First interview with Jurgen Herbst

Jurgen Herbst #52 Transcript

LS: This is an interview with Jurgen Herbst, who is in the History of Education Department. Tell me, to begin with, where you were born and about your career.

JH: I was born in Germany. Grew up there until I reached freshman year in the university.

LS: When were you born?

JH: 1928. So it wasn't until I was twenty that I came to this country.

LS: Were you in Germany all that time?

JH: Yes.

LS: So through the war.

JH: Yeah. Right. Yes, I saw it from the inside.

LS: I won't ask you about it. [laughs]

JH: It's all history by now.

LS: Yes. Well, I won't ask you about it because it would--

JH: Get off on another subject.

LS: Hmm?

JH: It would get off another subject, wouldn't it?

LS: Yes. But what part? What town?

JH: Braunschweig, the north. Northern Germany. And I was born there and grew up in a small town called Wolfenbuette, which nobody ever heard of before, except some librarians, because it does have a rather famous library.

LS: Was your family involved in the war?

JH: Yes. My father was drafted, right from the start, and then was killed in action later on. So it was just my mother and I. I was an only child. So just the two of us living through all these years.

LS: And what had he done?

JH: Well, he was an archivist and librarian in that library. And did a lot of research. Kind of a research type of librarian doing work in history. History of 00:02:00churches. And one of his specialties was the history of book binding literature. He was sort of the expert on that - published a big bibliography and the literature on book binding.

LS: How old was he when he went into the army?

JH: '39, he would have been forty-four.

LS: So he didn't teach.

JH: No. No, no. This was just the library. It's not like a public library.

LS: I was going to ask you who supported it.

JH: He was really more the curator type.

LS: Was it a state library?

JH: It was not a state library. It was the old library of the Duke of Brunswick, and his collection. And in those days, eighteenth century, they always proudly stated, was a bigger collection than the libraries in Paris. And it is still quite a center for, for instance, old Biblical manuscript and folios and scholars in religious history do come from all over the world to work there.

LS: So the collection stayed intact during the war.

JH: Yes. Yes. Yes. It was not destroyed.

LS: Did they try and protect it? Was it buried..?

JH: Oh, yes. Part of it was taken out and put away in salt mines and what have you. Some of that was damaged in the mines. Water damage and so on. But nothing crucially was lost.

LS: And you were old enough to be aware of his work.

JH: Oh, yes. Sure. Sure. No, I spent a good deal of time in the library. A favorite hiding place of mine. [laughs] I played in the stacks, as it were.

LS: Even when you were very small. To begin with.

JH: Well, yes. And later, then, you see, during the war, our own books had been taken out, part of them, and they were stored in the library. So I did a lot of work there, classifying books. Part of our own collection, and part in the library.

LS: But you were only twelve and thirteen and fourteen.

JH: Well, this was also, this happened then after the war and when things were brought back. So actually, he was no longer there then. But I spent a good deal of time in that building.

LS: And your mother? What did she do after he died?

JH: She was a housewife. I mean, she had no profession, as such. At times during the war, as matters then, when she was forced to work, but that didn't last very long.

LS: So she got a pension.

JH: Yes. Right. Mm hmm.

LS: And you came over here in 1948.

JH: Mm hmm. No. No. She, in fact, was very ill at that time, and did not live much longer. And was then, had gone to relatives in Switzerland after the war. 00:05:00So she, too, had left Germany. But that was independent from me. I had been invited by the American Friends Service Committee, the Quakers, to come to this country to an international student seminar.

LS: You lived in a Quaker town. Or no?

JH: I was not at that time, but I had become acquainted with them in Germany after the war, since one of my teachers had been very close to the Quakers before the war. And was in touch with them. And when they came after the war as a relief team, I was introduced to them, and then worked with them for a good many years. '46, '47, '48.

LS: This was in your small town?

JH: Yeah. Or in Braunschweig, then, which is close by.

LS: Is it W-o-l-l-e-n--

JH: Yeah. Right behind you on the wall you can see it. There's the map of the town Wolfenbuette.

LS: I see. W-o-l-f

JH: e-n-b

LS: u-t-t-e

JH: Yeah.

LS: Well, b-u-e-t-t-e. I see. Yes. So, there were Quakers there? I hadn't--

JH: They were mainly English Quakers, and also one American Quaker with that particular team in Brunswick. And it was through them that eventually that invitation came, in '48.

LS: And why? Because--

JH: They had been asking, the Friends Service Committee had been asked in 1948 by the State Department to explore the feasibility of breaking the isolation with Germany and establishing contact with students and international student work. And so in 1948, they took ten, invited ten German students to come to the United States to participate in the international student seminars. And that was the beginning of what then became later the large exchange program.

LS: So you had been a student somewhere.

JH: Yes. At Gottingham University. I'd just begun that year, in '48. Or from '47 to '48.

LS: And did you apply?

JH: Oh, no.

LS: Or someone was just impressed with you.

JH: No, I didn't apply. That came as a great surprise. (laughs) In fact, I still remember that. It was a very long distance call from some other town in Germany, in English, and I couldn't understand it very well. My English wasn't as good in those days. I just grasped somehow that something had to do with America and me. (laughs) I was greatly excited, I remember that.

LS: You jumped at the chance.

JH: Oh, yes.

LS: You expected to go for only a--

JH: Oh, at that time I just expected for the summer, and perhaps a year thereafter. But they whole thing, then, stretched out to four years, as it turned out.

LS: So they must have met a great many students there, but they picked just a few.

JH: Well, they only could take ten, yes. They had to make a selection.

LS: Well, something about your record or your--

JH: Well I suppose since they knew me through the work I had done with them in Braunschweig.

LS: Yeah. So where did you come to in America?

JH: Well, the seminar was in Maine. Camden, Maine.

LS: Oh, that's a nice place to come to.

JH: And thereafter, it was all pure chance. The point was that the Friends asked all American universities, which one would be willing to offer full scholarships-- this was, in Germany there was no money. The currency, the fall, was just taking place. So it would have to be full support. Which, of course, limited it. And then they did it by majors. And my major happened to be geography. So they were asking which university would take a full scholarship for a German student majoring in geography.

LS: I see. Yes.

JH: And there were two that responded. One was the American University in Washington, DC, and the other was University of Nebraska. And my argument for it was rather simple. When I had first come by ship to New York, the Friends had taken us to Philadelphia, which is their headquarters, and to Washington. That was the thing to do, to show us Congress and the White House, and then up to Maine. And I reasoned well, I've been to Washington, let's go to the other place. (laughter) It was as simple as that. So I came to Nebraska.

LS: How did they compare academically? I hadn't even heard of the American University in Washington. Is that what you said?

JH: Yeah. Right. Yes. Mm hmm. Well, that's very hard to say. The Geography Department at Nebraska was a very good one.

LS: Oh. So you did well, then. Your choice.

JH: I mean, I didn't know that at the time.

LS: No.

JH: The offers meant nothing to me. (laughs) But in retrospect, it was not a bad 00:10:00choice. And I would say in general, if you have only one place to go to become acquainted with America, you'd certainly do better in Nebraska than in Washington, DC. It's much more "American," quote unquote, out there.

LS: So you went there as a freshman?

JH: Well, I would have, I would have been a sophomore. But this doesn't come out right. So what happened is that I got my BA in 1950, after two years there. So the way they judged what I had done came out that way.

LS: Your English was good enough.

JH: Well, it was struggling. But it was good enough from the very start when I got there, I was made a teaching assistant, which was rather unusual, because they usually--

LS: As an undergraduate.

JH: Yeah. They're usually graduate students. And I, I was a former student and undergraduate, who became a teaching assistant my first semester.

LS: Why was that?

JH: My advisor there, Neil Bankson, just thought that's what I should do, and that I could do that, and persuaded me to accept it.

LS: Your own training was far ahead, then, of what--

JH: Oh, yes. I think that's generally true through the German high school. And then I also, I had had a year of study in Germany. And in between high school and university [unclear], I had worked as a kind of private assistant to an instructor in geography at a teacher training school in Braunschweig, and had picked up a lot just by being his assistant. So that was rather good experience for me, beginning that way.

LS: So they what happened?

JH: Well, then after I sort of found my bearings, I decided geography was just what I had fallen into. What I really wanted was to find out more about America. 00:12:00So after I got my BA, I changed my major to American Studies, which Nebraska didn't have as a program.

LS: You didn't think of going back to Germany.

JH: No, not at that time, because of the whole employment possibilities. I wanted to, what I had in mind was to go back to Germany to start an academic career in American Studies. Before that, I needed more training over here. So I was allowed the next year in Nebraska to just do what I wanted to, so I was a graduate student at large. And then the year thereafter, I had applied to the American Studies program at the University of Minnesota, which I then did from '51 to '52, and got my master's degree at Minnesota in '52, and then went back to Germany.

LS: Now is that an interdisciplinary course?

JH: Yes. Yes. Very much. With a heavy emphasis on literature. Really that's what 00:13:00mainly-- it was a very good year in Minnesota that year. All kinds of stars were there. [Henry Ness?] Smith was on the faculty. Tremaine McDowell, Bruno Baron and then Robert Penn Warren, Alan Tate. You name them, they were there that year. (laughs) So it was a great year. But from all these names, it was clearly a year in which I put everything into American literature.

LS: So then you went back to Germany.

JH: Then I went back to Germany, trying to figure out what career to do, and how to do it in Germany, to find out that it wasn't very easy. That was in '52. Unemployment, and most of the German universities would not necessarily accept the kind of preparation I had. I would have to go back to German university. And 00:14:00of course coming back at that point, there were no funds. So I had to look for a job. And I found one, finally, with the American consulate and the American Information Agency, near my home town in Hanover, Germany. So for two years I was in the office of the cultural office in charge of education affairs. At least, American participation in the educational affairs of the state of Lower Saxon.

LS: Could you just tell me, was your trouble in finding a job in the university just lack of funds? Or lack of a degree requirement? Or was there a reluctance to have an American Studies program?

JH: No, there wasn't necessarily a reluctance. But the German argument, basically, was it's fine if you have that in addition, the American experience. But you need your German qualifications. This is where the funds come in. For 00:15:00that, I would have to pay German tuition. And I just didn't have it at that time.

LS: You spent two years in--

JH: In Hanover, yeah. Those were interesting years, because our main effort was in teacher training. And the way it was done in Germany is that every German teacher, every year, or every second year, I've forgot now, gets to go two weeks, or was it ten days, maybe, I forgot the exact time, to a teacher training institute, which the Germans have always placed in the most beautiful spot you can imagine. In our area, mainly the Hartz Mountains. And our job, this was a course on how to teach American Studies, American literature, American history. And my job was to corral whatever American professors were on full rides or in 00:16:00any other way around Germany to ask them to come and give a lecture to these German teachers, and then sort of be in these conferences and talk to them and so on.

And then I did a good deal of teaching in German high schools in Hanover. They would ask me to come into a senior class and give them a talk on American literature or this or that, in a boarding school south of Hanover, to go over a whole semester teaching a class. I drove down every Thursday. That was a great time. It was fun.

LS: This was just high school teachers that attended them.

JH: This is also at the University of Gooding. I went down there every now and then and participated in some of their seminars.

LS: I mean the two-week--

JH: Oh, the teacher training effort was for German high school teachers.

LS: Not the elementary school.

JH: No. In the German setting, English language and American Studies was not an 00:17:00elementary school subject.

LS: What I wondered was whether the elementary schools also had a two-week--

JH: Oh, I think they have that, too, but in different subjects.

LS: But they do have it. That sounds like a good idea. [unclear]

JH: There's a great deal more of in-service training in the whole teacher preparation, than is in this country. In Germany, I wish the American way of teacher training would adopt more European ways. But it's just a little different.

LS: Is this what got you interested in education?

JH: Yes, yes. Because then when I came back in 1954, to get my PhD, I went into the History of American Civilization program at Harvard.

LS: Had you expected to come back?

JH: Not necessarily. But I found out where I was in the German setting, I was sort of in a dead end street. I would always have to go back to a German 00:18:00university. But in the meantime, I had also gotten so strongly interested in American history and American literature. And of course I also had married during all this time--

LS: To an American.

JH: --in Nebraska before I left to an American.

LS: Yes, that would have been a powerful incentive.

JH: So it made much more sense to continue or finish up, I should say, my university work in an American university. And so I applied from Germany, and got admitted to Harvard to that History of American Civilization program. And so, when I came back there, you see, then was in that program was a question, what fields would I take. And I think I was one of the first, if not the first student who wanted to concentrate in the history of American education, which they'd always had as a possibility but it wasn't very popular. And that was mainly because of my work in Germany. I'd become so fascinated and interested in this whole business. So that I entered the history program at Harvard with a 00:19:00major in history of education.

LS: Could you explain why you would be, as a German, aside from having an American wife, which I think must have been important, why you would decide to go into American Studies and American education?

JH: Well at that point, I was no longer, you know, a matter to decide. I had, in a sense, decided that when I was an undergraduate in Nebraska. I simply became fascinated. I wanted to know more about where I was. And then, yes, I was already sort of in that track.

LS: Was there some problem that you were trying to find an answer to?

JH: Well, yeah. I mean, America was obviously very different from Germany. And the basic problem simply was to try to explain it to me, to myself. That's what made the start.

LS: As a foreigner, then, it was--

JH: Yeah. At the outset. And then the particular experiences. Why not make the 00:20:00utmost efforts that I probably could have made to stay in Germany but to go back to America had something to do with the social system and social setting. I mean, the one thing that I found in those two years in Germany was as long as I came as someone from America, working for the consulate, then all doors were open. The minute I put my other hat on as somebody, as a German who was trying to explore, go back to university, take on a career, all doors closed. You have to start way back there at the start. And it's far more rigid...

LS: I see.

JH: ... than things were here. So I [unclear]

LS: So you did think about staying.

JH: Oh, yes! Very much so. In a way, I felt some sort of obligation to the Friends. They had started their exchange with the idea that we would go back. 00:21:00So, no, it was an area I gave considerable thought to.

LS: You would have had to start as a, well, as a sophomore, you mean. Would they have accepted even your college degree?

JH: Oh, they probably would eventually have had that. But the point was, at the time, to climb back in again, when I would have had no means to do that.

LS: You had to have money. You couldn't go on scholarship.

JH: Yeah. That was the main thing. And if I had nothing there, it might have been different, too. But at that point, it was just a little difficult to do all that. And then there were the other choices.

LS: And Harvard gave you a fellowship, did you say?

JH: Yes. I don't remember if I had one in the very first year. But of course, I could work myself at Harvard. I did all the work while I was there the first years I taught at the early, at the Boston Berlitz school.

LS: Oh, I see.

JH: Taught German, did other kind of work.

LS: And they paid you enough to--

JH: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sue was working, and we took loans. And then the last two years at Harvard, I was a teaching fellow. And matters, of course. I think I also did have some kind of a scholarship funding my second year at Harvard.

LS: So you went into American education.

JH: Well, I went into the History of American Civilization program.

LS: Yeah. But I mean--

JH: Within the program, an emphasis on the history of American Education

LS: And you say you were the first in that program.

JH: I think I was the first to ever really take that area seriously.

LS: Does that mean in the country?

JH: I don't know. There's this old story of the great gulf that has always existed between education and history. That, I think it's something you do with it. People in the liberal arts just didn't deal with education. It just wasn't done. That was left, you know, to schools of education, teachers, psychologists, 00:23:00and so on.

And matters then, of course, began to change. I think it was 1960 that the big Ford Foundation sponsored report on the role of education in American history came out. And then with Bernard Bailyn and Larry Cremin the whole push came to integrate the study of education into liberal arts, and particularly into history. And try to break down this kind of snobbishness on the part of historians in dealing or not dealing with education.

In a sense all very fortunately and fortuitously this all came together. So in that sense, I kind of rode the crest of the wave at that point of, when colleges thereafter became very interested in hiring people as historians and into history departments who were interested in the history of education.

So my first job was at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. And just as here now, 00:24:00it was a joint appointment in what they had there, the Master of Arts in Teaching program, and the History Department. And that was novel at that time, to make these joint appointments.

LS: I see. But the, what was the program of American civilization at Harvard?

JH: It was called the History of American Civilization.

LS: So it was a history program.

JH: Well, [unclear]

LS: What form of degree did you get?

JH: That's what the degree was called, the History of American Civilization. And in other places, the degree is usually called American Studies. And to me, that was a major attraction. I didn't want to go back to Minnesota, which I could have done. Because Minnesota was a truly interdisciplinary program. You could do anything under the sun, as long as it had something to do with America. From architecture to journalism to education, anything, in any combination. And I 00:25:00found that to be a great liability. Because you never really quite new who you were, what you could do.

Other programs, Pennsylvania, for example, in American studies, put the major emphasis on literature, and made that the core study. And while this makes a great deal of sense to me, it wasn't what I responded to most easily. For me, it was history. And Harvard was really the only program of these American Studies programs that quite explicitly stated the core of our work is history. We look at all of these contributing areas as a history of this and of that. And that's exactly what I wanted. And there they had it. And so I went and it worked.

LS: So did Merle Curti have an influence on this program at Harvard?

JH: I don't believe at Harvard.

LS: Because I know he developed the course in American Intellectual History.

JH: He certainly did here and his whole approach is one of historical avenue, mainly. But at the time when I think back in the '50s of the, the fullness and the knowledge that I had of programs that I could choose from were Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Brown, Harvard, Yale. I think that was about it that I was aware of and informed. And I think, I've forgotten. I was in Merle's program had many undergraduates?

LS: Well, it's just that he was at Harvard when he instituted the idea of an American Intellectual History course, which had never been done before.

JH: I see. Yeah.

LS: But that was much earlier.

JH: That was much earlier, yeah.

LS: I just wondered if his name still rang around the halls at all.

JH: Not necessarily in that connection, no. I think his name was definitely associated with intellectual history in the History Department. But not so much 00:27:00in the American Studies.

LS: I see. So your degree--

JH: My degree was in the History of American Civilization. And the particular program I put together was number one, what everybody had to have, the core. American intellectual and social history, which was mainly early Oscar Handlin [unclear]. And thereafter, you could choose. So I took the next big emphasis, the history of American education with Bernard Bailyn and Howard Mumford Jones was very interested in that.

Then another field was the history of political thought, it was Carl Friedrich, which attracted me very much. And also, Harvard insisted on European background which came in in that particular way. And the history of American philosophy, Marvin White. So this is how I packaged together.

LS: Did the idea of incorporating a respect for studies of American education into history departments succeed in giving it some-- it doesn't have any prestige? Or do you find it--

JH: Oh, yes, yes. Well, just look here. This is an interesting issue of the Harvard Education Review. Just came out this month. Which really is built around the idea of let's look back over these ten or fifteen years of what has happened with that effort. And you find some articles just on the historiography of this whole thing, as well as some work done in that area.

LS: Good. This is August, 1976, the Harvard Educational Review. I'd like to look at it. Then you were at Wesleyan.

JH: Right.

LS: And then did you come here after that?

JH: Mm hmm. After eight years.

LS: What year did you come?

JH: '66, 1966.

LS: Did you have any questions about coming here? Were you pleased?

JH: I'm glad I came. (laughs)

LS: Did you have a choice? Or they made you an offer?

JH: Well, I mean, yeah. Yes, I had a choice. I remember the day when I was sitting in the Wesleyan office and the telephone rang. And here comes this voice of a person who had heard of by name, but never met, Merle Borrowman. Introduced himself in the phone. And then sort of said out of the blue, "Can I persuade you to come to Madison?"

I said, "What?!" They were so, it came really out of the blue. I don't know what I said, but I think I said "I do not have the slightest idea", or something like that. And so he called, once more a couple of days later. Time to think about it. I said, well, at least I'll look into it.

I came out. You know, the usual thing, visited and gave a lecture and so forth. And then decided, yes, it was indeed high time I came. Or rather I should have 00:30:00said at that point I left there.

LS: You seem to be lucky that the telephone was invented in your career.

JH: I should say. That's right! All these things happen on the telephone.

LS: Merle Borrowman, I remember him. What was he in? He's not here now is he?

JH: He was the chairman of the Department of Education and Policy Studies here.

LS: I see. And that's, so not history. I guess...

JH: No, no. It came through education and policy studies. But see, he, too--

LS: But that's part of the School of Education.

JH: Yes. But Merle also had the same type of joint appointment. And said you know, when we do this, we want to be from the same idea. And I also said to him, that's what I hear. I mean, if Wesleyan says, "Well, we want again?" [unclear] And that's exactly what happened.

LS: All right. Now this is what puzzled me. The School of Education is - still doesn't have the respectability or the prestige of, wouldn't you say? Wouldn't 00:31:00you agree on the whole, ah-?

JH: It depends who you ask and in what setting.

LS: Well, if you ask somebody in the History Department or in the Math Department.

JH: Well, I think there is a feel towards education itself, you know, the same sort I said at the beginning, you never quite know what education really is. Or if there is such a thing as education. And I think a certain feeling that it is a very practical, practically oriented school having to train teachers in that sense like the law school having to train lawyers. Professionally oriented, and on an undergraduate level. I think that's probably the main problem with it. If it were solely a graduate school, it might be different. But people you see know what they do is to train our teachers and teach them little tricks. I mean, this 00:32:00is, I think, where this feeling comes from.

So to that extent, there is some questioning of what is education as a field. But I think this is quite different from what people think of the people involved in it, and who does it. There's a tremendous difference within the school itself. And all I can say is thinking back to the late '50s and early '60s, when this whole discussion came underway, that made a tremendous change.

I remember when I first came to Wesleyan. It was really a battle to get any kind of decent and polite acceptance in the History Department. I very much felt as a foreign substance placed in them, and they didn't want to have anything to do with me.

LS: In spite of your Harvard degree.

JH: Oh, yeah. By no means all, but there were at least two individuals on that 00:33:00staff who made no bones about that. They thought I would never fit in. Nothing of that sort has ever happened here since when I came here in '66, went in this department. Quite the contrary. I feel very much at home. Never been anything of that sort.

LS: Now whose department meetings do you go to?

JH: Both.

LS: Both.

JH: Mm hmm. Yes. It gets a little heavy sometimes, you know, with committee work. And so being in two departments does have some disadvantages. But I think on balance, the advantages outdo the disadvantages.

LS: And are you accepted in the education school? Or do they look upon you, Ed Policy, as being a little bit outside of things?

JH: Well, I was going to say, this has caused no problem in the Education Policy Studies. There are feelings, I think, within the School of Education. Some of the more practice-oriented departments, people, at least some people in it like Curriculum Instruction and so on don't have much love for Education Policy 00:34:00Studies. Because from their point of view, we're not professionally oriented. We know nothing about problems of the classroom. And from their point, probably worse, we care very little. You know, all we're interested in is philosophy, history, the big issues. And they feel anyone can talk about these.

LS: It's really like teaching dance in the gymnastics department, isn't it, a bit?

JH: Yeah, something like that. Sure.

LS: When did you say you came here?

JH: '66.

LS: '66. So just before the, or in the midst of, nearly in the midst of the [unclear]

JH: Just when things became a little agitated. (laughter)

LS: Was there a big jump in the School of Education, in the number of faculty, the number of students at that time? Do you know?

JH: Well it was a, yeah, it was a period of growth. There wasn't any question about that.

LS: But as much so as in other, the History Department, for instance, went up enormously.

JH: I think we had the same kind of growth here, also, university-wide.

LS: Yeah. All right. Well it wasn't in some places. I guess Engineering didn't, so much.

JH: Oh, I see.

LS: But in L&S.

JH: But both, I remember the atmosphere that anything was possible, and you can hire more people and you can get funds to do this and that. That was pretty much the same, both in Education and in Arts & Science, Letters & Science.

LS: Were they making desperation appointments? That is, were they having a hard time finding people because they needed them in a hurry?

JH: No, I don't think so. No, that wasn't really it. It's more a matter of being able to get whoever you really wanted to get, to have this sort of feeling that the means are here to attract the people who you would like as your colleagues who with their outstanding reputations who we want to bring here. And the point 00:36:00being, this is possible. Go ahead and do it.

LS: Did you have to promise them that they wouldn't have many undergraduate courses? Anything like that?

JH: That? No. I'm remembering, since I was a recipient of that, what were one of the things that really helped was the existence of WARF, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Because I remember being told at that time by Bill Tabor, whom I'd known before, and called him up and asked him, I wanted to find out what the History Department [unclear], Education Policy Studies. And one of the things he said was that, "Well, it's true that this university does not have sabbatical program." He said, sort of like, "For you and me, that's greatly to our advantage. Because what happens is, the equivalent is WARF, but it doesn't give us money on a regular basis. It does it for those who actually do want to 00:37:00get away and do research. So if you do these things, you can get grants far more frequently than you would under a sabbatical program."

And I remember, that really stuck with me. I thought, well that's great. So that was definitely an attraction. And certainly, until quite recently, it's worked that way.

LS: And it's all from WARF, is it? I didn't quite realize that.

JH: Well, that may be not quite right. It's the graduate school research committee that dispends these funds. But I think they're predominantly coming from WARF. But I'm talking about the research committee funds.

LS: Oh. What about the Ford Foundation money largely went for graduate students.

JH: That [unclear] History Department for students. Yes, and that, of course, meant the assurance that there would be good and plenty graduate students around. That was another, certainly was an attraction for me, because that's 00:38:00what I did up at Wesleyan--

LS: Was graduate students

JH: And I felt really the need to have some graduate students for my own inspiration and teaching and research. And that's another very attractive factor.

LS: Were there many TAs in the School of Education?

JH: Yes. There were quite a few.

LS: How were they using them? Do you know?

JH: Well, most of them were in a very traditional pattern of the course being broken up into sections, and they take them over--

LS: For the quiz sections.

JH: Yeah.

LS: So not responsible for a whole course.

JH: No. Uh uh. For that, if we needed additional people, we had, in the lecturer category, very often somebody who just had had a PhD, was looking for a job, and was still here to teach a course. Then, that's mainly what we did was lectures 00:39:00students would be TAs.

LS: I know you had a TA, because I've interviewed him.

JH: Yes.

LS: I suppose you had several.

JH: Yes. Yeah. Indeed. He happened to be--

LS: Bill O'Brien.

JH: Bill O'Brien happened to be a TA that was given to me by the History Department. See, my course is cross-listed. And in those days, courses were large, I think, at about ninety students or so, both from, who enrolled either as Education Policy Studies, or took the course as history. And the TAs came, both from the School of Education, and Bill O'Brien, from over here.

LS: Now this would be only from Ed Policy Studies. Or would you get TAs who were in Educational Administration?

JH: No, no, no, no, no. Oh, no. Just in our department. Just a matter of the two departments staffing the course. Two departments being Education Policy and History.

LS: I guess that's true. I hadn't thought of Ed Policy as a department, of course, isn't it, like the History Department.

JH: Oh, yes, right.

LS: I was making the School of Education at the department level. But that's not the case.

JH: Oh, no. No, no, no.

LS: It's not like the--

JH: School of Education is like Letters & Science.

LS: Yeah.

Do you remember the beginnings of the TAA and the realization that things were building up to a strike? Did you have--

JH: Well, I'm not sure if from the very beginning we saw a strike coming. But we certainly were very much aware of the agitation, of the organizing of the graduate students in the Teaching Assistants Association. And then that's, at first far more aware of the business of grievances. Because that's what happened 00:41:00in Education Policy Studies. This is really where the first moral confrontations or unpleasantries came in. the strike was sort of an accumulation at the end of--

LS: Do you remember what, can you give me an example?

JH: I don't remember dates very well.

LS: Well, not dates. But--

JH: But I do remember the meetings over grievances. Yes. And what I remember of the particular case that was, I don't remember what the issue was. But the point was that the TA involved, on whose behalf there was a grievance, himself didn't want to have the grievance done at all. He had, in a sense, almost nothing to do with it. But the organization, the TAA, took his case and without his cooperation pushed the grievance. And then the point was that we confronted the 00:42:00people in the TAA who essentially I had never seen before, that didn't know. And it became very annoying. They didn't know what they were talking about, because they didn't know the department. And they pushed a grievance without-- it was a totally different atmosphere than we were used to of conversing, dealing with our own graduate students.

LS: Now where was this happening? In a department meeting?

JH: Oh, no. No, no. When the grievance meetings started, we had a departmental grievance committee of three faculty members.

LS: Were you on it?

JH: Oh, sure. I was department chair. I think I was. Yes, that's why I was on it. And we had this delegation from the TAA. We sat on two sides of the table confronting each other.

LS: Do you remember who were the delegates?

JH: No. It's all a big blur now, it's so long ago. The point was, I didn't know them. That was the thing that bothered me most. They didn't know me, I didn't 00:43:00know them. And I had the distinct impression they didn't know what they were talking about. (laughs) Of course, they just didn't know what the history of the department was.

I think what the issue involved was that we had, in EPS, very often appointed teaching assistants not because we needed them as teaching assistants, but because that was a way we had funds available for student aid. Under those circumstances, the teaching assistants were not necessarily teaching sections in the course, but were asked to do other things, like preparing course material. And if I remember right, and I won't swear that this is correct, but if I remember right, it was a situation where a teaching assistant knew with his own consent and willingness was doing some other kind of work, bibliographic work 00:44:00for the course, to help prepare material. But matters, they were quite clearly not spelled out in the contract. [unclear] was not having his three sections that he was teaching. And that, the grievance came in over something like that. And our point was here we have bent over backwards to find something for these students, to be able to give them some help, and then this group comes in and in a sense they accuse us of abusing them or what have you, and against the will of the students.

LS: How did they find out about it? Do you know?

JH: No, I don't know for sure. But I think they checked, obviously, our official list of who the TA appointments, and our class lists and assignments, and simply found that here was a TA who never showed up as doing a TA's job.

LS: Oh, I see.

JH: I mean, that's how they found out. Or at least, that's what I assume that it meant.

LS: So they would have been doing this for the other departments as well.

JH: Well, I think so, although I have no direct knowledge of, uh, about what else.

LS: And how many TAs did Ed Policy have? Do you remember about?

JH: Only about, I think we must have had around eight or nine.

LS: Were they involved in this at all? In this particular dispute? The grievance--

JH: Not initially. I do remember that at one point, one of them was asked to participate, which was very awkward. It was a woman, and I remember her sitting there not quite knowing what to say. (laughs) She was more or less obliged to take the TAA position. On the other hand, she knew very well what the departmental position was. And, I think, personally agreed with it. You know, what do you do in a situation like that? So it was a little awkward.

LS: Were the members of the department, on the whole, I have a feeling it's rather a young department. Is that right?

JH: New. Yes. It all began in 1964.

LS: So probably tended to be sympathetic, or at least not threatening toward TAs who were joining the TAA.

JH: Well, there was an interesting, we had--

[pause] --a question of course evaluations. Let me see how it all went. That wasn't, I'm sorry, that wasn't a grievance. That was the negotiation committee. You know, each department under the contract has a negotiation committee that the TAA can come to negotiate certain things that need to be ironed out. And this was the matter of course evaluations. And in the contract, there was the clause that stated that a department should prepare measures, ways in which 00:47:00courses, in which teaching assistants participated, would be evaluated by students.

And so we met to do that. And the department line, so to speak, was well, we agree upon we hope we will, we agree upon a questionnaire, sort of with questions on it, that will be given to students in the sections, the teaching assistants teach, so that we can get feedback from the students how the TAs are doing.

And the TAA position was that one of the factors, one of the elements that enters into how a student reacts to a TA is the entire course, not just the 00:48:00section. In other words they were saying if the lecturer, if the professor in the course is very dull and boring, this may reflect badly on the TA because the students are upset. Therefore, they insisted that not only the TAs be evaluated, but the course itself, meaning, in a sense, the professor, but that wasn't necessarily so. Have another sheet just about the course. But really it came down to evaluating the professors as well.

And there was tremendous opposition in the department. The last thing that the department at that time wanted was student, they didn't believe in student evaluation of professors. And the department sort of took a very legalistic stance. Look at the contract to require the evaluation of teach assistants. It says nothing about professors [unclear]

LS: It's like a pound of flesh, isn't it? (laughs)

JH: So those were the lines. So the negotiations began on that. The interesting 00:49:00thing was that two of us on the faculty side of the TAA committee myself, and I think it was [Carl Casely?], my colleague, were actually quite convinced that the TAA was right. It does make a difference. And personally I think we also thought it was not a bad idea to have professors evaluated. It will help them, it will help the whole department.

So we were in this kind of position where we were arguing against our own convictions. We had to argue that way because the departmental mandate and the department meeting, that's the line you take.

LS: Really?

JH: And I find that rather fascinating, you know. You learn some things that way when you give yourself an appearance in things you really don't believe in, but you're like a lawyer, it's just the client's case, you do that.

LS: Did you-- well, go ahead.

JH: No. But that's not the end of the story. Once we got into this, both Carl 00:50:00and I agreed, really, the TAA really is right. Furthermore, we believed, right now we've got to keep this up the way we have been doing. But let's try at the next department meeting, you know, to railroad the department into accepting the idea of-- which, we in fact, did. And it was a tough meeting, but we even won. We got the department to concede that maybe there was a case for course evaluation. We persuaded them. And I remember that meeting, that afternoon, we went back to the TAA, you know. And thought well [unclear] we were still adamant [unclear]. (laughs) By that time, we would, when the appropriate time came with a great flurry, make concessions which we did and the whole thing, you know, the way it's still being done. We have course evaluations. Everything came out fine.

What I'm saying, in a way it was very typical. It's sort of what I personally consider a rather good experience in this whole process. But it's the exception 00:51:00to the rule. The rest of the TAA negotiations went that way.

LS: In the Ed Policy Department?

JH: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I don't know really what happened in the History Department. From what I know, it was far worse there.

LS: I wondered how aware you were of conditions--

JH: Oh, very much. I sort of got the feeling I had my hands full with EPS.

LS: So that really is where you--

JH: Yeah, that's where I--

LS: Where you know what was going on in the TAA--

JH: Yeah. Right.

LS: Bill O'Brien presented you as a star minder of TAs. And a star professor working with them. Did you think of yourself as unusual in the way you worked with TAs?

JH: No.

LS: Did your colleagues do that?

JH: No. Not unusual. I know that from the very beginning I disagreed with my 00:52:00colleagues, with some of my colleagues, on the overall idea of what a TA is or should be. Basically there's a group that looks at TAs as people who do the work. They get paid for it, they do the work, and that's it. I've never taken that feeling at all, that attitude at all. I've always looked at a TA as a graduate student of mine whom I not only teach by way of lectures and seminars, and supervising a dissertation, but whom I teach how to teach. Because that's going to be his or her future job. So when I have a TA, I think of it as my duty to help that person to become a good teacher. And so I look at him -- or her - as an apprentice, rather than as someone who works for me.

So to that extent, I'll say yeah, I'm aware that I have a difference of belief 00:53:00than some of my colleagues. And I'm also aware that historically I probably, it's not the correct position, the university has used them simply to work in small, but I think what it ought to be, and as far as I'm concerned, I'll certainly do it that way. So that may indeed make it a little different.

LS: All your colleagues are--

JH: No, no. Not all my colleagues. I'm just saying, there are some colleagues, you know, there are colleagues who agree with me, too, sure.

LS: Well what would be some, who are the ones who shared your belief about how a TA should be?

JH: Oh, I think basically in EPS, I think we all think that way. It's natural for us in Education Policy--

LS: Oh, I see. So when you say your colleagues, you mean your colleagues in L&S.

JH: Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking not here of the History department.

LS: I thought you meant in EPS

JH: Well I, most vivid in my mind is perhaps the one the most staunchly opposed 00:54:00has presented the opposite view. [Merrill Jansen?]. I see that he and I don't agree on this at all. But then there are others who do agree.

LS: That's interesting, because he evidently started the TA system in the History Department.

JH: I think so. [unclear] and he has a very good point to make his argument, because he knows what he's talking about. (laughs) It has been that way. Yeah. And in that sense, I feel that I'm glad that O'Brien feels about me that way. I always feel somewhat, what's the word, hamstrung. You know, I may have my own opinions and doing my own little daily what I can do. At the same time, I'm not a totally free agent in that. The university doesn't run the way I like it to run.

LS: Have you ever tried to propagate, is that the word I want, your views about 00:55:00how a TA--

JH: Oh, yeah. Sure. Sure. I've said those things in department meetings and so on. But it's very plain when it comes to votes, I don't win with that point of view.

LS: This is at the History Department.

JH: Yeah.

LS: Before the strike or after the strike? All along?

JH: Oh, I think all along. The point is, before the strike, this was more like a luncheon table conversation. They were not issues. Thereafter, they became issues. And then it became apparent in departmental meetings when it came up, and you could see by votes that people, without having to explain themselves, simply voted against them.

LS: How did it come to, would it come to a vote as--

JH: Well, you know, you don't put the question quite that way, is the TA an apprentice or is he a worker? It's implied, usually, and quite specific other 00:56:00things that you talk about. How we need to look at that.

LS: For instance, how many TAs a person should have, or how much time--

JH: Well, and I think a great deal has to do, how much time a professor should spend with his TAs, and whether or not he's obligated, how strongly and how closely to supervise them.

LS: What I'm trying to get at is what particular thing you might have voted on so that these attitudes would become apparent. I was trying to guess what kind of--

JH: I can't put my finger on that right now.

LS: Well, I'll ask [Mort Ruston?]. I'm going to be talking to him. He may remember something like that. Because that's quite interesting. One of the things I've been pursuing is how much attempt at peer review goes on. And of course there's the salaries and promotions and things. But once people get on 00:57:00tenure, aside from salaries.

JH: Oh, I can think of--

LS: Good.

JH: A question that, you see, if you take my position, my full argument is if it is our duties to teach our graduate students how to teach, then every one of our graduate students should at one point or another have been a TA, have the chance to be a TA. The contract actually prevents that. You know, you have a situation now where there are people in for three years. And this [crap?] makes it impossible for all of them to do it.

LS: Yeah.

JH: So I think it came up as an instance where I said one of the arguments we ought to be using against the TAA, why they shouldn't have that kind of a contract, is to point out to them how selfish they really are, how this has become a matter of protecting the interests of those who happen to be in. And how, and here was my point, how anti-educational this whole deal is. And then 00:58:00the answer by some, well, if we do that, we undercut our main reason, [Merrill Jensen?], why we have TAs, they're to do work for us.

And I said, "Well, that's not the main reason. The main reason is to teach them."

"Well, now, that isn't so. It's never been." There we go. There's an example-

LS: Yeah. That's just what I was looking for.

JH: --of the kind of situation that would bring out this kind of argument.

LS: So that was in the History Department that that came up.

JH: Yeah. Yeah.

LS: I wondered perhaps if it might have come up in a general faculty meeting. When you were talking about contract

JH: Maybe, at some time. But I wasn't in any one of those. I mean, I just can recall that here in the context of the History Department.

LS: Did you, do you have any, do you want to say anything about the strike, and whether you thought it was, anything specific about it, the uses of TAs--

JH: I don't think of anything specific about the strike. You see, it's my 00:59:00feeling, once you have a labor union, which I think the TAA essentially is, once that's accepted, you better accept a strike. I mean, you're on the road to that kind of industrial relationship. So at that point, you cry about a bit of water, it doesn't make much sense. So I don't feel strongly about the strike anymore.

I do feel strongly about the fact that we have a TAA in the first place.

LS: Oh, I see.

JH: And the main reason about that is the real change of atmosphere, of very personal relationships that have come in between faculty and the graduate students. See, it goes back to my point of what a teaching assistant is. I see him as a graduate student, as an apprentice, if you will, as a future colleague of mine.

The TAA, I'm pushed into an adversary position, whether I like it or not. Well, 01:00:00let me give you an example where it came home. When the TAA was first founded, every department has a steward. In EPS, that steward, when it first began, happened to be a student of my own. Graduate student and, of course, a TA.

LS: Do you remember his name?

JH: Yeah. [Steven Bert?]. But that's--

LS: I think I have his name. I think that you mentioned him.

JH: Yeah. Well, Bill knows him quite well. And well, you know, we had built up, as graduate student and professor quite a relationship of working together and doing things and so on. The minute he became TAA steward, he virtually stopped talking to me. And he did so, I think, not out of any malice or so, but in the nature of the beast. The union does advise its personnel, "Don't talk about 01:01:00union issues with the other side, because it may be held against you. It may be quoted when it comes to an official confrontation and negotiations. That just isn't done." And this is correct. That isn't done. So he didn't.

And then, you see, when the first grievance came, the one that I earlier referred to, it came straight out of the blue. It appeared one day in the mailbox, and the next day somebody called up and in rather rough language, said, "How are you going to respond?" And so forth. And hit me. I had no idea that this was coming. And I found this as almost a breach of personal trust. I mean, what do we have a steward for if I must have one? Could he not have told me, could he not have prevented the whole thing? Because as far as the issue was concerned, as far as I remember it, if I'd known that that was an issue, or was going to be, I would have done something about it, or would have done something 01:02:00about it. But you know, I really felt betrayed.

LS: You thought of the steward as the go-between, then. Between the TAA and the department.

JH: Well, I thought of him as one of my TAs, one of my graduate students. And now in addition, as someone who has a semi-official responsibility for at least part of the department, [a liaison to the?] department. I was the department chairman. Naturally I would think if there were problems, you come and talk about them. That's the way we all have done it. But he didn't, you see. And instead, here comes this official legal action, out of the blue.

Well this, to me, has sort of crystallized the sort of embodiment or symbol of all that's wrong with having the union, having the TAA in this particular relationship. And the strike, by comparison, is more of the same thing. Just a little more blown up. But the principle of the thing, this changes the relationship. That's where I see it as the heart of the evil.

LS: Have you ever talked to him about this sense, then?

JH: [Steve Burke?]

LS: Mm.

JH: Oh, yes.

LS: And what does he say about it?

JH: Well, two reactions. He just simply shrugs and doesn't really respond. Or simply says, "As a union steward, I couldn't do otherwise."

LS: Even now. Where is he now?

JH: Well, no, no, no. I don't know what he would say today. He's long since gone. I haven't seen him for years.

LS: I just wonder what he would say today. I thought--

JH: It would be interesting to see what he might say today. But I remember what he was saying back then.

LS: I just wondered if it might be somebody not knowing how to handle the situation.

JH: Oh, probably!

LS: And not knowing what was the--

JH: Oh, probably so. I mean, he probably had as many uncertainties on how to act as I had.

LS: Because I'm sure they were told what to do.

JH: Yeah. But my point is really, I don't want to put poor Steve on the block. I'm not angry about him. I'm angry about--

LS: Oh, yes. I understand.

JH: --the situation. You know, angry about, that these things can come about.

LS: Does this mean you'd not have had the chancellor recognize the union, then?

JH: Well, let me just say, if it had been possible, I don't know what his reasons were, if I can do anything about it, then the last thing in the world I would do would be to recognize the union. Because I do think it destroys much of what a university could be and should be.

I just can't see myself in the kind of industrial employer/employee relationship with my graduate students. It just doesn't make sense to me.

LS: The argument that is given just to, without question on his side is that Wisconsin is a place where people who want to unionize are allowed to and are recognized, and that you don't say, you know, you can't have a union.

JH: Well now you can't. I don't know how that was at the beginning.

LS: Well evidently then, that's what people say. Are you struck by the fact that, what was expected then was that this was going to be a spearhead case of TAA's in universities. But in fact, it hasn't happened, evidently. That is, other universities haven't been faced with this sort of thing. I'm [unclear] even whether there are many unions, strong unions, at other universities.

JH: You mean--

LS: TAA.

JH: TAA?

LS: Yeah.

JH: I'm not aware of it.

LS: So this particular problem which has, you would say, affected things ever since--

JH: Mm hmm. Yes.

LS: --has not happened elsewhere.

JH: I guess not. I'm not aware of [unclear]

LS: I believe that it hasn't.

JH: I think it's unlikely now to have--

LS: Is there a change now? Now that this generation or that generation is leaving.

JH: Well, I must say, none of these things have really recurred in quite that form. I think, at least I didn't have any grievance. There were some grievances filed. But I've not been involved in any of these things.

LS: Well I mean, your TAs now--

JH: Oh, no! Uh huh.

LS: You're on good terms with them.

JH: Yeah. [unclear] I hope they're--

LS: You don't feel like an employer/employee.

JH: No. In fact, one of the things that always strikes me, for the last three or four years, they have not--

LS: Well, when you talked for a while, tell me about the Ed Policy Department, 01:07:00and how it operates with its staff divided between [unclear]

JH: Well, as we were just saying, it doesn't seem to make much difference to the department whether people are full time in it, or have joint appointments. And I don't know offhand what our ratio is, but it's probably about half and half, people who are partly in other departments and those who are full time in it.

But within the department, for example, in the election of chairmen for four-year whatever, that's really, has never been an issue. There has been, the question is whether the person has an interest, first of all, to be chairman, cares enough for the department. No matter how he spends his time in the 01:08:00percentage of appointment. The one example what we have was [Bert Creitlow], who I believe was less than fifty percent in the department.

LS: What was his other--

JH: And he was elected department chairman. He's in Adult Education, now in this new department, CAVE, continue adult vocational education. But he was chairman for at least one, if not two, years. As I said before, it may not have been our best year, but it had little to do with his not being full time in the department.

LS: Was it, was it that he wasn't interested?

JH: No, I think it was just a matter of his personality. Some people are more attuned to fine and meticulous work. And others are not so. And I think it was more that in his case than that he was in another department.

LS: How does the Ed Policy Department operate as far as faculty meetings and decisions about salary and tenure?

JH: Well, we have monthly department meetings, which in the last two or three years are open, and students participate as well as department members. Students can't vote, but they can speak and make their voices known, which they do.

The salary, the merit raise procedure, has just been changed a year ago. We used to have it by full participation of every member of the department. That is to say, each member would put his annual vita into the chairman's office. And every other member would come in and read through it, read everything. And then come prepared to the chairman to make recommendations in the usual way, whether this person should rank top, average, or low. And the chairman would collate all 01:10:00these various matters and then add his opinion and submit that to the dean.

The criticism, and I must say I resisted criticism, I thought it was an excellent way. But the criticism that prevailed was that it was so much, I mean, each individual member would have to read so much literature, what their colleagues had done during the year, that it was impossible and people just didn't do it very well. And so now we have a committee, consisting ex-officio, the chairman of the department, and two faculty members who are elected each for two-year terms that overlap. And these three do the same thing. They go through. And that's their committee assignment. And we had them for the first time last year. It really worked very well. I mean, those three people really worked. They were informed. They knew what everybody had been doing. And came up with their 01:11:00suggestions. As a chairman I can say I had no complaints this year. Nobody came and said, "They did me an injustice." I have had complaints before under the old system. People really felt they hadn't really been looked at well enough, and thoroughly.

So, I gather, this is the better way. It seems to work.

LS: Is one of them chosen from the L&S group, and one--

JH: No, there's no regard to that.

LS: Does this just not enter into the--

JH: No, it doesn't enter into it. Neither does it, in fact, we discussed this when we set it up. Should we make sure there's a tenured member and a non-tenure member? But that was rejected. We just wanted people.

LS: Well you do have non-tenured members. You might have.

JH: Oh, sure. Of course. Yeah. No, I mean always the new people, it's been one of my concerns that in the last, about two, three years ago, we were very top heavy, which is changing. And we have a good many more younger people.

LS: Top heavy with tenured people.

JH: With tenured people. Yeah, that's changed now. The proportions are much more balanced now.

LS: People have left, you mean.

JH: Well, tenured people have left, and we've gotten no-tenured people coming in. Yes, we had Max Blitzen retired, and others didn't get tenure. And Phil Altbach left. So there was somewhat of a thinning out of tenured members. But we have more non-tenured members.

LS: So you're lucky, in comparison to many departments who are still heavily weighted with tenured people.

JH: Yes, yes.

LS: I had asked you before, I think, but was this due to your having promoted fewer people to tenure in that crucial period in the late '60s?

JH: Not alone. It did happen we had quite a few cases where people did not get tenure.

LS: Was somebody-- for instance, you were chairman then. Were you conscious you were going to have to be careful about loading the department with tenured people?

JH: I was very conscious of that, yes.

LS: That the budget was going to--

JH: Well, no. It wasn't a matter of the budget. I looked at it as a matter of intellectual climate and sort of general health of the department. And maybe that's just an idée fixee in my mind, but I think the department's better off when it covers a spectrum of young and older people, and not congregated all into one particular group, age group. So it's more from that point of view, regardless of the budget, that I felt we could do better by having more balance to our position.

LS: It's a younger department, you said, so you might have fewer people with older notions of what the university was like to contend with.

JH: Well it's partly in our responsibility to teaching undergraduate. Now this is, of course, not true in every case. But if you must generalize, I think 01:14:00younger people usually do better with undergraduate teaching.

LS: And you have more of that to do than most departments.

JH: No, I wouldn't say more. In fact, we are a graduate department. We do not have any undergraduates of our own. So when we teach undergraduates, we consider this a service to other departments, members, students in other, and in the general teacher preparation program, where we serve the School of Education. So that we do. And we depend on them. We need for our teaching responsibilities to have undergraduate students whom we teach. So that's one thing.

The other one is new ideas in scholarship. You know, we need new blood to shake up, every now and then, our notions of what goes on.

Take my own field in History of Education. The new thing in historical scholarship is demographic qualitative research. You just don't find many senior 01:15:00people who deal with that. It's mainly the graduate students now coming out who have been trained and are ready to do that. And it's for reasons of that sort that I spoke about the health of the department that we need for both teaching and research.

LS: Well, I'm not hearing, I don't hear the same sort of thing from the other departments in the '60s. So it sounds like it's quite a different outlook.

JH: What do you hear from them? I mean, I don't see--

LS: Well, there wasn't any real effort to keep down the promotions to tenure. Although people must have been beginning to see that they were getting a great many--

JH: Well, no, I wouldn't speak of an effort to keep down promotions to tenure. I think the effort's the other way around, to get younger people in. To work on the deans to allow us to hire and make a case for it. It's more along that line. 01:16:00And see, our losses have not been so much that people didn't get tenure, but people are retiring. Ed [Kruge?] retired last year. Lex Goodson's retiring this year. So places are opening up.

LS: Of course, it's a smaller department--

JH: And you see, they could conceivably replace them with other senior members from other universities. So what I'm saying is it's on those things that I pretty firmly think we should not. We should get young people in. On that level, rather than denying people tenure just so we get new people in. No, that wouldn't be it.

LS: This is what James Montross said about the Art History Department was always an effort to keep at a balanced age. But of course that is an even much smaller department.

JH: Yeah.

LS: Well you can compare the History Department. How do you think your way of setting up the distribution?

JH: I think there's a difference. And in History, in this department, the History Department, I've heard an often expressed desire to attract stars. Big names. To bring up the prestige of the department. And it's precisely that which I think in EPS we have definitely not done.

LS: Could this be a difference in the disciplines, that there aren't the big names to attract in Ed Policy?

JH: I don't know that it's a matter of discipline, because I think there are probably other education departments that would want to do that. I think it was more a sense of colleagueship in the department of what we wanted. We certainly felt we needed young people. We were getting a little bit worried. We are, I think, a very harmonious group of people who get along very well together as 01:18:00colleagues. I'm very happy to say there's very little bickering. There's some, always, of course. But compared to other departments, it's much more peaceful, and people get along. Which is great, but it also presents a certain danger, that we come to like each other so much that we close our ears and eyes to the outside world and it's that concern that I, at least, have felt, and generally found a response to it from [unclear] department who make efforts to get young people in.

LS: Well, the History Department had the same, presumably the same concern for undergraduate teaching. Was it the chairman? Or what was it in the History Department that made it go after big names?

JH: Well, I don't know. If you look at big names in the History Department, I'm thinking of George Mosse.

LS: Harvey Goldberg?

JH: Yeah, thinking of Harvey Goldberg, you see, you have senior members who have excellent rapport with undergraduates. So in that sense, the question really hasn't come up that way, quite that way. I think we didn't quite feel that way in EPS. Some of our tenured people are not that, are not that quite of a drawing number for large groups of undergraduates.

LS: Well those are comparatively rare cases.

JH: Yes, but they set a certain tone and atmosphere and assumptions so that, what I'm saying is that in the History Department, I just haven't sensed this identification of undergraduate appeal in junior faculty members. People don't quite think in these terms, because there are so many other counter examples that stand out.

LS: Say that again. That the younger faculty members are not as concerned with 01:20:00undergraduate education?

JH: No, no, no, no. I'm just saying there's not this--

LS: Oh, I see, and undergraduate--

JH: There's not this assumption that undergraduate teaching goes together with young faculty.

LS: Yes. Yes. I misunderstood you. But you won't pin that down as to how that kind of attitude got into the History Department. That is, whether it's due to a series of chairmen, or whether it's just built into the faculty that you have--

JH: I don't think it's a matter of chairmen. When I think of History Department faculty meetings, there were a few faculty members in the past who had a strong concern for undergraduates. I'm thinking, for instance, of Stan Katz. And from what I know of him, having talked with him, when he left for the University of Chicago, he did complain of what he sensed was the disinterest of the 01:21:00department. I mean, the relative disinterest of the department in undergraduate education. See, he and Merle Curti had, at the time, started that great experimental course of using only contemporary sources, and making students to write their own history while they listened to lectures. And I think Stan always felt that the department did not support that effort as much as it should have.

So in that sense, there's probably some justification to at least feeling, put it this way, that the History Department hasn't done as much as it could have for undergraduates. This is not saying they don't have interest in undergraduates. But they didn't give it much of a priority.

LS: You haven't talked to many of them about it.

JH: In the History Department? My feeling always has been I've got my hands full over in EPS.

LS: I see.

JH: And I just can't be everyplace. So I, for instance, I supported Stan Katz. I 01:22:00taught in that course. I took sections and of course I was interested in it. I can't say I was his most trusted collaborator, and in faculty meeting pushing that course all along. Because mainly because it comes down to such things that if you really try to bring about change in policy, you have to be able to be at every caucus meeting and department meeting to push that. And I just can't.

LS: You do that--

JH: Responsibilities conflict with the other department. And I can't come to all these meetings. And it doesn't make much sense if you speak up every half year once. (laughs) So I have really simply not been very active in all these, neither here or in the History Department.

LS: What is the percentage of, how are you divided?

JH: My time? Two-thirds EPS and one-third history department.

LS: But in effect, you give what, 90 percent EPS and 10 percent for faculty meetings.

JH: Well, it's different in, committee work in faculty meetings, the 90 percent EPS is probably true. Teaching, it's more like what it should be.

LS: I meant the, I meant the committee work.

JH: Yes.

LS: So let's go back to the Ed Policy then. You spoke about students being present in department meetings. How does it, these are undergraduates and graduates?

JH: Well, usually they are graduate students. Although undergraduate students can enter. But as I said, we don't have any undergraduates of our own. It's only graduate department. Majoring in the department only is graduate students. So it's our own graduate students who come, and who are members of a number of departmental committees, like our Educational Planning Committee, and teaching assistants review committee. And there have been members of those ad hoc search committees when we were looking for new faculty members and participated in all 01:24:00these meetings. It's interesting, because you always walk kind of a tightrope between feeling what you may think is the best policy, and what is laid down by law.

Now for instance, all personnel matters, such as hiring and so on, can consider, personal [labor?] can be closed. Or open only with the permission of the person being discussed. So what we have very often done, for example, in the discussion about new faculty members, which can by law and orders only be done by the Executive Committee, I have called general faculty meetings, including students and undergraduates, and called the meeting of the whole. So everybody could discuss. And then we have taken votes as a show of hand type, showing sentiment 01:25:00one way or the other. And then, called an Executive Committee right then and there. Asked the Executive Committee were there any objections, did any of the others [watch?] them, and they didn't. and they we had the formal vote. Which meant, of course, that the Executive Committee A, was informed what everybody thought, including non-executive Committee faculty members and students. And B, all of those could all see what happened. but with the agreement of the Executive Committee. They didn't mind to be watched.

So then we have formally voted in closed meeting, just the Executive Committee meeting, and yet we had had full participation. So we can arrange matters of that sort, and get input from everybody. And I think that has helped us a great deal, particularly in this crucial business of hiring new faculty members. It makes a great deal of difference in the new faculty members who are now here are 01:26:00already known to the graduate students. And the graduate students feel we wanted them to come. And one of the interesting things was the graduate students weren't bashful at all. They said very directly whom they wanted of these, and why they wanted them for. And usually, faculty agreed with that. So it's been, really, a good experience.

LS: That's remarkable. And has there been, you say there has been consensus among the faculty members that this is the way that things should go. Were there people on the faculty who fought it?

JH: Well, since I ran all these things, what I've usually done, I've asked is there any objection. And there wasn't any objection. Now you come and say was there consensus? I don't know. There was no objection.

LS: No objections. It amounts to the same thing.

JH: (laughs) I suppose. But, you know, that's what it was.

LS: Do you think if you became, just a small question, not to spend time on, chairman of the History Department and proposed the same thing, that you could 01:27:00get the same no objections?

JH: No. I proposed it and the result was very clear. Nothing doing.

LS: So this is something to do with the people in the Ed Policy Department.

JH: Yes. And including the students. I think in the History Department, I get very much the sense that... I wonder, too, if they did it, whether it would work. I mean, I have a sense, there are some really hard headed, almost destructive student types here who are looking for-- well, oppose, I get the sense who oppose for the sake of opposing. I may be wrong.

LS: Even now.

JH: Even now. I think it's all past history. There have been far greater confrontation and hostilities in the History Department than over in EPS. And so I'm not too sure whether my colleagues here in the History Department who object 01:28:00to open meetings may have a good point, and I'd just be asking for trouble and chaos. So I'm not inclined to push it here. It might be different if I was here full time. But I'm not.

LS: Do most of the Ed Policy faculty and grad students come to the monthly meetings?

JH: Not most. Oh, no. No, no. It's a smaller group.

LS: Oh, smaller group of [unclear] faculty or?

JH: No, no, no. I think at the most we have had six or seven graduate students, and sometimes as small as one or two or three.

LS: Faculty?

JH: Oh, no, graduate students who come to the department meetings.

LS: Okay. And how many faculty?

JH: Oh, that's usually up to 80 percent. No, faculty, they do come. It's a small department. Of those who are most active, there are only about twelve bodies you 01:29:00know, that come. We have, I think, twenty-five people on the list, but some of them don't do any teaching in our department anymore.

See, we have people who are in the position I am, two-thirds/one-third, to those who are on the list but have no teaching duties whatsoever in the department, and they don't come to meetings. People like Lee [Hanson?], for example, rarely ever shows up.

LS: So they're just there to be on committees for graduate students.

JH: Yeah. They're on the committees for graduate students, or on hiring and personnel business. You know, the really important matters. And we do keep them, mainly because we need them for our graduate students in their specialties.

LS: So you're--

JH: So twelve people, twelve faculty members is the normal size of those who participate.

LS: I see. Was the department, as somebody said in the newspaper, set up to 01:30:00explore new ways in university education?

JH: No. I don't think that was the, [unclear] the department was set up, its rationale was to bring to bear the social sciences and humanities to the solution of educational questions. But with no special emphasis given to university questions. I mean, that could be done. Doesn't have to be done. And I think the nature of the beast, the emphasis lies on the public schools. I know myself, I deal with higher education. But there are very few others who do that. [Bob Kale?] does in comparative education abroad. But most of my colleagues work on the [unclear] of the public schools. Public school education.

LS: That was somebody said, they were quoting, I think, [Young?] and saying that 01:31:00it was set up, that the Ed Policy was designed to explore new ways in teaching. But that isn't part of your--

JH: Well, sure. If you just say new ways of teaching anything, you know, anything we want to do--

LS: No. I see.

JH: But what I meant was it was not specifically set up to give solutions to problems in higher education. In fact, I think we share that very much with people in educational administration. There is a program in higher education and in the past which was sort of jointly run between educational administration and us. Our part was very much in the, and then Joe Kauffman is. And now Virginia, I forgot her last name. A new faculty member who is a lawyer, and deals with higher education and law. So we talk with each other and send our students back and forth, and have them take each other's courses. But that's not a major 01:32:00emphasis of the department.

LS: It's not deliberate. I guess the reason I'm asking is I'm talking to Jim Scott, who's at the science department. We decided that probably the political scientists responded somewhat differently to the Dow demonstrations than other departments because of the discipline. And I just wondered if Ed Policy would respond differently. I think it must be the case to things like TA demands and strikes and problems of undergraduate teaching. Because you're thinking about it all the time.

JH: Yes. It's my impression that, thinking back to the Dow demonstration, and all the things that came after the department had sort of a reputation of being much more in sympathy with student demands than other departments had been. And 01:33:00that's probably been true.

LS: And this is not because of the individuals but because of the discipline, which is thinking about students or not.

JH: Well, I think it would have to be both in this case. You know, I was just thinking of our latest discussions that we had in the hiring of lecturers, which are not on tenure track, and not regular research type faculty. The argument for that was that, and the particular person I have in mind is Emmanuel Corso, that he would present a different role model to future teachers. Now that's the culmination now of an argument that thinks about education and sees some positive value in exposing future teachers to alternatives to the teaching styles without necessarily thinking they all should take Corso's way, but they 01:34:00should have a chance to see that man in operation.

Coming together with just the fact that a Corso has to be here. In that sense, you get person and field together.

LS: Do you mean a different role model in the sense that he's not headed up toward becoming a full professor?

JH: Well, it's that, and that he does not present a traditional classroom approach to teaching, but perhaps an approach that fits much better into tea groups and psychotherapist's office, and all these various new ways where people try to communicate on a personal level, stressing these values rather than intellectual values, information analysis, which the usual academic classroom 01:35:00style is with that type of different role model as a teacher.

LS: That's interesting. So he's trying to acquaint teachers, people who will be teaching in schools--

JH: Future teachers, yeah.

LS: --with these, with new kinds of approaches to other people.

JH: Yeah.

LS: But why couldn't he be, what does that got to do with his being on tenure track? Why couldn't he be?

JH: Oh, well, the tenure track regulations are that each faculty member is responsible in three areas: teaching, research, and service. And Corso has quite unequivocally said that he's only interested in teaching.

LS: And you can hire him.

JH: Well, we can hire him in this capacity as lecturer. But not in a regular professorial position.

LS: Will you be able to raise his pay?

JH: We have, over the years, sure.

LS: The dean's office doesn't object.

JH: No. There is limitations to it now. The new regulations have just been coming out from administration as to what governs the appointment of lecturers. And for example, you cannot stay here forever. He has a three-year, terminal, half time contract. That is new now. In the past, we hired him from year to year. Now we have to give him a three-year contract. But at the same time, also, the contract that specifies clearly there won't be any renewal.

LS: Are you going to try and change that?

JH: I don't know. I mean, I doubt it at the moment, because he's just on the first year of a three-year contract. And we just got him the three-year contract and virtually we signed away our lives. If we stick by this, how will things look two years from now is a different question. If things haven't changed, then--

LS: You've got some other things, some things that I'm not aware of, to ask questions about?

JH: Well, [unclear] thinking about, drawing a blank right now.

LS: I would like to ask about the Joan Roberts case. You can say what you think, what you want to be heard.

JH: Well, I think the main matter to keep in mind is that we were, as a department, in the very stages of the whole process where we first had a 01:38:00departmental evaluation committee, doing its work, going through the record. And then recommending to the executive committee, and the executive committee making its decisions. That at all of these stages, number one, I'm very acutely aware, from the start, that we didn't have a regular run of the mill case here. There was no question that Joan was an activist person, and would not take any negative things lying down. So we were not doing anything just out of pure spite or whatever. Number two, that we owed it to ourselves, and of course to her and everyone else that we be exceedingly careful, and play the game by its rules. 01:39:00Which meant that there were three areas to be looked into: teaching, service and scholarship. And I will say that that's exactly what we did. And the result was that in two of these areas, in both teaching and service, we found her acceptable. We did not find her extraordinary, brilliant, and all these other things that you read in the newspapers that people claimed. Because we had enough evidence that while there was a very outspoken group of loyal supporters who made all these statements, there were others who report quite differently. That we had a balanced picture, which in balance we still thought on these two points, we'd make for her a continuation. But that we found her work in 01:40:00scholarship just unacceptable. Then that, essentially, is what we then said, and have said, and we will say all along.

LS: One of the things that figured were these two manuscripts that had been accepted by publishers. Had you read them?

JH: Oh, sure! Yes. Well, what we had, these were edited volumes of collections of the writings of other people. They were not her original scholarship. Her work consisted of being an editor. And the one case of asking people, a series of women here at UW to give new, original lectures. And in the other case, the book's an anthropology [anthology?] of taking articles that have already appeared in the past and putting them together. So you know, it was that kind of 01:41:00scholarship, which does not meet the criteria for tenure.

LS: Does that ever figure in, for instance, in the History Department, are people turned down if what they submit is really an edited, volume of edited essays?

JH: Well, I don't think you can put it that way in saying people are turned down because of what they did. I think they're turned down because of what they didn't do. What we were looking for was the evidence of continuing scholarship. And there are cases where that kind of evidence, you know, does not appear yet at the time in published form, for many reasons. Sometimes the publishing house goes bankrupt, things happen, the thing doesn't come out. But the point is, the 01:42:00evidence is there.

In Joan's case, there wasn't any of that kind of evidence. In fact, as we go back through the whole process of the annual reviews, there were explicit warnings given to her that she must produce this kind of evidence. And she had, at times, claimed that she had it, she had done work of which, research in Africa much earlier. And she was doing the same sort of thing with women students, I think, in Wisconsin colleges. And there were specific reference in these before asking her to bring this material out, to have it to demonstrate her research work. Well none of this came. None was there. So that remained, you know, the gap.

LS: Well, when she was first considered to be, as to whether she'd be kept on 01:43:00for another three years, was that done with reluctance, or do you remember?

JH: No, no, not at all? In fact, when she first came, six years ago, she looked like a tremendously promising person. And much of the feeling was her promises were not kept. She was given, which was very unusual when she was first hired, a semester only, no, a semester of leave to continue and bring out her dissertation. She was hired as an assistant professor when she didn't have her doctorate. Which also was unusual. And much of that at the time was justified because of her promise. And then the point was, her promise never materialized.

LS: What was the work she was doing in the Madison schools human relations program?

JH: Yes. She was responsible for putting together a manual to be used in the human relations program. She got part time leave for that from the university, and she was to submit that to the superintendent's office there. And for all I know, I didn't personally look into that matter [unclear] but she did that part of it. It was a terribly mixed up affair. I've seen part of the manuscript that came back from them completely rewritten. They were very unhappy with it. There were all kinds of personal problems. So in our little report, I think we frankly said that we didn't, we couldn't give a clear cut statement on just what the 01:45:00amount of that work was. We assumed that it was okay. But there were problems. I don't know.

My whole hunch was that they were so mixed up with personnel relations between the people there and the, some of the people who worked there, I think, had been her students. And they fell in a very strange relationship towards her when they now had become, as it were, her superiors. Well, people didn't always prefer now to talk about that.

LS: Really. It must be rather an important part of the evidence, though.

JH: Well, I wouldn't argue that way, no. See, our main point is that on scholarship, she fell down. And that came under the rubric of service.

LS: But you had passed her on service.

JH: Yes. Yes.

LS: But in fact, you're saying in this particular case that it was--

JH: Well, that was part of her service. She had obviously done this tremendous work for the Association of Women Teachers in the state, and so on. In those areas, there wasn't ever any question. She had done--

LS: Was that productive work?

JH: Well, I would think so.

LS: I mean, one can be very active and--

JH: I would say, I've always thought, to people who've asked me, that I would have to recommend Joan for jobs. I think she would get from me, too, a great recommendation as an organizer, somebody with administrative skills. I mean, she clearly put her main energies in that field. The question that I think has to be raised is, or has to be pointed out is that that kind of work could be done by 01:47:00somebody who's not necessarily a college professor. She's good at that. There isn't any question about it. Effective and all that.

LS: Did you hire another woman? One of the remarks made in the newspaper articles was that Ed Policy Department would be making an effort to hire another woman.

JH: Yeah. We have Andrea Mazeman now, who's in anthropology. We have Joy Rice, who's in counseling education. They are members of the department now.

LS: Are they since that--

JH: Since that time. We have just now hired not a woman, but Richard Ruiz, another minority person, who's in charge of minority education. So clearly there has been a deliberate policy on our part. And I think, for Educational Policy 01:48:00Studies, particularly, we must have people in these areas. That's what um the great problems are all about. Yeah? We have, indeed.

LS: Did you ever think of trying to get another couple of women from somewhere else in the university to sit in on the committee, so that the accusation of its being an all-male committee--

JH: Oh, we did. Yes. Yes. See, the, what the accusation focuses on is that by university recommendations, the members of such a reviewing committee have to be members of the executive committee of the department. And there were no women, there weren't on that committee.

So what we did, we asked a woman from another department in the School of Behavior Disabilities, Jane Ayer to be, to serve on her committee.

LS: That didn't show up in the newspapers.

JH: No. I think we did say that at the hearings, but I don't think anyone picked that up. That there was a fourth member. And technically, it still has to be said, she not being a member of the department, technically she was not quote unquote a "member." I think we called her a consultant. But, on the other hand, she took full part in the committee, and voted in the committee, and is on record in the papers as a consultant to the committee. And agreeing to its decisions.

00:42:38

LS: Was, I noticed Philip Altbach was a supporter of Joan Roberts. Did his departure have anything to do with the case?

JH: No. No. Well at least, I don't, I mean, maybe on his part. But certainly not on ours. No. I think that was a rather, that was a different matter. Phil had been hoping for a promotion to full professor. And the department was reluctant 01:50:00at that point to go along. And its evaluations, which there had been full promotion to full professor, they had always said they wanted to see more substantial work by him. There had been a feeling that Phil did a lot of very superficial, quick, and very unsubstantial writing. And people asked for less quantity and more quality before they wanted to consider him for a promotion.

And I think what happened, I must say, I think what happened, of course I couldn't swear that it happened exactly this way, but as I understand it, Phil then did get an offer from the university in New York, at Buffalo. And he came with that offer and said unless you promote me, I'll leave. And what happened was, the department called his bluff and said well not so fast, we're going to 01:51:00wait another year.

But he had said he was going to leave. He told me once himself that he really didn't want to leave. But he put himself in that kind of a box, and there it was. And then he left.

LS: Do you include his Academic Supermarkets, had that been published?

JH: Oh, yeah, that had been published several years before that. Yeah.

LS: So you didn't think highly of that?

JH: No, I don't think I did. The key thing that sticks in my mind is the chapter that he has on the Sociology Department. Now I'm not a member of that department, and know the story inside out. But if you ask some of the, say [Warren Extra?], I think he can tell you more about it. But from what I learned, that wasn't exactly the way the history of that department developed. And there was a great deal of feeling that much of what was in that book was of a similar 01:52:00rather superficial way.

Then there were other things. This happened later, after he'd already left. A colleague of mine showed me a letter that had been sent by Phil to all contributors to the book. The book was somewhat of an anthology of what different people had written on it, in which he pointed out that, oh, I forgot the figures now. Maybe nine out of ten, although I could be wrong on that number, of the contributors, all were no longer at the University of Wisconsin. And the clear implication was that they had written something nasty about the university and the university had kicked them out.

Well the truth of the matter was, at least two or three of these contributors had been our own graduate students, who had now finished, gotten degrees and jobs somewhere else. So it's that sort of thing that left some rather bad feelings and bad tastes in people's mouth about the way he did things.

LS: In that case, would other departments have any say on whether a man was granted tenure? Let's say that the Ed Policy Department hadn't really looked into his book, that really said, [unclear] book.

JH: No. I mean, no. Just as in the Joan Roberts case, the tenure committees come from the department involved. We have a little different story now in a case like [Frindi?] Campbell, where there is no department, or no executive committee, you get other people in. I think our own department regulations allow to bring in consultants, as we did with Jane Ayer and the case with Joan. Particularly in departments like EPS or African Studies, where you cut across departmental lines. So you may make provision for that. But I don't think that any kind of official action could be taken by another department in protesting 01:54:00or... The check on a department recommendation for tenure comes in the divisional committee. [pause]

Things that ought to be considered when you [unclear] on your level discusses tenure. That, I suppose, can happen. But I'm not aware of any official action policy, but I know that [unclear]

LS: But somebody in the Sociology Department wouldn't call you up and say, "Hey, look, do you realize that what this guy said about [unclear] "

JH: Oh, I suppose individual members, telephone's free, they can catch you anywhere and it lets you know what they think. But that's different from an official department way.

LS: Well I guess I also meant unofficial, and does it happen?

JH: Oh. Well all I can say, I cannot think. People usually take this sort of initiative when there's something positive to say. Human beings, in my 01:55:00experience, including academics, do not really like to go around and do somebody in, and say bad things. But they do come with favorable things. Letters have poured in during the Joan Robert thing all the time. And you could know almost before opening, that all letters that came were positive. And that's the nature of the beast.

LS: That's true. Yes.

JH: Oh, I must say, in Joan's case, not all of them were. But the great majority, of course, were.

LS: You have them, I suppose.

JH: Oh, yes.

LS: Have you served on any committees, or been on the Faculty Senate?

JH: I've been on the Senate, yeah. [sighs] I found that to be a great bore.

LS: Do you think it's more boring than faculty meetings used to be? Did you go 01:56:00to faculty meetings when they were still--

JH: Well of course when I came in 1966--

LS: They were getting exciting.

JH: Faculty meetings were exciting.

LS: Yes, that's true.

JH: I don't know. I'm sure they wouldn't be any different from the senate meetings are now.

LS: Is there a clique in this, no, a clack is the word I want. Not a clique, but a clack. I have heard that there's a group of people who does a great deal of talking.

JH: Oh, yes. Yes. There certainly is. The same people talk a great deal of the time in these meetings. And sometimes you know just exactly what they're going to say, and you wish they would just go up and say, "Speech number one, you've heard it before," and sit down again, instead of going through it all over again. (laughs)

LS: This is the nature of a filibuster, is it?

JH: No, I don't think there's a conscious attempt at filibustering. They just love to be heard.

LS: Anatole Beck was mentioned before. Is that right?

JH: Yeah.

LS: And somebody from the School of Social Work.

JH: Right I know who you mean. Older statesman at the time. Oh, Loeb. What's his first name? Martin.

LS: Martin Loeb, yes.

JH: Yes. Martin Loeb. Right. [unclear]

LS: Oh. But I was thinking, I was wondering if those two were speaking on behalf of a particular position. Or is it merely that they as individuals talk?

JH: Oh. Well, I mean, they have their position, positions, which are quite profiled. And they happen to be very different from David Feldman's position.

LS: Yeah. That's why I decided they couldn't be all together.

JH: The lists, the other side, has its spokesman, too.

LS: I see. Well, do you think the faculty has much power in the senate? Or would 01:58:00you say it's dominated by the administration?

JH: I think the problem is that if the faculty has real concerns, it does indeed, you know, [unclear] [Felder?] gets into the press, and it certainly obliges the university committee in its negotiations. And wherever they go, sometimes it's the legislature over [the regents?] to make these opinions felt.

I think the major problem is that much of the stuff that comes there is pretty humdrum. And it's not, there are a few things, and the fact that daily life of university professors, such as I discussed in departmental meetings, what people really got involved, and what they're going to do next week or next semester. Here, this is all a bit removed. We have a huge institution and well, I think the whole business of limitation of enrollments is a good example. While that 01:59:00does affect, in a sense, everybody, it is also somewhat of a removed issue. And there's a feeling, and what we're really discussing here are mechanisms of a policy, which as policy had already been set. The word had come from on down. And then you get just an awful lot of sort of obligatory policy speeches, whether we should just lie down and accept the matters as they come, whether we should refuse to play along, do nothing. Or, more pragmatic point of view, well, it's here, it's going to be done anyway, let's get our foot in. You get discussions of that sort rather than, you know, specific things that you better get done. So that can, at times, get a little uninteresting.

LS: There's an agenda, isn't there?

JH: Yes.

LS: And things don't usually get raised that are not on it.

JH: Well there's usually an opportunity to ask questions of the chancellor, and questions of the chairman of the university committee. And that provides some interest. Because then people will come forth with specific questions or complaints they haven't aired. So that part of it, the question and answer at the beginning, is usually the most interesting.

LS: Are you on it now?

JH: No.

LS: This was some time ago. Do you know whether they ever discussed the number of undergraduate contact hours? Faculty should have. The TAA was--

JH: Not that I remember that this was taken up. This was a matter that has come up over and over again in departmental meetings. And from the point of the faculty, the concern has been one of equity. Some people do more than others, 02:01:00and we have worked out departmental policies to deal with this question within a department. And when I've been through the same discussion as a chairman, in the meeting of other departmental chairmans with a dean of the School of Education, and you begin to see what the ramifications and difficulties are of departments like art or dance or physical education in the School of Education. They have very different arrangements than departments like ours, which is much more like liberal arts and history. Where you have class contact. Art and physical education, there's so much individual work and small groups that you cannot come up with a uniform policy across the college.

LS: Couldn't you make two policies?

JH: You probably need as many policies as you have now, just as many policies as departments.

LS: As departments. I see.

JH: Yes. If anyone arranges teaching matters differently even in a department like history, if you want to change, exchange sections, let's say, for individual contacts. Whatever you do, it will not fit in standard rule for what teaching in the department should be. So it's a very difficult subject and my conclusion is, it really has to remain on the departmental level.

LS: Even though, even though there might be envy by one department of another, if one department had settled on ten hours and the other on six.

JH: Well, [unclear] as departments are now pressed, and they are pressed by, at least in the School of Education, to have their own departmental policies, you 02:03:00get, first of all, really for the first time come in a position to compare, at least on paper. And almost inevitably when that comes, there will be a push for greater equity among departments. But I guess what I'm saying is, you really can't start out this by pronouncing this is the way it should be. You have to tell them just what there is. [pause]

LS: We're talking about the School of Education generally.

JH: Yes. The thing that needs to be said is that the School of Education is not its own boss. It is oppressed, you might almost say, or at least directed and supervised by the State Department of Public Instruction, the DPI. And right now there is tremendous movement in the state among professional educators to have the teachers and then there's a push from the teachers' organizations, like the 02:04:00WEA, Wisconsin Education Assoc. All of them will now demand a hand and a voice in requirements of teacher education. So we will have three or four bosses now to tell us what we must do, what we must teach. And this professional push, we started out with an example from complaints here in the Math Department.

LS: From the Math Department, yeah.

JH: Is of course totally in a different direction. The latest thing now is that with the governor's blessing, the demand is that every primary school teacher must be in addition to whatever his or her specialty is, a teacher of reading. That translates itself that the School of Education has to offer to all of its students going into the elementary program, X many, I don't know exactly, X many credits of how to teach reading.

Well if you do that, you have to take the same number of credits away from somewhere else. And it may well be that math or English or history or something else, something else suffers. And now you will get the WA and the NEA, and I don't know specifically what they're going to ask for, but be sure they're going to ask for something, that they probably will say that they must get out of the School of Education and carry out most of their training in the schools. Because you know, that means money for them, you can see how that works. School teachers will become supervisors instead of university personnel. You can see all the politics of this thing. But I'm just bringing this interesting illustration when L&S people complain about the School of Education. Poor School of Education, you know, gets hit by everybody.

LS: But isn't it being hit by people that were trained in the School of Education?

JH: Well, yes. Particularly in the branches, in the [unclear] Education administration. If you look for a villain, and ask me who the villain is within 02:06:00the school, this may be better for a hundred years under lock and key, but it is the Department of Education Administration. They are the professionals' professionals, if you want to put it that way.

LS: Now this is the state department.

JH: No, no, no, no. No. No. The university.

LS: The university, in the School of Education.

JH: In the School of Education, Department of Education Administration, they turn out the type of people who are the professionals. Who look at all educational problems from the point of view of an administrator and of a professional, who is very suspicious, for instance, of the whole L&S direction, of the academic work. They, in the past, students who went into teaching had to have eighteen hours of education credits. Now from an educator, from a professional educator's point of view, that ought to be twice or three times as 02:07:00much. There are all kinds of professional concerns.

Just look at, for instance, I'm noticing the new offerings that the Department of Educational Administration wants to give to undergraduates. Modules called, "The Teacher and the Budget," "The Teacher and the Educational Process." There isn't an educational question that you can think of that isn't going to be translated into a new course.

LS: That will be a semester course.

JH: No, these happen to be modules. They're a third of a semester. But still, you see the process at work. All the professional interest eventually translates themselves in demands as to what the School of Education's to teach. And always and ever, since we had, what is it, 126 or so, how many a credits a student needs for graduation? If you add five or six more in this professional business, another five or six have to go out. And you can see why the Department of 02:08:00Mathematics screams. Because usually it's math or history or something like that that goes out.

LS: Is nobody kicking about that?

JH: Well, who are you going to kick about? See, the DPI has a force of law. Once they make their regulations they stick. And they don't make regulations for the university, don't misunderstand me. They simply say, "If you want to be a teacher in this state, you have to do such and such." So they make the regulations for the students. What do you think the poor students are going to say? You know, if the School of Education doesn't give them what they need, the School of Education isn't much good to them. (laughs)

LS: You have members of Ed Policy who are in the Department of, the administrative--

JH: You mean joint department with that department? No.

LS: No?

JH: No. No. I think that's not too likely to happen. (laughs)

LS: I thought [Herb Cleaver?] was.

JH: No. he's in curriculum instruction.

LS: Oh, he's in curriculum instruction. I see.

And what, how does curriculum instruction fit in here?

JH: In much the same way. They usually are the ones who have to carry [unclear] to the example I gave you in the instruction of reading. This became a charge to them. They had to develop an instruction in reading program. And usually, they are the ones who bear the brunt of all of this. And I think, I don't know their department that well. My sense is that some members of the department feel like I do. I think [Herb Cleaver?] definitely does. But also, some other members are very much on the other side, and just love to have more to do. (laughs) You know, that comes with that kind of situation, when you, in a sense, serve two masters. Masters here in the sense of demands for professional education, demands for liberal arts education.

LS: And where did the curriculum and instruction people fall in the, or are they, will there be different degrees?

JH: Numerically speaking, I really don't know what the main drift of the department. I just know that there are two wings of it, let's say. You know, the reaction to questions of that nature. But their strength, I really don't know.

LS: That's very interesting. Because it ends up, as I understand it that in the Math Department, because math is so poorly taught in the schools, they have to spend, maybe not 70 percent, but an enormous proportion of their time teaching remedial or high school mathematics.

JH: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Well, you know, one of my own concerns is seeing how the 02:11:00drift goes to professional subjects. Now people like myself, who teach the history of education, [unclear] college teach philosophy of education, we feel very much that we are always about to be bounced. It's the easiest thing to cut out when there are problems of the ghetto, and there are problems of minority education, and there are people from Johnny Can't Read. Few people would argue strongly that history would be a solution to all these problems. So we have very little priority, from that point of view.

LS: I bet you do. Are you a required course at all?

JH: No. We are not, no. What we have is a school and society requirement, where there's a group of courses within the liberal arts, where students can pick. They have to have, I never remember all these things, X many credits in the school and society area. The point is, what happens is, that it will soon be X 02:12:00minus one. You know, they're trying to cut down the requirements of school and society area, without throwing a particular course out. But the students only need seven or only six credits, and students can pick. Well, they may pick history, they may pick philosophy. We take our chance.

LS: And the thing is that Ed Policy or History of Education is not something that any of them are ever going to teach in school, whereas they might--

JH: No, not as teachers in the schools.

LS: So it's purely for their own--

JH: It's our graduate students that are going to go and be teachers in teachers' colleges, and other colleges and universities who take these courses to be taught how to teach. But the--

LS: But [unclear]

JH: No, they'd take [unclear], too, because the information.

LS: Hmm. Well fortunately you're on tenure, so you can't be [thrown out?] too completely.

JH: But it's a real problem from a departmental point of view.

LS: There's a little bit of room on this tape. Do you want to just say what the research grant you got was? What you're doing with it?

JH: Hmm. I've been working for at least five or six years on a legal and governmental history of higher education, from the beginning of this country, 1636, founding at Harvard. Two, the Dartmouth College case, the first time a school case, or college case, came to the United States Supreme Court, 1819. And that was supported first by the National Endowment for the Humanities. And now the last three years, through the National Institute of Education. And I hope maybe next year sometime to be able to finish up at least that first volume going up to 1820. Later on, I may want to continue with it.

But the point is, the focus of interest, really, came through the upheavals in the 1960s, when college cases went to court. In fact, at the time, Judge Doyle asked me to write him a brief on the history of the relationship between college jurisdiction and civil jurisdiction in the police department, which brought all this about. As always in a court case, you had a deadline. And I had to give them this memorandum within X many weeks. And I had this feeling that I had written on something that I knew nothing about. (laughs) And I decided that one of these days, I'm going to do that right, and really go about it. And this is how it all began, that my interest in this whole area.

LS: Have you unearthed some unexpected--

JH: Oh, yes! Oh, yeah. There's just so little known, so much misinformation on this whole subject, the whole tradition of colleges where they come, oh, yeah, 02:15:00yeah. There's a good many [unclear]

LS: It's in manuscript form.

JH: Well, some of it's already published in articles. But I want to put it all together in book form.

LS: And you have a graduate student working with you.

JH: Yes, [Sue Labrant?]