And I'll start off by identifying on the, on the tape that today is
Wednesday, December the fifth of 2007. And we're here at the, the A SU
Community Services building doing an oral history interview for the A su
Retirees Association Living History video project. Uh I'm Pam Stevenson
doing the interview and Manny Garcia is our videographer and I'll let you
give this your full name Lynn Gordon, as opposed to Leonard since I came
here in 67 even the president calls me Lynn. So I've given up being called
Leonard. It's Lynn. Ok, I see
and tell me when you were born and where you were born. I was born on
December 6th, 1935 in Detroit, Michigan. The year that the Detroit Tigers
won the world championship, the Detroit Lions won the NFL football
championship and the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. Very big year.
And uh tomorrow's your birthday. Happy birthday. Thank you very much. Um
, ok, let's talk a little bit about what was it like when you were growing
up? Did you grow up there? Yes, I did. And what was in the middle of the
depression and I even have memories of that. It was very tough. My dad and
my mom were both Russian Jewish immigrants and didn't have much schooling
and my dad was a tailor and he was starting a small tailor men's
haberdashery store. And I remember the stories of how he'd go and get used
clothing and then redo them, clean them and sew them together and he
started his business and he just interacted with people very pleasantly.
And so customers really liked him and he did a good job in tailoring. So
we made a living, but it was, I remember apartment was above where his
tailor and haberdashery store was. And, uh long steps and, uh, my earliest
memories were being in a crib, uh, and watching customers, uh, look at me
as, as I was standing up and my mom was working in the store selling ties
and other things. And, uh, and that continued pretty much. My dad didn't
find he was drafted in the Navy in World War Two. And I remember that nice
letter from President Roosevelt saying greetings. And we went to the
Federal building downtown Detroit and my dad passed the physical and I
asked him what service he wanted to be. And he said, I guess the army, he
said, you're in the Navy. And the guy behind him said the Navy said you're
in the army. And so that's the way they operated. And then after the war,
they got out in 45
his business, he worked very hard and had a nice business and saved up and
sent my four year old brother to college. And me and my brother is a
pharmacist and I developed an academic career and got a phd in sociology.
My first two degrees at Michigan and Wayne State are in history, which for
me has been a good combination in teaching
a little bit about growing up. You say you had one brother,
older, four years older, he was a pharmacist in Michigan for like 35 years.
And then he and his wife Ruth went down to Florida. They live in Boca
Raton and he passed the pharmaceutical board in Florida. So he, he still
works as a pharmacist there.
Although he travels a lot
growing up there, you say they were Russian immigrants? Was there a
community of Russian immigrants? It, it's quite a large Jewish community
and I think a lot of us were Russian or Polish immigrants and it was, it
was I'm part of the first generation, born in the United States being in
Detroit. But I remember before my dad went in the Navy since he didn't
have any schooling, he couldn't read or write. So my brother, he would put
out the Detroit free press on the dining room table. And my brother and I
would take turns reading the news to him. So he would know what's going on
and he was very bright, he just didn't have any schooling. And the Detroit
was a booming city. At that time, the factories were going 24 hours a day
during world war, I, I putting out tanks and airplanes. And then after the
war, the automobile industry which I hope does again, really boomed in
Detroit and Detroit, the city itself got to be almost 2 million by the FS
, not counting the suburbs. So it was really a dynamic city and it was an
exciting place to be in some ways. I remember growing up in Detroit at
that time, almost felt like being in Phoenix now with all the burgeoning
developments, not only in Phoenix, but of course, in Tempe and Scottsdale
and Chandler mesa, all the Glendale all around as a child. Then did, did
you learn to speak Russian? The rare of Irish, which means uh hello,
friend a few a little bit. But mostly uh the uh my parents, uh when they
spoke another language that they thought my brother and I couldn't
understand it was Yiddish. And uh if you understand Yiddish, you
understand German uh a lot. So, uh when I was going through, you had to
pass exams in German and French for your phd. And uh German was pretty
easy because uh 70% of Yiddish is German. So, uh that, that, that helped.
But uh it was, it was English really, uh mostly it's surprising how many
people I've interviewed that did have have their first language was
another language if they had parents that were immigrants and John, F
Long's first language was German. Yeah. Very common for people who
immigrated from another country and for their Children to grow up until
they went to school, uh, learning, speaking another language. Um You, you
sound like you're very vivid memories as a child if you can remember being
in a play pin or a crib. Well, that's my earliest memory. I definitely
remember that. But there were a lot of people who would come in and talk
to me and I'm sure my brother had the same experience four years earlier.
What about going to school there? What kind of school did you go to school
? Was good. The started out at Greenfield elementary school.
And of course, at that time, I say, of course, because it was true of a
lot of people within eight or nine blocks. Like there were seven brothers
and two sisters on my dad's side alone. My grandparents on my dad's side
lived right next to the elementary school. So you could walk and I could
say hello and get food anywhere I wanted uh along the way. And that was
common of Italian families and others uh in the in the area. So, um and
then we moved to uh still Detroit but uh nor Northwest Detroit to a two
flat. But I was within two blocks of a high income area and the elementary
school was Hampton and it was maybe one of the best around. They already
were teaching math and languages in the 7th and 8th grade. So that was a
great experience. Then I went to Mumford High School, which we 80% went on
to college from Mumford and cast a tech and Mumford were the two major
college prep public schools in Detroit. I had really good grounding to go
to the University of Michigan and Wayne State University for different
degrees. And that was a great opportunity at the time. You say your dad
was away during the war years. What was that like? How did you survive?
Well, my dad's brother was a partner. I, and so, and my mom worked in the
store. So I and my Aunt Esther and my mom kept the business going. And, uh
, my brother and I, you worked in the store, you cleaned up the floors,
you straighten out the, uh, the pants and other merchandise. So, uh, it
was a fan and then my cousins, we, we'd be in, it was really, so it kept
going. Um, and the, uh, uh, so it was still an operation and then they
each established their own stores after the war. And so, um, it was, in
fact all the stores were Taylor and Haberdashery stores. There's seven
brothers and they all all did the same thing and a lot of people thought
it was a corporation, but they are all individually owned, but they all
said Gordon Taylor and Cleaners
when your father was away, were you worried about him? And I stayed with
his younger brother Joe, who had diabetes. And I remember staying one
summer there and in fact, the cousins, we had dinners every Sunday with
all the cousins, the seven brothers and two sisters, my grandparents. So
we're still quite close. We get together in Montana. My cousin miles has
and his wife have a nice summer place up there and they still interact. My
cousin, Milt who's a dentist just came in. He's coming back with his wife
, Cheryl. So there's a group of Gordon cousins that are still very close
going back to that period. That must have been a hard time though, as a
young boy through the war years to know your father was well, my dad
because he couldn't read or write, he learned three words and he sent a
letter that was eight pages long and on every page it simply said, I love
you. And I think six of the pages were for my mom and the other two for my
brother and me. No, that's good that he learned that. Yes. That's right.
So, where, where did he serve your dad? Where did he serve during the war
during the war? Yeah. 4445. You know, did you know where he was? No, he
actually, because he was a tailor, they made him into a tailor and they
really needed tailors. And when the kids used to watch movies, like Midway
and the Japanese planes were attacking and the guys would be going up to
mount the guns to protect the ship as the plane. I said, if it wasn't for
grandpa, a would be falling down, we might have lost that war.
So that's what my kids, of course.
No, he actually, they kept him at camp Perry, Virginia, which is a CBS
camp as guys were getting ready to go off, he was fixing their clothes.
I did have a cousin who fought in Sicily and Italy and it was in right
after D day. That was a first cousin who also was Russian Jewish
immigrants. So it was when you went into the, for my dad and my cousin,
you put stars in your window. People were very proud to be participating
in the war effort at that time.
So during those years, what were you thinking about? What were you going
to do when you grew up as a boy? I wanted to play center field for the
Detroit Tigers or dance on Broadway. I really like Gene Kelly and Fred
Astaire and the Tigers had some great teams. I mean, when I was growing up
, they won four pennants in two world championships. And Hank Greenberg,
their first baseman who's in the hall of fame was Jewish. He wouldn't play
on Young Kipper. And, uh, one year the New York Times read out. Thank God.
It's young Kipper Greenberg can't play because he knocked in 100 and 83
runs. One year, hit 58 homers and another, I mean, he really was and the
Tigers had just great teams. So I got really excited about that. But all
of my cousins and were going to college and the two things where you
become a, a physician or an attorney and my brother being a pharmacist, my
dad had the idea of buying a little building and I would have my medical
practice upstairs. I'd get the MD. My brother is a pharmacist and I'd send
patients down to get their drug, you know, the prescriptions. And one day
when I came home and I told my dad, I'm going to get a doctor's degree and
he was so happy. I said it's a phd, not an MD, but my son, Matt is an MD.
So they were happy that he wanted to be. So why didn't you want to go and
become a doctor?
Rena? My wife, we were teenage sweethearts and she was so encouraging me
to be basically anything I wanted to be. And I was interested in history
at the time and I was interested in asking questions about how we got
where we are, where we are, what we stand for as a country and what's
happening in the world. And I learned what a phd was and that you actually
could do research and teach in that area and publish. And I just got
excited about that, even as I was starting to go to college. And even
though I think it initially disappointed my parents, they were happy over
time as I did. Ok, I got an early on a National Science Foundation grant
when I was 25 and then a Rockefeller grant and I taught at Wayne State
University for a few years before coming here. So they saw that I was
making a living and doing ok. And so it worked out.
So where did you actually go to high school then Mumford High? And that
was really a very good college prep high school. And it had another
dimension to it. There was a very poor all black area near the baseline
Eight Mile Road. In fact, there was a movie called Eight Mile Road and I
think started, that's the boundary between Detroit and the suburbs. And
about 15% of the students were low income black students who were in our
district. So here you had this high achieving a lot of Jewish students,
but also high achieving white Protestants and Catholics at the school. And
these blacks and they did much better than I think they would have if they
had gone to another Detroit school. And that was a healthy thing because
we had a mixture racially and ethnically and religiously at the school.
And it was a high achieving school. So I think Mumford and Rene and I were
in the first graduating class in 53. So we were always seniors because we
were the first freshman, first, sophomore, junior and senior. I think that
did something to our psyche and that was our experience. And there have
been reunions. We were at a number of reunions of that first class. There
were about 450 of us in that first class. You know, there's something
about starting a new school too, sort of cader and then it may have
influenced why I was attracted out here at Arizona State with the new
programs we were developing, going to school. You talked about, you wanted
to be a center fielder. Did you play sports? I played in the Detroit
Leagues for a few years with the Detroit Giants and in the fast pitch
league sponsored by the field. Wright Paint company and, and this is my
fifth year of softball. So I'm back playing center field here at El Dorado
Park in Scottsdale.
That's right. But you never did make the major league. My next door
neighbor Marty Eskin who tragically was killed in Korea. He went over
there to fight, but he got three bonus offers with the Detroit Tigers, the
Phillies, Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs. And he trained me in
center field. In fact, his parents called me over and gave me all. I still
have his glove and I really was interested my parents at that time. Ball
players didn't get paid that much, believe it or not, even if you were a
first stringer and even an all star, you might get 18, 20,000 a year. They
said if you were a position, you could earn more than that even then. So I
just never pursued that. But that was Al Kine, the Hall of Famer, right
fielder. He was keen to the Tigers right out of high school in Baltimore.
He couldn't relate to the older Tigers. So he used to come and play catch
with us at Mumford High school and we used to sit in right field and watch
him. He was such a right fielder and hitter too. He led the league in
major leagues when he was 21 years old at 340. So
maybe in today's environment, my parents might have thought differently
because the ball players get fat a lot more now that they have free agency
because they can then contract with different clubs. You couldn't win at
that time. You were owned by one club, a whole different world. A rod's
world. We call it
um
oh your, your father didn't want you to be a tailor and carry on the
family business. Uh Actually if uh I think he wouldn't have been unhappy
if I had taken over the business uh or, or my brother, but like his
brothers and sisters, he wanted his Children to become a professional, go
to college. And uh it's interesting. Not in business, but it was
overwhelmingly either law or medicine and my cousins, that's what they're
in. Either they're either physicians or dentists or in, in law. And, uh,
their Children, I think are doing many different things and there wasn't
anybody going for a phd when I started, at least in my family and that's
emerged and now we have a lot of Jewish faculty as every research
university does now, but not at that time, not back in the 50 s.
Um Well, so once you graduated from high school, where did, did you decide
to go to college? Did you, you know, find different places or actually, I
started out as a high school teacher in Oak Park, Michigan, which is right
outside of Detroit. It was another high achieving um high school and I did
that for three years. And uh we were uh actually, uh I was getting my
master's, it was I, I graduated early, I guess I was 21
and I was hired on the condition that I had finished my masters that first
year, which I did. But Renan was 19. I was 20 when we were married because
we had been sweethearts since we were 15. And so I needed to start making
a living and we graduated in 57
I mean, 5055 we married uh and uh we graduated in 57. So we thought we
could start raising a family at that. Point. And um our oldest daughter,
Melinda Sue, who's a cinematographer shooting a new Nicole Kidman movie in
Germany. I, I was talking about before she um was due September 10th, 1957.
And I stayed up all night with Rene in the hospital, Sinai Hospital in
Detroit. And she took my hand about six o'clock in the morning and said,
honey, you better start earning a living and teach. So I went to Oak Park
High and that was my first class and they had loose chairs and the class
moved in. It was an American history class. And the secretary came from
the office and said, you better call the hospital. So I asked a little boy
by the name of Donald. He was kind of short. I said, would you tell the
class what you did this summer, Donald? And I went and ran to a phone and
called and found out that Rena was fine and we had a beautiful £7 baby
girl, Melinda Sue. And so I felt better and I came back to the class, the
cheers, most of them were on the floor. They were playing tag, running
around and at the front of the classroom, Donald was saying, and then we
went to Yosemite and nobody was listening to the guy, but he was my
favorite student in my three years teaching in high school. So, and then
after three years, I got a call from uh I got my masters at Michigan in
history, had my bachelor's in history at Wayne State and then three of my
former sociology professors.
I had also been called by the history department.
Professor Kelly was the chair, he was a constitutional historian and
others. They wanted to give me $2200 to work on a phd in history. And I
was earning 5000
in teaching high school. So that was kind of tough. I was thinking about
it and Rena was encouraging me to do whatever I could. We'd figure out a
way of doing it. And then three of my sociology professors called and said
they would offer me 208,000 more if I would teach some sociology classes
but agree to work on a phd in sociology. So my students asked me how I got
into sociology, I say on the basis of principle and interest. And because
that's what I took, the 3000 looked really important at that point. And
that's what I did. And so I got, I taught for a few years at Wayne State.
And then I became, I was asked to be the research director for the Jewish
Community Council after in 62. And that paid about 3000 more. And then the
American Jewish committee headquartered in New York, which is the oldest
community relations organization in the country. It's even a few years
older than the N A AC P asked me if I would become the Michigan area
director and I did that and they paid even more. So I did that while still
teaching courses at Wayne State. And then I got contacted by Tom Holt who
is the Chair of Sociology here at Arizona State because once I got my phd
, I had two offers in New York. I won an academic career and I was going
to leave AJ C. But Tom Holt said Arizona State University is starting its
phd programs. About 90% of them were created between 65 and 75. And we're
recruiting research faculty and it's a great opportunity for you. And he
asked me to come out and interview, they had two other interviews, but I
was one of them and they made an offer and even though it was less than
the New York offers or what I was earning with AJ C, I saw it as a great
opportunity and,
and it was, there were over 20,000 students here even then. So it wasn't,
I mean, when I went to the University of Michigan, they had 17,000. So it
was a big university even then. And I saw they were recruiting faculty
from Michigan and Illinois and Harvard and other places. And I said this
is going to be a really first rate research university. And uh so I went
into my son's room to look at the map because I didn't know where Arizona
was. I thought it was next to Texas. And uh now my wife Rena has a phd in
geography and I think I'm one of her inspirations. So, um so we came out,
the kids were excited because they wanted to know what the West looked
like. And uh and when we came out here, it really was an exciting
atmosphere as it is today because we knew we were developing something
special and we were newer heading toward research one status. That's the
Carnegie Foundation identification of major research universities, which
we achieved in 93. So that's what 14 years ago now. But we knew we were
going to do that. I just looked around and we were getting research grants
, not just in my department but biochemistry, Mort Monk was from Wayne
State University. He got his phd in chemistry and I saw that program
developing physics, history, political science. It really was an exciting
time and an atmosphere. Well, tell me about your first trip to Arizona.
Did you come out here to see it before you made a decision? They always
fly you out now. Um The process was the same then as it is now we recruit
in January and February and don't play up what it looks like in August.
And so I had no idea. All I saw was this beautiful environment. And I
remember calling Rina right away. I said, you've never seen anything like
this. It was snowing and it was, it was cold and icy in Detroit as it is
in January. And
the guys were so nice but it was a new atmosphere. I mean, Tom wanted to
take me around the chair of the department. We came into Scottsdale during
the Prada Del Sol and I'd never heard of that. And as we were riding along
, I saw two guys with guns coming and they drew out a gun and shot and one
fell down And I turned to Tom, I said, Tom, and I pointed and he looked
and he said, oh yeah. And then he said, and on this side, there's a
wonderful story. You can get some nice gifts for your kids. And Rena, I
remember coming back to the university and I pulled over, I think it was
Fred Woodham, one of the other young guys they had hired a year before I
said, Fred, I said, when you have an argument out here, how do you, I mean
, I was pretty naive. I have to admit he laughed when he heard about that.
And I found out what that was like, but it was just a totally different
atmosphere and it was so we came out in August and of course, it was 100
and nine degrees. And uh that was uh I remember Carl Dannen Feld, who was
Dean of our College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He became vice president
later, he put his hand on my shoulder. He says, Lynn, don't worry about
these, uh, this heat. He said you'll get used to it. And about 35 years
later we had lunch and I said, Carl, how long does it take to get used to
this? But it, it's, it's fine. What did your family think? Did you drive
from Detroit to Arizona? We did, we took the famous old route 66. I
remember. Um, and uh south of Chicago all the way out. But my parents here
, they came, they're Russian Jewish immigrants and they said, how could
you go so far? You know, if I'd been uh an MD or an attorney, I'd be right
there in Detroit. And they couldn't imagine moving out there here. They
come all the way from Russia, but they used to come out and once they saw
it in the winter time and they used to stay with us and they found it a
wonderful experience and as time has gone on, other cousins have moved out
mostly to California, Los Angeles. There are great opportunities for them
there. So some of our family are much closer now in California than if we
had stayed in Detroit.
So, what was your family's first impression driving into Arizona? The kids
that was 1967. Let's see, we left Detroit with kids. We had a Chevy
station wagon and I remember we went, oh, maybe 70 or 80 miles. And the
kids started asking, are we almost there? And they'd never been on that
long a trip. In fact, Rene and I had never been on that long a trip. And,
but they were excited, there were so many things to see like when we
crossed the Mississippi at ST Louis and they had that great bridge already
up that they're famous for. I remember my youngest daughter, Melissa,
who's a silk artist in Maui. Now we were crossing and I said, honey, this
is the famous Mississippi river and she looked over as we were going over
the bridge. And when we got through, he says, when do we get to the
Mississippi River? And so I said, they had, we just had a lot of fun going
out and they went to, uh, at the time, we didn't move into Tempe because
the Stockyards I think were, were either in Van Buren or Washington, but
they used to slaughter cattle there. And if you went to a football game in
September and the breeze came, there would be a groan that would go
through the whole stadium. So we were told don't buy in Tempe because they
moved those out, I think in the early seventies. But in 67 a lot of
faculty moved into Scottsdale. And so we did and the kids went to
elementary school and then so high they had very good schooling they do in
Scottsdale. But when they moved the Stockyards out re and I thought it
would be nice to be within walking distance of the university, our kids,
they said you took us all the way from Michigan. We have all our friends
and so they didn't want to leave their school in Scottsdale. So we're
still in Scottsdale.
Yeah. A lot of the faculty did live close by that, that I've talked to,
bought homes in once they moved the stock yards out. That was the common
procedure. Right. Um, so what was it like? What was the campus like when
you came here in 1967? Well, they were already building uh a lot because
uh while there were over 20,000 students when I came, we were already one
of the three fastest grow states in the Union along with Nevada and
Florida. And so you saw this burgeoning going on, there was housing
construction, residential construction in the university had to also do.
In fact, the only time there wasn't construction was during the
recessionary period. And we did have some of that in the seventies with
OPEC the oil embargo and it slowed down, but it only slowed down, the
students kept coming because we were a growth state. And of course, we
still very much are. And so in some ways, it reflected what's happening
now, there was a lot of excitement about the programs we were developing.
One of the things that we realized over time was something we had to
address. We were so focused on creating good, very good phd programs. With
research faculty and having doctoral students. And we recruited around the
country
that there was, I think a neglect of undergraduate education. So we would
force students into classes of 34, 500 in psychology and sociology and
political science. And even in the chemistry and physics, you had very
large classes because we wanted to spend our time with graduate students.
When I got grants, whether they're NSF or Rockefeller or other grants,
you brought on students into the project and you worked with them and
helped train them. And that was exciting. But we realized by the mid to
late 70 s that we had better start focusing on the quality of
undergraduate education because that's where many of our graduate students
come from. And I think it's a more balanced approach now and that was one
of the things we had to learn with all that rapid development to become a
research. One university. I want to know how it became a party at a school
that was a reputation
more than the reality, even when I was here. It's simply that Arizona
State University has more sun
annually than any other university in the country. And so when you go to
the dorms, you see young people out sunbathing and a lot of the young
women are in bathing suits. And so you have these reporters come and take
pictures and you get the image, it made it appear as though it was a party
school. Well, I remember going back to Michigan, I had several research
grants to Black white leadership studies in the Detroit area. And I'd
visit friends in Ann Arbor. It was in the summertime and I looked around
and I said, you know, the codes here are as attractive as they are at a su
it's just that they're covered up most of the time. And so, uh we, we
never really had
the reality of being a party school the way the image was. And once we
became research one, I think we're no longer in that top listing. But, but
I think that's part of how that happened. Let me go back to 1967 when you
arrived here. Where was your office? And where did you, where were the
classes held? What was the social science building? The one with an atrium
in the middle and the fountain. And then they had a screen on the open
area in the middle and it was air conditioned outside so that it was
comfortable as you walked in. Even before you got to your office.
Originally, Sociology was on the first floor and then we were moved to the
third floor. There was a problem with that building because it was the
last one built under the University of Arizona influence. When I was Chair
of Sociology, I was on the planning committee for the core building and
one of the older members of our facilities management team here at ASU
told me that until the early 60 s, the University of Arizona influence was
so great on the board of Regents that when a building went up in Tucson
and the building went up in Tempe, the University of Arizona would get
copper wiring, we get lead wiring, we got secondary materials and the
building, the social science building I think was the last built under
that influence. Now, since then, our buildings are as good as theirs. But
the building was sinking in one area.
And the roof when we have these downpours in August or January, the
monsoon season, I would be sitting and very often water would be coming in
on your desk and in the books, I can't tell you how many times we had that
happen today, the fourth floor is closed. It's too dangerous to be up
there. There's a yellow tape, it looks like a crime scene when you go. So
we were on the third floor and when you, I remember in my office, there
were two graduate doctoral students and a pen fell down and it rolled and
they were worried about the building and they said, is this safe to be?
And I said six out of seven people come out of here. Ok, every day. And I
, we, I mean, you had a sort of macabre humor but we moved into uh
actually three, some of them, sociology is still in social science, but
some is in the core building and they're moved around that building had
problems from the very beginning. I've heard about the problems. We had
problems from the very beginning. And I think on the third floor you have
ROTC now and some people think that's part of their combat training. But
we, we're not sure. But I think that either they have to really redo it or
take it down and build a new one. I think that's a shame because it's a
beautiful, oh, the design is really nice. Yes, I've heard about all the
problems it's been having, but I didn't realize they started at the very
beginning. That's a shame. Um, we talk about what were the first classes
that you taught here? Did you teach those large classes? I did the, um,
the first, I did get into difficulty the first day I was assigned to teach
classes in modern social problems. They had about 6070 students actually
to a class and that includes a variety of social problems. And the first
day before classes you have tables out in the mall. They are fraternity
and sorority tables, their religious tables and, and here in teaching
modern social problems and being from Michigan, the governor in the 60 s
was George Romney. Mitt Romney's father and I knew the Romney family was
Mormon. In fact, I think Mitt Romney may have gone to the same elementary
school. I went to Hampton because they were from that well to do section
across Livernois Avenue, it was called. And
so I knew about Mormons, but I didn't know that Normans were referred to
themselves as Latter Day Saints. And I saw this table that said L DS on it.
And so I went up and a young man there gave me the brochure and I thank
you very much. I said, do you have something on cocaine and heroin too? I
thought it was LSD of course, and I opened it up and I realized what I had
done. I apologized right away. It was so I told, I said this is not a good
start. Here. It is. But that was my first day. And so I taught modern
social problems. I used to lecture in introductory classes of sociology.
101 there were up to 500 students over in Murdoch Hall and that I was
invited to lecture. I didn't actually teach those sections. I taught
modern social problems, racial and ethnic relations, collective behavior
and social movements and urban sociology. Those were my major classes and
graduate. And of course, the mid these were the time that there were of
the race riots and in various, oh yes, in fact, I was still there. Uh I
had signed in the spring of 67 and July 23 to 27. The worst race riot in
history. Up to that 0.43 people killed occurred. And so I was involved
with the archdiocese, the Jewish Community Council, the Council of
Churches, the Protestant and the inter ministerial alliance of black
churches to set up an emergency distribution center for medicine and food.
It was like a bombed out city and I had grants to go back to study black
white leadership. In fact, my first book was called a City and Racial
Crisis, Detroit Pre and Post the 1967 riot. And the book, Professor Ronnie
Cox asked me to lecture on the book a few months ago. I said sure. But why
are you using my book now? It turned out that the foreword was written by
Congressman John Conyers Jr and he's chair of the House Judiciary
Committee now. So I saw Congressman Conyers at the American Sociological
Association meeting in August New York and he recognized me and we chatted
and I said, I wanted to thank you for writing the forward to my book over
30 years ago because you got the book we used again. So, but you're right.
It was a tough time. There were over 100 race riots between 63 and 71
actually. And uh that was a difficult period. I know that the one riot in
Phoenix was in 69 I believe no, 67 was the same year as Detroit. It was OK.
So you were here. That was before I was in Detroit during the race riots
there. Yes, it was later than that. But um, 67 was the one here. So did
you get involved in all? I got, I did get involved in terms of meeting
with Hispanics and blacks. And I've uh I was in the inner city uh the John
R elementary school. I served actually as a principal for a day uh down
there, but I would interact down there. I'd give uh uh lectures down at
the community college. Uh Is it Ria Sola? Uh The uh down. Yeah, right
downtown. And uh the a number of us were doing research. I did work with
Al Mayor who is out of the University of Chicago in our department um on
housing desegregation. And we studied it over a period of a decade and
published some articles on that and showed how, in fact, there was
significant movement toward integration of neighborhoods in Phoenix. This
was back in the 80 s. And so, yes, I was doing research in that area here
too. I know there were some movements I've been going back through some of
the old news film in 1969. I think it was a housing uh strike that they
weren't paying of the housing projects, refused to pay the rent. Yes. Yeah.
Did you get any of that? I did on campus? Um Alfredo Gutierrez was a
student of mine on a seminar on social movements and he was writing about
the Hispanic movement and all of a sudden he wasn't in class one day and I
picked up the Arizona Republic the next morning, he had let us sit in on
the President's office because he found out that Hispanic and Anglo
drivers bringing laundry to the dorms were paid differently. The Anglo
drivers were always paid more. He said, and they documented this than the
Hispanic, even though they had equal time and the performance apparently
was the same. So they tried, he had asked me about that. I said, well, you
know, why don't you check with the dean's office? And then he was sent to
what is now the Provost's office called the vice President's office for
academic programs. And he couldn't get any response. He said, well, he
didn't tell me he was going to lead a sit in on the president's office.
And
so it was in the front page. If you go back to that period, you'll see
Alfredo there. He later became majority leader in the house here. And he's
now a major consultant, political consultant. But at the time, he was, he
was a Hispanic leader, somewhat radical at the time in terms of sitting in
on the president's office. And um I'm looking at Rena and I said, you know
, I don't have tenure here if they find out what course he's taken. But
later on when he became very respectable, I had him lecture in my class.
And to this day, he still hasn't incomplete in my class. And I told him, I
said, why don't you write your paper and finish it? Now, eyes are turned
into east but at that time they weren't in the early seventies. What do
you mean by that? If a student gets an incomplete within, I don't know the
time, but within a year I think it turns into an E, if they don't complete
the course. But at that time there wasn't any time limit, the instructor
could turn it into an E but it would remain an I unless the instructor did
that. And that's, that's what he still has for me, isn't it?
No, because he dropped out of school after that. And I don't think he got
his degree, although you can check on that. But II, I don't think so
because of getting involved with all this. He's very bright though and he
could have gotten a phd if he wanted to stick to it. Um Did you get
involved with any of the other? Um, one of the people I've been looking at
Brunel Coleman was one of the African American leaders, the Matthew
Vincent housing project. Did you? I did, he was on campus too, I think, uh
working with black students, I, I worked with Black and Hispanic and uh
Anglo students. We had a, um, a riot. Uh Here you might recall a
fraternity row, an attack on two black students who they misidentified as
blacks who whistled at one of their girlfriends the night before. And so
that's already when Laddie K was president and I work with a group of
black students to try to resolve that issue and set up a process. We set
up the campus environment team on academic freedom and cultural diversity
at that time. And
Charles Kleos, who was Associate dean of the law school at the time, I at
that time was Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
in academic programs. And Lady asked Charles to become the first chair of
the ce and me to become the second chair. And we worked carefully with the
and closely with the Black and Hispanic and other fraternity sororities.
And that's still an operation that's expanded. And I think that was a good
step. I should talk a little bit about some of the presidents who was
president of the, of a su when you got here. That was president.
Oh my goodness. It starts with Ad
Homer. That's correct. And he was very ambitious because he would print
every week. Everybody who got a grant, everybody who any honors or awards
we got if we were elected president of an academic association, and he
really was a leader in getting those phd programs going because he knew he
wouldn't be a research one university unless we had those in place and
they were effective and strong programs. So that, and then he didn't
retire, but he left to become, I think the Chancellor of the Utah
University. System, as I recall. And then President Schwa came into office
and President Schwa was president when I was president of the Academic
Senate. And we worked closely although he thought the faculty association
was a union and, uh, didn't like that and would tell me in no uncertain
terms because the president of the Senate meets with the president. At
least we did at that time every few weeks in his office. And I remember
him stopping one day. He said you belong to it, don't you? I said, yes,
sir, I do, but he was, he just felt strongly about it and we got along
pretty well actually. And then after president Schwer, we had, was it
President Newman just for a short period, he was an interim president. I'm
trying to think if that was before Lady Core. Oh, no, Nelson. It was, uh,
I was on the Presidential search committee for President Nelson. I should
uh definitely remember that. And because we picked him, uh, and uh along
with the, uh the Board of Regents, uh it was a consensus selection and uh
he was uh president for I think, eight years. And then Lady Co was, uh was
it about President Nelson that made you pick him? He had been very
effective. I think it was provost at the University of Colorado, which is
a research one university. And he had been Dean of the College of Business.
And so he had a good track record and it seemed he got along with faculty
and regents. Well, and he was ambitious for us to become research one too.
So that would have continued our momentum. And there were three
presidents of universities, one was president of, I think Indiana
University and another one I think Minnesota. So it was a strong pool and
we realized that we were a major university when we took a look at the
pool and that we were going in the right direction and he just seemed like
the best of the pool at the time. How did he work out? What was your
relationship with him? A good relationship? Although his most effective
years were the first four or five. And after that, there are some issues
that came up, had to do with the athletic program. I remember we were
heading toward another championship season and I remember the Faculty
Oversight Committee, Mary Ann Jennings said that a couple of our major
players were academically ineligible and the alumni came down hard on the
president and the regions and some of the legislators and said, you've got
to do something these guys have to be able to play. And Mary Ann Jennings
through credit said, no, we have to follow the rules for them as we do for
all other students. And I came to her and said, you know, you have the
full support of the academic senate and she just spoke to the Emeritus
College. We have a monthly series on Ethics in Business. She did a great
job and she remembered that and said she appreciated the support, but she
was dismissed as the faculty representative. And when that happened,
President Nelson lost a lot of support from the faculty and he decided to
leave shortly after that, he may have gone back to Colorado. I'm trying to
remember as Dean again if I'm not mistaken, but you can check that out.
But at any rate, that's when Lady Cour came and Lady's years were without
exception, were just great. He was terrific in working with at every level
, the board of regents, other administrators, faculty students. He was a
very hard working guy. You might recall, he had a heart attack at one
point because he was doing too much, but he
was wonderful to work with. And it was during the Laddie's time that we
came research one in 1993 I think we were the 84th University in the
country along with Berkeley and Stanford and Michigan and Chicago and
Harvard and Yale in the place where we had been wanting to go. And so when
President Crowe came, he was coming to a very strong base, great honors
college and a lot of growing research grants every year and he's continued
that momentum. What do you think? I think he has a lot of great ideas,
tremendous energy. He does very well working with the legislature in the
regions probably from the point of view of many faculty. And that includes
me, the one thing that I think he has to develop more is communication
before he makes a decision, often he will make decisions that are often
very good ideas, but he doesn't discuss them with faculty and sometimes
the results fracture things. For example, in chemistry and biochemistry
and in sociology, he made some interesting decisions about their
programming, interdisciplinary research programming, but split them into
multiple buildings. And I pointed out to him and he agreed substantively
that when you split departments into different buildings, the interaction
, the daily interaction between faculty and students and that actually
undermines the ability to get grants and do effective teaching because you
don't have it's that informal interaction that's critical to the formal
things that go on. And he agreed with that and said we have to address
that issue and I, I hope he does, but I think that's the one thing if he
had spent some time with the faculty would have delayed the decision for a
few months. But the end run would have been more effective and the faculty
would have felt better about buying into it. But his ideas are very good
and he just needs to work on that.
But I don't think anybody is perfect, but that's one area I think he needs
to work on. It does seem like he's come in here and made a lot of changes
and yes he has, I noticed that you retired officially around the time that
he arrived 2002. Uh But I never was gone. I always had an office. I was on
dissertation, thesis committees. I was lecturing, I was working on with
other faculty and research grants. So that's those of us who are doing
that. And there were over 300 of us in the Emeritus College. That's when
we decided we develop the Emeritus College and get this co ordinated. And
it actually stimulated a lot of faculty to do more and contribute to the
program, the academic program
a little bit about what is the Emeritus College. We started that about
four years ago. Conceptually
Dick Jacob, the former Chair of Physics was the lead and he saw about
eight others of us who were very active and convened the meeting and we
became what eventually it was the first council and we did some research
and found out that Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia had started Em
MEREDITH College and we got information and communicated by email and
phone. We found that Yale University, my alma mater, the University of
Michigan University of Southern California, the University of California
at Berkeley, University of Washington had started these and they were
related to the Retirees Association, which includes staff as well as
faculty that are mostly they do great things on the health insurance,
making sure pensions are going socializing, interacting. We thought it
would be helpful if we had an academic college that actually did teaching
research and had programming with colloquial on research uh issues. Uh We
offer 15 courses at Tempe Library uh right now on because we cover all 11
colleges, our membership uh the we're the 12th college actually officially
, but on the origins of the universe, Cosmos Dick Jacobs teaching that I'm
teaching about sports and politics from a historical and sociological
perspective. We have courses on Virginia Woolf Marjorie Lightfoot Per
Anest on the aurora. I mean, it's the Bible is literature by John Evans.
It's really quite a remarkable set, but that wouldn't have happened if we
didn't have a college and co ordinated that. So the president and the
Provost and that the president has great ideas and the Provost Milk Lake
and now Elizabeth Capaldi were very excited about it and they supported it
and the academic Senate did too. In fact, they made we have an official
senator in the academic, they supported it. And when the graduate college
moved into new offices, they assigned us to take over much of the old
graduate college at Wilson Hall. And so we have a conference room. I have
an office, the associate Dean Charles Elliott, who's an engineering
professor does Dick Jacob. The former dean is involved in a million dollar
development program. We have research and grants committees going so
faculty can start new projects. One Dick Nagasawa has a grant from the
Department of Housing and urban development. Uh We negotiated a contract
uh relationship with the Vice president for research office. Jonathan Fink
, vice president uh worked with us on that and we have outreach programs.
So we're an official college now of the university and we're the 20th in
the country. And our outreach programs include new frontiers for lifelong
learning at MESA Community College. We give lectures in community college.
We offer regular courses. Dick is offering a graduate course, Dick Jacob
in Physics. David Williams. They needed a course, sociology 101 at the
downtown campus and he's offering a course there. So we have regular
colloquial symposium open to the public and the university community. So
it's an extent. Uh We, we're enjoying it and you're the dean of that.
Second dean. Yes, I'm I'm Dean now, Dick Jacob was the founding dean or as
we refer to him, the incredible founding thing that doesn't sound like
you're retired at the moment. I'm not. That's true. Although I did say on
Tuesday and Friday mornings, I play doubleheader softballs. And uh the
problem yesterday, President Crowe had this downtown gathering for three
Phoenix member, council members and I didn't have time to change, but I
did wear my ass U shirt, not my Michigan shirt. So I played in that and so
I was the only one I stood behind people as others had ties and stuff. So
, is this a paid position then I get uh no, I didn't. It isn't. And when I
teach like a five week course, I get paid for that and I get some travel
funds and uh when guests come over, I can take them to the university club.
And we have a budget with the two staff plus a intern from the honors
college for our press. We have an Emeritus College press that publishes a
journal, Emeritus Voices and a newsletter. And actually, we even have one
book of poems by Betty and English professor. And so we have funding for
all of that. We're starting a new center for mentoring of students and new
faculty and the president and Provost have given us $10,000 for powerpoint
and pcs and other things. And we have a library facility that we will be
inhabited in meeting with students or faculty and to interact with them as
they get adjusted to move along effectively in the university and the
courses that the college has, who are the, they're a combination. But uh
like the 15 courses that we're offering at the Tempe library, uh those
would be people in the community that actually the city of Tempe does the
advertising for that. Actually, a number of uh faculty, a maritime take
them too. Uh And if they're not teaching, uh and uh then uh people in the
community, mostly there, there's an upper limit of 20 and they all fill up.
In fact, a few people have come anyway, even though they're not in the
class just to which is fine. And, uh, they're, they're quite popular and
we've done that a year before too. And now a Su West and the Polytechnic
Campus wanted to expand course offerings. The five week course offerings
there people get credit for these courses are courses they sign up for,
but they're not for credit. We do have a lot of faculty teaching regular
courses for credit, But these are just Virginia Woolf or as I say, the
origins of the universe or sports and politics. They're just topics that
people want to hear about and classes meet for two hours once a week, for
five weeks. Five in the fall semester, five in the winter starting in
January and five in the spring starting in March. Serious students that
come and they seem to be, they are, they do their homework and they, they
seem to enjoy it a lot. Take tests and write papers. Well, actually we
have a couple of writing workshops and they do write and, and there is how
to write personal histories. For example, Charles Bronson Dick Jacob is
involved in that. Babs Gordon not related, but that's her, same last name
as mine. She's in the English Department and we have quite a response of
people writing personal histories that they've never done before. In fact
, I've done that myself.
I was doing that. We've got three minutes left on the take. Mm. There you
go. That sounds like a very exciting project to be involved in it.
We have an Ludwig, who's the Ann Ludwig Dance Company was written up in
the New York Times and she gives performances at our annual symposium and
she is scheduled for the new Tempe Cultural Center for the arts theater on
Rio Salad, I think Street. And it's got a wonderful dance company with
Beth LA and that's an exciting. So we have poetry readings and it's, I
mean, it covers the whole gamut of the academic community here,
like a lot of active seniors taking the classes and things. There are, I
think over 1500 Ameri, but over 330 are members of the Emeritus College.
So we probably attracted the ones who really want to keep active. And, but
it's growing, in fact, a number of faculty are within one or 23 years of
the program have been given colloquial for us and then say they want to
join. And I chaired the policy committee for the college. And when I
became Dean Elmer Gooding, our former Provost took my place as chair of
the policy committee and we needed an extra another member on the policy
committee. And Alan Matheson, the former dean of the law school joined the
policy committee. So we really do have a lot of and Winifred do just came
up with her discovery of the skinny gene as a biologist has written up in
the New York Times and is stimulating new research
currently because of the DNA development sensor discovery,
a very high level group of people working on this college. It's a good, if
you wanna give this an ID, I think I will ID that this is tape two with
Lynn Gordon the A su retiree living history project. Um He is a living
history project.
You've insulted the man for all the things he's doing. He certainly is. Um
There are a couple of things I thought about. We didn't talk too much
about back in when you came here in the sixties. One of the things that I
know several people have talked about was the, the Vietnam War protest on
campus. Were you involved or witnessed some of that? Yes. Actually, I was
approached by a number of students who asked my view. I had been in 1968.
If you go back to the State Press, you will see my photo there because
although I'm a democrat, the person who came out with what I thought was
the best position on the Vietnam War was Nelson Rockefeller, who is the
former governor of New York, a Republican who is running for the
Republican ticket. And so I actually came out for him. I was on the radio
in support of him because I thought he was,
I said the kind of Republican I could support because he was good on civil
rights and he did a great job in supporting education in New York. And so
I did and I worked with a group of students who did that, but some of the
students came up and said, would I be part of the teaching that when I
didn't have classes? And I did, I compared it to the Korean War, which was
also not an all out war because we didn't go into China. And in Vietnam,
we weren't going to go into China either.
And those are very tough. And I pointed out that President Truman was very
unpopular because he supported the Korean War. But I pointed out that in
the Korean War, we had un support.
There was an invasion of the South and it was clear that what we were
fighting for in my view made good sense. Even if President Truman was
unpopular, I would have been for the Korean War. I said, but the Vietnam
War is different. We didn't go in
as good a base for one thing. We knew that Ho Chi Minh in a free election
would have won. And secondly, the logistics and the support the Chinese
were providing to the North was such that unless we went into China and
that would have been World War II, we would have had a serious problem.
And so I did participate in that uh when I was uh supporting Mr
Rockefeller on the Republican ticket of all things. Uh when I say of all
things because being from Detroit. Detroit is the only city of a million
or more that has never elected a Republican to Congress ever. And so I
have this Democratic background experience, but I felt very strongly at
the time. And uh and there really are some Republicans that I can, I used
to have Barry Goldwater speak to my class and he was really very good with
students. I must say
interesting thing right there. Why did you have? I wanted my students to
have people in who were part of the political process when I was teaching
courses in political sociology related information. So I invited both
Morris Udall who was a great congressman democrat from Tucson. And he
spoke to a class and then I invited Senator Goldwater who was a great
Republican and they both did a terrific job and it was good for the
students to have them in the class where they could ask questions, they
could see them. And they happened to be two people who were very open to
any questions at all and responded to all. And I thought it was a great
educational experience for the students. One would think that the uh the
senator and congressman would be too busy to do that. Well, I, I actually
at the time Senator Gold Warner left the uh the, the Senate. So he was
living here and Congressman Don I knew came up to the uh to the value uh
here in, in Phoenix. Area and I just worked with his office as to when he
would be here and he, he said he would be delighted to do it. And as I
recall, I couldn't specify particular whenever he was there. That would be
the day he would come. And the same with Senator Goldwater actually, and I
just made sure that that would be the case. Getting back to the Vietnam
War period. You said that you taught at a, did you call it? There was a
teaching on the mall and there were thousands of students and there were
students and faculty who would be asked to go in front of 60 or 70
students and to present their views. And I did as part of that, that's
part of I experienced that as a student at the University of Michigan and
Wayne State University where you get people with different views
expressing themselves. And we have this free speech area which is now
above the library, the lower level library. And that's so that anybody
wouldn't be interfered with us. They were going to the m between classes,
but they could express any views they want on that free speech area. And
that is true. I think any major university and you don't see much activity
usually except during periods of anti war activity or something of that
sort. So maybe revived.
Well, I the I think not as likely because I think we're addressing the
issues
one way or the other in, I don't feel the same. Of course, we're not
losing yearly. We lost 58,000, killed in Vietnam and we've lost terribly
tragically over 4000 and we had a draft then we don't have a draft now. So
there are some different elements going now. Although it clearly is a
major issue should be, you know, many universities had much bigger protest
movements than a su was pretty quiet compared to some of them. Oh, yes. Uh
compared to Berkeley or Michigan or Harvard, uh we were really relatively
low key, but there were, there were some, there were thousands involved
though.
One of the other things I wanted to ask you, you talking about sports and
politics. You were here during the Frank Kush period. Sure. Did you get
involved at all with that? Yes. Uh actually we're on speaking terms now.
He was all American at Michigan State and beat Michigan my alma mater. And
in fact, they were undefeated number one in the country in 52. I think it
was and won the Rose Bowl. But he remembers Michigan beating Michigan
State too a number of times. And so he said you're from Michigan and I
said we do get along well. He was a great coach, ran into difficulty
because when we shifted from the Western Athletic Conference to the PAC 10
, he got really
concern that we couldn't compete without major players. And so the
barriers were dropped to bring people in who weren't academically
qualified or would be. And, uh, when I was president of the Senate, I
heard rumors that strange things were happening and I remember setting up
a special task force to check it out. Well, they found 37 violations to
give you an idea of what was going on. They had students who are
ineligible, take summer courses and they'd hire community college
instructors to teach them. But the instructors never came on campus and
the students never went to any class. They just got grades and grades were
all A's and B's. Well, when we found that out, I invited coach Kush. He
sent some assistant coaches over to meet with the, the Council of the
Academic Senate. And I remember asking one of them the question, he says,
one thing I can't figure out is why some of these guys got BS and he
looked at me and said, we wanted to make it look realistic. And I said,
well, of course, this was reported to the NCAA. We were ineligible for
bowls for about two years. And I think he's truly a great coach, but that
was a serious mistake. And I don't think we do that anymore. Although
there was that pressure on Mary Ann Jennings when she tried to enforce
that a few years later, actually. So there's just so much pressure from
some alumni to succeed. And I'm from the University of Michigan where, you
know, that's a big football and athletic program. So I understand that.
And Michigan's got into trouble on that. You might recall the basketball
team, the Fab Four. They got hundreds of thousands of dollars, poor black
guys from Detroit, driving rolls Royces on campus. And the coach Fisher
said I didn't know anything was going on. Well, it's, you always have to
watch that and that's what happened here for a period of time. But I think
we straighten that out. Were you involved at all? When, when Coach Kush
was fired? No, uh that was, that was handled by the athletic director, I
think. And the president II, I had nothing to do with that.
Looking back over your career here. Is there anything that stands out that
you're the proudest of? I think it's uh being part of that time when we
were developing strong phd programs and master's programs and then
addressing the undergraduate program, we had, I was chair of the, the
outreach program when I was still chair of Sociology to the community
college system statewide. So I chaired the university part of the Transfer
General Education Agreement, which was the community colleges making sure
that the students had the needed courses for them to move successfully
through the ASU when they transferred or U of A or N. And that was called
the T and it is the basis for the current transfer agreement from the
community College system. And one of the things that the Emeritus College
likes to do is to go out. I've given over a dozen presentations and met
with classes mostly at Mesa Community College because I know they want to
transfer to a SU and they really like it when uh a SU faculty come out and
inter interact with them. So, um I, I I'm proud of the edu the, the
academic programming within the university and the outreach to the
community and being part of that. And um chairing the campus environment
team on academic freedom and cultural diversity was a good thing from my
experience. Although Charles Caller was the first chair and I asked
President K to change the name Campus Environment Team. I'll give you an
example. When I was sitting in my office, I was chair of it. I was asked
to go to the Memorial Union because some students were threatening to
chain themselves to the door so nobody could get in or out. And it turned
out, I said, what's the issue? They were students who smoked and they said
there was a new ban on smoking and I said, so I was there. So I talked to
them and some of the people in the mu and I said, couldn't there be an
outdoor smoking area for, we negotiated it and they, they had an outdoor
area where they could smoke. And then I finally looked at them. I said,
but why am I here? They said, well, aren't you chair of the campus
environment team was supposed to be on cultural diversity, you know,
blacks and whites, Hispanics and Anglos. And I said, I don't think that's
what we're supposed to be in business for, but lady liked that name. So it
is still the campus environment
in the broadest sense. That's right. A very broad sense. That's correct.
That's very interesting. Um Were there any particular challenges that you
faced that uh that you wanna talk about? Probably the pressures on the
athletic program were the toughest. I really got some calls from people
associated with the regions, the legislature, sometimes the president's
office saying, can't we do something about this all American football
player or somebody else who was just flunked out after we'd worked with
them very closely and hired and said, just go to community college so that
you can do the work and come back in. But then they wouldn't be fine. And
I think like Mary Ann Jennings and others, that pressure gets pretty
intense because people feel very strongly about it. And they say I went to
Michigan. So I know what that pressure is like, but that's something
university have to be very careful because you can hurt your reputation
badly. If you give into those pressures, you have to have programs that
help students succeed. But you can't treat people who are playing with a
high profile football program differently than you treat all the other
students. I had black and Hispanic students come to me when I was
Associate dean for academic programs and say, why aren't we treated the
same way as football players? Because they said they get special benefits
and they get special counseling and they get tutoring. Well, we set up a
tutoring program as you know, many of them at the university now that
should be for all students. But the pressure is so great, you always have
to watch that aspect of it. But beyond that, it's been a wonderful
experience, both teaching and research and even with that, and I happen to
like football. Although we're mixed up with this university, we lost to
Ohio State in the Rose Bowl and beat Michigan if you have to lose.
Supposed to be the other way around. That's ok.
And what about baseball? I thought that was your first. It is. It is. I
mean, I'm in my fifth year of playing center field again in the El Dorado
Park here, as I say, I used to play in the leagues but, and I'm still a
Detroit Tiger fan when the Tigers came here a few years ago and Schilling
was fishing. My three grandkids and my son were here from Oregon and my
wife and I, we took them to the game and Rene and I wore our Detroit Tiger
shirts and then I stopped at a target and got Diamondback shirts for my
grandkids and my son, we went in and you know there's an elevator at the
Diamondback Stadium and we went up and the lady who worked, who was
operating it kept staring at Rena and me and I looked at my grandkids and
I said, see, I told you if I bought you those shirts, they'd let us in.
And do you know the Tigers actually won that day? Mora, their pitch of
beach cling
pretty good baseball team. We've got, well, we've won five national
championships and Pedroia who's all American here? I think it's shortstop
for us when I watched him play, but he's second baseman rookie of the year
for the world champion Red Sox. Yeah, we have a great baseball program and
I'm still hopeful that our football program is going to win the national
championship. I think we should have won in 75. We didn't get the national
publicity, but I think we were the best team in the country. We were rated
number two and undefeated. I noticed he didn't mention bonds, but
they wanted to name a street after Barry Bonds. But, you know, he flunked
out and he was the kind of teammate that the baseball team went on strike
and they wouldn't play with him. And the coach brought in his father,
Bobby Bonds from the San Francisco Giants to talk to the other players so
that they would play with him. So I said this is not in my view, the kind
of guy we should name a street after. If you want to name a street, name
it after Reggie Jackson, who graduated from the school of architecture was
not only bright but a very good student and he's in the Hall of Fame and
he helped the Yankees win world championships and also the Oakland A's
before that, he's the guy that we should name streets after not Barry
Bonds in my view. What are they looking to the baseball stadium? If you go
around Tiger stadium, you'll see Hank Greenberg Street street, Al K Street
or in New York. I'm sure there's a Ruth street and a Garrick street in
Demaggio. So this is in downtown Phoenix. No, I'm talking about your
Yankee stadium in New York and others. That's often the case when you have
a great teams.
I don't, oh, it's going to be on campus here. They're going to name a
street after Barry Bonds and I, I, at least I opposed it, but I, I
suggested Reggie Jackson instead. That sounds like a better recommendation
from my point of view. It is. So, um,
you, you talked a lot about, you know, being the, the chair of the
Department of Sociology for nine years, right? And then you moved on to
the Associate Dean of academic programs in the College of Liberal Arts and
Sciences for 11 years, right? Can you explain what that position? Sure,
Gary ran was the dean of the college and then you have uh three divisions
you have uh the associate dean for academic programs.
I was the academic dean within the college. And then you have the
associate dean for research that was no soft who is the research dean
within the college? Because we generate more research grants, National
Science Foundation, others than any. In fact, all the other colleges put
together engineering business, all the others. And then you have an
associate dean for personnel as well. Wendy Wilkins for a number of years
was that she was the personnel dean. So with those three divisions,
the college has grown so much, they've taken my position and split it into
three dean ships. So there's a dean of humanities, a dean of Social and
Behavioral Science and a dean of the Life and Physical Sciences.
But the whole university has grown bigger. But we engaged in when I was
there, all of the undergraduate and graduate programs in the college and
developed a number of new programs and revision of programs in physics and
the New African American Hispanic studies programs. So it was an exciting
period and lots of the developments that we now have in operation occurred
during the 11 years. I was there and I still interact with my staff and
others in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. As you know, the most
students take courses in our college because you have to graduate your
math, your English, your history, all of those sciences are all in the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. So it was during your time there
that they developed the special programs where you talked about the Native
American. And what about developing those programs? Because that's
something that didn't exist. Well, it's interesting in the sense that
there's a great emphasis right now on interdisciplinary research and
teaching. And that's was the basis for all of those programs, the African
American studies program, uh the Hispanic Studies Program, the American
Indian Studies Program, because we had a cluster of major research,
teaching faculty in history in English, in uh in biology. And what we did
is we took all of them and said, let's create a center where we could have
it. Initially, it was an emphasis, it could be a minor or you could get a
certificate and we got proposals that would develop a cluster of courses.
Initially, it was for 15 hours that you'd have a minor or 18 hours, I
think for a certificate
and there would be people supervising that and there was coordinating
bodies for each of those programs and out of that developed more and more
courses so that they developed into majors and you could then have a major
, emphasizing history or emphasizing psychology or emphasizing some other
disciplinary area. And they are now major programs within the university
and they are all interdisciplinary in nature.
Um Let me see any other issues or things that we haven't discussed that
you wanted to be sure and bring up. Well, uh land core used the term that
were one university geographically distributed. And um I think one of the
challenges we're going to have occurred when I was on the re accreditation
committee, every university is accredited every 10 years. We were re
accredited by North Central because we came in as a territory under the
Northwest ordinance of 1785. And because of that, that was the ordinance
that created the States of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Illinois and
Wisconsin. And that's the North Central accreditation, one of the best in
the country. We get accredited by them at Chicago University of Michigan,
Illinois. Same accreditation agency. The in, in, in terms of the, the, the
, the accreditation, I was thinking of two things at the same time and I,
I want to get back to the uh the, the question that you, you have
the di yeah, because I was thinking of that accreditation, but
specifically in 1993 when I was on the re adit committee, we were going to
go out to a Su West and it was stopped the day before we went out, they
said they wanted separate accreditation. Well, if they got separate
accreditation, they could branch off into a separate university. And that
became a real problem and mighty core tried to, he did address that issue
said no, no, they did get a separate accreditation at that time. But now
we're trying to merge that So one of the big challenges is to have a
university that's growing toward 90,000 students with clusters, thousands
at Poly Tech, the East Campus Technic and ASU West, the downtown campus,
the research facility in Scottsdale and then the Tempe campus, which used
to be called the main campus. The
problem is that unless you have regular interaction and the high speed
rail between Tempe and the downtown campus is going to keep that going
because you'll have students and faculty going back and forth in less than
20 minutes each way. We need high speed rail going out to the west campus
as well. And yesterday at the meeting, I was at that President Crow called
with three members of the City Council in Phoenix. That was one of the
issues they talked about and we need in my view, the fast rail down to the
research center in Scottsdale, which is right on Scottsdale Road in
mcdowell. And we have to figure out a way of getting more effectively into
polytechnic. I mean, I was just there for a conference at three o'clock.
It was Friday, Thursday. No, it was Friday last week and I left an hour
early from here and I got there 20 minutes late. It took me an hour and 20
minutes. It's just a tremendous traffic. So you can do some of this
through visual interaction on TV and talking. But you've got to have a lot
of physical interaction with people to really have strong programs. And I
think that's going to be, I think we're addressing it particularly with
the downtown campus and Tempe. But we have to bring in the West and
Polytechnic campus
so that they not only are viewed as strong programs independently but that
they are part of a viable interacting system through the whole university.
Many people still think of this as four separate universities and there's
the University of Michigan model and the Michigan State University model,
Michigan State created Michigan State at Oakland. Many years ago. They
broke off in Oakland University. They're totally independent of Michigan
State, the University of Michigan did that in Dearborn and Flint. Those
are still the University of Michigan at Dearborn and the University of
Michigan at Flint. I think what President Crowe and Core and the faculty
have wanted from actually the inception is the University of Michigan
model. And I'm not saying that just because I was the University of
Michigan, but it's actually a good one. But we have to constantly figure
out how to make sure that we're not totally separate and feeling that
we're not part of the same campus academic community. And I think that
will be a challenge for a long time to come. But I think we're addressing
it more effectively now than we have in the past.
Certainly does sound like a challenge. I was gonna ask you about
challenges for the future. So I think you've covered that. Um It, see, how
would you like to be remembered here on campus? I have not thought about
that. Um,
uh I, I have great colleagues and students who I interact with. Uh, I mean
, I went to a meeting where I was at a table and a woman looked at me and
said, Professor Gordon. I said, yeah, I said, uh my uh son had you for a
class a few years ago and I had you in 1972.
And I said, oh, yes. You know, I, I recognized her and then another lady
said, my granddaughter had you. So I've been here 40 years. So it's been a
long time and I've part of the joys. My wife got her phd in geography here
and she was at the medical school for the University of Arizona for 15
years and then was brought to what was then a U East now polytechnic to
take the lead in starting the Health Wellness degree program, which has
been in existence now for four years. And I know Bob Francis knows I lost
my wife to pancreatic cancer two years ago just one month before our 50 th
wedding anniversary. And that was a special faculty member here too. And
so I had a great partner and colleagues and friends over a long period of
years. So I guess to be viewed as a good friend and colleague who is also
a good academic, I think would be fine. And what about advice for, for
young people that are just trying to decide what they want to do with
their lives. What do you, I've, um years ago I, I heard a talk by a
community leader in Detroit who is talking to a group of interfaith
grouping on it was called the religion and race conference about learning
how we can get along. He said, you know, there are many paths to the Lord.
And I thought that was an interesting statement because sometimes
students think they have to know exactly what they're going to do here. I
am in sociology, but I was going to get a phd in history and my parents
said an MD degree, like a lot of my cousins were doing, I'm sure I would
have been happy in being a physician too. My son is, and, and I say, look
, explore what you want to do if you change your mind and you think this
would be a better direction. There are many ways you're going to end up
doing ok, as long as you're committed and interested and you do the best
you can and a good job. So often students get very worried that are they
on the exact right path? Are they doing exactly what they need to do? And
I said, just do a good job the best you can do. And I said, you'll end up
fine and I try to get students to relax a little bit about that and look
at my daughter graduated Phi Beta Kappa in history at Pomona and she's a
silk artist in Maui and they used to sell her silk paintings for like
$2025. They go for $2500 now in Maui and at art stores and I had no idea
what she was getting into. Now, I knew my son, he was going to be a
physician. He's a radiation. I knew what he was going to do. My other
daughter, Melinda Sue, she's a cinematographer specializing in production
, still photography. She's been on six George Clooney movies. He really
likes her work. She's on Ocean's 13 and Leatherheads will be coming out
about. He's an over the hill football player from the 20 s and leather
because they didn't have padding in there. But I would have never
predicted she'd be trained in cinematography and she got a lifetime
achievement award in February with a statue and all the guys who got it
were in their 6070 s and she was in her 40 and uh it was a black tie
affair and my son and I were there. It was really quite something I tell
the students they love what they're doing. All of them. My son, my
daughters and I said
you would have never predicted in advance what was going to happen. But
whatever you do, if you want to be a good a truck driver delivering goods
in the team series that I know a lot of people over the years that find a
wonderful career doing that. Guys, I play softball with, they are only
about four or five of us are college graduate. They're retired firemen
from New York Marines and other things that they have wonderful careers
and they're wonderful people to play with. So
I think most increasingly it's going to be college, but not necessarily.
So I encourage people to just do the best you can and I do encourage them
to go to college because you can get some great background that way. Ok.
Well, I think I've covered the questions I had for you. Was there
anything I'd left out that I should have asked you the, um, I think the
Detroit Tigers are going to win the World Series next year.
Ok. A su in the Holiday Bowl? Oh, yes. I, I'm afraid, I think we'll, I
think we'll win. We have a really good team.