UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #719
BITZER, LLOYD F.

BITZER, Lloyd F. (1931- )
Professor Emeritus, Communication Arts
At UW: 1961-1994

Interviewed: 2005	
Interviewer: Robert Lange
Length: 3 hours, 44 minutes

Early years and education; Undergraduate and graduate education; Teaching at the University of Wisconsin; Department of communication arts; Student protest; University Committee; Forensics program; Research; Committee on Undergraduate Education; Retirement.

First Interview Session (August 15, 2005): Tapes 1-2

00:00:19	Lloyd Bitzer was born in 1931 in Wapakoneta, Ohio.  His father was a minister and thus moved the family to Indiana and later to Carmi, Illinois.

00:02:34	He talks about his high school years.

00:03:00	LB describes life as the son of a minister.

00:04:32	His family fared well during the Depression.

00:06:12	LB recalls his memories of life on the home front during the Second World War.

00:07:14	His sixth grade teacher stimulated LB's interest in reading.

00:10:47	After graduating from high school in 1949, LB attended North Central College for only a few weeks before falling ill with polio.  He recuperated and worked for a hardware store and radio station instead of returning to school.

00:12:54	The following year he attended Southern Illinois University.  His speech professor encouraged him to join the forensics club.  During this time he met his wife, Jo Ann.

00:14:14	LB describes his speech professor.

00:14:56	He served in the Navy and was married between his junior and senior years.  When he returned to SIU, he minored in philosophy and completed his speech major.  He became interested in the links between rhetoric and philosophy.

00:16:45	LB had joined the Navy after his brother was recalled to service.

00:18:55	He describes the impact of Plato's dialogues on his thinking about rhetoric and philosophy.

00:22:23	LB continued his studies at SIU to pursue a master's degree in philosophy with a minor in cultural anthropology.  He wrote his master's thesis on the theory of value.

00:24:17	He describes the influence on his thinking of his advisor, John Dewey.

00:25:39	He comments on his essay "The Rhetorical Situation," which he considers one of his best publications.  

00:28:05	After completing his master's thesis LB pursued a PhD in philosophy at the University of North Carolina.  He quickly became disaffected with the department and left after a year.  He then took his family to Massachusetts where he worked at an inn for the summer.

00:30:26	He began looking for a return to university.

00:30:57	End of Tape 1, Side 1.

00:31:06	Lloyd Bitzer received a teaching assistantship from the University of Iowa philosophy department.  He discovered that Iowa had an excellent rhetoric faculty and consequently shifted his studies toward rhetoric.  As a teaching assistant he worked in the communication skills program.

00:33:12	He describes the rhetoric faculty and graduate students.  LB conducted most of his research in rhetoric but also pursued a minor in philosophy.

00:36:23	He came to the University of Wisconsin in fall 1961.  While working at UW he completed his dissertation on the influence of David Hume on the rhetorical theory of George Campbell.

00:38:05	He rarely discussed his philosophical positions with his father.

00:39:46	LB describes his decision to take a job in the department of speech at UW.  He also describes the faculty at the time.

00:43:30	LB lists the faculty who specialized in rhetoric and public address.

00:46:54	The department of speech sought to improve its rhetoric program by adding new courses such as Introduction to Human Communication and Masterpieces of Oratory (which LB initiated).  LB describes his courses and teaching methods.

00:52:09	The department also created courses in rhetorical theory and criticism.

00:53:42	LB describes his relationship with his colleague, Edwin Black. 

01:01:00	End of Tape 1, Side 2. 

01:01:01	Lloyd Bitzer describes his colleague Lee Dreyfus and Dreyfus' subsequent political career.

01:08:27	LB traces the evolution of the department of communication arts.  Programs in speech correction and theater and drama split off to form their own departments.

01:11:01	Communication behavior and media studies have been growing sub-fields within the department.

01:17:06	He talks about the department's loss of programs in speech correction and theater and drama.

01:22:29	LB describes his chairmanship of the department from 1981 to 1985.  

01:25:31	After chairing the department he received a semester off for research.  He went to London to research 18th century materials in the British Library.

01:26:17	He talks about the faculty response to student activism and protest on campus in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

01:29:47	LB served on the University Committee in the late 1970s.

01:31:53	End of Tape 2, Side 1.

01:32:07	Lloyd Bitzer continues to speak about his service on the University Committee.

01:33:54	He talks about some controversial issues that came before the committee, such as collective bargaining and TA strikes.

01:38:11	LB continues to talk about the University Committee.  He also relates his impressions of Chancellor Donna Shalala.

01:42:34	He thinks he lacked the patience necessary to work in university administration.

01:43:30	He lists numerous committees on which he has served.

01:48:31	LB highlights the values he deems necessary for work in academia.

01:52:56	End of Tape 2, Side 2. End of Interview Session.

Second Interview Session (August 22, 2005): Tapes 3-4

00:00:18	Lloyd Bitzer speaks about the history of the forensics program at the University of Wisconsin and the increasing lack of attention given to it by the faculty in the department of communication arts.

00:07:05	It was difficult to fund the forensics program.

00:10:11	The forensics program no longer belongs to a specific department but is rather under the care of the Letters & Science Honors Program.

00:12:02	LB summarizes the causes of the decline of the forensics program.

00:23:21	He describes his dissertation on David Hume and George Campbell.

00:30:55	End of Tape 3, Side 1.

00:31:06	Lloyd Bitzer discusses his research on Scottish Enlightenment writers.

00:32:29	He became interested in differences between theories of rhetoric as a result of teaching courses on these topics.

00:37:47	LB describes his research on political rhetoric.

00:40:12	He researched the Ford-Carter debates and wrote a book about them.

00:45:11	LB and his wife continue to research eighteenth-century subjects such as the reality of miracles.  He is currently working on the life and writings of Peter Annet.

00:57:01 LB draws comparisons between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries.

01:01:49	End of Tape 3, Side 2. 

01:01:50	Lloyd Bitzer continues to draw comparisons between the political and intellectual situation of the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries.  He also describes the subject of his current research, Peter Annet.

01:07:54	LB comments on the state of higher education and the relationship of the university and the state.

01:14:26	He talks about specialization in subject matter among professors and in the curriculum.

01:20:32	LB chaired a committee to study undergraduate education and general education requirements.  The committee found that UW had poor requirements for writing and mathematics.

01:25:43	The committee recommended a two-course sequence to teach writing.  Mary Anne Fitzpatrick (then chair of communication arts) and the chair of the English department feared this recommendation’s implications for their departments and assembled a separate proposal.  The Faculty Senate adopted the committee’s proposal but an implementation committee was established under the chairmanship of Fitzpatrick.

01:32:43	End of Tape 4, Side 1.

01:32:44	Lloyd Bitzer continues his discussion of reform of the undergraduate general education requirement.  He evaluates the impact of the Committee on Undergraduate Education, which he chaired.

01:35:27	The work of this committee was frustrated by Mary Anne Fitzpatrick and others.  The entire process soured LB’s relations with colleagues in the department of communication arts and influenced his decision to retire.

01:40:37	LB wishes he had taught at a small liberal arts college.

01:44:22	After retiring from UW, he taught as a visiting professor at Northwestern and at Emerson College.

01:48:11	LB reflects on his career at UW.

01:51:14	End of Tape 4, Side 2.  End of interview.

END