UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
				ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #684
HALABY, CHARLES N.

HALABY, Charles N. (1947- )
Professor of Sociology; Associate Dean of Social Sciences; Director, Industrial Relations Research Institute
At UW: 1974-

Interviewed: 2004	
Interviewer: W. Lee Hansen	
Length: 37 minutes		

Career at UW; Department chair; IRRI recruitment efforts; Budgets; Proposals to save the IRRI.

Interview Session (July 12, 2004): Tape 1

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00:24	Charles Halaby came to UW in 1974 as an instructor in sociology.

00:00:43	CH explains how he became associate dean of social science in 2002 after serving on the Academic Planning Council; he felt that he had been groomed for that position.  His first action as dean was to cut numerous positions in social science departments.

00:04:23	He relates a meeting with associate dean Mary Anne Fitzpatrick to discuss the IRRI; he told her that its heyday had passed because of the retirement of many key figures.  He goes on to talk about the recruitment of a new faculty member from North Carolina who insisted upon the creation of new full-time positions at the IRRI.

00:08:41	CH continues to talk about the IRRI's recruitment efforts, including the failed attempt to bring in Adrienne Eaton from Rutgers that occurred while he was associate dean.  CH proposed to move the IRRI to the LaFollette Institute in order to give IR faculty a tenure home.

00:12:04	He relates several attempts to find an acting director for the IRRI after the end of John Witte's directorship.  CH tentatively offered the position to Barry Gerhart of the Business School; no faculty from Letters & Science were interested in the position.

00:14:54	CH describes the IRRI's budget; he estimated that 80 percent of the budget went to faculty and instructors outside of the College of Letters & Science.  He found that faculty from the Business School were far more committed to the IRRI than anyone from L&S.

00:17:45	He relates meeting with Donald Schwab and Michael Knetter about shifting the IRRI to the Business School.  Ultimately the Business School's proposal--which would have shifted the IRRI's funds from L&S to the Business School--was rejected.  CH considers this to be the death knell for the IRRI.

00:21:21	He mentions a letter-writing campaign initiated by Ken Mericle; CH saw no more than ten letters that had been sent to the chancellor.

00:25:00	He thinks that the closure of the IRRI had been inevitable since 1997.  He and Lee Hansen go on to discuss the subsequent careers of IR faculty such as Jonathan Zeitlin.

00:29:51	CH mentions that the sociology department agreed to support some of the last IRRI students.

00:30:33	 End of side.

Tape 1/Side 2

00:31:24	Charles Halaby talks about industrial relations programs at other universities; unlike the IRRI, these programs did not have a teaching component.

00:31:50	He goes on to talk about the decline of the IRRI and some of the reasons it had not been saved.

00:36:59	End of side.  End of tape.  End of interview.

END