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Ok. This is 000 on the tape. Today is May 2nd 1969. This is Polly Moore. The interviewee today is Mr John Sort time is 730 in the evening. The location is Poder Library. Now John, just to test the microphone from where you're sitting. Could you just

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give me your address again? Let's see how it registers. 5229 Alkon Drive, Camp Springs, Maryland. Ok. I think that'll be just fine. Ok, John uh if you don't mind if I call you John, do you? It's harsh. Um We were just um uh talking here sort

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of a preliminary uh get acquainted session. I'm very interested in what you have to say. Uh Can we start with your part of the story? Um Back when you first heard about Kenneth pitcher's resignation. Could you tell me your reaction to that? Well, I read about

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it in the Washington Post and the thing that got to me was the fact that it was more the fact that Kenneth Pitzer was resigning and going to Stanford and the fact, you know, Rice was barely mentioned at all, it seemed that he was more the

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story than was Rice. And I was very disappointed. I really didn't know why he resigned, but I always, uh, didn't know him very well or anything, but he always seemed to me to be a good administrator and I was, I like Rice and I always thought

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that he had a fairly uh enlightened administration here. And so, uh, I really had no one in mind for a replacement. And, ah, but I was sorry that he had gone. And then in our economics class, managerial economics, Dr Levy, he discussed this, this, uh, situation

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with us and he gave us some of his opinions and he gave us some information such as that, that Doctor Pitzer was more famous worldwide as a very well known chemist than was Rice University. And that, uh, several other universities had been after him such as

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MIT earlier and that he had not gone there. One of the reasons being we were still in the middle of our $33 million fund drive and he wasn't going to do anything real nasty to rise and quit before that was over. And, ah, he told us

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at that time that, um, that history would prove him out that, uh, Kenneth Pitzer was fighting the board all the way and that, uh, he was, uh, everyone would really appreciate him after he was gone for a while. And of course, uh, Vince later proved him

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out. Did Doctor Levy have, uh, have, uh, uh special access to uh information of this kind. Did, did you get the impression he was fairly close to KP or just, uh, uh, I, I got that impression, I believe Doctor Levy went to was at Stanford Stanford

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or uh something in or out in California. I believe he studied out there and he seemed to know that, uh Dr Pitzer, he knew his family was out there and he knew that Dr Pitt had a lot of friends in the Stanford Faculty and that, that

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he did, like, you know, Stanford is home, you seem to know pretty much what was going on with the whole situation. So, the information from Dr Levy seemed very genuine. Yes. And, uh, it, it more or less reinforced what I, uh, thought previously that Dr Pitzer

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was a good president and when, uh, people, when we discussed who would be good president and everything, I more or less jokingly, I guess back in October so said that I wouldn't be surprised if the board didn't choose Dr Masterson because he had been fairly high

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up in the administration here at Rice. He was a co, uh, university president and, uh, everyone said no, they wouldn't do that. Yeah. And I, at the time I didn't think it was a good choice, but I thought it was a definite possibility. What information did

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you have about Doctor Masterson? Well, the, I was a freshman in Hanson College when he was Master so I knew him not well, he appeared to me as a freshman to be kind of, you know, authoritarian father type figure is what he was. And this is

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in sharp contrast to Dr Sass and Dr Gruber, the two masters in and the way he taught his history 110 course, which I did not have. But my freshman advisor, when I asked him whether I should take history 110 or 100 he said, take 100. And

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then he described Doctor Masterson's history course, ah, the things such as, you know, they, they close and lock the doors right at eight o'clock. And if you were late, um, you wouldn't get in and be charged a cut and things like this. And I just always

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thought of him as being very strict, kind of stern and as far as, as being a good administrator, I didn't ever question that because he seemed to, to be a good college master. He was, seemed to me to be the, uh, the strongest of the college

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masters, I guess he was probably one of the strongest men in the administration on campus when he was here. At least that's the impression I was given by upper classman when I was a freshman while you were at, uh Hanson College. Did you consider him the

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origin of, uh, of the procedures and practices at Hanson that differed from the other colleges? Uh, well, I think so. Uh, for example, Well, going back again to his, um, being one of the stronger masters we were told, or he told the cabinet, I guess it

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was that he would push through the, uh, allowing liquor in private rooms on campus if, you know, we would show that we were mature and, uh, this came down to an effect if the college would vote to, ah, to wear ties to the evening meal. Now,

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ah, I don't think there was ever any real deal made about this, but that was the, the word got around, especially to a freshman who didn't know a whole lot that, you know, even if you don't want to wear a tie, go ahead and vote to

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wear ties because this will show Doctor Masterson that we're mature, you know, voting to wear these ties to dinner and that way we can get him to, uh, to push through the proposal to us have liquor in our room. Was that the first college where this,

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this allowance had been yet? Well, it was college wide. He got or every, it was allowed on campus. Then each college was to decide for themselves whether they would allow it. And all the colleges did right away except Brown who did it a year later, which

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cost doctor time. Is that the girl, that girl, college dr man was a master. What was the reason for that delay? Well, they was that discrimination? No, no, they voted, they voted the first year they voted not to uh not to allow it. And then a

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year later under new cabinet and everything they re voted and they voted to allow it. And it made headlines in the Houston papers and Doctor Vanderberg said that ladies do not drink or something and he resigned as a result of it. So anyway, the first time,

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well, I heard about uh the rumor about Doctor Masterson being appointed as president at noon on Friday. And at first, some of my friends told me at first, I thought it was a joke. And then Doctor Gruber came over and sat down, he was very distressed

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and distraught by the whole thing. And he remained. So throughout the entire affair, did he reveal that he knew? And you reveal that you knew? Uh uh no, well, he came, he came over and it was just an open discussion. And I said, is it really

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true? Is it really true? And he says, yes, I'm afraid so. And so I had a, a lab, but I also knew that there was the student meeting at four o'clock in a fit amphitheater. So I went to my lab and then I left early and

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I went to that meeting. I just sort of stood up in the front, up in one of the corners with a couple of the other guys from the radio station and we were more or less recording what was going on. And then we went over and

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stood in front of the, the Kim lecture and waited for the faculty to come out and uh got a copy of their resolution and the boats and everything. Then we immediately went back to the radio station and we had to decide what our role was going

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to be in this, this thing. And when you say we who, who was involved in this, in this group now, well, the manager of the radio station Stuart West was, it was getting to be close to the end of his term really. And uh he was

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not really very much involved in, in the whole thing. He was more or less right here at the beginning. But after that, he wasn't around very much so boiled down to myself, Dan Guthrie. Um and, and Pat Ba and my Pat is going to be our

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news director for next year. So, and he was at, at the present time was, or at that time was working for KFMK here in Houston. So he had professional experience. So we decided that that we would more or less reflect the views of the students and

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the faculty uh trying to, you know, report everything factually. But uh again, we knew that that if anything did become of this, we would be more or less uh going against the development office is they would be handing out the, the statements of the board of

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trustees. And so, well, and so we decided everything that every press release that we made would be cleared by the essay by Warren Scarin preferably. And so we, we got a copy of the faculty statement and we wrote a short story about the students meeting and

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the faculty resolution and the fact that the meeting was planned for the next day. And we phoned this into the A P so they could put it over their wire, which they did. And then we also phoned it to the local radio station and most of

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them recorded. Um Well, no, actually the first thing that happened, we phoned the A P and then we decided to uh phone it into the local stations. Meanwhile, this man was standing in our, uh he looked like a student who was standing in our outer office

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and we asked him if he could type this up real quick, you know, a copy of our statement and he sat down and he did and then I turned to someone and said, who is that? And he didn't know. And so finally we found out it

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was Dave Beckwith, the chronicle reporter who was involved in all of this. And so we asked him if you give us the news hotline number for kit first as they were the biggest station. And he did. And he called them for, for us and said, you

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know, that there really is a big story going on out here that these guys are going to tell you is really legitimate and you ought to put it on. So they recorded what we said and they broadcast it and then, uh, from Pat, he had a

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list of all the other hotlines and we got them and we called all about 8 to 10 stations were the ones we usually call the major stations. And we gave them the story. And about this time, the story came over at the A P wire backing

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up what we told them. And the A P we had given them a rather long story and they had condensed it. And so doing, they had gotten a few things inaccurate the way they do. So we had to call them again and get them to correct

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the inaccuracies. And so, uh on into that night, we started collecting uh quotes that we had written down from these, these uh meetings and that we got from professors and then I guess there were a couple of them spoke after dinner and a couple of the

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colleges, I'm not sure, but we got quite a few. Uh oh, and then that's right. We got Dean Pfeiffer came down to the station and we had an on the air interview with him and uh we got several quotes from that that we used. And then

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we called uh Doctor Masterson, but we couldn't get through to him. But the thresher already had. So we used their material and we called uh Doctor Pitzer out at Stanford and he spoke to us and we played that over the year as he was talking to

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us and recorded that and, uh he said that, that he understood that the board hadn't consulted with the committee. If this were so very, it was a very unfortunate situation. And then four faculty members, doctors, uh Nissen, uh, let's see, um Dr Rudy, another professor from

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the Space Science department who I can't remember his name, Luke Crack Reed and, and Dr Reed and uh I Dr Clayton from Space Science, right? Those four came down and along with Turk Tomlinson and they, you know, they expressed a willingness to uh go over the

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air and be interviewed. And so Bill Thomas, another one of our, our news men was down at the station by this time. So he and I interviewed the four professors over the air and also a Turk. And, and of course, we got a lot of quotations

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from them such as the fact that they were very embarrassed, the fact that they had the faculty had been ignored and things like this. And so we got a lot of quotations from them. And at this time was was when we really started realizing just how

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strongly the faculty felt because these four men, especially Doctor Reed, they really felt very strongly and we had to warn Doctor Reed several times not to use profanity over the air and things like this. And like I knew Doctor Rudy and, and uh I knew that

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he was a newly named master and this wasn't the radical French or anything. And they were really concerned. So we got another story together with these quotes and we found it into the A P and they, they didn't use very much of it. They just ran

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headlines that rice students are protesting the naming of the new president. That's about all. And this was a late Friday night by this time. So we went off the air Friday night. I think about three o'clock, I believe it was. And uh we got up the

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next morning and a big rally in the gym. And then after that, uh we got, we were went up and we talked to Dave Beckwith and asked him what he thought. He said that it looked like a real orderly type thing and that they had um,

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his, you know, he was going to cover real fairly and everything. And then we, uh went, we marched up uh more or less with a group of people going up toward Lovett Hall. And that at that time, we decided that we'd try to get into Cohen

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House. And so we did and we got in and um, we sat more or less to the back and no one seemed to mind or anything. This was the, um Saturday press conference that Doctor Masterson was uh giving to the local Houston press That's right. And

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Dan Guthrie and I were there and uh I believe Stuart West came in toward the latter part of that and we asked him a couple of questions toward the end. I don't remember what they were and just for our own information. Really. Yes. As the press

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started asking questions and so we did and he answered us, I really can't remember now. Uh They, they really weren't anything uh very important. Uh As I recall, it was just some information that at the time we wanted to know for some reason. And then doctor

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Masterson, well, toward the beginning of his talk, he had stated that he understood that the students were meeting out at Lovett Hall and that they were distressed because of the way the board had made the decision. He thought he would go over and talk to them

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afterwards and explain that this would be his first step to restore communications between everybody as president. And so as the uh press conference wore on after going for about 20 minutes, it looked like it was getting ready to uh to stop because a couple of the

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news men were picking up their cameras and getting ready to leave. So I ran out and told one to tell the students because I knew that at 1230 they would all be leaving to eat because the food service had agreed to serve Saturday lunch from 1230

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to 115 instead of the normal 1145 to 1230 they charged the student governments for this. I understand, you know, for the overtime for the personnel that they had agreed to do this. And so I went out and told one that if they had stayed just a

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few moments longer, that doctor Masterson would probably be out. And after he finished speaking, he shook hands with some of the people and his old friends and he was talking to them. And so Dan and I went up and introduced ourselves and explained to him that

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the students were still waiting and that, you know, they did have to leave pretty soon if they were going to eat. And so he said that he'd walk over with us. And so, uh we went outside with him and he stopped and talk with someone else

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and then we were walking across with him and uh was anyone accompanying him from the Board of Trustees at this time or was it just the three of you uh Guthrie and, and Stuart West, it was just the three of us actually with him at this

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time, he talked to someone in the administration outside. I can't remember who it was but uh they were more or less uh you know, just standing around. And as I recall, none of them were walking over or if they were, they were fairly far behind us

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because I remember as a group, the, as we were walking over there, we were talking to him and, and, you know, we talked to him, talked to him and told him what was going on. The fact that the students were very unhappy with the way the

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decision had been made as testified by, uh, the fact that there were 1200 or more people in the gym that morning. And he did not know this and that, ah, faculty had passed the resolution and he did know that. And we told him, did he know

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the vote? I don't, I don't know if he knew the vote, but we asked him if he knew that the faculty had taken action. He said, yes, he understood and he understood that it was about the method of selection. We told him that was correct. And

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we told Tim that, ah, it would, you know, it would be a good idea, uh, for him to, to come down to the radio station and be interviewed or make a statement because there were only a few 100 students out there waiting at Lovett Hall now

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because most of them had left. And he said that was a, a very good idea. And that at the present time, he had no, no other plans and that, that he would let us know by four in the afternoon. And we told him that, that we

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would notify the other television stations and anyone else who wanted to be there. And he said that would be fine and that he'd let us know. And so as we got closer, all the television cameras, um, were out there and they started taking pictures of, of

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us escorting him over there and he's later appeared on TV, or told, but he got over there and he got up, um, one of the marble deals next to Lovett Hall and speaking to the bullhorn started talking and of course his first, the crowdy action to

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his first statement, which was about trying to restore the communications was it was mostly silence for a few, a few people clapping and a few boos. And then after that, um people started shouting questions. So Juan Scarron tried to keep board and tried to call on

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people. And from this point on, he started getting into to hot water. His answers were not pleasing the crowd. And of course, they asked him if he would submit to being evaluated by the student faculty committee along with other candidates. And uh and then if he

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were chosen this way, he would be accepted as president. He said that no, at that time, he could foresee no nothing that would cause him to change his mind. And he also told us before he got up to start talking that he had nothing else to

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do for a while. So he just go over and chat with the students. But as things got worse, he said that he had a very pressing appointment and had to leave and then he did uh leave at this time. There were other, I believe people from

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the development office. Uh Mr Estes was with him most of the time throughout this who uh escorted him off and we didn't follow him or anything. There were several reporters who came up to us and they wanted us to help them in, in getting student leaders

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for interviews. And so we went and we'd get Warn Scar or Ron Bozeman for interviews. And they also wanted interviews with, you know, campus radicals and they wanted interviews with members of the faculty like Dr Grove was there and several of the radio and TV stations

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were recording statements he was making. And this went on for another 30 minutes because there were all the TV stations and about three radio stations were out there covering this event since they had been there for the press conference. And so we went back to the

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radio station right after that and went on the air and we stayed on the air from that time all the way through Tuesday. We didn't sign off after that. And we, let's see, we started phoning out what had happened. We prepared more or less summary of

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what had gone on. We phoned those out and we didn't have to phone into the A P anymore because uh up to, we usually phone into Dallas, which is the Texas Bureau, we called them. But they, they have a local bureau here that covers a lot

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of things. Um And at this time, the A P and up, I were both calling us for information. So we given the information and gave it to the radio stations. And again, they recorded our statements and played most of it on the newscasts because especially by

00:24:12.640 - 00:24:27.290

Saturday afternoon, the Chronicle had run it in big headlines and had run a picture of it. And so by this time it was big news in Houston and all the radio and TV stations were fairly interested in the story. They ran a picture of March or

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press conference. They, no, the picture was of the students gathered in front of Lovett Hall in the Saturday evening Chronicle. And in the morning they had run a headline that there was some dissent, but of course, this was before the March took place and the Chronicle

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headline ran 1200 protests, the Master Center or something to that effect. And so we knew that, ah, as the afternoon went on, we knew that he was meeting with the college presidents and a couple of the college president elects and the S A leaders. And we

00:25:04.219 - 00:25:19.739

didn't know where they were meeting or how long it would take. But then we saw one scar on, uh, what, what was their supper break, which lasted, I guess for about four hours. But we, you know, ask him what was going on and he told us,

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it ain't nothing you could say, you know, absolutely nothing. And we told him that, that if he wanted the continued support of students that he would have to tell them, you know, you'd have to give some statement because nobody really knew what was going on at

00:25:33.930 - 00:25:48.819

all. And so he prepared a statement which he read over the year in which we recorded and played back to the effect that they had been meeting with Doctor Masterson all afternoon. And they were going to continue to meet with him later this evening and that

00:25:49.160 - 00:26:07.319

they were trying to resolve some very basic issues about the nature of the university community or something fairly nebulous. But it was a statement to the effect that they were meeting and everything. And so we started trying to find out where this meeting was taking place.

00:26:07.930 - 00:26:25.439

We finally found out it was taking place in a conference room up in Allen Center near the development office. And we didn't find this out until about 1115 that night. So Dan Guthrie Pat Baum and I all went up there and Dave Beckwith, the chronicle reporter

00:26:25.449 - 00:26:44.619

was also there. He had been waiting and so we, we asked him what he thought and it's really strange, he seemed to know more of what was going on than anybody. And he started telling us what he thought and uh it was causing Mister George knew

00:26:44.630 - 00:27:01.119

of the development office a little bit of uh, chagrin, I think he was not real happy with some of the things they were saying. But he told us that he thought that Doctor Masterson was in there, um, and trying to wear the students down actually. And

00:27:01.130 - 00:27:15.180

that, and that he may have been close to some kind of compromise when they left for the supper break. But that he was pretty sure that, ah, Doctor Masterson had met with someone from the Board of Trustees for supper that they had told him not to

00:27:15.189 - 00:27:36.300

back down that he wouldn't. Now. And this later turned out to be substantially correct. And so Doctor Masterson came out of the meeting, I believe about 1220 something like that. And we, we heard him coming out. So we went around to where the elevator was and

00:27:36.310 - 00:27:54.859

he was accompanied by uh Lee Sis and also by Dean Minny. And so we started asking questions right away. Dave kind of stood in the background taking notes. He was letting us do the dirty work, I guess. But we asked him what they had discussed and

00:27:54.869 - 00:28:08.829

he just said, oh, everything under the sun. I've been away for a few years and I just wanted to get reacquainted with all the student leaders and all of his remarks were brushing it off as just kind of a personal get acquainted type meeting. And I

00:28:08.839 - 00:28:24.189

said, or one of us asked him whether there was any mention of him resigning. He said, no, that there's no question about that, that he wouldn't and that they just discussed way things would be set up in the future. And we really, and we really didn't

00:28:24.359 - 00:28:41.209

believe that in its entirety because he looked very haggard. He, he really looked like he'd really been through the mill. Uh, we really later talking about it. We really felt sorry for him because he looked so tired and as soon as the elevator came up, oh,

00:28:41.219 - 00:28:55.839

as soon as the elevator came up, we asked him, um why haven't you met with any of the faculty? Aren't you going to meet with them? And Lee says, I think the elevator is coming. So we repeated the question, the elevator, the door is open and

00:28:55.849 - 00:29:11.189

Lee says about jerked him by the arm into the elevator. We asked the question again. He didn't say anything, the elevator closed and went down. And so then we stayed around to ask uh all the student leaders what uh what had gone on? And they said

00:29:11.199 - 00:29:29.229

that they couldn't say they were going to prepare a statement would be released the next morning. And so we found this report in to the radio station. Then we went back over there and we stayed on the air all night that night. And mainly since the

00:29:29.609 - 00:29:44.969

uh the thresher was working on, I know they, they had just put out a special edition I guess on Saturday. Uh when you, when you say that you put out a story that night. Uh You mean covering, uh, your, your very brief interview with, uh, Doctor

00:29:45.000 - 00:30:01.709

Masterson? Yeah. Well, we, we told what had gone on about that, uh, to the campus. Uh We just the other, we put out a story that, that the students had been meeting with Doctor Masterson all day and that, uh neither of them would comment on the

00:30:01.719 - 00:30:15.069

meeting that, oh, that Doctor Masterson had said that he would stay around and meet with them again the next day because that's what we asked him if he was going to meet with him again. He said he would meet with them again on Sunday. And that's,

00:30:15.079 - 00:30:33.569

that's about all we said as far as what Doctor Masterson said, and we told the api guess that uh we would have a statement for them from the Students Association as a whole the next day. Did you get the idea that um Dean Lee Estes and

00:30:33.579 - 00:30:51.199

Dean mcny were uh uh uh present at all these meetings or only if it's after dinner meeting? Well, uh we didn't really get the impression too much that, that Dean mcenany was uh that much involved, but we did get the impression that Le Estes was, was

00:30:51.209 - 00:31:08.810

very much involved uh with Doctor Masterson. He wasn't in the meeting with him, he was outside, it was Doctor Masterson himself. But every time we had seen Doctor Masterson, he had been a flea assistant since he addressed us as the head of the university development office.

00:31:08.819 - 00:31:30.300

We assumed that, you know, it was only natural and, and at that point, uh we've been getting along fairly well at the development office. And the next morning, I believe later that night, most of us went home to get some sleep. And the next morning we

00:31:30.310 - 00:31:48.979

call the development office asked them if anything new was going on. They said no, they didn't know of anything that they had just got here and that did we know anything. And I think we gave them a few trivial type facts of things that we had

00:31:48.989 - 00:32:01.439

heard. I don't even know what they are. But, ah, then we got a rumor that that doctor Masterson wasn't going to meet with the student again. I guess one of them told us that he wasn't going to meet with him again, that he was leaving town.

00:32:01.770 - 00:32:15.579

So we called the development office about this and they said that this was news to them. They didn't know anything about it. I asked if Mr Estes was, was around or had been around and they said, no, he wasn't and they hadn't heard from him. And

00:32:15.589 - 00:32:36.880

so I asked, was, this was, this was somewhere around 11 o'clock, I believe. And so we called them, we said, well, we're going to keep checking on this. And, uh, and the students, uh, still had not issued their statement because the one that they had were

00:32:36.890 - 00:32:54.140

drafting and we called him again, I guess, 15 minutes later. And so he said that they did have a report that he was on his way to the airport. They didn't know if he had arrived yet, but it appeared, you know, he was leaving town without

00:32:54.150 - 00:33:13.510

meeting with the students again. And I believe it was at 1230 that the Student Association issued their statement concerning what had gone on at the meeting. In fact, they had met with, with Doctor Masterson and that, that uh and in fact, nothing had come of it.

00:33:14.349 - 00:33:29.400

And so, uh by this time Dave Beck was around all the time. And so when he gave his story to the Chronicle, the A P man was on duty at the Chronicle and they picked it up from the Chronicle. So uh we didn't have to do

00:33:29.410 - 00:33:48.930

anything about that, just phoned it out to the TV and radio stations. And by this time, uh by Sunday, a lot of the information coming over the various television and radio stations was inaccurate. And so we had uh some of our people monitoring all the uh

00:33:48.939 - 00:34:08.280

newscasts that we could and all the TV newscasts, which wasn't hard since our studios are right next to the R MC TV room. And we'd monitor these and we'd to in any inaccuracies. For example, K pr C said that the students were opposed to ah Doctor

00:34:08.290 - 00:34:23.250

Masterson because he was against liquor by the drink. And then at another time again, K pr C ran a story that we were having a riot and this came out of the fact that a couple of out of town small papers down in the valley ran

00:34:23.260 - 00:34:37.290

that headline on Sunday morning that there was a riot at rice. So by this time, students were getting unhappy with some of the coverage and they started calling in. So this time we issued appeal to students to if they saw anything wrong to call the essay

00:34:37.300 - 00:34:51.759

and they would call us and we'd relay the information. And by this time, all the local media were calling us all the time to get, we really didn't have to call them. Most of the time, they were usually on our lines all the time because again,

00:34:51.769 - 00:35:13.439

this was a big story by that time. And so Sunday night was the college meetings. And uh we had tape recorders set up in all seven colleges. And also we uh were working through with the S A getting people to call off campus, uh faculty members

00:35:13.449 - 00:35:31.889

and students to attend these meetings. And of course, the college meeting all came to more or less the same conclusions, but we got the tape recordings from them. And Sunday night was really the greatest night we had, I don't know how many people, about 50 people

00:35:31.899 - 00:35:51.399

down helping us work and they were transcribing all the tape recordings of all the college meetings for us and fresher and this took till about six o'clock in the morning to get all seven colleges and of course, uh, by this time, oh, yes, I guess it

00:35:51.409 - 00:36:12.979

was Sunday afternoon. Also later on in the afternoon, Dean Gordon and one Scarron issued their joint statement calling for a, a student faculty opinion poll to be held on Monday. And again, this was another big story. So we got this out to all the local media

00:36:12.989 - 00:36:32.189

and that in fact was the big story of the day, the fact that we were going to vote on Monday. And so all Sunday night, everyone stood up, everyone stayed up transcribing these tapes and we, we transcribed these and we made them so that we could

00:36:32.199 - 00:36:46.250

give almost continuous news on Monday morning about what had gone on mainly since a lot of the off campus people who had been home for the weekend really didn't know what was going on except what they had read through the papers or heard on the radio

00:36:46.260 - 00:37:03.300

or TV. And we wanted to give them, you know, what had gone when in effect had gone on during the weekend so that they could, could cast an intelligent vote. And by this time, we had uh had signs, put up a sign saying that Kowl was

00:37:03.310 - 00:37:19.330

on the air 24 hours a day and we had the uh R MC hook us up through their sound system. So the off campus students could listen to us and we, throughout the morning we read all of the, uh, more or less mainly quotes from, uh,

00:37:19.340 - 00:37:38.429

faculty members that people knew, uh, concerning this and Monday was the voting and we weren't really sure, ah, ourselves what, what they were going to do with the results of the vote if they were going to tell us about what they were or anything. But most

00:37:38.439 - 00:37:53.439

of the radio stations and TV stations were all under the impression that this was something that the essay as soon as they can, they're going to make it public, you know, but the Student Association quite wisely, we thought decided not to, they just want to make

00:37:53.449 - 00:38:13.919

it, make this known to Dr Masterson and the board the results and they didn't want some big public pressure way. They, they in effect gave us a statement late Monday night um that the results have been tabulated and that Dean Gordon and Warren were going to

00:38:13.929 - 00:38:33.060

convey the results to the board and to Dr Masterson in hopes that they would see exactly what the attitudes of rice students were about. The only thing that could be said was that voting was fantastically heavy, heavier than any election that anyone could remember. And of

00:38:33.070 - 00:38:48.600

course, all the news men would ask us, well, do you think that uh the vote was against Dr Masterson? Of course, I said, well, our personal opinion is that it is, but we have no way of knowing any more than you do. And, uh, of course,

00:38:48.610 - 00:39:05.189

Dave Beckwith was there throughout the thing and, and he estimated what, what the results were and these were printed in the chronicle and these were more or less taken by people to be, ah, what they were in effect. It was a little bit too generous to

00:39:05.199 - 00:39:20.159

the student, the faculty side. In other words, his estimates as for the vote going against, Doctor Masterson turned out to be a little bit high according to Doctor Gruber. But um we never did find out what the actual results were. We did send one of our

00:39:20.169 - 00:39:39.110

reporters to all the department chairmen that we could find that would give us uh you know, an indication of how the voting went in their departments and, and along with our speculation and, and just talking with faculty members, uh we managed to, to gauge faculty opinion

00:39:39.120 - 00:39:58.629

and find out that they were going to be very strongly against the method, of course and also almost as strongly against ah Doctor Masterson. Given the circumstances as it was worded in the vote. Was there AAA a way to distinguish the faculty vote from the student

00:39:58.639 - 00:40:19.600

vote? Yes, the students voted by ballot with their, their blank attack ID card and the faculty voted in their departments by their, their department chairmans had to record their votes. And as a matter of fact, there are even a couple of cases also the history department,

00:40:20.479 - 00:40:38.449

people were a little bit upset because of course, Dr Vander Burt, who was chairman of the history department was a close personal friend of Dr Masterson and he was against all this hope taking and everything and he supposedly read the question wrong the first time. And

00:40:38.820 - 00:40:56.530

there were several members of the history faculty, including Dr Gruber, who were, you know, unhappy with this, but it seemed to have gotten straightened out and the faculty vote was separate, it was tallied separate, but each department chairman knew the vote for his department, right? And

00:40:56.540 - 00:41:16.679

he had the responsibility of conveying it to Dean Gordon and student boat was conveyed to uh Warren Scarron. And about this time about Monday night, we uh we started, you know, working looking at this story more or less in the uh the longer, you know, the

00:41:16.689 - 00:41:32.189

largest perspective. And we came up with the, the idea which turns out, you know, it wasn't unique. But we count out the idea that this really was one of the first times that something like this had ever happened at a university where the students were being

00:41:32.199 - 00:41:54.250

led by their duly elected student leaders. And the faculty was being led by the duly appointed chief executive officer of the university Dean Gordon. And uh we pointed this out, you know, as often as we could because there's so much student unrest going on everywhere and

00:41:54.260 - 00:42:14.659

so much of it is led by SDS or radical professors that by this time, uh public opinion as the general was more or less against us. And we had, by this time had an editorial against us on channel 11, which was really absurd and we, we

00:42:14.669 - 00:42:32.120

uh rebroadcast it several times and we called them. And uh I guess on Tuesday or Monday, I'm not sure which the Chronicle read it or had an editorial against us. But we tried to emphasize this to people that this just wasn't, you know, a bunch of

00:42:32.129 - 00:42:53.110

radical students and it was the vast majority of students and faculty and the fact that it was mostly against the way the board of trustees had appointed the man from breaking all previous precedent. Plus, and as things went on the way, Doctor Masterson handled the situation,

00:42:53.120 - 00:43:11.219

it was, it was felt by people that, that had ah not known Doctor Masterson very well or that had thought that the choice was OK that if he had been the man for the job, an able administrator for Rice University, even though he wasn't as nationally

00:43:11.229 - 00:43:27.100

prominent as Doctor Pitzer, that if he had been an able administrator, he would have been able to have handled the situation better when he was here than the way he did. I felt that the way he did handle the situation was quite, you know, quite poor

00:43:27.439 - 00:43:43.090

and then especially leaving and leaving no alternatives. In other words, you know, issuing an ultimatum, which, which we had not done to him, the students and the faculty, well, mainly the students since they were the ones that bargained with them on that Saturday meeting, they had

00:43:43.100 - 00:44:02.520

done everything within their power to compromise. They had gone so far as to, to endorse him more or less as president, if he would agree to having the office of president powers changed or lessened or something like this, but would not compromise with him at all.

00:44:02.780 - 00:44:22.060

Uh after meeting with the trustees so that it was felt that, you know, the trustees put him in, this is really basically bad situation that that even if he wanted to get out of it after the trustees wouldn't let him, he had no choice. And so

00:44:22.110 - 00:44:42.850

we stayed on the air all Monday night and the thresher put out their second daily edition on Tuesday. So they were up all night working and uh Tuesday, of course, not much was happening. There was a, a meeting had been planned for somewhere which was canceled

00:44:42.860 - 00:45:03.629

after the announcement was made by uh doctor or Mr H Mac and Lovitt about his doctor Masterson's resignation. But at this point, Tuesday morning, we really didn't know what to do. We were more or less rehashing what had happened the day before and uh some more

00:45:03.639 - 00:45:20.709

faculty opinion, but we were at a loss as to what to do. We kind of felt that, that, you know, if nothing else happened, that the whole thing would die out and lose its momentum. And that it was kind of our duty at this point to

00:45:20.969 - 00:45:37.010

keep the interest up because by this time working so hard for this and, you know, losing a lot of sleep and not studying, we had become much more involved than if we were just bystanders and that we wanted to see something useful come out of this

00:45:37.020 - 00:45:56.000

anyway, none of us really expected Dr Masterton to resign, but we did want the board to have some respect for the way that we had conducted ourselves in this thing. As an example. We are kind of co sponsors of the K I was kind of a

00:45:56.010 - 00:46:12.320

co sponsor of the idea of everybody wearing ties to the um Saturday afternoon, a rally at the gym or Saturday morning rally at the gym. This had been brought up as an idea in the Baker College meeting on Friday night. And they asked us if we

00:46:12.330 - 00:46:28.830

thought it was a good idea. So we started publicizing that and we were very concerned, the radio station as a whole was very concerned with our public image. Besides keeping the students informed, we were concerned what the outside world thought of rice and we knew that

00:46:29.620 - 00:46:45.860

that just what was going on was not going to be understood by most people, but that at least we could present it in as good a light as possible. And uh so Tuesday morning, we really didn't know what we were going to do and we decided

00:46:45.870 - 00:47:02.199

that we just keep reporting the things that had happened and, and just wait and see what the Student Association was going to do next. And what uh did you hear anyone speculate about what kind of concessions you might be able to get the board to make

00:47:02.209 - 00:47:21.620

or uh in re in return for, for your uh accepting uh doctor Masterson? No. Uh we, as a matter of fact, tried to get in touch with members of the board of trustees to talk to them. We never could. We sent people out to all of

00:47:21.629 - 00:47:39.179

their houses uh uh with the news packet, I take it back, I think we did get in touch with um either Mr Teague or Mr Allen, I think it was Mr Teague. And uh he said, you know, they, they just, they didn't know anything about that

00:47:39.189 - 00:47:50.580

was going on. Uh They just said, well, you know, I really don't know what's going on out there except just what I read in the paper because none of them had been on campus, none of them really knew what was going on. And I guess this

00:47:50.590 - 00:48:12.909

was Monday or so and we decided that they should know what was going on. And we knew that by now that the development office had been soliciting telegrams from alumni, you know, in support of Doctor Masterson because they were releasing these to the press. And so

00:48:12.919 - 00:48:27.709

we sent, we got all of our press releases, all the daily threshers, everything, all the information we possibly could and we got them into a packet, everything the essay had run off upstairs and we sent a couple of students out to deliver these to all the

00:48:27.719 - 00:48:45.209

members of the board of trustees, which most of them weren't home or didn't answer the door. They put it in the mailbox just so they would know what the student side of it was. But, you know, to everyone's way of thinking the board of trustees was

00:48:45.219 - 00:48:59.050

not, could not or would not do anything. They had stated that they were sorry that we were unhappy about the way they had made the decision and they had made a mistake in doing it that way. But there was no way in the world they could

00:48:59.060 - 00:49:17.909

withdraw their nomination or their, their uh appointment of Doctor Masterson. This is the only point really being pressed at the moment or trying to get the board to withdraw the nomination. We're trying to get Doctor Masterson to resign voluntarily without the, that was, that was the

00:49:17.919 - 00:49:37.139

main consideration. And of course, it was felt, well, the chances that we were kind of thrown around or it was 95% chance that, that, that they would do nothing that Doctor Masterson would go back to Chattanooga and that, uh, the board would not say anything and

00:49:37.149 - 00:49:54.050

that they, they would just let it die out. And, uh, I imagine if they had just actually sat on it, nothing on there would probably been more trouble, but, uh, it would have died out as far as the majority of students would have gone. It would

00:49:54.060 - 00:50:17.590

have been probably a, a quite sizable and vocal minority of students and faculty who had still been very unhappy and would have, would continue to meet and, and perhaps do more drastic things than the opinion poll. But we felt that the only way that Dr Masterson

00:50:17.600 - 00:50:37.580

would not be president of Rice University is if he himself resigned, we couldn't see how the board of trustees could, uh you know, ignoring their characteristics, how any group of, of trustees could withdraw the uh appointment. It would, the withdrawal would have to come from Doctor

00:50:37.590 - 00:50:57.610

Masterson. And the most we were hoping for was that, that he would perhaps resign and ah or admit him or let himself be examined by the faculty student committee and try to win its approval or disapproval and, and, and if they disapproved and perhaps he would

00:50:57.620 - 00:51:17.030

resign. But when Tuesday afternoon, we see we received word that he had resigned outright. Um Of course, this, this was by that time in our eyes, the best possible solution because it appeared obvious that he would not be an effective e uh president of Rice at

00:51:17.040 - 00:51:33.030

least for a few years. As, as long as everybody who remembered what had gone on was around, especially since feelings by this time, since there had been so much time and energy put into it were running rather high. And, uh, at the time we got the

00:51:33.040 - 00:51:55.169

announcement from development office, uh, there was a meeting going on in the geology building of, ah, Warren G, I believe, and some of the faculty members and Dr Pros and I believe, and, ah, they received the news just about the same time or, I guess someone

00:51:55.179 - 00:52:13.010

ran over and told them the news they were planning, I, that if I recall correctly, they were planning, you know, what to do next, what the next step would be. And, ah, students were wondering whether they ought to release the, the vote totals publicly if Doctor

00:52:13.020 - 00:52:33.879

Masterson, uh, does not do anything with him if he just decided to sit on him. But he did resigned and one told us that he and Dean Gordon would have a, a statement released, you know, about their, their, uh, telegram, you know, telling doctor matches when

00:52:33.909 - 00:52:57.489

he had done great service and, uh, they felt sorry for the trials that had put him and his family through. Um, we did, we started putting, uh, uh, well, we started calling people and, uh, giving them the information about, uh, doc Mr Lovett's, um, letter where

00:52:57.500 - 00:53:12.290

he had received, uh, Doctor Masterson's letter. And after we called about half the stations, uh, then we, as we kept calling, they said, well, we've just got the word from development office. So they were putting out the information too because uh of course, at this time,

00:53:12.300 - 00:53:33.310

the since that release was from the head of the Board of trustees, they were putting that information out. Whereas before, during the rest of the crisis, the only information that they would put out was uh information showing how strong support for Doctor Masterson was mainly from

00:53:33.320 - 00:53:53.959

alumni. For example, the chronicle was, was really fair to the uh student faculty side during, throughout the whole thing. And again, this was mainly due to the fact that David Beckwith was a reporter and he understood the situation very well. He's only, I think 28. And

00:53:53.969 - 00:54:09.530

uh he had won the trust of, of Warren and the other student leaders and he was with us a lot and, and ah, he really knew what was going on and he said he had a little bit of trouble toward the end. The city editor would

00:54:09.540 - 00:54:27.280

cut up his stories a little bit. But, and then the Chronicle did run a um and an editorial against us toward the end. But his stories were just about as factual as we could hope for. And, but they uh there was always another article usually on

00:54:27.290 - 00:54:41.709

the, you know, the article started out on page one and it was continued back on say page 10 and back on page 10, there was always another article, Rice Alum show their support for Doctor Masterson and then they list, you know, these people and you know

00:54:41.719 - 00:54:59.169

what they s they said, and this is what the development office was putting out. And this was about the only information they were given. And we, as time went on, we called them for information, asking for the locations of meetings and things like this. And, uh,

00:54:59.330 - 00:55:19.540

they wouldn't give us any information, but they, they asked us for information several times. And so toward the end, there was a little bit of friction developing between development of office and ourselves. And finally, while the post was, we were quite unhappy with the post there,

00:55:19.550 - 00:55:36.000

Saturday morning started off. It was very inaccurate, very false. And when we went up to the development office, Saturday night, waiting for Dr Masterson, we pointed this out to uh oh, it was their Sunday morning edition, the one star, the state edition that comes out on

00:55:36.010 - 00:55:51.560

Saturday night, they contained a bunch of inaccuracies and we pointed this out to Mr New in the development office and he, he got us his copy and said, yes, we, we realized that they made some errors and they, uh he had shown us, you know what,

00:55:51.570 - 00:56:13.070

what they had called in, correct and they had made some corrections. But the story was again, it was slanted, it contained a quote of a student, Paul Malloy who was one of the, a few vocal students who was very much in favor of Doctor Masterson. And

00:56:13.080 - 00:56:27.310

uh it gave him, I think about three paragraphs, you know, saying how he said that students at the faculty have no right to say anything about this and that most students are for Doctor Masterson. In other words, it was a personal quote and it, it was

00:56:27.320 - 00:56:43.000

more, it was false. But we pointed that out to development and they said, well, there's nothing that can be done about that. They can quote anybody they want, even though it's not representative. And as far as you think, good, uh, the Post and K Pr C

00:56:43.010 - 00:56:58.439

since they were owned, are owned by Mrs Hobby. Uh, we kind of felt that there wasn't a whole lot we could do about any coverage that they gave us, but we were real happy with the coverage the Chronicle gave us and, and again, we worked with

00:56:58.449 - 00:57:16.290

Dave Beckwith during the Charlie Freeman Device and he gave us good coverage and he helped us out a lot again and we just learned yesterday that he had been fired by the Chronicle and the, the thresher staff tells us that it was the development offices doing,

00:57:16.320 - 00:57:29.020

but they were quite unhappy with them. I don't know if they know what they're talking about, but you get a chance to talk with Dave. I haven't talked with him since then. The last time I saw him was right at the end of the, uh, Charlie

00:57:29.030 - 00:57:50.530

Freeman thing. He came by the station. But, uh, well, he was made in a community associate of Brown College. He was so, you know, held in such high esteem as students. Let me ask you something. Um, John, did you ever hear anyone speculate? Uh, um, that

00:57:52.969 - 00:58:06.590

the reason for uh Doctor Masterson's leaving? Uh, so suddenly Sunday was that maybe this thing was already taking effect and maybe he was already deciding to resign. We just went back to see what he could do to salvage his old job. Did anyone ever suggest that,

00:58:07.489 - 00:58:27.750

ah, that wasn't suggested right off to us. Uh, most people thought that, uh, he was just going back because he saw that, that he was going to get nowhere, uh, talking to the students. And there was speculation that the faculty, uh, the people in the faculty

00:58:27.760 - 00:58:47.699

that perhaps he should meet with were snubbing him and there was speculation the other way that he was ignoring the faculty, speculation on both counts about that. And the feeling was that, that, uh, he had just left because he saw that nothing else could be done.

00:58:48.209 - 00:59:10.229

And the, uh, then as, as the, uh, opinion poll was announced, it was speculated that he would, uh, wait out the, the opinion poll and decide what to do. Um, there was more or less general feeling that if he did resign, that the University of Chattanooga

00:59:10.239 - 00:59:25.899

would offer him his job back or he would be Chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, which is what his job is going to be. And, uh, there wasn't really much speculation on that he was going back there to salvage his old job. Most people

00:59:25.909 - 00:59:42.719

thought that that even though he had resigned and that, uh, he may be in a, he would be in a difficult position since he had done. So, most people thought that that since, uh, as far as we knew, he had been held in quite high esteem

00:59:42.729 - 00:59:59.060

back at the University of Chattanooga, we kind of felt that, uh, he could have the job back if he wanted it. So it wasn't a direct speculation, but it was felt that, that, that, in other words, we didn't speculation we heard wasn't that, that was the

00:59:59.070 - 01:00:14.709

reason for him going back. We didn't think that at the time. And another question I wanted to, uh, get your opinion on, did, uh, warn scar ever say anything, uh, to suggest that, uh, perhaps in relaying the vote that, uh, of the students that took place

01:00:14.719 - 01:00:36.389

Monday and relaying this to, uh, Doctor Masterson that, uh, they might have planted the idea with Doctor Masterson that if he didn't resign, they would release the figures. Uh, I don't know if, uh, if Warren ever, you know, implied that that threat or whatever it was.

01:00:36.399 - 01:01:03.040

Uh, he, because, because everything he said publicly was that the figures were only for, um, for Doctor Masterson on the board. And I don't think that he ever implied it. But I'm sure that Dr Masterson, probably when he saw the figures you could see of how

01:01:03.050 - 01:01:19.290

embarrassing this would be both personally and to the board of trustees if the figures were released. And I'm sure that at that time that he thought that students were desperate enough after, you know, after he had seen everything we had done, I'm sure that he probably

01:01:20.000 - 01:01:32.810

thought that we would release them if he didn't act on them. When I don't think it even had to be implied. And I don't know if it was, I kind of think, I don't think, I kind of doubt if Warren did do that. But, uh, I,

01:01:33.300 - 01:01:50.409

I bet personally, I think that, uh, Doctor Masterson would have that in mind. And this was indeed from what you said while ago, this, this was indeed discussed at the Tuesday afternoon meeting that they might consider making them public when just about the time that you

01:01:50.629 - 01:02:08.580

came in, it was being discussed. I don't think Warren ever ever said he would, but it was being discussed by several college presidents and just the students around there in general that, that maybe they release the figures if he just sat on them because here we

01:02:08.590 - 01:02:26.629

had students have gone to all the, the trouble really of setting up this opinion poll and that they felt that if the board and Dr Masterson took the figures and just sat on them and did nothing that the students' opinions and the faculty would be such

01:02:26.639 - 01:02:50.290

that figures would have to be made public just to, to justify continuing what action would be taken in the future. But since he did resign, of course, I cut everything off looking back on it, um, from the vantage point of, uh, of this evening. What, um,

01:02:50.370 - 01:03:14.350

at what point do you think the, uh, uh, the opinion changed from, uh, resistance to the board's action because of the procedure to resistance because of the man? Well, I think it uh changed to a great deal uh to a great extent when he spoke to

01:03:14.360 - 01:03:31.739

the students at Lovett Hall or just about his first public appearance because the, the crowd that was there turned hostile toward him. They, they were at the beginning, they were more or less just waiting to see what he had to say, everything he said just came

01:03:31.750 - 01:03:51.169

out wrong as far as they were concerned and they turned to be openly hostile toward the end. But from are, are talking to people the, well, throughout the whole thing, from the beginning on really the cinema against the man was stronger as far as the faculty

01:03:51.179 - 01:04:10.439

was concerned. And the students mainly since most of the students weren't acquainted with the man himself, just the seniors. And I think it was after, after the Saturday night meetings and after it had been explained what had gone on, what had gone on at the Saturday

01:04:10.449 - 01:04:27.750

night meetings. In other words, Sunday night at the college meetings where the college presidents got up and explained to the members of their college exactly what they had gone through, how hard they had tried and how he had ignored them, had promised to meet with them

01:04:27.949 - 01:04:47.540

again and had left. I think that, that, uh, Sunday night is when the more or less everyone crystallized against the man. I think, I think it started slowly with that first, the first time he appeared with the students since he, he said the wrong things as

01:04:47.550 - 01:05:05.050

it turned out. And, but I think it was the college meetings on Sunday night before the opinion poll that really crystallized the opinion against him. What was your personal reaction to his, uh, his presence on Saturday had the, uh you had an opportunity to see him

01:05:05.060 - 01:05:23.350

both of the press conference and then in front of the students. But, uh what was your impression of in, uh, in those two situations in the press conference, the atmosphere? And I was real relaxed. He was among friends. He was among members of the board and,

01:05:24.060 - 01:05:41.219

and the press, uh, was mostly disinterested really, um, it, that in itself was not really a big story. I mean, they, they had to get out here. This was, was news in Houston, Doctor Masterson, one of their own had come back and, uh, but the reporters

01:05:41.229 - 01:06:01.929

and the photographers just asked, you know, a few law questions that really didn't amount to much. They, they, of course, ask a few questions about, uh, the situation as it stood because of the way it had been chosen. And, and, ah, he stated that he would,

01:06:01.989 - 01:06:18.030

that was his first job was to restore communications between all elements of the university. And, ah, he repeated this just about the same thing out when he was talking to his students. He, ah, did not, you know, change face or anything. He told them the same

01:06:18.040 - 01:06:39.750

thing that, that would be his first job. And then the question was asked of him, whether he would as a first step in this direction in restoring communication and trust between all elements of the university, whether he would submit to being rec chosen as it were

01:06:39.760 - 01:06:59.870

by the Student Faculty committee. And when he said, you know, he would not under any circumstances that he could receive resign or go through that. And, uh when people started, you know, picking away at him on this thing, uh, he, he, he really stuck to the

01:06:59.879 - 01:07:16.360

same line that, that, uh there was no, he could foresee him no reason for him resigning and that he would try to restore uh communication between all elements of the community. And, uh this is more or less what he said at all the meetings. Looking back,

01:07:16.370 - 01:07:39.810

can you think of any way that he could have handled that situation that uh would have won the student silver? Well, the, I think the only way that he could have gain the support of the students is if he had stated that he would uh if

01:07:39.820 - 01:07:59.929

not, you know, just resign completely and just let them try to choose him if, if he would submit to being evaluated, if he would submit to going through the student committee, uh Student Faculty Committee on presidential selection. If he had done that, I think the majority

01:07:59.939 - 01:08:16.770

of students, if he had, if he had said that Saturday morning, or if that had come out of the Saturday meetings, the majority of the students would have accepted him. And because at that time, like I said earlier, the opinion against him had not crystallized and

01:08:16.779 - 01:08:35.548

it would have been felt that, you know, he was doing the first taking the first step and restoring the student Faculty Administration Board of Trustees type of communication he was promising. And as a matter of fact, that was the main subject of the meeting with the

01:08:35.559 - 01:08:55.740

college presidents and S A leaders Saturday night. And of course, they uh really went round and round on that one. And um it came out that Doctor Masterson would submit himself to be. He first said he would submit himself to be re evaluated, but only if

01:08:55.750 - 01:09:14.899

they would examine his ideas and not, you know, ignore his personality. And then after meeting with the trustees for dinner or the trustee, whoever it was, he said that he would not do that because he didn't think it would be a fair evaluation. But if he

01:09:14.910 - 01:09:35.669

had gone through some, uh, gone through the, the committee again, ah, and won its approval, I'm sure he would have been accepted even though m, ah, a minority and probably a vocal minority would have been against him for the reasons that some people were personally against

01:09:35.680 - 01:09:55.508

him to begin with. Such as the fact that he was the firm hand on the tiller, the strict ah administrator and that he did not have the prestige and ah national a claim that uh Doctor Pitzer did. But I still think that he would have gained

01:09:55.519 - 01:10:12.399

acceptance among the students if he had gone back to the committee. And I think it have gained acceptance among a large portion of the faculty. And since faculty opinion against the man was much stronger than the students from the outset, there probably would have been some

01:10:12.410 - 01:10:32.100

members of the faculty who would have started looking for positions elsewhere, for example. And, and who would have still felt that this was bad for the university as they did from the outset. Do you know enough about um Doctor Masterson's ideas or aspirations for uh the

01:10:32.109 - 01:10:52.919

uh Rice University to compare them with what you understand, to be the aspirations of the students and faculty? Well, I just know more or less in a general sort of way. And actually, I think that uh Doctor Masterson's ideals and aspirations aren't all that much different

01:10:52.930 - 01:11:14.600

from the students and faculty. I think he honestly, as do the board of trustees want to make, wants to make Rice University, you know, a great university of national reputation. And uh I think that, that he would probably that no, he wanted to uh to build

01:11:14.609 - 01:11:39.410

the liberal arts uh side of the university, but that most students even ses uh like myself think that the university should build stronger, you know, in all fields as, as he did. And I think that what most uh students feared was that based on what they

01:11:39.419 - 01:12:04.839

knew of his past performance, that he would have been uh strict administrator as far as campus issues, go say the recent Charlie Freeman crisis, I'm sure they, you know, thought that he would have handled it in a very strict manner and uh that he would be

01:12:04.850 - 01:12:26.779

more or less the board of trustees, man, I think is, is what it boiled down to and uh that they didn't want the board of trustees running the university, really. They wanted, they want a president who has the ability to get along with the board and

01:12:26.790 - 01:12:44.109

yet be, you know, independent of them. And I think that as far as his aspirations go, I think that they are just about the same as the students. But I think that not faculty, but I think that most students and faculty didn't think that uh the

01:12:44.120 - 01:13:04.560

ones most students in fact that were opposed to him as a man, didn't think that Doctor Masterson was capable of doing what he wanted to do, making us great nationally because uh he wouldn't attract the great scholars as uh Doctor Pitzer did and thus wouldn't attract

01:13:04.569 - 01:13:23.279

the national money even though he could get local money and uh things like this. Uh But as far as the aspirations going on to believe, you know, Doctor Masterson and the board want this the university to be a good university. It's just that the students and

01:13:23.290 - 01:13:46.959

faculty disagree with them uh as to how this is best accomplished and perhaps uh even disagree as to what a good university is a little bit. If you uh pointed to the most important area of disagreement, what would occur to you a disagreement between say the

01:13:47.250 - 01:14:07.470

master of the board and the more vocal uh faculty and students uh as far as, as far as dis areas of disagreement, what, what are, what are important areas of disagreement between these two as far as rice is concerned? Uh you mean uh about achieving national

01:14:07.479 - 01:14:27.620

greatness? And so if you, you mentioned that uh that you thought there were areas of uh of a disagreement between uh what a university is. I was just wanting to explore that. What when did things occur to you? Well, I think to the uh well, to

01:14:27.629 - 01:14:51.770

the board of trustees, they think that uh as far as I, you know, can ascertain from what I've heard is that, uh they think that rice would be a good university if we can continue to say that we have the third highest uh sat average of,

01:14:51.779 - 01:15:09.060

you know, any freshman class of any university. And we have so many number of National Merit scholars that, you know, each year. And if, you know, they can keep giving out figures like this, if they maintain their, their entrance requirements is what that amounts to and,

01:15:10.109 - 01:15:30.959

and, uh, spread the name right around the United States as much as possible through the use of such things as the football team and the basketball team. They have them play strong, nationally well known football teams from diverse areas of the country. And, uh, this gets

01:15:30.970 - 01:15:54.109

the name Rice known to people. I think that, uh, they're, they're looking for this kind of national renown and I think that, that most students and faculty wanted to go deeper than that, everybody, more or less knows that the caliber of Rice students is fairly high

01:15:54.120 - 01:16:12.529

because the admissions requirements are real high. And, uh, it's just that a lot of students feel that, that Rice itself isn't living up to the caliber of the students that it has and that, uh, Rice is a good university but it's not as good as, as,

01:16:12.540 - 01:16:30.250

ah, its reputation is in a lot of areas because people who do know who do know about Rice generally tend to, you know, think that it's a very good school, whereas a lot of people who go here don't think that it is really that good of

01:16:30.259 - 01:16:55.459

a university as far as, as, uh, as the, uh, educators here are, uh, and the, uh, graduate school and the facilities and things like this. And, uh, as far as Doctor Masterson goes, I think that he would probably be more toward the, uh, students and faculty

01:16:55.470 - 01:17:12.729

view that, that he would try to build, you know, the university itself up, uh, as far as, ah, you know, internally and, uh, not just try to build up the reputation, which is what the board of trustees seems to try to do because I think that's

01:17:12.740 - 01:17:29.890

one of the, well, I'm, I'm sure from what they've said that's one of the, uh, the reasons that they chose Doctor Masterson because as, ah, Mister Allen said, ah, to the faculty on Friday afternoon, ah, the reason that they had chosen Doctor Masterson is because what

01:17:29.899 - 01:17:48.140

better way than to show that we have arrived and to choose one of our own as president. And this is by having Dr Masterson as president of Rice University doesn't make it a better university at all. It just gives them something else they can say. You

01:17:48.149 - 01:18:07.580

know, now Rice is, was able to choose one of its own, you know, our first distinguished, a graduate and faculty member who was the first Rice graduate and faculty member to become a president of another university has now returned to become the president of Rice. That's

01:18:08.100 - 01:18:28.750

more good, uh, propaganda is just about what it amounts to but it, it doesn't really do anything are in the feelings of a lot of people that didn't further making Rice. Actually a great school. As could the appointment of, ah, a better known and a more

01:18:28.759 - 01:18:49.930

capable administrator. Do you think that there was very much of the scientist uh versus uh humanities or science versus humanities involved in this issue? I really don't think so at all. That is a question that occurred to me right at the beginning. And that's one of

01:18:49.939 - 01:19:08.850

the questions that I asked as many faculty members, especially as I could. But that really wasn't the feeling at all. Most of the, the sc faculty members said that now that does not, did not enter at all. And as far as myself being a um an

01:19:08.859 - 01:19:24.410

se student, uh that really made no difference to me at all in your position of the, of doing a lot of interviewing and talking to a lot of people through this whole period. Uh Did you form any ideas about who the important opinion molders were on

01:19:24.419 - 01:19:48.069

campus as far as faculty members? I think uh Dr Alan Gro was one of the, the uh foremost since he is the chairman of the committee on minority admissions, which is one of the, ah the committees. It is one of the more liberal type committees on

01:19:48.080 - 01:20:06.620

campus, a newer committee and it's on something that is probably not very near and dear to the hearts of the board of trustees. And, and he's always been fairly vocal and outspoken about things and quite articulate. I was gonna say, is he an EENT man? Yes,

01:20:06.669 - 01:20:26.109

he is. He's, uh, he's the one that if a TV station gets a taped interview of him, they'll play it on a newscast. Like he, he appeared on TV during one of the newscasts during the Masterson thing and again during the Charlie Freeman affair. And um,

01:20:27.069 - 01:20:51.689

another outspoken member during this thing was Dr Cark Reed of the biology department. And of course, he was very opposed to Dr Masterson as a man the beginning on and I was very vocal about his opinion of Dr Masterson. I think it's quite funny to listen

01:20:51.700 - 01:21:11.520

to it sometimes. And Doctor Gruber was not one of the ones that was in the, the limelight as far as the students go, as far as a lot of people seeing, you know, get up before groups of people and say the college meetings. But, uh he

01:21:11.529 - 01:21:25.270

was very concerned about the situation and he still is, he was very concerned about the state of the university and he talked to so many people and talked so much that by Sunday, he was completely hoarse and could not talk at all. And, and he did

01:21:25.279 - 01:21:44.040

get up and speak before the Hanson College meeting on Sunday night and he had to speak in a whisper and, um, Dr Broaden was of course involved, but he was, he was more behind the lines. He wasn't one of the ones that, that got up and

01:21:44.049 - 01:22:04.129

spoke a lot to groups of people really, uh, Dr Adams of the geology department, uh, was, had a lot to say. He said a lot at the Hanson College meeting and I talked to him later and he went over to Brown and spoke to them and

01:22:04.370 - 01:22:26.220

uh he was again one of the ones that was against. Doctor Masterson is a man just about as much as any of them. And uh say there was another one. Well, Dean Pfeiffer was also very much involved in this thing, won a lot of student support

01:22:26.229 - 01:22:47.250

because he came out, you know, very strongly in favor of the students and faculty position and his interview to us and to the students over the year, he said that if Doctor Masterson were named President of Rice, that he couldn't foresee him continuing as dean of

01:22:47.259 - 01:23:11.000

students. And of course, as things turned out, he resigned because he could continue under the um administration of Dr Vander Bur either. But he was very strongly in, you know, in favor of the students action and was very genuinely appalled at the, the method that the

01:23:11.009 - 01:23:36.399

board had used and you had the choice. There was another faculty member. Oh, Dr De breacher also of geology. He was very vocal and he's one of the ones who was questioning Dr Masterson at the meeting in front of Lovett Hall. He, but also was interviewed

01:23:36.410 - 01:23:53.169

by several of the radio stations. And it was another one that was very vulgar. Do you think these men make the impression, uh, over the, uh, uh, the television, the, the Houston television stations where they were interviewed? Uh, how do you think they came across, uh,

01:23:53.529 - 01:24:17.350

as individuals? Well, just from, uh, talking to people like, uh, Doctor Grove, uh, several of my Houston friends said that their parents, you know, they saw him and their immediate reaction was Yankee troublemaker since he's got a Brooklyn accent, you know, these Yankee troublemakers down here.

01:24:17.879 - 01:24:40.180

And, oh, another, another one I forgot to mention was Dr Nissen, you know, who has a mustache and hair longer than average for his age group. I think that a lot of these professors when they do appear on television, for example, they, they come across as,

01:24:40.189 - 01:24:59.450

you know, kind of kooky way out college professors and that, you know, that they don't win any public support really. I think that, that, uh most people would not sympathize with them no matter what they say. We, you know, Houston is a more or less conservative

01:24:59.459 - 01:25:20.220

type city, just like public reaction is gaze from letters to the editor in the newspapers and from talking to students who live here and also, I've got cousins who live here in Houston. Um, most of them, I see these professors as, as kind of radicals leading

01:25:20.600 - 01:25:46.169

young kids astray. Really? Do you think there's any truth to that? No, I really don't. I, well, as far as in the rice case, uh anyway, I don't, I think that uh some of the professors would have acted irresponsibly given a chance in that situation. Some

01:25:46.180 - 01:26:05.049

of them were so violently opposed. But the faculty, after their meeting on Friday really had no means of effectively doing anything from then on, it had to be what the student Association was doing because the faculty had no way of communicating with other members of the

01:26:05.060 - 01:26:20.020

faculty. Ah, we had reports of how they, you know, they tried to pick us up on their radio because, ah, at night we can't be received off campus very well. We're legally not allowed to be received off campus at all. But during the day, we can

01:26:20.029 - 01:26:35.500

be quite a, quite a distance away. But some professors told us how they turned their radio upside down and put it in the, the washboard with some water, they could pick us up. And another one told us how they had to turn all the lights off

01:26:35.509 - 01:26:51.700

in the house to pick us up. But since this was the weekend, most of them weren't on campus, they had no way of really knowing what was going on. And so the, there were a few of the of the vocal faculty members were calling for, for

01:26:51.709 - 01:27:15.140

action that, that seemed even to us to be a little bit far out like Doctor de Breacher saying that um that the faculty, I guess should sue the board of trustees for, for um breaking the will because the will states that we have that the board

01:27:15.149 - 01:27:36.299

is charged with creating a university of the first rank by choosing Doctor Masterson. they broke the the will or something. And there were a few, you know, instances of this. But I think most of the faculty was generally genuinely concerned. And uh I think that the

01:27:36.310 - 01:27:52.479

students as a whole, we're very concerned with the faculty. We, you know, we're going to think of them and that's why the students tried to act as moderately as possible so that the students and faculty would always be together on the whole thing like the San

01:27:52.490 - 01:28:11.000

Carry Saturday faculty students united. We didn't want to do anything to seem extreme to them. And I think most of them were uh you know, very moderate in the, you know, under the circumstances since they had really a lot more to lose than the students did

01:28:11.009 - 01:28:25.910

because we'll be gone in a few years. But many of them, this is their entire career, you know, they kind of stay at rice. And if, if something were to cause rice's reputation to diminish or not to grow as they, they came here hoping it would,

01:28:25.919 - 01:28:47.310

then this could be, you know, adversely, affecting their life. Were there, were there very many faculty members, um, presidents on the campus on that Saturday morning when you had the 10 o'clock meeting at the gym? I think there were, um, quite a few considering the fact

01:28:47.319 - 01:29:01.240

that they really had no way to know about it but, uh, 50 to 100 maybe. Uh, I'm not sure, you know exactly how many there were probably, or there were, it's safe to say that there were a lot more at the meeting, Sunday night at the

01:29:01.250 - 01:29:21.629

colleges because committees had been set up to phone them. And, uh, I'd say a ma a good majority of the faculty were at the college meetings. Did, uh, were any of the speeches, um, at the faculty meeting? I mean, at the student meeting, uh uh particularly

01:29:21.640 - 01:29:42.799

impress you the Saturday morning, the morning meeting. Just, just, uh, I remember that at the time they did, I can't remember, uh who made them now. Uh I really can't remember at the time, but I remember, I can't remember now, but I remember at the time

01:29:42.810 - 01:29:58.290

there were several by members of the faculty and I think I'm right. I'm sure one of them was by Dr Grove. It was, uh, it was very impressive uh at the time and I think he dwelled, you know, not on the man as such, but just

01:29:58.299 - 01:30:15.089

on, on the state of the university, you know, you know, the board of trustees would do something like this, betraying a trust. I think at that time, Saturday morning, that was the theme, you know, a trust had been betrayed that the board shouldn't do this and

01:30:15.529 - 01:30:32.859

personality of the man had not yet entered it. And as, as a matter of fact, we were discussing this, uh Saturday afternoon when Doctor Masterson got up before that crowd in front of Lovett Hall, he really did not know what, what was going to hit him.

01:30:32.870 - 01:30:49.649

He did not, I'm sure that he did not know that there was any animosity toward him as a man. As a matter of fact, there was quite a bit, um, mainly the people who were there, most of them, you know, knew Dr Masterson and were hanging

01:30:49.660 - 01:31:07.850

around, I guess. But up until that time we and the Student Association and the faculty were saying nothing against the man. And, uh, and when, when radio stations would ask us, you know, is there any, you know, are people particularly against Dr Masterson for any reason?

01:31:07.859 - 01:31:23.750

We said, you know, just a few but not many. Ah, and there were probably, there were more than what we indicated, but at the time, we did not want to place him in any position where it would be hard for him to back out. We just

01:31:23.759 - 01:31:40.629

wanted to, you know, to place him to make the situation such that he could gracefully rego, you know, go through the committee and be resected if that's what the committee decided. And we are very careful not to vacuum it or the board into any corner. It

01:31:40.640 - 01:32:01.020

would be extremely embarrassing for them to have to get out of as events went. He was back into that corner, uh, essentially by the opinion poll. And, uh, of course, then there was extreme agony and embarrassment because he had to resign. But, uh we were, you

01:32:01.029 - 01:32:16.450

know, really trying hard. And, uh, of course, that's all that he knew everything that he knew about. It was the fact that people were against the manner in which he had been chosen. And I think that was his biggest shock when he spoke to the, the

01:32:16.459 - 01:32:34.169

students Saturday 1230 outside of Lovett Hall was the fact that there was that much feeling against him too, especially after what he said. Ok, is this, uh the first time you've ever witnessed, uh, an individual under personal attack? Have you ever seen anything like this occur

01:32:34.180 - 01:32:57.830

before? Not to my memory? I, nothing of this nature. It's like I said before, we were really impressed by, by uh how haggard and, and really horrible. Doctor Masterson looked at 1230 that night after he had met with the students. He, uh and also we were

01:32:57.839 - 01:33:20.839

impressed with, you know, how shocked he was at the reaction of the crowd outside of Lovett Hall. It was really, you know, we were most sympathetic to him as a man throughout the entire thing. Well, John, you certainly have given us a fine interview and you

01:33:20.850 - 01:33:35.049

were in a good position to have seen a great deal that went on and really to have been in the center of the nerve structure, really, it was really a valuable experience all of us who were involved. Of course, it it really made the radio station

01:33:35.060 - 01:33:54.609

because people were aware of it. And uh when this Charlie Freeman thing had all the local radio stations and everybody started calling us immediately to find out. So, but it was really too bad that something like this, you know, had to happen to, to help us.

01:33:54.620 - 01:34:12.399

But I think it helped draw the students and faculty get together and we had hoped at the time that it would, would draw us closer to the board of trustees. And I appear that they were more alienated than ever because of our actions. Uh Mr Teague

01:34:12.410 - 01:34:34.359

told Doctor Levy that we were uh bunch of unruly kids that had to be controlled. And we're really very sorry to hear that after all of our efforts to be ladies and gentlemen and wear ties and, and do everything as well as possible. While showing our

01:34:34.370 - 01:34:53.240

great concern, the board had to take it in such a manner. But looking back on the on the situation, all of us at the radio station think that that the way the students and the faculty under the guidance of uh Dean Gordon and Juan Scarron did

01:34:53.250 - 01:35:08.419

everything just as right as they could have done in this situation. I, we really think that they did a very good job of handling the situation the way they did and that uh I was so much better than the way it's some of the student protests

01:35:08.430 - 01:35:25.720

are handled elsewhere. Do you uh this comment that Mr Teague made to uh Doctor Le uh uh do you know at what point? Uh he said this was it during the crisis or was this, this was after, this was uh 3 to 4 weeks after? Uh

01:35:25.870 - 01:35:43.700

he, he told it to us and I mentioned it to Dean Pfeiffer about a week after he told it to me. And Dean Pfeiffer said that Dr Levy had mentioned the same thing to him. And Dean Pfeiffer also said that his personal knowledge, knowledge was, you

01:35:43.720 - 01:36:01.319

know, about the same thing that uh members of the board of trustees, you know, simply did not understand. They, you know, they really did not comprehend, you know, what, what the big stink was about. And uh and that now they think that more than ever that,

01:36:02.470 - 01:36:23.330

that they need someone to firmly be in control, which because why they chose an acting president, one of the reasons they chose an acting president to, to better keep things under control because, ah during the Masterson crisis, of course, they lost all faith in the ah

01:36:23.350 - 01:36:46.580

executive committee running the university under the leadership of Dean Gordon, especially as Dean Gordon sided with the pale students against the board of trustees. This uh whole experience seems to be such a successful mobilization of uh important leadership opinion and consequently, uh uh support that. Uh

01:36:47.750 - 01:37:08.160

has it, has it taught you anything about how you might uh approach uh opinion mobilization on the board of trustees and how you might go about changing their attitudes we thought at the time. And actually, we still really think that is that the board, you know,

01:37:08.310 - 01:37:25.839

they always meet downtown and they, they really aren't close enough to what's going on on the campus to know. Of course, they're, they're a different generation than us and they're, they're businessmen and uh they've got different ideals and goals in life by now than, than we

01:37:25.850 - 01:37:43.379

do. And uh of course, they're a lot more practical than, than we as students and faculty are, I guess in the long run. But for example, um Hanson College had a dinner for its community associates uh that we had just named and it was one of

01:37:43.390 - 01:38:00.000

the special, the one special dinner a year that the food service prepares for us, banquet style food and everything. And we invited all of the, the trustees and we were going to have them sit at tables with responsible type, you know, student leaders in the college

01:38:00.009 - 01:38:17.029

and uh and not necessarily discuss Master Masterson thing or anything. But, you know, just let them know what's going on on campus and of all of the members of the board, the only one who came was Mr T who seems to be, and generally he is

01:38:17.040 - 01:38:34.529

to be, be a member of the board who is trying hardest, you know, to do a good job to, you know, to meet with students and faculty. And, um, but from what I've been told, even this is discouraging because even though he, and, and this comes

01:38:34.540 - 01:38:52.609

mostly from Dean Pfeiffer that even though, you know, he has been trying hard to uh to understand what's going on, you know, he still made the statement that, you know, we're unruly or whatever he called us and uh that we thought at the time that just,

01:38:52.620 - 01:39:09.919

you know, communicating with them would, would be enough. I think that's about the only thing we can do. Uh like, they don't, most of them don't even receive the uh weekly rice thresh or of the student newspaper. And they, they really just are completely out of

01:39:09.930 - 01:39:33.089

touch with what's going on at the university. And that's the biggest shortcoming, I think right there. Uh looking into the future, uh uh do you uh have any personal aspirations for Rs or any definite program that you would like to see uh uh change in the

01:39:33.549 - 01:39:51.799

coming years? Well, I, you know, I haven't really thought too much along those lines. Uh I really didn't think all that much about, you know, what the university should be or what it should do until a master's in crisis. And that, of course, that made a

01:39:51.810 - 01:40:13.410

lot of people start thinking, uh, I think that, that rice, uh, has the reputation to build on. We've, and, ah, we are a good university. I think we can become better. And I think that, well, some of the things that, that the board does, it just

01:40:13.419 - 01:40:32.990

seems to a lot of, uh, students and faculty that, uh, that they shouldn't be doing. For example, when they took the, got the Fine Arts Department from the University of Saint Thomas, they should have, you know, taken the Media Center also. And, uh, of course, there

01:40:33.000 - 01:40:51.569

is a lot of feeling that the reason they didn't do this is because of, uh Mister o'grady who had been fired from rice, they, you know, didn't want to bring him back and, ah, or like, um, the admissions of, of minority students, black and Mexican American

01:40:51.580 - 01:41:15.169

is, I think that, that rice could benefit in the long run. I mean, other great universities, Harvard and MIT, and these, these other nationally well known schools are able to, to, uh, have programs set up where they can bring in these underprivileged and minority group people

01:41:15.180 - 01:41:34.100

and make them into succe successful students at the university. And, uh, this really makes the university a lot better. I mean, here I am a white student going to school with upper middle class, you know, white students who are from essentially the same background as myself.

01:41:34.580 - 01:41:48.560

And I'll probably be traveling the same circle of type of people for the rest of my life. And I think it would be advantageous to me just as an individual to have gone to school with, with a varied mix of people. And of course, something like

01:41:48.569 - 01:42:08.569

this, if they let in these, ah, these students with not so superior academic record, this will knock our, our average of SAT scores down, which is one of it seems the board's criterion of making rice a good school. But I think that, uh, not, you know,

01:42:08.580 - 01:42:26.549

any wild eyed liberal that, you know, wants to just knock him down and start letting in underprivileged people. I think that the main function of rice is to give me a good education. But I think, and so doing it can give, you know, have programs for

01:42:26.560 - 01:42:51.060

underprivileged and for culturally deprived minority type, uh, students as well. And, uh, I just think that, well, I think that Doctor Pitzer was, uh, you know, he was heading in the right direction. We, we got, we have the college system which has great potential. Uh, other

01:42:51.069 - 01:43:07.560

schools are starting to copy it. We've had it for 12 years now and it's just now starting to, to realize its potential by having college courses. I think they ought to look into this more and, ah, there are, you know, many different ways they can go

01:43:07.580 - 01:43:25.120

and I just think that, that they ought to try to, to work on building up rights within and then if they do the, the reputation will follow, I don't think they ought to just worry so much about the reputation as such. It is what it seems

01:43:25.129 - 01:43:43.450

that a lot of what their efforts are toward. You hear a lot these days across the country about uh greater participation in decision making processes. Um uh do you hear much talk about uh, this kind of thing uh, around now or? Yes, I've been hearing quite

01:43:43.459 - 01:44:03.950

a bit about that. Uh, here at Rice, I think, well, when I was, uh a student under Doctor Fitzer and until the Masterson thing, I always thought that that Rice students did have quite a voice in the affairs of the university. And I thought, I thought

01:44:03.970 - 01:44:24.979

then that we had, you know, a fair amount, a proper and fair amount and we had an effect more than uh what uh most other universities had. And, uh, I really think that that as far as, as it's structurally set up, we, we do, we have

01:44:24.990 - 01:44:48.770

students on most of the important committees and our student association and college governments, especially the college governments have quite a lot to say about the, the general living conditions and things that go on on campus. Uh I don't think that, I think that in something like

01:44:48.779 - 01:45:06.910

a case of a, a faculty member being fired. You know, it was popular with the students. I think that no formal mechanism should be set up where a student should be able to veto the administration as far as who is hired and fired. I think that,

01:45:07.919 - 01:45:23.529

that if, you know, the students really let out a, a big screen that this should be taken into consideration, I think in the past it has at times. Uh and as far as the faculty, ah goes, I think that in the past, they have felt that

01:45:23.540 - 01:45:47.180

they been able to participate quite ah deeply in the administration of the university, the committees have generally been strong and the college masters as a group, it has emerged as a quite powerful uh group of faculty members on campus as far as student relations go. And

01:45:47.790 - 01:46:10.479

the department chairman seem to be quite strong as far as directing their departments. But I think that in light of recent events, the first trustees ignoring the student faculty selection committee on president presidential selection that shook up a lot of people. And then uh when acting

01:46:10.490 - 01:46:27.290

President Vander Bur overruled the ah committee on examinations and standings on the Charlie Freeman case. And though he did go back and meet with them and promised that he wouldn't do that again, I think that those two events showed people that, that the students and faculty

01:46:27.299 - 01:46:46.569

participation in the uh the running of Rice university. Although in the past we had felt it to be quite adequate and quite good. Uh, it's based more on, on tradition than on any legal, on any legal grounds at all. And that, as long as you've got

01:46:46.580 - 01:47:08.660

a president that, you know, ah, respects the traditions, that's fine. But if you do get a president that, you know, wishes to use all his fairly great power that he has, that the students and faculty voice can become nothing. And I think that, well, lately, the

01:47:08.669 - 01:47:30.680

Student Association is going to pursue very much next year, the idea of incorporating, become a separate entity from Rice University and, ah, to be independent from, ah, the board of trustees legally, so that they can do things without the trustees actually, you know, shutting them down

01:47:30.689 - 01:47:50.620

or something like that and that the faculty as talking about, um, organizing themselves into a faculty senate that would meet regularly because as it stands now, they cannot meet unless the meeting is called by the president. And, and, ah, as in this case of the Charlie

01:47:50.629 - 01:48:09.740

Freeman admissions case, ah, the faculty desired to meet to, you know, have their say about what they thought, but they could not legally meet as the faculty because Doctor Vandever, who was the president had to call the meeting. And they, there was some feeling among members

01:48:09.750 - 01:48:25.479

of the faculty to set up a faculty senate that meets every other week or something. It wouldn't or to set up a method of having a group of faculty members call a meeting and not just the president, I think most of this has come about because

01:48:25.490 - 01:48:48.919

of, of these couple of instances of the faculty students committees being ignored, um which again was just based on tradition. And now, I guess there is one, there are steps being set up to have some kind of legal basis for gaining more students and faculty boys

01:48:52.759 - 01:49:09.700

all in all. And uh are there any other favorable outcomes for the Masterson case that uh occur to you aside from the fact that you won? And uh these other things are taking place. Uh No, I, I really can't think of any. Um again after right

01:49:09.709 - 01:49:26.609

after it was over, I was quite elated because, you know, we had won that battle and it appeared that we're winning the war. It appeared that, that this would be a good chance for us to set up communications with the trustees and, you know, the students

01:49:26.620 - 01:49:43.629

and faculty were together now and out of the whole thing, it appeared that everything was going to really be good, but it appears like I said that the trustees don't see it the same way we do. And uh from, from all the people we talk to,

01:49:43.640 - 01:50:04.299

especially in the, the Freema thing, I think next year is going to be a pretty troubled year as far as the university goes. I think that that uh, Doctor Vander will make a couple of perhaps unpopular decisions and, uh, in light of, of what occurred this

01:50:04.310 - 01:50:26.399

year, I think that they'll be more serious than, than otherwise because I think that the trustees are more fearful than ever and that they, and, uh, if I were putting myself in their shoes, I would probably be pretty fearful too because they really don't understand what's

01:50:26.410 - 01:50:47.020

going on and they can look all around them at all the other college campuses they're having, you know, physical type violence. And I still don't think that will ever happen here, at least not foreseeable future, like, not next year because, uh, the, the actions of the

01:50:47.029 - 01:51:05.189

students during the masters and thing and during the Freeman thing shows that they're very much opposed to the radical type type, uh, solutions. Uh, even something that's, that's come to be not so radical like a general strike and not going to classes even that wasn't called

01:51:05.200 - 01:51:22.790

in something as, as desperate as the mass or something became. Although it probably could have, you know, if, if it had stretched out, but as far as occupying buildings, I'm sure that if that occurred here it would be a very small minority would be in favor

01:51:22.799 - 01:51:44.439

of that. I mean, even the SDS, uh, is not in favor of doing something like that there more intelligent than to, to try something like that here, I think. Well, John, I think you've covered, uh, you've covered the, uh, the events of those days, uh, very

01:51:44.450 - 01:52:00.959

thoroughly and very completely. Is there anything more you'd like to have if I bring this to a close? No, I can't tell you about that. Certainly appreciate you coming in. I realize it's the exam you care. I enjoy rethinking the whole thing. Well, you certainly have

01:52:00.970 - 01:52:15.890

given us a valuable interview. It contains a lot of, uh, a lot of information which, uh, could only come from you and your position then of observation. Thank you very much time is now 930.