UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #239
ADOLFSON, LORENTZ H.

ADOLFSON, Lorentz H. (1909-1985)
Graduate Student, Political Science; Dean of General Extension; Chancellor of Center System
At UW: 1937-1972

Interviewed: 1983	
Interviewer: Laura Smail
Length: 1.5 hours
Transcriptionist: Teresa Bergen (8/26/08)
Auditor: Bill Meier (September 2008) 
	[See Index for Key Words]

First Interview Session (1983): Tape 1
Tape 1, Side 1
00:00:01
LS:	Well I’ll just say, this is an interview with Lorentz Adolfson, who was the director of extension and the dean of Extension for a while, and then chancellor of the University System. This is January sixth, I think, or is it the fifth, 1983. I’m Laura Smail and we’re talking in his house. Let’s just to begin with, I would like to know what sort of background you came from.
LA:	Well, I grew up in Chicago. Somewhat disadvantaged parents. My father was a carpenter. Those days, he rarely worked between Thanksgiving and Easter. And consequently winters, especially Christmastime, was rather tough on us. But I graduated from high school there and went to work. And then about three, three and a half years later, I went to what was then Crane Junior College. It was Chicago’s first two-year college, post high school college.
LS:	Hold on. What made you go to college?
LA:	Oh, I wanted to go to college. I was a very bright student. And although I really didn’t have much thought of going at the time I graduated from high school. But I’d been urged by teachers in high school and friends to try to get to college. But I couldn’t see my way clear until some three years after I had graduated from high school.
LS:	Were your parents, did they support you in going to college? Were they interested in your going?
LA:	They were very much interested, but they could afford to support me.
LS:	Yeah. I mean support you mentally.
LA:	Though I lived at home that first year. And then through one of my instructors at Crane, I found a scholarship at Wabash College in Indiana. And I went, I went to Wabash for three years, since I’d had one year in Chicago. And again, while I would have liked to have gone on to graduate school or to professional school, I graduated in that wonderful year of 1933. There were no jobs. I looked for maybe two months, then decided to do what I thought at that time was original, but I’ve since learned that many people did that. That is, send out a vita with a letter to some fifty presidents of major companies in Chicago. Actually, it worked for me. Because through it I got a job at Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company, in their wholesale house. In fact, after I’d been there working about two weeks, I was put in charge of a women’s lingerie factory that they had down in one corner of the big building. And worked there for some three, three and a half years, which was a fascinating experience from many points of view. Well, then things got a little better at home financially. And my parents decided that if I wanted to go to graduate school, I should. So in the fall of 1936, I came up here to Wisconsin.
LS:	What made you want to go to graduate school?
LA:	Oh, I wanted to be a teacher.
LS:	Oh. A college teacher.
LA:	College teacher, if possible. So I came up here in the Political Science Department. Did graduate work for, well, more or less full time for two years. And then I got a job with Extension grading correspondence study papers. So I did that, and also began lecturing out in the state for Extension. And then I kept taking some graduate work. It took me another two or three years, though, to complete the Ph.D. degree.
00:05:28
	I continued on in Extension. And shortly after I got my degree, then President Dykstra called me in. He was a big, hearty fellow. And he blustered around all over the lot. Didn’t have the foggiest idea why he wanted to talk to me. I’d never met him before. And for about an hour he talked about all kinds of things, and asked me questions and what not. Then he got up and he said, “Well, it’s sure been nice to talk to you.” I took that as a signal to leave, which I did. And when I got in the next day, he called again, said he wanted to talk with me. So I went over. And then he was more businesslike. He asked me how I’d like to, whether I’d like to be an administrator. I said no, not particularly, I’d like to be a professor. But I don’t care too much about administration. “Well,” he said, “you ought to take a shot at it anyway. I’m going to appoint you head of Extension.” Which I must say really surprised me. Surprised a lot of other people, too, incidentally. [Laughs.]
LS:	Well, it is extraordinary. Have you any idea what was the line of–
LA:	Yeah. I was going to come to that. My major professor, well, technically not, but in actuality, my major professor was John Gaus in political science. And he and I were good friends, too. And he was Dykstra’s closest personal friend. And Gaus told me the story years later. He said he and Dykstra were visiting one evening. And Dykstra said, “You know, I’ve got real trouble over in the Extension Division. I’m going to move the present dean out of the job. But,” he said, “I don’t have any idea who to replace him with.” Gaus says, “I have just the man for you.”   So Gaus told him about me, and Dykstra said, “Well, I’ll talk with him.” Which he did. And not too long afterwards, I had the job.
LS:	Now you were, were you forty?
LA:	No, I was thirty-five.
LS:	Thirty-five. I was just trying to remember what–
LA:	I’m pretty sure I was thirty-five.
LS:	What was wrong with, it was Holt that you replaced.
LA:	Holt, yeah. Frank Holt.
LS:	What was wrong with him?
LA:	He, well, he didn’t know much about Extension, to begin with. And while he did a great deal of work out in the state while he was dean, and even more later, he didn’t seem to have a feeling for what Extension could do. Extension was in rather bad shape. All it was was a correspondence study program at that time. It had been many things earlier, but they had all been sloughed off and dropped.
LS:	I thought that during the ‘30s they’d set up the freshman/sophomore centers, a good many of them.
LA:	Yeah. They were started in, oh, I guess about ’33. They had a number of them. But they were small, all housed in vocational schools at that time.
LS:	So they weren’t really significant.
LA:	No. No. They became significant after World War Two, when you had this tremendous group of veterans returning.
LS:	So Dykstra felt that Holt--and was Dykstra himself particularly interested in Extension?
LA:	I don’t think so.
LS:	But somebody must have been? The regents? Do you know who?
LA:	No. The only person I relate to that is John Gaus. Who wasn’t particularly interested in Extension, either, except he was very much interested in me.
LS:	But I mean, why Dykstra should have suddenly, should have decided that he had to replace Frank Holt, what, I wonder–
LA:	Well, he just didn’t think that he was fitted for the job. He made him registrar of the university, and he was very good at that. 
00:10:54
So, in any case, I was suddenly, I had a very peculiar title. He gave me the title “acting associate director.” Well, the acting was understandable. I got the associate directorship because that was the title of the head of Ag Extension. And at that time, Dykstra had some notion about tying the two together someday. And he thought it would be wise for the heads of the two to have the same title. So I had this acting associate director title. Not for very long, because Dykstra left. Oh, I guess six, seven months after I had been appointed. And E.B. Fred came in. 
LS:	Can you describe what it was like suddenly starting to take on a big job like that, which you hadn’t thought of before? How did you go about it? [Phone interruption.] 
LA:	I didn’t think much about it, to tell you the truth. I just went down there and started working.
LS:	What did you start doing?
LA:	Well, first of all, of course, I had to acquaint myself with, first I had to get a secretary because his old secretary went with him to his other job. So I had to get a secretary. Mrs. Alice Sater. And then I set about just learning the ins and outs of what we were doing, getting acquainted with the personalities.
LS:	Of course you knew, you must have known quite a few of them already.
LA:	Yeah, I knew quite a few. And then I started thinking about what to do with this organization.
LS:	[Music in background.] Excuse me. There’s music going on, isn’t there?
LA:	My wife’s upstairs. Are you catching it in there?
LS:	I guess not. 
LA:	I wouldn’t think so.
LS:	It might be a good idea if you would hold this closer. And then when I ask you a question if you could sort of point it at me. Because your voice will come through better. So excuse me, go ahead, then.
00:14:06
LA:	One thing that happened before President Dykstra left, however, involved the School for Workers. He called me in one day and asked me if I knew anything about workers’ education. Or more specifically, the School for Workers. I told him no, I’d never even heard of it. He said, “Well, I’m running it out of my office here.” And he said, “I don’t think I should be doing that.”  I said, “I don’t think so, either. You’ve got no business running a unit of the university of that kind.” So he said, “Well, I think it belongs in Extension.”  I said, “It probably does.” So he put me in touch with Schwartztrauber. Schwartztrauber. And we talked over what they were doing and what they perhaps could do. So I agreed that Extension would take on the School for Workers, and Dykstra transferred its budget to ours. And that was the start of a long and very happy association.
LS:	But I guess that’s close enough. What kind of a person was Schwartztrauber?
LA:	Schwartztrauber was an idealist. A dreamer. He had just great visions for, great hopes for workers’ education. But he wasn’t much of an administrator. And the image, if you want to call it that, of the School for Workers, was not a very good one. But–
LS:	In whose eyes?
LA:	Oh, in the eyes of the administration.
LS:	I mean, how about the labor unions? How did they look on it?
LA:	I think their feelings were mixed. Generally they looked well on it, any program in workers’ education looked good to them. But again, I’m not quite sure how well they liked Schwartztrauber. I’m not sure on that. But in any case, we then slowly developed it. They’d had no class program in the state. I insisted that they do that.
LS:	They just had the summer school sessions?
LA:	That was their whole program. And they started the class program, which had been quite successful. And then Schwartztrauber died, let’s see, well, I’m not quite sure.
LS:	Well, there’s Ulrickson.
LA:	Ulrickson, yeah.
LS:	It’s interesting that at one point Ulrickson was the associate director but was getting five thousand dollars, and Schwartztrauber was the director and was getting four thousand. What was that about?
LA:	I don’t really know.
LS:	You didn’t know it at the time? Because this was in 1947, I think.
LA:	Well then it was under Extension.
LS:	It looks very odd. 
LA:	No, I don’t remember that. Well, in any case, I don’t recall whether Ulrickson was the director for a time or not. But not too long thereafter we got Bob Ozanne and we got him through Bob Fleming, who was a friend of, who knew him, at least.
LS:	Not through Ed Young.
LA:	Well, Ed Young was involved, too, but Fleming at that time was head of, I think they called it an industrial relations center, and had a rather short life there. And he was the one that recommended Bob Ozanne. I’m sure I talked to Ed Young about it.
LS:	But it was you who hired Ozanne.
LA:	Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
LS:	He didn’t have an academic background, as I recall.
LA:	Ozanne?
LS:	At least it seems to me that’s what Ed Young said.
LA:	Yeah, I don’t know what he was doing at the time.
LS:	As I say, I happen to, those were the files I happened to look through, the School for Worker files. And even before Ozanne came, you were having quite a time in Wausau, I guess it was. Do you remember, some businesspeople were criticizing the School for Workers. And somebody named Lepas, remember him? L-e-p-a-s.
LA:	No.
LS:	He was a teacher in the School for Workers. And they were saying that he was teaching things that weren’t true about business. And you went up to a meeting in Wausau to try to iron it out.
LA:	I have just the vaguest recollection of that. 
00:20:48
Somewhat later, we had a much more difficult one up at Fond du Lac. In which in order to straighten out, one of the regents went with me to go straighten it out. Yeah. And it was straightened out all right.
LS:	Do you remember which regent went with you?
LA:	I sure do. It was old Sensenbrenner. 
LS:	Oh, really? He was one of the very pro-industry people, wasn’t he?
LA:	Oh, yeah. Very. Very. He was chairman of the board I think at that time of Kimberly-Clark.
LS:	Well did you and he get along all right?
LA:	Yeah.
LS:	Because he didn’t like the School for Workers very much, is that true?
LA:	No, no, he didn’t really like it. But he did come to its defense when they got in trouble up there. He really told those businesspeople off. Yeah. Well, where would you like me to go now?
00:21:53
LS:	Well, I guess, and E.B. Fred got involved in some of the School for Workers problems, too.
LA:	Oh, sure. Sure. 
LS:	And I’m very interested in your period under him. Apparently you met with him regularly. Is that right?
LA:	Oh, yes. Well, I worked with him the longest of any of the presidents. And the real development of Extension that took place during a period of about ten years was due in large part to his support. He didn’t give a positive support or direction, but he just backed up whatever we wanted to do. He, by the way, was a very peculiar man to deal with. I don’t know if you knew him.
LS:	No. Just when he was much older.
LA:	He was.  He’d call you up to his office say at nine o’clock. And I’d always tell my secretary, “Well, don’t expect me back before noon.” Because you’d sit there and you’d wait and wait and wait. And then when you got to see him, he’d be fiddling around with half a dozen other things, and what you were there for. He was a very odd man. But he was superb at dealing with the regents. Just superb. Well, let me go back to Extension just in broad terms. 
00:23:48
If I made any contribution there, I think a major one would be the development of the whole institute and conference program, which now, of course, is housed in the Center Building. Oh, I suppose I’d maybe been there a year when I began thinking about the possibilities of expanding our institute and conference program. Which at that point was negligible, with the possible exception of the Management Institute, which was then, which had been started, the School for Workers, and that was it. [Phone interruption.] Gosh, I guess I’d better get the phone.  So we began systematically creating programs in all of the professional fields, as well as some in Letters & Science, such as Bureau of Government, connection with the Political Science Department. And simultaneously we began building up our departments and tying them into the residence departments soo that all of our department heads had joint appointments in residence and in Extension. I think we probably wound up with some thirty-two such split appointments. Other members of our staff, with rare exceptions, were not split. They were wholly in Extension. But we had this fixed policy that Extension should be intimately related to residence, and that was the mechanism that seemed most promising.  It didn’t really turn out that way. It had been my hope that we would get considerable Extension work done by regular resident staff, but that never really worked. 
LS:	How do you mean? That they would have done more of the teaching?
LA:	Yeah. And that they would do some both credit and non-credit work out in the state. Correspondence study. Well, a good many did correspondence study. But very few did the other Extension work.
LS:	It was just too much for them? They weren’t interested?
LA:	I think so. They didn’t want to travel. Satisfied, as they should be, with their residence jobs.
LS:	Did they get any extra money for being joint appointments with Extension?
LA:	Not if it was a joint appointment. But they did many things on an overload basis, and then they got paid extra for it.
LS:	Because there wouldn’t be much incentive to do a lot if you were already working full time doing your own job.
LA:	Well, on these split appointments, oh, they might be, let’s say, fifty-fifty. In which case Extension paid 50 percent of the salary.
LS:	Oh, so they should have been working 50 percent of their time.
LA:	That’s right. And then residence paid the other fifty. And they would teach maybe a couple of classes for that 50 percent in residence, and then do whatever was necessary in Extension.
00:28:26
LS:	Were these people, I know Lester Seifert is one of them, isn’t he? A German professor?
LA:	Mm hmm.
LS:	Were these people, they had already been on the faculty, is that right? Or were they hired at that time?
LA:	It worked both ways. In some cases, they were already on the faculty. Herb Evans, for instance, in math, was a full professor in mathematics. L&S. And then came with us part time. But others were hired by agreement between residence and Extension. Bob Mulvihill, for instance, was a good example. He was brought in on that basis. And then went on to other things. 
LS:	You said this was something you felt a particular contribution of yours. Was it your idea to have these joint appointments?
LA:	No, not entirely. It was my idea to push them, though, as far as possible, into every department. There were, as I recall, two or three joint appointments at the time I took over. Of course, Extension changed so drastically from just a correspondence study program with very few classes, to a very large class program and institutes and conferences. And ultimately we were running them by the hundreds every year. So that, well, in any case, I think that was certainly one of my major contributions to Extension.
LS:	But your idea was to get better quality teaching, I suppose.
LA:	Yes. And much more of it. Much more diversified. Meanwhile, too, the centers were coming along. 
00:31:07	End of Tape 1, Side 1.
Tape 1, Side 2
0031:20
LS:	Yes. Say that again.
LA:	The centers were coming along, after World War Two there was a tremendous pressure of returning servicemen coming to school under the G.I. Bill. And in order to satisfy the need, you might say, we developed some thirty-four centers, that’s the maximum number we had at any given time. These were still all housed in, not all, mostly housed in local vocational schools that provided space, sometimes a small library. And then we provided the instruction, of course. But a little bit later, Racine County, county and city, decided that they’d like a building or a campus for the Racine Center. And they turned over to us an old elementary school which was right in the heart of town, the old [McMinn?] School, I think it was called. And there we put in laboratories and other equipment and established, really, the first campus of the center system. We also developed then a policy for dealing with local communities on the development of centers, which was that local community had to provide the land and the building. And had to maintain the building, too. And the university provided all of the equipment, libraries, of course, and the instruction programs. And that’s a policy that’s held down to the present day. 
00:34:09
LS:	Well, do you remember how that came about? Who thought of it and why it came up?
LA:	Well, I think it’s a policy that just sort of evolved as we were dealing with communities. But it was a policy early in the game, because I think our first campus was at Sheboygan, oh, other than Racine.  And there the policy was pretty clean cut. And most county boards were quite friendly to it, so it stuck. The only place we had any real trouble with it was in Waukesha.
LS:	What happened there?
LA:	Oh, two or three county board members that were in the minority, they were very vocal. Objected vehemently to the county having to put up the building. And we had quite a battle in the county board over it. But the majority won out and we got a handsome campus in Waukesha out of it.
00:36:07
LS:	Henry Ahrnsbrak, I’ve interviewed him. Was he one of your outstanding people? Or were there many like him?
LA:	No, there weren’t many just like him. Yes, he was an outstanding one. He, how should I put it, he was the first dean to negotiate a new building, a new building, built from scratch. And he did it just superbly. He had an extraordinary sense of how to deal with county board people and others in the community. Was very community-oriented, and handled that campus extremely well in its expansion phases and what not. So I would say yes, he was quite a rare bird.
00:37:33
LS:	Did people like him?  Did they come in and talk with you about their plans? How close was your supervision? I suppose you were in charge of them, were you?
LA:	Well, we did have a director of what we called the freshman/sophomore program at that time.
LS:	Oh, that’s right. His name was–
LA:	Wilbur Hanley.
LS:	Hanley.
LA:	Yeah. And he did, or he handled much of the relations with them. But I was always involved when it came to new buildings, new construction, expansion, and so on. Oh, I’d say that I talked to most of the deans every day. Almost every day.
LS:	Oh, really? By telephone, obviously.
LA:	Yeah. Yeah.
LS:	Did they keep you posted on any new crises?
LA:	You know, if there was likely to be a really major blowup, probably hot-footed down to Madison and talked about it.
LS:	Oh, is that right?
LA:	Sure. Sure. And I went out a good deal, too. So that we were in constant touch.
LS:	I didn’t realize you used the term “deans” for these people.
LA:	Well, they’ve been deans now for quite a while. They were directors. But we changed the title to dean. Well, I pretty much did that. I didn’t like the title “director” out in the community.  I thought dean sounded better, that it would give the job a little more prestige. I don’t know whether it did or not. Anyway, that’s how I felt.
00:39:51
	So with the Wausau addition, we began, then, the building of the new campuses. And I think we built either twelve or thirteen, I’m not quite sure. Although we wound up with seven. Some were split apart with the state college movement, subsequently merged again. So they must have some thirteen at the present time. Well, more than that if you count the state college campus. I’m not sure of that.
LS:	State colleges were training teachers.
LA:	Well, they were broader than that, really. But basically sort of training teachers.
LS:	I know there was competition between the state colleges and Extension. I mean, you hear that. But I’m never clear to how it expressed itself.
LA:	Well, it expressed itself in conflicts in locating Extension classes. For instance, our Education Department wanted to put a class in education, let’s say, down in Beloit. And Whitewater would come down there at the same time, want to put the identical class.
LS:	Whitewater being a teachers’ college.
LA:	Teachers’ college at that time, yeah. And that happened quite frequently over the state. So we developed a policy that wasn’t completely adhered to by backing out of any situations of that kind, letting them prevail. The teachers who were being served, I think, generally preferred a university course–
LS:	I suppose so.
LA:	–to a teachers’ college course. So that was something of a problem. Probably not as serious as it looked at the time. Well, let me see. 
00:43:09
The best president I worked with was Fred Harrington. He took quite an interest in Extension, for one thing. And he liked to see things done. And we got along very well. So that was a very happy arrangement. 
LS:	You were made the, let’s see, you were called a provost to begin with, in 1964. Was this, how did you feel about that? You were losing Extension, but it was more, were you glad to be in charge of the campuses?
LA:	Ah, yes. Well, I had a choice. Harrington was president. And he at that time was again back on the possibility of merging Ag and General Extension. And prior to doing that, he felt that the centers should be a system of their own. That their chances of developing would be better if they were in a unit of their own, rather than as a part of Extension. Which I happen to think is true.  So, when he was ready to propose that to the regents, he asked me whether I’d rather stay on as the dean of Extension or go to center system. And I chose the center system because I knew that there would be a period of eight to ten years, at least, of real development in the centers, building new campuses and all that, which appealed to me. So that’s the way it went.
00:45:52
LS:	Was this a job that Hanley might have expected to get?
LA:	Well, he did expect to get.
LS:	He did.
LA:	It was a sad situation.
LS:	Was he not very good at it, at what he’d been doing?
LA:	I’d rather not say. I’d just as soon not talk about Bill Hanley. He was a very serious problem for– The president had told me, several times, in fact, to fire him. Not to fire him out of that job but he’d get his job, he was a geographer, and put him in a job in geography. Well, I’d worked with him so long. While we weren’t really close friends, I couldn’t get myself to do it. So finally, Harrington did. He took it upon himself.  “I’m not supposed to be meddling like this, but if you won’t do it, then I’m going to do it.” And he did.
LS:	He didn’t create this change in order to make you the head of–
LA:	No. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. No. But as I said, he gave me the choice between Extension and the new center system. 
LS:	You know, as we look at it now, or maybe you don’t look at it that way, it seems as if there were too many centers built with falling enrollments and the desperate economic straits, that it might have been better if some of them hadn’t been started. But maybe you don’t see it that way. 
LA:	No, I don’t know too much about the state university campuses. I think probably there are a couple in their system that are too small and should not have been started. But of those that the university started, even the smallest ones, like Baraboo up around 600 students. And we always figured if you have 300 students, then you have viable operation. Baraboo is around 600. I think Marinette’s around 600. They’re the two smallest. 
00:49:24
	I worked, of course, with Elvehjem, too, when he was president. He, too, gave me a completely free hand. I didn’t see very much of him. He didn’t call you in very often.
LS:	I suppose he was terribly preoccupied with the medical school situation.
LA:	Oh, yes. The job killed him. Yeah, the job killed him. He was so serious a person. And then, we’ve talked a little about Harrington.
00:50:33
LS:	Did Harrington, did you meet with him frequently?
LA:	Quite frequently.
LS:	Was it just you and he, or was it–
LA:	Both ways. I met with him quite often alone. Well, I got to know him very well when he was vice president. He handled pretty much the day to day operation of the university. So I had occasion to see him quite often. And then after he became president, I’d see him quite often. But then there were meetings, chancellor’s meetings that we had, I don’t recall now. At least once a month.
LS:	That would be you and the Madison campus chancellor and the Milwaukee campus chancellor.
LA:	Milwaukee and Parkside, Racine.
LS:	Oh, yes. Were you talking about particular issues or problems that you, one or somebody, one of you might have, and the others talking? Or what, or would you be just reporting on what you were doing?
LA:	Well, mainly, you mean in the chancellor’s meetings? Well, if the chancellor had a problem that he thought needed discussion with the president and the group, he’d usually mail it in or call it in. And then the president would have things and he’d have a sort of agenda. And we’d go through that.
LS:	Harrington is pretty well organized, isn’t he?
LA:	Mm hmm. Yeah. And we’d usually meet for at least two hours. They were good meetings, interesting meetings.
LS:	Do you remember some of the things that most, any particular problems that you had or policies that you were debating that stand out in your mind?
LA:	No. It’s odd that they shouldn’t. No, I can’t, I can’t think of any.
00:53:36
LS:	Which of them stand out as people to you? Of the chancellors that you knew?
LA:	Well, Fleming would be one when he was chancellor of the Madison campus.
LS:	Of course he had the beginnings of the student protest movement. Did he ever bring that to the meetings? Did you ever discuss that?
LA:	Oh, yeah. Yes.
LS:	What would you, what would be the sense of the meeting?
LA:	Well, it was always a question of what kind of action you should take if and when this occurred. And the general agreement was that you should be firm but not go out of your way to cause trouble or incite things.  The chancellors as a group were an interesting…Joe Klotsche was chancellor in Milwaukee, of course, for a long time. He had a good sense of humor and didn’t always seem to be on top of things, but I think that was deceiving. I think he really was. Ed Weidner, who is still at Green Bay, played things awful close to his vest. He never wanted to discuss anything involving Green Bay. That was his business, and none of our business. Irv Wiley was down at Racine, he died. Was a very open, somewhat argumentative guy. Really able fellow. Let’s see. Weidner. I guess that was the original group. Ed Young, of course, was in it after he became, when he was chancellor of the Madison campus.
00:56:38
LS:	There was Sewell in between. Do you remember Bill Sewell?
LA:	Oh, yeah. Didn’t know Bill very well. He was in, what, a year or so?
LS:	Yes. Just a year.
LA:	Right. 
00:57:00
LS:	Did you talk to him about the Dow protest? Do you remember that?
LA:	I remember it. No, I don’t remember talking about it. My office, you know, was down on State Street. And when they had these protest marches and what not, we were really in trouble there. In fact, they smashed all our windows one night.
LS:	Where on State Street?
LA:	602. We were above McNeill & Moore, when they were down there. We had the second floor of that building. Not the whole second floor. That’s where my offices were. And yeah, those were tough times down there. 
LS:	That was not, Extension didn’t have, the other campuses, well, I guess there were some. Oshkosh, is Oshkosh one of the centers? Or that’s a state college.
LA:	No, that’s a state university. Oh, yes, there were others. We had some minor protests. Had a little bit down at Janesville, as a matter of fact. But they didn’t amount to very much. It’s a little different when you have two-year campuses, and mostly students living at home, where they don’t act quite the same way.
00:58:56
LS:	I’d like to go back to the period under E.B. Fred. You were meeting, at that time it would have been with other deans, wouldn’t it? Dean of agriculture and engineering. It would be very interesting to hear what you’d have to say about them and about how Fred conducted the meetings. And I don’t know quite what to ask you about it. Did you meet daily, for instance, with E.B. Fred?
LA:	No, no, not daily. No. But frequently.
LS:	And all of you.
LA:	Well, we met, as I recall, once a week.
LS:	Once a week, all right. That must be what I’m thinking of.
LA:	Once a week. And as I recall, E.B. Fred conducted those meetings very well. And unlike when you were visiting with him alone. But those meetings, the most articulate dean, I think, was Kurt Wendt, from engineering.
LS:	Oh. More so than Mark Ingraham.
LA:	Yeah. In meetings like that.
LS:	You mean articulate in the sense of expressing what he wanted for engineering?
LA:	No. Just in talking a lot. Yeah. He had ideas about everything. And of course he was head of the Campus Planning Commission, so he was in on a lot of things. That was a tough job.
LS:	Yes.
LA:	That was a really tough job.
LS:	Was he talking about, did you have the sense that he was, well, maybe “interfering” is too strong a word, but did he want to know what all of you were doing and comment on it? Was that the sort of thing?
LA:	Well, yeah, he’d comment on almost everything that came up. The quietest dean was Dean Middleton of the medical school. He never said anything. He was my next door neighbor for fifteen years. Over on Adams Street.
LS:	Really? So you might have known him quite well, did you?
LA:	No, I didn’t know him well. We never did more than say hello. And I was in his home just once in that time.
LS:	Why?
LA:	Well, he was a very reticent, I think now, looking back, that he was a very shy man. Although he didn’t give that appearance. And he was another one that was all business. That medical school and the hospital. 
01:02:44	End of Tape 1, Side 2. 
Tape 2, Side 1
00:00:01
LS:	So that’s interesting, already. And what was Ingraham like at the meetings?
LA:	He was, Ingraham was a very thoughtful man. But he, too, expresses himself well. He would speak quite a little. I don’t think quite so much as Kurt Wendt. I rarely spoke in those meetings.
LS:	Why did you not speak?
LA:	I don’t know. I just felt I shouldn’t speak. [Laughs.] So I rarely did.
LS:	Let’s see, was it Froker who was the agricultural dean?
LA:	Ag. Right. Yeah. 
LS:	He was rather a hard pusher, wasn’t he, for agriculture?
LA:	Yeah.
LS:	Which must have made it difficult for the others.
LA:	Well, the ag people, it seems to me, all are pushers. 
LS:	Yes.
LA:	As well they might be.
00:01:35
LS:	Would something like the things happening during the McCarthy era, would those create issues that would be discussed in the chancellor’s and deans’ meetings? For instance, I remember at one point, somebody had suggested that all professors would send, I think it was their reading list, to Washington.
LA:	Yeah. It was something else that professors were supposed to do. I don’t recall. Well, that was a difficult period. But you know what’s interesting, McCarthy never did a thing to the university. Directly, I mean.
LS:	Yes.
LA:	Never did. Never touched, never spoke against.
LS:	Some of the regents got upset at things that were gong on in the university, and felt it was radical. Well you dealt with regents, didn’t you, quite often?
LA:	Quite often. Yeah.
00:03:19
LS:	What regents do you remember as being most effective and helpful?
LA:	Well, names sort of elude me now.
LS:	Well, Sensenbrenner and Grady and–
LA:	Sensenbrenner was very helpful to us. Oh, I’m trying to think of his name. Fellow who’s on the board now, I think.
LS:	Not DeBardeleben.
LA:	DeBardeleben. I always felt he was one of the best regents we had. Yeah. 
LS:	I guess he thought very highly of Harrington, too.
LA:	Oh, yes. Yes. They were very good friends. Gelatt was a good regent. Though not of the, I don’t think of the quality of DeBardeleben. Of course, DeBardeleben was much more liberal than most regents. And a forceful speaker. I’m trying to think, there’s a fellow from down in Racine.
LS:	Not Friedrich.
LA:	No, not Friedrich. He was from Milwaukee. A lawyer down in Racine. 
LS:	He was good.
LA:	Yeah, he was very good. And he always sent the deans kringle for Christmas.
LS:	Sent them what?
LA:	Kringle. Oh, it’s a Danish coffeecake that they make down in Racine.
LS:	How nice!
LA:	It was very good.
LS:	Does that happen often? When regents send–
LA:	No. [Laughs.] No. No, they don’t. 
LS:	That would be a nice perk for the job.
LA:	I wish I could think of his name.
LS:	When was, was this in the ‘60s?
LA:	Yes, ’60s, maybe into the– yeah, ‘60s.
LS:	He wasn’t the one who handled the merger negotiations, was he?
LA:	No, I don’t think so. No.
00:06:54
LS:	What did you think of merger?
LA:	I didn’t think much of it. Oh, I’m going to back up. I was thinking of two different things. Oh, generally, I was in favor of the merger. You’re talking about the state universities and, yeah. I was not in favor of merging General Extension and Ag Extension.
LS:	Oh, you weren’t?
LA:	No.
LS:	Oh, that’s interesting.
LA:	Well, that’s fallen apart, too.
LS:	You thought they were too different.
LA:	Completely different. And their roles, their programs were different. The financing was quite different. And for instance, Ag Extension was subsidized 100 percent. General Extension had to make about two-thirds of its own money, 60, 65 percent. So they were completely different. And when they did merge them, as far as I know, it didn’t work.
LS:	Ag was very much opposed to it.
LA:	Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. 
00:08:36
LS:	I remember Henry Ahrnsbrak talking about the relations between the Ag Extension and the General Extension people in Wausau. And they weren’t very good. Just the personal relations weren’t. This was before they were merged, I think.
LA:	Oh, well, I don’t think they were too good anywhere, actually. I think there was some feeling of competition. 
LS:	What was responsible for that?
LA:	Well, I think the Ag people in the field felt that when General Extension came out with programs in their counties, that they were intruding. So there was just a kind of a natural hostility. But we always got along very well on the state level, university, Madison level.  One of my best friends is Henry Ahrnsbrak, for instance. And knew his predecessors quite well. And we had some joint activities, a few joint appointments. But not, well, let’s see, where were we with these presidents? I guess we–
LS:	Well, anything you can think of to say is helpful. The way they worked, or ideas they had. 
00:11:17
LA:	Ed Young was a good president with a style very different from his predecessors. He was an old friend of mine. 
[Unidentified voice:]  	Having a nice little chat?
LS:	Yes.
LA:	So it was easy to work with him. The only president I had any trouble with was Weaver. He and I just didn’t, I don’t know why, but we just didn’t hit it off. Not that we fought or anything. But I just couldn’t cotton to him.
LS:	Was it because he didn’t understand what you were doing?
LA:	No, he didn’t understand very much. And I think it was probably unfair, could have cared less. Whatever it was. And that was kind of too bad, because he was the last one I worked with.
LS:	He was the last one you worked with.
LA:	Yeah. Right. I don’t know Bob O’Neil at all.
00:13:27
LS:	What was the most exciting period or particular event, would you say, in your career at Extension? If that’s a question, you may not be able to answer.
LA:	Oh, it’s hard to say. 
LS:	Or the most discouraging.
LA:	I was never very much discouraged.
LS:	You don’t sound it in your talks. I’ve read some of your talks, and you seem very–
LA:	No, I was never discouraged. The thing that bothered me the most, I don’t know whether it’s proper to talk about. We had a couple of homosexual cases. They were, turned out to be quite serious. Which no one had, well, I shouldn’t say that, but very few knew about it when they came to light.  I was called one morning at the office and told about this case. I jumped in my car right away and drove up and talked with the man. After I had talked with a number, with the dean there and some of the faculty. And it was a very clean cut case and was causing considerable trouble in the classrooms. So I fired him right on the spot. But, and we had one other case, which wasn’t quite so bad. But in that case, we simply moved him out of his job to, well, we took him out of the job. But paid him for, I guess there were about seven months left in the year. We paid him for the balance of the year. Those were hard.
LS:	This was in the 1950s, I understand?
LA:	No. Later than that. I think–
LS:	In the ‘60s, then.
LA:	Yeah. Probably in the ‘60s. 
LS:	And it would be something that the community would take very unkindly to.
LA:	Oh, boy! I’d say that was, those were the toughest things.  
00:17:11
At times, we did a lot of sweating over budgets, trying to get them in shape. 
LS:	You had a budget director, I suppose.
LA:	Yeah. Very good one.
LS:	Who was that?
LA:	Henry Duwe. D-u-w-e.
LS:	I’ve seen his name.
LA:	He was a first rate accountant. He handled our business office and budget and everything. 
LS:	Did you have to push hard to get what you thought was a fair share for Extension? Was that an issue? Competition among the– well, are you talking about Extension, or the center system now?
LA:	Well, both.
LS:	Or both. Yes, I suppose both.
LA:	Yeah. Henry Duwe went with me when I went to the center system. I wouldn’t say, no, I don’t think we had to, we had to push too hard. We always tried to build reasonable programs, were fairly financed. And of course in Extension was this large income account. You could put that almost anywhere, and no one could say a nay.
LS:	You mean money coming in. If an emergency arose somewhere, you had that to fall back on.
LA:	Well, we had revolving funds.  You see, we had to make so much of our income in Extension. It wasn’t, maybe a third of it was state money. And the rest, we had to earn.
LS:	Yes. And that was yours. 
LA:	Through fees and charges. And the budget, that was a sort of separate account. As I say, you could put that almost anywhere.  No, I would say on the whole we were supported quite well. Both in Extension and in the center system. 
00:20:25
Extension programs around the country, at least back in those days I was back doing it, had very little state support. In most cases, they were 100 percent self supporting. And that was never the case with us. There were a few years when we had these big USAFI programs and things when our income went sky high. I think one year we hit 105 percent of budget in income levels.
LS:	[Laughs.] Wonderful situation.
LA:	But that didn’t last too long. We had these big army programs, military programs. And we tried not to inflate our costs, but we certainly made a lot of money. But those are gone. 
00:21:47
LS:	Did you think it was more important for people in the state to have access to, say, classes in math or English or history, or in practical subjects like accounting or what else would one, salesmanship or typing?
LA:	Well, they need both, of course. And much of these practical courses were provided by the vocational schools. We didn’t do very much in that area. But our class programs tended to be, well, management programs were, I guess, of a practical nature. In a sense, the School for Workers programs were, too. And then of course, most of these other subjects we didn’t teach, except in the centers. And our graduate programs, off campus programs, tended to be very largely in education.
LS:	Oh, I see.
LA:	For teachers. Yeah. We did very little in any other area. In graduate work. But we had a lot of graduate courses to teach.
LS:	Which were run by you rather than the School of Education? Or in cooperation?
LA:	Well, we administered them.
LS:	I see. School of Education personnel gave them.
LA:	Yeah. 
00:24:23
LS:	What have you been doing since you retired?
LA:	Not very much. I’ve done some writing. A lot of cooking.
LS:	Oh, is that right? Is that something you picked up afterwards?
LA:	Yeah. I never did any before. I enjoy it very much, too. I do a lot of reading, though less than I used to. My eyes aren’t very good. But I read a lot. I don’t have any correspondence, I used to, but all of my correspondents but one, two, two, are dead. Down to that. 
LS:	You better find some new people to correspond with. That was one of the, I interviewed Katherine McMullen. And she enjoyed, I know you’re not talking about correspondence courses, but it makes me think of her descriptions of people that she was teaching, but with which she also actually corresponded with.
LA:	Oh, yes.
LS:	Did you know her?
LA:	Sure. Sure.
LS:	She seems to have enjoyed her work very much. She described some of the people she met as through correspondence courses.
LA:	I didn’t do correspondence study very long. I had one crazy guy who was a colonel in the army. And he, oh, he used to send in thirty, forty pages in a single assignment. Wordiest guy I’ve ever known. And I used to do quite a bit of commenting on his work. So then the next assignment he sent in, he’d always have a long commentary on my comments. He was something. 
LS:	Did you know Hayakawa?
LA:	Just very casually. Yeah, just very casually. I think he was up at Wausau very early in the time that I started.
LS:	Yeah, I know he was earlier in the ‘30s.
LA:	Yeah. Yeah. So I did know him, but I can’t say more than that.
LS:	Well I’m inclined to, did you think of something else to say?
LA:	No.
LS:	I’m inclined to stop. I rather think that I may develop some more specific questions to ask you sometime.
LA:	That would be fine.
00:28:05	End of Tape 2. 
End Oral History #239.