CWU LIVING HISTORY PROJECT
Judy Miller
(Transcription of Tape 1, Side 1)
KB: Good Morning. This is Friday, June 23, 2006. I’m Karen Blair, about to interview Judy Miller. Thank you for meeting with me today. Would you start by telling us a little bit about your life before you came to Central in ’71?
JM: Before I came to Central I worked for New York Life Insurance in Seattle for about a year and a half, and managed the automatic check payments that people had then out of their checking accounts to pay their insurance premiums. It was just a large, open office area, very much the style in the late Sixties and Seventies.
KB: Are you a native of Washington?
JM: I’m not. I was actually born in California, but didn’t live there very long. My family moved to Utah, Colorado, and then to Idaho.
KB: And where were you educated?
JM: In Boise. And so I left Boise when I was about 20 – moved to Washington state, and lived in Puyallup, Seattle, and then Ellensburg.
KB: So what brought you to Ellensburg?
JM: Education. My first husband was a student, and he was completing an Education degree, and I had – with my two little children, needed to find some work to help the family. And so I went to the old Personnel office – it was not Human Resources at that time, but it was in Edison. And I remember taking a test – a practical test – in a large room with typewriters, and then from that you met with a counselor and they told you what level of position you would be qualified for, and I remember I was qualified at a certain level, but of course I entered Central at a lower level. That seems to be what happens to folks. You get in an entry-level position, and then you move up. And so I was hired as a transcript clerk. I think it’s probably equivalent to an OA-2, or something like that now. I managed all the transcript requests – go into the big vault, make copies. There was nothing, of course, electronic in those days. We just processed everything by hand. And there was another Judy who did the grade changes, and she was right across the aisle from me, so we were the two Judies back by the vault. And Mitchell, at that time, was totally open. There were no partitions. It was just a very open office concept, just the same as I had left in the insurance industry. It was very much the same.
KB: Now the early Seventies was a time of upheaval in terms of students, and demonstrations, and all. Did that touch your life?
JM: I don’t remember it at all – not at all. I evidently was fairly sheltered from that, because I just don’t recall.
KB: Your husband wasn’t marching in the streets.
JM: No he was not. He was studying, which was good.
KB: And what did he report about the Education program?
JM: He enjoyed it. He enjoyed it very much. He finished in 1973 at – I had already left the Registrar’s office and was hired by Graduate Admissions and Records to be the admissions person, basically, in that office, and that summer my husband moved to Seattle without me. I stayed here, and we were divorced that fall, and I spent eight years in Graduate Admissions and Records. I really enjoyed that.
KB: And what prompted you to make the move from Registrar?
JM: Oh, it was just a – you know, it’s a promotional opportunity. There was more money, it was a different type of office, different challenge, an opportunity to build different skills, work with students in a more intense, intimate way than just filling a transcript request and making sure their transcripts were square. With the admission process you got to meet the students, and you got to help them achieve their goals, collect their materials in an accurate and efficient way, and – I actually met a friend that I have maintained a relationship with for the last thirty-some years. She came to Central to get a Master’s degree in English, and she’s from
KB: And who was head of the Graduate program? It was growing at that time, wasn’t it?
JM: Yes. Dale Comstock? I worked with Jill Hammond – I don’t know if you ever knew her. She retired a few years ago, but she was excellent. Her husband was on the faculty – Ken Hammond, Geography. And – I was trying to recall if Gerry Jones was there then. I think he was, or came shortly thereafter. He was subsequently a special assistant to President Garrity. But it was an active, busy office. We had many applicants, and of course, you were doing a lot of it by hand. We had lots of hand processes. I left the office in ’81 to stay home with my growing family – I had two more little children in the Eighties – and I became a temporary, which was a very interesting thing to do in those times. When I left campus there were no computers on the support staff desks. In fact, graduate studies got some of the first, and they were very rudimentary by our current standards. But as I came back and worked as a temporary, I taught myself how to use a computer, and how to be part of the work force in that way. Had I not been able to do that, I would have been certainly at a loss for the employment. But my temporary assignments allowed me to be in so many different offices. I worked in 14 offices, and some more than once – you know, because I was called back for other little assignments. I worked in – I think the longest I ever worked as a temporary was Psychology. I worked there for a quarter. I loved it. It was great. Very busy, involved, eclectic group. It was wonderful. It was my first exposure to all that it took to support the chimpanzee study, and how they were treated – kind of like the kids on the second floor, really. That’s the sense I got. They were loved. They were cared for very well. I remember processing the – they would go to Albertsons, the folks who were – or wherever they wanted to go, and they would buy things the chimps needed. They would buy toothbrushes. They would buy various treats – fruits and things, and holidays were always celebrated for them. They loved it, and they knew when Christmas was – they knew when Thanksgiving came that Christmas was coming. And it was just so interesting to realize the intelligence of those animals, and to be involved in the department life. That was great. And I remember – I remember crying on my last day, because it was not a position I could apply for. It was promotional, and I wasn’t a permanent employee. I was just a temporary. Because I had really gotten into the swing of life there, and I enjoyed it. But it was not to be, and so I had a good time, and I moved on. I went home. It was really quite nice working some, being home some, because I had two small children, and I could do things with them, and then I could go to work and they had a little bit of day care experience, but they’re with me the rest of the time. So it was ideal. And then I got a call from the President’s office. Gerry Jones wondered if I would be interested in a temporary position with them.
KB: When was that?
JM: That was 1989. Judy Couture had taken a position in the Provost’s office, and so I replaced Judy as a temporary, and that position was available for off-campus people to apply for, and I decided, after working there for a while, that this was a good place to be. I really enjoyed the office. I enjoyed the work, the people I was working with, I thought, “Well maybe I’ll just apply for this.”
KB: Who was the President, and how big was the staff?
JM: Don Garrity, Gloria Craig. One person in the office. And Judy Couture, you know. So there was a secretary, the President and the Board, and then there was a secretary to the Assistant Attorney General, Government Relations, and Special Assistant to the President. And it was a very busy office, and we’ve expanded now to cover the work load.
KB: How big is the office now?
JM: We’ve got – let’s see – we have two additional people. No, three additional people.
KB: Full time?
JM: Two and a half. So it’s – that’s sort of the way – and it varies by President. Some Presidents need different types of support, and when President McIntyre came, she folded more units into our division. We have additional workload from – you know, we’re part of a larger unit. We have event planning now. It’s just grown in different ways.
KB: So how many Presidents did you end up working for?
JM: Well let’s see – if you count interims, there’s Don Garrity, and then Jim Pappas, Ivory Nelson, Dolph Norton, and President McIntyre.
KB: So I interrupted you. You were here on a temporary basis.
JM: I was here on a temporary basis, and then I applied for the position full time – went through the normal application process and was interviewed, and was hired in August of 1989. And the position that I held was comparable to what Kim Dawson is doing now, although things that Christie and Chris are doing were also folded into the job. So it was a little bit of budget, it was – well it was actually all – all of the detail budget work – Gerry Jones was kind of the oversight working with the President to see what allocations would come to us, but as far as management, I did that. And our budgetary process began with things being collected in boxes under Gloria’s desk that she could never get to, so at one point Gerry said – Gerry Jones said, “Could you just see what you could do with this stuff, and arrange it so that it –” – so Gloria didn’t have to worry about it and I could have a sense of what we were spending, and where we were. And so I pulled that forward into some sort of a system, so I did that for our office.
KB: Who does the equivalent of Gerry Jones’s job now?
JM: Libby Street, in a different iteration of it. You know, it has changed as President’s have – each President has needed different – different skills, different – and the campus has changed. So Libby is involved in policy and planning. We really didn’t have a strategic planning process when Gerry Jones was here. Agnes Canedo began that. She was heavily involved in that. Gregory Chan did some of that as well, and he contributed something to Dr. Nelson’s Presidential need that maybe another person wouldn’t have been able to do as well, but that’s what Ivory needed.
KB: And what was that?
JM: Well it was just the – just the type of support that Ivory wanted. He wanted kind of an interface with faculty. He wanted someone to – to help him with policy issues. So it’s always looked sort of the same, but has changed with the incumbent.
KB: Now were you a member of a union at any point in your career?
JM: No. Never have been.
KB: Were you eligible?
JM: Yeah. I suppose so. It was just never something that I considered doing, which is interesting since my background is – I’m from a union family. My father was a member of the Carpenter’s Union for 50 years, and very proud of that. So I grew up knowing that Unions were important in my Dad’s life, because that gave him the standards in his workplace, and if he was looking for work there was the – you know, you were on the list, and you wanted to work on a Union job because that gave you some sort of standard for the work, and for the treatment, and that sort of thing. But it just didn’t seem needful to me.
KB: And what was the Union that was available to you?
JM: At Central there’s the – there is Bargain Unit 2 – there was a – I guess – I wouldn’t call it a clerical union, but basically it was that. It was for office support staff. But then that particular contract was not ratified? Is that the right word? I think it was last year that there was a contract for those folks, but the staff decided they did not wish to have that, and so there was a vote to remove it. But I just never felt the need to belong to a union. [Tape recorder is turned off.]
KB: So how did your tasks change over time with the Presidents?
JM: Well that’s a good question because most positions evolve, as you support different administrators. They have their own styles. I thought we were busy with Don Garrity and Ivory Nelson, but then Dr. McIntyre came. [Laughs] And she’s a very involved person. Her calendar is totally booked. She’s President practically 24/7. It takes a different type of support for a President who is as involved as she is, so at one point I did the calendaring, I took care of the Board, I did all kinds of things, and then it just worked better to have somebody else do the calendaring, especially when I moved into this office where I was away physically from the entrance to the President’s office. And so we moved calendaring to Kim – we just sort of – actually it was before Kim was in that position. We moved it to Barbara. But that position. We juggled things around where I don’t have to do the budgets any more, which is very nice. Except as just a general oversight – I have general oversight for many things, but I don’t have to do the daily – in fact we’ve shifted our budgets around so Kim, Chris and Christie all have some budgetary responsibility. We’ve just kind of divided up the budgets. Works very well.
And we have staff meetings, and we coordinate all of our activities that we look at the calendar, I print those out for the President, and we all go over it. We know what’s happening, we know how we can all support the effort, if the President has a question, then we’re right there, whichever one of us needs to answer. We all have separate pieces we bring to the table, but we coordinate them that way. We really never did have that type of an infrastructure with any other President. She has brought that. I mean, we did our work, but we didn’t coordinate like that. But she’s very big on everyone being involved in a total operation at the office, and I think that’s one of our strengths, in that way that if there’s something going on with one person and another staff member needs to help, we know about that. When I’m in a crunch to get Board materials ready, I know I can count on anybody to help me, and on Board day I know that if I need anything, that all I need to say is someone do X or Y, and they’re just right there to do it for me. We have a very strong team.
KB: When did it become your responsibility to assist the Board to acquire materials they needed?
JM: Um, in 1995 I was hired as secretary to the Board and the President. That was following Gloria Craig’s retirement. I went through the process, and was selected to succeed her, and that’s when I had the additional responsibility of aiding the Board of Trustees – providing all the materials that they need for their Board meetings, to get all of those details arranged, to make the meetings happen, to keep the minutes – I am elected to be the secretary to the Board. It’s in my position description that it is something the Board does, is officially elect me to be their secretary.
KB: Now has your operation always been in the third floor of Barge Hall?
JM: No. When I was hired – when I first came to this office as a temporary, we were in Bouillon, and this building had yet to be renovated. It was renovated in ’93. So I was involved in planning for the renovated look of this building, which was rather exciting, because Graduate Admissions and Records is where the Law Library is now – where the Assistant Attorney General’s office is. That’s where I spent eight years looking at the bricks of McConnell through that one little window. And the building had a very different face in those days. All of the beautiful millwork that you see that’s so lovely – you know, it’s been restored so beautifully. It was painted, and these windows – the top level, the ceiling was dropped, so I didn’t even know that was there. And old radiators in the corners – you know – the heat was just not very efficient. No elevator. I recall that Anthropology was on the fourth floor, so the students would trudge up all those stairs, and there were large cases full of artifacts, and all sorts of things on the fourth floor that had been carried up there – up the stairs. And it was – it was pretty interesting to see how life changed, you know, as we moved around as this building was renovated and the offices moved back. Of course we don’t – we don’t have any classes offered in this building any longer, but I remember that Anne Denman had her son while I was working in Graduate Admissions Office. She would bring him occasionally – had a bed upstairs – and so that was just an interesting little thing that I remember.
KB: Now you seem to be in a position to characterize the various Presidents and the Trustee Directors – Chairs – and the members. I wonder if you’d spend a little time talking about the characteristics of each.
JM: Of each, huh?
KB: Well, the Presidents first, and then the Trustees who stick out in your mind.
JM: Um, one of the things that I remember about Don Garrity is that he – he always seemed so stately, and had a very calm manner about him. And he liked to dictate letters. That’s an art that not many have any longer. You know, they do their own on the computer. But then in those days, and in Don’s work life, he had mastered this, and he would dictate letters – not even pause, just – you know, there was no juggling around, and editing, and figuring out what – he would just dictate it, put in the punctuation, and then I got to transcribe those letters, and that was something I always enjoyed. Gloria would let me do those – do all those letters and send those out. But that’s just a very different way of managing correspondence than we do these days.
KB: And did you see him interact with the board, and with –
JM: Somewhat, but because I was not in that capacity I didn’t see it as much as Gloria saw that. In fact, I had been on the job as a permanent employee for six months when Gloria broke her hip, and suddenly I had to take minutes of the Board meeting, and I was scared to death. I had never even seen a Board meeting. And so Judy Couture and I decided we would do it, and those were the – that was the days before laptops, and my shorthand was a little rusty. But Judy had better shorthand, and she had been in the office for some time, so she and I took the minutes at that meeting. The meeting started at 11:00 and it ended at 5:00. Every single item had action, and it took a long time to go through the meeting. I was just a nervous wreck. So we always teased that it took two Judies to replace a Gloria.
KB: And how often did the Board meet?
JM: They met about six times a year, with the agenda being all done by hand – you know, the pieces typed up and prepared, and photocopied, and we had – you know, if you had a 40 item agenda you had this big accordion file and you were putting things in like that. I still do a paper agenda but it’s not at all like that. My agenda is on line now, for the Board. I put the pieces out for them in a protected directory and they just go there, and they can read everything, and then when they come I have a notebook for them instead of mailing everything out.
KB: Now did Garrity defer to his Trustees, or what was that relationship?
JM: I really didn’t see much of the relationship between the President – between Garrity and the Board. Just didn’t see it. Maybe it was just the position I was in at that point, or I just wasn’t observant. I do, however, remember when he resigned. I remember feeling very sad about that, because – of course, change always would impact the office, and then Gerry resigned at the same time, and I was, you know, kind of young and naive, and I didn’t realize that the Special Assistant belonged to the President, as far as the service, and it was – it was kind of a personal thing. And so Gerry felt that his resignation was required at that point. And so I remember thinking that that was something unusual that I hadn’t thought of before. And so both of those resignations came, and suddenly our office wasn’t going to be the same. It was rather – one of those looking at the unknown, now what, kind of things. And –
KB: Did the staff also serve at the pleasure of the President?
JM: The exempt staff does. That’s the way exempt staff serves. However, anyone who would have told Gloria to – would have replaced Gloria would have been insane, [laughs] when she had the institutional memory and knew how to support a President so well. I think that’s one of the things that smart executives do, is they rely on good, seasoned staff to help them acclimate.
KB: Tell me about Gloria Craig. She took a course for me on the eve of her retirement, so I knew her as a student, and of course I didn’t see her here.
JM: She was a remarkable person who was – I don’t know – perhaps a little ahead of her time in the way she managed her career. She made sure she got lots of experience that would work well into whatever she decided might be an end experience for her. She worked in a legal office. She worked in a real estate office. She could amortize mortgages. She was sharp as a tack. She worked in – well I guess her law experience gave her kind of a social services background from the types of cases that were handled where she was. She just did all sorts of things. She was – she just had a – and then she came to the business – she was hired into the business office. I think – what was the name of that person who hired her? Anyway, we’d be looking through old documents and she’d say, “Oh, this person – ” Buckles – Floyd Buckles hired her, and she worked in the business office for quite some time, and then was hired as the secretary to the Vice President, Courtney – yes, I think Courtney Jones. He didn’t hire her; it was his predecessor who hired her. But she enjoyed working in that office. And another interesting thing about her is she applied for the secretary to the very first President of Evergreen and she was offered the position, but her family went to Olympia and they just decided that wasn’t for them, and so she decided to stay here, and then Don Garrity hired her to be his assistant.
KB: I talked to Charles McCann, and went to Evergreen, and so she must have worked with him, or knew him here.
JM: I think so. I don’t recall now who the person was who was the first President of Evergreen, but –
KB: McCann.
JM: Was he the first President?
KB: He had been the Provost here.
JM: Okay, well then she must have interviewed with him. But she thought that would have been one of the ultimate challenges – to start from scratch, and build an office. Another thing she did in taking one of the courses that she did for her degree that she plugged away on as I’m doing – she reorganized our filing system. She did it as a project for an ADOM class, and it’s a subject file by categories. Basically it’s based on the University’s organization. If you know the organization, you can find things in our file. We have a nice index that we – it’s gone through some evolution to spruce it up here and there, but it’s basically what Gloria had envisioned.
KB: I know she was thrilled when she retired and the Trustees presented her with free tuition to finish her education.
JM: That’s right. It was very exciting. She was totally thrilled, and I was happy that she was so surprised and thrilled.
KB: I’m sorry she didn’t live longer to [inaudible].
JM: So am I. That was unfortunate. She was a very dedicated, committed woman. She loved this University, and she gave it her very best. She gave everything her very best despite physical limitations in the last few years she worked. She was a diabetic, and had neuropathy issues. You’d never know it. She managed very well. The ultimate professional. She was a very good person to teach me, and I learned a great deal from her that I then translated into my support of the Board and the President.
KB: Now did you stay in touch with the Garritys after they left Central?
JM: I didn’t, but she did. In fact, she managed some of their business affairs here when they were in
KB: So how did your career life change when he left and a new President was hired?
JM: Well we had the opportunity of working with Jim Pappas, who was a very good interim President – very good steward of the Presidency as we were waiting for President Nelson to come, and he conducted some forums that we held over [at] the President’s reception center, wherein faculty were invited to give input to sort of help the new President see the tone and the tenor of the faculty – what they thought was important, to kind of build a base. And I remember taking notes at those meetings, and then those things were given to President Nelson trying to help him get acclimated into our culture. And I remember that Dr. Nelson arrived early for his assignment, and so we were busy getting him into his office and moving Dr. Pappas out. It was a very interesting and pleasant time. I enjoyed my service.
KB: Did Pappas move into the President’s house, or are you strictly talking about the President’s office
JM: No – office, office.
KB: It was two months.
JM: The house was – maybe it was three. I think it was around three – two and a half to three months. But the residence was vacant at that point, and anyway, it just seemed like we picked up learning a new Presidential style. That’s one of the things that support staff has to learn – to be flexible, and to anticipate the needs of the President as you get to know that person and their style, and what could best support their strengths, and what could provide additional support if that might not be a strength – a particular item might not be a strength. And so there was a while where we were getting used to him, and he was getting used to us, and I really think it proceeded very well. We were able to help him, I think, be as effective as he could be.
KB: And what were his interests compared to Garrity’s? There must have been a new set of priorities.
JM: Yes – new set of priorities. The Board had outlined some things they wanted Dr. Nelson to do. They were very explicit. However, they were just not made public, so the things that the campus saw Dr. Nelson doing, they thought came from his imagination, when if they’d just stopped to think a minute, he served at the pleasure of the Board, and the Board outlined what they wanted. They wanted a strategic plan. Dr. Nelson had had experience – extensive strategic planning experience, and he implemented our first strategic planning process – our first successful. We had had other planning efforts, but they just didn’t ever seem to jell and bring the whole campus into it, and the Board wanted something that involved everyone, and would bring us forward into where we needed to be. It was difficult to achieve what they thought could be achieved for the University without that.
KB: How did the Trustees arrive at their goals?
JM: I’m not sure, because that was part of what they did while I wasn’t – I wasn’t involved with them. But I do remember a list of about ten items.
KB: He had shared those with me.
JM: Yes, yes. Those items were what – and I can remember strategic planning, and – I just don’t really remember –
KB: Diversity.
JM: Yes, it was –
KB: Computers.
JM: Right. He wanted – they wanted the infrastructure of the University – the communication infrastructure – to be upgraded to – I don’t know if that’s the appropriate word – to be strengthened. And, uh –
KB: Seems to me Roz Woodhouse was only briefly Chair of the Trustees. Am I right?
JM: Right. I don’t recall the number of years that Roz – I’d have to look and see. The Trustees sort of – yeah, there’s been so many of them, I try to remember how long they served, but she was Chair, and Susan Gould was Chair. Another really – we’ve had some great Trustees. Really strong, woman, [inaudible].
KB: How did those meetings change, from Roz, to Sue Gould, to Gwen Chaplin?
JM: I don’t really recall the meetings when Susan Gould was the Chair, because that was prior to my time. But I do remember Ron Dotzauer – very dynamic person – and I remember Gwen Chaplin quite well. We worked very well together. But the tone of meetings depends a lot on how a Chair gets people to work together, and the composition of the Board – how well a group of people will work together on the Board. Sometimes everything is smooth even though you’ve got a lot of differences of opinion – when they have those differences and then can come together as a collective – because they must. That’s the only way they’re effective, is if those – if their differences can be shared, and then a common result agreed to, and then they move forward. And I saw that happening. At one point we had a Board and Presidential evaluation – that was in ’97. We brought in consultants from the Association of Governing Boards, and that was a very effective process. We went to Sleeping Lady, we did a lot of facilitated brainstorming about effective Trusteeship, and Board Presidential involvement, and interviews were conducted all around campus, with all sorts of constituencies on the State level – it was very comprehensive, and I have that. That’s part of the Board record in ’97. It was accepted as a report in a special meeting. But as a result of that process, the strengths of the Board and the President were shared, and that evaluation was brought forward. Basically, the President did better than the Board, as far as effectiveness. But it was – many good things came from that experience.
One thing that came from the experience was the committee structure for the Board. We’d always had committees, but they hadn’t functioned very well, or sporadically. But we divided into the system that you see now: Academic Affairs, Resource Development, and Student Affairs, and committee – the Trustees served – rotate as Chairs and members of those committees. So instead of the Vice President sitting in a Board meeting, giving a long report, sharing all kinds of things, and the Trustees sitting and listening, and listening, and listening, without really a lot of interaction – they’d take some action, and then they’d go home and they’d think, “What did we just do?” You know? “What – I don’t really understand this or that.” With the committee sessions the way they operate now, and have since we had this process, the Board has a chance to get into detail into various divisions. They hear presentations. They really understand what’s happening. And then a Trustee reports out in the meeting what they heard. The Vice Presidents are in the background, supporting the Board. The Board meeting belongs to the Board. They set the agenda, they set the committee agendas with the Vice Presidents – it’s just way more involvement and a higher degree of awareness for the Trustees. Their knowledge level just really has increased, and by the time you circulate among the committees – service on the committees – you really know what the University is about. And then occasionally we’ll have a committee of the whole session. When there’s an issue that everybody needs to hear about, then we do that. We did that for strategic planning this last meeting, so that the whole Board could hear the discussion about the strategic plan. And then you go into the open session, and there’s often a little bit of discussion. There doesn’t have to be a lot, because they’ve already – they’ve had that. They no longer feel that they are rubber-stamping, so to speak, which is – you know – a clichéd phrase, but I think that conveys the point that they know what they’re doing. They understand the issues, and if they don’t, then they say so and they get the information that they need. And they try – we really try very hard not to present something to the board for action that they have not seen before. Review in one meeting, action in another. So they really want to do the best for the University. I have felt that about every Board I’ve worked with.
KB: Now it sounds like their time commitment has increased a lot.
JM: It has. The time commitment has increased. We try to make it – the materials that they receive – as succinct as possible, and as effective and efficient so they’ll – because that’s a lot of material to read for a Board meeting, and they do very well.
KB: Do these subcommittees make special trips to Ellensburg, or –
JM: No, it’s the same day – same day. They just have – instead of a 1:00 meeting, it’s all day. They begin in the morning right after breakfast. They’ll start with committee sessions, maybe a committee of the whole. A couple of meetings ago they toured the new Student Union recreation center – actually had their meetings over in that building so that they could see the result of all those years of planning, and all of the action they had taken in various meetings, and it was real to them then. And so I have seen the effectiveness of the Board increase over the last few years.
KB: How long has it been that the Board holds some of its meetings at the Centers?
JM: Let’s see. We’ve done that for several years – at least as long as I’ve been connected with the board. I’d say maybe ten years we’ve done that. I have a schedule of when we’ve been where, and where we expect to go, and it will be in Wenatchee this next year. But that’s been an exciting experience for the Board – to realize how wide-spread we are, and that the University is more than the Ellensburg campus. And these Centers are very important to the University, and to the Board. They want to know how they operate. They want to feel connected. And of course we have such lovely facilities now to attend for these meetings where we have the DE connections, we can broadcast – it’s not at all camping out, which is what I used to call those meetings where I’d have to take so much that I’d need there, and we’d have to bring a portable truck to do a – you know – DE connections – will not have one. And now, state of the art. We have sometimes better equipment there upstairs in 412. So it’s really been an exciting time to see the growth of the Board, and the strengthening of the University. I just feel we’re in such a strong position now.
KB: Would you care to single out any particular people that you enjoyed working with on the Board?
JM: Gwen Chaplin is right up there. A wonderful, strong voice on the Board – very good administrator so that she was able to work well with a diverse group of people and lead us through some times that were not easy, and through issues that were occasionally tumultuous. But she’s a very solid, calm person. After being Executive Director of Planned Parenthood, she said this was fairly easy work. I don’t know if she mentioned that to you, but you know.
KB: Now you were on board when the first Student Trustee came on.
JM: Yes I was.
KB: Tell me about that.
JM: That was another item that we weren’t sure how that was going to work – you know, bringing a student of any age, with a student perspective, onto a board only one year – couldn’t vote on certain things – how was that going to work? How do the other Trustees manage that? It worked well. It’s been exciting. We’ve really loved it. And I think I speak for the Trustees as well, that that perspective has been interesting and useful. But once that Trustee is a member of the Board, they set aside “I am a student,” and they become a Trustee. And they might have a student perspective, but then, someone who’s an attorney has a perspective. Someone who’s a banker has a perspective. But they tried to – I can honestly say that the Trustees that we’ve had have been mature, even though some were young. This is the first year we’ve had a non-traditional student who’s in his late fifties, but usually they’ve been traditionally aged students, and that’s worked very well. They have learned a great deal. We’ve learned from them. I think it’s been good for the students to see that a person who is involved in getting a University education can still contribute to a Board, and understand what’s going on at that level.
KB: Do you know who initiated this new change?
JM: For the student Trustee? I think it might have been Washington Student Lobby. Seems like there was some activity there, and it happened more than one year. This was not – I mean, the year that it was implemented – I don’t recall now which year that was. In the late ‘90s, but – mid-nineties. But they tried more than once, and some people thought it was a good idea, and some people didn’t, and then it just happened that it worked, and it was approved. And many states have student Trustees, as I’ve gone to my Conference Association governing boards and spoken with people who do what I do, and discuss that kind of thing. There’s a workshop for student Trustees. Some of them are – can vote on everything. Some of them can vote on nothing. They’re just there, kind of almost like an ad hoc thing. Others have six-year terms. They only have to be a student when they’re appointed. They can continue. So there’s just all – you know, many different ways of handling that, but many institutions and systems have Student Trustees.
KB: And my understanding is the student government nominates the person. Am I right?
JM: Students apply – complete an application. Student government reviews, selects three, I believe – two to three – forwards those to the Governor’s appointment secretary, and then it’s in their process, at that point. We’re still waiting for our Student Trustee [End of Side One]
KB: I wonder if we could move to the question of the Special Assistants to the President. You’ve dealt with Agnes Canedo, Gregory Chan, Libby Street –
JM: Gerry Jones.
KB: Gerry Jones at the beginning. Tell me about those differences.
JM: Well as I mentioned, they all had a little bit different job description, depending on the needs of the office. I remember Gerry Jones working very much with budget issues, policy issues, but he was a member of what was called the Executive Group, in those days – a precursor to Cabinet. However there were never any minutes taken at that body, and none of us – well, it would only have been Gloria and myself – we – we did not support that group. We weren’t asked to. Instead of an agenda, if someone had an item to discuss, I remember seeing the pieces come around in the mail. If you wanted something to be discussed in that meeting, then you would photocopy it, and you would send it to people who came to the meeting, and then they would have those things, and they’d talk about them.
But – so as far as the interaction in there, I have no clue how that went, but I saw Gerry – and when Gerry was hired as a Special Assistant he also did Government Relations. He spent half of his time over in Olympia, and it was just shortly before I came to the office that Dick Thompson was hired as the first separate Director of Government Relations. He had been former Air Force ROTC Commander. Interesting fellow. I enjoyed working for him very much. He was – he was a very knowledgeable, involved kind of person – based here, but spent a lot of time in Olympia during the session. At one point we hired an Assistant Director, and that was Gerry Bring [?]. Did you know Gerry? He’s active in the community but he doesn’t work for Central. He just did that for a brief time.
And so that – I spent a lot of time – we had Executive Interns, at that point, for Government Relations. I hired those people and worked on that process, but it was always something happening, and Federal Relations were also part of Dick’s job description, so there was a smattering of that, and organizing Olympia events, bringing legislators to campus – organizing all of that. But Gerry spent quite a bit of time just doing policy things. I remember at one point he developed a faculty handbook. So the faculty handbook I think might still exist. I’m not sure who was keeping it up – this office doesn’t. But he developed that. And remember that this was really still before there was a lot of - we did have computers, but it was the deck mate type technology, so we were a little limited in what we could process. But I remember working on that project with him. He just felt the faculty needed to have as much information as possible, and a place to find it. And now, with the internet, you really don’t need – you don’t need that type of volume. It’s easier just to go onto the web site. But he did that. And then I remember Agnes really working on strategic planning. That was just all-encompassing. Were you ever involved in that first strategic – you came after that.
KB: No.
JM: Well –
KB: No, I was here, but I wasn’t –
JM: You weren’t. Okay. Well, it involved bottom-up reporting, and it was extensive. And of course everything funneled to this office, so what do you do with all of this material that’s coming to you? How do you integrate it? How do you put it into a cohesive plan and make some sense out of it? And I remember that even computing platforms – we all went to Macintosh, because the Macintosh could read everything, and if we had a PC we were stuck if somebody submitted something in one plat – you know, in the Macintosh platform you couldn’t do anything. It was all on disc then. We hired someone to be – after Agnes we hired someone to put that plan together for each new iteration of it – we needed a new person after she left the office, and then she became Director of Financial Aid. But she was also a member of the – of the Cabinet. I think it was during Ivory that we changed that name to Cabinet. And minutes were then available. Ivory was big on that – getting things open, you know – that if you had an executive level meeting and you were making some decisions – even if you weren’t – if you were just talking about some things, the campus should know what was going on. And I always appreciated that.
KB: Did Gregory Chan – he replaced –
JM: Agnes, but not right away. We went some time, and it was during that interim time that – Agnes monitored the budgets – general oversight, as Gerry Jones had done, and I just sort of – and the office staff just sort of monitored things, but then after, when we had that gap between Agnes and Gregory – and it was almost a year, if I remember correctly – Ivory said, “Oh, you can do that.” So I got that added into my position description, which I gave away as soon as I could, because I could only handle so much. I’ll tell you, handling the Board materials and – well, just helping the Trustees with everything there is there, and supporting the President –
KB: And what percent of your time is devoted to the Trustees? Is it formally half, or a third?
JM: Well it’s not really a half. I’d say more a third over the year. There are times when that percentage changes drastically – take spring quarter, for example – but usually, the way we have the meetings set – we have two meetings in the fall, two in the winter, and two in the spring, and there’s a month between the meetings each time. So I have to turn around the minutes, get an agenda ready, get all the pieces ready – all of the logistics that go with each meeting – process all that, and the spring always is compounded with other things. I chair the student commencement speaker subcommittee, and that’s a very rewarding, interesting task, but that takes a little time. It’s another one of the compression features of spring quarter when there’s a lot going on. We have a memorial ceremony that we do in the spring – several things that I’m involved in, so that’s a very busy quarter. But it’s a – so more of my time is spread for the Board, I think, spring quarter than any other quarter.
KB: I diverted you from the Executive Assistant.
JM: Oh yes, yes.
KB: Special Assistant.
JM: Special Assistant – and the name has changed too, along the way. Libby now is the Executive Assistant for Policy and Planning. But Gregory did – he did special projects a lot for the President – research type things. He was very good at that. So if Ivory wanted issues researched, and various things – Higher Ed, maybe some faculty issues on campus – Gregory would do all that. He didn’t do any of the budget stuff. Ivory wanted him to concentrate on other things. There was a little it of planning – strategic planning – but not that much. We sort of had it – we were just sort of managing it differently at that point. And then when President McIntyre came there was just a different focus on planning. We no longer had labor-intensive planning in each department. That shifted some to what we have now – to the – you know, the forums where we talk about our goals, and – it’s just managed a little differently. Libby’s very involved in policy development, strategic planning, she’s a member of Cabinet. That’s been sort of a standard, that that position is a member of Cabinet. I’m a member of the Presidents Advisory Council, but not of the Cabinet. That’s for the Vice President, the President, and the Executive Assistant. But no decision making occurs in Cabinet. The President wants all that to happen in Advisory Council – wider body – and all of those – you know, the minutes for Cabinet and Advisory Council are on line. Everything is out there for people to see what action is happening, what discussions are being held in the policy making bodies – the policy making body.
KB: What about special projects that you’ve been involved in in addition to selecting a student speaker at commencement?
JM: Well I have this wonderful history book project that I’ve been involved with – enjoy it thoroughly, quite excited that we’ll be having a result.
KB: That’s always a finite [?]
JM: [Laughs] I know. I’ve done that. I’ve managed several searches over the last few years – the Provost Assistant, I handled that and the resulting domino effect in our office, and so that – and classified searches, so I’ve done a few of those things. Let’s see, what other projects? Oh, I know one project that I did was very, very interesting for one of our Government Relations Directors, Mary Marcie. I basically helped her plan and implement a Women in Politics conference that we held on our campus – let’s see, when would that have been? Maybe ’92, ’93 – somewhere in that range, and that was quite interesting. We invited women from all over the state. We had – we could have held a legislative session here by the time we finished. Wonderful, exciting time for us. We brought in speakers, I had to arrange lodging, so it was quite a logistical project, but it was very rewarding.
KB: I stayed in touch with her after she went to Western Washington University and Antioch in Seattle. She then took a Presidency of a college back East. She lives in Connecticut – Barrington Connecticut.
JM: She does! Oh, well I am very happy to hear that. We were her first position. She came here fresh with a degree from Oxford, and that was – and she was very good. She was young – quite young – commanded a lot of respect. She did a wonderful job for us in Olympia. It’s just been very enjoyable working with the people I’ve had an opportunity –
KB: Now are there special perks and special stresses when you’re working at the President’s office as opposed to all the other offices on campus?
JM: I’d say yes on both cases, there are some. One thing I really enjoy about the President’s office is that you get to see how everything meshes together. Even our filing system reflects that – how it’s all about the structure of the University, and we are in a position to appreciate more. To see, perhaps, more great effort than if you were in one little unit, and you might not see me on your unit because I was in those offices and I know that my sphere was small. But then when I came to the President’s office it was just a wider view, and a greater opportunity to really see what the University’s about, and all the exciting things that are happening. I’m in a position of hearing about those things. I love that. I love going to Board meetings and hearing about faculty accomplishments, and seeing presentations, and hearing our Government Relations Director talk about what we’re doing in Olympia, and the issues that are facing Higher Ed, and how we’re addressing those, and sitting in on Advisory Council meetings and hearing the reports from people around in every area of the University. I really like that.
And then, of course, there are special stresses because you – I’ve lived through times when people didn’t have confidence in the President – didn’t see him as I saw him, as the staff saw him and saw his performance, and I’ve lived through a couple of times like that. I’ve lived through power pole issues. I’ve lived through marches on the President’s residence when we wanted to put in air conditioning, and – so those are stresses because you love this place, and you want things to just go as well as possible, and yet you know that changes sometimes can be uncomfortable, and you’ve got to do what has to be done to – for the health of the University.
KB: How do you explain the stress on campus about President Nelson and his power poles, and his home decoration, and so on?
JM: Well I think that any time people don’t have all of the information, issues can get – can go off on a tangent – and when there’s money involved, and people think that, “Oh, if you’ve got money to put in air conditioning, why is our tuition up, and why can’t this happen, or that happen?” Not understanding where money comes from for certain things – that their tuition – it would have made no difference at all, because the money for that particular project came from a different place. And for the power pole issues, we’d done everything that was asked of us, but yet, the public didn’t pay attention, or didn’t know until the first pole went up, and then it was a – it was a horrible time, because one picture was worth a thousand words. And so the second time we had to do that we started early, we modified what we were doing – what we were putting up – what we were proposing. We still had to put them out there. We still had to route around. But do you notice the poles anymore? Do you even notice what’s there? I don’t notice them much. The only reason I notice them is because it’s been part of my life for a while. But the big poles? Yes, they weren’t very attractive, and it was awful dealing with that – the public alarm that we might be doing something that they felt was unattractive and would reduce property values.
KB: How much smaller are the McIntyre poles compared to Ivory Nelson’s poles?
JM: Quite a bit. I don’t remember how many feet. They’re also a different color, but all of that was handled in the pre-planning. And you know what was interesting – we got zero comment on the second batch because of the process that we – I mean you – you learn. And Rich Corona managed the second. He was involved in the first time, but we learned, and he managed – it was flawless. People were – there were even, you know, letters to the editor in the paper complimenting the University on handling the poles the second time around. And I think we still have the first poles laying in a yard over by Brooklane. We couldn’t sell them to anybody. All the money that went into them – and they were made especially for us. They had a torque that was just special for what we wanted to do. You can’t really recycle something like that. But that was a rather tumultuous time with the Board of Trustees really agreeing with the community that the poles weren’t appropriate. So any time you have the Board disagreeing with a decision of the Administration, that’s a little – that’s a little tense. But we came out of that, and really, you couldn’t say, “Ah, well they were at fault doing this or that.” It really wasn’t that. It was that everything people needed to know wasn’t – you just didn’t pay attention – didn’t see it. It wasn’t handled in a way that people understood. It was the second time. And that’s probably going to be our mode from now on, is that what we’ve learned helps to make us better, which is – it’s life.
KB: Now if you could build a Mt. Rushmore, who would be the top half dozen people associated with Central in any way, that you would –
JM: That I would put on there – oh my goodness, I never thought of that.
KB: Besides yourself, of course.
JM: [Laughs] Of course. I feel there are just so many strong people that have contributed to the success of the University that it’s a team effort. I don’t know who I would put up there. I know the people who have served at the University for long periods of time, and given strength in times of dire need – I don’t know, I might put Gwen up there.
KB: Because she smoothed the transition from Ivory to McIntyre?
JM: And the strength that she added to the Board. She was Chair for a long time, and I saw her in meetings, and I saw how the Board evolved under her leadership, and that’s probably more – more substantial than the other strengths that she lent to the University because of the way the Board changed, and their effectiveness now. And that’s – I think she’s responsible for keeping us on track during that time, and helping the board to grow. And I would put Jeri McIntyre right up there. In the time she’s been here I think she has strengthened this University to where we’re in a position that we have never been, and her legacy will – should carry us forward many years. Okay, I’ve got two women up there. Who else would I put?
KB: Any men?
JM: Well, as controversial as it would be, I would put Ivory up there. And as I walk around campus and I look at the physical facilities that we have, he was President during that time of growth, and he was responsible for working with the folks in Olympia to help us achieve some of those capital improvements that we might not have had otherwise. So I think he was - he was pretty strong. Let’s see, who else? I’m going to say Don Garrity. He put us on the map for international education, and helped us to build a more global perspective at the University that I think was very important. Even though it’s a small place, naming the Japanese Garden for him is symbolic of what he did to bring us forward into the world. So I think he belongs up there.
KB: Well, that’s a –
JM: That’s a good base, you know. It’s the – you know, the folks at the top. But then I think there are lots of folks who supported those folks over the years. There are divisional heads, there’s the Courtney Joneses – the people like Greg Trujillo, and – was at the University for so long, and served in student affairs. I was thinking, in student affairs, of people who have really influenced students and what we provide to them. I think Charlotte Tullis has done a great job. I’ve seen how she’s responded, and you know, that woman takes calls from students and student parents. She deals with some things directly herself. She’s not off limits to ordinary folks, and she’s built a strong team. She’s taken a division that was suffering, and she’s helped them to be way more effective, to be a solid team where they respect one another, and I think she’s just a good, solid administrator. And part of that is the reason Jeri’s face is up on the mountain. She’s built that team. She’s hired people who were skilled in working with her to accomplish a vision for the University, and people are very important to Jeri. Aside from just the administration you’d get as a CEO of the University, she cares about individuals. I’ve seen that. That’s one of her great strengths, so that we feel like a – am I overtime? – more like a family involved in an educational enterprise, and I like that. That appeals to me.
KB: Would you be willing to talk a little bit about why you decided to enroll in classes, and talk about the student experience?
JM: Sure. Love to. Over the years I just – with my family commitments, obtaining a degree was just not possible for me – devote my entire time to that. At the time that I was divorced I actually thought about going to school for a time, but I was scared. I didn’t think I could afford it, and I had two little children to support, and so my timidity sort of entered in there. I had a job, I knew I could feed them, and so I wouldn’t worry about that, and put it aside when that might have been a good time to do it. And then more children came along, and I married again, and I had more children added to my group, and then I added two more, so we have seven children altogether. It’s difficult to take classes when you’re raising that many children. And then as the children started to get older I decided, you know, I want to take advantage of taking some courses at Central. When you’re steeped in an educational environment you become hungry for that type of intellectual challenge, and that’s really what it was. And I think the first course that I took was a Women’s Studies course from Bang Soon, and she helped to give me – to fuel this desire to take more classes, and to eventually – actually, I just wanted to take the classes. The degree seemed too far away. But then I decided to embrace the idea of the degree even though it’s a class at a time, as I could, with gaps here, and gaps there. I didn’t take a class spring quarter. I did fall and winter.
KB: How about summer school?
JM: No, I haven’t done summer school. Summer is the quarter when I try to catch up on everything that’s gotten compressed during the year. But I must say that my admiration for faculty has increased – for what they accomplish, for the challenge they give their students and the excellence of the teaching that I’ve experienced.
KB: How do you decide what to take?
JM: Well I’m an English major, and I still have basic and breadth to take, but it’s very hard to get in those classes. I can only register the second day to use my staff tuition waiver, and most of them are closed. So I’m almost going to do an upside-down degree. I’m sure by the time I’m finished, or when I retire – whenever that is – I may have to take those basic and breadth courses and pay for them, because I can’t get into classes. So right now I take upper division English classes, and I look and see what’s offered, and I see how it would impact my work life, and if it works out, then that’s kind of how I take the classes.
KB: How many credits have you finished?
JM: One hundred and four.
KB: Wow!
JM: I was just looking at my records yesterday. I transferred 45 credits for Boise Junior College, which is now Boise State University, and my advisor thought I really needed to take a lot of science, so I had had both of my science – lab science courses taken care of in that year, and in Anthro, and English, and Math – you know, the basic stuff. So I had that out of the way, and the rest I’ve just taken over the last about 10 years, 12 years. Classes here and there, with gaps in between.
KB: Ah, you’re patient.
JM: But you know, you have to be. So it’s taken me 40 years. I’m still further than I was if I wouldn’t have started, you know, to take the classes. And I – as I said, I really do enjoy it. I enjoy being with the younger students. I’m usually the oldest one in the class, including the professor. Occasionally the professor is older than I am, but not usually. I think it’s good for the younger students to have me in the class.
KB: Are you vocal in those classes?
JM: Oh yeah. I have to watch myself because I think, oh, am I monopolizing this? So I try to be mindful. But the most exciting classes for me are the ones where graduate students are present. Some of my English classes – especially the 400 levels – graduate students are in there. They’re taking a different number, and they have to do more work, but their comments, and the involvement of those students who have had more than I have had – and it’s just so stimulating.
KB: So who were the teachers who grabbed you?
JM: Paulus Pimomo . I love him. I’ve taken, I think, three classes from him. I’d take everything he taught if I could. Gerry Stacey – I enjoy him a great deal. Joe Powell – all of them just really solid. I had a Shakespeare class from Dr. McDonald [?]. What else? I took one business class because I thought I was going to do an individualized studies major. That was before I decided I wanted to be do an English degree. And then I decided, you know, I work with this all day long. I want this degree for me. And I looked at what was listed for English, and I wanted every single thing on the list. I would take every class if I could. I said, so why am I bothering with an individualized studies major? Be an English major!
KB: Do lots of staff take advantage of the free tuition waiver?
JM: Oh yeah, yeah. Some get Master’s degrees. I know several. Jill Orchid is one. She finished her Bachelor’s degree before she came to work with us, and then after she left us and went to – back over to – well she left us to be the support staff to Jim Pappas when he was the Vice President for Enrollment Management – I think that’s what it was called – and then she started to work on a Master’s degree, and has finished it. So I just really admire people who can persevere like that. Several people have completed the MSOD – Master of Science and Organizational Development. Agnes Canedo had done that, Rich Corona has done that, Kevin Kimball is currently in the program, Stacy Layman – it’s just wonderful to see that you work and live – I mean, look how much of our life is spent here at the University that we are able to take classes and feel a part of what goes on here in another level. I really like that.
KB: All right. Well, do you have any last things to share – things I forgot to ask?
JM: I rambled too much.
KB: No, I’ve learned a lot.
JM: Have you?
KB: Yeah.
JM: I really enjoy working at the University.
KB: What should Central be proudest of?
JM: I think it should be proudest of the way we treat students – of what we offer them, and how much we care about their success, from the class sizes to the interaction among peers – faculty, administrators – that we care that they have good experiences when they visit various offices to receive help – that we try not to let issues that are troublesome go on and on – we address those. Right now we’re looking at what to do with the South neighborhood – I’m on that committee – to see if we can get student services even more centralized than they are, so that it’s easier for students to interact with us and do the things that they must do to manage their life here.
KB: When will the high rise conference center be pulled down?
JM: I don’t know. I haven’t heard that date. I just know that we’re juggling around to find enough beds for students for residence hall space. I’ll no longer be able to house the Trustees in Munson when they come for Board meetings. I have to put them in a local hotel.
KB: So there’ll be no substitute for a Conference Center?
JM: No, I don’t know how we’ve planned that, other than just summer – using the dorm space we have when it’s not full of students who are regular here. So –
KB: And what do you think Central needs to pay attention to? What are the potential stumbling blocks in the near future?
JM: Hmmm. Well, I think one of the things that we need to do is match course offerings with the increased enrollment. It’s difficult to – you know, we have all these wonderful students coming to us. We have higher than usual freshman classes, and that’s a strain on departments to provide the Gen Ed requirements, and I see that, or course, inversely as I try to take those classes. But I also hear from students. I have one in my home. She’s a Sophomore, and she’s all the time telling me how difficult it is for students to get the classes that they need, and – there’s just more demand than there are sections for some things, and they have to wait several quarters, and it’s hard to find what they need. So that could be an issue as we grow, and we expect to grow, that we can balance that with what we offer maybe – maybe innovative ways of offering classes. Just – I think what we’re doing with areas of distinction – spheres of distinction, excuse me – and innovative projects to address all sorts of needs – we’ll come to some answers. That’s one of the things that I admire about Dr. McIntyre, is that you’re never in the status quo with her. You’re always looking forward, and there’s always a better way to accomplish your goals. You just keep setting your goals higher, and you keep achieving those, and – so I think that might be something we’ll have to explore, is how to meet the needs very efficiently, so that students don’t get discouraged, thinking, “Well, I’m never going to get these classes.”
KB: You came 34 years ago. How has Central changed over time? What’s the same? What’s not?
JM: Well you know, I really don’t have a recollection of militant students, as you were mentioning, because I did come in the early ‘70s. I don’t remember, although I know from talking to people later that there were sit-ins on the front lawn, because Ron Simms told us that, and Janine Pease Pretty-on-Top when she came to campus. They were part of that. But I just didn’t see it. I see students involved in more moderate ways in effecting change to their environment. I don’t see them being placard waving militants. I see them realizing they can be part of a process, and getting into that process and making changes. I’ve seen student government leaders. I’ve seen some good ones, and some that were not. And the good ones are impressive. And – well, maybe when they are in positions of leadership in our country, and our communities, and our state, we’ll be stronger for their commitment. I really see some strong students. We interviewed a batch of students for executive interns not too long ago. I would have hired any one of them. Amazing students. It’s hard to choose one when you have a crew like that. They interviewed with the Vice Presidents and the President to see who would best fit various divisions, and I’m sure we’re going to try to find a spot for all of them. You just don’t want to let them go. So I think students are the life blood of this University. You have to have strong faculty, but you’ve got to have the material to teach, and we’ve got some good ones coming. Good ones here. It’s [an] exciting time.
KB: Well thank you.
JM: You’re welcome.