UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #1014
THOMPSON, HARV

THOMPSON, HARV (1942-)
Graduate Student, Professor Emeritus of Theatre Arts in the Division of Continuing Education (UW-Extension) and former chair of the Department of Liberal Studies and the Arts.
At UW: as grad student (1963-1964, 1969-1971); as faculty (1970-2004)

Interviewed: 	2009 (3 sessions)
Interviewer: 	Robert Lange
Index by: 	Stephen A. Pierce
Length: 	7 hours, 40 minutes

Abstract: In his three January 2009 interviews with Bob Lange, Harv Thompson recounts his long advocacy for theatre and the arts in Wisconsin from the 1960s to the 2000s.  Beginning with his rural roots as son of a Methodist minister, he traces significant influences on his education in the arts and his value for art education. He chronicles his increasingly visible roles in arts development from high school teaching in Milwaukee to college professor to founder of the Wisconsin Theatre Association to the chair of the Continuing Education and the Arts department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Additionally, Thompson offers his perspectives on running arts Extension programs, his national reputation, organizations that had been created out of arts development, the 1985 integration of Extension into the residential campuses of the UW System, and the future of arts education in Wisconsin. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the UW-Madison Oral History Program.

Key Words: Grove City PA; University of Wisconsin-Platteville; UW-Extension; WHA radio; Sunset Playhouse; John Tolch; John Ezell; Emil Joseph Karioth; Wisconsin Idea Theatre Conference; community arts development; Robert Gard; E. Arthur “Al” Prieve; Stratford Shakespeare Festival; American Theatre Association (ATA); tenure; Wisconsin Alliance for Arts Education (WAAE); American Association of Community Theatre (AACT); Joan Lazarus; Susan Farmer-Tiefenthaler; Department of Continuing Education and the Arts; Division of University Outreach (DUO); 1985 restructuring; Richard Wolf; School of the Arts at Rhinelander; Dale and Martha Wasserman; Miranda McClenaghan.

First Interview Session (January 21, 2009): Digital File

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

00:00:27	Question: Talk about your parents and early years. Answer: Thompson was born the second of five children on September 8, 1942 to Herbert and Helen Thompson in Grove City PA. At the time, his father was the only married student at Grove City College and his mother was a stay-at-home mother. He talked about the challenges of working and going to school, his father’s decision to become a Methodist minister, and his rural agricultural experience as a boy in a small PA town.

00:03:05	[no question] He continued to talk about his childhood, relating the family’s move to Mt. Horeb WI, from which his father would travel to study at Garrett Theological Institute in Chicago. He discussed Mt. Horeb schools, where he had excellent teachers, his father’s two congregations, and getting to know a family friend who worked fulltime but also was getting an advanced degree with UW-Extension. In the 1940s/50s, he noted, the PK (pastor’s kid) syndrome came into being, which imposed strict rules and taught him about confidentiality. He thought being a PK had been harder on his sisters than him.

00:08:28	[no question] He recalled his maternal grandparents’ move from PA to CA which allowed his family got to travel beyond WI. He went on to relate his family’s move, mid-school-year, back to a rural setting in Mineral Point WI, where his visits to a one-room school house helped him appreciate “people teaching people,” exposed him to University of the Air, and got him interested in teaching. He described a State Journal paper route as his first “work ethic moment,” talked about other ways to earn money, and mentioned a teacher, Roger Cerutti, who became a principal in Madison.

00:14:08	Question: Education was important to your parents? Answer: It was unstated, but they read a lot. Continuing his story, Thompson quipped that they once again moved down highway 151 to Platteville WI, a college town, when he was going into HS. Noting his father’s active participation in youth work in WI, he said that students sometimes chose Platteville because his father was the minister there. Follow up: How hard was the move? Answer: Not very; because he was anticipating going to college. He talked about getting involved with local drama clubs—this had started in junior high.

00:18:28	[no question] Because of his interest in teaching, he observed the pedagogy and style of his teachers while in HS. He reflected upon his election to the HS student council as the first time he stood up for himself. Follow up: So you were emerging as a leader? Answer: Yes, though his shyness made him uncomfortable with it. He discussed a speech he made during National Education Week honoring the teachers that helped him realize the humanness of teachers, like everyone else. He named one of teachers he saw as a role model, and then recalled a program they initiated for HS seniors to attend Platteville for college credit.

00:25:37	Question: How did growing up in small-town 1950s America affect you? Answer: He reflected on the changing nature of being a PK, channeling much of his activity through the church, his State Journal manager arranging a route for him when he moved to Platteville, and his involvement in a forensic play in HS. 

00:29:39	[no question] Thompson discussed entering UW-Platteville in 1960 as a speech major intending to study education. Follow up: Why speech? Answer: At the time, it was the theatre training area, run by two UW-Madison alumni. Only later would theatre teachers be licensed as theatre teachers, rather than as English teachers. He talked about working with the Pioneer Players, where he learned he needed to take recognition sometimes, and with the band and music program.

00:33:25	Follow up: Was your work ethic instinctive? Answer: He thought it instinctive, though his father’s busy lifestyle and his mother’s meticulous organization must have influenced him. He applauded his mother’s insistence on going back to work in Platteville, which modeled a working woman to his sisters. He talked about his student jobs and attending summer school in order to finish in 3 years (for financial reasons), but when his parents were transferred back to Madison, having to pay for unanticipated living expenses.

00:37:31	[no question] He recalled his hard work paying off when he was able to do his student teaching—teaching technical theatre at Platteville itself—in his 3rd year. Follow up: Were you comfortable or anxious in the class? Answer: Anxious, partly because people told him he wasn’t old enough to do it. But he thought he won them over, because the semester was successful and made him think about graduate school. 

00:41:05	[no question] When he graduated in 1963, he remembered coming to Madison as a coincidence. Having encountered a little resistance from districts with which he was interviewing because of his age, he applied for a master’s from Madison and was offered a TAship in Madison in the speech dept. He described the speech dept at the time, embroiled to some degree in national debates about whether theatre and drama should be independent, and the high demands of putting on 4-5 stage productions that year. While he didn’t regret spending the year at Madison, he realized that year that he couldn’t afford to stay since his parents had been transferred to La Crosse—so through the Platteville placement office, he was offered a job in West Allis.

00:48:27	Question: Anything else about the speech dept? Answer: He didn’t have time to get involved in it. He mused about how generations of faculty are brought in to generate change, linking the issue of why there’s no School of the Arts to politics of that time.

00:51:37	[no question] He returned to talking about his move to a West Milwaukee HS in West Allis (1964), teaching in a “jewel of a building” that was the village performance space. This 5-years tenure, in which he was comfortable with students and understanding the potential of the arts in education, cemented his future career, since his students started to get excited about speech and theatre. From teaching 1 speech class in his first year, he was teaching theatre full time by the time he left.

00:56:11	Question: How did you build the momentum for theatre in that first year? Answer: Thompson remarked that all he had to do was awaken latent curiosity about theatre in students, get them in the theatre space itself, and they and their parents built the momentum. He said administration was the “toughest nut to crack,” only coming around when students put on respectable productions. He also noted that by teaching them stage technology, he communicated that there were careers in theatre, and related a moment in which students took the initiative to go to a Saturday play.

01:02:03	[no question] He continued by relating an agreement he came to with the YMCA (who he worked for in the summers) to do their bus routes in exchange for being allowed to make runs to Sunset Playhouse in Elm Grove WI. This experience then led to a children’s theatre program at the YMCA, his work designing shows at Sunset, and his technical direction of Shorewood Players, which gave him the opportunity to work with age-specific characters and the teenagers a chance to interact with adults.

01:07:37	[no question] He explained how he got administration on board, referring to an assembly his theatre during which he (and his by then well-trained theatre students) walked the audience through the production elements of lighting and a play, which helped students to appreciate what they were trying to do.

01:12:38	Question: Was that a seminal moment for you? Answer: Yes. It was his years at West Milwaukee HS that helped him understand the potential for the arts, though it was exhausting and he was never able to get teaching credit for production. Follow up: West Allis was blue collar? Answer: Yes; Allis-Chalmers was active and most of his students were from the city of West Allis, since West Milwaukee was a neighborhood with younger students. He talked about friendships he still had with these students. Follow up: Were you happy to be close to a big city? Answer: Noting that he lived in McFarland (not urban Madison), he said that Milwaukee didn’t have as much to offer in theatre at the time, though he did lead mini-tours to Milwaukee and Chicago.

01:18:39	[no question] Thompson recalled that after four years, he wanted to come back to UW to complete his MA. Having completed the coursework, he became intrigued with certain research questions, so he re-enrolled on a leave of absence from West Milwaukee in 1969. He had returned the previous year for Robert Gard’s Wisconsin Idea Theatre Conference, but hadn’t gotten involved in political issues. 

01:22:02	[no question] He outlined his research concerns. First was why Sunset Playhouse—whose board he was part of—was so successful under Allen Frulan. Second, he questioned whether elementary teachers in West Allis-West Milwaukee schools had been oriented toward the arts, questioning community theatre people very informally about their experience with elementary schools. Third, he wondered what would be the result of having a theatre coordinator in the school district organization.

01:29:22	[no question] He discussed his advisors at UW—John Tolch, John Ezell, and Joe Karioth—and his decision to continue to take classes in theatre technology and education. But what he was really trying to do was create a continuing education program in theatre, which required several Madison departments to work together and thus forced him to convince people from these departments to get on board. He also created a children’s theatre company as part of a class, began developing a community arts program, and was working at the Union Theatre.

01:36:23	[no question] He recounted the story of going to see Robert Gard of the Wisconsin Idea Theatre when he came to the conference in 1968, not knowing that Gard had just finished an NEA project working extensively with WI communities and the arts. Gard then quickly offered him work with his community arts development program, though Thompson would need to get leave and was planning do another summer at YMCA camps. In retrospect, Thompson suspected Gard was preparing for the 1973 merger that would open up opportunities to work through UW-Extension, whose functions were housed diffusely throughout UW before the merger.

01:43:53	[no question] Continuing to tell the story of his coming to UW, he related Ezell’s phone call offering him a year’s instructorship in children’s theatre/creative dramatics after Karioth’s departure for Florida. Follow up: Were you thrilled? Intrigued? Answer: Probably more intrigued—it took the decision making difficulty away. Follow up: Was the recent Sterling Hall bombing an issue for you? Answer: Yes; the situation on campus was unsettling for him, a returning student.

01:47:56	[no question] He described his position as lecturer during 1970—teaching a full load in Theatre and Drama, working as a program asst. with community arts development, and still taking classes, none of which counted toward retirement. He explained exciting developments that naturally led him to research theatre in WI. At the same time he also taught Theatre Methodology for Elementary Ed., which fit his interests well but was over-enrolled in the 2nd semester due to cross-listing mistake. He mused about the relationship between the arts and teacher training at UW. Follow up: Is this similar to music education? Answer: He thought so, reflecting on the confusing status of cross-tenured faculty in the schools of education and music.

01:54:58	[no question] On the community arts development side, he discussed his 1970 intervention in the WI Idea Theatre Conference, whose initial community vision had eroded. So he suggested to Gard that WI theatre groups could work together to uphold WITC’s original ideas. Since he was simultaneously doing UW-Extension long-distance teaching for teachers in Milwaukee as part of “test-marketing” and had made hundreds of local theatre connections, he organized a large Madison meeting between some of these local theatre leaders and faculty from other UW universities to chart a course for a state-wide association. Follow up: Did Theatre faculty support this? Answer: No—they weren’t seeking to reach out. This was the period when the merger was getting ready to aggregate extension programs into UW-Extension. 

02:02:50	[no question] He discussed the result of this 1970 meeting, the formation of an association that would cross-program communicate, elect  a board of directors, recruit from across WI, and organize a 1973 state-wide conference. Follow up: Were you leading this? Answer: Yes; this was his first initiative to carry out Gard’s mandate. He reminisced about creating and distributing a newsletter. Follow up: But this is when you become prominent in the state? Answer: Yes; but he was pushing other people to step out as well. Gard had since created the WI Idea Theatre Foundation (from the old Conference), and he explained the difference between this and his statewide organization, which was teaching all over the state.

02:07:35	Follow up: Were you working with Al Prieve? Answer: Not directly, though they shared contacts occasionally. Follow up: Were there people from that initial year who went on to prominence? Answer: He mentioned Austin Henry and Ira Allen as two individuals who stuck with him in those first years.

02:08:53	[no question] Thompson related his first experience with major institutional change (and the anger it generated) when all the travelling arts people were aggregated into one department (UW-Extension). Follow up: Did that strike you as a good thing? Answer: He thought it made sense in that all the arts people could communicate with one another and work together.

02:12:41	[no question] Talking about his travel program, he recalled that in the 1960s, Grace Chatterton (an Extension community arts development representative) would bus women around (Milwaukee, Madison, Tomah, Green Bay, Minneapolis) to see plays, even going to Stratford in Canada and NYC. At Chatterton’s request, he went on one of these trips to Stratford in 1970 and was so taken with the idea that he decided that he could expand the educational potential of the idea into.

02:17:51	[no question] Continuing with his story about travel and arts education, he related how Tom Patterson befriended the group when he came to talk to them about the history of the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival and even allowed them to see backstage. Hence the UW group (Performing Arts Study Tours) grew and Thompson took the program over when Chatterton retired. When the travel program alone took up too much of his time and he was recruited to direct the British Isle & Ireland travel program in 1975, he handed over domestic travel responsibilities to Richard Klemm and exclusively directed the Arts Seminars Abroad program.

02:23:50	End of First Interview Session

Second Interview Session (January 22, 2009): Digital File

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

00:00:24	Question: Continue talking about the travel program. Answer: He suggested that the travel program was a perfect example of the WI Idea and observed again what his position had been in his first 3 years at UW (1969-72). This gamble, that a permanent position could be created from his actual work, paid off for him. For the next three years, then, he was a UW-Extension specialist doing what he’d already done. He also explained how the travel program actually brought revenue into Extension that underwrote his salary, but also supported the overall arts program, both financially and also by creating satisfied students who immediately become advocates.

00:07:33	[no question] He related how other universities who were becoming interested in travel programs came to UW for mini-sessions with him, quipping that his highest form of compliment was to have his students lead their own travel groups. As people expanded past their community theatres, he felt it was the natural time to expand the UW-Extension program.

00:10:43	Question: This was very demanding organizationally? Answer: Yes; since they negotiated tickets, seating, lectures, etc., he estimated that they spent 3-4 days of preparation for every travel day. Beyond just the logistics of travel, they tried to get local actors/experts to make it a good educational experience. Follow up: Like who? Answer: He mentioned Tom Patterson, but noted that moments like the one they’d had where a London Symphony musician work UW gear they’d give him were the important experience, as were the opportunities unique to UW trips to meet with artists/actors/musicians.

00:17:27	[no question] He talked about the continuation of the Performing Arts Study Tours and Arts Seminars Abroad. Follow up: Did you draw from all across the state? Answer: It actually became a national program as “people-who-knew-people” started coming along, which was a negative at times, but a positive since clients often became the best form of marketing. 

00:20:26	Question: Is this where you built a national reputation? Answer: He thought that started earlier through the theatre arm of the story—with the WI Theatre Association (WTA)—at the time when Extension was moving from Ag Hall to Lowell Hall (formerly a private women’s dormitory) and the Pyle Center. At this point, he was collaborating with with Edward Kamarck (Arts and Society); Helen O’Brien (4H youth development theatre); Karen Cowan (WI Dance Council); David Peterson (WI Idea Theatre). Follow up: It was almost an explosion of growth. Answer: It helped that it was a time in the late 1960s when other arts were also growing and they suddenly had a formal UW-Extension to work through.

00:27:27	[no question] He returned to talking about the WTA, whose first conference boasted 800+ participants. One of the services of the Assn. was an auditions program, which allowed theatre students to be seen by hiring theatres, and provided training sessions by hiring producers before auditions. Follow up: You had producers nationally? Answer: Yes; they had a pioneering program that was well-regarded, which led to WI getting a better reputation, though the purpose was to improve theatre in WI primarily. This they did by trying to connect professional theatres with college and HS theatres. Follow up: How successful was that? Answer: It took a lot of hard work, so it had high and low points. The Offstage Voice, the assn’s newsletter, and a theatre directory allowed all these people to communicate.

00:34:42	[no question] Thompson related how WI was following national trends in theatre education, coming under the umbrella of the American Theatre Association (ATA). He discussed the aggregation of the arts into one arts development dept in the formalized UW-Extension. But he said the politics of this change was foreign to him (as a newcomer), but as a person working with UW-Extension, he got pushed into national leadership with the ATA and the Great Lakes regional community theatre organization, which held its meeting at the first meeting of the WI Theatre Assn. 

00:40:50	[no question] He discussed his nomination for the assoc. director of the ATA in 1977, though he thought he wasn’t ready for it yet. Follow up: This happens quite often with UW faculty. Answer: He observed the irony that the ATA interview process happened at the same time as the first Madison hosting of the regional theatre meeting

00:43:27	[no question] He discussed how he went from specialist to asst. professor status in Extension in 1975. Follow up: How did that happen? Answer: He didn’t really know, suspecting that Gard convinced executive committee members from other arts that this was the right move. He remembered being grateful but wondering what different expectations that would involve. Follow up: Were tenure requirements clarified? Answer: No. He said professors at the time were still struggling figuring out how their department was supposed to function. He remembered a PhD being a discussion point, but not being required at the time. 

00:49:30	[no question] Thompson clarified what was actually involved in coordinating a weekend workshop—ensuring the capacity of instructors to teach so that people were getting their fee’s worth. He also recalled teaching each weekend at a Gard’s School of the Arts in Rhinelander (SOA). Follow up: Did this school have a national draw? Answer: Not really—possibly because of the choice of Rhinelander as a location. 

00:54:21	[no question] He also discussed Extension library, a “jewel” which supported travel classes by offering books that could travel to the class sites. While the library carried the most extensive play-script collection of any library in the US, it eventually went out of existence because of funding, getting boxed up and sent to Memorial Library. He and Lange conversed about the incredible resource that this collection and the WI Center for Film and Theater Research were in Madison. Follow up: How long did you receive copies of new plays? Answer: He thought into the 1990s. Follow up: What time period do you have scripts for? Answer: As retroactive as possible. He talked about the work of Julia Mailer to assemble and preserve the collection.

01:07:32	[no question] He observed that in the 1970s arts (plural) education was beginning to disseminate at least basic arts knowledge across the state, which led to Extension degree-granting programs and the credentialed teaching of theatre in HS curricula. 

01:11:09	[no question] He talked about getting tenure. During the flurry of the late 1970s, he remembered Gard beginning to question him about what his tenure portfolio would look like, since a lot of his activity was “merely” Extension. There was also a discussion of what exactly his role in the WTA was (for tenure purposes), and in 1980 he achieved tenure. Follow up: How hard was that? Answer: Very hard, because there was pressure from the theatre dept, which wanted him to become a part of their organization. He argued that his research was done in preparation for the travel programs, he was publishing the WTA newsletter, and he’d done significant theatre teaching. Follow up: Were you a nervous wreck? Answer: He suspected now that Bob Gard, who was retiring summer 1980, felt his legacy was tied up in his continuation as a professor at UW. During the same period, he recalled that Gard had invited him to be part of an administrative group to investigate the financial position of arts development, which may have influenced the tenure decision.

01:22:22	[no question] Looking back at the his late 1970s flurry of activity, he attributed it to not really knowing what would work in order to fulfill Gard’s mandate to promote theatre in WI. As each component stuck, however, he became more stretched in different directions. What was evolving, he noted, was the statewide Director of Continuing Ed. in Theatre position. 

01:26:26	[no question] He shifted to the 1980s, recalling the formation of the WI Alliance for Arts Education (WAAE) in 1975 with the help of Extension. He mused about the strength of music education in WI schools, the possibility of more funding from the Obama administration, and the way almost all arts education advocacy can be traced back to Extension.

01:30:22	[no question] Alluding to the national community theatre movement, he discussed the development of the “Madison conference,” a training program developed by AACT and Extension for community theatre directors. The idea developed as a way to serve the directors he’d used to teach classes in his arts development program. Follow up: Who does that? Answer: Extension provides the structure and curriculum, but directors themselves teach the classes. By the 1980s, when the conference became strong, they limited the number of participants, helped directors network nationally, got AACT a national reputation and platform, created an important listserv, and put out tools that help directors network and study appropriate models for themselves.

01:38:04	Follow up: Does the theatre dept here get involved? Answer: He noted that the Madison Conference doesn’t really emphasize theatre production (which directors could get at their local university) but community relations. Hence, only full time community theatre directors are allowed to participate, though they have an observer system. He listed the 5 AACT conferences modeled on the Madison conference, as well as recognitions he’d received from his work with the conference.

01:43:42	[no question] Thompson talked about becoming asst. chair (and then chair) of the department under Dick Wolf, with whom he worked well. With the retirements of the 1980s, the issue they struggled with was to solidify staff appointments for arts development, usually through specialist status. He outlined the hiring of full time faculty in youth theatre, (Joan Lazarus, who created a national 4H drama curriculum, summer teacher training classes, and the WI HS Theatre Festival in the 1990s), 4H art (Susan Farmer), and non-credit art (Leslee Nelson)—a fresh generation of faculty.

01:50:51	[no question] Continuing with his explanation of the 1980s, he outlined changes in Extension structure, which reviewed (with an eye toward integration) all its academic departments. Thus, the statewide arts development department became integrated into the universities where they worked, with several faculty deciding to return in 1985 to Madison or Milwaukee and him being voted Madison’s chair within a newly-created Division of University Outreach (DUO). He detailed the personalities and politics involved in the restructuring and creation of Continuing Education and the Arts.

01:58:16	[no question] He noted that one expectation of the restructuring was that Continuing Education would eventually further reintegrate into the residential departments at UW-Madison (eg. making him the Continuing Ed. person in Theatre and Drama). This was more or less feasible depending on the division, and he related the struggle to communicate their statewide mission to people who saw Madison as their mandate. This further required studying all of WI’s arts development programs in order to decide which university they would be housed at.

02:02:06	Question: Was there any justification for this 1985 restructuring? Answer: He said that he constantly looked for a way to return the dept to Extension, whose banner was an entirely different perception in the state than Madison’s reputation. He remarked on the struggles of administrators to define their constituencies, citing one dean’s refusal of funding for a Stevens Point event that promoted WTA because it didn’t fit into his Dane County mandate. But he rejected this narrow vision of Extension.

02:09:07	Question: This is a kind of baptism by fire as a chair? Answer: Yes; the leadership of DUO tried to help, but departments were so different that it was a very challenging environment. Follow up: Who was dean of DUO? Answer: Bryant Kearl.

02:11:49	[no question] Through Dick Wolf’s and his chairship, he observed, they tried to clarify roles, naming him artistic director of Arts Seminars Abroad and SOA (leaving open the possibility of an administrative director) and developing position descriptions (since Extension functions are somewhat fluid). Parallel to this, they developed a divisional committee to decide tenure track cases of professors in DUO. In his case, he was granted full status in Theatre and Drama. 

02:18:24	Question: Do you think Wisconsinites noticed any difference? Answer: No; because they chose not to change to favor Madison, since Extension courses have little to do with the regular academic calendar, but rather served the interests and time constraints of people actually taking the courses. 

02:22:30	End of Second Interview Session

Third Interview Session (January 23, 2009): Digital File

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

00:00:23	[no question] After expressing his appreciation for Lange’s organization of the sessions, he reviewed three threads of the previous session—1) his being an educator of theatre in UW-Extension; 2) his administrative role; and 3) programming that grew out of his involvement in Extension.

00:02:37	[no question] He continued by talking about the Dept. of Liberal Studies and the Arts (formerly arts development), whose constant struggle was to keep focus on continuing education by showing administration the impact Extension was having on youth and adults through life-long education about theatre. In this vein, he talked about the WI HS Theatre Festival, the last program he created (as a way to connect university faculty to Extension audiences). The Festival featured forensic theatre competitions, a showcase play, continuing education credit for directors, and workshops put on by UW System schools and community theatres.

00:10:34	[no question] He talked about marketing, which was a component unique to Extension, which didn’t have a traditional student base. He related the importance of generating a mailing list from participant in existing workshops, citing anecdotes about student help who didn’t understand this fact (which led to the hiring of a professional whose job was to compile the lists) and the increasing sophistication of mailings as technology increased, such that they had upwards of a 90% catch rate. 

00:17:32	[no question] He explained how Continuing Ed. was involved in statewide efforts to incorporate arts in education. He outlined how his work with WTA was a continu-ation of a long-standing tradition of arts development personnel creating arts agencies that would then become independent of UW.

00:20:58	[no question] He revisited the question of how the department should protect its reputation and its service to the state (by replacing some of the pioneer personnel in the dept like Gard, etc.) in the 1980s, noting that with budget retrenchment, they were unable to retain all the faculty lines of these personnel. He discussed how creative arts advocates had needed to be to communicate the importance of arts education to policy makers who were making budget decisions.

00:26:48	[no question] He said that the local arts agency networks also paralleled UW’s arts development arm, which resulted in the creation of Arts Wisconsin, which lobbies for the arts in the legislature. He talked about the “double edged sword” of nurturing arts boards in WI, which allowed other people to pick up the mission of arts development, but also meant that the structure got changed by others over time. He talked about UW-Extension’s affiliation with the statewide art board and arts in the digital age.

00:33:13	[no question] He outlined the integration of 1985, when the Regents decided that all academic Extension depts should integrate into one of UW’s residential campuses. He related the importance of retaining their funding so that they could continue their mission to the state, citing how during the pilot run at UW-Milwaukee, community arts programs were “basically undone” by the School of Arts, which absorbed their resources. This example was critical to arts development deciding to remain its own department after restructuring (DUO)—this led to a whole set of budgeting issues.

00:39:21	[no question] He detailed the new administrative structure after integration. UW-Madison’s Office of Outreach Development negotiated with UW-Extension for resources, with the dean of DUO and other outreach directors (like in nursing) negotiating with Outreach Dev. for their budgets. He talked about name changes and the eventual folding of Outreach Development and Summer Session into DUO.

00:43:28	Question: Was it difficult to get additional staff approved? Answer: Yes; because it was all driven by general program revenue. He discussed how grants and non-credit enrollment also affected Dept. of Continuing Education and the Arts staff hiring.

00:45:52	[no question] He described Howard Martin’s decision in 1997 to restructure DUO internally because of disparities in revenue production among the division’s units. Out of this restructuring came the Dept of Liberal Studies and the Arts, which included the “massive” independent study program and which he agreed to chair. 

00:50:43	Follow up: It sounds like the 1985 integration produced ongoing turmoil. Answer: He agreed, speculating that because of this integration, statewide continuing ed. arts programs might someday become unavailable. Returning to the 1997 reorganization, he observed that they understood that they were in the business of educating clients, not clarifying an organizational identity to them, but it was challenging to communi-cate that to decision makers. Follow up: Was the 1997 restructuring difficult? Answer: Yes; it was his greatest administrative challenge, but he felt people had bought into Liberal Studies and the Arts, discussing staff issues and tenure.

00:56:22	[no question] He described his role as a stabilizing one, no matter what activity—trying to provide citizens of the state with tools to improve their later teaching. Follow up: Are you fundamentally a teacher? Answer: He thought so, citing examples from his travel programs.

01:00:20	[no question] He expanded upon the SOA in Rhinelander, which Gard had founded as the core of his arts development program. He always emphasized at the School that people take what they’d learned home to their county/community. He spoke about inviting Dale Wasserman to come back to the School in 1985 honoring his participation there in the 1970s. This move reenergized the program and catalyzed conversations at UW Foundation about fundraising for Extension—it also showed for Thompson how the 1985 integration caused unique outcomes.

01:06:23	[no question] Continuing to talk about the SOA, he discussed budget problems he inherited when he became director in 1985. So they reviewed the marketing, changed the name, expanded the curriculum, abandoned the strategy of bringing in “star” artists in favor of recruiting good teachers, enhanced mid-day forums, and recommitted to integration into the city of Rhinelander. He recounted how the School became a model of a UW program that implemented the WI Idea, and how Miranda McClenaghan took over the program.

01:13:31	Question: What was your relationship with Wasserman? Answer: He thought that he was the sole connection with him in the 1990s, recruiting him as a teacher and contributor to the SOA. He related a conversation he had with Wasserman about how he could contribute to the University, which he assumed had meant the School, since the  Midwest Playwrights Lab represented an “unclosed chapter” in the Wassermans’ history with SOA. After this conversation, a meeting in Madison was planned with them, during which Wasserman had a “magical moment” at the Milwaukee Road Depot, where his journey with Madison had started. Follow up: What was he like? Answer: He related Wasserman’s quiet, demanding personality, telling anecdotes about the somewhat bumpy week he spent at SOA. But he didn’t know if Wasserman would leave a bequest to UW.

01:24:45	[no question] He returned to talking about the travel program, noting that while they tried to train others to take groups themselves, they sometimes discouraged this—such as cases in which it became a way for the leader to travel themselves, or when someone didn’t want to be bothered with other people 24/7. He thought the success of the program (even in large numbers) lay in the attention his staff showed to the people on the tour. He moved on to talk about the WTA, whose curriculum was basically the same in 2009 as when it was created.

01:31:32	[no question] Talking about departmental affairs, he discussed creating art, theatre, and music education positions while he was chair of Continuing Education and the Arts, each of these professors achieving tenure later on. He explained the integration test case of a music education professor (Chelcy Bowles) that would be a joint tenure-track appointment with the music department (which, led by people like Wolf and Marvin Rabin, had the best track record with Extension). He described Bowles’ tenure as “a magical moment” pointing to the possibilities for future art educators.

01:41:19	[no question] Thompson mused about how to transfer the vision of founders like Robert Gard without them being around. He recounted McClenaghan hearing all the stories about Gard’s work at a Gard Foundation meeting the very weekend she arrived to take over SOA. In connection with this, Maryo Gard Ewell, McClenaghan and others did several studies of how Robt Gard’s efforts were accompanied by serious research in rural WI. 

01:50:35	[no question] He explained why he decided to retire, feeling that other people needed to step into situations (like restructuring) that required more time and energy than he could devote. While he was shooting for age 60 to retire, it became financially untenable. Follow up: Were you tired? Answer: He didn’t say so at the time, but thought he probably was, after the extensive traveling. So when it became feasible to do so in 2004, he made public his intentions in 2002.

01:56:00	[no question] Observing the importance of communicating his vision for arts education in WI to administration—which became a serious challenge--he recalled how his own alumni advocated for the program by relating the valuable experiences they’d had and their concern that the program not dissolve. He quipped about the “Harv Doctrine,” that community arts people should know local decision makers, to emphasize that if you thought something was important you needed to advocate for it.

02:02:11	[no question] He explained the decision to not have him be the chair of Liberal Studies in his last year. Since no one from arts stepped up to do this, Jim Campbell was designated as interim chair for both professional development and liberal studies. Follow up: That wasn’t good for the arts? Answer: He thought this was a fair assessment, since an arts person wouldn’t be making the decisions. Follow up: Was it difficult not to be chair? Answer: No. It was the right change and a good lesson about how to not interfere with those doing his job.

02:08:35	[no question] He cited another example of “the endcap” of his participation in arts education. Before traveling to the Edinburgh Festival with the new director of Arts Seminars Abroad, he’d communicated to his contacts there that he didn’t have any memorabilia from his first year there in 1975. So the marketing people gave him 1 of 3 remaining 1975 posters and created a matching 2004 poster for him. He also talked about attending his successor’s first trip to transfer his knowledge and contacts and remaining on call should he be needed in an emergency.

02:15:18	Question: Talk about your retirement dinner. Answer: He noted that while he wanted to “just slip away,” he agreed to attend an honorary retirement dinner planned by arts colleagues. He reminisced about one guest who flew in from England to express her gratitude for the WI group, about funds raised there for WI arts development, and about Kevin Reilly’s attendance at the dinner. 

02:19:59	[no question] He explained his involvement in the Robert E. Gard Wisconsin Idea Foundation, which was planning a centenary celebration of Gard’s work.

02:22:12	[no question] He discussed awards, qualifying that everything he’d done benefitted from colleagues he’d work with. He talked about receiving UW-Platteville’s Alumni Award (2004), UW-Extension’s Career Award (2002), UW-Madison Art Institute’s Joyce J. and Gerald A. Bartell Award (2000), the Gard Foundation’s Award of Excellence (2000), WI Foundation’s for the Arts Governor’s Award (1997), AACT’s lifetime service award (among others), and the Milwaukee Journal’s selection of him as part of their “80 for the 80s” story on those who they thought would make a difference in the 1980s. He also discussed an AACT regional award named after him.

02:31:23	Question: Are your awards gratifying? Answer: Yes; this had much to do with collea-gues who’d helped create his accomplishments. He talked about how he’d contributed to the regional organization, how he’d won over a later-influential community theatre advocate, and how these anecdotes pointed to the teaching power of the arts.

02:34:37	[no question] He wanted to share some closing thoughts on the integration of Extension departments into the campuses, speculating that he must have felt like there was no real plan for how this integration was to proceed. He recalled his concern that people would be hesitant to deal with him after the integration because he represented Madison—this was compounded by confusion about what to do if he traveled to another “service territory.” Despite this confusion, he still thought it was appropriate that Extension held the funds for arts development and observed that clients didn’t find the differences between campuses important.

02:41:49	[no question] Continuing talking about integration, he mused about trying to convince administration that the work being done in the trenches was the truly important thing in Extension. 

02:44:07	[no question] As a final thought, he supposed that long-term prospects for delivering state-wide continuing education in the arts were in doubt, wondering where the decision would be made to keep it going, since arts people weren’t at the decision making table. Follow up: What would you do? Answer: He wondered if a state-wide UW arts development coordinator position or team would effectively deliver arts continuing education to WI.

02:49:09	[no question] He wanted to leave names on the recording of other people who also knew the narrative of arts development/extension: Bob Gard; Dick Wolf; Karen Cowan; Susan Farmer-Tiefenthaler; Judith Reed; Roger Williams; Patricia Fessenden; Joe Corry; Margaret “Peg” Geisler; Bryant Kearl; Howard Martin; etc. 

02:54:01	End of Third Interview Session

End of Oral History #1014