SRU ORAL HISTORY
"SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY AND THE CAMPUS MINISTRY"
INTERVIEWEE:
INTERVIEWERS:

P. A. HARMON
DR. JOSEPH RIGGS AND LEAH M. BROWN

06 AUGUST 1993

R:

This is Joe Riggs and Leah Brown interviewing P.A. Harmon about
the Slippery Rock University campus ministry, and about his
career as a campus minister on August 6, 1993.
We'd like to start with an early disclosure and that is that
P.A. stands for Paul Ambrose for those who don't know.

H:

And it's also junior.

R:

And it's also junior, and there is a Paul Ambrose the third who
is now beginning his ministry.

H:

Yes, this is a very exciting time for our family. Last Sunday he
was called to be the pastor of a church, a United Church of Christ
congregation in Bel Aire, Ohio, which is a suburb across the river
from Wheeling. So the first of September he starts his time as
pastor there.

R:

That's my home country. I lived just below Wheeling. So I know
a little about Bel Aire. I have a sister that lived there. The
calling is large. A lot of sinners.

H:

He just finished seminary in May. So we've had several months of
celebrations and anticipations and now another celebration coming
up.

(2)

R:

Well, I think we kind of like to begin at your beginning here,
although you may want to say something about your earlier years
in campus ministry. You now have a total of 20 years?

H:

Yes. I've been a campus minister for 20 years, and the reason
that I came to Slippery Rock in 1980 is because of the kind of
ministry that they claimed at that point to be doing and wanting
to be doing. I'm a product of the ecumenical movement. I went to
seminary in 1965 to 1968. I was in graduate school at Emory
University in Atlanta from 1968 to 1973 working in a doctoral
program on American church history. So you might say I cut my
theological teeth on that exciting time in the sixties, the
ecumenical movement, after the Second Vatican Council. All of
the official and unofficial dialogues going on among various
Christian groupings. Also, involvement in civil rights movement
at the time. Feminist theology, a part of my training in seminary
which I always will consider a very important part of what makes
me what I am at this point. I got involved in various social
issues of antiwar movements. All of that sort of thing. I know
at this point it's fashionable to say we don't want to label
people and we don't like to talk about labels, but I've always
been very concious of the fact, and I've worked very hard at
being a liberal. So I come out of a time in my church and

theological training and involvement in social issues of the
sixties which are characterized in all kinds of different ways,

( 3)

H:

but for me it was kind of the birthing of myself as a person
and as a minister and as a campus minister. I've always felt
a calling to ministry and higher education. Always, of course,
from the time I started thinking about becoming a minister.
When I went to seminary, my idea was to go to seminary, to get
a master's divinity degree, and then go to graduate school
to get a Ph.D. so that one day I could teach on a college
level. Teach religion or philosophy. I felt a real calling into
that. While I was at graduate school at Emory University, I
came to the conclusion that I didn't really want to be teaching,
but after making an acquaintance with some of the campus
ministry people there, I came to realize that the two institutions
that I loved the most, the church and the university, they came
together at a special way every day in campus ministry. So
while I was a graduate student I decided this is really what
my calling is to be. So I was one of those people that fairly
easily after having a pretty successful graduate career decided
before getting the Ph.D. just to drop out. I had no qualms about
doing that in the late sixties because a campus ministry position
came open in Kentucky. So I went to Morehead State University in

Kentucky. I was there for two years from 1973 to 1975. From 1975
to 1980 I was at Kearney State College in Nebraska. That was
my first experience as an ecumenical campus minister there. It
was supported by four different Protestant denominations. Then I

( 4)

H:

started feeling a need to come back east to be closer to family.
When I saw the position was open at Slippery Rock, and that
my predecessor and the current Catholic campus minister were
really serious about doing ministry together and trying to
operate as a staff, I applied for this position with that in
mind. This is the place I want to be because they're doing the
kind of ministry that I want. I'd never been to western
Pennsylvania. I had no feeling for the place or I wasn't drawn
here by geography or anything else, but I was drawn here because
of the unique aspect of the campus ministry as they advertised
when they trying to hire a new pastor. So I came here in 1980
with the intention of joining into an ecumenical ministry, and
I found that exactly what I was looking for because the Catholic
campus minister at the time who was coming in also was new,
Father Ted Rutkowski. Ted had a vast ecumenical experience. He
had been on the national body called National Institute for
Campus Ministries. So he had had a lot of ecumenical experience
and we pledged together when we came here we would not only

try to follow the example of our predecessors but to expand it.
At the same time, we were joined by a third person, a new person,
Sister Rosaire Kopczenski, who was just finishing up a master's
program at Fordham in higher education. So the three of us came
together within a month's time in August of 1980 from different
parts of the country with all of us with the intention of doing

( 5)

H:

ecumenical campus ministry. Wilma Blake, who is currently the
secretary of the Newman Center, also joined us that summer. She
was Father Rutkowski's secretary in the diocesan office in
Pittsburgh. So all of us came together, all of us new, with the
feeling of working together, and it was just a marvelous
experience to come here knowing that something I really wanted
to do, I was actually going to have a chance to do it. So when
I arrived here in 1980, it was kind of the culmination, I think,
of all that I had been trained to do in the ecumenical movement.
One more word about the ministry here. It began in 1968, and
they called the pastor, Neil Severance, who was a Presbyterian
clergyperson. He was here until 1979, then took a position as
dean of students at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.
Then I came the next year. So there have only been two campus
ministers in for the Protestant campus ministry since 1968,
Neil Severance and myself.

The official title of our organization reflects, I think, the
ecumenical movement. Our official title is, and I always have
to refer to some memo here, United Christian Council for Campus
Ministry at Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. We've shortened it to
United Campus Ministry, but the reason that it's significant is
that it reflects one of the high points, I think, of the ecumenical movement because seven denominations decided in 1968 to
form the United Ministries in Higher Education in Pennsylvania.

( 6)

H:

They are the American Baptist Church, the Christian Church,
Disciples of Christ, Church of the Brethren, the Episcopal
Church, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., the United Church of
Christ, and the the United Methodist Church. Pennsylvania is
the very last state that still has one of these ecumenical
organizations with a full-time director. Many other states
had similar organizations with various configurations of
mostly main-line Protestant churches that went together.
Pennsylvania has always led the way in ecumenical campus
ministry. So the ministry that I became a part of was not
only ecumenical on the Protestant level, but then when I came
here and joined in with the Roman Catholic staff and moved
into the Newman Center, although I've never been officially
a part of the Newman Center, I moved in and have an office there

and we try to do all of our programming together. We intentionally
work as a staff which makes it very interesting when you're not
a staff and you try to work like one. It's both positive and
negative. In some ways the negative is that you don't have the
kind of support structure that a staff has, but on the positive
side, if you decide to do it and work at it then it becomes even
stronger in many ways because you're doing it because you want to.
So that you might say the ecumenical movement and my calling into
ministry in higher education is what brought me to Slippery Rock.
I've just completed my thirteenth year.

( 7)

R:

Has the "L" word caused you many problems over those years? So
many people just don't call themselves liberals very much
because they have a kind of clientele or a group to serve that
doesn't like the word.

H:

No, it hasn't given me any trouble I don't think because we need
some folks around who call themselves certain things, and I'm
at times like a lightning rod. I think sometimes you're a
lightning rod and sometimes you're a seismograph, but what I
mean by calling myself a liberal is that I come out of a tradition
that has called me to be open not only to persons, but persons of

all faith traditions, persons of ethnic, racial traditions,
persons who don't think like I do. I was trained to see that as
a

positive rather than a negative, and that is part of what I
consider as being a liberal and openness rather than a sectarian
person, a closed person, an open person. The other part, I think,
of being a, quote, liberal is to see where, from a person
of a faith tradition, where does my faith tradition impact what
I really do and where I live and the social conditions around me.
I think that seeing persons in situations, seeing that it's the
situation that makes the difference not some guidelines or standards from which I can never deviate or whatever. A person of
faith in the Judeo-Christian tradition seems to me, is a person
who sees God at work in the world, and my place is to join in
where God is at work.

( 8)

H:

I'll tell you two brief illustrations. Not long after I came here
two students came to see me who had watched me from sort of afar
or a bit. They came to see me and they were very concerned that
that they didn't think that I was being what they considered a
good Christian campus minister. What one of the people said to me
was, we don't believe that you are taking God to this campus the
way you ought to be doing. I said, that is not my job to take

God to this campus. My job is to find out where God is at work
on this campus and in the community and join in. And very often
I'm surprised and even shocked at where I find God at work. It
might not be with folks that I ordinarily associate with or
in situations that I'm comfortable with, but that is what I think
it means to be sensitive to and open to where God is at work.
Now I think if you approach ministry like that you are less like l y
to come off as someone who arrives on the scene with all of the
answers, and you're probably less likely to beat someone over the
head with your own tradition rather than helping persons through
your tradition. The other situation was the very first year that
I was in campus ministry in Kentucky, and that goes back to my
calling myself a liberal. A chemistry professor there asked me to
come by to see him one day not long after I'd been there.
So we were chatting. He was telling me about his philosophy of
life and his politics, and it became very clear after a while that
he was also telling me what he expected as a Methodist, and I

(9)
H:

was called there as a Methodist campus minister, what he was
expecting of me there. He ended our conversation by saying, I'm
a conservative. I work hard every day at being a conservative
because I know there are liberals and radicals out there trying
to change my way of life. They're attacking everything about what

I know it means to be an American, a Christian, and a southerner,
and he went on and on and on. As I left his office and going down
the steps I remember saying to myself, I am a liberal and I'm
going to work hard every day at being a liberal because I know
that there are conservatives out there like the gentleman I just
spoke to who are so afraid of losing their status in life that
it gets in the way, it really does get in the way, of serving
others. It gets in the way of being open to God's leading and
God's spirit. I know that in my liberality that I can become
just as closed. I can become just as dogmatic about that as
anyone else, so I'm not criticizing folks who call themselves
conservative because in many ways I think I'm a conservative
in some ways too, like in worship. You're not going to find
anybody more wanting to conserve the tradtion than I do of
wanting to conserve whatever. So although those terms do get
mixed up and we do have to be careful about what we call each
other, but I try not to call anybody else anything, but I am
very conscious that what I want to be and what I want to do
as a minister falls into what I would define as a liberal
position.

(10)
R:

And when you can talk about it that way it reduces polarity
enormously when you can describe and define what it is your
liberalism is all about, because many of the conservatives will

kind of come full circle and say, gee, that's where I am as
well.
H:

One of the things that I think that we found that it is important
in a dialogic kind of way to be able to talk about how are we
different, and how that can be seen not as something as a negative
but as something positive. Isn't it wonderful that we are
different. That's why when we start to talk about racial issues
and the last several years my ministry has been very much defined
by involvement with minority students. And I'll talk about it at
great length if you want me to sometime the group that was
originated here after a cross burning incident in 1990 called
START, Students Together Alleviating Racial Tensions, but I have
always felt that when we start using color-blind statements or
we start using descriptive statements of each other that it
doesn't take into account who we really are. For instance, when
I look at a person of color, it's a very important part of who
they are. I don't think it's a good idea to start using colorblind language. When I'm relating to another person their ethnic,
cultural, religious, racial make-up or background to me is an
extremely important part of who they are, and it should be
celebrated and acknowledged. And when I, especially a person

(11)
H:

who's of the majority, when I start using color-blind language,

all that really says is that I want you to be like me. And being
a white male heterosexual, blue-eyed, blond-haired, southern,
clergy, I have never been discriminated against. There is never
a time when I can't walk into any room, and I don't have to worry
are the people here going to notice. I have two small glitches in
my life. One, I'm a southerner. One, I'm a minister. And I am
very much aware over the years of being stereotyped in those
ways but that's okay. It's very minor, and it's no big deal.
But what I have found in trying to relate to international students, minority persons, persons from all religious traditions,
is that we really do need to celebrate and acknowledge each
others' differences. And I think that has been a defining part
of what it has meant to me to be a minister in the world of
higher education because there's very few places left anymore
like the academic world where we have the opportunity to
celebrate diversity, but also to celebrate our unity. Where
we are alike and where we are different. Also, the university
is one of the last places where at least we say should be a
marketplace of ideas. All of those kinds of terms, free
flowing intellectual conversation. Now we all know that there
are all kinds of limits on that with political and other things.
But at least here we say out loud that this is what we ought
to be doing. That's why I think that ministry in higher education

(12)
H:

for me has been so exciting and fulfilling. I can't imagine ever
doing anything else. All of the students now who twenty years
ago when I was their campus minister now are calling me on the
phone and talking to me about their children who are getting
ready to go to college, and about some of the moments that we
had together that I don't even remember anymore. Conversations
that we had that they say were turning points in their life
because I listened to them and joined in their questioning rather
than piling answers on top of them. That just tells me over and
over again it is in the world of higher education where as a
minister I have a great opportunity not only to grow spiritually
myself, but to help other people grow. It's wonderful to talk
to former students, and I'm sure that you share that with me.
To talk with former students who have had a significantly positive
experience that you were somehow part of, or maybe you weren't a
part of it but you saw them come to a place like Slippery Rock
where I have seen students come in under the University

Enrichment
Program. They probably wouldn't have had a chance anywhere else,
and I'm right now thinking of several examples. They just
blossomed. They became what we all would just hope that education
can help people do. So a place like Slippery Rock that gives
people a chance or any place in higher education that gives
people a chance to grow and flourish. If that's been part of

what is meant to be, need to be, in ministry in higher education.

(13)
H:

I have a tee shirt that says, John Wesley was a campus minister.
John Wesley, of course, was one of the founders of the Methodist
church of which I am a part. The Methodist church really started
on Oxford University's campus with John Wesley, an Anglican
priest, and his brother and others who felt a need for a
spiritual renewal and that sort of thing. So I'm always harkening
back to the fact that the church has not only always been a
very important part of higher education, but the reason that
they have sent me here is not to convert folks on this
campus to Christianity or not to make little Methodists out of
little something elses, but to celebrate the world of higher
education, saying we believe that higher education is an important
gift of God and we want to celebrate it with you.
I've always seen campus ministry as having two facets. One is
the personal facet which you relate to individuals. You relate
to persons either in times of celebration or in crisis, in
times of inquiry. The other facet and perhaps even, perhaps
the most important facet to me, is the systemic part of what I
do. By that I mean I consciously, self-consciously, relate to

Slippery Rock University as an institution, as a system, made up
of faculty, administrators, and students who are together in a
time of inquiry. So we've always used in Slippery Rock, the
Protestant campus ministry folks, have always used words like
ministry of presence and involvement, and we use the word that

(14)
H:

came out of the 1960's also for campus ministry called prophetic
inquiry. Being involved in, actively involved in, the academic
world with whatever is happening within the inquiring into the
learning process, and being ready to make our contribution from
our tradition, but more importantly to join in that process of
inquiry. And campus ministry has allowed me to do that.

R:

Is there a difference between being a member of the campus
ministry and being a classroom teacher in terms of how open
you can be about what you believe, think and feel? Are there more
strings on ordinary faculty than there are of someone in the
campus ministry?

H:

Well, one of the things I've always very much appreciated about
being a campus minister at a state-related or state-owned
institution is that I'm not officially connected to the University, and although I am officially still connected to my church,
I am sort of in-between. I fall somewhere on the periphery or the
edge of both of those institutions, and therefore, I obviously

have felt a great amount of freedom to take part in the academic
life. To be critical if I needed to be, to ask questions that I
thought needed to be asked, and to be told by my church also that
this is what we expect. We expect you to be a minister there.
Every campus is different, and every place you have to respond
differently. So I am sure, I've never been a faculty member, but
I am sure that there is a difference. I speak in classes often

(15)
H:

enough, and I know that I've been asked by several faculty
members to talk to classes about diversity, for instance, or
whatever, and indicating to me that maybe I could say some
things that they really could say, they wouldn't have any
problems saying them, but later on they would have to deal
with ramifications and all that. So I think that is the case.
There certainly has been a feeling that I have been asked to
contribute and have been accepted. You see I think there is great
responsibility with that though, because there are no official
kinds of restraints and there are no sanctions that this
University could put against me or whatever. So I take that very
seriously that if I get involved and if I say what I believe
or if I make some kind of a position statement or a prophetic
statement to the University that it is done in a very careful

and loving way. My style has always been not to be so
confrontational, but to go to persons and talk. I've had a very
close relationship with our current president, Bob Aebersold.
I've considered him both a friend and colleague, but we both know
that whenever we really want to say to each other what we need
to say for the good of the institution, we can do that and we do.
It's done in private. I have felt a real sense not only of trust
but also working as a colleague with Bob and nearly everybody else
at Slippery Rock. One of the things that we're finding in the
church these days is that the University is still one of those

(16)
H:

places that welcome us. I don't have to jump over hurdles, fight
battles, or whatever around here to be involved on this campus.
Now some of that has to do with my predecessor, Neil Severance,
establishing for the first twelve years of this ministry a trust
relationship. I followed him, people here expecting me to be like
him in many ways, and after a few years proving that I could be
trusted. So there's never been a feeling on my part of having
to break down walls of resistance. I've always been
involved since the very first day. As a matter of fact, not
long ago, I was going through some files from 1980, and I was
part of what they called in 1980 the fall welcome days for
students. I hadn't been here but a month, but in September

I was leading small groups at the request of the administration
with students coming in. I think what that told me right
away was that we want you here, and we appreciate you being
here. I've tried to work around here as if people might think
that I was part of the staff. That's part of what I mean by
the systemic part of the ministry. For instance, I have been a
part of the employee wellness committee since its beginnings,
and I have been a part of the gerontology committee for
probably ten years, and various other groups I have been a part
of, but those are faculty administrative level committees that
I have taken full part in. I didn't need to be part of any of
those. Nobody asked me to or expected me to, but as part of

(17)
H:

what I felt and my local board felt was part of campus ministry
was to be involved there in being helpful. We recently had an
on site evaluation. A team of people came to evaluate the ministry. And the last conversation they had was with the President,
and he said some very kind things, but the most important thing,
I think, that he said was that it would cost the University
something to hire somebody to do what I do and it's free. That's
exactly what I would hope that he would feel because that is what
without any expectations, without wanting anything from the
University except acceptance, and that's all that I've received

here, and it's been very positive. I feel that I'm very much a
part of a team of people on this campus who really care about
the community, the students and faculty and administrators,
people in health services. I see that there are all kinds of
opportunities for me to get involved. I have never thought about
campus ministry as, quote, student work. Obviously, with 7,000
plus students around here that's the main component of what this
University is, but I've always seen campus ministry as ministry in
higher education, and I've seen my involvement with faculty and
administrators and other support staff just as important as
working with students. There have been occasions when people
who pay for this out there in the churches have a question
about that, because usually when somebody asks me how things
are going they want to know how many kids do you have in your

(18)
H:

group. Well, it gives me an opportunity to do a bit of my own
sort of education. First of all, I don't call university
students kids. I mean I do slip up occasionally, but I feel if
you want somebody to act like an adult you start treating them
like an adult and your language is the first part of that.
Secondly, I don't have a group. I have intentionally not
formed a group of people who would say we are P.A. Harmon's
group or the campus ministries group. I relate to a lot of

groups and I relate to students on all kinds of levels. When
they want to talk about how I relate to students, many people
have an idea that a campus minister is someone who comes to
campus to sort of take care of the students that they send,
and sort of keep them on the straight and narrow, or keep
them involved in the church, and make sure that they come through
this place unscathed and funneled back out to the churches, not
having been influenced by the evil world out there. Well, I
don't see that in any way as part of my calling except
obviously in situations when somebody needs that they certainly
have that, but I try to relate. I've often told people, I'm
your campus minister whether you like it or not. I believe,
I feel that I in many ways am the pastor for everyone here.
I don't mean that in any kind of an arrogant way, but I mean it in
a way that no one who lives, works, or plays at this institution
is someone that I would not want to be involved with in any way

(19)
H:

if I can be helpful or to help celebrate their life with them.
And my local board has always been very supportive of that, has
never asked me questions like what are the numbers for these kinds
of things, but are you involved in the ministry of presence on
this campus, and are you relating to the University and responding
where you think your response needs to be?

B:

Is that a kind of outline of guidelines from your board? You have
made your presence very felt and very important, and so you have
a lot of freedom or you've assumed a lot of freedom on this
campus, and is that what your board wants of you? What other
guidelines have they put down for you?

H:

Yes, we have always assumed, and when I say we, my local board,
perhaps I need to talk about the local board in a minute since
I've referred to them several times, and that's a term I've
introduced to you.

But we have felt all along since I've been

here that we need to provide as the campus ministry on this campus
almost everything that a local parish would provide in a local
congregation, knowing that this is not a local congregation,
knowing that it's different. But for instance, when I make annua l
reports I make them under the following headings, generally
speaking it changes a bit each year, but I've always tried to
provide worship experiences for students. That means on the one
hand every Thursday night I celebrate holy communion in the
chapel at the Newman Center for anybody that wants to come.

(20)
H:

I also try to make it possible for students from every religious
tradition to relate to their worshipping community. Every summer
when we get the religious affiliation cards we go through those
and disseminate that information to all the Christian, and

Jewish, other organizations in the community. So they can contact
their students and let them know about worship experiences. So
I take it very seriously that one of the things that I need to
be doing here is to provide for, in the broadest sense, worship
opportunities for students and faculty and others. Secondly,
try to provide for education. By that I mean in the broadest
sense of the word historical and religious educational opportunities. The example of that, and I think it's a very positve
example, is the lecture series at the Newman Center. Father
Rutkowski and I started that in the fall of 1980, and every
semester since then, that must be 26 semesters or so, we have
had a lecture series that's been open to the community, not only
to faculty and students, but everybody in the community. And we
have tried to cover the widest variety of topics all the way
from church history to world religions to social issues. So we
intentionally do a lecture series and we don't try to be cute
by that and calling it serendipity or come on by and share your
stuff with us. We call it a lecture series because we lecture.
That's one of the things folks are accustomed to doing on campus,
and I think sometimes people who are in campus ministry think

(21)
H:

they need to be cute or innovative or whatever to draw people in.
Well, we decided that what we need to be is intellectually

rigorous and honest and work hard at what we do. So when you come
to one of our lecture series I hope that you come with the
expectation that I will have done my homework and that this is
approaching at least a college level lecture. So we do those kinds
of things. So worship, education, then fellowship. I'm very
concious of providing for fellowship,

for instance, either at the

Newman Center through parties and dances and different kinds of
fellowship and social activities, or through local congregations
to make sure that students who want to be involved with fellowship
things related to their own religious tradition can do that.
Also,

service. We try to provide through our senior citizens

assistance

program that we also started in 1980 to provide

opportunities for
students and others to relate to the community through helping
senior citizens with all kinds

of tasks and chores around their

home, to visiting nursing homes, to being involved. We have come
to the point over the last several years of providing a way for
people in social work classes to send their students to us in
campus ministry to participate in our programs in the two
nursing homes in the community, the high rise for the elderly
here in town, and other kinds of opportunities. So worship,
education, fellowship and service are kind of the four things
that if you ask any parish, Christian, or any other tradition

(22)
H:

what are the kinds of things you do here. Those are the things
that you would say, so I have always taken that as the least I
want to help people get involved with those kinds of activities.
What I do then as a pastor opens up all of those areas of
presence, involvement on campus, abd relating to faculty members.
I do something, somebody started using the term, I think
it was in health services after my third year here, I walked
into the office there in Claire Schmeiler's office and somebody
said, hey, what are you doing? And she said, he's making rounds.
Which is a medical kind of term, but it struck me as that's
exactly what I was doing. I intentionally make rounds. I am in
every academic building on this campus every week. There are
places that I intentionally make sure that I visit all the time
for no other reason, just to say hello, but that inevitably has
opened up opportunities for involvement in various kinds of
ways. On the one hand we have some fairly self-concious guidelines for campus ministry, but then on the other hand it's
sort of like whatever the person who's here does. It's

interesting
that over the last couple of years we've had some serious
financial problems, and so if you look at my budget I spend
about $200 a year on programs. Mostly I do that because I
don't have more money, but I don't know if I had much more if
I would spend much more, because in a way my personality and

my approach has come to the point where I am pretty much the

(23)
H:

program. I can use other people's money. I can use other people's
facilities. I can join in with other groups doing things, but
primarily the ministry here is seen very much as centered in the
campus minister and what he or she would get involved with.
We are related to United Ministries in Higher Education in
Pennsylvania which supports us through block grants. All of those
seven denominations I mentioned earlier give money to United
Ministries in Higher Education in Pennsylvania. We have at the
moment, counting full-time and part-time ministries, about 20 or
22 ministries in Pennsylvania mostly related to the SSHE campuses.
So we are related to them in a way of accountability, reporting
and that sort of thing. But at each local level a local board
oversees the work of the campus ministry. The local board here
is made up of pastors from the churches, the congregations
who are part of United Ministries in Higher Education. A couple
of lay persons from their congregation, and then a category
that I love, the at-large category which means whomever we want
to get to be related to our board. Some of the early people
on our board are some retired persons. Some of them are still
around. Carl Laughner, a former faculty member at Slippery Rock,
was an early member of the board. Pastor John Peterson of

the Center Presbyterian Church is probably the earliest member,
a person who was interested in getting this ministry started.
So he's been a member of the board for however many, 25 or 26

(24)
H:

years however long we've been in existence. Carl Dresden who is
still a faculty member here, he was early involved. Jan Hudak who
retired a couple of years was a member. Some of the current
members, Tom Gaither, Joe Lisciandro, Anne Dayton, Claire
Schmieler. To stop there for a moment, Claire is a Roman
Catholic but is a member of the Protestant campus ministry board
simply because she was seen as an important part of this community
to make contributions to our board. It is nice that she is a
Roman Catholic which adds a bit of diversity to our board. Our
board is very diverse anyway in their own thinking, in their
own theology, their own approach to the ministry. But these are
the persons who oversee my ministry, so as you can clearly see a
lot of them I see every day anyway so we work very closely
together. They're my pastors. They're my support system. They're
my friends. Because this could become a rather lonely kind of
position because the next colleague, the next Protestant campus
minister that I would relate to would be in Pittsburgh or in
Clarion or wherever. So I really appreciate the friendship and
support that I've gotten from the members of the board. So the

board has been fairly constant over the years. When it needs
to be involved actively, it is. When I leave one day, they'll
become very active because they will have to hire somebody.
They'll go through the process of doing a nationwide search,
like every other board or department has to go through. But they

(25)
H:

are involved. Right now they're pretty much involved because we
are having financial problems. It's interesting that the history
of campus ministry has really followed the history of the
ecumenical movement. When the ecumenical movement was in its
height in the late sixties and everybody was excited about
Christian unity and we're talking to everybody even nonChristians, and we were doing all this sort of thing, money
was flowing into all of these kinds of things. Now what I do is
very low on the priority list of all the denominations that
support me. Not because they don't think it's important on the
one hand, but everybody is having financial problems. So my
title, what I do, is so ecumenical that it's easy for them to
cut their contributions to us. So now that the ecumenical
movement has sort of fallen on hard times, so have ecumenical
campus ministers. To me on the one hand it is disappointing and
upsetting that in my fifty-third year I need to be worried about
whether I'm going to be paid next week, but on the other hand

it also provides for some exciting new ways of rethinking and
some innovations because we've always been innovative in campus
ministry. We've always been encouraged to be different, to do
things differently, to see things, and to try things in new
ways. and maybe this at this point because we are running out of
money we're going to be forced again to say, what is it going
to look like? It just can't go on the way it was, and the liberal

(26)
H:

in me will get to say all right. Let's be open to, let's experiment with, and try some things even though structures or traditions say that's not the way perhaps that it is done. But my
thirteen years at Slippery Rock have shown me that although
things seemingly haven't changed very much, that under the
surface there have been kind of major changes that cause us to
have to look at everything that we do in new and different ways.
And right now the financial situation is causing us to look
at different configurations. So it could be next year or ten years
from now there won't be a full-time person in my position. There
might be a part-time person related to one of the local
congregations or any kind of different configuration.

R:

How does the fund raising work? Each of these supporting units
commits through their annual budget?

H:

Yes.
R:

H:

And is the local board involved in fund raising also?
When I came here ninety-nine percent of our budget came from the
block grant from United Ministries in Higher Education. At the
moment, we are involved in a full- blown fund raising effort
of the local board. When I came here it was never the case that
we ask the local congregation for contributions or an individual.
But now that is very much a part of what we do, because we're
having to ask now congregations in generally the Slippery Rock
area where we would draw students from, to consider putting

{27)
H:

us in their budget, the local congregations and individuals.
We've asked individuals. Now I'm not very good at this, and I
don't feel very comfortable about it, and I don't want to do
it, and so I'm doing it. They're sort of dragging me
in kicking and screaming, but I'm doing it. Obviously, I need
to do it. So my local board now has been preoccupied with this,
but it has become sort of the major item of our meetings. When
we get together they say, how are things going? We chat about
that for a while, but then we say, now how are we going to keep
this going? So it's wide open now as to fund raising. Foundations
very often have money, but they have money to support programs,

and right now what we need is money to pay my salary and my
pension plan and all of those goodies. Foundations are not an
obvious way to raise money right now. So I think what it means
for the future is that it's going to be different, and things
are going to have to change because I don't see any way possible
for a return to those good old days of the high point of the
ecumenical movement when all of these folks are contributing
money for this kind of thing.
B:

Can you tell us about one or several campus crises that you were
involved in and helped to find perhaps solutions for. Something
we ought to remember.

H:

To me, at this point, the most obvious point is the beginning of
group called START, Students Together Alleviating Racial Ten-

(28)
H:

sions. In February of 1990 we had a cross burning incident at
the Kiester Apartments. Within 24 hours the two students who were
involved with burning the cross were gone, removed from the
community, but obviously this brought home to people in a way that
hardly anything else can, that there's a major racial crisis in
our midst and what do we do. I've been a member of the

President's
Commission on Race Relations ever since he started that several
years ago. The next day we met in kind of emergency session

bringing all kinds of people together saying, how do we address
this situation, not only the present situation about the cross
burning, how do we deal with the hurt that that caused, but
how do we go on from there and do some other things. We came up
with all kinds of different programs and plans. I mentioned in
the meeting that I thought there was one thing missing that we
hadn't dealt with yet, and that was to form a student
organization
that would get together for the sole purpose of talking to each
other about racism, and if it broadened out from there, okay, but
we need to get a group of students together. Because, as I
mentioned earlier, a significant part of my education occurred
during the 1960's, and I was really a part of movements where we
knew that if students got involved we were empowered and we had
power to bring changes in the community. We could actually change
things, the way people do things. So I asked that a student group
be formed, and that I be allowed to meet with them for a while to

( 2 9)

H:

get them going, but that no faculty or administrators be a part
of it, and that it not be a formal structure, that it be a
gathering of students to talk about racism. Well, they said,
of course do that. So we decided we would call a meeting for
that very week, and we decided, are there students that we know

who would be good to start this group rather than just saying
volunteers. So we came up with 16 names and the President had
a breakfast for us within the week after this cross burning
incident and we met. We decided that we would meet in
Boozel Dining Hall in their private dining room on a weekly
basis for dinner. And we started meeting that week, the next
week at four o'clock on Monday at Boozel. That group met without
missing a meeting for two solid years, except we missed a couple
of meetings during the summer. But within a couple of weeks they
decided to take the name START, and that we would talk about
anything under the sun, but centering it on racism, and that we
would do some programming and so forth. It's been the single
most exciting group that I've ever been a part of. There isn't
any question about it. We ended up with a wonderful mix of
African Americans, white, Hispanic, Asian, a real cross section
of religious traditions and one of the most important programs
that we came up with the first year came out of a Jewish student
making a comment to an African American student. We go to the
point where we were being very honest with each other, and we

(30)
H:

said that we could say anything we want to in this room, and treat
it gently and with love. He said to the Black student, whenever
I see you I think Christianity. All of your great leaders in the

twentieth century have been Christian and he said, I have been
here for four years now and I've never been able to spend Passover
with my family. And he said, I want you to know that that bothers
me that I have always had to live my life under the Christian
calendar and at times I feel that that oppresses me. This is not a
conversation they would have had having coffee somewhere, but in
this setting where he brought that up he said, you know this might
not be something you think about very often, and the Black student
said he was just astounded. He said, I have never thought about
that, and what can we do? Is there anything that we can do to
help. And the student said, if you weren't able to spend Easter
with your family next year, would there be protests to the
President? And yes and this sort of thing. So he said, why don't
we put together a calendar and publish it in the Rocket, and list
every religious holiday that we can get our hands on every month.
All the national holidays around the world. And I said, I've
got a calendar at home that list women's birthdays of every
day of the year. So the more we thought about this, the more
excited we got, and we started publishing the START calendar
that comes out in the Rocket. It's called START October with

(31)
H:

whatever, and we had such a wonderful response from that

calendar from people all over campus who would come up to us
and say, I have learned so much from just looking at this
calendar, or somebody would call up and say, you spelled
Czechoslovakia wrong, or they would say, I'm Hindu and that's
not what this holy day is really all about. Of course, Christians
and Jews or anybody can argue about exactly what this holy day
is about, but it was so educational. Even when we made a
mistake in the calendar, they would obviously know we didn't
mean it, and it was such an educational thing. So that group
became a self-sustaining kind of thing. The students got so
excited about what they could do, the kind of changes they
could make in their own life with their own ability to confront
racism or sexism in settings where there were any kind of
bigotry in various settings. We asked Dr. Foust if he would let
us have an orientation session with new faculty for the next
year, tenure track faculty that were coming in, and he said, sure.
The students put together a presentation that was titled, this
is what it's like to be a minority person or a woman in your
class, and they did a little skit. Then we ate together with
these people and they talked about this. The students did it all
themselves and I just sat there and marveled at how they were
able to relate to the faculty, and the faculty opened up to them
about this is what we feel like when you assume the majority

(32)
H:

cultural position on all that sort of thing. Now we were also
invited to go into residence halls and other kinds of things,
but through that situation, through that group, resulting from a
crisis, we were able to I think touch quite a few people. We
also made a national newsletter of a group, Accuracy in Academia.
Accuracy in Academia is a group that was put together about five
years ago to watch in the world of academics for any liberal or
radical notions. We published some things that got into the hands
of Accuracy in Academia in Erie, and we made their newsletter. It
said the START group of Slippery Rock University, their
literature, is causing racial tensions rather than easing them.

So

that was almost as good as being on Richard Nixon's enemy

list. We

knew that we had arrived. The word got around through

various of
our networks that higher education has, and we were able to help
people on different campuses around the country get their own
groups going. I had calls from people from UCLA, Fairmont State
and North Dakota State, a student at the University of Maine
Presque Isle campus, at least a half a dozen others, I can't
remember exactly now, who we encouraged to start to their own
group. As a matter of fact, the young man who confronted the
African American student about the calendar, he went off to work
at Western Illinois University from here in student affairs and
he came back the next year and we had lunch together and he

said that was probably one of the most important groups in his

(33)
H:

whole life. And the next thing on his agenda out there after he
got his job settled was to get a group going like that because
what he was able to learn from being open and honest with other
people and having that forum. It was just immeasurable. And
over the two years probably no more than 60 or 70 students
actually took part in the START meetings. They were able, I think,
to impact people in all kinds of areas of your life. I know a
student right now who has been student teaching this past year,
but will be a teacher this year. He said that because he was part
of that group, he now is more able to relate to fifth graders and
to help them deal with racial issues and sexism. What it really
means to be a majority person as he is. So I could probably

spend
the rest of our time talking about START. Clearly, that has been a
very important group for me. What I'm really interested to see
is how the group will be formed again this coming year because
almost everybody who was in the original group is gone now. We
are still going to be meeting in the cultural center every other
Tuesday night, and as far as I'm concerned it's a brand new
group. Whatever the group wants to do, we will do. We have
resisted all this time organizing. They're still not an organized

group of the student government. They haven't asked for funding.
We resist all of those things that organizations get into so
we're still sort of this freewheeling group and they haven't
kicked me out yet, so I'm going to keep on meeting with them,

(34)
H:

but we'll see what that's going to be doing. Since I've been here
we've had a murder-suicide. We've had suicides. We've had all
kinds of tragic deaths and automobile accidents and sudden
illnesses and deaths. I'm very much interested in being involved
in the appropriate way when something or some tragedy or whatever
took place, that we wouldn't automatically assume that we would
a memorial service or that we would be the ones to step in.

do

not the chaplains of the University, but we wanted them to

We're
know

that we are here however they saw us taking part. So we came up
with a set of guidelines that when there is a death on campus or
a

tragedy of some kind immediately certain people get notified

and
they are put in touch with us, and we can help or do memorial
services or other things. Over the years, I think, being
involved
being involved with memorial services and grief counseling has
been a very positive thing for us, a way that we can be helpful

to the campus. If this was a private university there would be a
chaplain whose duty it would be to do all of these things, but I
think over the years we have been able to operate as chaplains in
that setting. Those are the things that really come to mind that I
think that we've been able to get involvedwith and make some
significant changes, differences.
R:

When students have had academic problems and have run into some

(35)
R:

intransigence from an office or faculty members and you feel
sure that there's been an injustice involved there, do you
intercede from time to time in those kinds of matters?

H:

Yes. There are all kinds of ways to do that. One is to help that
student figure how he or she can take the next step on their
own or relating them to some other persons, and in the end if they
need just another presence with them or they need me to talk
to the person, I will do that. I think on the one hand I'm very
conscious of trying to preserve that student's independence and
their own integrity, helping them feel they can solve the
problem themselves, but it's obvious to those of us who have been
around longer, it's obvious when you know somebody that you can
have their ear, it does help. To me that is a very important

thing that we've done over the years.
R:

And you feel good about being able to do that without creating
a problem?

H:

Yes, I feel good about it even when it has created a problem, or
even when I was told to forget it.

R:

Even when you lose it.

H:

Yes. One of the things that I have become accustomed to, and I
hardly ever think about it any more in campus ministry, is almost
like a major league batting average. I expect to fail seventy
percent of the time and I'm going to have a good day. By that
I mean things or ideas that I have, programs that I think are
great, and everybody else ___ to them, or changes that I see

(36)
H:

ought to be made or whatever. I don't see those things that don't
work. To me that's just part of what it means to do what I do.
I'm not an extrovert. I have to work very hard at those extrovert
things. I'd rather be by myself sitting in the stacks, thinking
and talking to one other person all the time. So I had to work
really hard. I've chosen a profession in which extroversion is
rewarded, and introversion is seen as you're either aloof or shy
or whatever. I've had to work really hard at those things. I think
maybe that's made me a little better at that because I have
learned how, I think, not to come on in a confrontational way,

an honest way of saying that this is something that needs to

but

addressed. The things that I've had to work the hardest at

be
over my

life are the things that I think that I'm most rewarded

in. For
most

instance, at this very moment I'm working at one of my
difficult things is that I've always had a stuttering

problem from

the time I can remember. When I was a teenager I

could hardly put

a sentence together. I would never talk on the

telephone. Recently
I went back to my home congregation to celebrate its one hundred
and fiftieth anniversary and I was its guest preacher of course.
Well, an elderly man came up to me with tears streaming down his
face, and saying, I can't believe what I've just heard. I haven't
seen you in all of these years. I tell you that story because it's
very much a part of what it means to be who I am and what I do, is
that I have to work very hard all the time at not stuttering. And

(37)
H:

so a handicapping kind of condition which is just a mild one
compared to what a lot of people have to go through, but I think
that having to deal with something like that heightens your
awareness and sensitivity to others and to know that you can
really take charge of things. You can do some things. I don't very
often share that with people, but it seemed kind of appropriate
here.

R:

It's like the kind of every little town in America where I grew
up had a stutterer or two or three or more, and they were always
treated as very, very different and mentally deficient and all
kinds of bad things happened to stutterers. The other part of that
is that if you have a handicap and you have to come through that
situation, somehow you come out on the other end a little
stronger.

H:

You always are aware of it, but like I say it's turned out to be
positive part of my life.

B:

You talked about the difficulty with that terrible incident of the
cross burning and the very positive way that the campus and you
handled that, and you got something good going. Were there other
instances where groups of students sought you out to help resolve
problems. Are there things like that you can share with us? Major
issues?

H:

Well, in 1968 when I went to Emory University and saw myself as
really involved in civil rights movements and all that sort of
thing, I realized that I had never been involved with the gay

(38)
H:

community in kind of way except the curious kind of way. So I
started attending a gay support group there. From that point
on I have felt a closeness to the gay community wherever I have
gone. Early on while I was here, a faculty member and a couple

of students and I were talking about the situation here with
gay and lesbian persons. So we formed an organization that met
in my office for a few years and then moved out of there onto
campus and now through a couple of name changes has become
an official part of the University under the auspices of the
Office of Minority Affairs, Dwight Greer's office. I think
they've even changed the office of Minority Affairs to Cultural
Diversity. The group right now is called ALU, Alternative
Lifestyles Union. I don't approve of their name, but I very
much approve of their group. As I said earlier, probably in 1981
or 1982 I became actively involved in helping gay and lesbian
students on the campus to do whatever they needed for support.
Just to get together and talk. That is primarily what we did over
the years. To talk about their own situation. To say what do we
need to do with education? How do we live in this kind of a
setting in this society? So that's one group that in a way sought
me out, but I was looking at the same time to be related to that
group. There also have been groups of students who have turned
out to be ongoing after a while. Once I spoke in Allan Larsen's

(39)
H:

class on world religions; he asked me to do a history
of Christianity one night. So I did it in one evening of course.

Out of that several students came by and said that they'd like
to continue the conversation. I remember that as being a
memorable six or eight week conversation with them. Several
other times after having either related to students in various
groups or settings or classrooms, other groups have gotten
together with me over a kind of medium period of time, six to
eight weeks or a whole semester sometimes, to pursue conversations. I know one group got together to really talk about what
does it mean to be a part of the peace movement in the 1980's.
Now in the 1980's, peace movements, they weren't cropping up on
every corner, but there were always students around saying, you
know we don't like the belligerent attitude of our country or
other countries. What do we do about this? So along with Ted
Kneupper, we formed a group called Citizens for World Peace. We
didn't have a problem with ego there, Citizens for World Peace.
So for three or four years that group really I think did some
significant things too, involving students in conversation. There
have been different times when mostly small groups of students
have come to me to talk about different areas, but those are the
ones that stand out. I have always been very close to in
feelings with international students. For the last several years
Jim Merhaut, who is the lay Catholic campus minister at the

(40)

H:

Newman Center, and I have been the advisors to the Internations
Club. We do all kinds of things with them. I've always felt a
closeness to minority students and international students and
really drawn to people who are on the fringes of things.
Once in a while we will talk with the students from Africa
about some issues. The Newman Center in 1982 and 1983, I believe
it was, put out a newspaper, an occasional paper, called
Voices of the Third World. It only lasted about six editions
because after a while people had written all that they were

going
to write and they got tired of it, and as you know on campuses
things are really cyclic. Every other semester is a new world
for some people, but Voices of the Third World came to be a group
of people, mostly from Africa, but from other third world
countries. They wrote articles about their country, about the
issues that they saw that ought to be dealt with here while
they're here, and that was a really important group so that the
groupings that have come out of those kinds of settings have
been really important. That's really all that comes to my mind
at
R:

the moment.
When students have been accused, and there are probationary
hearings, or civil kinds of hearings that the University is
involved in, are you sometimes called on as a kind of a private
counsel for those students in those kinds of hearings?

H:

I've never been involved formally in any hearing on campus, but

I've been involved in quite a few situations where either faculty

(41)
H:

or administrators have talked to me about a situation, or students
have talked to me in preparation to being involved or after the
fact. Very much of that I've been in a private counseling kind of
setting, but I can't remember of any instance where I was seen
as any kind of official advocacy role.

R:

And the law enforcement agencies, do you sometimes do things?

H:

Yes. There are quite a few instances where the local police
department has talked to me about people that they knew that
I was involved with, and I told them what I was able to.
The other thing is I know whenever there is a racial or ethnic
slur anywhere the local police will talk to me about that,
because they know of my involvement with all of that. There
have been quite few conversations about things about how
I can be helpful.

R:

What about the evolution of guidelines about sexual harassment?
Were you a part of all that?

H:

Not in official way, but I remember reading over the early
drafts of some of the things that were done here especially with
the sexual harassment thing. I have provided over the years
information from my own church and other traditions that have
given information, for instance, to Judith Lampkins' office about

things that could be incorportated in statements. The churches
over the years have come up with some pretty strict rules. We have
a position on everything. I mean you name it, somewhere it's

(42)
H:

written down we have a position on it, gun control, abortion,
through whatever. And so very often the statements themselves are
just there, but the work that went into producing those statements
produced some pretty good stuff. So whenever I find something
where a committee has worked really hard on a certain issue, I try
to pass that on. I've been really supportive over the years to the
Women's Center. I'm so happy that the Women's Center finally is
established and has a place. I've been advocating that for a

long
time that we need to take some obvious steps. There are times when
you need some obvious symbols and you need a place and you need
to

say it loud and clear. There are also have been faculty

members.
There's one faculty member that I'm thinking about at the moment.
Whenever I go to talk with him we always assure that we close the
door because there's a lot of yelling that goes on, and he is very
sure that my involvement with women's groups and gay groups and
Black students and anybody else you can thing of is obviously
not only that I shouldn't be doing it, nobody should be doing

that. So there is a lot of resistance around for change or
openness and diversity. There's some people, I think the word
diversity just scares some people so bad, and the whole thing
that we've been going through about political correctness and
all that sort of thing, I think that this all wonderful. We just
need to have lots of conversations. We need to have lots of
confrontations in a way that are helpful because there are so

(43)
H:

many things we need to talk about, and a university campus is
a wonderful place to talk about this. I work with two institutions
that are sexist and racist, but who say we don't want to be. Work
very hard in some ways not to be. Have very good folks trying not
to be, but we still end up as institutions oppressing people
simply because things get institutionalized. Now we have to
address those issues, not just to be doing it, not just to fund
for this 1960's ecumaniac to be doing this, but we have to address
those issues. Institutionalized sexism and racism is something
that this institution has got to be constantly dealing with, and I
think we have a long way to go, but I'm really pleased with
some obvious things that have happened here over the last few
years. First of all, we can't put everything on our president
to do or not to do, but it is extremely important for the person
in charge to say out loud, this is not tolerated here, this is

the way we do things. The last couple of years at orientation
sessions it has been really clear to people who come to those,
both orientation sessions and the students who come to that
inquiry kind of thing during the year. It is very clear to them
that we're saying out loud here that we have certain policies
and guidelines, and we're not going to put up with the racist and
sexist sort of thing. So I think that's positive, but we need to
keep working at it. If you ask me what I think are the most
serious problems with our institution, I think that's it. I think

(44)
H:

we have such ingrained feelings. It doesn't make any difference at
this moment that we can point to all kinds of successes, there

are
more women doing this and more minorities doing that. Well, that's
important, but I think we have to understand what kind of history
we have and how far we have to go. I work very closely with
Dwight Greer in the Minority Affairs office, but I've said to him
and I've said to the President and other people that in a way
the establishment of the Minority Affairs office is an example
of institutionalized racism, and we have to deal with it. I'm
happy that it's there. I'm happy that we have a room called
the cultural center, but whenever you establish an office and
fund it, and you hire a person who becomes a lightning rod for

both the white and black community, and then by inference at
least you say, now these are the problems you need to take care
of. Then that's an example in my mind of part of institutionalized
racism because until we understand that we have to have a
transformation across the entire curriculum, every faculty member
has the obligation it seems to me to deal with racism and sexism.
And until the curriculum has dealt with that, until faculty deal
with this, until administrators deal with it, hiring a person and
saying they're in charge of minority affairs is only a very, very
small first step. And I think in some ways we can do that and feel
good that we've done something. But then we sort of let that go,
and then we don't sit back and watch what happens, for instance,

(45)
H:

to that person or to that office. Obviously there are people in
the white community who feel uneasy about it, and there are people
in the African American community who feel either that he is doing
too much or not enough or should be calling on them to do
whatever. So the more that we can have this as a constant
conversation, especially in an academic atmosphere, the better
it seems to me. So the establishment of the Women's Center, the
obvious support through money and other kinds of way such as
office space of groups of gay students or whatever. Now there
comes a time when all of this has to dawn on us that these are

things that we can't anymore just assume that we're going to
take care of or that we can go on with the business as usual.
All we have to do is look at what's going to happen in the next
ten to fifteen to twenty years about who's going to be minority
and who's going to be majority, and this sort of thing and to
train people for the future.

I was asked not long ago to speak in

a Parks and Recreation class, to students who were going to be
park rangers and other kinds of things relating to the public,
about minority persons and how to deal with that sort of thing.
My

assumption to them was that if you are not actively at this

moment
multiracial

training yourself to deal in a multicultural world,
world, in 2015 when you're going to be working and

supervising,
if you're not intentionally dealing with that right now then
you're not being educated for the twenty-first century. That's

(46)
H:

where I start. So it's bare minimum that in our classes we
ought to be doing more multicultural kind of education. There's
hardly any course on this campus that couldn't incorporate
something about diversity. I don't care quantum physics or what.
There are ways. Even if it's the attitude of the faculty member
changing. So I have some very strong feelings about all of that,

and I know at the same time that I participate in it. The longer
that the Protestant campus minister here is a white, male,
heterosexual, every thing I say is suspect. I'm the living proof
that what we offer the world, whether it's the church or the
university, is the result of racism. If I'm not followed in this
job by a Black woman, well, that's an overstatement perhaps, but
all I'm saying is we don't have to look far to see the results
of institutionalized racism. We don't have to beat ourselves over
the head about it, but we need to say, at this moment, the waning
moments of the twentieth century, that's what we have, and we have
it here at Slippery Rock as much as anywhere else.
R:

I did a course once called Black rhetoric, and our opening
questions or the opening talk that everyone made is, what kind
of racist am I? This was in Terra Haute, Indiana, as racism was
flourishing and probably still is. The color line, the sociological color line is just so blatant, and we created all kinds
of stirs over that question, and we had confrontations, and we

( 4 7)

R:

had deans descending on us to say, what in the world are you doing
in that classroom and all kinds of things. But it is a good
fundamental question, and a little soul- searching has to come
somewhere, and maybe that's it.

H:

Right after the cross burning incident when we formed the group,
African American students and others of us were flooded with
mail from white supremacist groups in Pennsylvania. There's a
group, I got some information not long ago about that they
documented from the middle of 1990 until the end of 1991, I

think
it was, the activities of identifiable white supremacist groups in
western Pennsylvania, and they were just numerous, not only
numerous groups, but activities ranging all the way from rallies
to articles to petitions and that sort of thing. There is no
way anymore to talk about a part of the country or whatever, but
we just need to deal with that. As I said a while ago, we don't
need to beat ourselves over the head with this. But we do, I
think, need to confront it openly, and the University is one
of those places, I think, ought really be doing this. We could
be changing our language. For instance, the university is a
wonderful place. My son just finished seminary. Now when he wrote
a paper in seminary it was unacceptable for him to write in
male specific language. People coming out of our seminaries
these days are trained to use inclusive language, and if you
ever hear me pray and I use male specific language, you'll

(48)
H:

know I've just made a mistake and I know it. Because all of

our new worship literature, all of our services, are intentionally
inclusive because the way we talk about each other, the way
we talk to each other has a lot to do with the way we treat each
other, and so the university is one of those places. Now, you
see, I'm able to say that very often in very different kinds
of settings, and be involved in some spirited dialogue about
that. So that's why to me being on a campus is so exciting, and
why it's kind of scary that I might be here next year or the
year after, not because I won't find another campus to do it, but
I don't want to start over someplace getting to know people.
It takes so long to establish those kinds of relationships.
R:

You get the doors open and you know what to expect. I'm curious
about this. I taught here 18 years, and I stayed away from the
faculty lounge after a certain period of time because the
gossip and scuttlebutt and all of that kind of stuff, and had
a lot of problems with privileged communications. And I wonder,
I know you live in a world of privileged communication, and how
do you sort that out. How do you keep the privileged stuff
private?

H:

It's very, very difficult simply because you are constantly
running into situations where a person's well-being might well
depend on you getting close to violating that, especially if
it comes to physical or mental situations. Students or faculty

(49)
H:

or others that you're involved with. Conversations about suicide
or violent kinds of behaviour. I just hope that in every situation
that I do the most loving thing. I'm very conscious of that.
Obviously when someone comes to me to talk or for counseling or
whatever, I assume from the very start that this is privileged
communication, and then I find out later on whether it really
is or not. But I'm very careful to try not to violate that
because you're right. There's hardly any place anywhere you can
go anymore to feel secure in knowing that it's not going to
come back to haunt you one day for political reasons or whatever.
I know that because over the years it's been very obvious to
me that there are some faculty members who have talked to me
about situations that they really should have been talking or
hopefully could have been talking to someone else about it in
their department or elsewhere. But because of what's going to
happen later on down the line, it was just not possible for
them to talk to anybody except somebody they saw was fairly
neutral. At least had a reputation for that, but that is tough.

R:

You have to sort out hallucinations or paranoia because some
people have got an eternal problem. They thrive on it, and
treating some of those things seriously gets tricky, I suppose.

H:

Well, one of the things that I've always tried to do is to
treat every individual and every person seriously and with

(50)
H:

dignity, and when you do that, I think, and then when you sort
through things, then say what's the ultimate loving way that

I can help this person. Then you have to do what you think is
right, and you never know. I know a lot of people take their
work home with them all the time, but mine is never anywhere
but with me. On the one hand I enjoy counseling. I'm not sure

I could have said that a few years ago, but on one level kind of
I do, but on the other level it is a very draining thing and
I'm tired after a while of doing it, and just really need a break.
I

think if I looked at my week, for instance, in the way of a

time study kind of thing, maybe forty percent of my time would
be spent what I would consider counseling. Some of it's very
formal. A lot of it is just a one-time conversation. That sort
of
makes what I do at this point just so exciting that I can't
imagine doing anything else. I don't know of anything that I
do during the year, outside of writing a report this summer, and a
couple of other minor things that I don't like to do. What I do,
I

just very much enjoy everything that I do, and because I'm able

to
have a lot of freedom to do what I do best, and to stay away from
some of the things that I don't do well, then I can't imagine

doing anything else that would be more satisfying. That's why
it's so frustrating at this point for me to get the feeling that
financially we might not be able to continue, and that's just my
honest kind of reaction to that. But I'm so happy that the

(51)
H:

universities still are inviting places for people to do ministry
in higher education. And so I'm aware that I owe the University
honesty and integrity, and I need to keep current. I need to work
hard at being a professional person, and I need to be honest in
what I do. And they need to know that I'm not a sectarian person.
That I'm not here to drum up any kind of business for the
Methodist Church or any other church. I understand all the time
when I meet somebody new or go into a new venture that there's
a trust relationship that needs to be established from the
beginning. It doesn't bother me, but I know it's there all the
time. Fortunately, I've been here long enough at Slippery Rock
that I start to know what it means to feel part of it. People say
I'm part of the woodwork. Only thirteen years. I'm not really part
of the woodwork yet, but I'm starting to fade into the upholstery
a bit.

B:

I think you should know, I think you do know, that of all the
people on this campus over a period of time, you're the one that
people respect the most. You are not in the woodwork. You're

a really positive influence and trusted. You mentioned some
people you have worked with. Father Ted was one. Are there others
or can you tell more about Father Ted? People who have helped you.
People that you respect that have helped your program.
H:

Yes, a couple of more words about Ted Rutkowski. As I said, we
didn't know each other of course before coming here. We had a
couple of conversations on the telephone before I arrived, and

(52)
H:

we had a mutual friend on a national level. So we had a commitment
from the beginning to try to work as a staff, but, of course,
what happened was the icing on the cake as we became just really
good friends. And we were able to have honest conversations about
things, disagreements about things, but still really be close
friends. And Sister Rosaire Kopezenski who came at the same time
is a Franciscan sister, and right out of a higher education
program of her own. The three of us, it was like we worked so
well together immediately, that it was just wonderful. Whenever
you go to a new place, you're always have a lot of anxiety.
And the three of us just really worked together very well. The
person who followed him has become a really good friend of mine,
Father Joe Kleppner. At the beginning of our relationship, we
found out that we were in different political parties. We had
different opinions on almost everything. We decided this was

a great opportunity to carry on the Protestant-Catholic dialogue
on a daily basis because also very quickly we came to the
conclusion that we really did like each other. So every day for
the five years he was here, we had the opportunity to carry on
that conversation, and we still do from a distance now we carry
on that conversation. The person that really stands out in my
mind is Sister Concetta Fabo, who is also a Franciscan, was here
for just one year. She had had experience in training Peace Corps
people who were going to be going to central America. She was

(53)
H:

training them in Spanish. Sister Concetta had this wonderful way
of relating the peaceful life of a Franciscan to activism . She

was

able to come across as this anti-war pacifist kind of person,

but

in a nonconfrontational way. She lived. I'm a pacifist and

if you

don't agree with me you know you're in trouble, but

Sister Concetta taught me so much about peaceful living, that she really
stands out in my mind. A lot of faculty people here have just been
really significant for me. A couple of years ago Bob Crayne and I
did a series for a Presbyterian church in Butler on the liturgical
year, and I did the history of the liturgical year and he did
art to show through the centuries Christian art that had pertained
to all of that. Ted Kneupper, we've done a lot of interesting

things. I also had his wedding and baptized both of his children.
That's the kind of thing, also, when you look back and see the
pictures on the wall of the marriages and the baptisms, not only
of faculty and others but of students. Those are the kinds of
things that really stand out in your mind, I think. John Peterson,
who is the pastor of the Presbyterian church here, we always
looked at him as the sort of walking historian because he's been
here for

27 or 28 years and whenever we say, when did that start,

he'll tell you when that started and who started it and that sort
of thing. But beyond all of that he's just been a good friend
and
pastor. I think those are the people that really stand out in my
mind, and I'm sure if I thought for a while there would be a whole

(54)
H:

lot more. The kind of experiences that I've had at Slippery Rock
they're the kind of things that I think when I was in Nebraska,
I had positive experiences in Nebraska. But I was always thinking,
if I really was good, I really would want to do it this way and I
could do them. When I came to Slippery Rock, I kept trying to
pinch myself. They say that this is what they want to do and we
really are doing it. I think that kind of witness that that makes
for the community where you work together and it's obvious that
you're open to persons from other traditions than your own, and

that what you're really there for is to be involved in this
wonderful enterprise of higher education from your own point of
view, then I think that makes it very exciting.
R:

Are you on the Town-Gown committee?

H:

Well, the Town-Gown committee recently voted to end its existence
at least in the way it had been going, but, yes, from the
very beginning I was a part of it. The last couple of years I've
not been as active. When I came here that was one of the things
I got involved with right away. They had also for several years
the executive council of that which met separately from the TownGown organization with the President of the University, the
mayor of the borough, the chief of police, and four or five
others and I was involved with that, too. We were able to deal
with some things that you had to deal with in a more confidential
way. I think that the Town-Gown organization is a good example

(55)
H:

of community working together. I think it's just one of those
things that's going to take a new configuration in a couple of
years. At the last meeting I attended, I think that was the
vote, to at least go out of existence the way it's composed
right now, and to sort of start again maybe in the fall. It seems
to me that whenever we could help community be formed, especially
right now, that's a great gift because I think a lot of people

don't feel part of community. They feel the alienation. A lot of
individuals I think feel it because we don't feel too much a part
of community. I'm not sure who's at fault there or what all the
reasons are or what really is to be done about it. When we look
back on the 1980's and the 1990's I think that's probably going
to be what we're going to look at. The people are really
struggling to figure out how am I part of this community or
am I part of a community anymore, or my community's gone and
left me. We're so mobile and things change so fast.
R:

Do you have a relationship with the fraternities and sororities
situations on this campus?

H:

Not in any kind of official way. I would never be an advisor to
a fraternity or a sorority. I've done some programs with them.
Occasionally they've asked me to come and talk to them about
various things, anything, but there's been no official relationship.

(56)
B:

I was going to change direction completely and since we're doing
history, we didn't really get any early history of P.A. Harmon.
Only that you're from the south. Can you give us little of that
background?

H:

I was born in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. When you're born

in Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, it's very clear to you
early what you are and what life is all about. That your history
is dripping off of everything. From one of my cousin's houses you
could see about four Civil War battlefields without doing anything
but turning your head. I'm from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia
and I grew up in a family where my grandfather owned a construction company. It was very clear early on that I was going to be
involved in the construction company business. I enrolled at
Virginia Tech at architectural engineering. Before I even started
my first class I realized I don't like construction work. I can't
stand digging holes for my grandfather. I loved seeing the church
built and all that stuff, but that's not my world. So I decided to
change. So even before I started my first day of class I switched
curriculums at Virginia Tech and I went into pre-law. What were
they calling it in those days? It wasn't a pre-law course, but
anyway I was headed for law school, and during the time in college
I met a man who was teaching world religions. I took a course with
him in world religion to fill up a hole in the curriculum, and
took a course in great traditions and ethics. I was in his office

(57)
H:

one day and I looked up on the wall and saw that he had gone to
seminary, and that he had gone on to graduate school and got his

Ph.D. I raised this question, what are you doing? You're a
minister. He said, yes. I said, I didn't know you were a
minister.
religion
as such an

He said, well, this is what I do as a minister. I teach
in college, and that's my calling. That occurred to me
intriguing thing. And I had been thinking for so

long. My faith
tradtion has always been very important to me. Lutheran.
Methodist. Father was Methodist. Mother was Lutheran. I went to
both churches all the time, and all of a sudden it dawned on me
that that was something that could be important in life. When I
finished with college, I worked for two years with an insurance
company handling claims, trying to figure out if I was going to
law school or seminary or what. I got to handle malpractice
claims, and it was wonderful for two years. Then I went to
seminary in 1965. By this time I was married, and we had two
sons. Timothy, the youngest son, is a claim representative for
an insurance company. My oldest son graduated from here in
1985 with a double major in English and history, and through a
couple of other kinds of things that he did ended up three years
ago going to seminary. If he reads this, this will be the first
time that I have said this publicly that I think one of the
main reasons that he did that because of his relationship with
Bob Macoskey. He and Bob were very close from the very first

(58)
H:

day Paul was a student here. Paul worked on the ALTER project from
the time he got here. It was about six months after Bob died
that Paul told us he had been accepted to three seminaries and
was getting ready to choose one. I think that Bob was a very
significant person in his life. I've been married 30-a-couple of
years. My wife is a dental assistant for Dr. Duryea here in town.
The world of higher education, since I was 17, has been it. Except
for those couple of years I worked for the insurance company. So
like a lot of other people that I relate to around here, we think
this is the best of all worlds. So when I think about my calling
as clergy, as a minister, there isn't anything else at this point
that I want to do. That has not always been real comfortable
because there aren't that many of us who do that kind of specialized work. And so most clergy that I relate to are parish ministers, and sometimes we're not always having the same conversation
we think we're having. It has been just really positive. Although
I'm not thinking actively about retirement, obviously I'm going to
retire, and hopefully I make it that long. I want to go back to
the south or the southeast. I love Atlanta. Of all the places
we've ever lived, I'd go back to Atlanta in a heartbeat. When I
talk to colleagues who are campus ministers in North Carolina,
Virginia, Georgia, there's so much excitement. When we talk about
dealing with racial issues, my colleagues in the south, both Black
and white, they are so much more actively involved than we are

(59)

H:

here. There's so much more going on. There's so much more
opportunity and more openness to deal with that. I was recently
talking to an African-American woman who's just come on the staff
here. She just moved from the University of North Carolina/
Greensboro as a student. She already has felt that there's just
much more excitement and activity when it comes to interracial
things than there is here both in the Black community and the
white community. So there's a lot of things. I feel very
positive about being a Southerner. I feel very positive about
one day going back there.

R:

Well, I think that's a lovely benediction. Is there anything else
you'd particularly like to cover?

H:

I don't think so. I've just really enjoyed the opportunity like I
said in the very beginning to work where the two institutions I
love the most meet everyday. It's been good. Thank you.

B:

These conversations don't have a formal end so we get a chance to
think about more we'd like to hear or if you think of other things
we should know, then we'd like to continue. The tape and the
transcript stay in the Archives and are secure. We haven't

decided
but we

yet how we will publicize them or how they will be used,

hope they will be an important resource. Good to have you part of
it.