WEBVTT 00:00:11.239 --> 00:00:13.239 My name is Don Godfrey. I'm here with Doug Anderson professor at the 00:00:16.829 --> 00:00:21.817 Cronkite School. We have a technical support staff today including John 00:00:21.850 --> 00:00:28.236 mcintosh, operating the camera, Roger Carter, audio Linda Vanoy, director 00:00:28.269 --> 00:00:33.396 and David Schultz Le chair of the video history project. We are here to 00:00:33.429 --> 00:00:38.996 talk to Doug today about his role in the uh his role in the foundation of 00:00:39.029 --> 00:00:46.686 the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications. 00:00:46.719 --> 00:00:51.906 Well, my name is Doug Anderson and uh I was a faculty member and later an 00:00:51.939 --> 00:00:56.616 administrator here at Arizona State University. Arrived here as a tenure 00:00:56.649 --> 00:01:01.635 track assistant professor in the fall of 1979 and uh went through the 00:01:01.668 --> 00:01:06.266 professorial ranks here uh was made the director of the Walter Cronkite 00:01:06.299 --> 00:01:09.576 School of Journalism and Telecommunication, which is now the Walter 00:01:09.609 --> 00:01:13.305 Cronkite School of Journalism and mass communication. I was made the 00:01:13.338 --> 00:01:21.338 director of the school in 1987 served in that capacity until 1999. Uh when 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:25.555 I uh left to become the Dean of the College of Communications at Penn 00:01:25.588 --> 00:01:32.156 State University. 00:01:32.189 --> 00:01:36.305 So Doug, why don't we just start by uh you're giving us a little 00:01:36.338 --> 00:01:39.876 background in your early life and where you were born and raised. Ok. Well 00:01:39.909 --> 00:01:44.135 , I was uh I was born and raised in Superior Nebraska, a little town of 00:01:44.168 --> 00:01:48.647 3300 people when I lived there. Like a lot of those small towns in the 00:01:48.680 --> 00:01:53.826 Midwest, much smaller today. About 1800 people live in Superior Nebraska 00:01:53.859 --> 00:01:59.266 town, founded in the middle 18 hundreds and got its name because of the 00:01:59.299 --> 00:02:05.786 quality of the soil. Obviously a farming community. Uh 00:02:05.819 --> 00:02:13.819 post World War two baby uh December of 1947. Uh grew up in Superior. Uh My 00:02:14.088 --> 00:02:21.177 father died when I was 11 years old, leaving a 44 year old widow who lived 00:02:21.210 --> 00:02:26.797 to be 96. And uh today, I would be considered that the product at a 00:02:26.830 --> 00:02:31.126 certain juncture, obviously early on of a one parent home, but it was a 00:02:31.159 --> 00:02:37.025 small town. Uh My mother's sister lived nearby along with her husband. And 00:02:37.058 --> 00:02:41.487 so as I look back on it, I was really raised by three people. My mother, 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:48.275 my aunt and my uncle and I, you know, lower to middle class uh family uh 00:02:48.308 --> 00:02:53.547 65 students in my high school graduating class. I was a good high school 00:02:53.580 --> 00:02:58.427 athlete earning 12 letters and some combination of football, cross country 00:02:58.460 --> 00:03:03.255 basketball and track, an all state Nebraska high school basketball player 00:03:03.288 --> 00:03:07.886 and a three time gold medalist in the Nebraska high school track and field 00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:13.585 pentathlon competition. I earned a scholarship, full basketball 00:03:13.618 --> 00:03:17.525 scholarship to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln where I enrolled in 00:03:17.558 --> 00:03:23.686 the fall of 1966 reasonably well prepared for college. I think, like all 00:03:23.719 --> 00:03:29.406 of us had a particular high school teacher that I look back on with great 00:03:29.439 --> 00:03:35.536 affection and with great respect. And her name was Marjorie Smith. She 00:03:35.569 --> 00:03:39.596 lived to be 101 or 100 and two. But it was a, it was a, it was a very 00:03:39.629 --> 00:03:44.775 unusual set of circumstances. Here was this uh the wife of a local farmer 00:03:44.808 --> 00:03:49.916 teaching in the in, in Superior High School with a master's degree from 00:03:49.949 --> 00:03:56.207 Kansas State University. And uh I had Mrs Smith for high school English 00:03:56.240 --> 00:04:02.416 speech and journalism and uh gave me confidence early on, uh probably had 00:04:02.449 --> 00:04:07.196 confidence in me before I had confidence in myself as a student. And so 00:04:07.229 --> 00:04:10.975 I'll always be grateful for all that she did. And, and like many of her 00:04:11.008 --> 00:04:14.786 former students when I would go back and visit my mother or go back to 00:04:14.819 --> 00:04:19.805 Superior Nebraska, I would always visit Missus Smith. As I said, she died 00:04:19.838 --> 00:04:25.916 at 101 or 102 5 or six or seven years ago. And she was in Broadstone 00:04:25.949 --> 00:04:31.916 Memorial Hospital in Superior Nebraska. Still her body gave out, but she 00:04:31.949 --> 00:04:36.817 was still sharp as attack. There was about 12 books on the bed stand 00:04:36.850 --> 00:04:42.916 beside her in the hospital when she uh she passed away anyhow, uh I was at 00:04:42.949 --> 00:04:47.106 the University of Nebraska in Lincoln as a freshman, I was a third guard 00:04:47.139 --> 00:04:52.377 on the freshman basketball team and also I was on the track team was gonna 00:04:52.410 --> 00:04:57.967 be redshirted also, even at age 18 or 19 was mature enough to know that at 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:02.116 best, I was probably going to be a borderline big eight basketball player. 00:05:02.149 --> 00:05:06.236 It's now the big 12. It was the big eight then and it was very important 00:05:06.269 --> 00:05:10.817 to me to be able to compete. And so uh I made the uh uh decision to 00:05:10.850 --> 00:05:14.846 transfer to Hastings College, a liberal arts school in South central 00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:20.116 Nebraska. And uh so I could play basketball and run track and also work 00:05:20.149 --> 00:05:25.387 part time at the, at the local newspaper. And uh II, I graduated from 00:05:25.420 --> 00:05:32.226 Hastings College in 1970 Magna cum Lati with a double major in English and 00:05:32.259 --> 00:05:38.387 journalism, uh went there on an academic and athletic scholarship. Uh But 00:05:38.420 --> 00:05:42.447 I gave up the athletic scholarship after my junior year when I was given 00:05:42.480 --> 00:05:46.467 the opportunity to be the sports editor of the Hastings Tribune, which was 00:05:46.500 --> 00:05:51.575 an 18,000 circulation daily, a small daily newspaper, but the fourth 00:05:51.608 --> 00:05:56.336 largest newspaper at the time in the state of Nebraska. And uh and so I 00:05:56.369 --> 00:06:00.765 work more than 40 hours a week as a senior in college. While I, while I 00:06:00.798 --> 00:06:07.166 finish that work 00:06:07.199 --> 00:06:13.305 after I graduated from college, went on to be the assistant or the sports 00:06:13.338 --> 00:06:17.656 information director at Emporia State in Kansas, but soon returned to 00:06:17.689 --> 00:06:24.596 Hastings in the summer of 1971 with my wife Claudia and uh was a reporter 00:06:24.629 --> 00:06:29.205 at the Hastings Tribune and then was made the city editor. And then in 00:06:29.238 --> 00:06:35.717 1975 at the age of 25 was named the managing editor of the newspaper. It 00:06:35.750 --> 00:06:40.067 was a Seaton newspaper. The Seaton family had a string of daily newspapers 00:06:40.100 --> 00:06:45.361 , radio stations, television stations in Kansas, South Dakota and Wyoming 00:06:45.394 --> 00:06:52.151 . I don't think they had a penny of debt. It was a very well to do family 00:06:52.184 --> 00:06:56.351 with some very good media properties. Fred Seaton was the publisher of the 00:06:56.384 --> 00:07:00.651 newspaper. Fred Seaton was Dwight Eisenhower's Secretary of Interiors and 00:07:00.684 --> 00:07:05.031 came back to Nebraska after his days in Washington ran unsuccessfully for 00:07:05.064 --> 00:07:10.627 Governor of Nebraska, but stayed on along with his brother in Kansas to 00:07:10.660 --> 00:07:18.660 manage all of those media properties. I decided though in 1977 00:07:18.660 --> 00:07:23.015 well, actually before that, it was 1975 that I really wanted to go back to 00:07:23.048 --> 00:07:29.377 graduate school to go to university teaching at some point. Even though I 00:07:29.410 --> 00:07:35.776 enjoyed every day in the newsroom and increasingly responsible positions. 00:07:35.809 --> 00:07:39.786 In those days, there were only about 15 universities in the country that 00:07:39.819 --> 00:07:44.616 have doctoral programs in journalism or mass communication. And most of 00:07:44.649 --> 00:07:50.455 those were in the Midwest and I applied at and looked into the University 00:07:50.488 --> 00:07:54.116 of Wisconsin, the University of Iowa and Southern Illinois. I've never 00:07:54.149 --> 00:07:58.317 been to Carbondale Illinois in my life going in that probably would have 00:07:58.350 --> 00:08:05.765 been my third choice. But, but like a lot of people who undertake doctoral 00:08:05.798 --> 00:08:09.096 studies, it's all about the professors who were there at the time and the 00:08:09.129 --> 00:08:13.796 , and the areas that you're most interested in. And uh my specialization 00:08:13.829 --> 00:08:18.586 was media law and media history was blessed there. Also. Uh my major 00:08:18.619 --> 00:08:25.697 professor was Dr Harry Stonecipher, a really good media law scholar with 00:08:25.730 --> 00:08:32.186 about 20 years of uh newspaper experience. Uh uh my, we didn't call them 00:08:32.219 --> 00:08:35.976 mentors in those days. But as I look back, Harry stonecipher would have 00:08:36.009 --> 00:08:41.537 been mine. He also lived into his late eighties and I stayed in touch with 00:08:41.570 --> 00:08:46.787 him through the years and uh and, and obviously had great respect for him 00:08:46.820 --> 00:08:53.057 and that's why I still call him Dr Stonecipher. Uh And uh I had other 00:08:53.090 --> 00:08:57.787 wonderful professors. There took a lot of constitutional history from a 00:08:57.820 --> 00:09:01.746 man by the name of M Brown and Carrot who had a law degree and a phd in 00:09:01.779 --> 00:09:05.635 history and took constitutional law from a man by the name of Randall 00:09:05.668 --> 00:09:11.125 Nelson, uh who had lost his sight in World War Two, came back, earned 00:09:11.158 --> 00:09:16.625 three degrees. Uh His wife would read all of the cases to him. Just an 00:09:16.658 --> 00:09:21.236 absolutely brilliant man. And he would, he would come into to class with 00:09:21.269 --> 00:09:26.167 his dog Greta and uh the class started at nine o'clock in the morning. I 00:09:26.200 --> 00:09:29.895 remember it to this day, Greta would bring Doctor Nelson in Greta would go 00:09:29.928 --> 00:09:35.015 under the desk in front and the class ended at 10 o'clock and at, at 959 00:09:35.048 --> 00:09:38.177 Greta always knew it was about ready to end. So now I've never quite 00:09:38.210 --> 00:09:42.436 figured that out and we would take Doctor Nelson out. But again, uh, uh I 00:09:42.469 --> 00:09:46.395 considered myself fortunate to be in the right place at the right time 00:09:46.428 --> 00:09:49.096 with, with three, 00:09:49.129 --> 00:09:55.986 really gifted academics that for whom I also will be forever grateful. I 00:09:56.019 --> 00:10:02.076 did my doctoral studies in 21 months and uh and earned my degree and 00:10:02.109 --> 00:10:08.157 walked across the stage at Southern Illinois in August of 1977 was 00:10:08.190 --> 00:10:12.236 fortunate to have a book contract already from my dissertation that I 00:10:12.269 --> 00:10:18.907 finished up in the next few months. 00:10:18.940 --> 00:10:22.686 Uh My first teaching job was actually, I didn't look very hard or very 00:10:22.719 --> 00:10:27.206 long and we went back to our home state of Nebraska and I taught at the 00:10:27.239 --> 00:10:33.236 University of Nebraska at Omaha for two years uh before uh uh coming to 00:10:33.269 --> 00:10:41.269 Arizona State in 1979. 00:10:42.080 --> 00:10:45.726 What caused you to come here? Well, I mean, like a lot of people, I would 00:10:45.759 --> 00:10:50.015 say the weather and it, and it sounds like a flip answer and I, I guess it 00:10:50.048 --> 00:10:55.606 is. But, but it, it, it was part of the reason and uh we were in Omaha, uh 00:10:55.639 --> 00:11:01.346 we had a uh a uh uh 23 00:11:01.379 --> 00:11:05.307 year old daughter at the time and another one on the way and I was 00:11:05.340 --> 00:11:09.106 shoveling snow. Omaha is a very hilly community. It was in the throes of 00:11:09.139 --> 00:11:13.135 one of the worst winters on record in the Midwest. And it took me about 00:11:13.168 --> 00:11:17.417 two hours to shovel the driveway. It was a long driveway leading into our 00:11:17.450 --> 00:11:21.927 garage. And so I finished that little chore on a weekend. I went back in 00:11:21.960 --> 00:11:25.086 the house, my wife and I are sitting in the living room looking out the 00:11:25.119 --> 00:11:29.427 wind comes up and it drifts shut again. And I said, that's it. I've lived 00:11:29.460 --> 00:11:32.726 in Nebraska almost all of my life. But I said, you know, I'm gonna, I'm 00:11:32.759 --> 00:11:39.625 gonna look for a warm weather school. And in those days in my field of 00:11:39.658 --> 00:11:43.066 journalism, you'd look at editor and publisher magazine, which is still 00:11:43.099 --> 00:11:47.645 around the day, look at the classified ads sections. In addition to all of 00:11:47.678 --> 00:11:52.525 the media jobs that were advertised there, there were also university 00:11:52.558 --> 00:11:57.736 postings. And, uh, when I first looked, uh, that would have been January 00:11:57.769 --> 00:12:05.086 of 1979. Uh, the University of Miami in Coral Gables had a, had an opening 00:12:05.119 --> 00:12:10.496 for an assistant professor specializing in media law. And, uh, uh I, I 00:12:10.529 --> 00:12:15.066 applied there and, uh, with within three or four week I received a phone 00:12:15.099 --> 00:12:18.726 call in the middle of February from the, the chair of the search committee. 00:12:18.759 --> 00:12:23.996 And, uh I had just driven in that morning and the wind chill was 20 below 00:12:24.029 --> 00:12:27.086 the temperature was probably around zero. But the wind chill was 20 below 00:12:27.119 --> 00:12:32.596 zero in Omaha was, you know, 6 to 9 inches of snow on the ground. And, uh 00:12:32.629 --> 00:12:35.885 the chair of the search committee told me who he was said, why he was 00:12:35.918 --> 00:12:39.515 calling and wanted to know if I would be interested in coming to Miami for 00:12:39.548 --> 00:12:42.755 an interview of which I literally laughed on the telephone and then 00:12:42.788 --> 00:12:46.645 explained to him why and told him what the temperature was. And, uh, so 00:12:46.678 --> 00:12:51.566 interviewed at the University of Miami and was offered the job. And as 00:12:51.599 --> 00:12:56.927 much as I was ready to escape those harsh midwestern winters, I just 00:12:56.960 --> 00:13:03.217 didn't think it was a good fit and, uh, uh, uh declined the offer and we 00:13:03.250 --> 00:13:07.816 assumed we would just just stay in, in Nebraska until, you know, some 00:13:07.849 --> 00:13:14.145 searches were underway at other universities the next year. And, uh, you 00:13:14.178 --> 00:13:18.576 advertised this job later than most, as I recall. I think it was April. 00:13:18.609 --> 00:13:23.885 And, uh, and so I applied for it. And, uh, a man by the name of Joe Milner 00:13:23.918 --> 00:13:27.686 was then the, uh, the head of what was the Department of Mass 00:13:27.719 --> 00:13:33.186 Communications. And, uh, the department was still, uh in the College of 00:13:33.219 --> 00:13:37.525 the Liberal Arts and Sciences. It was gonna be that July 1, as I recall, I 00:13:37.558 --> 00:13:42.537 presume it was at the start of the, the fiscal year July 1, 1979 when the 00:13:42.570 --> 00:13:47.775 newly formed College of Public programs, uh would come online. And so when 00:13:47.808 --> 00:13:54.885 I interviewed here in April of 1979. Uh uh The Department of Mass 00:13:54.918 --> 00:13:58.616 Communication was still in the, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 00:13:58.649 --> 00:14:02.275 even though it knew that it would be in this newly configured college, uh 00:14:02.308 --> 00:14:07.816 come that summer. And uh there were probably 13 or 14 faculty members in 00:14:07.849 --> 00:14:13.576 the department then a very professionally oriented program. Uh but, but, 00:14:13.609 --> 00:14:17.936 but a strong regional program II, I don't, I, I think that is often 00:14:17.969 --> 00:14:21.755 overlooked when, when people look at the, at, at the ascension of the 00:14:21.788 --> 00:14:26.682 Cronkite School over the years and it was a very solid program at that 00:14:26.715 --> 00:14:30.731 time, certainly among the best in the Southwest, uh maybe the best in the 00:14:30.764 --> 00:14:34.500 Southwest and, and among the stronger programs in the Western United 00:14:34.533 --> 00:14:39.211 States, pretty good sized program then seven or 800 students, not that 00:14:39.244 --> 00:14:43.967 many full time faculty to serve that many students. But uh uh it, it was a 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:48.446 , a really good solid program and I felt very good about the people that I 00:14:48.479 --> 00:14:53.927 interacted with, uh when I came here for that uh for that interview. And 00:14:53.960 --> 00:14:57.765 uh I, I remember yet at least two or three people in the department when 00:14:57.798 --> 00:15:01.746 it came toward the end of the interview to, to, to say, OK, now you've got 00:15:01.779 --> 00:15:07.566 a proforma interview with, with the Dean of uh Liberal Arts and Sciences. 00:15:07.599 --> 00:15:10.936 Uh you know, he doesn't know very much or he doesn't appreciate, he 00:15:10.969 --> 00:15:13.946 doesn't know much about journalism has never really appreciated the 00:15:13.979 --> 00:15:18.717 department. Don't worry about it. We're gonna be going, uh, uh, in, into a 00:15:18.750 --> 00:15:22.686 newly formed college in July. So I took all of that with a grain of salt, 00:15:22.719 --> 00:15:26.809 I guess. And I went over and, uh, and, you know, this was a very different 00:15:26.842 --> 00:15:32.750 place than not a lot of strong staff support. And I don't even remember 00:15:32.783 --> 00:15:36.598 anyone sitting though, somebody was maybe away doing something outside the 00:15:36.631 --> 00:15:41.159 office. And I timidly knocked on the door and he was, as I recall, an, a 00:15:41.192 --> 00:15:44.909 manual typewriter, he definitely had his back to me and he was working on 00:15:44.942 --> 00:15:49.922 his typewriter and come down. I went in and introduced myself to him and, 00:15:49.955 --> 00:15:54.332 and, and very, I think he was a geographer by training and very little 00:15:54.365 --> 00:15:58.552 small talk. And we weren't very far into that, that interview when, uh, he 00:15:58.585 --> 00:16:02.442 , he looked at me, looked me in the eye and says, you know, I can't for 00:16:02.475 --> 00:16:06.492 the life of me figure out why a program like that would want to hire 00:16:06.525 --> 00:16:11.967 someone like you. Now, when you're 31 years old and, uh, you're interested 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:16.015 in this job, but, you know, that'll make your heart rate accelerate a 00:16:16.048 --> 00:16:21.246 little bit. And so I'm, I'm trying, I'm, I'm regrouping m mentally here 00:16:21.279 --> 00:16:25.086 and trying not to show it and said, well, I've, uh, you know, I have a, a 00:16:25.119 --> 00:16:29.255 developing record of scholarship and, uh, just about to have a book 00:16:29.288 --> 00:16:34.145 published and another one under contract and a a and I'm, and I, I 00:16:34.178 --> 00:16:39.616 produced some articles at this early juncture of my career and I have some 00:16:39.649 --> 00:16:45.206 strong recent newspaper experience and two years of teaching experience 00:16:45.239 --> 00:16:49.686 where I've taught a variety of classes and, and, uh, and he said that's my 00:16:49.719 --> 00:16:53.826 point. He said that department has been telling me for years that it can't 00:16:53.859 --> 00:16:58.596 hire someone with a phd who does scholarship with media experience and 00:16:58.629 --> 00:17:03.476 you're going to blow the whole argument. And, um, so I smiled and he 00:17:03.509 --> 00:17:07.496 smiled and that was pretty much the end of it. And of course, I went, went 00:17:07.529 --> 00:17:11.045 back to Stafford Hall where the department of mass communication was and 00:17:11.078 --> 00:17:15.800 right away, a couple of people came in. How was he? How was it? I didn't 00:17:15.833 --> 00:17:20.520 tell him and I don't think I ever told anyone in the building in the 00:17:20.553 --> 00:17:24.679 ensuing years about that, about that initial interview. But I remember it 00:17:24.712 --> 00:17:29.800 , remember it very well anyhow, and was offered the job a couple of weeks 00:17:29.833 --> 00:17:35.730 after that. And, uh, and, and we moved here in July of 1979 with a four 00:17:35.763 --> 00:17:40.620 year old and a one year old. And, uh, I, I was ready for fall classes in 00:17:40.653 --> 00:17:47.565 the fall of 1979. 00:17:47.598 --> 00:17:51.565 How big was a su at the time? Describe it a little bit. Well, it was a, it 00:17:51.598 --> 00:17:56.347 was a big university even at the time. And, uh, WW with my interest and 00:17:56.380 --> 00:18:01.686 background in sports. I was, I Arizona State was a place very well known 00:18:01.719 --> 00:18:05.746 to me and, uh, you know, more because of its intercollegiate athletic 00:18:05.779 --> 00:18:09.656 programs at that time than probably the academic side. But it was a, a 00:18:09.689 --> 00:18:13.502 university that had joined the old pack eight just a couple of years 00:18:13.535 --> 00:18:17.482 earlier. Clearly a university on o on the move. I mean, I'll tell you 00:18:17.515 --> 00:18:21.371 there was a lot more green grass on the main campus than there than there 00:18:21.404 --> 00:18:26.710 is today. But, but I found it uh uh to be a wonderful, wonderful place, an 00:18:26.743 --> 00:18:31.351 inviting place. Uh One of those places where you, you just, you went there 00:18:31.384 --> 00:18:36.506 and you thought, you know, the, the sky is the limit and uh was, was given 00:18:36.539 --> 00:18:40.916 a great deal of freedom early on and quite frankly, after teaching a 44 00:18:40.949 --> 00:18:44.065 load at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, I thought I had it pretty 00:18:44.098 --> 00:18:51.696 easy and uh uh we had a 33 teaching load and, and it was, it was, it was 00:18:51.729 --> 00:18:59.729 just a wonderful, wonderful university with very good people to interact 00:19:00.160 --> 00:19:06.147 with. And uh because we were in this newly configured college, I think we 00:19:06.180 --> 00:19:13.545 had even more freedom to grow as a program and for young faculty members 00:19:13.578 --> 00:19:19.486 to grow. 00:19:19.519 --> 00:19:23.686 Joe Millner was the chair. Well, Joe Milner was the chair of the 00:19:23.719 --> 00:19:27.776 department. When I was hired, Joe would have extended the offer that 00:19:27.809 --> 00:19:35.809 spring of 1979. But that was the last year of Joe's tenure as the head of 00:19:36.348 --> 00:19:40.516 the department. And L Dean Bennett was the, uh, the chair of the 00:19:40.549 --> 00:19:47.117 department effective, uh, on, uh, o on, on July 1. And, uh, L Dean's 00:19:47.150 --> 00:19:51.956 office was, he hadn't moved in when I, I got here in July, uh, uh, always 00:19:51.989 --> 00:19:56.117 over preparing, rather than under preparing so I could get ready to go. 00:19:56.150 --> 00:19:59.887 And there weren't many people around and in the summertime, and Dean was 00:19:59.920 --> 00:20:04.276 still in the office next door to me, down a hallway though he had a window 00:20:04.309 --> 00:20:08.871 and I didn't and uh Joe hadn't moved his books out of the, of the main, 00:20:08.904 --> 00:20:12.160 out of his office yet. And so L Dean was sort of moving back and forth 00:20:12.193 --> 00:20:19.651 between the uh the main office where he would be housed and his office. 00:20:19.684 --> 00:20:26.361 And uh L Dean of course, was a wonderful man also, uh you know, now in 00:20:26.394 --> 00:20:32.041 charge of a program that clearly was growing with was starved for 00:20:32.074 --> 00:20:39.887 resources in many respects. But, but L Dean Bennett was an understated, 00:20:39.920 --> 00:20:45.166 wonderful man. One of the most unselfish academics I've ever been around 00:20:45.199 --> 00:20:49.926 who was always looking out for others. So Dean was the uh the department 00:20:49.959 --> 00:20:53.776 head when I arrived and who became the Dean of public Programs. Well, in 00:20:53.809 --> 00:20:57.722 that, uh Linda would probably remember some of the progeny of this, but 00:20:57.755 --> 00:21:02.690 Frank S Acton, the general was the, the 00:21:02.723 --> 00:21:06.022 wouldn't have been interim because we didn't have anybody before and it 00:21:06.055 --> 00:21:09.700 wasn't founding because he wasn't, wasn't permanent. I guess he would have 00:21:09.733 --> 00:21:14.416 probably been called the acting dean of the College of Public Programs. 00:21:14.449 --> 00:21:18.976 These five units had come together and a search would be conducted during 00:21:19.009 --> 00:21:25.835 that 1979 1980 school year for the permanent full time founding dean of 00:21:25.868 --> 00:21:32.186 the College of Public Programs. And that was a national search, but an 00:21:32.219 --> 00:21:37.085 internal selection was made a very strong candidate from within Nick 00:21:37.118 --> 00:21:42.196 Nicholas Henry, who was the Director of the School of Public Affairs. And 00:21:42.229 --> 00:21:49.006 Nick then um would have come on board in time for the 1980 81 school year 00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:53.936 as I guess the, the founding dean for all intents and purposes of the 00:21:53.969 --> 00:21:57.526 College of Public Programs and who was President John Schwa, was the 00:21:57.559 --> 00:22:04.656 President Paige Mulholland was the uh the provost though I still, you know 00:22:04.689 --> 00:22:08.766 , I, I still have to smile at that. II, I probably was never in the same 00:22:08.799 --> 00:22:14.226 room in my first or second year here with John Schwa or, or Paige 00:22:14.259 --> 00:22:18.397 Mulholland. I was just an assistant professor trying to do my job and I 00:22:18.430 --> 00:22:22.940 was always amused even in those days when people would come by, you know, 00:22:22.973 --> 00:22:27.151 grousing about the president grousing about the provost and, you know, 00:22:27.184 --> 00:22:30.621 wanting you to sign something. And I don't even know these guys. I'm just 00:22:30.654 --> 00:22:35.342 , I'm just happy to be here and I'm trying to teach my courses reasonably 00:22:35.375 --> 00:22:41.166 Well, 00:22:41.199 --> 00:22:44.936 so how did your career progress from there? Well, again, this was, this 00:22:44.969 --> 00:22:50.877 was, it just couldn't have been the university and the college and what 00:22:50.910 --> 00:22:55.097 was then a department under dean's leadership couldn't have been more 00:22:55.130 --> 00:23:00.176 supportive. Uh I, I came here, you know, with two years of uh assistant 00:23:00.209 --> 00:23:06.696 professor, tenure track uh experience at Nebraska Omaha. And uh after two 00:23:06.729 --> 00:23:10.285 years here, uh at the conclusion of my fourth year, I was promoted to 00:23:10.318 --> 00:23:15.956 associate professor and uh and was made the, the Director of graduate 00:23:15.989 --> 00:23:21.637 studies II, I wrote the proposal uh for our master of mass communication 00:23:21.670 --> 00:23:26.276 uh program. The unit didn't have a master's program and I would have 00:23:26.309 --> 00:23:33.456 written that proposal uh during Christmas break on my electric typewriter 00:23:33.489 --> 00:23:39.357 , it wasn't a manual on my IBM Selectric typewriter over the Christmas 00:23:39.390 --> 00:23:44.285 break and it was sort of fast tracked or at least I would regard it as 00:23:44.318 --> 00:23:50.476 that in today's era and the program was approved. So I was made an 00:23:50.509 --> 00:23:55.226 associate professor after two years here and uh was made the director of 00:23:55.259 --> 00:24:01.217 graduate studies and uh uh uh wi wi without a reduced teaching load, but 00:24:01.250 --> 00:24:04.805 it didn't matter. I, I still thought the 33 was a piece of cake compared 00:24:04.838 --> 00:24:11.726 to 44. And uh and then just four years later, in 1985 was promoted to full 00:24:11.759 --> 00:24:19.759 professor. And uh and then in dean 00:24:19.930 --> 00:24:26.055 decided to go back to the faculty during the 1986 87 school year. And so 00:24:26.088 --> 00:24:31.736 by then, we were the Cronkite school that had happened in 1984. And uh 00:24:31.769 --> 00:24:35.976 dean decided to go back to the faculty. And so a national search was 00:24:36.009 --> 00:24:42.897 conducted that year. I was encouraged to apply by many of my colleagues. I 00:24:42.930 --> 00:24:47.706 to this day, uh honestly didn't care. A lot of people might say that, but 00:24:47.739 --> 00:24:51.847 I really didn't care if I got the job or not because I was, I was very 00:24:51.880 --> 00:24:56.535 happy and fulfilled doing what I was doing. Uh, anyhow, they, they, they 00:24:56.568 --> 00:25:01.967 decided on three finalists. One was a, uh a sitting Dean of the College of 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:06.805 Communications at Arkansas State. Uh The other was a, uh, a senior 00:25:06.838 --> 00:25:11.815 professor and well regarded researcher at Northwestern University. And uh 00:25:11.848 --> 00:25:19.065 , me, uh, but I, uh WW was uh extended the, uh, uh the, the job offer and 00:25:19.098 --> 00:25:23.906 uh, and accepted it and, and started, uh, my appointment began on July 1 00:25:23.939 --> 00:25:31.939 1987. I was, I was 39 years old and uh, uh it was, uh, uh I, I have to 00:25:32.509 --> 00:25:36.717 smile at this too. Given, given my initial interview here where, where the 00:25:36.750 --> 00:25:41.266 dean said, why would this place want to hire someone like you? And, uh, I 00:25:41.299 --> 00:25:45.055 , I can remember the Cronkite name was there, but it was a name only there. 00:25:45.088 --> 00:25:48.446 There was a lot of building that needed to be done and I can chat about 00:25:48.479 --> 00:25:56.479 that a little bit later if you like. But uh we uh uh clearly had a lot of 00:25:58.789 --> 00:26:03.746 things to get accomplished and really didn't have the resources for it. 00:26:03.779 --> 00:26:08.666 But, but, you know, I was happy, happy to take on the challenge and the 00:26:08.699 --> 00:26:13.805 university continued to treat me very well. And I think it was 1994 was, 00:26:13.838 --> 00:26:18.795 was provided with an endowed professorship, the Cronkite endowment 00:26:18.828 --> 00:26:22.847 professorship to go along with being director of the school. So it was a 00:26:22.880 --> 00:26:27.986 place that was just very, very supportive of me personally over the years. 00:26:28.019 --> 00:26:33.835 And I always had the good fortune to have administrative superiors who 00:26:33.868 --> 00:26:40.107 were, who were very strong and very good. And of course, a very loyal and 00:26:40.140 --> 00:26:42.838 collegial faculty.