Oral History Program Alan Dayley Interviewed by Ruby Licona 14 May 2008 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Alan Dayley Interviewed by Ruby Licona Special Projects Librarian 14 May 2008 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State University Oral History Project began conducting interviews with key Weber State University faculty, administrators, staff and students, in Fall 2007. The program focuses primarily on obtaining a historical record of the school along with important developments since the school gained university status in 1990. The interviews explore the process of achieving university status, as well as major issues including accreditation, diversity, faculty governance, changes in leadership, curricular developments, etc. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Dayley, Alan, an oral history by Ruby Licona, 14 May 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Alan Dayley 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Alan Dayley. It was conducted May 14, 2008 and concerns his recollections and experiences with Weber State University. The interviewer is Ruby Licona. RL: This is an oral history interview conducted with Alan J. Dayley, who is currently assistant dean of students at the Davis Campus. First of all, let me thank you for meeting with me and taking part in this program. As I mentioned, we are trying to get the stories of people who have been at Weber State a long time, have served in different capacities, and have an overview of what has happened at Weber as it has grown from a college to a university and things have developed here. To begin with, tell us about your background: where you were born, where you grew up, where you went to school and that kind of thing? AD: Ogden is my hometown. I was born in the old Dee Hospital, and my schooling was in Lorrin Farr Elementary, which is gone now. My junior high was Central Junior High, which I think is now an elementary school. I went to Ogden High School and then on to Weber College on the old campus downtown for two years. I then spent two years active duty with the navy during the Korean War, then one year at BYU, and two years with a LDS mission to the British Isles. I spent one more year at BYU and got a bachelor’s degree. So it was an eight year bachelor’s degree. I became a non-traditional student while in school. I married and went to University of Utah for my master’s and doctorate. I was fortunate enough in 1962 that my first career employment was dean of men at Weber College, as it was known at the time. The rest is history. RL: You came here as dean of men. What were your studies in? 2 AD: My studies at the University of Utah were in Educational Psychology and Educational Administration. Ed. Psych. Counseling was my major and Administration was my minor. I got my Ph. D. in 1964. In fact, I came to Weber in ’62 and then didn’t finish my doctorate until two years later. I wrote my dissertation the first two years I was at Weber. RL: You’ve also taught while you’ve been at Weber? AD: Yes, I have rank of full professor and tenure in the Psychology department. RL: I had seen you listed in a list of faculty in a book and wasn’t certain how exactly… AD: I’ve had a dual career although the last ten to fifteen years I’ve been primarily an administrator and a counselor. The Psych. Dept. was able to hire full-time professors so they don’t really have much need for adjuncts or part-time professors. RL: When you came, Weber had just moved to this campus or was it still downtown? AD: In 1962, I think Weber was totally on the new campus. I graduated from Weber as a student on the old campus in ’53. While I was away with all those other activities listed earlier, the move took place. When I was a sophomore at Weber College on the downtown campus, we were busy preparing the new campus site on Harrison Boulevard. The Harrison Marquee was built at that time. We could see what was going to happen, but when I came to Weber there were buildings 1, 2, 3, 4, the shop building, the Temporary Union Building, what used to be the College Inn on the old campus, the army barracks building hiding behind building 4. The first phase of the Union Building had just been completed and the 3 gymnasium had just been completed. Those were the basic buildings on this campus. RL: What was your employee number, your W number, when you came? AD: When I came we were all on social security numbers and then, as you recall, we moved years later to 88 numbers of some sort, students, faculty and staff in order to protect social security numbers. About eight, ten years ago we moved to the W number system. RL: They did those by length of time on campus. AD: Length of employment, exactly. So when they did that renumbering system, I had gained a lot of seniority by then. As I mentioned to you before we started the interview, W 1 was Rod Julander, he’s retired. W 2 was Dick Williams, he has retired. W 3 is Spence Seager and he’s still here, and I guess he and I and some others about that same vintage are having a contest of who’s going to retire next. RL: Okay. Did you aim at coming back here, or did you just happen to fall into it, and it was in your hometown? AD: Yes and yes. I was aiming at coming back to Weber. I thought, I’d probably have to do a career or a partial career in public schools as a counselor, maybe as a principal and then come to Weber. At the time I was finishing up my degree at the University of Utah, there was a position open as a counselor at Weber College. I applied for that. I was hired in that position, and then Weber lost its funding for that position; so I was going to stay at the University of Utah and not seek employment at that time. There was also a position of dean of men that was open, when I applied for it initially, that I needed more experience, I needed that 4 doctorate and I was too young. So I put that out of my mind, but then I got a call from one of my colleagues who had been at graduate school at University of Utah, and he said they are still looking; they cannot find that perfect person for that perfect job. Come and make a second go at it, which I did and got hired, probably because I was the only person that would work for $5,500 a year. RL: Back in those days $5,500 a year was not anything to sneeze at. AD: You could make a pretty good living on that. It was not wonderful, but it was far better than what I was making at graduate school. I was delighted to get the job so, as luck would have it, I fell into it. You said, by design or by luck, yes and yes. RL: Did you teach psychology at that time or were you strictly an administrator? AD: No. The first year I was here, 1962-63, was the first year of the junior class. The second year, 1963-64, was the first graduating bachelor’s degree class. So every department, particularly the basic departments, were hurting for instructors. So the Psychology Department was more than happy to have adjunct teachers. It was that way for ten to fifteen years until the departments were able to get enough funding to build their departments with full-time faculty. I can appreciate the need they had for full-time faculty who are fully committed and full-time instructors, not part-time. RL: With whom did you work in that department at the beginning? AD: You’re testing my memory now. RL: If that’s a problem, we don’t need to go into it. AD: No, no, it’s not that big of a problem. Bill Stratford was in that department. He had been dean of men earlier. He had been dean of men when I was a student at 5 Weber. He was in that department, and there were only one or two professors in that department. I’m forgetting the name of the other professor. If I remember it, I’ll bring it up, but there were only two or three at that time, and they were starting to build some new faculty members; but like I said it was pretty skimpy then. RL: It was still Weber College at that point, not Weber State College? AD: Still Weber College. RL: You started out as an adjunct professor; how did it come about that you then ended up with full tenure and rank? AD: At that time since there was a need for part-time instructors; it was allowed if you taught part-time and were a full-time person on campus through an administrative position or whatever, you could jump through the same hoops, so to speak, and meet the same requirements that regular faculty met as far as teaching, research, time in service. So I progressed through instructor, to assistant professor, to full professor and received tenure. That’s unheard of now. There would be no way. This is a little interesting; there was a point in time when the Psychology Department got fully staffed, they were worried about four or five of us who were adjunct, who had tenure in the department and had seniority on full-time professors that had come on after we had been at Weber. There was a push to take the tenure away. We said, “You may want to think about that, because if you ever open the door and take away anyone’s tenure, even a parttime faculty member’s tenure, who could say they wouldn’t go after your tenure as a full-time?” They decided they didn’t want to take that risk, so I still have my tenure. 6 RL: That’s a closet you don’t want to get into, isn’t it? AD: They didn’t, and I didn’t want to lose mine. They were in worse jeopardy than I was, because I had a job as an administrator. If they lost their tenure positions they would be out on the streets. RL: Stratford was a Ph.D.? AD: Yes. RL: Was the other psychology faculty member? AD: Yes. RL: That department started right off the bat? AD: Yes, in fact they had their doctorates when I was a student ’51-’53. Weber State has typically had a very fine faculty from my memory to current. RL: Were they conducting research at the time? AD: Some research, but primarily practical application type research, not theoretical research. RL: Sure. How would you classify the intellectual climate at Weber when you came on board? AD: Let me give it to you this way. I gave you the history of my schooling. I don’t think I had any better instruction anywhere in my schooling that I did at Weber College, because these were full-time instructors. I never, ever had a teaching assistant instruct me at Weber College; these were full-time career professors. RL: That was my next question. How would you compare this with what you had encountered at BYU and at the U.? 7 AD: At BYU, fortunately, as a junior and senior I had mainly regular professors, but had I been there as a freshman or sophomore, I would have confronted, even back then, teaching assistants teaching classes. That’s probably instruction, but nothing can take the place of full-time instructors. When you go back to get a letter of recommendation, those teaching assistants are gone. I think the intellectual climate was very good. Weber was interested in getting people with terminal degrees. Again, Weber’s primarily a teaching institution, not a research institution, and I think it’s pretty well maintained that reputation and mission even to this day. Maybe that’s partly due to the political pressure from Utah State and University of Utah. RL: That could possibly be. In your capacity as dean of men what kind of an atmosphere did you encounter in Student Services? What was it called at the time? AD: It was called Student Services. It was growing as well as the rest of the institution. At that time nationally, typically there was a dean of men and dean of women and, fairly recent to that time or just prior to that time, the dean of students position had been added to that mix. So my line supervisor was the dean of students, Verl Allan. The dean of women was, I’m blocking her name. I’ll think on that. The two of us were co-dean, one of women, one of men and dean of students. We had direction of Counseling, direction of the Union Building, and that was the staff at that time. But it grew and when I became dean of students four years later, we saw an explosion of growth as far as students. RL: In ’66? 8 AD: In ’66, right. RL: You took over as dean of students. How long were in that capacity? AD: Eight years. RL: In that time frame, who were the top administrators on campus? AD: Top administrators were; President William P. Miller up until, let’s see, I was dean of students for eight years and about five of those years were with President Miller, then he retired and Dr. Joe Bishop came. Those were very interesting years. RL: As in the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times?” AD: Yes, that’s a very good way to put it. Those were, and it lasted about five years. RL: I know from prior interviews that there were problems encountered by the faculty and General Education, and that kind of thing, but how did his years affect Student Services? AD: It affected Student Services much the same as it did the rest of campus. President Bishop felt the need to have his own team anywhere and everywhere on campus, so there were wholesale changes. He essentially fired all of the academic deans, and sent them back to the classrooms. He hired his own deans. The only two to survive that were myself as dean of students and Milt Mecham who was dean of admissions, records and graduation, probably because he needed the two of us. Milt Mecham survived until he retired. I was summarily promoted to assistant to the president from my position of dean of students. That’s how President Bishop moved me aside, because a year later he did away with the position. 9 RL: Of dean of students? AD: No, he did away with the position of assistant to the president. RL: Was that the point at which you became involved with Research and Development? AD: Yes. You’ve read my resume? RL: No, actually I’ve read the history of Weber State College. AD: Oh, through the book. RL: That was Research and Development, so that was Grants and Development as we know it now, or more specialized? AD: It depends. That same office, when I went into it, was called Research and Development. While I was in that as associate director, the title was changed from Research and Development to Sponsored Projects. Later on in Weber’s history, it was changed Grants and Contracts, and now it’s back to Sponsored Projects. So same function, same office; it’s been under three different names in four settings. RL: You were going after grants rather than working with the community trying to develop gifts? AD: That was the Development Office. The Development Office and the Grants Office were separate offices. The Development Office was under Dean Hurst, and under a different vice president. RL: So when you say Research and Development, it was not the same development? 10 AD: That’s right. That’s was one of the confusing terms, and I think one of the reasons that they changed it to Sponsored Projects, because there was a Development Office and a director of Development. RL: So he removed you as dean of students. AD: Promoted me yes. Removed is right. RL: Promoted you to assistant to the president, and that was for only a one year period? AD: There was no termination or no end date put on that. The assumption was I was going to last and that it was a permanent position. He essentially said during that year, “We can’t really afford this position any longer, so you need to start looking around either off campus or on campus.” Fortunately I had enough networking on campus that Dr. Jim Foulger who was the vice president for Finance, and that’s where the Research and Development Office was housed, helped me get that position, or I would probably have been gone from Weber State, or I would have been in the Psych. Department as a full-time professor. I would have had that option, because I had tenure at that time. RL: What did you do as assistant to the president? AD: Various and sundry things. Went to meetings, but I could see even, at the outset, that this was not going to be a heavy duty training assignment type of situation. I could almost sense at the beginning from the meetings I was sent to, the assignments I was given, and the reports I was to write, they were not what I had envisioned, or were in the actual job description. I realized that in a setting like that it’s called the golden rule, those who have the gold make the rules. You don’t 11 have tenure in an administrative position; you serve at the pleasure of the president, whether its vice president or assistant to the president. They don’t even need any grounds to remove you or release you. RL: So you were able to get the Grants position. For how long? AD: Thirteen years total. RL: So you were in that until the mid-eighties sometime? AD: Whatever thirteen years is. I’d have to look at the calendar. RL: Okay, so late ‘80’s and then after that, what did you do? AD: At that point in time the administration wanted to shrink the Sponsored Projects Office. They wanted to shrink the Grants. I had a very able assistant, who was able to take over, so they said, “You’ve got your money, you’ve got your rank and tenure, go shopping and find a position on campus.” It was a very friendly change, a changing of the guard. To be honest, I’d been there thirteen years, a new challenge would be kind of fun. RL: So was that when Lee Carrillo took over then? AD: Yes, she assumed the position. She was very capable. She could handle it. It had been built and it had been organized. There wasn’t a lot of growth to come. It was really a maintenance type of operation, which after the growth period, becomes not boring, but less exciting. RL: And what position did you move into then? AD: I looked at two positions. One was in Continuing Education with Dick Ulibarri, but I wasn’t quite sure what the future of that was. I was anxious to get back into Student Services at that time. So I talked with Tony Waite, who was then the 12 dean of Student Development, and she said, “What I really need is someone to take care of the Women’s Center,” because she had been director of the Women’s Center and was then acting dean of Student Development. So the Women’s Center was running themselves, and she wanted someone to stabilize the Women’s Center. She said, “But you’re not female. The second thing I need is someone to set up a Multicultural Center,” because at that time it was a hot topic. She said, “But you’re not multicultural. The other thing I need is someone to do an Adult Education Center of some sort to work with nontraditional students. So if you want to do that, I’ll bring you on. You bring your money and your rank and tenure with you.” I said, “I’ll accept that.” Then shortly after that, I took a trip to Thailand and came back, and when I got back the Student Services people were having their fall/ opening retreat. I was half a day late. I looked at the agenda and at my title. I wasn’t the director of the Adult Center, I was the Director of Educational Resource Programs, which encompassed the Multicultural Center, Women’s Center and the Adult Center. I thought, well I could be on the fast track to oblivion. I’m either being promoted up to move out, or maybe I’ll just take the challenge and go for it. I took the challenge, and we were able to set up a very functional Multicultural Center, and I was the director of the Women’s Center for two years. They didn’t want me, and I wasn’t sure I wanted them, but it was an interesting waiting type of situation, but we worked that out. Women in the Women’s Center were very supportive, and knew that my being their director was only a matter of time until we got funding to appoint a female coordinator for that center. 13 RL: Is that when Sheri came? AD: Sheri Burkes replaced me in that position. She’s a super person. That was a very interesting era. As I said, I wasn’t a female to work at the Women’s Center. I wasn’t a minority to work the minority center. We had set up a committee of people on campus the year before I went into that situation. They had made an attempt to create a Multicultural Center and just superimpose it on the students. Students rebelled against that. So I knew that wouldn’t work. People support that which they help create, students and the faculty members needed to be involved in the development of that program. We did that within a year. We had an upand- running Multicultural Center. Then I was able to spend some time on setting up an Adult Center. Gloria Perez-Jensen was between positions on campus; I hired her and she just ran with that like gangbusters. So that was another interesting period. RL: So you served in the Grants and Contracts capacity, still under Bishop, or was he gone by then? AD: He only lasted a total of five years. RL: So you were then under President Rodney Brady? AD: Yes, Brady replaced him. The Brady years were wonderful. They were very similar to the Miller years. RL: How so? AD: President Brady was an astute administrator. He ran it by the book, he was friendly. He was professional. He had no hidden agendas. He was honest. He was forthright. He expected people to perform. If you performed, you were in 14 great shape. There was just a minimum, if any, political concern. During the Joe Bishop era, this is kind of an aside, kind of a joke, with the changes that occurred so rapidly: the definition of an optimist at Weber State was a person that brought their lunch to work. RL: I had not heard that. AD: You hadn’t heard that? RL: No, but I had heard that there were a few problems. AD: The other joke was, the thing to do was to keep all your furniture on casters because if you had to move, you could move it on wheels. That sort of humor kept us functioning. RL: Black humor was big in those days, as I recall. The dank, dark clouds over your head kind of thing. I think that may have come about because of Vietnam and all the unrest. AD: A sign of the times. RL: So working with Dr. Brady, you were in that position of trying to raise funds and so forth. Did that involve growing to the point of going after federal contracts? AD: Oh yes. We were well supported in that Grants and Contracts office. One of the prime things I would do as the director, and I even did it as associate director early on, was that about once a month or once every two months I’d go to Washington D.C. and work the federal offices. I got to know my way around Washington D.C. as well as I know Salt Lake City. I was going to senators’ offices and representatives’ offices and all the departments, particularly the 15 Department of Education. That was a growth experience for me, but it was a growth experience for the college as well. RL: Who was the administrator over that? AD: It shifted under the academic bar of the university at that time. So Tom Burton, who was associate vice president, and Dello Dayton, who was vice president, were my two file leaders, and they were great support. I knew Tom Burton, we grew up together. So those were good years. It was a good opportunity to see personal growth as well as to see the college grow. RL: Then you were still in that position when President Stephen Nadauld came in? AD: No. Brady was president while I was still in that position. Nadauld came later. RL: You were already in your position in Student Affairs? AD: I’d already moved back to Student Affairs. RL: When you went back into Student Affairs, it was about the time that Marie Kotter became vice president? AD: Yes, that was during the Nadauld era. The vice president of Student Affairs position was created just before President Brady left, but he didn’t want to be the one to select the person because he was leaving and his successor, who turned out to be Dr. Nadauld, should select that position because that person would have to live with that selection and watch that program grow. So he deferred for a his last year filling that position. So one of the first things that Steve Nadauld did within that first year was to open up a search. He opened it up for internal only. He felt that, at that time, rather than gamble on an external person we didn’t know coming in, let’s stand along someone we do know. We know their baggage. 16 We know their pluses. We know their minuses. So it was an internal search. Marie Kotter was a finalist for that. I was a finalist for that. Tony Waite was a finalist, and Emil Hansen was the fourth finalist for that position. Out of that emerged Marie Kotter as the first vice president for Student Affairs. RL: Did it change things for Student Affairs to have your own top administrator? AD: Oh, no question. Back in the days when I was Dean of Men, I sat on President’s Council, and then until the end of my era as dean of students when reorganization took and I answered to the administrative vice president, I could see the difference in what I could get done as dean of students. Having to go through a vice president, whoever that vice president was, no reflection on the vice president personally. It’s just another layer in the administrative structure you had to get through going both directions. So we were all very excited about having a vice president who sits on President’s Council. That was in my era as dean of students. The chief Student Affairs officers were becoming vice presidents. That was a good move, and Marie was an excellent vice president. RL: What was the position that you took over next? Assistant dean for Student Development Programs? AD: You’re missing one. There came a point in time when those three programs that I’d worked with was called Educational Resource Center. With the Multicultural, Adult and Women’s Centers, we’d added the Drug and Alcohol program in that time. Those programs were becoming large enough that they could be independent programs. So at some point in time, they started making them answerable to other people and moving away from my being a supervisor of that 17 area. They were coming of age so to speak. So once again, it was a situation of Dr. Dayley saying, “You’ve got your money, you’ve got your rank, you’ve got your tenure, you can leave the university or you can stay, but you have to find something to do.” As the climate of the university at that point was in a big downer as far as student enrollment, I proposed and they bought the idea of doing something about retention. So I became the director of Retention Assistance, not the director of Retention. They didn’t want that position to feel like I was in charge of all retention. That was too much. I would assist. So director of Retention Assistance became my position at that time. The interesting thing was, we had built the new Student Services building with the Education Resource Center and those four subgroups as a unit. By the time we moved into that building, the whole administrative structure had changed. I ended up in the office that I would have had, had I still been the Educational Resource Center director. The four centers ended up in the same complex, but we answered to different supervisors. With Retention Assistance I headed up a campus-wide, particularly a student service-wide program of how are we going to retain students? We did a master study, a master program, of what things we can do to retain students because recruiting was okay, but our retention had really slipped. That’s when we started. The prime thing I did personally in retention was work at the second level of appeals. Students who would do entry level appeals in the enrollment services, or in the deans’ areas, or wherever, at one point they would go from that level to a committee, and that committee was meeting and meeting and 18 meeting. The people on that committee said, “Hey this is not my full-time job.” So what we put together was the associate vice president for Enrollment Services, who served as a triage person. I would serve as the person that would assist students in preparing their second-level appeal. So when a student got a denial letter from Financial Aid or Enrollment Services or anywhere, my name would be on the letter, and still is. If you need assistance, here’s how you appeal. Here are the criteria you appeal on. Here’s a person that can help you. That’s what I did for about the next twelve years. Then the Davis Campus opened, and I was offered this position as assistant dean of students at Davis Campus to coordinate the five student services going to the Davis Campus, including: Counseling, Career Services, the two veterans programs, and International Students. I told them, “I can do that as coordination. I’m not going to be doing the services because those are particular services, and one person cannot know everything about those five services.” I said, “I will take Retention with me, and I will do that remotely,” so I am still doing that plus the coordinating the other five units. That’s where I am today. Tomorrow? Who knows? But the irony of all this, as I look on my career at Weber State, I’ve had about seven careers. If I had it all to do over again, I would do it the same way because I’m not sure I could have done any one of those for fortysix years. RL: I can well understand that. AD: As much as they were enjoyable and challenging, there comes a time when either I or the university needs a change. 19 RL: What from your perspective came about under President Thompson? Under Nadauld you had the vice president for Student Affairs. AD: Under Thompson we almost lost it. Under President Thompson there was a big push. Student Affairs, I think, had become too large, too influential. We had garnered a lot of grants. We didn’t have a lot of general fund money, but we had been able to, across the board, build a very sizeable staff and had our own building. This made some very key faculty members very nervous and concerned. There was a push, you were here then—I wonder how closely you were involved in that reorganization. They proposed and approved in Faculty Senate to do away with the position of vice president of Student Affairs and also the direct line of the chief Student Affairs officers to the president. So we mustered our troops officially and unofficially to defeat that. With the official and unofficial hoops functioning, we were able to get that rescinded. RL: There were some departments that were moved under Student Affairs, weren’t there? AD: That was the compromise reached. The Student Services Building was all Student Services when we first moved in, but during that period of time the compromise was reached that enrollment services would go to Academic Affairs. So the north third of the Student Services Building, by the time we moved in, all the enrollment services, admissions, credits, graduations, financial aids, and records became part of the Academic Affairs, which is unfortunate in my thinking. Of course, I’m thinking as a Student Affairs person, but that’s the way it is. I would suspect that someday that may come back. 20 RL: What was the rationale for that move? AD: I think the rationale was space. This is kind of crass, but space and personnel and budget. You can build a rationale; those services have academic flavor and they can go either direction. You can go through schools now and find schools that have them combined, where ours is separated. I think probably, and I have no factual information on this, the decision was made that yes, the vice president was staying, Marie Kotter would stay in the position, but this is happening. They came simultaneously. It wasn’t something that came later. It was part and parcel of that. In Student Affairs we thought, we can’t fight that. We fought the fight we needed to fight and we won. We can’t really help that situation. What do you do? It’s functioned well, we still work hand in glove with them. Students, I don’t think, have a clue who answers to whom. All they’re concerned about, basically, is, “I need my services. I don’t care who’s in charge up there. ” RL: The retention part of your position, is that under Academic Affairs? AD: No. RL: Even though it’s involved with financial aid and enrollment and all that, your position is strictly under Student Services? AD: When the Retention Assistance position was created, the question was raised, should it be under Academic Affairs or should it be under Financial Affairs because both of those have a prime interest in retention, both for student enrollment and for finance. My proposal to them was that it really needed to be in a neutral position, so whoever’s doing that isn’t academic, isn’t financial, but is a Student Affairs person administratively. So I’m not beholden to either of those 21 vice presidents but to the president ultimately; but I can play that mediation role and I can also crank up the heat. I have done that in certain situations. The thing I think is neat about the position I am in now, is I’ve been in it about thirteen years and virtually every committee on campus knows that when they turn a student down on a appeal or a petition or a waiver, that the student can directly or indirectly find his or her way to me. I know where all the bones are buried. I know the rules and regulations. I know the policies and procedures. Students don’t know all of that. Not many folks who haven’t been on campus a long time know all of that. Every day, to me, is wonderful because I can, almost every day, make a change or help a student, even if it’s just to let the student know they really don’t have a case. They know they’ve tried, and that I don’t work for those people who are turning them down. I work for somebody else. I work for the helping side of the house, so to speak. It’s a very rewarding position. I almost went through another, I almost went through one when Nandi was here, and they were offering me a position as either director of the Veterans Office or a position at Davis. There was no question in my mind. It was Davis because that’s like Weber in the old days, three thousand students, a small college. It’s like being recycled. RL: How were things under Nandi? AD: Good and bad. Mostly good and he knows how I feel about his administration. When they opened the Davis campus, Nandi gave me my choice. There were other administrators around here who would have said, “No, go to Davis and die. We’re going to take away this retention function.” The retention function is the 22 lifeblood. Part of the reason they were saying, “You can’t do that out at Davis, is they won’t find you.” Oh yes, Davis is not Timbuktu. There’s e-mail, snail mail, phones, and transportation, so the retention program is still alive and well. RL: What changes has Student Affairs seen under President Ann Millner? AD: Under President Millner it’s been a sheer delight. I think she knows the university, she knows the people, she trusts programs, and her style is evolution not revolution, not abrupt change. She doesn’t shoot from the hip. She is thoughtful, methodical, and supportive. I would like to see her stay forever. And I don’t say that in a self-serving way. She’s been very supportive of Student Affairs and has not gotten involved in some of these ticky-ticky things. She lets us solve the problems as close to the problem as possible. I could ask you how you feel about her. RL: Yes, I’ve seen the same kinds of things. AD: You can’t agree with everything, but still the overall is very positive, and very future looking, and I do bring my lunch. [Laughter] RL: That’s good. How much do you work directly with Bruce Davis? AD: Bruce is in a very unique situation because he’s the director of the Davis Center, and virtually everyone there answers to another supervisor. He coordinates everything, but I think as far as a staff, there’s himself and Laurel. He has a talent to pull all of that together. He had a semi-monthly meeting of all of the key department heads in the building, and it’s much like President Miller’s President Council was forty years ago of key people that have things to do with the building. Things get coordinated and problems get solved without having to run 23 to the Ogden campus all the time. He’s a very unique administrator and I was super delighted with his new position. We were fearful he may be less involved with Davis, and he’s going to be housed at the Davis Campus with his new position. He’s the vice-provost, and unless someone corrects me that’s a higher level than an associate provost. RL: I would think so, yes. You have associate and then vice. AD: See, but that’s the pecking order of titles, so we gave him high fives at our next meeting. I told Davis, “I was just hoping you would be dean of Davis Campus, but you’ve skipped dean and went to vice-provost.” He makes it fun. In case you haven’t detected it, Davis is a wonderful place to be. RL: That’s what I’m starting to feel. I know that Adrienne Gillespie was very happy when she was out there. AD: Oh we miss her, but it’s also a training ground. We’ve lost several people because Hosea was in the position before Adrienne was. Now Jose and Adrienne are on the Ogden campus. We say terrific. They’re doing better, and are moving up. We’ll train somebody else in our office. RL: That’s great. It’s good to work in a place where you look forward to going to work each day. AD: Oh yes absolutely. I’m never going to retire. RL: Okay Alan, we’ve spoken about your different positions, and we’ve spoken about your perspective of different administrators and so forth. How would you assess the changes in your interaction with Weber students since you came here forty24 five years ago? Do you see a difference in the students, in their level of maturity or their way of making it from day to day? What do you see as possible changes? AD: I think the students in this era are probably less inclined to take care of themselves than they were forty-six years ago. That’s memory, but I think we’re helping students register or helping them with things. Back then we didn’t have all the services and support that we have now. Maybe just by the sheer number and complexities and the types of support services we have now, students expect to have more help. RL: In general, there have been comments that this is the entitlement generation. AD: That’s a good way to put it. RL: Maybe the fault lies with those of us who had the children back then and raised them. AD: We’ve had prosperous times, and kids have been taken care of; my kids and my grandkids have much more than maybe you or I did when we were younger. RL: I think it used to be that used to be that you reached eighteen, and you left home and you didn’t go back. Now they’re not leaving home, or they are leaving home and coming back. I guess that reflects in their attitudes at college, doesn’t it? AD: Yes. I think adolescence lasts longer nowadays than it did forty years ago, or it seems to last longer. RL: I think that there are different levels of maturity. I know if you look in a yearbook from forty or fifty years ago, the students look so much more mature and so much older than students in yearbooks now. AD: Yes. Appearance has changed, yes. 25 RL: Just the level at which you have your life together, I guess. What else have you noticed, other than them not doing things for themselves? Are they succeeding more or less? How would you capsulize them? AD: I think they take longer, basically speaking from my observations, to make decisions about careers and life goals, and that’s part of their continuing adolescence. I still see students coming in their freshmen year and knowing exactly where they are going and how they are going to get there. They focus and they do it. It still happens, but it doesn’t seem to happen across the board as much as it used to. RL: That’s more the exception than the rule. AD: I think when I was starting out at Weber forty years ago, there weren’t quite the number of opportunities for financial aid. More students worked although, even nowadays, about eighty percent of our students have part-time or full-time jobs. Working is still a part of college life, so that when students graduate from Weber State people say, “You are now going out into the cold hard world.” A lot of them have been in that cold, hard world earning their way through school. RL: Are there more students married now than there were before? Married and going to school? AD: Yes. There’s a type of synergy of, “We can support each other in this environment.” It’s still a struggle. When you ask the question, I don’t see a lot of dramatic changes. Students are still students. RL: You’re not seeing different kinds of problems than you did? 26 AD: I see us taking care of more student problems than we did then. I don’t know if that’s because of the need students have nowadays, or if it’s our need to take care of them, or both. RL: So you think that it’s built into the system? AD: Yes, I think so. We once had three thousand students and a handful of Student Affairs people, and now we have eighteen thousand students, but that cuts across other offices as well as Student Affairs. I think we’re providing more support. Probably it’s needed. I’m not really in a position to judge on that. I’m particularly happy that my particular position exists. RL: There have been quite a few changes at Weber State in the last forty-five or fifty years. Was there much of a difference when it went from being Weber College to Weber State College? AD: I think we all felt we’d come of age to have the “state” after our name. It had always been Weber College, but in some circles, years before I was a student, it was sometimes referred to as Weber Junior College. Although it never officially was called Weber Junior College, it was a junior college, a community college. But to move the name from Weber College to Weber State College was a great move, and we did that almost simultaneously with Southern Utah State. Then we almost did the same thing in parallel going to university status. That’s just something about the political climate of the state. You can get all the legislators in favor of something through teaming it. You can get it to happen. RL: I scratch your back, you scratch mine, kind of thing? 27 AD: That’s right. I don’t think the University of Utah and Utah State were very delighted about us becoming state colleges or state universities. Now we see the same thing happening at Dixie State College and Utah Valley University. We’re seeing others that we used to look at as community colleges now coming of age. So we can understand how Utah State felt when we were growing up because we are seeing the junior colleges growing up around us, as well, which is part of the progress. RL: Did you see much of a change in Student Affairs as Weber State College became Weber State University? AD: Not particularly. I think there could have been, but I’ve not really thought about that. I think there’s been a continual progress. RL: Actually, at about that time was when you got the vice president for Student Affairs, so that would have made a lot of changes in that area. What kinds of problems were created for Student Affairs with the conversion to semesters? AD: I think at that point we were almost delighted that Enrollment Services wasn’t part of Student Services because they had the lion’s share of the challenges to deal with in the rollover from quarters to semesters. But it affected us in our programs as well, as far as how the terms were split up; but it didn’t affect us as much as it did the academic side, or the classes, and registration times, and things like that. RL: There were other forces at play that caused changes and progression. AD: Yes, ours was a fairly smooth transition in Student Affairs because we were not tied tightly to a quarter or semester system since we’re a twelve-month program. We go around the clock all four seasons. 28 RL: Now what about in the four and some odd decades that you’ve been here, you’ve probably been involved in a couple of rounds of strategic planning. Did any of that affect Student Affairs much? AD: Strategic Planning was the group that came up with the idea of getting rid of the Student Affairs vice-president and the direct line to the president. That came out of Strategic Planning. Student Affairs wasn’t the only place on campus that was affected by that particular era. That group upset several areas of the university. There was some synergy that developed around those of us who, we felt, were adversely affected by recommendations from Strategic Planning. RL: Weren’t Student Affairs personnel involved with the Strategic Planning Committee? AD: Very minimal representation. In fact, in that particular year… RL: You are talking about the round of Strategic Planning in the early ‘90’s? AD: Yes. The initial Strategic Planning Committee received all of the reports from Student Affairs and gave Student Affairs a very positive review to the Strategic Planning Meshing Committee, I think it was called, the central group. That’s not what the central group wanted to hear, so they turned that to their own liking and got nicknamed the Mashing Committee. RL: Rather than the Meshing Committee? AD: Not the Meshing Committee. That’s where we had our fight, was with that group. We were feeling pretty good about Strategic Planning when our initial report went to the basic committee. What happened after that was where it got traumatic because of the spin that the Meshing/Mashing Committee put on it. 29 RL: I guess I had understood that most of what came out of that committee was set aside and not acted upon. AD: Their proposal to do away with the vice president and direct line wasn’t finally acted upon because it got rescinded, as well as some other things. Some of the things in it were affected by that in detail. There was kind of a, not a general uprising, but several uprisings against what that committee was recommending. And I think central administration and the trustees felt that this is not worth it. Why bless decisions or recommendations that are going to cause continual turmoil at Weber State? RL: You said that in the late ‘80’s you went into that position where you coordinated the different areas and started the Multicultural Center. How would you describe what has occurred on the campus in regard to the issue of diversity in the time period since then? AD: I think Weber State has made great strides. I look at what the Multicultural Center does. A lot of the things we instituted back then are still in operation and expanded tremendously. It’s a great program, great people, and in addition, we now have a Diversity Center in Student Affairs, in the activity side, housed in the Union Building. The Multicultural Center is more interested in the academic and programming things, and the Diversity Center is more in the growth and outreach types of things. So there are actually two centers, both complementing each other to assist students of color and students of diversity. 30 RL: The Multicultural Center is now doing the high school outreach programs and so forth, more involved with recruitment issues to a certain extent. Now how does that differ from what the Diversity Center is doing? AD: Right now both those centers are basically combined because of the space situation with the remodeling of the Union Building. I don’t think there is a director of the Diversity Center per se. I think Adrienne… RL: Is wearing two hats isn’t she? AD: Wearing two hats, housed in one place, and right now the more functioning, as I see it, is the Multicultural Center because they’ve not been moved out of their area. When the Union Building is finally remodeled and the east wing reopens, I think we’ll see the two centers blossoming as they did before. There’s great progress. The Women’s Center is outstanding; the Adult Education Resource Center that I built kind of faded and then came back again as the Nontraditional Student Center. It’s rewarding to see the progress of those centers. I was disappointed when the Adult Center faded out, but was excited when it came back because of the need there. RL: About the only thing that’s no longer around, or maybe it is and I’m just not aware of it, was the Drug and Alcohol program. Is it still around? AD: Yes. It was transferred. When it left the Educational Resource Center it moved to the Health Center. Juliana Larsen has under her direction the Drug and Alcohol Education program. They also team with the Counseling Center and they also team with a unit up in the Physical Education and HPHP Department. We knew 31 when we built those units, they weren’t going to fit under one narrow umbrella, they were going to branch out. RL: So they’ve grown and matured over the years then. Well, that’s good. In terms of diversity, I think the enrollment numbers are a little bit higher than they were twenty years ago. I’m seeing more and more involvement of the students who do come up here, not running just for diversity senator or things like that, but for the general positions in the student government. Is there a corresponding growth in terms of the International Student Center? AD: The International Student Center has been give permission, I think, for this next year to do its own recruiting and its own admissions in conjunction with the Admissions Office. But they will be given a separate person to do that because there is a push now to have that extra person hired in the International Student Center. We’ve had those flag units that come out to the Davis Campus. The International Students office has Morteza Emami and Karen Garcia, and that’s their staff. So it has been hard for them. It’s been impossible for them to come to the Davis Campus, so they’ve sent us junior or senior students to be the reps to other students, which is good. Now, with that additional staff member, they may be able to do some outreach with us at Davis Campus with a professional and not a super student. So I’m excited about that from my own perspective, as well as for the International Student Center itself. RL: Are the numbers of international students growing or have they held fairly steady? 32 AD: Fairly steady, but there has been growth. Part of the reason for that extra staff member is recruitment and also retention. If we’re going to recruit them, let’s be sure we can retain them and not have the revolving door. RL: What about the relationship between Student Affairs and the academic departments over the years? Is there a social life crossing over between those areas, or as Student Affairs has grown, have people kept away from the academic community? How would you describe it? AD: With the growth of Weber State University, we become more and more cloistered in our basic units even within Student Affairs. I see some crossover. We still have some Student Affairs people teaching adjunct in various departments. We teach an Introduction to College class under education colleges umbrella. RL: Under FYE? AD: FYE, First Year Experience, so that there is some interchange. The Student Support Services have a lot of close coordination with the faculty, especially with tutoring in English and math and those areas. There’s some interplay; socialization—probably not a lot unless it’s under the Faculty/Staff Association umbrella. RL: That could be attributed to just the growth of the institution. When you have fifty employees as opposed to five hundred or fifteen hundred, or whatever, I think there would be more separation. AD: I remember in the early days of Weber, when I was here, we would have a Christmas dinner. Everybody would show up: faculty, staff, spouses, partners, and you’d be one happy family. But you can’t do that when you have thousands 33 of people. But I think the climate between the academic side of the house and the university side of the house is much better nowadays. I attributed this to the players, but particularly to Ann Millner because she supports interface of the university and tries to keep competition to a minimum. We need to cooperate and not compete. RL: She tries to bring everybody to the table? AD: Right, bring everybody to the table as equal partners, and it’s a very positive thing. RL: As far as you, personally, is your support network more on campus, or do you socialize and seek social support more off campus, within the community? AD: I do both. I’m involved, for example, with the Inter Faith Works group in Ogden, which is a multi-faith group. I’m involved in the community with the Northern Utah Food Co-op, which works with the food bank in West Ogden and with the Mount Ogden Rotary Club. Gloria Perez-Jensen from Weber, and others from Weber, are also involved in that. I think it’s important to be involved in the community at large, as a faculty, staff, or administrative member, as well as being involved in my own department, division, and the university. RL: You do see more closeness out at Davis? AD: Yes, oh yes. With this fun at Davis, we will invite all the full-time faculty, staff, and administrators to have a luncheon or potluck or activity, and it’s really like Weber in the old days. It’s been lost here because you can’t do that with the size of the Ogden campus. You can do that at Davis. So we have that advantage out there, just by the nature of the situation. I’m not saying we’re all chummy chummy. Like 34 I said, everyone has their own thing to do, but everybody pretty well knows who is out there now. RL: There’s more camaraderie just because it’s a smaller cloistered group. AD: Yes, it’s easier to do it. It’s a natural development of a smaller group. RL: We’ve talked about quite a few things. Are there things about your time at Weber that we haven’t touched on, or anything in particular that you would like to discuss? AD: I think we’ve touched on most of it. In general terms, I think a college environment is a stimulating environment partly because what attracts most of us to a university college environment is, we are individuals who like to do our individual thing but we like to do it in a group setting. I like that balance—that you can be an individual but you can also be part of a larger structure. I like the fact that there are many things a person can do in a college environment. Like I said, I’ve had probably seven different careers, all of which I have enjoyed. Each of those has its ups and down. One thing we haven’t touched upon is the extracurricular activities: the cultural activities at Weber State and in the community, the symphony, the play productions, the intercollegiate sports; football, basketball. I still play racquetball. People say, “What are you doing playing racquetball? You’re going to have a heart attack and die out there.” No. I play on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and rest on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That’s an outlet. There are four of us that play racquetball, and we all come from different blocks of life on this campus. We all 35 like exercise in a setting like that. It’s good exercise and good fraternization. A college environment provides so much. RL: There are certainly a lot of things that would not normally be available in a community the size of Ogden. You touched on the fact that the little programs you started, you’ve watched them grow up and learn to walk and stand on their own. Other than that, what would be the thing you’ve accomplished at Weber State of which you would be most proud? AD: It would be hard to put a finger on it. I think what I’m doing now I find continually rewarding, helping students with appeals and petitions. I’ve joked with some people on campus that I get paid to stick it to the administration. One of my colleagues, Jeff Livingston, said, “Alan, you are the administration.” I said, “Yeah.” We can joke about it, but I find what I’m doing now very rewarding, and I was very delighted that I was allowed to carry that with me to the Davis Campus. It was rewarding just to be at the Davis Campus, but to help students at this level is very rewarding. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve done. I hope to enjoy it a few more years. Who knows? An accomplishment? Maybe it’s just the sheer tenacity of hanging around for forty-six years. RL: You going to make it to fifty? AD: I think fifty is a good round number. RL: I wish you all the best of luck. AD: My dad retired from Hill Air Force Base when he was eighty, so another five years would be just about right. Who knows? 36 RL: Well, I want to thank you for taking part in this program. I think we have gained from your perspective, and it helps us to build up the program and give an overall picture of what Weber State has been over the years. I appreciate your time. AD: I’m flattered you’d ask. I’m delighted to talk about Weber State. It’s one of my favorite subjects.