UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #1024
BLANCHARD, CONVERSE HERRICK

BLANCHARD, CONVERSE HERRICK “CONNIE” (1923-)
Professor Emeritus of Physics
At UW: [as student] 1946-1950; [as professor of physics] 1959-1991

Interviewed: 	2008 (2 sessions)
Interviewer: 	Eleanor Albert
Index by: 	Stephen A. Pierce
Length: 	1 hour, 17 minutes

Abstract: In his two 2008 interviews with Eleanor Albert, Connie Blanchard discusses his long involvement with physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the mid-1940s to the late 2000s.  He explains how he came to be interested in physics, his education and early career, and then his long tenure as a teacher at UW. He also reminisces about the tragic bombing of Sterling Hall. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the UW-Madison Oral History Program.

Key Words: Boston MA; Robert Sacks; physics; Ragnar “Rollie” Rollefson; Hugh Richards; protest era; 1960s; shared governance; ‘physics for poets’; Robert March; Amnesty International; departmental climate; Sterling Hall bombing; Robert Fassnacht; Army Math Research Center.

First Interview Session (November 5, 2008): Digital File

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

00:00:17	Question: Talk about your early childhood and schooling. Answer: Blanchard was born September 25, 1923, to parents from Abington MA, south of Boston. He attended a Montessori-type school for kindergarten and 1st grade, and then public schools through 8th grade and HS. He graduated HS in 1941, but described his schooling as “not the greatest” due to the community’s low value for education.

00:03:25	[no question] He related applying and getting admitted to Harvard College in 1941, & continuing his studies through the US Navy’s V-12 (officer training) program, which required a BA degree for all Naval officers. He somewhat regretted not sampling the social life at Harvard due to the accelerated nature of his coursework.

00:05:00	Question: Why major in physics? Answer: He quipped that he chose physics because he wasn’t smart enough to be a mathematician and couldn’t read fast enough to be a historian. He noted that physics at Harvard at that time was poorly taught, using badly-written faculty texts and being encouraged to study electrodynamics to the exclusion of many other subjects.

00:07:51	Follow up: Any significant HS teachers? Answer: He spoke of one math teacher who was good, but describe the science teaching at Abington as “abominable.” Follow up: Your family’s interest in education? Answer: He thought that they didn’t care about his being a scientist, but insisted that he get an education. He talked about his father’s own poor education, though he had an interest in technology.  Follow up: Siblings? Answer: He talked about his sister, who attended Oberlin.

00:10:16		Question: Did you have thoughts about your career? Answer: He had little doubt that he wanted to do academic physics. He recounted training as a radar technician, by which time WWII was over, and then at the Naval Research Lab in Boston. In 1946 he married and then moved to Madison with his new wife.

00:11:39	[no question] Blanchard discussed moving to Madison, where worked as a teaching and research assistant and his wife had been hired by a law firm. He talked about doing the research with Robert Sacks for his PhD in nuclear theory, on the possibility that nuclear formation might have velocity dependence. 

00:13:58	Question: Your advisor? Answer: He traced the intellectual lineage of Bob Sacks, and talked about the informality and inexhaustive nature of coursework (while the research was excellent). He explained how he’d been admitted to UW.

00:16:39	Question: After the PhD? Answer: He talked about getting a job at the National Bureau of Standards doing research on electron scattering, but was invited to Penn State by a friend in 1953. 

00:17:36	[no question] He described Penn State as a second-tier physics program in the 1950s —nevertheless he started a nuclear program and was very busy during that period teaching and researching with a number of UW colleagues.

00:18:51	[no question] He recounted how he was invited to teach quantum mechanics in the summer of 1958, and then when Rollefson stepped down as chair, the succeeding chair Hugh Richards invited him, primarily to take care of/advise TA graduate students. He jumped at the chance and did this for about 20 years.

00:21:51	Follow up: Changes in the student body? Answer: Blanchard addressed first the improvements in the academic program in physics, noting that physics grad students were fairly serious students and few got involved in the protest movement. He also noted that graduate students over time became more and more specialized, following changes in the field itself.

00:24:10	Follow up: Did students stay in academia? Answer: He observed that most UW grad students went on to do research either in industry or academia, because that’s what the program emphasized. Follow up: Were other faculty dedicated to teaching? Answer: Most faculty were completely dedicated to research.

00:26:04	Question: What after this? Answer: In 1980, his life changed dramatically when his wife died and he had some medical issues, but he continued to have a heavy teaching load. Follow up: Tenure? Answer: He observed that before he’d left Penn State, he and a student had done a ground-breaking piece of research, on the strength of which he was promoted fairly quickly. But his main role at UW was as a mentor.

00:28:08	Question: Your teaching in the 1980s? Answer: He noted that as he got older, he taught more introductory courses, which took up more time and energy than younger professors could dedicate, but he mentioned other courses he taught on energy, etc.

00:29:58	Question: Talk about dept governance over the years. Answer: He said physics was democratically governed while he was at UW, though it had changed in recent years due to the dept’s size and specialization. 

00:31:35	[no question] Continuing to talk about faculty governance, he expressed how refreshing it was to come to UW, where the president of the university actually led meetings of the entire faculty during the 1960s. He discussed friendships he’d had with previous chancellors and politicians in Madison.

00:33:30	[no question] He traced the beginnings of the faculty senate to the merger of the UW system and the “time of troubles,” when faculty wanted to bring their issues to the faculty as a whole. But he saw the Faculty Senate as a rubber-stamp organization compared to the democratic governance in the early 1960s. 

00:35:44	Follow up: And this shift in power was just accepted? Answer: He thought that because UW was a research university and funding for their research was regularly external to the university, faculty didn’t care about governance.

00:37:28	Question: Were there arguments over space or staff support? Answer: He observed that the dept was very “hard-nosed” with the university over space constraints, though when he was a TA space was tight. He also talked about the growth of the support staff, mostly paid through research funds.

00:40:26	Question: Did you run into situations where students couldn’t get grants? Answer: The dept would support those who had legitimate concerns. Follow up: Chairman-ship? Answer: It rotated every 3 years, but earlier on it was more irregular. He described it as an “onerous burden,” supported only by a chair’s salary.

00:43:55	[no question] On a sidelight, he talked about students whose research he’d supervised.

00:44:25	Question: How did the dept change over time? Answer: He responded that in his early days, it was possible to know what each faculty member was doing; but the field had gotten much more complex.

00:46:22	Follow up: It was predominantly male? Answer: Yes; he said of the graduate students, still only 3 were women, and those from China. He thought this had more to do with differences in interest rather than ability.

00:48:04	Question: ‘Physics for poets’? Answer: Yes, there were at least 5 levels of introduce-tory physics; ‘physics for poets’ originated with Bob March’s book of that title. The next levels are college physics, for med students, physics for engineers, and then physics for majors.

00:50:36	Question: Retirement? Answer: He formally retired in 1990, though he agreed to teach part time until 1991. Follow up: You’ve stayed active? Answer: Somewhat; he did some dept work and also taught physics experiments to thousands of elementary students at local schools, which he only quit because of the driving.

00:53:59	Question: Advice for a young scientist at UW? Answer: He observed that while he’d never discourage people from studying physics, the field was producing more PhDs who wanted to teach than there were jobs available.

00:56:23	Question: Would you do anything differently? Answer: Certainly—he thought that he could have worked harder or done his job better. 

00:57:46	[no question] Blanchard and Albert discussed doing a second interview

00:58:36	[no question] Blanchard discussed getting involved in Amnesty International, whose Madison branch he led for almost a decade. He explained why he parted company with Amnesty International when they changed their way of operating.

01:01:30	Question: Conflicts over equipment. Answer: He explained the “miracle” that physics professors shared an accelerator over many years without squabbling.

01:03:14	Question: Climate change? Answer: He emphasized the urgency of the question, though he wondered how it could be resolved in an economy where fossil fuels continued to be the solution for energy needs.

01:04:55	End of First Interview Session

Second Interview Session (December 8, 2008): Digital File

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

00:00:15	Question: Talk about the turmoil of the 1960s. Answer: Blanchard related returning to Madison from a camping trip the night before the Sterling Hall bombing. At a time when he was acting (summer) chair, he recounted how he came to know about the bombing and help assist the police.

00:03:37	[no question] Continuing to talk about Sterling Hall, he recalled being involved in the anti-war movement, which effectively ended with the bombing. He also mentioned how other depts offered facilities for physics research, the death of Robert Fassnacht, the location of the Army Math Research Center, and the way it tragically ended the protest movement.

00:07:22	Question: Were the perpetrators found? Answer: For several weeks, the damage was surveyed and the FBI reconstructed the van in order to identify the explosion’s origin. Follow up: Who organized it? Answer: Blanchard said the only one who’d eluded capture was a physics major, and explained what he knew about the others.

00:10:40	Question: Memorial services for Fassnacht? Answer: Yes. He observed the demoralization people felt after the event.

00:12:22	End of Second Interview Session

End of Oral History #1024