CWU LIVING HISTORY PROJECT
Interview with Jimmie ApplegateLL: It is October 14, 1997. We are in the Teacup Room of Barge Hall and we're interviewing Jimmie Applegate who retired from Central in Central's education department.
The interviewer is Larry Lowther and running the machine is Hannah Power.
Now Jimmie, before we get into your career at Central, would you tell us a little about your own personal background, where you were born and raised and something about your family and your education and any career you had before Central?
JA: Sure. My name is Jimmie Ray Applegate. I was born May 2, 1934 in Queen City, Missouri. This was a very small town, not much consequence anymore. The last time we were back there it looked to me like it was about ready to go under and a few of the old time folks still there.
I married my wife, Sabina Renata Pruts. We have two children, Corrine Ann and Derrick Scott. We became grandparents last year and are expecting to become grandparents a second time next April. Sabina and I have enjoyed our lives in Ellensburg and the opportunity to raise our family here. The university was very good to us. I have an administrative credential from Central Washington University; my wife has a baccalaureate and a master's degree from the university. Our daughter has a baccalaureate and a master's degree from Central and our son has a baccalaureate from Central; then he went on to Seattle University for his graduate work and has done some other credential work through business at Seattle University.
My background, in terms of education, I graduated from Eastern Oregon State College in La Grande. I went there for two years first and then transferred to Oregon State University where I graduated with a BS in Agriculture. I worked for awhile, went back to school and went back to school to Eastern Oregon State College in La Grande and got a Bachelor of Science degree in education. A little bit later on I got a Master of Science degree in Education from Eastern Oregon State College. I have a doctorate in philosophy degree in Curriculum, Instruction and Research in Education from Washington University in St. Louis.
LL: How did you happen to come to Central?
JA: I was graduating with the doctorate from Washington University and we were presenting a paper at the American Educational Research Association meeting in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis/St. Paul. I met Bill Gaskell there, from the Department of Education at Central. Bill interviewed me and became my mentor as such until we came on board here. Of course, unfortunately shortly thereafter Bill passed away.
LL: What year was it that you came?
JA: 1970.
LL: What was your academic assignment?
JA: I was Assistant Professor in the Department of Education.
LL: Okay, and what rank did you hold when you retired?
JA: Professor.
LL: What year did you retire?
JA: I retired on April Fool's Day, 1997.
LL: [Laughing] Okay and what were your duties in the Education Department when you first came here?
JA: As a teaching professor, I also had several quasi administrative responsibilities; Director of Special Studies and Director of General Studies, responsible for curriculum, scheduling and those kinds of things. I was the Director of Central's Study in Migrant and Indian Education in Toppenish for awhile until that closed.
The basic experiences I had in the Department of Education at that time were as a teaching professor.
LL: What classes did you teach?
JA: I taught the General Methods course, Curriculum and Instruction, Social Studies/Social Science course as well for elementary and occasionally, once or twice, I taught a 421, which was the secondary social sciences.
LL: Let me jump backward a little. You had had teaching experience in schools?
JA: Yes, I taught for four or five years in grades 10 through 12 in Pendleton High School in Pendleton, Oregon.
LL: There you were.....
JA: Social Science and Early European History, Western Civilization and US History.
LL: Okay. You said you were assigned to supervise the migrant education?
JA: I was the director. Dr. Conrad Potter at that time was Chairman of the Department of Education and appointed me as the Director of the Center for the Study of Migrant and Indian Education. This was a grant program the university was running in Toppenish at that time.
LL: Can you tell me a little bit about the program? What was its purpose and what clientele did it serve?
JA: Yes. Its purpose was to provide curriculum materials for migrant and Indian children on the reservation and for migrant children who were working primarily in the lower valley. It was a very strong program; a very good program. At that time there were lots of dollars available for that kind of activity and Central was fortunate to have been the recipient of some of those dollars. That program, I think, did a lot of good things. It suffered, at that time, individual groups began to see the value of their identities so there was quarreling and controversy between the migrant group and the native American group at that time. That did not encourage the continuation of that program.
LL: Is that the reason it was terminated or was it lack of money?
JA: Both, but the final nail in the coffin was the failure for the grant to be reinstated.
LL: Do you remember how many years it ran?
JA: It must've been four or five. It was in the 1970's.
LL: Okay. You have served under several Chairs for the Education Department before you became a Dean, I believe. Do you have any impressions of this department? You came here when Con Potter was Chair. Is there anything you'd like to say about that?
JA: Actually, I really didn't serve under any other Chair other than Con Potter and [Fern Abel?] at the culmination of my career.
LL: Okay. Do you have any comments on Con?
JA: Con was an absolute idea person, very strong in terms of the kinds of ideas he had. Con and I became professional and personal colleagues and friends. I enjoyed working with him very much. He gave me many opportunities to demonstrate what I could do while he was Chair.
LL: Did you teach in any other department, other than the Education Department?
JA: No.
LL: Okay. Do you have any comments on the nature and quality of the student body when you first came to when you retired? Was it a different mix of students ethnically, racially, etc.?
JA: When I first came here there were a great number of students from Hawaii for example. I think that was due to several things. One was Dr. Al Gustafson who was very much involved in that program. The out of state tuition was not weighted and when those two circumstances changed, then I think our student body, for a considerable period of time, became very singular in nature; very homogeneous.
We did not have a tremendous diversity following that for quite some period of time until we began to again get people from Asia. We began to get refugees from the Vietnam conflict, and the Southeast Asian conflict. As a matter of fact, Central was one of the first groups to grant teaching certificates to those refugees from Southeast Asia. I think that we were very blessed for a considerable period of time because the Education Department always had guidelines or standards for admission to the program. Later on that became that individuals had to have a 3.0 or 2.8 or whatever. It varied as time went on. To get into the program, since it was an upper division program, that also repudiated to the quality of students. Students were enrolled in the general education program for two years and at the conclusion of two years those that didn't make it, a lot of freshman or sophomores couldn't and dropped out. Those who stayed then would enter the Teacher Preparation Program except for some of those who started in the Elementary program. However, those who started in the Teacher Preparation Program as juniors and since the entire program was an upper division program, I think we were very fortunate and didn't see those wide fluctuations in the quality of students that may have been more noticed in the general education program.
LL: So the quality of the student held up pretty well over the years, you'd say, in the Education Department?
JA: In my opinion, yes.
LL: Can you tell us something about the changes that were made in the teacher training program during that time that you were involved with it?
JA: Well, when I first came here the buzz words were Field Oriented Competency Based Teacher Preparation Program. If you look at the literature today you see it was that way in 1970, 1971 and it is that way today. We've come, as it were, full circle, in terms of the kinds of expectations that we have for teacher preparation programs I think, both at Central, in the State of Washington, and in the United States today. The program didn't change an awful lot to begin with. The program was a conservative program. It was a very strong program. I think one of its strengths was its conservatism, because we didn't jump on every bandwagon that came along. We were serving people from the day Central began as a Normal School.
On the other side of the mountains, on Vashon Island and working with the University of Washington. All of the kinds of things that came about and people were saying the great ideas, the Department of Education at Central Washington University had been those things during my tenure, the entire time and long before.
LL: You're probably familiar with the programs of sister institutions throughout the state. Is there anything you know of that's unique about the program here at Central?
JA: Central's program has, as one of its major strengths and has had that for some time, although my understanding is it is in the process of being changed and being looked at is the professional supervisor responsibility. We employ at Central, have employed at Central Washington University, professional supervisors who are full faculty members, rank, tenure, have all the prerogatives of a faculty member, who are housed in various locations, teaching centers around the state. That is not always the case at some of our sister institutions where graduate students or other professors come and go from the campus and visit those locations. I think that's been a decided strength.
Beyond that most of the programs, essentially, because they have to meet the same guidelines, are the same. I must add one thing. They are the same except recently in the last five or ten years. Some of the schools have gone toward Masters degree only, teacher preparation programs. Central has not done that.
LL: How about the September Experience program? Is that something that is unique to Central or do other schools do that?
JA: Other schools do it in similar ways and in ways which are different from the way we do it here. Most of them now require orientation experiences in the schools. You either get them under supervision as they are here or you are required to get them as part of your General Ed program or at some time or other prior to entering the Teacher Preparation Program. Here it is one of the very first courses taken in the Teacher Preparation Program.
LL: Okay. Now do you recall while you were a teaching professor, any important problems that the Education Department faced; either between students and faculty or other kinds of problems as between the department and administration or whatever?
JA: When I first came here teacher preparation, because of our Normal School background, the strength of the Department of Education on the campus, for all intents and purposes, the university was in a lot of growth pains. The Department of Education was the very strong department on the campus because most of the people, even the old timers here then, had come as teaching faculty in education; many of them. So, there were growing pains. There was controversy as to who was responsible for the teacher education program.
A lot of the people in education thought that was the role and responsibility of the Department of Education. Others thought there ought to be more of a sharing of that responsibility.
There were those kinds of controversial issues. There were concerns about the fact that many of the faculty of the Department of Education were traveling off campus to teach and were not receiving support from Central administration in terms of registration and all of the kinds of things that go on when you teach off campus. We were carrying our own books over, doing our own registration, bringing the checks back, and depositing the checks, doing all of those kinds of things. Not only were they teaching, but they were administrators and staff as well. This, I think, creates some dissatisfaction. Then, as soon as the university moved more into that and other departments began to pick on the additional kinds of responsibility to teach off campus, low and behold, all those amenities went with that. No longer did you have to register your own students, carry your own checks, deposit and buy your own books, sell your own books, etc. There were all of those kinds of things.
I chalk that up, Larry, to growing pains and the fact that the university was doing some things differently as a university. As a result of that they had to engage in a lot of activities that took some time to develop.
LL: Okay. You came at a time when the Vietnam War was still going on. Do you recall any disturbances or any tensions on campus as a consequence?
JA: That was pretty much over by the time I came, as I understand it at least. When I was here there was nothing. It had cooled down. I didn't experience any of that. I experienced some of that in graduate school, but nothing here.
LL: As you think over the years that you've been here, are there faculty members or administrators that, in your mind, are particularly outstanding?
JA: Well, I need to express appreciation to Jim Brooks who was president of the university. He gave me a chance and gave me opportunities to do some things. Con Potter gave me some administrative responsibilities. Jim Brooks gave me some administrative responsibilities. I was Special Assistant to the President for a couple of years and University Legislative Liaison for three years. Jim Brooks gave me those opportunities as well as he gave me the responsibility for the Alumni and Affirmative Action and various other kinds of things which reported to his office. So, Jim Brooks gave me those kinds of opportunities.
Ed Harrington, of course, was as good a mentor as any young faculty member could have, who was wanting to have some administrative experience. You could not find a man who was more honest and more caring than Ed in his very gruff way. If you could get by his roughness, Ed was a jewel of a man. He is a jewel of a man.
Then people like John Schrader, who was for years at Central Washington University. Whether you agreed with John or disagreed with him, John was always, I think his primary responsibility was to the curriculum at the university. He chaired the all important curriculum committee or undergraduate committee; I forgot which it was now, but anyway, the committee responsible for curriculum at the university.
People, in a general sense, like Ken Hammond, a person who, in my opinion at least, and whether you agree or disagree with Ken and what he says and does, in my opinion Ken has the best interests of Central Washington University at heart. You can't go wrong if you have that kind of an orientation in terms of what you're doing. I see Ken and a lot of other people, having that same kind of orientation in terms of loyalty, in terms of desire to have the best Central Washington University it is possible to have.
LL: You mentioned several administrative responsibilities and I want to now get to your role as an administrator. You mentioned being assistant to the president and other responsibilities culminating, I think, in your appointment as Dean of the School of Professional Studies. So, would you tell us what administrative roles you served in and what your duties were and any particular highlights that you recall?
JA: Shall we start most recent and go back?
LL: Let's go chronological and move forward.
JA: Well, the first one I mentioned earlier was a quasi administrative responsibility in the Department of Education. It was called Director of General Studies. It was part-time with some assigned time to do that and corresponding release time from teaching responsibilities. The responsibilities of that position were to write grants, initiate grants, to coordinate writing the grants within the department. That was in 1973-1975, about that period of time.
The next quasi-administrative one, again in the Department of Education and you must remember at that time it was a very large department with 70-some faculty members, so as large as any of the schools and colleges on the campus today. The Director of General Studies was responsible for the developing and the offering of the departmental curriculum, scheduling teaching assignments, the summer program and those kinds of things.
Also, went with faculty members and recommended to the Chair the hiring of faculty, that sort of thing.
I was elected as Chair of the Faculty Senate and out of that grew and developed the appointment as Special Assistant to the President, to Jim Brooks. So, in that office I was responsible for the office of admissions and records, alumni association, university information and affirmative action. One of the major responsibilities of that, of course, was fund raising. We first began our fundraising efforts then and they were fun because we were really struggling with all kinds.... quite a fun time.
Another major administrative responsibility was university liaison to the Washington State Legislature. I did that for about three years I think.
During that period of time we, I say “we”, because there were a lot of people involved in the initiation of the Central Investment Fund by working with people downtown and routinely working with folks like Joe Kelleher who was very influential in that effort. We began the very successful Business Week program with the Association of Washington Business and part of my responsibility was to assist with the development of curriculum in that program and to conduct the meetings. I was responsible for getting that program off the ground. So, that also was a very exciting one.
By the way, the first two years of that Central Investment Fund, we were responsible for obtaining 73,000 dollars locally. This was back in 1974-75, somewhere in that neighborhood and 73,000, that's about what, 35,000-37,000 dollars a year, faculty/staff at the university and folks downtown. So, those two years were an exciting time. I think I probably learned as much about university administration during those years as special assistant to the president as I did at any other time. I saw the responsibility of the university as a whole, rather than any parochial department or school and my eyes just opened up like you can't believe. I had been pretty much indoctrinated into the Department of Education as the end all and be all to the university and, lo and behold, it wasn't!! [Laughter]
LL: What was the reason that Business Week started?
JA: The Association of Washington Business was considering the business background both in the schools and publicly. They approached Jim Brooks and they worked together in the development of the concept of having a program where it would be four weeks of bringing in high schools juniors and seniors to campus, all paid for. They were to be exposed to business people and businesses as it were, blind, at that particular time. It was a very informative, very good program, I think.
All right. We were also doing whatever we could to recruit students. Jim also appointed me as the Admissions and Retention Chair of the Campus Community at that point in time. That was a way, like Boys State and Girls State, cheerleaders, all the other things. We were getting large numbers of students on the campus. To begin with Business Week was a total of four weeks on the campus at the university. Business Week was offered someplace east of here and west of here as well.
LL: Other than the device of bringing students on campus to get them to take a look at the campus, what did the university hope to accomplish?
JA: It did a lot of things. It generated relationships and contacts with very influential people across the state in the Association of Washington Business and you had the potential for bringing in additional funding, support for the university in the legislature, all kinds of intangibles that come along with engendering support from the group of influential people around the state.
LL: The Association of Washington Business sees this primarily as a way of reaching out to recruit students into business as a career.
JA: I don't think that is the primary motivation. I don't know that. I wasn't part of the primary discussion so wasn't privy to that so I don't know.
LL: All right. When you were talking to the legislature I assume you spent a lot of time in Olympia.
JA: Not as much time as they do now, because again we were really beginning to develop these kinds of things. Now Bill Lipsky had done that before; Bill didn't spend nearly as much time over there as they do now either. One of the exciting things that happened when I had the good fortune to do that was Central Washington State College becoming Central Washington University. That was exciting. I remember Phyllis Erickson I think was in charge of the Higher Education Committee at the time. Right downstairs in the SUB, as you go in the back door over there, there's that matt where you clean your feet. For years it had CWCE on it, Central Washington College of Education. When Phyllis would come on campus I'd make a point of taking her over there and saying, "Now look, we're Central Washington University. This is one way we're saving a lot of money. The College of Education label was from 25 years ago and we're still using it." [Laughter]
LL: What about any experiences that stand out to you as being worthy of being recorded?
JA: [Inaudible, brief response]
LL: Okay, now how did you come to be appointed as Dean?
JA: I served as, well Ed Harrington appointed me as Interim Dean in 1978. I served as Interim Dean from 1978 until 1980. Then, in 1980 I was appointed Dean of the School of Professional Studies which is now the College of Education and Professional Studies. Back then it was the School of Professional Studies. I served in that role until 1991.
LL: Now, as I recall, you were instrumental in establishing the increasing of the requirements, I think for entry into the program.....
JA: Well, there had been a lot of people involved in that whole process. I think it's very easy for someone to sit and say "Yes, I did that", but it never happens that way and can't happen that way. Any administrator worth his salt knows it doesn't happen that way. It happens with a lot of people involved and agreeing that that's what should happen. Yes, the admission requirements were increased. A program called Ed Start for minority students was approved and put into place, finalized. I think we saw that teacher education was not just the providence of the Department of Education, but was an all university responsibility, so a lot of things happened during that period of time.
LL: Would you say a lot of people were involved, and you were an advocate of these changes.
JA: Oh yes, I was. All of the people were.
LL: Now what do you say to people who say that the Head Start Program is one that waters down the requirements and is really an insult to the people who get in that way?
JA: Well, we dealt with that question probably 100 times during the time we were attempting to get Head Start passed. Head Start does indeed have some reduced requirements for admission to the program, but I think probably if you put those requirements in the perspective of the individual who is attempting to enter the program you see that that perspective is not a whole lot different than Head Start with the students who are entering in that program and the offerings to students entering the regular admissions program.
LL: Once into the program, were they held to the same expectations?
JA: Yes, that's correct.
LL: Okay. What was the rationale behind allowing them into the program at slightly reduced standards?
JA: Well, there was a very strong feeling, I think, not all people have the same opportunities to progress equally and in an effort to equalize some of those past shortcomings, this program was put in place.
LL: Was it something that was just for ethnic and racial minorities?
JA: No. Anyone who had particular difficulty, but not everybody could apply. You had to talk to the Associate Dean and work through the process.
LL: So a white, Anglo Saxon Protestant could apply too?
JA: Yes.
LL: And have a chance of getting in?
JA: Again, I think a lack of equality isn't unique to any one particular racial background. This was about lack of opportunity.
LL: So, in the main interviews a person would be introduced to the background and why the ......
JA: Well, that was the intent. I never conducted those, so I don't know.
LL: Who did?
JA: The Associate Dean was responsible for that portion.
LL: Who was your associate dean?
JA: At that time it was Dr. Ronald Frye.
LL: Okay. Um, can you tell us something about the accreditation controversy?
JA: Yeah. I have a particular bias about that coming from a very definite frame of reference and you need to put the kind of things that I say into that perspective I think, and understand from that way of ...... When we had our visitation at that point in time. This was by intake. Actually, we were one of the first universities to be reviewed under the new standards and guidelines. I was a member of the Board of Examiners; I had chaired board of examination teams. I was a member of the committee on accreditation for the National Council of the Association of Teacher Education and so I was rather involved with those requirements. I knew exactly what had to be done because I had done that at other colleges and universities for their accreditation teams. I chaired one of the preliminary ones before they ever became requirements.
So, I was very familiar with those things. I was convinced that we had some weaknesses, but we wouldn't suffer inordinately as a result of that visit, but we would learn a lot about what we could do to improve. We had a team leader who came here with a spouse. The spouse suffered a heart attack here and was in the hospital. That person had to go over to Yakima, back and forth. We didn't have one team member show and they brought another team member from a very prestigious private liberal arts school with a very small teacher preparation program. They found several shortcomings. They recommended that we be denied accreditation.
Then I worked with the graduate and undergraduate dean, other deans and the department chairs and we wrote a very strong response to the report. By the way, they sent the report to us since the chair was a public school teacher and had no access to type up the report. He sent the report to us and asked us to type it up and send it.
There were lots of problems. Things happened that should never have happened. About that same time the state office was attempting to get control of teacher preparation in the state. I don't think they helped us. Even though Central was the premiere teacher preparation program in the state of Washington we produced the largest number of teachers and administrators and had traditionally done that. Until they got control of Central they didn't have to be in control of teacher education in the state.
When we were denied accreditation by the National Council of Accreditation in Teacher Education.... and by the way, anyone who knows the guidelines, if you look at them carefully, you will see that several of the things they denied us on they had no business even entering into that realm when they denied us accreditation. So, anyway, we were denied accreditation and the state then followed that up with putting us all on probation.
We went through a major rigmarole around here in terms of getting our accreditation back. That's all I can tell you.
LL: Well, some of us who were in the trenches and fighting heard rumors that the problem was primarily one of paperwork. We were doing some things, essentially, that they wanted done, but we had no prepared the paperwork in the right way. Was there anything to that?
JA: I don't know about that. We had all kinds of exhibits, detailing everything we did. They were available to them. They were available to them like they were available to any team that comes on an accreditation visit. Now, if you say such things as "Did the professional supervisor have the student teacher sign that he/she had visited them 10 times during the course of the semester?" No. We didn't do that.
I don't agree. You don't do that professionally, but that was one of the big things the state was concerned about was the lack of documentation for what you were doing. Until Central..... if they could deny Central accreditation until such time as that paperwork came around, then the other colleges and universities would be scared of that and do the same kind of documentation which was what the bean counters, at that point in time in Olympia, wanted to see.
LL: Were they making significant changes just in terms of the language that was used in connection with teacher education?
JA: Things that we had done in the past were now a different thing entirely in terms of numbers.
LL: Do you recall the major criticisms that they made?
JA: Almost every standard, they said, was problematic. I don't recall. That's a period of time that I sort of put out of my mind.
LL: That does seem strange since, as I understand it, administrators across the state in schools really preferred Central management.
JA: I've tried to be nice, but there were a lot of reasons, I think, having nothing to do with the quality of program which led to the denial of accreditation and going on probation from the perspective of the state.
LL: You maintained the state department was attempting to be in control of teacher education policy across the state. To your knowledge was there collusion between them and the accreditation team?
JA: No, I wouldn't allege that. There was a member from the state on the team, but no.
LL: Did this loss of accreditation have anything to do with your decision to move the deanship?
JA: Yes, of course.
LL: Is there anything else you'd like to get on the record concerning that episode?
JA: No.
LL: As you look back over your career and your career in the teaching profession, what would you say were your greatest contributions to Central?
JA: Not just mine again, but a combination of a lot of people doing some things. I think I was always very supportive of the concept of the responsibility for teacher preparation programs being an all university function. I think that pretty much has happened. That is a good feeling.
I worked really hard to develop collegiality and the acceptance of all people, regardless of what they do, as being necessary to the success of any program and to the success of the university. So, I feel good about having had the opportunity to do that.
LL: Okay. I'm going to go over this number of points; you probably saw them on the paper we sent you. See if you have any comments or any reaction to any of these things.
The salary schedule?
JA: No, I don't.
LL: Faculty code?
JA: I think there were some serious questions about faculty code and responsibility for the faculty code, particularly I believe in the 80's. I believe the board unilaterally changed the provision of the faculty code which upset a lot of faculty members. I think the board has the right to do that. I think they did it in the wrong way. As a result, doing it in the wrong way contributed to that feeling of dissatisfaction. But, I can also understand the reason they did it. There appeared to be a stalemate at that time that nothing was happening. To get things off the dime, the board took action.
LL: Academic freedom?
JA: Uh, I haven't experienced any problem with that except one major incident where I was told that I couldn't testify before a committee because what I was going to testify was not politically correct.
LL: Do you want to say anything further on it?
JA: No.
LL: Okay. The Board of Trustees, you've already mentioned.
JA: I've had a good relationship with the Board of Trustees members. I think at one point the board of trustees became too intimately involved in the functioning and running of the university and they were pushing some things, some particular personal agendas that led to, I think, some concerns on the part of faculty in various departments at the university. That was unfortunate, but I think again that's probably endemic to a board. They are appointed to represent a particular area. They get pressure from their local constituents to do those kinds of things.
I told them, on a specific case, they were meddling too much in issues that didn't concern them.
LL: How did you see the relationship between the board and the president of the university?
JA: I was very impressed with the way Jim Brooks, for example, indoctrinated members of the board. I thought he did a very good job indoctrinating them. I don't say that again in the pejorative sense, I am using that as a descriptive term, indoctrinating them to their responsibilities on the board. Once they become acquainted with what was happening on the board, and I think there's a tendency in some cases for them to become, now I'm talking across the whole period of time during the time of President Brooks, to become too much involved in terms of a pushing personal agendas.
LL: The legislature.
JA: I don't think the legislature, for a long time, knew much about us. They recognized there was a Central Washington University and they knew it was over there someplace and spent a lot of money. They were threats about closure and all those kinds of rumors that you hear floating back and forth, but I don't think those were ever seriously considered by any responsible member of the legislature.
LL: How about the level of financial support of the university by the legislature?
JA: Well, I don't know. There were times which were really difficult, particularly the early 80's. We had some difficult times at that point in time with financial exigency and so forth so, yeah, but the state in turn was hurting at that point in time. So, when they were dependant on state largesse and they are financial difficulties, financial exigency from the state, I think that's a result.
LL: Okay. Faculty/administration collegiality.
JA: Well, that depends upon personalities. I don't care what policies or procedures you have, it depends on the way those policies and procedures are implemented and they are implemented by people. When you implement a policy/procedure in a certain way you have to rub somebody wrong. So, there are bound to be people who have their fur rubbed the wrong way and there are bound to be people who take some kind of a .... have some feelings about having the power to do certain things. You are dealing with people and that's the way it is.
LL: Okay. Faculty Senate.
JA: Well, the Faculty Senate, in a situation which is collegial, a Faculty Senate works and will work very well. I think in a situation where they are not collegial there in the Faculty Senate, it doesn't work well. There are other entities within the university that have more power potentially than Faculty Senate. Department Chairs for example, as a group, can have a tremendous amount of influence on the university if they work to use them.
LL: Town gown relationship.
JA: Town gown relationship has been up and down. Again, it depends upon people. I think the best times of the town gown relationship during my tenure here was when the Central Investment Funds first started. I think this was 1975-76 or whenever that period of time was. I can get closer on the math. Generally during that period I think it was very good.
I think again, as people make decisions and people say things, that relationship changes.
LL: Long range planning?
JA: Well, we've done a lot of long range planning. We did long range planning in the School of Professional Studies and the departments went through this before long range planning became a buzz word at the university. I think we did it the way it was supposed to be done or should be done. People didn't have to worry, or really worry, that their budgets were totally dependant upon what that long range plan said.
We had too many long range plans that never went anywhere. They ended up on the shelves and never went anyplace. One major criticism and concerns I heard for a long time was the tremendous waste of time and money/effort on this. It's good to talk about, it's good to talk to people about it and good to tell people you've got those kinds of things, but in many cases they were definitely not effective.
LL: Jimmie, do you have anything in particular you would like to talk about that you haven't covered?
JA: Yes, I guess I would like to say that, I mentioned it earlier; the university has been very good to me and to my family. Contrary to a lot of people, I left the university on April Fools Day with a very good feeling. The university, the retirement system is good to me. The university health package was good to me. I had to take advantage of that, unfortunately, and it was very good to me.
The people have been what make the university or any organization. I made a lot of nice associations at the university. People are the strength and people are certainly the strength at Central. I left with a very, very good feeling. It was a good ride.
LL: Thank you very much Jim for the interview.
[End of tape]