Oral History Program Kathleen M. Lukken Interviewed by John R. Sillito 27 January 2010 16 February 2010 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Kathleen M. Lukken Interviewed by John R. Sillito University Archivist 27 January 2010 16 February 2010 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: Lukken, Kathleen M., an oral history by John R. Sillito, 27 January 2010 and 16 February 2010, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Kathleen M. Lukken 1993 Kathleen M. Lukken 2009 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Kathleen M. Lukken. Dr. Lukken was the founder of the first dental hygiene program in Utah and Weber State’s First Year Experience program. She joined Weber State faculty in 1976 in the Health Professions department and later served the university as Associate Provost. The interview was conducted in two parts, the first on January 27, 2010, and the second on February 16, 2010. The first interview focuses on Dr. Lukken’s personal history and the beginning of her interaction with Weber State. The second interview focuses on the years she has served as an administrator on campus. John Sillito conducted the interview in the Weber State University Stewart Library. JS: This is an interview with Kathleen Lukken. It is being conducted on January 27, 2010 in the Stewart Library and the interviewer is John Sillito. Alright Kathleen, I’d like to start with just a little bit about your early life. Where were you born and raised? Just a little background. KL: I was born Wisconsin, and spent twenty some years in Wisconsin and Illinois. JS: Which town in Wisconsin? KL: I’m sure you’ve heard of it, Cross Plains. JS: I must have missed that, which is in what area? KL: It’s about fourteen miles west of Madison. JS: That’s a lovely area. KL: I grew up within the environs of the hot bed of liberalism. 2 JS: Somebody told me once that Madison represented thirty square miles of liberalism surrounded by a sea of reality. KL: It is. They call it “mad city” for a reason. It’s just on the fringe. JS: It is on the fringe. The fringe is getting closer to the center these days! So you were born in Wisconsin, but you said that you also lived in Illinois? KL: My family moved to Illinois for five years, early elementary grades. So I graduated from elementary school, high school and undergraduate all in Wisconsin. JS: At one point you went to school at Marquette in Milwaukee. KL: I did. JS: Tell us a little about that decision. You majored in Dental Hygiene and Psychology. That’s an interesting combination in and of its self. Tell us about how you came to that? KL: Oh John, I wish I could tell you that there was a very thoughtful career decisionmaking process that I went through, but in this little town of a thousand people that I grew up in I used to baby sit for the town dentist. Do you see the link here? JS: I’m beginning to see it. KL: This was the mid-60’s and women’s liberation had not arrived in Cross Plains. And he told me, I know he was doing it for good reasons, but he told me that dental hygiene would be a really good career for a women. So giving a great deal of thought as he was driving me back to my parents’ house after babysitting, I said “okay sure. Why not? It sounds as good as anything.” My older sister had never gone to college, my parents had never gone. 3 JS: So you are the first in your family? KL: Yes. So the idea of how you make this decision about what you want to do with your life, was a process that was unfamiliar to me. My dad worked for Oscar Mayer. I wish I was an Oscar Mayer wiener. You know they are getting rid of that jingle? JS: I had heard that. KL: What is this world coming to? Anyway, my dad worked at Oscar Mayer and they had a scholarship program and I was fortune enough based on my SAT score to get a four year scholarship. I was really lucky. If I wanted to go to dental hygiene Marquette University, at that time was the only institution in the state of Wisconsin that had it. So that’s where I ended up. JS: It was just that that got you there, and not particularly a goal to trade a small town for the big city? KL: No. You have traveled to Wisconsin? JS: I have. KL: Milwaukee? JS: I have. KL: Madison is a real university town. It has 300,000 people, but the university has such a huge footprint that it really feels, almost everywhere in Madison like a university town. Milwaukee is a much more urban experience. It has a higher proportion of people of color. So that was my first experience to be around African Americans. Milwaukee just has a different feel to it than Madison. It’s more of a working class town and Marquette is a very urban university. It is right 4 in the middle of Milwaukee, right in the downtown, close to the downtown areas. It has a real urban feel to it. JS: So this is a big step coming from the rural part of the state? KL: Huge. JS: Even though you are close to that university town. It’s real rural up there. KL: It is. Wisconsin has tons of small towns. So I went to a private university where people came from all over the world, particularly all over the United States. So I met people from New York and developed close friendships with people from New Jersey. A very different experience. JS: You will see there is a method to my madness. KL: A theme. JS: I wouldn’t give it that much credence but if you may, somewhat of a method. You graduated from Marquette in 1970 and you worked there for a period of time and then you were in Boston for a while. Then you went to the University of Iowa. Tell me a little about that decision. KL: Again, I have never really planned or made, what I would say, well thought out decisions. It is not that they have been bad decisions. It is just that I have not had sort of a life plan and series of goals. Actually, I was in Utah at the time. I had graduated from Marquette, then I went to work and live in Boston for a year. I worked in a free dental clinic, federally funded dental clinic in a black neighborhood, Dorchester. JS: Once again an urban experience. 5 KL: Yes, very much so. I lived in Cambridge and took the mass transit to work every day. JS: Pretty similar to Milwaukee in many ways? KL: Yes, in many ways. Then from Boston I came to Utah and lived in Utah for three years, and worked for the state health department and as a public health dental hygienist. JS: What got you to Utah from Boston? KL: Well I felt that spending a year in Boston, I had done the east coast. JS: So to speak. KL: Operative word done. JS: Yes. KL: And that I was now ready to travel to someplace else and experience that. When I was at Marquette, the summer between my first and second year, a girl friend and I spent the summer in Denver working as waitresses in coffee shops. So I had done Denver, John. JS: I bet you had. KL: So I had to do some place else, but I did not want to go all the way to the west coast. I had a good friend, this is again the Vietnam War era, from Wisconsin living in Salt Lake City doing his conscientious objector status. He worked with the Guadalupe Center in Salt Lake, near the Red Iguana and the Rose Park area. So I thought well, “I will just go to Utah and I had this brother of a good friend of mine who’s there if I need somebody.” So I arrived in Utah and spent three years working as a public health hygienist. 6 JS: Liked it? KL: I loved. It was great. I travelled the breadth and length of Utah. I went to little one room schoolhouses in Grouse Creek and Box Elder County, just everywhere talking to teachers about how to incorporate dental health, hygiene and things into their classrooms as well doing presentations directly to students. School fluoride rinse programs, all the public health kinds of things that had something to do with dentistry. JS: What I am getting at is you went from rural to urban then back to rural. Certainly Utah in the early 70’s would be more like Wisconsin where you grew up then either Milwaukee or Boston. KL: Yes, but I lived in Salt Lake City so that was another big city for me. I kind of went Boston, Salt Lake City. JS: A smaller city. KL: But still more urban than what I had grown up with. So I had done this job for three years and people were telling me you have your bachelors degree, you ought to think about your masters degree. Other dental hygienists that I knew, people at Idaho State, where they had a dental hygiene program, were saying, "You know the University of Iowa has a really good graduate program in Dental Hygiene." What you may not know, is at that time Reed Stringham, who was the current dean was in the process of creating a dental program. So by virtue of my position as a public health hygienist with the state health department, he created an advisory committee of people who were interested in dental hygiene. He was 7 getting their input into if he was going to start a dental hygiene program and what should it look like. I was asked to be on that committee. JS: So off you go to University of Iowa for a couple of years. KL: No, just one year, August to August. JS: In Iowa City. KL: Another university town, but much smaller. JS: But still that same that feel, it really dominates the town. KL: It does. JS: When you were there you also minored in Higher Education. Were you thinking that maybe you were doing this not so much to be a dental hygienist, but to teach or administer. KL: Yes. Clearly I moved out. Dental hygiene is a very clinical job. I mean, if you work in a dental office you are working with patients and cleaning their teeth. Public health is education. When I was in Boston, even though I was in a clinic providing care for patients I had students from Foresight Dental Hygiene School come to the clinic to get some of their clinical experience much like we send our nursing students out. JS: I was going to say, it sounds similar to what you do here. KL: Yes. So from the very beginning of my career I had exposure to students and teaching, or teachers and teaching, or children and teaching. When I went back to Iowa it was with the idea that I would probably end up teaching somewhere in a dental hygiene program. I did not think I would be coming back to Utah, because I had done Utah. I checked this off. 8 JS: You did not think you were coming back, but all of the sudden a year later you did. KL: Yes. JS: You mentioned the advisory committee. Was there anything else you want to say about that? KL: No, but that was my connection. JS: Tell me about the composition of that committee. KL: I wish I could remember. I am guessing there were practicing dentists. There may have been other faculty. I left in ’73. Reed had been the dean here for some years, six or seven years by then because I think he came in the late 60’s. He probably had some other faculty, maybe Leola Davidson. I could not tell you who was on the advisory committee. He called us together a couple, three times. JS: To give him advice. KL: Yes. You remember Reed? JS: Yes, I do. KL: Taking advice was not his strong point! JS: Well asking for it was part of the game, but taking it was different KL: Yes. I think he probably knew that he knew that for any grant application he needed to indicate that he had some kind of community advisory group. It may have been more pro forma then anything substantive. JS: So you decided to come back to Utah, even though you had done Utah. KL: I had. When I was in graduate school I wrote to Stringham and Bob Soderberg and said, “I am completing my masters degree, are you hiring faculty?” They 9 wrote back and said, “We are hiring somebody to run the program, a director. Would you be interested?” And I thought, I have already done Utah, but this would give me a free trip back to see my friends in Salt Lake City. That is what I did. I came back for the interviews and stayed with friends in Salt Lake and came to campus for the interview with Bob and Reed. I thought, I won’t ever take the job. JS: I was going to say, you were not particularly inclined to it. KL: No, no. I did not want to come back. JS: What was it that changed your mind? KL: I wish I could tell you. I wish I could. Probably the idea of starting a program, a brand new program, because I was thinking I was preparing myself for a teaching faculty position rather than a quasi administrator. So I guess the idea of starting a new program was kind of exciting. I thought, “well I kind of like my friends in Salt Lake.” JS: Sure, and they would be close. KL: Yes, so why not. What the hell? I’ll do it for another couple of years and then I’ll be gone. JS: See where you go, yes. That was awhile ago so you must have liked it. KL: Golly, thirty-five years ago. JS: Before we talk about building that program, let’s talk about Reed Stringham. Reed was here a long time. He was here from the late 60’s until, I think, the mid 80’s. KL: He’s actually stepped down early 90’s. 10 JS: Was it that long? KL: Yes, it was, because, John I wish I could tell you I was either a faculty intern in Bob Smith’s office or else I was the interim associate provost. But it was during the early 90’s that Bob Smith told me that Reed had told him he wanted to step down. JS: I see. So he was here twenty plus years. KL: Yes and he stayed on as a faculty member and then was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died within three weeks. JS: I was going to say real quick. KL: Real quick from diagnose to death. JS: Sad story. Tell me a little about him as an administrator. You mentioned a little bit that maybe this committee was sort of pro forma. What kind of administrator was he? What I am getting at is that he was not the only one, or even the first one, to begin to build the Allied Health Program, as it was called then, but he was a major part of it. KL: He was huge. It would not have developed if it had not been for him. JS: Tell me more about that. KL: Incredibly bright, incredibly hardworking, visionary person who had a strong idea of what the state of Utah needed in terms of allied health providers. JS: What does that mean allied health? When I came to Weber is it was, Allied Health Sciences. What does that mean? KL: Pretty much anything baccalaureate or below in terms of academic preparation. At the time there were not nursing programs at all of the other institutions as 11 there are now. There were no radiological sciences programs at the other institutions. I think he saw a niche that Weber State could play and he had close ties. He was a dentist and he was committed to the health care system and I think he saw a real need to provide the state with qualified health care providers. He was a real renegade in terms of how he looked at education and how it was supposed to be configured so I think he wanted to put his stamp on the educational program. I don’t think he would have been a good dean for a very matured or well established set of programs. He was not a caretaker dean. He was an entrepreneurial dean. JS: Pretty hands on? Or did he get good people and give them rein? KL: Probably a little bit of both. He clearly came up with the ideas. He had clear ideas of how the program should be designed, the pedagogical infrastructure. My interview for program director, I remember walking into a room in Building 3 and there had to be thirty people in the room and I thought, “what the hell is this?” But I think what he did is opened it up to dentists and whoever else wanted to come. So I was sitting up there in the front and it was pretty much Reed asking questions. He said, “What is your philosophy on competency based education?” So I was getting my masters in Dental Hygiene Education. This was the buzz word, and I had heard this. So I said, “Would you like me to define it? Does everybody understand it?” And he just kind of waved his hand, “It doesn’t not matter if they understand it or not, just tell me what you think.” So he was amazing. He could be funny. He could be kind. He could be perceptive, he could be. He was not as a general rule, but he could be. But he could be incredibly 12 charming, very distinctive personality. He hired, I think and I do not want to come across as boastful, he hired really good people who would be hard workers and would take programs and run with them, who he would feel pretty confident that they would do a good job. JS: Who were some of those people? He was the dean, did he have an assistant or associate dean? KL: No, I do not think he did at that time. That came along later. Leola Davidson was there as head of nursing and she had a long career at Weber State. Joyce Wanta was in charge of Respiratory Therapy. I am trying to think, was it Jane who was in charge of Radiological Sciences? It seems like Jane Van Valkenberg was there. She was Jane Ward at the time. Marie Kotter was there as head of clinical lab, although it was called Med Tech at the time. I was hired for Dental Hygiene. I am trying to think about paramedic? That may not have even been there at the time. JS: Was Reed pretty well instrumental in hiring all those people you had mentioned? KL: Yes. And securing grant money, because many of those programs started up on soft money. Dental Hygiene had a five year veteran’s administration grant and it was a phased grant where the VA paid a hundred percent the first year, eighty percent, with the commitment that if he got that money than the state was going to take over. JS: So he’s dean at a time when there is a need in the state. He perceives that. He is entrepreneurial as you say. KL: Very much so. 13 JS: It is also a time when there is a fair amount of government largesse going on. I am assuming that is a major factor of federal money. KL: Yes, there was federal money flowing into build and create allied health programs. In my own dental hygiene career, there was incredible growth in the number of programs. Particularly in institutions that offered two year degrees in that field across the country, so in the 60’s and early 70’s, huge growth. So I think Reed was the right person at the right time to develop these kinds of programs. JS: And seemed to have the ability to hire really good people. KL: I think he did. Yes and I think he generally did. Most of his directors were in those jobs for long periods of time. They took programs and got them on solid foundations. It’s a real learning curve when you are creating a brand new program. JS: Sure. KL: Particularly for me, somebody right out of graduate school who had never taught before. I think he provided enough oversight and he was clearly involved. Probably more involved in Dental Hygiene then he was in the Nursing or Respiratory Therapy because he was a dentist. He taught some lecture courses in the program. JS: Did he? KL: Yes. JS: If I understand correctly what was going on up there, because as you said, a lot of it is clinical, there are really strong ties between the school and the local, in this case, dental community. 14 KL: For Dental Hygiene, but also for the hospitals for everybody else. I am not familiar with exactly what he did, but I know that for us to have a nursing, clinical lab, or respiratory therapy, radiological science program we had to have real close connections with the hospital because that is where all the students got their clinical experience. That is where they treated patients. In Dental Hygiene they treated patients here. JS: Let’s talk about that for awhile. Let me circle back because I want to ask you a couple of questions about the perception of that program campus wide. KL: Allied Health? JS: Yes. KL: I think that is a really interesting issue. JS: Tell me about building Dental Hygiene and who your faculty were and how you went about hiring them and tell me a little about that. So you had the interview and you accepted the job. KL: I had the interview and started the job in August and we were going to admit our first class in January. August to January there was a lot curriculum building as well as facility renovation. JS: Was there any faculty in place when you came. KL: Reed was considered to be faculty. Bob Soderberg who was also a dentist was going to teach in the program and then there was a man name Mike Bott. Do you remember him? JS: Yes, vaguely. 15 KL: All of the health programs had to have a doctor director. There has to be some M.D., or D.D.S. in the case of dental hygiene, a person who’s got a title or an affiliation with the program that’s says I’m of the medical director or dental director. The other programs, nursing, respiratory, all had physicians that were kind of figure heads that would say I’m the medical director of respiratory therapy, but Joyce runs the program and makes all the decisions. But because Reed was a dentist and Mike Bott and Bob Soderberg were already on board by the time I arrived they had much stronger roles. There were those three individuals that I would say were faculty of varying degrees of commitment. I was responsible for hiring any dental hygienist to teach. Because there were no dental hygiene programs in Utah putting out people, we were looking at either hygienists that worked in this area, or people that were going to move to Utah, or trying to attract somebody. JS: So how many faculty were you looking to hire initially? KL: Probably two full time in addition to myself, and a couple, three, part time. JS: So this was a pretty big step to hire two, three full time, two, three part time plus the folks you had. This is building quickly a fairly big department. KL: It is. I think all of the programs grew pretty rapidly that way. JS: Sure. Who were the people you hired? KL: The first one was a woman named Rae Ann Bullock and she was a hygienist that worked in the area. The second person I hired was a woman named Wendy Ayars and she moved to Utah from Washington State with her husband who was 16 completing his residency at the University of Utah. So she was here as long as his residency. The others were just hygienists that had bachelors’ degrees. JS: How long did this initial group of faculty stay? What I’m getting at is at some point did you begin to build a more permanent facility? KL: Well, Rae Ann fell in loved and married and moved elsewhere, and Wendy’s husband finished his residency and she moved elsewhere and then some of the students that graduated from those first two classes, Carol Naylor which may or may not be a name familiar to you, but she is now a faculty member in health sciences and she is a dentist. She went on to dental school after dental hygiene. She was in the first class. Francis McConaughy, Stephanie Bossenberger, these are names of people that still teach here. Stephanie is the department chair now. As we pushed people out, graduated them and they went on to get bachelor degrees, then they became candidates for teaching either part time and then moved into full time positions. JS: Of that group you mentioned I know Stephanie was a student here. KL: Yes, Stephanie was, Francis was, Carol was. JS: So they were all students here? KL: They were. JS: And they were moving fairly quickly finishing a bachelor’s degree and moving fairly quickly into faculty positions. KL: Yes, they would work in private practice for a couple of years full time, they might be part time clinical faculty since we ran the clinic we need people to come in and supervise the students. I hired Mary Andrianopolous, who was as you can tell 17 from her name, a Greek woman who got her masters in speech pathology at the U. It was a real mix of full and part time people, excuse me local people and people who had graduated from the program and people from the outside. JS: As you say some of those people you hired early on back then are still here. KL: Yes. JS: Some are in different positions. KL: You remember Sarah Toevs. JS: Yes, I was going to say Sarah. KL: Sarah is from Idaho originally, but she was working in Florida and we did a national ad and brought her in for an interview. Sarah was department chair for awhile, probably ten or twelve years. Then she and her husband moved back to Boise, she had finished her Ph.D. at the U. Now she is head of a graduate program in community health or something. So she is not doing anything in dental hygiene, but still very much in the health field. JS: What I am sensing from this, and correct me if I am wrong, it’s kind of insular, these people you are teaching and hiring. KL: Inbred is what I would call it. JS: Inbred, yes. It is also primarily female. KL: Overwhelmingly. JS: Is that true everywhere? I mean both parts. KL: The insular part I think is a function of Utah. I think it is hard to have women move for their career, to relocate for a career. I think the first five to ten years of the program I was faced pretty much with hiring people who were in this area and 18 that meant that they at least had to have a bachelor’s degree and after five years of the programs existence most of those people with bachelors were our graduates. So it is really a combination of the gender segregation in that profession at that time and kind of the nature of Utah and how difficult it would be to pull a woman into Utah for a teaching career in dental hygiene. It was hard. JS: You have been here many years, and you are certainly one of the strongest women on this campus. Was that true in other disciplines as well? It was hard to attract women not only to come for dental hygiene, but was it hard to attract women to come for history and others? KL: Oh gosh, there were very few women teaching on campus when I came in the mid 70’s there was a whole collection of them in Allied Health. There was a group in Teacher Ed. and there were lots of local people, school teachers who had been in the public schools and then come here, but that was pretty much it. Kay Evans was in Social Science, but there were so few women. I am going to tell you about the LLL. There were so few women that we gathered together and created a social club, the LLL. JS: Which stands for? KL: Ladies Libation League and we had monthly meetings of the LLL. That was the way for the women on campus to network. JS: Was it all faculty or was it faculty and staff? KL: No, it was pretty much faculty. I am trying to visualize it. It was a whole chunk of Allied Health and then people like Kay Evans from outside that also liked to drink. JS: The libation part? 19 KL: The libation part. So we would meet at different restaurants and people’s homes and just have a good time. JS: You gathered this group together? KL: Yes, support network. JS: You created a support network. You told me that you began a program in August that was to be starting in January. When the program started in January how many students were initially admitted? KL: Twenty, twenty-two. Solid class. JS: And today how many students all in a class? KL: Good question, probably thirty to forty. JS: So double? KL: Yes. JS: Does it grow pretty quickly or does it stay somewhere around twenty to twentyfive? KL: It did not grow John, until Dental Hygiene was relocated from Building 3 to the Marriott Building. JS: Was there any attempt to limit the number? KL: There was, just because of the size of the clinical facility that we could have and the space that we had available. All health programs are accredited and go through that review process and there are standards that talk about the number of faculty to the number of students. In order to give the students the number of hours of clinical time that they needed, you could only take so many students because you had to rotate them through. It was a bunch of things. The program 20 stayed in the low twenties for almost the first twenty years of its existence and then they went up. JS: I guess, you also had to have a department tenure document and that sort of thing? I assume you had rank. KL: I do not think we did. I think we just went with the school one. JS: But you did hold rank. KL: Oh yes. Yes I was hired as an assistant professor. You had to have a master’s degree which I did. So anybody that had a master’s degree could be put on the tenure track, which is still the case in the College of Health Professions. JS: I want to talk about how the department and the school was perceived within the university, or the college it would have been then. But before we do that, anything I’m forgetting to ask about those early days that would be significant in terms of people, policies, and activities? KL: Because we were all housed in Building 3, every program was there. I mean Bio Med Core was there, everything was there. It was just such a close feeling of camaraderie. We used to gather. We had a central coffee pot and people would bring doughnuts and stuff and we would just gather there. It was a really nice feeling, John, where you felt part of a group of people. Beyond your department and discipline you had a collection of colleagues in this school of allied health and you got to feel really close with them. JS: What you have described is an ideal situation. I do not care if you are in allied health or humanities or social science that collegiality and that cross discipline or 21 that cross fertilization and all that. So all the sudden you got this big space increasingly up here. What are the up and down, pros and cons of that? KL: I think the perception at least inside the School of Allied Health Sciences was that we were running first rate programs that had national recognitions, that had national reputations, that had strong state wide reputations, that we were a pool of excellence , that we were first rate and I’m not just saying that. But I think that we were getting enough data on what we were producing, students were doing well on their registry exams and so forth, that people thought we were pretty good. So I think moving to the top of the hill and this nice facility was thought of as “okay now we have the facility to go with the curriculum that we have built.” It was probably for some people acknowledgement. You need to know Dental Hygiene did not move up there at first. I did not know if you were aware of that, but that building went up in two phases. JS: I guess I did know that. KL: So Dental Hygiene stayed behind. I think ’87 might be when the first Marriott Building was built and Dental Hygiene and Radiological Science stayed back in Building 3 until the early 90’s when Nadauld was president and we finally got funding to add an extension on to it. JS: Stringham was still dean when the new building? KL: During the first phase of it? Oh absolutely. You know Stringham. He must have worked with whomever was in development at the time to secure the Marriott endowment. That was huge. That might have been one of the first endowments the university got that was connected with an academic college. And it was 22 designed specifically for faculty development. I remember Stringham calling everybody together, all the faculty together in one of the classrooms. Leola was standing there because she was associate dean at the time and he said, “I have some really exciting news to tell you and then he said we got a million dollar endowment from Marriott.” I do not think anybody in the room except for Stringham knew the implications of that. So all of us were sitting there kind of non pulsed and he looked at Leola, “They don’t get it.” Typical Stringham, you know, they are not with me. Again I’m the smartest one in the room. JS: Well he may have been. If not the most smartest, perhaps the most politically perceptive. KL: It was huge for Weber State. It resulted in the naming of the building. I don’t know that Marriott actually donated money to build the building, but we had that faculty endowment and that still supports faculty. It is still a huge part of faculty development in the college. JS: So you are all staying in Building 3 and a lot of other people are going up the hill. So did Camelot end? KL: Oh it was awful. Yes. Well in some ways and then we were the renegades because you know what it is like when you move into a new building? They had to deal with Stringham’s wandering the hall, “Get that down out of there. This is trash.” And we could just run wild and do whatever the hell we wanted to do in Building 3. So it had good aspects, but I really missed the people and friends that I had made. Just like although Ogden is only forty miles from Salt Lake it is simply a life time and so it was they were up there doing their thing and Allied 23 health faculty, it is a huge time commitment, because of the clinical as well as the lecture classes so they really are sort of on the job eight hours a day, five days a week. It’s a much more intensive time commitment, probably equivalent to science faculty with labs. It wasn’t like people had a lot of time to just drop by. When you were all in the building and you would see each other in the hallway, I mean Building 3 is a small building so you see people coming out of classrooms in the hallway. There was one hallway. Lots of incidental running into people your just didn’t see that. JS: It was a pretty social group? KL: Yes, absolutely. JS: Beyond the LLL? KL: Yes it was. It was. I remember going to people’s house’s for dinner and going smelt fishing at Bear Lake at this time of year actually. So you just did. You did lots of stuff both inside and outside. JS: So it was much more compartmentalized when they moved up there? KL: Yes, we were much more of a department rather than a college. That’s how I felt. JS: Was the initial funding and largess that was available in the early days was that beginning to end by the late 80’s and 90’s or was there more competition for fewer dollars? KL: Soft money had dried up, yes. The role of the federal government in funding educational programs, start up programs, had diminished quite a bit. The other institutions, Salt Lake Community College, Dixie, Utah Valley, they were all real keen to develop their programs. So not only was there less federal money 24 available we were now competing with other institutions for any state dollars and you had presidents that wanted to create, just like Stringham did, create a niche, create a name and allied health programs are a good way to do it. JS: If I understand correctly part of that is because the graduates are successful in getting jobs. KL: Hugely, yes. JS: So why wouldn’t a president want a program? KL: Well it is a slam dunk John. You are putting together a program where there is an incredible need in the community. Health care is kind of this depression proof job market for the most part and so people in the community are clamoring for these folks and you put together a good program and the students really do well. I mean they excel, they are really smart. It is hard to get in so they are some of the most focused goal oriented students you could get. JS: And success builds success and they become your ambassadors for better students and all that sort of thing. That’s kind of a good segue into one of the other two things I wanted to talk to you about. Tell me about outreach in that school. In my recollection, that seems to be that was really where outreach was going on. In the old days it was literally going out to place and then increasingly technologically based. Tell me about that. KL: I mean, it’s sort of like the pony circuit. Our faculty would literally get in cars and drive to these places and conduct courses on the weekend for students, who wanted to learn to become nurses or respiratory therapists, but could not or 25 would not come here. So they created programs that were directed and led by us, taught by our faculty. JS: Where were some of these towns? KL: Vernal, Uintah Basin, St. George, Logan even though Utah State was there we could use some of their teaching rooms so there were partnerships we had with Utah State, but it was absolutely Weber State’s program. We might even have delivered stuff in the Salt Lake valley. I could not tell you for sure, but I certainly know any place there was kind of a remote area, Price. Where ever you see institutions now. Those institutions are there because there was a critical mass of people, civilization, towns, and so those would be the places we would go because they would have hospitals and they would have a critical mass of people who were interested in getting into that program. JS: And I’m assuming Blanding? KL: Yes, south eastern Utah. JS: Was this Stringham’s idea? Was that his vision or were there other people in the school that were kind of pushing that? KL: I couldn’t tell you. I would assume it was Stringham’s idea. He was early on in terms of developing modules or packaging the curriculum so that it was portable and you could make it consistent in all of these locations. So it was real low tech, you know paper pencil things. High tech would be having a video tape lecture. I remember Evelyn Draper, who was head of the paramedic program, developed this thing that looked like a LP record. It was that huge, and that was our first kind of DVD prototype of something. We just thought, “oh my god this is huge.” 26 JS: The future is here. KL: Yes, next we are going to jet to the moon. But outreach education was a significant part of it. He got federal funding for that and he got state funding. So nursing would have a budget, an E & G budget that would support the Weber State campus and then they would have E & G budgets that would support the different locations. They were all kept separately. JS: I’m assuming while this is all going on, I’m speaking broadly of the college, more and more people are being hired and it’s growing and stuff like that. KL: It was just this hubbub, like a beehive of activity. It was always growing. That was probably Stringham’s mantra that you have to grow and meet new audiences and find new locations you could deliver. It was just a dynamic, ever changing school. JS: If my perception is correct, at some point you went from that kind of approach to satellite. KL: We did satellite broadcasting, yes. We used Ed Net. They used a variety of approaches. And now of course everything is online, but they just used different technologies as they became available. JS: Sure, and remembering that period help understand why Weber is strongly into that now. That’s more sustained growth. That’s not to say there weren’t other areas doing that, but certainly it was sort of their bread and butter. KL: It was. JS: That was where the money had gone to. 27 KL: That was where the new money was coming from. You probably know Ann Millner when she first came to Weber State, was hired in the School of Allied Health. She hired to do CE and outreach for allied health. JS: It is a real interesting group up there, a real interesting period. KL: It is. A facet of this, clearly most of the efforts were directed to outreach, to prepare more nurses or more respiratory therapists, but we were also doing quite a bit of outreach in these areas to teach faculty how to teach. At some point we had sort of resident faculty as well and they might have been nurses or respiratory therapists that worked in the hospital, but the students were supervised by those people on site there. Weber State was part of a national consortium called TIPS, Teaching Improvement Projects System, based in Lexington Kentucky, funded federally for the sole purpose of developing support materials to teach allied health teachers how to teach, because they were clinicians by virtue of their education and not educators so how do they acquire those educational skills so we offered a number of workshops here on campus, but we would also take those workshops out. So we would be on the road delivering TIPS. JS: A lot. KL: I was a TIPS-ter! JS: And a hipster. But that’s a different story. You had been getting tips since your days in Denver. Were you there when Stringham stepped down and why did he decide to step down as dean? 28 KL: Now that I’m thinking, I was there and he announced the year that I was a faculty intern and then I went back to the College of Health Professions, because I actually threw my name in the ring to replace him. JS: As dean? KL: As dean. I didn’t even get to an interview stage so, I was there. JS: You were there, but you also had this other responsibility. KL: I was a faculty intern for a year then I left. That was something Bob Smith did. He had done every year. Sam Zeveloff did it one year. Margaret Bennett did it. So I did that for a year and then I went back to the College of Health Professions and that was when we were in the search process and Stringham was going to step down. He announced the year I was intern and then the following year was his last year and they were in the search process. I threw my name in and did not get interviewed and near the end of that year Jeff Livingston decided that he wanted to go to the Board of Regents office, the commissioner’s office. He was the associate provost and so Bob said “Kath, you were a faculty intern a year ago, would you be willing to do Jeff’s job on interim basis for a year and then we will open it up and search.” I was so disappointed that I didn’t even get interviewed in the college. It was just such an embarrassment for me John. JS: Well I can imagine. KL: I was mortified, so I said “absolutely, I would love it.” JS: Were there other internal folks? KL: I think Phil Smith, I think he threw his name in, but the position criteria said that you had to have a clinical discipline background. You had to be patient care 29 oriented and Phil was a hospital administrator, so I think they axed him from the search core credentials. My credentials were okay, I just wasn’t up to snuff. They ended up hiring and what made it even more awful for me personally was that they hired a dental hygienist that I thought looked exactly like me. I mean not physically, but her background, her Ph.D., everything. JS: By that time you had finished your doctorate? KL: Yes, I had finished it in ’85. JS: Who replaced Stringham? KL: Marilyn Harrington. JS: So that was Marilyn came. KL: Yes, and she was here for about four years. JS: They had several deans since. There was a long period of time with one dean and then lots of turnover. KL: Yes, isn’t that interesting? JS: It is. KL: It’s a hard college to be a dean of. JS: I think it is. KL: In many ways. JS: I think it is hard to be a dean, but I think some places are harder and I think that is one of them. At least if turnover is any indication. KL: I agree. Something is going on with turnover. Part of it is that, health professions deans, allied health deans are pretty hot commodity on the job market. There is lots of demand. There are so many institutions that have health programs that 30 are searching for deans so that they can pretty much write their own ticket. That is part of it. Mike was the dean of business and I don’t think that is an easy group of people to manage. So I kind of saw what deans do. It is challenging, I think that college could be tough. I kept saying count your blessings. JS: Yes, maybe it worked out for the best. KL: Well that’s what my mother always said. JS: Well she is probably right. They are always right! Let’s talk about the perception of the school campus wide. You can refer to it in terms of the school itself or your own department. And I don’t want to prejudice what you are going to say, but my recollection is that there was sort of the view that, here we are and there’s Allied Health over here, we’ve got some technology people, carpenters and plumbers and car fixers, and we have those because it’s politically necessary, but it’s not the pure stuff of higher education. KL: That’s not really Weber State. JS: Is that an accurate perception? KL: Oh absolutely. I don’t think it was helped by Stringham’s personality. He was arrogant with his dean colleagues. He was pretty much; “I don’t care what you think about me. I’m doing what I want to do, so buzz off.” JS: I look out for Allied Health and that’s it. KL: Yes, the rest of the world can go to hell. So he wasn’t a bridge builder, he was smart as a whip and knew it, and he pointed out people’s foibles and their short comings. Kind of like the announcement to the faculty, “Leola they don’t get it.” JS: Yes, didn’t suffer fools gladly. 31 KL: Some people went to his funeral just to be sure he was truly dead. Isn’t that awful John? JS: It is awful. It was really a sad event. KL: It was. So an incredibly gifted person, but also had incredible flaws. So I think that people were suspicious I think they disliked Reed and anybody that was affiliated with Reed. I remember when I was associate provost and I was meeting with the people that was called CATS at the time, Karen Wimmer and Al Livingston and that was my new area of responsibility. One of the things they said to me was, “Stringham believes this. Do you believe this?” I said, “Well you know I don’t believe everything that Stringham believed” and they said, “Thank god.” I think people thought that everybody was a Stringham clone. JS: Sure, you must all be marching lockstep. KL: You think what was CATS doing. It was all instructional technology, so that outreach stuff. Stringham had huge opinions about that. I think the traditional liberal arts areas didn’t like it. We were growing and growing quickly so, we had faculty coming into faculty senate. We weren’t doctorially prepared. We had an SOB for a dean we seemed to be getting the lion’s share of resources and media attention, and oh my god that is what Weber State is known for. But it was. The nursing program was number one in the nation. What about history? It’s kind of like what are we, chopped liver? And then there was that geographic affiliation and sort of discipline affiliation with the school of technology. Also another career path oriented less then doctorially prepared faculty could get outside funding to 32 come in, industry as well as government grants. I think viewed with great suspicion. So there was this us versus them mentality. JS: You mention the senate, but were your faculty also serving on committees and were they welcomed and encouraged or tolerated? KL: For the most part, tolerated. You kind of do it because you have to, but most of the our faculty that served on committees were women and there was a real dynamic. They were non Mormon, because they were women that had careers and so you had white Mormon males and you had white females and it was awful. JS: Do you have a hard time getting faculty to serve on committees outside of faculty? KL: Not necessarily. But I think, I remember coming back to Building 3, the sanctuary and saying, “You’re not going to believe what they said to me. To my face in this room.” JS: And by then you were associate professor. KL: Yes. JS: Has that changed? KL: I think it has. JS: Is that a function of different deans or just people just grown up? KL: All of the above, John. I think the institution has matured. I think we have now seen growth and more recognition in some of the traditional liberal arts areas. I mean we have an incredible performing arts department, stronger than it was at the time. I think the institution has matured and we have pockets of excellence in 33 almost every college. I think that has helped and I think getting rid of Stringham and having a different dean was the ball buster. Ultimately, I think, because of the turnover, we needed a dean who was really focused on faculty needs and faculty getting along and understood the institution and understood and valued the different disciplines so having that internal dean was absolutely what we needed at this time in health professions. JS: Yas is a person that people feel comfortable with. And she is a bridge builder. KL: She is. JS: If Stringham wasn’t a bridge builder, she is. The other thing that I think is important, maybe you agree, the dean’s council is very different now. The whole process is so different. And I think when you say that the school matured I think you are right on that. I hope that’s right. KL: I mean I think Leola could have been a really good dean after Stringham. She would have that internal sensitivity, as well as much needed. She is from Kentucky, a real kind of southern woman. She could use humor effectively. She could laugh at herself, but by that time she was just too old and that wasn’t what she wanted to do. JS: Yes. Interesting. KL: Yes, it is really interesting. JS: This is the second part of our interview with Kathleen Lukken. It is being conducted on February 16, 2010, in the Stewart Library. This interview will focus on Kathleen’s experiences in Weber State’s University’s central administration. As you indicated the last time we talked, you served a year, 1991-92, as a faculty 34 intern in administration and then went back to Health Professions. We talked about the decision not to invite you to be a candidate for dean. So then you went back into the university administration. Let’s start in that order. So let’s start with the faculty intern part. How did that all work? Whose idea was that and how did that work? KL: My understanding is that the faculty intern position had been in existence for some time, but I don’t know what that means, five years, but I certainly wasn’t the first faculty member to serve in that capacity. Bob just did a call within the campus, a memo for people who wanted to be considered for this, and asked them to submit a one page letter of interests. JS: That would be Bob Smith? KL: Bob Smith, yes the provost at the time. And you pretty much could work with either, Jeff Livingston who was the Associate Provost or Bob or both of them depending on what was bubbling up at the time of the appointment. JS: I see. In your own case in your one page letter, what was the motivation for you? KL: My guess is, because I had been department chair for over fifteen years at that point, 1975-1991, I was probably thinking that I wanted to see what administration was like at a higher level of the institution. I don’t know that I had designs for a higher level position at that time, but was just kind of curious. You know, you do the same thing over and over in your job for fifteen years, and you think “Well maybe a bit of variety would be good.” I took on a number of chair position, committee chair positions, so I just had lots of experience and I thought this was another opportunity. 35 JS: And it’s a safe way to do it, it’s short term and you can return if you don’t like it. KL: Yes, or if they don’t like me. JS: Sure. You mentioned that there were other faculty that had served in the same capacity. I get the sense that is one of the things that Bob Smith really believed in; giving faculty that opportunity to try it out. I mean in some ways it parallels Bob’s own career, certainly as a teaching faculty member for a long time and then dean and then a provost. Does that seem to you to be an accurate sense of what Bob was trying to accomplish? KL: It probably is. I never really talked to him about that. I know he believed that it provided opportunities for faculty within the university to acquire some experience that could benefit them later on in their career. JS: Even if that later on was not at Weber? KL: Yes, absolutely. I think Bob was a real proponent of providing people with experiences. But I think it was also had a benefit within the office. You get kind of insulated in a central administration office and so I think it brought new personalities, new perspectives, new questions, new ideas. I mean Bob was provost for a long time. JS: He was. KL: Fifteen years total, and so I think he probably saw this as way to rejuvenate himself. JS: So it worked well for both? KL: Yes, I guess so. JS: Why did they change the title from academic vice president to provost? 36 KL: It was just the switch from Weber State College to Weber State University. All sorts of normal culture changed, it didn’t necessarily happen in the Stewart Library, but every academic unit went from a school to a college. JS: I see, so was that mandated? KL: I don’t think it was mandated, but I think that was a way to publicly acknowledge the change in the university. So yes, who knows? Then that happened in ’91. JS: Right, about the same time. KL: About the same time, just a little bit before me. I guess it’s a way of demarcating the status of the university. JS: As an aside, I was trying to remember whether it was the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences or the school of. I think it was the college of. It was the School of Business and the School of Accountancy. KL: Yes and the School of Nursing. I mean it used to be that. It used to be the College of Business and Economics, when we went from Weber State College to Weber State University the School of Business became the College of Business and Economics and then when Jack Goddard donated his multi million dollars to the Business College, it was renamed the Goddard School. I asked Bob Smith about that. Why? It seems as though we were taking a step backwards. He said that named, schools or colleges often had the word school with them. So because it had the name of a donor, it was often the school of business rather than the college of business, which still doesn’t make much sense to me. JS: Well, yes me either. But it seems to be the combination of donations on the one hand and the change in status. 37 KL: Yes. JS: So you applied and were accepted and you went down to the provost’s office. KL: For nine months. JS: For a nine month appointment. What kinds of things did Bob and Jeff have you work on? KL: I followed Margaret Bennett in that role. She was a faculty intern, and I think prior to her it was Sam Zeveloff, and then there were multiple iterations. She had done quite a bit of work on the process of program review where academic departments and programs get a review, kind of an internal external combined review every five to seven years. It’s a process that is mandated by the Board of Regents. So she took that on in her role as a faculty intern and that was assigned to me as well. I spent most of my time working on that and helping the departments who were going through that, making sure that they got the process underway and that they dotted all the “I’s” and crossed the “T’s”. JS: I’m assuming you’d had a fair amount of experience in that, in Dental Hygiene specifically, but health professions broadly. KL: It is a process that is very similar to a professional accreditation review, yes. So I had lots of things that I could take from my prior life and apply it to that yes. JS: What kinds of other things did you work on there? Were you still teaching? KL: I wasn’t teaching. I was the department chair and still had fifty percent of my time in that role. JS: You were chairing? 38 KL: Yes. I was doing whatever those chairs do so that they don’t have to teach! So I still had time for Dental Hygiene. The thing that sticks in my mind mostly is program review. I’m sure I had other tasks that I would take on, smaller projects. Program review is a year long process and things happen in fall and then in the spring. So for the life of me I cannot remember other assignments. I’m sure it was all fascinating, just for the record, extremely fascinating as only central administration could be! JS: I’m sure that’s the case! Well having said that, at the end of that nine month period, did you feel like you had accomplished the kinds of things that Bob had in mind for it? KL: Well it gave me insight into that. Bob was kind of a fearsome person to just a faculty member or a chair. I mean I found him somewhat intimidating when I was a department chair or faculty member. He is an absolutely incredibly cerebral person, really bright and can say more by not saying things or by just carefully choosing words. I mean I’d seen him in senate. Because I had been heavily involved in senate as a faculty member and chaired things and been on executive committees. So I had sat in on lots of meetings and I thought “good golly this man is kind of scary. He just cuts to the chase and he can see through all the pontificating that goes on in higher ed.” JS: What? KL: Well not me, of course! So I found him intimidating quite honestly. I was both nervous and excited to have the opportunity to be in that office. Jeff Livingston, whom I know you know, is quite the polar opposite in terms of personality. Jeff is 39 just out there, relaxed and funny, and so I thought between the two of them I’m going to be okay. Bob will challenge my ideas and Jeff will be the safety net for me. JS: He’ll nurture you? KL: Yes, so I thought it pretty interesting just to get to know both of their personalities a bit more. JS: Yes, and by this time as you said, Bob had been there a long time. He’d probably been provost in ’91 for seven or eight years? KL: He left in ’94. I’m trying to think, I believe David Eilser came in’96 or ’97. By the time I showed up he was definitely well past the midpoint of his career. And he was applying for president positions while I knew him. JS: Bob? KL: Yes. So he was trying to take that next step. He was selectively applying for them. JS: Interesting. Well anyways you go back to health professions. KL: Yes, I do. JS: And we talked about all of that. KL: Stringham said he was going to leave so I thought I would put my name in and I didn’t get very far. Then Jeff decided that he was going to leave Weber State as Associate Provost and go to the commissioner’s office. That was a strange move I thought, but anyway he decided to do that on fairly short notice. JS: I see. 40 KL: And it was at commencement. So I had been back a full year, back in the College of Health Professions and it was at commencement. JS: The next year? KL: The next year, the following spring. Bob and Jeff went to all the different college ceremonies; they kind of rotate that amongst themselves. Bob came to the Health Professions and after the convocation ceremony was over, he came up to me and said, ”Jeff is leaving so I would like you to do this on an interim basis. Get things in order in Dental Hygiene if you want to do this.” JS: Really? KL: Yes. JS: And your response was? KL: Holy smokes. I said “yes, sure.” So then I had to go back to the department and say this has come up on very short notice. Things were pretty chaotic because I was needing to transition full time on an interim basis, into academic affairs. JS: Pretty quickly. KL: Pretty quickly and Dental Hygiene had to transition with a new chair. JS: Who replaced you as chair? KL: Sarah Toevs. JS: So you were going on to be interim associate provost. Doing essentially Jeff’s responsibility. KL: Yes. JS: Which was largely what? How did Bob sort of divide things, or did he readjust things when you came, bringing different strengths with you? 41 KL: Well, I believe the responsibilities as an interim were the same as Jeff had. I don’t think Bob reconfigured the positions a lot. So I had reporting to me the library, and I believe Joan reported to Jeff. JS: True. KL: Honors, BIS, Sponsored Projects, Grants and Contracts, Lee Carrillo, you remember her, and then Chris Millard. So I had a handful of offices or entities that reported directly to me. Then things like program review that I was responsible for. Bob wanted to internationalize the campus and that was a pretty loose idea that he had. But he wanted to do things that would provide more structure for some of the international activities that faculty were engaged in, study abroad, things like that. As well as to just kind of do some coordination between the international student office and student affairs and some of the academic programs just to high light and promote what Weber State was doing on an international front. JS: Part of that, I gather was not only recruiting international students and students abroad and that sort of thing, but also promoting diversity as part of his broader view. KL: It was. That was not an initiative that that I did a lot of work on. That kind of came bubbling up through the faculty and curriculum side. So the whole diversity requirement came up through the faculty, faculty senate, curriculum. JS: True, but what I’m saying, and maybe I didn’t say it very clearly, it that Bob seemed to me, tell me if you think this accurate, as part of an internationalized 42 campus community, he wanted to, what’s the word, make Weber a little less parochial and more cosmopolitan. KL: He did, I mean he funded diversity faculty fellows. I don’t know that that’s the official title, but he would provide funding for departments for them to be able to hire full time faculty that represented aspects of diversity for that department, primarily faculty of color, but not necessarily. Sometimes it was a matter of gender, anybody that was different from the department. JS: Let’s talk a little bit about Bob in that regard. Before we do that when did you become interim? KL: Well the appointment was for a year, and in the process of that year, he said he was going to advertise the position and then make a permanent hiring. JS: So you had to apply? KL: I did. JS: There were other applications? KL: There were, yes. JS: Some on campus? KL: Well actually I think he didn’t advertise nationally. JS: So it was an internal process? KL: Yes it was. JS: So after a year you become Associate Provost, not interim. Let us talk a little about Bob. You mentioned his international interest, and you talked a little about the cosmopolitan aspect. You and I worked together in terms of that international activities committee which was a spinoff of that. 43 KL: Yes it was. We had some funding that we would distribute to faculty if you remember. JS: It seems to me that Bob was, as I said a minute ago, trying to broaden Weber. Is that an accurate statement? KL: I think he was trying to infuse and support new ideas of broadening the campus. At the same time, if you recall, the teaching and learning forum got started under Bob. Also writing across the curriculum was an initiative. So he kept trying to support the academic mission of the university by extending its reach, increasing the array of tools the faculty had available to them to bring into the classroom to enrich the learning experiences of the students. I think he truly felt that Weber State was a hallmark undergraduate institution and I think he was probably surveying the national landscape and saying what are the things out there that good institutions do that we could also do. JS: How could we do them here. KL: Yes. JS: So is it accurate to say that some of that was Bob’s vision, but some of it was being receptive to faculty? KL: Yes, absolutely a combination. Bob was a firm believer in all sorts of faculty initiatives, and nurturing faculty ideas, so he was a champion of lots of faculty that had good ideas. He sheltered them, protected them when their ideas were not well respected by, sometimes, their own departments. JS: I know that development was not really his responsibility. KL: Are you talking about fundraising? 44 JS: Yes. Still he realized that it would take some money, and so beefed up research and professional growth and the Hemingway vitality program and all kinds of things. KL: He did. JS: In that sense, it’s always seemed to me that Bob Smith was probably the most “academic” of academic vice presidents. KL: Oh he was. I didn’t know the academic vice presidents prior to Bob, but Bob’s intellect and academic credentials for me were never in doubt. And I can’t imagine any faculty member listening to, or being around Bob Smith for any length of time, saying “this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” He was extremely well read, very articulate and just brought a lot of academic heft in to the position. JS: I think he came at a pretty good time. You were here when Brady was president, but you weren’t in administration. KL: Right. JS: My sense, and maybe this is something I should ask Bob, but you may have a sense too, is that President Brady gave that latitude to Bob. It wasn’t something that he was especially personally interested in. He had other things he was interested in, but he realized that need, and urged or encouraged or supported, whatever term you want to use, Bob’s efforts to meet that need. KL: I think so indeed. I think Brady being a business person by discipline probably recognized the benefit to the CEO if you have a really strong leadership team, and I think he perceived Bob to be strong in that area and gave him freedom to 45 do what he wanted so long as it advanced the academic integrity of the institution. JS: Which was one of President Brady’s real strengths I think. He had his definite views on things, but he also liked to hire good people. KL: I think you’re absolutely right, yes. There was a strong feeling I got from working with Bob closely for a couple of years, and being a faculty member for his entire tenure, was that the things he did were clearly for the benefit of the university. It wasn’t about enriching his own resume. JS: Right. He had a pretty good resume. KL: Yes, I mean he wasn’t going to do things that would undermine his own career path, but he did things that sometimes were risky, and sometimes made people angry, people in the community, faculty here. Yet, he wasn’t afraid of controversy. He was guided I think, by a real strong internal compass of what was academically best for faculty and for students alike. JS: Yes, that my perception as well. There were people that didn’t agree with what he was doing. KL: Lots of people. JS: On campus. KL: And off. JS: Yes. Before we move to Dave Eisler, because I do want to talk to you about Dave, let’s talk about a couple of things while I’m thinking of them. One is the whole concept that came in a little later, that of the metropolitan university. What’s going on with that? 46 KL: I wish I could give you a real clear answer because it didn’t have a long shelf life, that name and that sort of label and kind of how we positioned our self. My guess is it probably came about through Bob’s perusal of the literature and maybe Paul Thompson’s need to distinguish Weber State, as a university. What niche do we carve for ourselves? JS: How are we different? KL: Yes, I think we were saying “there is this national metropolitan university movement. We’re kind of like that or we could move in that direction and claim that.” But it never really went anywhere. It didn’t resonate. JS: I could never figure out whether it was the Board of Regents saying you need to look into this or it was kind of the other way. KL: I don’t think it was. You know, Bob, I think he saw Weber State as being what we are, a commuter campus that has a real strong tie with the cities and towns of northern Utah. I mean we have an impact here. We’re not like Iowa City, where the University of Iowa is just huge and just overshadows the town. Even Madison, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, even though Madison has a population of 100,000 the university really has such a strong impact. I think Bob probably saw Weber State in Ogden, or the northern metropolitan areas, as being co partners, and so he was probably looking at other areas in urban areas. I hate to use the word urban in connection to Ogden, but for better or worse. JS: It’s reasonably true. KL: Urbanish. JS: Urbanish, yes. 47 KL: So kind of thinking of Portland State maybe, some places in New Jersey where they were just in more metropolitan areas. How did those institutions really create strong partnerships with the community, with the business, with the life of the city around them. How did they do that in an effective way for the university? But that’s just conjecture on my part. JS: You’re probably right. There was a lot going on in that period of time, when you were first an intern and then when you are associate provost. But really obviously becoming a university is fundamental to that. But there are a lot of other things going on in higher ed in Utah and all kind of things. KL: Well we were acquiring graduate programs. That was a significant step in our evolution where because we were a university, even though by agreeing to give us the name the legislature said we couldn’t come forward with graduate degrees right away, we knew that was where we were headed. JS: Sure that was almost a political position. KL: We will let you call yourself a university. JS: Everybody knew that somewhere down the road graduate programs were going to come. President Naduald would say nothing is going to change except we’ll have to print some more letterhead! The whole process of how we became a university is interesting, but in some ways it was the desire on the part of folks in Cedar City and it was a package deal. KL: It was. 48 JS: Interesting. Another thing that is going on in this period of time is strategic planning. Where was the energy for that coming from? More from Bob, more from Paul, the commissioner’s office? KL: Well I’m not sure of the exact impetus, but I just know that strategic planning is something institutions need to do on a regular basis to kind of as best they can forecast the future and position themselves. Some of that is driven by regional accreditation. You have to demonstrate that the institution is doing a thoughtful review and prognosis of the future. JS: You went through what two? KL: A couple of rounds of it. JS: A couple of rounds of that when you were there. That process of strategic planning was not looked upon as the most successful experiment in Weber’s time. Is that a fair statement? KL: It was very acrimonious. It left a bad taste in lots of people’s mouths. It was perceived to be sort of a back door way for some of the least respected areas, the technology areas, maybe some of the health professions areas that had kind of grown and gotten some recognition, to say not so fast, you’re not so hot. The mover and shakers are still the traditional liberal arts and sciences. Not exclusively, but I think that was somewhat of the dynamic. JS: Yes, it was an interesting period and I often thought that Paul must have wondered what can he’d opened. KL: Yes. Paul was a grandfather, I guess that’s the best way for me to describe him. I don’t mean that literally, just figuratively, but that’s kind of how he wanted to 49 perceive the institution. Can’t we all get along? Can’t we all be friends? We’re in this together. There some blood connection to your family, were all family can’t we just not fight openly? So he was conflict adverse and would prefer not to deal with overt conflict and faculty just loved to yell and scream at each other sometimes. JS: This is true. KL: Yes. That’s just part of it. JS: Well and if you can’t yell and scream at each other, then you yell and scream at administrators. KL: Yes. JS: Yes, I think that’s a good sense of Paul’s style. He was an inclusive person. KL: Very much so. JS: Diversity and other things really did well under Paul. Again partly it was the time. If we think about today’s times, those were certainly better times. We had our ups and downs. KL: In terms of the economy, yes. JS: In terms of the economy and the growth of the school. KL: Just to give you an example: the vice presidents learned the best way to deal with Paul was not to come in with a proposal and debate it in front of him and let him weigh its terms. They quickly learned that the best way was to get consensus amongst the vice presidents, and then to come in with a unified position. This is what we think should happen. So they do the compromising, the discussing outside of Paul’s presence. 50 JS: And come in with a proposal? KL: Come in with a proposal that had their support. Most of us can live with this and this is where we think we ought to go. So that’s how he would prefer to work. JS: That’s really a consensus building kind of style. KL: Yes. JS: It’s not surprising that he would think that way. KL: Yes, his professional background, and certainly his cultural and religious background I think, pointed itself to that can we reach consensus, we can work towards this in an amicable way. JS: Different in a sense than Brady? And yet in some ways more like Brady than totally different. KL: Yes, but Brady was a business man. Paul was always a faculty. His career was educational institution based, and Brady had a mix of that. So I think Brady saw the real world, and how CEO’s should function and sometimes you have to make hard decisions, and you try to give strong people on your team the leeway to make decisions, but when push comes to shove you step in. JS: That’s your role. KL: Yes, that’s your job. JS: Other things about Bob before we talk about Dave Eisler? KL: Well you know I was working closely with Bob during the last three years of his career. He had been provost for twelve years and he was running out of energy. JS: Was he? 51 KL: He was. He was running out. And boy trust me I can understand. I was in that job for twelve years and I know how you can, and I did not have to deal with the things that he dealt with. I think he was becoming increasingly disappointed that he wasn’t being hired as president some place, and just getting worn out. So I saw him at sort of the tail end of his career. It would have been interesting to see it at the front end! JS: Where was he applying? KL: Evergreen, which would be the kind of place that Bob would want to go, right? I know that for sure, and while I don’t know other places, I know he was very selective of the kind of places he applied, ones that had a real solid academic reputation for undergraduate education, but also had some real unique intellectual characteristics. JS: President Brady and Bob didn’t seem to be chums. KL: No. JS: But Brady would support Bob. That was my perception as a young faculty member in those days. KL: Yes. JS: What is the relationship between Paul and Bob in that sense? KL: Well you know Bob applied for the presidency when Paul was selected so I think it must have been difficult initially. That was before I was there but I think that was a hard thing. I think he saw Paul as a nice guy, but not at his intellectual level. Bob was a pretty quick judge of people. JS: He was a quick judge. 52 KL: Which made me scared to death because I thought he’s going to see right through me! JS: I understand that feeling! KL: I knew that Bob would know when I was blowing smoke, and didn’t know what the hell I was talking about and so did most anybody. So I think he was very disappointed of the decision made by Weber State in by selecting Paul. JS: I don’t want to overblow this, but it did put a cast to those two or three years. KL: It would be normal. JS: Sure. KL: But again I think he respected Paul and saw him do some difficult things. You know, Paul took the stand that we’re going to get rid of football. It didn’t seem like it was going to be controversial at all and then just hell broke loose. So I think he saw Paul do some tough things that were in the best interests of the institution academically. JS: It must be very hard to feel like that’s a job you could do, and you should be a logical choice, but the school goes in a different direction. KL: I don’t know if you remember, but they used to select and name presidents using a process that is a little different than it is now. It was very secretive. I mean Bob didn’t know who was going to be president. So it was just weird. JS: Yes, it was strange. KL: It’s a little more open now, but it was a bad way to treat people in some ways. JS: Yes, I agree. Bob was an interesting guy. He could be intimidating. He could also be insightful. He had an interesting sense of humor. At times he could be 53 very, very quick and I remember one time I was at a luncheon with him and we happened to be sitting at the same table and there was a person from off campus who said to Bob, “Do you have much of a drug problem at Weber State?” and Bob replied, “Well, some but not after one o’clock in the afternoon.” Well the person didn’t have a clue what Bob was saying. It just cracked me up. And it was that subtle humor, some people like, some people don’t, but that’s clearly his personality. It was different from. So, Bob decided it’s time after all these many years to move on and you’re still there as associate. KL: Yes. JS: How did that work? Did you think of applying for provost? KL: I did not. When Bob announced he was stepping down, I was just starting my third year in that position. He gave the institution a whole year to do a search and I just thought I’m just too new in this. I didn’t feel confident in my own abilities to throw my name in. I hadn’t been a dean. I had been a department chair for eighteen years and then just two years as associate provost. I was just too young. I never thought of throwing my name in. JS: They did a national search? KL: Yes, they did. JS: I think there were some local candidates. KL: Oh yes, I’m sure there were some deans that probably threw their name in. I couldn’t tell you for sure, I don’t remember. JS: But it was an interesting process. We hired Dave Eisler? KL: Yes. 54 JS: Two different people. KL: Oh my gosh. I was also seeing somebody at the front end of a vice presidential career and not the tail end so if you set those issues aside for any of us, just very different personalities. Dave I think spoke before he thought a lot of times. Bob would always be thinking way ahead of where he was, like a chess player. JS: Sure. KL: So a little bit more careful. Dave was less careful about what he said. Both were bright, funny, had good senses of humor. Dave was very much focused on his career and what would look good for him and what could be done that would position himself. So he was much more of a political animal, and maybe Bob was too early on in his provost career, because I wasn’t there. So I just got the feeling that the things Dave took on were always, based on “Will this help me move to the next step. It would be good for Weber State, but more importantly will it help me.” JS: As associate provost, were you still largely doing the same things you had done or did Dave kind of rearrange things? KL: He didn’t rearrange very much. No, I was pretty much doing the same things. He he didn’t make very many changes at all in his team at all. JS: Of course we always associate Dave with technology. KL: Yes. JS: That was clearly a big focus of his. I met him first in a technology meeting; he’d been selected, but hadn’t started. KL: Yes. 55 JS: Was that the right thing at the right time? Was it also the right thing for him at the right time? As we talked about this last time, it’s not that technologically based teaching patterns existed at Weber? They had for a long time, but he really took this institution in a particular direction. KL: He did. I think it was probably the right idea at the right time. And it wasn’t just Dave. Then Ann Millner’s role at the university was also changing. She was in CE, and then became vice president over that area. Western Governors University was starting at the same time and they were all about online education. And, although I wasn’t privy to the discussion, I think there must have been some discussions between Ann and Dave on how to deal with that potential threat to Weber State. Dave just had a natural proclivity for technology. He liked gadgets. He liked technology toys. So I just think the two of them came together and said this is where we want to go, and to put a lot of money into WSU Online. That kicked off a year or so after Dave arrived. JS: As you say he was in some ways more of a political animal than Bob and so he kind of came when the politics of things had ramped up; Leavitt’s interest in WGU and other things. KL: It was reflected in the expression, “no more bricks and mortar.” growth is going to be online. It doesn’t take a really bright person to see the hand writing on the wall in terms of where money was going to come from at the legislature. So I think this was a way for Ann and Dave alike to see where Weber State could make a niche. Even though Ann was not a vice president over the academic programs, her early history at Weber had always been to support academic programs doing 56 things better, more efficiently. So I think she saw that as just a natural coming together. JS: As you say Dave sometimes spoke before he thought, and probably rubbed faculty the wrong way more frequently than Bob did. Is that a fair statement? KL: I don’t know, that’s a hard thing for me to say. JS: I see. KL: Maybe I’m reading into it my own feelings. I don’t think some faculty saw Dave has having the intellectual chops that Bob did. He seemed like kind of an intellectual light weight. JS: In comparison? KL: In comparison. And he wasn’t stupid by any stretch. He was a quick read. JS: Hard worker? KL: Oh gosh yes. I don’t know if it’s just that faculty can be really snobbish in terms of their discipline. But Dave was a performer in marching band, a clarinetist. And Bob was chemist. So I think faculty kind of said, “Well we have a guy in a marching band and before we had a chemist? Who’s going to have more heft? JS: Chemistry or clarinet? KL: Yes, and so they saw Dave as a light weight and his personality was just lighter. He wasn’t so intimidating. JS: That is true. And maybe it’s just that in memorable tug between faculty and administration, but I could sense it. I was on the executive committee for part of that period of time. You would have faculty saying and I don’t know how the 57 provost office would answer this, in so many words what is the difference between us and the University of Phoenix if we’re going that route? KL: Oh, yes. I can see were many were very uncomfortable with this technology. Well I’ll tell you, I sat in on executive committee first with Bob and then with Dave, and the chair and the vice chair, for part of the time that Dave was there, could behave very rudely to people, were very disrespectful. There is a fine line you walk, John, between disagreeing with somebody and then treating them like they are idiots. And I felt sometimes that they crossed the line with Dave, and they sort of did things publically in that small setting and I thought “You’re going beyond just disagreeing with ideas. You are demeaning an individual. I don’t think you ever did that to Bob, at least not to his face.” I was made really uncomfortable. I felt bad for Dave. JS: I felt that sometimes too in my meetings. That’s really interesting because in some ways even after Bob was not selected as president he never exhibited that kind of behavior. I’m sure he wasn’t happy, and I’m sure he believed he had superior intellect and all of that. I’m sure that’s the case, but, as you said there is a difference between disagreeing and just being really hostile. I think some folks felt that way because Dave seemed to take from them positions they wanted. I don’t know what was going on. KL: I don’t either. JS: I’m trying to think of what else we need to say about Dave Eisler. What am I missing? What else about Dave’s tenure from your perspective would be useful to think about? 58 KL: Probably technology is the most significant thing. We did get some graduate programs under Dave. JS: Was that a pretty high priority for him, or was he just responding to what was going on? KL: I think he was just responding. I don’t ever remember aside from technology talking to Dave about some global vision for the future. It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, it’s just that I can’t recall. JS: One of the things that I find really interesting, and it continues with Mike, is that you have since Bob, and even before Bob with Dello, these are academics. Dello was in history, Bob chemistry, Dave while it was music it was still an academic discipline, and obviously with Mike its economics. And so you’ve always had a strong academic in the role of academic vice president. When Paul steps away, Dave is an applicant for that job and is not selected. How did that work in terms of Dave’s process? I wasn’t really sure that he seriously believed that he had the support at Weber and the community to be selected. What’s your perception? KL: Well I think you are right. I was pretty surprised when he applied. But he had been applying for other presidencies. I don’t know if he thought he would get it. I think if he got it he would see it as something in the next phase of his career, but I don’t think that he was committed to this institution or this area at all. I think he thought he would learn as much about interviewing for presidencies by applying. With Dave, it was always about “How do I keep moving forward.” You learn a lot when you apply for something. JS: How do I move forward, but not necessarily how do I land here? 59 KL: Yes. And maybe at some level he thought it was expected. It would not be a good thing since he was the academic vice president not to throw his name in. JS: Why wouldn’t he? KL: Why wouldn’t he? I mean does he have doubts about his own ability? Doesn’t he want this? JS: He strengthened his own position while he continued to look for opportunities. KL: There were probably lots of motives. I know he told me he really believed in Weber State, and that he was really committed to this institution. I’m sure that’s true. JS: You mentioned that early on he and Ann were involved in a broad discussion of technology. Did they become sort of competitors at some point? KL: Yes, absolutely. Dave just had lots of energy! You talk about high energy and he was just always dabbling in lots of things. It was hard to figure out where he was going and what he was taking on and what he wasn’t. He would venture into her territory on multiple occasions… JS: Cross boundaries? KL: Yes, where she would have to reel him in. And quite frankly, I think she applied for the job, she has never said this to me, but I’m pretty convinced that she applied for the job because he did. She had to do something. She has a strong commitment to Weber State as you can imagine. JS: I think that’s a fair statement. KL: So I think she just said, “I feel too strongly about this institution to let just anybody be in charge.” Again, those are not her words, but mine. 60 JS: No. KL: Just from observing her over… JS: A long time. KL: A long time. JS: While Weber has had strong academics as academic vice president, in the last period of time the presidents, while all of them have had experience in higher ed, some more than others, they have really brought a different focus. Faculty say to me, one of these days will have an academic as president. It’s not going to happen. KL: It’s not going to happen. The role of the president of a university or college is too much like the role of a CEO of a business. There’s just too much politicking, too much fund raising, too much dealing with the real world, trying to convince people in the real world that we’re not an isolated. Yes, I think that’s gone. I mean you look at the presidents of universities today. Ken Starr the special prosecutor has just taken over Baylor. So institutions are trying to find savvy political animals, and they figure the provost and the deans and the faculty will do the heavy lifting on the academic side, but it’s not going to be the president any more. I just don’t think that will happen. JS: As you remember when that was announced that was kind of a dramatic announcement. KL: Ann’s? JS: Ann’s selection. I thought Dave was probably a better soldier than I might have been. He was there. 61 KL: That’s a hard place to be. I remember seeing Dave that day and said, “Who’s going to be president?” and he said, “Well it’s not me because I didn’t get the call last night. My friend who applied, didn’t get the call last night. He’s in the room and I’m in the room so it’s got to be who isn’t in the ball room. I don’t see Ann so it must be Ann.” JS: Oh my. He stayed for a little while, but not long. KL: Well he was applying to places quite actively. JS: And ended up becoming a president, but that’s another story. Well we talked a little about Paul’s approach. We’ve touched on Ann’s lets end with that. KL: Okay. JS: What is it that Ann brings as president? KL: I think in some ways she brings similar things to what Paul did. Ann has a real heart for Weber State. I think Paul does too. I mean I know that Paul has been at BYU, but his upbringing was in this part of northern Utah. So I think they both have very strong emotional commitment to this university and just take it very seriously, the stewardship of this institution in a way than maybe Dave. Maybe that was just Dave’s personality that he was more flippant and light hearted. But I think they are real serious about this. JS: And they see this link between community and campus. KL: Yes and Paul does probably because he was born and raised here, and Ann does because of her Continuing Ed connection. That perspective really makes you see the community as being strong partners. She’s just taken that and sort of built on that. 62 JS: And obviously the time she was in development lend its self to that as well. KL: Yes. JS: Dave left fairly quickly after Ann becomes president and you were the interim provost. KL: Yes, for a year. Dave got the call like in May and was gone by July 1st. JS: What did you notice that was different in going from associate provost to interim provost under a new president? It’s a lot of change. KL: It is, but you know Ann was not an unknown commodity. I think it would have been a much more awkward transition if she hadn’t come up through the ranks at Weber State. So I had worked with her on and off in a variety of capacities over the years. So I kind of knew her style. Ann is a very methodical person. She keeps her cards pretty close to the vest. Dave was just kind of out there. And so I knew that about her. I knew that she would be very supportive. I mean that she would work hard to help me in that year. She knew that I was taking on a lot and that I was doing it for the good of the institution, because I told her right at the outset that I wasn’t interested in applying for the job. I knew that just wasn’t where I needed to be. So actually it was kind of fun, because Ann was president, Vicki Gorrell was the vice president for Development, Toni Weight was the interim head of student affairs and I was the interim provost and we sat around the table in the board room and I said, “Hells bells look at this, you don’t see this too often. The women finally rule!” Some men there, but in some meetings it would just be women sitting around, so it was kind of fun in that regard. 63 JS: It must have been really nice. This is out of order in a way, but that’s another thing about Bob. He really promoted women at this school Marie Kotter was an associate vice president for a period of times and other kinds of things. It’s been interesting to see that. With Ann, Ann brings as you say that long perspective at a lot of different levels on this campus. They did a national search for provost, but it wasn’t something that you were interested in. KL: It wasn’t and it was an unsuccessful search the first time around. We brought two or three people to campus and Ann was just, I don’t know this, but I just think she was sort of maybe reacting to Dave and wanted to make sure that the person that she hired was really going to do a good job by Weber State. I thought some of the finalists that we brought to campus, one or two, would have been acceptable, but Ann said that they didn’t pass muster for her. JS: I don’t think that faculty were particularly keen on any of the candidates. That’s just me and that’s just a guess. Well ultimately Mike became provost. KL: He did. And he did not apply the first round. He didn’t. It was just so awkward with the two of us. It was just clumsy. JS: It must have been. KL: Yes, it was thoroughly clumsy. JS: But again he is somebody that faculty see as a colleague as well as a provost. That is my perception. So you left at the end of 2004? KL: I did. JS: But you didn’t go back to Dental Hygiene. KL: No. 64 JS: How come? KL: Well, health care is a discipline in general where you need to be really current in order to be effective. I had been so removed John from that for over a dozen years that I thought, “I probably won’t be real helpful and I guess I could invest the time and initiative to get up to speed, but I don’t know that that’s what I want to do. “So I asked Ann if she would support me in being involved with remedial education. I knew that I was going to retire in either two or four years. It’s now four years. So I said, “All I’m asking for is a commitment. I want to teach and do what I can to help those programs become stronger. I think they serve a really important role in the university. But you’re not going to cut the programs and try to eliminate them all together then let me see if I can help. See if I can do something to help the faculty.” I didn’t want to act like I was the white knight, but I thought I could bring something from my years working at the university to kind of create a more cohesive structure, a stronger base, a stronger foundation for those students. JS: Well, I think that’s what’s happened. And I’m glad that’s the way it went. I can understand that trying to retool and go back into something that you really haven’t done for some time is difficult. KL: It disrupts the department. Marie didn’t go back to her home department. Though went back to the health professions, but it’s just a delicate balance. You don’t want to say, “Well I’m back” and “All the people that have kind of grown up, and taken on lives of their own say, “Well do we have to give it back to her? What’s she coming back here for?” 65 JS: Have you enjoyed the last four years? KL: It’s been great. I’ve had great fun. You know one of the things I did as associate provost was to teach in the first year experience program so I started to teach as associate provost first year students, which was a very different experience than I had in Dental Hygiene where I was teaching majors, people that have applied and been accepted into our competitive program and knew what they wanted to do. I kind of like the experience of teaching people who are pretty clueless whether or not college was a good fit, because on some level I felt like that when I was in college. My first year I just wasn’t sure I liked it, but I wasn’t sure if this was where I was supposed to be. So it was fun for me to be with those students in developmental English and math. It just took that and expanded it. There are lots of ways to do it poorly, but you can have such an impact on students. They are so on the edge whether they are going to stick with it, or go, and having a real positive experience helps. JS: I think they need somebody that they can relate to them. And I don’t mean by that to they go down to their level or any of that, but I mean somebody that understands those kinds of questions. Some people have that and some don’t. You know, college is not the place for everybody. KL: It’s not and I wish more regular faculty were interested in teaching developmental students. I understand why. If I had a Ph.D. in English or math I would not, but there is so much satisfaction to be gained from interacting with those students and showing them the joy of learning that content. I’m disappointed somewhat that we don’t have more full time faculty. 66 JS: Understand it, but it may be missing something. KL: Well yes, I don’t think they should do it all the time, but I think most full time faculty aren’t at all interested and I understand they want to teach graduate level classes, upper division class, lower division if they have to, composition if they are forced to by the dean or department chair, but don’t tell me I have to teach something that is developmental. JS: No, I think that is an accurate statement. It’s understandable. I guess as I look at your career, maybe this is the place to end, this interview. What I’m struck with is the breadth of your career, obviously, but the willingness from time to time to reinvent yourself. That doesn’t always happen in higher education. It certainly doesn’t often happen within a discipline. But the opportunities you had in a variety of ways were matched by the willingness to say “Why not?” And I think that sets a really good example that follow, to think about. Don’t get completely pigeon holed. Be open to some new ideas.