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

MR. JOSEPH MARKS

INTERVIEWER:

DR. JOSEPH RIGGS AND LEAH M. BROWN

23 JULY 1991

R:

Our initial question is how did you get here?

M:

By car.

There was no other way at the time.

I had known Dr.

Carter, who had been President of Slippery Rock.
an undergraduate student of his back in 1950.

I had been

Just prior to

coming here, I was principal of an area vocational high school
at Heath, Ohio, which was also a comprehensive high school for
the town of Heath.

Dr. Carter was still at

where I had gone to school, and so he and I
at that time.

He placed student teachers

school, so I had had some contact with him
when I came here.

Anyway, after he took

the background of how we proceeded.
the days of affirmative action.
very interesting.

renewed our contacts
with teachers in our
between 1950 and 1965

the presidency here, he

called and asked if I would be interested
at a position of either dean of men or

Denison University

in coming up and looking

dean of students.

That's

This was, of course, before

Our

This was before the

trip to Slippery Rock was
days of I-79.

Being in

Ohio, my wife, Ramona, is from Ohio so

we came north close to East

Liverpool where her home is and stayed

there overnight prior to

(2)
M:

the day we were to come up here.
to the map to ever get here.

There was no good way according

So we came

in Route 422 and then

came up Route 528, up to where the Stone House is now.
time, in the area where Lake Arthur and
had just been acquired for the lake.

At that

Moraine Park is, the land

The darn hadn't been built

yet but people had left their homes because all the land had been
acquired.

The road was going to be covered or a portion of the

road was going to be covered by the lake so it was in very poor
repair.

No repair.

Here's all these old, deserted houses that

had been deserted for a year or so.
Nothing maintained.
going to end up?

Everything growing up.

We really wondered, where in the world are we

Then corning into Slippery Rock by an indirect

way, we were then really surprised at the village of Slippery
Rock. Our impressions of college towns had

pretty much been

determined by having lived close to Granville, Ohio, and close to
New Concord, Ohio, where Denison and
have broad main streets, divided

Muskingum Colleges are. Each

main streets, a boulevard, large

stately trees down the

boulevard, some large expensive houses,

older homes, mostly in

the style of New England, and then here we

are in Slippery Rock
streets. It took us

with its power lines overhead and narrow
three trips back just looking at the town

before we ever decided

to say yes because the town was the real

drawback to corning here.
Rock in a roundabout way.

That's basically how we got to Slippery
It was interesting though.

The people

( 3)

M:

of the town really made up
lacked.

We hadn't sold

over there trying to
place to rent.

I

time she got the
needed some money
time it took

our house in Ohio.

So Ramona was living

sell it, and I was here trying to find a

finally found a place to rent just about the
house sold.

The moving van was coming and I

to pay the moving van. Incidentally, at that

a long time to ever get on the payroll.

working for six
down at the

for what the facilities of the borough

weeks before I ever saw a pay check.

I was
So I stopped

First National Bank and told the teller that I wanted

to borrow some money. I had established an account there with
small amount of money in it. I expected to be referred to
officer someplace and she just said, how much do you
two thousand dollars.

She said, I can

me a check, and I signed the little
was to it. I expected to have

do that.

a loan

want? I said,

So she just wrote

form, and that was all there

to put up collateral, give some

references or something, but

I didn't have to do any of that.

That was a nice, nice part of

Slippery Rock and it's kind of

always been that way as far as
going.

So that's basically

a

I've been concerned.

my introduction.

Kind of easy

Both good and bad.

B:

What position did you take?

M:

I took Dean of Students as opposed to Dean of Men.

At that time

the Dean of Men lived in Patterson Hall which was the only
men's dormitory, and there's a nice apartment there but not for

(4)
M:

a family.
Of course, at that time, Slippery Rock was quite different. This is July of 1965 and Slippery Rock
was quite different than it is now. The furthest building east was the field house. Vincent
Science Hall was under construction, just out in the middle of a field. Well, of course, it sits well
beyond the field house. It was kind of hard to visualize why it was over there by itself.

R:

It was part of the grand plan. (laughs)

M:

Well, yes. In fact, I don’t know who actually developed the actual plan for this part of the
campus. A lot of it had to be cleared through Harrisburg. As Dean of Students, I got in on a lot
of the planning for a number of buildings including World Culture, Eisenberg, College Union, all
the residence halls.

When the World Culture building was built, Dr. Carter was very much opposed to it being placed
where it was, but he could not get the master plan changed in Harrisburg. His objection was
that it was sitting right on a bank in that there was the field house parking lot and then a drop
off. And it was going to be sitting in a hole, which it is. But if you’ll notice, that there is a door
under the bridge, which goes across from the field house parking lot over to the World Culture
building. There is a door opening right, almost up against the bank there. Well, the planners in
Harrisburg had that as the main, or as one of the main entrances to the building. The actual
bridge is an afterthought. When they finally got everybody convinced, somebody can’t read
elevations or a topography map. And so the building was really put in a poor location. And, like
I said, that bridge is just an afterthought.

(5)

R:

Werethere other problems with that building?

Something about

underneath it?
M:

Well, I don't know all of them, but if you recall about probably
ten years ago, they had to reface the whole part that was facing
the main quadrangle because it was splitting away from the rest
of the building.

See, a lot of that land is fill out there. It

apparently just hasn't all settled yet.

I'm on a tangent here

but let's go on. The land where the Kiester Road tennis courts are
now, and all that land on out to Harmony Road was a part of the
Claire Garlow farm.

Claire Garlow still owned the land at the

time that we moved here.

He, himself, was quite a character.

The

house, and I can't think of a house in the area that was in the
state of repair that this large brick house was in.

It's been

a beautiful brick house at some time, but it was to the point of
where it was just all but collapsing.

He was a man probably in

his seventies or eighties, and people said that rather than sleep
in the house, that he slept in one of the old sheds around because
of the dangers of being in the house.

There's also, speaking

about topography, there's also an area of I suppose quicksand,
out beyond those Kiester Road tennis courts.

In fact, I see that

we are now dumping a lot of stuff, a lot of debris, in that area.
Our son, when he was about six or seven, and one of his friends
were out playing in that area, and the friend got stuck in the
mud, and was just going in it.

The two kids couldn't get one

(6)

M:

another out.

At that time, we were living on the corner of

Harmony Road and Kiester Road, and so my son, Joe, came charging
across, and my wife saw him running as a little seven or eight
year old, running across the field.

She knew that something was

wrong so she came out the front door to see what was going on.
He told her that Dean was stuck in the mud and couldn't get out.
She wasn't sure what was going on, but Ramona went charging across
the field, and at that time, of course, it was not nice playing
gentleman

along the road saw her running and
realized that there must be something wrong so he stopped.

It was

Barney Barnes, who used to teach in Grove City and also ran the
golf course out here.
what was going on.

He caught up with her and she told him

By the time she got there, Barney had already

gotten hold of Dean, lifted him out of his boots, and had
gotten him out of the mud.
R:

President Carter had been here a year or two before you came?

M:

About six months.

R:

Six months. So when you got here, all of the political mishmash
that was about to come about, were you aware of.

M:

Tensions?

R:

Yes.

M:

There was a certain amount of tension because,

believe that Harold Wieand

•

had probably been a candidate for the

presidency, and he was, of course, still on the faculty.

But,

(7)

no,

basically,
there was no more political give and take than

there was at most times during any college administration.
Carter was a good planner.

Dr.

In fact, as you look at the campus

as it is now, it has his mark on it considerably.

Although all

the buildings weren't funded while he was president, the planning
was done for World Culture, Eisenberg, the library, the student
union, and I believe all the residence halls except one of the
high rises and I'm not sure which one of those was not done.
In fact, he did not like the type of dormitories that we have at
all.

He tried to get apartments and suites built into residence

halls for students rather than just the straight corridors with
the stalls off of them.

He was never able to convince the powers

that be in Harrisburg or even some of his fellow presidents that
that was the thing to do.

Also, one thing which he wanted to do,

speaking about residence halls and so forth, was to have a
fraternity and sorority circle.

It was his idea to have it up

on the hill behind the water tower.

Not where the baseball

playing field is, but on around the hill a little further, with
the University owning the buildings and leasing them, longterm leases to the fraternities and sororities.

I think had

something like that ever occured, some of the housing problems
in Slippery Rock might have been alleviated.
may have created others.

Of course, it

I kind of strayed away from your

question, Joe, on the political climate.

Really, I would say

(8)

M:

the first year and a half or two that I was here, that they
were really very progressive years.
done.

A lot of planning was

Unfortunately, it took a long time to get things through

Harrisburg because at that time everything went through
Harrisburg, and everything was very frugal.
word, rather than cheap, maybe?

Is that the right

It was always the lowest bid.

The state cars, for example, were the basic car.
with a heater and a defroster.

No radio, no

automatic shift, they were just the basic
Dr. Carter first got a car, and he was
radio and air conditioning, and how

You had a car

air conditioning, no

car.

I remember when

insisting on a car with a

much effort it took for him

to finally get a car that would do that.
R:

Was there a cabinet operating then, the deans and vice-presidents?

M:

This was before the days of vice-presidents.
trative staff.

We had an adminis-

You had the president, a dean of instruction, a

dean of students, and under the dean of instruction there were
various department chairmen.

Dr. Carter had an administrative

assistant and a public relations individual.

Marc Selman served

as the administrative assistant and Mark Shiring as public relations.
B:

So that setup was arranged by Dr. Carter?

M:

I don't know.

I don't know whether that was or not, because it

was changed within a year or two to where a couple of other deans
were appointed.

The first dean of instruction that I recall, and

(9)

M:

I think his title was changed sometime to dean of academic affairs
or something, was George Moore.

George, if you know, wrote a book

on the history of West Virginia which was - the bicentennial book
accepted by the state as the official book.
in politics.

George was interested

If I may stray from the academic for a minute and

talk about people as I was thinking about George.
in Old Main was a lady named Mary Book.
and also very interested in politics.

The custodian

Mary was a large lady
It was not unusual to go

down to the basement of Old Main where Mary had a chair and a
wash basin in a little closet-like

room there, and hear the Dean

of Instruction and Mary arguing politics.

Sometimes it would

be so loud that you could hear it out in the hallways out there.
But they would both get very loud as they yelled at one another.
R:

No way to tell who was winning?

M:

I don't think that anybody would have wanted to know.

R:

Marc Selman was brought here by George Moore.

M:

I don't know.

R:

Well, I think.

I'm not sure.

I know that they were friends,

and they had a West Virginia University connection.
M:

As for a cabinet, there were really generally no official cabinet
meetings or administrative meetings.

At that time, the

president's office was on the first floor of Old Main.
fact, maybe I ought to describe Old Main first.
office was on the first floor.

In

The president's

All the other administrative

(10)
M:

offices were on the first floor.
basement and had two rooms.
the basement.

The book store was in the
was all that was in

That, I believe,

On the second and third floor

academic offices.

were classrooms and

So, of course, there was

a lot of student

traffic and a lot of faculty traffic through
time.

the building all the

Administrators would kind of migrate

office where it was just kind of a lot of
and if something came that needed somebody
sion, why he would send for them. Maybe I

towards Dr. Carter's
informal discussions,
else in on the discusshould say one thing

more about the Old Main plant before I forget. The state was
notorious for not doing preventive maintenance as it still is.

So

the roof of Old Main leaked, and after every hard rain, the
maintenance men would have to go to the attic
gallon buckets of water which had collected as
through the various leaks in the roof.

and empty the five
the rain came

Now back to

the basement.

As I said, the bookstore was in two rooms which included rooms for
textbooks and rooms for sweatshirts
that.

So if you iook at the size

and tee shirts and things like
of the rooms in the basement,

why you know that there's not much room.
Al Mcclymonds' offices today
When textbooks were sold,
hall and were stacked on
through and pick up their
R:

About 2,000 students then?

In fact, Jim Wilson and

take up the whole book store space.

the textbooks were moved out into the
the floor.

Then students could file

texts and pay for them.

(11)
M:

There were 2,500 some students when we came in 1965.

R:

And you were Dean of Students. A lot of disciplinaries?
Did you have many problems?

M:

In a position like that you always have problems.

But the

problems then were not the type of problems that you have
today.

In fact, I don't envy the people in student personnel

their position today at all.
handled all discipline.
board.

There was a disciplinary

I don't remember who

all was on the

I know I was on it and Dr. Gamberoni was

remember the other people.

Anyway, it was

out campus as the bounce board.

So I

what most of the actions were, which
suspension.

this is entirely off the subject of
about rape, two of our coeds were
believe, V.M.I. or V.P.I., and
Some place up around Mercer
and the four of them were

I don't

commonly known through-

was recommend academic

or having alcohol in the dormitories.
We had

on it.

think you can probably guess

The discipline problems were

were handled at that time.

board which

generally for drinking

A couple incidents of rape

one unfortunate incident and
discipline but as I think
on a date with a fellow from, I

a male student from Slippery Rock.

they were accosted by two or three men
kidnapped by the men, taken to the

woods. The two fellows were tied to the tree and the two girls
were raped.

In the process, the male student from V.M.I. or

V.P.I. was shot and killed.
you speak about problems

So that was rather a trying time as

for the Dean of students.

(12)
R:

And upshot of all that was did they get the criminals?

M:

Yes, the criminals were caught.

R:

Was there a large panic over this bad situation?

M:

There was a lot of publicity but not panic.

R:

Parents weren't taking youngsters out of school and all
that stuff?

M:

No. The actual incident happened around Mercer and so they
were well off the campus.

R:

The security force on campus, is that how you found out about
the drinking and alcohol and all that sort of thing?
it changed when President Carter came.

I know

You're going to tell

me a story.
M:

The security force consisted of two men.

One of the gentlmen was

probably 65 to 70 at the youngest, and, of course, he did not
move around too fast and had been here for years and he was the
night watchman.
his 30 1 s.

Then his relief was a younger man probably in

Although they had the title of security force, they

probably weren't too secure, but they were just around and if
something was going wrong they would get to the telephone and
give someone a call.

Most of the disciplinary problems that

got reported were reported in at the local police or through
residence hall advisors.
missed.

I'm sure that a lot of things were

If I may digress again here as the word police comes

to mind I'll speak of the local police.

The local police force

(13)
m:

at that time was Sandy Sanderson.

Anyway, he had no office

in the borough so the cruiser was the office and it stayed
parked down at the corner of Main Street and Franklin.
where the Boron station is now.

Right

He could not even call for

police reinforcements from his car without driving out to
the hill on Cemetery Road and broadcasting from there, and
then on a good day he could contact Butler.

Other than

that, he had to go to a telephone in order to do it.
B:

Good thing it was peaceful around here.

M:

Yes.

R:

What do you remember most about the student body?

It's a good thing it was.
Were

they very different from today?
M:

Of course, not being a large number of students here, you
knew a high percent of the students whether you were in administration or teaching because you taught a lot of classes and so
you saw a large portion of the student body.
friendly campus.

It was a rather

You didn't start to see the changes of the

1960's hit this campus until the late 1960's.
four or five years behind.

We were probably

It was just about that time that I

stepped out of the role of Dean of Students.

By that time, Dr.

Carter had left, and I could see how things were going in
higher education in other universities that a lot of things,
a lot of changes, would have to take place on the campus which
really did not enthuse me.

Such as, coeducational residence

(14)
M:

halls, things like that.

So I felt when the job of registrar

came open that this would be a nice way of stepping out of that.
So I stepped out of the dean of students obviously before a lot
of the drastic changes took place.

One thing which Dr. Carter

wanted to do, by the way, each of the residence halls had house
mothers.

All of the women's residence halls had house mothers.

These are generally women who are probably in their 40's, and
one of Dr. Carter's aims was to get these people phased out,
and to get in younger student personnel oriented women for the
women's
not
dorms,
as house mothers but to serve as resident
hall advisors.

But now we still have one house mother, by

the way, left over from Dr. Carter's regime and that's Mrs.
Yartz.
R:

We've been looking for her.

We thought she would be a good

interview.
M:

R:
M:

Yes.

She would be.

Dr. Watrel then hired you as registrar or was there an interim?
No.

There

couple of interims and I'm not sure I can really

give that one in chronological order because I really hadn't
thought about it because Marc Selman was acting president for
a while and then Dr. Carter was back in for a while and then,
I believe, Bob Lowry was president for a while.

So just about

the time Dr. Watrel came I moved into the office of registrar,
but it really wasn't because of his coming, it was just because

(15)
M:

of some of the changes which I saw in other schools that I
would just be so opposed to that I knew I wouldn't be happy
making them, and I find it hard to justify it to myself.
that time the registrar's office did need help.
had died unexpectedly. In fact,
operation at that time.

I

It

over in East and West Gym.
another interesting topic

At

Mrs. Billingsly

registration was an interesting

was done by cards, and it was done
And the computer center, which is
back then, well, actually they were key

punch cards for each course. Students would go around and pick up
the cards and try to
process for the

build a schedule.

whole student body, at that time, for two thousand

some students to build a schedule.
such thing as a time card,
o'clock in the morning
out. But some

It was about a day-long

I don't believe there was any

you just got in line at three or four

and first ones in and maybe the first ones

of the people also found that if they were the last

ones in it was probably easy to build a schedule if you went
around and looked on the floor and picked up cards because there
were always a lot of cards thrown away.

A student would pull

a card for a class they thought they might want and then
someone would talk him out of it or it conflicted with a time
of another card so they would just throw it down on the
floor.

So you could go around and you could pick up enough

cards that you could build a pretty decent schedule just by
picking them up off the floor when registration was over.

(16)
B:

The cards corresponded to the number of seats in that class?

M:

Yes.

R:

We were still doing that in the 1970's at the multipurpose room?

M:

No.

R:

It was different?

M:

Really?

R:

Well, I worked for you when I first came.

M:

Maybe we did.

I

And they were keypunched for the class and the period.

by computer.
R:

They got cards from us, each student.

I know by 1974 that we were doing the registration
Using computer terminals.

Well, we had computer terminals but that was for the exit line
or something like that.
end.

It was being checked by computer at the

I may be confused, but I know the faculty sat in a huge

circle by department and we had these boxes and boxes of cards.
M:

Okay.

That's right.

R:

Then you were over there at the terminal and everyone had to go
through you or your folks to get out of there and that's where
whoever you were communicating with out there was taking place.

M:

In fact, that was the initial way that we did the registration
when we first got it computerized, and then we finally got it
to the point where we could have people write down their courses
and just take it from there.

You probably remember then the

first time that we used our computers.
I tell about this.

I might digress before

We worked very closely with IBM in getting

the whole computer system on campus.

IBM took a number of the

(17)
M:

programmers to Poughkeepsie (New York) or to San Jose, California,
for a lot of , training.

They also had

one training school for college registrars which they had
at Poughkeepsie and I was fortunate enough to go to that.

So

iri our training, our registration was built on the plan which
IBM had for registration.

The only thing that happened on that

first time that we did it was the fact that the computer went
down, and nobody could get it going again.

Well, at the time,

it had been up and down a number of times during the day, and
we handled registration in the multipurpose room, I believe
spread out over three days at that time for probably 4,000
students at the most.

Before it was obvious that we weren't

going to get the computer up, we had so many people in the
multipurpose room that it was bedlam.

We had to finally just

send them out, and start all over fresh again the next day.
We had to extend registration, I believe, two more days that
particular time, and that was the only time, but that was a
real fiasco that first time that we did it.

Well, among

registration I might also say that IBM in their training of
people, and this is back in the early 1970's, did such a good
job that i n the mid-1980's I visited a gentleman who was also
at that registrar's training school at Iowa State and he showed
me some of their displays on their terminal, and the only thing
I would have had to have known was they had a little different

(18)
M:

access number, in other words instead of RO 10, it might have
been RO 35 or something, but if I knew the access numbers
everything else looked so much like Slippery Rock that you could
have just moved it from one place to another.

R:

I was also amazed at registration.

Of course registration

everywhere was a nightmare of one kind or another, and you had
4,000 people suffering anxiety neurosis because they all wanted
to get that teacher at that time, and you were over at your
desk or back in this multipurpose room and it was just a huge mess.

The

casual observer would come in there and say, "What kind

of chaos is this?"

I was always amazed that you were over there,

very calm and didn't get rattled, and when anything went
wrong everyone pointed their finger at you, and when things went

-

right nobody paid any attention to you.
That's

part

of the price you pay for being registrar.

B:

What kind of satisfactions are there for being registrar?

M:

Well, in my notes over here, you had asked a question someplace
about best experiences and disappointments, and I could put that
job in both categories.

I enjoyed a lot of the administrative

work and the contacts with people.

My greatest disappointments

were also attached to the job, because although I enjoyed the
challenges, a lot of the times I couldn't get the support either
financially or administratively from people in higher authority
or from the computer center to do some of the things we really
wanted to do.

In fact, some of the things are being worked on now

which I had worked on back in the early 1980's.

I spent a lot

time, in fact I took a sabbatical leave to outline and to study a

means of doing a graduation check, academic review, which would
take care of all facets and all majors across the campus.

Back in

the 1980 1 s there were several universities which had very comprehensive systems.

Now some schools thought that they had compre-

hensive systems, but whenever you got to studying them they were
not as comprehensive as they appeared to be. Miami of Ohio had an
excellent system.

In fact, it still does, and it is used in a

number of universities and
that.

I recommended that Slippery Rock adopt

Well, the computer people at that time didn't feel like

that was a priority item.

I understand now that they are working,

programming the Miami system for Slippery Rock, but they're about
ten years too late.

But that was really one of my biggest

disappointments because there were a lot things which we could
have been doing with the computer a lot earlier. But getting
people sold on it was very difficult.
R:

It would have simplified all kinds of things like scheduling,
hours, and rooms?

M:

It would have simplified many, many things, and made information
a lot more available to a lot more people, much easier and much
sooner.

But I did enjoy the office.

I did enjoy it.

But there

were a lot of headaches, and as you said earlier, people didn't
recognize when things were going well, but when things were not
going well why, of course, you were responsible.
R:

In my 18 years, I dealt with you probably several hundred times
because I was an advisor and I had a lot of students, and I

L

(20)

was always here in the summer time. The kinds of things that
happen to students on their way to degrees shouldn't have
happened to an armadillo.

The rules about registration and

about graduation requirements and all of that, those rules
were there for a purpose, but they could be bent a little bit
where an injustice had been done or where the faculty member
had created the problem, and was mainly responsible for what
had happened to the student.

I was always impressed that

somehow we could work those things out if we took enough time
to do it, and if the registrar had the right amount of patience.
What I didn't know, I think, was that you had been through all
those problems many, many, many times, and while I was fiddling
around trying to think up an answer, it had already been answered
and all I needed to do was call you.

So I would think the

satisfaction of solving so many problems like that so that youngsters could graduate, you know, kind of on time would have been
one of the best feelings you could have gotten?
M:

Yes.

As I said, I enjoyed working with people, and I enjoyed

the administrative problems, but yet there was always a
certain amount of pressure and a certain amount of stress always
connected, because it was like we were always shorthanded helpwise and I ended up doing more clerical work than I should have.
So I was happy to finally get the opportunity to get back to
teaching.

(21)

R:

How did you decide which faculty you were going to overload?
I know when students had problems you overloaded faculty.

You

overloaded me several times.
M:

I think usually I would call you.

R:

Almost always.

M:

Almost always.

R:

There were one or two exceptions.

M:

Those I don't remember.

Well, I probably figured now he's one

of those fellows who doesn't count well anyway.
R:

The other thing that I remember you talking about was space
allocation and what a monstrous headache that always was.

M:

Yes.

Well, today as then departments were assigned classrooms

for their use. Then once they had put in their claim for
the certain days and periods which they wanted then, it was
anybody's game to get the rest of the classes scheduled because
some departments had not enough space. And there's always some
departments who always want to schedule Monday, Wednesday,
Friday from period two through period five and periods Band C
on Tuesday and Thursday and that's it, only in the prime
periods.

And then there are other departments who have other

scheduling priorities like because perhaps they don't schedule
period four, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, because they like to
have a faculty meeting at that time. So there are always

(22)

M:

classrooms that are vacant or not used at these different
times, so it's a matter of kind of dovetailing things, and it
can be done.
I wonder if I could back a way up here a minute?
talking about the disciplinary board.

We were

I also want to talk

about the cooperative activities board for just a minute.

All the

changes or a lot of changes which happened in our bookstore were
the result of the cooperative activities board.

As I said,

the bookstore originally worked out of two little rooms in the
basement of Old Main which was much too crowded.

So at text-

book selling time, why the cooperative activites board said
we just have to find another place.

Well, South Hall had been

a men's dormitory, and this is now in 1969 or so, which had been
condemned and was still standing on the campus but was not
being used.

So we used the first floor of South Hall for

the selling of textbooks.

Students could file in the front

door and walk down the hall, and here's all the piles of
textbooks and you helped yourself to the textbooks and then
you checked out through the cashier and it was all selfservice, not as it is today where you tell them what textbooks you want, and you are then served, but everything
was all self-service.

But the cooperative activities board

also allocates money to the various organizations, and it
was always interesting because certain organizations would

(23)

M:

always appeal.

No matter how much money you gave them, you

wouldn't give them enough, and, of course, we were trying
to keep down the student activity fee. It was always a
question of whether the college band should have enough money
so they could spend an overnight at an away game or go to an
away game, and, of course, that was just one of the examples
of an appeal for additional money so that they could take a
hotel or motel to spend a night at an away game, or even go
to an away game.

That was a long process as you heard many,

many appeals for additional funds, and from the athletics
since a lot of the athletics are also funded through cooperative
activities.
B:

So you were part of that board as part of your position of
dean of students?

M:

Yes.

I was part of that board.

In fact here again, Dr. Gamberoni

was the chairman of that particular board, and always did an
excellent job.
R:

You know when we started the day-care center, Dr. Gamberoni,
I think, was our first chairman of that board.

M:

I believe he was.

R:

What about the part-time students and their struggles for degrees?
You know, we kind of told the nontraditional students in the
early years, I go back to 1971, that they could matriculate here,
and they'd eventually get a college degree. And then they would

(24)

R:

end up having to appeal for waivers for this, and take courses
in other places.

Were we promising more than we could deliver

to folks who came here under those conditions?
M:

I think part of that was a lack of administrative will power.
Some departments were very cooperative about offering evening
courses and courses at odd times to help these part-time students.
Other departments were reluctant to break from the traditional
schedule that they have always offered courses only in the
daytime and only between the hours of nine and three and something like that.

So without arm twisting, some departments would

just not cooperate, and, I think, that was really the biggest
drawback.
R:

A number of departments were really very cooperative.

Consequently, they got more majors out of it.

Students would

have to change their majors and take another kind of degree
because they couldn't get what they had orginally wanted to have.
M:

Yes.

A lot of that could have been avoided.

R:

Just said here's the way it's going to be.

M:

That's right, and it would not have made a lot of hardship on
some departments if they would have done it.

Even today, if you

look at certain departments' schedules, you will see that they
operate basically between period two and period six or seven on
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and a couple of periods on Tuesday,
Thursday.

(25)

B:

Who has the authority or who should put pressure on such
departments?

M:

That should be the dean.

R:

And if the president has to order it then that's what should be
done.

M:

That's too bad if the president has to order it.

R:

Because that means that someone else isn't doing their thing.

M:

That's right, and we've seen a lot of that where certain
administrative individuals do not do the type of job that they
should be doing.

R:

Well, Dr. Aebersold talked a little bit about the contract, and
some of the complications there with assigning people to teach
off campus, for instance. More than five miles away, maybe.

M:

This is really the same thing.

I mean if we're going to have

a viable off campus program, you have to have the cooperation
of all departments.

We have dropped the ball, as a university,

a number of times with off campus programs just because departments would not cooperate.

At one we were offering off campus

courses at the Vo-Tech in New Castle.
enrollment.

We had a pretty good

In fact, Dave Long from the English Department,

could always build a course over there.

So often the responsi-

bility for building the course rested with the instructor rather
than with the administration going ahead with a little bit of
leadership in that area.

( 26)

R:

The same principle applied to contingency. That was kind of a
contingency operation?

M:

Yes.

But we couldn't get the people to attend the classes in

New Castle because they were never sure whether we were going to
offer the course until the last minute.

It's something that

needed to be worked on and you can't work on something like
that and set in an office in Slippery Rock.

You've got to have

enough ingenuity to go over and do some leg work.
R:

Did Penn State take some stuff out from under us because we
weren't more assertive or aggressive.

M:

Of course.

BC3 (Butler County Community College] is doing the

same thing with us right now down at Cranberry.

It's the same

way of not being willing to put our money where our mouth is.
B:

It almost sounds as if they don't want to get mixed up with the
common people.

If we're offering this, then you should just

come and take it.
Well, as you talked about part-time stude

was sort of

the way a lot of departments felt when we

to get a

few nontraditional students.

Now, I think this idea of

offering the senior citizens free courses is a great idea
because that's added some emphasis to our part-time student
base, but middle-age people coming back, I think we're doing
a lot better than we did.

But we're just doing the same

thing with our off campus offering that we kind of did with

(27)

M:

the part-time students.

We're just waiting for it to be

forced on us, or to let somebody else just take the whole
thing away from us.

All you have to do is look at the number

of people who have tried to handle continuing ed. over the
last ten or twelve years.

There's probably been a new person

every second or third year.
B:

Because they're not getting support?

M:

That's never their prime job normally.

I mean you've got to

be willing to spend time, and it takes time other than just
eight to four.
R:

If we could go back to President Carter for just a minute.
You and he were personal friends, and you came because he
asked you to come. Did all of the things that happened in
his administration between the time you came and the time
he left, did that have a large impact on you and your
work or anything because you were friends?

How did you

react to all those things?
M:

Well, I had never been involved in a political upheaval, for
want of a better word, as happened.

I was disappointed. I

still feel that Dr. Carter was very good for this University.
I think had he had two or three more years there would have been
a lot more concrete things which
for the University.

you could say Bob Carter did this

Personally I was disappointed.

I did not

(28)

M:

consider leaving the University or the college because I did like
it here.

Dr. Carter was probably his worst own enemy.

As well

as being a brilliant man, he had low tolerance for anybody who
was not efficient.

He was not the world's best diplomat.

other words, he kind of tended to call a spade a spade.

In
Sometimes

that did not go over too well.
R:

Then the Watrel years came along, and Dr. Watrel was here nine
years?

M:

I believe so.

R:

I think so.

Then there was lots of growth in terms of students,

buildings, all kinds of things were sort of exploding around here.
Did a lot of things change in the administrative structure,
because you were by that time a registrar, and the cabinet was
about to take place?
M:

Yes. And there were a lot more individuals.

The administration

expanded considerably with additional deans, breakdown into
various schools, vice-presidents for academic affairs, for
administration, vice-president for student affairs, as well as
a dean of students.

So, yes, the administrative structure

mushroomed at that time.
I want to go back to what I said earlier about all these
buildings.

The buildings which grew in Dr. Watrel's time

are really the buildings which Dr. Carter had pushed through
Harrisburg and were just being funded, and being bid.

In

(29}

M:

other words, most of the buildings which you see on the
campus today on the new part of the campus were all put through
by Dr. Carter.

R:

Was that managed through legislative liason, or was he in
Harrisburg a lot promoting this, that, and the other?
Is that the way it worked?

M:

Yes.

He was in Harrisburg a lot. · He also had a very strong

backer in Emma Guffey Miller, and Emma Guffey Miller, of course,
had strong political clout in Harrisburg even though she was
then probably in her mid-seventies or maybe early eighties.
But she had a lot of friends, a lot of contacts, and generally
with her help he accomplished a lot
R:

in Harrisburg.

So she was the major liaison person then?

Is it fair to say

that?
M:

I suppose that you might say that.

Yes.

I don't think that

we've ever had anybody on the Board of Trustees since who
ever had the political clout which Mrs. Miller had.

Now Don

Oesterling was on the board, and Don would have liked to have
thought that he had that much clout, and although he had a
lot, he did not have all the contacts which Mrs. Miller did.
R:

Well, she was a national figure.

M:

Yes.

And Dr. Carter, of course, realized her value, and he

certainly did everything to keep her happy.

In other words,

he would send a car out for her, or go out and get her
personally, and try to make everything as smooth for Mrs. Miller
as he could.

(30)

B:

Of course she had official and unofficial contacts in Harrisburg,
and through her brother as well.

M:

Right.

Her father was also, as I recall, very active in politics

in the state.
B:

So it was really smart of Dr. Carter to take advantage of that
influence.

M:

What is he doing now?

I've not had a lot of contact with him in the last few years.
About all I know is what I have heard second and third hand.
He taught at Ferris State University and then retired just
recently. I understand that he's living in a condominium around
around Big Rapids, Michigan someplace.

Not too sure of that.

B:

Do you know anybody who

does maintain contact with him?

M:

I imagine that Dr. Roberts, if he doesn't maintain contact, that
he would know how to get in contact with him because he's also
from Michigan.
You asked under general topics about memorable people.

I'd

like to just talk about a couple of them if I could. I've
talked about two or three.
here.

LaMonte Crape was on the faculty

He has since retired from Butler County Community

College, but he left here to go to Butler County Community
College.

When I first met LaMonte, he was an impeccably dressed

gentleman, red hair, always had a cane or swagger stick, and
always going very briskly through campus.

An excellent teacher.

All the students enjoyed him, but he had some sort of a falling

(31)
M:

out on campus, and I am not sure to this day with whom or why,
but anyway, he resigned to take a job at BC3 when it opened.
The story goes, and this was before my time, that when he first
came to Slippery Rock he rode a motorcycle and was dressed in
jeans, and dressed rather casually in class, and that Dr.
Weisenfluh who was then the president called him in and suggested
to him that if he wanted to remain at Slippery Rock he was
going to have to get dressed up a little bit.

So the next day

LaMonte was seen riding his motorcycle through Slippery Rock in
a tuxedo.

Apparently, ever since that, he just turned over a

new leaf that he was going to be the best dressed person on
campus, and he was. There was no question about that.
B:

I had a ride on his motorcycle once.

He was a teacher in the

Butler Elementary School before his college teaching, I think,
and was a memorable teacher to those students.

Remembered for

more than his motorcycle.
M:

But he was very talented in a number of fields.

I mean, he was

an airplane pilot.
B:

He's a musician.

M:

Yes.

And had done a lot of mountain climbing, and I mean just

multitalented.

And, I think, a real loss to our campus when he

left.
B:

Yes.

Someone out of the ordinary.

..

(32)

M:

Coach Thompson was still living when we first came here.

He

was certainly, I mean all the contacts that I had with him,
he was always an upbeat gentlemen. I have never shook hands
with a person with larger

hands.

his.

a little six or seven year old taking

I kind of felt like

hold of my father's hand

My hand was always dwarfed in

because of his size.

He was just a big,

rawboned man.
R:

That's what he spanked his players with.
and she had a big hand.
What about athletics?

I had an older sister

Her hand was famous in our family.
Did all the athletic programs, and our

notoriety as an athletic school, did that have an impact on
the registrar's office?
M:

I'm glad you asked because I should have had that in my notes.
I was never asked as registrar to ever alter a grade, change
a grade, look the other way on checking an eligibility list.
I was never asked to do anything like that as far as athletics
were concerned.

By the way, I did check all the eligibility

lists, and I normally checked them personally because there is
always publicity in the paper about ineligible students in
other institutions, and so I always saw that they were checked
personally.

I mean I might have somebody do the work or pull

the information out for me, but I always checked it myself just
to be sure that it was correct.
with anybody.

There was never any question

I was never approached.

(33)

B:

That's a wonderful tribute to the integrity of that department.

M:

We talk

about student athletes, and I think that's really what we

have. Now granted, some of them aren't such great students, and
some don't graduate, but yet they are here strictly to get an
education, and nobody's going to give them a course in basket
weaving to get them to be graduated.
R:

Do you suppose that's in any way tied to the fact that our
coaching staff for a long time were also faculty, tenured,
and so forth.

Their job security, I mean, would remove some

of the competitiveness that you might find normally.
where coaches could be fired overnight.

You know,

I don't know that

there is any connection.
M:

I don't know either, because if you look at the success that the
Slippery Rock athletic teams have had over the years, I mean, you
realize that the coaching has not been win at all costs.

I

think perhaps the few coaches that we've had who came in with
that idea of coaching didn't really last or stay around for much
more than a couple of years or less.

I think our coaching,

either faculty or nonfaculty coaching, has really been on
a very professional basis.
R:

Who did the registrar report to?

Were you kind of one on

one with the President?
M:

Oh, it depended on what phase the moon was in.
reported directly to the President.

At times, I

At times, the Vice-president

(34)

M:

for Academic Affairs.

Never to the Vice-president for Student

Affairs although there occasionally was talk of that.

I was

normally able to talk folks out of that because academic records
are academic rather than student affair type record.
of the other deans at one time or another.

Then to one

So, anyway, it was

kind of pushed around.
R:

Has the evolution of privacy laws, as they relate to academic
records, did you go through a lot of that stuff where you had
to change the rules in your office?

M:

Really not a lot because we were always very conscious of the
privacy of academic records.
it's just

In fact, I always used to say,

like your own bank account.

It's your information, and

you know what amount of money that you've got in the bank, and the
bank teller could look it up, but the bank teller doesn't go
home

are

and talk about nor does anybody else.

j the
us
same.
t

Even before the Family Rights

Act was even discussed or thought about, we were
conscious of student privacy.
B:

You talked about some of the problems of the disciplinary board
early on and that they are different from today.

Are the

students different today from those you encountered?
M:

The students themselves aren't different, but you have
more ability to get yourself in trouble or more opportunity
I think maybe to get yourself in difficulty because of the

(35)

M:

fact that alcohol now is much more readily available in
Slippery Rock than it was twenty years ago, complete with a
State store, and an outfit which sells beer right in the
borough.

Drugs, of course, are much more on the whole

national scene than they were then.
have cars and vehicles.

A lot more students

We have a lot more students, period.

And just in size, you get a microscopic view of the population
of the country.

Here's three or

ments which we did not have
students together without

four hundred students in apart-

earlier, and if you put that many
supervision you can expect a little more

trouble when you add alcohol and cars, or drugs and cars or
whatever. So I don't think the students are different, I think
their opportunities are different.
B:

Earlier they had to live on campus?

They had to be in the

dorms?
M:

When I first came here why, I think, all the women had to live
in the doritories, and I know they all had hours.

Men didn't

have hours, and I believe that some of the upperclassmen were
permitted to stay off campus.

Maybe some of the upperclasswomen

were too, but not many. Maybe when you were only student teaching.
I'm a little bit hazy on that.
R:

I'm curious about the changes that have taken place in the
length of time it takes for people to graduate from college.
I know that when I was student, and for years and years while

(36}

R:

I was a teacher, an 18 hour course load was considered a
fairly normal load.

And you could graduate in four years, or

if you went to summer sessions, you could get out in three
years.

And you could crack along and get yourself a college

degree kind of efficiently.

Now there are so many people who are

taking 13 hour loads, 14 hour loads, 15 hour loads, and the
length of time it takes to graduate has escalated.

I wonder

if that was necessary?
M:

One other item that you didn't add is that we've also shortened
the number of weeks in the semester.

R:

I won't want to talk about that.

M:

When you and I were in school, we were in school with a lot
of the G.I. 's just coming back from World War II, and in that
stage there were a lot of mature men.

You talk about non-

traditional students in school now, I began college right out
of high school, and I was the nontraditional student in the
classes because most of the people in my class were 25 to 40
years old. And most of them were men because they were just
back from World War II, and the G.I. bill was paying their
way and in turn they were ready to get out and get about their
life's business.

So 18-21 hour loads were not unusual.

Everybody doesn't want to stay in school forever.

Our students

today I don't think have that motivation to really get out.
So it's not unusual to be in school for five years for an

(37)
M:

undergraduate degree.

It's not the number of

take because you can still graduate with
you should be able to take 16 a

hours you have to

128 hours, so with that

semester and do it.

R:

Exactly 16 a semester will get you out in four years.

M:

Of course, that's what I said.

R:

I think I am appalled by that.
regular course load has dropped.
happen with my advisees.

By the fact that their
I try not to let that

If they were pretty good students,

I wanted them taking 18 hours, but it seemed to me that
there were a lot of other things at work that was causing
people to take 13 hours.

I probably don't understand what

my problem was.
M:

As registrar, I used to publish every semester a summary of
the number of hours that was generated by all the students
and also the average semester hour load of undergraduates
and graduates and so forth.

It was very obvious that the

average semester hour load was dropping all through the
1980's.

In fact, I think even right through the 1970 1 s

it was dropping.

Not by much, but by just a percentage point

every semester or something like that.

And, of course, it

starts to finally show up in the fact that you are going to
have to take four and a half, or five years.
R:

I thought it was because the state needed the money, but it's
not fair to say that.

(38)

M:

Well, no, I don't think so.

B:

One thing I wanted to mention and it is a digression, but
you were so extremely helpful when the library was starting
its library research course, and with advice on how to
schedule, and how to set up class hours, and when students
would have time take that, and I don't think we could have
managed without that help

.

that help, or did they

Did

other
departments ask for

just decide going
we're to schedule now and

that's all we will do?
M:

Thank you for the compliment.
would never ask for help.
it.

Some did ask for help and others

Sometimes their scheduling showed

More than once I've called a department and said, do

you realize you have scheduled two major courses at the same
period on the same day, and that your majors need both these
courses as seniors for graduation, and how are you planning
on getting them the course?
that.

For some fo

Oh, we had never thought about

s '¥.., scheduling did not come easy for them.

What about summer sessions?

We've done fairly well.

Isn't

there a lot of competition for the available students who are
willing to go to college in the summertime, and haven't we
done pretty well in our attracting them?
M:

I don't know what the statistics are for the present summer,
and now since I'm out of the registrar's office I've kind of
lost track of all of that, but yes I think really we have done

(39)

M:

very well.

As long as we're willing to offer courses without

calling them contingency courses, I think we'll do well.
Some of the institutions got into trouble by making all of
their courses contingency courses, or many of them contingency
courses, then canceling a lot of courses. And when students
couldn't depend on the school offering certain courses summer
after

✓

sum
said, in
m
ordere
to r
be sure
t Ih
cane
get y
into a

summer course, I'll go someplace else.
here at
middle

California State University

California, Pennsylvania, learned that lesson about the
of the 1980's.

Their summer school was declining tremen-

dously because of their lack of firm courses.
B:

So reviewing the parts of your career that you told us about,
you were a principal of a high school, vocational school.
Did you teach in public schools also?

M:

Yes.

I have run the gamut.

school and junior high.

I have taught math in high

I was an elementary principal.

I

was a high school guidance counselor and set up a guidance
program in a high school of about 1500 students.
an assistant high school principal.

I was

I was a high school

principal of a comprehensive vocational school and I've
been at Slippery Rock. And as a part-time job, I worked as
an off-campus coordinator for Muskingum College to sort of
just keep myself out of trouble.
R:

Did you enjoy getting back to the classroom?

(40)

M:

Yes.

I did.

I've told a number of people that the telephone

doesn't ring and people don't call and complain about the
fact that transcripts aren't out.

Almost forgot one thing.

If I can reminisce just a little bit

more, and here again I don't have dates.

But back in the

early 1970's, and, Leah, perhaps you remember this, when the
faculty unionized.

Where you here at that time?

B:

Yes.

I was.

M:

There was considerable debate.
a lot of faculty members.

This was not an easy hurdle for

At the time that the faculty union

vote came up, many faculty were very strongly for remaining
with the Pennsylvania State Education Association [PSEAJ.
time that the vote was finally taken, PSEA lost and so we
then became unionized with APSCUF.

Then as a part of the

negotiations, as you recall, there was a move to drop a
number of people from faculty status including librarians
and administrators. And after much discussion it was agreed
that the faculty would be divided into a Unit One which
would be the teaching faculty and included the librarians,
I believe.
B:

That's right.

M:

And a Unit Two which included administrative faculty.

The

administrative faculty were only to be the individuals who

The

(41)
M:

had faculty rank before the unionization took place.

Then

unfortunately, there was a discrepancy between the actual
pay schedule of Unit One and Unit Two faculty from the midseventies through the early 1980's, where the Unit Two people
were being paid less than those of the teaching faculty.
A number of us contributed to a class action lawsuit which
was finally resolved after seven or eight years which
finally got rid of the Unit Two faculty salary and got
everybody on the same faculty schedule.

I have been involved

with APSCUF for several years on the APSCUF executive
committee here on campus and with a lot of Unit Two activities.
In fact, I have about a thousand dollars invested in that
lawsuit which I don't know if I ever actually regained or n
But the unionization, and I'm not too well versed to actually
discuss how it all transpired, but I'm sure it would be an
interesting topic for someone who was much closer connected
to it than I was as to the politics of campus unionization.
R:

Wilma has given us one interview, and I thought in kind of
great detail about very complex information.

B:

But I don't think she spoke of the Unit One, Unit Two
problems.

That's something that should not be forgotten.

It was so difficult because Unit Two people had twelve
month contracts, different pay scales, and certainly
professional in every way, and yet were somehow ignored
on a lot of issues.

(42)

M:

Yes.

That was a very poor decision.

I'm glad that people

finally recognized it, but it took a long time for it to
be done.
B:

Well that was a management ploy to try to divide the union,
I think, to a have a smaller group.

M:

Probably so.

R:

So we were going to talk about some other memorable people.

M:

Well, most of these are contemporaries of the three of us,
Mark Shiring being the first one that comes to mind.

Mark,

I mentioned earlier, was the Public Relations for Dr. Carter.
He had taught in Butler, I believe, before coming to Slippery
Rock, but I don't know exactly what he taught.

Then I really

had a lot of contact with him as he was teaching Orientation
to Education courses.

I don't know of an individual who ever

spent more hours, and worked harder with more people than he
did.

He was not required to be here but to maintain five hours

of office hours per week, but he was generally here by eight
to eight-thirty in the morning, and frequently was here well
after five o'clock in the evening, meeting and counseling with
the students.

To me he was always remarkable and is always

remarkable for the fact that by the third day of class he
would normally know all of his students' names and could walk
across campus three or four years later and could still call
that student by name as they walked by.

I walked with him a

(43)

M:

number of times, and he would speak to someone, or they would
be in a conversation, and he would say, I had them in class
three or four years ago, and he could call them by name just
as slick as a whistle.

Mark was a very dynamic teacher, an

excellent teacher.
I think Jack Dinger was also an interesting individual.

Jack

probably brought, in fact, did bring more recognition or
as much recognition to Slippery Rock as our athletics ever
did.

Jack was in the realm of special education.

If I were to

pick out an outstanding department of the 1970's, I would
say the Special Education Department, thanks to Jack Dinger,
was that, and because of all of the government grants and
so forth which he was able to get for the University. Very
knowledgeable individual.

And here again, a very good teacher.

Interested in young people.
We could talk about Billy Wayne Walker.

Wayne came here as

a professor in the School of Education.

A couple years later

was the acting assistant to the Vice-president for Academic
Affairs and later then moved from there over to the Dean of
of the School of Education.
argument.

Wayne could always calm an

He could always get you to agree with him, and

usually it was with a story or a joke.
excited or bent out of shape.

I never saw him

Now he could well have been

irritated, but he was able to always mask it behind a story

(44)

M:

or a joke.

When Wayne retired, I think, the school lost an

excellent diplomat that was able to deal with a variety of
people and a variety of problems.
pretty happy around him.

He generally kept people

I think probably his farewell dinner

attested to that, the number of stories that were told and
the number of people that were in attendance there.
As far as good teaching is concerned I've got to mention
Dick Medve in the Biology Department.

I think Dick probably

personifies what an excellent teacher ought to be.

He enjoys

students, and he makes things very personable and very practical.
If you've ever followed him around on a nature walk or in one
of these nature workshops, wildlife, wildflower workshops or
something, he has high expectations of everybody in the class and
he makes it all so interesting that you want to bend over
backwards to see that Dr. Medve is not disappointed in your
work.

He is certainly an asset to the campus.

And, of course,

his text or his cookbook of wild plants, although I don't have
one, I'm sure I'd be afraid I wouldn't recognize them as wildlife
plants too well, but it is apparently a real classic cookbook.

Another mover in the science area is Murray Shellgren, now
retired. A lot of the water anaylsis in the Slippery Rock area as
far as keeping streams clean and so forth has rested on research
which Murray Shellgren did, and the fact that all of the strip

(45)

M:

mines and the coal mines in the Lake Arthur area were plugged,
Murray a p p a
involved,
rand
e
has n
extensive
t notes
ly
and
research on that and was considered an expert on the streams of
this area.

Those are the people who just jump out at me as I start thinking
about outstanding individuals.
B:

I think you've told us some very important pieces of Slippery
Rock history.

Those pieces start to fit together but only

certain people have those pieces.

It's very important to hear

what you had to say.
M:

The only thing I didn't mention here was that I was going
to talk about the physical plan.

I was going to tell you

that Harner Hall sits on the entrance to a coal mine.
Here again I think it's a case of the placement of buildings
by people in the Harrisburg area.

When they built Harner

Hall, it was built over a coal mine, and there was one episode
where the coal mine opened apparently after a hard rain or
something, and thousand of gallons of mine water flowed
through the lounge of Harner Hall.

I don't remember if it

got into the rooms, I don't believe it did.

I think it was just

in the lounge area.
R:

Only in Slippery Rock can a coal mine flood a room.
Thank you very much.

We appreciate it.

M:

I hope I haven't rambled too much.

B:

No, we learned a lot.

Thanks so much.