Second interview with Eldon Newcomb (July 15, 1999): Tapes 3-4

Eldon Newcomb (#532) Transcript [Begin Tape 3/Side 1] BT: This is a Barry Teicher of the Oral History Project. Today is July 15, 1999. Professor Eldon Newcomb and I are in a very nice air conditioned conference room on a very hot July day in the basement of Birge Hall. We're going to continue the interview that we started two days ago. After the interview on Tuesday, Professor Newcomb, you related an interesting anecdote to me that I wasn't familiar with, and it relates to George S. Bryan and the Birge Hall lobby. Could you talk about that, please? EN: Yes. George Bryan was in his last year or two of chairmanship when I, last year or two of service, actually, on the faculty when I arrived. He was a big hale and hearty fellow. Gave grandiloquent lectures that students really enjoyed. But Bryan was also a big game hunter, both in Africa and the American West. He had lined the walls of the Birge Hall lobby with the heads of these big game from Africa. And these stayed there for years and years. I think they were there until probably 1970 or so. BT: Oh, really? [laughs] EN: Yes. But of course the ecology movement- BT: Yeah. EN: The earth movement spelled their demise. BT: Not the politically correct thing to have on the walls. [laughter] Let's go, we're going to just pick up a few odds and ends from last time, and talking about some of the individuals in the Botany Department. You wanted to talk about Professor 00:01:00 Overton for a moment. EN: Yes. J. B. Overton was a plant physiologist here. He was chairman for several years during the 1920s. And in 1924, W.J. Robbins, who was head of the New York Botanical Garden, was serving as the section chairman of the plant physiology section of the Botanical Society of America. And he had heard that there were people in this section who wanted to split off and form a separate society, the American Society of Plant Physiologists. So he appointed a three-man committee, consisting of Overton and William Crocker, head of the Boyce Thompson Institute, and R.B. Harvey, who was a young professor of plant physiology at Minnesota. And these three carried on an extensive correspondence. The letters to and from Overton, between Overton and Crocker, are in the UW Archives. I don't know that there are many letters from Harvey. Overton and Crocker were a bit disturbed by Harvey. Harvey was a very strongly, very strong for cutting ties with the Botanical Society. And Crocker and Overton were reserved, and rather opposed, at least for a while. Eventually, Overton did, well, the ASPP was formed, and the section split off from the Botanical Society. And eventually, Overton joined it. But that's not apparent in the letters. In the letters, he was rather opposed. All this was written up by John Hanson at the University of Illinois a few years ago in a publication called History of the American Society of Plant Physiologists. So that's the story on Overton. BT: Another person you wanted to talk for a moment about is Hugh Iltis. EN: Well, Hugh, as everyone on the campus, any old-timer on the campus knows, is a very controversial figure. He's bombastic and 00:02:00 insulting. Or used to be. He's calmed down a lot now. And a thorn in the side of a good many administrations, and L&S deans. But I would like to put a little different slant on this. Iltis has been a tremendous, despite his exaggerations and his attacks on people, and his outright, blatant advocacy of certain points of view, he's been an enormous force for good in many ways. He's had a tremendous impact on, say, high school science teachers in preaching the conservation gospel. And he's done tremendous work in Mexico. He's almost solely responsible for the establishment of a nature reserve in Mexico. And he has sent literally thousands of books and journals to the University of Guadalajara in several enormous shipments. He's collected things from the medical school, from the Middleton Library that were going to be discarded. And 00:03:00 he's been passionate about this. Iltis also is the one true bibliophile I have personally known. He is a real bibliophile. He just loves books. And so also, while I was chairman, the (Langlois?) collection of the Catholic University of America became available. Catholic University, for reasons that I don't understand, decided to go almost completely molecular and close out their herbarium. And this herbarium included a number of type specimens of plants gathered in Central and South America. Just an invaluable collection. They sold these specimens for about fifty cents a sheet. Well, that wouldn't even cover the cost of the paper. Iltis learned of this fairly early on. He persuaded the dean to contribute money. And he raised money any way he could, and went back there on a couple of occasions and bought all the specimens he could for this herbarium here. Iltis was a passionate believer in the herbarium. And he did just marvelous work in building it up. So there are two sides of the story to Iltis. And a number of events occurred during my tenure as chairman where Iltis was, where we had to call Iltis on the carpet. But I tried to ameliorate the effects, the censure. I tried to see that Iltis' interests were preserved. And another thing I did was to see that 00:04:00 Iltis got a fair deal in the allocation of salary. He had been discriminated against because of the problems. And I did everything I could do move salary in his direction. Because I felt he deserved it. BT: You mentioned your chairmanship, working for Professor Iltis. Let's just return to your chairmanship for a moment. We talked a little bit off mike after the last interview about the hiring of, who was that person? EN: Tom Givnish. BT: Yeah. Could you relate that incident again? EN: Well, we had a position available in ecology. And a committee was formed with Don Waller as chairman. And we got a number of applications. I suppose we got seventy or eighty applications. 00:05:00 And among these was a former student of Grant Cottums. A very good student, good record. But he'd only been out about five years from the time he'd gotten his PhD. I felt that, well, for one thing, we should not bring in someone who represented exactly the same field of research as the retiring person, necessarily. And also, I don't know whether it's an unwritten rule or a written rule that we should not appoint someone, yes, I know what it is. Dean Ingraham, or Dean Cronin, had stated, and I guess this is a longstanding rule, that a person should not be hired who has gotten his PhD here, unless he has gone on and made a reputation for himself elsewhere. A good, solid reputation. BT: To avoid nepotism and inbreeding? EN: Right. Exactly. Well, this young fellow had really not quite done that yet. Now at the same time, we had an application from Tom Givnish, who was an associate professor from Harvard in the section of organismal biology. And we got absolutely glowing letters from outstanding biologists like E.O. Wilson. Wilson wrote just a strikingly supportive letter. And so did several 00:06:00 other well known biologists. And Givnish had tremendous credentials. He had graduated in mathematics from Princeton summa cum laude. And had just a fine record of publication and so forth. So I went to Dennis Evans, who was the science dean for L&S, and pleaded Givnish's case. And I also argued that we ought to bring him in as an associate professor. So Givnish and this young chap I was mentioning earlier were the leading contenders. And I took an active role on the committee. I mean, I perhaps shouldn't have, but I felt it was important. And I just sat in on the committee deliberations. And we finally had a meeting at which the relative merits of people were discussed. And Don Waller put up a very strong argument for Givnish. And the department voted for Givnish. That's the way we got him. But we, I forget, I think we brought him in as an associate professor without tenure. But we promised to consider him for tenure very early, very soon. Anyway, he got tenure almost immediately, the next year. 00:07:00 And he's been a standout in-- BT: He's still here. EN: Yes. BT: Okay. EN: He's a community ecologist who applies mathematics to the ecology of communities. BT: Interesting. One other thing about your chairmanship, and then we'll leave that part of the interview. We talked, again off mike, about the ecologists and the taxonomists. Can you talk about the relationship, any relationship with that? EN: Well, one of the big changes in the department over the years has been the strengthening of ecology. This coincides, of course, with the earth movement and with the general interest in ecology. But the ecology now, the ecology section, is one of the two strong sections. The other section being physiology. And I would not say that I felt that there was any great friction between the ecologists and the physiologists. My contribution as chairman was to facilitate the needs of all of the sections. And I liked ecologists. I liked them as people, and I liked their field of work. So I did what I could to further their interests. And I did the same for the taxonomists, and for all parts of the department where I felt it was justified. So in that sense, maybe I did smooth over things between the ecologists and the physiologists. But I never felt that there was any 00:08:00 rancor or trouble between the two groups. BT: Okay. One other thing. Just one other minor thing. I don't know exactly where else to put it, so let's put it right here. I interviewed Joshua Lederberg last year in New York a couple of times, and I was talking to you about this. And you had had an opportunity to meet Dr. Lederberg early in his career here at the university. I believe it was in association with Professor Skoog. Could you just talk about that for a moment? EN: Well, Josh Lederberg was born in 1925. So when he came to the campus, I think he came in 1950. BT: '48. EN: '48. Well then, he would have been only twenty-three or four. Because I was a graduate student, 00:09:00 and was invited to the Skoogs', and Josh was invited, for dinner one evening. This would have been about 1948 or '49, so he was twenty-three or twenty-four. And of course everyone was impressed by how bright he was. But I remember one particular incident was, somehow we got to talking about, there was some reference to a Greek god, and we got to talking about this, and it turned out that Josh knew all of these mythical characters. [laughter] BT: Of course! Of course! EN: Not many people can rattle them off, but he certainly did. So that's, I had occasion to be with him several times after that. But I don't know that they're anything very, I can remember when he lived out at university houses, he had no furniture. He was sitting on an orange crate, I think. [laughter] This was early in his stay here. BT: Okay. You mentioned Dave Cronin a few moments ago, and we certainly talked about Dean Ingraham as well. Let's just talk for one moment about the L&S deans who were doing their deaning 00:10:00 while you were here at the university. Is there anything that you have to add to the record about the deanships of Ingraham, you've mentioned Ed Young. Some others are Leon Epstein, Stephen (Cleany?), and then, of course, Dave Cronin. Is there any particular-- EN: Well, I got to know Edwin Young when we were meeting on, the Biocore committee was meeting. And Young came to all the meetings, or virtually all of them. And that's saying a lot for an L&S dean. BT: It sure is. EN: I liked all the deans. I thought they were all very fair. During my tenure as chairman, Dennis Evans was the associate dean for the sciences. And Evans was, I thought, just a marvelous person. Unfortunately he went to, I believe it was the University of Rhode Island. BT: Now when you were, let's talk about your relationship as department chair to L&S. You 00:11:00 met with them when budget time came, certainly. Did you, what was the nature of your association with the deans or associate deans [unclear] EN: Well, whenever we had a special request, like an appointment we felt should be made, or we had an argument that there was a niche in the department or some special problem, that we would consult with Evans. And occasionally we would bump it up to Cronin. BT: And you had no problems? EN: No, no. Everything. I thought they treated us very fairly. I don't have any complaints. I've gotten acquainted with Phil Certain in other ways. But I didn't, he came along as dean later. BT: Right. 1993, right after you retired. EN: From what I've seen of Certain, I think very highly of him, too. BT: Yeah, he's a good dean. The last question relating to the department more or less as a whole is a very general one. Perhaps one could write a book on this, but I'm going to ask you anyway. How, in your estimation, has the department changed? You've seen it through some very, very interesting times. First as a graduate student in '45, but really starting in '49 when you joined the faculty, up until, was it 1990 that you retired, or '91? EN: Yes. 1990. BT: 1990. Could you talk a little bit about how the department has changed? And perhaps how botany itself has changed. EN: Well, for one thing, the department has increased its expectations of people in the field of research. There's still an emphasis on good teaching. The department prides itself on good teaching. And in fact, we've, over the last, well, between 1970, let's say, or 1975 and 1990, the department has won three distinguished teaching awards. BT: Oh, 00:12:00 really? EN: Yes. Wayne Becker first, and then Ray Everett, and then Tom Leonard. So we pride ourselves on good teaching. But at the same time, we expect research from everyone. And we expect a vigorous research program. That's quite different from the attitude when I first came into the department in 1946. BT: Indeed. EN: So that's one big change. Another is that there's less emphasis on formal teaching loads. That is, a certain number of teaching hours per week. When I came into the department, or, let's say, during the war years, before I was actually on the faculty, I think the load for an assistant professor was considered to be twelve to fourteen hours, and an associate professor ten to twelve, and a full professor, eight to ten. Well, that has gradually decreased over the years. And since about 1970, we've 00:13:00 sort of been able to decide for ourselves how much to teach. I think, you know, that teaching has to be taken care of, and certain people have to carry heavier loads than others. But there's an allowance made for the kind of course you're teaching, difficulty of it. So for the last twenty years of my tenure, for example, I don't think I carried more than eight hours at the very most, and sometimes just six or seven. BT: Is this partly related to the increased research expectations? EN: Yes. I think it is. That's right. Yeah. So, all right. Another very important point, it's a point that I don't think would be obvious to the young people in the department, is that there's been an astonishing increase in the support staff. When I came into the department, we had a secretary and a shopkeeper. And that's just about all. Now we have a, we have a building manager who is also a computer expert and a troubleshooter in computer, with computer questions. We have a general botany, a full time general botany coordinator and facilitator who's expert on the computer. We have a full time photo lab person. We have a part time illustrator. We have a full time shop man. And by the way, I wanted to show you the shop. You would not believe, Barry, what Nelson Davis has done in the last twenty-five years to build up that shop. He has an elaborate 00:14:00 woodworking shop and metalworking shop. Two enormous areas that he's filled with equipment. And he's done that at very low expense by getting army surplus equipment. All sorts of metal turning lathes and so forth. It's just a marvel. And we have a PhD as a greenhouse director. He has a PhD in horticulture. And there are others I'm not mentioning. So it's just, I used to remark to Folke and my other colleagues in the '40s about Otto Varberg and how he had technicians like Negaline and Christian. It would be Varberg and Negaline, Varber) and Christian. These were technicians who were doing what Varberg wanted, and were maintaining equipment. We had no one like that. now we've filled in a lot of these gaps. We also have a financial expert in the office. BT: That's an excellent point. I think especially a lot of younger faculty would just not know that it wasn't always that way. EN: Yes. Exactly. BT: Like you said, you had your secretary, and that was it. EN: Yes, that's right. Also, the department is more diverse than when I was here in the beginning. We cover all the major areas, except paleobotany. And it's much wider in interest, too, in the sense that the physiologists include molecular biologists and biochemists. Wayne Becker was appointed about 1970. So you can see that it would have been, it would have seemed weird to try to appoint a biochemist in 1950. But by 1970, 00:15:00 the personnel had changed enough, and the atmosphere had changed enough that Becker was brought in with no great hassle. So this is another point. Another area that the young people wouldn't be aware of is the change in the way merit raises are determined. A change for the better. For many years, the way merit raises were determined was for the department, the faculty as a whole to meet. And one person would go out of the room. And the others would discuss him for a little bit. And then write out what they thought. [laughs] That's the way it was decided. But years ago now, it must have been at least twenty-five years, it was set up for a subcommittee of the budget committee to determine merit raises. And this subcommittee takes it very seriously. They meet a number of times. And they get a report from each individual detailing all of his teaching and research during the past year. And they go over this with a fine-toothed comb. And then they vote. And they try to be very fair about it. For the most part, it works very well. The chairman does not have a great deal of leeway to shade things after that. A little bit. And the committee understands that the chairman has some leeway, but not very much. Because it has to adhere pretty closely to the way the committee votes. BT: In the earlier days, would the chairman have played a larger role in that? EN: I 00:16:00 think so, yes. Well, I don't know exactly. I wasn't chairman, and I was, you know, it was a hidden process in the sense that, with the budget subcommittee, this is a rotating committee, which is another good thing. BT: Yeah. Right. EN: So you pretty well know what's going on. But in the old days, no, I wasn't privy to the situation. Another change has been, and I've already touched on this, has been the emergence of ecology as a strong center in the department, so that there are these two areas that each has several members, and each represents a lot of power. Still another one is the relationship, the closer relationship, between the ecologists and the taxonomists. Some years ago, there was some friction between ecology and taxonomy. Well, that's long gone. BT: Now the nature of that friction would have been what? EN: Personality, largely. Iltis, in part. Iltis and Cottum, I think, didn't get along. BT: So this wouldn't have been anything to do with the older friction from years before. EN: No, I don't think so. No, this is different. BT: New friction. EN: Yes. [laughter] But Ken Keegstra is doing the sort of work that Tom Givnish is interested in. And they've done work together. And so there's just a closer rapport between the two groups. Yeah, I want to make the point again that despite the emphasis on research, and there's an onus on everyone to get research grants. There's pressure on everyone to get research grants and to achieve something in research. 00:17:00 It's really, it's a hard life for a professor. And it's much more difficult now to get research grants. The competition is much keener than it was. BT: So the pressure is greater and the competition is keener. EN: Yes. When I was a young professor, I think NSF was funding about 50 percent of the applications. So it was relatively--I never had an application turned down. Now, even the best of applications can be turned down. They're funding maybe 15 percent, 20 percent at the most. It's tough. BT: Is this good for science? EN: Well-- BT: I mean, I can see the problem where all of a sudden people start writing research proposals that have a better chance of being funded. Could that end up-- EN: Well, it takes an enormous amount of time to work up a good research proposal. BT: Right. Yeah. EN: And usually what you do is to get something underway and make pretty sure it's going to work. [laughter] Then you write it up as a new proposal. If you're too off the wall, they're going to shoot holes in it. I think it's a difficult life, and I think a lot of people are turned off by it. There are well known people on the campus who had grant after grant proposal turned down, and they said, "Enough! I'm not going to put up with this anymore." And they stopped doing it. BT: So if you don't get the grants, you may not get the merit increases. Are merit increases based, in part, on your ability to get a grant? EN: Yes, they certainly are. Now I'm out of date on this. 00:18:00 It's been several years since I've participated. When I was still around, the proportion of tries, of successes to tries, was greater than it is now. The funding was higher. So I don't know just what the impact is. For an assistant professor who doesn't yet have tenure, it's almost essential, I would think, to get grant support. BT: Well let's talk about those assistant professors. And we'll talk about this a little bit later on in your own research. But what about, we have a very unique instrument here called WARF, the WARF fund. And the WARF grants. Do they continue to play, or did they play major roles for you and for your colleagues? Especially early on in your career? EN: Yes. Particularly in getting started. Before you have had a chance to write a successful grant, WARF provides bridging funds that are just very valuable. I got help from WARF. But within a year or two, I was able to get NSF support. But they were also helpful in giving me summer salary support at times. BT: Just looking at, again, it's a very interesting period in history, '49 to '90. When 00:19:00 was it most difficult, easiest to get grants, and when was it most difficult? You of course, the federal government jumped in in a big way at different points in your career. EN: Well, I think it's been progressively more and more difficult. Because the NSF budget was climbing through the '50s and '60s. And as I've said, the proportion of grants funded was high. And it's gotten more and more difficult. BT: When did the door start closing a little bit? EN: Well, I would say in the late '70s and through the '80s, it's been getting more and more difficult. BT: That's primarily because NSF budgets and what not have been cut? EN: Yes. And also scientists and biologists in particular have been victims of their own success. There have been more and more, molecular biology, molecular genetics, these fields, cell biology, these fields have been so attractive that people just flooded into these. For the American Society of Cell Biologists, for example, every issue that comes out lists 00:20:00 the new members. And there are hundreds of them. There are thousands and thousands of cell biologists in that society now. Well, thirty years ago there were maybe a couple of hundred. So these people are all competing. They're all bright and they're all competing for grants. It's tough. It was much easier, I would say, for a young professor with a few ideas back in the '50s than it is for a--[pause] [End of Tape 3/Side 1] BT: This may have been starting to happen right around the end of your, right before your retirement. But is the internet playing any effect in like publishing and things like that? EN: Well, access to the journals through computers is done routinely. What role the internet is playing in scientists' lives now, I don't know. BT: Okay. EN: There's one other point-- BT: Sure. EN: --about changes in the department. BT: Please. EN: And that is that the department has more funding from 00:21:00 bequests than it did formerly. We had for many years, since 1937, we've had the J.J. Davis fund. Davis was a physician in Racine who retired early and came to the university in 1902, I believe it was. No, he came in 1912. And he served as the herbarium director without pay for twenty-five years. BT: Oh, my. EN: And in 1937, he died. And his bequest came to the Botany Department. Then after the second of his two daughters died, we got a further bequest. And because of wording of the will, zoology got part of that, also. But that has grown over the years. We've used less of the earnings on the principal than we could have. So the principal and earnings have been growing. So that amounts to a considerable, several hundred thousand dollars. Also, Ethel Allen, the widow of O.E. Allen of bacteriology, who lives now at Ada Gangell's, has given the Botany Department several hundred thousand dollars over the years. She gave the Iltis and the herbarium a big sum, and she's given other money to the department. BT: Well she also, isn't there a garden-- EN: Yes, the Allen Gardens is-- BT: Beautiful gardens. EN: Yes. Those are-- BT: The old E.B. Fred place. EN: --through a grant, a large grant, that came primarily from Ethel Allen. BT: Yeah. It's in its fourth or fifth year now. And every year it gets richer and nicer 00:22:00 and more beautiful. It's a great place. EN: Iltis has had a very fine relationship with her. Iltis nominated her for an honorary degree some years ago. And I believe she was awarded it, too. BT: What is the J.J. Davis, what is that money used for? EN: Well, as I recall, it's designated for research purposes. But there are no restrictions beside that. So it's used in all sorts of ways. Small amounts to conduct summer projects and so on. It's just used in a wide variety of ways to further the interests of the department. BT: There are a couple of campus-wide issues that relate to the entire campus that I like to always ask the people I'm interviewing about just so I can get information. Sometimes there's nothing to be gotten, but that's interesting, too. Of course, post-World War Two time's a fascinating time from a 00:23:00 historian's perspective. In the '50s, many campuses across the land had negative experiences with McCarthyism. We have the dubious distinction of being the home state of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Did McCarthyism have any impact at all on, is it something, did it impact at all on the Botany Department or any of the people in it? EN: No, I don't think it had any impact at all. Of course, we followed the hearings. But as far as the department is concerned, no. BT: Its seems like he didn't pick on Wisconsin very much. You wonder if maybe he wanted to stay away from his voter base. [laughs] the other thing is, during the late '60s and the early '70s, the campuses were seriously disrupted by the student protest movement. How did the protest movement play in the Botany Department? Was there active involvement in it? Indifference toward it? EN: Yes, there was some graduate students who were quite active. And they had, I remember, a meeting in the main auditorium of Birge Hall where one of the 00:24:00 graduate students said all the people over thirty ought to be taken out and shot. [laughter] BT: How old is he now? EN: And someone went through our corridor and put glue in all of the locks of the doors. BT: Oh, my. EN: And someone, a group overturned a car out in the parking are, just east of the west wing of the building, and set it on fire. So there was that sort of thing that went on. And the major impact on me was philosophical. It was dispiriting. I felt, what's the point of carrying on research when all of this sort of thing is happening in the country. So it was a time when it sort of took the fun out of what you were trying to do. And of course the teaching assistants strike made life difficult. But we sort of muddled through, Barry. BT: That's about all one can do in something like that. EN: I remember there was a faculty meeting to decide some momentous issues. BT: A campus faculty meeting? EN: Yes. Campus faculty. Down in the Union Theater. And militant students lined up outside so that we had to go down this gauntlet and come out through this gauntlet. Quite intimidating. But some outrageous statements were made at that meeting. Not only by students, but by faculty, that would seem in retrospect totally ridiculous. BT: Yeah. EN: And I wasn't sympathetic at the time, and I'm not sympathetic now. BT: 00:25:00 What about the department? Did they ever hold any votes to support or not support? Or did they just sort of go on their way? EN: I think we just went on our way. BT: Were your classes ever disrupted by protestors or anything like that? EN: No, I don't recall that there was any real trouble. BT: Do you remember, you were right here on Bascom Hill, so you could certainly look out your windows facing Bascom Hill and be right near the real hub of things for a while. Did you get tear gassed or did you-- EN: No. But my son was a senior in high school taking an advanced credit course on the campus at that time. And so he didn't participate, but he was aware of what was going on. And one time he called up, he was down in the Mifflin Street area, and the police were beating up on some kids. And he called us up and he said, "You ought to come down here." He wasn't a participant. He was a bystander. He wasn't terribly sympathetic with all of it. But he said, "You ought to come down here and see what's happening." He was incensed that the police were beating up on people. But we didn't go down. BT: Yeah. Strange times. EN: Yes. BT: Very strange times. Now in a way, those times came to a very abrupt and very violent halt. And of course I'm talking about that night in August when Sterling Hall was bombed. Were you in town at the time? EN: Yes, I was. I was awakened. As I recall, it was a Sunday morning. BT: Yeah, I believe-- EN: And I was awakened with this tremendous boom. We 00:26:00 lived out in the Nicoma area at the time. I didn't know what it was until later. But when I came over, of course Sterling Hall was not far from the west side of our building. BT: Right. Yeah. EN: And all of the windows on the west side of our building had been blown out. And my laboratory was on that side. BT: Oh, my. EN: And my sectioning room. And Irving Shane was controlling access to the buildings. And I told him who I was, and he let me through. Well, the damage in our lab was extensive. I mean, some equipment was damaged. I could still go down there and show you glass splinters in the doors. And we had some damage in the sectioning room, some of our equipment. It didn't put us out of commission. We could clean up and continue work. I have some pictures showing glass all over the sectioning room. BT: You know, I think it was Irv Shane I was talking to. He was from chemistry, of course. And I think that they had a lot of the same stuff there. That they were finding glass and picking it out of doors and you name it, floors and everything else for months afterwards. EN: Yes. BT: Was it, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but did it seem like things kind of settled down after that? Did you notice a change, a dramatic change in the atmosphere on campus after Sterling Hall? EN: Yes, yes, I think so. Very clearly, things calmed down. That was a punctuation mark at the end of a terrible period. BT: The last thing I want to talk about before I move on to your teaching research and service component, the teaching/research/service components of your career, is I'd just like to look for a 00:27:00 moment at the presidents of the university, people who served as the top chancellors during your stay here. We've talked a little bit about E.B. Fred. Others included Conrad Elvehjem, Fred Harvey Harrington, Robert Fleming, Bill Sewell, who you just mentioned, Ed Young, whom you just mentioned, Irv Shane, whom you just mentioned, and, of course, Donna Shalala, who I believe was probably in charge when you left. EN: Mm hmm. BT: Did you have any personal relationships, or do you have anything that you would like to say about the tenures of any of these people? EN: Well, I got to know them a little bit. I met Fred socially. BT: Fred Harvey Harrington. E.B. Fred. EN: E.B. Fred. He was a friend of Ken Raper's, and I met him at Raper's a couple of times. I don't know, I liked him. I liked all of these people. I didn't know Harrington. He's the only one, I believe, that I didn't really know. But I'd got acquainted with Young on the Biocore curriculum committee. And I knew Stephen Cleany and I probably saw more of Donna Shalala in an official capacity than anyone else. BT: Oh, tell me about that. EN: Well, I was chairman of the Commission on Faculty Compensation and Economic Benefits. And in that capacity, I interacted with her some. She was very bright, very efficient, and quick to make up her mind. A very impressive individual. But I enjoyed my relationship with her. I'd gotten to know 00:28:00 Elveum when he was dean. I always considered him a very find person and was really shocked at this untimely death. BT: Yeah. A tragedy. How old was he when he died? EN: He was, I think, sixty-two, sixty-three, something like that. Sixty-one, maybe. BT: Unfortunate. EN: Yeah. BT: Before we move on to the teaching, research and service components of Professor Newcomb's career, we're going to talk for a moment more about Folke Skoog, and also relate that to Skoog's, and, I suspect, your involvement with the Biocore. EN: Well Folke came to the campus in 1947 after army service, partly in Washington, DC. He just had so much drive, so much energy, that he was irresistible. In those early months, he was waiting for his laboratory to be remodeled. And I can remember him coming back at night and pacing back and forth in the hallway, just so eager to get this laboratory remodeled. So he just had so much energy and enthusiasm. I've never known anyone quite so overpowering as he. And he was 00:29:00 accessible. Any graduate student could go talk to him. He took an interest in all of the graduate students. It didn't make any difference whether you worked with him or not. As I mentioned, I was not a student of his. And yet he sort of took me under his wing. He didn't care whether I was working with him or not. He was glad to serve as an advisor on other matters. And he was just so accessible. I remember when I was taking characterization of the organic compounds, under W.S. Johnson. In characterization, at the ends of chapters of the book by (Mackalvane?), there are problems where you are given certain facts and you have to figure out the structure of the compound. And these are devilishly difficult. Well, I would go talk to him about these, just in fun. You know, I didn't expect him to work them. But just for fun. And this expresses just how easy it was to talk to him. Well, he'd get involved with these. And more often than not, he could work these problems. And it must have been at least fifteen years since he'd had his organic chemistry course. He was thirty-eight when he came here. Another point about Skoog was the fun we had in the afternoon coffees. We always had an afternoon coffee and a big laboratory-- BT: By "we" you mean-- EN: Yes, all the physiologists. BT: All the physiologists. EN: And he would sort of be the master of ceremonies, and get something going, some discussion. Sometimes we'd have cake, and he just loved to have something to eat. And we had a steady stream of visitors. Important people, like Sir Robert Robertson from Australia, and K.V. Teaman, Barry 00:30:00 Commoner, Boris Ephrussi, just a long list of people over those early years. Fritz Wendt. And one day, Barry Palevitz, who was a student of mine in the early '70s, made a sponge cake. I mean, it was a sponge rubber cake with icing on it, as a trick on Folke. So he invited him to cut the cake. So we had a good laugh at that. [laughter] Another point about him-- BT: About Skoog. EN: About Skoog, was his passionate advocacy of what he wanted, his points of view. And this included the Biocore proposing that there be an integrated sequence of courses. But he visited widely on the ag campus, and got to know a lot of the important people on the ag campus. And he collaborated with them on research, or they collaborated with him. He established strong ties. And many of these were very close personal relationships. For instance, he and Emil Truog, the chairman of soils, would go to football games together. And so these ties to the ag campus were important in furthering the interests of botany and in establishing the Biocore. Also, as he put it in an interview that he gave Don Armstrong a few years ago, 00:31:00 he said he felt he had a fairly long nose in smelling out problems. Well, Folke had a vision, not only in his research, but also in where he felt botany ought to be going on the campus. So these were important reasons for the great impact he had on botany on the campus and on the students who came in contact with them. And I think you know that he had probably over a hundred graduate students-- BT: No, I wasn't aware of how many. EN: About a hundred, I think, of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows over the years. BT: Now you gave me something before we started the session today, and it was a little program here. "An Evening to Honor Professor Folke Skoog." This was done on August 19, 1977, at the Wisconsin Center. Could you talk a little bit about that? You organized that, didn't you? EN: Yes. I spent a long time organizing it, and it was held at the same time as the annual meeting of the American Society of Plant Physiologists. And I was also the local person in charge of arrangements for the ASPP meeting. So I spent over a year on these two projects. (Teicher laughs) It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. but it was really quite successful. We had former students from all over the world come or send slides. And there's a list of the participants, the attendees, on the back of that. Many of his former students wrote letters. So it was a very nice occasion. It was to celebrate his thirty years of service and impact on the campus. Well, Folke felt strongly that the teaching of biology had not been keeping up, and particularly on this campus, had not been keeping up with the advances in math, physics, advances in biology, biological research, that had been occasioned by the 00:32:00 advances in math, physics and chemistry. The impact of these sciences on biology. And that teaching had been lagging far behind. BT: Did you agree with that assessment? EN: Oh, yes. Very much so. And also that the requirements for math, physics and chemistry of undergraduate majors--we're talking about undergraduate students now, not graduate students--was haphazard. And that a lot of the biology they took, that the courses were organized along taxonomic lines, rather than developmental or physiological or evolutionary lines. So he pushed for reexamination of the teaching of undergraduate students on the campus. Particularly for the creation of a core curriculum in biology. And he got the ball rolling, got things moving. I don't know just who approached Robin Fleming, the chancellor, but it may have been the undergraduate biological division committee. There was an undergraduate divisional committee at that time, too. There was a graduate committee, also. There was an undergraduate as well as a graduate. So anyway, in 1964, Fleming appointed a committee to look into the possibilities of establishing a core curriculum of biology. And the intention was for all biology majors 00:33:00 to take this. And among the committee members, as I recall, were, in addition to Folke and me, Warren (Gobbleman?) from horticulture, Joe Wilson from bacteriology. And I think Bob Buras from biochemistry. And as I've mentioned, Dean Edwin Young attended virtually all of the meetings, also. And the committee-- BT: Now you chaired that committee? EN: No. I served as secretary, at least part of the time. BT: Yeah. Secretary. EN: And I drafted the report. BT: That's it. Okay. Right. EN: I don't remember who was chairman. But anyway, in 1965, we came out with a report recommending this core curriculum. And the idea was to have certain basic courses in math, physics and chemistry taken along with core courses. One in cell biology, one in organismal biology, and one in community biology. Or ecological biology. But we had a dilemma in that we thought these courses ought to be taught at such a sophistication, at such a level, that they would have to have some astrophysics and chemistry first. BT: Mm hmm. Oh, yeah. Right. EN: So that meant delaying taking any biology at least until the second year. So it seemed pretty awkward to have them not taking any biology in the first year. So as a bridging course, we proposed that there be a concepts in biology for the first year. A one-credit course in which each week there would be a different professor, outstanding professor of biology, give a lecture on his specialty. BT: Interdisciplinary type of thing. EN: Yes. And we had some wonderful lectures. BT: I'll bet. EN: Jim Crow-- BT: Oh, yeah, Jim. EN: --was one of the lecture. Howard Temin, Charlie Heidelberger-- BT: Wonderful people. EN: John Fallon from the medical school. It was quite successful. And it gave the people interested in biology some exposure to biology and to keep their interest up while they were getting some of the more rigorous physical sciences behind them. Well, the Biocore program turned out to be successful. And I'd like to mention three or four reasons why I think it was. In the first place, it was a good idea. And in the second place, we prepared the ground 00:34:00 carefully. Not only did we come out with a carefully written report, in which we had thought a lot about this over a period of about a year. It really did make good sense. But also, we divided up all of the biological departments in the medical school, ag school and L&S among ourselves. And each of us went to a departmental meeting. I had horticulture and plant pathology and botany as I recall. And presented this program to them, and opened ourselves up to questions from them. And in this way, we gave them a chance to hear about it and to think about it before just springing it on and saying, "This is the way we want to go." So I think that was partly responsible. And then, we also had the support of the administration. Now, there's another reason for the success of the program. And it has turned out not to be a requirement for all biology undergraduate majors. But rather, for a rather elite group, a rather select group. But very successful. And one of the main reasons is that some very fine biologists on campus have been willing to participate, to be lectures and to help coordinate things. we've had some really outstanding individuals. For instance, 00:35:00 Stan Peloquin from the ag campus. And Wayne Becker, in our own department. Wayne Becker, for example, he's a biochemist who came into the department in about 1970. And he took the cell biology course under his wing and really developed it beautifully. He's a marvelous lecturer. He won a distinguished teaching award-- BT: Right, you mentioned that. Yeah. EN: --for his work there. And he used his lectures as the basis for a very successful textbook of cell biology called The World of the Cell, which is now going on its fourth edition. And, as I said, is very successful. So that's what I have to say about the Biocore program. BT: Great. Okay. Let's turn to teaching, your career as a teacher here at the University of Wisconsin. First of all, during your graduate student days, did you do any TAing or anything like that? EN: Not here. I did at the University of Missouri, before the war, when I was working on a master's degree. But here, I was on a National Research Council predoctoral fellowship. This was a program to, I think it was designed to get army veterans back into academic work. it was competitive, and you had to take the Graduate Record Exam. But I think if you had a modestly decent record, you probably could get this. Anyway, I got one. And it was for 00:36:00 all three years of my graduate work here. A great help not to have to teach. BT: I bet it was. I had something similar, and it was very helpful. Let's talk about your teaching. You were hired, obviously, one of the things you were hired to do is teach. EN: Yes. BT: You had mentioned earlier teaching load. What was your teaching load initially here? EN: Oh, I suppose eight to ten hours, something like that. BT: What did you teach? EN: Well, I taught general botany. And then I initiated a course called plant metabolism. And this, in the '30s and '40s, the way in which cells break down food and capture the energy was being worked out. And it turned out that what cells do is to incorporate phosphate, inorganic phosphate, into organic compounds. And then, by enzymatic activity, produce compounds where there's the phenomenon of opposing resonance, where two resonating groups arise that oppose one another so that the linkage between them is weak or reactive. And this is what is known as high energy phosphate, or reactive phosphate. And this was discovered in the 1940s. And it was just, as a young 00:37:00 graduate student, this just captured my imagination. It took me years and years to get over this feeling that this was where the center of biology was. And then, of course, a the same time, scientists like Meyerhoff and Krebs were working out the way in which enzymes interacted to break down food to carbon dioxide and water. The Krebs cycle and so on, which you've heard about. And so this dynamic biochemistry was coming in during this period. And I was just enormously motivated by this. And I wanted to communicate this. So that's the reason I established this plant cell, this plant metabolism course. And it was new enough that it wasn't being incorporated very strongly yet in the biochemistry courses. So there was room for it in the Botany Department. So I taught that until, I think, 1963. And I remember J. C. Walker, he was, oh, elderly at the time. He must have been in his seventies. He was a famous plant pathologist. Came over and sat in on the lectures. Anyway, I enjoyed that enormously. But as time went on, it became more and more incorporated generally into coursework in botany and in biochemistry. And there was less and less of a need to-- BT: Of a need for a specialized course. EN: Yes. And by that time, my interests had turned to cell biology somewhat. And so I initiated a course in plant cell biology to take the place of the course in metabolism. Sort of a natural transition. Because metabolism, the basic metabolism now, had been worked out. I mean, respiration and so on had been worked out. And a lot of the frontiers were moving into the area of cell biology. And there was a lot of, and I was working in cell biology. But going back to the general botany, I was trying, in my teaching of general botany, when I was in charge, I was trying to