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Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University
Ted Walwik Interview
October 16, 2008
Dr. Walwik‟s home, Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania
Interviewed by Sarah Meleski and Judy Silva
Transcribed by Teresa DeBacco
Proofread and edited by Morgan Bonekovic, Rebecca Cunningham and Judy Silva
Reviewed and approved by Ted Walwik
SM: Today is October 16, 2008 and I‟m Sarah Meleski. As part of the Rock Voices Oral History
Project we have Dr. Theodore Walwik with us. How are you today?
TW: Just fine, thank you.
SM: Well why don‟t we begin with you telling us a little bit about yourself?
TW: Well, I‟m native of Indiana—Terra Haute, Indiana and I went to the public schools there
but then I went to the University of Indianapolis at Butler University. I went to Butler because I
was a college debater and got a full ride scholarship, actually, for debating [laughing]. That‟s
why I went to Butler. I had a lot of success there as a debater. We were national champions twice
and that sort of thing. And then I got a National Defense Fellowship to study a PhD at Ohio
University. So I did a PhD there and moved on from there to teach. First, at Hiram College in
Ohio and then at Butler in Indianapolis, and then at Indiana State University in Terra Haute. And
then I came here in 1971. My wife Barbara is also an academic. She‟s a certified nurse/midwife.
Did her graduate work at Yale and taught at West Virginia and later—we were married thirty
years ago—she was teaching at Edinboro at that time and she retired in the late „80s. We have
two sons. My older son is a public school teacher in Knoxville, North Carolina and the younger
son has a PhD in history and teaches now at the University of Morocco, of all places.
SM: Wow.
TW: He‟s had a number of international assignments.
SM: That sounds like it would be fun. What‟s your affiliation with Slippery Rock University?
TW: Well, I‟ve been a member of the faculty since 1971. I came here to be the head of what was
then the Speech and Theater Department. I say department head because that was before
APSCUF [Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties] and the current
contract and so forth, and department heads were appointed by administration in those days. And
then was chairman of the department, pretty much steadily over a period of twenty years. I also
had a number of other assignments.
I was part of the interim administration of President Park and was director of planning for the
university and had a title called Dean of Extended Services. I used to say that meant dean of
etcetera; my portfolio got whatever else was going on. I spent some time on loan from the
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university to the state system to the unit called the Pennsylvania Educational Services Trust,
which is another kind of a long story, but where I helped develop faculty development programs
for the system. That was a kind of interesting two year hiatus I had.
JS: Was that the retraining thing?
TW: Yes. We did retraining, among other things. Yeah, we got into faculty . . . there was a time
when there was retrenchment in the system. There was a pot of money that came during the
Nixon Administration; there was a wage freeze and APSCUF negotiated kind of an irregular
bargain that the money that the faculty would have been awarded in salary increases but couldn‟t
get because of the wage freeze, was paid into this trust fund which was administered by a joint
board of management of board and faculty. I was on the board originally and then was hired and
spent two years as the director of the trust and we focused on faculty development in a number of
ways and it was interesting, kind of exciting stuff. We were really on the cutting edge and
breaking some new ground.
We did other things as well, for example, we did a couple of—what are they called—leadership
academies for department chairs and some of those kinds of things. At any rate, that was second
of my assignments around here—or not around here but on loan really from that. And all that
time I was sort of in and out of the department and then late in my career, my years, I became
concerned that the university was not keeping up or was falling behind, in a sense, with the
advent of instructional technologies and computers. So I convinced the provost, Chuck Faust at
the time, that we needed to do something about that and he gave me what amounted to a three
quarter time assignment.
We created something called the Center for Learning Technology and I did that for three years
and, truth is, I didn‟t then and don‟t know now much about computers, really. But I knew that we
needed to be energizing the place, so I spent a lot of energy and time trying to help faculty get
involved with using instructional technology in the classroom. We created a couple of what now
would be called “smart classrooms” in the [Spotts] World Culture Building auditorium and the
[McKay] Education Building auditorium where we had pretty much full capability, where at a
console, an instructor could control computer projections, sound equipment and all of that was
sort of integrated and began to get people using that in the classroom.
We also organized a lot of training for faculty. We used a program that IBM had at the time
down in the research triangle in North Carolina and we flew any number of faculty down there
for rather intensive workshops that IBM was putting on. We, in that process, did create a lot of
interest and got the ball rolling and ultimately a Director of Instructional Technology, a full time
professional who did know something [laughs] about the technical stuff, was appointed and I
moved on back to the department.
Sort of as a side to that story, I was also involved first as a member of a committee where we
were developing an improved, or a new telephone system for the university But in the process of
doing that we persuaded the folks that were doing all that planning that when we installed the
new telephone system, everywhere there was a telephone jack we put a second jack, which was
inexpensive because that process is labor intensive and if they‟re putting one box in they can put
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two. We also got them to pull a fiber optic loop around the campus at the time, not really
knowing what we were going to do with it but knowing that we ought to be able to do that. And
very shortly, then, we were able to use that fiber optic loop to connect essentially any place on
campus there was a telephone to that system and we got access to the Internet into the residence
halls and everywhere else. We were very early folks to do that, and I‟ve always been kind of
proud of that effort, that initiative.
And then at the same time I was involved—we were paying a great deal of money for cable
services into the residence halls, at least I thought it was a great deal of money. The only cable
service we were getting was limited to the same service that was being offered to the town by
Armstrong and so we took over the cable service much to the chagrin of Armstrong Utilities. We
put some satellite dishes up on top of the library and they‟re still there. It was really controversial
at the time: people were worried about how it would look. And the truth is once they got up there
people forgot they were there. We developed a cable system then that had considerable savings
at the time and which also was tailor made: we had not only the usual entertainment
programming but we had some modern language, foreign language programming and expanded
CNN stuff, things that would be also useful to the instructional program. It kind of all came as
part of the same package. So, that was a significant effort that I had a pretty key role in. I was
pretty proud of that.
Most of my work, though, was of course with the department. It‟s the work I‟m proudest of.
[When] I came here there were—I have to stop and count—I think we had eight members of the
department and we had thirty majors. Only one of them was an Arts and Science major, the other
ones were all Teacher Education students. Nothing wrong with that, that was the nature of the
beast. And I think at the high point, I had twenty-one faculty and 350 majors. So, we went
through a period of very significant expansion and changed the nature of the program totally. In
the process spun off the—well, first we changed from being a Speech and Theater Department to
being a Department of Communication, and then ultimately spun off the theater program into its
own independent program, which it still is. The Department of Communication got into a whole
bunch of things it hadn‟t been involved with before at all: into journalism, into electronic stuff,
we began a radio station, we just made a lot of developments, a lot of, I like to think
improvements [laughs], hired a lot of faculty.
When I was hired, I was fortunate in that—one of the reasons I took the job is I kind of wanted to
do my own thing, and the previous chair, Dr. [Irv] Kuhr, was retired from the chairmanship but
my first semester here he was on sabbatical. So I had relatively free hand, unencumbered by—
although he and I had a very good relationship—but there was no awkwardness there and the
administration had anticipated this change. We had, I think, four faculty members who were on
temporary assignments, and those positions were all available. So I was able to hire rather
aggressively that first semester, and we brought Joe Riggs and Tim Walters and Roy Stewart and
Mary Marzolf Garfield, all came on board that first fall. I came in January and they all came on
board the next September, and we rather turned things around at that point because we had new
folks with a common sense of what we were about and so we moved from there. That‟s kind of a
sketch of my university involvement.
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SM: What building or buildings have you worked in and what changes did you see them go
through? [TW laughs]
TW: I‟ve had offices in Eisenberg [Classroom Building], which is where our department was
housed all those years. I had an office for a time in the Education Building. I had an office in Old
Main. I had an office in the Library. So, at various times—I‟m kind of a nomad. My home base
was always—and my heart was always in the department, in Eisenberg. Those were very great
changes.
When I was hired—actually I interviewed in the summer of 1970 to start work in ‟71 in
January—the department was housed at the time up in the East Gym, which was in a pretty sad
state of repair. And also up there on the corner of the campus, and that was a time when the
campus was expanding. Eisenberg was under construction, the library was about to be, and the
union was about to be. I mean all that was sort of coming and I could see that the center of
campus was going to move down to the lower campus. One of the things that I sort of insisted on
when I was hired was that they move the department into the lower campus so when I came on
board in January is when we moved into Eisenberg so I never actually worked in East Gym,
happily. But we did well in Eisenberg; it was a good home for the department. Then we saw all
that development down there, the library was built, the union was built, the music building came
along and all that stuff.
JS: Was Vincent [Science Hall] already there, before Eisenberg?
TW: Yeah, Vincent was there, Vincent and [Spotts] World Culture Building. I‟m not sure—they
were built in [the] „60s—the late „60s. So they were there and functional but Eisenberg and even
then it wasn‟t Eisenberg, it was called ECB II, classroom building two [laughs]. They later
named it, obviously, but it was at that early, kind of primitive construction. The football stadium
was there beside the Field House, which is now essentially kind of an intramural field, I guess.
The athletic complex that‟s now there, wasn‟t there. Rather remarkable growth.
I look at the campus now and I‟m impressed and pleased and proud. The new ATS [Advanced
Technology and Science Hall] building is just magnificent. I‟m glad that they‟re doing
something about Vincent; it‟s past time. It‟s hard to believe that Eisenberg and Weisenfluh are
now practically forty years old; they‟re getting on. But a lot of changes, lots and lots of changes,
physically; lots of other ways.
SM: What was your first impression of the campus when you got here, since you came from out
of state?
TW: I don‟t have much of a memory of that, frankly. Partly because, well, I flew in for an
interview. It was not a hurried job but just a day or two, didn‟t see much of it, much of anything,
really. Then I came back and looked for a house and housing was very—in contrast to today—
houses were almost non-existent. They were able to show me three houses in all of the town to
buy. We bought one over on Oak Street. It was very limited but I kind of nipped in and nipped
out for that, so I don‟t know. I don‟t [laughs] have much of a recollection of the first impression.
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Not impressive, frankly. Roy Stewart likes to tell the story, when he came for his interview, I
picked him up at the airport, we came to town, and we were going to stop in what is now the
Camelot Restaurant there. As we turn onto Main Street he said to himself, “Ain‟t no way”
[laughter]. It actually looks pretty good now but it was kind of dismal at the time. But we all sort
of overcame that and became very fond of this place. It‟s a great place to live, great place to raise
a family. My family prospered here as well as did my colleagues, you know, we had good things.
I‟ve been quite involved with the town in several ways, too. I want to talk about that before we
finish.
SM: Go ahead and talk about that, how you were involved with the town.
TW: Well, I was asked back in the mid-nineties, early nineties to assume leadership of a group
called Slippery Rock Development and I was the executive director of Slippery Rock
Development for the time. The story seems almost quaint now, because we see so much building
around here. Housing developments, Arrowhead; I don‟t even know the names of all of them
anymore. At the time, the town was just not moving very much and so we, there were a group of
businessmen and local interested people who organized this group, Slippery Rock Development.
And we got some support from the county, from the county commissioners.
So one of our first, our early activities was we organized a Slippery Rock Day for builders. We
went hand in hand with builders in Western Pennsylvania and said, “Come out and look at us.”
We had a lunch and we hired some buses and we took them around and literally pointed at pieces
of land and said, “You can build here, you know, there‟s something to be done here.” So much of
it has now happened in the last fifteen years, it‟s just remarkable to see the changes. After I was
involved, Slippery Rock Development sort of morphed into its current version which has got the
grant to redo Main Street and so forth and that‟s been a big thing.
We did other things, for example, I think they now call it the “Happy Bus,” the bus that does a
circle of the town. It was a project of Slippery Rock Development and of Student Government
and we got a grant from the county commissioners to support that and that‟s how that got started.
So we had our finger in a number of little pies like that around town and kind of raised
awareness of the town. Along in that same period, I chaired a blue ribbon commission for the—
committee for the school board to study the probable impact of population growth in this area
because they were concerned for school planning. At the time became convinced, I remember
reporting to them that—we looked at a lot of data and studies and information that was
available—we really couldn‟t say just when or how many but it was clear that they were coming
[laughter]. That the population was moving this way out of Pittsburgh and that‟s proved to be
true. A lot of people here now, we‟re already seeing the impact and it‟s becoming somewhat of a
bedroom community.
In addition to the university but there are a lot of people who live around here who don‟t work
here but are working in Pittsburgh. I used to have a neighbor who was a salesman who lived here
because of its access to the airport. Well, I always thought of the airport as a long way off but if
you think about if you were a salesman and you were in and out once a week, it‟s a pretty easy
drive. He had good schools and a quiet life and so forth, attractive. So it makes sense.
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So, you know, all that and then also my other big community—two other involvements—I‟ve
been very active in Rotary International. I was district governor in ‟91-„92 and then had a
responsibility in Rotary called Rotary Regional Foundation Coordinator where I had a
relationship with Rotary clubs from Pittsburgh to Omaha. All across the upper Midwest and that
was an interesting kind of time and effort. Also, in my spare time, I spent eight years as pastor of
the Branchton United Methodist Church. So I‟ve kept busy.
SM: Who were some of the leaders that you saw pass through the university?
TW: Pass through is a good word [laughter]. Well, when I got here, the president was a guy
named Al Watrel and Al, about a year or two later—I don‟t know—was fired in a rather ugly,
unfortunate, in my opinion; I thought he was badly used. I never thought of Al as being a great
college president but I . . . if they were going to relieve him there were better ways than just
having the state police appear at his door one day and demand his keys, which is literally what
happened.
That firing was engineered, I thought and a lot of people around here believe, by some of the
administrative staff here and particularly—I don‟t want to libel the guy but certainly there was a
common belief, and it was my belief, that Jim Roberts, who was the vice president, engineered
that termination. What I thought, again, was a very unfortunate thing, the state then appointed
Roberts as the acting president and he was clearly a candidate for president. And you put all that
together, somebody who was involved in the termination, who had aspirations; it was not a real
healthy situation. The campus spent a year in serious, serious turmoil. It was a very ugly time
here. A lot of suspicion, a lot of division, a lot of very questionable practices in faculty
procedures and so forth, a lot of enmity, people choosing up sides. In fact, if you—well, it‟s
probably dissipating now, right through the end of my time here, if you knew, you could still feel
some of the currents of those years of who was on what side and so forth.
Well, finally, after a year of agitation—and I, frankly, was part of the agitation—the Secretary of
Education decided rather dramatically [laughs] at the very last minute to replace Dr. Roberts
with Larry Park. Larry was the president at Mansfield and had some interest in, he had had a
grant or study time looking at troubled presidencies, and so Larry came as interim president. He
was very careful to say that he was not an acting president he was the president. His agreement
was he would come for two years and two years only, and that was a good time for the
university.
Larry was very savvy; he was a very experienced president. I can still see him, he was a tall man.
I can see him kind of pushed back from his desk in his office and sort of say, “Well, I‟ve seen
that, I‟ve been there. We‟re not gonna get rattled about this one,” and kind of move on. He asked
me—kind of a funny story in a way—he called me in one day and asked me, told me he wanted
me to be the Director of Planning. I said, “I don‟t know anything about planning,” and he said,
“Well, you can learn.”
But the point was that there was all of this division on campus and all of this negativity and he
wanted to do some things that would turn energies in positive directions. So, we did. We
developed a planning system, one of which I am still very proud. It was a very good planning
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system. We got a lot of things started. It was a campus-wide effort and, you know, I think did
contribute to the improved environment.
Then we had Herb Reinhard for a while as president and [pause] he was replaced finally by Bob
Aebersold, Bob by Warren Smith, and now by Bob Smith. I‟ve had pretty good relationship with
all those people.
The vice presidency was, of course, held for a number of years by Chuck Foust, and he and I had
a curious kind of on/off relationship for some time but ultimately a good one. I give . . . I have a
lot of warmth in my heart for Chuck. He would often, I think, be suspicious of what I was up to
but he often supported it in a number of ways. I appreciated the support I got for some of my
schemes [laughter]. We generated a department chairs organization at the time and did some
retreats for department chairs. I‟ve always been interested in the chairmanship as a key lynchpin
in the way universities work. He was a little nervous about the department chairs going off
[laughs] but he supported it and put his money—the university‟s money—into it and things got
done.
Of course, he was succeeded by Bob Aebersold. Bob was on the faculty when I got here in the
Physical Education Department so I‟ve always known Bob and we get along fine. I knew Warren
Smith less well; I learned to know him well now, largely through our associations together in
Rotary. And Bob Smith and I have been professional friends for maybe forty years. Known each
other forever, seems like, professionally.
JS: How did that come about?
TW: I was glad to see when he came here.
JS: Where did you know him before here?
TW: We were, in our early days, both involved in college debate coaching and that business and
we crossed path, sort of—not at the same time, we were never contemporaries—at Ohio
University. We were both involved in a professional organization called The Association of
Communication Administrators and then what was then called the Speech Communication
Association—professional organizations, one sort or another. Like I said, I never had worked
with him before. I had known him, sort of [been] around him in professional relationships for,
like I say, forty years.
JS: Interesting.
SM: Who were some the people that were most influential to you while you were here?
TW: Well, I suppose I really ought to mention Al Schmittlein, who was the dean of what was
then the College of Humanities, what was originally the College of Liberal Arts. Right after I got
here they broke of the College of Liberal Arts into three parts and we had the College of
Humanities and Fine Arts, and Al was their dean. Al was a good guy. [He] gave a lot of support
to some of the things we were up to. I guess Al and Chuck Foust who was an important player in
whatever was doing.
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Other people, too, lots of people, of course. I was involved in APSCUF, fairly . . . I was the
Grievance Chairman in its very early years which was kind of a gnarly assignment because the
nature of things as the union came into place: there was a lot of tension between management
and the union over, kind of, negotiating and trying to feel out each other‟s power. So we were in
confrontation a lot early. And most of that, of course, those early battles were fought and won or
lost and dissipated.
I was involved with that, in cahoots, a good bit of that time, with Wilma Cavill, who remains a
dear friend. We were involved quite a lot with APSCUF kinds of things both locally and I was,
for a while, the parliamentarian of the state APSCUF organization. So I was involved in
APSCUF on a wider scale. And that Educational Services Trust thing I talked about also
connected with APSCUF. So that was important.
I was also involved with the football program for a while [chuckles]. I was president of the
Football Boosters Club, I guess you could call it. I got an athletic blanket that they awarded me
when I left that presidency, which I‟m proud of.
JS: The university had a boosters club?
TW: Yeah, when Bob DiSpirito was here, back in his first go-round as coach.
SM: He talked about the partnership with Texas University, and they would send each other their
booster clubs to support each other. So Slippery Rock would be down in Texas and Texas would
be up here.
TW: Yeah. It was—those were good times. You know, I still admire the football program; I‟m
just not involved with it. In those days, I was always proud of our football program. I was never
an athlete myself really. But it always seemed to me that Bob and his staff had a right balance:
they cared about their kids, they were very good at what they did—there was excellence in that
program. They didn‟t sell out. They were very competitive even though they didn‟t have the
resources that some of their competition [had]—we still have that problem. We were champions
of the conference a couple of times in those years and it was a good outfit and I was always
proud to be a part of it. I always thought it was important to link up the athletic program with the
academic program and I saw myself as sort of doing that, in a sense. At least being symbolically
so.
SM: What some memories you have of the university—any events that really come to mind?
TW: Oh, I don‟t know other than the kinds of things we already talked about. I don‟t have any
specific events other than those kinds of things. There was plenty of . . . my early years here
there was a lot of turmoil, frankly and memories of that time are marked by much of that. The
place is a good bit more peaceful than it used to be [laughs] I think, more congenial. We got
through a lot of that.
The advent of the faculty union was an important development, which I opposed originally. I
was a little nervous about the whole notion of unionism for faculties. I was persuaded at the time
by the argument that all other groups that were at the public trough, that is, state troopers, liquor
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boards, clerks and so forth, had access to the legislature, were going to be doing it through
unions and if we didn‟t have the same kind of organization, we‟d lose out. So, I went along. I
think APSCUF developed in very, very healthy ways.
The guy who was the original executive director of APSCUF, a guy named Marty Moran, who
came to us in a rather peculiar way. He was working for the NEA [National Education
Association], I guess, at the time. And before that he‟d been the organizer for the ILGWU
[International Ladies Garment Workers Union]. Marty was a very bright man . . . very, very
bright. And he had this notion that there was a possibility in a faculty union of some grander
version of the labor movement, and that faculty were smarter and more sophisticated and would
develop a kind of unionism that was different from industrial unions. He had this all worked out
in terms of Maslow‟s Hierarchy of Needs. I don‟t know if you know that, but as your basic needs
were met, you move on up and finally you get to the point where we were operating at a very
high professional and ethical plane. And he sold that. He sold it to the faculty initially and he
sold it in the negotiations, the early contracts.
Our first contract was very generous in terms of raising faculty salaries. That first year, we got
raises three or four different times, staged through the year. You never knew how much money
you were making because you kept making more. It was kind of neat [laughter]. The idea was
that if . . . the notion that he sold was that if you rewarded faculty and met their demands, or their
needs, then they would be more enlightened and go on to higher planes. I think he ultimately was
a little disillusioned by that. He found out that faculty were just as grubby and greedy at times
[laughter] as were his Garment Workers‟ Union.
At the same time, APSCUF was a very good thing for most of the first several years, first ten
years, more or less. It was before the [Pennsylvania state] system became a system and APSCUF
was really the only single voice for the system. Before that there were fourteen campuses. Each
president was kind of a duke of his own little world. They were in competition and it was kind of
strange. It was part of that Educational Services Trust thing, for example: I went around and met
with every president in the system, and I used to say I think I was only one of three people in the
world who‟d been on all fourteen campuses [laughter]. There was just no connection and it was
all kind of mess.
The union became the voice, in a sense, or a voice for the whole system because it was a contract
that covered the whole system. It kind of turned the world of higher education in Pennsylvania in
some significant ways. It ultimately became a very good thing, I think, and has worked out to be
a very, very healthy relationship. It‟s like any such relationship: I suppose it has its moments. On
balance, it‟s a good thing. I‟m convinced of that today.
SM: What happened during the investigation of the bookstore in 1975? Do you remember that?
TW: Gee, I‟d forgotten about that [laughs]. [Pause] I really had forgotten about it. We did
discover that there were apparently irregularities in the bookstore and called attention to that, and
finally the guy who was running the bookstore was run off, in fact. I really don‟t remember
enough of the detail to report it. I do know, I would confess now, that I was right in the middle of
it. It wasn‟t very difficult to figure out. I mean, when you looked at what was going on and you
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kind of looked at their books and so forth, it was clear that something was amiss. And that was
sort of the ultimate conclusion. Where did you find out about that?
SM: [Laughter] The Rocket.
TW: The Rocket. Okay.
JS: She was reading old Rockets to prepare for your interview.
TW: I‟d forgotten about that all together.
JS: Wasn‟t there some other something that you found in there?
SM: I was just wondering how—
TW: There must be some other dirt [laughs].
SM: I was just wondering how the hiring freeze in 1977 specifically affected Slippery Rock?
TW: Oh, I don‟t remember that it did all that much. I guess it inconvenienced us some but I don‟t
think it was that big a deal. Those are kind of little bumps in the road that wear themselves out
and there are, frankly, even with hiring freezes, there are ways to wire around it. There were then
through temporary position shifting some things. We complained a lot [laughs] but I don‟t
remember we suffered all that much.
I used to complain constantly about what was for many years the propensity in a growing
department with a heavy demand for teaching a general studies course—a public speaking
course. We had a rather substantial obligation there that we needed faculty and they kept
assigning faculty temporary positions and I couldn‟t hire permanent positions, and that‟s just not
a good way to run a department. Tim Walters and I went through an exercise a couple of years
ago, trying to make a list of all the people that worked in the department over the years and it
was a very, very long list and we had a little trouble remembering all those people because, you
know, kind of that revolving door. Happily, we had a good core that did stick with us and that all
worked out. I don‟t remember that hiring freeze itself really was that big a deal for us.
SM: What do you miss about being at Slippery Rock University?
TW: Oh, I miss the collegiality of the people. I used to have a lot of friends on the campus in a
lot of places, not just in my own department. I miss all those people and I don‟t see them very
often. It‟s kind of, you know, I‟m always a little amazed, I get what they now call Rock Pride.
I‟ve been out of here eleven years, since I retired. I almost never recognize a name anymore.
When you think about it, what happens to a faculty of 400 in rough numbers, probably fifty or so
of those are temporary in one time so they come and go, and then you retire anywhere between
ten and thirty people a year over a ten year period. Pretty close to total turnover, not quite.
There are the Wilma Cavill‟s of the world and Wilma‟s been here forever but most of the people
I worked with are gone. Even in the department, there‟s still a few people there that I hired but I
don‟t know half the people down there anymore. I try to maintain a relationship with them. I
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Walwik, Ted 11
continue to sponsor an annual lecture on freedom of speech; I underwrite that, which kind of
keeps me in some very tenuous connection with the department. I‟ve always believed that it was
not my job to go down and try to run the department after I graduated so to speak [laughs] but
you know, I miss the people and I miss the students. I had a good relationship over the years with
a lot of the students. It‟s what keeps you going in this business, for the most part.
SM: Do you have any words of wisdom for us? Anything you want any current or future Rock
students of community members to know?
TW: Well, I think the thing that I always thought I knew about Slippery Rock and tried to
convince students, particularly, is how good this place is. There was a time, I like to think we‟ve
gotten beyond it but I don‟t really know because I‟m not in touch with students so much
anymore, but there was a time when kids would come here with sort of, “Well, what the hell is
Slippery Rock?” You know? “I‟m here because I didn‟t go to Harvard or to Penn State or
someplace else.” And they would see it as kind of a second choice. I always thought that was a
very grave mistake.
Then we would have students, we used to have a very energetic effort in the department—I‟m
not sure it still exists but Joe Riggs used to kind of head it up for us—of encouraging the kids to
go to graduate school. And we placed a lot of students in major doctoral programs. We were
producing a PhD or more a year, for a while, sending them off to the big ten and places like that.
And they would be very, very competitive. I remember clearly, counseling the kids who would
say, “I can‟t do that because I‟m, you know, I‟m from Slippery Rock,” and I‟d say, “Slippery
Rock kids can make it anywhere and they do!” We sent our kids off to the University of Illinois
or to Purdue or someplace like that, they succeed because our preparation is good and their
quality was good. It‟s important they recognize that. I used to describe it as kind of a doughnut
effect with Slippery Rock‟s reputation. If you got out seventy-five miles, it was pretty good but
the hometown effect of everybody, familiarity, I guess, bred contempt. I think a lot of that
attitude has changed; at least I like to think it has. There are a lot of things about the university,
now, just physically, it‟s attractive. And programmatically a lot of things are going on and if a
student looks around them, they gotta be impressed.
They still suffer from, it‟s typical I suppose, of a regional university: too many people clear out
on the weekends and that kind of thing, where they would do much better if they would stay and
invest themselves. And those who do, do very well and are enriched by all that. Booker T.
Washington—I‟ll give you a little speech—listen here now. Booker T. Washington made a
speech to what was called the Atlanta Exposition and it was an attempt to kind of launch a postwar, post-Civil War South, a new South. He was speaking there about the role of blacks in the
new South. This is a hundred year old story now and you got to put it in that context. He was
trying to encourage black populations to put down roots and to take advantage of their
opportunities. He told this story about this ship that was adrift and was without water and was in
rather dire straits, a sailing ship. They were really desperate. And finally, another sail appeared in
the horizon and they messaged to it, “We die of thirst,” and the message that came back was,
“Cast down your bucket where you are,” and they thought, “That‟s crazy,” and so they repeated
this and the story goes on, I think, three different times and so finally the third time they did that.
They thought, “Oh, what the heck,” and discovered that they had drifted into the mouth of the
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Walwik, Ted 12
Amazon and the water underneath them was pure. It was sweet; it was not salty. The message
was, “Cast down your bucket where you are. Take advantage of the opportunity. Bloom where
you‟re planted.” I think that‟s a good lesson for Slippery Rock people.
There‟s a lot of opportunity here. The heritage of this place is rich and the heritage of this area is
rich. I‟m not a western Pennsylvanian by birth but I‟ve come to appreciate it. Good people come
out of these small towns in western Pennsylvania. I even know of one or two good people that
came out of Pittsburgh [laughs]. There‟s a lot of opportunity here and the university, I think, is
just growing in stature, not necessarily numbers. I understand the size control, which probably is
a good thing as a matter of fact. It‟s big enough and doesn‟t need to get bigger, faster. We‟ve
certainly got enough resource problems without stripping them. We went through a period where
we tried to grow when we shouldn‟t have. There was a time when there was this ambition to
have 10,000 students, this was back in the early „70s, and it was crazy. We were admitting
people, recruiting kids who couldn‟t read and write. The quality of students has gotten much
better; that‟s good.
But it‟s a good place. I used to enjoy recruiting faculty for a lot of reasons but one of the reasons
was I always thought it was an honest effort. I could say to people, straight faced, “This is a good
place to be. There are good people here. This is a good working environment in terms of all the
nickel and dime stuff. Some of it‟s not nickel and dime: good fringe benefits, excellent health
care; but more than that it‟s a civilized place. A good place. You‟ll enjoy Slippery Rock. That‟s
important.”
SM: Well, I don‟t think I have any questions. Judy do you have any other questions for him?
JS: No, I don‟t.
TW: I told you more than I know [laughs].
SM: Well, I‟d like to thank you for allowing me to interview you and allowing Judy to be here.
TW: I enjoyed it.
SM: So, thank you again.
TW: I enjoy remembering, you know.
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Ted Walwik Interview
October 16, 2008
Dr. Walwik‟s home, Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania
Interviewed by Sarah Meleski and Judy Silva
Transcribed by Teresa DeBacco
Proofread and edited by Morgan Bonekovic, Rebecca Cunningham and Judy Silva
Reviewed and approved by Ted Walwik
SM: Today is October 16, 2008 and I‟m Sarah Meleski. As part of the Rock Voices Oral History
Project we have Dr. Theodore Walwik with us. How are you today?
TW: Just fine, thank you.
SM: Well why don‟t we begin with you telling us a little bit about yourself?
TW: Well, I‟m native of Indiana—Terra Haute, Indiana and I went to the public schools there
but then I went to the University of Indianapolis at Butler University. I went to Butler because I
was a college debater and got a full ride scholarship, actually, for debating [laughing]. That‟s
why I went to Butler. I had a lot of success there as a debater. We were national champions twice
and that sort of thing. And then I got a National Defense Fellowship to study a PhD at Ohio
University. So I did a PhD there and moved on from there to teach. First, at Hiram College in
Ohio and then at Butler in Indianapolis, and then at Indiana State University in Terra Haute. And
then I came here in 1971. My wife Barbara is also an academic. She‟s a certified nurse/midwife.
Did her graduate work at Yale and taught at West Virginia and later—we were married thirty
years ago—she was teaching at Edinboro at that time and she retired in the late „80s. We have
two sons. My older son is a public school teacher in Knoxville, North Carolina and the younger
son has a PhD in history and teaches now at the University of Morocco, of all places.
SM: Wow.
TW: He‟s had a number of international assignments.
SM: That sounds like it would be fun. What‟s your affiliation with Slippery Rock University?
TW: Well, I‟ve been a member of the faculty since 1971. I came here to be the head of what was
then the Speech and Theater Department. I say department head because that was before
APSCUF [Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties] and the current
contract and so forth, and department heads were appointed by administration in those days. And
then was chairman of the department, pretty much steadily over a period of twenty years. I also
had a number of other assignments.
I was part of the interim administration of President Park and was director of planning for the
university and had a title called Dean of Extended Services. I used to say that meant dean of
etcetera; my portfolio got whatever else was going on. I spent some time on loan from the
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Walwik, Ted 2
university to the state system to the unit called the Pennsylvania Educational Services Trust,
which is another kind of a long story, but where I helped develop faculty development programs
for the system. That was a kind of interesting two year hiatus I had.
JS: Was that the retraining thing?
TW: Yes. We did retraining, among other things. Yeah, we got into faculty . . . there was a time
when there was retrenchment in the system. There was a pot of money that came during the
Nixon Administration; there was a wage freeze and APSCUF negotiated kind of an irregular
bargain that the money that the faculty would have been awarded in salary increases but couldn‟t
get because of the wage freeze, was paid into this trust fund which was administered by a joint
board of management of board and faculty. I was on the board originally and then was hired and
spent two years as the director of the trust and we focused on faculty development in a number of
ways and it was interesting, kind of exciting stuff. We were really on the cutting edge and
breaking some new ground.
We did other things as well, for example, we did a couple of—what are they called—leadership
academies for department chairs and some of those kinds of things. At any rate, that was second
of my assignments around here—or not around here but on loan really from that. And all that
time I was sort of in and out of the department and then late in my career, my years, I became
concerned that the university was not keeping up or was falling behind, in a sense, with the
advent of instructional technologies and computers. So I convinced the provost, Chuck Faust at
the time, that we needed to do something about that and he gave me what amounted to a three
quarter time assignment.
We created something called the Center for Learning Technology and I did that for three years
and, truth is, I didn‟t then and don‟t know now much about computers, really. But I knew that we
needed to be energizing the place, so I spent a lot of energy and time trying to help faculty get
involved with using instructional technology in the classroom. We created a couple of what now
would be called “smart classrooms” in the [Spotts] World Culture Building auditorium and the
[McKay] Education Building auditorium where we had pretty much full capability, where at a
console, an instructor could control computer projections, sound equipment and all of that was
sort of integrated and began to get people using that in the classroom.
We also organized a lot of training for faculty. We used a program that IBM had at the time
down in the research triangle in North Carolina and we flew any number of faculty down there
for rather intensive workshops that IBM was putting on. We, in that process, did create a lot of
interest and got the ball rolling and ultimately a Director of Instructional Technology, a full time
professional who did know something [laughs] about the technical stuff, was appointed and I
moved on back to the department.
Sort of as a side to that story, I was also involved first as a member of a committee where we
were developing an improved, or a new telephone system for the university But in the process of
doing that we persuaded the folks that were doing all that planning that when we installed the
new telephone system, everywhere there was a telephone jack we put a second jack, which was
inexpensive because that process is labor intensive and if they‟re putting one box in they can put
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Walwik, Ted 3
two. We also got them to pull a fiber optic loop around the campus at the time, not really
knowing what we were going to do with it but knowing that we ought to be able to do that. And
very shortly, then, we were able to use that fiber optic loop to connect essentially any place on
campus there was a telephone to that system and we got access to the Internet into the residence
halls and everywhere else. We were very early folks to do that, and I‟ve always been kind of
proud of that effort, that initiative.
And then at the same time I was involved—we were paying a great deal of money for cable
services into the residence halls, at least I thought it was a great deal of money. The only cable
service we were getting was limited to the same service that was being offered to the town by
Armstrong and so we took over the cable service much to the chagrin of Armstrong Utilities. We
put some satellite dishes up on top of the library and they‟re still there. It was really controversial
at the time: people were worried about how it would look. And the truth is once they got up there
people forgot they were there. We developed a cable system then that had considerable savings
at the time and which also was tailor made: we had not only the usual entertainment
programming but we had some modern language, foreign language programming and expanded
CNN stuff, things that would be also useful to the instructional program. It kind of all came as
part of the same package. So, that was a significant effort that I had a pretty key role in. I was
pretty proud of that.
Most of my work, though, was of course with the department. It‟s the work I‟m proudest of.
[When] I came here there were—I have to stop and count—I think we had eight members of the
department and we had thirty majors. Only one of them was an Arts and Science major, the other
ones were all Teacher Education students. Nothing wrong with that, that was the nature of the
beast. And I think at the high point, I had twenty-one faculty and 350 majors. So, we went
through a period of very significant expansion and changed the nature of the program totally. In
the process spun off the—well, first we changed from being a Speech and Theater Department to
being a Department of Communication, and then ultimately spun off the theater program into its
own independent program, which it still is. The Department of Communication got into a whole
bunch of things it hadn‟t been involved with before at all: into journalism, into electronic stuff,
we began a radio station, we just made a lot of developments, a lot of, I like to think
improvements [laughs], hired a lot of faculty.
When I was hired, I was fortunate in that—one of the reasons I took the job is I kind of wanted to
do my own thing, and the previous chair, Dr. [Irv] Kuhr, was retired from the chairmanship but
my first semester here he was on sabbatical. So I had relatively free hand, unencumbered by—
although he and I had a very good relationship—but there was no awkwardness there and the
administration had anticipated this change. We had, I think, four faculty members who were on
temporary assignments, and those positions were all available. So I was able to hire rather
aggressively that first semester, and we brought Joe Riggs and Tim Walters and Roy Stewart and
Mary Marzolf Garfield, all came on board that first fall. I came in January and they all came on
board the next September, and we rather turned things around at that point because we had new
folks with a common sense of what we were about and so we moved from there. That‟s kind of a
sketch of my university involvement.
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Walwik, Ted 4
SM: What building or buildings have you worked in and what changes did you see them go
through? [TW laughs]
TW: I‟ve had offices in Eisenberg [Classroom Building], which is where our department was
housed all those years. I had an office for a time in the Education Building. I had an office in Old
Main. I had an office in the Library. So, at various times—I‟m kind of a nomad. My home base
was always—and my heart was always in the department, in Eisenberg. Those were very great
changes.
When I was hired—actually I interviewed in the summer of 1970 to start work in ‟71 in
January—the department was housed at the time up in the East Gym, which was in a pretty sad
state of repair. And also up there on the corner of the campus, and that was a time when the
campus was expanding. Eisenberg was under construction, the library was about to be, and the
union was about to be. I mean all that was sort of coming and I could see that the center of
campus was going to move down to the lower campus. One of the things that I sort of insisted on
when I was hired was that they move the department into the lower campus so when I came on
board in January is when we moved into Eisenberg so I never actually worked in East Gym,
happily. But we did well in Eisenberg; it was a good home for the department. Then we saw all
that development down there, the library was built, the union was built, the music building came
along and all that stuff.
JS: Was Vincent [Science Hall] already there, before Eisenberg?
TW: Yeah, Vincent was there, Vincent and [Spotts] World Culture Building. I‟m not sure—they
were built in [the] „60s—the late „60s. So they were there and functional but Eisenberg and even
then it wasn‟t Eisenberg, it was called ECB II, classroom building two [laughs]. They later
named it, obviously, but it was at that early, kind of primitive construction. The football stadium
was there beside the Field House, which is now essentially kind of an intramural field, I guess.
The athletic complex that‟s now there, wasn‟t there. Rather remarkable growth.
I look at the campus now and I‟m impressed and pleased and proud. The new ATS [Advanced
Technology and Science Hall] building is just magnificent. I‟m glad that they‟re doing
something about Vincent; it‟s past time. It‟s hard to believe that Eisenberg and Weisenfluh are
now practically forty years old; they‟re getting on. But a lot of changes, lots and lots of changes,
physically; lots of other ways.
SM: What was your first impression of the campus when you got here, since you came from out
of state?
TW: I don‟t have much of a memory of that, frankly. Partly because, well, I flew in for an
interview. It was not a hurried job but just a day or two, didn‟t see much of it, much of anything,
really. Then I came back and looked for a house and housing was very—in contrast to today—
houses were almost non-existent. They were able to show me three houses in all of the town to
buy. We bought one over on Oak Street. It was very limited but I kind of nipped in and nipped
out for that, so I don‟t know. I don‟t [laughs] have much of a recollection of the first impression.
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Walwik, Ted 5
Not impressive, frankly. Roy Stewart likes to tell the story, when he came for his interview, I
picked him up at the airport, we came to town, and we were going to stop in what is now the
Camelot Restaurant there. As we turn onto Main Street he said to himself, “Ain‟t no way”
[laughter]. It actually looks pretty good now but it was kind of dismal at the time. But we all sort
of overcame that and became very fond of this place. It‟s a great place to live, great place to raise
a family. My family prospered here as well as did my colleagues, you know, we had good things.
I‟ve been quite involved with the town in several ways, too. I want to talk about that before we
finish.
SM: Go ahead and talk about that, how you were involved with the town.
TW: Well, I was asked back in the mid-nineties, early nineties to assume leadership of a group
called Slippery Rock Development and I was the executive director of Slippery Rock
Development for the time. The story seems almost quaint now, because we see so much building
around here. Housing developments, Arrowhead; I don‟t even know the names of all of them
anymore. At the time, the town was just not moving very much and so we, there were a group of
businessmen and local interested people who organized this group, Slippery Rock Development.
And we got some support from the county, from the county commissioners.
So one of our first, our early activities was we organized a Slippery Rock Day for builders. We
went hand in hand with builders in Western Pennsylvania and said, “Come out and look at us.”
We had a lunch and we hired some buses and we took them around and literally pointed at pieces
of land and said, “You can build here, you know, there‟s something to be done here.” So much of
it has now happened in the last fifteen years, it‟s just remarkable to see the changes. After I was
involved, Slippery Rock Development sort of morphed into its current version which has got the
grant to redo Main Street and so forth and that‟s been a big thing.
We did other things, for example, I think they now call it the “Happy Bus,” the bus that does a
circle of the town. It was a project of Slippery Rock Development and of Student Government
and we got a grant from the county commissioners to support that and that‟s how that got started.
So we had our finger in a number of little pies like that around town and kind of raised
awareness of the town. Along in that same period, I chaired a blue ribbon commission for the—
committee for the school board to study the probable impact of population growth in this area
because they were concerned for school planning. At the time became convinced, I remember
reporting to them that—we looked at a lot of data and studies and information that was
available—we really couldn‟t say just when or how many but it was clear that they were coming
[laughter]. That the population was moving this way out of Pittsburgh and that‟s proved to be
true. A lot of people here now, we‟re already seeing the impact and it‟s becoming somewhat of a
bedroom community.
In addition to the university but there are a lot of people who live around here who don‟t work
here but are working in Pittsburgh. I used to have a neighbor who was a salesman who lived here
because of its access to the airport. Well, I always thought of the airport as a long way off but if
you think about if you were a salesman and you were in and out once a week, it‟s a pretty easy
drive. He had good schools and a quiet life and so forth, attractive. So it makes sense.
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Walwik, Ted 6
So, you know, all that and then also my other big community—two other involvements—I‟ve
been very active in Rotary International. I was district governor in ‟91-„92 and then had a
responsibility in Rotary called Rotary Regional Foundation Coordinator where I had a
relationship with Rotary clubs from Pittsburgh to Omaha. All across the upper Midwest and that
was an interesting kind of time and effort. Also, in my spare time, I spent eight years as pastor of
the Branchton United Methodist Church. So I‟ve kept busy.
SM: Who were some of the leaders that you saw pass through the university?
TW: Pass through is a good word [laughter]. Well, when I got here, the president was a guy
named Al Watrel and Al, about a year or two later—I don‟t know—was fired in a rather ugly,
unfortunate, in my opinion; I thought he was badly used. I never thought of Al as being a great
college president but I . . . if they were going to relieve him there were better ways than just
having the state police appear at his door one day and demand his keys, which is literally what
happened.
That firing was engineered, I thought and a lot of people around here believe, by some of the
administrative staff here and particularly—I don‟t want to libel the guy but certainly there was a
common belief, and it was my belief, that Jim Roberts, who was the vice president, engineered
that termination. What I thought, again, was a very unfortunate thing, the state then appointed
Roberts as the acting president and he was clearly a candidate for president. And you put all that
together, somebody who was involved in the termination, who had aspirations; it was not a real
healthy situation. The campus spent a year in serious, serious turmoil. It was a very ugly time
here. A lot of suspicion, a lot of division, a lot of very questionable practices in faculty
procedures and so forth, a lot of enmity, people choosing up sides. In fact, if you—well, it‟s
probably dissipating now, right through the end of my time here, if you knew, you could still feel
some of the currents of those years of who was on what side and so forth.
Well, finally, after a year of agitation—and I, frankly, was part of the agitation—the Secretary of
Education decided rather dramatically [laughs] at the very last minute to replace Dr. Roberts
with Larry Park. Larry was the president at Mansfield and had some interest in, he had had a
grant or study time looking at troubled presidencies, and so Larry came as interim president. He
was very careful to say that he was not an acting president he was the president. His agreement
was he would come for two years and two years only, and that was a good time for the
university.
Larry was very savvy; he was a very experienced president. I can still see him, he was a tall man.
I can see him kind of pushed back from his desk in his office and sort of say, “Well, I‟ve seen
that, I‟ve been there. We‟re not gonna get rattled about this one,” and kind of move on. He asked
me—kind of a funny story in a way—he called me in one day and asked me, told me he wanted
me to be the Director of Planning. I said, “I don‟t know anything about planning,” and he said,
“Well, you can learn.”
But the point was that there was all of this division on campus and all of this negativity and he
wanted to do some things that would turn energies in positive directions. So, we did. We
developed a planning system, one of which I am still very proud. It was a very good planning
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Walwik, Ted 7
system. We got a lot of things started. It was a campus-wide effort and, you know, I think did
contribute to the improved environment.
Then we had Herb Reinhard for a while as president and [pause] he was replaced finally by Bob
Aebersold, Bob by Warren Smith, and now by Bob Smith. I‟ve had pretty good relationship with
all those people.
The vice presidency was, of course, held for a number of years by Chuck Foust, and he and I had
a curious kind of on/off relationship for some time but ultimately a good one. I give . . . I have a
lot of warmth in my heart for Chuck. He would often, I think, be suspicious of what I was up to
but he often supported it in a number of ways. I appreciated the support I got for some of my
schemes [laughter]. We generated a department chairs organization at the time and did some
retreats for department chairs. I‟ve always been interested in the chairmanship as a key lynchpin
in the way universities work. He was a little nervous about the department chairs going off
[laughs] but he supported it and put his money—the university‟s money—into it and things got
done.
Of course, he was succeeded by Bob Aebersold. Bob was on the faculty when I got here in the
Physical Education Department so I‟ve always known Bob and we get along fine. I knew Warren
Smith less well; I learned to know him well now, largely through our associations together in
Rotary. And Bob Smith and I have been professional friends for maybe forty years. Known each
other forever, seems like, professionally.
JS: How did that come about?
TW: I was glad to see when he came here.
JS: Where did you know him before here?
TW: We were, in our early days, both involved in college debate coaching and that business and
we crossed path, sort of—not at the same time, we were never contemporaries—at Ohio
University. We were both involved in a professional organization called The Association of
Communication Administrators and then what was then called the Speech Communication
Association—professional organizations, one sort or another. Like I said, I never had worked
with him before. I had known him, sort of [been] around him in professional relationships for,
like I say, forty years.
JS: Interesting.
SM: Who were some the people that were most influential to you while you were here?
TW: Well, I suppose I really ought to mention Al Schmittlein, who was the dean of what was
then the College of Humanities, what was originally the College of Liberal Arts. Right after I got
here they broke of the College of Liberal Arts into three parts and we had the College of
Humanities and Fine Arts, and Al was their dean. Al was a good guy. [He] gave a lot of support
to some of the things we were up to. I guess Al and Chuck Foust who was an important player in
whatever was doing.
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Walwik, Ted 8
Other people, too, lots of people, of course. I was involved in APSCUF, fairly . . . I was the
Grievance Chairman in its very early years which was kind of a gnarly assignment because the
nature of things as the union came into place: there was a lot of tension between management
and the union over, kind of, negotiating and trying to feel out each other‟s power. So we were in
confrontation a lot early. And most of that, of course, those early battles were fought and won or
lost and dissipated.
I was involved with that, in cahoots, a good bit of that time, with Wilma Cavill, who remains a
dear friend. We were involved quite a lot with APSCUF kinds of things both locally and I was,
for a while, the parliamentarian of the state APSCUF organization. So I was involved in
APSCUF on a wider scale. And that Educational Services Trust thing I talked about also
connected with APSCUF. So that was important.
I was also involved with the football program for a while [chuckles]. I was president of the
Football Boosters Club, I guess you could call it. I got an athletic blanket that they awarded me
when I left that presidency, which I‟m proud of.
JS: The university had a boosters club?
TW: Yeah, when Bob DiSpirito was here, back in his first go-round as coach.
SM: He talked about the partnership with Texas University, and they would send each other their
booster clubs to support each other. So Slippery Rock would be down in Texas and Texas would
be up here.
TW: Yeah. It was—those were good times. You know, I still admire the football program; I‟m
just not involved with it. In those days, I was always proud of our football program. I was never
an athlete myself really. But it always seemed to me that Bob and his staff had a right balance:
they cared about their kids, they were very good at what they did—there was excellence in that
program. They didn‟t sell out. They were very competitive even though they didn‟t have the
resources that some of their competition [had]—we still have that problem. We were champions
of the conference a couple of times in those years and it was a good outfit and I was always
proud to be a part of it. I always thought it was important to link up the athletic program with the
academic program and I saw myself as sort of doing that, in a sense. At least being symbolically
so.
SM: What some memories you have of the university—any events that really come to mind?
TW: Oh, I don‟t know other than the kinds of things we already talked about. I don‟t have any
specific events other than those kinds of things. There was plenty of . . . my early years here
there was a lot of turmoil, frankly and memories of that time are marked by much of that. The
place is a good bit more peaceful than it used to be [laughs] I think, more congenial. We got
through a lot of that.
The advent of the faculty union was an important development, which I opposed originally. I
was a little nervous about the whole notion of unionism for faculties. I was persuaded at the time
by the argument that all other groups that were at the public trough, that is, state troopers, liquor
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Walwik, Ted 9
boards, clerks and so forth, had access to the legislature, were going to be doing it through
unions and if we didn‟t have the same kind of organization, we‟d lose out. So, I went along. I
think APSCUF developed in very, very healthy ways.
The guy who was the original executive director of APSCUF, a guy named Marty Moran, who
came to us in a rather peculiar way. He was working for the NEA [National Education
Association], I guess, at the time. And before that he‟d been the organizer for the ILGWU
[International Ladies Garment Workers Union]. Marty was a very bright man . . . very, very
bright. And he had this notion that there was a possibility in a faculty union of some grander
version of the labor movement, and that faculty were smarter and more sophisticated and would
develop a kind of unionism that was different from industrial unions. He had this all worked out
in terms of Maslow‟s Hierarchy of Needs. I don‟t know if you know that, but as your basic needs
were met, you move on up and finally you get to the point where we were operating at a very
high professional and ethical plane. And he sold that. He sold it to the faculty initially and he
sold it in the negotiations, the early contracts.
Our first contract was very generous in terms of raising faculty salaries. That first year, we got
raises three or four different times, staged through the year. You never knew how much money
you were making because you kept making more. It was kind of neat [laughter]. The idea was
that if . . . the notion that he sold was that if you rewarded faculty and met their demands, or their
needs, then they would be more enlightened and go on to higher planes. I think he ultimately was
a little disillusioned by that. He found out that faculty were just as grubby and greedy at times
[laughter] as were his Garment Workers‟ Union.
At the same time, APSCUF was a very good thing for most of the first several years, first ten
years, more or less. It was before the [Pennsylvania state] system became a system and APSCUF
was really the only single voice for the system. Before that there were fourteen campuses. Each
president was kind of a duke of his own little world. They were in competition and it was kind of
strange. It was part of that Educational Services Trust thing, for example: I went around and met
with every president in the system, and I used to say I think I was only one of three people in the
world who‟d been on all fourteen campuses [laughter]. There was just no connection and it was
all kind of mess.
The union became the voice, in a sense, or a voice for the whole system because it was a contract
that covered the whole system. It kind of turned the world of higher education in Pennsylvania in
some significant ways. It ultimately became a very good thing, I think, and has worked out to be
a very, very healthy relationship. It‟s like any such relationship: I suppose it has its moments. On
balance, it‟s a good thing. I‟m convinced of that today.
SM: What happened during the investigation of the bookstore in 1975? Do you remember that?
TW: Gee, I‟d forgotten about that [laughs]. [Pause] I really had forgotten about it. We did
discover that there were apparently irregularities in the bookstore and called attention to that, and
finally the guy who was running the bookstore was run off, in fact. I really don‟t remember
enough of the detail to report it. I do know, I would confess now, that I was right in the middle of
it. It wasn‟t very difficult to figure out. I mean, when you looked at what was going on and you
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Walwik, Ted 10
kind of looked at their books and so forth, it was clear that something was amiss. And that was
sort of the ultimate conclusion. Where did you find out about that?
SM: [Laughter] The Rocket.
TW: The Rocket. Okay.
JS: She was reading old Rockets to prepare for your interview.
TW: I‟d forgotten about that all together.
JS: Wasn‟t there some other something that you found in there?
SM: I was just wondering how—
TW: There must be some other dirt [laughs].
SM: I was just wondering how the hiring freeze in 1977 specifically affected Slippery Rock?
TW: Oh, I don‟t remember that it did all that much. I guess it inconvenienced us some but I don‟t
think it was that big a deal. Those are kind of little bumps in the road that wear themselves out
and there are, frankly, even with hiring freezes, there are ways to wire around it. There were then
through temporary position shifting some things. We complained a lot [laughs] but I don‟t
remember we suffered all that much.
I used to complain constantly about what was for many years the propensity in a growing
department with a heavy demand for teaching a general studies course—a public speaking
course. We had a rather substantial obligation there that we needed faculty and they kept
assigning faculty temporary positions and I couldn‟t hire permanent positions, and that‟s just not
a good way to run a department. Tim Walters and I went through an exercise a couple of years
ago, trying to make a list of all the people that worked in the department over the years and it
was a very, very long list and we had a little trouble remembering all those people because, you
know, kind of that revolving door. Happily, we had a good core that did stick with us and that all
worked out. I don‟t remember that hiring freeze itself really was that big a deal for us.
SM: What do you miss about being at Slippery Rock University?
TW: Oh, I miss the collegiality of the people. I used to have a lot of friends on the campus in a
lot of places, not just in my own department. I miss all those people and I don‟t see them very
often. It‟s kind of, you know, I‟m always a little amazed, I get what they now call Rock Pride.
I‟ve been out of here eleven years, since I retired. I almost never recognize a name anymore.
When you think about it, what happens to a faculty of 400 in rough numbers, probably fifty or so
of those are temporary in one time so they come and go, and then you retire anywhere between
ten and thirty people a year over a ten year period. Pretty close to total turnover, not quite.
There are the Wilma Cavill‟s of the world and Wilma‟s been here forever but most of the people
I worked with are gone. Even in the department, there‟s still a few people there that I hired but I
don‟t know half the people down there anymore. I try to maintain a relationship with them. I
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continue to sponsor an annual lecture on freedom of speech; I underwrite that, which kind of
keeps me in some very tenuous connection with the department. I‟ve always believed that it was
not my job to go down and try to run the department after I graduated so to speak [laughs] but
you know, I miss the people and I miss the students. I had a good relationship over the years with
a lot of the students. It‟s what keeps you going in this business, for the most part.
SM: Do you have any words of wisdom for us? Anything you want any current or future Rock
students of community members to know?
TW: Well, I think the thing that I always thought I knew about Slippery Rock and tried to
convince students, particularly, is how good this place is. There was a time, I like to think we‟ve
gotten beyond it but I don‟t really know because I‟m not in touch with students so much
anymore, but there was a time when kids would come here with sort of, “Well, what the hell is
Slippery Rock?” You know? “I‟m here because I didn‟t go to Harvard or to Penn State or
someplace else.” And they would see it as kind of a second choice. I always thought that was a
very grave mistake.
Then we would have students, we used to have a very energetic effort in the department—I‟m
not sure it still exists but Joe Riggs used to kind of head it up for us—of encouraging the kids to
go to graduate school. And we placed a lot of students in major doctoral programs. We were
producing a PhD or more a year, for a while, sending them off to the big ten and places like that.
And they would be very, very competitive. I remember clearly, counseling the kids who would
say, “I can‟t do that because I‟m, you know, I‟m from Slippery Rock,” and I‟d say, “Slippery
Rock kids can make it anywhere and they do!” We sent our kids off to the University of Illinois
or to Purdue or someplace like that, they succeed because our preparation is good and their
quality was good. It‟s important they recognize that. I used to describe it as kind of a doughnut
effect with Slippery Rock‟s reputation. If you got out seventy-five miles, it was pretty good but
the hometown effect of everybody, familiarity, I guess, bred contempt. I think a lot of that
attitude has changed; at least I like to think it has. There are a lot of things about the university,
now, just physically, it‟s attractive. And programmatically a lot of things are going on and if a
student looks around them, they gotta be impressed.
They still suffer from, it‟s typical I suppose, of a regional university: too many people clear out
on the weekends and that kind of thing, where they would do much better if they would stay and
invest themselves. And those who do, do very well and are enriched by all that. Booker T.
Washington—I‟ll give you a little speech—listen here now. Booker T. Washington made a
speech to what was called the Atlanta Exposition and it was an attempt to kind of launch a postwar, post-Civil War South, a new South. He was speaking there about the role of blacks in the
new South. This is a hundred year old story now and you got to put it in that context. He was
trying to encourage black populations to put down roots and to take advantage of their
opportunities. He told this story about this ship that was adrift and was without water and was in
rather dire straits, a sailing ship. They were really desperate. And finally, another sail appeared in
the horizon and they messaged to it, “We die of thirst,” and the message that came back was,
“Cast down your bucket where you are,” and they thought, “That‟s crazy,” and so they repeated
this and the story goes on, I think, three different times and so finally the third time they did that.
They thought, “Oh, what the heck,” and discovered that they had drifted into the mouth of the
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Amazon and the water underneath them was pure. It was sweet; it was not salty. The message
was, “Cast down your bucket where you are. Take advantage of the opportunity. Bloom where
you‟re planted.” I think that‟s a good lesson for Slippery Rock people.
There‟s a lot of opportunity here. The heritage of this place is rich and the heritage of this area is
rich. I‟m not a western Pennsylvanian by birth but I‟ve come to appreciate it. Good people come
out of these small towns in western Pennsylvania. I even know of one or two good people that
came out of Pittsburgh [laughs]. There‟s a lot of opportunity here and the university, I think, is
just growing in stature, not necessarily numbers. I understand the size control, which probably is
a good thing as a matter of fact. It‟s big enough and doesn‟t need to get bigger, faster. We‟ve
certainly got enough resource problems without stripping them. We went through a period where
we tried to grow when we shouldn‟t have. There was a time when there was this ambition to
have 10,000 students, this was back in the early „70s, and it was crazy. We were admitting
people, recruiting kids who couldn‟t read and write. The quality of students has gotten much
better; that‟s good.
But it‟s a good place. I used to enjoy recruiting faculty for a lot of reasons but one of the reasons
was I always thought it was an honest effort. I could say to people, straight faced, “This is a good
place to be. There are good people here. This is a good working environment in terms of all the
nickel and dime stuff. Some of it‟s not nickel and dime: good fringe benefits, excellent health
care; but more than that it‟s a civilized place. A good place. You‟ll enjoy Slippery Rock. That‟s
important.”
SM: Well, I don‟t think I have any questions. Judy do you have any other questions for him?
JS: No, I don‟t.
TW: I told you more than I know [laughs].
SM: Well, I‟d like to thank you for allowing me to interview you and allowing Judy to be here.
TW: I enjoyed it.
SM: So, thank you again.
TW: I enjoy remembering, you know.
Rock Voices: The Oral History Project of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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