Oral History Program Robert A. Clarke Interviewed by Harold C. Bateman November 1974 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Robert A. Clarke Interviewed by Harold C. Bateman Emeritus Professor of History November 1974 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 College Oral History Program was created in the early 1970s to “record and document, through personal reminiscences, the history, growth and development of Weber State College.” Through interviews with administrators, faculty and students, the program’s goal was to expand the documentary holdings on Weber State College and its predecessor entities. From 1970 to 1976, the program conducted some fifteen interviews, under the direction of, and generally conducted by Harold C. Bateman, an emeritus professor of history. In 1979, under the direction of archivist John Sillito, the program was reestablished and six interviews were conducted between 1979 and 1983. Additional interviews were conducted by members of the Weber State community. ____________________________________ 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: Clarke, Robert A., an oral history by Harold C. Bateman, November 1974, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Robert A. Clarke 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Robert A. Clarke (born 1911). Mr. Clarke served in several capacities at Weber State College from 1937 to 1976. The interview was conducted in November, 1974 by Harold C. Bateman in order to gather Mr. Clarke’s recollections and experiences as Professor (1937), Dean of Faculty (1947), and Administrative Vice President (1967) at Weber State College. HB: Dr. Clark, what events occured which caused President Leland H. Creer to offer you employment at Weber State College? RC: In the early spring of 1937, I was just finishing my doctor's degree at Cal Tech, and Dr. Hales at BYU, my major professor, wrote and told me about an opening at Weber. I applied to President Creer for an opening in teaching mathematics and physics, and he offered me a contract. HB: I believe President Creer resigned his presidency at the college to accept a teaching position at the Department of History at the University of Utah soon after you were offered employment. You and President Dixon arrived at Weber, I believe, about the same time in 1937. Is that right? RC: This is right. It was President Dixon's first year and also my first year. I had an assignment of teaching mathematics the first year. I taught algebra and analytical geometry as I remember. HB: Did Weber College have an administrative council at this time? RC: My best memory is that President Dixon treated the faculty on a one to one basis; there were no departments, no schools. His bench in his front office was 2 lined with faculty members and staff members from morning till night trying to get in to see President Dixon when I first got to the college. HB: Do you remember when the administrative council was founded? RC: I believe the reorganization took place about 1941-1943, somewhere in that region. At that time, President Dixon organized a number of academic divisions, and the Administrative Council was set up at that time. I'd like to talk about the interim there, the early years of the Dixon administration when you have time for it. President Dixon had been superintendent of schools in the Provo district before he came to Weber and had been doing some outstanding work with the vocational education at Provo High School. When he was appointed President of Weber State College, he had in mind that the college should do much more in the vocational fields than it was doing, and he had a good background for this area. President Dixon became associated with the American Association of Junior Colleges, and he became immersed with the literature in the field of the community college, which was new at that time. As a result, his thrust with the faculty and the college from 1937 to the time the war production program got going was in the vocational fields. We began to develop a national reputation in those few years. One of the outcomes of the activities and studies was that President Dixon took a leave for a few months, and with a group of faculty, he prepared a book entitled The Organization and Development of Occupational Curriculum in a Few Selected Community Colleges. Of course, Weber College was the model for the book, and this book went out of print quickly after it was published. 3 HB: I believe we have some copies of it in the library. RC: It's interesting how the thrust of this program went. At the time President Dixon became President, Irving S. Noalls, who was a state and national leader in vocational education, had just completed, in connection with the state department of public instruction, a number of statewide surveys regarding occupations. In connection with his surveys, the faculty, under President Dixon's direction, made a number of occupational surveys here in Ogden also. In those days, the state Department of Employment Security was not available to do that kind of work for us the way it is now. We had to go out and do it for ourselves. And I remember in Ogden, that the average age of carpenters was over 60 years of age. It was so carefully controlled—apprentices going into the trades—that many craftsmen were over 70 years of age. The carpenters were getting very scarce and the same thing with plumbers and bricklayers and auto mechanics and so on. As soon as this data was collected and the advisory committee set up, including union representatives and members of the employers groups, along with the college, it became evident that some new blood was needed in these different trades and crafts. So the unions agreed to let Weber start training in these trades, and we've been going ever since. But carpentry and bricklaying are the only ones that have been in and out. Well, one other: air conditioning and refrigeration was run for a few years and discontinued, because we'd filled the available job openings in this area. President Creer had been able to get the Legislature to appropriate money for a new technical building on the old campus, the one in which the Ogden city 4 schools now have their offices, and this was a model building. The building was organized in accordance with the philosophy of vocational education. President Dixon and faculty planned it. It had large, comodious shops which were well equipped, classrooms next to the shops where so-called technical courses could be operated. This was consistent with the theory that went along with shop work. There were other classrooms, a little further removed, where the related training was given. Of course, these related classes were usually offered by departments all over the campus, which included English, social science, and other training. With this new plant, and President Dixon's enthusiasm and direction—I didn't mention I was appointed Director of Vocational and Technical Education in 1940, and so I had a big hand in this growth— we began to have visitors on the campus in those days looking at our vocational technical program. Then we began developing a program of adult education. This was not new to Weber College. Adult classes had been organized and operated in the business field for quite a few years. The evening school program under the direction of Guy Hurst had been at the college for quite a few years, but now we broadened the evening school to include the trades that had been added to the day school. HB: Was Guy the first director of night school at Weber? RC: Well, yes, within my knowledge. There may have been others who attempted or helped in that too. He's the only one I remember. LeRoy A. Blaser was very active in this field for a number of years here at Weber before he went to Utah State. 5 HB: I wonder if you'd tell us what work you did during the war production program? RC: The war production program started in July 1940 and operated through 1945. Remember that the United States declared war on December 7, 1941. HB: Yes. RC: Apparantly the country knew this was coming because over a year and a half previous to this the different programs had been originated. The college had a pilot training program, and I think the National Guard had been called out which involved some of the students and faculty. Previous to the formal declaration of war, in 1940 we were asked to participate by the U.S. Office of Education in the training of war production workers. Do you want me, Harold, to go into the dates here or just summarize a bit? HB: Whatever you think is best. RC: In July 1940 a large reservoir of unemployed workers existed. Thousands were employed by the WPA, the NYA, and CCC. Many others had part time employment which gave them a bare subsistance living and the college was very active in the training of many of these unemployed workers. At this time, the government announced the opening of Hill Air Force Base, and announced the expansion of the Ogden Arsenal, which had been operating many years. HB: When was Hill Field established? RC: It was about 1940. HB: 1940. RC: The Second Street Depot—then it was called the Army Supply Depot—was opened with several thousand workers. The Naval Supply Depot was in 6 Clearfield. All of these government agencies looked to the college for all of the assistance we could give them in training clerical workers, training middle management, foremen, and in training mechanics, especially aircraft mechanics for Hill Field. During the period 1940 to 1943, a tremendous amount of training took place which I'll summarize here in just a few minutes. In the fall of 1940 Colonel Morris Berman, commanding officer of Hill Field, arrived at the depot. He estimated at that time that 3,400 civilian workers would be employed at Hill Field. Actually the civilian employment reached 14,000. See how badly he missed it? Colonel Berman pointed out that Hill Field would need hundreds of aircraft mechanics. These were not available; they would have to be trained. He said that the Army had a regular four year training program for mechanics but this program was way too slow to meet his needs. He needed them within months. The directors of the chamber of commerce referred him to the training program at Weber State College, and it happened that President Dixon was also president of the chamber of commerce that year. President Dixon and myself met with Colonel Berman at Hill Field shortly after this and received detailed lists of occupations in the mechanic trades in which training needed to be provided. Shortly after this, Colonel Berman received approval to employ mechanical workers at $600 per year who could be placed in schools as trainees. Since Weber College had not been training aircraft workers, there were questions to be solved in securing equipment and preparing suitable courses of study. At this time, we turned to the U.S. Office of Education, through the state Department of Education. H.B. Gunderson was the state director of vocational education, and 7 the U.S. Office of Education allocated a specialist, Mr. George Sanders, who came to Ogden and worked with the state Department of Vocational Education and ourselves in setting up courses of study for training of aircraft workers. These were very fine courses of study and served their needs well. HB: I noticed, in 1941, that the first certificates of completion were awarded terminal students. Were they awarded in those particular areas that you're talking about there? RC: No, these were the regular college vocational students. HB: Oh. RC: We just offered these mechanics the training certificates which showed the number of clock hours that they'd trained and the units completed. Now the U.S. Office of Education allotted approximately $10,000 to purchase aircraft equipment. This was the beginning of hundreds of thousands, I guess millions of dollars worth of equipment that was purchased for this program. The depots themselves supplied a lot of the equipment, helped provide us a number of aircraft and specialized engine tools without charge to the college. They helped us carry on the training program. We were supplied instruments—aircraft instruments worth many dollars. HB: That was from you say 1940 to 1944? RC: About that period. It began tapering off as the war came to a conclusion. HB: You mentioned John Gaz and James McCormac, Lorenzo Peterson, and Merlon Stevenson. You might discuss those folks later if you had more that you wanted to add. 8 RC: In 1941, James Carr from the employment service—now that's the Utah State Employment Service—was assigned to be at the college on a full time basis. He helped to recruit and to orient these mechanics into their courses, filling out the paperwork in hiring, that sort of thing. Then Ralph Jensen of the college psychology department worked nearly full time counseling these students. The programs set up included aircraft sheet metal, aircraft engine mechanics, aircraft machine shop, aircraft welding, aircraft leather and canvas work, aircraft painting and doping, and aircraft radio. These were the areas in which the shops had to be set up in the beginning. We used the complete technical building on the old campus. We also used the old Central Building, on the old campus, and the National Guard Armory on 23rd Street. The Standard Examiner is now located in that building. We took over both the rear building and the front building for this program. The National Guard had of course gone to war and were not using it, and it was in this place that we were able to establish these different shops and place the equipment and the faculty. At the time, faculty had to be recruited from all over the country because Utah didn't have sufficient qualified people. I believe I mentioned once when we were talking, that one of my first jobs in this program was to make a trip out to Los Angeles and spend two or three weeks running down leads at the aircraft factories, trying to find men who might be willing to come here. I did succeed in getting William Wood and Glen Scott out of Douglas aircraft plant to come back and take over the aircraft sheetmetal training department, and Orson Johnson from United at Salt Lake airport and another foreman out of Cheyenne, Wyoming 9 in the United Airlines shops to help him and so on. We had to make a strenuous effort to bring these men in, and of course we had to pay them the prevailing wages which were much higher than the faculty on campus were being paid. This caused some eyebrows to be raised by the regular faculty. In the end, it worked for the good of all faculty because all the wages were raised as a result in a few years. But by the fall of 1942, the regular vocational program was practically out of the picture because all the students had either gone to war or else they'd joined up with this new program. So the regular students came in as mechanic trainees and got paid $90 a month while they were in training. So our regular vocational program really phased out from 1941 to 1945. Now, other colleges in the state later began training workers also. Some of those who assisted in getting this program going were Lorenzo E. Peterson, who later became director of vocational education, and Mary B. Brown, who taught the clerical work and supervised the clerical work in the different depots. Clarence Wilson was very active in helping us direct the management and training until he became the director of training at Second Street during the war. John Gaz and James McCormac were faculty members in the college trade program who became supervisors under this program and were very active in training faculty and outlining curricula and so on. W. Harold Handley came in and later became the treasurer at Weber State College. He came in as an assistant in the program to handle the financial affairs. We were handling millions of dollars during this program in wages and equipment purchases and so on. He was very busy trying to manage the financial end of it under my direction. 10 HB: Merlon Stevenson? RC: Merlon Stevenson was running the engineering manpower training in sciences. We were sort of an adjunct of the University of Utah programs here and he managed them. In this program a number of people in the engineering fields were trained. The war production training program falls into three phases. One is the training of the unemployed in refresher courses from July 1940 to July 1942, the mechanical learner training program which ran from June 1941 to October 1943, and the off campus plant supplementary training program which trained people already employed, from 1943 to May 1945 when the program closed down. During the course of the program 335 instructors, clerks and supervisors were employed with a maximum of eighty two at one time. The average cost of training per clock hour has been calculated at twenty eight cents. The war effort on the campus also involved the training of Navy pilots. I remember that this was taken on as a regular college function, not under the vocational department directly, but under the college, and many students were enrolled as regular college students and were later naval cadets. They were housed in the old Weber County courthouse, which has now been torn down. Charles Espy was one of the supervisors. He was one of the English instructors at the college and was one of the supervisors of the residence hall for naval cadets. These naval cadets were carefully selected students. It was a real pleasure for all of us to work with them in training programs. And I don't know how many were trained, but it must have been several hundred. There were several groups that went through. They took their theory training at the college 11 and then the college contracted with the Art Mortenson Flying Service at the Ogden airport to given them their flying experience. And then they went on into regular naval flight schools after leaving here. A report on the WPT program gave the following information—23,931 individuals were enrolled in training in this war production effort. This aided four large government depots in the starting operation in a very short time. Hill Field especially could not have succeeded without such a program. For many months, the great share of aircraft repair workers at Hill Field were former mechanical trainees. Many supervisory positions are now held by these same people. Many workers at the arsenal were shifted from one job to another and upgraded through training. The accident frequency rate dropped markedly during the first three months of supervisory training programs. In addition a great body of workers have been given skills of economic value. The school, through training war production workers, was able to serve essential industries in a very real way, indirectly and directly aiding the war effort. Many of the men and women received federal placement with very little additional training due to the courses completed in that training program. These are the highlights of the war production workers program from the period of July 1940 to June 1945, but a good deal more detail has been included in a hundred page report entitled Financial Report on Vocational Training of War Production Workers, which is found in the Weber College Library. HB: Was the war production training program pretty much discontinued about 1945? 12 RC: Yes, the war was over; the government withdrew the funds for the program. It completely closed, and the college went back to training regular vocational students. HB: An appropriation was authorized by Governor Herbert B. Maw for the purchase of the new campus. Would you care to comment on that? RC: The original 175 acres was purchased in 1948. The 1947 legislature appropriated $50,000 toward the new campus, with the provision that the community of Ogden would match it. A fund drive was conducted which raised $68,000 in ten days, mostly contributions under ten dollars. The whole community subscribed. HB: The faculty. RC: The faculty and the students. This allowed the college to purchase the first 175 acres of the new campus. Then Governor Lee and the legislature made, I think, $1.5 million available for the first few buildings, the heating plant, etc. The buildings were constructed and the college moved onto the new campus, if my memory serves me right, during the summer of 1954. HB: I think it'd be interesting here, if you'd mention something about the selection of the new campus location. I guess there was some fuss kicked up about that according to President Dixon. RC: In about 1946, President Dixon could see that the seven acres of the old campus and the old buildings down there were totally inadequate to house the junior college that he had in mind to develop. Our enrollment had increased to 1500 day students and we were bulging with students and we had moved into temporary buildings on Porter Avenue, bought out the old buildings of the Ogden 13 city schools on the block, and were buying residences for expansion space. It was still not enough space. In 1946, President Dixon organized a large community wide advisory committee. It probably had fifty or sixty people on it, and a meeting was held with this group. Finally, after much discussion, it was decided that the college should first find a new campus away from the old campus because the land in that area was too expensive and because of the zoning. The second objective was to become a four year school, because it was recognized that this would give the college much more influence with the legislature and with the finances of the state if it were a four year school. HB: Why was the campus located up here instead of at the south end of Washington Avenue? RC: A subcommittee of the large advisory committee was appointed and given the job of recommending some sites. Earl S. Paul, who is still living, was a stake president and chairman of the site committee. The subcommittee looked at a number of sites, but there were three in the final running. One was a site near the St. Benedict's Hospital, to the south and to the east. The houses had not been built in that location yet. The present site was under consideration. This was the John M. Mills property. The third was the Glassman property, consisting of about 200 acres west of Harrison, just across the street south of the present site. Those three were the final sites in the running, although we looked at sites out in the west of the county, out towards Plain City, Hooper, and we looked at sites on the north end of the county. But for some reason or the other, the committee felt that the hospital had been located on the most favorable location 14 at the top of the hill over there and that the college would sort of be under the eves of the hospital if they had that site. The present site had not been built up, it was all vacant land, and the view of the city was of primary significance. I remember President Paul, and others saying that this would be a great thing for the students of the college to look down on the lake and on the city, and to think lofty thoughts rather than be down in a hole where they couldn't have their minds lifted. Then again, it was recalled that this level is the same elevation as the University of Utah, Utah State, and BYU. They thought that this campus would be in line with these other schools. One spring day when the snow was still on the ground and we were tramping over this site and President Paul stopped and said, "I think the Lord has reserved this site for the college and for the state." He said it with a prophetic gleam in his eye, and the rest of the committee nodded their heads. From then on, that was their recommendation. HB: He was a member of the advisory council then? RC: He was a member of the advisory council and was chairman of the subcommittee on the site's selection. HB: That's interesting. RC: President Miller was also a member of the site committee. HB: I notice here, Dr. Clarke, in 1948 the state Board of Examiners appropriated $250,000 toward the creation of the first building on the new campus. Was that money used toward building these four? 15 RC: Yes, this was the amount that was originally set up for the heating plant. That was the first. HB: Oh, is that right? RC: The heating plant had to be the first building to be constructed. HB: When was the money appropriated then for the original four buildings? RC: The legislature appropriated two or three million dollars for construction and put it into the hand of the governor to be distributed in 1949. And the community had to do a lot of talking to get the governor to allocate $1.5 million. There was a lot of pressure on him. HB: I wonder what he had in mind. RC: Well, it was after the community had met the legislature's mandate to raise $50,000 for the campus; the community leaders were advising him to do it. HB: You know, the first time I met Governor Lee was when I went down to tape him, and he assured me that he didn't have any bias against Weber State College. He said that the state couldn't afford any more schools, and he said the University of Utah was so large and so costly that it'd do a state like California proud. RC: The governor was really in favor of closing all the colleges except the University of Utah. HB: I never was treated more warmly than by Bracken Lee, and that's the first time I ever met him. I had had opportunities to meet him, but I never availed myself of those opportunities until I went down and taped him. RC: Well, he was constantly beset with the feeling that the state was going broke, and that we couldn't afford more colleges and schools. 16 HB: Right. RC: He tried to give away, of course, Weber and other junior colleges. HB: I wonder if you'd comment on the $25,000 entrance gates provided by the Rotary Club. I imagine you were right in the middle of that, weren't you? RC: I was not a member of the Rotary Club. President Dixon was. HB: Yes, but you were active there. RC: I was active in the planning of the new campus. HB: You were Dean of the faculty then. RC: Yes. We'd have to probably give great credit for the allocation of this $25,000 from the Rotary Club to Weber State College to two members and former chairmen of the official advisory committee established January 4, 1952, at the college—Frank Browning and Wesley W. Anderson. Anderson was the manager of Anderson Lumber at the time; he later became chairman of the board. Frank Browning was the owner and manager of Browning Chevrolet and Buick Company. Both were very active community leaders and very active in the Rotary Club, and in the advisory committee. They advised President Dixon and the college that it was their feeling that if the community would go ahead and put in this decorative gateway in a vacant campus, the legislature would see the community support and it would be the base for millions of dollars in subsequent appropriations. This was proved to be true and they were exactly right. It was in 1948 that the college bought the campus. Then the 1949 legislature met, and in 1950 the Rotary Club built this decorative gateway. Farsightedly, they left enough 17 space on the sign so that the "State" could be added later when it was finally official. HB: Yes. RC: They had that in mind back in those days. The place that the sign was located next to Harrison Boulevard was a cattail swamp. It had to be filled to support the sign. This represented foresightedness and I think it was about 1949. HB: It surely did. But I remember shortly after that, didn't we get out with our rakes and level the area off? I worked out there for days. RC: Well, the buildings were let out for bid to the W.W. Clyde Company of Springville in about 1951 or 1952. A committee of architects, Fred Markham of Provo was a brother in law of President Dixon's, and Art Grix who was a prominent architect in Ogden and Lawrence Alpin another prominent architect in Ogden, were appointed by President Dixon as a committee of architects to draw up a master plan for the college. The master plan is still in existence. It was planned for a junior college of 3,000 students. Of course, as our status changed, the master plan had to change, but it was a very good master plan. These first four buildings were part of that master plan and were completed in 1953 but there were no walks, no grass, and no roads. There was no equipment in the buildings, so the buildings sat empty for a year while equipment was being put in and while roads were being built. All the walks were being built, and during this year the faculty and students came up on several occasions and leveled ground for lawns and cut a road across east of the campus through the brush and did a lot of volunteer work. 18 HB: I helped. I helped chop through the scrub oak east of the campus and also raked in the northwest area of the campus. RC: It's the opinion of community leaders, Harold, that the few dollars of donated labor that we put in brought dividends by the millions, because this gave us a big edge in the legislature. They said, "Look, these people are willing to go out and help themselves. They don't just sit on their butts and holler." HB: You know, that's right. You know, as long as I live, I'll always feel proud of the fact that I helped level that ground down there. Which road did we cut through the scrub oak? RC: The road above the stadium. HB: Boy, I remember that. RC: You bet. And the county later came in and put the hard surfaces in and graded it. HB: You see, old as I am, I still remember it. I'm kind of proud that I helped. RC: Big dividends came out of that. HB: And when you mentioned the college had this fight in order to keep the college with the state, we donated for that. The faculty did. We also donated for buying the campus by matching the $50,000. We got out here and we actually worked along with the whole community—that is with the donations. We raked this area and this is a history that I think every faculty member of this college ought to understand. RC: And we need some more of it in my opinion. HB: Yes. 19 RC: To get the state to thinking that we're a going concern and we can do things for ourselves. HB: But the Weber family doesn't exist anymore. That's my statement. I'm sorry to say this; I say it almost with tears in my eyes. Well, that's very interesting. I guess the stadium beginnings were in about 1951, weren't they? RC: This was part of that $250,000 that was appropriated. HB: Oh yes. RC: I think nine thousand dollars were expended, if my memory serves me right, in leveling the ground up there for the stadium. Then the structure of the stadium was built later. HB: That's the $250,000 they appropriated in 1948. The beginning of it was 1951, if my figures are right. RC: They built the heating plant and they had little money left over for the stadium. HB: Yes. RC: Those were the first two significant things that were done on the campus. And many of the faculty commented on the fact that the stadium was started before the academic buildings. HB: In 1953, the two year nursing program was set up under the sponsorship of Columbia University. I thought that ought to be included here. RC: This was another recognition of Weber's national reputation in vocational education. When Columbia University had some money given to them, I think it was from the Rockefeller Foundation, to develop an associate degree nursing program, they looked around the country to pick some colleges and institutions to 20 try out their ideas. They picked a college in New Jersey, one in Michigan, Pasadena State College, and Weber and one other, five in all. Later it was raised to six. But these were the colleges and institutions which they wanted to try out this new program. At this time, Weber hired Mrs. Ruth Stewart who later became Mrs. Ruth Swenson. She was the director of this program in the beginning, and did a marvelous job in selecting faculty, selecting students, and building curricula, and working with these people at Columbia. Weber was picked for this program because of the national reputation already established in terminal education. We were one of the first five in the country. But this program now has proved such a success that there are nearly 300 programs in the country. I'd say eighty or ninety percent of the nurses in our hospitals in Utah are graduates of associate degree programs. There's now of course associate degree programs at Cedar City and Utah State under the direction of Weber State College. There's one at BYU which is independent. All of these associate degree programs are much larger than the four year programs in nursing. HB: They don't give bachelor degrees in nursing do they? RC: No, it's associate degrees. HB: Then they take more work to become registered nurses? RC: No, they become registered nurses in two years of training. But if they want to go into a four year program, they can go on to the University of Utah or BYU and get a four year program, which prepares them for supervisory positions. HB: Do schools give the state examinations for registered nurses? RC: No, this is given by the state Department of Licensing. 21 HB: The State does that. That's what I thought. Well, another event happened in 1953; the new stadium was first used. That’s when President Miller became the new president. President Miller immediately, as you pointed out, had a fight on his hands with the faculty about returning Weber to the LDS church. I wonder if there's anything else there you'd like to add. RC: Well, it was a very inauspicious opening for President Miller. He was appointed in, I think, September, and in December of that year, the legislature tried to give the school away to the church. He wondered if he'd made the right move or not in accepting the presidency. He was the assistant state superintendent of public schools when he came to Weber. I might say that I was instrumental in a way in getting him to come. I was Dean of the faculty. I suggested and encouraged him to take this job up here. He always remembered that. But he proved to be a great president. Really, the main part of the development of Weber College in numbers and size and dollars came during the administration of President Miller. As you say, I think he became president in September of 1953. We were still on the old campus. We didn't come up to this campus until September 1954, a year later. But this, I remember, was very disheartening to all of us when we read about the action of the legislature. They wanted to close Carbon College, and give Dixie, Weber, and Snow back to the church. President McKay, the church president, indicated that he was willing to accept the colleges, but that he wasn't necessarily pushing the move. That was his formal statement. Well, a good segment of the community was outraged about this move. I can remember meetings that were held at the Hotel Ben Lomond. Leaders of the 22 chamber of commerce, especially Abe Glassman, who is now dead, took the floor and said, "We've got two things to decide. One is whether we sit quiet and let this law become effective, or whether we institute a referendum and fight it." He said, "For me, I'll back the referendum and I'll put the facilities and the prestige of the Ogden Standard Examiner behind the referendum. HB: Did he? RC: He did. About the next night a big front page editorial came out blasting the legislature. Really, you have to hand it to Mr. Glassman, because without the support of the Ogden Standard Examiner, the college would have gone to the church. But the leaders of the community recognized that it was a poor move and they all began gathering around after the editorial was published. Of course, it was up to the college primarily to carry the ball. The faculty went out and gathered the names that were needed for the referendum. I imagine you, Dr. Bateman, were very active in that. HB: I was very active. RC: Many of the faculty went to the far reaches of the state. We had to get so many names out of every county. HB: I traveled around. RC: They had to be notarized names and had to be filed with the secretary of state by a certain time. Well, we got more names than we needed, and so the thing was placed on a ballot in the fall. I remember very well meeting with a number of the faculty in building number one where the old book store was, and sitting there in the evening when the votes were being counted. I could see that the referendum 23 was going to be successful. Everybody was delighted, and this turned out to be a turning point for Weber College, because the whole state became aware of the value of the junior colleges. From then on, the legislature began to give us our just dues of appropriations. HB: You were in a better position to know what was going on than I, because you continued as the Dean of the faculty under President Miller. But, as I understood it, none of us were fighting the church. We got the report that the church would only keep this as sort of a junior college, a part of Brigham Young University. There was no chance for a four year college. RC: I personally made a trip to Provo and talked to President Wilkinson about this very thing. HB: Yes, sure. RC: President Miller, I know, made at least two trips to President McKay's office and talked to him privately and was assured that this was the case. Publicly, the church said they were not taking sides on the issue of the referendum, although I'm sure several stake presidents took sides in this area. HB: Well, I think Weber did the other institutions a favor because I understood they were kind of lackadaisical and didn't care. RC: Carbon and Weber. Carbon was going to be closed. HB: They were? RC: Carbon and Weber carried the ball for the referendum. HB: St. George? RC: Snow and Dixie did little toward it. 24 HB: That's right. RC: I don't want to downgrade them, but that's the facts. HB: Oh yes. Well, we want the records straight on this. As I say, you knew what was going on. RC: I sure did. HB: I had to listen to the grapevine and sometimes the grapevine wasn't always right. RC: I took personally two or three secretaries down to the state capitol and mimeographed all of those petitions so the Secretary of State could have a copy of it. HB: That was quite a period of time, and I have emphasized that members of the faculty should know this. There were times when the faculty were paid in produce and there were times when they had to wait three months when they did get their money. RC: This was back in the early 30's. HB: That's right. President Dixon said in his remarks at Lorenzo Peterson's funeral, that he was making $3,400 a year. The faculty weren't making more than $100 a month. RC: I was hired at $1,800 a year in 1937 with a doctor's degree. HB: When I started at Logan city schools, I remember getting $90 a month. That was 1932, I guess. RC: Those were the depression years. HB: Anything else you'd like to say about this struggle we had? 25 RC: I'd only like to emphasize again that it actually turned out for Weber's good, because our status in the state was ensured from then on. No one thought of giving us away and the legislature began to recognize the community colleges in the state as part of the school system. Up until this time, we'd been living on a pittance. The lion's share of the appropriations had been going to Utah State and the University of Utah, but from this time on, Weber began to get its share of appropriations. HB: Yes. In 1954, the first four buildings on the Weber campus were completed. I guess they must have been outfitted? RC: They were occupied. HB: Occupied? RC: In the summer of 1954. HB: I made the move from the lower campus. I taught in the first buildings. I pride myself on being in some of the basic history of the college. RC: Right. I guess you'd know as much about this as I would from here on. HB: In 1955, the legislature provided twenty two additional acres for the new campus, and $525,000 for a technical education building. RC: I'd like to give a great deal of credit to Elizabeth Vance, who was one of our Weber County legislators, on the appropriations committee. Lorenzo Peterson and I were down at the legislature on the very last day of the sessio, and it looked like we were not going to get the appropriation for the technical building. In fact, the other supporters of it had pretty well gone home when they figured the session was over. When the appropriations committee was applying the hatchet 26 to trim the budget within the available revenue, Mrs. Vance stood up and said that she felt that Weber County was entitled to this technical building. She kept talking until the appropriations committee approved that building. She came out of that meeting with tears in her eyes and said, "I think it's going to be approved." HB: Well, I'm really delighted to hear some of that history. RC: Lorenzo Peterson was the chairman of the technical division, as you know, at that time, and I was Dean of faculty. We were down there at the legislature fighting the battles. HB: He was on our legislative committee also, wasn't he? RC: He was later on. I don't think at this time, but later on he became chairman of the Republican Party in Weber County, and was able, in the days of Governor Clyde, to exercise a lot of influence in our behalf. HB: Clyde thought a lot of Lorenzo, and he should have listened to him. RC: He did. HB: I sometimes wonder if he didn't have quite a bit to do with educating Clyde, to the point where he signed the four year bill. RC: I think he did. I was friendly with Governor Clyde, because he was the dean of the School of Engineering at Utah State, and in charge of their war production program. During the days of the war production programs we used to meet almost weekly down at the state capitol. Weber was able to help Utah State in many ways on their war production program. Governor Clyde always went out of his way to say hello to me. 27 HB: Well, I think on general principles he respects you because you'd graduated from certainly one of the finest schools in the United States. RC: Yes, he felt that my scientific background was respectable. HB: My brother went to school with Clyde and he said that Clyde was a straight A student in math and physics, the field that you are very strong in. So Clyde would appreciate you very much. I was interested to note though, you kind of worked together during that period. RC: Yes, Governor Clyde has many times recalled Colonel Berman and his experiences out at Hill Field during this early period. HB: Well, I think Clyde was a good public servant. I had a lot of respect for him. RC: He did a lot of forward planning especially in water resources. HB: Yes, he was tremendous in his areas. I think, as a governor, he was very fine. I taught his youngster in Logan, so I got to know him. RC: Well, shall we continue the history of the college a little bit? In 1945, just as thousands of veterans were returning to colleges all over the country, Weber State got their share of them. I was restive as director of vocational education, because I didn't feel that that was really in line with my degrees in physics and mathematics, and wasn't really my long range career. So when the war was over, I kind of indicated that to President Dixon. In fact, I didn't think he was in a position to do anything about it at the time, and so I began looking for other places. I was carrying around an application that was an offer to go to Los Alamos for the University of California. President Dixon heard about it and called 28 me into his office and said: "We don't want to lose you here at Weber. I'd like you to accept the job as Dean of faculty." HB: That's interesting. RC: After one year as veteran coordinator, I was appointed Dean of faculty in 1947. This veteran’s growth was a very significant thing and the college was inundated with enrollment. Our physical plant wasn't able to take care of it. President Miller immediately recognized that we needed to have more land and more buildings. He began working with the state Building Board, the state Board of Education, and the legislature and appropriations for land and buildings. In the early days, it was a building about every three or four years. After Governor Rampton's bonding program in 1965, we had around fifteen million dollars in state and federal funds that we could spend on buildings all at one time. The buildings came about as fast as they could be planned. HB: I guess Weber continued to struggle to get a four year charter through the '50's pretty much, didn't it? RC: I remember very well helping to draft the first four year bill that was considered by the 1947 legislature. At that time, the legislature gave us the fifty thousand dollars for the campus but didn't take action on the four year bill. So we quickly brought the matter back to the legislature in 1949, and the legislature passed it at this time. It was vetoed by Governor Lee. HB: Yes. RC: Then, the four year bill with modifications was in the wings with the legislature each two years, and on the floor in several sessions. In 1959, we had grown to a 29 size of over 3,000 day students, and we had secured a large campus by that time. We had quite a few buildings, and we felt it was right to bring the matter up again. The faculty and the administration visited the legislators in the fall of 1958, after they were elected, and before they arrived in Salt Lake at the legislature. We prepared a booklet outlining our case for a four year school, it was quite well documented and persuasive and it had a lot of good information in it. We personally sat down in the residences of these legislators and presented our case. As a result, when we came into the legislature, there was quite a lot of debate, mostly because of our compatriots in Logan. But there was no question at any time about the bill passing and President Chase was frantically moving up and down the halls of the legislature trying to block it. Reed Bullen stood up in the Senate and said that, "This will be the death of our mother institution. Rise to the support of our mother institution." (USAC) But in spite of this, it passed with a solid majority in the House and the Senate, and President Miller was called to testify before each of the houses and to go through our case with them. But it was never really in doubt, because we convinced enough legislators that we could do it as cheaply as any place else in the state. Governor Clyde said, "If the legislature passes it, I'll sign it." HB: You know, I taught at Logan High School prior to coming to Weber. I was in the army for four years and being at Logan, I knew the Logan crowd pretty well. RC: You personally went up and tried to present the case to them, and they listened to you, but they weren't convinced, particularly not Frank Gunnell. HB: Yes. 30 RC: He was the worst one. I remember Frank backing me up against a wall down by the House chamber, and he stuck his finger in my chest and he said, "If you don't call the dogs off this four year bill, Weber's not going to get a cent out of the legislature." I said, "Frank, I couldn't call off the dogs if I wanted to." HB: Oh, what days they were. Well, I notice that 1959 was when we got our charter for a four year college. I guess it's all right to mention here too that Weber College won the national junior college basketball championship. RC: This was a great prestige winner with the legislature again. HB: I should say, and we also got some land out of it for the construction of a new gymnasium. So, 1959 was a big year. RC: Yes, at the same time, we had collected enough student fees that we were able to start the construction on the first part of the Union Building. HB: You were chairman of the curriculum committee at Weber for years. RC: That was one of my jobs as dean of faculty, to develop the curriculum. HB: I met that committee over the years, and I noticed the very thorough work that you did. I always made this comment: I thought you were one of the finest young prospective physicists in the United States and one of the best trained. I still think it. RC: Well, I thank you. I've always enjoyed teaching physics, and I'm sure I would have enjoyed doing that as a profession. It just happened that these other administrative things came along. But, really, the big challenge that this school had was curriculum. Three major challenges came along through my career. One was the vocational challenge that President Dixon handed me. The second one 31 was development of the general education program. The third was development of the four year curriculum. HB: Yes. RC: In 1947, President Dixon appointed me Dean of faculty and gave me an office next to his in the old gymnasium building on the lower campus. One of my major responsibilities was to be chairman of the curriculum committee. Now, as you know, at this time a great ferment was going on in our education. Veterans were returning from the war in large numbers, with new attitudes and new demands on professors. Many of the professors themselves were returning from military service with new points of view. Harvard had just published its pioneer volume on general education, pointing out the objectives of general education, and the courses that should be used to fill these objectives. The Truman Commission had just completed five volumes which were widely read and studied at Weber. I think President Dixon was connected in some way to the Truman Commission, and he was thoroughly converted to the things that they talked about in that report, such as making equal opportunity for all children to attend college, keeping tuition as low as possible, having colleges located where the students are, and the projection of enrollments into the 1960's. Enrollments were going to increase by three or four times, and by the '60's it was a problem of financing higher education. All of these things made a big impact on our faculty. Then along about this time President Dixon visited Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, which was a school for girls, and LaMar Johnson was the dean of faculty there. He had developed a functional approach to general 32 education. Instead of listing as objectives such things as developing a person's inner resources or developing intellect or something, LaMar Johnson tackled this from the standpoint of function: learning to read and write and to develop a workable philosophy of life, developing skills for continued education throughout your life, developing skills for family living, and developing an appreciation for the information given; study the sciences and social sciences and so on. He developed the functional approach to general education and spelled it out in the curriculum at Stephens College. The girls there studied how to improve their personalities and become more charming. They studied how to become airline hostesses and how to become executive secretaries, and they were housed in a dormitory that allowed each girl to pick her own paintings for her own rooms, as part of her art course. President Dixon was very much enamored with this philosophy, and one of the charges he gave the curriculum committee was to look at these things. As a result of the studies LaMar Johnson was brought to the campus. He spent about a week here talking to the committee and to various groups of faculty. About a year later, the faculty adopted a list of ten functional objectives that were listed in the catalog for the next twenty five years, with slight modifications each year. Well, then another thing that was happening at this time was with Meridith Wilson, who later achieved national prominence in several regards, college president and director of the Ford Foundation and so on. He became the academic vice president at the University of Utah. He felt that the general education requirements in Utah were badly in need of overhaul, and took the 33 leadership in gathering many of the smaller colleges in Utah together and discussing the things partly under the umbrella of the Utah Conference on Higher Education. And in many cases changes were effected during the next few years. One of the significant things that happened at Weber was that we became aware of a study which had been made at San Bernadino College in California, where the general education courses were evaluated against the objectives of the college. We had just established these functional objectives. It was possible for us to take such a study and adapt it to our needs here at Weber and to make this evaluation. I think at least 90 percent of the faculty evaluated the courses they were teaching against these objectives. In addition, possibly fifty percent of the students evaluated the courses they had taken in line with these objectives. In addition, the out-of-class activities such as student government, debate, athletics, etc. were evaluated. It was quite a surprise to the faculty to find that the students gave greater weight to their out of class activities in developing many of the objectives of general education than they did to the academic courses. And as a result of all these studies, the faculties of Utah and Weber College particularly, began limiting the courses which would apply for general education credit. Foreign languages, at least the first skill courses, were eliminated from the general education group. Mathematics was eliminated. Specialized courses in the sciences were eliminated. At the same time, a number of core courses were started at Weber: Social Science 1 and 2, nine credit hours, would satisfy the general education requirements in social sciences. Humanities 1, 2 and 3, which really was still 34 literature, art and music partly integrated, would satisfy the general education requirements in that area. Physical Science 1 and 2 would satisfy the requirements in that area. Life Science 1 and 2 would satisfy the requirements there. Now, of course, this meant that students who wanted to take the core courses could do it. Those that wanted to take more specialized introduction could take those. HB: Did we have any trouble with the transfer value of the general education courses? RC: This was cleared well in advance of us putting them in the catalog. As far as I know, no transfer problems occurred. HB: That's the result of very careful planning on the part of your administration. RC: A lot of state planning, in those days, through the Utah Conference on Higher Education was taking effect. Now and at this time, and as a result of this planning, the senior colleges agreed to accept the associate of science and associate of arts degree at Weber College as evidence that the lower division requirements had been met for general education. Our students didn't have to have their courses evaluated course by course. This system of general education was developed at this time. I should mention one other facet we put in, I think, that was unique in Utah, and that is recognizing the objectives of developing skills in family living. A strong family is one of our objectives. We did succeed in getting a three hour requirement into the curriculum for all girls in family life. Boys were encouraged to take it but not required to. I think we were the only school in 35 Utah that had this requirement. It was consistent with our objectives; the faculty felt like it was a good thing. HB: I'd like to add that it was done at Weber very democratically, you really involved people. We were right in the middle of building the program, and we had meeting after meeting and we didn't have time to get into mischief. We were doing constructive things you know, to keep growing. RC: This is right. Our curriculum committee consisted of the division chairmen, the librarian, the registrar, and one or two other people. These folks would come up with recommendations, and then they'd go to the general faculty meeting. The faculty was not too large in those days, and the full faculty could debate issues out completely. None of these things were adopted until a majority of the faculty was in favor of them. HB: I know, I brought many programs and my lessons to be reviewed by the committee as a whole. And that was important because it took in all of the divisions, all of the disciplines of the college. It is an educational process for everybody, to hear each other's points of view and hear what's being done in the different departments. That's one of the greatest needs in the colleges and universities today, to get good communication between people of the different disciplines. RC: This was extremely valuable, and I think it counts for the fact that the general education pattern remained stable really as long as this group of faculty were here. It's only been changed since the majority of this group has resigned. 36 To continue our discussion about curriculum, we were engaged in another large objective at the same time, and that was to expand our curriculum to four years. I think every year, beginning in 1947, a bill was prepared for the legislature to expand Weber to a four year school. And some years, we didn't formally take it through the legislature, but it was there in the wings, and being talked about. HB: In other words, what you're saying is that we began preparing for the four year offering a long time ago. RC: Really, ten years before it was adopted in 1959. A lot of curriculum work we'd been doing up through the '50's had in mind the probable expansion to a four year college. I should digress enough to say that this was a result of a faculty wide effort in going and visiting legislators and convincing townspeople and others that this would be a desirable move, that it'd cost no more to give four year training at Weber than it would at Logan or Salt Lake or B.Y.U. When the people became convinced that this was true, we had no trouble getting the bill through. But we passed the bill with the idea to keep two years— or three—for preparation time to make the transition before we began the four year program. This was a wise move. The curriculum committee, and the whole faculty had a chance to debate thoroughly the curricula we were offering in the first four year programs, and the catalog was prepared carefully with a lot of study and thought. As a result, when we moved into a four year school, it was done so smoothly that hardly anyone was aware of what was happening, because everyone was on the same wave length in regards to what was being done. In setting up the curriculum for the four year school, the curriculum 37 committee established a document entitled Criteria for Acceptance of a Four Year Curriculum which involved such questions as, "How will the curriculum benefit the student vocationally?", "Do you have enough equipment?", "Do you have enough library books?", "What are the financial resources needed?", "How many faculty will we need to hire?", and "Do we have the facilities?" All of those questions were faced in full for each of the four year curricula before they were adopted, and then many were delayed because they couldn't answer some of those questions successfully. This meant that those that were finally adopted in the four year program we knew we were able to handle. HB: Well, we had some good statesmanship and some very wise planning going on. I marvelled at it. RC: The four year program first began in the fall of 1962 with the junior year. The first graduating class and baccalaureate degree was in the spring of 1964. HB: Incidentally, I was the chairman of the first commencement exercise. RC: That was really a pioneer venture you ought to talk about Harold, because you remember how much study you had to do to find out what the difference between a baccalaureate exercise and an associate exercise was. They were quite different. HB: I couldn't resist mentioning that. RC: This is a typical thing that the bulk of the faculty were engaged in some assignment or another, getting that four year school going. One person who undoubtedly influenced our thinking quite a bit, was brought on the campus for curriculum purposes. He was Leland Metsker, President of the Chicago Junior 38 College, and then later head of the Institute for Higher Education at the University of California at Berkeley. He was very knowledgable in curriculum matters, and he looked over what we were doing and was generally quite complimentary of our findings. Later on, after the four year college had been going for a while, President Miller felt that it would be a good thing to recognize the four year college in a new organization, and he felt that the seven division chairmen were too many. We needed to group things around the baccalaureate program more, and so he brought in Paul Dressel, from Michigan State, and got his recommendations on a structure. He also got recommendations from other sources, and in 1967, the administration of the college was reorganized with four main academic areas: The School of Arts, Letters, and Sciences, having about seventy five percent of the faculty and students, was aimed at unifying everything in the baccalaureate program; the School of Education was a fledgling professional program which we visualized at the time would be offering master's degrees in a very few years; also the School of Business and the School of Technology. And under this organization, departments were given a lot of autonomy, and their power and influence was promoted, where under the old program the divisions of the college were the powerful units and the departments were played down. HB: While you're discussing that, would you mention the other reorganizational moves that were made? That is when you became the administrative vice president isn't it? 39 RC: At this time, many of the newer faculty felt that a dean of faculty that had been here for twenty years couldn't really know much about their feelings, and so, not for any direct complaints but just for general feeling, a new academic vice president was brought in, Helmut Hofmann. I was given the position as administrative vice president. A year or two earlier, the academic council had been organized, which made a great deal of difference to the procedure for developing curriculum. The old curriculum committee was disbanded. HB: There's nobody on campus that knows curriculum better than you, or knows the story of the philosophy of our curriculum. RC: Yes. Much of what we have now was developed during those years when the college philosophy was developing. The academic council was probably the greatest innovation in bringing the faculty into formal control of curriculum. In 1973, a new organization of administration was set up which took the four main schools—especially the School of Arts, Letters and Sciences—and not only appointed new deans, which is a personal matter, but divided the School of Arts, Letters and Science into a School of Science, a School of Humanities, and a School of Social Science. This was with the feeling that the faculty had grown so large that the School of Arts, Letters and Science was kind of unwieldy, and it would be a better managed program if it were broken into three. In doing this, of course, the concept of unified general education program and the baccalaureate degree has been sacrificed. That is indicated by the fact that mathematics is now in the humanities, and is listed for general education credit in the physical sciences. 40 HB: I told Eldon Cammack, director of Institutional Research at the time that I thought they were putting too many departments under the School of Arts, Letters and Science. I just assume—I didn't know the inside of things—but I assume that that was a conservative move so as not to excite some of the other education leaders in Utah, that Weber wanted to move rather gradually toward their objective. That probably was a wise move at that time.