UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #1066
CAMPBELL, GERALD R.

CAMPBELL, GERALD R. (1945-)
Professor Emeritus of Agricultural and Applied Economics & UW-Extension
At UW: 1973-

Interviewed: 	2009-2010 (5 sessions)
Interviewer: 	Robert Lange
Index by: 	Stephen A. Pierce
Length: 	11 hours, 54 minutes

Abstract: In his five 2009/10 interviews with Bob Lange, Gerry Campbell chronicles the connections between his youth in rural Ohio, his formative educational experiences at Ohio State, New Mexico State, and Michigan State, and his service and teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the 1940s to the late 2000s.  He shared insights about farm life; his growing value for education; the development of UW-Extension over time; perceptions of research, teaching and learning; the transformation of technology; and the internal dynamics of UW administration.  He specifically shared anecdotes about a number of important people in the life of UW-Madison, especially UW-Extension, during his tenure there. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the UW-Madison Oral History Program.

Key Words: central OH; farm life; Future Farmers of America (FFA); 4-H; Ohio State University (OSU); Frank L. Himes; William Tyznik; soils science; agricultural econo-mics (ag econ); New Mexico State University (NMSU); Thomas Clevenger; the 1960s; Vietnam protests; Michigan State University (MSU); agricultural marketing; US Department of Agriculture (USDA); University of Wisconsin-Madison; College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (Ag School; CALS); Willard Mueller; UW-Extension; Karen Goebel; UW System Merger (1973); tenure; University of Minnesota (UMN); computing; International Agriculture programs; Gambia; Ayse Somersan; WI Rural Leadership Program (WRLP); Cooperative Extension; Richard Barrows; Patrick Boyle; Donald Hanna; Commission for Studying Administrative Value and Efficiency (SAVE Comm.); Kevin Reilly; Donna Shalala; Center for Community Economic Development; W. K. Kellogg Foundation; UW Teaching Academy; Community Scholars Program; William Cronon.

First Interview Session (November 16, 2009): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction

00:00:24	Question: Talk about your birthplace and parents. Answer: Campbell was born on November 30, 1945 on a (commercial dairy) farm near London OH, close to the farm where his father had grown up. Campbell related his memories of this farm, located close to the OH state penitentiary farm.

00:03:32	Question: Your mother? Answer: He said she grew up in the city of London OH, daughter of two former school teachers who had worked for county government. His memories of his grandfather were as a part of the OH treasurer’s office in Columbus. He discussed his parents’ and grandparents’ political leanings.

00:06:14	[no question] Campbell talked about his siblings—an older and younger brother (both legally blind) and a twin sister.

00:06:53	Follow up: The farm was your parents’? Answer: No; he called the ownership arrangement, called a “life estate,” “not very advisable,” since it required three family members to agree on the running of the farm—his father and older siblings.

00:08:47	Follow up: Did you grow up entirely there? Answer: Yes; during his freshman year of HS, there was a house fire that destroyed the farmhouse, so when he returned from college they were in a different house. Follow up: Did you do a lot of farm work? Answer: He noted that while he was expected to do a lot of work, his sister wasn’t and his brothers weren’t able. He described the farm work.

00:11:09	[no question] Campbell emphasized his parents’ strong belief in education, he sus-pected because of his father’s experience of putting farm work ahead of school. 

00:12:14	[no question] He suggested that growing up on a farm was a wonderful way to grow up, with limitless possibilities for one’s curiosity about the natural world.

00:13:25	Follow up: Did you enjoy work? Answer: At times. He recalled two incidents—one about fearing a glowing hot exhaust manifold on his plow-tractor and the other about his father not initially believing him that the tractor was having mechanical problems—that pointed up the occasional stresses of farm work for a young person.

00:19:23	[no question] Continuing to talk about the “chore question,” he talked about kidding his younger brother, who was often under his charge, about not carrying his weight in chores. He told an anecdote about how his brother “got himself fired” from jobs.

00:22:08	Question: But you weren’t itching to leave the farm? Answer: No, but having gone to a rural high school, where farm kids saw older students who had jobs that actually paid them money, he said he knew early on he didn’t want to be a farmer. He reflected on how he had a vision of the world beyond the farm (partly informed by non-rural family members) that wasn’t always accurate, but recognized the hard physical labor and economic instabilities of agricultural life.

00:27:30	Follow up: Was the farm profitable? Answer: To an extent—he thought they never lacked what they needed, but often didn’t have what they wanted, citing used cars.

00:29:02	[no question] He observed that his father “should never have been a farmer,” a sociable person who had worked in town in early life and didn’t like farming, but felt trapped into this lifestyle. This led to his father’s emphasis on education.

00:31:23	Question: So, early education? Answer: Campbell said that very early he knew this was “a wonderful thing to do.” He described Madison Rural school, bussing to the school, caring teachers, taking classes with his sister, and loving going to school. He compared his sisters’ and his experiences of school and shared remembrances of the rural school experience.

00:35:29	Follow up: Significant teachers? Answer: He quipped that, like every kid, he was in love with his first grade teacher. Then, in 7th/8th grade, he recalled, having his first male teacher made him extremely nervous and his English teacher rigorously taught them to diagram sentences.

00:39:20	Follow up: Was your intelligence obvious? Answer: He thought so. He performed well, though he didn’t work very hard.

00:40:02	Question: HS influences? Answer: Campbell noted that in HS, one was forced to confront which “track” you’d be on, which practically involved differences in math and foreign language requirements. Terrified of language, he did a “college prep minus Spanish” track for vocational agriculture. 

00:42:35	[no question] He related how, after succumbing to peer pressure that it wasn’t cool to do well in school in his junior year, he got his eyesight issues cared for and figured out by his senior year that it was important to succeed academically. 

00:45:02	[no question] Campbell discussed the role of the director of vocational agriculture at his school, who saw agriculture as a scientific study. He said his father had long participated in the Young Farmer’s Club associated with the program, and respected the program’s director. He then discussed the role of Future Farmers of America (FFA) as a leadership program compared to the looser-organized 4-H; and also other activities he engaged in during HS.

00:49:30	[no question] He reflected on the value, inherited from his parents, of telling the truth. 

00:52:00	Follow up: Were you and your sister friends? Answer: He observed that his sister, unlike he and his brothers, was very athletic during HS. They were very good friends, though by their senior year the one-car situation, teenage sexual awakening, and class schedules in HS caused them to drift apart temporarily.

00:55:34	Question: You knew you were going to college? Answer: It was an expectation for him and his sister as baby-boomers, but his older brother preceded this expectation slightly and struggled some academically because of his sight issues. He noted that his sister was talented, the “star” of their family.

00:59:40	Question: Going to OSU? Answer: He quipped about why one say’s “the Ohio State University,” in distinction to Ohio Univ; and how in his youth going to college simply meant going to OSU, though there were other good colleges in OH. He noted that getting to university involved getting scholarships (which his sister did better than he) and loans, since he’d never had part-time jobs to save money. 

01:04:15	[no question] He discussed going to OSU with his sister, which was important to him during his freshman year, when the strains of their senior year of HS melted away because OSU was such a big place. 

01:06:01	[no question] Campbell related starting at OSU in engineering in the post-Sputnik 1960s. He said he didn’t do well at all because he didn’t want to do two years of pre-engineering before he could do hands-on engineering. 

01:08:02	[no question] In his second quarter at OSU, he switched to Agricultural Engineering, where he met one of the most influential teachers he had, Frank Himes, who taught the introductory soils science class. He described Himes’ teaching style, which emphasized cumulative learning. Follow up: Was the subject interesting to you? Answer: Maybe, but he thought he liked the structure of the teaching—about contextual learning—more than anything else.

01:13:08	[no question] Around this time, he noted, he took animal nutrition from William Tyznik, who he described as a maverick advocating scientific nutrition over folklore traditions. He remembered Tyznik’s “thousand stories” that made him a commodity on the speaking circuit, retelling one in particular about scientific observation. At a crucial point in the semester, Tyznik advised him to get out of agricultural engineering and into soils science.

01:20:20	[no question] Campbell related how moving into soils science and agro-business affected his academic experience, dramatically improving his GPA. He observed how easy agricultural economics came to him and why.

01:22:16	[no question] Toward the end of college, he related, he realized he was good at going to school and so applied for an assistantship at New Mexico St. Univ. He recounted how his father responded delightedly to this decision.

01:24:34	Follow up: How was 1960s culture affecting you? Answer: He observed that it was raising the question of his being drafted, since his ROTC experience made him not want to go to the war. He also remembered campus free speech and anti-Vietnam movements, but since most of this flowered after his time there he didn’t recall participating in much of it (and the NMSU student body was conservative).

01:29:55	Question: NMSU? Answer: He observed that it was the “A&M of New Mexico,” talking about its location, student body, and situation in New Mexico, which con-sidered itself part of the conservative South, though he was “liberally-oriented.” 

01:32:12	[no question] Campbell talked about his academic life at NMSU in a program in Ag Econ with 12 grad students. He discussed close friend William Vastine and advisor Tom Clevenger, who created a supportive environment for him there.

01:35:08	Follow up: MA thesis? Answer: He wrote on the pecan industry in NM, which was thriving just outside Las Cruces. He explained how a farmer in Las Cruces took indigenous pecan trees and planted them plantation style, and his model was being copied in other places in the Southwest. He and Lange quipped about what he’d learned from his research in pecans.

01:42:20	Question: Getting to Michigan State University (MSU)? Answer: He thought he defended in the summer, in time to start at MSU that fall. He recalled how his advisor at NMSU was an MSU grad, and how during his master’s he decided he wanted to be back in the Midwest. He talked about the history of MSU as the land grant Ag School for Michigan, with Ag Econ dwarfing the economics department on campus.

01:46:58	Follow up: The MA there was incidental? Answer: Yes; he joked that it was his “$5 master’s degree,” which he got because as part of doing his coursework for fields in Ag Econ (some of which he did in the Econ dept) he didn’t have to do any additional work to get an MA in economics. This, he thought, might help him get a job.

01:51:25	Follow up: When do you realize you’re headed for academe? Answer: He recalled humorously telling Bill Vastine that he wanted to be called “Dr. Campbell” someday, but also contextualized growing up in a milieu where physical presence was less in-fluential than intellectual presence. He cited TV examples that molded his impression of what it meant to be a professor, noting that he felt the thing he did best was school.

01:55:33	Follow up: You felt at home at NMSU? Answer: Yes; he observed that there were no PhD students there, so MA students got the attention of faculty. He compared this to other master’s students treatment in other programs.

01:59:40	Follow up: Were you conceiving yourself as a teacher? Answer: Yes; he was a TA at NMSU and conceived of a professor as a teacher.

02:00:38	Follow up: Your focus at MSU? Answer: He said he arrived at MSU with an interest in how agricultural products were marketed, which drew from business marketing techniques, but also from markets in which products were identical commodities. He also got interested in how industries got organized, which was tied closely to anti-trust law and industry regulation.

02:05:04	[no question] He described the context in the late 1960s/early 1970s when agriculture is becoming more like other industries, especially with food service (fast food) industries becoming more particular about the specifications of agricultural products coming into the market. As vertical integration was beginning, as well, those who were influencing these vertical structures was changing.

02:09:02	Question: Was the transition from small-town boy to looking at agriculture-as-industry disquieting? Answer: As a person still interested in agriculture, it was thrilling. And though discovering the natural order (rules) of how things should work appealed to him, he thought he was sensitive to how what he was studying could be destabilizing—sensitive to “winners” and “losers” of the industrializing process. He thought this was influenced by what he called “agrarian fundamentalism”—that all value in American society was created on farms.

02:14:29	[no question] He related how his understanding of the way industrialization disadvantaged farmers led him to oppose that in his role as a public intellectually. He related this thought to a recent, very public, Michael Pollan lecture at which he raised the point that while academia like to pretend they’re at arm’s length from these trends, it had been instrumental in industrialization.

02:18:25	Question: Your thesis? Answer: He wrote on the scientific industrialization of the hog-pork subsector, which was the subject of study in comparison to the standardi-zation of the chicken industry.  He joked about keeping perspective on the usefulness of his dissertation, but its limitations as well.

02:21:54	Follow up: Your defense? Answer: He remembered it being rigorous, but very friendly, having never felt intimidated by professors (other than intellectually). He contrasted his experience to a defense in which he participated as a faculty member at UW, offering perspectives on the relative originality of PhD research.

02:27:45	Question: How did you end up at Extension? Answer: He observed that his disser-tation was funded by a USDA regional research project on who would control US agriculture in which UW’s Willard Mueller was also involved. He also remembered reading work by Mueller and Bob Clodius.

02:31:08	[no question] Campbell related how, during a time of growth in Ag Econ due to interest in food marketing, he applied to jobs where his advisor had connections and was offered positions at the US Trade Commission and UW some months before his dissertation was completed.

02:33:44	Follow up: Where was Ag Econ? Answer: In CALS; he recounted the “long story” about how when he came many CALS departments were funded by the USDA, the state, and from Extension. Thus, many professors were hired partly for teaching (state) and partly for research (Extension). 

02:35:55	[no question] Campbell recounted interviewing at UW in May, a “glorious time” to be in Madison. He related anecdotes about Hugh Cook and Willard Mueller, and remembered being “ecstatic” at being offered a job at UW, which was thought of very highly in the field. He talked about hiring practices at UW’s CALS.

02:40:14	Follow up: Job talk? Answer: He spoke about his “evolving dissertation,” and was offered a position shortly after his interview, starting in January 1973 because it was not uncommon for a new professor to start mid-year.

02:42:23	End of First Interview Session

Second Interview Session (November 23, 2009): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction

00:00:37	Question: Elaborate on your funding as a junior professor. Answer: Campbell reviewed that he attended 3 land-grant universities (OSU, NMSU and MSU), but UW was different because WI didn’t have another major (liberal arts) university. 

00:04:06	[no question] Continuing to talk about how UW was different from his other experiences, he noted that growing up on the farm, he was familiar with the cooperative extension system and its connection to universities. So when he was offered an appointment that was 1/3 teaching, 1/3 research, and 1/3 extension (really only common in CALS), he said “yes” without hesitation.

00:07:29	[no question] Continuing to contextualize his funding situation, he noted that UW was an early proponent of educating people beyond its campus through lectures, libraries, and correspondence courses (which became the WI Idea). CALS at the same time (late 1800s) began sending agents connected with UW depts to places in the state and began creating “Farmers’ Institutes.”  All of this predated Extension.

00:10:03	[no question] Continuing to give context about Extension, he observed that in 1914 when the Smith-Lever Act provided federal funding for extension programs, it did so through Ag Schools, while L&S programs (later General Extension) were fee-based. This created tension at times between colleges.

00:12:23	[no question] He said that one of the hardest adjustments for him was coming fresh out of a PhD program with little work experience and little experience competing for funds (though CALS provided a soft landing for new faculty).

00:15:27	[no question] Campbell reflected on the impact of coming into a position created by a retirement, in his case by Prof. Marvin Schaars, who was a large presence at UW and was a bit daunting as a predecessor.

00:17:42	[no question] He also recalled being able to, in his first year, transition into research similar to his PhD since he’d participated in a regional project. But the Extension part of his appointment was “more mysterious,” being much less structured than the other parts of his job. He related a tradition at UW of just allowing professors to “do it” without much mentoring, even from the warm and giving (but very busy) Mueller.

00:22:02	[no question] He talked about the closest thing he had to mentorship in Extension, from Dick Wiegle, who saw him floundering and got him involved in some Extension programs, some of which was a bit over his head.

00:24:37	[no question] He related how he was able to be shielded from teaching until the fall of his first year, which allowed him to get his feet on the ground.  His first course was Schaars’ “Introduction to Agricultural Marketing.” He said he enjoyed teaching students not all that different in age from him, and described the course and typical student composition.

00:27:39	Question: What were those students like? Answer: Campbell reminisced about how he was confronted by cultural issues on his first day, having to change the dates of an exam to avoid deer hunting season. This affected his teaching style.

00:30:20	[no question] Continuing to talk about students, Campbell observed that many of his first students had more practical experience and knowledge of farming operations, changes, and animals, since he’d been away from farming for a number of years; but these students rarely had business (and especially marketing) experience.

00:34:50	[no question] Getting to details about agricultural marketing, he noted that agricul--tural products tended to be “commodities” due to standardization and their capacity to be stored; this also led to regulation in these markets to protect farmers and make marketing more orderly. He said this level of abstraction was difficult for students.

00:38:04	Follow up: Were these farm kids? Answer:  A preponderance were, though some came from other very technical departments. He discussed how he talked about his own farm experiences to prove that he knew things beyond the text,

00:40:29	[no question] Campbell suggested that much theory was just trying to make sense (in one of many ways) of how the world really operates. In agricultural marketing, this involved a lot of cross-pollination with business marketing. He cited the differences between marketing corn and corn flakes, for example.

00:42:44	[no question] Continuing to talk about marketing theory, he sketched and dispelled the misguided notion that the only productive part of the process from grower to eater was the grower, observing that trucking, marketing, storage, etc., each produce value that should be reflected in pricing. He related this to current critiques of the industrial food system who only appreciated the role of grower and eater.

00:49:33	Follow up: Is this partially structured to show students that the family farm is not the vehicle of the future? Answer: He thought that was implied in the way he and other taught it, observing that as technology put more distance between farmers and markets, larger scale became necessary. But this trend, he said, didn’t have to be deterministic. The important thing was to keep cost-distance as small as possible, usually through competition.

00:56:06	[no question] Continuing to talk about agricultural marketing, he said that increasing-ly people were willing to pay more for organically differentiated products, rather than paying as low a price as possible for undifferentiated products. He also contested the early idea that “primitive” societies have to spend all their time in food production, which had profoundly affected historically-contingent notions about the price of food.

01:01:11	Follow up: Were you ever challenged by students on these basic principles? Answer: He suspected that there was deep-seated skepticism about marketing agents (like “cattle jockeys,” who were perceived to take advantage of cattle farmers), but students in 1970s didn’t openly challenge professors. He said concrete examples (of the costs of marketing) were the most useful thing in changing these perceptions.

01:07:17	Question: Other courses that semester? Answer: He said he only taught one course that first and second semester, in order that he be able to do his research. Follow up: Were you comfortable? Answer: Yes; he said he’d had to learn lessons about teaching, and reflected on his teaching style and class size.

01:11:01	Question: Research and Extension? Answer: Campbell recalled that his Extension work at this time, during a dynamic period of Johnsonian price controls/Great Society, was lecturing throughout WI explaining interesting economic issues. He explained reassuring people on the basis of historical trends in agriculture, and also “Extension Outlook” work, doing tentative projections in Agricultural Economics.

01:16:51	Question: Was Extension accepted as part of your tenure portfolio? Answer: In CALS it was, though there were many around campus who didn’t understand Extension. He related how his early work was an extension of his knowledge about his field—how to think like an economist—though the common model was to extend one’s research outside the university—“research based education.”

01:20:42	[no question] Related to his understanding of Extension’s role, he recounted the roots of Ag Econ as a discipline in the merger of farm management studies and academic economics—a very pragmatic approach. He cited the beginnings of Ag Econ at UW with the hiring of economist Taylor into CALS, and noted that he used this pragmatic approach in his series of “Thinking about . . .” lectures.

01:24:40	Question: Were you progressively attracted to Extension work? Answer: Definitely, but early on he was encouraged to focus on his research in order to get tenure.

01:26:13	Follow up: Were you happy before tenure or weighing options? Answer: He said he weighed the pros and cons, partly because he was discovering that being a professor at UW wasn’t what he expected and some elements of UW culture were hypocritical. He cited lipservice paid to undergraduate teaching, while it wasn’t a real value.

01:28:40	[no question] On a side note, he mentioned that he got married in 1973 to Karen Goebel, who got a job in the now-School of Human Ecology. Follow up: Spousal hires? Answer: He reflected that this didn’t exist in a formal sense, due to the territoriality of departments, so their both getting hired was serendipitous. His wife lectured briefly and then became a 100% Extension appointment at Madison.

01:31:53	[no question] Reflecting on his wife’s 100% Extension appointment, he observed the turbulent times in which they were hired, only years after the Merger. He noted times when he was subjected to digs against “UW-Dane County,” strains between Madison and Extension, and the trepidation with which one approached tenure in the two divisional committee system.

01:36:02	Question: Hypocrisy? Answer: He felt that UW’s celebration of the “best and brightest” rarely had anything to do with teaching. This included the suggestion that there should be research professorships, with no reference to teaching. At the same time, he said, administration refused to spend money on teaching advancement, like membership in NACTA (North Am Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture), while commonly flaunting the fact that it was a “research university.”

01:42:30	[no question] Continuing to talk about hypocrisy at UW, he pointed to the assertion that “great research makes great teaching.” He also discussed how the use of foreign students to teach large undergraduate sections had more to do with cost-effective ways of servicing large numbers of students than teaching excellence. He suggested that vigorous opposition to collective bargaining showed that professors considered themselves individual entrepreneurs, not members of a teaching collective.

01:46:56	[no question] Another component of the disjuncture between teaching and research, he said, was the disconnect between (rules and regulations in various) colleges on campus. He cited the issue of grad-changes, which prompted a heated letter from him to the L&S administration. He suspected that he was noticed these disconnects because he studied business organization as part of his research, so he naturally began to look at his own institution.

01:54:24	Question: Anything else about tenure? Answer: He commented that as he approached tenure and watched his colleagues go through the process, he was conscious that he was doing a good job in teaching and Extension, though not so well in research. So while he had strong department support, the divisional committee was a “crapshoot.” 

01:57:49	[no question] Continuing to talk about tenure, he surmised that one reason his case went through the divisional committee was because it was packaged in a way that made sense to the committee’s view of the world of scholarship. He also suggested that while it was easy to perceive the process as unfair, he wasn’t sure it was—rather it showed one what the expectations of the university were, though the process wasn’t transparent.

02:02:03	[no question] Continuing to talk about tenure, he remembered being irritated when strong department support crumbled after a divisional committee rejection.

02:03:39	Follow up: But the dean can overturn the divisional committee? Answer: Yes, and he remembered instances when deans intervened, but it required strong support from the department. He went on to talk about how a professor had to prepare their own tenure cases, though William Dobson in Ag Econ considered tenure cases as the most important thing he did.

02:06:23	Follow up: You were happy though? Answer: Yes; he related an anecdote about being so ecstatic that he almost broke his only car key.

02:07:17	Question: What were you working on as an associate professor? Answer: Campbell discussed working on the organization of the food system, as well as working with Bruce Marion, but as a tenured professor now, he was working back to the things he was really interested in. He discussed courses he was teaching at the time, 

02:09:05 	[no question] Campbell discussed the Farm & Industry Short-Course, which few professors liked teaching, because it was “like teaching in a high school.” Derived from the Farmers’ Institutes, it was an on-campus series of courses for students who were going to go back to work on the farm. But it had a very unique sub-culture, not coming from strong academic backgrounds and generally in Madison to have a good time. He expressed how he connected teaching this (younger) group to his teaching in Extension.

02:15:52	Follow up: Were you told to teach this? Answer: He didn’t ever recall being assigned anything in the dept; rather he was presented with opportunities. So while it didn’t connect with what other faculty were doing, it did connect with his Extension work, so he began to realize that he could learn as much in Short Course as students could.

02:18:15	[no question] He related that at this time, due to changes in the salary system, he began to do more with the International Agriculture program. Thus he began work with Ayse Somersan, applied for a sabbatical, and worked heavily in teaching improvement.

02:22:52	Question: What was CALS like at this point? Answer: He remembered it facing a series of challenges, most obviously budget issues and fewer hires. But in areas in which he was interested—teaching, International Agriculture—they were doing well. Issues between CALS and Extension, as well, were still shaking out.

02:26:35	End of Second Interview Session

Third Interview Session (November 24, 2009): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction

00:00:32	Question: Talk about becoming a visiting professor at UMN. Answer: He provide context about getting a sabbatical, which at the time was usually to improve teaching, in order to incorporate technology into his classes.

00:02:20	[no question] He told the story of how he got funding to purchase his Apple II+ computer (for $3200) by using his car as collateral.

00:04:35	[no question] Continuing to talk about his use of computers to create graphics, simulating scenarios, etc., he recalled also including learning econometrics in his sabbatical application. Though there was “some grumbling” since he was the only grain specialist at Extension, his application was approved.

00:08:02	[no question] He recalled a conversation he had during winter 1984 about the public misperception of what sabbaticals were for.

00:10:07	[no question] He explained why he went to UMN for sabbatical—he’d been advised that taking sabbatical in Madison was a mistake, since it was easy to get sucked back into duties at UW. And while he got jibed for going to Minnesota, he thought it a logical place to go as “Madison-writ-large.” He also knew some faculty at UMN.

00:15:23	[no question] He remembered going to UMN in September 1984 during the MN state fair, wanting to go “back to being a student” on this sabbatical, looking for an apart-ment in Dinkytown, but finally deciding to live further out of campus to have a quieter environment.

00:18:58	[no question] He explained the studies he did at UMN, which was quite informal. He related the effects of UMN being a commuter school—less use of the student union, commuter services, and dial-up access to the computer centers on campus. Thus, most of his work involved library and interview work about what was available.

00:23:41	[no question] Campbell explained how Ag Econ had a computer lab in the dept by the time he went to UMN, because they were one of the top computer users on campus due to their appreciation of the potential of computers for farm records keeping. Thus, the dept also had a computing center in Middleton for faculty and grad students.

00:25:32	[no question] Returning to his discussion of the MN Computing Consortium, he remembered their slogan “Think twice about sound,” an observation that was from ground-up experience with computers in the classroom. 

00:27:08	[no question] After his research, he said, he concluded that the technology, though novel, wasn’t magical—that bad teaching with computers was still bad. He talked about how computers made certain things easier—calculations, graphics—citing his use of Minitab, which was developed at UW by Brian Joiner.

00:30:07	Follow up: Did you realize that computers were going to dominate learning in the future? Answer: He realized that they would be important, though to what extent wasn’t clear yet. He related this to his brother’s experience at OSU when his class was required to buy an expensive calculator for classes, and noted that within a year of his buying his computer, UW Credit Union had special loans for computers.

00:33:58	[no question] Another element of his sabbatical, he observed, was to study econo-metrics, which he said he suffered dutifully through and from which he concluded that learning econometrics was about doing rather than knowing a set of ideas. 

00:37:55	Follow up: Did you have to write a report? Answer: Yes; but it was very brief because he thought at the campus level administration thought sabbaticals were a great thing to do. He had no idea what he put in the report.

00:40:04	[no question] He noted some things he learned during his sabbatical that were very useful, especially being able to show econometric data graphically. 

00:41:45	Question: Were you formulating future plans? Answer: He answered that ½ of his funding was a failed project on grain marketing cooperatives, but he knew he would integrate what he learned into his teaching rather than work on econometrics.

00:44:46	Question:  Were you still entertaining plans to move? Answer: No; because both he and his wife were in Madison and during an era when leveraging outside offers wasn’t common, they never contemplated moving (but he later knew that his wife considered an offer from San Luis Obispo as a Shangri-la).

00:49:48	Question: Talk about after the sabbatical. Answer: He clarified that between June 1985 and 1990, he was continuing as professor. In this period, a budget crisis created the opportunity for him to go on a 9-month appointment. Extension was unhappy with this arrangement, but he was able to take the offer..

00:52:59	[no question] After going on 9-month appointment, he began working with International Agriculture programs and went to the Gambia two successive summers. Follow up: Were you working with Frank Kooistra? Answer: Not yet, but he might have been there. He related his work with a graduate student on how Gambians marketed onions that were being dumped into world markets. He related the promise and limitations of this work.

01:00:07	[no question] Continuing to talk about the Gambia, he noted that he became a reader there again, and began reading more widely as well.

01:02:16	[no question] He observed that by the time he was going to the Gambia, he was searching for something new to captivate his interest. This was the prelude to his shift to Extension, because he was working with in Extension and the WI Rural Leadership Program was Ayse Somersan. He gave some background about Somersan

01:07:02	[no question] He related how he and Somersan got connected through WRLP, started by Dick Barrows through the Kellogg Foundation. He gave some context of the beginnings of the Rural Leadership program, which initially was content-heavy. He and Somersan worked together on international trade issues, and later Somersan became the director of the program and dean in Extension.

01:12:41	[no question] During this same period, he said, he was allowed to travel in the fall of 1989 with the International Seminar associated with WRLP to China. During this trip, the position of Assoc Dean for Cooperative Extension came open and he decided that he wanted to take that position. He started this position in September 1990.

01:15:56	Follow up: How did you get that job? Answer: It was a normal national search.

01:17:00	Follow up: What were you responsible for? Answer: He explained the “complicated world” of Cooperative Extension’s organization and units, including educational agents in each county, WI geological survey, and other “odd entities” (entities ancillary to the normal operation of the university. He discussed how changes surrounding Merger affected Extension at Madison and the 2-yr colleges.

01:23:32	[no question] Campbell reflected on the “controversial times” at Extension when he became assoc. dean, complicated by the fact that Cooperative Extension and UWEX both operate in many partnerships, with government, other institutions, USDA, etc. 

01:24:30	Follow up: So it’s always been complicated? Answer: Yes; he related that some people thought the creation of UWEX was a “dark day” for CALS, in part because they didn’t think it was complicated when they owned it. Follow up: Who reports to whom? Answer: Somersan to Patrick Boyle (Chancellor of UWEX) to System. 

01:26:09	[no question] Discussing how after the creation of UWEX, many deans wanted pieces of Extension back, he conjectured that part of the rub was that often UWEX staff were not part of academic departments, but it was organizationally difficult to bring Extension faculty back into departments. Further, some pieces that would have great impact in the state didn’t have traction at Madison, so Madison’s division of Outreach was created as a “holding tank” for faculty not accepted by Madison departments.

01:31:36	[no question] He continued talking about Cooperative Extension’s organization in four parts, with a program leader in each part. Follow up: Any teaching? Answer: No; he was administrating full time, though he was a “0 budget” faculty appointee. He told an anecdote about the confusion over these concurrent appointments.

01:35:59	[no question] He said he enjoyed being assoc. dean, characterizing Somersan as a good administrator and delegator—can-do, innovative, courageous and inspiring loyalty in her staff. He explained in detail how Somersan dealt with budgetary constraints and cuts, believing strongly in the county agents’ ability to work change in WI. He related how she was able to shift the direction of programs without moving money from program area to program area, and detailed how Somersan used salary savings not to keep budget lines, but to institute courageous changes.

01:46:10	[no question] Campbell and Lange discussed the office space of Extension, then continued to talk about the budget authority of UWEX when he began (roughly $145 million), and how his early experience was instructive and satisfactory.

01:51:04	[no question] He related how, due to the “unproductive” relationship between Chancellor Boyle and Vice Chancellor Jim Gosling, Gosling decided to take another position. So Campbell felt because of his triple-appointment (teaching, research, Extension), he was capable of dealing with the VC’s role as liaison between the campuses and Extension. Thus, he became acting VC a year after joining Extension.

01:54:50	Follow up: Did you know Boyle well? Answer: Not really well. Boyle had been criticized in CALS for taking UWEX out of the school, but he’d also come from a discipline that had a much broader view of agriculture than traditional Cooperative Extension had. Thus he was willing to invest in Boyle’s vision for shifting Extension’s role in the state and in agriculture.

02:00:49	[no question] Continuing to talk about the need for changes in Extension in WI, he observed that people didn’t understand that agricultural activities made up a small percentage of the economy of WI, despite its reputation as an agricultural state. He cited Dane County’s economy.

02:04:05	[no question] He explained the “wonderful opportunity” into which he walked when he became VC of Extension, since he brought more assertiveness to the position than Gosling had, especially when it came to undergraduate education at UW institutions. He related his belief that Extension was about teaching, just to people outside the university, which was part of UW’s core values of teaching-research-service.

02:08:23	[no question] He contextualized the beginning of his vice chancellorship, noting that Ernest Boyer had published a 1989 Carnegie Foundation report on “Scholarship Reconsidered” which ignited debates about what the role of scholarship and under-graduate teaching were, and how it gets funded in the US.

02:12:09	Follow up: Was Boyle sympathetic? Answer: Yes; his background was in continuing education, and believed that a huge component of what UWEX did was about learning, and not just the “sage on the stage” model.

02:13:37	[no question] He discussed how his first months as acting VC were overwhelming because of the volume of paper coming from System and not knowing what was high or low priority. He said he behaved from the beginning as if he was VC—meeting regularly with other VCs and taking their complaints seriously—which he thought was effective. He reflected on how his being new gave the position a fresh start.

02:16:39	[no question] He sketched out the organization scale of his vice chancellorship—3 deans (Continuing Ed; Cooperative Ext.; Dir. of WPB) technically, though not always practically, under him, but no athletics or other headaches like it. Because it was manageable, it helped him connect back to issues of undergraduate education, which were topics that interested him as a scholar just as much as an administrator.

02:21:13	[no question] He chronicled the interview for the formal position and how one of the runners-up in the competition for VC later became Chancellor for UWEX. He listed people with whom he met and interviewed.

02:25:19	End of Third Interview Session

Fourth Interview Session (January 12, 2010): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction

00:00:17	Question: Talk about becoming Vice Chancellor. Answer: He reviewed how he applied for the position of VC of UWEX in the late 1980s after being requested by Chancellor Boyle to serve as acting VC for a year. He also reviewed the adminis-trative structure of UWEX at the time

00:02:54	[no question] He remembered feeling privileged to be included in communications with vice chancellors throughout the System, though it meant keeping an enormous amount of paperwork straight. He also observed that UWEX was in some ways simpler organizationally than the other campuses, without athletics or a direct student body; but its structure was a partnership structure.

00:05:46	[no question] He reviewed the tensions that existed between the former VC James Gosling and the Chancellor of UWEX Boyle.

00:06:33	[no question] Observing that the dean of Continuing Education at the time was John Schmidt, he explained the tensions between the campuses and UWEX that existed because, while each campus provided faculty for continuing education programs and felt ownership of them, the System program was created to eliminate duplication and competition. This reflected WI state government’s perception that variety, which in the marketplace is seen as good, is bad in government programming. He also contex-tualized that nuances of WI government (that all revenue touched by WI belongs to the state) made this process problematic to campuses, because it involved program authority from the state and an “inter-institutional agreement process.”

00:13:43	[no question] Continuing to talk about the challenge of being dean of continuing education, he pointed out the “big players” in Continuing Ed—Madison, Milwaukee, and the WI technical college system. 

00:15:27	[no question] He noted the “shock” of realizing that being vice chancellor essentially involved managing the tensions he had just talked about. Another argument he had to manage was between System and the WI Educational Communications Board. And the fact that UWEX worked on the ‘edge’ of the university led to tension.

00:17:50	[no question] He observed that while many arguments about who controlled UWEx were settled by his vice chancellorship, partly through an agreement between Boyle and Irv Shain that divided between credit and non-credit education, they were still in the background.

00:20:07	[no question] Campbell remarked on semi-autonomous Public Broadcasting (WPR; WHA), relating how director Luke Lamb advised him and Extension not to meddle in public broadcasting because they didn’t want to be told what to do from anyone but their audience. This created tensions with university faculty who remembered University of the Air and wanted to avail themselves of programming time.

00:23:55	[no question] Continuing to talk about the “four arms” of UWEx, he clarified the role of Administration Services.

00:25:36	[no question] Continuing to talk about Cooperative Extension, he related that UW’s system operated on a strongly county-agent-based model, based out of CALS, until it moved to the Extension Division. He explained its organization under the new dean of Coop Ext.

00:29:40	[no question] He explained the structural challenge of funding for county agents coming from Extension Division in Madison, since, rather than having “campuses,” UW System has “institutions,” a hard-fought distinction. He explained the consequences of this for the dean of Coop Ext who had to work with the campuses, 

00:32:25	[no question] He recounted how he had to work with all of these tensely-related personalities from the four arms of Extension—Somersan, Lamb, Schmidt, and the administrative group. But these were “facilitative” relationship, which gave him great satisfaction.

00:35:44	[no question] He sketched some of the challenges when he became vice chancellor—first, his predecessor had “defined out of existence” much of the vice chancellor’s work, since it wasn’t narrowly academic. But Ernest Boyer’s work confirmed his belief that undergraduate education was at the center of the vice chancellor’s concern—Extension fit all of Boyer’s categories of scholarship.

00:41:55	[no question] He gave the story of how Nancy Zemon’s PBS show “Sewing with Nancy” demonstrated how public broadcasting was doing “scholarship of discovery,” discovering video techniques to facilitate teaching through TV. He recounted the controversy over the production of this show.

00:43:29	[no question] Continuing to discuss debate about education and Boyer’s work, he talked about how it recognized the richness of the historical notion of creating new knowledge. He connected these debates to his role as vice chancellor in enrollment management, contextualizing how he got involved in combating assertions at the state level that Extension needed to control enrollment for financial reasons.

00:47:10	Follow up: Did Boyle support you? Answer: Yes; he suspected this support came from the freshness and broadness of his perspective, Boyle’s history with Schmidt, and the need to communicate with other institutions. He also thought Boyle supported him too strongly in the sense that he favored him over the administrative units.

00:54:35	[no question] He also talked about his work with the technological change at Extension, getting in on technological change at the ground floor. He explained differences between the challenges for broadcasting division and other divisions; this led to a planning initiative at the VC’s office that was very contentious.

00:57:40	[no question] He said he was also around for the rebuilding of the Pyle Center, strategic planning, and lots of disputes over the relationships between technical colleges and the institutions. He explained how he argued that these disputes were foolish since it was unlikely that learning institutions would “overeducate” WI.

01:02:56	Follow up: Did you work most with Steve Porch? Answer: Early on, yes, but later he was replaced by David Ward (from Oshkosh). He explained the frustration of working with Porch because of his conviction that enrollment was the key to the political support for the System. He also described Porch’s empathy for the rural farmer.

01:07:23	[no question] He noted “big things” common to all universities at the time—budget crunches and emphases on efficiency, reinventing government and the consumer (which didn’t go over well in higher education at all). Also, the “teaching and learning revolution” began to redefine scholarship—with its implications for the “great university”—and the technological revolution was also changing teaching.

01:13:25	[no question] Continuing to sketch broad changes in education during the 1990s, he explained the parallel “quality movement” which recognized that organizations are systems and their organization impacts how they operate over time. He thought that his role as the administrator of a small structure gave him freedom to connect these broader trends, which were his natural interests, to Extension.

01:18:22	[no question] He thought it both odd but natural that he spent more time thinking about teaching and learning as VC of Extension than as a professor. This, he said, set him up for what happened after he was VC.

01:19:33	Question: Did you enjoy being VC? Answer: He said he enjoyed it for the first 3 years, with his interactions with deans being less enjoyable as his ideas were more strongly supported by Chancellor Boyle. He related demanding greater accountability and breaking down the clear-cut division between Cooperative Extension and Continuing Education.

01:23:46	[no question] Another component in his declining enjoyment of the post was that he went from being an associate professor to a vice chancellor in less than three years; because he didn’t have a lot of practical experience in administration. He also became clinically depressed during these years, partly because he was internalizing the tensions involved in fights for his principles, though he enjoyed the progress they wer making with vice chancellors around System. All these elements “cascaded” when Boyle retired, and he had no desire to be Chancellor.

01:27:18	[no question] He observed that part of the problem for him was a heritage at UWEx of “action on the ground more than institution building.” He thought that Boyle supported him, then, because he was encouraging long-needed institution building that other big players didn’t think was necessary.

01:31:31	[no question] Though a logical progression was for him to aspire to be chancellor after Boyle’s retirement, he said, he knew he didn’t want to do that job. He related the political skills and connections Boyle had that he didn’t, and then recounted the tricky process of hiring a new chancellor, in part since Boyle came out of Cooperative Education and there was pressure that the next chancellor be oriented toward Continuing Ed. This narrowed the pool of candidates, and though Somersan was a well-regarded candidate, Don Hanna was finally chosen.

01:38:02	[no question] Campbell discussed the new chancellor Don Hanna’s emphasis on operations rather than institution-building, despite Campbell’s hope that an institution-builder would be hired. He believed that Hanna’s desire to please the System president (rather than all the institution chancellors) limited his effectiveness.

01:40:42	Follow up: Were you involved in the hiring process? Answer: Intentionally no—he stood to gain nothing. Follow up: Did you want to stay as VC? Answer: Undoubtedly.

01:42:10	[no question] Continuing to talk about Don Hanna’s early actions, which were ex-tremely painful to Campbell—claiming to be a listener, but seldom listening; asking things that were inappropriate; replacing John Schmidt in such a way that almost forced Campbell to deliver the news to the deans.  All this created an environment that just didn’t work for Campbell—especially since Hanna was pushing an agenda that he knew wouldn’t work in UW’s system of institutional autonomy.

01:47:29	[no question] Becoming “quite dysfunctional in this world,” Campbell let the admini-stration know that he was going to be leaving—one of several good people that left at this time. He left in spring 1995.

01:48:39	[no question] He observed that the way some of Boyle’s opponents during his long tenure asserted themselves under Hanna was the SAVE commission, which was about reengineering state government to save money, but not following the democratic process. SAVE went after Extension strongly by using Extension’s own arguments for its existence against them, and though many of the initial recommendations were dropped, Extension’s historical reliance on its constituencies hand-cuffed it from funneling criticism through the System administration. 

01:55:38	[no question] Continuing to talk about SAVE, which was established by Gov. Thompson, he noted that one of the only good things to come from it was Bill Cronon’s opening address. Otherwise, it was handled very badly strategically. In national context, he noted that OSU eliminated its continuing education division. 

01:58:37	[no question] He discussed negotiations over his leaving, with the understanding that he would go back to Ag Econ.

01:59:49	Follow up: When did Hanna leave? Answer: [2-3-1997] Campbell didn’t precisely remember, but detailed how Hanna was “encouraged” to leave after requesting a higher-than-normal salary offer to Roberta Gassman for lobbyist. But he suspected that Hanna’s lack of political awareness and initiatives outside the historical norms for Extension aggravated people in the institution. But, he noted, Hanna stayed on after quitting as chancellor because of his tenured position in education.

02:05:49	[no question] Campbell explained what happened after Hanna left—Kevin Reilly became chancellor, and when he became System president, UWEx and the UW Colleges agreed to have the same chancellor, which made the chancellor’s office much more complex today than it had been.

02:08:23	Question: Are you glad you became VC? Answer: Absolutely; he felt he’d had a chance to see UW System in ways that no other “perspective-level” can

02:09:56	End of Fourth Interview Session

Fifth Interview Session (January 19, 2010): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction

00:00:24	Question: Talk about “mental modeling.” Answer: As part of seeing the organization from a high level, Campbell said, he learned from Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline that successful organizations can learn in ways that allow them to achieve their core ideals. Part of this analysis was “mental models,” which were held so deeply that they were no longer consciously argued—Campbell began wondering what UW’s were.

00:03:24	[no question] Continuing to talk about mental models, he related that one was the notion that UW’s core was its faculty, which had been challenged, for one, by the University of Phoenix, which was built on faculty but also mechanisms supporting student learning. Another mental model was that evaluations of faculty should be made by their peers—a model UW was critical in helping build. 

00:07:38	[no question] Campbell concluded that these mental model—that faculty were the crucial resource in determining educational quality—had repercussions for the university, whose quality was determined by its ability to recruit faculty. This led to debates about the advisability of allowing rising enrollment or limiting it, which then led to the (somewhat crude) 17 to 1 rule.

00:10:37	[no question] Reflecting on mental models and student enrollment, he said he began wondering if there were ways of rethinking the visualization of professor-student relationships to allow more students (who don’t fit the 17 to 1 model) to benefit from the university.

00:13:29	[no question] He observed other mental models held by academia—the semester (citing interesting parallels between UW’s development and U. of Chicago’s—quarters, Extension, etc.); and the three-credit course. He noted from these examples that some ongoing practices as historical “artifacts” may not have continuing merit and often affected the ancillary aspects of education that were difficult to change.

00:19:03	[no question] He observed that for the non-traditional student (adults, etc), mental models like semesters were an impediment to education, something the University of Phoenix worked around.

00:20:51	[no question] He saw the question of what institutions are willing to reflect on as an interesting index, being an outsider to the UW culture. Follow up: Are mental models marks of inertia or arrogance? Answer: He thought the only real arrogance was the unwillingness to reflect on such a question, or how UW could be better. He believed Donna Shalala showed this arrogance.

00:25:30	[no question] He thought that it was easy for faculty to drift into being “self-referen-tial and self-reverential.” 

00:29:35	[no question] Continuing to talk about mental models, he suspected that core ideas aren’t very often examined, citing the benefits of the teaching and learning revolution and technology.

00:31:39	[no question] Campbell wanted to note the prevailing assumption that if you left the faculty for administration, you’d never come back (which was interesting coming from the faculty governance model). But on the “0 dollar” appointment he held, he was able to move back into his faculty position.

00:34:26	[no question] Because he was interested less in his administrative work as in the institution of UW and because he wanted to stay in Madison, he said he didn’t want to look for another administrative position, though his experience made him marketable. He spoke specifically about his experience with WRLP.

00:39:28	[no question] Since he’d been actively involved in WRLP as executive director, he knew one of the things he wanted to do as a faculty member was work with organizational development and leadership. Since several Ag Econ professors were working on such issues in the Center for Community Economic Development, there was a natural venue for his transition back to UW-Madison.

00:42:20	[no question] Another important component during this time period was the funding of the Kellogg Foundation, an expression of Kellogg’s commitment to helping people help themselves, which land grant universities said they did but didn’t often do well. Thus, Kellogg was inviting applications for reform and change, and was putting pressure on campuses to make good on their commitment to students and their states. This led to Kellogg’s Food Systems Professions Education Initiative (FSPE), and he became the lead person in proposing UW’s planning grant to Kellogg. 

00:48:25	[no question] Since Kellogg had bought into many of the broader movements in education which Campbell had studied, UW got a grant, called WI Food Systems Partnership, in which Campbell was involved from the beginning. This gave him funding, but also directed his teaching.

00:50:25	[no question] His initial effort in the FSPE grant was developing a class (Issues in Food Systems) that 1) placed more responsibility on learners as creators of knowledge 2) accessed popular as well as academic literature, and 3) put learners in contact with people who were actually in the food systems market. While he believed this was an important shift, it had uneven reception on the part of students—for some it was truly liberating, but for others it was just irritating. This made the course very hard work.

00:56:50	[no question] He chronicled his growing fatigue with teaching these high-intensity courses, citing his first course back from the vice-chancellor’s position, which was a nightmare.

00:59:24	[no question] He continued to talk about his outreach activities, including the REAP food group and UWEx’s county-based framework. This was difficult because com-munity development emphasized was driven locally, not from Madison, and also because the perception was that administrators wouldn’t get back involved with community development (something he had to overcome).

01:03:31	Follow up: What was it like to return? Answer: He observed that it was difficult; in some ways he felt let down, that he had failed as VC, and that he was letting down people who expected certain things out of him when he returned.  It was also difficult because he transitioned from seeing the university at the widest possible resolution to the department level, which challenged his colleagues notions of what a university professor should be spending his time doing.

01:09:24	[no question] Continuing to talk about the frustration of articulating his vision from being VC to his colleagues, he discussed his growing conviction that much celebrated disciplinary scholarship was practically irrelevant to the actual interests of the world, citing several examples of how academic self-referentiality encouraged this distance between academia and the real world. 
	
01:13:47	[no question] Continuing to talk about his frustration with moving back into Ag Econ, he remembered becoming less and less interested in applying the latest econometric models to the field. He was more interested in “what the question is” than the procedure to answer them. He also saw Ag Econ moving more and more toward economics over practical issues.

01:18:53	[no question] On the positive side of coming back to teaching, he said he got to know students better than he ever had before, was elected to the Teaching Academy, which he was proud of and which he felt had been under-supported by the administration.

01:22:14	[no question] He explained why he retired in 2008, partly because he could and partly out of feeling tired of dealing with departmental ideas he thought narrow. So he retired to his ½ appointment with Extension.

01:25:51	[no question] Returning to the Kellogg FSPE, he noted that its director Ken Shapiro decided that traditional calls for proposals wouldn’t be as effective as centrally organ-ized projects, among which were his course and the Community Scholars program.

01:29:06	[no question] Continuing to talk about FSPE, he observed that during planning, Greg Nitch expressed concern that students didn’t understand their debt to the state as part of the land grant university system. Thus Gene Summers was recruited to lead the Community Scholars program, and there was an attempt to link the CSP with the Morgridge Center newly formed on campus.

01:32:02	[no question] Continuing to talk about the Comm. Scholars Program, he sketched out the development of the program, and Summers’ decision to leave because he didn’t perceive there was administrative support. He was then asked to direct it—though an unpaid position, he felt it was in line with his interests in service learning, etc.

01:35:20	[no question] He talked about starting as faculty director of CSP, initially with the support of a part-time MA student, but later just the partnership of him and John Ferrick. The two worked to develop a course that spring, and eventually hit on MSU’s Bailey Scholars Program, led by Frank Fear.

01:40:10	[no question] Campbell described the Bailey Scholars Program model—project-oriented learning centered in the interests of the learning. He also discussed how CSP tapped into the service learning movement, going with the proposition that learning was to be had wherever service was being done (regardless of discipline). This was not easy in an environment at UW in which new courses were approved on a rigidly disciplinary model.

01:43:15	[no question] He explained the dilemmas they faced with the new course: despite wanting to make the course available across colleges, there was little cooperation between colleges. He cited L&S’s rules, and the “fancy footwork” they did to get their class approved for L&S. After some time, they applied for formal approval, which was only approved after they could prove that the service-centeredness was actually academic. They also had to emphasize a plan for student learning, which they did through a Bill Cronon essay “Only Connect.”

01:48:46	[no question] Once they began teaching the class, he said, they got rave reviews from students, because they “co-owned” the class with students. He discussed how he introduced the question of what students could learn through service in one of Cronon’s seminars only to be met with the question of who determines what students learn. He answered this by saying that students determined it, though they tried to direct learning.

01:53:03	[no question] He opined that the key component to this class was to get students to reflect—“no reflection, no learning.” He liked the model of pressing students to answer “What happened? So what? Now what?” because it made them learn in deeper ways than a traditional classroom. He also felt that higher education owed students more opportunities to do this kind of reflective learning.

01:56:30	[no question] After teaching this class until 2006, he felt he could no longer devote the energy to it that it deserved and that was necessary to get funding for it. While he worked hard to try to get Morgridge Center to take over the program (which it didn’t), the program ultimately died when he quit.

01:59:43	[no question] He reflected on the way he stitched together his post-VC career—trying his best to build on his interests, woven in ways that represented change in conven-tional university behavior. He talked about leveraging his university contacts to try to do this, but didn’t feel he’d been recognized for this contribution by the campus or his department.

02:02:10	[no question] Continuing to talk about his last years at UW, he discussed leaving the REAP food group and becoming a member of the Dane County Food Council, work he continued to do after retirement. He remained active in systems thinking and church work after retirement as well.

02:04:06	[no question] He reflected on continuing food systems work, which challenged the approach to situations in life as problems to be fixed. He expressed, for example, his cynicism at Americans’ reaction to the Haiti crisis of 2010.

02:05:56	[no question] After expressing his appreciation for the current project, he continued to be fascinated with how a person can learn about complex systems like universities or food systems without chopping them down into little blocks (which is the particular approach of western learning).

02:08:30	Follow up: You are a systems thinker. Answer: He had become one—he said he seldom read the newspaper without thinking about the complexity of how things actually work and the many people, institutions, and ideas that are involved in ‘simple transactions’ like grocery shopping.

02:10:16	End of Fifth Interview Session

End of Oral History #1066