OK, we are rolling. OK. Today is April 17, 2013. I'm conducting an
interview for the Arizona State Retirees Association video history project.
We're located today in the ASU Community Services building. My name is
Mary Rothschild. I'm a professor emerita from ASU. I was director of
women's studies, chair of the department. Uh, and I came here as an
assistant professor. The technical staff support today include John
McIntosh, operating the camera, Roger Carter, Audio, and Dave Schotsley,
who is the director.
OK. Please introduce yourself and stating your name and your position at
ASU. Uh, my name is Anne Schneider, and I was dean of the College of
Public Programs at ASU and after that I was a professor in the School of
Justice studies and then in the uh Department of Political Science.
To begin with, why don't you let our viewers know a little bit about your
early life? What propelled you? Where did you grow up? Where were you born
? What was your early life like? What propelled you into the academy? The
um. I grew up in Ellis County, Oklahoma, which is up in the northwestern
corner of the state near a town called Fargo that I claim is my hometown.
And I went to school there. Uh, we lived on a fairly large wheat and
cattle farm. My folks were Bert and Margaret Larson. I have a brother Tim
a sister Linda who lived in Oklahoma City. Um, I went to Oklahoma State
University where I got my undergraduate degree, and from that I taught
school, traveled for a while, got married, and then went, my ex-husband
and I went to Indiana University to get our PhDs in political science. And
then and then after that, uh, my first job was at Yale University, so Pete
and I packed up our two kids, both still in diapers and went to went to
Yale, uh, that that would have been, uh, 1972. So that's when you got your
PhD uh at Yale. It was a rather frantic time. I had not finished my
dissertation, neither had Pete. Both kids were still in diapers, as I just
said, and I'm teaching, uh, two classes this semester, all 4 new classes
that I had made up myself and that I had never taken, much less taught.
And it was a a really hectic year and the Watergate hearings were on, so
of course, uh, meat and drink to a political scientist. Yes, abs
absolutely there wasn't much sleep in between the kids, uh, the job and
watching the Watergate hearings anyway, that's what that's after Yale, uh
, Pete got an offer at University of Oregon, so we went across country
with the kids. uh, Jeffrey is not yet 2 years old. And Chris is a little
over 3. And there, uh, he had a job at the University of Oregon. I started
the Institute for Policy Analysis, which was a nonprofit research
institute that I ran for about 10 years under the auspices of Oregon
University of Oregon. No, it wasn't at the university. We were a, a
private nonprofit research institute. We lived solely on grants and no one
hardly anyone except me, uh, was over 30 and no one had any money, so. It
was uh Truly a nonprofit. Nonprofit institute and after doing that for a
while I got an offer from Oklahoma State University, my alma mater to go
back there as a political science professor, which I did. And when was
that? That was in 1982. And I was, uh, became director of research for
arts and sciences and then chair of political science and then I so that
was those were your two administrative positions before you came to ASU
actually 3 being being the founder and run and manager of a nonprofit
research institute sort of counted and then I had been chair of the
department and director of research for arts and sciences. That's right.
And then I got the job here at ASU as as dean of public programs. Um, 1989.
You came in 1989 and what inspired you to come?
Well it's perfectly all right to save money. It was, uh, I was just really
broke and there wasn't much of any possibility of, of much of a raise at
Oklahoma State. They've given me a bit of a raise, but I was still just
really pretty, pretty broke and I got uh a friend of mine who was provost
at Florida International leaned on me to go there one year to interview
for a job at a college very much like public programs. Which I did And I
didn't like Miami. I didn't like the I didn't like the college I didn't
like the university I didn't like Miami and I decided I would never again
apply for a job in a place I did not want to go, but it got me thinking
about there were better jobs out there, um, and if you wanna know one day
I was quite irritated at the associate dean I was chair of political
science and I read the Chronicle and I clipped out the the one ads. And a
few weeks later, uh, people on the search committee here actually called
me and and I said yes I've heard of that job in fact I have clipped it
right here in my drawer so that's how I came to apply for this job. So
what was ASU like when you first arrived? Well, the, uh, what was ASU like
was an interesting kind of question because it had a, I thought a really
fine faculty. And a serious inferiority complex. And you would know
because you were here the uh the faculty consisted of newer hires who were
very research oriented from really good universities and then the people
from the days of teachers college that were really outstanding teachers
but they hadn't been hired to do research so there was that kind of
tension. But the College of Public programs in a way was even more
interesting because it consisted of 5 departments and 1 center, none of
which wanted to be in that college. It had been formed by a previous
president. There were several programs in liberal arts that did not want
to be in liberal arts. They want to be free standing colleges like the
Cronkite School, Public Affairs communication. They wanted to be colleges
of their own, and there were a couple of programs that reported to the
provost. Who didn't want academic programs reporting to him right? so he
had this brilliant idea of putting these programs that ranged from
journalism to public affairs, communication, justice studies, wreck
management into one college, and he would solve all of those problems by
putting all of these discontented programs into one college. So that's
what I came to a college with 5 departments and 1 center. They didn't
dislike one another they were just kind of discontented and distant they
didn't really know each other they didn't think they had anything in
common. So how did you work on that? Well, that was the first big
challenge was uh realizing that they didn't see anything in common even
though I did and the president who put them together saw the possibilities
there. These are professionally oriented social science programs all of
them are newer disciplines they've all broken off from more traditional
disciplines um they are more oriented toward the community. And they, they
did have those things in common and that was the, the idea of the college
that it seemed to me we could be both relevant to the community and also
relevant to the theory and intellectual development of our disciplines
that we could actually do both of those. What was it like to come into
that college, many people in whom uh in which I knew quite well, um, as
the first woman dean, um. Well, I had been the first this that or the
other woman a lot of times before, so in some ways that was not unusual. I
was the first woman in a tenured position at Yale untenured but on tenure
track, the first one at Oklahoma State, the, um, so at the time I was the
first, uh, woman dean of a non-traditional college at ASU also, so I, I
didn't think much about that. Really it was um I was just sort of used to
being a woman in in did you think there were any issues involved with it
with some of the people you worked with in the in the college? Oh yes,
there were, there were a few, few people, uh, I will name their gender who
disliked me from the day I stepped on campus and it took me a while to
realize it it didn't have much of anything to do with me, um. And I just,
just worked on it, you know, to try to try to do a really really good job
. I thought if I could do a really good job that those guys would
eventually come around and as a matter of fact, almost all of them did
eventually. Um, Who was uh provost of and president well when I came, ASU
was really in transition. Elmer Gooding was the acting provost, a really
good guy, very supportive of me. He was really, really helpful. Elmer like
liked to make a deal. You know, if I made a couple of deals, yeah, if, if
I needed something, he was the one, well, let's say you put up a little
money for it, I'll put up a little money for it, that kind of thing. Dick
Peck was the acting president, a very, uh, uh, interesting, bright,
intelligent, funny person. Um, and within 6 months we had hired Laddie
Core and by the fall, uh, we had hired Milt Glick so I served those two
people were absolutely, uh, wonderful, uh, leaders at ASU and I served 15
wonderful years with them and a great bunch of deans, most of whom were
men and most of whom were very supportive of women, uh, and, and women.
Women Gary Gary was John Manet with most all of them were Larry Pinley
was was a time we were diversifying and I think College of Public programs
was a really good place to do that because women and minority students who
are really good students often gravitated toward the less traditional
careers in terms of graduate school they so so we had the opportunity to
hire a lot of really, really talented young faculty. What did you, um, I
remember that justice studies sort of switched from a kind of criminology
basis to justice studies a little before you came I think but was there
was that ever an issue?
I thought that because it was the biggest, one of the biggest departments
well we had a lot of big departments. Justice studies was huge
communication was huge. The Cronkite School was huge. These were all
really and public affairs had a huge graduate program. The I thought, uh,
that the idea of a of a department focused on social justice was wonderful.
There could be nothing dear to my heart than. A college like that on the
other hand I found it disconcerting that they uh were were disrespectful
of of the criminal justice side of justice. I didn't quite being a
political scientist, not a sociologist I didn't really understand that um.
Because criminal justice had not been a marginalized field in terms of
political science, it had been in terms of sociology so some of this was
was dragging in um sort of academic status academic prestige and. But like
I said, I thought the idea of a school of justice studies was wonderful
and they kind of had to fight off the image of just being criminal justice
and I understand that academically in terms of the national uh thing
national images they they had to distance themselves from being just
criminal justice. Uh, did you have a grand idea for public programs when
you came, or how did your administration evolve? I did kind of have a
grand idea. I thought this was such a. Uh, an exciting idea, new programs
, newer disciplines that had, uh, 1 ft in three worlds, 1 ft in the
academic intellectual theory side, 1 ft in the professions and the
practice practices that came out of the social sciences and 1 ft in honest
to goodness public service. And I really had this idea that the
professions and practice could inform theory. And that theory could and
should inform professions and practice and that we had the opportunity in
the college to do both of these things whereas and we could respect both
if we could just find the will to do that we could respect both and that
that we could actually be more innovative. And and more creative and
different and unique and we could really make our way by having that as
our our idea you're in liberal arts so you know the kind of pecking order
in liberal arts we were always at the bottom of the pecking order if we
were in liberal arts, um, and I just didn't think we wanted any of those
kind of pecking orders in our college. And I really went out of my way not
to center any particular discipline or marginalize any particular
discipline but to try to get these groups to in fact respect one another
and see what they could could collectively bring together and that we
really could do all of these things people used to say to me well. You
can't be all things to all people. And I would say and Laddie Core used to
say this too, we have to be a lot of things to a lot of people. Yeah we
have to do that and we can do that so I did have an idea and it was this
merger of practice and profession with uh intellectual and theory
development that we could do that. So did you find your faculty receptive
to that vision? Uh, yes, very much I think it helped I think it helped
them a lot. It also recognized both teaching and research as and public
service as being um. Important contributing and respected things to be
done. We had older, uh, not necessarily older but faculty who had been
here a longer time who were hired without PhDs. They were hired to be
really great teachers and they were so I tried to help them find a niche
where they could fit into this new idea of the college. Well, that was
part of my, uh, gonna be my next question given that. The university at
that time began to um. Be more and more research oriented um did that have
any effect on your deaning? Yes, yes, it, it really did, uh, on the one
hand we had to really support and mentor junior faculty because they could
be coming up in their own department with people who were not. Uh,
respectful of research, OK, at the same time with faculty who had been
there a longer time, some of them would like to do research. It just had
never been part of their job description literally. And so one of the
things we did, we started, you probably remember these the Dean's
incentive grants program and we called them digs. They were small grants,
20 to $3000 a piece, and we managed to cobble together enough money every
year that almost everyone who applied got one. We would figure out some
way to do that studies grants, yeah, all right and um so senior faculty
who were trying to jump start a research program, OK, that was a priority
junior faculty, uh, that was a priority. And part of this was I would
really hand it to the senior faculty who would come here uh without a
research expectation uh knew that they could mentor and support junior
faculty and make life better for everyone and they did that. They really
did that and in fact the college was started by Frank Sackton. He was the
first dean of the college appointed by the president, like you said was
solving all these problems by putting all these that was Russ Nelson, yeah
, I think it was, yeah, and Frank had been a general and he had uh been a
controller of the United States and he came to ASU and got a master's
degree after he retired from the military and then was appointed Dean. Of
the college but his idea was, uh, you go hire people for the future. Not
the past. You don't hire your own image you hire people for the future,
and he was a great dean because he did that. He started, uh, public
programs not just to be practice and teaching but to have a research focus.
He was an interesting guy for a lot of reasons he was he was so much a
general and yet he was one of the first people to support LGBT research on
campus. It was you could have knocked me over with a feather, but we were
glad for the support. No, he was, uh, but the college did have kind of a
unique place even at ASU. No one ever liked the name College of Public
programs. Why don't you change the name? Well, what are you gonna change
it to? Did you ever come up with an idea for a name change? No, because no
one, including me, could ever think of one, and people said, well, why
don't you call it College of Public Affairs? Well, the school of public
affairs had that name that would center them, right? One idea was why
don't we get Walter to Cronkite to spread his name over the whole college
and we'll call it the College of communication. The Walter Cronkite, well
, public affairs and wreck Management Justice studies didn't like that
very much and let's call it communication means something to other people
. I mean, you know, there are communication schools all over the all over
the country, and there's people that's people, no one could ever think of
a better name. That's why it has always stayed college of public programs.
Um.
What do you believe were your most interesting achievements in the overall
view of the university
and the personally for yourself I'm really more interested in personally
what you think. Well, let me, let me do that second one, that one first.
One of, uh, my goals as a, as a dean was to provide a quality working
experience for faculty, a real quality working environment for faculty. Uh
, and a quality educational experience for students, those were, those
were the two things that I, um, that I thought were most, most important,
and I really am proud of the fact that the dean's office was actually
known for, uh, you know, for those kind of things being fair, transparent
, accountable, efficient, professional. We were friendly, friendly, yeah,
very friendly helpful, collegial, right, um, we stood for high academic
standards but we didn't, uh, look down on certain disciplines as if they
were stepchildren. Um, our budget was public, for example, when, when we
had money to allocate for raises, everyone knew exactly how much it was,
and we would reach criteria and standards in a way to, to allocate that
that people actually thought was fair. It was systematic. It wasn't just
up to someone's whim. I'll give a big raise to so and so. I remember
actually that was quite shocking to someone from liberal arts when I
because I knew so many people in your college because they were affiliated
faculty of mine. And uh the difference in the way that merit raises and
things were evaluated in your college and my college were substantial
although my college got increasingly transparent. I think so uh but our
budget was even even transparent. I have to tell a quick story. One of the
one of my personal goals the first year I came and I had come out of um a
university at Oklahoma State where was in some ways a much better
university than people gave it credit for but sometimes the management
issues were were not man was not very good at times OK and. My one of my
pledges to myself was I would get through the whole first year without
telling a lie to anyone or not deceiving anyone right? that drill dreamer
and
so so sometimes you just had to bite the bullet and say uh they have
promised us 4 positions.
Not 5, so not everyone's going to get one or they cut our budget by X
amount, and some of you are going to have to uh bear more of the burden
than that than others because some of you have more resources than others.
And I can remember saying especially to public affairs thank you public
affairs for having made yourself rich so you can help carry the rest
through this time of adversity um but I was, uh, I really think we did
provide a work a quality environment for faculty we actually we mentored
junior faculty we really did and supported them and mentored them and gave
them Dean's incentive grants and if they wrote a bad proposal we actually
had a committee that reviewed them. We instead of turning them down we
would meet with them and help teach them how to write a better research
proposal so you know um I had lunch pizza lunch. Once a month with all the
untenured faculty in the college. Usually 15 to 20. Because we weren't all
that big, but this gave untenured faculty direct access to me, the dean,
right? So instead of being told by a senior faculty member, well, the
rules are A, B and C, they would ask me, say, are the rules A, B, and C? I
said, Where did you hear that, you know, so, um, and they got to know each
other across departments this way, and you, you would be astounded when
you would see someone. In journalism talking about Foucaul and someone in
communication would go you're talking about Foucaul because they had these
images of each other that were that were really uh very different from
they they learned different things about one another so uh and we I think
provide a quality educational experience for students. Uh, my idea was
that every student who took a class from CO should be assured when they
walked in that classroom that that class would be interesting, inspiring,
maybe even transforming, uh, and that the and faculty were expected to be
able to teach well and if they couldn't, you know, they actually could not
get tenure. In our college you really turn anybody down for not teaching
well? Yes, there were, we didn't usually end up having to turn people down.
We had a, as you remember, 2 year and 4 year review and then a 3 year
review and if people couldn't teach very well and hadn't been able to
learn to do that, I think most we there was people who left because they
simply could not or would not put their mind to teach a quality class. Uh
, we only turned down so far as on one person. For tenure because they
couldn't teach well but people left on those grounds and same thing with
research people didn't usually get it into their 5th year and not. Not be
not be ready for tenure, uh, they, they knew what the expectations were
and if they hadn't met them they would usually start looking for a job
before they actually came up for tenure. But um uh there were there were
some other things in terms of achievements and more academic kind of terms
that I made some notes on we started started a lot of programs and and a
lot of centers and um you know Morrison Institute was in the college and I
think it just flourished under Rob Melnick's leadership and became and
still is the best respected public policy center in the in the state. The
uh no we started the nonprofit program now named the Lone Star program uh
we got acquainted with Hugh Downs is that the Humana? No, that's, yes,
it's Humanics, um, but we one of the first country first countries, one of
the first universities in the country to have a nonprofit actually offer a
degree in nonprofit studies, but that was part of the tradition of
recognizing new and emerging disciplines and being willing to then support
and accommodate. And we started American Indian studies, Asian Pacific
American studies we would have started women's studies, Mary, except it
was already existing in liberal arts a long time, yeah,
we started, uh, well, the John Frank lecture series, for example, so there
were a lot of those kind of achievements, uh, starting new programs,
supporting them even in a time when. Uh, maybe I shouldn't say this on the
record. We had a pretty hostile legislature, as you know, pretty well, a
pretty hostile legislature, and, um, they cut budgets for the universities
even when they didn't need to have done that. They zeroed out the Morrison
Institute. They didn't like the analysis. They, they zeroed out women's
studies. Those were both in the same year. Uh, and it was not a good, yeah
, so, so some of those kind of things, uh, yeah, I think the college was
really very, very successful. I was very pleased with our accomplishments.
So how about your personal accomplishments? I thought that uh uh an
administrator ought to keep 1 ft in the faculty world and 1 ft in
administration, so, um, so I taught a class every year which I use I kind
of have a love hate relationship with teaching classes. I love teaching a
class on the other hand, it comes around whether I'm ready for it or not
and uh. Uh, but I did that and I also thought, well, you know, I have all
this time on my hands. I should be able to write a paper or two, and I
actually published two books and quite a few articles during the time I
was dean. So I was pleased with that too. One of the books that Helen
Ingram and I did, um, won a Lifetime achievement award from APSA for a
book that's been out at least 10 years and still has a lasting impact on
the discipline that was, was very nice to get that award. So, so I felt
like, you know, that I had a really successful career here. So when, uh,
did you step down as Dean? I stepped down, I think I was just here a year
after Michael Crow came or maybe two, and I stepped down about 2003 or
2004 somewhere in there, and then since I kept 1 ft. In the faculty world
it was easy for me to go back to a department and what department did you
go back? I went back to justice studies first and then after a couple of 3
years there, uh.
Because one of my public policy areas had been criminal justice and
juvenile justice, so that was a good fit for me up for a while but then it
seemed to me I was really much more of a political scientist and justice
studies had become more of uh a sociology program, and I just kind of
wanted to get back to my own disciplines, so I went political science, so
you ended up in the college of liberals in in liberal arts after all, yes
, I did indeed.
Just had to rub that I know you just had, had to, had to mention that,
yeah, uh, of all your accomplishments at ASU, which has given you the most
satisfaction. I think being a good dean. Try trying to be a really good
dean and ending up with really successful faculty successful students
successful programs, uh, and you know, being known for the things I
mentioned fairness, transparency, honesty, I think I got through all 15
years without telling a lie and uh. And collegiality and and support we
really supported faculty we really trusted faculty and faculty governance
and I was really proud of those kinds of things. I got a lot of
satisfaction out of that got a lot of satisfaction out of the kids, the
students also students are great. Did you see any differences in the way
you were a dean because you were a woman? Oh, I think so, um, like what?
Well, you're.
I hate to be quite so gender specific because there are a lot of men who
are are this way too, but I think women are just a little more
compassionate they tend to be a little kinder I think they're not quite so
quick to rush to judgment uh they keep more options open. OK, um, I
learned a long time ago I better listen to and actually I, I guess I
learned this from my dad, uh, better listen to both sides before you make
up your mind, better get your facts straight before you start, start
moving on things, um. But I have to say the men uh that I worked with the
chairs and the men in who were deans and Milton Laddy were were really
wonderful yeah, women grow up with different experiences and different
expectations and I do think there is uh a little bit of a kinder gentler
nature about women. Uh, in, in public affairs, in public life, in
management positions, and of course Margaret Thatcher who just died,
disproves my entire theory I suppose but I do think, uh, I think women
have to work harder, uh, to avoid, to avoid criticism you have to work
harder. Um, and they get there to get there partly because you do have to
keep more options, more balls in the air all the time because you never
know what door might open or might close, so you have to have some other,
uh, place you could go and, and I think, I think, think men are better
able to set a goal in life and say that's what I want to be, that's where
I'm headed. And women are more apt to say, well I could do this or I could
do that or maybe what if I end up doing this, you see so and that just in
some ways creates more work I think for women. Did you see yourself as a
role model for women in your college? I suppose I hope I was a good one.
yes, I think so. I, I, I actually know several women who thought that of
you. OK, uh, when I first came here there were so few women in the college
that we used to get together on Wednesday afternoons about 4 o'clock
almost every week at 9th and Ash. Um, uh, to drink beer or have a glass of
wine or tell stories. There were so few of us we could fit around one
booth at 9 9th and A. Um, But I do think it gave women an opportunity that
they might not otherwise have had uh sometimes I supported a woman in a
position for something that um. Uh, went against the grain.
Did you ever feel, um.
Did you ever feel there were.
You could get in trouble for that or that maybe you were pushing
boundaries I made the front page of the uh of the uh daily newspaper when
I uh. Appointed Maria Allison to be chair of wreck management instead of
uh the man who had been contesting for that position he had won the vote
and I appointed her anyway and that made the front the front page of the
newspaper Dean overrides faculty.
Um, but it was interesting. The person that had contested her for that
position came to me maybe 3 or 4 weeks later. He said, You were absolutely
right to pick Maria. She's a great dean, he said, I'll be a much and, and
I said to him, you'll be a much better chair after you've been in a
college in in the department with her as dean, and that was true. He
became the next chair. And he was a much better chair because she was she
, no, yeah, I had put her as chair of uh of wreck management and tourism
sorry I misspoke there, yeah, um. So I think in some ways yeah I was
probably a role model we used to have parties at my house uh we'd have one
big faculty party every year with all the faculty and the and the staff
invited and and the women came. You know, and I think uh I'm not sure
whether uh a male dean would have had a big party or would, would the
women have felt, I don't know as well I think women when they got to be
more obvious it was easier. And when social work then uh and that's one of
the things I was proud of social work had been told they could no longer
be a college of their own.
And they were gonna have to find some place to go and so I asked our
department chairs, would you be willing. To welcome social work into the
college, I asked our faculty at a faculty meeting, and they all said yes,
really would have been the only college that could have gone into, uh,
west. Oh, you mean move it on they could have gone west or could have gone
to east, yes, but I was really pleased. We welcomed them into the college
and I think they felt welcome. Then we had a lot more women in the college
, yeah. Um,
What kind of advice would you give young people choosing their college and
their career? And I've done this with on many occasions with with younger
faculty uh. Do those things that you really want to do those things you're
passionate about do those things you really love to do. Do those things
that give you more energy than they take from you and try to avoid stuff
that saps your energy. Uh, how about choosing colleges?
Uh, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Well, I'm just looking at, what
advice would you give a young person if I, if I had a graduate students
asking me where to go to college, uh, some place where you, some place
that's really good that has the kind of program you want, and I did advise
, particularly graduate students and undergraduates go to a really good
university,
uh, to really go to the best one you can get into it will serve you well
all the rest of your life, um. And yeah that's what occupies your time as
a retiree. Well, as you know, I do a lot of I do a lot of volunteer work
for the Unitarian Universalist, uh, the Valley Unitarian Universalist. A
lot of that is some of the same kind of thing I did as a faculty, you know
, as an administrator. I work on policy and finances and budget and, and,
uh, trying to settle disputes and other kinds of things like that, um. And
I do um writing. If someone really asked me what do you do? I'd like to
say I'm a writer. However, Uh, that's kind of sporadic, you know. I have
written, compiled, I've written a lot of poems and I've compiled a book of
poems called Desert Poems with photographs with photographs I've become, I
think, a pretty, uh, reasonably good photographer. Uh, I like, uh, I still
like to do a lot of hiking and I love road trips and I think. I still very
much like uh adventures though my adventures are not nearly as adventurous
as they used to be but something that's that's different or unexpected. I
mean if you want to have an adventure you've got to take a chance and get
out there and do something a little different so give us an example of an
adventure you took. In the last little while, oh my, an adventure, I
suppose the last big adventure was after I stepped down as dean. I took a
year off, uh, as I had a, it was my very first sabbatical. And I went to
Moscow to a conference in Moscow where with a bunch of other people and we
took a side trip to Saint Petersburg and then I spent the next 3 months
traveling by myself through Siberia.
From Moscow all the way to Irkutsk, which if you ever played rescue
recognize Irkuts was one of the uh battle stations in Russia, um, and I in
Irkuts I had my purse stolen so I'm without any papers whatsoever uh so
that was that was a a big. A big adventure. I would have enjoyed that
though I prefer more southern climes. uh, well, in the summer in Siberia
it's uh it's kind of like, uh, Minnesota warm and muggy. Um, do you have
any comments in areas we haven't covered? I don't think so. I had a lot of
notes, most of which are are of no particular value here, um. But I don't
think so. I think um. I think that's probably about it. I've had a, I did
want to say something. I think probably the best thing ASU ever did was to
hire Laddie Core. Yes, that we were in a period of transition as I
mentioned when I started, uh, and, and Lattie brought Milt here and Lattie
tells a story that he had had his eye on Milt Glick who was at Iowa State.
Lattie's in Vermont and had tried to get Milt to go to Vermont to be
provost and he had turned him down but so Milk came because Lattie came
and when they hired Lattie they were hiring a hometown boy. That had a lot
of connections here in the valley already and a wonderful wonderfully
talented and inspiring leader and he was fair and transparent and he
trusted uh faculty and ASU grew in all the right directions and Milt's a
wonderful wonderful person to work with. He too was always fair and honest
and supportive. Uh, and of everyone, not just me were incredibly
supportive of women faculty and women's studies and of unusual disciplines
like, like ours, you know, uh, so anyway, I, I really enjoyed my time at
ASU. I enjoyed justice studies. I very much enjoyed political science,
totally different kinds of departments, but I like them both. OK, OK,
that,
yeah, keep that rolling. Let me have a drink of, can I do what was his
name? Marco Rubio. I grabbed for my drink. I'm with Gary Gary was terrific
and it was like a dream team. there was nothing. I didn't feel there was anything I'd get really turned down on if I had if I had my data there, they were gonna support me, yeah,
yeah. What's your questions on microphones died, Mary I'm not sure.
Maybe it's on because I put it on the floor. Oh, Mary's Mary's is the one
that died. We
interviewed Gary. Oh yeah, he's a fabulous dean.
Good. I'm glad you interviewed him before he died. He was great to work
with. Milt was just he was, he couldn't have been more supportive of
women's studies. I mean, uh, it was unbelievable. He was so great. What
you got? Well, let's go back to Oakland.
Well, uh, it was a farm. It was a wheat farm really more than a ranch, but
we also, we diversified, so we raised wheat, we raised cattle and my
brother was, uh, 14 months older than me. We were both born just before
World War II. And so we were on the farm and uh. Uh, we've had wheat and
cattle and pigs and chickens and we milk cows and one of my jobs was, uh,
after school was to go after the cows. And at then down in the pasture
about a half mile away and bring the cows back, run them in the barn and
Tim of course helped with the milking. He was big and strong. I was little
and scrawny and I wasn't very good at milking cows, but they always set me
up a stool and let me milk the cows and. And uh uh I drove a tractor for
my dad. I plowed all in the summer starting when right after 6th grade. Um
, and I drove a wheat truck for my dad in the summers when I was 14
because you could get a permit when you were 14, and I loved it. I loved,
I love growing up on a farm. It was just great. I love who your dad was.
Well, my, my folks had both been to college and we're both college
graduates and have both gone back out to Western Northwestern Oklahoma. My
grandparents had all homesteaded out there. They went back out there
during the Dust Bowl. Uh, and during the Depression and my dad right out
of college ran for the legislature, the state legislature, and won. And he
served in the legislature the whole time except for World War 2 and once
he got beat. He actually lost an election by one vote anyway so it was
kind of interesting because my folks were very much farm people
um and my mom was a school teacher, my dad was a legislator and they
worked very hard to be uh middle class, not hicks. I would, I think, have
preferred to be a hick, but, uh, uh, they worked very hard to make me not
in not be a hick also, uh, so it is that kind of what you want it? It
really was a real farm.
I tell you, you know where the panhandle joins the state, right there,
right where it joins the state in that corner about 40 miles from Texas,
about 60 miles south of the Kansas border. Right near Woodward and and
Gauge. Better known towns. Uh, how about where The interstate comes across
from east.
The Interstate 40 about 90 miles north of Interstate 40 right after you
cross the Oklahoma line you go straight up uh to Woodward and you actually
bend back a little toward Texas. Yes, Dust Bowl very much Dust Bowl days
and uh my folks were young adults during the Dust Bowl. They actually met
after they knew each other in high school. But they didn't really know
each other because they lived one in the north and one in the south part
of the county, but they both went back out there during the Dust Bowl
during the depression after college because uh their folks were about to
lose their farms and my dad went back out after the bank he was working
for went bankrupt. And my mom had actually gone to California uh after
college. She graduated from college when she was 18 years old.
No, my dad, I was the rebel. My dad went to the University of Oklahoma in
Norman, and my mom went to Panhandle A&M. And then to Northwestern State
in Alva Teachers College. Uh, she actually went to OU later and got a
master's in journalism because she taught journalism.
The big city was Woodward. It had 8000 people in it. No, the really big
city was Oklahoma City. Uh, it was, no, no, Ok, well, my dad was in the
legislature, so we went back and forth to Oklahoma City. It was 170 miles
away and Amarillo was 170 miles, so it was right, we were right in between
the two. But Oklahoma and Texas, there's a big border there. You know,
Very much Oklahomans, not Texans. You notice I don't have a Texas accent.
Stop in this little town called Erick, Oklahoma, yeah, down south, yeah.
The singer
England swings like
00, Roger Miller, yeah, uh-huh. Uh, another area.
Oh well, Brent was in the School of Public Affairs, one of the old time
faculty members when I came and was a vice president or over in in the
Provost office, VP for academic affairs at the time. And so I never really
worked much with Brent, but he was one of kind of the the old time public
affairs people that had been a mainstay of the school he was he was always
really good to me although I didn't really work with him or know him very
well.
OK,
um. At Prescott? No, no, why?
Yeah, yes, they did. It was a retreat. Do you know how do you how do you
know VUU?
Oh yeah, no, that is the Unitarian, uh, universal congregation that that I
do a lot of volunteer work for, but I didn't go up to to Prescott, uh,
yeah.
Now I'm saying Roger Carter is doing camera and audio. OK, sure.
Uh Good afternoon. Today is April 17, 2013. We're conducting an interview
for the Arizona State University Res Retirees Association video history
project. We're located today in the ASU Community Services building. I'm
Mary Rothschild, a professor emerita of women's studies and history. The
technical support staff today include Roger Carter doing audio and
operating the camera and Dave Schotsley, who is the director.
OK,
you have anything to do with Walter Cronkite or The, uh, uh, School of
Journalism was also already named the Walter Cronkite School when I came
and we were very, very proud of that. Uh, yes, the, uh, the Hugh Downs
School of Communication was named when I was here. We got acquainted with
Hugh and, uh, Ruth Downs through some of the community outreach programs
we did and some of the alumni from. Jeannie Herberger, particularly, uh,
the, the school of communication contacted them and we that was named the
Lodestar name also came from some of the community contacts that we had
done. Uh, it's Lone Stars nonprofit center. Now the John Frank lecture
series was named when I was here because some people in the school of
justice studies had worked very closely with John Frank. I didn't know
John Frank. He had already died when when I came, but I knew Lorraine
Frank pretty well. She had become, uh, something of an advocate for our
college as well. That's actually something that I think should have been
brought out is how much work you did in the community um you personally
did in the community with uh getting donors and people involved uh in ASU
who had not been before I mean. Lorraine Franks was a very proud Vassar
graduate. She really didn't have anything to do with ASU much before. I
mean, I knew her very well because through the Humanities council, but you
brought in a lot of people who weren't ASU people initially. I think uh it
was an opportunity to do that because the College of Public programs was
part of our identity was doing that sort of thing. I got involved in. Um,
doing some juvenile justice advocacy work originally and I'm, as you know
, a bit of a data analyst, a social science data analyst, and I was
analyzing data for the commission on the status of women that had just
started and I got acquainted with people there and then with uh. In our
own uh alumni association that's where I met uh Jeannie Herberger and
Barbara Barrett, and they introduced me to, well, Barbara Barrett's a
graduate of the of public affairs, uh, and Jeannie of communication and
Ellie Ziegler of communication and other people in the communi in the
community who introduced me to other people and. Uh, so I did make a lot
of friends in the community which resulted in a lot of fundraising. It did
result in a lot of, lot of fundraising, and I was, uh, invited to be a
part of the Arizona, uh, Women's Forum where I met even more people and I
was one of the founders of the, uh, founding board members of the Arizona
Women's, uh, Women's Foundation, Arizona Women's Foundation, so.
I did meet a lot of people in the community, a lot of women leaders who
were looking for for looking for some women at at ASU, but a lot of men
also were very good, uh, became very good friends here we had a, a large
dean's council. I just invited everyone I thought might be willing to to
to join to be part of the Dean's council so people like Harry Mitchell,
for example, uh, became part of the Dean's council. And we must have had
30 people in that and we would put on 2 or 34 times a year we would invite
them to campus for brunch or breakfast or lunch and highlight one of our
programs, you know, Jess Alberts from communication would come over and
talk about being on the Oprah Winfrey show or the Cronkite School would
take people over and give them a tour. We would highlight some, uh, some
program. I meant didn't mention the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research
Center, CERC that was one of the programs we started, uh. So yeah they we
did a lot of work in the community and I think that helped ASU then. Uh,
later We were already embedded in the community when Michael Crow came and
I just loved his vision of ASU being embedded in the community and uh
because that was that was part of what Lattie was about. I was gonna say
but that wasn't new because Lattie no it wasn't it wasn't that that new I
think cop College of Public programs had been very instrumental in helping
uh pave the way for that to happen to really blossom. Uh, under, under
Michael, but it blossomed under Laddie. He had friends all over this, this
community and women's studies had been doing women's advocacy work since
we started. I mean since 1975, 1976. And we were very active in a lot of
social justice kinds of issues
you were going to ask, did you? How did you meet and what was your
relationship with Mary? Oh, Mary was director of women's studies when I
came. I came begging for money. Uh, yeah, I was in liberal arts, but we
had 80 affiliated faculty, half of them from our not half of them, but, uh
, a good, almost all the women in our college were affiliated were were
affiliated faculty with women's studies because women's studies didn't
have its own faculty for a long, long time. We were, it was all affiliated
faculty in liberal arts. Justice, uh, public programs, art, um, the
College of Art, um, fine arts, um, we didn't, and even after we got our
own faculty, which is 25 years into my time at ASU, we were, we still had
, uh, we still have affiliated faculty, so, um, and you know I regularly
tapped. And for uh money we we would get together uh Nancy Russo was
actually director of women's studies when I first came, and she had kind
of a rocky relationship with uh Milt and and Lattie because she had a
different vision of the organizational structure. She really want and I
was actually in a session once she wanted women's studies to report
directly to the provost. As being that which we actually had at one point
, which was a mistake. Well, very early like I said early on, 3 or 4 of
our programs all reported to the provost and they all wanted to. So, um,
but our dean's incentive grants for example sometimes one of our faculty
would team up with someone from some other uh college on a project that
was a women's studies project. And so, and we gave, I mean when we had, we
had tiny grants, ours were only $500 but sometimes we would you gave some
money to it or a matching, but also we gave a lot of grants to women in
public programs, but we worked we worked on on those kinds of kinds of
issues. That's how I met Mary. She's a historian. Also I'm a political
scientist, you know, political science kind of split off from history a
long time ago we share some disciplinary roots and you know there wasn't a
woman on campus who was tenured who wasn't excited that there was a new
woman Dean. I mean, you know, so I met Ann almost immediately upon her
arriving the faculty that I knew in her college, which was when you were.
Right, when you arrived, I think every woman in your in your college was
, was uh affiliated faculty of women's studies they may have been, um, in
fact, I'm pretty sure they all were part of and so they they could hardly
wait to tell me that they just hired this wonderful woman from Oklahoma
State. So I met Ann almost immediately. There weren't all that many of us
in those days and there were really. Very few of us when I came in 1975.
Any relationships with the regions. Oh yes, I had a story I was going to
tell you and I forgot when I first came here, the very first year they had
already created the uh commission on the status of women so I couldn't be
appointed to it because ASU already had its representatives but as I said
I was a bit of a data analyst so they appointed me to be uh the data
analyst for the commission on the Status of Women which let me go all the
time and the chair of the regions was the chair of. Uh, the study
commission on studies status of women. And in the very first meeting he
kept talking about the university. The university, the university, and I
figured out later he was talking about the University of Arizona
and he was president of the Regents at the time and later, uh, I heard, I
don't think it was a regent but someone referred to that college in Tempe.
They were referring to ASU. So in terms of regents, that was my first
introduction to the Regents. Then there were some women, uh, named to, uh
, the the regents, and I did know some of them reasonably well and one of
them was from Tucson was a good friend of my colleague Helen Ingram in
Tucson, so I knew some of the women and some of the some of the. Uh, but
no, I didn't you ever know Andy Hurwitz well, not well, but he was, his
wife was a student of mine, so he was active. He was active in the, uh,
John Frank. We had a the John Frank lecture series. We had a an advisory
committee that included Janet Napolitano, Andy Hurwitz, uh. Uh, Mary
Schroeder, who was on the US Supreme Court, I mean this stars sparkling
group, so I met some of them as part of the John Frank thing, but I didn't
have much contact with because Andy was on Aor when you came because I
remember that he was on ABor when they hired Lattie. You know, yeah, I I
do, I remember that vividly because I tried to remember the guy's name who
who kept talking about the university. He was in Tucson. It was kind of
funny. Well, ASU remains the only university in the United States that was
became a university by popular vote, right? And another thing I was gonna
say in terms of how ASU has changed, I, I really think ASU has been
embraced by the Phoenix metropolitan area. And that happened was when when
Lattie came that that it was no longer that college in Tempe, it was
really embraced by the city of Phoenix itself uh and then of course having
paved the way with when Michael came he could cut this deal uh with the
mayor for that huge, uh, bond issue that would pay to actually start a
quality downtown program. And I, I really hand it to Michael for uh that
he got he did that most downtown campuses of major universities are not
very good. Most of them are not very good they're the they're the shove
offs from the main main campus and Michael, you know, made sure with that
bond issue that there would be money for downtown. Downtown is really
prospered under Michael. Well, part of the Phoenix embracing it though is
that. ASU Deserve to be, yeah, and it has changed. I mean, it used to be
as a, as an old-time Arizona friend of mine, a native Arizona said to me.
Who is a graduate of ASU? ASU is where working class kids went. The
middle upper middle class and rich kids, if they didn't go to Stanford,
they went to UFA, and that those were the people who ran the legislature
and everything else. ASU was where working class kids went. We were really
proud of, uh, the another thing Laddie did I thought was was important he.
Convinced ASU faculty uh and students and alums to be proud of our
heritage. We were not the land grant university. We were not the liberal
arts university. We were a teacher's college that was not a plus in
academic circles, but Lattie taught us really to be proud of our history
and that I think was an important step for ASU. This is one of the few.
Major universities that started out as a teacher's college as did UCLA,
um, UCLA started as a normal school. I didn't know that. Yeah, um, I, one
of my graduate students did her PhD on Tempe normal and it's evolution. It
was certainly the stepchild to Berkeley. always. My son's a graduate of
UCLA, so, but it, it did start as a normal school actually. Good Good
thank you thank you is there anything else you wanna know? No, I'm just
kidding. Before you get away, I wanna take you down and show you.