Oral History Program William P. Miller Interviewed by David L. Smith 28 January 1971 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah William P. Miller Interviewed by David L. Smith 28 January 1971 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: Miller, William P., an oral history by David L. Smith, 28 January 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. William P. Miller 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with William P. Miller (born 1907). Mr. Miller served as president of Weber State College from 1953 to 1971. The interview was conducted on January 28, 1971 by David L. Smith in order to gather President Miller’s recollections and experiences with Weber State College. DS: This interview is being conducted with William P. Miller, president of Weber State College. To start off, President Miller, I'd like to ask you about your childhood, where you were born, and where you received your elementary and secondary education. WM: Be happy to respond in that way. I was born in 1907, actually on July the 4th— you probably didn't know why you celebrate July the 4th—in Syracuse, Davis County. My father was the youngest boy in a quite large family and he and his father were operating a fruit farm almost on the shores of Great Salt Lake, right in the very west part of Syracuse. His father had homesteaded that land back in the 1880's and my father and his father were operating about 100 acres of apples at that time. My childhood, of course, was on that farm, learning to help do chores on the farm and, particularly, to help drive a team when I was quite young, spraying apples all summer long. Apples had to be sprayed several times a year and we had enough acres of apples that it took all summer long in constant spraying, and so my job was to drive the team and help the men as we moved along. My father's grandfather's name was Henry William Miller and my grandfather's name was William Henry Miller. This is where I got my name of 2 William. My grandfather was born in 1838 and his parents—that's my greatgrandfather and family—joined the Mormon church back in the early history of the church and they had a very fine home in Nauvoo. When the members of the Mormon church were driven out of Nauvoo in 1846, my greatgrandfather and my grandfather, who was quite young then, and their family went across the Mississippi River, and left their home and everything in it, and were part of the migration to Utah. So they are a part of the history of this state. My great-grandfather settled in Council Bluffs, Iowa and lived there for four years. At one time Council Bluffs was named Miller's Hollow in his honor but was later changed to Council Bluffs. In that four year period he helped outfit many wagons and served as a guide on several trips across the plains bringing people to Utah. His brother Daniel Miller came in 1849 and settled in Farmington and my great-grandfather came in 1862. My grandfather then was about fifteen years of age. As I recall, when they came across and they lived in Farmington for a number of years and then later my grandfather homesteaded in Syracuse, where I was born. DS: Did you attend elementary and secondary schools in Syracuse? WM: Yes, we lived down by the lake in Syracuse. The farm was located about one mile south of where the present road goes across to Antelope Island through Syracuse. I was very familiar with that country because we used to skate on all of the old sloughs and ponds in that area when I was a kid, and we knew about where everything was. The roads in those days were not surfaced and were not even graveled. It was about three miles from where I lived to the Syracuse school 3 and we travelled to school in a covered wagon that people used to refer to as a sheep wagon, with a team driving it. We had a little stove in it so we could make a fire in it to keep us from getting too cold in the middle of the winter to go to elementary school. When I was about ten years old, my father built a home about half a mile from the Syracuse school and we moved there, as I recall, when I was in the fourth grade. But the school was small, two grades to a room, eight grades in the school. The roads, again, were not even graveled and it was very difficult even to get a wagon or a buggy up the roads when the ground would thaw, particularly in the spring. We often wore rubber boots to school. When I finished elementary school, I attended North Davis High School which went out of existence in 1924. It was a mile and a half from where we lived. We either rode a horse or walked a mile and a half to get to school. The school had three teachers and the course of study was limited to what those three teachers could teach. So, this was my high school program. They closed the school when I was a junior and they consolidated North Davis High School and Davis High School in Kaysville. I had fourteen units of credit. I came over to Weber College and when they permitted a few of us to enter with three years of high school provided we would take our one unit of high school at Weber, which I did. I took my plane geometry at Weber, had it transferred back as a high school course and it gave me fifteen units of credit, so frankly, I skipped my senior year. I only went three years so I tell people I'm a high school dropout! But my high school record is at Davis High School with fifteen units of credit and I graduated from Weber College in 1926, in two years. I was primarily interested then in going 4 into the business course. I took all the accounting and business courses that were given, thinking that that's what I wanted to do. DS: After Weber College did you go into some type of employment or did you go on to school? WM: Well, I finished Weber in the spring of 1926 and I worked the farm. I also got work at the canning factory in Syracuse part of the time, or the pea vinery when the peas were being harvested out at Clearfield. We'd sometimes put in eighteen to twenty hour days. We were getting thrirty-five cents an hour so we worked as many hours as we could to make what money we could. We did this each summer. Then I was called on an L.D.S. mission to New Zealand the fall of 1926 and I left for New Zealand in early January, 1927, and was out there until the fall of 1929. When I came back in 1929 things were beginning to fall apart in the country just before the big depression of the 1930's. The stock market was just in the process of going bad and my folks, of course, had no money to send me to college, and I couldn't afford to go that fall. The day after I got home from New Zealand I happened, by chance, to meet the superintendent of schools of Davis County and he offered me a, job teaching school in my home town. Elementary school then could be taught with two years of college. I told him I didn't have a certificate. He said he could get a temporary certificate for me. I told him I had not planned to teach, that I didn't have any courses in education, and he said, "Well, I think you can get by that." They weren't quite as particular as they are now. So I got home on Saturday 22nd of September, and the following Wednesday I started teaching school by 5 pure chance. Then the Depression came on and I decided that if I was going to be in education, that I would not be in it part-time but full-time. I went to school summers at Utah State Agricultural College at Logan and finally worked off enough courses to get a bachelor's degree up there in 1936. By then I was with the Ogden and Weber County Schools first as a coordinator. That was my title. Actually, I was attendance officer and I also started a visual education program. We had one silent 16mm movie projector and we had no budget so I got free films wherever I could find them and correlated these films with the fifth grade geography and the seventh grade science, as I recall. That's quite a while ago. I actually took the films around to each of the schools, on a schedule after previewing them. We tried to improve the course of study by starting that kind of a program. Academically, I transferred to the University of Utah and began going to night school, going down there with the others in the winter to get resident's credit. I also took all the extension credit I could get. I didn't get a master's degree until 1942, by then it was a master's degree in school administration. By then I had been serving nearly four year as clerk and treasurer of Weber County Schools and, after 1940, as superintendent of Weber County Schools. So, I was superintendent of the county schools when I received by master's degree. Would you like more of this, or is that too much of it? DS: That's fine. WM: I can finish this very fast. In 1943 I was offered the position as principal of Ogden Senior High School. I decided to take it because at that time the high school 6 principal had his summers free. As a school superintendent my summers were not free and I was sure I could not go on to school so I became principal of Ogden High School in the fall of 1943 and immediately the next summer began my doctoral work at Stanford University. I went down there for the summer of 1944, 1945, and 1946. By then, I was assistant superintendent of schools in Ogden and got permission to go down in 1947 for spring and summer quarter where I finished my course work and took all of my exams. Then it took me two years to write a dissertation. I didn't get my doctor's until 1949 so my formal education came piecemeal over a long period of time with a lot of struggles. I then served for five years as assistant superintendent of schools in Ogden and was then made assistant state superintendent of schools for three years—1950 to 1953. In the summer of 1953 I was appointed president of Weber College, which was then a junior college and was located on the old campus downtown. I have been in this position since. DS: What were some of the things you found when you were appointed president of Weber State College as far as conditions of the buildings, the space available— WM: Conditions were quite different then. In 1953 the Korean War was on and the young men were being drafted into the service pretty fast, as they have been the last few years under the Vietnam problem. The enrollment at Weber then was slightly under 1,000. We were located on our old campus downtown. This campus had been purchased and the first four buildings were under construction when I was appointed and the following year, 1954. We moved from the old campus to the new campus into what we commonly called ‘Building One’ where 7 my office was for the last fifteen or sixteen years, and where our administrative offices were located until this new building was finished that we moved into at Christmas time this year. DS: Was there any particular reason for this site selected here on the hill? WM: The site was selected in 1947 by a large committee of people from the Ogden community and the State Board of Education, which was then the governing board of Weber College when it was a junior college. It was under the control of the State Board of Education, as designated by law. And after examining sites in the south end of Ogden, the north end of Ogden, and this area, it was the decision of that committee at that time that this site was chosen. The legislature in 1947 appropriated $50,000 to purchase the first part of the site, provided that the people of Ogden contributed $50,000 dollars to match it. The Ogden Chamber of Commerce took the leadership and in ten days, raised the $50,000 and the site was purchased in 1947. Now that did not include the site where the Union Building or the Fine Arts Building is. That land was purchased later. That was just simply the original site where the first four buildings, the three one story buildings, and the two story building were located east up the hill. Part of this other land has been purchased since we moved up here. DS: President Miller, I was wondering if we could hear from you about the history of Weber State College as you have known it and some of the major changes that have taken place in its history. WM: I can do that very briefly for you. Weber began as an L.D.S. church academy on January 7, 1889. The first classes were held at the second ward chapel which is 8 located on Grant Avenue and 26th Street here in Ogden. The old building is there and there is a plaque on the front of that building that indicates that this is where Weber Academy and Weber College began. Then it was located in the old Ogden tabernacle for a year or two. I'm not sure of all of the dates now, and then moved up to the fifth ward which is on Madison and 26th Street for a year or part of a year while the first part of that old red brick building, that was called the Moench Building on the old campus. The building that was destroyed since school began this year, and was demolished. The Moench was built about 1890 or 1891 and the college operated there until we moved to this campus. Now, the old church academies when they began were primarily elementary schools, and then junior high school and high school courses were added. In the case of Weber, the first college class was added, the freshman class, the next year the sophomore class was added. During those years the name was changed to Weber Normal College. Then in 1923 the high school part was discontinued and it became a straight two year, church supported junior college and the name was changed to Weber College. In 1933, the college was given as a gift from the church to the state and the Utah legislature accepted Weber as a gift. It was placed under the control of the State Board of Education. The name remained the same, and until our Board of Trustees was created by the 1961 legislature, Weber operated as a public junior college under the control of the State Board of Education. Immediately following World War II it was determined that the old campus downtown would never be adequate to house the future of Weber. A large 9 committee consisting of some school people and business people, government people and representatives of the State Board of Education, which was the governing board at that time, reviewed many possible sites in the Ogden area. I had the honor of being a member of that committee. I went out with them, never knowing at that time that I would be associated with Weber. I was with Ogden City Schools at the time and this site was purchased. Then several attempts were made to make Weber a four year institution. In 1949 the bill passed the legislature and Governor J. Bracken Lee vetoed the bill. Some attempts were made afterwards but in 1959 we really made an attempt, we visited every legislator in the fall of 1958 at his home. Meetings were held with legislators in the Salt Lake area and our area, and the 1959 legislature approved Weber becoming a four year institution. We then faced the problem of reorganizing the school and adding the junior and senior year, acquiring faculty members with a higher proportion of them with doctor's degrees, and losing our affiliation that we had had over a period of many years with junior college organizations in this area and across the nation as one of the leading junior colleges in the country. By the way, I want to make that point—Weber had been known as one of the leading junior colleges in the country—it had a national reputation, and we were represented in many national organizations. I served on the board of directors for three years for the American Association of Junior Colleges. I represented the seven states of Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska, all the junior colleges in that area for that three year period. We were fully accredited as a 10 junior college and, as I said, we were nationally known. As we became a senior college, we had the problems of reorganization and a rapidly growing studentbody, not enough money to build buildings as fast as we felt we needed them, the problems of overcrowding, the problems of getting equipment, all of our laboratories were too small. It takes much more equipment, particularly in the sciences, to have upper division and lower division work. Our library was not large enough. We needed more books. We had about 50,000 volumes in the library then, which was a very big junior college library, but we needed from 150,000 to 200,000 as a minimum, and it takes time and money to buy these books. We built a new library which right now has proved to be inadequate, but at the time we built it we only had about 5,000 students here and it was as large as we could justify, as large as the legislature would appropriate money for. We know that one of the needs at the present time is to make our library about three times as large as it is now. We have been requesting now for two or three years about a $3 million addition to our present library. It looks doubtful that we will get any of that money from this session of the legislature, but we hope that within the next three or four years we will have the funds and have the library expanded and hope we have the funds to expand the holdings so that we could have 200 to 300,000 volumes in all. We now have approximately 100 of our 350 faculty members with doctors’ degrees from the outstanding universities of this country and several foreign countries. We have tried purposely to get a wide variety of training in our faculty as we have added new faculty to be sure that we are getting well qualified people with a variety of 11 ideas. We think we have been accomplishing that in quite a successful way. We have an outstanding faculty. We have many faculty members who have their degrees from Harvard and Stanford, the California schools, from Columbia and Chicago, and Michigan, and Minnesota and the outstanding universities of the country, and several foreign countries. We feel that we have built a very strong undergraduate program. We hope to have masters degrees offered here sometime, and my prediction is that Weber will sometime have its name changed to Weber State University and offer professional work leading to a doctors’ degree. I think this is several years in the future of this institution. We have attempted to acquire all of the land that we could to make expansion possible. It was very difficult to obtain money, to persuade people first of all that we needed this land, at some times, we are now going to purchase twenty-three acres of land immediately south of 46th on Country Hills Drive where we feel is the best place to build a special events center. Now if we built the special events center on this campus, we could build it all right, but within ten years we feel that if Weber grows to 10,000 to 15,000 students, that it would be a very serious mistake to put that kind of a building on our present campus. We will need our present campus for future academic building and parking spaces and educational spaces for whatever the future brings. So it has been a rather difficult task as president of this institution over the past eighteen years to acquire a very competent faculty, and to reorganize this school from a junior college to a senior college, and to make this what we think is a very effective institution. We are 12 always looking for improvements, and looking for ways to make this a better institution in the future. DS: Thank you very much, President Miller.