Oral History Program Helen James Lundak Interviewed by Ruby Licona 14 December 2007 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Helen James Lundak Interviewed by Ruby Licona Special Projects Librarian 14 December 2007 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: Lundak, Helen James, an oral history by Ruby Licona, 14 December 2007, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Helen James Lundak 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Helen James Lundak. It was conducted on December 14, 2007 by Ruby Licona and concerns her recollections and experiences with Weber State University. RL: This is an interview with Helen James Lundak, professor emeritus, who was at Weber State from 1971 and retired in 2000. Good morning, Helen. HL: Good morning. RL: Let me just ask you, to begin with, about your background, where you were born, where you did your schooling and so on, and then we’ll get into how you came to Weber. HL: I was born in Nebraska City, Nebraska. My mother had studied to be a chemist and to teach school, but during the Great Depression that was not possible for a woman. My father was an attorney and a farmer here in Nebraska City. After I graduated from Nebraska City High School, I went to the University of Nebraska and received my bachelor’s degree in Chemistry. I had changed my major rather late in my career and decided I didn’t know much chemistry, so I’d better go to graduate school to learn a little more. I continued at Nebraska and got my degree, my Ph. D., in Analytical Chemistry. I spent a year at the University of Arizona as a post-doctoral research associate and then started applying for jobs. By this time I had definitely decided that I wanted to teach and that I preferred an institution where teaching was the primary emphasis and research would be a second. I started applying and actually found at that time there weren’t too many openings. A year or two earlier 2 there were just lots of them. But I was more limited and started applying different places. Weber administrators called me up and suggested that I might be a perfect match. I was very nervous, but as soon as I was on campus, I thought it was a great place with wonderful people to work with. I never regretted saying yes. RL: So they actually contacted you to apply rather than… HL: No, I saw the advertisement in Chemical and Engineering News, and I applied. Spence Seager, who was the department chairman for quite a while at that time and continued for maybe twenty years, called me and asked for a telephone interview. He then called me back and said that I was the leading candidate: they were only going to bring one in for interviews and, if it worked, they would offer a position. And so I flew into Salt Lake City, and Spence met me at the airport. We got in his car and he reached to turn off the radio, I said, “Oh is that Utah?” I think it was the Stars at that time. And he said, “Yes, it is. Do you follow basketball?” I said, “Yes, if I can get them on the radio in Tucson.” I was a great sports fan, and I think that really helped me seal the deal. RL: Well, you were the first female in the College of Science weren’t you? HL: I was. RL: Maybe your sports interest helped them to feel that you could fit in with the boys? HL: Well, I think that’s true, that I had something in common. Growing up in Nebraska, people were football fans although maybe not as avid as they are now. I had been the third daughter, and I think that my dad had decided that he 3 had to convert someone to being interested. I still enjoy spectating at sports a lot. RL: So tell me a little about your department when you arrived, in terms of the intellectual climate. You said you came here primarily because you wanted to teach undergraduates; was that the common attitude in the department? HL: Very definitely. I think that they were very, very concerned about teaching, doing the best job they could, preparing students for a wide variety of activities from working on advanced degrees in Chemistry, to going to medical school or dental school, or going into the community as a chemist. Chemistry is really kind of a unique science because it opens the door to many different activities. I think that the department, then and still, has a very strong reputation for helping to open those doors. I can’t remember exactly how many of us were there; I would say maybe eight or nine. RL: Do you remember who some of your colleagues were at the time? HL: Yes, Spence Seager, Garth Welch, Robert Beishline, Park Guymon, Bryant Miner, Stephen Stoker. Mike Slabaugh had come and taught summer school that year, and he and I essentially started together. I think that was a real advantage for both of us, that there were two us that started at the same time. When you think of it as a male and a female starting at the same time, it made a case for equity. So there was never any question about whether I was treated fairly or if Mike was treated fairly. We both were. RL: And what about the campus in general? What struck you when you first came here? 4 HL: It struck me that it was a larger institution than I initially expected. I don’t remember how many students we had at that time, but I’d say 8,000 or 9,000, something like that. But it also still had a very strong two-year program. COAST and the School of Technology and the School of Allied Health created a unique atmosphere. Another thing that struck me was that the faculty across the campus knew one another so well. For instance, when you had registration everybody went to the ballroom. Each department had a desk, and the students would line up to see if a class was available, RL: To get class cards? HL: Right. Also, most of the faculty found some time during the day, or days, to check to see how their classes were filling. Everybody was visiting with each other, and you really got to know your colleagues across campus in that atmosphere, as well as other activities that were going on. I felt that by the time I left that aspect kind of changed. The faculty knew each other, but it was different. RL: Your main comparison with Weber would have to be with Nebraska then, wouldn’t it? HL: It would. RL: And at the time Nebraska would have had what? -in the high twenties in student enrollment? HL: No, I think it was about 20,000 maybe. It was a lot more. I don’t know how many Chemistry faculty, for instance, Nebraska had, but their interactions tended to be within the Chemistry Department very strictly. They’d know a few 5 mathematicians, they might know a few physicists, but it wasn’t that crosscampus atmosphere. It was more departmental. RL: And what about the students? HL: Nebraska was more of a residential campus, and Weber was more a commuter campus. I think that changed too. At Nebraska, the students tended to know better the people they lived with and a few of the folks they took classes with. At Weber it was kind of the opposite, I found. Students definitely knew their classmates. By the time Chemistry students were juniors and seniors, they had been in every class together, or lots of classes together. They really knew each other. And at Nebraska there would have been several sections. They knew each other, but they didn’t study together. RL: The classes would have been much larger. HL: Yes, and we didn’t have a place where we went, the same way, to study. At Weber, when I first went there, each science had what they called a reading room. Now those have all been converted into offices, but they were rooms on our office floor that had desks and bookshelves for references, and students would go there and study. If they had problems, they just ran down the hall and asked the faculty. So there was a lot of that kind of interaction. I think it still occurs but it’s a little more remote because the students are more likely to be studying in a more centralized location, or on the laboratory floors, or something. An instructor isn’t two doors down. RL: So, in addition to your teaching and research, what other activities did you undertake while you were at Weber? 6 HL: Well, immediately, because I was the only woman in science, I was asked to serve on almost every committee that there was at that time. I mean definite saturation. RL: You had to be a token female. HL: I was it for a lot of activities for a number of years. In fact, I would say throughout my career, I was asked to serve on many, many committees. And in fact, I think the very first one I served on looked at the process of doing student evaluations; some things never change. I think I served on another one of those about twenty years later, and I’m sure that still goes on. Probably some of the big ones I ended up serving on: I was on the athletic board for a number of years and served as the chair of it for a long time. RL: Working with the athletic director or…. HL: The athletic director, community people, students, faculty. It was a broad representation. I got to know a lot of people in the community. RL: Did you have NCAA involvement in that committee? HL: They weren’t directly involved, but I actually served as chair of two committees over the whole athletic program. RL: And that would have been quite a job because that would have been about the time they were trying to create equity for females, Title IX involvement and so forth. HL: Actually my tenure on that stretched over close to twenty years. So I saw it change a lot over those years. I served on, I think it was two different Strategic Planning committees, the second of which I chaired for President Thompson. 7 RL: I think it was about, the summer of ’93 that that we were all holed up trying to decide what direction the committee was going to go. HL: That’s probably about right. That sounds pretty close. I chaired that committee. I had served on the committee that helped bring Bob Smith to campus as the provost. And then I was chair of the committee that searched and eventually chose Dave Eisler as the provost. Let’s see. What else did they have me do? I know I served on a couple of committees that chose athletic directors too. I became known as the person, I hope, who not only represented my area of campus, but tried to do things that represented the entire campus. RL: Well, I think you were highly respected, because of your competence and the breadth of your knowledge and abilities. HL: I hope so. I certainly enjoyed a lot of those activities although many of them knocked me down a bit. RL: Now did you have any administrative responsibilities in your department or in your college? HL: I served as acting dean of the college. I think that was in ’87-’88, and I also served as department chair for six years in the 90’s. RL: And what about Faculty Senate? HL: I think I only ended up having one term on that. Oh! I know one thing I did do that I was actually quite proud of: I served as the university curriculum chair for six years. Almost immediately I realized that we didn’t have any written procedures that we were following. It was just kind of, “Oh yeah, this is the way we do 8 things.” I think part of that shows the growth of the university through that period of time. And so I suggested that we get a policy manual for curriculum, that not only stated our policies, but also our procedures- how you went about getting things done. RL: So it standardized things. HL: It standardized things. Somebody came along and said, “Oh we really don’t need that. Let’s quit doing that. Everybody doesn’t need that in the department offices.” Within a few months they realized that they did. So they reprinted the policy manual, and I thought, “Yes, I was right. We need something written down.” RL: Well now, how would assess your interaction with the Weber students, Helen? HL: I think I had a good relationship with them. One of my goals when I first started at Weber was to be able to walk into a classroom and, at least by the end of the term, call everybody by name. RL: Makes a big difference, doesn’t it? HL: It does. It has made a big difference in my career. I had been in a large freshman Chemistry class. When I say large, I’d say there were, oh, at least a 150-200 students in it. And one day the professor happened to call me by name. I still don’t know how he knew my name, but he called me by name in the hallway, and it impressed me so much. I thought, “You know, if I ever get to that position I’m going to try and do that.” Well it was pretty easy when I first started, because most of my classes had (and I’m talking about beginning types of classes) probably had fifty, sixty students in them, in a 101 type of class. But those last few years I had classes quite often that had 120 students. So it got harder to call 9 everybody by name. And it might not happen until the last day of class, but I think I achieved it every single time. RL: Now, I would imagine that the College of Science would have been one of the areas that first started seeing an influx of international students. Would you agree with that, or what was your experience as far as bringing in international students? HL: I can’t remember the exact time, but it was fairly early in my career. We had quite a number of students in sciences from Iran. Some were even Chem. Majors. Quite a few students that I continued to hear from for several after they graduated, had been from Iran. And then there were some other Middle Eastern countries represented. And then eventually more from Asia and Africa. And sometimes it was a real difficult experience for them in terms of culture. One of the things that we were very proud of was trying to have a very strong laboratory program, hands-on experience, for Chemistry students. In a lot of other countries, laboratories are, well frankly, they’re too expensive to have. So a lot of these students didn’t come in with the hands-on experience like even our high schools included. I think sometimes that was particularly difficult for them. And I also did experience a few times, the “I don’t want you to teach me.” RL: Oh? HL: It tended to be from some of the foreign students, particularly from the Middle Eastern students. I don’t think that would be as true now as it was thirty years ago. RL: Well, did you encounter any of that even from native born students? 10 HL: I remember one time [Laughter] one of my very first classes I taught, that I went in the very first day and I thought I had explained myself and told them all about me, you know, that I was the instructor and this is what the course would be like. But afterwards a student came up and said, “Are you really our instructor?” And I said, “Well, yes.” And it was kind of like, “A woman doesn’t teach science.” Well, this one did, and I learned something. It sounds kind of little, but it made a big difference. After that on my syllabi I always wrote my name as Dr. Helen James. RL: And it did make a difference? HL: I don’t think that there is any doubt about it. In general, I think I mostly felt the other response, and that was, “Oh, this is kind of neat. You can teach chemistry too.” RL: Well, if they only knew how much chemistry you have to know in a kitchen. [Laughter] HL: Well and I think that was part of it, because I did hear a lot of kitchen examples. Maybe more than some of my other colleagues did. RL: They might not have known them. [Laughter] HL: I think most of them did. RL: Now, what about your recollections of Weber’s chief administrators, starting with the deans in your college, and then provosts and presidents? HL: Okay, my first dean was Dello Dayton. And at that time Arts, Letters and Sciences were all together. There were only about three colleges; well I don’t think that they were even called colleges, they were schools. Dello was a gentleman and always treated me very nicely. And at that time Helmut Hoffman 11 was the academic vice president. And I remember in my very first interview, he made the comment that he would love to see a woman or a minority in the sciences. He couldn’t tell them to hire one, but he was really hoping that they would. And that was such a refreshing contrast to a different interview I had been on, where the vice president had literally told me that the department was going to hire a minority. And they really didn’t want to. And so they didn’t want to hire me. RL: And you didn’t want to be there, did you? HL: No, in fact, I had decided that if they offered me the job I’d refuse it. Well, I didn’t need to worry about it because Weber did offer me the job. After the College of Arts, Letters and Sciences split, then Garth Welch from the Chemistry Department, became dean. Dennis Travis was the next dean, and then I was acting dean after him, and then Cy McKell and Ron Galli, and I wasn’t there when Dale Ostlie took over. But usually I had a pretty good relationship with all of them. I knew all the academic vice presidents and provosts and worked with them on different activities. RL: So Hoffman was the one when you first came here? Who came after that? HL: It was a friend of President Bishop’s, I think. I don’t remember. RL: Well that’s okay. HL: There was one that, when Joe Bishop was president, that he brought in a friend. The guy thought that he would be able to run the show in terms of academics. And I think that’s when it became very clear to me, and to the faculty at Weber, that we had much larger roles to play than on some campuses. My husband, we 12 were married in 2002, teaches at a small school here in Nebraska. Their faculty develop classes, and make some recommendations on schedule and all, but it isn’t as a close relationship with the administration, as I always felt it was at Weber. RL: And I think there was, at least in the ‘90’s when I first got here, a lot of unity, even across departments, as you said earlier. Maybe because people knew each other, or worked together and so forth, but I think that is different from other places. HL: I think it is too. I really, over the years, became more aware of it, and it’s been reinforced as I talk to my husband about what they do at his college, because the president and the vice president make a lot of decisions, just on their own, if you will. Compared to Weber, where they may have made the final decision, but they got a lot more input in the process. RL: And they’re presented with a lot of choices and so forth. Now when I had been speaking with someone earlier, with Gloria Wurst, about the College of Science, one of the things that she said was that she felt that the whole process of developing a research arm and so forth had been more of a grass roots thing created by people deciding on their own that this was something they wanted to do, in addition to their teaching. There was not an edict from on high that research would be done. Would that be your take on it? HL: I think, that there was always a feeling that you should do some type of research. I think that the importance of it, how it was viewed in terms of tenure and promotion, changed over the years. Research became more important in those 13 decisions, and I felt that teaching kinds of research should be valued a bit more. Maybe I felt that way because pedagogical research was my own interest. I had done a lot of work on active learning styles and took a sabbatical on it, did some research, did some publications in that area, and it was a more pedagogical research. RL: Well, we did have more of a push in the early 90’s in terms of the Writing Across the Curriculum program and that kind of thing. I think that also helped to bring the faculty together from different areas, along with the vitality grants and so forth. I think Bob Smith had something to do with some of the changes. HL: I think he was the vice president that was a little more interested in the research. These people have a very strong feeling, about what happened in the classroom and with students. RL: Well, he was a chemist by training, wasn’t he? HL: He was. RL: And yet I felt that he worked very well with the Arts and Humanities. HL: Oh he was excellent. I think he had a very strong interest in them. Yes, I think in many ways he was as much a philosopher as he was a chemist. RL: Now what about when Dave Eisler came? Did you see a change in attitudes or procedures or anything? HL: I don’t know. That’s about the time that it seems like we were growing in such a way that we weren’t as close as faculty. I don’t know if he had that influence or it was just the culture in general. I don’t really remember that we had quite that emphasis across campus. 14 RL: And did you say you were on the committee that hired President Thompson? HL: I was on that committee. I was on the one for Smith, and I chaired the one for Eisler. RL: Okay, so you had quite a hand in some of the developments then, even if it was indirect. HL: Right. I think that’s probably true. RL: How would you describe changes that took place under President Thompson? HL: He was more of a president, I think, who really tried to get a lot of input from a lot of different areas, and would then make his decision. I think sometimes that actually backfired, because everybody expected him to follow whatever they thought. And so he didn’t please everybody who had been part of the process. Maybe it’s a little more a sense of disappointment. I think they thought that, he at times, was a little more indecisive. I don’t know, that was just a feeling I got. I really enjoyed working with him on the projects that we worked on. I always felt, whether it was reviewing the athletic program or even Strategic Planning, that he was always there for me and willing, not only listen to my concerns and help me figure out the process, but he gave me support in terms of staff support making sure that someone was there that could help with the paper work or whatever I needed. And I really enjoyed working with him. I really liked President Thompson. RL: Well, I think he had a great deal to do with changes in terms of diversity on campus. HL: Oh, I think he did too. And I think the fact that he is LDS and still went ahead and did the first of these things, was a real strength. I think someone who wasn’t 15 [LDS] would have had a harder time implementing some of those changes. I think he also saw the need for some real changes in technology There was a real change during those years to bring technology into our offices and involve students. RL: More coordination in bringing us into the future, so to speak. HL: Yes, I mean it had happened before, but I think it was even stronger during that period of time. I think he sincerely wanted to look to the future, through Strategic Planning and trying to strengthen aspects of the campus that really needed to be strengthened. He was concerned that we were trying to do too many things with too little, and sometimes that backfired. But I thought he was an extremely sincere man. RL: Now you mentioned his being LDS. When you first came here, was that something that you were aware of on the campus, how many people were LDS or weren’t? HL: Lots of times I do notice. But take my own department: I was the only one who wasn’t. So not only was I the only woman, I was the only non-Mormon. And for a few people, I think that was hard. It didn’t happen to be hard for me. In fact, if anything, I think it strengthened me, and so I feel like it was almost an advantage. RL: Well, it makes you more aware of what your own views and beliefs are. HL: Exactly. And so for me, I thought it was great. And I enjoyed learning about a different religion, a different culture, and I felt very comfortable with it, but I don’t 16 think that was always the case. The wife of the man I replaced just couldn’t handle the fact that it was a Mormon community… RL: Being an outsider. HL: And that’s why they left. But I always felt very comfortable. The culture had aspects that I found rather odd. I think the campus was more LDS at that time; it’s faded over the years. RL: Weber has undergone a great deal of change in the last fifty years. Maybe you could share some of your recollections of some of the key events. Now the college was already on this campus when you came, is that correct? HL: Yes it was. It was a four-year school. RL: You would have been here for the change to university status? HL: I think I was on the steering committee. I was part of that process. RL: Did you feel that gaining university status made any big difference? HL: It made a lot more difference than I expected. RL: Oh really? How so? HL: I definitely thought it was a much more a cosmetic thing, and that it was being done more…. RL: Politically? HL: Politically, for faculty and students to affirm that they were part of a university. I didn’t really think that it was going to make as big a difference in other people’s perspective of us as I think it did. For instance, if you’re a university, you can start thinking more about graduate degrees. It is okay for your faculty to be more involved in research. I think there was a large change in the whole campus 17 atmosphere by becoming a university, and it also affected the outsiders’ view of Weber. RL: As in the legislature or… HL: The legislature, the regents, the whole structure. RL: And nationally, I suppose, in terms of recruitment. HL: I really was surprised at what I perceived as a change in atmosphere. I think that even in recruiting faculty, it made a difference. RL: Now, were you here for the semester conversion? HL: Oh yes, I was department chair. Yes, I was definitely there for semester conversion. In Life Sciences the change had more of an impact than it did in Chemistry. I think, in a lot of our classes, it was pretty easy to decide how to change them. Scheduling suddenly became a whole different issue. I think the review of all the classes in General Education tended to be a little bit basic. RL: And you were glad that you weren’t on the Curriculum Committee at this time? HL: You are right. That’s exactly what I was. RL: Now you mentioned that you took part in a couple of Strategic Planning efforts, and that you chaired the committee in the early ‘90’s. HL: I chaired the one that Dr. Thompson ran. RL: Yes. Was there a strong outcry against changes recommended by the committee? What exactly happened in that process? HL: I actually think that, in general, the overall goals of the committee were fairly excessive. I mean that vision included such things as updated technology; still being interested in the students and having a good faculty-student relationship. 18 The divisiveness came when we started looking at every department, every program on campus, suggesting that some might be eliminated, some might be advanced. It got pretty heated, and people felt that I and the other committee members were not listening, so it got a little sharp. Fortunately I tended to forget it. I didn’t take anything personally because, after all, I would feel the same way if my program weren’t safe. It was kind of a hard time. Probably the changes should have been made within the purview of each vice president. The vice presidents and the deans should have been working on it with their colleagues rather than at a big university scale. RL: It sounds like it was a tremendous undertaking. Were any of the cuts carried out, or was it all set aside? HL: I don’t remember anything being cut. I do think there were a lot more subtle changes. I really don’t remember big changes except, possibly as I’ve already mentioned, with technology and having more emphasis on computers. RL: What are your recollections of social life at Weber? How would you assess the relationship between the faculty and the staff, or the faculty with one another? In general, did people intermingle and socialize in the department and on campus? HL: Different departments handled it differently. One thing that was really fun and neat, when I first came, was that the secretaries in the Science Department always went out to lunch once a month, and they invited me to go. We were the Wonderful World…. RL: Wonderful Women of Weber Science or something like that? HL: Something like that. 19 RL: Okay, and then later I understand there was a Ladies Libation League. HL: Yes, and I was never part of that. I remember one time one of my colleagues saying, “Gosh, how do you get all this stuff done?” I think it was when I was chair of the committee that was doing academic awards at the end of the year. I would just go to all the secretaries in the College of Science and say, “Can you do this for me?” Well, I knew them all, and I got great cooperation, and I thought that the Wonderful World of Women in Science was just great because I got a lot done through it. RL: I think that one of the things that women learned in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s was the importance of networking. I think that we were able to get a lot more things done because of cooperation and camaraderie that existed. HL: Well, I think that’s probably true. And I cannot remember the name of the committee that was looking at equity. I was part of it for a year or two. The women who had been hired before me were often the first to have really advanced degrees. I could feel a real difference in their attitude compared to mine. I was just enough younger that I hadn’t been the trailblazer quite the same way that they had been; and I could definitely feel a difference. They had more of a chip on their shoulders than I did on certain issues. I had been hired at the same time as Mike Slabaugh, and partly because of that, if there were a salary issue with one of us. There was this direct comparison, with the other one. Some of those gals didn’t have a direct comparison and always felt that they’d always got the lower salary, or the lower opportunities for advancement. I never had that feeling. I was very fairly evaluated. 20 RL: In that respect, you were kind of a trailblazer as far as the College of Science. HL: Oh, definitely. RL: Because other women coming need to be treated in the same way, I would think. HL: I think that’s true. There was one gal who seemed to have a hard time, but I think it was her attitude. I don’t really think it was the college. Again, it’s real important, whatever the hire is: male, female, minority, whoever, that people learn to get along together. RL: Now what about your assessment of settling into Ogden off-campus? In forming a social life, what was your evaluation of the intellectual life in Ogden, the cultural life and so forth? How did you go about making friends and making a life for yourself here? HL: I was fortunate to have been part of a women’s organization called PEO, Philanthropic Educational Organization. As soon as I moved to Ogden, they contacted me, and I became active in the chapter. I also joined a Presbyterian church, and became very active there. I would say that a good share of my activities revolved around the church. When I first came to campus there was a faculty women’s organization. That doesn’t seem like the right name because most of them were wives of faculty members. They had a new faculty members’ group, and I became part of that and did some activities with them. P.E.O. that helps support different educational opportunities for women. It’s not real active in Utah, but it was real important to me because I met a lot of people who were off campus. Just basically like a support group. RL: Okay, so it would be like the American University Women, or something like that? 21 HL: Oh exactly. RL: Fund raising, scholarships, etc.? HL: Exactly. RL: So between that and your church you felt you were able to make a place for yourself in the community. HL: Exactly, and then there was a group that met once a month, couples and singles. I don’t remember how many of us there were, twelve or fourteen of us that met and had dinner and played bridge or other kinds of card games. I mean, I just became part of the community. RL: Was that part of the group that Sally Arway dined with? HL: Right. RL: Okay I think they’re still meeting. HL: Mary Jo, and George Latulippe. It was a good group. That kind of passed the boundary of community and campus. RL: Now are there other things about your Weber State and Ogden experience that might be useful to discuss that we haven’t touched on already? HL: Well, probably, but I’m not sure what. [Laughter] I just know that I felt like Weber was a great place to be, a great opportunity. I really felt like we were doing what we set out to do, and that was to teach students and enjoy it, give them a good experience. I was, and I am, very proud of the accomplishments of our students. RL: And do you still keep up with any of your students? HL: Not really directly. There are several that are actually teaching at Weber State: Layne Berghout, Andy Lippert, Kyle Ashby, Ed Walker. I had all of them in class. 22 But I know others that have gone on to be doctors. Steve Scharmann is in Ogden. I know people at other campuses, teaching Chemical Education, or Chemical Engineering, or whatever. It’s neat to think that you had that kind of interaction and that they have succeeded and done well. One of the things that I did that I’m very pleased about is that I helped to establish the Chemistry faculty scholarship, which has helped quite a few students achieve their education. It’s an endowment fund, and I support it. I think that is a really worthwhile thing. RL: And were there any student organizations that you were involved with? HL: I can’t think of any. We had a Sigma Xi club, which elected student membersthat’s a science honorary. I thought that was a very worthwhile organization although the students were usually elected their senior year as they were graduating, so they really didn’t become a part of it. RL: So it was not an active chapter; it was more of an honorarium thing. HL: The chapter typically had a meeting once a month, at which one of the faculty members would talk about their research. One of the problems with Weber growing is, it became harder to figure how to schedule that so that most of the faculty could attend. But early in my career, everybody went to the Sigma Xi meeting every month. Another thing that helped to really get to know people- this sounds funny- but they had a faculty bowling league. RL: I don’t think it’s funny at all. I think it would have been great to maintain some of the camaraderie. 23 HL: Well, every Thursday afternoon at five o’clock the bowling alley was full of faculty and staff. Dello Dayton, who was the dean at that time, was on it. Seems like we had vice presidents and faculty and custodians and… RL: Was that at the bowling alley on campus. HL: Yes, it was right on campus. RL: I know there was a library team. HL: Oh yes. Sally Arway bowled on it for awhile, I think, and Craige Hall, and they were good. See the team I was on- we weren’t very good, but boy did we have fun. HL: As I said, I just really enjoyed my experience at Weber and I would have stayed if my family had been closer. I wouldn’t have retired at the time I did, but it just felt like it was time to come home and be closer to family. RL: And you met someone and got married? HL: I did. I had met Joe’s late wife at several organizations and, after she passed away, he happened to think of me and we started dating, then got married. Life is good.