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

MR. LOUIS RAZZANO
DR. JOSEPH RIGGS AND LEAH M. BROWN

18 JUNE 1991

JR: This is Joe Riggs and Leah Brown interviewing Louis Razzano,
Associate Provost and Associate Academic Vice-President for
Slippery Rock University on the 18th of June 1991.

Generally,

we begin with how did you get here.
LR: I had been on the campus of Slippery Rock University once before
before I began employment with the institution.
had come here to work in the library.

A friend of mine

When I say a friend, he

was a colleague of mine at the institution where I was working
and he had left and I didn't know where he had gone and finally
had heard that he had taken a job at Slippery Rock University.
One day a telephone call came to my home from Martin Thompson,
who was chair of the Library Department and Library Science also,
which was combined at that time, asking me if I would be interested in coming to Slippery Rock for an interview.

I thought,

well, there would be nothing wrong with going up and talking
to Mr. Thompson and so I did.

We chatted and he showed me around

and explained the job that would be cut out for me in the library.
I went home and I didn't give it much more thought.
I really don't want to do it.

I thought,

I was very satisfied where I was

( 2)

LR: working.

I was chair of an English department in one of the

larger school districts south of Pittsburgh, the Ringgold School
District, comprising several townships, three cities, a couple of
boroughs.

I had been on campus in September.

Around November he

called me, and he said, I just want you to know that I am recommending you for this position in the library as serials librarian.
Goodness, I said, I really hadn't given it much thought, Mr.
Thompson, I said to him, since our original interview.

Well, he

said, I'm going to recommend you if you give me permission to.
So my wife and I talked about it and decided that we would go
ahead with it.

So I conveyed that message to him, and sure

enough I got hired.

We, of course, negotiated the details of the

position, that is, the benefits that came with it, the salary and
the like.

I started employment of March 1, 1965.

The salary was

$7,250 which at that time was a fairly decent salary.

In my

life I thought, my goodness, if could only make $10,000 that
would be the height of success in my life.
seemed like such a magical figure.

Ten thousand dollars

I think it was because during

World War II the insurance policy for persons killed in action
was $10,000, and I remember as a youngster saying, my goodness,
anybody collecting that amount of money would be an extremely
wealthy person.

Well, in any case, I took the job and I

worked during the summer, that summer, for twelve weeks, and
with what I had gotten in January and February in my former

(3)

LR: place of employment, plus full summer employment here, at the
end of the year, I had made over $10,000 and I thought, I've
reached it.

I've made it.

I am there.

So I really thought that

I would probably stay about five years and move on.

I was

still working on my master's degree in library science.

I

did not have it at the time that the job was given to me.
As I say, I did not seek the job out.
never applied for a job in my life.
satisfying for me.

Matter of fact, I have
The position was very

I had an opportunity to work with an area

of library science that I had not had any prior exposure to to
any great extent.

In my previous employment I also headed up

the town library.

So I was familiar with library procedures

and policies and the operations of the library, but all that
I gained, I gained from on-the-job experience and from taking
the courses at Pitt, a program in which I was still enrolled.
So I say the serials librarian position was very satisfying for
me.

Then about that time there was a great deal of unrest on

campus over the presidency.

Dr. Edwards, who was interim, had

every expectation of moving into the presidency.
had different ideas.
with the institution.

The trustees

They did not want someone who was associated
They felt they needed a rebirth of

enthusiasm, direction for the institution.

They felt that this

could best be achieved by someone from the outside, who had no
ties to Slippery Rock University.

The chair of the board was

(4)

LR: George Kiester, Judge Kiester.

He had a daughter, I believe, who

was going to Denison University in Ohio, and so as a result of his
contacts there, and my understanding was with conversations with
the President of Denison, the President of Denison recommended
Robert Carter, Bob Carter, for the position.
the presidency.

Sure enough, he got

There was a lot of antagonism toward Dr. Carter

because there many people who had strong ties of loyalty to
Dr. Edwards.

I remember that it was a trying time.

Remember the

fact that it was before, well, I guess it was around May, that
this decision was made to hire Dr. Carter, and so Dr. Edwards was
living in the president's residence.

It was an agreement with

the Trustees that he would reside there through the month of May.
But because his one daughter, I believe, was going to graduate
from Slippery Rock High School, he had no place to go.

So he

was still negotiating for a job outside of the state, I believe,
with the U. S. Department of Education in the state of
Connecticut.

So carter got annoyed with the fact that he was

President and he could not reside in this house.

So he ordered

the buildings and grounds people to turn all of the utilities off
in the president's residence and that made Time magazine in one of
the issues, either in May or June of 1965, and it created more
intense hostility by the townspeople and all of the loyalists who
were in Edwards' camp against Bob Carter.
swing, full control, Bob Carter did.

So he came in in full

One of the first decisions

(5)

LR: was to eliminate the laboratory school where the present
College of Education resides.

This created a disturbance

that intensified the feelings on campus.

The Board of Trustees

went along with Carter and approved of his decision to close the
laboratory school.

Now mind you, all of the people in the

laboratory school were professors on the faculty of Slippery
Rock University and they had full faculty status.
are still in town.

Some of them

For example, Fanetta Shaw was a professor on

the staff and her position was eliminated, and she went to work
for the Slippery Rock School district then, but for a
tremendously reduced salary because she, as I said, was a member
of the faculty here at the institution.

Bob Carter continued

making decisions that perhaps needed to be made but, I say,
it seemed like every decision that was made by him created more
turmoil and conflict on campus.
of one old gentleman.
buildings.

The security force was comprised

He used to go around and tend to the

One day Carter announced to him that he was no longer

on the security force, but instead they hired a number of policemen to come on campus and work as full-time employees.

Everyone

was intimidated, when I say everyone, many people were intimidated
by Bob Carter.

You must understand in those days, there was no

faculty union.

There was no recourse to a presidential decision.

He was in total authority and control.
a southern plantation.

The operation was run like

Whatever the headmaster, the head,

(6)

LR: decreed, did indeed occur.

I only remember one time where I was

tremendously amused by a person who seemed to put Carter into
his place.

I was taking a break on the second floor of the

library, where the computer science director's office is or
next to the computer science director's office in the old
Maltby Library, in the now Maltby Building, and I was looking
out of the window at some men who where digging some ditches to
make some tie-ins to some lines underground. There was

this

mound

of earth and this fellow in this deep ditch and he was shoveling
this dirt out over his shoulder, and Bob Carter was on his way to
his office.

So, as inquisitive as he was,

lawn area and leaned over and looked into
workman had the shovel of dirt in his
over his shoulder.

He happened

he came over to the
the hole just as the

hand and was flinging it out

to glance at the same time
as he
\

was throwing the shovel over his shoulder full of dirt and spots
Carter and so he had to
Carter.

He looked up at

what are you doing?

divert the dirt just in time to miss
him, he says, you dumb son of a bitch,

So I was standing at the window listening to

this and sort of chuckled to myself that it took a workman to put
this Bob Carter in his place,

and we who were professionals were

absolutely intimidated by him and were fearful for our lives.
That's precisely, I think, the case with a lot of people.
just were fearful for their jobs.

They

Not knowing what this man

(7)

LR: was going to do in terms of just eliminating people.
they were tenured or non-tenured.

Whether

Whatever the case might be.

Whatever he felt was necessary to be done, he did it.

Now he,

I think, got along well with some of his inner circle until
there was a breakdown with him and the total academic community.
Then others began to fall away from him.

I think, probably,

Marc Selman could give you a better picture of those difficult
days.

He and Jerry Chesin and Mark Shiring were in that central

core of the administration and would know more precisely than I
just what was happening in the inner workings of the Carter office
at that time.

But, as I say, the institution was run by adminis-

trative decree and fiat, and it was not handled in a very
democratic way.

I remember a faculty meeting that I went to.

George Moore was there; he was a professor of history, a scholar
of the Civil War period, a very dour man who rarely smiled and
very formal and bleak and authoritative in every aspect of his
demeanor.

We went to this faculty meeting, and faculty meetings

were always chaired by the President or in his absence by the
Dean of Instruction and the Dean of Instruction was George Moore.
The meeting was to start at 7:00 at night.
Miller Auditorium.

We were meeting in

People were still lingering out in the

hallways of Miller Auditorium. Just a few people were on the
inside.

George Moore went up in front of the auditorium.

looked over the group.

He

He says, I decree that we have no quorum.

(8)

LR: Now mind you, all the faculty were in this building out in the
outer lobby.

He says, I decree we have no quorum this evening.

This meeting is adjourned.

Wham!

He walked up the main aisle

and everyone looked around in stunned amazement as to what was
happening.

People had driven in from their homes to come to this

evening faculty meeting and then just like that, by his saying
that there was no meeting, going to be no meeting, there was no
meeting.

So those were the kinds of people we had to deal with.

Then Bob Carter began to have difficulties with the Council of
Trustees.

Kiester turned on him and wanted him out finally.

Then Emma Guffey Miller got into the fray and she, being a
Democrat, took the side of Bob Carter which was an unusual
liaision there, because Bob Carter was brought in by George
Kiester who I believe was a Republican. And here was Emma Guffey
Miller who was a Democrat supporting the candidate brought in by
the Republican controlled Board of Trustees.
were

numbered.

But Carter's days

There was a faculty meeting in the evening.

were all fearful as to what was going to transpire.
was in 1967.

We

This probably

In the meeting, one of the sociology professors,

Dr. Norman Hawkins, asked to be recognized and Bob Carter said,
I recognize Dr. Hawkins to speak to this faculty meeting. And
Norm Hawkins went up and made a statement that because of his
attitude, Dr. Carter's attitude, and his policies which created
a disruptiveness on this campus that touched the lives of everyone

(9)

LR: in the university community, that he was asking this group to
cast a vote of no confidence in Dr. Carter.

Now mind you, Carter

is there who had recognized this man to come forward and called
for this vote of no confidence.

President Carter said, all right,

we will have a vote but we will use the roll call and call on
each person to give his vote. Now at that point, people were
shaking because they didn't know if this man was still in control
and power.

He was still president of the institution.

this no confidence vote.

People were very fearful.

Then Bob

Crayne in the art department said, I move that we have
ballot.

Then there was a vote taken on that.

The

Here was

a secret

secret ballot

was authorized and the vote was cast and Carter had a vote of no
confidence.

Then at the next meeting of the Board of Trustees,

I believe, Carter had submitted his resignation.

Then, I believe,

he may have wanted it rescinded, but the Board accepted it.
was a lot of tension on
Carter was in control
dismissed.
dent.

campus.

People just did not know whether

and power or whether, in fact, he had been

Then he

eventually left and we had an interim presi-

I think Marc

Selman was interim president for a couple of
Director

days and then Bob Lowry who was
in on a

There

rector of Admissions was brought

temporary basis with the understanding that he would not

be a candidate for the position.

Bob did not have his doctorate.

He had not even begun to work on his doctorate at the University
of Pittsburgh at that time.

But he had indicated that he did

(10)
LR: not want the position.

So there was a search conducted and

Jim Roberts who was the Dean of Instruction had applied for the
position.

But then he saw that the forces were in support of an

outside candidate because

people were suspicious that Jim Roberts

who had been brought in by Bob Carter was a Carter man,
did not want a

continuation of Bob Carter's policies.

and they
So Jim

Roberts, I think, sensing that his chances were extremely limited
and really to
and feeling
dent and

protect his job in case of a new president coming in
that he was vigorously after this position of presi-

had lost out, he backed out.

Al Watrel was brought in.

He did not pursue it.

Then

Al came in, I think, around 1968,

maybe the latter part of 1967, 1968.

My assessment of Al Watrel

was that he was like a little teddy bear who had moved into his
first presidency.

He was awed by the fact that he was head of

this institution, a position that he had never in his life
experienced.

There used to be tales about Al Watrel being

spotted by the campus police at night up where the new
stadium is located and just sitting in his car and just looking
out over this domain which was his.
He was a very learned man.

He was like a teddy bear.

His academic credentials in the

field of chemistry, particularly, were outstanding. He worked for
one of the SUNY schools as chair of the
may have even become vice-president for
short stint, maybe on a temporary basis,

He
or a
ut then he came in to

(11)

of Slippery Rock University probably at the age

/LR: the

of 39.

He came in with a young family.

were twins and, of course, his wife.
atmosphere with his being here.

He

Two girls, two sons, who

There was a refreshing

was naive in a lot of ways.

Certainly, he could not size up people and assess people as I

thought perhaps a president ought

to be able to do.

Jim Roberts on as Academic Vice- president.

✓

�

.

But he kept

But I always sensed,

.

.

knew rather, that there� feelings of animosity between the two

of them.

I think that

the president of

had really taken
view.

I have

Slippery Rock University and felt that this man

the job away from him.
case.

anyway.

/' working in the library.

✓

That's just a personal

no substantive information from Roberts indicating

that that was the

things to me

Jim Roberts would have loved to have been

Not that he would reveal those kinds of

The way I got into administration, I was

At that time, I was Head of Technical
Services and working for Harold Helmrich who was the Head
Librarian.

When

Bob Carter had taken over the presidency, he

brought in a number of people with whom he had been associated at

Denison University and elsewhere,
VV'

,I ✓ /

brought in Harold Helmrich a

come to Denison from, I believe,

and it was Bob Carter who

Harold Helmrich had

one of the schools in the state

of Washington, if not Washington State University. But in any

caff,

7 e had been hired by Denison University
h

case he had

as

1

1'.ead o technical

(12)
LR: services with the understanding, I believe, or the expectation,
I don't know, but that he would become the Head Librarian at
Denison University.

Well, the Head Librarian's position opened

and Harold Helmrich who had been at the institution for two or
three years was bypassed.

I think, well, whatever reason, I

really don't know, but he was bypassed for that position.

Then

when he heard that Bob Carter had been given the presidency at
Slippery Rock University, he went to Bob Carter and asked if
there would be any possibility of his joining the library staff
at Slippery Rock.

I had only been here since March 1, and so

I guess it was in May or rather in June, or July, Martin
Thompson went to Bob Carter and said that the program in
Library Science was really growing and developing and that he
felt that there needed to be a split between the library
faculty and the operation of the main library and the growing,
developing program in library science.

He said that if Carter

would authorize the split, he would like to become head of the
library science department.

Well, Carter, mindful of what

Helmrich had approached him about, then indicated that he had
somebody for the head librarian's position and that he, Martin,
would then move into head of library science.
was a presidential decision.

In those days, it

There were no searches.

We heard

about it, I've forgotten now, maybe it was in the Rocket.

Maybe

it was in a memo that came from the President's office informing

(13)

LR: us that come September 1 of 1965, Harold Helmrich from Denison
So we worked with

University would be the Head Librarian.

Harold, who could be a little difficult person

times.

V

sleeve.

He let his feelings be known.

Wore

to work with at

them on his coat

If something bothered Harold Helmrich,

he quickly let you
any
any case,

know, sometimes in outrageous bursts of anger. But in

I think

he was mellow, too, and was a decent person at heart.
Harold Helmrich, as Head Librarian, did a

tremendous amount in

improving the condition of the Library, particularly in collection
development.

He had spent his entire career working with techni­

cal services and acquisitions and in cataloging,
instinctively what had to be done

ing the reference section.
we had about 60,000

and he knew

when he came here and overlook­

Now, when he came in 1965, I'd imagine

books, 50,000-60,000 books, and the collection

was in a deplorable state.

There were very serious gaps

reference collection, in the circulating collection,

immediately began acquiring

in the

and he

important reference works and getting

the foundation materials that were necessary for the disciplines,

checking the California
working in many different

List of Books against our collection and
ways to develop it. Then he began to

ease off as he began to hire specialists in the reference area who
took over this job and built

upon what he had started.

Marjorie

Stephenson, Leah Brown and John Deardorff and, I think there might

have been someone else in there.

But, in any case, this became

(14)

LR: the core of the reference collection development.

These people

worked closely with the academic departments to develop the
reference collection and the circulating collection.
Just before I mention about my beginning day in administration
at Slippery Rock, I just want to
professional

staff at Slippery

point out that when I joined the
Rock, I think our enrollment was

somewhere around in the the 3,000
not

exactly sure.

category, maybe 3,800, I'm just

But a person, a

student who was full-time,

in-state

at Slippery Rock, would come

year, as

I recall.

here for about a $1,000 a

Considerably less,

years before that. You could come to

of course, even a few

Slippery Rock in the

1950 1 s, early 1950 1 s, for a semester for the

outrageous fee of

$60.

expenses.

fees.

That was the total fee for all of your

Academic

They didn't call it tuition, they just called it the fees

that were leveled against the students.
was around $1,000.

In any case, how I got into administration.

I was working in the library.
into administration.

But as I say, in 1965, it

I had not thought

of really moving

One day, Ray Owen, who was

the Associate

Vice-president for Academic Affairs, called me and
would have lunch with him.

So I did.

He said to

you ever thought of going into administration?
He said, at Slippery Rock.

asked me if I
me, Lou, have

I said, where?

I said, no, it never entered my mind.

He said, well, you ought to think about it. There may be some

(15)
LR: possibilities with your moving into administration here.
this comes as a blow out of the night.
about it.

I said,

I said, I never thought

I had no inkling that anyone was thinking of my joining

the administrative staff.

He said, well, think about it because

you might be approached by Dr. Roberts.

Well, probably five or

six months went by, and he and I had lunch again and the matter
came up and I said to him, well, you brought this matter up to me
before but I had never heard anything so I assumed that everything is dead on that issue.

He said, oh no, not really.

We're

still in the process of working on that, and something may very
well may come of it.

So shortly after that, Jim Roberts asked

me to come to his office and I did, and he brought up this matter
of my joining the administration.

I said, well, I'll need more

information from you as to specifically my responsibilities and
other details of the position.

So he gave me that information,

whether at that meeting or later, but I would become Acting
Assistant to the Vice-president for Academic Affairs.

So I

was in the job as Acting Assistant to, and then I became the
Assistant to.

They took the acting away, and then the next year

they made me Assistant Vice-president.

I was in that position

until 1976 when I was made full professor then also made
the Associate Vice-president for Academic Affairs.

I have

been in the position since the beginning of the fall semester
in 1973.

Moved into administration and have been in there

(16)
LR: ever since, and having no aspirations to being more than Associate
Vice-president.

I had no aspirations to go on for my

doctorate in the field, so gave no consideration to
becoming the Vice-president of Academic Affairs. I knew
very well that that would be a hindrance to my advancement
into any higher positions, but then I wasn't interested in
moving higher into administration.
it came about.

I

So basically, that is how

Those years, in many

respects, were enjoyable

years, but they were also difficult years in terms of tension that
was mounting, particularly between the Presidentn and Jim Roberts.
I think that Jim Roberts

probably, as I may have said before,

wanted the presidency but

he was not given that opportunity.

the working relationships

between Jim Roberts and Al Watrel were

So,

very strained

at times.

always trying

to, I don't know the proper word, make himself look

better

I always thought that Jim Roberts was

perhaps than Al Watrel.

information

Then the state began to get

about the fact that we were spending a lot of money

with our athletes and maybe, the finances of the institution were
not being

handled properly.

The Secretary of Education was

getting reports from the institution.

I think they were done

surreptitiously, but I wouldn't want to get into the business of
who might have

passed them on, but they were getting these

documents about the
1976.

institution. It was a Friday afternoon in

Al Watrel began to sense that Jim Roberts probably was

(17)
LR: working counter to his efforts to advance the University.

So

he, I think, made an effort to get along with Jim Roberts,
problem after another began to occur,

but one

and, I think, others on the

faculty and even in the administration were advising him that Jim
. .
Roberts was un d er undermining
him and he probably should get rid of him.
This is all

supposition on my part but it's only what I've been

able to piece

together from those occurrences. So one Friday

afternoon, early

afternoon, Al Watrel called Jim Roberts in and

told him that he was fired.
his office.

That he was going to be made a professor in one of

says,

the education departments

✓

That he was going to be moved out of

So Jim then calls the Secretary of

And

Education and says, I've been fired.
touch with the
for Higher

alleged

Secretary of Education and with the Commissioner

Education about the developments with all of this

corruption

of Education
side.

And Jim had been in close

So the

at Slippery Rock University. So the Secretary

was only getting information fed into him from one
Secretary of Education really became incensed at

this development. So he immediately

Milton Shapp.

went to the Governor's

He said to the Governor,

office,

this was Pittinger, the

Secretary of Education, he says, a crisis has occurred at Slippery

syas,

Rock.

He says, there is rampant corruption on that campus that

the President is responsible for.

The President has just fired

the Vice-president for Academic Affairs and my recommendation is

that you fire the President. So within minutes th Jovernor,

(18)

LR: Milton Shapp, called Al Watrel and told him that as of 4:00 or
5:00 that day, he was finished as President of Slippery Rock
University and that he would have to vacate his office.

The State

Police were called in to lock the office, so he could not have
access to any records to protect, the thought was, all the evidence that would show that
So he had to vacate his

there was corruption on this campus.

office.

So they appointed immediately Jim

Roberts as President. He took over and the State Police were still
on campus that
existed, the

Saturday and you could imagine the turmoil that
anxieties, the frustrations, the hatred, the loyal-

ties, and all
next week,
and said,

of this mix just fermenting on this campus.

But the

there was a delegation of faculty who went to Pittinger
you know, what you have done, you have done without

justifiable cause, that this is the situation that exists at
Slippery Rock University.
Pittenger calls

Then, maybe Tuesday of that week,

Jim Roberts and says to him, you have been

appointed Acting President, but as such you cannot apply for the
presidency, if'ecause
because he realizes now, from information he got from
the other

side, that he was duped in this situation.

difficulties

really began.

The Council of Trustees were in

opposition to Jim Roberts, the majority of them.
the chair, Oesterling
Jim, of course, was
indicate that he

Then the

Particularly,

from Butler, was opposed to Jim Roberts.
playing it in a very coy manner.

He didn't

was going to apply for the presidency.

There was

(19)
LR: some thought that no one could stop a person from applying for any
office,

and so towards the ending or the nearing of the deadline

for application for the presidency, Jim Roberts applies. Then the
camps begin to develop.

Pro-Jim Roberts, anti-Jim Roberts and

the Council of Trustees, and this went on all during that period
of the search for a new president.

Then some names went

forward, one of which was Jim Roberts, to Harrisburg and they
decided they were going to throw out the search.

They were

going to bring in Larry Park from Mansfield University to come
in
in

and try to bring a degree of stability to the institution and
Caryl
Kl
have him serve an interim presidency of two years.

was Secretary of Education at that time and it was her decision
to bring in Larry Park as interim president.

So Larry came in

in 1977 and he was here until July 1, 1979 when Herb Reinhard
was selected as President.
a president's president.

Larry Park, in my estimation, was
He was really a distinguished man who

made tough decisions and there was no tomfoolery, you know, in
his pattern of behavior.
he did it.

If he had something to accomplish,

But he was truly a great person in this respect, that

he made you feel an important part of the administrative team.
There were days when he would walk over at lunch time and say,
Lou, let's go to the country club for lunch and we would chitchat about whatever.

He was truly a great human being as well

as being a great administrator.

I think Larry Park loved

(20)

LR: Slippery Rock. I know he loved Slippery Rock University.

If

it were possible to extend his term, he would have stayed on.
But he understood that he was hired for a two year period and
that after two years he must leave, because he did not want
people to think that he came in, into a presidency, under the
condition of a two year term and now he's going to make a
career out of it.

So he felt he had to leave after two years.

While Park was here, there was a presidential search and three
names were sent to Harrisburg.

Herb Reinhard was one of them.

I think that Herb Reinhard's name stayed in the pool because
they thought that he was a minority candidate.

They thought

that he was Black because he was associated with the Florida
A

& M University.

When they first went through, the search

committee went through the applications, they spotted this
one from Florida A & Mand they said, that's a predominately
Black institution.
him to campus.
about him.
closely.

This person might be Black, let's invite

So they did.

Herb Reinhard has a charisma

Both of you knew Reinhard.

I worked with him

My feelings about him were extremely negative because

I thought that much of what he did was not so much for the
University but for his own self-aggrandizement. He was,
in my estimation, like a person who might be a caller or
a barker in a circus who called people in to this greatest
show on earth.

But when you got here, he couldn't talk about

( 21)

LR: academic programs, academic excellence. That was just out of
his area of competence.

The man had most of his training in

student affairs and in ancillary programs in an academic
institution for students.

But in substantive programs, in

academic programs, he provided little direction.

In many ways

Bob Aebersold and I were very thankful that he didn't meddle in
our affairs.

One of things about the presidencies here is that

I think it was my input that brought about the hiring of Bob
Aebersold as President.

There was intrigue with all of the

presidential decisions on this campus.

When Larry Park was

brought in as interim president, his agreement with APSCUF was
that he would bring in one of his own as

vice-president.

Steve Hulbert was his assistant in Mansfield,

So

and so without a

search and with APSCUF's approval, it would have to be with
APSCUF' S approval because there was no
Steve Hulbert.

Steve became Vice-president f

While this search is going on
although I was n
reflected on
and Barry
they

search, he

bro
in

Administration

r a new president, I would see,

consc
f i t at the time. Later, as I

it, I would recall seeing, for example, Larry Cobb

Hammond going over to Steve Hulbert's office.

I assumed

were going over there for whatever legitimate business they

had to transact.

It was later that I realized that after Jim

Roberts had been fired, Larry Park needed a new academic
vice-president, so he put the ad in the paper. Anybody interested

(22)

LR: in applying, please apply.

So Larry Cobb had applied and

Bob Aebersold had applied and someone else, I believe,
Martha Haverstick, maybe, applied.

So these treks up to

Steve Hulbert's office occurred frequently.
Larry Cobb.
rings.

Barry Hammond,

So one night I'm at home, Sunday evening. Telephone

I answer it.

It's Larry Park.

calling you from New York.

He said, Lou, I'm

He says, I'm up here for this week

with my horses, and I'm going to announce tomorrow the new
vice-president, Larry Cobb. He said, I just want your opinion.
I said, well, I feel that he is not your best choice.

I said,

I feel that, and I went on to explain why I felt that Bob
Aebersold was the best choice.

I said to him, furthermore,

I said, the relationship that exists between me and Larry Cobb
is such that I just probably will fade out of the picture
because I won't be able to stay in administration, and because
he probably would not want me as his assistant.
I appreciate your input.

He said, I had come to this decision

and I just wanted your feeling about it.
restless night for me.

He said, well,

So it was truly a

here it is.

I thought, oh, God, here it is. And as I

say, I did not have that close ties with Larry Cobb.

There were

some things that occurred professionally between us, and our
relationship was not the best. Larry Park

had said to me he was

going to call his decision in to Lorraine

[Ruley) in the morning

to have it announced.

So the next morning

I said to Lorraine,

(23)

LR: his secretary, has Larry Park called? She said, no, he hasn't.
I said, when he does, let me know what's

transpired here.

came over an hour or so later and she said,

She

I just got off the

phone with Larry Park and he's appointed Bob Aebersold as Vicepresident.

And he said he told me to get word to Public Informa-

tion to have it distributed in a news release.

So that's how Bob

Aebersold became Vice-president and I believe to
was instrumental in getting him because Larry
me were, Lou, I have made a decision for

this day that I

Park's comments to

the Vice-presidency and

I'm going to go with Larry Cobb, and I just

want to get your

feeling on it.
JR: Bob told us, Bob Aebersold, that he really had not thought
about applying but then the people who were applying became
kind of public information, some kind of information, and
then he got to thinking about it and he said, gee, I really
ought to try it.

That's how he got his name in the pot.

Kind

of by accident.
LR: Yes.

But after he got in, these were the details of the situa-

tion.
JR: We lost Don Thompson and Ray Owen during Jim Roberts' years.
LR: Yes.

As soon as Jim Roberts took over the presidency, he removed

Don Thompson and made him a professor or maybe Don Thompson
himself resigned, I'm not sure.

Because I think he decided to go

into the Business Department, the Economics Department, well, it

(24)

LR: was just Economics/Business, I think that's what it was called.
He moved into that department, I believe on his

own.

Then Ray

Owen had resigned his position and wanted to go into Elementary
Ed. and he had gotten support over there and had got voted in.
But after he got voted in, the way I read the situation is that
Ray Owen did not want to be tied to Jim
Vice-president by Larry Park.

Roberts being fired as

So he was an Associate Vice-

president operating on the first floor. The Vice-president was
operating on the third floor.

V

So there was no communication

between the Associate Vice-president and the VVice
i ce-president.

Ray

Owen decided to take a vacation, three or four weeks vacation,
out to Indiana.

So he submitted his resignation as Associate

Vice-president before he left, having been voted in the Elementary
Ed. Department.

So while he's out in Indiana, this whole thing

breaks, Jim Roberts being fired.

So I think that the way I view

it is that Ray Owen didn't want to be associated with an administrative position so someone could say later, hey, it was Ray Owen
who did Jim Roberts in.

He's out of the picture now. He' s saying

to himself, by resigning I'll be out of the picture.
the Elementary Ed. Department,

I'll be in

and then he'll fire Jim Roberts and

then after that settles, then the President will call me back into
the Associate Vice-presidency. Because it was to be the Dean of
Social and Behavioral sciences, Joe McFadden.

The scuttlebutt was

that when Roberts was fired that McFadden was going to be made

(25)

LR: the Vice-president for Academic affairs.
it.

Ray Owen didn't want

Then the scuttlebutt was that Ray was over in the department

now and he would be pulled back in as Associate Vice-president,
and I tell you the intrigue was just awful, and
was Icaught up
in all of this.
JR: Probably as much misinformation as information going on.
LR: Yes. Right.
JR: Nocturnal meetings and a lot of stuff happening.
flying all over the place.

Telegrams

Lobbying of the legislators.

LR: Oh, indeed.
JR: It was frantic.

I don't know how anyone taught school.

LB: Ray Owen was somebody we all respected.
LR: Yes.

Ray was a decent, decent human being.

caught in the Jim Roberts situation.

And Ray was

I think, as all of us

did, we saw that Al Watrel was not a mean and vicious, vindictive
person.

He might be naive.

He might be a little dumb in a lot

of respects as far as administration is concerned, but the man
was a decent human being.

Then there was all this other intrigue

on the other side with trying to move him out, to get him fired,
having him replaced.

/;'

JR: Was there a public apology from Pittenger after the fact? Sometime afterwards.

LR:
Pittenger

came to campus after the firing, the next week, and

was a meeting in Miller Auditorium.

there

There were a lot of people in

(26)
LR: attendance and as a matter of fact, Al Watrel came in with his
wife and all of his children and sat down.

He [Pittenger) ex-

plained what he had done but he offered no apology.

My under-

standing was that Al Watrel's daughter, who is in broadcasting,
ran into Pittenger at someplace, maybe some college or somewhere
after Pittenger had left Pennsylvania government service.

My

understanding is that he admitted to Al Watrel's daughter that
that was the biggest mistake he had ever made in his time as
Secretary of Education.

To be misled in that way.

So my

understanding, as I say, is that he said that to Al Watrel's
daughter and maybe that's the closest there was to an apology.
JR: Maybe the apology I was thinking about was that there was a
statement made later that malfeasance of office had not occurred.
And that was as close as they got. Whoever was speaking for
the state, that's as close as they got to an apology. That there
was no criminal activity.
LR: Yes.

That's right.

But he was made to believe that there was.

He was being fed information through his Commissioner on Higher
Education, and it was just a terrible, terrible time.
time.

A terrible

In any case, the reason I probably got into administration

was because of my involvement with the union.
implemented, which permitted

When Act 13 was

public employees to organize for

collective bargaining purposes, this faculty at Slippery Rock
met several times during 1965-66 to determine whether we

(27)
LR: wanted to organize in that fashion or whether we would want to
stay in this loosely structured organization for faculty that
was developed some years back, maybe in the 30's.

It was

decided we would vote on this matter of whether they indeed
wanted to do that.

So early on, I worked with the establishment

of the union and became very much involved into the day-to-day
operations, although I never served as president.

I believe

once I was secretary, I believe, of the union and in the last
year of my service I might have even been vice-president of
the union.

This was in 1972-73.

But in those early years,

we were negotiating with the state, and every weekend practically
I was on my way to Harrisburg.

Marty Morand, we had hired him

from the garment workers out of New York city, and Marty came
to Harrisburg, and he provided superb leadership for all of these
faculty members who were coming in every which direction and
not knowing what to do and how to do it.

I still remember Marty

Morand in those meetings with just a tremendous amount of calm
and professionalism was able to restore or bring order to that
diverse group.

We met in the old PSEA building in their main

conference room on the top floor.

Still remember those

weekend meetings, weekend after weekend after weekend, and then
we moved into the negotiation session with the state and the
governor, Milton Shapp, at that time, hired a friend of his
who was a Philadelphia attorney. I can't at this moment

(28)

LR: think of his name, but in any case, he hires this attorney from
Philadelphia to be the chief negotiator for the state in this
collectiv e bargaining process. Our man was Marty Morand.

We

had to go there and provide him with information about the
issues that were- coming up, and so, as I say, for many weekends
I would go to Harrisburg and be a part of that group.
was Whiteside who was that attorney, by the way.
interesting sessions.

It

Those were

Whiteside knew little about higher

education, the administration of higher education.

He would

sit in those sessions and the telephone would ring in that
conference room in the PSEA building.

Someone would say,

there's a telephone call for you, Bill. And Bill Whiteside would
go over t o the telephone, talk in French, and he'd get off
and say, oh, just talking to a client in Canada, in Quebec,
over some issue and sit down. And we go over these issues and
we would say, we feel that such and such ought to occur in
this matter, and Bill Whiteside would say, absolutely not.
We're definitely not going to go along with that.
move onto the next point.

We'll come back to that.

Let's
The

next point would come up and there would be discussion
on it and he would indicate what it is that he would go with,
what it is that he would not go with.
resolved.

Nothing would be

He'd go onto the third matter and then the fourth

matter and the fifth matter without any resolution.

(29)

LR: The presidents, by the way, had little input into this.

The

administrative staff of the institutions were not involved in
this process.

It was a few people from the office of administra-

tion and Whiteside and maybe one representative from the
faculty.

Then we would go into the next weekend and we'd bring

up item number one where there was great controversy, where
he was not going to relent, where he felt that APSCUF was off
base for suggesting such a resolution to an issue.
say, oh, what is it that you wanted to do?
can go along with that.

Then he'd

Well, I think we

Then issue number two and issue number

three and actually, he gave the store away.

I mean we were

appalled at some of the things we were able to accomplish
as a result of these discussions with Whiteside.

Things that

in our wildest imagination we said, anyway let's put it on the
table.

I mean they'll reject it.

They'll cut it back but he

took everything that was presented, and we got one of the best
contracts that was ever negotiated in higher education.

I'm

proud to say that I was part of those early sessions in
negotiations.

The

Carne back, the contract was nearing cornpletio

faculty meeting was in Miller Auditorium.

The auditorium

was packed with all faculty because that was a condition of
employment and people showed up.

They knew they had to show up.

You had to have a good excuse for not showing up at these
faculty meetings. There were a lot of

people there at the faculty

(30)

LR: meeting and I had asked for

permission to give a report on the

collective bargaining agreement.
it quite well and

I got up and I had prepared for

I gave it and I thought in an excellent manner.

I left the podium starting back and I was stopped in my tracks by
a standing ovation from this faculty.

It took me off guard

because I wasn't expecting it. And I walked back to my seat, but
I thought then and I've thought afterwards, that all of those
hours that I was in Harrisburg on weekends, somehow that standing
ovation was compensation for all of those hours of service.
JR: When you moved into administration, did much of that which you
had successfully helped negotiate with Whitesi

, -

LR: It came home to haunt me.
JR: Ghosts over your shoulder.
LR: I many times have thought, God dammit, who in the hell would
have ever thought of putting in something like this, only to
realize that I was a part of those sessions.
JR: Because it was a stumbling block, a lot of the things in Meet
and Discuss.

I guess it varied from institution to institution

depending on how affable the president, or how a president
handled his interpersonal communications.
LR: That's right.
JR: Because in some cases there was some polarization where all
kinds of things happened that were difficult to resolve. And
then there are some administrations were those folks had been

( 31)

JR: friends forever and ever, and they were going to sit down and
hammer it out, whatever

the problem was, in

a civilized fashion.

LR: There were some presidents who were not able to make that
transition from complete authoritative control to now shared
responsibility and governance.

Some of them were not able

to handle it and it brought about their undoing.

Many of them

were nearing retirement and knew that they could not survive
in a changed atmosphere of that magnitude, and so they got out.
Many of them were forced out.

I have always maintained that

collective bargaining really has been beneficial.

There are

things that I find great annoyance with, that is for sure. But
as I look back over all of my involvement with the negotiating
team and the outcome of those contracts, that it's been a
beneficial process.

It's been very helpful to both the faculty

and the administration.

Before, the administration would make

decisions by fiat without consultation, without concern for
other people, just on a whimsical development.

Now they had

to think about what they were doing and the consequences of
their actions.

It has brought about a more thoughtful develop-

ment in the administrative process than I think existed before.
JR: Accountability's always a problem for classroom teachers,
for administrations, for almost everybody, and now we are held
accountable.

This is true of the promotion process, the

tenure process and classroom visitation and I'm sure it works
with the administration as well.

{32)

LR: Yes. But the presidents didn't have to be accountable before
that.

If they wanted somebody in a position,

the position.
exist.

they put them into

The search committees, they just didn't

The president didn't like you, you were on your way out.

They had merit raises.

Every institution could give merit raises

in addition to the step advancements each year within the salary
ranges.

The president would meet with a few of his advisors in

Old Main and decide, okay, we have $50,000 to give out in merit
raises.
you.

What do you think of so and so?

He's been bad-mouthing you.

He's been talking about

This person is disruptive.

I wouldn't give it to him even though he's done this which is
worthy of a merit raise.

He needs to be punished.

So that person

was overlooked and this person would get it because he was a good
friend of somebody who was there advising the president, and it
was just a terrible, terrible development.

There's a lot to be

said for mandated step advancements without consideration for
merit, because it was a totally unworkable situation.
JR: Within in the evolution of the contract, a lot of the things
that were not workable early on, things that Whiteside did, you
can see, have been changed measurably because there's a trial
and error process that's almost constant, I suppose.

Bob

Aebersold talked about that and he said, every now and then some
really silly thing gets into the contract when in retrospect

(33)

JR: everybody agrees that it was really dumb.
you know we went into a tenure process.

The early tenure,
Three years?

Is that

accurate?
LR: Yes.
JR: Early in the contract.

The AAUP had had it seven years, forever.

And everyone thought that that was pretty good, and all of a
sudden we've got a three year tenure and you have to show cause
and all kinds of strange things were going on in the tenure world.
LR: Yes, there have been a lot of good things happen to me. There are
many things that I particularly like doing, that have brought a
lot of satisfaction to me.

One thing is working with the

Academic Honors Convocation which we started in 1980. I believe
that was the first year for them.

Through that program we have

brought a lot of people to campus and made them a part of the
University community. They probably otherwise would not have
been associated with us.

People like Betty Hutton, for example.

She was an interesting person and she survived that ideal.

I

don't know if we did.
LB: I don't know if you did.
LR: She was an interesting person.

Of course, Nien Cheng, Life and

Death in Shanghai, she was just an exceptional person.

Among the

ones we have brought to campus, I think she, in my assessment, has
been one of the most special people I have ever been associated
with.

(34)

LB: I had that marked down.

I think that's really an outstanding

achievement of yours. Tell us a little bit about how that
relationship developed and is continuing.
LR: As a matter of fact, she called me here last night and there
was a word on my answering machine and I didn't get back to her.
But the way it occurred, on 60 Minutes, I happened to tune it in,
oh, five years ago, whatever, four years ago, and she was being
interviewed by Morley Safer.

Here was this very calm, articulate

woman, talking about ignominious things that had been done to her.
I thought, how could one human being have endured all of that
suffering, the intensity of that suffering, and have lost a
daughter, your only child, in the process.

So I thought this

would be somebody great to bring to campus.

Then after that

I was at a book store in Washington, D. C. and I had stopped
by the window and I looked and I said, that woman looks familiar
on that cover of that book.

Here I looked closely and it

was Nien Cheng's name and I remembered seeing her on 60 Minutes
and I thought to myself, well, this book is now published, she's
been on 60 Minutes and the requests for speaking engagements are
probably tremendous and my chances of getting her to Slippery
Rock will be minimal.

Then a few weeks after that, her book

gets on the cover of Time magazine.
lost any chance of getting her.

Now, I said, I've probably

Then working through the man

at Time magazine who had interviewed her for this cover story,

(35)

LR: I called him. I got the information from our own Andy Chen
who knew him, he was a classmate, and so Andy suggested I
call him. So I did and I told him what I wanted to do.

I said,

is there any possibility that you could call Madame Cheng and
tell her what I want and indicate that I would like to speak
to her if she would permit me to do that, call her on the phone.
So he called me back and he says, I've talked to Madame Cheng
and she said that she would receive your telephone call.
So I called her.

She was very great on the telephone.

explained what I wanted.

I

She said, well, I've never received

a humanitarian award in my life and she chuckled, and I said,
well, we would like to present it to you. I said, this University
is nearing 100 years of age and we have never given one before
but we want to give it to you, our first one. She said that
she would come to the University, and that basically is how this
whole process began. I called her after she agreed she was
going to come.

I called her probably, maybe a month after that

and I said to her, Madame Cheng, what I would like to do and have
it announced at our Academic Honors Convocation is the establishment of a scholarship in your daughter's name.

There was a

pause on the telephone and she said, where would you get the
money for this?

I said, well, what my intention is, is to ask

members of the University community to make contributions.

She

said, well, I'll tell you, when I come to Slippery Rock for this

(36)

LR: award in October, I will bring a check with me for $20,000 as
the initial contribution.

So she came and she brought the check.

By this time, she's saying to me, I don't want you calling me
Madame Cheng. She said, you must call me Nien Cheng, and so then
I, at her suggestion, did that.

Then she said to me, when I die

I will leave a bequeathment for this endowment.
considerable.

It will be

She had no hesitancy, as friends, to tell me how

much she was worth.

What her assets were.

had made from her book.

How much money she

How much money she had in stocks.

much money she had in her bank.

How

She said, I can assure you, I'll

work my will out that I will give you a percentage of my estate.
She said, in all likelihood I can tell you this, that it will be
no less than $100,000.

It could be considerably more.

Well,

since that time, one year in speaking alone, she made over
one half million dollars.
she has.

Plus, all of her other assets that

She said to me one day when I was having dinner with

her and she was driving the car because she insisted on it,
she says, I know these Washington streets. And let me tell you
she goes with tremendous speed through those city streets, too.
But she said to me and I still remember distinctly where we where
when she said it.

We were coming up to this corner in Maryland

where the Chinese restaurant is and she said, Lou, do you have
any idea how much money they permitted me to take out of China?
I said, no.

She said, $20.

She said, do you have any idea how

(37)

LR: much money I left behind? No. She said, over one million dollars.
But she said that she had no regrets in doing that because she
was coming to a life of freedom and opportunity that she never
knew before.

After she had settled in Canada and while she

was waiting for her entry papers into the United States, she
looked forward with great anticipation to being part of this
nation.

She wrote a letter to me at the time of her becoming

a U. S. citizen.

The ceremony was performed in front of the

Statue of Liberty with the editors of Time magazine and the
cameras of 60 Minutes present.

She wrote to me, I will

make every effort to be worthy of being a citizen of the United
States.

Often when I'm with her I see tears welling up in her

eyes when she thinks about her daughter. That was indeed a close
relationship.

To have realized after enduring six and a half

years of solitary confinement with the most terrible of conditions
with the hope that she was enduring it one day to see her daughter
again, only to discover that her daughter was murdered.

Thrown

from the ninth floor of this building to fake suicide. That was
tremendous devastation to her soul. She's one of the greatest
human beings I've ever come across. She calls me frequently.
She may be back in October, as a matter of fact.
this Meiping Cheng Memorial Scholarship.

We have

The endowment is

nearing $60,000, and we just grew from this initial contact

(38)

LR: I had made with her.

A lot of people have made contributions

on the faculty and staff and that has helped out tremendously,
too.
LB: I have memories of a really special activity that you started.
It was, I think, the forerunner of Academic Support Services.
LB: You were so concerned about students who were falling through
the cracks.

Who didn't have anybody to talk to.

that had the time.

You gathered them up.

Any advisor

You gathered up

people, faculty on campus, and convinced us that we needed
to give time to these students.

That they were worth saving.

People took one, two, or three students.
week.

We met them every

Sometimes they came in every day and you started that

program.
LR: Yes, I did, Leah, as a matter of fact, and I'd nearly almost
forgotten about that. I'm glad you mentioned it.

I started

it in the late 70's. When deans at the end of the semester
would look at the printout of the student averages and
the computer would say, these students get suspended, these
students get dismissed.

Then many of these students would

make their way to my office and make an appeal to me.

They

would say, I've gone to my dean and my dean says no way, I'm
out.

I would listen to their story and discover that many of

them had been subject to circumstances in their lives that they
had no control over.

My contention is that a lot of us as adults

(39)

LR: come off to work and we're not feeling well. Developments happen
in our lives and we're sympathetic to one another, but we have
students in a classroom.

They come with baggage that many of us

don't take the time to try to understand where they're coming
from ad why they're in the state of circumstance that they're in.
So with many

these

students I would listen to them, and some of

knew were

k

w were

not justifiable concerns, and so I would not

really extend myself for those. But to many of the students I
would say, all right, I will admit you under these conditions.
Show me a schedule of study that you're going to be in the library
and when you leave you go to the circulation desk or the librarian
on duty and have them sign in and out.

You're not to participate

in extracurricular activities. You are to limit your classes,
credit hours, to twelve.

You are to visit me every two weeks,

and other conditions that I might have spelled out depending on
the circumstances.

Well, it ended up that I

think it was over 100 people

had at one time, I

reporting to my office.

The outside

students

was just filled with students coming in, and I just couldn't get
my work done and

at the end of
l

the day I was taking my work home

I

and I was workirrg to 12:00 or 1:00 in the morning to come in and give
the secretariesthe

work be fore this onslaught of students would

be coming into my office.
people.

So I then began seeking help from other

Leah, you helped out considerably and several other

(40)

LR: people at the library and other people in departments helped
me with these students.

But it was really great joy in working

with them because some of these people of gone on to great
accomplishment.

There was one student who had made an appeal

to be readmitted and went to Dean Annable and she said,
no, I'm standing by my decision.
up.

The mother and father came

One of the professors came in and supported this student.

Dean Annable and the student himself, we all sat in my office
and I listened to Dean Annable.

I listened to the faculty

member talking about the student and the problems the student had.
I listened to the student.

I listened to the parents.

After

it was all over, I turned to the boy and said, I'm going to take
a chance on you but I want you to understand that this chance
is being given to you based upon these conditions, and that if
there is any violation of them then I'm going to be corning
looking for you.

So I spelled them out to him. I put them

in writing as I did for every student and this person now is
one of the executives in the Frito-Lay Corporation.

There's

one who is an official with the USAir who calls me frequently
because he said, I remember your admitting me.

Not only did

I admit him, then I found out that he had no money to stay in
school.

So I called a friend of mine.

the circumstance.

I said, hey, this is

I need some money.

Then the check was in

the mail and then we got him through.

Then I made telephone

( 41)

LR: calls to several others of my friends for other students.

People

coming into my office, I don't have any money and I haven't eaten
since breakfast yesterday morning and I can't buy a ticket.
Getting the money for them to buy a ticket is more gratification
and has brought me more satisfaction than seeing these people go
on and be successful. When they say, hey, do you remember the time
when I had nothing to eat and you got that ticket for me, or this
for me or that for me, has been the lifesaving aspect
Then we had some other scholarships.

We have

of this

Putureri

of

Interstate Chemical. I got him to establish a

in

memory of his father for students majoring in science.
endowment is growing.

So that

Last November he gave me a check for

$5,000 to add to the endowment on that.
quite high now.

job.

So that endowment is

Lou Pappan, who was honored last year at the

Academic Honors Convocation, Pappan's Restaurants, brought in
a check for $5,000 for a scholarship established that we're
naming after him and his wife.

I expect that he will give

considerably to that scholarship.

I think that's it.

JR: The grants program has grown enormously, I guess.

I know you

were working with a graduate assistant for a long time.
LR: Well, initially when I took over in administration, that was a
major part of my responsibility, working with grants and the
administration of the grants program for the University, but early

(42)

LR: on that became a small part of my responsibility.

Initially it

was to be a large part of it but I was given responsibility for
doing other things and so I didn't devote that much time to it.
Pat Archibald is the person who is giving three quarters of her
professional time to grants and has really done a tremendous
amount in that field, more than I ever did.
JR: Did George Force work under you?
LR: George works out of our office and is responsible for
statistical information, factual information about the University,
all of the details of enrollment and things of that nature and is
also involved with the planning.
As I look back over my years at Slippery Rock, probably one of the
most difficult situations occurred this past November with the
Middle States program.

Sheila Kaplan from the Universtiy of

Wisconsin at Parkside was chairing our Middle States team.

She

came to campus and [Charles] Foust and I had dinner with her on
her arrival at the Days Inn in Butler.

First Foust picked her up

at the airport and I met them at the Days Inn.

And Foust said,

Lou, we went to pick up her luggage and as I was reaching over to
pick up her luggage she said to me, Foust, I want you to know
that's the worst Middle States report I have ever seen in my life.
Now you got to know Sheila Kaplan, she does not pull any punches
at all.

So he brought her to the Days Inn and he related that

to me while she was taking her luggage to her room and we were

(43)

LR: waiting for her to return for dinner.

And he said, I don't know

where this is all going to lead, but he said, she's quite adamant
about the fact that this document does not do what a Middle
States self-evaluation document ought to do.

We had dinner

with her and she reiterated what she had told Foust coming up
and what needed to be done and the changes that needed to occur.
So here we were in November and we had to have this document in
the hands of the committee within a couple of weeks.

So outside,

when Foust and I concluded dinner, she went to her room, and we
got back to our cars to come home, he said, Lou, we need to
do something drastic here with this report.

I'm going to make

a decision to put you in charge of this report. He says, now I'm
going to take away all of your other responsibilities except for
things that I cannot handle that only you know about and so we'll
do that, but you've got to devote nearly full-time to writing this
document.

So I said, well, all right, I'll see what I can do

to help out on this.

Now Sheila Kaplan said she wanted this in

the hands of the committee by January 2.

So here we are at the

second week in November. That period of time, some six weeks,
was probably the most intense work that I have ever done for this
University.

As I look back on it, I say to myself, how in the

world could I have accomplished that?

I mean that was getting

up and being at my desk at 7:30 in the morning.

Leaving the

(44)

LR: office at 4:30.

Going home, getting something to eat and eating

within a half hour, upstairs into my room and working at my
computer there until 11:30, to twelve o'clock at night.

Calling

people, verifying information, checking reports, editing what
had been submitted, assimilatlng this with that and then coming
back.

I did that for six solid weeks, seven days a week, and

finally finished it with the help of a lot of other people, too.
Now, George Force, who had had that heart condition and was not
able to carry it out, must not be faulted for it because there
were circumstances with his health that prevented him from doing
it.

While he was recuperating, he helped out.

It was one of the

most intense working situations I have ever been involved with and
as I assess it now, it's probably one of the ones I'm most proud
of.

LB: And it had a happy ending.
LR: Yes.
JR: Many of our 14 sister institutions and lots of other colleges and
universities, are known best for particular departments for their
outstanding faculty and outstanding program.
a long time.

Is that true of Slippery

Rock?

That has been so for
I don't ask you to

discriminate against anybody but have we sort of showcased departments that we've always expected to be awfully, awfully good,
consistently?

(45)

LR: I think that, Joe, on that I think the outcomes assessment
instruments that are being used in education for those going
into teacher education have just been outstanding. In the
recent one that has been implemented on the state level for
those preparing for teachers, for two consecutive years now,
Slippery Rock has been outstanding.

This past year, first among

the 14 institutions as far as the achievement of students on that
test.

I think that there is much to be proud of with the

teacher preparation programs that we have.

Now to be sure, there

are professors there who have long gone into retirement, who
have shown little enthusiasm in keeping current with developments
in their field. But by and large, overall the faculty there have
really done an outstanding job.

I think of the high standards

that exist in the biology department and the successes that
their graduates have had in medical technology and cytotechnology
and going on for doctors' degrees in biochemistry and in specific
programs in biology and in chemistry.

I think of the new program

in physical therapy that candidate after candidate that I ask
about the curricular structure that has been developed.
Everyone without exception, everyone has indicated that the
program that is being developed at Slippery Rock is really at
the forefront of thinking in terms of physical therapy.
terms of other programs, there are others.

In

I probably would

need to take a look at that list and go down to specifically
identify them, but those ones come to mind very quickly.

(46)

JR: What about our growth?
in Franklin.

We have campuses at Cranberry.

We are in New Castle. We're at Butler.

We are
Are we

going to continue expanding extension programs and our student
population size?
LR: Well, right now, we're at 7,500 and the state system

office

has indicated that we are not permitted to go beyond the
enrollment figure that was set in October of this past year.
Only by two per cent, a two per cent fluctuation.

That if we do

exceed the enrollment figure, then the University is going to
suffer by the formula in terms of the money it receives from the
state system office.

That the state system office is not going to

permit just open enrollment and unlimited growth by the institutions in the state system.

So we're going to be held back.

Right

now we're in the process of interviewing an off-campus director
ever since the off-campus director, Lucille Waterston, resigned.
I guess she retired.

So my feeling is that we're in the process

now of hiring somebody to fill that slot at the same time that
we're told that our enrollment cannot exceed a certain number.
I perceive that if our on-campus enrollment maintains at the
same figure that exists now, that we'll not be able to have
this unlimited growth with the off-campus programs.

I

know we'll have to cut back on some of these.

The Franklin

program may be the first to go. I don't know.

Curtailing the

So

(47)

North Hills program, for sure.

We'll have to maintain the

programs with the nursing school over in New Castle, St.
there's another one.
JR: The prison?
LR: Well, we have the prison program but that's self-liquidating so
I don't think that goes into our count.

My point is this, Joe,

that I don't believe we're going to have this vast growth with
off-campus programs because of that restriction of total
enrollment.

I can't think of anything else.

There are probably

many more things that I could talk about but maybe in another
session.
JR: Yes.

That's fine.

Really enjoyed this session particularly.

LB: I think you've really told us some really important things about
Slippery Rock.

Really excellent memories, things that I'm glad

to have down on tape.
LR: I know some of these people may not look favorably upon this.
JR: Mrs. Monahan was talking about when we had a Russian delegation
and she said they were so happy. That somehow you worked out a
limousine service for them.
LR: Oh, no, what had happened was we had this Russian delegation
corning over and Charlie Tichy said to me, Lou, we're looking for
people to help out finding meals for these people. Can you help
out?

I said, yes, just give me the Slippery Rock delegation

( 48)
LR: and I invited a number of people from Grove City and we threw
this huge banquet at our home.

We had, I don't know, thirty

people there plus the Russians and we had all of this food.
I figured that they might not have that much meat in their
diet, so we had filet mignon, the whole loin, and we had
baked ham, and we had stuffed chicken breasts.

We had salads and

-

vegetables and fruits and pastries, about six or seven kinds,

✓

all kinds of fruits and ice creams.

)

So I call� .Purrt-f'Yi.le;,�

\

Pvn'l"'urer- ,. /

and I said, Al, I have some Russians over here and L�want to

bring them over and show them your plant and show them around.
Come on over.

would you like to have them see something else?
I'd like them to see a supermarket.

He said,

I said, yes,

He said, well, a good

friend of mine owns a County Market over in Sharon. When we
get finished at our place, we'll take them over to the County
Market.

So we went over and Al met us and we showed them his

plant, and they just wondered, where are all these employees?
Where are all these employees who are being treated so badly
in America?

You know, here he had this huge plant.

He had

his workers who were dressed in fine clothes who were driving.
And they saw these employees and they said, how many do you
hire?

/

These people had no±---==-s-e-eri--..

at one table all this food at one time.

He said, that's fine, that's great.

) -

Al told them how many he employed and that his gross

(49)

LR: was about $80,000,000 a year.

Well, where are all your

other employees with that kind of a budget?
they're on the ' road.
they're salesmen.

He said, well,

They said, what do you mean?

He said, well,

He says, I'm in chemical distribution, and

they're on the road selling my chemicals.
that automobile over there?
It's called an Oldsmobile.

So I said, you see

I said, that's a new automobile.
I said, he gives every one of his

salesmen one of those new Oldsmobiles over there.

Well, then

they saw Al's Mercedes and then they saw this stretch limousine
and they saw this Lincoln
belonged

o Puntureri

had seen his plant.

'

ontinental there, which all

.

So Al said, let's go to lunch after we
He took us over to the Sharon Country

Club and he took us over in this big Lincoln.
huge Lincoln.

I mean this

Well, these people had always sat in these

tiny Russian automobiles and here they could stretch their
legs out. And so Al got out of the car and as soon as
he got out of the front seat of the car, one of these Russians
jumped behind the wheel.

Good thing Al had his emergency

brake on, because when he jumped in, this Russian jumped in,
to where Al was sitting on the driver's seat, he put his foot
on the gas and this engine just roared.

Al said, my God, if

I had it in gear he would have been in the next county before
we found him.

So anyway he got in the front seat and then he

(50)

LR: called for his other Russian friend to take a picture of him
in this front seat of this big limousine, and then we went into
eat.

Then we went to the County Market and the manager of

the County Market had notified the TV stations in Youngstown and
all three of them were over there.

Then the newspapers were

there and they were all on the outside waiting for this Russian
group to come in.

These people had never seen so much food,

I mean the Russians. I believe one of the men in that group
was a KGB man, too.

They were taking photographs of the meat

counter and all this meat.

The next day two of them were in

my company, we were in Slippery Rock, and I said, I'm going to
take you over to Grove City and I'm going
supermarket over there.

to take you to another

It was Dr. Stuhlman and his daughter,

she was high in the bureaucracy in education in the Soviet Union.
So I took them into the County Market and I took a basket and I
said, go ahead and pick
for it.

out whatever you want.

I said, I'll pay

If you see something you like, put it in the basket.

Well this woman looked around and she saw all this food
piled high, row after row after row, and she went over to the
salad dressing counter and she couldn't believe that there
were four long rows of salad dressings.

I had walked away from

her with her father and we'd moved to another section and I
turned around and she was coming to me with this armful of all

(51)
LR: these salad dressings and put them in.
she filled up the basket with that.

That intrigued her and

She filled it up with the

toys that she wanted for her children that they sold at the
supermarket and she had that.

And teas, I mean they went wild,

I mean they just loaded that cart up.

So the cost was about

$100 so it wasn't that much money, but just the joy of seeing
them

$100 in this episode.

It truly

was a great experience for them.
LB: It was thousands of dollars of good will.
LR: Oh, yes.

Well, I did that twice because they came back again and

there was another group and I did the same thing with this other
group, too.

There was this banker on this one and what had

fascinated him was at the meat counter he saw the large pepperoni
hanging and he went for that.

I said, well take two of them.

I wasn't sure how in the world he was going to get them back into
his country.
JR: Be great in your luggage.
LR: Yes, right. But he took that and tea was important to him, too.
In my home I have these liqueurs from all over the world.

Friends

of mine give me bottles of all kinds of whiskey and liqueurs.

In

my game room in the basement, I had this bar built and I have
these shelves with all these bottles on it and I've never counted
them.

And the banker was there and he didn't speak a word of

English but he tells this other one who could speak English, he

(52)

LR: says, I can't believe this.

He says, I have counted 110 bottles

here in this bar. And Stuhlman, when he came back the second time,
he says, you know when I got back to the Soviet Union, he says, I
told my class you can't believe, you can't believe this bar that
this administrator has in his basement.

Oh, goodness. But anyway,

with the second visit, I didn't entertain them at my home but
I

entertained them

taurant in Youngstown, Ohio.

at a

s

invited thee

Puntureris
to

just bring them over to

go, too.

I

had

Al said, Lou, why don't you

my plant and he says, I'll have my

stretch limousine there and he said, and just give them the
royal treatment.
/

Al

want.

est Middlesex and we got out, and

So

has
has his

limousine

And I said, well, okay, if that's what you

chauffeur / driver come

and

around with this big stretch

get in the back.

My God, a

television set in an automobile, a bar in an automobile and
we drove them then over to Youngstown, Ohio

for this meal.

They really had a desire for meat, steaks
for that.

i

Al said,

I know when Al Puntureri

had

you know.

.

aken all of

They went
us to the

Sh a r on Country Club for lunch, Al said, order whatever
you want.

One of them said, well, is there steak on here?

Well, they had the luncheon menu and they didn't have steak on
the luncheon menu.

So Al calls the waitress over and says,

do you have any New York strips back there, and why don't you

(53)

LR: prepare them a New York strip.

So they just relished that.

But you know, Stuhlman, I said to him, what is it that you really
find about America that you didn't expect?
He said, two things.

He quickly answered.

He says, the different automobiles you have.

He says, every automobile is different from the other.
I've never seen two automobiles that are the same.

He says,

And it

wasn't till afterwards I went down driving on the highway and I
looked around and I said, yes, I can see where he is coming from.
I said, if you find two of the same make, they are maybe two
different colors or different years or something different about
practically all of them.
it's most difficult.

And to find two that are exactly alike,

And I said, well, what's the second thing?

He said, you people don't live in apartments to the degree that we
do in the Soviet Union.

He said, you live in dachas here.

one has his own individual home.
in the Soviet Union.

Each

He said, we live in apartments

But stuhlman was an interesting man.

He's a brilliant man and probably could have made it great if he
were in America, but I think the fact that he was a Soviet Jew
probably was a factor in his not reaching the potential that he
probably could have if he were in America.
experience with the Russians.

But that was my

I enjoyed them.

I had a

great time with them.
JR: Vintage Slippery Rock hospitality.
interview.
LR: Okay. Very good.

Well, thanks again for the