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this interview is being conducted in the Dean's conference room in the College of Liberal Arts on the Towson University campus. This is part of a Siris of interviews comprising the Turf, a aural history project conceived and supported by the Towson University Retired Faculty Association with generous

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support from the dean of the College of Liberal Arts. This interview, as well as others in this Siris, are available in the Towson University archives. We're here to interview in that chapel who has had a very long and interesting career at Towson, now Towson University, and

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we're back in her original home at Towson State College. And we'll begin with just telling us how you started here, Alison and where you were born and, uh, how you all that kind of stuff chose chose Thio, Maryland and University of Maryland and Towson University. Okay,

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I was born in Washington, D. C. I grew up in Silver Spring. I went to the University of Maryland for all three of my degrees. I came to Towson in 1969. I was a B D, and I finished my dissertation my first year here. I was

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in the English department at that time, Towson had well under 10,000 students. I want to say it was somewhere between six and 8000, and within the first eight or 10 years, I was here. The student body doubled in size. So were you originally, uh, teaching in

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your academic area? I was originally teaching English four course load every semester, and I taught Mini Mestre and I taught summer school, and I taught overload. I taught une evening course every semester. So heavy know that? Well, the heavy old course loads that we used to

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carry back in the late sixties and early seventies. As you taught Shakespearean, I taught shakes. I taught freshman comp, Shakespeare and Renaissance drama. Those were the main things I taught. But actually, in my first seven years, I taught 15 different courses. Did you have any particular

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interest in one any phase of Shakespeare's writings? Well, I particularly concentrated on the tragedies, but I also taught the comedies and the histories, and they did do some, uh, research and publications and had some publications on Shakespeare. I had one article on Milton, Um, and then

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I got involved in administration. Yes. Tell us about the transition from being a Shakespearean scholar, Thio transitioning into the administration at that particular time was 1000 state college. A number of different, uh, academic divisions. Well, before I before I became dean of division one, I became

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special assistant to the president and affirmative action officer on Did the history of that? Really was that a number of us? Mostly in the English department, but not entirely, um, work agitators? Uh huh. Onda We created the women's studies program. We, um, created a commission on

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the status of women. We did a We did a study of, uh, salary disparities between male and female faculty. Um, so the ringleaders in all that were Elaine Hedges, Sarah Coulter, Joanne Pilar de Jane Sheets and myself. So I think we bothered President Fisher enough over

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a period of several years that finally he decided he needed an affirmative action officer take the heat off of him. And so he invited me to take that role. That was in 1974. Okay, So you are You were initially affirmative action officer. Now, when you you

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succeeded, uh, Ria fighters as the division one. Dean? Yes. And she that was in 77. 77 eso I was affirmative action officer for three years, And then, uh, Dean Shaw left, and Jo Cox became provost. And at almost the same time relief writers left on DSO,

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Joe invited me to be dean of Division One, which at that time was the humanities social sciences. And this budding business department called Bulat called Boo at something called Bula. Political Science had a kind of subdivision of a couple of economics professors, and Rio was an

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economist. And so she spearheaded first of all, separating economics off from political science into a separate department and then creating a business curriculum initially sort of within the economics department by sneaking in a few people with other specialties, forward to the exact Yeah, and you were

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one of them, but I didn't. I didn't realize that political science and economics were one department They had originally been one department. Okay, that was in 77. You said that 77 she left and I became dean of division one. She, in fact, left with Buzz. Uh,

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when he became the yeah, he became the provost or president at some other place. Oh, so the Southern Illinois and she went to Southern Illinois. That's right. That's right, but interesting. Not in an academic capacity. She was the I think the financial vice president at the

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time. But see, that's what a liberal arts education will get you. You can fit in just anywhere. Uh huh. But then you took over and you had inherited. So I took over, and I had inherited this business department. Um, which was Well, there were There were

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eight or nine departments in the in the division, and it was a It was a kind of motley bunch. They didn't. They didn't They weren't all compatible. They were sort of social sciences and humanities. But some of the humanities were in the college or the division

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of that was fine arts. It was all mixed up, so we just did the best we could. And actually I And in fact, I was the dean of business for a number of years, including going to meetings of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of business.

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And how many divisions were there at the time? Five. Okay. Yeah. Yes. So you found out about a C S o a. CSB and I were old pals. Yeah, Uh huh. Yeah. So tell us what it was like to work for a number of different presidents

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in that capacity as division. Actually, I was only I only worked for two presidents the whole time I was here. Jim Fisher and Hoke Smith. Um, unbelievably, I have been retired from Towson for 20 years. Oh, my goodness. Is that right? It is that long. Yeah.

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And of course, this being 2019, my whole history with the university is 50 years as yours is. So we kind of have long memories. Tell us about the, uh, the mid seventies and early eighties from your perspective, the mid seventies and early eighties. Well, the mid

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seventies, I was mostly busy as affirmative action officer, um, telling people what they couldn't couldn't say in interviews. Present company included. Present company included Andi in the late seventies and early eighties as dean of division one. I was living in a kind of strange situation, as

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all of us deans were then because the dean ships were evolving and the university wasn't quite sure what it wanted. Dean's to be Andi also didn't pay us well. Basically, we were paid at our academic rate plus a summer stipend as if we were teaching summer

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school. So Dean's were not paid on an administrative payscale. Did you have any requirement to teach at least one class? We were supposed to teach at least one class when we could, but that began to go by the boards as more and more duties were loaded

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onto us. And as the university was growing because the university grew enormously in the eighties than in 82 the university was reorganized into colleges and so took some from departments from here and some from there and put them together. And that was a college. And these

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were a college and business and economics got to be its own college. Um, which So I was the transitional dean for you guys. You're right because we had a a part time or not part time, but he was a He had an interim interim. Dean had

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an interim dean who had a lot of ambitions, but not a whole lot of administrative ability, moxie. And and then we found out that he way also acquired an associate dean at the same time. But that didn't last very long. I think Andy was dean for

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over a year, probably a couple of years, but, uh, Pat plant the Provo. That plant was the provost. At that time. I've only served under two presidents, but I've served under at least five provost because there was Buzz Shaw. There was Jo Cox. There was Pat

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Plant. There was Bob Keret, and there was John Hager. And I may have for gotten somebody, but I think that was a t least those five. Um Well, you were You were a great mentor for the college of business in those early years were called the

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school of Business Is I recall. And with the interim dean, we had a lot of organizational structure that had to be, uh, invented on. You were a great help to that because you had worked closely with us when we were a division in your division and

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we were grappling with a number of promotion and tenure issues as well as affirmative action and hiring new faculty. It was it was a in some respects, a nightmare. Well, it was in a number of a number of your faculty, with all due respect, had no

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history as faculty members they had been drawn from business and government jobs. And so they knew their stuff as faras the topics they were teaching. But they didn't know academic life. And they tended to put a foot wrong once in a while, probably more than 1

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ft more than a. But then it all changed, as was mentioned before the, uh, the emphasis change from teaching to emphasis began in the late eighties and on through the nineties. Much more emphasis on scholarship. And that was also the period when, um, the university was

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able finally to get some, um, financial flexibility, both in terms of administrative pay and in terms of grants for faculty release time grants or us reassigned time, whatever we're calling it nowadays. So there was a lot of shifting of emphasis into areas of scholarship in addition

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to your, uh, duties as, uh, Dina liberal arts. Weren't you also like associate provost at the time? No. I became, uh, I became acting provost in the fall of I guess it was 85 90 95 95. Yeah. Um, when Bob Correct took the position, took his

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first position in New England. Hey, had several, um I became acting provost while the search was going on. Um, And then John Hager was hired to be provost, and he asked me to stay as associate provost. So I was then associate provost for a couple of

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years, and then we're no longer the eso. I was no longer the dean. Dan Jones took over from May as dean of C L. A. And as associate provost, I had a number of a number of different projects that would sort of get Okay, this is

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your project. Now, do this. Make it work. Um, starting up the honors college was one of them. The one that was in some ways, the most fun, Oddly enough, was rewriting the campus master plan, the physical plant master plan. Um, I was the head of a

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committee that included Dick off Who was the vice president for business and finance. Or or the associate vice president for or whatever. And John suitor, who was something in business and finance. And, um, Jack Ni, who was the campus planner. That was his title. And we

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completely gutted the campus master plan. It started it over again because what had happened was that for a number of years that had been kind of outsourced to, ah, consultant who was lazy and not very good at what he was doing, and so he would keep

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coming back with this iterations of the same thing. And it was very clear that year that the board of trustees was, or broad of regions, whichever their title was. By then they were. They were wanting every one of the universities to present a really comprehensive master

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plan that really made sense. And so we had to go back to zero and research everything and create new maps and diagrams and timelines and everything. And that's pretty much what we're working with today. We're working with a with a new adoration of that master plan.

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Yes, Chris Phillips, who is now the campus planner, told me that you know the master plan you used now it is still the basically that one updated and moving forward. You mentioned something a few minutes ago about the, uh, some, uh, organization of the state system

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that there was. We were under the border way were under the board of trustees for state colleges, for state colleges and universities for a long time, and I can't tell you exactly the date when that changed. But the whole state system reorganized, and we went under

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the Board of Regents with everybody else except Morgan, which has its own board. That's right. Yes, I remember that. Yes, which did. At that time, I don't keep up with some of this, but yeah, so we were under the border regions, and that was I think

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one part of the impetus for redoing master plan was that this is a new board, and they they really want to know what's going on. They don't They don't just want pieces paper. When we came under the Board of Regions, along with the other colleges in

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the in the state and universities in the state, uh, I seem to recall that there was at least a mentioned that we would be changing our names, and there was some without ever serious destruction. At one time, they talked, at least vaguely, about doing what the

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Sunni system had done, you know, which was State University at Stony Brook State University of Bingham's and blah, blah, blah, blah, and calling all of a state university at such and such a place. Um, you know, we could be the State University of Towson. But what

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would they call you? NBC. Wright State University. It somewhere off the beltway. Uh, you know, there was e guess. It's sort of in Catonsville, but it didn't want to be associated with Catonsville because that was the community College road. So it's nice that we all able

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to keep our individual, uh, identities. Well, and in fact, the Sunni system has has moved away from that now, and they're calling it Binghamton University and Stony Brook University and so forth. They don't they don't use that generic title anymore. So I think that's a nice

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idea that came and went in the mid eighties when college of business was growing and going under accreditation. That caused some concern and additional problems from the university standpoint that you were involved with. Gosh, I don't even remember that Ray I had to do with money.

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Or it has to do with money, of course. And salaries And and And the imbalance. I honestly don't remember. That was I mean and nasty. No, no, no. You had. I believe you had to deal with it from the your position as academic dean in the

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College of Liberal Arts, explaining to people Why, yes, some of your people made more than they did. Well, that was the other thing. That about the the evolution of the college of business that, um, that original cohort of faculty who had not started out as academics

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didn't have doctorates. They they had appropriate master's degrees. Or maybe not. In some cases other than the economists, there were maybe one or two people in the whole conglomerate who who had a doctorate. And so at the point where accreditation became the goal, the first thing

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you had to do was load up on people with doctorates. And you can't load up on doctorates in an unknown setting, which we were at that point without paying some kind of premium for the people you're hiring. Especially when we had, uh, quite a bit of

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competition from other colleges in this locale. We're basically doing the same thing, but had had war of a reputation as, ah, business scholars or business school. Well, that was the period in which schools of business all over the country, we're growing. So we had competition all

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over the place. I mean, yes, we had local competition, especially with you Be, but and I guess Morgan to some extent. But, you know, we were in a competitive market nationally. How did that affect your, uh, your work with the College of Liberal Arts? From Dean's

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perspective, I think it was less the salaries than the redistribution of positions. Because again, that was that was a period when the state was still holding us back financially and not allowing us to create mawr faculty positions. And so the only way to put a position

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in the school of business was to take it from somewhere else. Andi, I mean, I can say at this at this removed that the history department particularly was mad at me most of the time because whenever somebody retired, they didn't get the position back. Onda they

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had. They had beefed up in the mid to late sixties and created all these history positions at a time when every student had to take four history courses as part of the general requirements on that, students no longer had to take that many history courses, and

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there wasn't the enrollment to justify the positions. But they had created all these specialized positions. So when somebody retired and I said, No, you can't have that back it's going elsewhere. They knew where it was going and they were not happy. But there were. There were

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also changes in the General University require, Yes, the General University requirements had been dramatically scaled back in the in the time that I was here. Um, when I came in 1969 every student had to take four English courses and four history courses and to math courses.

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And I've forgotten what all else but you know, basically your freshman and sophomore years you had to take all these required courses. You didn't get to do anything you wanted to dio until your junior year on board. Over the course of 10 to 12 years there,

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we removed so many of those requirements and we scaled them back and we said OK to English courses, one or two history courses. Uh, was that done a za necessity Because of the lack of growth in factory positions, it was partly it was partly this the

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tenor of the times it was happening at most universities. It was also because more and more. We had students transferring in from community colleges. So their first two years didn't happen here anyway. So they went and took community college courses under those rules. And we had

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to have articulation agreements with the community colleges about accepting their degrees. And if we accepted their degrees, we couldn't tell the students they had to go back. Take those courses over again. Yes. That was before the two plus two idea had been formulated. Right? Well, it

00:24:53.770 - 00:25:13.410

was that was part of the whole process. Yeah, that we would that we would We would to some extent, we, the senior institutions, to some extent would dictate to the community. College is the minimum that they had to put into a degree program. But then if

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they put the minimum in, we would accept. Yeah. So, yeah, things like accreditation and, uh, articulation agreements. And you don't think when you go into administration that you're going to get involved with all that, But you certainly do. And we had we had so many students

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with different trajectories and what they thought they were going to major in and what they ended up majoring in might be quite different. Um, so to some extent, the general university requirements is supposed to introduce people toe lots of different things that they might get interested

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in. On the other hand, you have to draw a line somewhere as to how many different things you can expect somebody to get involved with. And, uh, you know, my my feeling in and as I as I spent a lot of time on these things as

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Dean, was that really what we're trying to do is teach students languages, and I don't mean Spanish and French. I mean that biology has a different vocabulary and grammar, Andi set of concepts than accounting, accounting does. And accounting has a different vocabulary and grammar instead of

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concepts, then psychology does. And the idea of introducing students to a lot of different academic subjects is not so much that we expect them to master every subject as that. We expect them to become sort of cosmopolitan about their ability to use language and their ability

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to see that language in one place is not the same as language in another. And you can't talk biology the same way you talk. Um um, theater art, you know, Every every discipline has its own focus, in its own point of view, in its own way

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of talking about things. How did that affect your working with the other deans at the time? Like our Dean, Dean, Labor night, Dean Barone and then the other academic scenes from the other colleges? Well, actually, I don't know if you remember Ray, but I hired Dean

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Labor night. We did because I was acting provost at the time, I almost hired a Palestinian shepherd to be your dean. Uh, and he pulled out at the last minute. Who was that? I don't remember that, Saul. Something I can't remember, but yeah, I mean, he

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was He was obviously not no longer a shepherd, but he had been a shepherd in his youth. Uh um Then he was very interesting and very gung ho, but he decided, after all, not to take the job. So that was the point at which we looked

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around some more and discovered Alan labor night, who turned out to be a very good dean. Yes, he was. Yes. He is the one that got us to file full accreditation in accounting and business and Sam Barone our first actual permanent dean was the was the

00:28:52.370 - 00:29:11.620

one that, uh, put us on that particular course toward accreditation. And I remember, um, I remember Pat Plant saying when hey had when he was cited to come here. She says, I knew he was my man. When I first met him and spoke with him, he

00:29:11.620 - 00:29:26.550

was He's He's the first one who was a really a teen of school of business. Well, he had been a dean elsewhere. He knew what it was to be a dean. He he wasn't just making it up as he went along. Hey, another thing that happened

00:29:26.550 - 00:29:49.020

in the nineties that I just think I have to say, Well, it happened in the seventies. And then in the nineties, um, in the in the seventies, there was a terrible rift in the English Department, and the solution to the terrible rift was that the English

00:29:49.020 - 00:30:06.380

department was divided in two. That was you were in the you were not. We had to English at the time e I was I was in the department. I mean, the you know, the screaming and hollering was going on right around me. Uh, and it was,

00:30:06.390 - 00:30:32.290

it was not on academic issue. It was strictly personalities. It was strictly personalities. But the solution that that Buzz and Joe came up with was to divide the department. And so one was called the Department of of English and American Literature on the other was called

00:30:32.290 - 00:30:53.870

the Department of World Literature and Linguistics, and that was sort of descriptive of what they were. But there was some people were in one and actually taught the subjects of the other, Um, and and for purposes of the of the major, it was one department, but

00:30:54.240 - 00:31:13.050

they never had toe meet together. They never had to talk to each other. They were at opposite ends of the second floor of Linthicum, and and that went on for however many years on and in the late eighties, in the late eighties or early nineties. And

00:31:13.050 - 00:31:35.070

I can't remember the exact date. I sort of looked around me, and by that time, Hope was President Pat was gone, and Bob Correct was Dean on. I called Dan Jones and Don Craver, who were the chairs of the two divisions. I called them into the

00:31:35.070 - 00:31:52.590

office, and I said it may have escaped your notice that I am the only administrator left on this campus. Who knows why we have to English departments. So I want you guys to get together and make it happen to come back together. Because otherwise, if I

00:31:52.590 - 00:32:08.550

leave, somebody's gonna force you to come together, and it would be better if you would do it on your own. And so they did. Took about a year. Ah, Couple of people were still sort of been out of shape. But most of the people who were

00:32:08.550 - 00:32:27.660

really mad, mean, had long gone on, retired or left, so there were really was no reason for it anymore. It had just become a bad habit. So that was I regard that as one of my triumphs. Right? Well, it was it was difficult to explain why

00:32:27.660 - 00:32:48.690

you have two different departments. Exactly. Right. And, well, that was that was near the end of your Rayna's academic sort of. Well, you know, I can't I can't honestly remember, it was late eighties or early nineties, so it was well into my rain anyway. So when

00:32:48.690 - 00:33:10.690

you when you finished your academic career here at Towson, you turned around into a quite a different career. All I did and, uh, tell us about that. Well, um, as I said, I was Dean, and then I was acting provost. And then I was associate provost.

00:33:10.690 - 00:33:33.110

And for my for my last year of my 30 years here, I decided to just go back and teach. So I taught for a year and during my time as dean and probably even Mawr. During my time as acting provost and associate provost, it was clearer

00:33:33.110 - 00:34:03.870

and clearer to me that 80% at least of academic administration, is actually pastoral care either of the faculty or of the students or both. So I began exploring the possibility of going into a clerical career. And so I went through the processes that we Episcopalians have

00:34:03.870 - 00:34:22.850

to do in order to get allowed to study for the priesthood. And in 2000 and one, I went to the seminary and studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 2000 and three. And I have been an Episcopal priest ever since I was in one church

00:34:22.850 - 00:34:43.670

for 10 years and then, uh, retired, quote retired from there. I'm very good at flunking retirement. Uh, so I retired from there. And since then, I've been what we call an interim rector. Which means I go into a church where the priest has left and I

00:34:44.140 - 00:35:01.470

guide them through the process of doing a self study and a search for their next priest. And that takes somewhere between 12 and 18 months. And then I move on. So you failed retirement twice. I flunked retirement twice, and I intend to keep on flunking it.

00:35:02.240 - 00:35:21.790

The, uh I remember because I think my wife you came. You came to my ordination. Yes, you did. It was in the church in Guilford somewhere. What was that? You know, that was the Cathedral cathedral. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yes, I remember that. Yeah. And now you

00:35:21.790 - 00:35:45.480

have a third career? Well, a sort of as a passed officer of Towson University Retired Faculty Association. Well, I came in as the as the president president elect for a year on, but I was president s. So I was second actual president. And so it's been

00:35:45.480 - 00:36:14.540

very interesting and enjoyable to get back in touch with so many people because the Retired faculty Association is, ah very active organization. And the folks are very willing to do things for the university and Thio do things that air just fun to do. Like going to

00:36:14.540 - 00:36:40.220

a museum together. Uh, you know, I'm listening to a lecture together. Well, yeah, and we've We've done good things for the university. I think including what's going on right this very minute. Thes Orel histories are really an important contribution to the university. I think the first

00:36:40.220 - 00:37:00.790

person who was interviewed for the oral history project was Henry Chen. Am I right on when I first came to Towson and you'll remember this also, Ray, there was a faculty dining room in the basement of Newell Hall on Do you would go to the faculty

00:37:00.790 - 00:37:18.720

dining room and you could get your lunch. It was cafeteria style and you didn't even pay for it. Then they build you a toothy end of the month for however many lunches you had had that month. Eso I went over there the very first time, and

00:37:18.730 - 00:37:37.870

there was a woman behind the cafeteria counter named Mavis who presided on. I mean, she presided over that lunch room and mav IHS said to me, You're new, aren't you? And I said yes and She said, Get your lunch and go over there and sit next

00:37:37.870 - 00:38:00.590

to Henry Chen. He knows everybody. He'll introduce you on. He did. And he did. Yeah, I remember that. But it didn't last very long. It didn't because when they opened the union, which was the next year, they quote had a faculty dining room next to the

00:38:00.590 - 00:38:17.430

big cafeteria. But it was just a room where you could, where students were not allowed, that's all. But it wasn't the same. It didn't have the same ambience at all. You'd get your cafeteria tray, and then you'd walk into that room and, yeah, you could sit

00:38:17.430 - 00:38:39.740

with other faculty, but it didn't feel the same. Do you remember Edgar Berman? He was the He was the physician who was famous for attacking feminism and talking about women having raging hormones. That was his phrase. Raging hormones. Uh, and he was on the board of

00:38:39.740 - 00:39:10.940

trustees. Oh, and Jim Fisher really liked him. So when I was affirmative action officer, the first time Barbara Mikulski was running for Congress, she was going toe, have her kick off, uh, rally in our new university union. And Edgar Berman. I told President Fisher that he

00:39:10.940 - 00:39:37.150

wanted to go to that rally because, um, Gloria Steinem was going to speak. Oh, my goodness. And so President fishers to me, you will escort Edgar Berman to the rally and keep him out of trouble. Uh huh. So the first thing I did was called Sarah

00:39:37.150 - 00:39:58.070

Coulter and tell her what was up and that I would be bringing a good Berman to the rally. The second thing he did was alerted the university police. Well, no, because Edgar was never that disruptive. He was. He was just embarrassing. Not yeah, dangerous. So Edgar

00:39:58.070 - 00:40:18.160

and I go over there. Sarah Coulter introduces Gloria Steinem. Gloria Steinem starts talking and she says, And then there's this guy called Edgar Berman who says blah, blah, blah, and he jumps up. That's not what I said. That's not what I said. And I was so

00:40:18.160 - 00:40:36.650

glad I told Sarah he was coming because she I heard her say to Gloria Steinem, that really is Edgar Berman on. She handled it so beautifully, she said, Why Dr Berman, I'm so glad you're here. I've always wanted to meet you. Let's talk after this step

00:40:37.310 - 00:41:00.980

and it just ended peacefully, and that's all he wanted was notoriety. So he got it. But no, there's there's me going, um, I gonna have to drag him out of here. Well, that you mentioned that you were affirmative action, Officer. Can you elaborate mawr on what

00:41:00.980 - 00:41:22.940

those duties and responsibilities were at the time. Okay, well, maybe, uh, maybe I'll even back up a little and go into the background of that. Um, I talked a little about the fact that a number of us women got uppity and, uh, made. Some made Cem

00:41:23.410 - 00:41:39.650

inroads here and there. And one of the things that happened was that did you sit in the president's office? So we did a sit in? Yes. We did a sit in in president's office. Um, that that was on behalf of day care for the Children of

00:41:39.650 - 00:41:59.240

students. We And that was when that was when um, Jim Fisher's office was still in Stephen's Hall in the room with the fireplace before stevens was renovated. I think that toward the fireplace out when they renovated. Um, So we're sitting in his office in the room

00:41:59.240 - 00:42:19.700

with the fireplace, and what we did was I think it was about six or seven women went to see him to ask for student daycare and took four or five toddlers with us. And so there were Children crawling all over his nicely polished shoes while we

00:42:19.700 - 00:42:48.290

talked. So that was that was one of the things we did. But the thing I think that, uh, probably got me invited to be affirmative action officer, was that Jane Sheets and I did the salary comparison study. And we uh huh. The administration was very reluctant

00:42:48.290 - 00:43:07.650

to give us any information about anybody's salaries. You know, it was like, this is a great secret of some sort. But we finally we promised that we would aggregate. We wouldn't single out anybody and say, Professor so and so makes too much money. And so we

00:43:07.650 - 00:43:32.520

did a salary equity study, and it clearly showed that in the aggregate, women faculty were significantly underpaid compared to men, faculty with the same credentials. So, um, we did We did that study and I was the one that wrote the results of the statistical study. And

00:43:32.520 - 00:43:52.720

so I think that was sort of what made President Fisher decided to offer me the job. The specific title of the job was special assistant to the president and affirmative action officer. The special assistant to the president part meant that I had to do whatever the

00:43:52.720 - 00:44:21.190

president needed doing that day, which was like they take Edgar Berman to it to a rally or whatever The affirmative action part involved consulting with departments about the hiring process, the interviewing process about how to give how to make a salary determinations that were fair about

00:44:21.190 - 00:44:45.970

how thio look at the curriculum and see if the curriculum needed tweaking to be more fair on a on a race or gender basis. Um, so it was It was kind of an overall. It wasn't just an HR type function. It was it was HR and

00:44:45.970 - 00:45:12.500

academic at the same time. In some ways, what was the most significant things? I'll plural izing that you can remember in the years of change at Towson while you were here, 1000 but pop Wow, I think probably in terms of in terms of the ultimate effect,

00:45:13.590 - 00:45:32.870

I think probably the most significant thing was putting us under the Board of Regions because we've as a university, we've gotten so much better support from the state since then, when we were under the when we were under the old system, where there was a border

00:45:32.870 - 00:45:50.350

regions for the, um, institutions in the board of trustees for everybody else that everybody else got the shaft. And of all the people that got the shaft, we got the shaft the most Towson did because Towson could take it. There was always this attitude that somehow

00:45:50.350 - 00:46:07.890

Towson was going to make things happen, whether they had money for it or not. And we were part of a group of we were part of a college. Well, we were so much bigger than the other five. You know that that the idea of fairness was

00:46:07.890 - 00:46:23.250

giving everybody $2. Will know they're $2 went a lot further than our $2 went just because we were so much bigger and we were growing so fast. I mean, there was a move. I mean, Jim Fisher tried at one point to get us a separate board

00:46:23.250 - 00:46:44.500

and the States that absolutely not. But that sort of opened the door for what eventually happened in terms of putting us all under the Board of Regions. And then there's M Hack Maryland Higher Education Commission, which is, uh, includes all higher education, including ST Mary's, including

00:46:44.500 - 00:47:02.100

the community colleges. And it even has something to do with some of the private institutions because they receive some state money. But that's, you know, on a much higher level that doesn't doesn't really impact in the same way. So the change to the Board of Regions

00:47:02.110 - 00:47:19.540

change to the Board of Regents system, I think, was probably the most impactful thing that happened to Towson while I was an administrator here, you know, And it had all kinds of ramifications that we saw and that we're still seeing. I mean, the fact that the

00:47:19.540 - 00:47:38.760

fact that we've got this building, the fact that we've got the new Fisher College building going up all of that comes out of the fact that we're under the Board of Regions and not under the old board of trustees, which was not effective in getting resource,

00:47:38.760 - 00:48:03.230

is in the same way that the regions are. How do you think higher education has changed in those times and how it may have those changes have affected Towson? Well, I think that, um, two things I would point to that air, particularly, uh, important changes, I

00:48:03.230 - 00:48:28.620

think not necessarily for the good, uh, one is that one is the effect of technology, which is bad and good way have so much distance learning Now we have so much technologically assisted learning. We have computers in every classroom. We have students schlepping their laptops from

00:48:28.620 - 00:48:49.500

here to there and taking their notes and so forth, all of which is positive. But when they sit there twiddling their thumbs on their telephone instead of listening to what's going on in class, that's negative. And that's also technology. Um, the other thing, I think, is

00:48:49.510 - 00:49:16.470

that there has been such a push in society to justify going to college and, uh, as an economic investment rather than as an intellectual investment. Uh, part of that is because college has become more and more expensive. I mean, I think I think when I started

00:49:16.470 - 00:49:36.490

at the University of Maryland, I paid about $500 a semester. Uh, you know, all those days are long gone. Exactly. My I remember the last bill my father got when I went toe Mount ST Mary's was about that same amount, and nowadays, yeah, that won't even

00:49:36.490 - 00:49:57.090

cover your first month's rent in the dormitory. Exactly. What about the area of academic advising? I I remember that that was something that grew in the eighties and nineties Quite a bit, at least in the college of business. I I suspect it was happening. The rest

00:49:57.090 - 00:50:23.750

of the university also it waas and it was mainly in that it was coming out of being a student services function into being an academic function. Um, on the academic advising center in that funny building on stilts, uh, was created during that time sometime in the

00:50:23.750 - 00:50:47.270

eighties. But a lot of those academic advisors were recent students because again, it was the salary thing. You know? How much can you pay an academic advisor? Well, let's hire somebody who graduated last year, and they'll work for less The time we split into colleges in

00:50:48.060 - 00:51:13.370

82. Um, it was each. Each Dean was the dean and there were no associate deans. Um, gradually, we were allowed to have associate deans, but associate deans had to have ah, special project that was part of their job, not just being the dean's understudy, So the

00:51:13.380 - 00:51:38.550

academic advising center was the special project of the associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts. So Liz was in charge of that, and that made sense because most of what went on in academic advising at the center was general education requirements. So having the College

00:51:38.550 - 00:51:59.580

of Liberal Arts spearhead that made sense, I wouldn't have made sense if all academic advising was located in one college because you were doing advising for for your majors and health sciences were doing advising for their majors and so forth. But the general requirements, the advising,

00:51:59.580 - 00:52:19.500

most of it was done in the advising center. Even his enrollment grew. Towson took pride in, uh, maintaining small class sizes. How is this possible? The decision was made in the nineties, and I think it was Why is at the time and I can't speak for

00:52:19.500 - 00:52:38.170

the last 20 years because I wasn't here is part of the decision making. But the decision was made in the nineties that as we grew and there was pressure to raise class size, that it was better toe higher adjuncts and keep the class size small than

00:52:38.170 - 00:53:04.110

it was toe have 300 people in an introductory botany class, so It was a deliberate decision that the the class size and the economics of faculty pay had to be balanced off against each other. And the balance that was chosen at Towson was to keep the

00:53:04.110 - 00:53:27.770

class sizes down. And, in fact, Linthicum Hall had deliberately been built so that most classes could not have more than 35 students because there's simply wasn't room in the classroom. There were only two lecture halls there, and they only held maybe 120. So it was. It

00:53:27.770 - 00:53:51.160

was a deliberate decision not to allow the pressure of numbers to drive the class size up. I mean, I remember when I was an undergraduate University of Maryland and, you know, Chemistry 101. There were probably 300 people in that Electra hall. Well, the professor didn't mark

00:53:51.160 - 00:54:12.050

anybody's papers. He had three graduate assistants who did that. So again, it was a different culture. And Towson, in the nineties said, That's not the culture we want to be. We want to be a culture where people know their faculty. Well, this has been a very

00:54:12.050 - 00:54:35.300

enlightening and entertaining, uh, session with you, uh, may, asking the questions at this time. And I think I think I've just about finished everything. Unless unless you have ah, few extra words you'd like to say, I can't think of anything at the moment. I told my

00:54:35.300 - 00:54:47.560

good stories. Well, thank you for coming. And thank you for Thank you. Thank you for being and remembering all of that. Thank you for being my question. Er quite well.