CWU LIVING HISTORY PROJECT
Eldon Jacobsen
(Transcription of Tape 1, Side 1)
HH: If you want to – coulda – do it. I want some medication.
MS: Just stand up and drop your pants, and that’ll be the sign.
HH: Oh, just recorded that. We’ll have it on tape, too.
EJ: Thanks a lot!
MS: We’ll sell copies.
HH: We’ve already started.
MS: Is it going?
HH: Yes!
MS: Our interview today is Dr. Eldon Jacobsen of the Psychology department, primarily, here at Central. Now retired. And Jake, will you please start our interview by simply filling us in a little bit of biographical information about you.
EJ: All right. I was born in Heber City, Utah, and I don’t really remember much about that, but I was told that from there, with my father having been in the education profession, moved to Beryl, Utah, back to Colville, Utah when my recall starts coming in. He was Superintendent of Schools in Summit County, Utah. I remember next that we were among the early travelers across Nevada going through the areas with no roads were built on occasion, and – in an old, before 1926 Chevy, and trying to get over the same pass that so many people didn’t make it through in the winter – Donner’s – as he went on to further his education at the University of California.
So summers were spent in Berkeley, California, and then back to Colville. Finally a year-long in Berkeley – the third grade. I recall that because being this – a historical kind of event. John Dewey had a great deal of influence in the Berkeley City Schools, so I was changing classes at the third grade level – I happen to have earned my – I think one of my very few letters in baseball. McKinley School was sewed onto my sweater. We left from there when he was offered a teaching position at Utah State, and I went then to Logo, Utah. I was a victim of the Dewey system where you had half grade promotions. So having left Utah, I was in the third, but they put me in the high third. I returned to Utah I was in the low fourth. They put me, then, into the fifth because there was no transitional point. I stayed there for some number of years – junior high, high school – leaving the Logan High School as a junior to go to – Milo Smith, my interviewer knows well – Eugene, Oregon where I finished high school in University High School.
It was not until that year my father actually finished his doctorate. He returned, as he had been previously, Dean of Education at Utah State. It was much cheaper for me to return to Utah State, since residence was there, and Oregon would have charged me out of state tuition. So my Bachelor’s degree was obtained as a double major – one in Speech and Drama, and a second in Psychology. I stayed there to continue, and I finished my Bachelor’s by December of the year I would formally graduate later that next June, and put a couple of courses onto the Master’s in Psychology.
Then, if you remember, today’s date is December 7. December 7th 1941 raised an opportunity for me to take a position the title suggests – I think a lot more of responsibility – Director of Training Personnel for National Defense Training. I was head of training and testing and psychology, and therefore was to select people who had been on the Roosevelt programs of WPA, PWA, etc. etc. – the letters of the alphabet. But we trained people for Boeing, Lockheed, the shipyard industries, etc. That gave me the data for my Master’s thesis, so I was able to complete the Master’s while on that particular job.
I had, meanwhile, since I didn’t join the ROTC program, stayed for a while. I enlisted in the Marine Corps, which waited for six months before they called me, and therefore I was able to continue work. The Marine Corps recruitment sergeant had suggested that I was going to be a counselor – vocational counselor for Marines – a new program that they supposedly had adopted. Once to training, they found that 23 of us recruited on that basis. We were told we were going to become infantry platoon leaders. We had different preferences, and so we spoke to the commandant and he said, “We are an honorable corps, and if at the conclusion of your training you choose to not stay with us you may be designated to whatever other service you desire.” Twenty-two out of the twenty-three of us took it. They had clever techniques of getting our uniforms all ready, and this and that – but 22 out of the 23 left. I was inducted into the Army, where I was offered an opportunity to train for classification and subsequently worked in the Office of Personnel Consultant where we did numerous, largely discharging soldiers who had been placed from place, to place, to place with ineptness and probably would have done more harm than good in overseas roles. So most of my Army career was in the Office of Personnel Consultant working with persons who had maladapted in the service, and either trying to fit them in, or send them back home. It was interesting, because of the play on homosexuality in the service today. We had many, many, many come to us claiming their homosexuality, and our position at the time was, “Well you have just as much right to get shot as the next person. Stay in.” It was very, very few that were ever disqualified because of homosexuality.
Following military service I might mention that I was discharged from the Army under a clause for National Health Safety and Welfare which meant I was to get a position at the University of Iowa in their counseling center to counsel with returning veterans and hopefully place them vocationally or educationally. That was a half-time position with money coming from the Veteran’s Administration while I pursued the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. I stayed there for roughly half of my PhD. My major professor moved to the University of Washington, and he was followed by 17 of us who thought highly of him. That person was Professor Emeritus Charles Struther at the University of Washington. I was in the final stages of my program when called to the then Dean of Graduate Studies, Dean Edwin Guthrie. I mention him because he’s an outstanding Psychologist. He’d been asked by President O’Connell and his staff who they’d recommend for a position here at Central, and Dean Guthrie said, “Would you’d like to apply for that position?” And I said, “Well, yes, I would, because I’ve long thought that I would like to jointly teach in a University and do Clinical work also.” And I remembered – which will show a change in the situation here at the time I had the privilege of being interviewed by Dr. McConnell. The Dean of Instruction – it slips me, but it will come back – Ham, you probably know?
HH: Ernie Muzzall?
EJ: Ernie Muzzall, thank you, and Charles Shay, the then head of Education, Psychology ad Philosophy. It was a beautiful day in March, and I wasn’t too impressed with all the leaves off the trees because of Seattle being nice and green at that time of the year, but it was a buyer’s market that year, not a seller’s market. I only had one other position offered – the other at Yale University. I chose Central. You may wonder why, but the salary was greater. My $3800 was higher than the Yale position, and Yale was so many miles away, and I had not quite finished my dissertation. So I decided Central is the place for me. Things have changed a lot in the way you get interviewed now. You don’t get interviewed by the President, the Vice President for Academic Affairs, etc. So that’s a great change that I’ve seen.
MS: What year was that, Jake, that you were offered that great sum?
EJ: That great sum came in the year of 1950.
MS: Fifty.
EJ: I might put an aside that I don’t think I’d been in some other interviews. Housing at that time, as it has many since, been a great difficulty in finding. We were offered a spot in the Campus Courts, and the Campus Courts, I think, played a very strong role in the college at that time – where I met Ham Howard, who was also housed there; Professor McDonald, at the time; Dorothy Dean, Arthur Ladd, Russell Ross, some that have long gone – Stan Moronski, Joel Burgeron in Home Economics, and Ham, you may remember Arthur – Arthur Land. I mention that because there is quite a bit of history in that one living situation which now, of course, is housing largely for students. Well upgraded.
MS: What was your beginning rank, Jake, at that huge sum?
EJ: My huge sum gave me an assistant professorship, I think, just about at the base.
MS: And what rank did you hold when you left your academic assignment?
EJ: I was Professor of Psychology.
MS: In how many years?
EJ: When I left I was – it’s difficult to say. Thirty-five years was formal retirement, but I taught an additional five years – not on phase, because I didn’t have control of the situation that way. I left saying “If you need additional instructional help I’ll probably be available,” and I found that I taught about one-third of the time for five years.
MS: What was the year that you came over and worked with – for and with the President?
EJ: That would have been Nineteen sixty-eight or nine. I don’t remember exactly because it was close to mid-year in October or November. You see, after I returned from Sabbatical – I think that was ’68 – so probably ’69.
MS: Were you an Executive Assistant then?
EJ: No, I was Dean of Faculty. Dean of Faculty have been held by Charles McCann – another name you would like mentioned here because Charlie took the position as President of the new Evergreen State College, and I filled in for Charlie, asking that I fill in for a year, and it turned out to be two years. In that time they were making a lot of changes, so my title was changed from Dean of Faculty to Vice President, to Vice President for Academic Affairs.
MS: What type of duties did you perform in those two years, Jake, so that we can get some idea of what that position was at that time.
EJ: Highly diversified. I tried to work closely with the Curriculum Committee, who attempted at that time to modify the General Education program. Actually, it would have been particularly defined on the duties, but I spent a great deal of time talking to students and faculty with their concerns. As such, I chose to get out to the students, and out to the faculty, as well as coming in to the office. You were part of the Administrative Council, of course, at that time, and I had two excellent Deans of John Greene with the Educational area, and Bernie Martin as Arts and Science Dean. Jack Witherspoon, at the time, was Dean of Students. So this was part of the Academic Council, and most of the major concerns of the University would come to that body. It could be a decision making and policy setting body, but we tried to work with the Faculty Senate with regard to curriculum and personnel. So the duties were highly diversified. During six months of that period of time Dr. Brooks – Jim – was on a Fullbright Scholarship, so I had the pleasure of serving in both roles. I simply walked from an office on the 300 area down to the President’s office – whom I’d like to mention – Lily Paul was Secretary, and made things much easier for me trying to handle two jobs, and Joanne Mitchell as Secretary to the Vice President – again, a very great help.
MS: Nice of you to remember that way. Um, did you – while in the years that you worked here at Central, [inaudible] and teaching in Psychology and two capacities in the Administration – did you teach in any other departments?
EJ: Well, as we are departmentalized now, Education and Psychology – the Teacher Education program – yes, I taught in that, having taught Child Development, Educational Psychology, and a course that at one time was required here – Principals of Guidance – which was eliminated from the curriculum when the ROTC came in, because it was – extra hours were needed for that program.
MS: Did you serve in any other administrative capacities, Jake?
EJ: Well, acting. I was acting Dean of Graduate Studies, acting Division Chairman for one short period of time, so it was a good thing that I had part of my undergraduate career in acting.
MS: Yes. I’m glad you made that poor point because I was about to. Now this next question is going to ask you to try to recall problems that the institution had to live through in those years when you were active with the faulty, and active as an administrator. Problems that were confronted that had to be solved and surmounted during that period.
EJ: Well since I’ve had the pleasure of hearing some of the other interviews that have been done, situations like the time when our University was placed on sanctions by AAUP – I was privy to some behind the scenes activities, having been President of the Faculty Council – now Senate – at that time. There were – as much as I dislike politics, being in that role I was almost forced into it. There was a cluster who, because of Dr. McConnell’s firing of a faculty member for not attending commencement – there was a lot of resentment from that. Several faculty kind of took it on their hands to see what they could do to change administrations. I don’t think I will mention the names of those people, but I was invited to the home of one of them, and there were about six others present, all holding very significant positions in the faculty at the time. I was given the opportunity to hear their objections to the way the administration was functioning.
They felt that there was not enough democratic participation in the governance, and they wondered if we could get the support of the Senate to change administration. That put me in a very precarious position, because their meeting was clandestine, and mine would have to be open to the public, and I would have wanted it that way if I had chosen to raise it. I did not. I let things go as they were, and they took different steps. Some of them were highly political statewide, and there was an opportunity to expand the size of the Board of Trustees. There was an opportunity to place two members that were friends of faculty. It was through this action – by expansion the Board went from five members – or three members to five members – to make things more difficult for then-President McConnell. Fortunately he was offered a much better position with the US Department of Education, and the thing sort of resolved itself. But I would like to bring out that it was during that period of time when the Board expanded to five members that I happened to be Chair of the Faculty Council, and thus became, as near as I know, the first faculty member allowed to attend a Board of Trustees meeting – which now we find is by law open. But then it was not by law. It was by a wish of the Board, and the two new members saw to it that faculty participation, student participation began to improve.
MS: Do you know, Jake, if Dr. McConnell was ever aware that there was an organized effort to try to get him removed?
EJ: I don’t really know. I always felt as if I were friendly with him, but I chose not to ever mention it.
MS: He never mentioned it publicly?
EJ: He never mentioned it in any situation that I was ever aware of
MS: I was recalling some short time later – short few years later – when he spoke before an assembly of students and faculty as a consequence of his having been hanged in effigy from a telephone pole up 8th Street here, and the veterans on campus at that time were complaining about the condition of that Dell. There was no fence between the housing and the irrigation canal, there was no way to keep those buildings warm in the winter time, and evidently Dr. McConnell had been trying to rectify their situation and had been making some promises, and the promises never ever bore any fruit. And so as a consequence the students rebelled. Well then he took it up publicly, and there was just no secret about it.
EJ: I was aware of some of that activity, but I didn’t know the details at all.
MS: Now to change the subject just a little, can you think of humorous events or occurrences? Situations during any period of your service at Central.
EJ: Yes, uh – I find it humorous – a couple of them. One involves a former student – Weston Whidbey, who had been, unfortunately, one of those persons who had gone off the end of a dock in an automobile and his spine was severed, and he became paraplegic, and I had him after that as a student here in a wheelchair. I remember he was an excellent student, but of his humor – even though he was getting around in a wheelchair with not wheelchair accessible buildings, at that time – he was driving from Moses Lake to Ellensburg – snowy winter before the I-90 was constructed. There used to be a Saddle Mountain – top of the pass going to the Columbia River. He chose to pause at the top of that pass on a slick, cold night, where a car came from the West going East, and it started to spin, and it spun out and turned over, and you know how voices carry on a cold, crystal night – he heard, when he opened the door to see what he might do despite being wheelchair-bound – heard a woman call out to her husband, “Jim, are you all right?”
“Yes, I think so, but I’ve bumped my head. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I think so, but I think I hurt my leg.”
“Well, I hope someone comes along.”
There was a pause. Weston saw no one coming from any direction so he got in his wheelchair, started down the mountain, and then he heard further conversation.
“Are you still all right, Jim?”
“Yes, but I think some help is coming. A man in a wheelchair is coming down the road.”
“Jim, you must have hurt your head awfully badly!” [Laughter]
And Weston continued to tell what he got down there to them and gave them words of assurance while he signaled a car and got help for them. But it was only illustrative of somebody handicapped could – they try to do everything. He became an outstanding teacher in the Bellevue district.
One of our faculty instances that I found very humorous – a former department chairman of Psychology, Gerald Gage, had an office not too far away from myself and Maurie Petit. Gerry had some trouble with his telephone.
(Transcription of Tape 1, Side 2)
Apparently Gerry was trying to work on his telephone. So here was his posterior sticking out, and Maurie, being kind of a jokester, proceed to give him a big boot. Subsequently you heard a pang on the desk of the head, a movement outward, and a telephone repairman showed his face. [Laughter] Said, “My, it’s dangerous to work around here.” We don’t know where Gerry was.
MS: You know, Jake, I think of it – it will be important for you to go ahead and name as many of the Psychology faculty members that you worked with as possible. Let’s get their names on the tape.
EJ: Yes, I’d like to do that. Try to get some organization. I did make a note of them, so I may refer to it.
MS: That’s quite all right.
EJ: One I remember because probably one of the first additions to the faculty is Bruce “Robbie” Robinson, now deceased. Robbie was probably enjoyed by our faculty as much as most faculty members here. He had a warm sense of humor. He was admired and adored by his students. He was a deep, philosophical thinking – he probably read more than anybody in the English department. Well, that’s exaggerated, but as much. He was terribly thoughtful. I – one of the instances that I remember more than anything else was that he contemplated the pessimistic as well as the optimistic, and one time we were standing in the parking lot, as we often did for a half hour after our five o’clock, or so, and Robbie said, “Jake, what makes you want to keep living?” And that was the first I’d actually even thought about that, and so I said, “Well I think curiosity. Things could get better. Of course, they could get worse.” He said, “You know, that’s worth thinking about. Curiosity. Just enough to keep you going.” Unfortunately, it didn’t. He had a heart attack.
Probably the second person whom you will probably interview, or have, in Psychology, was Ted Namen. He’s new. Good. I enjoyed working with Ted. Ted drew a hard situation with students, but most of them enjoyed him a great deal once they’d learned what they’d learned. I enjoyed particularly the number of years that we co-directed institutes in Psychology. I’ve probably had more PhDs back for training here – would number in the many hundreds – than any program. We did this so that they could retain their credits for advanced training towards their license for practicing Psychology. It had some outstanding leaders. Since you will be interviewing him and I’ve got so many other things to talk about, we’ll let him bring those people up.
I might mention a tiny situation that existed. Apparently there were only two listed as relative ranks in Psychology the year I came: myself, and one other person, Richard James – one of the persons in faculty court. I mention it because the cut-back came the very year after that – that the WWII veterans had diminished, and we had to have a staff cut-back. So there were two of us, and subsequently then, I was the only one listed with rank in Psychology the next year. [Inaudible] out because there were many people teaching Psychology and teaching it very well in the Teacher Education program, because that’s about all the Psychology we had. Ann Miller – her rank was in Special Education but she was teaching almost exclusively in Psychology. Mary Simpson teaching in Child Development, Mabel Anderson teaching in Child Development, Donald Thompson teaching Educational Psychology – and so there was a great number of people teaching Psychology courses, and you asked the question did I teach other areas – yes, in the Teacher Ed program as well as trying, ultimately, to get a Liberal Arts major in Psychology. And so I found myself teaching three to four different courses each quarter in order to get enough Liberal Arts credits for a major. And getting a major wasn’t easy. I was trying to get an Experimental Psychology course in, and I was advised that it would probably be better and more to the council if I were to call it Experimental Psychology and Education. Well I had no real objection to that. Education can be experimental also, and is, and so we set it up that way. But you had to use devices in order to get certain courses in, at that particular time.
Many other faculty stand out that did not remain with us. Now deceased – Dean Stenson, who was given to our department from Dean of Men when Dr. Brooks came in and wanted a change of personnel. Roger Stuart came to us from a research position in the State Department in Washington here. An excellent teacher. Sense of humor that was so subtle that some of the students didn’t get it, but the ones that did really enjoyed Roger. Some who are living but [have] long since left us – just in passing, to show that we did have diversity, Jin Ang. That’s interesting because we had a Tom Collins the same year that we had Jin Ang. Jack Crawford – good experimentalist also trained in clinical who is now also teaching as an adjunct faculty on [inaudible] in Friday Harbor for both us and Skagit Valley, and sending us a number of students. [Long pause.] In many places in between, like San Jose State, and so on. Persis Sturges, who became department chair at Chico State University, Marion Haras – again they slip, but these are among the ones that I recall. Some of these people were here during the time that we were – the University was approved to offer Master of Science degrees. The Board of Trustees gave us the incentive that the first approved Master of Science degree would receive $1000 in books for the library. That motivated us. We proceeded, and some of the people I just mentioned were on the current faculty – proceeded to develop a Master’s in – Master’s of Science. We felt we were on the verge of it before it was announced. We invited personnel from WSU and UW – to Jim Elder from WSU – I mention his name because he’s an outstanding Psychologist from in the State – and Ben McKeever from the University of Washington. They gave us high approval, submitted it to the Board of Trustees following faculty consideration, and we had the first Masters of Science degree.
There are other people, and I hope they’re not offended by not being mentioned, but they don’t –
MS: Well Jake, since you were the first, you obviously have been on hand as everyone subsequent has been hired – up, at least, ‘til now – what concern was there, and what pressures were there in the early days concerning the hiring of qualified women on the faculty?
EJ: I’m rather glad you mentioned that, because again, through the Faculty Senate I think I had some role that might be regarded as humorous, yet, I hope, significant. A situation came up whereby a man and wife had applied for a position at the University. There was considerable opposition to that in the Senate. The idea of nepotism was still very heavily in there. It was only through the use of terms that people didn’t like attached to them, I think, we put it over. I called it discriminatory. That was debated. But the point was that I felt that if you don’t hire the wife – the husband is going to come first, and it discriminates in that way against the woman. And so I [inaudible] made the speech that there seemed to be some discrimination, also, against non-white males – not only women, but different races, and seniors. I can’t say that it was that particular pitch that made it, but it was at that meeting that it was decided that it would be appropriate for a man and wife to be hired. They had the stipulation at the time that one or the other could not be Chair of the unit, and serve together. But since – the other point I was making is that there are so many famous teams in various disciplines where there have been man and wife cooperating. I was able to cite several in Psychology, and some of the other faculty mentioned that their disciplines also – so yes, there was, but fortunately the field of Education had many women in it, and consequently the Department of Education – or the Division of Education Psychology and Philosophy, to my recall – and a better authority is taping this – Ham Howard – but I think we were outnumbered in that division by women, over men for some time.
MS: How about those that held rank in the Psychology Department?
EJ: It – it was practically nil at the beginning, with the exception of those that came over from Education. Mary Simpson came over. Mabel Anderson came over. Loretta Miller –
MS: Were they given Psychology rank?
EJ: We gave them rank in Psychology as well. Psychology and Education. And it was interesting. We were given a choice where we want to be called, at that time. Some kept both designations. But we tried to hire women openly with men – Marion Harlis, Persis Sturgis – and once the Counseling Center was begun – currently the ratio is getting close to 50/50 in Psychology. I might call out that the annual convention of American Psychological Association – now here’s what I was troubled for in forgetting names, but a prominent leader in Women’s movement was invited to be the speaker roughly ten years ago, and this year, and claimed that Psychology was the discipline that she felt was doing more for equality than any other discipline she knew. She said it – Psychology is like a butterfly in terms of power, but you’re a damned powerful butterfly.
MS: I need to ask you about those earliest years when you worked under Dr. McConnell. Were you aware of a story that I got when I came on campus and – that he was opposed to hiring other than Caucasians?
EJ: I wasn’t privy to that, no. I was not aware of that.
MS: Were you aware when Charlie Blake was hired one summer while Dr. McConnell was off campus. He returned to meet Mr. Blake – Dr. Blake. He had no objection to him, but he was – rather Dr. McConnell, I was told, was rather upset when he discovered that Charlie Blake had a Philippino wife.
EJ: Again, I’m hidden from a lot of the activities at Central. I was not aware of that.
MS: As an old-timer, were you at all aware of the accusation that Dr. McConnell really preferred to hire tall, male Caucasians?
EJ: I heard that rumor, but I’d like to interject the fact that I was fired by Dr. McConnell. And my then-Chair, Charles Saale, was very upset about it, and proceeded operations to help get me reinstalled. I was fired because I had not completed my dissertation, and I was approaching tenure. So – and I had taken a summer teaching position at Eastern Washington. Now that just didn’t seem to fit for him, and it makes sense to me that it wouldn’t, if you didn’t get the rest of the story. Well I was well under way with the dissertation, but it was one that cost money because it – it required me to drive to Yakima hundreds and hundreds of times, and even though gas was far less expensive then, the trips were costing a lot of money. I needed money as well as anything for that dissertation. And so when he got all the facts he dealt with me very reasonably. I said, “I don’t care about tenure. I never have. But if I can’t prove my worth on a year-to-year basis, I’d just as soon not be here. But I would like to be re-hired without tenure.” And he was perfectly willing to do that.
I can’t help but mention the – contrast current size and action with then activities. It was approximately a year to two after that that Dr. McConnell had attended a conference on the contributions of Psychology to Education, and the presenter at that particular meeting – one of the presenters – said, “Well, the outstanding contribution to Education from Psychology this year is a dissertation by Dr. Eldon Jacobsen.” Having heard that, he came back and said, “Well you have to present your findings to the faculty.” Now you can imagine how thrilling presenting a dissertation to your colleagues in other fields would be, but I presented, and I guess you could call that – oh, a little reward in the end that I was fired and re-hired, then they found the dissertation was, I suspect, worth waiting for.
MS: Some place in there I suspect some kind of incest. Now Jake, will you please turn your memory on and see if you can recall and identify for us, and perhaps elaborate some of the outstanding administrators of this school while you were here.
EJ: Uh, well again I’m reluctant, but I will in terms of my perception of them. I think despite the reluctance of some people to the hiring of Jim Brooks at the beginning – notably because the selection committee criteria was that will not be a current faculty member or a graduate. And I think they resented, before they come to meet him and work with him, the fact that he did not meet the criteria that they set up. But the Board obviously had a problem, since we’d had refusals from some other persons, and in my opinion, having worked as faculty and as co-administrator, I think Jim got the respect of the vast majority of the faculty regarding [an] outstanding leader – as many students have said, too.
MS: Do you recall, Jake, your reaction to the first speech that Dr. Brooks gave to us as a faculty, when he said “I do not want to be President of a Teacher’s College. I would like to be the President of a Liberal Arts school that has a strong School of Education within it.”
EJ: It does dawn on me, yes. And he brought that about.
MS: He did, didn’t he? How about other administrators that were significant?
EJ: Well I knew best the work of Bernie Barton and John Greene, and I thought we functioned very well. Somehow that team – due a lot to those two individuals – be able to get by without Jim for six months, which was another humorous story. Jim had a good sense of humor. Although many things take years to occur around here, it so happened that while Jim was gone the co-ed dorms became finalized, and allowing persons over 21, by State law, to have liquor in their dormitories. Those two things occurred, and so Jim, with his tongue in cheek, of course, says, “Jake, I go away for six months and here you have co-ed dorms, liquor in the dorms, what’s going on here?” So he wasn’t without a sense of humor about it. These administrators I think are actually – I have felt that really we’ve had a fairly excellent set of administrators out here. Ham Howard was great in our division, and Maury Petit was great in our division. They took that an awfully long ways in terms of teacher education.
MS: About what year, Jake, was Psychology presented with that lovely new building up on 14th?
EJ: About 1970, roughly.
MS: Now I need to ask you – I personally had friends within the Psych Department, some who were very excited about the possibility of working with animals, and some who were very, very opposed to the working with animals, and those who were opposed told me that we are spending millions of dollars up there on 14th to build a building the top floor of which is going to be occupied by monkeys instead of human beings. Now as a Psychologist, is this a common split?
EJ: No, I have to say maybe it was a bad statement, because the top floor turned out to be faculty.
MS: Ah!
EJ: And so how close to animals – I don’t know. At the time it was built we had no idea there would be chimps. There were some rats. Most of the rats – almost all rats are gone. Now we’re dealing with fish. The best fit in terms of animal v. human is not the particular split that usually exists. They might use that as a token, but there are really about three different ones, because the subdivisions of Psychology are so great. The first one we have here, I think, was between whether we should be predominantly Educational Psychology or all of the other Psychologies, and there were many of us that felt we had an opportunity to stay very close to Educational Psychology, and we’d have rather had the building placed closer so the continuity that had once existed would continue to exist. Some continuity – a few continuities, I think, still exist, but not the extent that it had. Many felt that – while in keeping with Jim Brooks’s remarks – how we won’t build a strong Liberal Arts with Teacher Education as a component in that University if you don’t have a strong Liberal Arts Psychology department. Some thought that it would handicap that Liberal Arts development if you didn’t get independent. The split, then, was one Education versus Psychology in general, and now you have a greater split between academic, experimental Psychology and clinical. Illustrative of that, I think, is our State Psychological Association, which at one time was predominately academic. Slowly the number of individual private practitioners have quadrupled the number of academic Psychologists, and by quadrupling, obviously, they’ve taken over the activities of the Psychological Association. So there is a real split there. Fortunately, it only exists to a minor extent in our existing Department of Psychology.
MS: Okay Jake, let’s break it here. We’re going to have to put in another tape, and now you can get your drink of water.
EJ: There’ll be two tapes. [End of tape]