UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #283
FRASER, LEMUEL A.

FRASER, Lemuel A. (1918- )
Graduate Student; Professor of Zoology
At UW: 1939-1944; 1949-1987

Interviewed: 1984	
Series: Life Sciences
Interviewer: Laura Smail
Length: 2 hours

[See Index for Keywords.]

Interview Session (1984)

Tape 1, Side 1

00:00:00  Start of Interview

LS:	I'll just ask you a couple of questions. The nearer we are the better.   And so you were born in Pennsylvania and I’d just like to know something about your background.
LF:	My parents were both from Washington D.C., just happened to be in Pennsylvania.
LS:	Were they professionals?
LF:	My father was a lawyer but he didn't practice very long, he died in the flu epidemic during the First World War.
LS:	Just when you were born?
LF:	I was about five months old.
LS:	And your mother?
LF:	She went back home to live with her parents in Washington. My father’s parents were in Washington, too.
LS:	You were born in Pennsylvania, but you were brought up in Washington.
LF:	Yes.
LS:	That’s what you meant.
LF:	From about five months old. And my parents and grandparent were in Washington, too.
LS:	Well, how did you get interested in science?
LF:	That's a very good question.  I got interested in my first year in college when I took a zoology course for the very first time.  That's how I got interested in biology anyway.
LS:	I didn’t ask you where you went to college.
LF:	I went to American University in Washington.
LS:	That's right, yes. So you decided to major in zoology, then.
LF:	Yes.
LS:	And did you decide to go into your field of invertebrate zoology, that is your field isn't it?
LF:	It is now, yes, it has been for some time. It wasn't what I originally intended to specialize in, but within a year after I got here, I was interested in invertebrates and have been ever since.
00:01:55
LS:	What made you decide to come to the UW?
LF:	They offered me money.
LS:	You applied?
LF:	Oh, yes.
LS:	Here and elsewhere?
LF:	And elsewhere. $40 a month for ten months.  I never had so much money before or since in my life.
LS:	The biochemistry students, it seems to me, were getting $60 a month.
LF:	Well, I was on a scholarship, not a fellowship. Fellows got $60; I only got $40.
LS:	I’m interested in your living conditions - that is your personal life, to some extent, before you get into the department.
LF:	Oh, it was very simple.  I had a room with another young man in a house. I think it was $10 a week.  No, it couldn't have been $10 a week —it was $2.50.
LS:	I was going to say you wouldn’t have had much left for food.
LF:	No, I wouldn't have anything left, it was $2.50, and I ate in a co-op and that was $2.50 a week.
LS:	What co-op?
LF:	Oh, I can't even remember the name of it.   It wasn't one of the famous ones, it wasn't the Green Lantern, or any like that, but—so that took a $20 a month and add the other $20 for wild living [laughter].
LS:	I see. Well, that sounds princely then. What did you do for wild living?
LF:	Oh! Movie! Occasional beer down on State Street with friends. And then of course after a year and a half I become a TA and my salary went up to $75 a month. By then some of the prices had started going up too, but not very much. That was in ‘41.
LS:	To stay on the personal side, the war started, what was your status, your military status.
LF:	I was 1A. 
00:04:13
	When they finally got around to me I was teaching an embryology course for the Navy – oh N5 or V5 or some such category - and it ran longer than the regular semester, and the chairman, Professor Guyer, got me a postponement of induction because I was still teaching at the time when I was supposed to go in.  So in those few months of postponement I got my degree and left town, and before the army caught up with me again I was in the navy.
LS:	Oh I see, so you’re talking about 1944?
LF:	‘44, yes.
LS:	But up until then?
LF:	Well, we got deferments at first, all the TAs did. But they began in about 1943, late ‘43 and '44 they began to be tougher about this.  So I came very close to being in the army. Instead I got in the navy.
LS:	So you knew that you would be going.
LF:	Oh, yes. It was just a question of where and what capacity.
LS:	Noland comments at some point during his chairmanship that everybody was leaving the zoology department going into military service of one sort or another and he seems to imply that they were leaving the department in the lurch.
LF:	Well, in a sense of course they were, because somebody had to teach those courses. Usually it ended up being him.
LS:	Oh, is that right?
LF:	He taught everything in the department I think, practically. At least six or eight different courses he taught. At one time or another.
LS:	Well, I’d like to know more about some of these people, I’ve read little things about Guyer for instance. Tell me what you have to say about Guyer.
LF:	All right, I will. Guyer, of course, was chairman of the department when I came here and he had just retired when I, or he was about to retire, when I left with my Ph.D. in '44. He retired in ‘45. I remember asking Dr. Noland once how long he had been chairman and he hesitated a moment and said, "Forever I think." He came I think in 1911 or 1912 as chairman and stayed until ‘45.  Chairman was something different then than it is now.
LS:	Yes, you mean it wasn't as much work?
LF:	Well, of course he did it all by himself. They rarely had any meetings of the faculty. He did all the budget by himself, occasionally he would ask somebody's advice but he didn't feel particularly obliged to take it. The secretary of our department told me that once when it was time for him to go see the dean he'd spend an entire day in his office - she wouldn't let anyone go near him even herself - working himself up into a rage; then he would go over and see the dean.
LS:	Trying to get something.
LF:	That was Dean Sellery in those days.
LS:	Did he have the reputation of having built up the department, as for instance, Hart did in biochemistry, or not?
LF:	Well, it certainly grew during his tenure. But when he retired there were only three full professors in the department.
LS:	I meant built up in the sense of quality.
LF:	I don't really think I can answer that, I don't know. 
LS:	I mean I realize –
00:08:47
LF:	The zoology department had, I think, an unfortunate tendency to hire its own graduate students, much more than most other departments.  For a while there we had practically half the department or more were all Wisconsin graduates. Guyer had a, was of course for many years interested in research, but somehow or other none of his research turned out quite the way he expected it to. A friend of mine who was the chairman, perhaps he wasn't chairman, but he was the sort of grand old man of the zoology department in Texas referred to Guyer once as a zoological tragedy, or an academic tragedy in that nothing quite panned out in the way of his research. He got the wrong results or the right results at the wrong time. I suspect that Fred Mohs had a good deal more to say about Guyer and knew him a lot more than I ever did. As a graduate student I found him very unapproachable, and yet after he had retired he moved down to Texas just south of Austin about twenty-five to thirty miles, and he came up to the department there and I met him -- he actually recognized me, which surprised me -- and he invited me and my family down to St. Marcos or New Brownsholes (?) I forgot which it was, for Sunday dinner one time. Very gracious host. His wife had died by that time, she was a very nice lady. And recently we got some money out of his estate, a considerable amount had been left to his son with the stipulation that when the son died it would come to the zoology department.  I forget exactly how much but I think it's in the neighborhood of $600,000.
LS:	My goodness.
LF:	The income from which we use for postdoctoral students. 
LS:	That's wonderful. 
LF:	Yes.
LS:	To a public university I don't think that happens too often.
LF:	Indeed, indeed it is a tremendous advantage, so we thank him for that.
LS:	But unapproachable. You had a course with him didn't you?
LF:	Oh, yes, I had one course with him. It was a cytology course, very, very different from what a cytology course is now. Of course, we didn't know nearly as much about the cell as we do now, before the electron microscope, and before the advances in biochemistry, about cell activities... So it was an interesting course, but didn't really prepare me for teaching about cells in elementary zoology now.
00:12:18
LS:	Do you think that he didn't succeed in research because he didn't work hard enough?
LF:	No, I don't think that's it at all. I don't know why. But things never quite panned out right.
LS:	Somebody said that he was inept at choosing research assistants.
LF:	I wouldn't know about that. 
LS:	And he had a textbook. 
LF:	Oh, yes.
LS:	From which he made a lot of money.
LF:	Uh-huh. It was a very good textbook for its day. It's way, way out of date now, but you know he—I've heard it said although I have no reason to think this is true, that his wife had a good deal to do with brushing up his, the textbook, the language or something. She had been a journalist, I believe. Anyway, his textbook was really very good and you could read it now. It's way out of date, but you would have a hard time finding an error.
LS:	Oh, really? You mean a scientific error?
LF:	Yes. He was even very good at forecasting what might develop in some of these fields.
LS:	Do you remember Miss Claus?
LF:	Oh, yes, sure. She was his research associate for many years and then during the war while I was away some edict came down from above that people couldn't have research associates anymore. They either had to become members of the faculty or let go. We had two at the time, and they were both, two or three, I’m not sure, but anyway they were all hired as members of the staff  - or the faculty - and she was one.
LS:	That is interesting. I wonder what that was about.
LF:	I have no idea.  But perhaps the university thought there were getting to be too many of them.  And I don't know whether she was paid previously by Guyer or his grants or by the university, probably by the University.
LS:	She, some of her money came from McArdle Lab.    One of the things, I guess it’s – you remember Wagner?
LF:	Oh, yes.
LS:	I don’t know anything about him except he wrote some letters to Noland when Noland was chairman giving quite a lot of advice about things in the department.   And he objected to the cancer research going on in zoology. He felt that since there was a perfectly good cancer research institute nearby there was no reason to do it in zoology.
LF:	I don't know how frank Fred Mohs was in his talking to you, but there was a period when he was in bad odor with the Medical Association.
LS:	Which, Mohs?
LF:	Mohs.
LS:	Oh, because of his having treated a patient before he got his degree?
LF:	I'm not sure, I never knew exactly, and there was publicity about this. Anyway, it was my impression that Guyer took him in when he wasn't welcome elsewhere and that’s why— when I first came here he had an office in Birge Hall. Fred Mohs did.
LS:	I see.
LF:	But that all seemed to be cleared away, very shortly, he wasn't there very long.
LS:	I thought he had been, when he came here as a graduate student, that he had been working with Guyer and had a space in his lab.
LF:	That’s quite possible, but this was after he was already an M.D.  I don't know any of the details. Possibly Art Hasler might know. Have you talked to him at all?
LS:	Yes, I have.  I didn't know anything about Mohs at that time so I didn't think of asking him.
00:17:02
LF:	Professor Wagner was a very, very fine man. All the graduate students were very fond of him. The undergraduates were scared to death of him, even the new graduate students, some, until they got to know him. I think he made a point of scaring undergraduates.  He was the last one in our department who seated boys on one side of the room and girls on the other. There was a Professor Bryan in botany that continued that for a few years – later - but nobody in zoology did it except Wagner. Very, very nice man and a very astute man. Good advice, always.  I'm very fond of him; everyone was, I think, in the department. 
00:18:01
	Of course Birge was around when I first came. He had an office up on the fourth floor.  He was already retired, had been retired as President of the University for years. I think he was 89 or 90 about the time I came, and he'd stopped going up to Trout Lake, I think, when he was 90.  But he'd sit there in his office and every now and then yell, "Juday!"  Professor Juday who—Birge acted as if he were his graduate student, all his life. He'd stop what he was doing get up and trot across the hall and see what the old man wanted.  He used to get quite angry if after a snow fall his tracks weren't the first coming into the building in the morning. He got there quite early, he had a chauffeur to bring him. All the older people in those days wore these creepers on their shoes. They were spikes or something, so they would catch on the ice and snow, and then when you got in the building you flipped them under somehow or other so they didn't, the spikes weren't on the floor. I never really had any dealings with Birge, but I was on the 4th floor just two doors away from him so I saw a good deal of him. He was still alive, but he was no longer coming into the building when I came back here in '49, and it wasn't long after that that he died. 
00:20:01
	And the biology building was renamed Birge Hall. Over practically the dead bodies of the botany department who all hated his guts.
LS:	I hadn't thought about that, yes.
LF:	Birge was the director of the Wisconsin Natural History Survey and, except for a few instances, he didn't let botanists work at that. And they were, I think, justifiably angry about it. When the ceremony was held to rename the building, the botanists were conspicuously absent. Juday was a very, very nice man, I knew him quite well.  I took a couple of courses from him and then I worked under him a couple of summers up at Trout Lake. And I liked him very much.  Not everyone did, but I did. Very nice man.  Of course, it seemed like he was always under the shadow of Birge.  But he did get some honors in his own right eventually.  The Leidy Medal from the Philadelphia Academy, I think, was given to Juday for his research and a couple of other honors came his way.  For which I was very glad.
LS:	That's good, I didn't know that.
LF:	Let's see, who else was around in those days? 
00:22:04
	Professor Marshall had already retired when I came here as a graduate student. But he still came to the building every day. Always impeccably dressed, grey homburg, grey spats, gloves, cane, and he lived down around Gorham Street somewhere, lived there for years I suppose. And although he wasn't on the staff anymore—he was retired—he still had an office, a fairly large one, and he was very, very helpful to me at the time I was doing my Ph.D. research. Noland was away for part of that, he was my major professor. The last year when I got my degree he was in Hawaii. And Professor Fassett in botany was my minor professor, he was in South America. I always said I got my degree largely with the help of Juta Reilly in the Graduate School.    She was a lovely lady. But Professor Marshall was very, very nice, and very helpful to the graduate students, even though he was retired. Went out of his way to be nice to people.
LS:	How would he be helpful? What would he do?
LF:	Oh well, he -- I was making a lot of making slides and he was very helpful in techniques for treating the material before it was sectioned, fixatives, and stains, and things of that sort. He was an expert at this himself. Very generous, giving good advice, we always appreciated it. That about takes care of the older members of the staff.
00:24:30
LS:	You haven't talked about Noland, yet.
LF:	Oh, Noland was my major professor. A perfectly splendid man. Just as nice as he could be. Very, very kind and very knowledgeable about so many things. I would stew about something for weeks or months, some minor little question, you know, that I couldn't figure out the answer to, I would finally go ask him and he would tell me about it. He didn’t have to look it up; he knew it. And as I say, of course invertebrates and protozoa were his main interests, but in addition to teaching protozoology he taught invertebrate zoology and he had taught at various times ecology, and every elementary course we ever had, I am sure two or three that I've left out.  He was always the one that sort of filled in when somebody was gone or whatever, and taught their course for them. Very, very fine gentleman.  Liked him, respected him a tremendous amount. He was so very kind to students.   Every Sunday evening he held open house for any students, graduates or undergraduates, that would like to come out and play games or listen to music, or whatever.
LS:	Did many go?
LF:	Oh, yes indeed. Yes. I wouldn't say there were mobs but there might very well have been anywhere from four, six, eight, people. And both graduates and undergraduates. Of course in later years he was devoted to the ILS courses that he taught. And he did a splendid job of that too.
00:26:51
LS:	How about his research?
LF:	His research was in protozoology, mostly concerned with the biology of the ciliates, and he had much research of his own and many graduate students who did a lot of good work and went to fine places.
LS:	So you wouldn't agree that his research wasn't of importance.
LF:	No, not at all. It wasn't world shaking, but it was important to protozoologists.
LS:	And he carried it on?
LF:	Oh, yes.
LS:	One gets the impression of some people that they really stop doing any research, and I thought he was one of those.
LF:	No, I think he did something right up to the end. Drew beautifully. He tried to teach me but it didn't take.  I remember with some irritation his making me print long-hand, actually print all the labels on the drawings for my thesis. I spent hours, and hours, and hours, printing a half a dozen labels. I was about to just cut out and paste individual letters. I'd never get a whole word printed right. But, needless to say, I was very, very fond of him.
LS:	Was he rather strong minded? The reason I am asking is that one of the pieces of advice that Wagner gave him was not to hire Emlen when they were. I don’t know whether you knew that there were three people under consideration.
LF:	No, that was before I came of course.
LS:	Yes. And Wagner several times spoke about the fact he thought Emlen would be too expensive and that he was, I think he felt he was too much of a field man and I noticed that Emlen got hired and I wondered—
LF:	Well, by that time of course Wagner had retired.
LS:	Oh, yes, he was. No these were just, he was in California, and these were letters that he wrote from California.
LF:	Oh, I see.
LS:	So I wondered if that was Noland holding out against this advice, or --
LF:	You perhaps wouldn't think that he was strong minded, strong-willed, but I think he was. Once he made up his mind to something he was very adamant about it.    He stuck to his principles. Sometimes he was—he was very, very honest, sometimes he told you things you didn't want to hear, but he thought you should.
LS:	Such as?
LF:	Oh, when I wasn't doing very well, getting along very well with my research, for example. He would let me know about it. He didn't pull any punches when it came to – if somebody asked him about something, he would tell them just what he believed. Whether that was what the person wanted to hear or not.
LS:	A refreshing quality.
LF:	Yes, indeed.  I remember the time that he was away while I was getting my degree, he was out at the University of Hawaii, and he’d been brought there to make a report on the department, the zoology department, which I believe had as chairman, then, a former Wisconsin man. And his report was not very well received. But it was absolutely true.
00:31:45	End of Tape 1, Side 1
Tape 1, Side 2
00:31:52
LS:	How were the relations among these people, Noland and Guyer and—
LF:	Well, of course, as a graduate student, I didn't really know very much about that.    
LS:	Well, you would’ve in the biochemistry department. You would’ve known what relations were so they – [laughter]
LF:	Of course, as I say, there were only three full professors when Guyer retired.    There were a number of others who held lower posts. And what went on between them I really have no idea.  When I came back as a member of the faculty then, Guyer was gone, and I heard a little about how the others got along, but that had nothing to do with Guyer.  One thing that the department did after Guyer retired, the three full professors -- it was Noland and R.K. Meyer and Herrick -- they got together, drew up a set of ground rules.  Chief among them was that never again would they have a chairman for thirty-five years.
LS:	I noticed that there’s a sturdy change of chairman through the forties and fifties.
LF:	Yes, there is.
LS:	Which isn't the case in all the departments.
LF:	And regular staff meetings.  For years we had one every week whether we needed it or not. And the chairman became no longer really an executive officer, he just presided at the meetings and the staff decided what should be done and what shouldn't be done and so forth.  And it's worked out very well, I think over the years. We all get along fine.
LS:	That's a question I want to get to. I have a few other things on this period. 
00:34:08
	There is Miss Bilstad, I notice her name. What was she like? She's a woman and she stays in the same position for a long time.
LF:	Yes. I’m happy to say that when she retired she was a full professor. I think her slowness to advance and to have her salary advanced, in those days probably was, oh I don't know this for sure except the time that I was on the staff, had to do partly with the fact that she was a woman, partly with the fact that she didn't do much of any research. But she was a splendid teacher. And she kept all her teaching right up to date. Students who took her courses always respected her ability. I was very fond of Miss Bilstad. She had one leg shorter than the other and had to wear a built up shoe, but after you'd known her a week or two you forgot all about that, she ignored it and you learned to, too. She was an excellent swimmer, she learned to fly her own plane and she was just a very interesting person.
LS:	She must have been an interesting woman. Excuse me, you were going to say something.
00:35:50
	You mentioned Juta Reilly. It happens, I had thought I would like to interview her but I have discovered she is in a nursing home and I suppose she’s not in a condition to be interviewed. But you said she was very helpful, and many people have said that she was very important in the Graduate School. Could you describe in what ways she was helpful?
LF:	Well, of course, in those days the Graduate School was just to the left of the main door as you went into Bascom, right on the first floor. There was a large office for the dean and there was a larger office for the secretaries, who were Juta Reilly and Lorraine Meythaler.
LS:	Who's still here.
LF:	Who's still here. And some occasional helpers. But really the two of them did it all themselves. And Juta Reilly was the secretary. Now of course they've got a whole host of deans and assistant deans and secretaries and personal secretaries, and all that over there.  Where there was just the two of them with typists that ran the Graduate School in those days.  When I graduated we had only an acting dean of the Graduate School, and as far as I was concerned for all intents and purposes Juta Reilly was the dean of the Graduate School.
LS:	I wonder who that was. That was before Fred and Baldwin wasn’t it?
LF:	It was somebody from Louisiana. I can't remember his name but maybe he went from here to Louisiana. He was only here a few years. Yes, it was before Fred and Baldwin.  I can't remember. But certainly that was true in ‘44. And I think for a couple of years there.
LS:	And so she, it's Juta Reilly you say.
LF:	That’s what we all called her.
LS:	So she would see papers through quickly and no red tape, is that what you mean by being helpful?
LF:	Yeah. And she was very, very nice, too. 
LS:	What was she like?
LF:	She was tall and thin. She ran the office with no nonsense. But she always seemed to have time to talk for a few minutes about a problem and very likely she took care of it. Pronto.
00:38:46
LS:	I would like to know about your labs and the equipment and the amount of space you had and what the work practices were the pattern of work for faculty and students. And again I’m comparing it to biochemistry where people were found in their labs at midnight and back again at seven o'clock in the morning. And where equipment was rather antediluvian until after the war, so I am just curious as to what it was like in zoology.
LF:	In those days the zoology department had the entire east half of Birge Hall.  Birge was split down the middle, the west half was botany and the east half was zoology. The entire staff was on those four floors, and the basement too. We had a lot of graduate students, a lot of TAs, all seemed to fit in somehow or other. The lab equipment was, I think, would be laughable today, but we didn't think it was then. We had quite good microscopes and the lamps for the microscopes weren't what they might have been. But as far as the research equipment, I myself needed only materials to make slides with - sectioning and things of that sort.  Professor Meyer, who was an endocrinologist, had a good deal more sophisticated equipment that he and his students used and I think they had most of what they needed. Students all got along all right.
LS:	What were your sections from?
LF:	Oh, working on embryology of a local snail.
LS:	So you didn't need to have snail cages.
LF:	No, you keep them very handily in little jars, feed them a little lettuce and things like that. So, I don't know, it did seem to me that our equipment was adequate for what was going on, not everyone—.  As a graduate student I felt that way. Of course when I came back on the staff it seemed like we never had—by that time there were new microscopes for all the classes, the elementary classes and advanced classes, and everything was upgraded.  Always needed more money to buy capital equipment, mostly for research purposes. But then the Graduate School would come to our aid occasionally to buy some big item or help buy some big item. It’s always a problem, to this day, to find enough money to buy the equipment that's needed primarily for our research labs, although some of it is used both for that and for teaching. In those days the budget for supplies and expenses, expendable things, you know, that you used once or were very likely to break, seemed a bottomless pit. There was always that kind of money.
LS:	There was?  Now which date are you talking about?
LF:	After the Second World War when I came back here. There was always money for, you know, office supplies and for microscope slides. Things that are easily breakable and don't cost over, over, you know, $25.00 a piece, something like that. There was always plenty, it was like a bottomless pit. That was not true for the more expensive items. That's always been in short supply. But now of course even the supplies and expense money is very limited, and we have to divvy it up very carefully so we have enough to buy animals for dissection in your classes and things of that sort or the equipment that you need in the physiology lab or something of that sort.
LS:	Well, that's interesting. Let's, we might as well just pursue this a bit –
00:44:03
 - because that is a question for the post-war period, too. In the botany department, as I understand it, amounts would be portioned out to the various divisions, and the ones—some people felt they didn't get as much as they should have and others got more than they should have. This of course had to do with the split between the field people and the microscope people. Was this happening in zoology?
LF:	No, not with that kind of money. We usually have a committee that draws up a priority list and I'm sure that there's some people that are disappointed because some item that they wanted is rather far down the list, but there isn't any ill feeling about it, not at all. Our problems as far as personnel are concerned stem from when we all moved out of Birge Hall -- that is half of us moved out of Birge Hall and went over to the Zoology Research Building. Up to that point we were all crowded into that one building, everybody knew what everyone else was doing and, well, got along just fine. The physical separation of just a couple of blocks meant that even with our almost weekly staff meetings, where we all got together, you began to lose track of what the other guy was doing and consequently lose interest or even appreciation. And so we find that most of the people that are in field work or dealing with whole animals are still in Birge Hall, while the experimental lab people, cell and development and genetics and things of that sort, are over in the Zoo Research Building. And this has led to some problems. When it comes to hiring new staff, once or twice it's happened that each group wants a different person. But there isn't any enmity; it's just that we've lost track of the other group to a certain extent. To help correct that situation we're going to start this fall having a, what we've done before, long ago, having a staff seminar in which each staff member, each member of the faculty, talks about his own research to the other members of the faculty and some other people, perhaps that may come, advanced graduate students or something of that sort. And that only starts this next fall, so we'll see how it works out.
LS:	Whose idea was that?
LF:	Uh, two men from opposite camps drew this up together. 
LS:	Who were they?
LF:	One was Jack Hailman who is in Birge Hall, and I think it was Tony Stretton from the other building, from Zoo Research, I believe it was those two. We're not, we don't fight, we just have lost track of the other people. That's all.
LS:	And this had to be voted on I suppose in department meeting, whether you'd do this or not, have the seminar.
LF:	Oh, yes, and it was passed enthusiastically.
LS:	Really, by both sides?
LF:	Oh, yes.
LS:	The molecular people too?
LF:	Right. So we’ll see how it works out. We're all still good friends but not to the extent when we're all sitting in one another's laps, all in Noland Hall, in Birge Hall I mean.
LS:	It's made a difference in other departments, too, that crowding seems to have, on the whole, been a healthy situation.
LF:	Yes, I think the purchasing department, when it was all in that old house in back of the University Club and everybody knew what everybody else was doing, everything worked fine. Now that they've got that new building and nobody knows what anyone else is doing, when somebody goes on vacation, everything on his desk just sits there while he's gone. Purchasing is not like it used to be.
LS:	But the question is whether there's a whole lot more to purchase or because they're in separate rooms.
LF:	That's true.
LS:	It could be that it's expanded the number of people doing it.
LF:	I'm sure they like it better this way. With a lot more space.
00:49:32
LS:	Well, Arthur Hasler didn't sound, he felt not happy with the way the department was.
LF:	Of course he was isolated even more, he and two other members of the staff, by being down here in the Lake Lab, and I think partly that's his own fault. But we can improve, there's no doubt about that, our relationship with one another, but there isn't any enmity, anything of that sort between the two groups.
LS: 	So you wouldn't, you wouldn't agree with Grant Cottam's statement who said that botany had been serene compared to zoology.
LF:	Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
LS:	Well, no, this—he said in the last ten years.
LF:	Oh, I see. Yes, I guess they all get along all right in botany now.  I have no reason to doubt it.
00:50:56
	They had some very strong personalities back a few years and my own opinion, which may not be worth a thing, was that they had a group of giants in the department and they all resigned, I mean retired, within a few years and it kind of left a vacuum, without any obvious choice of who should lead the department.
LS:	You mean giants in terms of leadership? Because Skoog is the one one thinks of in terms of—
LF:	I'm talking about twenty years ago. 
LS:	I see. So you mean Curtis and Fassett and -- 
LF:	And Gilbert and Allen and Bryan.
00:51:54
LS:	Did you have much to do with each other, the botany and the zoology departments?
LF:	Oh, we were in the same building and we saw one another every day. There were some joint ventures, but by and large not very much. Actually it got to the point on one occasion of having a big joint meeting to decide whether the two departments would merge.
LS:	Oh yes.
LF:	And we decided that they wouldn't. 
LS:	When was that?
LF:	Oh, it's a long time ago. It must have been in the ‘50s.
LS:	Actually merge, not split into ecology—?
LF:	No, no, just have the two departments merge into a biology department.
LS:	What did you think about it?
LF:	I had some reservations, but it was the botanists who finally killed it, I think, some of the botanists who didn't want any part of it.
LS:	I hadn't heard about that, I wonder -- did that come from within the departments or was it a dean's idea?
LF:	No, no, it came from within the departments.
LS:	I had heard that there was some talk of having an ecology department and having a molecular bio—what is your term for it?
LF:	Molecular, cell and cellular developmental biology. It’s those that are concerned with the parts of animals.
LS:	And where did you belong?
LF:	I'm with the whole animal people.
LS:	Even though you use microscope and slides?
LF:	Oh, yes, sure.
LS:	Because you don't go further down into cells.
LF:	That's right. 
00:54:05
	Harold Wolfe was another of my colleagues who is no longer with us, he died back around ‘62, I think. He taught, many, many years he taught comparative anatomy after Professor Guyer, er, Wagner retired. He always did comparative anatomy, then Harold did comparative—started about '40.  Wagner retired in ‘42, I believe, or ‘43—.
LS:	I think the catalog I looked at is '44-'46 and he's listed in ‘44 so that's probably when he retired.
LF:	I would have said it was earlier. Sometimes people don't get taken out of the catalogue.
LS:	Oh, I don't allow for that when I make these lists. Yes, and Wolfe was chairman after Noland.
LF:	Yes, right. Chairman when I came here in ’49. 
00:55:18
LS:	Well chairmen have a lot to do with departmental relationships, don’t they?
LF:	Yes, I think they do, although our—they do indeed. Our system now of course is a very democratic one.  The chairman doesn't make decisions of any importance without bringing them to the staff.  But nevertheless, I think by his own actions, by the committees that he picks, or this and that and the other thing, he does have an effect.    Most of our chairmen I think have been rather passive chairmen.
LS:	Well that's what I was going to ask you. That's the crucial question, especially in the ‘50s and ‘60s when it's possible to get new staff.   I mean you can push for very good people or—
LF:	Oh, of course we have done—as far as that's concerned, yes, because this isn't the chairman that does this, we always have a committee for that.   A committee can be a lot more active than the chairman himself.
LS:	For recruiting, you mean.
LF:	Yes.  And together we decide who we need, I mean what kind of position, and then appoint a committee to find somebody.
LS:	Well, how did you decide that?   There are various ways you can make those decisions.   Whether you replace a person who’s left or whether you take the best person there is no matter what he's in or—
LF:	Right, this is of course, until recent years this was handled somewhat arbitrarily.  Now, of course, if you have a position you've got to advertise for it in a national magazine and you've got to report how many—of course it's always listed as a, I forget the term, an “open university,” you know, that you hire people regardless of sex, color, creed and that sort of thing.    And you have to report to somebody how many women were applicants and a lot of rigmarole that we didn't used to have to do two, three years ago. So it gets a little bit, a little bit more complicated but we usually bring in somewhere around three or four of the top candidates here and then first the committee and then the staff, the whole staff votes on which one should be made an offer.
LS:	And that's what the department sometimes wasn't in agreement about?
LF:	Once in recent years, we had a very big disagreement about which of two candidates, and this did split on building lines. People in Birge Hall were all for one and the people in Zoo Research were all for another, for perfectly good reasons in each case, but it worked out without any real—there was some hard feeling at the time, but the man we do have is a very, very good man and everyone's got a great deal of respect for him and like him.
LS:	Which one did you get finally?
LF:	The one that the Zoo Research people were interested in--more a biochemical endocrinologist. So we have our troubles from time to time but I don't think it's any real enmity.
00:59:22
LS:	Is it more difficult to recruit people, at the biochemical end of things than it is—do you have to pay them more for instance to get them?
LF:	We have to pay everybody more nowadays.
LS:	Yes.
LF:	Not really, the salary differential would not be noticeable, if any. Though what you're trying to do in addition to paying them a salary is make sure that they have from the Graduate School, a summer, either before their term starts or their first summer paid for research and try and get a sum of money to buy equipment, research equipment for that individual, and that sort of thing.
LS:	And you've been able to do that up until quite recently.
LF:	Yes, oh yes, we can still.  Thanks to the Graduate School. But it is a problem when someone retires whether you want to replace that individual or fill another need. It's not always easy. When Noland retired, we tried desperately to find another protozoologist and we didn't succeed. When Herrick died we tried to get, we did get another parasitologist. The one we hired was one of our own graduate students. But not everybody gets replaced.
LS:	Is that why you didn't go on offering Noland's courses? 
LF:	Well, I couldn't have taught protozoology. I do teach the invertebrate zoology.
LS: 	I mean the department, you the department. 
LF:	Oh, yes, yes, that’s right.
LS:	Because Mrs. Noland felt that he was very hurt that his courses had been dropped.
LF:	The protozoology, particularly. I think he was, but Lord knows we tried to find a suitable replacement. And either we went about it the wrong way, or they just weren’t available.
LS:	Was it a field that was sort of going out of fashion?
LF:	To some extent.  I think we had about five people here, four of them were biochemists or cell biologists that were interested in only one species of protozoan, knew nothing about any other, and the fifth one who was indeed a protozoologist, was just a very poor candidate, nobody wanted him. After that we gave up.  But there have been two to three people who've retired that have not been replaced, some have however.
LS:	Well so you feel, or do you feel --
01:02:36 	End of Tape 1, Side 2
Tape 2, Side 1
00:00:00 
[repetition of last seconds of previous tape]
00:00:13
	-- that the department has kept itself going in accord with the changes in the discipline in zoology because I know that in biochemistry Hector DeLuca said that for several years they just didn’t want to get in the molecular biology types, and they therefore weren't keeping up. But you did that, you think, you kept up?
LF:	Sure, we have two people that are joint with molecular biology and we have one who's joint with... of course Jim Crow is joint with genetics, we have one who's joint with botany, although we pay all his salary. So, I think we, although it's not perfect by any means, get rid of a few people like me who don't do much research, and there are a couple of others who don't anymore. 
00:01:18
	Ten years as chairman kind of did me in as far as research went.
LS:	What was your period of chairmanship?
LF:	From about 1957 to '67 with two semesters out in the middle.
LS:	Well, what happened to the rule not to have a long-term chairman?
LF:	Well, they decided to stretch the rule until it got to five years and then I said, "No more."   So they elected R.K. Meyer as chairman, who promptly had a heart attack and was out the first semester, so I just continued. He came back the second semester, and he was there the first semester of the second year, and then he went off to India, and I just sort of stepped back in and had it for three more years after that.  By which time I was thoroughly sick and tired of it, and I think they were thoroughly sick and tired of me.
LS:	But you presumably vote every year?
LF:	Oh, yes.
LS:	So, if they had really been sick and tired of you they could have changed you?
LF:	Yes. That's right.
LS:	Or is it that nobody wants to do it?
LF:	Well, anybody that wants to be chairman I think would be immediately suspect.   Nobody wants the job. You don't get any stars in your crown. You don't get any time off or... Now you do, in the last few years, you do get a better salary. But in the days when I was chairman, the department recommended the chairman's salary along with everyone else's. [break in tape] 
00:03:01
	Well, we were talking about the chairman’s salary. I think starting with Leon Epstein as dean, the dean took it on himself to set the chairman's salary and was a great deal more generous than previous ones had been.
LS:	But that was just at the end of your period.
LF:	That was just at the end of my period.    That's right.
LS:	What were the main problems that you had to deal with as chairman?
LF:	They aren’t any where as bad as they are now. Of course, the staff was smaller and while I was chairman, we were all in one building and we all got along fine and there were really very few personnel problems.  Those are the most difficult for me to deal with.  So, it's a much more difficult job now, everything is bigger, and there’s lots more details to deal with.  We do now have, in the last few years, an associate chairman who is another staff member, who takes some of the load off of the chairman's shoulders.  Takes care of certain aspects of department activities that relieves the chairman of that. It's not a job that anyone wants, in any case.  Those that are willing to do it, will. That's fine, but, I think we're about due for a change again.    I think the present chairman is getting a little weary of it.
LS:	So you don't have a fixed two or three year...
LF:	We did, we started out after Guyer retired with a three year term and—
LS:	But you haven't stuck to it.
LF:	That went on for a, through Noland and Wolfe and Hasler and Emlen and I forget who else, and then it devolved onto me and it kind of broke down.    I went for five years and then after Meyer had a couple of semesters I came back again, which I probably shouldn’t have done, but I did.    Since then we've had only two chairmen, no three -- Burns and Abrahamson and now Plaut.
00:05:57
LS:	Plaut used to be in botany.
LF:	Yes.
LS:	What happened there?
LF:	Well, that was interesting. He was an assistant professor in botany and they were going to let him go. Well we decided that we'd like to have him. So I think one year he was, his salary was split between botany and zoology, I couldn't swear to this, but I think so. And then he moved over to zoology. We have another one in that category, too: Beals. He was going to be let go from botany. We rescued him, so to speak, and we're very glad we did in both cases.
LS:	Was this because of personality conflicts in botany that they were to be let go?
LF:	I wouldn't begin to—I don't think so.  I don't think so.  But I really don't know.
LS:	But it wasn't that they were second rate and that they were being dropped for that reason, obviously.
LF:	I don't think so, because they both turned out to be fine.
LS: 	And there's somebody named, is it Kitchell or—?
LF:	Yeah, Jim Kitchell.
LS:	What was that about?   He... something involving IES and Reid Bryson.
LF:	Well, he was already on the staff as a post-doc or in some position of that sort connected with IES, so we just brought him over to zoology.
LS:	Well, I understood that he'd been treated very badly.
LF: 	Well, I can't say, I wasn't chairman at the time and I really, don't really know, but I'm very glad we have him. Finally, no, I don't know the details of that.  I never heard. I wouldn't object to telling you if I did know.
LS:	Oh, it's all right, I think it was either Ori Louks or Grant Cottam who mentioned it and it had to do with IES.
LF:	That's quite possible.
00:08:24
LS:	How did you choose graduate students?
LF:	I didn't, they chose me. In those days, up until fairly recently, we brought graduate students here, mostly as TAs or occasionally as research assistants, and then there were maybe a half a dozen that were going on their own money. And they picked their—except for those that came as research assistants, who of course were working for one man, who paid them – they all picked their own major professors.  Now, no one is admitted to Graduate School for any reason, TA or research assistant or without any stipend, without the approval of a member of the staff who at least temporarily will agree to be his major professor. But it’s still the student who chooses.
LS:	But you didn't get into the problem of somebody taking any number of graduate students and getting too many?
LF:	That has happened once or twice. Hasler had an awful lot of graduate students at one time. Beals, in ecology, has had too many graduate students. He'd be the very first to admit it and he's gradually been cutting down. R.K. Meyer, back in the days when I was a graduate student, had more graduate students than the rest of the department put together. But he was an extremely hard working man and he took care of them all, and they all got good training.
LS:	He's still around. He was connected with the primate lab.
LF:	For a year or two. 
LS:	Oh, I see.
LF:	He's living in Phoenix, Arizona now, or Scotts Bluff. I think he was the hardest working man that I knew, in the entire department.
LS:	Really.
LF:	Like a fiend. 
LS:	Always?
LF: 	Mmhmm.  Well, do you have any more questions that you've been saving up for me?
LS:	Well, I'm—
00:11:16
-	did you have any connection with any of the departments in the Ag College?
LF:	Well, not directly. Of course, we had many dealings with them. I was on prelims and final exams in entomology, particularly. Occasionally, one of the other departments we had some dealings with plant path through a joint appointment some years ago.  So I know a lot of those people, but—matter of fact I think most of the ones I knew are now retired.
00:11:56
LS:	I was partly trying to get at the root of a comment that Wagner made that you should watch out for the game management people, to Noland.  Why would he say that?
LF:	I don't know, but there was consid—when Aldo Leopold first came here, he had a very tenuous position and there was a good deal of ill feeling, I think, about the game management department.  I've heard the same thing from Noland on occasion, and course he came to be a beloved member of the staff.  I took a course from him.
LS:	Oh, did you?   Was it a good course?
LF:	Oh yes, splendid course. He had one habit that drove everybody up the wall, for recitation period. He would call on you and then decide what question he was going to ask while you sat there sweating.  But he was a wonderful man.
LS:	Did you ever try that on your students?
LF:	No, I never have, I hated it so much.
LS:	But you were a straight A student I understand.
LF:	Oh, I don't know about that.
LS:	Well, that’s what Noland presented you as.
LF:	I got along well. But our dealings with the Ag departments were, they weren't nearly as close as botany, for example. Yhey had joint -- we had a joint appointment with entomology for a while, and of course with genetics. Even before Jim Crow we had another man that was joint between zoology and genetics.  Botany has connections with bacteriology, with plant path, and I think one or two others. They have many more associations with the Ag School than we do.
LS: 	And you have them with Medicine?
LF:	Yes. We have had joint appointments with medical microbiology and with -- we had one with vet science back some years, which apparently didn't work out too well. I never knew it until after the man died but it turned out that it had been a miserable arrangement for him. But you’d never know it from him. That was Professor Herring.
LS:	You mean miserable -- the joint appointment or the other department's treatment of him?
LF:	The latter I believe. But he never said anything about it.
00:15:08
LS:	Did the zoology department have a lively social life?
LF:	We used to.  There were three or four couples in the department that used to see one another socially, quite often. The Wolfes and Emlens and the Crows and the Ris’s and the Frasers.  Not always all five couples, but two or three or four or sometimes all five, got together quite often. Others in the— that was some years back of course and I’m sure there may be groups like that that I don't even know about.  I see really only one member of the staff with any regularity these days. The Crows and the Emlens are still very good friends, the Wolfes are no longer in town, and the Ris's are separated, and   Harold Wolfe is dead and his wife is remarried.
LS:	But department picnics and things like that.
LF:	Oh, we used to do that, yeah. We still do occasionally, picnic or party or something. We did it more often in the past, I think. We used to have parties down at Tripp Commons, or something like that. Put on skits, dancing.
LS:	Really, when did you do that?
LF:	Oh, back in the ‘50s.
LS:	The whole department?
LF:	Yeah, graduate students and faculty. We haven't done that for a long time, we still have a picnic occasionally and a Christmas party, but that's usually in the building.
00:17:11
LS:	Did you used to eat at Tripp Commons?
LF:	Oh, a long time ago, yes. When they had the—it isn't quite the same now, I think, but it was cafeteria line I believe in those days and—
LS:	It seems to have dropped out of fashion during the protest movement.
LF:	There were a group of us that used to eat there quite regularly, once a week anyway. The Wednesday lunch that met on Thursday.
LS:	Oh, and your department meeting was a lunch meeting, wasn't it? So that was a brown bag I suppose.
LF:	Yes, it was Tuesday, right. And there was a group of us, that same group, that used to go over to the Home Ec tea room for lunch. I don't think they do that anymore.
LS:	I didn't know they had a tearoom.
LF:	Had a regular lunch. It was very pleasant.  I think that all died mostly during the troubles.
00:18:12
LS:	How much was your department affected by the protest movement?
LF:	Oh, quite a little. There were a number of graduate students and a couple of faculty members who were involved in that. Of course, they all wanted their salaries to continue. Our then chairman bailed one graduate student out of jail once, I remember, and then of course the biggest blow was the bomb, which of course was at Sterling but that's right back of us you know. And many, many, many windows were out, and more than that. Chunks of masonry flew right through the walls and messed things up inside. It was quite a mess. Happily, that put an end to it.
LS:	When you say somebody was in prison, was this a protest or was it a TA strike?
LF:	Oh, no it was one of the protest—
LS:	One of the protest demonstrations. Were you very much affected by the TAs, the TA activism and strike?
LF:	Yes indeed. I taught labs morning, noon and night, day after day.
LS:	You had activist TAs who joined the strike?
LF:	They weren't so much activist as just decided they'd join for the fun of it I think.  So the faculty pitched in and taught the labs.
LS:	What were your relations with the TAs in the '60s? I assume you had a great many of them.
LF:	They were really very good.
LS:	Did they, did you get together, did you have a lounge where you got together?
LF:	No, no. But, well frequently you know after an—our exams are at night and after the exam—the TAs are doing the proctoring, will frequently go out and have beer or something of that sort. And you see them every day or every other day, at assistants' meetings, and teaching the elementary course, see them all once a week. And, you know, I think all through the department our relationships with the TAs have been uniformly good. And even though they went on strike, they weren't mad at our department, they were mad at some other, in support of students they thought were being mistreated in other departments and they may have been, so there wasn't really much of ill feeling about it. Except you had to teach their labs.
LS:	Do you feel you've been affected by the contract that— you know after 1970?
LF:	No, I think that's been a blessing. 
LS:	Oh, why?
LF:	The limit of four years. 
LS:	You used to keep them longer?
LF:	Oh, Lord, yes. And of course the dean's office takes the same position. We can hire occasional students for a fifth year but very rarely beyond that. It's to our advantage more than theirs. Of course I understand that there were some departments that put everything in the grab bag every year. I mean, just because a TA had been a good TA for one year didn't mean he automatically got hired for the next. And we always did that, we always assured a person, as long as he was doing satisfactory work and was making good progress towards his degree his TA-ship would continue at least five years and usually longer.
00:22:26
LS:	Were you heavily financed by grant, federal grant money, people in the department?
LF:	Quite a few people in the department. Mostly the ones in Zoo Research.    Relatively few grants for people in Birge Hall and of course the federal grants have dropped off some but the people in Zoo Research Building are the ones that have all the money.
LS:	You must have had something to do, you must have been affected somewhat by that when you were chairman, I mean it must have had to go over your desk.
LF:	Oh yes, indeed.  And they were always in a hurry, the last day the application had to be carried through, you know, through me and then the dean and then the financial office and so forth.  It was always a last minute job.  The secretaries working overtime to type these things you know.  Everyone's always late with those things.
LS:	Did anybody ever talk about the use of overhead?   Do you remember that as being an issue?
LF:	Oh, yes.  Yes, indeed.  And we still get it of course, but we get it now through the dean of L & S.
LS:	You get overhead?  Most people complain that they never got their overhead.
LF:	Right, it comes in the form of windfall money.  But I'm sure that it is overhead money.    Originally it used to come from the Graduate School.    I remember on one occasion, we had a big fight over whether—the money was labeled overhead money, coming from the Graduate School—whether it should go to the people that had, whose grants had earned the money or whether it should be spent by the whole department, and after a special meeting we arranged, arrived at an elaborate formula for divvying this up. And we never got any more money. [laughter]
LS:	You never got any more money did you say?
LF:	No, so that was a waste of time.    But nowadays—
LS:	Do you remember when that was? You were chairman then s it was sometime before—
LF:	No, I think it was before I was chairman.    It was way back in the ‘50s.
LS:	Oh, yes.  Because one of the big complaints has been in departments that get big grants and earn a lot of overhead, because they don't get any of it back.
LF:	Well, I could be mistaken but I was under the impression that this so called windfall money that we get from the dean is overhead money.
LS:	Well, it could be.
LF:	I think everybody thinks that anyway.  I don't know where else the dean of L & S would get the money.
LS: 	Well the -- I guess perhaps the question is whether some of the Ag Department's money comes to L & S.
LF:	Oh, oh, I see.   Well, how it's divvied up, I have no idea. But then of course the amount varies.  One year we'll end up with, with $65,000 worth of stuff and the next year it's $16,000. The amount seems to vary quite a lot.
LS:	This is money you have for equipment and—
LF:	Yeah, we prepare a priority list, see, and they're all big items.  Things that cost thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars.   It's very, very handy because that money, the money we have out of, from the department to use for that purpose is much smaller than the amount of the windfall money.
LS:	Yeah.
00:26:13
	You were chairman during the end of Fred's presidency and during Elvehjem's presidency and the beginning of Harrington's. Did this affect you?  Do you remember them as presidents and?
LF:	Oh yes indeed.  The only—of course I had dealings with Fred and with Elvehjem, but not with Harrington.  By the time Harrington became president, there were layers below him and a mere chairman could never get to see the president.
LS:	Did you ever put this to the test?
LF:	Oh yes, I tried on occasion.	I never got there. It wasn't terribly critical or...
LS:	You don't remember what, what it would be about do you?
LF:	 I can't even remember what it was about.  But it wasn't important enough to make a fight over, I know that.
LS:	So, you'd see a vice president or—
LF:	Yeah, exactly. And of course they had been all those things. This was about the time that merger came along, you see and, and the superstructure of the administration increased enormously and all these vice presidents and so forth.  Time was if you wanted to see the president you went to his office and saw him.
LS:	E.B. Fred, you mean or Elvehjem?
LF:	Yeah. It wasn't worth much going to see Fred.  He was always very, very cordial and talked a great deal, but never, never really got around to talking about what you wanted to talk about at all.
LS:	There's certainly uniform agreement on that.
LF:	Elvehjem was a great deal more business-like.
LS:	So you felt that you got some help from him.  He was useful.
LF:	Oh yes, sure.  Yes, fine man.  I didn't know that until I had occasion to see him when I was chairman and I liked him very much.
LS:	And this was as president, not as Graduate School dean?
LF:	Right.  I never had any dealings with him as Graduate School dean.  Oh, a few letters, but letters back and forth mostly, not conferences.
00:28:43
LS:	Has the library in the zoology department been an issue at all?   Do you have one?
LF:	Oh yes, we have one.  It's a biology library, botany and zoology, it's both.  When the new Ag library was built there was a move to move the biology books into that, but we successfully resisted it, and so we still have our own library.
LS:	You must have been on the building committee.
LF:	Oh, I've been on endless building committees.
LS:	Well zoology was a very much disputed and emotion-rousing case, the zoology building, there's a lot about it in the Campus Planning Committee minutes.  I'd be curious as to what you'd say—
LF:	No, no, the thing I, perhaps though what their talking about is the occasion when Dean Pound of the Ag School wanted us to build our new, what's now the, was it the Zoo Research? Yes, the Zoo Research Building on the Ag campus, and we didn't want to go to the Ag campus, and we fought it and we won.
LS:	Some of you wanted to go.
LF:	I don't really think anybody did.  I mean it's possible that there was one or something but, but the vast majority of the staff were dead opposed to it and I think that, I can't remember who was dean then, I think probably still Ingraham, but I can't be sure.    But we managed to keep it on the campus, Letters and Science campus where it belongs.    Pound was a very ambitious man. I think he did succeed in building up the Ag campus considerably, but he had to do it without us.
LS:	But the building, the location of it, do you remember, the zoo building and—
LF:	Yes, it would be out on the Ag campus somewhere.
LS:	Well yes, but I mean when it was a question of whether it would be on the corner of Charter Street or—do you remember the discussions of that?
LF:	Vaguely, but not very clearly.  The main thing I remember was, was it going to be down there or on the Ag campus.
LS:	At some point, apparently, the pharmacy people came in to look over the space to see whether they would—just after the building had been built, you don't remember this?
LF:	No.
LS:	All right
LF:	Of course since then, we have another building right next door to it, the Noland building, facing on Mills Street. It sort of backs up to the other one, where all our teaching labs are.
LS:	So you have three buildings?   I guess I hadn't really taken that in.
LF:	Plus the Lake Lab.  Of course, there are very, very few offices in the Noland building except the chairman and the director of the museum and TAs, but the rest of us all have offices in either Zoo Research or Birge or the Lake Lab.
00:32:42
LS:	You said your office was very small, your present office.
LF:	Oh, see my office was in Birge was all torn up with the remodeling.    My office is sitting in fifty boxes.
LS:	Oh, you mean it's going on now?
LF: 	Yes.  I won't get in it until next fall.
LS:	I see.
LF:	So, I'm using a—Professor Burns and I are sharing a TA office on the second floor of Noland Hall.
LS:	And what is the TA doing?

LF:	Oh, they've bunched up in two or three other rooms. That's not a problem.  So many of the TAs have other offices with their major professors these days.    Yes, that's right, it is rather small.   This room would make six of them I think, six in size.
LS:	Don't tell anybody.
LF:	My old office in Birge Hall was a gorgeous place. It was Professor Guyer's office.  It was on a northeast corner, had a window to the east and two on the north.
LS:	Did you get that because you were chairman?
LF:	No, no, nobody else wanted it.  I don't know, can't remember now.  Now, I'm going to move back.  I was on third floor and then I moved down to second.  I had hoped to die in that office or retire anyway.
LS: 	Yes, that sounds grand.
LF: 	But, now, I'm going back on third floor or just above it eventually.  Of course these building things are always behind schedule and God knows when we'll get into it.  It's promised for the beginning of summer which means it may be ready by fall.
LS:	Yes, yes.  You mentioned the museum.  I think of the botany department and its herbarium which was not very popular among botanists.  For a while they didn't want to spend money on it.  Has there ever been a problem with, the zoology collection?
LF:	It's had its ups and downs but of recent years we have been behind the museum right along and we were able to hire a new, just a couple years ago, a new director of the museum.
00:35:07	End of Tape 2, Side 1
Tape 2, Side 2
00:35:09
LS:	When did you start getting computers in zoology?
LF: 	Oh, it's a, my goodness, it's been quite a while. It must have been ten or twelve years ago.    The department, zoology and botany together, managed to get one with Graduate School money and some of our own, I think. And it has proved to be over the years somewhat less than satisfactory, and I think it’s finally been abandoned.  Now we use the computers over at the, you know, have these tie-ins with the computer center.
LS:	MACC?
LF:	Yeah.  I personally am not involved with this.  I don't know anything about computers.
LS:	So there's not much use of computers for research or—
LF:	Oh yes, quite a little. 
LS:	But they're all tied in with MACC? 
LF:	Yes, right.
LS:	Was this ever, was there any issue here, as to what kind you'd get or—
LF:	Yes, there was considerable delay because the University was trying to decide which kind of system to use and so forth, but I think that's all been settled now.
LS:	Do you remember when this was?
LF:	It was two or three years ago.
LS:	Oh, I see. Very recent.
LF:	Yep.  Come to think of it, I'm thinking of those crazy typewriters that they call something else, that make—scanners or—
LS:	Oh, I know what you mean.
LF:	That was the thing we were delayed getting for several years because the University wanted to have them all alike and couldn't make up its mind.
LS:	And you finally got them did you?
LF:	Yes.  I forget what they're called.
LS:	Yes, I don't know.
LF: 	I was talking to an engineering student the other day on the bus coming back from Chicago and I told him I used to be able to recognize any engineering student.   He had a slide rule attached to his belt.  This man was a graduate student in chemical engineering.   He said the last time I used a slide rule, I was a sophomore in high school.    Everybody uses computers now, or the little hand things.
00:37:58
LS: 	Have you been on campus-wide committees? 
LF:	A few.
LS: 	What ones?
LF:	Oh, I was on the Admissions Committee years ago, the University Admissions Committee.  At the time that they decided to allow these Ford scholars that had graduated from high school, you know to come here. Oh what else...
LS:	What did you think of them?   Did you ever have anything to do with them?
LF:	I didn't really have anything to do with them.  We had one come back later as a graduate student.
LS:	Is he still here?
LF:	No, no.
LS:	No, I suppose not.
LF:	He finished up and left but—I think Herb Howe was the one who developed an ulcer over those, he was sort of their father confessor.
LS: 	Was he on the committee, too?
LF: 	He wasn't on the Admissions Committee, but he had a good deal to do with riding herd on them when they were here.
LS:	I see. I’ve heard two totally opposite views on what they were like in ILS and I—
LF:	No, I really never had anything to do with them at all. I'm trying to think, I used to, mostly college committees, I think.  The fellowships committee and the, I used to be on the L & S executive committee, so called, which heard all the kids who were appealing being kicked out of school, or were getting back before their time out was up and that sort of thing.   And more recently, the dean's fellowship committee and the WARF committee, Graduate School committees and things like that, it's been a long time.  I haven't been on any recently, except departmental committees, except this dean's fellowship thing.  You know, we used to have those assigned fellowships.  The department could just choose one or two people, depending on how many you had, and usually you chose someone who’d been a TA for many years and gave good service.  The money was being cut down and cut down and cut down so the dean finally appropriated all of it and decide to call them dean's fellows.  There are only ten now.  There used to be something like twenty-eight in the College of Letters and Science.  Several departments had two of them, we only had one.
LS:	Where was the money from?
LF:	From the legislature.
LS:	I see.
LF: 	I've been on the assistantships and fellowships committee, I think all but one year since I've arrived here.
LS:	That's college or department?
LF:	Department.  Well, I was—in the old days, you know, the University Fellowship Committee was divided up by colleges, and I was for several years on the L & S.    Had stacks and stacks and stacks of these things, for every department in L & S.    It was one horrendous job.  Now it's divided by divisions so you deal only with the biologists.
LS: 	Which even so, I suppose, is quite a lot.
LF:	 It's still a lot, but the whole college was a horrendous job. But, oh well.
00:41:52
LS: 	Did you go to faculty meetings?
LF:  	Oh yes indeed.
LS: 	Always.
LF:  	Yes, I don't now.
LS: 	You're a rare person then. I mean I know some people went to them always, but not everybody.
LF: 	I think I most always went.    Of course they used to have them in Birge Hall which was handy or occasionally in the Law School which was just down the hill a little bit.    Now I don't go.  I could, but I—
LS:	Well, it's the senate, yes.  
00:42:19
	What have been the issues that have, that if when you think back over the time that you've been here in the University that have concerned you the most? That you've dealt with in the faculty meetings?
LF:	Oh I'd have to think about that.  I think one of them from some time ago that I remember with considerable interest was the discussions about the fraternities and sororities and their policies with regard to race and so forth.  I remember that very well.   I think it has turned out in the long run to be as Helen White said.    In the time limit we've given them they'll either be doing what we want them to, or they won't be in existence anymore.  And then more recently the, uh, well the, I had it on the tip of my tongue—I'll tell you what doesn't interest me a great deal, and that's all this endless harangue about the faculty, the laws and so forth which are all being redone and—
LS:  	The rules and regulations.
LF:  	The rules and regulations, which went on for years and years and more recently the faculty rights and responsibilities. I guess I'm too old to worry about that anymore.
LS:  	You said this was something that didn't interest you.
LF: 	Didn't interest me, yes.
LS:  	Yes, that's a good thing to bring up, too, after all. 
LF:    	But, when we had the general faculty meeting... Goodness, isn't that ridiculous to not remember? [break in tape.]  The legislature was on the point of passing a law that required the University to require American History and the University decided to beat them to the punch and require it themselves.  But there was a big fight over it. The history department was very much against it. They didn't want all these students that didn't want to take the course to be forced into it. But the administration eventually prevailed and passed it. But you know, some years later it just quietly disappeared without anybody being particularly aware of it and, of course—the requirement disappeared, that is.
LS:	I think one of the interesting things was that although they were requiring it, they weren't, they didn't know what was going to be taught in American History so they might not have been any better off.
LF:  	True. They were always fun to go to. Hear the people— I was a young faculty member then—big wheels, pronouncing on this and that.
00:46:00
LS:  	The same names always seem to crop up, Knaplund and, who else, well and of course, I guess Ingraham, the way he ran them is spoken of quite a lot.
LF: 	Yes, a very fine man.
LS:  	Did you think he held, but you don't, that he held the zoology department back.  There is, some people have felt that he was very conservative and that he held the sciences back to some extent.
LF:  	The big argument at the time he retired was, as I remember, about the use of soft money to pay faculty members during the academic year. And the physics department particularly wanted to do this, and I think may very well been the thing that precipitated his retirement.  Although he was at an age I think that he probably would have retired anyway.  And of course I think most everybody in our department was on his side in this. I don't think they should use the federal money to pay, soft money anyway, to pay faculty members for regular academic salary, academic year salary.  I certainly never had the feeling that Ingraham was holding us back in any respect at all.  I remember Dr. Noland saying once about Ingraham that his only—he had great regard for him, but his only criticism of Ingraham was that he was too likely to take the large university view and not push as hard for L & S.
LS:	Ah, yes.
LF: 	That I know only from Noland, not from my own experience.
LS:	Well that's, I've heard that from others, too.  I mean, it was specifically L & S people feeling this.  I guess it would be his not making enough money available, say in physics, to hire the kind of people that, at the kind of money that you had to have then to get top people and it may have been particularly an issue in physics.
LF: 	Well, the things that I heard then were really hearsay, except for Ingraham's own statements at the time. Thank you for the water.  Well I don't know, I have the feeling I've sort of talked myself out here.
LS:	Well, all right.
LF:	Unless you have some specific questions to be answered rather briefly, I'd be happy to try.
LS:	No, I haven't anything else that I can see.  So thanks very much for coming over.
LF:	Well, I thank you. I make no promises that it will be worth anything to anybody but for what it’s worth you’re welcome to it.
00:49:43	End of Interview
End of Interview #283