UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #181
KREITLOW, BURTON W.

KREITLOW, Burton W. (1917- )
Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Continuing and Vocational Education
At UW: 1949-1981

Interviewed: 1979	
Series: School of Education
Interviewer: Mark Van Pelt
Length: 3.5 hours

Early life and career; Reasons for coming to UW; Budget and research; Longitudinal Study; Study of 4-H Club members; Chairmanship of Graduate Examination Committee; Graduate student selection; Adult Education program; Joint Office for Adult Education; Department of Continuing and Vocational Education; Reorganization of Wisconsin school districts; DPI vs. Small School Association and Town Boards Association; School closings; Faculty power; Research and Development Center; School of Education reorganization; Educational Policy Studies Department; National Council of Accreditation of Teacher Education; Comparison of College of Agriculture and School of Education; L&S influence on School of Education; Pressure for promotion; Role of faculty service; Graduate student-faculty relations; His changing role in School of Education; Personalities.

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00.00	Introduction.

00:00:26	Kreitlow's early life in Minnesota, school work and teaching; original career goal to be agricultural extension agent.

00:05:45	Experience at University of Minnesota; went into agricultural work.

00:09:15	Why BK returned to graduate school after World War II.

00:10:50	Kreitlow rejected for position at UW.

00:12:30	Kreitlow went to Michigan State in Department of Effective Living.

00:13:00	How Kreitlow finally came to Wisconsin; Shirley Cooper; Russell Gregg; search committee then had great independence; John Guy Fowlkes' handling of matter.

00:18:30	His early emphasis on research; Palmer Johnson (Minnesota professor) a great help in this to Kreitlow; acquired state funds for research; looser budget management in 1940s in university; Robert Ray.

00:28:30	Purpose and design of longitudinal study.

00:30:22	End of side.

Tape 1/Side 2

00:30:52	More on Purpose and design; Professor Dunkin; development of tangent study comparing acceptance of agricultural and educational change.

00:36:00	Some results of longitudinal study.

00:41:20	How results were determined; explanations of results; tests used and how conducted; study of characteristics of 4-H Club members.

00:49:53	Work as Chairman of Graduate Examination Committee in early 1950s; Chester Harris; preliminary examination issue-oriented; experimentation with preliminary work; nature of graduate student selection; Amir Birjandii; fallibility of selection procedures; Walter Bjoracker.

01:02:12	End of side.

Tape 2/Side 1

01:05:00	Creation of adult education program; Paul Sheats; Robert Schacht and Frank Woerderhoff were early students interested in Ph.D. in adult education; informal creation of program.

01:11:05	Steering committee created in late 1950s to help develop adult education; Emil Jorgenson; an informal group; Robben Fleming; further development of adult education; interests of various departments; Lindley Stiles; Wilson Thiede; Robert Clark; National Center for Extension had been main training ground for graduate students in adult education; Fleming forms a group in adult education, Joint Office for Adult Education (1963).

01:19:30	Impact of reorganization of Kreitlow.

01:21:00	Functioning of Joint Office for Adult Education; beginnings of cooperation of adult education, vocational education and extension education.

01:23:10	Continuing and Vocational Education (CAVE) plagued by its inter-college organization-proposed reorganization of School of Education.

01:28:44	Kreitlow's role in reorganization of school districts in Wisconsin; interested groups.

01:32:10	End of side.

Tape 2/Side 2

01:33:42	Two polar groups in this:  Department of Public Instruction (DPI), pro-reorganization; the other, very anti-reorganization was Small School Association (mainly Southwest Wisconsin) and Town Boards Association; the latter groups kept close tabs on Kreitlow; The Fox Valley area; creation of a circular of arguments for and against reorganization.

01:38:07	1955: Committee evaluating county superintendents; Michael Kies; Russell Gregg; a mistake of policy committee; separation of research from political activity; LeRoy Peterson; role of legislature in reorganization; reorganization hurt local control but improved quality.

01:47:00	Comments on school closings; Renville Chitswood; Marty Cushman; schools do not have a fundamental impact on community development.

01:50:10	Juda incident concerning district reorganization.

01:56:15	How Kreitlow was promoted to full professor; Russell Gregg; Julia Dalrymple; Fowlkes.

02:01:00	Matthew Willing and Clarence Ragsdale fought Fowlkes because they sensed loss of faculty power in late '40s.

02:02:51	End of side.

Tape 3/Side 1

00:00:00	More on faculty power; Ragsdale and Willing used poor choice of tactics in opposing Fowlkes; younger faculty in early 1950s not socialized into faculty control.

00:05:45	How early faculty related to students; Chester Harris, Virgil Herrick; A. S. Barr; Richard Powers.

00:09:30	Research funds obtained by Kreitlow in mid 1950s; how Kreitlow was able to generate funding over the years; Herbert Klausmeier; National Defense Education Act (NDEA) fellowship money for adult education; Kreitlow's plan for Research and Development (R and D) Center in adult education; Stiles; Max Goodson; Warren Hagstrom; new research directions for Kreitlow.

00:21:15	Reorganization of School of Education; no true faculty governance possible; no one wanted conflict among those involved with Educational Psychology Department; happy to see them go; loss of unity inevitable.

00:29:50	End of side.

Tape 3/Side 2

00:30:00	Formation of Educational Policy Studies Department; problem choosing department for Kreitlow; students.

00:34:30	Faculty reaction to National Council of Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) problem; Stiles.

00:39:15	Comparison of College of Agriculture and School of Education operations; Fowlkes; Agricultural College deans generally stronger, in large part due to type of faculty members; more flexibility in School of Education; comparison of different deans of education; example of how College of Agriculture worked differently from School of Education.

00:54:15	Declining influence of Letters and Science on School of Education; Robert Pooley.

00:57:30	Comparison of role of assistant professor 1949 to that of 1979; current pressure for promotion.

00:59:57	End of side.

Tape 4/Side 1

01:00.00	Continued from Tape 3; change in promotion committee procedures; less opportunity for creative endeavor now; danger in competency-based criteria for promotion.

01:04:15	Role of service in faculty work; what is needed to make it at Wisconsin for faculty member.

01:16:00	Changing graduate student-faculty relations over time; early 1950s; positive, close relations because of closeness in generation between veterans and young faculty; there were viable student organizations; present graduate student group in CAVE is very close to early 1950s model; Educational Policy Studies student-faculty relationship is much different and less close; in part this relates to specialization of student training.

01:23:00	Kreitlow's changing role in School of Education.

01:26:49	End of side. End of tape.
END