Interview with Doris Lidtke

This interview is being conducted in the Towson Room of the Towson University Archives. The archives are located on the 5th floor of the Cook Library on the Towson University campus.

This is part of a series of interviews comprising the TURFA Oral History Project, conceived and supported by the Towson University Retired Faculty Association. Our guest this morning is Doctor Doris Lidtke, Professor Emerita

in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at Towson University. Good morning, Doris. I'm pleased that you were able to join us this morning.

And I understand that you got here today using the ride hailing system called Lyft. Well, I had planned to do that, but they called and our car was finished yesterday afternoon.

So my husband brought me and we got very lost trying to find this place. It's changed a lot since you were a member of the active faculty.

It's funny because... The new construction is... It's mindbending. Yes. Well, it's very adventuresome for an 88-year-old professor emerita to be willing to go out and hail a cab even

though you didn't have to do it, as it turns out. Oh, we use Lyft quite often. Do you? Just, it's very convenient and I don't like to drive late at night.

So I've occasionally just been picked up by Lyft. It's run through Blakehurst. Oh, where you're living. Yes.

They call and make the appointment and... Oh, well, it's a little easier then. Then they come and pick us up. They've been very prompt.

Well, according to my records, you were born Doris Keefe in Botano County, North Dakota, Botano County. And that was in on December 6th, 1929, the start of the Great Depression.

Yes. Your family moved to Oregon in the fall of 1933. Was that move influenced by the Depression? It was influenced by the drought.

My dad raised horses and sheep, and he found it too difficult to get feed for the animals. And we had family in Oregon. My mother's sister was married to my dad's brother and they had

three boys and my mother's mother lived there. And it was a university town. And that was important to my mother that we have a town where we could go to school.

Well, do you have childhood memories that go back to that time? I have vague memories. I've recognized, I talked to my dad about a piece of

furniture that was in my grandfather, his father's home as you walked in, with a glass top, in the front hallway. And my dad said yes, that was there.

It had been my mother and dad's, but they had given it to my grandfather. What did your mother and father do for a living? My mother was mainly a homemaker. Which was common.

And my dad, as I said, was a farmer for many years there. And then when it came to Oregon, he looked around for a job, which wasn't easy in '33, but he did some sales for Fuller Brush and Raleigh's products and then went to work for for Chase

Gardens, which had greenhouses to grow things and also outdoor plants. But he worked there for most of his life. And then over the last few years he worked for the Eugene Water

and Electric Board. Well, I assume that you attended grade school in Eugene, and high school probably there as well. Yes. Were those public or private schools?

They were public schools. The only private school in Eugene was the Catholic school. That's changed now a little bit, but that's basically... Well, you were almost 12 years old exactly, almost to the day, when

Pearl Harbor was bombed. That ignited, of course, World War II. Do you remember that period of time? A little, yes. I remember we were very interested because my cousins, two of my

cousins had been in the service and one of them served during the Second World War. As a child, did you enjoy school? I mean, were you interested in mathematics at an early age?

Yes. My mother played a lot of games with us, particularly counting games. I remember playing all sorts of games like dominoes and so on,

checkers and so forth. And we played school. We had a little blackboard that we could write on and desks and so forth.

And I think that my mother just encouraged all sorts of intellectual pursuits for children. We listened to the news at 9:00 every night, Glenn Hardy, and during the war she had a big map and we'd

identify the places that activities were going on. Wow. Yeah. That's actually interesting.

So as a child, you were following war activities. Well, yes, but it was more a geography thing because we'd listen to the news and then put place that, you know, find the place and...

Well, after high school you enrolled at the University of Oregon where you received a BS in mathematics in 1952, is that correct? That's correct.

Did you find that women were equal to men as far as the numbers of individuals there or was it primarily male dominated? It was primarily male dominated in that this was

right after the war. And so there were lots and lots of veterans, mostly men. And I guess I was the... I only had one mathematics class with another woman in it.

Wow. That's the kind of thing I was sort of mentally thinking about. Yes, yes.

And, well, one of the stories I will tell you is that the spring quarter of my freshman year, I had this class and I was the only woman. And the professor, in giving his announcement, pointed

me out and said, you may take this course if you wish, but if you have any problems, you're not to come to my office because women ought not to major in mathematics. That's a fascinating story.

Wow. I mentioned this when I got an award from ACM and it got back to the president of the University of Oregon, and he said that man is not teaching anymore.

So what did you do after graduation when you got your bachelor's degree? Well, I had been secretary of the math department for the last year

I was in school, in college, and then I got a job with Associated Plywood working for the son of the president of the company. And we were trying to determine better ways to evaluate the amount of plywood you would get out of particular logs.

And so I did a lot of analysis that way and tried to get some measurements from the mill. And of course, that was a bit strange because the union wasn't so sure they wanted me to go out into the mill.

But we prevailed because Rudy was the son of the president. And so I worked there from the time I graduated in '52 until we went to Riddle, where I taught high school for two years. What did you teach in high school?

This is a strange story. I had a minor in home economics with my mathematics degree and I was hired because I was sort of, by having this minor that I could teach home economics and they really

wanted somebody. And so that was sort of fun. And then I taught mathematics too. Threw that in as a bonus for you.

Yes. Well, that's probably good. Yes, it was. It was a strange two years there, but we were saving money

to go to graduate school. When did you get married? 1951, We were still undergraduates. Wow, that's old school.

When you got married, you moved to Berkeley and Vernon was working in a PhD program. What was his discipline? History.

History. European history. European history. So that may explain some of your traveling in your latter years.

Yes. What did you do during the six or seven years that Vernon was at Berkeley? I worked for Shell Development company, the research arm of

Shell Oil, as a computer programmer. They were modeling parts of oil refineries and I was working particularly on bubble cap trays. I have no idea what a bubble cap tray is.

Well, in a refinery there's a very large cylindrical device and on many, many levels they have a device that you... Heat is applied at the bottom, and then they separate the crude oil from the gas.

And so you could change the height on the weir and the bubble cap and so on. And so you were trying to... Do all certain things. And how much you'd get and just be able to model that part.

And my two colleagues that, we shared an office, were also math majors and they had other parts of the device. And of course, now it's running the whole ship. But that was long ago.

Well, was that your first experience with computers? Oh, yes. When they called to tell me they wanted to interview me, they said, well, I don't know anything about

computers and I don't know anything about programming. And they said, you're a math major, you will learn. And you did so. So, when Vernon graduated, he took a position at Michigan

State University. When he graduated from Berkeley. And so we moved to Michigan State in 1962, I believe. OK. And he held that position until, what, '67?

Yes, through January, through December of '67. So what were you doing during that? Well, the first year we were there, he was not going to be happy until I went

to graduate school. They didn't have a computer program there and so I studied mathematics, which I found totally boring after working with computing and so I was within six credits of getting a master's degree there in

mathematics. The local junior college, Lansing Community College, was looking for someone to teach computing. They had a grant and wanted me to try and see what I could do

with it. So I set up the particular project and then we added all the courses for a two year program and I taught there. In order to learn more about computing,

I went to the IBM Education Center in Detroit and took courses. I would go down for a couple of days and sit in on courses they were offering.

That was another way of learning. It paid off for you. Yes. Well, you were just reaching out to everybody you

might learn from in order to bring it back to your situation. So were you just teaching classes or were you actually involved in all the things that a faculty member does? Like for example, here at Towson. A two-year college, at that time,

there wasn't much going on. Just went to the classrooms and taught. Yes, and tried to get computer time. What circumstances led you to Baltimore and when was that?

We came to Baltimore in 1968 in January. We had been in Germany the previous semester and they called and asked him if he would like to interview for a job here.

So, we couldn't come because he had this grant. So we went to Germany and then came in January to do a visiting semester. And while we were here, shortly after we came, they offered him

a permanent job and... Well, did you work while you were here at, or while he was at Johns Hopkins? Yes.

In January, I was hired by the director of computing. Finally a computing job. And by the time that we had to get a name for me, I was called an educational specialist, and I taught, I went to visit as

many full professors who would talk to me about their needs in computing. And most of them said they wanted me to teach their graduate students how to program.

So I had a number of programs with them. And that lasted until I found the job, I interviewed for a job at Towson because I didn't see that as an unending possibility.

And so I was interviewed at Towson and hired for the fall of 1968. So what actually caused you to decide to pursue a position in higher education?

I mean, you came to Towson. Did you decide you wanted to be a professor? Yes, because I had taught at Lansing Community College and I felt that it would fit more with my husband's

schedule so that when he took sabbaticals and went to Europe for a year, I could just go along. And so I did that and it just made our schedules easier. When you arrived at Towson State College in the fall of 1968, I

think, did you join the math faculty? Yes. How large was the math department in those days and what were your duties?

Well, I don't know. I don't know how large it was. I can't remember. Think of faculty members.

How many? More than ten? Yes, because they taught courses for elementary education.

Had a lot of students. Yes, but they had many people who have a master's degree and I think one or two PhDs at the most. What was your teaching load? Do you remember? 12 hours.

Did you teach offload? No. A lot of... For people who might be watching this, a lot of people at Towson taught offload, which was extra, like, in the evening, for the evening program.

Well, that's good that you could resist that. Well, we were both working full time and the duties of keeping house and entertaining and doing other things. It just wasn't practical.

So in essence, you came here with basically only a bachelor's degree. Although you had graduate training, you did not have a master's degree.

That's true. What was your rank when you came? Assistant professor. They offered me a credit instructor position and I said I really wanted to be an assistant professor to start because I

knew that I wouldn't get promoted easily. You received an MS from JHU, Johns Hopkins University, in 1974, and ultimately a PhD in Computer Education from the University of

Oregon in 1979. How difficult was it to be teaching full-time and working in graduate classes? Well, it just took time.

And so I took one every semester and some extra ones. I really did the number of hours required for education. And then I took computer classes and Applied Physics Lab. So I was pursuing advancement in the field.

That's a bit of a commute. I mean, going down to Applied Physics Lab. If it was where it is today. Yes, once a week. Yeah. What...

You did a residency course at Oregon. So you just went out there and lived what, for a year or for an academic year? I went out for a summer to see if it was going to work and

decided it would. And then went for a year of residence. Did Vernon go with you?

Yes, he took a leave from Hopkins. Good for him. He was department chair and still took a leave. What type of courses did you teach during your career in

computer science? Here at Towson? Well, I taught the basic programming courses. I taught programming languages, an upper division course, social and ethical issues.

We were one of the early programs that taught ethics in the field, software engineering. Did you have a favorite? Oh, I think I enjoyed the programming languages because I

I was learning something a lot. In talking with your math and computer science colleagues, I'm told that you have always taken it upon yourself to identify uniquely gifted students in your discipline and you've

tended to to mentor them. I know that you worked or became associated with the SMPY program at Johns Hopkins. Well, it was before it was SMPY.

I just prevailed upon Doctor Julian Stanley to see what he could do. And Julian Stanley was at Johns Hopkins. Yes.

He was full professor of psychology at the time. And he had had some interest in it before, but he didn't think... He said, well, and I said, well, just talk to Joe and his family.

And where did you meet Joe? He he sat in on one of the courses I was teaching for graduate students at Hopkins. You know, that would be six or so students for when I was teaching

them. And his junior high school teacher came to me and said, is there any possibility that I would let Joe sit there and learn?

And I said, oh, sure, it's not a problem. So they were doing programs and stuff and I asked his teacher when he brought in a problem, I said, how much of this did you do and how much did Joe do?

And he said, Joe explained it to me. Joe was how old? Twelve when I met him. What became of him? He was a professor at Carnegie Mellon. One of the things that you are are known for is your interest

in mentoring junior colleagues, especially women. Can you speak to the importance of mentorship in higher education, especially for women? Well, I think that there weren't a lot of women in higher, in

computing. And when these young women came and were teaching, many of them hadn't been, hadn't thought about teaching before. But it's a very good profession for women.

And many of them are very, very bright. And they just needed a little somebody to talk to. Well, from what I've heard, you were more than up to the task.

When you arrived at Towson in the fall of 1968, the combined undergraduate and graduate enrollment together were 8,000, or just about 8,000. By the time you officially retired in 2002, 34

years later, the combined enrollment was more than doubled to 17,000. From your perspective, what was it like at Towson during the early years, and then how did things change over the

progression of your career? Well, in our department, for example, we began to be able to hire people with PhDs and Harry Zhou was our first PhD in computer science and he was one of the brightest people I've

ever worked with. He had been raised in China during the, when they were sending all the professors out to the hinterlands and so forth.

So he didn't go to school. His parents taught him a little, you know, what they could. And then he came to the US and got a PhD. And it was just a joy to work with Harry. With Harry here,

they brought in Chao Lu the next year. Still here? Yeah, Chao is still here. And that was just a turning point. There are now 40 people, I think, in the department.

It has grown significantly. Of course, math forms the basis of all of the sciences. And plus you have teaching for education and, well, for all students, liberal arts.

The 1960s and 1970s were one of the most tumultuous periods in American history, certainly in our lifetimes. What was it like being here at Towson? Of course, you were also sort of peripherally at Hopkins

as well because your husband was there. I mean, this was a time of anti- war protests, of a sexual revolution, the women's movement. Can you comment on what it was like?

Oh, it was... One of the incidents I remember is my first year here. I got a call from someone in the PE department and they asked me, is it true that you wear pantsuits?

And I said yes. And they said, oh, then we can. But I didn't think it was revolutionary, but apparently it was.

There was little understanding in the math department, I think, about advanced degrees and so forth, because... And certainly computing. The new department chair, when I arrived in the fall of '68, said to me, well, welcome.

But if this computing doesn't go anywhere, you can always teach math. Well, was it a he or a she? He. Well, I suppose if he lived long enough or he's still

alive, he recognizes the folly of that statement. When you arrived at Towson in 1968, computers were primarily limited to huge mainframes and cumbersome punch cards. The Olivetti desktops were just being developed.

Over the next decade, the Apple 2, the TRS-80, the Commodore PET became sort of the first generation of home computers and life as we know it changed. The computer revolution clearly impacted departments like

mathematics across the country, so much so that in 1982 the Department of Mathematics spawned the de facto sister department, and you were actually the de facto chair of that department.

Tell us a little bit about that split. Well, the reason that it happened, we had asked to split before, but the reason that it happened is we were hiring and we had a candidate that we liked very much and the

math people voted down all the computer science people. And so I think I went to Bob Caret was I think Dean at that time and told him what was going on and he said, you are splitting.

And that was in 1982. And so then for fall semester, I was sort of de facto, it wasn't official. It wasn't official till '83.

And I was at, I was going to NSF for a year as a program director. And so that was how it happened. And we were forced to take a number of the people who were

teaching elementary math and thought it would be fun to do something different. And so that was a little difficult. At or about the same time, you mentioned this earlier,

present day chancellor of the University System of Maryland, Robert Caret, was the Dean of Towson's Science College. Realizing the cost of converting from typewriters to computers, he outfitted a lab in Smith Hall to manufacture desktop computers

in-house. He called them TU Turbos. Do you remember the TU Turbos? No.

Well, that's because you mathematicians were probably prima donnas and and had better equipment. Certainly I assumed that some computer science people would have been involved in that, but perhaps not.

So they were buying a mainframe and so I was the one faculty person asked to sit in on this and they were all the computer people and one of the administrative people. And they talked a lot and then I

started to say something. No, I was was sitting there and the person in charge said and what would a pretty little thing like you know about anything like this?

And I knew more than any of them put together. When did you have your first desktop computer? 1982. It was an Apple. Apple 2.

My husband bought it for me for Christmas. The courses, undergraduate and graduate, that you taught were largely in computer science, I guess. I mean, I don't even, we haven't even talked about

what you might have taught when you were in math. What kind of a mathematician were you? Obviously a good one. But no, I mean, what, what kind of courses did you teach?

Oh, whatever they had available, some elementary courses, but I think that only happened a few years. When you arrived at TSC, Towson State College, it was a growing

liberal arts college with an emphasis on teaching. Academic scholarship, whether it was basic or applied, was an afterthought. Despite this, you developed a reputation as a scholar.

How were you able to accomplish that? It just takes time and work and interest in it. And it was such a dynamic field. It was just exciting to work in. I guess there were changes

almost every day when computer science really started going. Yes. Today, the Department of Computer and Information

Sciences at Towson has a growing graduate program offering an MS degree in computer science and a Doctor of Science degree in information technology. What was your involvement in the development of these programs?

Oh, well, the doctoral program was after I retired, I did talk to some people a little bit, but I didn't have any real input. And the master's program, I think that I felt that some of the younger people with PhDs should be teaching those

programs. And so I didn't really teach those programs. And they were also mostly night programs, which is one of the things that I tried not to teach.

I did one or two, but it just really wasn't convenient with my lifestyle. Doris, you not only taught for more than four decades, but you were also very active in a number of professional

societies, serving leadership roles in several of them, the Association of Computer Machinery, SCM, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, IEEE, Accreditation Board of Engineers and Engineering and Technology,

ABET, Computer Science Accreditation Board, CSAB, and others. In addition, you spent two stints on leave of absence to the National Science Foundation.

Tell us a little bit about some of those activities. Well, there wasn't a lot that you could learn just being here at Towson, I felt. And so in, I think it was 1970, I went to the first conference

for the special interest group on computer science education. I believe it was in Dallas, and there were 180 people in attendance from all over the US and three women. One of the women had brought several of her students

with her, but we met her and talked to her. But basically the other woman attendee and I spent our time together because it was, you know, you were such a minority. But that was the beginning of saying, well, this is where I

will learn what other people are doing and what we can adopt at Towson. So that got me involved in computer science education, which is a special interest group under ACM.

And then later I worked in the, I can't remember the all the initials for courses in ethics. And I eventually became chair of that special sig. You were program director at NSF.

What were you doing in those days as a program director? Funding programs in computing. And so that was a big push by the federal government to try to expand computing into colleges and universities.

Yes. Well, all the STEM projects, but I worked only in computer science and solicited programs that were looking for for money by giving talks at a lot of the conferences and talking to

people so that they knew what we were looking at, bringing in reviewers to review the applications and then making recommendations for funding. Having been on the other side of it, you know, going to those

kinds of things. That's a big job. Well, it was interesting. Looking back over your career, what do you consider the most

significant accomplishment or contribution that you've made to your discipline? Well, I think just working on the program here at Towson and seeing that it was accredited under Computer Science

Accreditation Board, and then as Computer Science Accreditation Board moved in to ABET, I was the program director, adjunct director for Computer Science within ABET. And I think those all contributed a great deal to the

profession. And when I talk to your colleagues, they say that your great contributions were in accreditation and curriculum development.

And I suppose looking at your publications and things like that, that would be borne out. What changes did you see in Towson University over the span of your career and what do you think you're going to see if you

live 10 to 20 more years? Well, I think, you know, being able to hire PhDs across the university, but particularly in our department, many of them are now doing research.

And this is important to development of the program. I think the department is not as appreciated as it should be within the college. We do more things that are different from the other

sciences in a way, and I think that a college with 40 faculty now and a program that's recognized as accredited, actually, I think they got the first accreditation in security of any university in the United States.

These are important accomplishments and I feel that they're sort of second or adopted child. If you were entering the field of higher education today, what changes would you make to your career? Any?

Oh, I probably would have gone to graduate school a little sooner, but I was very, very lucky to be in the right place at the right time and everything just seemed to work out and I just feel it was the best I could do.

Since your retirement 2002, you've received many honors, and they include the JHU Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Alumni Award in 2011, a Lifetime Achievement Award from your own department here at Towson, the Department of Computer and

Information Sciences in 2014, and also the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. And there are many others. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that in 2007, the

Department of Computer and Information Sciences recognized your lifelong commitment to students by naming an important departmental scholarship in your honor. It's called the Doris K. Lidtke Excellence and Service Award,

given annually to a TU senior who uses his or her computing skills to volunteer on campus. I'm sure you must be very proud of that. Yes, that was the result of... The funding of that came from the

National Educational Computer Conference that was held here in '95. And there was money left over from that. And in deciding what to do with the NACC board it was decided that

we could use it for a scholarship here. And that was funded and I was very flattered, and it was named that way when it was funded, but after I retired they changed the name.

Yes, that's that's lovely. Well, we're getting close to the end of this interview. So I want to ask, is there anything you'd like to add? Did I have something I might have left out?

Yeah. Well, my husband tells the story that we were sitting at the dinner table sometime in the early 70s, and we were chatting about things.

And I said, well, the computer is going to be as big as the Industrial Revolution. And he said... But now he says, she was right. What are you doing in retirement?

Well, we travel. We've been traveling a lot and that's always a pleasure and I have more time that way with family. We don't have any locally, but we are able to travel and spend

time with them. I'm also active at Blakehurst. I've been, I was chair of the dining committee for a couple of years.

I work with the hospitality group that welcomes new people, tries to acclimate them to Blakehurst and some of the secrets that you have that just aren't written down about things you can do.

I've served on the executive committee of the residence. I play croquet. Well, Doris, in closing, I want to thank you for coming in to talk with us today.

On behalf of your friends and colleagues at TURFA, I want to wish you and Vernon both good health and continued productivity. Thank you.