SRU ORAL HISTORY
"SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY IN THE SIXTIES"
INTERVIEWEE:

DR. ALLAN LARSEN

INTERVIEWER:

DR. JOSEPH RIGGS

29 OCTOBER 1990

R:

This is Dr. Joseph Riggs interviewing Dr. Allan Larsen at
Slippery Rock University on 29 October 1990. This is a part
of our oral history program about the history of the
institution with some emphasis on the 1960's. We're not
confined to that in any way, shape or form. Maybe an easy
one to start

with. How did you happen to get here at

Slippery Rock?
L:

While I was at the University of Delaware pursuing a
master's degree in philosophy, that was in the academic year
1962-63, the chairman of the department informed me that
there was a position open in Slippery Rock and a fellow
graduate student and I decided to apply for it.

That's how

I heard about Slippery Rock. When I was offered the job, I
decided to come primarily because it was in close proximity
to Duquesne University where I wanted to pursue a Ph.D. My
original intent was to take the job for three years and then
go on to greener pastures. But 27 years later I'm still
here. But that's a long story in itself.

-2-

R:

Then you went on to Duquesne?

L:

Yes. I finished my Ph.D. in 1971 at Duquesne University
majoring in philosophy. I came in 1963 to Slippery Rock.

R:

And President Carter came in 1964?

L:

I believe, yes, I think it was the second year. The first
year I was here Norman Weisenfluh was the President at the
time. Kindly old fellow. Rather the traditional, paternalistic type president. When he met you in the hall, he'd
invariably ask the same question, "How are you? How is your
work coming? He asked that of just about everyone. He was a
very nice man. I never really got to know him very well. The
one thing that sticks out in my mind after we came and there
was a new faculty reception were we got to meet the rest of
the faculty. The president took all of us aside and there
was probably one of the largest incoming number of faculty
ever. I think there were at least 25 new people coming in.
He took us aside and one of the things that stuck out in my
mind was he told us that he expected us to go to the church
of our choice because we had to keep up the proper image of
the university. Coming from New York city I just couldn't
believe my ears that I was actually hearing this. We acclimated and things have changed since then.

R:

While we were at Memphis State, the ladies of the faculty
were advised not to smoke at all if possible, and certainly
not on campus.

-3-

L:

Yes. When we were interviewed, it was pretty clear that our
spouses were also being interviewed. That was part of the
process.

R:

A family matter.

L:

Yes. That's right. We were one big family. I think there
were just about two thousand students when I came. Maybe
just a bit under that. Just about two thousand.

R:

He left?

L:

He stayed that first academic year that I was here. Then he
took a sabbatical leave. While he was on sabbatical, he was
retired. Now the rumor was that he was only perfunctorily
consulted about that. That it wasn't really so much a choice
of his.

That was, at least the rumor was, he was kind of

forced to retire.

How true that is I'm not really sure.

R:

You had an acting president then?

L:

Yes. I may not get the sequence right. Edwards was acting
president for a while. Now if that was a whole academic
year, I'm not sure. A lot of people at the college at that
time were very strong in favor of Edwards. When he didn't
make it, some of them actually left the school. They were
that strongly committed to that idea. Two of them, as a
matter of fact, went to Indiana University. Dick Hazley and
another fellow in the psychology department. I can't
remember his name.

R:

Edgar.

-4-

L:

Edgar, that's it.

I presume that is the main reason why

they left.
R:

Were they faculty or administration?

L:

They were faculty.

R:

I'll be darned.

L:

Back in those days and for many years since then, there's
a considerable taking of sides among faculty, for one
president or another.

R:
L:

Yes, I've noticed that.
Causes some rather significant risks but made it interesting
through the years.

R:

One of the ways of governing is you're either for me or
against me. You have to take a choice, a position.

L:

I think the situation now is different.

It has been for

some years. For many years it was sort of expected. That's
the modus operandi, that's the way things go. I've never
been in favor of it. Always tried to kind of keep away from
taking sides in that sense, at least being for someone as
opposed to somebody else. When someone, I think, clearly
stands for unjust policies and arbitrariness, then I have
been rather vocal in opposing them.
R:

Whim and caprice are not your favorites.

L:

Absolutely.

R:

Then President Carter came.

-5-

L:

I think it was under three years. I don't think he finished
his third year.

That was probably the most tumultuous and

difficult time that this college, in my experience, has ever
had. Those were difficult times. So people said the reason
why some of the young women, including my wife, were not
getting pregnant was because the stress was so great. At
least one person who died was attributed to all the stress
that he caused. That he was indirectly responsible for that.
It was a bad time.
R:

Worse than the Watrel exit?

L:

Oh, yes. I think that the Watrel exit did not involve the
faculty and the student body as radically. It was just the
inner core, the administration, that seemed to be involved
in some dubious money types of things. I never got the full
or complete story about that. I don't know anyone who does,
frankly. I've heard rumors and different stories. Never have
had them corroborated.

R:

Could we talk about the Carter years and how that nastiness
evolved from the outset. The story I got was he turned off
the electricity and the water and stuff in the president's
house and Edwards had to move out.

L:

In order to get Edwards out more quickly. Again I don't know
if it was Edwards who actually refused to budge and carter
took what he thought were the necessary steps or whether
this was just a mean guy. I don't know about that particular

-6-

L:

part of it. I think I have much more direct knowledge of
other things. The memories become a little dim. Mostly,
because you don't want to think about them because they're
so unpleasant. When he first came, some of the younger
faculty like myself were happy to get a president that was
from a liberal arts college. The college had been and was
still for many years afterwards primarily a teacher training
college. My having come from a liberal arts background, I
was interested to see the school move in that direction.
Carter seemed to be the man that was going to do that. Two
other faculty members, Bob Crayne and Bob Davis, and I made
an appointment to see the President, primarily for the purpose of welcoming him and telling him how glad we were that
we were getting a president that had a liberal arts background and would hopefully set the college in that
direction. Well, we weren't in his office more than five
minutes and he began to attack each of us individually. He
had dragged out our files and learned and had committed to
memory where we had come from and what schools we had been
to. He began to make a kind of frontal attack upon us. That
was just the beginning of my confrontation with him. I was
still at the time at Duquesne University, teaching four, I
guess we taught five courses each semester in those days,
and half-time graduate student. I was also advisor to a new
philosophy club and had lots of other duties as well. The

-7-

L:

last thing in my mind was that I would be stirring up anyone
against this man.

As a matter of fact, as I said, I came to

him with the idea of welcoming him to Slippery Rock. After
that encounter, he singled me out as an instigator of the
students against him. That since he came, that I and others
were interested in getting him out. Of course, I had no such
idea. I had nothing against the man whatsoever. The student
organization that I was advisor to, as a matter of fact he
said was really the front organization for this undercover
group that was working against him. He kind of fulfilled the
the classical paranoid syndrome.
R:
L:

From the very beginning?
Yes. Right from the beginning. What he did was, he collected
loyal people around him. Loyalty was the prime virtue for
these people gathered around him. Gradually because of his
attitudes and the things he did he alienated everybody,
finally even the people who were closest to him. Until
finally there was no one, simply no one, who was backing him
anymore with the possible exception of Emma Guffey Miller.
She seemed to stay with him right till the end.

R:

And he lost Judge Kiester somewhere along the way.

L:

He lost the two Marks.

Mark Shiring and Marc Selman,

political science. Chesin, too, lost him. The chairman of
the department at that time, the philosophy department, was

-8-

L:

Allan J. Allen. At the beginning, he was a firm supporter of
Carter but gradually he saw the kind of injustices this man
was perpetuating and he became finally the leader of his
overthrow, after I guess it was about two and a half years.

R:

The leader of the overthrow was Allen?

L:

Allan J. Allen. He collaborated pretty closely with Bob
Crayne. Even at that time, I was kind of on the fringe of
things and I was certainly in favor of the group that was
working against him, but I had too many other things to do
to get involved politically. I was working on my Ph.D. and
I was still a new teacher organizing my own courses.

R:

What was the nature of the accusations and the things he had
to say to you in the initial?

L:

I can't even remember specifically anymore what kinds of
things.

R:

But it was explosive from the outset?

L:

Yes. It was a confrontational kind of thing right from the
beginning. There was no attempt to even understand or try
to understand why we had come. Why we had even come to see
him. We never even got a chance to say that, you know. And
after hearing these attacks, no one was in any mood to
welcome him. It was a strange situation.

R:

Over the two and half or so years he was here, it was sort
of all downhill? I understand that was a period of great
construction and a lot of stuff going on and growth was
taking place.

-9-

L:

Yes. It was a time of a great deal of growth. That would
have happened no matter who was here. He did try to move the
college more in terms of a liberal arts program. I don't
think he accomplished too much in that regard. He got rid of
the lab school, for example. That was pretty bitter because
several people had to be fired and there were others that he
fired, too. The registrar, Miss Billingsly. She and the
former dean who was the chairman of the philosophy department who hired me, Harold Wieand, kind of ran the school and
kind of did it by hand, too. He fired her and she died of a
heart attack shortly after that. So a lot of people
attributed that heart attack to the stress that he caused.
I guess she finally resigned. I guess he asked for her
resignation. I'm not sure formally how that transpired. As
I said, he alienated just about everybody including the town
folk, the board of trustees, the faculty. The student body
actually met in the Field House and voted unanimously to
walk off campus until he was fired. And then the faculty got
together shortly after that, a day or so after, and voted no
confidence in him.

R:

He came to that meeting?

L:

I believe he did. Typically he would get up in front of the
faculty and tell us about how incompetent we were and how we
were really unable, and didn't know enough, to really have
our own organization. He was convinced that the faculty
should not have a senate because we were not knowledgeable

-10L:

or smart enough or able to really govern ourselves. We
needed a strong hand like his. He was involved in everything. The image that kind of typifies Carter in my mind was
one day I was looking out the window from my office and he
was out on the lawn not too far from Old Main and some
working men were cutting down a tree and he was
supervising the cutting down of that tree. Chain-smoking a
cigarette as he did. Smoking a cigarette always. He was out
there telling them just how to do that. He did that with
everything, you know. He told everybody just exactly how it
should . be done. He was extraordinary. Extraordinary
workaholic too. He probably worked 12-14 hours a day.
Very thin, gaunt man. Interesting guy.

R:

Not exactly one of a kind but he served as one of a kind for
a while. Did you ever have any other personal confrontations
with him over that period of time or the first meeting was
enough?

L:

I don't recall ever seeing him again on a personal level,
except once he came up to me in the hallway and thanked me
for taking a large enrollment in a summer class. Totally unexpected. I had taken 50 students in a summer class which
was about double what we had usually taken and he came over
and he thanked me for doing that.

R:

You made them a lot of money.

L:

Yes, I guess that's what he was thanking me for.

-11-

L:

So he lasted about two and half years. Again the fact
this are something that I've only heard secondhand. But the
story I heard was that the Board of Trustees had met and
fired him or asked for his resignation. Then it turned out
that it wasn't a legal quorum. This is again the story I
heard, and so the board had to reconvene and again ask him
for his resignation. They came to some kind of agreement
that he would be on a leave of absence or something and I
guess he would continue to receive his checks. I didn't get
the particulars of that.

R:

I was told he submitted a letter of resignation and then
Marc Selman became president for a week or a few days and
then he withdrew his resignation and that may have had
something to do with the quorum business.

L:

Yes, I'm not exactly sure what actually transpired.

R:

Then he was removed and Bob Lowry came in.

L:

Everyone just breathed a great sigh of relief because Lowry
was a decent man and he tried to right some of the wrongs.
I had been here five years by that time and had neither received a promotion nor tenure in those five years. And in
those days, if you had had the kind of qualifications I had,
after three years you would have received both assistant
professor and tenure. But I didn't receive either because
he really wanted to get rid of me. Carter wanted to get rid
of me. But because people who were close to him were also
friends of mine they repeatedly said to him, "I don't

-12-

L:

know what you have against Larsen. He's not doing anything
to you." And he would just clam up and not say anything.
This is what I heard from Marc Selman, for example. He was
the one who filled me in on that part of it more than anyone
else.

Afterwards, Marc decided to kind of come out into the

open and tell it all the way it had happened. He would be
the man to interview as far as the inner circle of what went
on in regard to the administration.
R:

He was our first interviewee and he's got much more to say.

L:

He was there right where it was happening.

R:

I was told that the assistant to the president would have
been the successor under some kind of new ruling that they
worked out among the state colleges.

L:

I don't know about the legality of that, even for that
short time he took over, but I don't think anyone was
particularly happy about that arrangement. It didn't last
long.

R:

The student participation, was that a thing that kind of
grew over the three year period to where it suddenly
exploded?

L:

Well, one thing that kind of comes to mind, no, it was a
gradual thing, is what the kids called rent-a-cops. Before
the Carter administration, the first year I was here under
Norman Weisenfluh, I think there were just a couple of
policemen, and they were more like uncle figures, granddaddy

-13-

L:

figures than real policemen. Very friendly, didn't carry any
weapons, anything like that. They had a nominal uniform and
kind of walked around. Everybody knew these fellows and it
was either one or two of them. When carter came, he saw a
need for more security, more police, and apparently no one
else did but him. In any case, he hired some professional
policemen to come on campus and it tended to aggravate a
great deal. Not only was it a change, but these people were
beginning to enforce rules that didn't make a heck of a lot
of sense. For example, the students might congregate over
here at the wall outside of Rhoads Hall, there was a brick
wall there. It was kind of a congregation place for the
students and there was obviously no harm in it. At least not
that I could see, and so they would typically break them up
all the time and that understandably got people annoyed.
There are other things of that nature, too . Presumably
there were searches in the dorms, but again these are things
I only had hearsay, and don't know actually what transpired.

R:

Was student government a part of all of this, the elected
representatives of the students?

L:

Yes.

He had confrontations, if I remember right.

Again

my memory is kind of foggy. He had confrontations with some
of the student body. This was, of course, during the 1960's
and we had some, even here at Slippery Rock, we had a few
radicals, you know, that opposed the establishment no matter

-14-

L:

what it stood for. Some of them were even my students. Good
kids for the most part but they were feeling their oats and
being a part of the general upheaval that was going on in
the 1960's. So he had confrontations with the students.
There was a spring demonstration outside his home once. I
remember that kind of clearly. I don't even remember what
provoked it specifically and then the demonstration moved
down to Old Main after that. And he attributed it simply to
spring fever, that there was actually nothing wrong.

R:

What about the trustees? They had power in those days before
Act 107 or whatever it was.

L:

I don't think I knew too much about that. As I said I think
Emma Guffey Miller was a loyal supporter of Carter.
Gradually others began to see that he did not have the
support of the faculty or of the townspeople. They began to
oppose him later on. I'm sure at the beginning he had their
support but very gradually that eroded. Specific instances
I wouldn't be about to know.

R:

Were there particular leaders in the town itself that you
can remember? Any of those people who had a role in all
that?

L:

Not that I can recall.

R:

But it was an unhappy time.

L:

For sure. Certainly in the third year things had really come
to a head. He started right from the beginning.

-15-

R:

What about the press? Was the Rocket involved, the Butler
Eagle and those folks?

L:

The press, of course. Any time there is a demonstration or
the faculty and the students get together to vote against a
president you can be sure that the press is going to somehow
get wind of it. They certainly gave us coverage in that
regard. I don't have any recollection as to how fair or
accurate it was at the time. This might have even been the
time when we got into the New York Times. That might have
been under Watrel. That one hit the press too almost
nationwide.

R:

Do you remember the man from Bucknell who was offered the
presidency before Carter got it?

L:

I have no recollection of that.

R:

Okay.

L:

It's interesting that my own attitude toward this kind of
involvement, political involvement especially, was one that
wasn't my thing. I was almost apolitical when I was a young
professor. And it's only been because of the nature of the
administrations that we've had, that I have become
increasingly involved. Because we just can't avoid it. I had
the rather traditional view that I was a scholar and that
should be my concern, by teaching my students and doing
research and writing and the like and the rest had nothing
to do with me. But gradually I began to see that that wasn't
a realistic view.

-16R:

When the cause is just you have to act.

L:

Sure.

R:

These are some of the things I have written down about your
years at Slippery Rock and if any of those trigger some responses as general topics we can translate them into
questions but topics are good enough, I'm sure.

L:

Okay. I mentioned how I got to Slippery Rock and why I
picked Slippery Rock. Why I stayed is nothing particularly
earthmoving or profound about that. It was a matter of
after being here the three years that I had originally
alloted myself, I finished my course work for my Ph.D. I was
more or less free to go and I looked around for jobs and
those were the days when there were lots of jobs available.
But the offers I got and I think at least three offers that
first year, were not appreciably better than Slippery
Rock's. It became clear that I actually had to finish my
Ph.D. not just my course work before I could get a job. But
that took longer than I thought. By the time I finished my
Ph.D. in 1971, I was then eligible for a sabbatical. So I
said, well you know, should I throw away these seven years
and start over again, or should I take the sabbatical and
stay another year? By that time I'd finished eight years.
I came back from a sabbatical in Germany and the job
situation and prospects had virtually closed by that time.
Although there were other jobs available, they weren't again
much better than and even worse than Slippery Rock.

-17R:

That's kind of peculiar to your field?

L:

Yes. A lot of the academic departments were experiencing
something very similar. English, history, political science.
The academic departments for the most part were experiencing
something similar to that. There was a big explosion during
the sixties. And then by the time we got to the mid-70's
things had really changed a lot. The door began to close
more and more surely until by the time we got to 1980 jobs
were very difficult. Of course, you know, by that time I was
getting a better salary than most schools would be willing
to offer. So I stayed put and I've been relatively happy
here. It's a challenge teaching at Slippery Rock, because
our students are perhaps not as well prepared as they might
be at some other schools, at some so-called better schools.
But I have had the opportunity to develop a philosophy
department which is very rewarding. When I came, there was
one other member, Harold Wieand, who in a sense had created
the philosophy department himself. Prior to that he was the
Dean of Academic Affairs, I guess it was called. He decided
to retire from that and he created the philosophy department
and made himself chairman. I think after a year or two, he
hired me. As he said, he doubled the size of the department.
He took a sabbatical in my second year so that was the first
year Carter was here. So in my second year I became the

-18-

L:

chairman of a two man department but in name only. Nobody
took it seriously. I didn't either, I guess. We hired a
regular person during that year and that was Allen J. Allen.
He became the third person. Harold Wieand then moved when he
got back from sabbatical to chairman of the new economics
department because that was really his area. He had written
his doctorate in some field of economics. So he wasn't
trained in philosophy at all. So I had the opportunity to
develop the philosophy department. I introduced a great many
new courses. We wrote up a philosophy major and I took part
in hiring a lot of people. It was a busy time. As well as
working for the doctorate.

R:

Has it been your experience that pretty good students
gravitate towards the courses offered in philosophy?

L:

Yes, I think generally we tend to get perhaps some of the
better students. We get more than our share, I think. As you
know, the students can completely avoid philosophy if they
wish. The first philosphy major we had was a local Slippery
Rock boy who came from a farm right in the area. Larry
Kendall. Very smart. A very intelligent boy. In his own
words, he said that when he started to study philosophy he
discovered the world of words. He made the interesting
discovery that farmers for the most part do not live in the
world of words. It's a utilitarian life and words are
strictly utilitarian. That was an interesting insight that

-19-

L:

I got from him. He graduated with probably a B average
overall and probably close to an A average in philosophy.
But he took the GRE's in philosophy and got up in the
ninety-second percentile. So I guess we did a fairly good
job in preparing him. On the basis of that he got a full
fellowship at Waterloo University in Canada.

R:

He became verbal then?

L:

Yes. Excellent student. We've kept in touch since then.

R:

Are there other students that you remember in particular.

L:

As a matter of fact one of our best philosophy majors
graduated about five or six years ago. He's going to be
applying for a job here at Slippery Rock next year. He
completed his Ph.D. at Chicago and has done really well
as a teacher and as a scholar. We haven't had a lot of
outstanding philosophy majors but the few that we've had
have been really fine.

R:

Will you be interviewing him in the spring or the fall?

L:

Yes. Probably in January we'll start interviewing. Over the
course of the years I've been here we've gone from a two man
department to 6 1/2, and in the last ten years we've dropped
back to five and it's been pretty steady since then. We have
I think a good solid philosophy department. Generally
speaking we're one of the stronger departments in this
school.

-20-

R:

I tend to agree. Are there other departments that you can
remember over the 27 years that have been particularly outstanding?

L:

During the Carter years, Carter made a deliberate effort
I don't know why, but he wanted to build a really strong
English department and he did. We had a really excellent
English department. Writers, poets, people who were really
involved, but the interesting thing about it was that these
very excellent professors became the strongest opponents to
him, because of his injustices and so on. After Carter most
of these people were allowed to leave, or it was made pretty
clear that they were not wanted anymore, and the English
Department never recovered.

R:

That took place over the early Watrel years?

L:

Yes. Watrel, I think, realized that this was a seat of possible discontent and it could be that, at least unofficially, he tried to, if not deliberately, thwart its growth
and strength by lack and by inactivity.

R:

There were a half dozen or more of those folks, Milto was
one.

L:

The department head himself was a very strong personality.
Ord I believe if I remember his name right. Its been a very
long time.

R:

I know that they left gradually because when I came here
there were still a couple left, and they had an enormous

-21-

R:

student following. They did some incredibly imaginative
and clever kinds of things.

L:

I think it made the administration nervous. At least
nervous, maybe scared.

R:
L:

Milto had moved his desk out on the lawn.
Air sculpture, lectures. They used to do a little theater of
the absurd. Some of the students would go up to the
President's office and sit down with his secretaries and ask
them what they were doing. Just get everybody all flustered.
It was an interesting time.

R:

Every piece of theater doesn't play in Peoria or in Slippery
Rock.

L:

But I never had any problems with Albert Watrel. As a matter
of fact, I think he liked me for some reason or another. I
was by that time getting increasingly active in faculty
governance. I was the first one who was an active and real
chairman of the curriculum committee. Before that the
Vice-President for Academic Affairs, although unofficially,
ran and chaired the committee. In our faculty council
constitution it indicated that the chairman was a faculty
member. In years past the faculty would simply pass it to
the vice-president. It was Jim Roberts at that time. When I
got on the committee one or two of us decided we weren't
going to continue this way and so I was voted in as chairman
and I made it quite plain that I was going to act as
chairman. I was going to chair the committee.

-22L:

The vice-president wasn't there, as a matter of fact he was
ill. Ray Owen was the associate and he said: "Whoa, I don't
know if that's acceptable." I said it's not a matter of
whether you think it's acceptable, I said, it's in our
constitution. He said we'll get back to you about that. So
they did. They came back the next time we had a meeting and
he said well we find it acceptable for you to be the
chairman. We just kind of smiled. You don't really have
any choice. This is the way we're going to do it. I also
chaired the faculty council which was I thought a very
meaningful body that acted on the best of liberal,
democratic principles. It wasn't just a meaningless debating
society. We actually made decisions and we did things that
were worthwhile and important. I was very sorry to see that
organization go, because it wasn't tied to things like
economics, as the union is, and to other things that are
very peripheral to our academic interests. So I was sorry to
see the faculty council go. I opposed it when it was voted
out. We made important curriculum decisions. I chaired that
for a couple of years.

R:

Let's talk a little about the union. It came in about 1971,
'72 or '73 somewhere. I just got here when we voted for it.
We became a kind of prototype for other unions which
followed from other states and we were fairly impressive in
the early going with Marty Morand and Ramelle McCoy. Do you
have observations to make about the nature of the unioniza-

-23-

L:

tion of faculty or about our union in particular?
As I said, when I was a young faculty member the last thing
on my mind was unionization of faculty. I had this rather
haughty traditional idea of being a professional. I didn't
think that this was the kind of thing that we should be
involved in, but increasingly with the kind of arbitrariness
and injustice that you so often can see from administrations
where they had the absolute power, I began to more and more
be swayed by the fact that one had to get involved and that
a union, or indeed some kind of faculty organization was
imperative. As I said, I supported the faculty council and
when the union came into being I supported it, too. I never
got directly involved with the union although I supported it
right from the beginning. The people we had at the beginning, as you said very well, did an excellent job. Our contract became a paradigm for the rest of the country for
other unions. Rich Hazley was an excellent president and I
think things continued to go our way during his administration. But after we lost Marty Morand and people like Rich
Hazely then the union started to go down hill. Our contracts
have become weakened. We no longer are an outstanding union
the way we used to be.

R:

Morand was run out from within. The man who brought us into
being fundamentally was run off after a period of time.

L:

Too many faculty members said he didn't look professional
enough.

-24-

R:

Certainly didn't. He had a quality orientation that I found
compelling even if he didn't wear a tie.

L:

Yes, he was a good man. Wouldn't mind seeing him come back.

R:

I guess he's at IUP.

L:

Yes, he is. He heads up some kind of labor studies
department.

R:

I think it's a graduate program. Irv Kuhr went over there
and took some courses on his sabbatical.

L:

I haven't seen Marty in several years.

R:

Are there other topics on that biographic thing?
How have you felt about the quality of the institution, your
colleagues, camaraderie, the interaction, the intellectual
environment, or is that a thing that doesn't occur in these
kinds of institutions?

L:

I think my answers to those questions are part of the reason
why I stayed. When you're back in the boonies as we are in
Slippery Rock, you have a tendency, at least in the early
years, to kind of hang together. I found a great many really
good colleagues, stimulating intellectually and artistically, that substituted for the lack of culture in the area.
We had discussion groups that would discuss books and we'd
give our own papers and talk about our own ideas. This was
in the early days when I first came. My own colleagues have
always been a great source of belonging and giving me intellectual stimulation. I think that in a school like this,

-25-

L:

that atmosphere is probably superior to what I had experienced on other campuses where they're closer to metropolitan areas, where there's perhaps more to offer in terms
of other than what you yourself and what your own colleagues
generate. Its almost a matter of necessity so you don't
starve culturally. You do it on your own. That's been my
experience at least in the early years.

R:

And you kind of lost track of some of them?

L:

Yes, I think so.

R:

You had a lot of professional interaction at one time. When
I came here we had some marvelous social gatherings. Lovely,
lovely parties that were stunning by anyone's standards.
Really good stuff.

L:

If that's going on I'm not much aware of it. It could be
that the younger faculty are now doing that but as far as I
know there's not too much going on. So I've had my professional satisfaction from my colleagues and from that kind of
thing.

R:

That may vary widely from school to school and department to
department. There are some who bounce off each other very
nicely and are self-contained in some way.

L:

I think our philosophy department is blessed if I may so use
a word in that connection. We have had minor rifts here but
for the most part, we have gotten along very well. We have
a tendency to be very supportive of each other and we have

-26-

L:

get-togethers that are typically with our students. There's
a good deal of camaraderie among us and also among our
majors. We try to keep close and I think that is a real plus
for our students as well as ourselves. The schools that I've
been to, you tend to find that the distance between the
faculty and the students is so great that you hardly ever
see the faculty except in the classroom.

R:

I think that may still be true here depending on what the
student is majoring in.

L:

I'm sure it is.

R:

Faculty accessibility in my experience has been somewhat
limited at social gatherings, inviting folks to their homes
and things of that sort.

L:

Well, but you see what goes on at big universities you can't
even find them. I was at the University of Illinois for one
year after I got out of the army and I had a logic professor, a young guy, and he would be sure that he ended his
lecture right by the door so he could quickly open it and
run before anyone could approach him. But he made a mistake
and he passed the back door so we would run quickly to the
the back door and we'd intercept him down the hall.

R:

I was at Illinois as well, and office hours were one hour a
week sometimes. Many, many more productive scholars there
than you find in other institutions. Our role here is not

-27-

R:

along those lines as it is in larger universities. The
publish or perish world.

L:

In such a world there tends to be a good deal of jealousy
and competition among faculty, and that really limits the
possiblity of dialogue and communication and exchange of
ideas. People tend to be jealous of what they have and they
are not readily willing to share it.

R:

I was at Lehigh, a very highbrow institution in many ways.
The competition for promotion was fierce and a very, very
knock-down drag-out thing which was most unhealthy.
Long, long periods of bad relationships which followed
among awfully, awfully fine people.
Could we go back to the 1960's for a second? Was there an
antiwar movement around?

L:

I would say that Slippery Rock had its elements. There were
some people that were outspoken and willing to get out and
demonstrate and do, but for the most part I would say that
the student body and the faculty tended to be conservative.
I think that it continues to be that way. We had some vocal
faculty that did get involved. This was a time when I had a
tendency to stay on the periphery of things.

My involvement

in faculty governance didn't really come until a little bit
later.

My own political involvement has been minimal, I

think, but I had good friends that were involved much more
so than I was.

-28-

R:

Is there something about state colleges and universities or
colleges and universities in general where administrations
develop a kind of a siege mentality or rule-or-ruin. We
haven't had a great deal of success with our administrations. The Watrel administration was rocky. The Reinhard
administration was a very rocky trip and certainly Carter.
Then I have heard about others in the past. Is it difficult
for us to find leadership that can do the kind of job that
ought to be done, yet keep the boat from sinking out from
under us?

L:

I don't know if the state system type of institution is more
prone to that than the private ones. I found that these
kinds of problems seem to exist in the private schools as
well. My daughter goes to Allegheny (College, Meadville,PA)
and they are experiencing considerable turmoil right now
because of their administration. The president especially.
You're kind of caught between two things. On the one hand,
you would like to have an administration, a president, with
vision, with intelligence, with an idea as to what an institution ought to be, and then on the other hand when he tries
to make that vision a reality, is it possible to do it
without stepping on toes, without alienating perhaps maybe
even doing some injustices if you want to get it done at
least within a reasonable amourit of time. I don't have the
answer to that question. On the other hand then, there are

-2 9-

L:

the administrations, that seem to be the kind that we have
right now, that leave you pretty much alone. I at this point
in my life think that that's the preferable of those two
possibilities, the more aggressive one that maybe does have
vision as to what ought to be and then the other more
conservative. I have never had an administration here at
Slippery Rock that I could look to for academic inspiration
or leadership. Never.

R:

What about other things that affect the faculty a great deal
like hiring, promotion and sabbaticals? The policies and the
way those things operate, do those satisfy you?

L:

Let me make a comment about the history of promotions and
tenure at Slippery Rock since I've been here. It used to be
rather automatic as long as you didn't do anything immoral.
If you finished your degree and you're doing a reasonable
job in the classroom, tenure and promotions came. By the
time you finished your doctorate chances are you would be a
ful l professor. It didn't take long before that way of doing
things changed more and more radically. Tenure was moved to
five years and promotions became more and more difficult.
Even though we say that we are primarily a teaching institution nonetheless promotions come only there are some
significant publications or exhibitions if you're an artist
or whatever the case may be. So that promotions have become

-3 0-

L:

increasingly difficult. I have served on the tenure
committee and I have served a couple of times on the
promotions committee and I think I have served now on just
about every university wide committee. I think the fairest
committee I have ever been on and the hardest working
committee has been the promotion committee. I know a lot of
people on the outside look at it very differently, but I can
say from my own experience that the people on that committee
do an excellent job. They work very hard. They try very hard
to be fair. Whether it actually turns out that way is a
difficult thing to say. I know, there is a great deal of
grumbling and considerable bitterness on some people's parts
who have not. But when I was chairman, I instituted the
policy and some people think this is a terrible policy, but
I thought it was in the interest of fairness that we write
to every single person who applies and tell them why they
have not been recommended, at least in some general terms
so that they could change and do what was necessary. The
upshot of that was that it got the committee into all kinds
of trouble because the applicants would say that so-and-so
was weak in this area. Then of course the person would argue
that they were not weak in that area. It's a very difficult
thing.

R:

On the other hand it was bound to have some early
difficulties but as the process takes place over a period of
time it seems to me it has become more accepted and to have

-31-

R:

someone who helps you with your next application and to plug
the gaps and all of that sort of thing. It's a terrific
notion.

L:

I think all one has to do is to think of the alternative. Do
you want to put it in the hands of the dean or the president
and let them do it? They don't know what's going on. They
have no direct knowledge of how good a professor you are,
what your publications are worth, or anything of that like.
The Dean of Education that retired a couple of years ago,
Billy Wayne Walker, he said that he really loved the
promotions committee because we did all their work. The
promotions are ultimately up to the president and he has
that power. Of course, he has to tell us why if he goes
against our recommendations, but none the less, he
ultimately has the power to promote. I think that in the
years that I served on that committee and the years that I
observed it, it's been probably as fair as it can be, given
this imperfect world.

R:

And the faculty role in decision making has become more and
more and more significant.

L:

Oh, yes, definitely.

R:

And the number of faculty participating in the process is a
very large number.

L:

we were talking about the union before and how it's
developed and its import and the like, and I went to union
meeting a couple of weeks ago, and the discussion was the

-32-

L:

contract that has been agreed upon by the negotiators, and
I was really proud of the faculty. There weren't that many
that showed up, but it was a significant number, and the
kinds of questions and the kinds of concerns and the things
that were discussed. I said this is the way it should be.
The faculty are involved. They are not simply doing this
little rather narrow thing that might be their specialty but
they're involved in the whole institution and they're
involved in its quality and its future and what it means.
And I said, you know this union is one damn good thing. And
I certainly am one person who is really happy that we have
such an organization.

R:

What about sabbaticals and some of the other things.?

L:

I have taken every one. Yes, I have been on that committee
too. To begin, I think that it's a tough one. It's a tough
one to judge which kind of projects are more worthy than
others. I'd like to think the projects I presented were
worthy and I did get the sabbaticals that I applied for, so
from my point of view it's very fair.

R:

Numerically, its going to be more and more difficult. I know
promotions are very, very tough.

L:

Not too many people realize this. But the fact of the matter
is that there are more available. The school can give more
sabbaticals than there are people that apply. That's a fact.
For example, I think I might be off a couple of points with
these numbers but there is something like this. The

- 33-

L:

university according to the law was allowed to offer let's
say 25 sabbaticals last year and I think there was something
like 22 people applied.

R:

In the last year I applied, there were 39 or 40 applicants and they gave 17 or 18. But that number has changed
as well?

L:

You have to understand where that is coming from. This is my
opinion, and I'm not putting this forth as fact, but the
president has told us in very clear terms, and he doesn't
hide this, that he thinks that there are some proposals that
are simply not worthy. Ultimately, it is up to him again to
say I don't think this person should have a sabbatical even
though legally he could grant one to everyone. At least in
this limited experience that I've had and this has only been
two years, that has been the case as to why people have been
turned down.

R:

And I assume that he has to respond with reasons?

L:

Yes.

R:

I find that a healthy condition by and large and there may
be a slip here and there and there may be some worthy person
who gets overlooked for a while but even that will emerge.

L:

I see no reason why one cannot learn from the process. The
process is set up in such a way that it is not secretive and
there is a great deal of openness about it; and if you have
put forth a poor application even though your project may
have been worthy it was simply not done well in terms of its

-34-

L:

presentation. You can learn. You can learn what to do and
the next year you'll probably be successful. That's been my
experience.

R:

I'm glad to see that they don't have to use wheelbarrows to
tote their stuff to the promotion committee. Although I saw
a couple of them with every letter they had ever gotten in
their lives.

L:

Some of the applications that we received in promotions were
unbelievable. You know if we criticized the administration
I mean it would be so easy to sit down and say well look at
these faculty members by comparison.

R:

It's the age of quantification. If your application weighs
twelve pounds that means there's some really good stuff in
there, but finding it is another matter.

L:

When the time came for discussing the applicants, it was
always remarkable to me how much insight and how thorough
the various members of the committee had gotten into these
things. Someone would say he seems to have done pretty well
in his peer evaluations. Someone would say "Well, you know,
that fourth peer evaluation that was written by so and so
said the following, you know." For the most part I think I'm
proud of the membership and the people that participated.
They were conscientious and they worked hard.

R:

How difficult is it to make judgements about one's qualifications as a classroom teacher?

L:

Very difficult, I think. I am never happy about the

- 35-

L:

administration talking about incompetent teachers. I think
that there are a few but I think there are only a few. Most
of the teachers do well enough, and I get rather put out by
the talk as if there's some large number of people out
there that were incompetent and were doing a really poor job
and they have to learn how to stand on their heads so they
can better entertain the students.

R:

In your judgement that simply isn't happening?

L:

That is not happening. I think that there are a few and
sometimes the reason why a faculty member might not be
performing up to par is that he's having some personal
problems. Typically these things can be ironed out.
Sometimes just a fifteen minute to a half hour talk with
the chairperson or another colleague can straighten a
person out and and get him back on track. If we are talking
about excellence in teaching I would like to challenge
anyone to tell me exactly what that is.

R:

Exactly. Peer evaluation could be better, but by and large
it had some meaning?

L:

Yes, I think so. Again I think the idea is that if there are
truly incompetent people that the process can weed them out.
If there are people who are having problems, it is possible
through the process to detect those problems and address
them in some humane and meaningful way. I don't see the
necessity for punishment or anything of that nature. I think
that's what the process can do, its intention is to try to

-36-

L:

solve. Solve what so very often is not a significant problem
that faculty are having. Some guy might be coming late to
class, maybe missing. You find out he's going through a
divorce or whatever or maybe he's got a drinking problem and
a lot of times I think our rule ought to be to see if we
can't help the man or woman and maybe get them back on
track.

R:

How do you feel about moonlighting? The folks who run
businesses on the side and stuff like that. It happens at
colleges and universities everywhere. There are people who
are sincere businessmen and businesswomen that is not
relevant to their profession. In some areas like psychology,
say an industrialist psychologist, and they're making a lot
of money and working for a corporation along with teaching.
I know this is sticky.

L:

Yes. I think that generally speaking you're getting paid as
a full-time person and you ought to give it full-time. I've
seen, again this is not a common practice but it happens
often enough. I've seen faculty members have businesses on
the side and it distracts them to the point where that
perhaps they are no longer doing a competent job.

R:

Preoccupation.

L:

I think those people need to be talked to and I think the
process can do that.

R:

Who's supposed to do that? The chairperson and the deans?

-37-

L:

I think colleagues, chairpersons or the department. That's
where it should begin. If you have a poor situation, this
sometimes happens in a department, you might have to go the
next step up.

R:

You think we could do more for the freshmen instructors,
the people who are fresh out of graduate school and they
are in there kind of on their own very quickly and sometimes totally without any backup or support but there might
be something to be built in that might be more helpful.

L:

I think the graduate schools have an obligation in this
regard. And some of them are beginning to speak to it, too.
Try to do something in terms of being a good teacher and
taking that more seriously.

R:

When you interview or have interviewed in the past, do you
have your prospective philosophy professors deliver lectures
or do some kind of performance that you can have a look at?

L:

Yes, we do definitely. Probably the most important part of
the process. We arrange for them to speak to a class. We try
to get down to three or four candidates and arrange for them
to speak to at least one class. We give them a chance to
prepare for it beforehand, of course. Let them know that
they are going to do that. But that would be, probably next
to the formal credentials, the most important part of
our evaluation.

-38-

R:

Student evaluations. How do you feel about that?

L:

That's a tough one. I don't like the instrument we have
right now.

R:

Nor do I.

L:

It needs to be designed for individual departments because
sometimes from one department to another we do very
different things. So the same evaluative instrument cannot
be used it seems to me. I think unfortunately making student
evaluation anonymous opens the door to a kind of arbitrariness we cannot and should not support. How to solve that I'm
not quite sure. I don't see any problem with students
signing their name or putting their name on it. Perhaps the
faculty member wouldn't see it until after the semester was
over. If they are afraid that he might hold it against them
or something like that, and I guess there might be some
people who would. I don't think anonymous evaluations are a
good idea and I don't think the same evaluation for all
departments is a good idea either.

R:

Do you find the quantity and quality of faculty scholarship
and publishing is coming along?

L:

Insofar as I'm aware of it, I am pleasantly surprised that
there are some significant publications coming out. Our
people in the art department, the music department, I think
do wonderful productions, exhibitions. I think for a little
school like ours, we are doing remarkably well.

-39-

R:

Is it kind of true that institutions such as this and other
small colleges and perhaps even universities tend to focus
on two or three or four departments and they make them the
stars of their firmament?

L:

I'm sure there are schools that deliberately have more plans
and controls than ours does that do that, but I think here
it's more accidental than deliberate. I think that leadership in a department, that may not necessarily be simply the
chairman, either, will really be the spearhead and the
inspiration for what goes on and what kind of people emerge.
I don't want to name names but I can think of departments
that kind of perpetuate a kind of mediocrity by the people
they continue to hire. I know one department especially
where there are, excellent people available and yet they
continue to hire very mediocre people and I think that is a
shame. On the other hand, there are departments who are
continually hiring very excellent people who are just
wonderful additions to the faculty and to the productivity
of the faculty.

R:

We've been under some pressure for many years to have more
Black faculty. In terms of women faculty, I suspect we've
made as much progress as any institution. It seems to me
we've had many female colleagues for a very long period of
time but a very small group of Black faculty and have
continued to say that they were not available.

-40-

L:

It would just be purely speculative on my part but there is
probably some truth to that. If you hear the statistics in
terms of the actually decreasing number of African-Americans
receiving advanced degrees. The pool of availability
continues to decrease. A lot of our African-American people
are from urban populations and perhaps for that reason have
not applied to a rural school like this. I'm not really sure
about that though.

R:

Has the emphasis on athletics ever been a problem for you
philosophically?

L:

Yes, definitely. It's a national problem.

R:

National disaster.

L:

National disease or something. I think that the European
universities have a much better example of what we ought to
be doing. Where there is no such thing as semi-professional
athletics going on. But for one reason or another there's
become a part of the American tradition. To oppose it
absolutely is only foolish. So you live with it and do the
best you can. I think that I prefer to see priorities change
somewhat. More priority

given to academics. There are some

schools that indeed do, I think Slippery Rock could change
in that regard as well. We recently had a philosophy conference, this was last Saturday, that students planned and
organized and worked at independently all by themselves. I

-41-

L:

was very proud of them. They did a wonderful job. They
brought in undergraduate students to give papers and I think
I can honestly say that the papers and the discussion that
followed would compare favorably with professional meetings
that I've gone to. I just thought it was wonderful. We
brought an announcement over to the Rocket to publicize this
conference before their deadline. I hand carried it on
Tuesday morning and they didn't put it in the newspaper. I
was very disappointed about that. They put in a lot of stuff
that was certainly secondary to such an event run and
organized by students, and it was done so well that these
kids really deserved a lot of attention. At least as much as
the football team does or any other organization but they
didn't get it and I was disappointed about that. But I
mention that not for sour grapes as as the Rocket is
concerned but just as a general sort of attitude. I think
it's kind of typical that such things are not recognized or
highly rewarded and they are not seen by the administration
nor by the faculty, nor by the student body as being of
particular importance. We pay lip service to these things
but don't give them actual and real support. I think that is
a shame.

R:

That's been around for a while.

L:

We're getting into all kinds of things here.

R:

Nothing wrong with that. over the years are there any other
changes that you would like to speak to that you have

-42-

R:

observed that have been important and healthy. Are we
growing? Are we getting better?

L:

Yes. Well, I suppose we are experiencing, I don't know why
we are experiencing, the last couple of years the best
philosophy students that we ever had. This is not generally
true in my intro level courses but in terms of our majors
and the students that take our elective courses, best
students we've ever had and the most, best students that
we've ever had. And as I said I don't know why. In terms of
the institution as a whole, I can say once again that the
art department, the music department and a couple of other
departments really have noteworthy productions. There are
other departments that I think are even below the average
without naming any names. Our library, I think, is a good
example of progress. We have an excellent undergraduate
library, in my opinion. I know that there are other schools
in the system that don't even approach what we have. I've
been to private liberal arts colleges that don't have the
kind of library that we have so I'm proud of that part of it
in any case. We've grown in ways, as I said before, that is
for the most part accidental and not a great deal of
planning, but there is some planning. The physical therapy
department that has come into being in recent years was a
decision on the part of the administration without any
consultation, as far as I know, with the faculty. I don't

-43-

L:

know how I would have voted for it if I had even been asked.
It turns out to be a department that is not really a part of
the main stream of academia here. They are not only
physically separated from us but I think they are in many
other ways, professionally. They don't join the union, for
example. They were put on twelve month contracts whereas we
are on nine and other things that one has to wonder about.

R:

Is that entirely a graduate program?

L:

I'm not sure about that.

R:

Graduate education has always seemed to me to be a little
strange to schools that are not geared for graduate
education.

L:

I'm told that the health and medical profession always
separates itself from academia for reasons that I've never
been able to figure out.

R:

Salary.

L:

Yes, but that's what I'm told.

I don't think that is true

in Europe. It's clearly true here and maybe it is because of
money. The chairwoman of physical therapy was asked at a
public meeting of chairmen why her faculty don't join and
her answer was simply, "That's the tradition. The medical
profession

does

not

join

unions".

Suddenly

there

was

silence.
R:

I worked in the AAUP. I was a local president and secretary
for the southeastern United States once upon a time and
very, very proud of the AAUP.

-44-

L:

I think its a worthy, used to be at any rate, a worthy
organization.

R:

Yes, exactly. Their fundamental problem was that the
processes were all ponderous. It took forever to redress a
grievance but that was the nature of the thing in a due
process situation.

L:

One wonders if it can actually be abbreviated. Such a
touchy and difficult thing to do.

R:

Well, it would have taken a mass of folks to move any more
rapidly having all of their inquiries and investigations
stern from within and very meticulous in all of that stuff
and by the time you got around to publishing the case, the
fellow had been fired five years before. Very, very
difficult to do much about that.

Here are some general topics. I think I've covered lots
of them. If there are any that trigger some responses I'd
be delighted to have you do that. What about our party
school image? Does that disturb you in any way?
L:

Yes, I think it does because it's kind of a half truth, I
suppose. Maybe I could talk to this for just a couple of
minutes. There is an element

in our student body that I

prefer weren't here at all. There are those that are here
simply for the fun and games and sometimes these people
are gross and brutal and tend to give the rest of the

-45-

L:

school the kind of reputation that has been touted in some
publications. But it is here. There is no doubt about it.
But what I would like to see, of course, and I think any
other responsible faculty member would too is some more
publicity on the better elements in our student body.
Because we do have some really excellent students. I would
be happy to match them with some of the students in the best
schools in our country. We perhaps have fewer of them than
some of the other schools a smaller percentage perhaps, and
maybe we have a large percentage of people down at the other
end, but I would like to see more recognition of our better
students. Real actual backing of them. supporting them in
every way that we possibly can even if it means in the
dormitories regulations will be enforced. There will be
quiet hours, students will be told that riotous activity
that interrupts serious studies will not be tolerated, and
you don't hear that. I don't think that happens. A lot of
times the dormitories are like a wild monkey house. Just
chaos. Terribly loud. Virtually impossible for the serious
student to do any studying. I think that can be and ought to
be addressed. It should be more visible and more obvious
that this institution is an institution of higher learning.
That we are here for academic purposes and only secondarily
for the fun and games. Those are the things you do as relief
from the difficulty and hard work of the academics and not

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L:

the other way around. Once in awhile, you do academics but
your hard work really goes into the parties. I think that
image could be changed.

R:

What about the wave of non-traditionals we're experiencing?

L:

I'm happy about that. They're wonderful students.

R:

Do you find them helpful to the general morale and learning
level of a classroom?

L:

Yes, I do. It's nice to have a couple of older students in
there. I'm sure their IQ's are no higher than any body
else's but they have a fund of experiences and maybe a
little wisdom there and some knowledge that they're willing
to bring to the class and that's wonderful. They're
certainly much better motivated.

R:

And 18, 19 year olds seem to like them?

L:

I think for the most part. once in awhile, a little
resentment but for the most part I think they're happy to
see them there. I think our kids are too often untapped
potentialities that could be tapped, but we could demand
more of them, and we could demand more of the kinds of
things that we think they ought to be displaying. More
academic things in other words. More in terms of real
excellence, not this pretend stuff that we so often see.

R:

Let's talk about your department again for a minute. Are you
like other philosophy departments in other state institutions. Do we differ?

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L:

I think we do differ somewhat and I like to think that I
maybe have something to do with that. I suppose the simplest
term is that we are an eclectic department with five
different people and we, all of us, do somewhat different
things. In the United States and Britain, most of the big
philosophy departments of the big universities tend to be
analytic, tend toward the philosophy of science and logic.
But that has been only a secondary interest here at this
department. I think those tendencies that we see in the
United States and in Britain are things that for the most
part do not interest our students. So I think such an
orientation here would be disastrous. We speak to
philosophical interests and things that people can more
readily get ahold of and get involved in. We do some of the
traditional things. All of us believe that the history of
philosophy is very important and essential. That one has to
be schooled in one's tradition at a fundamental level in
order to think about changing it. It's a good idea to know
what you're planning on changing before you do it and I
think that is one thing that we all agree on and believe in.

R:

Do college degrees ever make sense in terms of the interrelationship of course selection? You know we have such an
enormous offering, the possibilities and the ways in which
those possibilities are presented to us, you know, such as
teaching skills and emphasis within certain kinds of common
courses. The student has to be a learner. Instruction is

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R:

sort of catch-as-catch can and the potpourri is always
there. Does a college degree make sense?

L:

I think there is a possible partial answer to that that
might be a question in return. What would be the alternative? I suppose a more structured curriculum with a core,
but the experience here has been that such a core and such
a structure is very difficult to agree upon. What has been
the alternative is potpourri. This conglomeration of courses
that one would have to be indeed a wizard to put them
together in some meaningful way. I'm inclined to think that
the philosophy department for example could put together a
liberal arts curriculum for general studies that would be
meaningful . But to put it to a vote of the faculty would be
incredibly, you know it would not wash. The latest go round
with the Liberal Studies Program was just a kind of total
change of the structure and using existing courses, thereby
limiting at least the number that were available. But there
is nothing wrong with the structure we have. What we need to
do is limit the possibilities within that structure. I think
that can be done. I think there are some of us who can do it
meaningfully but are we ever going to be able to get the
rest of the faculty to agree to it?

R:

How important are the advisors to the process of getting a
youngster a fairly decent college degree?

L:

I guess they would be absolutely essential in a situation
like we have today. But the advisors are themselves the ones

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L:

who have created the chaos, or potpourri. Maybe that's a
euphemism for chaos. The advisors are going to tend to steer
their students in terms of their own majors, or, I know one
faculty member in particular who simply steers his students
to the courses that he knows are the easiest ones. I think
that is really terrible that a faculty member would do that
but I know indeed at least one that does do that. So what's
the answer? Well, couple of possibilities I suppose. We
could do what larger schools do, and I guess we're getting
to be a little bit larger all the time, is to allow
different departments more headroom, more choice in terms of
what they want and not have an overall core or policy as to
what everybody should be taking.

R:

Do all of your majors minor?

L:

Yes. I would say probably a majority of our majors have a
second major.

R:

And languages are important to your majors generally?

L:

Oh yes. We like to have them take some modern languages and
then, in addition if possible, do either Latin or Greek.

R:

Well, Latin or Greek seems like a good way to end our
interview.

L:

Thank you.

R:

Thank you.