been sweethearts since we were
15. And so I needed to start making

00:18:43.509 --> 00:18:48.867
a living and we graduated in 57

00:18:48.900 --> 00:18:55.736
I mean, 5055 we married uh and uh we
graduated in 57. So we thought we

00:18:55.769 --> 00:18:59.315
could start raising a family at that.
Point. And um our oldest daughter,

00:18:59.348 --> 00:19:02.926
Melinda Sue, who's a cinematographer
shooting a new Nicole Kidman movie in

00:19:02.959 --> 00:19:10.959
Germany. I, I was talking about before
she um was due September 10th, 1957.

00:19:12.068 --> 00:19:14.068
And I stayed up all night with Rene in the hospital, Sinai Hospital in

00:19:16.880 --> 00:19:21.916
Detroit. And she took my hand about
six o'clock in the morning and said,

00:19:21.949 --> 00:19:26.416
honey, you better start earning a
living and teach. So I went to Oak Park

00:19:26.449 --> 00:19:31.456
High and that was my first class and
they had loose chairs and the class

00:19:31.489 --> 00:19:36.097
moved in. It was an American history
class. And the secretary came from

00:19:36.130 --> 00:19:39.986
the office and said, you better call
the hospital. So I asked a little boy

00:19:40.019 --> 00:19:42.597
by the name of Donald. He was kind of
short. I said, would you tell the

00:19:42.630 --> 00:19:47.357
class what you did this summer,
Donald? And I went and ran to a phone and

00:19:47.390 --> 00:19:51.946
called and found out that Rena was
fine and we had a beautiful £7 baby

00:19:51.979 --> 00:19:57.555
girl, Melinda Sue. And so I felt
better and I came back to the class, the

00:19:57.588 --> 00:20:00.347
cheers, most of them were on the
floor. They were playing tag, running

00:20:00.380 --> 00:20:05.535
around and at the front of the
classroom, Donald was saying, and then we

00:20:05.568 --> 00:20:09.565
went to Yosemite and nobody was
listening to the guy, but he was my

00:20:09.598 --> 00:20:15.367
favorite student in my three years
teaching in high school. So, and then

00:20:15.400 --> 00:20:21.206
after three years, I got a call from
uh I got my masters at Michigan in

00:20:21.239 --> 00:20:25.476
history, had my bachelor's in history
at Wayne State and then three of my

00:20:25.509 --> 00:20:28.805
former sociology professors.

00:20:28.838 --> 00:20:32.967
I had also been called by the history
department.

00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:36.736
Professor Kelly was the chair, he was
a constitutional historian and

00:20:36.769 --> 00:20:42.795
others. They wanted to give me $2200
to work on a phd in history. And I

00:20:42.828 --> 00:20:46.656
was earning 5000

00:20:46.689 --> 00:20:49.867
in teaching high school. So that was
kind of tough. I was thinking about

00:20:49.900 --> 00:20:52.377
it and Rena was encouraging me to do
whatever I could. We'd figure out a

00:20:52.410 --> 00:20:56.956
way of doing it. And then three of my
sociology professors called and said

00:20:56.989 --> 00:21:02.506
they would offer me 208,000 more if I
would teach some sociology classes

00:21:02.539 --> 00:21:07.347
but agree to work on a phd in
sociology. So my students asked me how I got

00:21:07.380 --> 00:21:11.006
into sociology, I say on the basis of
principle and interest. And because

00:21:11.039 --> 00:21:14.387
that's what I took, the 3000 looked
really important at that point. And

00:21:14.420 --> 00:21:19.956
that's what I did. And so I got, I
taught for a few years at Wayne State.

00:21:19.989 --> 00:21:25.676
And then I became, I was asked to be
the research director for the Jewish

00:21:25.709 --> 00:21:33.709
Community Council after in 62. And
that paid about 3000 more. And then the

00:21:34.578 --> 00:21:39.137
American Jewish committee
headquartered in New York, which is the oldest

00:21:39.170 --> 00:21:42.166
community relations organization in
the country. It's even a few years

00:21:42.199 --> 00:21:46.347
older than the N A AC P asked me if I
would become the Michigan area

00:21:46.380 --> 00:21:52.785
director and I did that and they paid
even more. So I did that while still

00:21:52.818 --> 00:21:59.575
teaching courses at Wayne State. And
then I got contacted by Tom Holt who

00:21:59.608 --> 00:22:03.776
is the Chair of Sociology here at
Arizona State because once I got my phd

00:22:03.809 --> 00:22:09.535
, I had two offers in New York. I won
an academic career and I was going

00:22:09.568 --> 00:22:16.545
to leave AJ C. But Tom Holt said
Arizona State University is starting its

00:22:16.578 --> 00:22:22.496
phd programs. About 90% of them were
created between 65 and 75. And we're

00:22:22.529 --> 00:22:27.946
recruiting research faculty and it's a
great opportunity for you. And he

00:22:27.979 --> 00:22:30.996
asked me to come out and interview,
they had two other interviews, but I

00:22:31.029 --> 00:22:35.785
was one of them and they made an offer
and even though it was less than

00:22:35.818 --> 00:22:40.305
the New York offers or what I was
earning with AJ C, I saw it as a great

00:22:40.338 --> 00:22:43.217
opportunity and,

00:22:43.250 --> 00:22:47.717
and it was, there were over 20,000
students here even then. So it wasn't,

00:22:47.750 --> 00:22:51.147
I mean, when I went to the University
of Michigan, they had 17,000. So it

00:22:51.180 --> 00:22:56.127
was a big university even then. And I
saw they were recruiting faculty

00:22:56.160 --> 00:23:01.857
from Michigan and Illinois and Harvard
and other places. And I said this

00:23:01.890 --> 00:23:06.585
is going to be a really first rate
research university. And uh so I went

00:23:06.618 --> 00:23:10.416
into my son's room to look at the map
because I didn't know where Arizona

00:23:10.449 --> 00:23:15.766
was. I thought it was next to Texas.
And uh now my wife Rena has a phd in

00:23:15.799 --> 00:23:22.246
geography and I think I'm one of her
inspirations. So, um so we came out,

00:23:22.279 --> 00:23:25.127
the kids were excited because they
wanted to know what the West looked

00:23:25.160 --> 00:23:29.367
like. And uh and when we came out
here, it really was an exciting

00:23:29.400 --> 00:23:32.897
atmosphere as it is today because we
knew we were developing something

00:23:32.930 --> 00:23:37.486
special and we were newer heading
toward research one status. That's the

00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:41.617
Carnegie Foundation identification of
major research universities, which

00:23:41.650 --> 00:23:48.315
we achieved in 93. So that's what 14
years ago now. But we knew we were

00:23:48.348 --> 00:23:52.436
going to do that. I just looked around
and we were getting research grants

00:23:52.469 --> 00:23:57.647
, not just in my department but
biochemistry, Mort Monk was from Wayne

00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:01.967
State University. He got his phd in
chemistry and I saw that program

00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:06.206
developing physics, history, political
science. It really was an exciting

00:24:06.239 --> 00:24:10.805
time and an atmosphere. Well, tell me
about your first trip to Arizona.

00:24:10.838 --> 00:24:14.397
Did you come out here to see it before
you made a decision? They always

00:24:14.430 --> 00:24:21.186
fly you out now. Um The process was
the same then as it is now we recruit

00:24:21.219 --> 00:24:25.476
in January and February and don't play
up what it looks like in August.

00:24:25.509 --> 00:24:29.887
And so I had no idea. All I saw was
this beautiful environment. And I

00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:32.516
remember calling Rina right away. I
said, you've never seen anything like

00:24:32.549 --> 00:24:37.467
this. It was snowing and it was, it
was cold and icy in Detroit as it is

00:24:37.500 --> 00:24:40.776
in January. And

00:24:40.809 --> 00:24:47.426
the guys were so nice but it was a new
atmosphere. I mean, Tom wanted to

00:24:47.459 --> 00:24:51.035
take me around the chair of the
department. We came into Scottsdale during

00:24:51.068 --> 00:24:55.535
the Prada Del Sol and I'd never heard
of that. And as we were riding along

00:24:55.568 --> 00:25:01.137
, I saw two guys with guns coming and
they drew out a gun and shot and one

00:25:01.170 --> 00:25:05.647
fell down And I turned to Tom, I said,
Tom, and I pointed and he looked

00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:08.285
and he said, oh yeah. And then he
said, and on this side, there's a

00:25:08.318 --> 00:25:12.276
wonderful story. You can get some nice
gifts for your kids. And Rena, I

00:25:12.309 --> 00:25:15.315
remember coming back to the university
and I pulled over, I think it was

00:25:15.348 --> 00:25:19.847
Fred Woodham, one of the other young
guys they had hired a year before I

00:25:19.880 --> 00:25:23.717
said, Fred, I said, when you have an
argument out here, how do you, I mean

00:25:23.750 --> 00:25:27.835
, I was pretty naive. I have to admit
he laughed when he heard about that.

00:25:27.868 --> 00:25:31.285
And I found out what that was like,
but it was just a totally different

00:25:31.318 --> 00:25:37.147
atmosphere and it was so we came out
in August and of course, it was 100

00:25:37.180 --> 00:25:42.467
and nine degrees. And uh that was uh I
remember Carl Dannen Feld, who was

00:25:42.500 --> 00:25:45.516
Dean of our College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences. He became vice president

00:25:45.549 --> 00:25:51.035
later, he put his hand on my shoulder.
He says, Lynn, don't worry about

00:25:51.068 --> 00:25:56.776
these, uh, this heat. He said you'll
get used to it. And about 35 years

00:25:56.809 --> 00:25:59.986
later we had lunch and I said, Carl,
how long does it take to get used to

00:26:00.019 --> 00:26:04.805
this? But it, it's, it's fine. What
did your family think? Did you drive

00:26:04.838 --> 00:26:10.446
from Detroit to Arizona? We did, we
took the famous old route 66. I

00:26:10.479 --> 00:26:15.555
remember. Um, and uh south of Chicago
all the way out. But my parents here

00:26:15.588 --> 00:26:19.545
, they came, they're Russian Jewish
immigrants and they said, how could

00:26:19.578 --> 00:26:24.535
you go so far? You know, if I'd been
uh an MD or an attorney, I'd be right

00:26:24.568 --> 00:26:29.535
there in Detroit. And they couldn't
imagine moving out there here. They

00:26:29.568 --> 00:26:33.347
come all the way from Russia, but they
used to come out and once they saw

00:26:33.380 --> 00:26:37.127
it in the winter time and they used to
stay with us and they found it a

00:26:37.160 --> 00:26:42.916
wonderful experience and as time has
gone on, other cousins have moved out

00:26:42.949 --> 00:26:47.246
mostly to California, Los Angeles.
There are great opportunities for them

00:26:47.279 --> 00:26:52.936
there. So some of our family are much
closer now in California than if we

00:26:52.969 --> 00:26:56.266
had stayed in Detroit.

00:26:56.299 --> 00:27:00.785
So, what was your family's first
impression driving into Arizona? The kids

00:27:00.818 --> 00:27:08.818
that was 1967. Let's see, we left
Detroit with kids. We had a Chevy

00:27:09.439 --> 00:27:13.936
station wagon and I remember we went,
oh, maybe 70 or 80 miles. And the

00:27:13.969 --> 00:27:17.766
kids started asking, are we almost
there? And they'd never been on that

00:27:17.799 --> 00:27:22.946
long a trip. In fact, Rene and I had
never been on that long a trip. And,

00:27:22.979 --> 00:27:26.897
but they were excited, there were so
many things to see like when we

00:27:26.930 --> 00:27:32.387
crossed the Mississippi at ST Louis
and they had that great bridge already

00:27:32.420 --> 00:27:37.325
up that they're famous for. I remember
my youngest daughter, Melissa,

00:27:37.358 --> 00:27:42.035
who's a silk artist in Maui. Now we
were crossing and I said, honey, this

00:27:42.068 --> 00:27:46.877
is the famous Mississippi river and
she looked over as we were going over

00:27:46.910 --> 00:27:49.607
the bridge. And when we got through,
he says, when do we get to the

00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:54.325
Mississippi River? And so I said, they
had, we just had a lot of fun going

00:27:54.358 --> 00:28:01.156
out and they went to, uh, at the time,
we didn't move into Tempe because

00:28:01.189 --> 00:28:05.117
the Stockyards I think were, were
either in Van Buren or Washington, but

00:28:05.150 --> 00:28:09.117
they used to slaughter cattle there.
And if you went to a football game in

00:28:09.150 --> 00:28:12.196
September and the breeze came, there
would be a groan that would go

00:28:12.229 --> 00:28:16.887
through the whole stadium. So we were
told don't buy in Tempe because they

00:28:16.920 --> 00:28:20.085
moved those out, I think in the early
seventies. But in 67 a lot of

00:28:20.118 --> 00:28:27.357
faculty moved into Scottsdale. And so
we did and the kids went to

00:28:27.390 --> 00:28:31.946
elementary school and then so high
they had very good schooling they do in

00:28:31.979 --> 00:28:35.805
Scottsdale. But when they moved the
Stockyards out re and I thought it

00:28:35.838 --> 00:28:40.276
would be nice to be within walking
distance of the university, our kids,

00:28:40.309 --> 00:28:43.617
they said you took us all the way from
Michigan. We have all our friends

00:28:43.650 --> 00:28:46.045
and so they didn't want to leave their
school in Scottsdale. So we're

00:28:46.078 --> 00:28:48.967
still in Scottsdale.

00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:53.575
Yeah. A lot of the faculty did live
close by that, that I've talked to,

00:28:53.608 --> 00:28:58.065
bought homes in once they moved the
stock yards out. That was the common

00:28:58.098 --> 00:29:03.486
procedure. Right. Um, so what was it
like? What was the campus like when

00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:08.847
you came here in 1967? Well, they were
already building uh a lot because

00:29:08.880 --> 00:29:14.097
uh while there were over 20,000
students when I came, we were already one

00:29:14.130 --> 00:29:18.041
of the three fastest grow states in
the Union along with Nevada and

00:29:18.074 --> 00:29:22.450
Florida. And so you saw this
burgeoning going on, there was housing

00:29:22.483 --> 00:29:27.631
construction, residential construction
in the university had to also do.

00:29:27.664 --> 00:29:30.232
In fact, the only time there wasn't
construction was during the

00:29:30.265 --> 00:29:34.160
recessionary period. And we did have
some of that in the seventies with

00:29:34.193 --> 00:29:40.160
OPEC the oil embargo and it slowed
down, but it only slowed down, the

00:29:40.193 --> 00:29:44.805
students kept coming because we were a
growth state. And of course, we

00:29:44.838 --> 00:29:50.676
still very much are. And so in some
ways, it reflected what's happening

00:29:50.709 --> 00:29:54.535
now, there was a lot of excitement
about the programs we were developing.

00:29:54.568 --> 00:29:59.127
One of the things that we realized
over time was something we had to

00:29:59.160 --> 00:30:05.976
address. We were so focused on
creating good, very good phd programs. With

00:30:06.009 --> 00:30:09.387
research faculty and having doctoral
students. And we recruited around the

00:30:09.420 --> 00:30:11.825
country

00:30:11.858 --> 00:30:16.656
that there was, I think a neglect of
undergraduate education. So we would

00:30:16.689 --> 00:30:21.906
force students into classes of 34, 500
in psychology and sociology and

00:30:21.939 --> 00:30:28.107
political science. And even in the
chemistry and physics, you had very

00:30:28.140 --> 00:30:33.387
large classes because we wanted to
spend our time with graduate students.

00:30:33.420 --> 00:30:37.946
When I got grants, whether they're NSF
or Rockefeller or other grants,

00:30:37.979 --> 00:30:41.147
you brought on students into the
project and you worked with them and

00:30:41.180 --> 00:30:46.555
helped train them. And that was
exciting. But we realized by the mid to

00:30:46.588 --> 00:30:49.726
late 70 s that we had better start
focusing on the quality of

00:30:49.759 --> 00:30:53.085
undergraduate education because that's
where many of our graduate students

00:30:53.118 --> 00:30:59.815
come from. And I think it's a more
balanced approach now and that was one

00:30:59.848 --> 00:31:03.535
of the things we had to learn with all
that rapid development to become a

00:31:03.568 --> 00:31:11.568
research. One university. I want to
know how it became a party at a school

00:31:11.910 --> 00:31:14.996
that was a reputation

00:31:15.029 --> 00:31:20.377
more than the reality, even when I was
here. It's simply that Arizona

00:31:20.410 --> 00:31:23.906
State University has more sun

00:31:23.939 --> 00:31:27.666
annually than any other university in
the country. And so when you go to

00:31:27.699 --> 00:31:31.565
the dorms, you see young people out
sunbathing and a lot of the young

00:31:31.598 --> 00:31:36.236
women are in bathing suits. And so you
have these reporters come and take

00:31:36.269 --> 00:31:40.506
pictures and you get the image, it
made it appear as though it was a party

00:31:40.539 --> 00:31:45.045
school. Well, I remember going back to
Michigan, I had several research

00:31:45.078 --> 00:31:47.746
grants to Black white leadership
studies in the Detroit area. And I'd

00:31:47.779 --> 00:31:51.416
visit friends in Ann Arbor. It was in
the summertime and I looked around

00:31:51.449 --> 00:31:55.496
and I said, you know, the codes here
are as attractive as they are at a su

00:31:55.529 --> 00:32:00.315
it's just that they're covered up most
of the time. And so, uh we, we

00:32:00.348 --> 00:32:04.565
never really had

00:32:04.598 --> 00:32:08.986
the reality of being a party school
the way the image was. And once we

00:32:09.019 --> 00:32:13.906
became research one, I think we're no
longer in that top listing. But, but

00:32:13.939 --> 00:32:17.926
I think that's part of how that
happened. Let me go back to 1967 when you

00:32:17.959 --> 00:32:21.726
arrived here. Where was your office?
And where did you, where were the

00:32:21.759 --> 00:32:26.916
classes held? What was the social
science building? The one with an atrium

00:32:26.949 --> 00:32:30.756
in the middle and the fountain. And
then they had a screen on the open

00:32:30.789 --> 00:32:34.176
area in the middle and it was air
conditioned outside so that it was

00:32:34.209 --> 00:32:37.496
comfortable as you walked in. Even
before you got to your office.

00:32:37.529 --> 00:32:40.357
Originally, Sociology was on the first
floor and then we were moved to the

00:32:40.390 --> 00:32:43.867
third floor. There was a problem with
that building because it was the

00:32:43.900 --> 00:32:47.847
last one built under the University of
Arizona influence. When I was Chair

00:32:47.880 --> 00:32:52.305
of Sociology, I was on the planning
committee for the core building and

00:32:52.338 --> 00:32:58.476
one of the older members of our
facilities management team here at ASU

00:32:58.509 --> 00:33:02.315
told me that until the early 60 s, the
University of Arizona influence was

00:33:02.348 --> 00:33:06.857
so great on the board of Regents that
when a building went up in Tucson

00:33:06.890 --> 00:33:10.206
and the building went up in Tempe, the
University of Arizona would get

00:33:10.239 --> 00:33:15.186
copper wiring, we get lead wiring, we
got secondary materials and the

00:33:15.219 --> 00:33:18.575
building, the social science building
I think was the last built under

00:33:18.608 --> 00:33:23.676
that influence. Now, since then, our
buildings are as good as theirs. But

00:33:23.709 --> 00:33:27.916
the building was sinking in one area.

00:33:27.949 --> 00:33:33.315
And the roof when we have these
downpours in August or January, the

00:33:33.348 --> 00:33:38.217
monsoon season, I would be sitting and
very often water would be coming in

00:33:38.250 --> 00:33:42.897
on your desk and in the books, I can't
tell you how many times we had that

00:33:42.930 --> 00:33:48.117
happen today, the fourth floor is
closed. It's too dangerous to be up

00:33:48.150 --> 00:33:52.196
there. There's a yellow tape, it looks
like a crime scene when you go. So

00:33:52.229 --> 00:33:56.456
we were on the third floor and when
you, I remember in my office, there

00:33:56.489 --> 00:34:01.696
were two graduate doctoral students
and a pen fell down and it rolled and

00:34:01.729 --> 00:34:05.555
they were worried about the building
and they said, is this safe to be?

00:34:05.588 --> 00:34:10.276
And I said six out of seven people
come out of here. Ok, every day. And I

00:34:10.309 --> 00:34:17.376
, we, I mean, you had a sort of
macabre humor but we moved into uh

00:34:17.409 --> 00:34:20.816
actually three, some of them,
sociology is still in social science, but

00:34:20.849 --> 00:34:26.166
some is in the core building and
they're moved around that building had

00:34:26.199 --> 00:34:29.776
problems from the very beginning. I've
heard about the problems. We had

00:34:29.809 --> 00:34:33.276
problems from the very beginning. And
I think on the third floor you have

00:34:33.309 --> 00:34:37.017
ROTC now and some people think that's
part of their combat training. But

00:34:37.050 --> 00:34:41.376
we, we're not sure. But I think that
either they have to really redo it or

00:34:41.409 --> 00:34:46.595
take it down and build a new one. I
think that's a shame because it's a

00:34:46.628 --> 00:34:50.646
beautiful, oh, the design is really
nice. Yes, I've heard about all the

00:34:50.679 --> 00:34:53.477
problems it's been having, but I
didn't realize they started at the very

00:34:53.510 --> 00:34:58.885
beginning. That's a shame. Um, we talk
about what were the first classes

00:34:58.918 --> 00:35:05.967
that you taught here? Did you teach
those large classes? I did the, um,

00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:11.316
the first, I did get into difficulty
the first day I was assigned to teach

00:35:11.349 --> 00:35:16.195
classes in modern social problems.
They had about 6070 students actually

00:35:16.228 --> 00:35:20.655
to a class and that includes a variety
of social problems. And the first

00:35:20.688 --> 00:35:26.227
day before classes you have tables out
in the mall. They are fraternity

00:35:26.260 --> 00:35:31.526
and sorority tables, their religious
tables and, and here in teaching

00:35:31.559 --> 00:35:37.497
modern social problems and being from
Michigan, the governor in the 60 s

00:35:37.530 --> 00:35:42.365
was George Romney. Mitt Romney's
father and I knew the Romney family was

00:35:42.398 --> 00:35:45.956
Mormon. In fact, I think Mitt Romney
may have gone to the same elementary

00:35:45.989 --> 00:35:49.416
school. I went to Hampton because they
were from that well to do section

00:35:49.449 --> 00:35:55.166
across Livernois Avenue, it was
called. And

00:35:55.199 --> 00:35:58.345
so I knew about Mormons, but I didn't
know that Normans were referred to

00:35:58.378 --> 00:36:04.256
themselves as Latter Day Saints. And I
saw this table that said L DS on it.

00:36:04.289 --> 00:36:08.577
And so I went up and a young man there
gave me the brochure and I thank

00:36:08.610 --> 00:36:13.497
you very much. I said, do you have
something on cocaine and heroin too? I

00:36:13.530 --> 00:36:17.706
thought it was LSD of course, and I
opened it up and I realized what I had

00:36:17.739 --> 00:36:22.247
done. I apologized right away. It was
so I told, I said this is not a good

00:36:22.280 --> 00:36:27.385
start. Here. It is. But that was my
first day. And so I taught modern

00:36:27.418 --> 00:36:32.106
social problems. I used to lecture in
introductory classes of sociology.

00:36:32.139 --> 00:36:39.695
101 there were up to 500 students over
in Murdoch Hall and that I was

00:36:39.728 --> 00:36:43.727
invited to lecture. I didn't actually
teach those sections. I taught

00:36:43.760 --> 00:36:47.546
modern social problems, racial and
ethnic relations, collective behavior

00:36:47.579 --> 00:36:52.376
and social movements and urban
sociology. Those were my major classes and

00:36:52.409 --> 00:36:56.546
graduate. And of course, the mid these
were the time that there were of

00:36:56.579 --> 00:37:02.126
the race riots and in various, oh yes,
in fact, I was still there. Uh I

00:37:02.159 --> 00:37:07.997
had signed in the spring of 67 and
July 23 to 27. The worst race riot in

00:37:08.030 --> 00:37:13.227
history. Up to that 0.43 people killed
occurred. And so I was involved

00:37:13.260 --> 00:37:18.615
with the archdiocese, the Jewish
Community Council, the Council of

00:37:18.648 --> 00:37:23.155
Churches, the Protestant and the inter
ministerial alliance of black

00:37:23.188 --> 00:37:28.115
churches to set up an emergency
distribution center for medicine and food.

00:37:28.148 --> 00:37:32.135
It was like a bombed out city and I
had grants to go back to study black

00:37:32.168 --> 00:37:35.916
white leadership. In fact, my first
book was called a City and Racial

00:37:35.949 --> 00:37:43.307
Crisis, Detroit Pre and Post the 1967
riot. And the book, Professor Ronnie

00:37:43.340 --> 00:37:48.195
Cox asked me to lecture on the book a
few months ago. I said sure. But why

00:37:48.228 --> 00:37:51.796
are you using my book now? It turned
out that the foreword was written by

00:37:51.829 --> 00:37:55.695
Congressman John Conyers Jr and he's
chair of the House Judiciary

00:37:55.728 --> 00:38:01.816
Committee now. So I saw Congressman
Conyers at the American Sociological

00:38:01.849 --> 00:38:05.916
Association meeting in August New York
and he recognized me and we chatted

00:38:05.949 --> 00:38:08.876
and I said, I wanted to thank you for
writing the forward to my book over

00:38:08.909 --> 00:38:13.126
30 years ago because you got the book
we used again. So, but you're right.

00:38:13.159 --> 00:38:19.646
It was a tough time. There were over
100 race riots between 63 and 71

00:38:19.679 --> 00:38:26.436
actually. And uh that was a difficult
period. I know that the one riot in

00:38:26.469 --> 00:38:32.026
Phoenix was in 69 I believe no, 67 was
the same year as Detroit. It was OK.

00:38:32.059 --> 00:38:36.517
So you were here. That was before I
was in Detroit during the race riots

00:38:36.550 --> 00:38:42.606
there. Yes, it was later than that.
But um, 67 was the one here. So did

00:38:42.639 --> 00:38:46.967
you get involved in all? I got, I did
get involved in terms of meeting

00:38:47.000 --> 00:38:51.916
with Hispanics and blacks. And I've uh
I was in the inner city uh the John

00:38:51.949 --> 00:38:56.095
R elementary school. I served actually
as a principal for a day uh down

00:38:56.128 --> 00:39:00.307
there, but I would interact down
there. I'd give uh uh lectures down at

00:39:00.340 --> 00:39:05.526
the community college. Uh Is it Ria
Sola? Uh The uh down. Yeah, right

00:39:05.559 --> 00:39:10.376
downtown. And uh the a number of us
were doing research. I did work with

00:39:10.409 --> 00:39:15.577
Al Mayor who is out of the University
of Chicago in our department um on

00:39:15.610 --> 00:39:20.467
housing desegregation. And we studied
it over a period of a decade and

00:39:20.500 --> 00:39:24.736
published some articles on that and
showed how, in fact, there was

00:39:24.769 --> 00:39:29.467
significant movement toward
integration of neighborhoods in Phoenix. This

00:39:29.500 --> 00:39:36.396
was back in the 80 s. And so, yes, I
was doing research in that area here

00:39:36.429 --> 00:39:41.405
too. I know there were some movements
I've been going back through some of

00:39:41.438 --> 00:39:48.155
the old news film in 1969. I think it
was a housing uh strike that they

00:39:48.188 --> 00:39:53.445
weren't paying of the housing
projects, refused to pay the rent. Yes. Yeah.

00:39:53.478 --> 00:39:58.057
Did you get any of that? I did on
campus? Um Alfredo Gutierrez was a

00:39:58.090 --> 00:40:04.666
student of mine on a seminar on social
movements and he was writing about

00:40:04.699 --> 00:40:09.675
the Hispanic movement and all of a
sudden he wasn't in class one day and I

00:40:09.708 --> 00:40:13.066
picked up the Arizona Republic the
next morning, he had let us sit in on

00:40:13.099 --> 00:40:18.977
the President's office because he
found out that Hispanic and Anglo

00:40:19.010 --> 00:40:24.885
drivers bringing laundry to the dorms
were paid differently. The Anglo

00:40:24.918 --> 00:40:28.546
drivers were always paid more. He
said, and they documented this than the

00:40:28.579 --> 00:40:32.997
Hispanic, even though they had equal
time and the performance apparently

00:40:33.030 --> 00:40:37.267
was the same. So they tried, he had
asked me about that. I said, well, you

00:40:37.300 --> 00:40:41.086
know, why don't you check with the
dean's office? And then he was sent to

00:40:41.119 --> 00:40:44.747
what is now the Provost's office
called the vice President's office for

00:40:44.780 --> 00:40:48.497
academic programs. And he couldn't get
any response. He said, well, he

00:40:48.530 --> 00:40:51.787
didn't tell me he was going to lead a
sit in on the president's office.

00:40:51.820 --> 00:40:53.925
And

00:40:53.958 --> 00:40:58.186
so it was in the front page. If you go
back to that period, you'll see

00:40:58.219 --> 00:41:05.336
Alfredo there. He later became
majority leader in the house here. And he's

00:41:05.369 --> 00:41:10.206
now a major consultant, political
consultant. But at the time, he was, he

00:41:10.239 --> 00:41:14.445
was a Hispanic leader, somewhat
radical at the time in terms of sitting in

00:41:14.478 --> 00:41:19.236
on the president's office. And um I'm
looking at Rena and I said, you know

00:41:19.269 --> 00:41:24.327
, I don't have tenure here if they
find out what course he's taken. But

00:41:24.360 --> 00:41:27.816
later on when he became very
respectable, I had him lecture in my class.

00:41:27.849 --> 00:41:31.577
And to this day, he still hasn't
incomplete in my class. And I told him, I

00:41:31.610 --> 00:41:35.376
said, why don't you write your paper
and finish it? Now, eyes are turned

00:41:35.409 --> 00:41:39.736
into east but at that time they
weren't in the early seventies. What do

00:41:39.769 --> 00:41:45.126
you mean by that? If a student gets an
incomplete within, I don't know the

00:41:45.159 --> 00:41:49.006
time, but within a year I think it
turns into an E, if they don't complete

00:41:49.039 --> 00:41:53.037
the course. But at that time there
wasn't any time limit, the instructor

00:41:53.070 --> 00:41:57.816
could turn it into an E but it would
remain an I unless the instructor did

00:41:57.849 --> 00:42:02.646
that. And that's, that's what he still
has for me, isn't it?

00:42:02.679 --> 00:42:06.876
No, because he dropped out of school
after that. And I don't think he got

00:42:06.909 --> 00:42:10.807
his degree, although you can check on
that. But II, I don't think so

00:42:10.840 --> 00:42:14.336
because of getting involved with all
this. He's very bright though and he

00:42:14.369 --> 00:42:19.977
could have gotten a phd if he wanted
to stick to it. Um Did you get

00:42:20.010 --> 00:42:23.356
involved with any of the other? Um,
one of the people I've been looking at

00:42:23.389 --> 00:42:27.365
Brunel Coleman was one of the African
American leaders, the Matthew

00:42:27.398 --> 00:42:31.885
Vincent housing project. Did you? I
did, he was on campus too, I think, uh

00:42:31.918 --> 00:42:36.095
working with black students, I, I
worked with Black and Hispanic and uh

00:42:36.128 --> 00:42:41.896
Anglo students. We had a, um, a riot.
Uh Here you might recall a

00:42:41.929 --> 00:42:48.405
fraternity row, an attack on two black
students who they misidentified as

00:42:48.438 --> 00:42:54.816
blacks who whistled at one of their
girlfriends the night before. And so

00:42:54.849 --> 00:43:01.566
that's already when Laddie K was
president and I work with a group of

00:43:01.599 --> 00:43:07.247
black students to try to resolve that
issue and set up a process. We set

00:43:07.280 --> 00:43:11.396
up the campus environment team on
academic freedom and cultural diversity

00:43:11.429 --> 00:43:14.517
at that time. And

00:43:14.550 --> 00:43:17.747
Charles Kleos, who was Associate dean
of the law school at the time, I at

00:43:17.780 --> 00:43:21.155
that time was Associate Dean of the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

00:43:21.188 --> 00:43:26.595
in academic programs. And Lady asked
Charles to become the first chair of

00:43:26.628 --> 00:43:33.396
the ce and me to become the second
chair. And we worked carefully with the

00:43:33.429 --> 00:43:40.956
and closely with the Black and
Hispanic and other fraternity sororities.

00:43:40.989 --> 00:43:45.115
And that's still an operation that's
expanded. And I think that was a good

00:43:45.148 --> 00:43:49.376
step. I should talk a little bit about
some of the presidents who was

00:43:49.409 --> 00:43:56.977
president of the, of a su when you got
here. That was president.

00:43:57.010 --> 00:44:00.436
Oh my goodness. It starts with Ad

00:44:00.469 --> 00:44:05.977
Homer. That's correct. And he was very
ambitious because he would print

00:44:06.010 --> 00:44:10.956
every week. Everybody who got a grant,
everybody who any honors or awards

00:44:10.989 --> 00:44:16.486
we got if we were elected president of
an academic association, and he

00:44:16.519 --> 00:44:21.717
really was a leader in getting those
phd programs going because he knew he

00:44:21.750 --> 00:44:25.095
wouldn't be a research one university
unless we had those in place and

00:44:25.128 --> 00:44:31.747
they were effective and strong
programs. So that, and then he didn't

00:44:31.780 --> 00:44:34.885
retire, but he left to become, I think
the Chancellor of the Utah

00:44:34.918 --> 00:44:41.836
University. System, as I recall. And
then President Schwa came into office

00:44:41.869 --> 00:44:46.517
and President Schwa was president when
I was president of the Academic

00:44:46.550 --> 00:44:54.550
Senate. And we worked closely although
he thought the faculty association

00:44:55.519 --> 00:45:01.727
was a union and, uh, didn't like that
and would tell me in no uncertain

00:45:01.760 --> 00:45:04.517
terms because the president of the
Senate meets with the president. At

00:45:04.550 --> 00:45:09.327
least we did at that time every few
weeks in his office. And I remember

00:45:09.360 --> 00:45:13.546
him stopping one day. He said you
belong to it, don't you? I said, yes,

00:45:13.579 --> 00:45:19.385
sir, I do, but he was, he just felt
strongly about it and we got along

00:45:19.418 --> 00:45:24.445
pretty well actually. And then after
president Schwer, we had, was it

00:45:24.478 --> 00:45:30.376
President Newman just for a short
period, he was an interim president. I'm

00:45:30.409 --> 00:45:34.256
trying to think if that was before
Lady Core. Oh, no, Nelson. It was, uh,

00:45:34.289 --> 00:45:37.376
I was on the Presidential search
committee for President Nelson. I should

00:45:37.409 --> 00:45:41.865
uh definitely remember that. And
because we picked him, uh, and uh along

00:45:41.898 --> 00:45:46.615
with the, uh the Board of Regents, uh
it was a consensus selection and uh

00:45:46.648 --> 00:45:53.686
he was uh president for I think, eight
years. And then Lady Co was, uh was

00:45:53.719 --> 00:45:57.956
it about President Nelson that made
you pick him? He had been very

00:45:57.989 --> 00:46:02.827
effective. I think it was provost at
the University of Colorado, which is

00:46:02.860 --> 00:46:07.956
a research one university. And he had
been Dean of the College of Business.

00:46:07.989 --> 00:46:13.425
And so he had a good track record and
it seemed he got along with faculty

00:46:13.458 --> 00:46:20.916
and regents. Well, and he was
ambitious for us to become research one too.

00:46:20.949 --> 00:46:25.227
So that would have continued our
momentum. And there were three

00:46:25.260 --> 00:46:30.195
presidents of universities, one was
president of, I think Indiana

00:46:30.228 --> 00:46:36.186
University and another one I think
Minnesota. So it was a strong pool and

00:46:36.219 --> 00:46:39.497
we realized that we were a major
university when we took a look at the

00:46:39.530 --> 00:46:45.017
pool and that we were going in the
right direction and he just seemed like

00:46:45.050 --> 00:46:49.327
the best of the pool at the time. How
did he work out? What was your

00:46:49.360 --> 00:46:53.526
relationship with him? A good
relationship? Although his most effective

00:46:53.559 --> 00:46:58.296
years were the first four or five. And
after that, there are some issues

00:46:58.329 --> 00:47:02.986
that came up, had to do with the
athletic program. I remember we were

00:47:03.019 --> 00:47:09.425
heading toward another championship
season and I remember the Faculty

00:47:09.458 --> 00:47:13.776
Oversight Committee, Mary Ann Jennings
said that a couple of our major

00:47:13.809 --> 00:47:19.405
players were academically ineligible
and the alumni came down hard on the

00:47:19.438 --> 00:47:23.986
president and the regions and some of
the legislators and said, you've got

00:47:24.019 --> 00:47:28.307
to do something these guys have to be
able to play. And Mary Ann Jennings

00:47:28.340 --> 00:47:31.885
through credit said, no, we have to
follow the rules for them as we do for

00:47:31.918 --> 00:47:37.756
all other students. And I came to her
and said, you know, you have the

00:47:37.789 --> 00:47:42.416
full support of the academic senate
and she just spoke to the Emeritus

00:47:42.449 --> 00:47:47.566
College. We have a monthly series on
Ethics in Business. She did a great

00:47:47.599 --> 00:47:52.066
job and she remembered that and said
she appreciated the support, but she

00:47:52.099 --> 00:47:57.095
was dismissed as the faculty
representative. And when that happened,

00:47:57.128 --> 00:48:01.856
President Nelson lost a lot of support
from the faculty and he decided to

00:48:01.889 --> 00:48:05.436
leave shortly after that, he may have
gone back to Colorado. I'm trying to

00:48:05.469 --> 00:48:09.227
remember as Dean again if I'm not
mistaken, but you can check that out.

00:48:09.260 --> 00:48:13.626
But at any rate, that's when Lady Cour
came and Lady's years were without

00:48:13.659 --> 00:48:18.327
exception, were just great. He was
terrific in working with at every level

00:48:18.360 --> 00:48:25.827
, the board of regents, other
administrators, faculty students. He was a

00:48:25.860 --> 00:48:29.276
very hard working guy. You might
recall, he had a heart attack at one

00:48:29.309 --> 00:48:34.195
point because he was doing too much,
but he

00:48:34.228 --> 00:48:37.876
was wonderful to work with. And it was
during the Laddie's time that we

00:48:37.909 --> 00:48:42.606
came research one in 1993 I think we
were the 84th University in the

00:48:42.639 --> 00:48:48.115
country along with Berkeley and
Stanford and Michigan and Chicago and

00:48:48.148 --> 00:48:53.615
Harvard and Yale in the place where we
had been wanting to go. And so when

00:48:53.648 --> 00:48:58.356
President Crowe came, he was coming to
a very strong base, great honors

00:48:58.389 --> 00:49:03.175
college and a lot of growing research
grants every year and he's continued

00:49:03.208 --> 00:49:09.655
that momentum. What do you think? I
think he has a lot of great ideas,

00:49:09.688 --> 00:49:13.267
tremendous energy. He does very well
working with the legislature in the

00:49:13.300 --> 00:49:18.046
regions probably from the point of
view of many faculty. And that includes

00:49:18.079 --> 00:49:24.595
me, the one thing that I think he has
to develop more is communication

00:49:24.628 --> 00:49:30.686
before he makes a decision, often he
will make decisions that are often

00:49:30.719 --> 00:49:33.967
very good ideas, but he doesn't
discuss them with faculty and sometimes

00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:39.546
the results fracture things. For
example, in chemistry and biochemistry

00:49:39.579 --> 00:49:43.066
and in sociology, he made some
interesting decisions about their

00:49:43.099 --> 00:49:46.816
programming, interdisciplinary
research programming, but split them into

00:49:46.849 --> 00:49:53.526
multiple buildings. And I pointed out
to him and he agreed substantively

00:49:53.559 --> 00:49:57.396
that when you split departments into
different buildings, the interaction

00:49:57.429 --> 00:50:02.896
, the daily interaction between
faculty and students and that actually

00:50:02.929 --> 00:50:07.267
undermines the ability to get grants
and do effective teaching because you

00:50:07.300 --> 00:50:11.497
don't have it's that informal
interaction that's critical to the formal

00:50:11.530 --> 00:50:14.787
things that go on. And he agreed with
that and said we have to address

00:50:14.820 --> 00:50:19.186
that issue and I, I hope he does, but
I think that's the one thing if he

00:50:19.219 --> 00:50:23.175
had spent some time with the faculty
would have delayed the decision for a

00:50:23.208 --> 00:50:27.175
few months. But the end run would have
been more effective and the faculty

00:50:27.208 --> 00:50:31.936
would have felt better about buying
into it. But his ideas are very good

00:50:31.969 --> 00:50:36.865
and he just needs to work on that.

00:50:36.898 --> 00:50:42.066
But I don't think anybody is perfect,
but that's one area I think he needs

00:50:42.099 --> 00:50:45.747
to work on. It does seem like he's
come in here and made a lot of changes

00:50:45.780 --> 00:50:51.175
and yes he has, I noticed that you
retired officially around the time that

00:50:51.208 --> 00:50:57.057
he arrived 2002. Uh But I never was
gone. I always had an office. I was on

00:50:57.090 --> 00:51:02.026
dissertation, thesis committees. I was
lecturing, I was working on with

00:51:02.059 --> 00:51:06.126
other faculty and research grants. So
that's those of us who are doing

00:51:06.159 --> 00:51:10.385
that. And there were over 300 of us in
the Emeritus College. That's when

00:51:10.418 --> 00:51:14.365
we decided we develop the Emeritus
College and get this co ordinated. And

00:51:14.398 --> 00:51:19.046
it actually stimulated a lot of
faculty to do more and contribute to the

00:51:19.079 --> 00:51:22.376
program, the academic program

00:51:22.409 --> 00:51:26.396
a little bit about what is the
Emeritus College. We started that about

00:51:26.429 --> 00:51:30.345
four years ago. Conceptually

00:51:30.378 --> 00:51:35.436
Dick Jacob, the former Chair of
Physics was the lead and he saw about

00:51:35.469 --> 00:51:39.905
eight others of us who were very
active and convened the meeting and we

00:51:39.938 --> 00:51:44.227
became what eventually it was the
first council and we did some research

00:51:44.260 --> 00:51:49.896
and found out that Emory University in
Atlanta, Georgia had started Em

00:51:49.929 --> 00:51:53.606
MEREDITH College and we got
information and communicated by email and

00:51:53.639 --> 00:51:58.026
phone. We found that Yale University,
my alma mater, the University of

00:51:58.059 --> 00:52:03.175
Michigan University of Southern
California, the University of California

00:52:03.208 --> 00:52:08.997
at Berkeley, University of Washington
had started these and they were

00:52:09.030 --> 00:52:13.646
related to the Retirees Association,
which includes staff as well as

00:52:13.679 --> 00:52:21.595
faculty that are mostly they do great
things on the health insurance,

00:52:21.628 --> 00:52:25.876
making sure pensions are going
socializing, interacting. We thought it

00:52:25.909 --> 00:52:30.077
would be helpful if we had an academic
college that actually did teaching

00:52:30.110 --> 00:52:36.037
research and had programming with
colloquial on research uh issues. Uh We

00:52:36.070 --> 00:52:42.046
offer 15 courses at Tempe Library uh
right now on because we cover all 11

00:52:42.079 --> 00:52:45.717
colleges, our membership uh the we're
the 12th college actually officially

00:52:45.750 --> 00:52:52.537
, but on the origins of the universe,
Cosmos Dick Jacobs teaching that I'm

00:52:52.570 --> 00:52:55.827
teaching about sports and politics
from a historical and sociological

00:52:55.860 --> 00:53:01.727
perspective. We have courses on
Virginia Woolf Marjorie Lightfoot Per

00:53:01.760 --> 00:53:07.956
Anest on the aurora. I mean, it's the
Bible is literature by John Evans.

00:53:07.989 --> 00:53:12.416
It's really quite a remarkable set,
but that wouldn't have happened if we

00:53:12.449 --> 00:53:17.756
didn't have a college and co ordinated
that. So the president and the

00:53:17.789 --> 00:53:22.115
Provost and that the president has
great ideas and the Provost Milk Lake

00:53:22.148 --> 00:53:27.206
and now Elizabeth Capaldi were very
excited about it and they supported it

00:53:27.239 --> 00:53:32.006
and the academic Senate did too. In
fact, they made we have an official

00:53:32.039 --> 00:53:37.896
senator in the academic, they
supported it. And when the graduate college

00:53:37.929 --> 00:53:42.675
moved into new offices, they assigned
us to take over much of the old

00:53:42.708 --> 00:53:46.776
graduate college at Wilson Hall. And
so we have a conference room. I have

00:53:46.809 --> 00:53:49.396
an office, the associate Dean Charles
Elliott, who's an engineering

00:53:49.429 --> 00:53:54.537
professor does Dick Jacob. The former
dean is involved in a million dollar

00:53:54.570 --> 00:54:00.486
development program. We have research
and grants committees going so

00:54:00.519 --> 00:54:04.615
faculty can start new projects. One
Dick Nagasawa has a grant from the

00:54:04.648 --> 00:54:08.807
Department of Housing and urban
development. Uh We negotiated a contract

00:54:08.840 --> 00:54:12.456
uh relationship with the Vice
president for research office. Jonathan Fink

00:54:12.489 --> 00:54:18.077
, vice president uh worked with us on
that and we have outreach programs.

00:54:18.110 --> 00:54:22.956
So we're an official college now of
the university and we're the 20th in

00:54:22.989 --> 00:54:28.396
the country. And our outreach programs
include new frontiers for lifelong

00:54:28.429 --> 00:54:32.227
learning at MESA Community College. We
give lectures in community college.

00:54:32.260 --> 00:54:36.385
We offer regular courses. Dick is
offering a graduate course, Dick Jacob

00:54:36.418 --> 00:54:41.467
in Physics. David Williams. They
needed a course, sociology 101 at the

00:54:41.500 --> 00:54:44.896
downtown campus and he's offering a
course there. So we have regular

00:54:44.929 --> 00:54:49.186
colloquial symposium open to the
public and the university community. So

00:54:49.219 --> 00:54:53.066
it's an extent. Uh We, we're enjoying
it and you're the dean of that.

00:54:53.099 --> 00:54:57.756
Second dean. Yes, I'm I'm Dean now,
Dick Jacob was the founding dean or as

00:54:57.789 --> 00:55:02.026
we refer to him, the incredible
founding thing that doesn't sound like

00:55:02.059 --> 00:55:07.385
you're retired at the moment. I'm not.
That's true. Although I did say on

00:55:07.418 --> 00:55:10.885
Tuesday and Friday mornings, I play
doubleheader softballs. And uh the

00:55:10.918 --> 00:55:15.006
problem yesterday, President Crowe had
this downtown gathering for three

00:55:15.039 --> 00:55:18.865
Phoenix member, council members and I
didn't have time to change, but I

00:55:18.898 --> 00:55:22.537
did wear my ass U shirt, not my
Michigan shirt. So I played in that and so

00:55:22.570 --> 00:55:27.206
I was the only one I stood behind
people as others had ties and stuff. So

00:55:27.239 --> 00:55:34.135
, is this a paid position then I get
uh no, I didn't. It isn't. And when I

00:55:34.168 --> 00:55:38.195
teach like a five week course, I get
paid for that and I get some travel

00:55:38.228 --> 00:55:41.956
funds and uh when guests come over, I
can take them to the university club.

00:55:41.989 --> 00:55:47.787
And we have a budget with the two
staff plus a intern from the honors

00:55:47.820 --> 00:55:54.316
college for our press. We have an
Emeritus College press that publishes a

00:55:54.349 --> 00:55:59.217
journal, Emeritus Voices and a
newsletter. And actually, we even have one

00:55:59.250 --> 00:56:06.655
book of poems by Betty and English
professor. And so we have funding for

00:56:06.688 --> 00:56:10.436
all of that. We're starting a new
center for mentoring of students and new

00:56:10.469 --> 00:56:15.115
faculty and the president and Provost
have given us $10,000 for powerpoint

00:56:15.148 --> 00:56:20.186
and pcs and other things. And we have
a library facility that we will be

00:56:20.219 --> 00:56:25.405
inhabited in meeting with students or
faculty and to interact with them as

00:56:25.438 --> 00:56:30.905
they get adjusted to move along
effectively in the university and the

00:56:30.938 --> 00:56:37.186
courses that the college has, who are
the, they're a combination. But uh

00:56:37.219 --> 00:56:42.945
like the 15 courses that we're
offering at the Tempe library, uh those

00:56:42.978 --> 00:56:46.787
would be people in the community that
actually the city of Tempe does the

00:56:46.820 --> 00:56:50.816
advertising for that. Actually, a
number of uh faculty, a maritime take

00:56:50.849 --> 00:56:55.986
them too. Uh And if they're not
teaching, uh and uh then uh people in the

00:56:56.019 --> 00:57:00.166
community, mostly there, there's an
upper limit of 20 and they all fill up.

00:57:00.199 --> 00:57:02.876
In fact, a few people have come
anyway, even though they're not in the

00:57:02.909 --> 00:57:06.967
class just to which is fine. And, uh,
they're, they're quite popular and

00:57:07.000 --> 00:57:13.436
we've done that a year before too. And
now a Su West and the Polytechnic

00:57:13.469 --> 00:57:17.885
Campus wanted to expand course
offerings. The five week course offerings

00:57:17.918 --> 00:57:24.037
there people get credit for these
courses are courses they sign up for,

00:57:24.070 --> 00:57:28.856
but they're not for credit. We do have
a lot of faculty teaching regular

00:57:28.889 --> 00:57:33.655
courses for credit, But these are just
Virginia Woolf or as I say, the

00:57:33.688 --> 00:57:36.936
origins of the universe or sports and
politics. They're just topics that

00:57:36.969 --> 00:57:41.345
people want to hear about and classes
meet for two hours once a week, for

00:57:41.378 --> 00:57:46.526
five weeks. Five in the fall semester,
five in the winter starting in

00:57:46.559 --> 00:57:51.077
January and five in the spring
starting in March. Serious students that

00:57:51.110 --> 00:57:55.706
come and they seem to be, they are,
they do their homework and they, they

00:57:55.739 --> 00:58:01.327
seem to enjoy it a lot. Take tests and
write papers. Well, actually we

00:58:01.360 --> 00:58:06.836
have a couple of writing workshops and
they do write and, and there is how

00:58:06.869 --> 00:58:11.336
to write personal histories. For
example, Charles Bronson Dick Jacob is

00:58:11.369 --> 00:58:16.267
involved in that. Babs Gordon not
related, but that's her, same last name

00:58:16.300 --> 00:58:20.856
as mine. She's in the English
Department and we have quite a response of

00:58:20.889 --> 00:58:23.827
people writing personal histories that
they've never done before. In fact

00:58:23.860 --> 00:58:26.686
, I've done that myself.

00:58:26.719 --> 00:58:32.925
I was doing that. We've got three
minutes left on the take. Mm. There you

00:58:32.958 --> 00:58:40.958
go. That sounds like a very exciting
project to be involved in it.

00:58:43.958 --> 00:58:47.506
We have an Ludwig, who's the Ann
Ludwig Dance Company was written up in

00:58:47.539 --> 00:58:54.686
the New York Times and she gives
performances at our annual symposium and

00:58:54.719 --> 00:59:00.477
she is scheduled for the new Tempe
Cultural Center for the arts theater on

00:59:00.510 --> 00:59:05.336
Rio Salad, I think Street. And it's
got a wonderful dance company with

00:59:05.369 --> 00:59:12.626
Beth LA and that's an exciting. So we
have poetry readings and it's, I

00:59:12.659 --> 00:59:20.006
mean, it covers the whole gamut of the
academic community here,

00:59:20.039 --> 00:59:25.236
like a lot of active seniors taking
the classes and things. There are, I

00:59:25.269 --> 00:59:30.416
think over 1500 Ameri, but over 330
are members of the Emeritus College.

00:59:30.449 --> 00:59:35.267
So we probably attracted the ones who
really want to keep active. And, but

00:59:35.300 --> 00:59:38.896
it's growing, in fact, a number of
faculty are within one or 23 years of

00:59:38.929 --> 00:59:42.037
the program have been given colloquial
for us and then say they want to

00:59:42.070 --> 00:59:46.307
join. And I chaired the policy
committee for the college. And when I

00:59:46.340 --> 00:59:50.526
became Dean Elmer Gooding, our former
Provost took my place as chair of

00:59:50.559 --> 00:59:54.227
the policy committee and we needed an
extra another member on the policy

00:59:54.260 --> 01:00:00.876
committee. And Alan Matheson, the
former dean of the law school joined the

01:00:00.909 --> 01:00:05.905
policy committee. So we really do have
a lot of and Winifred do just came

01:00:05.938 --> 01:00:09.865
up with her discovery of the skinny
gene as a biologist has written up in

01:00:09.898 --> 01:00:14.155
the New York Times and is stimulating
new research

01:00:14.188 --> 01:00:19.686
currently because of the DNA
development sensor discovery,

01:00:19.719 --> 01:00:25.135
a very high level group of people
working on this college. It's a good, if

01:00:25.168 --> 01:00:29.767
you wanna give this an ID, I think I
will ID that this is tape two with

01:00:29.800 --> 01:00:35.827
Lynn Gordon the A su retiree living
history project. Um He is a living

01:00:35.860 --> 01:00:39.396
history project.

01:00:39.429 --> 01:00:45.276
You've insulted the man for all the
things he's doing. He certainly is. Um

01:00:45.309 --> 01:00:47.490
There are a couple of things I thought
about. We didn't talk too much

01:00:47.523 --> 01:00:51.021
about back in when you came here in
the sixties. One of the things that I

01:00:51.054 --> 01:00:55.412
know several people have talked about
was the, the Vietnam War protest on

01:00:55.445 --> 01:01:02.646
campus. Were you involved or witnessed
some of that? Yes. Actually, I was

01:01:02.679 --> 01:01:08.776
approached by a number of students who
asked my view. I had been in 1968.

01:01:08.809 --> 01:01:13.856
If you go back to the State Press, you
will see my photo there because

01:01:13.889 --> 01:01:19.776
although I'm a democrat, the person
who came out with what I thought was

01:01:19.809 --> 01:01:24.026
the best position on the Vietnam War
was Nelson Rockefeller, who is the

01:01:24.059 --> 01:01:26.787
former governor of New York, a
Republican who is running for the

01:01:26.820 --> 01:01:32.327
Republican ticket. And so I actually
came out for him. I was on the radio

01:01:32.360 --> 01:01:37.267
in support of him because I thought he
was,

01:01:37.300 --> 01:01:41.017
I said the kind of Republican I could
support because he was good on civil

01:01:41.050 --> 01:01:46.106
rights and he did a great job in
supporting education in New York. And so

01:01:46.139 --> 01:01:50.767
I did and I worked with a group of
students who did that, but some of the

01:01:50.800 --> 01:01:56.537
students came up and said, would I be
part of the teaching that when I

01:01:56.570 --> 01:02:04.570
didn't have classes? And I did, I
compared it to the Korean War, which was

01:02:05.429 --> 01:02:11.026
also not an all out war because we
didn't go into China. And in Vietnam,

01:02:11.059 --> 01:02:14.557
we weren't going to go into China
either.

01:02:14.590 --> 01:02:18.997
And those are very tough. And I
pointed out that President Truman was very

01:02:19.030 --> 01:02:23.296
unpopular because he supported the
Korean War. But I pointed out that in

01:02:23.329 --> 01:02:26.967
the Korean War, we had un support.

01:02:27.000 --> 01:02:32.155
There was an invasion of the South and
it was clear that what we were

01:02:32.188 --> 01:02:37.256
fighting for in my view made good
sense. Even if President Truman was

01:02:37.289 --> 01:02:42.445
unpopular, I would have been for the
Korean War. I said, but the Vietnam

01:02:42.478 --> 01:02:48.166
War is different. We didn't go in

01:02:48.199 --> 01:02:52.956
as good a base for one thing. We knew
that Ho Chi Minh in a free election

01:02:52.989 --> 01:03:00.989
would have won. And secondly, the
logistics and the support the Chinese

01:03:01.929 --> 01:03:06.577
were providing to the North was such
that unless we went into China and

01:03:06.610 --> 01:03:10.956
that would have been World War II, we
would have had a serious problem.

01:03:10.989 --> 01:03:16.896
And so I did participate in that uh
when I was uh supporting Mr

01:03:16.929 --> 01:03:20.385
Rockefeller on the Republican ticket
of all things. Uh when I say of all

01:03:20.418 --> 01:03:23.546
things because being from Detroit.
Detroit is the only city of a million

01:03:23.579 --> 01:03:29.095
or more that has never elected a
Republican to Congress ever. And so I

01:03:29.128 --> 01:03:32.436
have this Democratic background
experience, but I felt very strongly at

01:03:32.469 --> 01:03:37.006
the time. And uh and there really are
some Republicans that I can, I used

01:03:37.039 --> 01:03:40.945
to have Barry Goldwater speak to my
class and he was really very good with

01:03:40.978 --> 01:03:43.925
students. I must say

01:03:43.958 --> 01:03:49.706
interesting thing right there. Why did
you have? I wanted my students to

01:03:49.739 --> 01:03:55.135
have people in who were part of the
political process when I was teaching

01:03:55.168 --> 01:04:00.736
courses in political sociology related
information. So I invited both

01:04:00.769 --> 01:04:05.287
Morris Udall who was a great
congressman democrat from Tucson. And he

01:04:05.320 --> 01:04:09.166
spoke to a class and then I invited
Senator Goldwater who was a great

01:04:09.199 --> 01:04:12.736
Republican and they both did a
terrific job and it was good for the

01:04:12.769 --> 01:04:16.037
students to have them in the class
where they could ask questions, they

01:04:16.070 --> 01:04:19.736
could see them. And they happened to
be two people who were very open to

01:04:19.769 --> 01:04:25.546
any questions at all and responded to
all. And I thought it was a great

01:04:25.579 --> 01:04:29.827
educational experience for the
students. One would think that the uh the

01:04:29.860 --> 01:04:35.086
senator and congressman would be too
busy to do that. Well, I, I actually

01:04:35.119 --> 01:04:39.865
at the time Senator Gold Warner left
the uh the, the Senate. So he was

01:04:39.898 --> 01:04:44.376
living here and Congressman Don I knew
came up to the uh to the value uh

01:04:44.409 --> 01:04:48.557
here in, in Phoenix. Area and I just
worked with his office as to when he

01:04:48.590 --> 01:04:52.345
would be here and he, he said he would
be delighted to do it. And as I

01:04:52.378 --> 01:04:56.506
recall, I couldn't specify particular
whenever he was there. That would be

01:04:56.539 --> 01:04:59.405
the day he would come. And the same
with Senator Goldwater actually, and I

01:04:59.438 --> 01:05:04.115
just made sure that that would be the
case. Getting back to the Vietnam

01:05:04.148 --> 01:05:08.106
War period. You said that you taught
at a, did you call it? There was a

01:05:08.139 --> 01:05:12.066
teaching on the mall and there were
thousands of students and there were

01:05:12.099 --> 01:05:18.345
students and faculty who would be
asked to go in front of 60 or 70

01:05:18.378 --> 01:05:25.227
students and to present their views.
And I did as part of that, that's

01:05:25.260 --> 01:05:29.706
part of I experienced that as a
student at the University of Michigan and

01:05:29.739 --> 01:05:33.227
Wayne State University where you get
people with different views

01:05:33.260 --> 01:05:36.577
expressing themselves. And we have
this free speech area which is now

01:05:36.610 --> 01:05:43.865
above the library, the lower level
library. And that's so that anybody

01:05:43.898 --> 01:05:47.537
wouldn't be interfered with us. They
were going to the m between classes,

01:05:47.570 --> 01:05:51.456
but they could express any views they
want on that free speech area. And

01:05:51.489 --> 01:05:58.586
that is true. I think any major
university and you don't see much activity

01:05:58.619 --> 01:06:01.566
usually except during periods of anti
war activity or something of that

01:06:01.599 --> 01:06:05.396
sort. So maybe revived.

01:06:05.429 --> 01:06:11.376
Well, I the I think not as likely
because I think we're addressing the

01:06:11.409 --> 01:06:13.486
issues

01:06:13.519 --> 01:06:17.546
one way or the other in, I don't feel
the same. Of course, we're not

01:06:17.579 --> 01:06:22.905
losing yearly. We lost 58,000, killed
in Vietnam and we've lost terribly

01:06:22.938 --> 01:06:28.017
tragically over 4000 and we had a
draft then we don't have a draft now. So

01:06:28.050 --> 01:06:31.307
there are some different elements
going now. Although it clearly is a

01:06:31.340 --> 01:06:36.287
major issue should be, you know, many
universities had much bigger protest

01:06:36.320 --> 01:06:40.537
movements than a su was pretty quiet
compared to some of them. Oh, yes. Uh

01:06:40.570 --> 01:06:45.635
compared to Berkeley or Michigan or
Harvard, uh we were really relatively

01:06:45.668 --> 01:06:48.816
low key, but there were, there were
some, there were thousands involved

01:06:48.849 --> 01:06:52.175
though.

01:06:52.208 --> 01:06:55.066
One of the other things I wanted to
ask you, you talking about sports and

01:06:55.099 --> 01:06:59.566
politics. You were here during the
Frank Kush period. Sure. Did you get

01:06:59.599 --> 01:07:04.336
involved at all with that? Yes. Uh
actually we're on speaking terms now.

01:07:04.369 --> 01:07:08.916
He was all American at Michigan State
and beat Michigan my alma mater. And

01:07:08.949 --> 01:07:12.345
in fact, they were undefeated number
one in the country in 52. I think it

01:07:12.378 --> 01:07:17.416
was and won the Rose Bowl. But he
remembers Michigan beating Michigan

01:07:17.449 --> 01:07:21.615
State too a number of times. And so he
said you're from Michigan and I

01:07:21.648 --> 01:07:26.577
said we do get along well. He was a
great coach, ran into difficulty

01:07:26.610 --> 01:07:30.586
because when we shifted from the
Western Athletic Conference to the PAC 10

01:07:30.619 --> 01:07:35.776
, he got really

01:07:35.809 --> 01:07:41.227
concern that we couldn't compete
without major players. And so the

01:07:41.260 --> 01:07:44.546
barriers were dropped to bring people
in who weren't academically

01:07:44.579 --> 01:07:49.037
qualified or would be. And, uh, when I
was president of the Senate, I

01:07:49.070 --> 01:07:55.026
heard rumors that strange things were
happening and I remember setting up

01:07:55.059 --> 01:07:59.756
a special task force to check it out.
Well, they found 37 violations to

01:07:59.789 --> 01:08:02.675
give you an idea of what was going on.
They had students who are

01:08:02.708 --> 01:08:07.336
ineligible, take summer courses and
they'd hire community college

01:08:07.369 --> 01:08:10.865
instructors to teach them. But the
instructors never came on campus and

01:08:10.898 --> 01:08:14.327
the students never went to any class.
They just got grades and grades were

01:08:14.360 --> 01:08:19.437
all A's and B's. Well, when we found
that out, I invited coach Kush. He

01:08:19.470 --> 01:08:25.277
sent some assistant coaches over to
meet with the, the Council of the

01:08:25.310 --> 01:08:29.015
Academic Senate. And I remember asking
one of them the question, he says,

01:08:29.048 --> 01:08:32.897
one thing I can't figure out is why
some of these guys got BS and he

01:08:32.930 --> 01:08:36.586
looked at me and said, we wanted to
make it look realistic. And I said,

01:08:36.619 --> 01:08:40.946
well, of course, this was reported to
the NCAA. We were ineligible for

01:08:40.979 --> 01:08:46.595
bowls for about two years. And I think
he's truly a great coach, but that

01:08:46.628 --> 01:08:52.206
was a serious mistake. And I don't
think we do that anymore. Although

01:08:52.239 --> 01:08:56.996
there was that pressure on Mary Ann
Jennings when she tried to enforce

01:08:57.029 --> 01:09:02.237
that a few years later, actually. So
there's just so much pressure from

01:09:02.270 --> 01:09:06.595
some alumni to succeed. And I'm from
the University of Michigan where, you

01:09:06.628 --> 01:09:10.777
know, that's a big football and
athletic program. So I understand that.

01:09:10.810 --> 01:09:14.976
And Michigan's got into trouble on
that. You might recall the basketball

01:09:15.009 --> 01:09:19.576
team, the Fab Four. They got hundreds
of thousands of dollars, poor black

01:09:19.609 --> 01:09:24.116
guys from Detroit, driving rolls
Royces on campus. And the coach Fisher

01:09:24.149 --> 01:09:28.906
said I didn't know anything was going
on. Well, it's, you always have to

01:09:28.939 --> 01:09:34.366
watch that and that's what happened
here for a period of time. But I think

01:09:34.399 --> 01:09:37.496
we straighten that out. Were you
involved at all? When, when Coach Kush

01:09:37.529 --> 01:09:44.067
was fired? No, uh that was, that was
handled by the athletic director, I

01:09:44.100 --> 01:09:48.835
think. And the president II, I had
nothing to do with that.

01:09:48.868 --> 01:09:52.505
Looking back over your career here. Is
there anything that stands out that

01:09:52.538 --> 01:10:00.187
you're the proudest of? I think it's
uh being part of that time when we

01:10:00.220 --> 01:10:05.076
were developing strong phd programs
and master's programs and then

01:10:05.109 --> 01:10:10.706
addressing the undergraduate program,
we had, I was chair of the, the

01:10:10.739 --> 01:10:16.086
outreach program when I was still
chair of Sociology to the community

01:10:16.119 --> 01:10:20.515
college system statewide. So I chaired
the university part of the Transfer

01:10:20.548 --> 01:10:28.187
General Education Agreement, which was
the community colleges making sure

01:10:28.220 --> 01:10:32.976
that the students had the needed
courses for them to move successfully

01:10:33.009 --> 01:10:39.446
through the ASU when they transferred
or U of A or N. And that was called

01:10:39.479 --> 01:10:45.156
the T and it is the basis for the
current transfer agreement from the

01:10:45.189 --> 01:10:49.536
community College system. And one of
the things that the Emeritus College

01:10:49.569 --> 01:10:53.756
likes to do is to go out. I've given
over a dozen presentations and met

01:10:53.789 --> 01:10:58.226
with classes mostly at Mesa Community
College because I know they want to

01:10:58.259 --> 01:11:02.946
transfer to a SU and they really like
it when uh a SU faculty come out and

01:11:02.979 --> 01:11:09.456
inter interact with them. So, um I, I
I'm proud of the edu the, the

01:11:09.489 --> 01:11:13.166
academic programming within the
university and the outreach to the

01:11:13.199 --> 01:11:18.336
community and being part of that. And
um chairing the campus environment

01:11:18.369 --> 01:11:25.326
team on academic freedom and cultural
diversity was a good thing from my

01:11:25.359 --> 01:11:30.226
experience. Although Charles Caller
was the first chair and I asked

01:11:30.259 --> 01:11:35.006
President K to change the name Campus
Environment Team. I'll give you an

01:11:35.039 --> 01:11:39.015
example. When I was sitting in my
office, I was chair of it. I was asked

01:11:39.048 --> 01:11:41.786
to go to the Memorial Union because
some students were threatening to

01:11:41.819 --> 01:11:46.607
chain themselves to the door so nobody
could get in or out. And it turned

01:11:46.640 --> 01:11:51.765
out, I said, what's the issue? They
were students who smoked and they said

01:11:51.798 --> 01:11:57.635
there was a new ban on smoking and I
said, so I was there. So I talked to

01:11:57.668 --> 01:12:02.187
them and some of the people in the mu
and I said, couldn't there be an

01:12:02.220 --> 01:12:06.687
outdoor smoking area for, we
negotiated it and they, they had an outdoor

01:12:06.720 --> 01:12:09.687
area where they could smoke. And then
I finally looked at them. I said,

01:12:09.720 --> 01:12:12.831
but why am I here? They said, well,
aren't you chair of the campus

01:12:12.864 --> 01:12:17.531
environment team was supposed to be on
cultural diversity, you know,

01:12:17.564 --> 01:12:21.272
blacks and whites, Hispanics and
Anglos. And I said, I don't think that's

01:12:21.305 --> 01:12:25.612
what we're supposed to be in business
for, but lady liked that name. So it

01:12:25.645 --> 01:12:29.345
is still the campus environment

01:12:29.378 --> 01:12:34.416
in the broadest sense. That's right. A
very broad sense. That's correct.

01:12:34.449 --> 01:12:40.006
That's very interesting. Um Were there
any particular challenges that you

01:12:40.039 --> 01:12:45.987
faced that uh that you wanna talk
about? Probably the pressures on the

01:12:46.020 --> 01:12:53.476
athletic program were the toughest. I
really got some calls from people

01:12:53.509 --> 01:12:59.805
associated with the regions, the
legislature, sometimes the president's

01:12:59.838 --> 01:13:04.015
office saying, can't we do something
about this all American football

01:13:04.048 --> 01:13:08.156
player or somebody else who was just
flunked out after we'd worked with

01:13:08.189 --> 01:13:11.635
them very closely and hired and said,
just go to community college so that

01:13:11.668 --> 01:13:17.336
you can do the work and come back in.
But then they wouldn't be fine. And

01:13:17.369 --> 01:13:21.296
I think like Mary Ann Jennings and
others, that pressure gets pretty

01:13:21.329 --> 01:13:24.756
intense because people feel very
strongly about it. And they say I went to

01:13:24.789 --> 01:13:28.996
Michigan. So I know what that pressure
is like, but that's something

01:13:29.029 --> 01:13:32.296
university have to be very careful
because you can hurt your reputation

01:13:32.329 --> 01:13:35.906
badly. If you give into those
pressures, you have to have programs that

01:13:35.939 --> 01:13:41.226
help students succeed. But you can't
treat people who are playing with a

01:13:41.259 --> 01:13:44.836
high profile football program
differently than you treat all the other

01:13:44.869 --> 01:13:48.446
students. I had black and Hispanic
students come to me when I was

01:13:48.479 --> 01:13:52.237
Associate dean for academic programs
and say, why aren't we treated the

01:13:52.270 --> 01:13:56.967
same way as football players? Because
they said they get special benefits

01:13:57.000 --> 01:14:00.626
and they get special counseling and
they get tutoring. Well, we set up a

01:14:00.659 --> 01:14:04.666
tutoring program as you know, many of
them at the university now that

01:14:04.699 --> 01:14:09.126
should be for all students. But the
pressure is so great, you always have

01:14:09.159 --> 01:14:13.515
to watch that aspect of it. But beyond
that, it's been a wonderful

01:14:13.548 --> 01:14:18.746
experience, both teaching and research
and even with that, and I happen to

01:14:18.779 --> 01:14:22.817
like football. Although we're mixed up
with this university, we lost to

01:14:22.850 --> 01:14:25.616
Ohio State in the Rose Bowl and beat
Michigan if you have to lose.

01:14:25.649 --> 01:14:30.055
Supposed to be the other way around.
That's ok.

01:14:30.088 --> 01:14:33.467
And what about baseball? I thought
that was your first. It is. It is. I

01:14:33.500 --> 01:14:37.536
mean, I'm in my fifth year of playing
center field again in the El Dorado

01:14:37.569 --> 01:14:42.277
Park here, as I say, I used to play in
the leagues but, and I'm still a

01:14:42.310 --> 01:14:46.706
Detroit Tiger fan when the Tigers came
here a few years ago and Schilling

01:14:46.739 --> 01:14:52.036
was fishing. My three grandkids and my
son were here from Oregon and my

01:14:52.069 --> 01:14:56.055
wife and I, we took them to the game
and Rene and I wore our Detroit Tiger

01:14:56.088 --> 01:15:01.237
shirts and then I stopped at a target
and got Diamondback shirts for my

01:15:01.270 --> 01:15:04.946
grandkids and my son, we went in and
you know there's an elevator at the

01:15:04.979 --> 01:15:10.196
Diamondback Stadium and we went up and
the lady who worked, who was

01:15:10.229 --> 01:15:14.217
operating it kept staring at Rena and
me and I looked at my grandkids and

01:15:14.250 --> 01:15:17.326
I said, see, I told you if I bought
you those shirts, they'd let us in.

01:15:17.359 --> 01:15:22.826
And do you know the Tigers actually
won that day? Mora, their pitch of

01:15:22.859 --> 01:15:26.925
beach cling

01:15:26.958 --> 01:15:29.756
pretty good baseball team. We've got,
well, we've won five national

01:15:29.789 --> 01:15:34.586
championships and Pedroia who's all
American here? I think it's shortstop

01:15:34.619 --> 01:15:38.175
for us when I watched him play, but
he's second baseman rookie of the year

01:15:38.208 --> 01:15:43.376
for the world champion Red Sox. Yeah,
we have a great baseball program and

01:15:43.409 --> 01:15:46.156
I'm still hopeful that our football
program is going to win the national

01:15:46.189 --> 01:15:49.786
championship. I think we should have
won in 75. We didn't get the national

01:15:49.819 --> 01:15:52.366
publicity, but I think we were the
best team in the country. We were rated

01:15:52.399 --> 01:15:58.756
number two and undefeated. I noticed
he didn't mention bonds, but

01:15:58.789 --> 01:16:01.996
they wanted to name a street after
Barry Bonds. But, you know, he flunked

01:16:02.029 --> 01:16:09.166
out and he was the kind of teammate
that the baseball team went on strike

01:16:09.199 --> 01:16:12.967
and they wouldn't play with him. And
the coach brought in his father,

01:16:13.000 --> 01:16:15.897
Bobby Bonds from the San Francisco
Giants to talk to the other players so

01:16:15.930 --> 01:16:20.317
that they would play with him. So I
said this is not in my view, the kind

01:16:20.350 --> 01:16:22.987
of guy we should name a street after.
If you want to name a street, name

01:16:23.020 --> 01:16:26.586
it after Reggie Jackson, who graduated
from the school of architecture was

01:16:26.619 --> 01:16:30.135
not only bright but a very good
student and he's in the Hall of Fame and

01:16:30.168 --> 01:16:33.357
he helped the Yankees win world
championships and also the Oakland A's

01:16:33.390 --> 01:16:38.616
before that, he's the guy that we
should name streets after not Barry

01:16:38.649 --> 01:16:45.286
Bonds in my view. What are they
looking to the baseball stadium? If you go

01:16:45.319 --> 01:16:50.506
around Tiger stadium, you'll see Hank
Greenberg Street street, Al K Street

01:16:50.539 --> 01:16:53.937
or in New York. I'm sure there's a
Ruth street and a Garrick street in

01:16:53.970 --> 01:16:58.647
Demaggio. So this is in downtown
Phoenix. No, I'm talking about your

01:16:58.680 --> 01:17:01.467
Yankee stadium in New York and others.
That's often the case when you have

01:17:01.500 --> 01:17:04.576
a great teams.

01:17:04.609 --> 01:17:07.687
I don't, oh, it's going to be on
campus here. They're going to name a

01:17:07.720 --> 01:17:11.616
street after Barry Bonds and I, I, at
least I opposed it, but I, I

01:17:11.649 --> 01:17:16.937
suggested Reggie Jackson instead. That
sounds like a better recommendation

01:17:16.970 --> 01:17:22.817
from my point of view. It is. So, um,

01:17:22.850 --> 01:17:27.376
you, you talked a lot about, you know,
being the, the chair of the

01:17:27.409 --> 01:17:31.446
Department of Sociology for nine
years, right? And then you moved on to

01:17:31.479 --> 01:17:36.366
the Associate Dean of academic
programs in the College of Liberal Arts and

01:17:36.399 --> 01:17:40.126
Sciences for 11 years, right? Can you
explain what that position? Sure,

01:17:40.159 --> 01:17:44.536
Gary ran was the dean of the college
and then you have uh three divisions

01:17:44.569 --> 01:17:50.786
you have uh the associate dean for
academic programs.

01:17:50.819 --> 01:17:53.496
I was the academic dean within the
college. And then you have the

01:17:53.529 --> 01:17:57.196
associate dean for research that was
no soft who is the research dean

01:17:57.229 --> 01:18:00.336
within the college? Because we
generate more research grants, National

01:18:00.369 --> 01:18:03.406
Science Foundation, others than any.
In fact, all the other colleges put

01:18:03.439 --> 01:18:07.576
together engineering business, all the
others. And then you have an

01:18:07.609 --> 01:18:12.885
associate dean for personnel as well.
Wendy Wilkins for a number of years

01:18:12.918 --> 01:18:18.576
was that she was the personnel dean.
So with those three divisions,

01:18:18.609 --> 01:18:22.175
the college has grown so much, they've
taken my position and split it into

01:18:22.208 --> 01:18:25.656
three dean ships. So there's a dean of
humanities, a dean of Social and

01:18:25.689 --> 01:18:31.866
Behavioral Science and a dean of the
Life and Physical Sciences.

01:18:31.899 --> 01:18:36.937
But the whole university has grown
bigger. But we engaged in when I was

01:18:36.970 --> 01:18:41.956
there, all of the undergraduate and
graduate programs in the college and

01:18:41.989 --> 01:18:45.967
developed a number of new programs and
revision of programs in physics and

01:18:46.000 --> 01:18:51.616
the New African American Hispanic
studies programs. So it was an exciting

01:18:51.649 --> 01:18:56.897
period and lots of the developments
that we now have in operation occurred

01:18:56.930 --> 01:19:03.246
during the 11 years. I was there and I
still interact with my staff and

01:19:03.279 --> 01:19:10.397
others in the College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences. As you know, the most

01:19:10.430 --> 01:19:14.196
students take courses in our college
because you have to graduate your

01:19:14.229 --> 01:19:18.796
math, your English, your history, all
of those sciences are all in the

01:19:18.829 --> 01:19:23.406
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
So it was during your time there

01:19:23.439 --> 01:19:27.237
that they developed the special
programs where you talked about the Native

01:19:27.270 --> 01:19:31.006
American. And what about developing
those programs? Because that's

01:19:31.039 --> 01:19:35.616
something that didn't exist. Well,
it's interesting in the sense that

01:19:35.649 --> 01:19:39.237
there's a great emphasis right now on
interdisciplinary research and

01:19:39.270 --> 01:19:43.866
teaching. And that's was the basis for
all of those programs, the African

01:19:43.899 --> 01:19:48.256
American studies program, uh the
Hispanic Studies Program, the American

01:19:48.289 --> 01:19:53.796
Indian Studies Program, because we had
a cluster of major research,

01:19:53.829 --> 01:20:00.135
teaching faculty in history in
English, in uh in biology. And what we did

01:20:00.168 --> 01:20:06.036
is we took all of them and said, let's
create a center where we could have

01:20:06.069 --> 01:20:10.286
it. Initially, it was an emphasis, it
could be a minor or you could get a

01:20:10.319 --> 01:20:17.956
certificate and we got proposals that
would develop a cluster of courses.

01:20:17.989 --> 01:20:25.006
Initially, it was for 15 hours that
you'd have a minor or 18 hours, I

01:20:25.039 --> 01:20:27.706
think for a certificate

01:20:27.739 --> 01:20:32.107
and there would be people supervising
that and there was coordinating

01:20:32.140 --> 01:20:36.876
bodies for each of those programs and
out of that developed more and more

01:20:36.909 --> 01:20:41.317
courses so that they developed into
majors and you could then have a major

01:20:41.350 --> 01:20:46.836
, emphasizing history or emphasizing
psychology or emphasizing some other

01:20:46.869 --> 01:20:52.357
disciplinary area. And they are now
major programs within the university

01:20:52.390 --> 01:20:57.265
and they are all interdisciplinary in
nature.

01:20:57.298 --> 01:21:02.175
Um Let me see any other issues or
things that we haven't discussed that

01:21:02.208 --> 01:21:08.246
you wanted to be sure and bring up.
Well, uh land core used the term that

01:21:08.279 --> 01:21:15.817
were one university geographically
distributed. And um I think one of the

01:21:15.850 --> 01:21:20.925
challenges we're going to have
occurred when I was on the re accreditation

01:21:20.958 --> 01:21:24.187
committee, every university is
accredited every 10 years. We were re

01:21:24.220 --> 01:21:29.095
accredited by North Central because we
came in as a territory under the

01:21:29.128 --> 01:21:34.696
Northwest ordinance of 1785. And
because of that, that was the ordinance

01:21:34.729 --> 01:21:38.987
that created the States of Michigan,
Illinois, Indiana, Illinois and

01:21:39.020 --> 01:21:42.467
Wisconsin. And that's the North
Central accreditation, one of the best in

01:21:42.500 --> 01:21:46.906
the country. We get accredited by them
at Chicago University of Michigan,

01:21:46.939 --> 01:21:54.939
Illinois. Same accreditation agency.
The in, in, in terms of the, the, the

01:21:55.958 --> 01:22:00.717
, the accreditation, I was thinking of
two things at the same time and I,

01:22:00.750 --> 01:22:08.750
I want to get back to the uh the, the
question that you, you have

01:22:08.890 --> 01:22:12.456
the di yeah, because I was thinking of
that accreditation, but

01:22:12.489 --> 01:22:17.916
specifically in 1993 when I was on the
re adit committee, we were going to

01:22:17.949 --> 01:22:22.967
go out to a Su West and it was stopped
the day before we went out, they

01:22:23.000 --> 01:22:25.527
said they wanted separate
accreditation. Well, if they got separate

01:22:25.560 --> 01:22:30.527
accreditation, they could branch off
into a separate university. And that

01:22:30.560 --> 01:22:35.706
became a real problem and mighty core
tried to, he did address that issue

01:22:35.739 --> 01:22:39.467
said no, no, they did get a separate
accreditation at that time. But now

01:22:39.500 --> 01:22:43.717
we're trying to merge that So one of
the big challenges is to have a

01:22:43.750 --> 01:22:49.116
university that's growing toward
90,000 students with clusters, thousands

01:22:49.149 --> 01:22:55.006
at Poly Tech, the East Campus Technic
and ASU West, the downtown campus,

01:22:55.039 --> 01:23:00.305
the research facility in Scottsdale
and then the Tempe campus, which used

01:23:00.338 --> 01:23:04.246
to be called the main campus. The

01:23:04.279 --> 01:23:10.635
problem is that unless you have
regular interaction and the high speed

01:23:10.668 --> 01:23:14.496
rail between Tempe and the downtown
campus is going to keep that going

01:23:14.529 --> 01:23:17.265
because you'll have students and
faculty going back and forth in less than

01:23:17.298 --> 01:23:23.345
20 minutes each way. We need high
speed rail going out to the west campus

01:23:23.378 --> 01:23:27.687
as well. And yesterday at the meeting,
I was at that President Crow called

01:23:27.720 --> 01:23:31.626
with three members of the City Council
in Phoenix. That was one of the

01:23:31.659 --> 01:23:37.925
issues they talked about and we need
in my view, the fast rail down to the

01:23:37.958 --> 01:23:41.206
research center in Scottsdale, which
is right on Scottsdale Road in

01:23:41.239 --> 01:23:45.876
mcdowell. And we have to figure out a
way of getting more effectively into

01:23:45.909 --> 01:23:50.027
polytechnic. I mean, I was just there
for a conference at three o'clock.

01:23:50.060 --> 01:23:55.256
It was Friday, Thursday. No, it was
Friday last week and I left an hour

01:23:55.289 --> 01:23:59.046
early from here and I got there 20
minutes late. It took me an hour and 20

01:23:59.079 --> 01:24:04.217
minutes. It's just a tremendous
traffic. So you can do some of this

01:24:04.250 --> 01:24:10.595
through visual interaction on TV and
talking. But you've got to have a lot

01:24:10.628 --> 01:24:15.196
of physical interaction with people to
really have strong programs. And I

01:24:15.229 --> 01:24:18.425
think that's going to be, I think
we're addressing it particularly with

01:24:18.458 --> 01:24:23.376
the downtown campus and Tempe. But we
have to bring in the West and

01:24:23.409 --> 01:24:26.366
Polytechnic campus

01:24:26.399 --> 01:24:30.015
so that they not only are viewed as
strong programs independently but that

01:24:30.048 --> 01:24:36.659
they are part of a viable interacting
system through the whole university.

01:24:37.109 --> 01:24:39.109
Many people still think of this as four separate universities and there's

01:24:41.708 --> 01:24:45.046
the University of Michigan model and
the Michigan State University model,

01:24:45.079 --> 01:24:49.925
Michigan State created Michigan State
at Oakland. Many years ago. They

01:24:49.958 --> 01:24:53.666
broke off in Oakland University.
They're totally independent of Michigan

01:24:53.699 --> 01:24:57.416
State, the University of Michigan did
that in Dearborn and Flint. Those

01:24:57.449 --> 01:25:00.196
are still the University of Michigan
at Dearborn and the University of

01:25:00.229 --> 01:25:06.036
Michigan at Flint. I think what
President Crowe and Core and the faculty

01:25:06.069 --> 01:25:10.156
have wanted from actually the
inception is the University of Michigan

01:25:10.189 --> 01:25:14.015
model. And I'm not saying that just
because I was the University of

01:25:14.048 --> 01:25:17.626
Michigan, but it's actually a good
one. But we have to constantly figure

01:25:17.659 --> 01:25:22.946
out how to make sure that we're not
totally separate and feeling that

01:25:22.979 --> 01:25:27.826
we're not part of the same campus
academic community. And I think that

01:25:27.859 --> 01:25:31.166
will be a challenge for a long time to
come. But I think we're addressing

01:25:31.199 --> 01:25:35.897
it more effectively now than we have
in the past.

01:25:35.930 --> 01:25:38.166
Certainly does sound like a challenge.
I was gonna ask you about

01:25:38.199 --> 01:25:45.015
challenges for the future. So I think
you've covered that. Um It, see, how

01:25:45.048 --> 01:25:50.265
would you like to be remembered here
on campus? I have not thought about

01:25:50.298 --> 01:25:52.866
that. Um,

01:25:52.899 --> 01:25:58.067
uh I, I have great colleagues and
students who I interact with. Uh, I mean

01:25:58.100 --> 01:26:01.976
, I went to a meeting where I was at a
table and a woman looked at me and

01:26:02.009 --> 01:26:10.009
said, Professor Gordon. I said, yeah,
I said, uh my uh son had you for a

01:26:10.739 --> 01:26:15.086
class a few years ago and I had you in
1972.

01:26:15.119 --> 01:26:18.586
And I said, oh, yes. You know, I, I
recognized her and then another lady

01:26:18.619 --> 01:26:23.805
said, my granddaughter had you. So
I've been here 40 years. So it's been a

01:26:23.838 --> 01:26:30.416
long time and I've part of the joys.
My wife got her phd in geography here

01:26:30.449 --> 01:26:33.385
and she was at the medical school for
the University of Arizona for 15

01:26:33.418 --> 01:26:38.576
years and then was brought to what was
then a U East now polytechnic to

01:26:38.609 --> 01:26:41.777
take the lead in starting the Health
Wellness degree program, which has

01:26:41.810 --> 01:26:48.937
been in existence now for four years.
And I know Bob Francis knows I lost

01:26:48.970 --> 01:26:53.616
my wife to pancreatic cancer two years
ago just one month before our 50 th

01:26:53.649 --> 01:26:59.277
wedding anniversary. And that was a
special faculty member here too. And

01:26:59.310 --> 01:27:06.317
so I had a great partner and
colleagues and friends over a long period of

01:27:06.350 --> 01:27:11.925
years. So I guess to be viewed as a
good friend and colleague who is also

01:27:11.958 --> 01:27:17.206
a good academic, I think would be
fine. And what about advice for, for

01:27:17.239 --> 01:27:20.067
young people that are just trying to
decide what they want to do with

01:27:20.100 --> 01:27:25.626
their lives. What do you, I've, um
years ago I, I heard a talk by a

01:27:25.659 --> 01:27:33.567
community leader in Detroit who is
talking to a group of interfaith

01:27:33.600 --> 01:27:38.805
grouping on it was called the religion
and race conference about learning

01:27:38.838 --> 01:27:43.336
how we can get along. He said, you
know, there are many paths to the Lord.

01:27:43.369 --> 01:27:45.866
And I thought that was an interesting
statement because sometimes

01:27:45.899 --> 01:27:50.376
students think they have to know
exactly what they're going to do here. I

01:27:50.409 --> 01:27:53.496
am in sociology, but I was going to
get a phd in history and my parents

01:27:53.529 --> 01:27:57.756
said an MD degree, like a lot of my
cousins were doing, I'm sure I would

01:27:57.789 --> 01:28:03.666
have been happy in being a physician
too. My son is, and, and I say, look

01:28:03.699 --> 01:28:07.366
, explore what you want to do if you
change your mind and you think this

01:28:07.399 --> 01:28:10.305
would be a better direction. There are
many ways you're going to end up

01:28:10.338 --> 01:28:14.555
doing ok, as long as you're committed
and interested and you do the best

01:28:14.588 --> 01:28:19.616
you can and a good job. So often
students get very worried that are they

01:28:19.649 --> 01:28:23.175
on the exact right path? Are they
doing exactly what they need to do? And

01:28:23.208 --> 01:28:27.996
I said, just do a good job the best
you can do. And I said, you'll end up

01:28:28.029 --> 01:28:33.826
fine and I try to get students to
relax a little bit about that and look

01:28:33.859 --> 01:28:37.946
at my daughter graduated Phi Beta
Kappa in history at Pomona and she's a

01:28:37.979 --> 01:28:43.187
silk artist in Maui and they used to
sell her silk paintings for like

01:28:43.220 --> 01:28:50.756
$2025. They go for $2500 now in Maui
and at art stores and I had no idea

01:28:50.789 --> 01:28:53.746
what she was getting into. Now, I knew
my son, he was going to be a

01:28:53.779 --> 01:28:56.925
physician. He's a radiation. I knew
what he was going to do. My other

01:28:56.958 --> 01:29:01.496
daughter, Melinda Sue, she's a
cinematographer specializing in production

01:29:01.529 --> 01:29:06.345
, still photography. She's been on six
George Clooney movies. He really

01:29:06.378 --> 01:29:10.046
likes her work. She's on Ocean's 13
and Leatherheads will be coming out

01:29:10.079 --> 01:29:14.055
about. He's an over the hill football
player from the 20 s and leather

01:29:14.088 --> 01:29:18.076
because they didn't have padding in
there. But I would have never

01:29:18.109 --> 01:29:22.925
predicted she'd be trained in
cinematography and she got a lifetime

01:29:22.958 --> 01:29:27.175
achievement award in February with a
statue and all the guys who got it

01:29:27.208 --> 01:29:31.876
were in their 6070 s and she was in
her 40 and uh it was a black tie

01:29:31.909 --> 01:29:36.305
affair and my son and I were there. It
was really quite something I tell

01:29:36.338 --> 01:29:41.046
the students they love what they're
doing. All of them. My son, my

01:29:41.079 --> 01:29:44.357
daughters and I said

01:29:44.390 --> 01:29:47.726
you would have never predicted in
advance what was going to happen. But

01:29:47.759 --> 01:29:54.786
whatever you do, if you want to be a
good a truck driver delivering goods

01:29:54.819 --> 01:29:59.067
in the team series that I know a lot
of people over the years that find a

01:29:59.100 --> 01:30:02.765
wonderful career doing that. Guys, I
play softball with, they are only

01:30:02.798 --> 01:30:05.906
about four or five of us are college
graduate. They're retired firemen

01:30:05.939 --> 01:30:11.925
from New York Marines and other things
that they have wonderful careers

01:30:11.958 --> 01:30:15.696
and they're wonderful people to play
with. So

01:30:15.729 --> 01:30:19.607
I think most increasingly it's going
to be college, but not necessarily.

01:30:19.640 --> 01:30:24.425
So I encourage people to just do the
best you can and I do encourage them

01:30:24.458 --> 01:30:30.555
to go to college because you can get
some great background that way. Ok.

01:30:30.588 --> 01:30:33.196
Well, I think I've covered the
questions I had for you. Was there

01:30:33.229 --> 01:30:39.265
anything I'd left out that I should
have asked you the, um, I think the

01:30:39.298 --> 01:30:43.777
Detroit Tigers are going to win the
World Series next year.

01:30:43.810 --> 01:30:49.046
Ok. A su in the Holiday Bowl? Oh, yes.
I, I'm afraid, I think we'll, I

01:30:49.079 --> 01:30:52.350
think we'll win. We have a really good
team.