WEBVTT

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Today is Monday May the 3rd 2010. I'm Linda Vanscoy. I'm a retired

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employee from Central Administration
and I'm also chair of the video

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history project. The uh technical
support staff we have today with us are

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John mcintosh, running the camera and
Dave shots, our director and we're

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conducting an interview as part of the
Arizona State University Retirees

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Association video History project. So,
Guido, why don't you start by

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introducing yourself, state, your name
and the positions you held at a su

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and the positions you uh my name is

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Wweigent

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and uh I was Dean of Liberal Arts and
Sciences.

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It is. Yeah.

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And to begin with, um why don't we
give our viewers a view of your past?

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And can you tell us where you were
born and raised? I was born in

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Australia

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in 1920 man. Mother moved to Vienna.
So I was raised in schools in Vienna

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, Austria, Hitler marched into Austria

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and I will never, I can never forget
that because that's sort of I saw him

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and German troops marching in, he took
over all the functions and, and I

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quote, escaped your mother had a
coffee shop in Bulgaria. Bulgaria. That's

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right. My mother had moved to Sofia
Bulgaria as the owner of a half a

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coffee house. I remember it was near
the, near the railroad station so far

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and I was, I was going to live in
Bulgaria with her

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and she was, she was expelled from
Bulgaria. And my father got me his of

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the United States. About what year was
that? Do you remember? 1938?

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What about your education after that
University of Chicago and got all

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three degrees there.

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You were at Rutgers before coming to a
SU I. So when you came to a SU that

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was in 1976

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and you were hired on as dean of the
College of, was it Liberal Arts,

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liberal Arts at that time? I believe
the academic vice President at that

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time was Carl Danen Feld. So he must
have been the person who was

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ultimately responsible for hiring and
bringing.

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And then um during your, your career,
I think you served also under two

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other provosts or academic vice
presidents. Um Paige Mulholland and uh

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Jack Kinzinger

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as the daughter of a professor. How
about telling us about your earliest

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memories of life where you live? My
first year was at Rutgers College and

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then I transferred to be at A U and

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I learned I met a lot of the football
players because they were all living

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in the same dorm. So I became an
athletic tutor and it was about that time

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that my dad was cracking down on the
athletic department because the

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athletic department used to be in the
Liberal Arts college. And so he was

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cracking down on them for academics.
And here I was being paid by the

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athletic department to be a tutor.
And, um, and I went to study halls and

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, um, so they moved the athletic
department out from the Liberal arts

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college. At least that's my memory. I
don't know if it's accurate or not,

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but she never told me that. Well,
yeah, you knew that you tried, you tried

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to crack down on him. I was not
treated as the dean's daughter by

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professors though. They had a tendency
to be harder on me than because

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they didn't want to show favoritism.
And my dad, by the way, his first

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year lived in Manzanita Hall. I don't
know if you knew that. Oh, no, I

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forgot about that. So he knew so many
girls and all when I, when I arrived

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on campus and people started to know
who I was, girls would come up to me.

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 Your dad is so cute. You know,

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I was in the army and, uh, became,

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and Asians in Europe for CIA. Well,
first it was called Os S the Office of

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Strategic Services.

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We, we did uh secret activities

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but vs in basic training, uh colonel,
it was a challenge to Andrew if I

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had have me transfer to Os S which was
a new organization.

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And so I was, as far as I remember I
was in the initial team.

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But, uh, and it was fascinating.

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I enjoyed every bit of it. They sent
me wherever they needed me. That was

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behind the German lines problem is
that

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no one knew who it was. You mapped out
battle sites you'd photographed

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where they should land and those kinds
of your knowledge of his os Well,

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his, his experience, first of all,
when he, when he says he escaped from

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Austria, it was a rather, um, it was
a, it was a lot more interesting than

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came out. But he, um, um, first
Hitler, the, the soldiers all marched into

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the classrooms and he was in
gymnasium, which is kind of like a high

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school. And, um, and they dismissed
the class and the professor, the

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teacher was a, was a Jewish man and
there were a number of Jews in the

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class and when, when, uh, they all
disappeared two weeks later or three

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weeks later, when classes resumed, the
teacher was gone. And, uh, you know

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, and some dad always felt badly
because he had been mischievous and, you

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know, he'd been dropping sodium in the
ink wells and causing poofs of

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smoke. And so he had this guilt
feeling that he had not been kind to this

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man. And now he was gone. And so
anyway, then my, my dad went down to

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Bulgaria, Sophia when my mother had
this coffee shop and he had been told

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by his father who had left the family
and married somebody back in the

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United States and was living in
Chicago and basically had abandoned the

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family. But he had told my dad that he
needed to get out of the United

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States. I mean, get out of Europe
because it was not looking good. And he

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was going to be drafted into Hitler's
army and which indeed, as soon as

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Hitler invaded Austria, that's where
he was supposed to go into Hitler's

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army. And so dad tried to go, went to
the American consulate and spoke to

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a man by the name of cannons, cannon.
And um, do you remember that? And,

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and asked him to? Yeah, but he first
said, no, I can't give it to you

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unless you get a visa from an exit
visa from, from uh from Austria. And he

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, so dad then had to go back to the
Austrian, I guess consulate. I'm not

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sure where it was that she went. And,
um, and the young Austrian who was

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stamping visas looked at him and said,
where do you want to go? And he

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said, well, dad couldn't say he wanted
to go to the United States because

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he wouldn't let him. So he said, well,
I want to go to Italy, I wanna go

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to Czechoslovakia and he started
rattling off all these European countries

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that were controlled by Hitler. And so
the, he said, the young Austrian

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just looked at and looked at him right
in the eyes and then said, ah,

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that's too much work. And he stamped
him with a world visa. And so he

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doesn't know if, if this young man was
knowing what he wanted to do or, um

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, or just lazy. But, um, that's not
too complicated.

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And so then that, yeah, I shouldn't
say that

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that they were lazy. Yeah. Well, so
then dad took that back to cannons,

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cannon and cannons, cannon. Then said,
well, you know, I can't let you out

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and, and you said, but you promised.
And so then he gave him an exit visa.

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So um he then needed money and he went
to this coffee shop in Sophia and

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there was a Jewish man who was a
customer and he was a big fat man and he

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, he heard my dad that he needed money
and he pulled out a wallet, a big

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wad of money and he peeled off $10 and
he gave it to my dad and that was

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what he used to pay his expenses to
get back to the United States. And

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then he, when he got back to Chicago
and entered the University of Chicago

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, his father was remarried to a Jewish
woman actually. And um she uh he

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asked if he could have some money to
send back to this man. And she said,

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no, you have to earn it. So he worked
in a, as a bus boy and, and he would

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make $1 a week or something and tips,
tips. And so he had to, she took all

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of it, but a small amount. And so he
had to save this money over the, over

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the months and months. And finally he
had enough to send back to this man.

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Do you have any advice you would give to young people about choosing

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universities or about their careers?
Do your work? Do your work?

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One of the pieces of advice that dad
gave me that, I think that he should

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have, you know, repeated just now. But
he said major in what you love,

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don't try to major in something to
make money, but major in something that

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you, you are passionate about.