00:00:00.000 - 00:00:29.600

Okay, sounds good. It should there's a little red light at the top top left Yep. Yep. Sounds good. Okay. Thank you. Um, so, uh, guess to start, I just want to situate us in place and time. I'm Kenny Evans and I'm here with Dr. Luis Proenza and Dave Caruso from the Science History Institute. And today we're doing an oral history interview with Dr.

00:00:29.600 - 00:00:58.480

Proenza, um, as part of our work, um, studying the history and function of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Um, so as Dave mentioned, uh, life oral history interviews, so we want to start at the very beginning. Um, I know that you were born, um, in 1944, is that correct? Yes. That's correct. And you were born in Mexico City?

00:01:00.160 - 00:01:28.640

Yes, uh-huh. Great. Well, maybe we could start by, if you're, if you could tell us a bit about, um, your early life, um, what your family was like, where you were located, and what you remember from your childhood years. Well, please feel free to ask a more detailed question. I'll be brief. Born in Mexico City, but then my family moved, uh, because of my father's hardware pressure to

00:01:28.640 - 00:02:03.680

Guadalajara, and eventually to Acapulco. Uh, but at age 11, uh, he'd been born in Cuba, moved to New York City at 1920, and I think his experience there suggested to him that, uh, I would do well to get a U.S.-based education. Um, he and my mother had married, uh, in 1941, I believe, uh, 42, roughly, and, and I was born in 44. My mother was, uh, from the northern part of

00:02:03.680 - 00:02:34.080

Mexico. Um, my father's family probably originally from the Canary Islands and Portugal before that, perhaps, uh, the Iberia Peninsula, and my mother likewise, uh, through Spanish influence in Mexico. But in any case, at age 11, I came to the United States to, um, start my education in the seventh grade at a, um, Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia, which was a boarding military

00:02:34.080 - 00:03:08.800

academy that had both a junior school, seventh and eighth grade, and then a high school. So I did my, my high school there, um, went, uh, then to, uh, college at Emory, um, and eventually a graduate school at, uh, Ohio State for a master's and, uh, and University of Minnesota, uh, for my PhD. My training was in, sort of, physiological psychology early on, and then, uh,

00:03:09.760 - 00:03:40.320

neuroscience with a focus on the, on the retina, the visual system in general, but particularly my research was on the, on the retina, and I joined the faculty of the University of Georgia in 1971. And as a result of the things that were happening at the time in neuroscience, started the, uh, the university's first, uh, program in neuroscience, uh, and, uh, and, uh,

00:03:40.320 - 00:04:07.920

as a result of some of those interests, uh, uh, chose to join the National Academy of Science and Study Director for the Committee on Vision. I believe that was in roughly 1977, that that for about two years, uh, returned to the university and then, uh, found myself still very interested in, uh, not only the organizational aspects of, uh, the developing

00:04:07.920 - 00:04:40.880

thrust that were taking place in neuroscience, uh, but in the relationship of the research programs at the university to, obviously, the funding agencies in, in Washington. So I became, what you might call the first federal relations person for the university, focusing on science and technology, um, and, uh, um, did that for a few years, um, and then found myself, uh, with

00:04:40.880 - 00:05:05.520

opportunities. So went to, um, went to, uh, the University of Alaska as vice president from the church, and that was at a time when a lot of things were happening in the U.S. interest in the arctica and the Antarctic and the polar regions. Um, Rita Caldwell, uh, had just, uh, chaired a major report for the National Science Foundation, uh, from that National Science

00:05:05.520 - 00:05:35.840

Board, I think, uh, actually, uh, on, um, uh, the polar regions with, uh, with a strong focus on the Arctic. Uh, so found myself very much immersed in that and, um, uh, moved the university to, compete for and win the contract for the polar ice coring office at that time, which did the ice core drilling in, in both polar regions. So that was a great deal of fun because I had a

00:05:35.840 - 00:06:02.960

chance to not only travel more extensively in the Arctic, Greenland, and, and of course other parts of Alaska and even, uh, during my time in Alaska is when the, um, glass knots began and we had a chance to travel, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, I'll conduct that in a minute. Uh, but in any case, uh, that was a great time. We had a chance to, of course, go to Antarctica as well. Uh, during my

00:06:02.960 - 00:06:33.600

time in Alaska was appointed to the National Biotechnology Policy Board. So that was an, an endeavor that was very helpful and, uh, also, uh, at that time, um, uh, Senator Stephen, Senator Murkowski, and others established a, a Presidentially Appointed Commission on the Arctic, the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, and I was one of the early members of that. Uh, and, uh, so that, that

00:06:33.600 - 00:07:03.920

continued a, a, a framework of engagement in, in policy and, and in, uh, aspects, if you will, of, uh, the U.S. interests broadly in science, but at that time particularly on, on, on, on high latitude research. Um, anyway, then quickly jumping and I'll end with just that, after seven years in Alaska, I had an opportunity to take the parallel position at Purdue,

00:07:04.560 - 00:07:36.720

Vice President for Research there for five years, and then I took the presidency at the University of Akron in 1999, and shortly thereafter, uh, is when my tenure at, uh, PCAST under, uh, Bush 43 began. So, um, here, let's, uh, that's a quick, quick rundown. Thank you. Thank you for that. Um, well, I want to jump back to, um, I guess both your, your childhood and your parents, you mentioned

00:07:36.720 - 00:08:09.840

your dad, uh, was in New York for a period. What did he do for living and, and why did he travel to New York? Oh, goodness. Uh, I think, uh, he left Cuba in 1920 and I, my sense of it was that really, it was a time when, uh, the U.S. was offering significant opportunities and, um, I, my understanding is that he, he looked to see what the great, uh, the great city of New York had to

00:08:09.840 - 00:08:41.760

offer. Uh, I don't really know a great deal of what he did early on. I do know that, uh, he took, uh, odd jobs initially, like, uh, uh, just washing dishes, so forth. Uh, but eventually was in some measure of business and when, when he married my mother, he had, uh, uh, agreed to represent a number of companies, uh, for sales in, in Mexico. Uh, that didn't go so well, so he actually

00:08:41.760 - 00:09:09.600

joined and partnered with my mother. She had started a business at the Mexico City Airport before that was anything other than a hangar and a runway. Uh, and so together they built the business that became quite successful and as it grew, um, as obviously Mexico City Airport also grew and so rather than being the dominant and only business at the airport, uh, uh, it became the

00:09:09.600 - 00:09:42.400

first one of just a few and eventually one of probably 80 or more, um, small businesses along the, the, uh, the concourse of Mexico City Airport. But I think it was that, uh, that time in New York from 1920 to early 1940s, that suggested to him that, uh, that I would be well-served by getting a U.S.-based education and I don't think my, my mother quite bargained on the fact that

00:09:42.400 - 00:10:14.800

that might take me away from, uh, from, from the family and, uh, to, uh, situate me here for the rest of my life. That's life as they say. What was the, what was the family business? Uh, uh, in, in, initially it was what you might call a, uh, general purpose business, uh, from soft drinks to snacks to some, uh, Mexican, uh, curio, um, um, souvenirs and the like.

00:10:15.520 - 00:10:42.960

Uh, eventually when the airport began to grow, by that time they had moved to Acapulco and they had a, initially a small department store, uh, but then eventually they focused on, uh, jewelry and the, the business was called, uh, Plata de Tesco or Tesco Silver. And so they focused on, um, jewelry and things made from, uh, from Sterling Silver in Mexico. And that, that became the focus both in

00:10:42.960 - 00:11:16.240

Acapulco and at the airport in, in Mexico City. So they had both, both stores at once? Uh, yes, uh, and kept it for quite a while. Uh, let me try to remember, um, somewhere around the middle of the 1960s they sold the business in, in Acapulco and, uh, focused, uh, almost entirely on the, uh, on the shop in, in, um, in, in the airport.

00:11:17.600 - 00:11:51.760

I see. So your, your father moved back, uh, or excuse me, he moved from New York to Mexico sometime in the early 1940s and that was, that was when, right? And was that, go ahead. Well, uh, he had met my mother in a curious set of circumstances by correspondence and they did pen paling, um, for a number of, I guess, years. Um, he wanted her very much to move to New York

00:11:51.760 - 00:12:20.480

and get married there and live there, but she would have nothing to do with that. So he eventually relented and came to Mexico, met her and her family and, uh, settled in, settled in Mexico. So think he always kind of longed. And indeed, uh, during my college years at Emory, they moved to, uh, to Atlanta and, uh, uh, he had a small business there.

00:12:21.040 - 00:12:51.520

Uh, and they lived there for probably four, maybe five years. And he got involved in some other ventures with some other people there, but eventually, uh, they moved, uh, for a very short period of time to Texas a few months and then back to, to, to Mexico, Mexico City and Cuerdovaca. So at the time of your birth, uh, they had their business in Mexico City at the, at the airport

00:12:51.520 - 00:13:26.400

together. Yes. And, um, so what, uh, in your, before you moved, um, you mentioned that you moved, uh, to Riverside, Georgia at 11 at that time, were you still in Mexico City or, or had they moved to Acapulco for the second shot? They were already in Acapulco by then. Um, and so indeed, I traveled to, uh, to Gainesville, Georgia from, um, from Acapulco and, uh, was it at Riverside, traveling back

00:13:26.400 - 00:14:03.280

to, uh, to, uh, Acapulco for Christmas and, and summers. Uh, but otherwise, um, basically was based in, in that boarding school for six years. You see. Um, so previous to that move, you, so you went to, to grade school in Acapulco. Right. Do you have any, started in Cuerdovaca, but, uh, I think we moved to Acapulco when I was maybe, oh goodness, uh, science six or eight, something like that.

00:14:03.360 - 00:14:30.560

And not, not quite sure. So, uh, you continue, and I'll, I'll occasionally take a little bite here as a trial and crack case here. Go ahead. You go ahead with your questions. I'm fine. Oh, okay. Um, yeah, I, I, I guess I wanted to follow up on, on your childhood, um, Cuerdovaca and Acapulco. Do you have, um, I guess what I want to ask is what was, what was life like for you when you were enrolled

00:14:30.560 - 00:14:58.560

in a, in a kind of, uh, uh, K through 12 or a elementary school or at that time? Well, by that time we moved to, um, to Acapulco. I was probably in the second, third, fourth, maybe even sixth grade. I'm not quite, uh, no, probably fourth, fifth grade, something like that. And, uh, harsh life was great. Um, Acapulco was relatively small at the time. There were lots

00:14:58.640 - 00:15:27.920

of open countryside, uh, very interesting big boulders and rocks and you go exploring and jump from big boulder to big boulder. Um, and obviously being on the ocean, um, learned, uh, uh, the waters, the swim. At that time I did not have as much of an interest in sailing as I do now, but, uh, uh, Mexico was not a big, uh, seafaring sailing country, but it, it, uh,

00:15:27.920 - 00:15:58.000

wonderful place for a young boy to, to grow up, uh, walk down to the beach, swim, go home. Salt water was always good for bruises and cuts. So very, very nice indeed. Did you have any siblings growing up? No, I'm a family child. I see. Um, and, uh, what was, do you remember that early education when you were in grade school? What, um, classes, teachers?

00:15:58.000 - 00:16:32.160

What, what was, what was that like? Well, um, I remembered a few things. It was challenging, but one of the things that certainly I was pleased to, to do is to, in, in, in Mexico and virtually every school, they, they teach you a second language, typically English, uh, right from the start. So I was fortunate to have a chance to learn English

00:16:32.160 - 00:17:04.880

from, from an early start. So by the time I did, uh, go to Riverside, uh, I didn't speak it fluently, but it was, uh, pretty good shape anyway. And the other thing I remember, I guess, is that, uh, the, the top bigs and levels of education were such that when I went to Riverside for the first couple of years,

00:17:05.600 - 00:17:37.120

there was not much new material to learn other than so in short, uh, like I think you would be aware of the fact that, uh, European countries, Latin American countries, uh, move at a faster space than, than US educational systems. So when our, when students from the US go to Europe or to Latin America, uh, they usually are behind educationally. And by contrast, when they come

00:17:37.120 - 00:18:05.280

back or when a, a Latin, a Mexican student comes north, they're ahead of their peers here, uh, for a period of time. And then they, they do, they find their after. So that was another surprise, so I think, uh, but a good one. There was some great fun in terms of learning the subtleties of, of, uh, shall we say, uh, colloquial English and accents and so forth. But I was fortunate,

00:18:06.000 - 00:18:39.840

I guess, not to, uh, get mired with one particular accent, either in Spanish or in English and speak fairly neutral, um, except in context. As my wife likes to say, uh, being Southern is, Southern is contextual, not congenital. I like that. So you had a, um, you had an English, uh, this English class in your learning, um, English. Were there other courses that stood out to you

00:18:39.840 - 00:19:16.480

that you remember from, from those early years? Not, not really. My memory of subject matter really begins, uh, in high school. Um, I very much enjoyed, uh, geometry, for example, was something that, uh, excelled at, um, enjoyed science, but at that time nothing in particular stands, stands out. And obviously history and other languages took, uh, uh, it was funny, the, the,

00:19:16.560 - 00:19:36.080

the people in, um, Riverside thought that maybe I should take Spanish as a second language. Uh, that didn't go over so well because the, the teacher was from Italy. It didn't speak English or Spanish particularly well. So, uh, I quickly switched to French. Do you speak French as well?

00:19:38.160 - 00:20:04.000

Uh, not fluently, but I enjoyed and loved the, the, the rhythm and pronunciation. So, it's a wonderful language. Yeah. I, I liked French as well. Um, so, um, I guess before we moved to your, your move to Riverside, um, I guess I want to still, um, follow up on, on life in, life in Mexico. Were there, um,

00:20:05.280 - 00:20:29.600

you mentioned going up on rocks, uh, being in the ocean, getting bruised up, doing all the fun things that, that kids do. Um, what about at home? What was, what was home like life? Did you guys eat dinner together or, um, get ready for school together? What was, what was like in your home growing up? Well, as an only child, uh, and, uh, uh, you know, at that time, um,

00:20:30.800 - 00:20:59.920

my parents, uh, were able to afford, of course, it was very, very expensive to, to have, uh, and Annie for me and someone that helped around the house as well. Um, and she was just a great, great person. And that was, uh, uh, a wonderful memory of a person that influenced my life in a, an emotional and supportive sense. Uh, but yes, typically, uh, ate breakfast and lunch and dinner

00:21:00.800 - 00:21:31.200

with my parents. Um, in those days, uh, certainly in the smaller cities in Mexico, people who worked, uh, or had a business would go to work at, uh, say nine o'clock, maybe open at 10, they'd take a break at one o'clock for lunch, uh, typically a couple of hours and then go back to, to work. So it was possible for my father to come home, uh, have lunch and

00:21:31.200 - 00:22:04.720

then return to work. Uh, and my mother too, who helped in the store. So, uh, yeah, we were, uh, pretty much, uh, uh, together. Um, uh, obviously, um, well, excuse me, while school was in session, um, the, um, lunch would, would be taken there and so forth. So I, but, but otherwise, uh, meals were with the family. Um, occasionally being invited to a friend's home and that sort of thing, but,

00:22:04.720 - 00:22:35.040

uh, um, good, good, good solid, uh, and very supportive family. My, my father, I think, uh, um, was a person of his word, uh, very ethical. Um, my mother sometimes chastised him because she said that if he promised to do something that, uh, he didn't think about very thoroughly, once he'd promised, even if he now thought it wasn't a very good idea, he'd feel obliged to

00:22:35.040 - 00:23:08.080

carry through with the, with the promise. Uh, so very ethical person. Uh, my mother was very business savvy and also very, um, uh, shall we say, uh, generous in the sense that she was always looking to help, uh, orphan kids. Um, and so she helped start an orphanage in Kordavaca. She helped start an orphanage in Acapulco. Uh, but then her, she insisted that anything she did wasn't simply

00:23:08.080 - 00:23:38.480

giving them money. She would help them set up a business that would then help sustain them, as well as feed them, uh, at Bakery, uh, at Tortilla factory, that sort of thing. So she, um, is very business savvy in that regard. And also I think understood that you, you don't really help young people by giving them things, uh, but by helping them understand the value of work

00:23:38.480 - 00:24:08.560

and that work has its rewards, uh, both, uh, intrinsically, as well as financially and so forth. So, um, that, uh, that continues to this day, as far as I'm aware. The orphanages? Yes, yes, both. In fact, the one in Kordavaca that she helped establish, um, uh, has been featured, um, uh, in, in various publications like, uh, readers, digest, et cetera. And if I recall

00:24:08.560 - 00:24:37.920

correctly, it was the subject of a documentary of some sort. There was a, a, uh, I believe it was from the U.S. American priests to help establish the same as Father Wasson. Um, he's probably deceased by now, but anyway, uh, he was sort of the, the person that my mother worked with to, to establish it. And I'm sure that continues. The, the orphanage was called, uh, Nuestros

00:24:37.920 - 00:25:09.360

Pequeños Hermanos, uh, our little brothers. Uh, and it's, as far as I know, it is probably still there and, and, uh, was certainly well known then. Did you ever tag along with, uh, your mom at her, at that, while she was grading these, these orphanages? Oh yeah, we, we, we would often, often, certainly several times a year, uh, go by and visit

00:25:09.360 - 00:25:38.080

and get to know the kids. And she continued to sponsor a child or two later on, but again, her, her focus was to help them establish their business and to, to insist that they learn how to run it and so forth. During this time, were you, um, were you, excuse me? Oh no, please take your time.

00:25:43.200 - 00:26:05.200

So I guess I'm, I'm, uh, about two things. Um, one is if, you know, outside of, uh, you know, going and exploring, climbing over rocks, being in the ocean, were there other hobbies you had as a, as a young child, um, interest that, that you developed? You had mentioned geometry, where there, were there other things that you were involved with as a kid?

00:26:09.040 - 00:26:39.600

Well, um, a couple of things that I know, um, horseback riding was something I did with some regularity, but one thing that does stand out in my mind is, uh, on one of our early trips, when I was probably four or five, something like that, we went, uh, visited some of his family in Cuba and then went to New York and my folks bought me a, uh, McKenna erector set,

00:26:41.600 - 00:27:12.000

and it was, uh, they're still around. They're not like Legos. They're, they're, you may know them anyway. Um, they came in a big nice wooden box and they had all sorts of, uh, screws and bolts and, um, uh, um, different kinds of metal parts with, uh, pre-drilled screws and so forth. Then you could build, uh, all sorts of things, um, uh, trucks and cars and, uh, cranes, uh, backhoes,

00:27:12.000 - 00:27:39.840

things of that sort. And I really, uh, I really loved that thing, uh, both because it showed what was possible in pictures and, but it also, because it enabled, I think, the imagination to take over and to take the components and build things that weren't in the books and so forth. So that, that was great fun. And, and frankly, I think that continued in my life. Uh, uh, my wife

00:27:39.840 - 00:28:09.200

and I eventually built the boat, uh, I built bookcases and just about to finish, uh, building a rowboat, uh, things like that, that become both creative and, um, it's a skill anyway that has many applications. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. My, my grandmother had a set at her house. I remember they were like indestructible. Yeah. Yeah. I looked them up periodically and I think

00:28:09.200 - 00:28:35.440

they still make them in France, uh, but they're not commonly known these days in, in the US for reasons that, and I haven't seen anything quite like that, uh, since. Yeah. Maybe Legos, by the time I was a kid, had seemed to take it over in terms of, um, early building sets and stuff like that. Yeah. And ironically, Legos just doesn't seem to have the,

00:28:36.640 - 00:29:05.440

the look and feel of what might be truly things you could today find in a hardware store and pull together and make things proud. You know, you, you can do all sorts of things, but they're not, they're not as functional, you might say. At least I don't think so personally. Yeah. I would, I would agree with that. Um, so, um, yeah, thanks, thanks for that. Thanks for

00:29:05.440 - 00:29:30.480

sharing. I think the, um, the next question I have, and I, I guess if Dave has anything, um, on early childhood, I was going to talk, like ask about your transition to Riverside. Um, was there the only question that, that I had was, um, in terms of the time that you were spending with your parents, I'm always curious to know if, you know, what are the discussions, uh, that you have with

00:29:30.480 - 00:29:59.040

your family around the dinner table or on weekends or when traveling? Are you sitting there talking about politics, uh, religion, um, what education, um, you know, what were some of the, the common discussions that you had with family members or friends or, or any, anyone else, uh, as just like a background to your life, literature, my books, read, um, complicated mathematics problems. I'm

00:29:59.040 - 00:30:24.240

just curious, what were some of those discussions like, if any? Sure. Um, my father was, both of my parents were relatively, uh, apolitical, shall we say. Um, but we certainly followed, for example, what was happening. Can you hear me okay, by the way? Because I've got a blank screen at the moment. Yes, I can hear you just fine.

00:30:25.760 - 00:30:58.400

No problem. Um, anyway, um, we're certainly following, for example, the things that happened in Cuba with the revolution that brought in Mr. Castro, and that was not a happy occurrence for, for the family. Um, his, uh, his folks, uh, you know, clearly communicated a need for just very basic things. And my mother would, uh, pull together packages of medicine and some basic

00:30:58.400 - 00:31:33.760

supplies. But aside from, uh, that, shall we say, uh, international dimension of, uh, politics, uh, not much involvement, uh, uh, we didn't track Mexican politics in particular. But to your question, um, it was, uh, conversations mostly, uh, about, uh, what was happening in, in the community, what was happening in their business, uh, people that they knew. Um, there was, uh,

00:31:33.760 - 00:32:03.040

elements of, uh, my father was pretty well read. Me, neither of my parents had more than a high school education. And, um, I think my mother didn't complete the high school education even. Um, but my father had acquired, uh, some of the classic, uh, Greek literature, for example, and kept that at home. And what was well enough read to comment about this or that in, in world

00:32:03.040 - 00:32:29.360

history from time to time. Uh, so that was, uh, interesting. And I remember admiring his, uh, modest, but, uh, but reasonably sophisticated library, um, would enjoy sitting with him while he was reading. One of the very, very first books that he bought me was the life of Sir William Osler, thinking that I might become a physician, um, which I wasn't particularly interested in

00:32:29.360 - 00:33:03.120

doing so. But that was, uh, that was interesting. Um, uh, you know, I think my father, more than my mother understood that, uh, life in, in, uh, in academia was, uh, very respectable. Uh, my mother, uh, in, in Mexico, uh, teachers, although valued for, for teaching, uh, they're not the kind of thing that you wish your son to become. Um, so that was, uh, an interesting dimension in

00:33:03.120 - 00:33:30.560

that, uh, in that domain. Um, so I don't recall anything else of, uh, particularly, you know, uh, in the evenings, uh, particularly when we lived in Acapulco, the beauty of the place was just such that, uh, just sitting there and observing the changing nature of the scenery was very worthwhile and that might lead to, you know, did you remember to do this? Did you

00:33:30.560 - 00:33:54.800

remember this, this couple that bought that? You know, things fairly, fairly simple matter. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. At, at that, um, so you mentioned you didn't want to be a physician. At that young age, did you have, um, any dreams, aspirations that you loved and that you were playing with?

00:33:55.840 - 00:34:22.800

That's, did you have any career that, that early? No, in fact, you know, I, I retained the idea that I might become pre-med when I went to college, but it didn't really, it didn't really gel. Um, no, to be honest, I've often joked that I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. Um, and a lot of what transpired in, in my studies was

00:34:22.800 - 00:34:53.920

I became interested in something and followed that and finally where we had led. That was very much clear in terms of how I got to neuroscience, but we can talk about that later. So no, there was nothing, um, that I would say was a driving passion that I had to learn this. Thanks. Um, so you went off to, to Riverside, Georgia at 11. Was that, that was 1955?

00:34:55.200 - 00:35:29.920

56. 56. 56. Yeah. Well, it was born in December of 44, so that's the, the switch there. I see. Um, and what, so what was it that brought you to Riverside? You mentioned your father had served at the American education. Go ahead. Sure. Uh, very interestingly, my mother often expressed for many years a real surprise and, and, um, uh, she couldn't understand my father was not a person to be

00:35:29.920 - 00:35:57.360

interested in the military. So she wondered why my father would sort of push towards by going to a military school. And clearly, in large measure, what he thought was that the, the discipline and structure would be good for me. Uh, and it had turned out to be that way. I credit a lot of my interest in leadership and in how I do a lot of things, perhaps too fastidiously. Um, but that

00:35:57.360 - 00:36:26.240

was part of, uh, of that. But we, we came to it and interested in those days, uh, uh, boarding schools advertised, uh, in the back pages of the National Geographic magazine. Uh, so we, we wrote to a number of them. And, uh, interestingly, um, I think Riverside Military Academy, where I went, had the most interesting, uh, catalog or promotional literature, if you wish. Um,

00:36:27.120 - 00:36:55.280

and, uh, humorously later, the, the, the students there would, would, would say, oh yeah, that, that joke book that we got, the promotional literature was not exactly the same as the reality, but anyway, not, not far from it. Yeah. So so you, uh, you had mentioned you'd already traveled to the States at least once you'd

00:36:55.280 - 00:37:24.960

visited New York, but was this your kind of first time in, um, in Georgia? Was this, uh, and also you're, you're, you're traveling alone at this point? Um, or did your, your parents send you off? Uh, my, my father, uh, accompanied me to, uh, to enrollment. Uh, but then after that, I traveled by myself at any time that I was coming and or going. I see. And that was,

00:37:25.840 - 00:37:58.880

you were there kind of year round and you'd go back for holidays? Uh, for, for Christmas and, and summers. Um, my last summer, uh, before I graduated, um, uh, I did stay, uh, a good bit in Atlanta, uh, took a small job at a grocery store and, uh, it was really making friends, uh, in the area. And by then, you know, I'd been gone for nearly six years and the ties in, in

00:37:58.960 - 00:38:30.400

Mexico to friends that began to, to not be as strong as the other kids had gone off, off to, you know, college or whatever. And so, uh, I began to really be interested in, in remaining. And once I graduated and I knew I was going to, uh, to Emory, in fact, I, I, I started my, my college education the summer after I graduated from Riverside. So that did not go home for the,

00:38:30.400 - 00:39:06.080

for the, for the summer. I see. Well, what was, you know, when you're, uh, your dad accompanied you to enrollment, I mean, what was the transition like? Was this your first time kind of being away from your family for a period of time? Yes, uh, very much so. So, um, two things. Number one, um, the, that very first day in, in, in Riverside was a lot, lots of things happening.

00:39:06.080 - 00:39:37.120

You're getting this, getting that, getting books, getting oriented to the, to the barracks that were where the rooms were and so forth. Uh, but when I went in to get my uniforms fitted for my uniforms, my dad left without telling me. And he later said that he, he wasn't sure that if he stayed any more, that he would then be actually able to leave and leave me behind. So it was traumatic

00:39:37.120 - 00:40:08.320

for both of us because when, when I came out of the fitting and so forth, I went looking for him and he wasn't there. And I asked and, uh, I'm not sure that anybody really knew except that he wasn't there. Uh, but so, so it was difficult for, for both of us. And, uh, but that, that was the beginning and, uh, you know, there's an initial period, uh, of, of homesickness. I did get, have a chance

00:40:08.320 - 00:40:39.040

to call home and so forth on a regular basis. Uh, but, you know, once, once we settled into a routine, both the classes and the various things that the military school did, uh, you know, parades and inspections and you name it, uh, involving the military life. I got very much into that. And, uh, so in the junior, uh, school, the seventh and eighth grade, I became the company commander

00:40:39.040 - 00:41:12.000

to the highest ranking cadet my second year. And in the high school, I progressed nicely. And indeed my, my final year, I was the, uh, commanding cadet colonel for, for the schools. So in short, I, I had developed, uh, the, the leadership and acumen and so forth to, uh, uh, to rise in the ranks, as they say. Yeah. And as, as a leading cadet, what, um, what did that mean for you to, in terms of

00:41:12.000 - 00:41:45.600

responsibility? Were you, uh, what types of things were you then responsible for as, as being kind of an officer? Well, uh, overall, uh, discipline in general, but particularly the, um, the, the performance of the, uh, formations, the, the parades, uh, inspections. Uh, I think seem to recall, we had either four or five companies. So the company commanders reported to me and, uh, as, as a

00:41:45.600 - 00:42:15.120

result, you know, in the usual sense of a tiered structure, hierarchical structure, would use them to carry forward the, the orders, the, the sense that this was not going quite well, would they take care of this or that and so on. So, uh, I, I'm sure you're familiar with some of that. So very similar. I learned about, uh, you know, we had, uh, junior ROTC. So we learned to

00:42:15.760 - 00:42:43.120

assemble M1 rifles and, uh, I think it was an M50 caliber machine guns and to do on bivouacs and things of the sort that were, you know, kind of like camping and so forth. And it was, that's kind of, kind of fun. Yeah. I, um, I was a Boy Scout, but nothing near a, a military. Okay. Well, I'm, I'm curious. I mean, what was like, uh, what was a typical day like for you?

00:42:44.640 - 00:43:10.240

Um, Reveley was always, I forget what it was, uh, six or seven o'clock in the morning. You, you know, had a period of time to get dressed and ready. Then there was a formation, the formation then, uh, moved sequentially through the companies to, to go to breakfast. As you, you did that, you know, you, you, if, if you were the last company to go through,

00:43:11.680 - 00:43:36.800

I always felt that you had to rush through it. So, uh, I learned to eat fast in order to get what I liked and eat adequately or, or at least enough. Um, and lots of fun with the staff. We, we, we remember some unusual things, I guess you'd say. Um, so, you know, following breakfast, it was the immediate call to classes,

00:43:38.560 - 00:44:11.120

then formation for lunch or through lunch, afternoon classes, athletic things, ROTC things. And then, again, an evening formation, which was sort of the more formal one followed by dinner and study hall time, either in, in the library or in the, in the barrack. So it was just pretty, a very structured day, which I guess served me well once I got, got to have

00:44:11.200 - 00:44:38.800

responsibilities, like running big president of the year from five to 10 o'clock, like at night at times. I see. And it was, it was also close to the water. Were there, were there water sports? There was a pool, uh, Riverside Military Academy was, uh, close to Lake Lanier in Georgia.

00:44:39.600 - 00:45:07.280

But we didn't accept to, to, to go for picnics. There weren't any water sports, like sailing or rowing or things of this sort. But it was fun to be near that lake. But yeah, no, no, no, no other water sports. Swimming was the closest we got to. I see. Did you, um, did you have, um, was, were you allowed kind of, uh,

00:45:08.800 - 00:45:35.520

certain activities or were, were people, did you have particular extracurriculars that you wanted to be involved with and were involved with outside of leadership? Things within the academy were fairly structured so that then you could join different sports. I did wrestling. I did, um, what do you call it, um, marksmanship.

00:45:39.200 - 00:46:09.120

Not particularly interested in some of the other sports, so I didn't do those. We had a time on, on Saturdays and Sundays for other things and we could, we could take the, the school had a bus that we could take into town and walk around, have a coffee, a lunch or whatever. Um, um, there was a nearby, uh, girls academy and so that was always the time also to meet

00:46:09.120 - 00:46:46.400

young ladies and get to know them. And then there were then structured events that, uh, the two schools would join together and have a dance or a picnic and, you know, the usual, you know, they'd call, um, um, um, try to hunt for the word, um, learning social graces, you might say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that sounds fun. It was okay. It was okay. Not, not, not enough

00:46:46.480 - 00:47:16.640

for those times. And, uh, indeed, um, when I finished at Riverside and, and went to, to Emery, my, my first year felt so, so very free that I didn't do as well. My first year in colleges I might otherwise have done if, if I was focused. So what was the, the education like at Riverside? Um, were there were structured classes you had to take, uh, a pretty rich, right?

00:47:18.000 - 00:47:48.000

And they, they offered, um, what you might call a science kind of curriculum, science focus curriculum and I bought liberal arts and social science curriculum. Uh, and I did get the, the, the science one. Uh, I don't really know why I chose it at the time. Uh, a lot of it was, you know, basically something that they suggested I would be able to do. And so I did. Um,

00:47:49.600 - 00:48:18.960

but yeah, but otherwise, you know, typical, I guess I, I didn't know any better. So I don't know what to compare it with. And I didn't know what a typical public high school would do, for example, but, um, math, chemistry, physics, uh, usual gamut of things. I see. Um, well around this time we, um, Sputnik was launched in, in 57.

00:48:18.960 - 00:48:34.800

Yes. We've been, uh, around 30, you know, in middle school at the time. Do you have a recollection of that? Um, and what that was like? Yes, uh, uh, I do. I seem to recall, um, not only the TV transmissions with the,

00:48:35.600 - 00:49:00.160

you know, beep, beep, uh, sounds that, uh, presumably were coming from it, but also, at that time the sky was dark enough and also, um, it was possible to see the satellite moving overhead. So I remember, uh, that kind of wonder. Interestingly, uh, certainly don't remember anything about the news communicating

00:49:00.800 - 00:49:28.160

kind of the U.S. having been beat to this. Obviously it was big news indeed, but there wasn't that awareness of this having been a big, quote, insult to our technological capabilities. I see. Um, well, do you, I mean, were there any, um, outside of leadership, were there things that, you know, drove you, said you didn't know exactly why you picked science? Was there,

00:49:29.040 - 00:49:51.280

was there anything that kind of drove you in that direction? Did you have an idea of what you wanted to study later? Or are you just interested in things? Well, um, again, I think the, the basic idea, uh, from, from my father was that I should, you know, try to move towards becoming a doctor. And so the school probably took that and guided

00:49:51.280 - 00:50:20.800

me towards a pre-science, pre-medical type, uh, college curriculum. Um, and, uh, you know, obviously some of those things were more interesting. Um, again, I don't know what it was about, uh, geometry and proving various theorems, uh, that, uh, that interests me or the simple equations for a line for a parabola for that sort of thing. I remember being intrigued of how you could graph

00:50:22.000 - 00:50:57.440

some of those equations and that was kind of fun. Yeah. Um, and a very interesting math teacher, um, he, he had some kind of deficit, so he, he moved and, and, uh, but he, he was unusual, let's put it that way, although they're also rigorous, but he also, um, had some, one day in class, he talked about, uh, did you know what the cowboy sang through his horse

00:50:57.440 - 00:51:28.160

before he died, you know, and so he'd sang a little song about the cowboy saying, oh, kiss me kiosk and whisper goodbye, something like that. That stands out and curious, curious back of the recess of, of memories. So, um, were there, did you, so you were into, I mean, I, I loved geometry when I was, when I was in high school too. Were there, you were at Riverside, uh, for then,

00:51:28.160 - 00:52:02.480

it was the school that went from 11 all the way till graduation? From seventh grade all the way to, to, uh, through the 12th grade, yes. Um, the other thing that, um, you may not know is that for many years they had a winter home in, uh, Hollywood, Florida, near Fort Lauderdale. And so at the end of the fall, um, period of, uh, time, uh, kids would go, go home and then report

00:52:02.480 - 00:52:32.640

to school, uh, in January in Florida. Uh, and that was great fun, uh, because, you know, obviously, the warmer environment and access to the beach, which the school would take us to the beach on Saturdays and Sundays. Uh, uh, but, uh, the other thing that happened is during that transition period, uh, the honor society for the school on which I was, uh, engaged with, uh, were allowed to

00:52:32.640 - 00:53:04.080

run the, uh, the, the grill, uh, while, while the regular staff would move to set up the one at the other site and so forth. I don't remember two days or five days or a week, I don't recall. We would run the grill and, and then we would get to keep the profits, uh, to mount the annual dance or various events of that sort. So that, that, that was a lot of fun, um, to get created with the,

00:53:04.640 - 00:53:27.440

how you use every last little piece of bread, uh, you know, rather than charging 25 cents for sandwich, you'd take the end of the bread, put a piece of salami or, or a meloni in it, fold it over and sell it for a nickel, you know, so that was, that was fun. Nice. They, sounds like you learned some, uh,

00:53:27.440 - 00:53:51.200

this industriousness from your, from your mother, maybe. Yes. And from this other experience there, yes. So you were, um, was there, uh, kind of something that drove you to Emory? Was it a, um, were you applying to other schools thinking about college early on or, um, what was your,

00:53:52.080 - 00:54:14.000

what was your thought process going on? It was very interesting. I think it was always clear that I would go to college, but I had no idea about what was available throughout the country. And so being in, in Northeast Georgia, the typical schools that the better students were interested in

00:54:14.800 - 00:54:40.560

were either, uh, Emory in Atlanta or Duke in, uh, North Carolina. So I happened to be dating a girl from Atlanta. And so it was clear I wasn't going to go to Duke. So, uh, chose, chose Emory, uh, if you wish both because it was recommended and, uh, because I was dating a girl from Atlanta.

00:54:41.360 - 00:55:07.040

I see. I see. And had you, um, had you spent time in Atlanta before? I guess, did you visit her? Uh, well, you know, Gainesville, Georgia is about 70 miles, uh, northeast of Atlanta. So from time to time, we would get a chance to go to Atlanta. And obviously in getting to Riverside, I would always land in Atlanta and either spend a night or two there or,

00:55:07.040 - 00:55:32.480

or just transit up. So, and, and a lot of the kids at Riverside were from, from the, the area. And so I got, got to know Atlanta not particularly well, but enough to know that it was a decent city. It's, it's, it's gotten too large now for my taste, but in those days it was sufficiently large and attractive that it, uh, it's a very pleasant, uh, larger city.

00:55:32.800 - 00:56:02.480

How big, uh, was kind of your incoming class at Emory? You said you knew, uh, some of the, uh, yeah, you know, I, I honestly do not know. Um, well, I imagine in those days it was maybe 1,000 or 2,000 students. I have no idea. I just don't, don't have that regulation. That would

00:56:02.480 - 00:56:34.560

have been 1962. I don't even know what the total enrollment of Emory was at those days. Um, it, uh, it was a very nice campus on the northeast side, actually in Decatur, Georgia, just part of the suburb of Atlanta. Um, a very nice campus anyway, but as to the size of it, I don't, don't remember. They already had a medical school, uh, but primarily the campus was

00:56:37.040 - 00:57:02.960

relatively small, comparatively speaking. Was, uh, was it, was it coed by this time, by the time you entered? You said it was 19. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, by that time Emory was, uh, was coed. In fact, uh, I think it had been coed for, for, for many years. I just, I just don't, don't know.

00:57:03.600 - 00:57:27.600

I don't even know if Emory was, was all male at any point in its time. I don't, I don't know. Interesting. Um, well, you mentioned kind of, uh, did you, I guess I was curious if you continued ROTC or junior ROTC into Emory. Was there pieces of the kind of military academy, uh, mindset that you brought into college?

00:57:29.600 - 00:57:57.200

No, I think, you know, only a little bit of the, uh, the structured aspect, but as I said, the first year there was such freedom for me compared to, to Riverside that I, I, I was more interested in getting to know the rest of the world than, than in anything. So no, I did not continue with any aspect of, uh, military ROTC. At least I don't remember. No, I don't think so.

00:57:58.080 - 00:58:26.960

Did you, uh, continue to be close with some of your, you mentioned some of your, uh, Riverside, cadets also went to Emory. Did you keep close with them or contact with them? Uh, you know, I'm trying to remember. I don't, I think there may have been a few, but I don't recall pursuing them in any particular way. Again, at that point, I started going my own,

00:58:27.520 - 00:58:55.280

my own way. I see. And so what, um, what did you enroll in your freshman year, um, in terms of, I remember, uh, being thrilled by the large amount of offerings and paying very close attention to what I was expected to take in a mixture of science and social science and et cetera, humanities.

00:58:56.960 - 00:59:26.960

And so, uh, at that point, I was still interested in possibly being pre-med. I had a, a uh, professor that, uh, wanted me to major in physics. Uh, um, and that sounded interesting, but I, I don't recall why I might not have gone that way. But one of the classes that I took very early was a psychology class. Um, and then they'd have normal psychology class. And it got fascinated

00:59:26.960 - 00:59:50.320

by, um, obviously the brain and the, the, the anomalies that were portrayed in the, in the abnormal psychology class. And, uh, that pretty much, I, certainly after my first year, it looked like I was going to major in psychology. And I did at Emory. Um, and, uh,

00:59:52.880 - 01:00:27.040

had a, a fine mentor, a woman who had, had gone to Ohio State. Um, and she and I became very close and she was very supportive of, of my interest. And as I mentioned, I didn't do so well my first two years at Emory. And it had, if it had not been for her, uh, seeing both my interest and, and my success in, in the psychology classes, I might not have been easily admitted to graduate

01:00:27.040 - 01:00:58.320

school. Uh, so she was able to recommend me very highly to her mentor at Ohio State. And I began my graduate career as a result of, of that. What was her name? Bonnie Strickland. Uh, you would find her, she became eventually a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Emherst and eventually also the president of the American Psychological

01:00:58.320 - 01:01:25.680

Association. So she did very well, uh, for herself. I see. And did you keep in contact with her over the years? Was she? We did. Uh, um, uh, when I later traveled to, to, um, for some research at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, I remember stopping by Emherst and, uh, spending afternoon or evening,

01:01:26.400 - 01:01:54.720

catching up. And, uh, we talked, the last time we talked was probably three, five years ago, something that she'd retired and that retired in the area. So, yeah, we stayed in touch. And I was a candidate for the, um, um, presidency chancellorship at UMass, Emherst, uh, the organist, uh, probably in, um,

01:01:57.120 - 01:02:21.200

sometime in the, in the mid-90s. And, uh, she was very gracious, very hoped, hoped that I would get the position, which of course I didn't, but that's a different story. But that was a good time to interact. She was a great champion of, uh, of my ongoing career. Did she have a, a research lab at Emmery? Or was she?

01:02:23.200 - 01:02:55.760

She, she did research more in what you might call the social psychology, personality psychology. She'd been a student of Jules Roder at Ohio State, eventually moved to Connecticut. And, uh, uh, Jules, uh, and she initially developed a number of studies along, um, what they call internal or external locus of control, um, people trying to characterize people with how much they

01:02:55.760 - 01:03:23.280

guided themselves as opposed to how much they were tended to be guided by others. Uh, so that she did a lot of research in, in that area. And after that, I didn't much follow the, the nature of her research. So we did, uh, I forget exactly. I don't know, I did at least one study before I left Emmery. Were you, were you involved, you just, uh,

01:03:23.280 - 01:04:00.560

involved in, in your research efforts or involved in other kind of, uh, outside of coursework research activities? Uh, only a little bit with, with her guidance. Uh, we did a study together on, oh, what was it called? Anyway, it was sort of the early beginnings of some of the, um, civil, um, uh, civil rights movements. So there was great interest in how, uh, white and, and, and

01:04:01.840 - 01:04:32.720

black students perceived each other. And so there was a study that looked at some of those differences. Was it conducted at Emmery? Yes. I see. Um, with, with Emmery students, as I recall. Were you helping interview students or collecting data? Yes. Uh, we developed a questionnaire, um, and, um, I forget how we then distributed them to,

01:04:32.720 - 01:04:58.240

it went to different classes. There, some of the, uh, the protocols that exist today for both approval of, uh, uh, social science research and, and, uh, selection of subjects, et cetera. We're, we're not in place at that time. Let's see. Um, was there a point there at Emmery where you, you know, you had mentioned that,

01:04:58.960 - 01:05:21.520

that she, your mentor had pushed you to go to graduate school. Was there a period where you recognized that as a possibility? And, and, um, that was something you wanted to do? Yes. Uh, but it was quite a surprise. I remember telling both my professor and others said, I thought I'd come to college so I could finish and, and, uh, you know, that my major

01:05:21.520 - 01:05:45.680

would be my profession. And that's it. I didn't know there was graduate school and that you had to get a master's under a PhD. So that came as a little bit of a shock. Um, but once I understood that, it was clear that that's what I needed to do. Um, in, in Mexico and Latin America, when you go to college again, the, the, the level of instruction is that roughly one to two years ahead

01:05:45.680 - 01:06:19.200

of the US system. And so when you finish the university college in, in Mexico, you get a, a diploma that is a license and you're called a licenciado. And so you, you, you practice what, what you went to, to college to study and, or you, uh, you, uh, teach it. So, uh, anyway, so that's, uh, that's when, uh, started exploring where I might go to school and it was clear that

01:06:19.200 - 01:06:51.600

my grades weren't immediately a stellar. So, uh, uh, uh, she called the Ohio State, just strongly recommended me and I got it at that time into the clinical psychology program at, at, at Ohio State. I see. That was, uh, you graduated in 1965 from, uh, Emery? From Ohio State, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, uh, I think that's right. Yes. Um, so you mentioned your,

01:06:52.160 - 01:07:20.960

your grades weren't 60, somewhere around 65, 66. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, did you like, I mean, so you mentioned your grades weren't stellar. Um, did you enjoy clout? Were there classes that you enjoyed and really excelled at or, um, what was it about? Yeah. I mean, I really started getting serious about school, um, my, the end of my sophomore year, beginning of my junior year

01:07:21.760 - 01:07:49.600

and because I had started early, I went through Emery in three years rather than four. But yeah, I enjoyed, uh, not only the psychology, but I, I remember a music appreciation course that I enjoyed a great deal. I enjoyed philosophy, a great deal as well. And I think if I recall correctly that I'm minored in philosophy, uh, so that was very, very enjoyable, very enjoyable.

01:07:50.720 - 01:08:21.680

What was, uh, campus like, like, life, like, um, were you doing other extracurriculars besides, besides schoolwork? Um, you're still looking for leadership? Well, I joined fraternity for a short period of time, uh, but really didn't find that to my long-term satisfaction, I guess. But no, other than that, I, I really, uh, I lived on campus, I think my first two quarters.

01:08:22.800 - 01:08:55.920

Then my folks moved up from Mexico and so I lived at home and then commuted to, to, um, to Emery. Um, and, and I was interested in cars at the time, uh, and I was interested in horses. In fact, I almost quit school to go into the horse business. But yeah, that was, that was, that was fun. Again, the influence of women, the ladies, the girl that

01:08:56.000 - 01:09:35.200

I had been dating and why I went to Emery, uh, loved horses, uh, and how I found this, uh, this particular, uh, stable, I don't recall, uh, but the long and short of it is I, I worked at the stable for probably a year or more, uh, and bought a horse and bought two more. Um, and, uh, as a result of that, uh, I needed a place to keep them and thought about, uh, uh, going into school. There,

01:09:35.200 - 01:10:06.080

there was a, a, uh, residential development beginning in northeast Georgia that was, uh, revamping a barn and wanting to have an equestrian side to it. And so I, I got to the point where I had negotiated a deal with them. Uh, but then it became clear that, uh, it wasn't going to work out the person that I wanted to hire to manage it. Uh, uh, his boss, uh, said that if he, if he left

01:10:06.160 - 01:10:30.400

and went to, to do this, that, uh, he'd be sure to blackball him in the industry. So, uh, I didn't have a second, uh, option on that. So I stayed in school. Well, I had literally gone to the dean at Emery and said, uh, look, I may need to, um, drop out for a while. There's what I'm thinking about. And obviously as all good deans are likely to do, they encourage me not to do that. I may

01:10:30.400 - 01:10:57.760

not come back. Okay. So there, but there, but for the grace of God, I might have been a, uh, in the horse business instead of in science. Interesting. Was there, uh, what was it about? Were you racing the horses? Were they show horses? They were show horses, uh, three and five gated American saddle brads. Um, lovely, lovely creatures. And I just, uh, loved the, uh,

01:10:59.440 - 01:11:27.360

the aesthetics of it. And indeed, uh, aesthetics has played a great, uh, part in, in my life and certainly played a great, uh, great role in how my wife and I built the boat that we now have. But, uh, anyway, the aesthetics of the horse and how they're trained and how they move their hooves. And it's just, it's just lovely. Yeah. Yeah. My favorite book as a kid was, uh, Misty of

01:11:27.360 - 01:11:52.800

Chincoteague. Do you ever go to Chincoteague? Excuse me. Did you ever go to Chincoteague? No, we never went, which is, you know, I don't, I don't know. I've never been, but it must be close to you at this point, right? Well, it wouldn't have been too far from Marlington either. Yeah. Well, this, it just popped in my brain. I haven't thought about this

01:11:52.800 - 01:12:28.400

book in at least 15 years. So, um, yeah. Um, well, yeah, that's really, that's really interesting. So you were, um, dating this, dating this girl at this time, got really into horses. Um, you also mentioned cars. Yeah. Again, the aesthetics of what was then the Mercedes Benz 190 SL, a small sports car, and 300 SL were very, very dear to me. So I, I don't remember exactly how,

01:12:28.400 - 01:12:56.960

but in those days it seemed like they weren't all that expensive. So I first bought a 190 SL and then traded that in for a 300 SL. And I deeply, deeply regret that when I went to graduate school, I felt obliged to sell that because that alone would have ensured my retirement. So anyway, sold it for what I paid for it. Today it's worth $2 million.

01:12:59.840 - 01:13:28.400

Yeah, I had no idea. Were you working on cars too? Was it, uh, was it an aesthetic? I just enjoyed, uh, I took care of it, uh, participated in a couple of, uh, shows, concourse to elegans type shows, but that was about it. Uh, oh, and I did, the other thing that I did do, I almost forgot, uh, my, uh, my advisor at my mentor at Dr. Strickland, uh,

01:13:28.400 - 01:14:06.480

raised German shepherds. And at one point I bought a young pup from her and showed the dog for a number of years. And then of course the dog traveled with me to, uh, for, for the rest of his life anyway, which was moved to, to how it stayed with me, moved to, uh, to Mexico and to Minnesota and then to Georgia and then died in Georgia. So for better part of 12, 15 years, I don't recall

01:14:07.840 - 01:14:51.680

lovely creature. What was the dog's name? Sam. Nice. Did you name him after a particular Sam? Uh, no, let's see, um, uh, he, he, he was a beautiful solid black color and, uh, how do we, uh, we, we, we, we registered because of course that, that was part of the ethos of, of, uh, her, her kennel or raising the dogs. But, uh, I think it had a little bit more elaborate,

01:14:51.680 - 01:15:25.760

but anyway, um, Sam, Sam was the, the short, shortened version. I see. Um, I guess, um, I want to talk about your transition into, into graduate school, but I also want to check in on Dave and see if he has other, um, questions about your time at, at Emery. Okay. Nothing's come to my mind. Yeah. Okay. Um, okay. Well, one thing, um, I'm curious about is,

01:15:25.760 - 01:15:52.640

you know, at this time, um, after Sputnik, there was kind of an increased, um, at least interest and also budget from the, at the federal level for doing scientific research. Was there anything you saw in terms of opportunities during this, you know, this must have been the early 60s at this point? Not at that time. Uh, it, it came a bit later. Uh, what happened is I went to Ohio State and

01:15:53.200 - 01:16:18.160

literally within a, at that time, I thought I was going to continue in psychology. And as I mentioned, got accepted into their clinical psychology, uh, program, literally within months of my arriving at Ohio State, uh, virtually the entire clinical faculty announced that they were leaving and going elsewhere. So I initially said I would go with one of my professors to the University of

01:16:18.160 - 01:16:50.960

Connecticut, uh, and, uh, very rapidly with his help and guidance, finished a master's thesis and a master's degree at Ohio State, uh, moved to Connecticut, but at the end of one semester decided that, uh, I might want to go back and live in Mexico. So moved to, to, to Mexico, taught at the, um, University of the Americas for about a year and a half, uh, met, uh, Stark Hathaway,

01:16:50.960 - 01:17:22.720

who was a physiological psychologist and together with Paul Meale, the author of the Minnesota Multifacic Personality Inventory, MMPI, he, he traveled to Mexico, uh, fairly often. We'd met, uh, I translated for him a few times, uh, with some humor attached to it that along the way. Um, and, uh, and he then encouraged me to continue my work for a PhD and invited me to come to the

01:17:22.720 - 01:17:48.640

University of Minnesota. And so that's, uh, that's what I did. And by the time I got to Minnesota, clearly a good bit more going on in, uh, in, uh, in science. And that's when I transitioned to neuroscience. I see. Um, what was it that brought you back to Mexico? Uh,

01:17:52.080 - 01:18:28.480

you know, it's a very good question. I've asked that, uh, several times. I think, uh, at that time, uh, traveled back, uh, got very, very enamored with some of the architecture, some of the ethos, uh, was a little bit, um, shall we say, um, not disenchanted, but clearly the, the, the, the change, uh, uh, at Ohio State and the, the likelihood that I'd be at a totally

01:18:28.480 - 01:18:56.240

different state to, you know, just felt a little bit like, Hey, maybe this is an opportunity to go back home, so to speak. And, uh, that just really didn't work for a number of reasons. Uh, by then I had been so acculturated to the American system and American way of life that being back in Mexico now felt foreign instead of

01:18:56.240 - 01:19:29.520

familiar. And, uh, while, while I was teaching comfortably at the University of the Americas, it was clear that if I wanted to do anything sufficiently, um, shall we say professionally in psychology, I'd have to get a degree. Uh, the, I forget which university they invited me to do a PhD there, but, uh, they put all sorts of restrictions like, you know, I would have to

01:19:29.520 - 01:19:58.320

start from scratch and, you know, so on and so forth. So it clearly didn't feel like the thing that I needed to, to do after so many years here. So with Dr. Hathaway's invitation, it, it seemed like, Hey, you know, this is, this is what's destined to be facts. So off to, uh, off to Minnesota in the year wasn't that would have been 1967, I think.

01:20:00.480 - 01:20:23.280

Did you, um, you were teaching psychology? Yes, uh, primarily physiological psychology, but, uh, you know, small enough school that they needed some things, but I taught a course in cross-cultural psychology. What else? Um, yeah. Oh, of course, in animal behavior.

01:20:24.640 - 01:20:40.800

Did you have any experience teaching before that? Or was this your first entrance into leading a classroom? Uh, as a graduate student, I had, you know, taught a couple of classes and just filled in and so forth, but not a full class. No.

01:20:41.600 - 01:21:08.320

At Ohio State? Uh, yes. And even as a, as an upper class fit at Emory, I think I had helped a professor teach one class, uh, you know, a couple of lectures at most. I see. Um, I mean, so, I mean, teaching for, uh, for me has been an interesting transition.

01:21:08.320 - 01:21:34.560

How did you face teaching? Was it something that you, how did you learn how to teach, I suppose? You know, it's a good question because I don't think we were ever taught how to teach at, at, at our graduate schools, which is a bit of a problem, but I think that's where some of my leadership skills from, uh, Riverside began to fall into place because as, as a leader,

01:21:35.200 - 01:22:05.680

company commander, you know, platoon leader, uh, squadron or the battalion leader, uh, you, you, you need to project your voice. You need to, uh, command a certain level of authority, uh, and communicate that well. And so I think that served me in good stead and it, it felt almost natural. I see. Um, did you want to be at that point was teaching your preferred career path? Were you

01:22:05.680 - 01:22:34.560

thinking you wanted to be a professor or you wanted to do other, other things where you, did you still want to buy horses or there? No, um, uh, at that time, I still didn't quite know what I wanted to do. It was clear that I would know I was interested in brain and behavior. So I was a little bit more focused on physiological psychology, neuropsychology, uh, and, uh, Minnesota

01:22:34.560 - 01:23:00.400

had a very fine department of psychology and of course, uh, a, a program in neuropsychology and close, close relationship with neurology and neurosurgery at their medical school. But, you know, I didn't even know that at the time, uh, Stark Hathaway was just simply the, the reason and ability to not only felt strongly that I should continue,

01:23:01.040 - 01:23:27.280

but he saw to it that I had an assistantship and, uh, so financially I could, I could make it work. I see. Were there other, um, schools that you were looking at or you just, you wanted to follow Dr. Hathaway and thought it was a great program? Yeah. And, and, uh, I guess there's one thing I did omit, uh, at Ohio State as part of my master's,

01:23:27.840 - 01:24:01.120

I had done a paper on, um, there were a number of ideas at that time about what is it that was the problem with schizophrenia. Okay. What, what exactly is wrong with schizophrenic patients? And one theory was input dysfunction, that the schizophrenic is so unable to control the sensory inputs that they are overwhelmed and, and can cope and hence the psychosis is a,

01:24:02.160 - 01:24:29.920

a result of that. Well, I had discovered around that time that, uh, the, the brain, um, has efferents as well as afferent projections. In other words, uh, for example, our fingers carry touch information to the brain, but the brain can control how we feel by focusing the attention or directing the attention elsewhere. That's why in part, if you are very busy doing

01:24:29.920 - 01:24:56.880

one thing and are injured in another part, you may not, not even notice that you've been injured. Um, so, um, that, uh, was an interest that I carried into Minnesota. And I can tell you about that when we talk about Minnesota. Yeah. Well, I think, um, I think now, yeah, it'd be a great time to hear about you. You, you were also a, I know you're a research fellow there too. So

01:24:56.880 - 01:25:27.360

you're working both in a research lab and also, um, at the, at the medical school there. Uh, it, it was still in the psychology department, although I did have a number of interactions and courses, um, with both neurology and neurosurgery. Um, but yeah, that's, uh, so the, the idea stayed in my mind. And, uh, a young professor in psychology and neuroscience had gone to

01:25:27.360 - 01:25:59.520

Minnesota, Dwight Burkhart. Uh, he'd graduated, uh, from, uh, I believe Iowa or Iowa State and then did a postdoc at, uh, oh, where was this? Because, um, he, he did a postdoc with John Dowling, uh, who eventually went to Harvard. And I'm sorry, I cannot remember. Maybe it was you, um, uh, Washington University in St. Louis. I'm sorry, but I'm fuzzy on where

01:25:59.520 - 01:26:27.520

they were at the time. But anyway, we make a long story short. He was working on the retina. And, uh, uh, I was, I was aware of, uh, the retina have a b-fair in projections, uh, to, to the retina from the brain. And Dr. Burkhart was working on a signal from the kinds of cells in the retina that were almost surely the ones to receive the e-fair in projections from the brain. And thus,

01:26:27.520 - 01:27:05.440

it seemed natural that we might be able to see if stimulating the optic nerve retrogradally, uh, would modulate the response of these cells to, to light. And that's how I began to get interested in, in, uh, in neuroscience in particular and retinal neuroscience, uh, uh, specifically. And so we, we started some work on that, uh, eventually the, the, the idea of doing this

01:27:05.440 - 01:27:39.120

as a model for schizophrenia fell by the wayside. I fell in love with, with neuroscience and the retina and, uh, did my PhD on, uh, visual sensitivity, uh, as measured, uh, neurophysiological. And it was the beginning of my neuroscience career. I see. Was, was your chief advisor then Dr. Burkhart? Yes. I see. And so you joined, um, his lab, but like, uh, I guess starting at Minnesota or

01:27:39.120 - 01:28:10.320

what point did you do? Right, right. Uh, uh, very shortly after I got there, my first, uh, work at, at, uh, Minnesota was in the laboratory of, um, uh, Manny Meyer, M-E-I-E-R as I recall, and Manny Meyer was a neuropsychologist. So he was exploring, uh, behavioral manifestations of brain trauma, uh, and brain disorders like Parkinson's. So we did a number of studies there,

01:28:10.320 - 01:28:40.400

particularly with Parkinson's patients early on. I think I was with him maybe two semesters before moving full-time to, to Dr. Burkhart's lab. What, I'm not an expert. What, you know, this sounds kind of more like clinical work. Like you were, were you working directly with patients or was there another way to study, uh, what music was playing? Yeah, we were working with patients, but not in

01:28:40.400 - 01:29:15.600

the clinical sense of treating them in the sense of understanding how their Parkinson's, for example, manifested itself in different gait patterns. So for example, we developed a, um, um, uh, a walkway, uh, which we put copper wire mesh on. So we were able to measure the time and duration of the shuffling gait, for example, and could, could trace through that

01:29:15.600 - 01:29:42.240

how the gait changed over time or how it might improve with different medications that they might be treated by. So we're trying to characterize the behavioral consequences of neurological disorder. I see, I understand. Um, I imagine, uh, you, you mentioned early that you had written, uh, a paper very early on, maybe you even mentioned while you were still at Emery.

01:29:42.240 - 01:30:05.680

Is that, is that correct? I don't have a state. I don't have a state, excuse me. The, yeah, on input dysfunction. On input dysfunction. Um, what, you know, writing papers, especially, I remember writing my first scientific paper was, was a challenge. I mean, did you, um, what was your experience like learning how to write like a scientific, uh, peer reviewed publication?

01:30:07.840 - 01:30:42.960

Uh, you know, interestingly enough, um, um, and for reasons that I cannot explain, uh, writing and writing technically came fairly naturally to me. I think, um, in part, it was being able to recognize, uh, scientific papers that I liked how they were written and probably emulating some of that. And likewise, and here's

01:30:42.960 - 01:31:12.080

where the teaching came in, hearing a good presentation, whether in teaching or in, in presenting a research paper, if you felt it was a good presentation, you could, I, I, I could find that it felt natural to me. So it would emulate that, that style of writing and or that style of speaking. So, you know, to, to this day, I think that continues to be a,

01:31:14.480 - 01:31:42.800

it's not trivial. I go through several, you know, editions and several rewrites of papers, but it comes again, um, anyway, it works. Let's put it that way. I understand. Um, we're, so I imagine for your masters at Ohio State, you did do coursework. Were you also taking courses when you got to

01:31:42.880 - 01:32:18.560

Minnesota? Oh yes, continued. There was a curriculum in, in, in, it wasn't strictly all the search. I took a number of courses, both in neuropsychology, psychology in general, but neuroscience generally, neurology, even, even did a couple of seminars on neurosurgery. Were you, which was kind of fun to watch a budding neurosurgeon get right left confusion.

01:32:22.800 - 01:32:50.960

Were they like observations of these surgeries? Some of that, yes. And then just the, the, how shall we call it, the, the did didactic teaching on, on, on, on, you know, neuroanatomy and neurosurgical techniques and so forth. You know, you'd hear from them, you know, what was the structure and what was the approach to the

01:32:50.960 - 01:33:19.920

structure of things of that nature. We spoke earlier, earlier about, you know, there being, you know, permissions and various rules surrounding doing experiments and how they, they weren't really developed while you were at Emory, but by this time, were you doing that sort of kind of ethical oversight or, or research compliance in your, in your work that you were doing?

01:33:22.160 - 01:33:52.080

It was certainly beginning. I don't recall at which point the structures for, you know, animal, animal care and subjects, but we certainly followed, you know, good laboratory practices, procedures in care of the animals that we work with. So, but yeah, the protocols for, for both animal care and, and protection of human subjects

01:33:53.120 - 01:34:13.200

came in a bit later, as I recall. What about, like research funding? We spoke briefly about kind of there being a shift in terms of, yeah, what, what did you notice around that time? Well, it, it, it really, it became clear at that time. I mean, I was certainly aware,

01:34:14.000 - 01:34:46.240

for example, that anyone doing research needed the funding to conduct that research and the laboratories were dependent on it. So I began to be aware that, you know, my professors were applying for grants and receiving grants and that my, my salary was being paid either by a grant or, you know, from the extra earnings in, in clinical practice at, at the, at the medical school there.

01:34:46.960 - 01:35:13.840

But certainly by the time I went to, to Minnesota, well, while I was in Minnesota, it became very clear that if I needed to be very supportive of my mentors in order to have good work and they're then being able to, to build upon that as part of the research grants, but it became very clear that that's what I would be able and needed to do subsequently

01:35:13.840 - 01:35:49.200

in order to, to succeed. And there, there were nervous, nervous times, clearly, you know, that, that was when you began to hear about the cut-off scores and priority scores and all of the things that go along with study sections or study review committees at either NSF or NIH. And it was also a time when neuroscience in general and certainly vision research was

01:35:49.200 - 01:36:20.800

exploding. The first time I went to the Association for Research and Vision and Ophthalmology meetings in, in Sarasota, I think there were maybe 150, 200 scientists and postdocs and graduate students. Today, that meeting probably has 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 attendees each year, you know, so it was exploding and the idea of being able to

01:36:20.800 - 01:36:54.080

compete successfully with some of the people that you were, you know, obviously both learning from and, and seeing, you know, emerge in the field was pretty daunting. So I read a number of these things and, you know, obviously was later successful because I, you know, for the time that I did do minor science research, I was continuously funded and, and received during that time a,

01:36:55.280 - 01:37:26.160

an RCDA, Research Career Development Award. So I guess I learned well enough it did, it worked for those years. Were you, were you involved in any grant writing during your PhD program or was it a strictly research? You know, I'm, I'm trying to remember, I'm pretty sure that I either reviewed or helped to write sections of Dr. Burkhardt's grant proposal

01:37:26.160 - 01:38:04.160

at one time, but writing a full proposal didn't happen until I was a professor at Georgia. I see. Well, before we kind of move on and talk more about research, you had mentioned that your parents moved to Atlanta while you were in Emory. Right. Did they stay in Atlanta? Or did they, did they continue to? No, no, once I went to graduate school, I think it was fairly

01:38:04.160 - 01:38:28.160

short order after that, that they decided they thought initially of remaining in the United States and they moved temporarily to Texas, I think Houston for that matter, but I don't really recall. But I don't think they were there more than a few months and then moved back to, to Mexico and Cuerdovaca in particular. I see. And when, when you were back in Mexico for that

01:38:28.160 - 01:39:04.720

year, did you see them? Yes, yes. They were living in, in Cuerdovaca by then. And, you know, not, not every weekend, but, you know, with some regularity would drive to Cuerdovaca and spend some time and, and see them. Yes. You and Sam. Yes. Oh, great. Well, I, I guess at this point, we've been going for almost two hours. I want to

01:39:04.720 - 01:39:30.400

quickly check in with Dave and see if he has questions about your time at, at Minnesota and, and activities there. Okay. I think you covered it. Dave. Okay, great. Are there any other kind of reflections from, from grad school that you are thinking about, you know, want to, want to share? Anything I may have missed?

01:39:31.440 - 01:39:59.680

Oh, my goodness. You know, there was a graduate student who eventually became a professor at, at Ohio State, interestingly enough, who was very, very helpful in setting up the early experiment that I tried to do with the optic nerve and efferent stimulation.

01:40:00.240 - 01:40:29.680

And that was a great, great help. I think the only other thing from a personal perspective, this will sound a little corny, but one of the things that intrigued me about the United States is that you guys had something called a mobile home, you know, and, and a travel trailer that you didn't have to have a permanent home. You could just,

01:40:29.680 - 01:41:02.640

you know, take it wherever you wanted to. Well, that, that was intriguing, but not exactly what I thought that wanted to do, move my home around. But something got me interested in reading about sailing. And I found a book by an Englishman. Oh, my goodness. It'll come back to me. It was called the sailing, sailing around the world in wonder of three small 30 foot

01:41:03.440 - 01:41:34.480

cutter that he and his wife, Eric and Susan Hiscock, that's their name. And I fell in love truly with the idea that not only was that something that was aesthetically, exceptionally satisfying, beautiful, but it also provided the freedom to do extensive traveling with little expense, you know, racial sales and get carried across an ocean.

01:41:35.440 - 01:42:07.760

So, interestingly, the lab, the neuropsychology lab that I was at with Manny Meyer, he became interested in that. And so we went and looked at a number of boats. And I became very quickly interested, took sailing lessons, decided that obviously as a graduate student, and even if I got a job at a university, that I wouldn't be very likely to afford buying a boat,

01:42:09.600 - 01:42:43.520

capable of going across an ocean. So I began to get excited about the idea of building one. And anyway, that would have to wait. But that was another part of that period of time in my life when I just think got truly excited about the idea of sailing and sailboats. And anyway, that'll come later. Did you have opportunities to sail when I'm not familiar with Minneapolis or

01:42:44.160 - 01:43:10.880

but Mississippi runs right through you sail on the Mississippi? You know, Minnesota is known as the land of 10,000 lakes and just west of the city of Minneapolis is a very large lake called Lake Minnetonka. And plenty to sail a decent sized small keelboat 20, 25 feet. And that's that's where I learned to sail on Lake Minnetonka.

01:43:11.360 - 01:43:38.320

Oh, cool. Did you ever travel outside of Minneapolis to sail beyond beyond the lake? Did you go up to like the Great Lakes, Lake Superior? I don't think at that time, but later, let's see, there would have been 68. It would have been early in my my research career, that I both bought a small boat and then

01:43:39.280 - 01:44:10.880

also chartered a boat in the Caribbean for just an afternoon. And then shortly thereafter is when I bought an empty haul and started building one of them in 1976. So but but all that had its genesis in Minneapolis. And this crazy idea that they, you know, take your home, put it in the water and go anywhere you want. Yeah. Yeah, there's like my father growing up was a big van guy.

01:44:10.880 - 01:44:39.520

And that was his kind of shared a very similar sentiment about being, you know, home wherever you are, which is which is great. Were you at this point? Did you? Well, I should also say we've been going two hours. So if you if you need to take a break at any time, let me know we can do a five minute break or something. Thanks. I'm okay for the moment, maybe in half an hour.

01:44:39.520 - 01:45:04.240

So I'll be ready for a bathroom break. But okay, right now, if you need one, let me know. No, that's fine. Half an hour sounds sounds good. I'm curious that, you know, now you've been doing this, you know, you're deep in neuroscience research, laboratory research. At this point, are you are you looking to continue to, you know, do that? Or do you have other career

01:45:04.240 - 01:45:39.440

options that you're thinking about? Or do you want to be a professor at this point? At that point, I'm pretty sure that what I want to do is continue research and get an academic research job somewhere in the in the US. So very much so, you know, by then all of my professional acquaintances are colleagues in history of, you know, you studied with this

01:45:39.440 - 01:46:12.480

person, he studied with that person, and that way you know that and you know, you start knowing people and so forth. So I think it was my last year at Minnesota, or maybe, maybe the following summer, I can't remember that I did a postdoctoral summer with a colleague, Tom Ogden at at Utah University of Utah. And again, doing research on the rep, but he had a wealth of experience,

01:46:12.480 - 01:46:42.640

both in terms of technical things. And that's the other thing, I guess, that I grew very, that felt natural that in order to do research, like we were doing it then, you'd build instruments, you'd do a variety of things that required dexterity and the idea of combining various kinds of elements into something that worked. So that was great fun. And, you know, part of my

01:46:44.080 - 01:47:12.320

back to the McKenna Rector set type thing that that was fun. But no, very much oriented towards, hey, I want to get a job in, in academia at a university lab. I see. So between, like directly after you graduated with a PhD in 1971, and then did you have that postdoc lined up in Utah then?

01:47:14.000 - 01:47:43.600

I can't remember whether it was that summer or the following summer. I think it might have been the following summer. But, you know, after many false starts and so forth, the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, invited me to interview for a position in physiological psychology or neuropsychology. And it was just fortuitous. You know, number one, they knew I was going to be comfortable because

01:47:43.600 - 01:48:18.000

I'd gone to school at Emory and at Riverside. So Athens was maybe 40 or 50 miles southeast of Gainesville and 70 miles east of Atlanta. So anyway, they had a position specifically in neuropsychology. They had received an NSF grant to support the development of the program. And so they were able not only to offer me the assistant professorship, but enough money to get the

01:48:18.000 - 01:48:47.840

laboratory started and going, which was pretty much unknown anywhere else in the country. Anybody else that even looked at me might have been able to offer the position, but not space or funds for a lab. So that was very fortuitous. Did you know faculty there through your network of?

01:48:49.680 - 01:49:18.320

No, I did not. Some of the professors at the department, I think, knew Dr. Strickland. And of course, all of them knew by reputation that Dr. Hathaway at Minnesota, he was of course one of my references. But no, I did not know anybody there. Did you interview, you said you had multiple starts and stops. Did you interview other places?

01:49:20.320 - 01:49:50.320

You know, I think we had some telephone discussions, but I don't recall traveling to any other place. So it was just fortuitous that this turned out to be the place. And you were happy to move back to Georgia? That was a place that you... Yes, let's put it this way. I had no qualms about it. My wife and I occasionally have this

01:49:50.960 - 01:50:19.520

discussion that people who have never lived in the South don't really know that it's just like any other part of the United States and that there's some great iron age that one of my professors wouldn't drive through the South. They would fly and have their car driven down, simply because they had no idea that it was okay for them to travel through the South.

01:50:20.480 - 01:50:48.640

And in like measure, we never witnessed any kind of... The things that some people in the North think happens in the South until we actually were living in Indiana when we witnessed a KKK rally in the middle of the square in Indiana. We never saw one in Georgia.

01:50:53.200 - 01:51:19.600

It's interesting the degree of ignorance that keeps people from understanding that our great country is far more than a set of preconceived ideas. Yeah, it reminds me when I told a lot of my physics classmates in college that I was going to Texas, that people just, it's like, you know, why would you ever go there, you know? But yeah.

01:51:23.440 - 01:51:52.640

Fascinatingly, just an anecdote. Obviously, things have changed a great deal, but when I was the federal liaison for science and technology at the University of Georgia later on, I was speaking to a very highly placed person at a science and technology agency, and trying to get to know them, make the case for the good people that were there and so forth.

01:51:52.640 - 01:52:12.480

And without equivocating, they said, you know, why would I want to visit an intellectual backwater like Athens, Georgia? So there you go. Yeah, when was that? That was later on. That would have been 1980, 82, 83, somewhere like that.

01:52:15.040 - 01:52:30.000

Not so long ago? Yeah, yeah. Well, you're, so you move back, you pick up and you're, at this point, that you're just with Sam, you mentioned you, you're married, but. Yes, right.

01:52:30.960 - 01:53:02.160

Right. So you're, you move back to Athens, and you're, you've got this money to set up a research lab. How big, this was your country. Excuse me. You said move back to Athens. I was different Athens before. Oh, yes. That's okay. Just clarifying. Atlanta, Gainesville, Atlanta, and now Athens. Not far from each other, but that's okay. So you were asking a question though.

01:53:02.160 - 01:53:29.760

Oh, no, that's okay. I was, that was my fault. I, that you're moving back to Georgia and you're, you're, you're moving to Athens. You've got money to establish a research lab. Did the, and the university had a kind of vision for establishing this, this new lab, but they gave you green. So you were in charge of, of establishing this program and it was NSF sponsor?

01:53:31.680 - 01:53:57.600

Well, the, the, the department had this NSF grant to help develop the program. Okay. And so that's where the money came from for the basic infrastructure of the laboratory. But I very quickly wrote a research grant and I think within, I don't remember, six months to a year, I had a, a funded research program and had established at that time, what I called

01:53:58.960 - 01:54:21.920

something because it was my own division research laboratory at the University of Georgia. Had a, probably a couple of graduate students and not long, not much long thereafter, a postdoc that joined me, which was very helpful. And he eventually, when I went to Alaska, he took over the lab and continued it.

01:54:24.000 - 01:54:51.760

But it was not long after establishing the lab and so forth that I did sort of lobby and, and push for the university to establish a teaching program in neuroscience and wrote up the curriculum and, you know, found the professors that would, that would constitute the classes that served that, that, that new academic

01:54:51.760 - 01:55:19.440

program at the undergraduate level, be an undergraduate major in neuroscience. I see. So you were in kind of in charge of hiring faculty for the new program? No, it was strictly a coordinated effort among a number of departments brought to the different talent that existed and obviously began to lobby those departments to

01:55:20.000 - 01:55:50.480

either hire additional people or to ensure that they, you know, continued to maybe to, to grow the expertise through the faculty in place. I think we had maybe 10 faculty throughout the university that collaborated in this fashion and the, their collective offerings was the, the possible sampling of courses that, that students could take to major

01:55:50.480 - 01:56:24.560

in neuroscience neurobiology. I see. I see. So you were, when you joined, you also were teaching? So before kind of this, what was your course load like when you, when you first arrived? George, I had a very good policy. It was two courses per semester. The full load would have been three if you weren't doing the search, but two courses per semester. And

01:56:25.280 - 01:57:05.280

well, initially, I taught a course on vision and, and a course in physiological psychology. Later on, I taught a course in physiology and one in neuroscience neurobiology. Were you also kind of recruiting graduate students at this point for, for laboratory work and PhD work? Yes, yes. The program, you know, like, like all programs would have applicants, some of

01:57:05.280 - 01:57:36.320

who would have an interest and in neuroscience were in the retina and had a number of students that way. And through the network of the association for research and vision and ophthalmology, had occasion to meet others who might be, might be interested. And as I mentioned a while ago, one of them, who had succeeded me in Dwight Burkert's lab, and we overlapped a little bit,

01:57:36.320 - 01:58:06.800

but he continued on. When he finished his PhD, at the point I had just gotten my Research Career Development Award. So I had some money that I could offer. And the university, once he was there as a postdoc, had, had, had him teach some of my courses and eventually he took a regular position there as

01:58:07.600 - 01:58:34.640

assistant professor and moved on through the ranks. What was his name? Chester Karwaski. Chester Karwaski. And so you're, at what point, so you're, you're hired as an assistant professor. At what point, I guess, do you get tenure and what was that, what was that process like for you?

01:58:36.080 - 01:59:08.800

Sure. It was an interesting journey. The, the department that I was in in psychology was fairly traditional. And at one point, one of the professors asked me to give a seminar to, I guess, his students and so forth. And they asked me at one point, you know, what would you,

01:59:08.800 - 01:59:30.320

if I talked about the retina neuroscience and so forth. And at the end, this professor said, you know, what would you like to offer uniquely as a psychologist to, to this field? And I said, nothing. You know, there's nothing unique about this field from the psychological perspective, you know, just nothing. And let's put it that way. I think that did not endear me to a number

01:59:30.320 - 01:59:57.040

of people in the department. And so the department of psychology wasn't quite sure they wanted to be as a tenured professor. So at that point, the division of biological sciences at the university did invite me to move over to the department of zoology. And I was offered an associate professorship and eventually a full professorship there. So an interesting journey. And, you know,

01:59:57.040 - 02:00:25.200

I remained, my laboratory remained over in psychology and so forth. There's no sense in moving it. But at my, my primary appointment shifted to, to zoology. I see. Did I guess we're the zoologists? Where's that department more welcome to your? Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, I spoke more their language than, than the others. And

02:00:25.600 - 02:01:00.560

in fact, the person that was my best man and so forth was just actually here recently. They have a farm, not far from here, but he eventually became a department head. And he and I co-taught, of course, in human physiology. And, you know, we just, it just worked. It just worked. And, and his colleagues respected the kind of journals and, and a publication record and type of

02:01:00.560 - 02:01:24.080

recognition that I'd gotten better than, than the folks, I mean, people in psychology had never heard of an RCDA and what that meant and so forth. Right. Right. Well, I'm, I'm curious, you know, very early on in your career, you were a study director of a National Academy of Sciences. Right.

02:01:27.360 - 02:01:52.800

I'm curious how that process, I mean, at this point, this was, must have been in the mid-70s. Were you elected to the National Academy at this, at this point? Oh, no, no, no. I'm not a member of the National Academy, but at that time, the National Academy is very clearly distinguished between the honorary membership component, okay, the people that are annually invited to become

02:01:52.800 - 02:02:23.280

members of the National Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering, or Institute of Medicine, and what they call the working arm of the academies, which was then called the National Research Council. The National Research Council is the, is the, the staff that, that operates the, the various buildings in Washington, both at C Street and up at Fifth Street, as I recall.

02:02:25.520 - 02:02:50.320

And so it's, it's, how do we put it, there are a number of committees that are geared up, you know, annually, and then they go away. And then there are a few that continue on for some period of time, some which have been going on, perhaps since the origins of the academy, I don't know. But a longstanding set of committees that existed was the Committee on Vision,

02:02:51.360 - 02:03:19.200

and the Committee on Hearing, Bioacoustics, and Biomechanics. And they were staffed separately, but housed together because of some overlap in, in impact. And so anyway, the, the NRC periodically advertises in Science and Other Magazines, the National Academy seeking a study director for the committee on thus and such, okay. And so I saw the ad, and I said,

02:03:19.200 - 02:03:46.240

hey, that sounds like something I might enjoy doing. And I wrote expressing my interest at Senglin My CB, and they thought indeed that it made a good fit. And indeed, I had a lot of fun doing that for a couple of years. And shortly after I left to study director, I was elected as, as a member of the committee, not of the academy. Okay. So that, that continued for me for,

02:03:47.040 - 02:04:15.920

for a number of years, in a very successful way. And that was really my true formal introduction to Science and Technology Policy in, in what you and I now know as, as, you know, the agencies, the funding agencies, the various committees that impacted the PCAS, National Science Board, etc. Were you traveling during, like to Washington during this time as part of your work with

02:04:15.920 - 02:04:48.800

the National Research Council? I was actually based in Washington during that time. So the building that they occupied was called the Joseph Henry building. It was, I think on 23rd and 23rd in Pennsylvania, approximately. It's since become something else. And the working building for the academy is now on Fifth Street. And they have another one on, forget what the other

02:04:49.600 - 02:05:28.640

building is. So I lived there for two years. Oh, wow. And that was in 77? 77 through 70, almost 79. Yeah. Were you still maintaining your research lab and work back in Athens? Yes. Yes, in Athens. And by that time, Dr. Kowalski had come and he was basically managing the lab. We would, we would co-write the grants and any time I was in town, I would help in and so forth

02:05:28.640 - 02:05:59.200

and so forth. But he was fundamentally carrying the research load at that time. I see. How many, how big was the lab at this point? Oh, I think we had maybe in addition to Chad as a postdoc assistant professor, probably three or four graduate students at any one time. I see. And you, I guess, so I'm curious where you lived in D.C.

02:05:59.200 - 02:06:25.360

where you, you were there kind of just temporarily for the two years you knew you would be there for an appointment and then move back. Or what was your, what was your thinking? Well, I wasn't quite sure. But I thought about buying a condo, the curious or humor side of it is that I almost made an offer until I found out that the parking place that I was assigned to the condo was an

02:06:25.360 - 02:06:57.760

extra $20,000 or something like that. So that quickly dissuaded me from buying a condo. And I rented an apartment in, in at the north end of Alexandria right by the Washington sailing marina and right below National Airport. Okay. I'm sure you would know it's a big building right next to a power plant. Yes. On the, on the, on the, it's not very nice. Nice. So were you, were you

02:06:57.760 - 02:07:24.320

sailing at this time? Did you get, were you able to get out on a boat? Yes. As a matter of fact, I had already started building the boat that we have, but you know, left it back in Athens. And what was fun is that obviously I could walk down to the sailing marina. I could visit Annapolis. I could visit Baltimore. And, you know, in my off time, I had a chance to go and seek out

02:07:24.320 - 02:07:56.640

various pieces of hardware and other things. And so it was fun. It was a good place to be, to, to continue that process. I see. And you mentioned that you're, well, you're married now and you had, I went to you and you say it's our boat. Who was, who are you sharing this with? My wife and I married in the, in the early 80s. I had started building the boat and then she joined

02:07:56.640 - 02:08:27.920

and learned all sorts of things like out of fiberglass, out of putty, a little bit of carpentry skills and other things of that sort. So while I designed it, and obviously did a great deal of the work, she was very involved in it. I see. And your wife's name is Teresa? Yes. That's right. Well, where did you in Teresa meet? At the University of Georgia. Oh, okay.

02:08:32.080 - 02:08:58.240

And at what point, and then you got married, I guess, in like you said, the early 80s. Okay. I'm also, I'm curious, you know, you mentioned being a liaison for science and technology policy at Georgia. What was, what was that position entailed? Did you still keep a place in Washington? Were you flying back and forth?

02:08:59.040 - 02:09:29.440

I'm flying back and forth. After I returned from my assignment as committee, study director for the committee and vision, I just had this hankering to continue some of that work. And I talked with the president of the university at that time, a man named Fred Davidson. And he agreed on nominating me for what was then, I guess it's still going on,

02:09:29.440 - 02:09:55.520

the American Council Education Fellowship in Higher Education Administration. And so I did that for a year, and then he actually brought me into his office as assistant to the president. And it was during that time that I basically said to him that I thought the university needed to have an ongoing presence than if you wish

02:09:57.360 - 02:10:24.000

liaison effort in Washington. And that became me. That's what I did that until he left the office and not long thereafter is when I went to Alaska. But yeah, just flying back and forth, you know, sort of think that I could do with a quick overnight or even go there in the morning and come back at night.

02:10:24.880 - 02:10:51.200

I see. And who, you know, who were you meeting with? Mostly NSF, a number of other entities, some of the higher education organizations, that's about the time that the Council on Competitiveness was being formed. There was another entity called CoreTech, Council on Research and Technology, something

02:10:52.960 - 02:11:26.720

that a man named David Kay was, I think was his name, was starting. There were a number of the higher education organizations, like at that time it was called the SOLDREC, it's now APLU, and of course, AAU, and people like myself whose full-time job was that. And so we got engaged with trying to help each other. At that time, the president of Georgia and I were scoping out the

02:11:26.800 - 02:11:57.360

development of a biotechnology program for the University of Georgia. And the CEO of one of the early biotechnology companies joined us as visiting university professors from time to time. And we would meet with the congressional delegation to kind of inform them about this emerging opportunity in biotechnology. And so it's a lot of fun.

02:12:00.560 - 02:12:29.040

Thanks. Dave, did you have a, I saw you pop back in, did you have a question? Okay. Well, so I also wanted to touch on, you had mentioned traveling to Woods Hole at some point. Yeah. What was, what brought you there and what was, what research were you, were you doing up there? Sure. The Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory has long been known for, obviously,

02:12:29.040 - 02:13:04.880

marine biology in general, but a lot of people in neuroscience do some work there during the summer. And John Dowling and Harris Rips, John Dowling by then was at Harvard. Harris Rips was at the University of Chicago, I believe. And others were doing research on the retina there. And my first foray there was being invited by them to, to help them set up a set of experiments in the

02:13:04.960 - 02:13:34.000

skate retina that we had done on wet puppy retina. They wanted to see if the same signal that we were detecting in, in the amphibian retina would be seen there. So I forget I traveled there for a couple of weeks to help them do that. And it was a year or two later that Chet Karwaski, and I think it was actually his initiative to really spend the summer

02:13:34.560 - 02:14:06.720

at Woods Hole. And I didn't spend the whole summer there, but I don't spend a few weeks with him and our own lab there. But it's a marvelous place for biological science, truly one of the unique places that has supported biology. The first time I went, I remember very clearly George Wald, the Nobel Prize winner, as a result of his work on the,

02:14:08.160 - 02:14:37.600

on his studies on vitamin A and its role in vision, I was there. And just a fascinating array of characters. He was what? Well, I, so I guess, you know, and so it looks like you, you move, you mentioned you moved to Alaska and you're moving in 1987. At this point, are you, you know, you have this tremendous research career. Are you looking to continue to do research?

02:14:37.680 - 02:15:05.360

Are you, do you have kind of a vision for, for moving into more administrative role? Wasn't quite sure initially, because the University of Alaska did offer me the opportunity to move the laboratory there. But it seemed to me that that not only entailed a very large expense for them, but I knew that the role of Vice President for Research was going to almost surely mean that

02:15:05.360 - 02:15:32.560

unless Dr. Kowalski and maybe some of the graduate students were willing to move that it didn't make any sense. So what I decided to do was to really focus more on the administrative career and, and leave the laboratory back at Georgia. Dr. Kowalski and I continued to collaborate in writing grants and in writing papers. But after about two years, I pretty much

02:15:33.440 - 02:16:02.320

was full in full swing as, as Vice President for Research there and just turned the lab over, over to him. Alaska gave me the unique opportunity to be very engaged with Washington and Alaska's congressional delegation. Ted Stevens, the late Senator and Frank Murkowski, at least the Murkowski's father, were quite active.

02:16:05.760 - 02:16:41.200

Frank Senator Murkowski was very instrumental in forming the United States Artic Research Commission. I became active in forming a consortium of universities, US universities involved in in Artic Research. The, what do we call it, Arcus, Artic Research Consortium, anyway, whatever, of the United States. And so that was very active. It was just as I was moving

02:16:41.200 - 02:17:10.080

to Alaska that I was appointed by the Secretary to the National Bout Technology Policy Board. And that was the first sort of major policy assignment outside of the National Academies that I had occasion to participate in. And Charles Artson, who became a member of PCAS, while I was there, was also on the National Bout Technology Policy Board, as was Rita Caldwell.

02:17:10.080 - 02:17:44.400

So it was a very, not only great opportunity, but a formative experience as well. Well, was it a, so in moving to Alaska, I mean, was that, what brought about Alaska in particular? How did Alaska get on your radar in terms of career move? Sure. Well, I forget exactly the date in the mid-80s when Fred Davison, for a variety of reasons,

02:17:44.400 - 02:18:11.440

had to step down as President of the University of Georgia. So immediately the politics surrounding that office made it clear that I wasn't going to be able to continue developing an administrative career there. So I started just kind of leisurely looking for opportunities. And Alaska had this researcher, Vice Presidency Open, and I must have written them a note because they called

02:18:12.000 - 02:18:39.040

not long thereafter and invited me to come and interview. And it happened rather quickly. They offered me the job. They said, please bring your wife. We'd want her to be happy. We went, and I think it was a month later that we moved to Alaska. So we arrived there in September, just at the peak of fall colors. And of course, very shortly thereafter, termination deaths

02:18:39.040 - 02:19:13.200

occurred, meaning that it started snowing, typically October 1 or thereabouts. And it was a great experience. Alaska was in the middle of international issues related to Arctic circumpolar issues, high latitude phenomena. As the northern component of the two poles, it had some phenomena that the southern circumpolar region did not have,

02:19:13.200 - 02:19:48.000

but it also had some similarities like the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis. But it was a much broader expanded role for me. It was no longer focused on biology alone, but strong on engineering, strong on ocean sciences, strong in all matters related to cold water, cold weather, engineering, and the like. Truly, truly fascinating. And as I mentioned earlier,

02:19:48.640 - 02:20:23.280

had occasion to position the university to win the ice core contract for the National Science Foundation to travel to Greenland and Antarctica to just be familiar with what was there. Participate with the State Department and the State of Alaska and the Arctic Circumpolar Policy Meeting in Rovaniemi, Finland, north of Helsinki to be science advisor to then Governor

02:20:23.280 - 02:20:52.800

Hickel. Gosh, just almost, almost surreal. And we loved it. But frankly, you know, I was traveling to Washington a great deal, but it took basically a full day. I'd leave Alaska at midnight, be in Washington in time for dinner crash, start two, three days of work, and then five back to Alaska. So it meant that I was being going from home for a full week, rather than just a day

02:20:52.800 - 02:21:34.960

or two. It's also, of course, the Alaska winters. They're quite tall, but it's not as bad. I was never as cold in Alaska as I was in Minnesota, by the way. It's not that. But, you know, at the peak of winter, on December 21, the sun rises at roughly 10 o'clock in the southern horizon and sets at about three o'clock on the northern horizon. That's a very short day. Yeah. So, you know, we,

02:21:35.760 - 02:22:05.360

much as we enjoyed it and maybe would have liked to stay, we came south again. Well, it sounds like you described that you had, you know, at least three separate full-time jobs at that point. So, yeah. Well, one I'm then very curious about is the advisory role to the Governor. How did that come about? What, you know, what was that like?

02:22:06.800 - 02:22:38.080

Well, it was truly fascinating. And that was the thing that took the least amount of time. What I was doing for the University was as much for the state of Alaska in general, hence for the Governor as anything else. And Wally Hickel had a real passion in his heart for anything Arctic and circumpolar. So, there wasn't anything I was doing that he was going to disagree

02:22:38.080 - 02:23:08.960

with. And besides, if I disagreed with him, he certainly didn't take advice very easily. So, we got along fabulously. Very generous man and so forth. Suffice it to say that anything we were doing to advance the interests of the nation in regard to Alaska and Arctic was of interest to the Governor. And he was very supportive in that regard. I see. I'm curious too, because I'm not

02:23:08.960 - 02:23:36.880

familiar with the National Biotechnology Policy Board, but you were appointed in 1990. This is a, and it is an NIH board that's appointed by the Secretary. Is that correct? It was a department as a whole. I don't recall the full structure at the point. It was an appointment by the Secretary at the time. I don't remember who that was. But the person who nominated it before

02:23:36.880 - 02:24:17.120

it was the Deputy Director of the NIH, a man named Bill Raub, R-E-U-B. Delightful and really very talented man. He'd come to know me as a result of the work that I'd done at Georgia's liaison. And as a result of some early work in Alaska. It was a policy board. It really was to advise the Secretary broadly, but other agencies as well.

02:24:21.120 - 02:24:55.600

Tried to remember enough about it, Kenny. It was clear by that time that the issues related to, for example, recombinant DNA had sort of been handled by the Asilomar Conference that the scientists themselves run. But there was still a lot of issues that were controversial. At that time, the U.S. was almost

02:24:55.600 - 02:25:30.960

loathe to do any field experiments related to plant biotechnology, for example. Europe was more welcoming at the time. That effort later reversed. So one of the things was clearly to communicate more broadly to the agencies, to the Congress, et cetera, that there was enough scientific information emerging to literally constitute this new and emerging industry biotechnology,

02:25:30.960 - 02:26:08.160

which had not existed prior to 1970, arguably, at least not in the sense of plant molecular biology and animal molecular biology and genetics. The coin buyer experiment, I think the date was 1970. So it was just budding. So it was a broad effort to explore issues and educate Washington more broadly.

02:26:11.440 - 02:26:44.880

This board, I'm curious about, does it still exist, or does it exist in a different form? Was it a presidential thing? I don't think so. I remember getting a very nice thank you letter and a plaque. I don't remember exactly when. My memory suggests that I served on it for about three years, four years, maybe I don't recall.

02:26:46.160 - 02:27:14.080

And I'm not sure that he continued beyond that. I think I got that thank you and plaque while I was still in Alaska. Did you, what was the makeup of this board? Were there, was it mostly academics or were there other types of folks? It seemed fairly broad, but you know, Kenny, you'd have to look at

02:27:14.080 - 02:27:44.480

up the only people that I remember clearly was Rita Caldwell, who as you know became NSF director later and director of the Maryland Biotechnology Institute, and Charlie Artson. Charlie is a distinguished plant molecular biologist. He'd been chancellor for agriculture at Texas A&M, or Texas, I can't remember which, and then is probably retired now, but it was most

02:27:44.480 - 02:28:18.800

recently at Arizona State University, having had quite a bit of success with plant molecular biology and was developing plants as sources for growing vaccines. Very fascinating. Clearly one of the pioneers in plant molecular biology. And I don't remember, I don't remember anybody else. Yeah, it brings a bell, but I was not familiar with the history, so thank you. I'll definitely look

02:28:18.800 - 02:28:45.600

it up. If you find the membership, please send me a copy. Yeah, I think I, yeah, I read something about this a while back, but I'll have to look it up and I'll send you what I find. I'd appreciate it because I mean, I could sort of see the table, but I just, in fact, before this meeting, I was looking up the membership of PCAS because I couldn't remember everybody.

02:28:46.960 - 02:29:15.440

Glad I did because otherwise you might have asked me something about who was on it and I would have said, gee, I don't remember what I do now. Well, how are you doing? Would you like kind of a short break? I guess we're, we're about 30 minutes, we have about 30 minutes left scheduled. But what are you, how are you feeling? About a two minute break. I'll go in the restroom and be

02:29:15.440 - 02:29:48.400

right back. That's perfect. And Kenny's cats are. Yeah, yeah, I've kicked my cats out this morning. They tend to, as soon as Zoom is on, they're, they want to be on camera. They're very photogenic. So they've been a part of several oral history interviews already, but I decided that this time maybe they shouldn't make an appearance. I did see David's cat earlier in our conversations.

02:29:49.120 - 02:30:23.360

Yeah. Okay. So where do you go from there? So I guess I, well, I check in with Dave on this too, but we're, you know, we haven't even gotten to your time at Akron. Depending on, on your flexibility now, or possibly scheduling a second session to dig into that and whatever works best for you and for David. Okay. I'm open. Here's my little friend

02:30:23.360 - 02:30:45.200

here. I don't know if you can see him. I don't say hello. There you guys see him. Anyway, thank you. I'm relatively flexible or we can schedule another time whenever you want. So I have another meeting at about 2.15. So I can, so I mean, clearly, Kenny, you've been sort of taking the lead. So if you want to continue on, please don't feel like you need to stop just

02:30:45.200 - 02:31:22.400

because I have to cut out. Yeah, I think either way, I think we're in a good, yeah, I'm happy to continue for a bit more. And I guess, yeah, I guess it's up to you. Well, probably if you were scheduled to, you were scheduled, we were scheduled till two. Sorry, did one o'clock your time? Yes. Okay. That can probably take us to the end of Alaska beginning of Purdue,

02:31:22.400 - 02:31:53.040

and maybe we can pick up on Akron and PCAST later, but however you're fixed for time. Yeah, I think that that makes sense. In doing them, it makes, I think, having a second session. That way we're not crunched for time, and I think that's better. So maybe what we'll do, yeah, like you said, we'll go through the rest of Alaska,

02:31:53.840 - 02:32:29.760

and then we can start Purdue, see how far we get it in the next 20, 30 minutes, and then we can schedule a second meeting. Sounds fine. Okay, thank you. We've got, sorry, restarted the recording, if that's okay. Yes. We're talking about your various roles in Alaska. I guess as you're speaking about this new position, I'm curious if you,

02:32:31.200 - 02:33:01.360

how you got up to speed with polar research, and I guess what led you to be so interested in that type of research activity, and then in particular this US Arctic Research Commission, and what, you know, what you guys were responsible for. So I might guess if you're willing to tackle any of that. Okay. Well, first of all, I think a lot of things were happening that made it

02:33:02.400 - 02:33:34.000

possible for me to get a sense of some things, relatively easily. I mentioned the study that Rita Caldwell had chaired, and I'm almost certain that that happened, if not right before I went to Alaska, then very shortly thereafter. So I remember talking with her about it. I remember her being very helpful. I remember her clearly indicating that there was a sense at NSF that they needed to

02:33:34.560 - 02:34:11.280

pay a little bit more attention to Alaska, not only because it was part of the United States, but because there was some significant set of opportunities scientifically there, and because the Alaska Native population was not only very interested, but needed to be both consulted and engaged with, and appropriately introduced to some of this so that they understood

02:34:11.280 - 02:34:44.960

and could be helpful and part of it. So one of those things were happening, I think, at the time. There was also, I think, an understanding that the researcher on the Arctic was a widely distributed set of programs in various agencies, whereas the U.S. interest in the Antarctic was focused virtually exclusively at the National Science Foundation. They had the logistical responsibility,

02:34:45.520 - 02:35:18.480

if not virtually the entire funding portfolio, and of course they contracted with the Navy and the Air Force to provide the air support and the ship support to Antarctica. But it was also very clear that the U.S. was spending a huge amount of money for the scientific efforts in Antarctica, and by comparison, a very, very small amount of money in the Arctic when arguably it should have

02:35:18.480 - 02:35:48.560

been the reverse, so to speak, if it was going to be politically speaking and scientifically speaking, somewhat more balanced. I don't know how much you know about the Antarctic Treaty, but in many ways the Antarctic Treaty has defined the world's participation in Antarctica, but it also has sort of been an international agreement that no one owns any piece of the continent, although

02:35:48.560 - 02:36:26.400

everyone that's involved in Antarctica has stated claims to certain pieces, and so strategically, for example, the U.S., by being having a station at the South Pole where all of the claims intersect is sort of a good position to null them all out, but I think arguably it's also the hope of the nation and probably important for it to remain as close to politically neutral as possible.

02:36:28.080 - 02:37:00.960

But anyway, the U.S. has a huge investment in Antarctica, as you may know, when I went there, the station at South Pole was still the geodesic dome with a whole bunch of ship containers in the middle providing the dormitories and heating facilities and so forth, but they've since invested very heavily in a new facility that is, oh my goodness, I can't imagine

02:37:00.960 - 02:37:34.640

how many billions of dollars that must have cost, but anyway, so a lot of very interesting things were happened and obviously from a almost commonsensical thing, it made it imperative as well as an opportunity to push as strongly as you could for opportunities in the Arctic and for the university as the one university that was not only in Alaska, but doing the bulk of research

02:37:34.640 - 02:38:11.840

in the Arctic to be better supported, better funded, more opportunity, more interaction, you name it. So that provided, I think, a level of opportunity that was very invigorating, very exciting to just get to know and work and Alaska is huge, North to South is from Chicago to Florida and East to West is from San Francisco to Boston, so it's huge. Since you're both

02:38:11.840 - 02:38:46.880

Bryce, Congressman Don Young used to keep maps of various states to scale and he would hold up California to Alaska to just be a little piece and he would say that, you know, kind of Alaska in half and Texas is still the third largest state, you know, so it's a place with tremendous, tremendous geography and opportunity. It also was, excuse me one second.

02:38:46.880 - 02:39:44.880

I'm sorry, the other piece that was a large component as the and I don't recall exactly the date, but the Alaska Native land settlement at Anilka and the pipeline had just been completed when we went there. So there were other things happening in a major way that provided opportunities. Internationally, the scientific community had

02:39:44.880 - 02:40:16.880

understood that, you know, what Russia was doing with its tin smelting facilities in the Kola Peninsula was traveling around the southern polar north and creating air pollution that was not held tightly that it traveled around strategically from a defense perspective. Just all of those things were just absolutely fascinating and I don't know how to

02:40:17.760 - 02:40:53.600

say it, just it was captivating and it was full immersion in an exciting way that had international dimensions, national interests, national security issues, and all of them again with the University of Alaska kind of very centrally positioned to benefit and or to lead, if not both. On that note, I'm curious about kind of your experiences engaging with the Russian

02:40:53.600 - 02:41:23.280

Academy of Sciences on this kind of joint kind of Arctic project. Where did you travel to Russia? Were you meeting counterparts like other academics, Russian scientists, Russian diplomats? We did one trip and that was, you know, not long after the fall of the Soviet Union. I don't exactly recall, but by then the U.S. Article Research Commission was in full swing.

02:41:24.000 - 02:41:58.720

The chair at that time was the president of the University of Donald O'Dowd, or maybe he was the former president, but anyway, very involved. And we traveled from Alaska to Magadan in basically in Siberia and were familiarized with what was happening there. And frankly, at that time, it seemed fairly primitive in just about every regard of what was

02:41:58.720 - 02:42:32.480

happening in the quote, quote, Soviet Far East was not very much, but still the opportunity to open up some of that dialogue. But that was the start of that. What were those, I mean, I'm just curious, what were those meetings, just directly after the end of the Cold War, what were those meetings like? Were they diplomatic, I guess, would be a word?

02:42:34.880 - 02:43:04.400

They're very cordial and I think they were very eager to share. There was no, it didn't seem to be any political undertones. The process was fascinating from a number of perspectives, not the least of which was just, if you've heard about Siberia, it sort of put a face to some of the

02:43:05.040 - 02:43:36.000

stereotypes and made it very clear that it was too much of a stereotype to begin with. It was fairly, well, it seemed like they had a lot of good work to do. I see. Did you also, did the university host, was there, did they travel to Alaska and come and visit your campus? Was there an exchange of?

02:43:38.960 - 02:44:11.120

You know, there were a few, but then there was a, you may recall that during World War II, there was a program, I call it Lend-Lease, I think was the name of it, where the U.S. loaned some planes and, you know, flew them into Russia and so forth, back to the Soviet Union, way back when. And so there was a celebration that I recall in which now they came over

02:44:12.080 - 02:44:44.960

and brought some of their planes. And the celebration was largely in Fairbanks at, I believe, one of the Air Force, at the Air Force Base there. And so, yeah, there was, but in many respects, less than you might have expected that would come about. You know, I think eventually the fall of the Soviet Union and the opening of

02:44:46.160 - 02:45:23.840

Russia was more centered towards the western end of the country and somewhat the east. I can't tell you enough that the native people who literally had relatives across the Bering Sea that they hadn't seen in decades, you know, were moved emotionally, greatly by that opportunity. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. This was all kind of during your,

02:45:24.800 - 02:45:58.480

while you were Vice President of Research at Alaska, were you also, and you were both, at one point you were Vice Chairman of the Arctic Research Commission. Did that also include, you know, visits to other countries and more kind of diplomatic work in terms of liaisoning with other countries? Not so much at that point. The one, I mentioned it briefly, were

02:46:00.000 - 02:46:35.920

the seven Arctic countries held a ministerial meeting in Rovaniemi, Finland. And I was asked on behalf of the governor and the state of Alaska to be the Alaska representative. The United States was represented by the State Department and, you know, obviously, and this was certainly my first introduction to international diplomatic conferencing, if you wish. I found it very interesting on the

02:46:35.920 - 02:47:07.280

one hand because I've just never experienced it before, on the other because I found it, that the language used was appropriately diplomatic. If the US representative from the State Department wasn't quite sure what he should say, he said, I'd have to confer with my government before answering that question. Things of that nature which were, you know, perhaps at one level

02:47:08.000 - 02:47:37.680

obviously necessary, but at other times a little bit off-putting. It didn't seem like it was necessary. We weren't talking about nuclear arms disarmament and that sort of thing. We just tried to establish some broad priorities and opportunities for seeing what was needed across each other's borders and the common things that we share.

02:47:38.880 - 02:48:16.160

Very interesting. Were there opportunities for more kind of informal meetings or engagement, I guess, while you were there? Did you have dinners or breakfast? Yeah, it didn't last all that long, but yes, and of course the Finns were very, very generous in terms of showing us what they were doing. The town of Rovaniemi, as I understand it, had been almost completely rebuilt since World War

02:48:16.240 - 02:48:46.000

II, and so it had a vibrancy. Their forest industry was exemplary. I mean, it was just a extremely well-managed forest industry that was a testament. A lot of things have happened since then that would have been premature to discuss at that time, but Finland, as you know, has a great technological capacity. But yes, I mean, the interactions were extremely pleasant

02:48:46.080 - 02:49:18.880

and nothing that you could say was hostile or in any way other than people talking and enjoying and seeing. Except for the Finns, everybody else was from someplace else, and the governor had asked that I try to sense some sense of what was happening that they could share with the citizenry of Alaska. Frankly, I don't know if I was ever used, but it was interesting trying to be

02:49:18.880 - 02:49:52.160

a raconteur for the governor's office in that regard. Again, the thing that stands out in my mind was that at the formal meetings, how interesting it was, the diplomatic lingo and posturing and hesitancy. Let me confer with my government. Yeah, it is really interesting that the formality of those types of events is really

02:49:52.160 - 02:50:22.160

interesting. Did you bring anything back with you? Did you have keepsakes from the Finland meeting? I think they had a commemorative stamp or something like that, but that was about it. All things considered, I think we were there a total of three days or something like that. It was fascinating in every regard. Yeah, it sounds really, really cool.

02:50:23.680 - 02:50:55.600

So you're technically still a tenured professor there. You've got a professorship still at Alaska, University of Alaska. Are you teaching at all? Or you said you've stopped participating in grant writing and research. Yeah, right. No formal courses that were uniquely my responsibility, just an occasional guest lecture, typically either on the Arctic issues or on the retina and the

02:50:55.600 - 02:51:34.320

visual system. I see. Let's see. And so you guys were there for about five years? Alaska was seven years. Seven years? So you're there till 1994? Correct. Well, I guess, are you still sailing? How is your boat coming along at this point? The boat was finished in 1991. I see. And yes, we still have the same boat. I can see it up our

02:51:34.320 - 02:52:02.480

window here. And still sailing on days that are not quite as warm as today. But it's in 1991. I mean, that's it initially in April. Sorry. So that again? I mean, you had spoke about this being almost a lifelong dream to have this boat completed. It seemed like quite a project, I mean, that it took at least over a decade to build the boat.

02:52:03.200 - 02:52:27.360

Sorry, we're cutting out, I think, a little bit. Yeah, obviously, if I'd had the time to devote continuously would have taken a little less time. Something up here is saying set up professional studio and audio session. It's something I need to do in that regard or up at the top of my screen, set up professional audio.

02:52:27.360 - 02:52:53.200

Can you hear me okay? I can. It was it was cutting out for a second. Okay, is this better? I can hear you. Well, I guess I want to, you know, now that we're running. David, can you hear me okay? Yeah, I can hear you okay. If there are other kind of

02:52:56.960 - 02:53:29.760

experiences or things you'd like to talk about from your time at the University of Alaska, and then we can kind of wrap up for the day and schedule another meeting. Well, I think maybe just a couple of points. Number one, you know, the influence and support that I had personally from the governor and from

02:53:30.320 - 02:54:02.480

the two senators and from the one congressman were truly special. Both Senator Stephen, Senator Murkowski, people who did not know Senator Stevens often did him a disservice to be critical about some things. But I mean, at age 83, he would walk back really literally almost run

02:54:03.360 - 02:54:33.120

up the several flights of stairs in the heart building to get to his office. Remarkably energetic man and new Alaska backwards and forwards. Anyway, I think that was a very special, you know, Don Young who had begun his career as a riverboat captain in Alaska and eventually ran for Congress. I believe he's

02:54:33.120 - 02:55:06.960

still the congressman for all Alaska, as we would say. That was quite, and it was at a very good time because certainly both of them together with Elmer Rasmussen. If you go, by the way, to the Smithsonian and the Museum of the American Indian, there is a gallery and an auditorium named for Elmer and Mary Luis Rasmussen. Elmer was the president of the

02:55:06.960 - 02:55:35.040

National Bank of Alaska, his family had gone there very early, he was born there. Arguably obviously the wealthiest man in Alaska and so forth, but obviously the one that also believed most ardently in the people of Alaska and in the future of Alaska and he bequeathed this entire collection to the Smithsonian. So when you're there, the Smithsonian is

02:55:36.000 - 02:56:10.240

the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian is heavily represented by Alaska thanks to Elmer Rasmussen and he was a fascinating man and one that also instrumental in the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. So spoke, well, anyway, those are some of the kind of personal influences that not only helped the university and me, but which really need to take the lion's

02:56:10.240 - 02:56:41.760

credit for anything that happened during those years. They were heavily involved and committed and, you know, if you think that Senator Stevens is known as the bridge to nowhere, the X trillion dollars that are going to be spent on infrastructure pales by comparison to the bridge to nowhere would have cost a couple of million dollars

02:56:41.760 - 02:57:08.960

or a few million dollars and it would have opened up something that to this day is not possible in many parts of Alaska that even June or the capital of Alaska you can only get there being a flying animal or by water. But anyway, that's a little bit of history that needs to be better understood, but maybe it doesn't make any difference in the long run anyway.

02:57:11.440 - 02:57:38.880

I had a bridge to nowhere project. No problem. So shall we maybe call it a day and find another time, have Florida find another time for us? Yeah, that would be perfect. Yeah, whatever works with your schedule, I'm very flexible and we can find something that works. I do not want to interrupt a failing day.

02:57:39.600 - 02:58:07.600

No, that's easy done. We're relatively flexible. So the way she did it the last time is she gave me sometimes that you all were available and I picked one so that that'll probably work again. Did you have anything that you wanted me to think about or follow up on? No, no. So it's always wonderful when we interview people who are very comfortable telling stories

02:58:07.680 - 02:58:33.120

because then we don't have to watch. We sit back and we listen. I could tell a few more, but that's probably not as relevant as what you want to hear. So it's a great, great, funny things and things that are misunderstood. And anyway, some of those things, again, in the scheme of things probably don't need to be either corrected or analyzed

02:58:33.120 - 02:59:06.800

the third or fourth or fifth time. So it's okay. We enjoy your time in Pennsylvania. And Kenny, we'll talk next time, both of you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's really been wonderful to talk to you. Thank you very kindly. See you guys later. Take care. Thanks. Do you want to stop the recording? Oh, yes.

02:59:10.480 - 02:59:44.560

Okay, it should be recording. Okay. Okay, great. So again, just situate us in place and time. Today is August 6th, 2021. I'm Kenny Evans. I'm here with Dr. Luis Proenza and Dave Caruso. And we're starting our second session of an oral history as part of a project documenting the operations and membership of the President's Council of

02:59:44.560 - 03:00:08.560

Advisors on Science and Technology. Dr. Proenza, thanks so much again for joining us this morning. And like you said, we were, where we picked up last time was, or we dropped off last time was during your time in Alaska. I think we were wrapping up, but I, you know, since you mentioned, and I wanted to just check in and see if there were other things from your time in Alaska that you

03:00:09.440 - 03:00:37.280

think of a chance to mention last time before we move on to your next position. Sure. I think there was only one that I don't think we had a chance to cover. And that was, I think it was about the last year or two that I was there that the President established on behalf of the United States, United States Arctic Research Commission.

03:00:38.160 - 03:01:11.120

And I think we just briefly touched on the role that the two senators, the late Senator Frank Murkowski and the late Senator Ted Stevenson had along with Elmer Rasmussen. And in any case, that was, for me anyway, the first presidentially appointed policy opportunity, the National Biotechnology Policy Board that we

03:01:11.120 - 03:01:35.600

were wondering about had been appointed by the secretary. And I tried finding a little bit about it after we talked, and there's some references, but I couldn't find any of the documents. So I hope you will. And when you do send me whatever you do find. Anyway, that was an exciting opportunity in a variety of ways. It really began to cement

03:01:36.400 - 03:02:05.280

the fact that the United States was part of the Arctic Nations group, Seven Arctic Nations, and really to highlight some of the opportunities for the United States, both from a scientific perspective, but also from a national security perspective, Alaska being the only state that puts the U.S. in the Arctic and being as large as it is, and in such close proximity to

03:02:06.400 - 03:02:37.040

the eastern parts of Russia, that anyway, it was very exciting. And I do recall that we mentioned we had a chance to travel to Magadan and to eastern Siberia. But again, just to underscore that opportunity. And it was not long thereafter, and while I was still a member of that commission that I left Alaska and joined Purdue University as vice president for research, and Dean of

03:02:37.040 - 03:03:13.600

the Graduate School. So unless you have some other questions, we can move on to Purdue slash Akron and eventually Peacast. Yeah, perfect. Thank you. Yeah, well, I'm wondering, you know, you've spoken, you know, about your time in Alaska with a lot of joy and pride, and it being so captivating in a really interesting position. What was it that, you know, drew you away from that time in

03:03:13.600 - 03:03:42.480

Alaska and brought you back to mainland U.S.? Sure. And you're right, it was a very exciting time and opened up so many doors, opportunities, experiences. I think I did mention the fact that we won the contract for polar ice scoring and so that I had a chance to go to Antarctica and so forth. And if either of you ever have a chance to go to Antarctica, please do, you won't regret it.

03:03:43.840 - 03:04:14.240

But I'd been in Alaska for seven years, and it was time from a number of perspectives, not the least of which was that Alaska winters are very long and the nights they're very dark. You know, if you were at December 21, which is the shortest day of the year, the sun will rise in the southern horizon about 10 o'clock in the morning, rise to maybe 10, 15 degrees above

03:04:14.240 - 03:04:46.080

the horizon, and then set again around 2.30 in the afternoon and dark for the rest of the day. So that, I think, weighed most heavily, but also the nature of what opportunities were or were not available for further professional growth. And so in the process, I had met some people from Purdue, their vice presidency for research opened up, and they asked me if I would

03:04:46.080 - 03:05:20.320

take it. So we moved to West Lafayette, Indiana in 1994. And Purdue, of course, being a great AAU-level institution with an exceptionally strong engineering program, and obviously some of the other sciences, biology broadly, including agriculture, veterinary medicine, linkages to Indiana University medical school and other things, joint programs with Indiana University.

03:05:20.320 - 03:05:56.160

All of that was exciting. And to continue the focus on research policy, research management was, I think, a great opportunity indeed. As a result of being at Purdue, I think I had some additional opportunities in Washington and professionally speaking, so it was a good time. It was, let's see, I don't think there were any, it's interesting. I guess I probably did not

03:05:56.480 - 03:06:29.120

chat, but while I was still at Georgia in the 80s, is when some of the country's concern about competitiveness really began to rise to the surface, there were a number of pieces of activities going on. There was an entity called CoreTech. Oh, good gracious, the fellow who ran it. Last name was Kay, I don't recall his first name. And it was about that same time that

03:06:29.120 - 03:07:01.840

all of those activities coalesced under John Young, the then CEO of Hewlett Packard, and formed the Council on Competitiveness, roughly in the 86, 87 timeframe. I can't remember exactly. But that is a relationship that has continued to this date. And as I think I mentioned, I'll remain a distinguished fellow with the Council. And I'm not as active now, obviously, because I

03:07:02.560 - 03:07:28.720

really just retired and probably will step away from that before long. But that was another kind of continuing thread that moved into the policy arena. And the broader issues related to the interface between science, technology, and economic policy. So Purdue enabled some continuance and obviously produced prestige, which helped in a variety of ways.

03:07:30.960 - 03:08:00.800

Yeah, thank you. I'm curious just about the early, you mentioned John Young, who was also, he was at one point, for a number of years, co-chair of PCAST under President Clinton. I guess I'm curious, when you first met him, and maybe could you, I'm not familiar with the early kind of foundation and, you know, of the Council of Competitiveness. So maybe could you

03:08:01.760 - 03:08:30.640

talk about how the Council got started and your early involvement in their work and what you were focused on? Sure. Well, my early involvement was more just as an observer and participant. Obviously, Mr. Young was visible. I did not personally know him at that time. The first director for executive officer for the Council was a man named Alan Magazine.

03:08:31.280 - 03:09:03.440

And I'm sure he's still around. He joined a number of other large Washington-based entities later on in his career. And I think he was followed by John Yockelson. John, I don't recall how long he was involved with the Council, but it was not long after Yockelson that Deborah Witt-Smith was appointed. And she certainly has been the longest serving

03:09:03.440 - 03:09:39.440

and I think most successful executive for the Council. And I mean, you can look back at some of their publications. They're all online at their website. And for me, I think certainly the work in partnership with Michael Porter on clusters of innovation, I think the Council called it the U.S. basis for economic competitiveness, something like that, a report that was issued, I think,

03:09:39.440 - 03:10:21.040

around 2002-2004, somewhere in that thing, was very influential. And then a variety of other things that the Council did in the early 2000s that I greatly enjoyed on performance computing, on manufacturing. Norm Augustine, the former chairman and CEO of Blocky Martin, was very engaged. And interesting, I guess, for me, it goes back to my days in Georgia because we,

03:10:21.840 - 03:10:57.680

the University of Georgia did some things with the Lockheed Martin facility near Atlanta. And remember, I think that was when Norm was still a chairman and CEO or CEO, I don't remember. But anyway, there's a very formative period for the U.S. thinking more strategically about its long-term economic competitiveness. Perhaps not as highly focused, even to this day,

03:10:57.680 - 03:11:30.880

I think we worry that we don't have a strong industrial policy. And so people would argue that maybe not having a formal policy is a strength. Others would say it's a weakness. As you know, we in the United States have a plethora of organizations that touch various elements of the economic competitiveness issue. So the clarity often is lacking as a

03:11:30.880 - 03:11:55.760

result of so many voices weighing in on the issue. That's, as you know, sometimes the strength of the voices can call for less and a weakness if they seem to be pulling in various directions. But anyway, I think the council has continued to do good work. I've been a little less involved in stepping down from the presidency in Akron because

03:11:56.400 - 03:12:32.000

that was my mainstay engagement opportunity. It's as I think you know, an organization of CEOs, university presidents, and labor leaders. My last really strong engagement was when I served on behalf of President Obama in the, what was it called? It's a manufacturing initiative, something 2.0. Forgive me, I forget the exact title of the

03:12:33.280 - 03:13:23.120

organization. He was chaired, if I'm remembering correctly, by the new president at MIT, whose name is Raphael Reif, and by the then CEO of not, sorry, not DuPont, but what was the company that DuPont merged with? Was this Andrew Leveris?

03:13:23.120 - 03:13:40.000

Leveris, Andrew Leveris, that's who I'm thinking of, anyway. Did DuPont merge with Roman Haas? Was it Roman Haas? No. It was that one, the Dow?

03:13:42.800 - 03:14:12.640

Leveris was CEO of Dow, right, right. Anyway, the former CEO of DuPont was a long-term industrial chairman of the council on competitiveness, and forgive me, again, memory linkages come and go. I know we're skipping around a little bit, but I am very curious about,

03:14:14.080 - 03:14:46.320

I think it was called the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership. Yeah, we called it the leadership council that I was on was called AMP 2.0, so it was the second iteration of an ongoing interest in manufacturing, which, by the way, certainly had started in the Bush PCAST and continued also very strongly in the Obama PCAST. Some days, I think some of us

03:14:46.320 - 03:15:18.480

that had served on the Bush PCAST felt that they were not providing adequate recognition of the work we had done, but that's standard for subsequent administrations, as I'm sure you will learn along the way. Yes, I can imagine. The AMP 2.0, was it somehow wrapped into, was it PCAST that was was it under PCAST umbrella that this work was being done?

03:15:19.120 - 03:15:57.680

You know, I never saw it that way, but I do remember that some PCAST members were also part of AMP 2.0. Shirley Jackson was one such person that I recall. I didn't pay particular attention to who else was on PCAST, but I'd known Shirley from a variety of forums, so recall that she was on PCAST. In any case, there was certainly some overlap, and John Holdren,

03:15:58.720 - 03:16:29.840

I think, had his hands on both of those activities, so it certainly was some linkages, both individually and from an administration perspective. Interesting, thank you. Well, I want to get back to your time at Purdue and in your work there, and I know you were, well, I guess first let me ask, do you remember who was that recruited you

03:16:29.840 - 03:16:58.800

to Purdue? I'm sure you're getting lots of offers at this time. Were there particular things that stood out to you as really enticing to go to Purdue, and were there other places you were looking at in terms of moving out of the largely dark, very bold Alaska? Well, there were certainly a number of opportunities, and one funny story is

03:17:01.360 - 03:17:24.160

in a very short period of time, literally a span of two weeks, I was a candidacy for the presidency at Texas A&M, at University of Texas in Dallas, and for, I think, Senior Vice President at Houston, at University of Houston, and how did I put it?

03:17:29.120 - 03:17:59.360

My stock was running high in Texas for a while, but nobody picked up, it's the obvious. So anyway, it was along that time with various meetings. Of course, I had known Bob Greencorn, who was the Vice President for Research at Purdue, that I had, that I eventually succeeded, and he and I had good rapport and good feelings about each other,

03:18:00.000 - 03:18:29.840

and I think he spoke strongly to the President, Steve Bearing, and to the Provost, Bob Ringel, and Bob and I had met, my last assignment at Alaska, involved academic affairs and research, so I had gone to some of the Provost's academic affairs meetings and gotten to know Bob Ringel. So those two individuals, I think,

03:18:31.200 - 03:18:57.840

probably not only enticed me, but were part of the attraction, but Purdue's name and recognition and so forth was, I think, a very welcome opportunity for me. Thank you. So at this point, this was kind of a similar role that you were, it was a Vice President for Research.

03:18:59.200 - 03:19:29.200

And Dean of the Graduate School, so yes, it was what some might call a lateral move, but clearly Purdue was the larger and better known institution, very different, of course, both in geography and in total character, much, much larger institution with a great long record of success. Yeah. Well, I guess I want to ask, what did you have

03:19:29.760 - 03:20:01.360

kind of a vision for what you wanted to accomplish as VPR and Dean of Graduate School at Purdue, were there things that you wanted to see happen at the university? Sure. Well, let's see, I think by that time, I had been spending a fair amount of time looking at the very nature of what defines research competitiveness among universities.

03:20:02.160 - 03:20:35.280

And as you probably know, the traditional measure that ranks institutions in terms of research capacity is simply how much money they spent on research years, and in particular, the amount of federal funding that they compete for. The problem with that, obviously, is that size did not necessarily make for anything other than size. And there's no scaling variable

03:20:35.280 - 03:21:08.320

that would say, how do institutions rank when you create a comparable set of metrics based on, say, the number of researchers, and what is the amount of federal funding per researcher as opposed to by the university. And when you do that, you get some very interesting factors that begin to make institutions not look as strong as they might be. Some institutions

03:21:08.320 - 03:21:41.920

have a great deal of money, but they have so many researchers that a lot of them simply aren't contributing. The other thing is places like the University of Maryland, or your institution, not far from you, Texas A&M, and others, obviously, have some very large programs, which are really service contracts. Texas A&M, at least the last time I looked, managed the U.S. research logistics

03:21:42.560 - 03:22:11.520

for some aspects of oceanography. I think it was a $60 million contract annually. So if you factor that in, which is not actually a research competitive piece, obviously it's competitively funded and very appropriate, but it's not what you would say defines the university's ability on the basis of its scientific talent to attract research-directed money.

03:22:12.400 - 03:22:43.040

Okay. And there are other metrics. I mean, for example, patents per researcher or patents per million dollars of funding that begin to create a whole different dynamic in how you look at universities and how maybe they ought to be viewed. When I went to Akron, and we can come back to this later, Akron often is ragged first in the nation in terms of patents per million

03:22:43.040 - 03:23:16.080

dollars of research funding. Okay. So, you know, everybody's surprised you expect that of MIT or Stanford or something like that, not a little Akron, but it turns out that it has consistently had a very high rate of turning out patents, given its particular mix of scientific expertise, particularly in polymers. So I had become very interested in how maybe you can more appropriately

03:23:17.120 - 03:23:41.520

describe the strengths of universities. Another concept is, you know, what is the research portfolio? Universities with medical schools, if you're familiar with the fact that to this day about every 70 cents of every research dollar is a biometrically related expenditure, then you can see that an institution with a medical school, as compared to one without,

03:23:41.520 - 03:24:09.120

would have a larger amount of funding, all other things being equal. Okay. Likewise, engineering is one of the largest, you know, contributors to funding success. And so a place like Purdue has a very large portfolio of research as a result of its engineering school, but not having a medical school. It looks smaller than some institutions with a medical school. So

03:24:09.120 - 03:24:35.680

those were issues that I think still to this day need to be better understood and described, because otherwise, oh, you got more money than institution, why therefore you must be better. And that's a total, you know, misconception. It goes also obviously to graduation rates. If you're Harvard or, or, you know, Stanford, and you accept only a small fraction in students,

03:24:35.680 - 03:24:57.280

it's only those that would succeed, regardless of where they went to school, you don't even have to show that you had any value. They all graduated. They do wonderfully. And you're thought to be better. But again, not necessarily. And I don't know if you've ever seen it, but there was a famous video done of an interview with Harvard graduates at the end of their graduation, asking them a

03:24:57.280 - 03:25:17.120

number of simple questions that probably any university graduate would be able to answer. And very, very, very few Harvard graduates knew the answers. So what does that say? Anyway, you get the point. Yeah, sometimes the kind of analysis or at least set of metrics people use

03:25:18.400 - 03:25:46.160

to do kind of evaluate, you know, university success are pretty flat, pretty thin, you know, if it's just amount of money. So I agree that, well, at Purdue, you said they had a large, you know, engineering portfolio, were there particular areas that you were interested in growing in terms of, you know, saying if you had a better system of metrics, what was it that you

03:25:46.160 - 03:26:10.480

were looking to undertake to? Go ahead. Yeah, it was actually as a result of this competitiveness question that I began to look at how Purdue was doing compared to other big 10 institutions or other research institutions. So I think my first focus became one of ensuring that Purdue understood the statistics and could, you know, focus on

03:26:12.160 - 03:26:38.400

growing its portfolio as appropriate. But yes, otherwise, certainly the research portfolio and engineering was one of the big pieces that I focused on. They had an Aeronautical Engineering program, as well as an aviation pilot training program, and that offered some opportunities. They had a nuclear engineering program that was very strong.

03:26:39.440 - 03:27:10.800

In combination with a school, what was it called, a college of technology, I think something like that. It had an interesting set of complements of very strong research programs on what you might call today advanced manufacturing. And on the other hand, a number of applied programs to translate that into faculty that would interact with industry and advise them on some simple

03:27:10.800 - 03:27:42.240

things that would not be accessible to the average small or emerging company. So that was another piece that I've paid a lot of attention and I learned a great deal from that that helped me when I went to both the PCAST eventually, but the ACRIN. ACRIN had some of that similar mix at a much smaller scale. You're referring to kind of like industry, university partnerships?

03:27:43.200 - 03:28:12.400

Yes, and the scientific expertise to make that possible. I see. Yeah, I mean, that seems to be a persistent challenge for many universities. I guess, how did you go about establishing those relationships in Purdue in the surrounding area where there already was their industry involvement in or academic involvement in

03:28:13.520 - 03:28:50.080

industries in Indiana? Yes, but again, think of this, the average institution, the strong science enterprises are focused very much on basic research, comparatively speaking less on applied research. This of course began to change in particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. The 1970s saw the emergence of the biotechnology industry and that made it

03:28:50.080 - 03:29:24.240

both increasingly very interesting for faculty to realize that work they were doing potentially could lead to significant clinical applications, if not actually to the formation of a company that the Corn Boyer patent made out very clear with the formation of Genentech and so forth. But in other disciplines, I think agriculture, for example, had very traditionally been engaged

03:29:24.240 - 03:29:53.840

with industry and a lot of the things that came out of colleges of agriculture had immediate applications throughout the country and indeed the world. But it became far more focused, I think, in the 70s and 80s. The passage of the Bidroll Act, Public Law 96-517 in 1980, I think, made a great difference

03:29:56.320 - 03:30:26.640

to a lot of people and legitimized, I think, not only entrepreneurial ideas for a university as a whole, but for individual faculty that saw the emergence of policies that would enable for the sharing of some of the proceeds from licensing, from commercialization, from startup companies, et cetera. And Purdue had started a research park. It had some faculty

03:30:26.640 - 03:30:56.480

in chemistry and engineering and some other disciplines that had started companies. And there were some very exciting things that I think I treasured to this day. It was a company led by a faculty member named Pete Kissinger. And already in that time frame, late 80s, 1990s, et cetera, as a result of Bidroll, there had been established

03:30:58.320 - 03:31:32.480

conflict of interest policies. And Pete was fond of saying no conflict, no interest, no commitment, no result, something like that. Which made it clear that often, I think, we sort of create an environment of fear and sort of anticipate the worst rather than trying to figure out how you can appropriately manage conflicts that could be a problem as opposed

03:31:32.560 - 03:32:03.200

to things that actually were confluences of synergy as opposed to conflicts of interest. I mean, clearly, if a researcher has a great interest in a particular area and develops it, the fact that a company is interested in that makes it for a synergy that needs to be managed so it doesn't get abused. But obviously, you don't want to establish a partnership with a scientist

03:32:03.200 - 03:32:35.360

that has absolutely no interest in your company from a scientific research perspective. It just doesn't make sense. But there were other companies. We really started the idea of a strategic partnership with a company. We'll leave that on mention as to which. But anyway, the idea being that by chatting and conversing with the company, signing non-disclosure agreements, non-compete

03:32:35.360 - 03:33:00.000

agreements, et cetera, you could get a company to share what their technical challenges were. And then you could bring together the faculty that were most likely to be able to solve those problems. And it cut through a lot of the difficulty that otherwise existed when companies would come and they say, we can't tell you very much, but we're interested in your

03:33:00.000 - 03:33:36.080

engineering faculty and nobody would know how to interact because there was not enough information to create that focus of strategy, of synergy. So that helped a great deal. What we did initially is we, once we got past some of the fear of our corporate strategy and trade secrets will go out the window, we were able to take a busload of faculty with the most likely expertise for

03:33:36.080 - 03:34:03.760

this company's issues that we were hearing about, took them to their major facility. They were then briefed by the technical people at the company. They had conversations. They went home. The faculty went home and wrote proposals now to those specific problems that were being shared. And as a result, they went from maybe one in 10 proposals to the company being successful

03:34:03.760 - 03:34:37.920

to one in every two, for example, something like that. A major increase in the ability to create a substantial, successful partnership and outcomes for both parties. And I think that was very important for me because that then became one of the things we tried to do at Akron and I'll tell you about one shortly. Thank you. I won't forget. I mean, it's really interesting because it's

03:34:38.800 - 03:35:13.680

just such a, I mean, there are so many moving parts and logistics and there's also the culture, like you said, of academic campuses. Yeah. Indeed. And the whole area of technology transfer and commercialization and it remains one that is very poorly understood both by industry and by university leadership. Industry because they're afraid of, shall we say, compromising their

03:35:15.440 - 03:35:47.680

proprietary interests. Universities because they've always thought about working with industry as equivalent to selling your soul to the devil. So it's kind of a curious phenomenon. And this continues. There's enough of that. We dealt with that in PCAST under Mr. Bush in one of the early reports. I think it was called technology transfer. But anyway, there's still a lot of questions that

03:35:47.680 - 03:36:14.000

remain. Industry sometimes thinks that because they pay taxes and the federal government funds research that quotes they've already paid for the information and they don't want to pay for it twice. But universities, on the other hand, are sometimes a little too narrow in how they can enter into a proper relationship with industry. It's not just licensing for a fee, but you can

03:36:14.800 - 03:36:50.640

license it with a long-term interest in royalties. You can license it in exchange for internships and fellowships, a human talent growth opportunity, and many other opportunities that isn't just the exchange of monetary value. Right. But what about facilities? I mean, if there's like at Purdue, if I guess I'm curious if these proposals to industry, if they're running industries

03:36:51.280 - 03:37:13.760

or running into technical challenges and then university professors are brought in to assess these challenges and make improvements or create solutions, then where does the research happen? Is it then happen in a sponsored lab or does it happen on Purdue campus or does it happen in their industry-specific facility?

03:37:14.320 - 03:37:44.800

Well, at Purdue at that time, anyway, this was the late 90s, it was still mostly the research being done at Purdue, but you began to see collaborations between a faculty member, a scientist or engineer and a technical person at the company who would collaborate on that research. And at that time you saw some movement of people back and forth and or collaborations that you do this piece,

03:37:44.800 - 03:38:21.760

I'll do this piece and we'll join together. So you saw that a great deal. The other thing that began to happen was following some of the various kinds of financial, economic, uh, cycles that that took place. So when industry downscaled and so forth, at Akron at least, we began to work with the industry to let them either donate certain

03:38:21.760 - 03:38:51.920

pieces of equipment or even loan a space in their facilities that we could vastly expand the capabilities that we had without any expenditure of funds. So, you know, one of my, the vice president for research that I'd hired at Akron, for example, got a lot of these companies to donate their technical libraries to the university. It immediately expanded the range of our technical

03:38:51.920 - 03:39:21.680

holdings and at the same time enabled the industry to shed and get a tax credit for some of their assets that were not being utilized effectively. So that brought very interesting possibilities. Interesting. I mean, in Akron you mentioned it was it was polymers and Purdue, what was the industry that you were most involved with? Well, we were most involved with engineering

03:39:21.680 - 03:39:50.800

related companies in a wide array of areas, but particularly mechanical and electrical engineering, nuclear engineering, aerospace engineering, and the manufacturing aspects associated with those in other areas. Thank you. I want to ask, at this time you were also getting, we talked about the Council of Competitiveness, but you were also very involved with

03:39:51.680 - 03:40:27.040

at this time. Right. So I continued my relationship there, but, you know, while I was at Purdue, I was vice president, not the CEO. So we did have the opportunity as a result of that for me to participate in some of the technical groups and bring some faculty along, you know, to serve as the, shall we say, the Council has what they call the leadership committees or leadership

03:40:27.040 - 03:41:00.000

councils and then working committees. The principals are always CEOs or presidents of institutions, but the working committees often involve the technical people in industry and or in university. I see. Well, I also want to ask, you know, you moved to, like, what was life like in Indiana? Did you enjoy your time there? I know last time you

03:41:00.000 - 03:41:42.960

mentioned you saw KKK Rally, but I guess I wanted to see how, you know, what life was like for you at Purdue. It was fine. Purdue was a very well managed institution. We often joked that Purdue knew how to spend both sides of a nickel as a way of summarizing the effectiveness of their management of their resources. Some of that created some bureaucracy that it wasn't impossible to

03:41:42.960 - 03:42:13.600

overcome, but it took some doing. And it perhaps inhibited a little bit of the entrepreneurial opportunities that some people sought. But more than anything, it probably, it was enough conservative as to ensure that things were done properly and legally and legitimately, and not so loosely as to create potential problems down the line.

03:42:14.480 - 03:42:48.560

But we enjoyed it. I mean, that part of Indiana is relatively flat. Once you lift, leave the immediate vicinity of the river that courses through West Lafayette and Lafayette, you're pretty much in very flat farmland that goes on for miles. And that scenery often left a little bit to be desired. But lots of good other things,

03:42:48.560 - 03:43:24.000

very close to Chicago, to the north and Indianapolis, to the south. And Lafayette and West Lafayette had enough, you know, population and so forth that it wasn't as barren as some other college towns around the country. Did you get out on the river at all? Did you ever boat by this time? There were a number of lakes nearby and some friends of ours in engineering would

03:43:24.000 - 03:43:57.440

sometimes invite us to go sailing on their smaller boat. The river, I don't recall getting out on the river per se, but the lakes that weren't too far away were quite suitable for a nice sail on a 15 to 20 foot sailboat. So that was fun. Nice. Well, is there anything else from your time at Purdue that you want to mention? Or I should also ask Dave if he has questions or good.

03:43:58.400 - 03:44:32.960

Was there, I would guess, life in Lafayette is good? You're happy at Purdue? Were you, you were there for, let's see, about four or five years? Yeah, almost, almost five. And as I mentioned, even when I left Alaska, I had been a finalist for a few university presidencies. So that had remained an interest of mine.

03:44:34.960 - 03:45:00.560

I think I mentioned that Georgia, the president dominating me for American Council of Education, Fellowship and Academic Administration. And I don't think I mentioned that one of the participant, one of the quote, unquote, faculty in the program had recognized something and encouraged me to pursue a possibility of a presidency and

03:45:01.280 - 03:45:30.240

even nominated me at that very early time for one. But anyway, these things are such that they'll happen sometime, not necessarily when one wants it or where one might wish to to be located, but it continued that interest. And indeed, it was a close call at Texas, but nobody picked up their options. And that's probably all for the better, but who knows.

03:45:31.760 - 03:46:06.720

Thanks for working on it. So as a result of that, I think I'd both had people calling now and again, and I was sort of watching what was happening. So Akron came along, and as they say, the rest of history had worked out. Did you have an interesting kind of staying in the Midwest? Was that part of your plan? No, I think I would have been happy to go almost anywhere.

03:46:06.720 - 03:46:43.440

I probably gravitated more to the Atlantic coast, generally, certainly to the east than to, you know, I had spent a summer at Utah and thought that was a very interesting part of the world and might not have minded that. Obviously, I was familiar and admired some of the Texas institutions. But other than that,

03:46:44.400 - 03:47:14.000

I would have probably been focused more on the east and had looked at some things in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, etc. Anyway, there was no predilection for the Midwest per se. But Akron, I guess, picked up your options, I suppose. Yeah, it was interesting.

03:47:17.360 - 03:47:54.160

A couple of things stand out. Number one, the institution was large enough at the time that I was being interviewed. It was about 21,000 students. It had certain points of excellence, the Polymer program being the one that clearly stood out in a city that was born out of Polymers, the rubber industry, initially. So it had some clear strengths that played to my interest in

03:47:54.160 - 03:48:27.040

science and technology and research programs, etc. It was also in a city that was not small, and in an area that was even larger. I mean, Akron, I think at the time, was about 50,000 in population, 30 miles from Cleveland with a population of about 500,000. Northeast Ohio, which is a really large metroplex, probably a population of four,

03:48:27.040 - 03:49:04.880

four and a half million people, lots of industry, lots of other attractions, proximity, obviously, for me to a large body of water, Lake Erie. So all of those things, I think, were very interesting. The other thing, I think it was, it had gone through some turmoil, and yet it had great strengths to build upon. And so the finalists included a person who had been

03:49:05.600 - 03:49:40.560

the vice president at IBM, trying to remember where the other person was. If I recall, there were three finalists, and in the end result, the chairman of the board sort of saw something in me. And anyway, the chemistry was right. I said to many people along the way that search committees have vagaries

03:49:40.560 - 03:50:08.080

known only unto themselves, and I'm not really sure that even they know what those vagaries are. So it just, you know, how does a group of people react to a set of candidates, and I'm not sure they're particularly strategic about it necessarily, but hopefully the process works at least well enough that it's a better match than is sometimes made.

03:50:10.000 - 03:50:39.840

As you may be aware of, Boston University had been run by John Silver for many years when Silver decided to step down. They went on a search and they selected Ann Golden and gave him free reign. But the minute he actually started doing some things, they summarily fired him before he actually set foot on campus.

03:50:40.720 - 03:51:16.400

Wow. And there are stories of people that accept a job and arrive and take the next plane back out. So anyway, I felt blessed that I had a tenure of 15 and a half years, not without some problems, but on the whole, I very successfully grew the university from 21,000 to nearly 30,000, doubled or tripled the research program. We did some major rebuilding

03:51:16.400 - 03:51:40.880

of a physical plant, and more to the interest, we'll come back to it in a little bit, had some great successes in industrial partnerships. What was it like, you had mentioned having this fellowship in the university administration, did you feel, what was the transition from being a vice president from research and a dean

03:51:41.520 - 03:52:05.280

to becoming a university president? Well, you know, despite some of the disappointment of not being selected for some positions along the way, I think every opportunity that I had gave me greater insight and breadth of experience. So I felt more prepared. By that time, I'd had a chance to

03:52:05.280 - 03:52:38.720

work with, I think, five different presidents fairly closely along the way. So all of that was very helpful. Also had a chance to develop my own sense of style and approach to, shall we call it, leadership. So I think all of that was, I think, helpful. And you learn from different people, the president had nominated for that,

03:52:38.720 - 03:53:06.640

I see fellowship had a great ability to sort of take stock of not only what were his locational, his geographic strengths on which to relate to and build upon, but also the portfolio of his institution and how to marry the two. And so he would often say, you know, here we are in Georgia with

03:53:08.720 - 03:53:34.720

one of the largest land areas of the state with 250 frost-free days, a port, the port of Savannah that was substantial. And, you know, to today, it's one of the largest seaports on the Eastern seaboard. And, you know, you wouldn't think to bring all those elements together and how do you

03:53:36.320 - 03:54:12.480

bring that to your institution. So that, I think, helped me think about the opportunities in Alaska and Indiana and Akron in ways that I might not have thought of it had my experience been either at a single institution prior to moving to a presidency or in a single geographical setting. I credit that strongly with some of my ability to move ideas

03:54:12.560 - 03:54:43.360

and just generate ideas, period. You mentioned, you know, tremendous growth for the university both in terms of student enrollment and also facilities, yeah, major facility and renovation projects. Was that kind of like entering into the university? Was that part of your vision for Akron was to kind of expand kind of the reach and research capacity of the university?

03:54:46.320 - 03:55:15.200

Yes, and I think it was facilitated a great deal by the Board of Trustees themselves. They had, as I mentioned, some difficulties with previous leadership, and most of them felt that the institution was far better than it had been given credit for being. And so one of the things they asked me to do is to really become the face and voice of the

03:55:15.200 - 03:55:45.280

institution to the public. And the chairman was funny. He said, we want you to be the Dave Thomas of the University of Akron. That's the guy who advertised for Wendy's, I believe. He joked that maybe I'd rather be compared to the Iacocca, but anyway. That was the gist of it. And they not only asked me to do that, but they said, you know, we think the best avenue for

03:55:45.280 - 03:56:18.880

you to do that is to put the university on TV with some, you know, spots telling people about the institution. So we did that every year for the 15 and a half years that I was there. And that was a great boost to the institution. It didn't do much for my privacy interests, but, you know, it really helped. There was a buzz created as a result of our

03:56:19.840 - 03:56:53.760

doing that. And other things, obviously, there's just a lot of things that the institution was very good at that frankly people just didn't know about. And telling that story in a broad way was part of that success. So how did you, how does one become a Dave Thomas? Did you take media training? Were you set up with, you know, what was that process like?

03:56:54.560 - 03:57:24.640

You know, it was a combination of things. We initially hired a PR firm to, you know, help us with those spots. And by and large, that was very helpful. But eventually, it was hiring a vice president for communications that was very capable of really getting inside my head and other people's heads and being able to abstract from that what needed to be shared

03:57:24.640 - 03:57:56.640

in order to be true to the institution, not just to what some advertising company thought might be best. And so that, that kind of helped. I mean, did you see kind of a, well, I guess, where were these spots located? Were you on national television? Were you trying to recruit students from overseas? Were you trying to recruit students from? Right. We primarily did a, well,

03:57:56.640 - 03:58:29.760

first of all, going on national television would have been too far, too expensive. Okay. But buying time on a regional basis, northeast Ohio, western Pennsylvania, western Ohio, occasionally going into the Columbus market, for example, was affordable. Okay. And so that, that was the strategy that we pursued. I see. If you're interested, if you go to YouTube and

03:58:29.760 - 03:59:00.800

look up University of Akron advertisements for my name, you'll probably find most of those spots on YouTube. I haven't looked at them in a long time, but they're probably still there. Yeah, I've seen one. We focused on getting kids excited about the idea of innovation and the university's role in discovery and innovation and the role of innovation in the economy and

03:59:01.840 - 03:59:32.880

giving them what we call the Akron advantage, the ability to not only get an education, but to most of our programs require the students to have an internship in industry, in business. And so that linkage, we touted as one of the strengths and advantages of going to the University of Akron. And we were very successful with that. Right. Does Akron also have a,

03:59:34.160 - 03:59:56.880

it doesn't have a medical school, but does it have a nursing school? Has a nursing school. And it had a long story, I'll make it very short, but there was a great interest between Cleveland and Akron on establishing a public medical school. And so there was this competition between Cleveland State University,

03:59:57.440 - 04:00:27.120

Youngston State University, and the University of Akron. And the legislature said, okay, you all are fighting about it. I'll tell you what, you all can have it, but none of you can own it. So they created a Northeast Ohio University's plural College of Medicine, now called Neomed, Northeast Ohio Medical School. And so it was in between all of the three

04:00:27.120 - 04:00:58.080

institutions. And we all had a role in it, sort of a broad advisory role. Each of the presidents was on the board of trustees for Neomed. And we each had a pre-med program for early placement at the medical school. So we had 25 slots open to be able to place them. Anyway, but it's less than optimal.

04:01:02.400 - 04:01:32.880

Was some curious, you mentioned these major expansions. Some of these projects are many hundreds of millions of dollars in terms of fundraising. What was your approach to that? And where did this money, how did you fundraise to make these improvements possible? Well, we did quite a bit of fundraising, but not nearly enough. And so we funded most of the

04:01:33.600 - 04:02:08.960

issuing bonds. The proceeds of our success in growing the enrollment enabled us to have a reasonable income stream to pay off the bonds. In addition, obviously some fundraising and the state had a very modest, roughly $18 million a year capital funding for the University of Akron that we could access. So between those three options, three mechanisms, but with the

04:02:08.960 - 04:02:34.400

major one being our increased revenue stream as a result of the success and enrollment that enabled us to issue the bonds and begin to retire the debt. I understand. Were you also involved with the city? What was the working relationship like between you as president and also were you involved with the governor's office?

04:02:37.680 - 04:03:03.040

The governor of my large, when I went, Bob Taft had just been elected governor, and he had very good relations. And my board of trustees had very good relations with him. And so that was a very fruitful one. By contrast, the mayor initially started to have a very, well, I shouldn't say not started, but had had a very contentious relationship

04:03:03.760 - 04:03:34.160

with the board. He was democratic. Most of my board was Republican. And so that created some friction. But when we started building and partnering with some companies to build the adjacent structures, the mayor began to be, frankly, much more amenable to working with us. It became a great partner in time.

04:03:37.920 - 04:04:02.720

And yes, the politics were initially somewhat contentious. Makes sense. And you were still, I imagine, very interested in this issue of competitiveness. Was this something you were in kind of growing statistics making Akron known? Were you still involved with AAU and Council of Competitiveness? Were you still doing

04:04:02.720 - 04:04:30.480

activities through these other external organizations? Well, once I left Purdue, I was no longer involved with AAU. AAU is only 60 universities across the country and in Canada. But yes, now as president, I was able to take more of a leadership role in the council. Became a formal, quote, member, institutional member of the council.

04:04:31.760 - 04:05:00.960

And Deborah was very receptive to some of the things we were doing. I think we played a very strong role in the clusters of innovation project and manufacturing projects. A very natural evolution there. If you look at some of the reports and then in the 2000s, early 2000s, you'll find many good comments about Akron and so forth. This was the time also that Bruce Katz

04:05:01.200 - 04:05:36.400

was starting at the Brookings Institution, some of the work on metro areas and his push for recognizing the competitive advantage of metro areas. And he talked about that and led eventually to Antoine Bonacmel doing a series of interviews around the country and coming to Akron as part of the book that he published roughly 2015, I think, called from Rust Belt to Brain Belt,

04:05:36.400 - 04:06:02.400

something like that. That was an interesting look at the transformation that was occurring in many formerly very strong manufacturing areas that had seen the decline and were now showing a resurgence of rebirth. Was EPSCORE around then? Was Akron involved?

04:06:02.400 - 04:06:38.880

It had been around and in fact, one of the things that we did while I was in Akron, the former, the academic organization known as the SOLDRIK, now APLU, Association of Public and Line Grant Universities, had a small program, trying to recall what it was called, urban something or other. Anyway, Nancy Zinfer, who was the president of the University

04:06:38.880 - 04:07:28.160

of Cincinnati, and I got together and we created something called, sorry, Urban Serving Universities Coalition, something like that. And we eventually married it with APLU's program and then housed the program at APLU. And so it continues quite active now. It has an executive director, but we were able to establish some early ideas that focused, if you

04:07:28.160 - 04:07:59.760

wish, some of the major public institutions that were created in cities and created a focus for them to express their relationship with their cities and their ability to work with them. Urban Serving Universities Coalition, something like that anyway. Yeah, Coalition, yeah, Urban Serving Universities. Yeah, something like that.

04:08:02.080 - 04:08:36.000

The lady who was APLU, or she was hired. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we hired her together with APLU. Yeah, that's right. Blocking on her name. I think she continues there and the the program has thrived. It's now a going concert, it's pretty well. That's great. I want to ask about maybe other, I mean, these are all great success stories.

04:08:36.000 - 04:09:03.920

Are there other things from your presidency that you look back on and are very proud of? Well, I think one of the things that has continued to evolve, but I think worked very well. The person I hired as vice president for research had been an old former colleague of mine. He had been vice president for research at the University of South Florida, George Newcomb. George,

04:09:03.920 - 04:09:32.560

interestingly, was a Polymer chemist and had been born in Akron. And as a result of not only being Polymer chemist, but knowing Akron, he had a long standing collaborative research program with one of the faculty members at Akron. So anyway, his coming to Akron wind up serving both as someone who had real experience managing research programs,

04:09:33.200 - 04:10:06.560

we've done it very successfully at the University of South Florida, and who had the knowledge and ongoing knowledge about what was in the Akron area to build upon. So one of the things he did very early is to form a research foundation, the University of Akron Research Foundation, UARF. And to begin developing that in a way to stimulate opportunities that would serve the long-term

04:10:06.560 - 04:10:39.360

interest of the economy of the university and the larger community. So he established an angel network called the Akron Regional Change Agents. He established a series of investment groups, one for women, one for students, and the angel network obviously, the archangels. He established a number of international partnerships. He did this library

04:10:39.360 - 04:11:06.880

thing that I mentioned earlier where he got companies to donate their technical libraries. He established, rather than research assistantships, industrial assistantships, getting companies to fund a graduate student that would then most likely go back and work at the company or who may have been someone at the company that needed to finish a master's or

04:11:06.880 - 04:11:38.720

a PhD. In short, he established a series of activities around the university's technical expertise. And so the research foundation became focused not just on technology transfer and commercialization, but on trying to understand and establish and grow an economic opportunity ecosystem, if you wish, around itself. If you'll remind me, I'll try to find there's a

04:11:39.440 - 04:12:11.600

fine paper that one of the people in the foundation wrote that sort of shares this, and I did a small paper on what we call the Akron model that kind of shares this idea of a cluster of activities all focused on creating great economic opportunities. So the idea of a strategic partnership really took off in a new way. And so one of the things we did that I think to this day

04:12:11.600 - 04:12:50.320

remains perhaps unique. We had very good relationships with the Timkin company in Canton, just 20 miles south of us. And the Timkin company had looked to the University of Akron as one of their technical partners. And unlike their other technical partnerships, which were places like Purdue and Stanford and MIT, we were their smaller university partner. But then they said we were recognized

04:12:50.320 - 04:13:17.920

and they understood. Well, they had developed at Timkin a coatings technology that gave their roller bearings, their roller bearings, a huge, huge competitive advantage in the industry to the point that they could not only exact the premium in sales, but the premium was justified because these bearings not only perform better, but lasted far longer than anybody else's bearings.

04:13:18.240 - 04:13:50.400

So they had a person and a laboratory focused on this area of tribology coatings for friction reduction. And we had a number of people at the Polymer program who were interested in this area. And eventually, the gist of this is that we talked them into literally moving their entire tribology laboratory to the University of Akron, providing this license

04:13:52.400 - 04:14:21.440

to market that technology in other areas of application that Timkin wasn't interested in at all. So all of a sudden, there was a opportunity for Timkin and the University to have a joint partnership for areas of economic interest to both, but also to have a joint laboratory to continue to develop the technology both for Timkin's interest and for these other potential

04:14:21.440 - 04:15:07.920

application interests. And so I do not know to this date of any other company that was willing to take their proprietary technology for an entire segment of their company, move it to the University, make it a joint venture if you will, and enable it to grow in this fashion. Can you excuse me just for a minute? Yeah, I've never heard of that. That's incredible that a company would do that.

04:15:09.120 - 04:15:34.800

And it made me think, well, my home institution could use your expertise, I think, as they're setting up their, trying to create a cluster in central Houston, and could use the Akron model, I think. So they're just getting up and running lots of money, but still kind of figuring out the nuts and bolts of how this cluster would work.

04:15:35.120 - 04:16:10.480

Certainly I think your colleagues at Austin have done a great deal of that cluster building far more so than many other institutions. Yeah, I think that's right. Houston is it's really pushing for that innovation ecosystem. We've got the Ion, they call it, so it's opening up, I think. And I think the spring, so we'll see. Should be good.

04:16:11.280 - 04:16:49.280

So I guess I want to turn, you'd mentioned these PCAST reports several times earlier, but I guess I want to turn to PCAST for a bit if you're willing. Yeah, so I'm wondering just about your recruitment process to the board or the committee and when you first became involved and what your expectations were going in. Sure. Well, needless to say, I was interested in

04:16:49.280 - 04:17:23.040

continuing some of the policy work that I'd been privileged to have, the biotechnology, the the the Arctic issues and the types of things that the council and competitors were doing. So I had certainly let it be known that I was interested in some other kinds of appointments. I did not expect and thought it was very unlikely for me to be asked to PCAST.

04:17:23.840 - 04:17:59.040

Ohio had some very good relationships with the Bush administration. By the way, the U.S. Arctic Research Commission was appointed by George Herbert Walker Bush, G.W.'s father. I never met him, so I can't claim any relationship there, but obviously the appointment came through his office. So anyway, I wasn't expecting anything, but one day I was in my car and I got a call

04:17:59.680 - 04:18:30.000

from Floyd Kwame, who was the PCAST chair along with Jack Marburger, the president's science advisor, quite simply asking if I would be interested in serving and said I'd be delighted and we chatted a little bit, I think, talked one other time and the next thing I knew, I was formally invited to participate. I don't know that I had any well-formulated expectations.

04:18:31.680 - 04:19:04.720

By that time, I hadn't met Mr. Bush a couple of times when he was on the campaign circuit. He had come to Akron a couple of times and was pretty well known to some of the people that I was had on my board and to some other folks that I knew. So I had met him just very briefly, etc. And I think one observation that it's worth sharing is I think the press picked up on some

04:19:04.720 - 04:19:31.840

of his unusual pronunciation and thought he was a lightweight, but that was certainly not the impression I got either from his campaign speeches, but I think more importantly from his first meeting with the PCAST that he appointed. It was in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, where both PCAST meetings with the president, I expect, continue to take place today.

04:19:32.800 - 04:20:08.240

But he came in and for about 20 minutes, without a single note, ticked off a series of thoughts, topics that he thought he'd like for us to address. And I don't know about my colleagues, but I would have expected the president to come with a scripted set of notes for something like that. And instead, just off the top of his head, coachedly, why this might be

04:20:08.240 - 04:20:40.240

important and so forth and so on, you know. I'm trying to remember whether that first meeting took place after 9-11 or not. But clearly that became one of the areas that we were asked to look at. And I think some of the work that we did in that early committee became part of the structure of the Homeland Security and the R&D science and technology

04:20:40.240 - 04:21:14.160

component. So that was an important piece. But anyway, he ticked off, I can't remember the topics on it, except that we did address a number of them in early work. Go ahead. Sorry, as a result, I tell anybody that I need who has an impression of a person that never met to please not assume that everything they read in the press is exactly as portrayed in the

04:21:14.160 - 04:21:47.680

press. The individual is often far more affable, capable, intelligent than the press makes them out to be. Yeah, we tend to, with politicians, that is difficult for them to manage, I imagine. Yeah. Yeah. When you got the call, had you met Kwame Floyd before? No, I had not. No, and I didn't know John Marberger at the time either.

04:21:51.360 - 04:22:20.480

There's something about, he was used at Sunny Binghamton, I believe, at the time. I had some colleagues there, but I didn't know John. That's what it was. And were you aware of PCAST, previous administrations, did you know? Sure, sure, no. If there was one appointment that I would have thought specifically would have been

04:22:20.560 - 04:22:52.080

an appointment to PCAST. From a perspective of anybody to be, if you wish, part of the highest level of science and technology advice to the government. A wonderful friend of mine thought that I would be better advised to look at the National Science Board, but the National Science Board is NSF focused, not nationally, I mean, national, of course, but in a different way,

04:22:52.080 - 04:23:23.040

it's agency focused. So I was, quite frankly, thrilled, delighted, humbled, very appreciative of being considered and eventually appointed. You mentioned your first meeting with President Bush and that you met in the Roosevelt room. Did you continue to, did PCAST continue to meet in the Roosevelt room and did you

04:23:23.040 - 04:23:50.000

continue to interact with the president? You mentioned he rattled off the 20 or so items. Yes, we did. Typically once or twice a year, not very frequently. Most of our interaction was with Jack and Floyd and with each other. It was a remarkable group of people. Told you I was looking him up the other day because I'd forgotten some, but I was delighted to

04:23:50.000 - 04:24:36.240

to already know some of them like Charlie Aronson and Chuck Vest and and anyway, several of them, but but also to see some people and some of them did not become great participants. You know, the Michael Dell was often not there. The founder of Intel, Gordon Moore. He was a delight to have when he was there and I just

04:24:36.240 - 04:25:01.200

really enjoyed getting to know him a little bit. Some of the other ones who were mainstays of U.S. science and technology policy, Eric Block, a person who became forgive me, let me see if I can find my

04:25:01.760 - 04:25:38.640

note. Norm Augustine again, Bernadine Ralph Gamori is who I was thinking about. I later served with Ralph on the National Academy's Board of Science, Science Technology and Public Policy. Science and Technology, Economic and Public Policy, something like that. Anyway, Wayne Clough, who had been president of

04:25:38.640 - 04:26:11.200

Georgia Tech, was very active and very, very helpful. Mary Ann Fox, she was down at Austin, the vice president for research there. Walter Massie. Someone that I had, I did not know before that, but I developed great respect for was Kathy Behrens. Kathy was an entrepreneur, a venture capitalist in the biotechnology industry.

04:26:11.920 - 04:26:47.600

She was exceptionally capable, exceptionally articulate in making some points. Anyway, it was a very good group and I thought a very good PCAS. We had some very good staff support. I think the combination that Jack and Floyd brought was also very important. Jack was not dominant, neither was Floyd. They shared many of the roles of chairing the meetings,

04:26:48.720 - 04:27:18.880

often one hand or the other would be there, more often than not both were there. It was a good mix of people and a very good portfolio of activities that we developed. I don't believe Mr. Obama continued the tradition of an industry and an academic person co-chairing. I don't remember if you're sure, I don't know.

04:27:20.400 - 04:27:54.240

Obama's was a bit more academic leaning, I think. Yeah, it seemed that way. Yeah. You mentioned security, Homeland Security and PCAS involvement with that. Were there other items that stood out to you that was part of the PCAS portfolio that you remember? Sure. I'm sure I can think of more if I looked at the panoply, but the other one that I was very

04:27:54.320 - 04:28:26.480

active and interested in, and so was Kathy and others, of course, was the technology transfer report that was one of the early ones. Advanced manufacturing was a great piece, and we did, I think, three reports that involved manufacturing. Another one that I was very interested in, and again, Bernadine and Kathy played a strong role in, was I think we called it personalized medicine,

04:28:27.600 - 04:29:04.320

the whole role of, of course, the ability to bring in the whole genetic makeup of an individual and creating better both therapies and pharmaceutical agency that would be specific, you know, as you well know, when you see these ads on TV for a new pharmaceutical agent, they tell you all of these caveats that you may have this, that, that, the other thing,

04:29:04.320 - 04:29:39.120

and then even then, you know, many of them do not have the desired effect on a large percentage of the target population, so more of this was needed, and I think that was also a time when with the, with the advent of all of these technology platforms that allowed individuals to interact, an opportunity to tap individual, if you wish, individuals throughout the world with

04:29:39.120 - 04:30:11.920

various melodies to participate in the generation of therapies that might work for them, okay. So that was, I thought, a highlight of that piece, kind of something else I thought about there. Yeah, sorry, it came in one ear and went out the other, I guess. Was, well, I'm curious, you know, you shared a number of these and were very deeply involved

04:30:13.520 - 04:30:39.920

in, especially these reports surrounding technology transfer and manufacturing. What, I mean, what was the time commitment for you? Did you, was this kind of like a part-time job? Was it something that, that took, what were, I mean, in terms of developing these reports, what was, what was the process like for you? Well, it had many interesting features.

04:30:43.440 - 04:31:13.840

As I'm sure you know, one of the things that we discovered early is that there's no report in the administration, in any part of the administration or agencies, that is uniquely the product of one individual or one committee, it's vetted in a variety of ways. And certainly at the level of the White House, anything that is sent to the president is vetted by, you know, the

04:31:14.080 - 04:31:42.000

council, the economic advisors, national security advisor, this, that, and the other things. So, you know, all of these things were often informed by these other linkages that obviously were brought to us through Jack and Floyd and the staff. So that was very interesting. We had, I think, very good staff, and I think depending on the topic, each of us had more and or more

04:31:42.960 - 04:32:10.800

more peripheral involvement. You know, there were several that I was very actively involved in, but others that I would say were, you know, I participated in the meetings and some of the discussion, but I did not participate in the final write-up or review of the document. I don't remember offhand the names of some of the staff offhand, but

04:32:14.160 - 04:32:44.320

to a person, they were all very, very capable and knowledge and brought an additional layer, if you wish, of contacts and connectivity and review and resources. Oh, I know what I was going to say. I think one of the other things that I valued and we all valued is the opportunity to get briefings as part of our work related to a particular topic. So I remember, for example,

04:32:47.120 - 04:33:19.760

this was part of, I don't remember which committee, but price-driven innovation, which has, you know, come on a little bit more strongly in recent years. There was a company that was formed called Innocentif, you may have heard of it or not. It's worth looking up. They developed an approach where they would publicly, through

04:33:20.720 - 04:33:57.120

web resources, very carefully formulate a problem and the kind of solutions that would be acceptable to the problem, okay, and specified how the person who solved the problem would benefit from having provided the solution, okay. So I recall they mentioned a company that sought their services. It was a mining company, I believe in Canada,

04:33:58.080 - 04:34:28.480

who was not being economically successful as a result of the very low concentration of the mineral they were searching for in the ore that they were mining. Well, the typical mining engineer had no solution and they, if they could put another, if they had consulted only mining engineers, they would have never gotten the result that they got. As a result of

04:34:28.480 - 04:35:11.200

putting it out for this competitive solution process, they got a totally unexpected person or persons to submit a solution and they went from maybe pennies per ton to maybe, I don't remember the, anyway, a vastly increased economic return on the amount of ore that they were looking at at any one time. That kind of approach was then used by companies like Procter & Gamble and a

04:35:11.200 - 04:35:49.040

number of others and on the website for Innocent, if you get a listing of some of that, it's also the kind of approach that Peter Dymandy runs, the X Price Foundation was using for this competition that led to first suborbital recoverable vehicle to be returned from earth and obviously you can argue that that led to, you know, Bezos and Virgin Galactic and all the other folks that are in the

04:35:49.760 - 04:36:22.240

private space business now and that idea of sourcing solutions from other than the typical suspect possible experts, I think, took flight and that was a seminal moment for, I think, all of us to hear that and to understand that, you know, really good solutions to complex technical problems don't necessarily have to be solved by established technical

04:36:22.240 - 04:36:48.400

experts in the area that others may have a linkage that could bring completely new insights to the solution and, anyway, it's just fascinating. So that's what I was thinking about and one of the things that I personally value greatly from some of those meetings. Interesting. Was it a representative from Inoscentive that came in briefly? Yes, I wish I could remember their name, but

04:36:48.400 - 04:37:29.280

yes, very articulate, very capable, obviously in part, selling their company, but it's just a novel idea. There's a guy who then wrote a book about this kind of approach more broadly on the web. Anyway, I'll think of it. It's just a crowd sourcing idea, but specifically for technical solutions. Yeah, very cool. Like challenge based and prize based innovation process,

04:37:29.280 - 04:38:03.440

something that is really interesting and often very fruitful. Were there other briefings that did you guys, what was the interaction with OSTP like, were there briefings or members from OSTP that sat in these meetings? Yes, of course, virtually all of Jack's staff would intentionally the senior leadership did. I'm sure he had others that didn't necessarily

04:38:03.520 - 04:38:35.520

interact with PCAS. But yes, and Floyd, I think was very interesting in that he occasionally brought people from the venture capital startup environment. I remember one in particular, as some of this concern about XSCO2 was really beginning to, you know, push into public consciousness and so forth. He brought a person that was looking at carbon capture technologies,

04:38:36.160 - 04:39:03.520

and the possibility that not only you could solve this problem by pursuing carbon capture technologies, but that you could actually also make a business of taking that captured carbon CO2 and turning it into other products that would not be detrimental to the atmosphere. That was absolutely fascinating. And as I'm sure you know, there are now dozens upon dozens of

04:39:03.520 - 04:39:39.040

companies and researchers looking at this decision. Very cool. I mentioned, I want to come back to Jack Marburger seems one of his, you know, kind of, at least legacies anyway, is kind of elevating, at least the conversation surrounding R&D statistics. Were there, you know, he wrote this famous op-ed around this time in science that was better benchmarks, which always stood out to me.

04:39:40.400 - 04:40:10.960

I guess was there, was there discussions in PCAST about, you know, kind of that shared interest that you guys both had on creating better sets of indicators for science and competitiveness? Yeah, I don't think it became a particular focus, but it certainly was there. You know, there was an undercurrent here and there. That's roughly when NSF started the

04:40:10.960 - 04:40:41.680

STARS program, and the lady who ran it came and briefed us on some of the things they were doing in her office. Jack, of course, wrote that piece, and then he wrote a book later. Forget the title of it, but, you know, it's a well-known book in the science and technology policy arena. I don't recall, I don't recall a focused meeting on the topic, though, and it would

04:40:41.680 - 04:41:14.240

have been a good one to have. It was, you know, clearly a whole issue of productivity. What's the return on investment that the government gets? How do you better quantify it? You know, how do you better really, I remember years, years ago, a scientist out of UBC, University of British Columbia, talking to his colleagues who were only interested, obviously, in, you know, talking to

04:41:14.240 - 04:41:45.280

either the Canadian or the U.S. government about more funding, more funding, more funding, more funding, and not being able to communicate the kind of economic outcome that has blessed us, if you wish, over generations, is the sheer economic impact, for example, of the polio vaccine of, you know, just a number of things you can point at, but, you know, even the incremental things

04:41:45.280 - 04:42:07.600

which over, over time has obviously enabled the economy to grow. It's not well understood. Yeah, that's a whole science upon itself, it seems. Yeah. Measuring as outcomes. What about the American Competitiveness Initiative? Was PCAST involved?

04:42:09.920 - 04:42:29.840

Yes, yes. And can we take just a brief bathroom break? Yeah, of course. I almost lost the recording I should have offered. Okay. Yes, so you were asking about the Accountable American Competitiveness Act.

04:42:31.600 - 04:42:58.000

And, you know, if I had to guess, or to suggest anyway, I think it was our Advanced Manufacturing Report early on, trying to remember the name of the Scalise, I think was his name. Do you have the list of PCAST members? Yes, George Scalise.

04:42:59.040 - 04:43:32.320

George Scalise, yeah. He was the National Manufacturing Institute or something like that. And we did a report and heard several briefings, which made it very clear that the U.S. all of a sudden was being able to not only outsource manufacturing, but that companies were actually often being able to reach into other countries

04:43:33.200 - 04:44:00.160

for very advanced technical work. Okay. Some research, but clearly the chip design, you name it, the level of technical expertise was rising in a very alarming way. Right. And I think that report and discussions that the Council on Competitiveness

04:44:00.160 - 04:44:29.280

elsewhere, obviously, pushed this to higher awareness, and hence with the Chuck Vest and Norm Augustine on PCAST, and Chuck being at the Academy along with others and so forth, gave rise to the initial report of rising above the gathering storm and then rising above the gathering storm and visited. And I don't know of the two who

04:44:33.360 - 04:45:07.360

was personally acquainted with Senator Lamar Alexander, but Senator Alexander became, I think, the Congress's champion in this area. And if you look at the acts, they mirror the recommendations in the rising above the gathering storm reports almost literally by number and by words. So that was a very exciting time. And of course, it was unfortunate that

04:45:08.240 - 04:45:44.560

what wind up having great bipartisan support then ran into the recession of 2008, I guess it was, and some funding came about, but the expectation for a truly large government opportunity, I think remains unmet to this day. So I think that PCAST really honed in on that issue. And it bubbled up thanks to Lamar Alexander, Chuck Vest and Norm Augustine of the three people

04:45:44.560 - 04:46:27.120

I would name as the people who became most personally and prominently associated with the ACA. Yeah. Yeah, I know the rags report was really pivotal in making, moving the pieces along. What about, what about NANO? Were you involved in any of the NANO? Yes, we were. And that was not one that I was personally greatly involved in. And there was a

04:46:28.080 - 04:46:55.120

a separate committee that got folded in PCAST towards the end of the Bush administration. And I don't recall, that may have been the NANO technology initiative you do, right? Yeah, there was like a, the acronym has changed, I think with time, but like a national NANO advisory panel or something like that. Yeah. I'm almost sure that was the one that got merged into PCAST

04:46:55.200 - 04:47:32.880

at that point. What about PTAC? Were there PTAC, there was this Information Technology Advisory Council? Were there? Yes. And obviously, we heard from Michael Dell on that. Oh, the other one that was, I think, very seminal was on energy. And a business industry person, I think a paper master, was quite influential on that.

04:47:34.240 - 04:48:06.640

That really focused on the great inefficiencies in the, in the, what do you call it, the, not the web, but the transmission lines, et cetera. What's that called? Like the grid? Yes, thank you. The grid. So that was one that I thought was also, I think, very seminal. I don't, I didn't see it as having that great an impact because, you know, not long

04:48:06.640 - 04:48:37.920

thereafter, there was that big power outage in the Northeast that got a lot of attention, and I think focused attention on that issue. But yeah, IT, Michael Dell got involved, Gordon Moore. There were a couple of others on PCAST whose names I don't remember who I think are very articulate on that. I'm sorry. My degree is not as good on that one.

04:48:38.640 - 04:49:10.720

Could you talk more about these energy reports and your involvement in that kind of arena? I know you were at one point on a DOE, the Secretary Advisory Board. I guess could you speak on your kind of involvement in the energy policy arena? Sure. My work on the DOE panel, I think, followed the PCAST, so it didn't immediately interact.

04:49:13.440 - 04:49:43.440

And the work that I did for energy was called the Science Mathematics Education Task Force, SMEDF, as I recall. And the focus of the question that we had been given is, how can the nation and the Department of Energy better utilize the national laboratory network to advance science, mathematics, and technology, engineering, education, okay?

04:49:44.160 - 04:50:11.040

And I think we had a number of very good recommendations in that. And they certainly, I think, echoed some of the things that were in the rising up of the Gathering Storm Report for STEM education. But it did not deal with the kinds of issues that you recall traditionally energy related.

04:50:14.160 - 04:50:53.760

Interesting. I want to ask about the National Science and Technology Council and the relationship to PCAST there. Was this part of kind of PCAST, was OSTP folks being in the room or were you specifically advising or interacting with the council itself? Was that group already existed at that time? I think so. It was like a

04:50:53.760 - 04:51:29.680

coordinating body. Okay. I certainly recall a number of briefings on alternative energy. There were fuel cells, obviously some issues on batteries and so on. But forgive me, I don't recall a focus meeting on alternative energy. I'm probably just not remembering it too.

04:51:32.240 - 04:52:06.320

Yeah. What about things like the overall R&D budget? Was PCAST involved in making recommendations for the budget? Yes, we did. And in fact, that was a subcommittee of PCAST that Wayne Clough chaired. I participated very actively on that for some of the reasons that I shared with you earlier. I think in particular, we made very clear in that report

04:52:07.120 - 04:52:41.600

that if you look back at the history of R&D funding, certainly following World War II, it initially was heavily weighted to the physical sciences. Okay. And biomedical then started coming in and really took off after 1970 and so forth. And so by the time we were looking at the 70 cents out of every R&D dollar was a biomedical dollar and only 30 cents and less

04:52:41.600 - 04:53:13.520

actually was a physical sciences. And that report made it clear that that portfolio needed to be better balanced in order to take advantage of the things that would be needed. By the way, alternative energy because nuclear energy, fusion and fission being woefully underfunded from an R&D perspective. So yeah, that was an important piece. And that was one of the

04:53:13.520 - 04:53:53.040

early reports that we did. That was one of the things, as I recall, that Mr. Bush specifically asked us to look at. And I think, as I recall, that led to the goal of driving the doubling the NSF budget, increasing the Department of Energy funding and ensure just better balancing bio and physical to a more even level. Right. You mentioned Bush asking for

04:53:55.120 - 04:54:25.120

these topics early on. Were there other instances where you then had the opportunity to breathe the president on your reports of recommendations or time with him in the Roosevelt room? There were. I think, you know, if you look back at each report, you know, Floyd and Jack transmitted on behalf of PCAF generally, and the particular committees

04:54:25.120 - 04:54:56.960

as a letter, for example, in this R&D report, R&D funding report from Wayne Cloth transmitting to Floyd and, you know, on to the president. And typically, you know, the meetings that we later had with the president were, you know, maybe an hour or so, comparatively speaking, somewhat more limited. And Floyd and Jack would highlight some of the things that

04:54:56.960 - 04:55:27.280

had happened since our last meeting. Sometimes I seem to recall they're turning to Wayne, for example, and sharing Wayne and sharing some thoughts about the R&D report for things like that, you know, but, you know, and other people might weigh in, but relatively brief and not intense and needless to say, at that point, they were probably well beyond

04:55:29.840 - 04:55:59.920

what you might expect to be able to conduct as a detailed conversation or not with the president or general briefing update. Are there any new things Mr. President should like us to do with something? Right. What about with Congress? Were there times that you interacted with congressional leaders on behalf of PCAST? You know, I don't recall that.

04:56:00.160 - 04:56:37.680

I remember I did a briefing with regard to that SNET-UP report with energy. I do recall that certainly Norm and Chuck, Chuck Best, Norm Augustine and Chuck Best started having more detailed briefings with the Congress. I don't recall the time when it involved all of PCAST or it probably involved a few other members of PCAST from time to time.

04:56:38.880 - 04:57:04.880

I don't recall a PCAST-focused meeting with Congress that I was involved in, however. Thank you. Well, I've got a number of other kind of questions about about PCAST, but I also want to just check in with Dave and see if he has items. No, no, I think we're getting everything. So I don't, nothing has come to my mind.

04:57:05.840 - 04:57:35.520

Okay. Well, I kind of have like a like a magic wand question, I guess. If you were, you know, in charge at the helm of PCAST now, if you were a co-chair of the committee, are there things that you think PCAST should be addressing or should be tackling as it stands, as it's, you know, the President's Science Council?

04:57:39.520 - 04:58:12.240

Yes, I think first and foremost, from a structural perspective, I think that idea that we discussed earlier about the President's Science Advisor together with a industry person being co-chair of PCAST is a procedurally speaking and administrative speaking, a very good idea that needs to be embraced. Okay. As far as other things, I think everyone

04:58:15.200 - 04:58:52.320

that attempts to advise the government broadly should be a little bit better informed about the complexities of issues and hence do not assume that a single perspective can rule. Okay. A colleague of mine who worked both in the Bush and in the former Clinton administration has an acronym that he calls Poets and he says every question has five correct answers,

04:58:52.320 - 04:59:32.080

is the way he puts it. It's a political, an operational, economic, technical, and societal right answer. Okay. And they don't often coalescent to a single equally acceptable answer for any of the other groups. Okay. So I think, you know, I remember, for example, when we were doing some of the biotechnology stuff,

04:59:34.000 - 05:00:06.800

Mr. Bush got terribly criticized for his limiting federal funding of fetal cell research. Okay. And I think if you put that more broadly into a broader context, you understand that the people criticizing it had a very narrow perspective and didn't understand the other things. I think likewise, and

05:00:06.800 - 05:00:41.040

I'd expect Neal would be a good one to talk with us about. But if you look at some of the work of Roger Pielke Jr., from a policy perspective, you probably know his book The Honest Broker. That's a not particularly well-known book. And the work that Roger has, I think, tried to do to explain, you know, how some scientists, you know, grossly overstepped

05:00:41.920 - 05:01:07.440

their area of expertise and, in many ways, politicized what is reasonable to say from a scientific perspective. I think it's very important and little understood by either scientists or politicians. Politicians would hope that we would have the answer to everything, you know, and scientists would hope that everything we

05:01:07.440 - 05:01:39.440

have to say is immediately enacted and made good. And many people don't understand that, you know, having a piece of knowledge doesn't tell you how or when to use it, if at all. I think that's an area that could use some real discussion and some education, broader education. There have been a number of editorials in the last several months and so forth,

05:01:40.400 - 05:02:18.560

not the least of which was this morning's paper editorial by Jean Lomborg, who, if you recall, when all this global warming issue came about, he wrote the, I think the title of his book was Skeptical Environmentalist. He was so resoundly criticized, anybody who didn't read the book assumed that he was saying global warming isn't happening, when his answer was much more nuanced.

05:02:19.200 - 05:02:54.720

And I think important to listen to, and I think that the book recently by, or what's his name, formerly with BP, who's at the Department of Energy. He wrote a book recently pointing out that we don't really know everything about global warming that we'd like to know, okay. And again, he was resoundly criticized. Anyway, I'm going on too

05:02:55.440 - 05:03:25.840

much. The complexity of the issues is such that every question has five right answers, and sometimes they're in conflict with each other, and people don't see that. Pilkey points it in what he uses this short-term way of saying tornado politics versus abortion politics. Nobody disagrees about trying to protect us from tornadoes, but everybody disagrees about

05:03:25.840 - 05:03:59.680

what we should or shouldn't do in terms of the concept of abortion. Anyway, I think those are two things that, from an operational and really long-term, societally important work that needs to be done, that would be my top two. Obviously, scientific issues are many. I think if you go into that, I think we're really at a cost of needing to understand that nuclear energy,

05:03:59.680 - 05:04:40.800

both fission and fusion, need to be explored. From an economic perspective, there is no nothing that economically could solve the CO2 issue more readily than those two. Biologically, the whole genetic engineering, CRISPR-Cas9, boy, that's exciting for the future. The vaccine issue right now is that the new technologies are poised for being perhaps even

05:04:40.800 - 05:05:21.760

faster. Do you think PCAST should be involved in, for instance, pandemic responses? Is that something that PCAST is suited to do? I think it could be. As constituted, I think it could play a role in understanding it and making some of these things better talked about than it has been. But no, I think for something like that, we need a focused group of expertise. But again,

05:05:21.760 - 05:05:52.640

to go back to that topic of inocentive and price-driven innovation and crowdsourcing, I think there may be opportunities that are not being pursued for getting other sources of expertise involved in potentially coming up with solutions that the experts don't necessarily think about. Right. It's interesting. So I'm remembering Dr. Pilke's

05:05:52.640 - 05:06:23.840

book was one of the first things I read as a postdoc in transition out of physics and postdoc and with Neil. I'm curious, in his book, he's got a number of interviews with science advisors, former science advisors, Neil being one of them, and one of the only interviews post-GW administration with Dr. Marburger, which is great. And I guess this is kind of a,

05:06:24.960 - 05:06:52.160

again, like an operational question. But Dr. Marburger caught a lot of flak during his tenure for various reasons. And one of the things Pilke points out in others is that he, traditionally, there'd be two titles for the science advisor. You had an advisory role as assistant to the president, and you'd have a Senate confirmed role as director of OSTP,

05:06:52.160 - 05:07:17.760

and Marburger just had the latter. What's kind of, do you have a perspective on that kind of, I know it's kind of weedy, but that particular role of the science advisor, and if these titles make a difference, or if you think, if you have a perspective on that and what Dr. Marburger went through during his tenure.

05:07:19.440 - 05:07:52.160

Well, in honesty, I don't recall that he had just one title, okay. But I think it should be both, personally, but realistically, I think that's so very much depends on who occupies the office of the president and who the other people in the cabinet are. It can get soured pretty easily, depending on the composition of the cabinet. Ideally, it should be a person who sits on the

05:07:52.160 - 05:08:28.640

cabinet. And I don't think any of the science advisors have had a seat on the cabinet. Am I wrong? No, you're not wrong. Dr. Lander, I guess, is the first one appointed to the cabinet. President Biden. Interesting. Good, good, Eric. Eric will do a good job. I guess that leads me, so why do you think, this is kind of an open question,

05:08:28.640 - 05:09:05.360

but what is it about being on the cabinet, or why do you think the science advisor should be a cabinet member? Well, I think a number of reasons. What comes to mind is so very, very few of the people who rise to the cabinet have in-depth knowledge of science, that it's almost necessary in a society,

05:09:05.360 - 05:09:50.560

excuse me, who's in some way very existence and certainly long-term economic and general well-being depends increasingly on science. And if you think about it, the economy today is largely growing as a result of some form of technological innovation, discovery, application that, you know, you just can't have a cabinet that doesn't have that source

05:09:50.640 - 05:10:32.880

of input and who doesn't understand, again, the complexities that we talked about with the poet's acronym. The average politician that I know of doesn't have that mindset, it's just not there. When we did all the work on STEM education generally, whether in energy or PCAST and so forth, I remember a briefing by the then president of the University of California,

05:10:32.880 - 05:11:01.280

forget his name, Atkinson, I think was his name, who said that in California, of all of the teachers teaching science, engineering, mathematics, you know, technology, only 5% had the requisite educational background to teach that subject. Now, you go to the Congress and I don't know presently, but I know

05:11:02.240 - 05:11:35.280

that somewhere along the 80s, 90s, 2000s, there was only one or two MDs, I think only one PhD scientist, you know, so I don't know of any recent cabinet that has involved any cabinet member being a scientist engineer or otherwise, but, you know, again, I'm not sure. That depth and breadth of understanding, what's the role of it? What's

05:11:35.280 - 05:12:04.400

the proper role of it? How do you ask the questions more deeply as to what you can and should expect from science and what you can't or what you have to solve through other means? Right, I mean, it's really foundational. I think that, yeah, and I was just looking at what you, what you're wondering about, number of

05:12:06.080 - 05:12:38.400

science PhDs and STEM PhDs in Congress and cabinet. Right, there's only been several in recent years. Yeah, who was the congressman from Michigan that chaired the science committee for many years? Oh, very nice man. Yeah, I should know him off the top of my head, hold on. Yeah, the irony, I guess, is that, you know, the Congress itself

05:12:38.960 - 05:13:11.760

had no particular respect for that committee, then or now, as Mr. Jackson can tell. Yeah, I'll think of it in a second, because I was just looking him up. My memory's also a little on the fritz, I guess. It's been a while for me, so I don't know, I don't know, he only passed away a few years ago, so I remember when he passed.

05:13:14.400 - 05:13:44.720

Yeah, so, well, I wanted to ask too, I mean, you've mentioned a couple of things, PCAST should focus on, were there things that you wish you could have done while you're on a council, were there opportunities that you wanted to pursue that you couldn't for some reason? No, I found the experience very worthwhile and very enlightening. I think there were some

05:13:46.960 - 05:14:21.360

fun topics that we chatted about. There's a lot of hand wringing about education, but, you know, no clear solution set there would be a wonderful one to try to really delve into for the detail. But again, I think some of my perspectives that I'm sharing now come with the benefit of not only hindsight, but additional years of experience. And at that time, I don't think

05:14:21.440 - 05:14:50.720

Roger's book was available. Some of the other people, you know, I think we continue to learn and we have to be committed to, you know, continuing to use what we learn to improve things and make things better. A colleague of mine used to say, we have to be committed to muddling through because things are complex and knowledge isn't

05:14:50.720 - 05:15:31.760

perfect and people aren't perfect and human partiality rears its head in every interaction. Were there, you know, as you learned, were there things from PCAST that you brought back to your presidency at Akron? Were there ideas? Absolutely. I think, you know, virtually everything we've talked about had some at least educational opportunity. It was during my PCAST time that the

05:15:31.840 - 05:16:08.080

big power outage in the Northeast that involved an Akron-based company, First Energy, took place and, you know, it could talk directly to the CEO and both understand how he must feel being in the hot seat when obviously it wasn't his personal fault, things of that nature. And it certainly, the work we did both on technology transfer and on the R&D funding portfolio, enabled me to talk more

05:16:09.440 - 05:16:39.680

authoritatively and cogently about many of these issues, both to our congressmen and senators, but to my own colleagues, all of that had a very, very fine, I was delighted. That's great. Were there members, were there individuals on PCAST that you stayed in contact with, that you had met, that you had, you know, formed relationships with and

05:16:39.760 - 05:17:20.000

continued to work with after the term ended? Sure. A Norm Augustine, Chuck Vest, for short while, Bernadine Healy, Eric Block in particular, Walter, Wayne Claw, Marianne Fox, Ralph, I mentioned Ralph because then we were together on this step, such technology and economic policy committee. Charlie Ardson visited that in Arizona State where he moved.

05:17:25.440 - 05:18:04.800

Those are the folks that stand out. Yeah, Ralph has a, in particular, very unique perspective on things. Yes. He's been around policy circles for generations, you might say. He's a delightful man. Yeah, really fascinating guy. Yeah, great. Well, so I guess talk to me about, you know, you were, you served on this council for both terms all the way up until

05:18:06.160 - 05:18:32.640

the end of the GW Bush administration. Were there, I guess, what was transitioning out of it like? Were there things towards the end that, you know, you rushed to get done or you, I don't know, what was the end of that period like for you? Well, I remember that Jack got some of our input in writing a transition letter to

05:18:33.680 - 05:19:23.680

the Obama PCAST and Mr. Holdren. You know, on a more personal note, I think most of us were sad not to be continuing in some fashion with that level of activity. Glad to have it in other respects. I think I shared, as Mr. Obama's PCAST got started, it was more and more difficult to find some of the things that we had been involved in. And I don't recall, I probably didn't read

05:19:23.760 - 05:19:57.760

that carefully, but, you know, Mr. Obama, Mr. Holdren, Dr. Holdren placed a great deal of emphasis on manufacturing. But I don't recall a single reference to the PCAST work that had been done, you know, sort of suggesting that they were building on this work. But anyway, I guess that's standard for transition politics, okay? So not so much, but it's unfortunate when

05:19:57.760 - 05:20:30.560

you don't have that sense of where the nation's been and where it might yet go, you know. I think a case in point is if you had been around in 1983 when Terrell Bell was Secretary of Education and issued that report, A Nation at Risk, and while you see some reference to that report still being made today and noting how relatively

05:20:30.560 - 05:21:05.200

little improvement compared to the statistics reported at that time has actually taken place, you recognize the importance of understanding how difficult it is to make certain kinds of progress, but how important it is to know the genesis of when we first recognize the problem. And I would dare say some recognition probably existed even before A Nation at Risk. So I would

05:21:05.200 - 05:21:38.560

think that's important in every topic that is discussed by a PCAST-like committee. Yeah. Well, I guess that leads me to ask how you then got involved with this AMP 2.0 and then your engagement with some of those PCAST members. Were you able to bring those previous recommendations to the table and your historical perspective and also

05:21:40.080 - 05:21:58.720

make them aware of PCAST's earlier work on the issue? Sure, from time to time, but for the most part it just goes in one ear and out the other. Nobody really cares that somebody who looked at this problem before. Right.

05:22:00.320 - 05:22:30.800

I think, obviously, I was able to bring some of that experience and some of those ideas forward and to see what would take off. I'm trying to remember a point that I made on one occasion. And it might come to me. I think it involved the CEO of Siemens at a meeting with Mr. Obama.

05:22:33.760 - 05:23:10.240

Oh, I think I got it. Okay. The kernel of the idea was this. Industry has perfected the, shall we say, component supply chain. You look at a company like Boeing, you look at any company that integrates components into the manufacturing process. They work very tightly with their suppliers

05:23:12.000 - 05:23:48.480

to have this level of tolerance in every degree that can be measured. So they are experts in the component and supply management process. Arguably, you could say that the thing they complain about the most and they ought to pay at least as much attention to that is their talent supply chain management.

05:23:50.080 - 05:24:22.160

So I was trying to point out to them that there ought to be a way to create a commission, create a group of people to see how their supply chain management tool chest could be adapted to the talent supply chain process. Now, I understand, you know, making widgets and making them conform to a particular set of specs is a whole ball of

05:24:22.160 - 05:24:53.680

watch different from trying to make people come out a particular way. But I am convinced that I did have two faculty members and Akron began to tackle that issue and see what they could do about it. But anyway, I think that happens to be something that could be pursued to good ends and to improve the process about which we have complained for so very long.

05:24:53.920 - 05:25:28.000

Okay. So there you are. This was a point you made at a briefing with President Obama? Yes. I forget. Whatever the Siemens president had been doing with Siemens relationship to educational institutions, particularly community colleges, pointed a little bit in this direction. And so I was trying to make more explicit this idea that supply chain management

05:25:28.000 - 05:26:02.960

ideas could have an application in working with the workforce problem that industry complains about every day. Right. I mean, this goes back to what you were talking about earlier with your VPR at Akron, where he was doing kind of that type of. Yeah. Well, interesting. I didn't, you know, the AMP 2.0 set of, there must have been, I think there were two separate reports

05:26:02.960 - 05:26:37.920

because they, you know, PCAST did, you know, again, picked up the manufacturing topic. Were there other times, I mean, were there other times that you met with, I guess, either Dr. Holdren or President Obama during your work on AMP 2.0? Holdren came a couple of times to the AMP 2.0 leadership council or whatever it was called. Okay. And a reasonable group of the

05:26:37.920 - 05:27:10.400

AMP 2.0 leadership council met with Mr. Obama. I think twice. I clearly remember just one time, but I think there was a second time. Most of the work that AMP 2.0 did were in the sort of technical subcommittees where, you know, Andrew Leverious appointed somebody else. I had two people, you know, that worked on the various committees and so forth. And they did the bulk of the, shall we say,

05:27:13.360 - 05:27:36.960

reviewing the literature, scoping out the recommendations and bringing those forward. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I think that I've been curious just why, you know, when you had mentioned that,

05:27:38.240 - 05:28:07.520

you know, the Obama PCAST didn't reference some of the work that you guys had done already on this issue. And then I had seen that, you know, they kind of released these AMP 2.0 reports on, like, as part of PCAST and their website and stuff. So I was curious about the origins of this committee and how it operated. So I had, it's good to hear it from someone who was on the ground working on it.

05:28:09.440 - 05:28:37.760

Let's see. Are there, I guess, are there other experiences from PCAST that you can share or are interested in sharing? I'm kind of, I have lots of general questions, but just in terms of PCAST, are there experiences or things that you would like to, I guess, before we wrap up on the PCAST set of questions that you'd like to talk about?

05:28:37.760 - 05:29:05.920

I'm sure your other questions might remind me of other things, but since we were on the education piece, I remember a very spirited discussion that we had on that issue and people were kind of commenting on this, that and the other thing, including the role or lack thereof of the Department of Education, at which point I recall getting a good laugh from everybody by reminding

05:29:05.920 - 05:29:34.080

them that Mr. Reagan had suggested that abolishing the education department might be the best thing that could be done for education. So anyway. Yeah, yeah, we always, in Texas, we always talk about how Rick Perry at one point said we should skip rid of the Department of Energy became secretary less than 10 years later. That was a different kind of comment, yes.

05:29:34.560 - 05:30:12.640

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, politics. Well, I guess, yeah, I mean, I want to thank you for sharing so much about PCAST. And I hope to continue to reach out to folks that served from GW because there's not a ton of interviews for or information from that time that I've found in my studies. So it's really good to hear, hear about it. I guess I kind of want to ask about, you know, wrap up with,

05:30:12.640 - 05:30:39.200

you know, time, because you served, you were president of said Akron for almost 16 years, 15, 16 years, and that the university expanded tremendously during that time. And I guess kind of get your perspectives, other things that that you made happen at Akron during your time, your presidency, and then talk about what you're what you're up to. Today, you said you're mostly

05:30:39.200 - 05:31:11.680

retired at this point, but you're still president emeritus, I understand. So maybe are there other things from your time at Akron that you want to talk about perspective from being a university president for so long that you'd like to share? Rich, well, it it certainly was a very rewarding experience. It also was very demanding.

05:31:11.680 - 05:31:47.840

When there isn't just one set of constituents, there's just dozens of dozens of different constituencies, you know, every alumni, every school and college has a different constituency thing, every person in town has a different kind of perspective on the university and so forth. So you're bombarded with so many different wishes and complaints and things of that sort.

05:31:49.760 - 05:32:23.120

And, you know, if if you're involved in the role as I was, you're pretty much busy from, you know, seven o'clock in the morning till 10 o'clock at night, virtually seven days a week, you know, so that that certainly calls for some measure of stamina that I'm not sure how many people have. In the old days, a lot of people, I think, looked at the president's role

05:32:23.120 - 05:33:00.160

as a, you know, social gadfly, ministerial role, you shake hands and you do things. But I think increasingly it has become a role that is not well understood and very demanding. And I think clearly this pandemic has called into question the very nature of what is the value proposition of a college education in situ as opposed to getting your education in a variety of

05:33:00.160 - 05:33:36.640

possible ways. I don't know if you're familiar with Anya Kamenetz's little book called DIYU, Do It Yourself University. It's a telling book about what an enterprising person who's familiar with the web could learn and does learn entirely on their own. And, you know, clearly online education and all of its permutations is going to play

05:33:37.600 - 05:34:09.520

an increasingly larger role. And so it's challenging to know how best to adapt an existing physical campus for the future. Lewis Cullens, who was president of the Illinois Institute of Technology, had, I think, some very interesting ideas that, you know, a place like Stanford could mount an electronic dream team in, you know, maybe 15 disciplines, okay.

05:34:10.480 - 05:34:40.640

A community college probably can't mount an electronic dream team in anything, per se, but they still probably have a role in some way. Institutions like Akron could mount a very credible dream team in polymers, okay. And in many ways, it does. It's a globally recognized program. But, you know, how do you mix and match those things to ensure the ongoing success,

05:34:41.280 - 05:35:08.640

not only of what's there, but how it might transition into the future. So I think that was, you know, clearly, you know, the role that I played was facilitated by the board having recognized two primary things. One, the institution far better than anybody knew about, so telling the story was important. The other is the campus had deteriorated. It needed to be,

05:35:08.640 - 05:35:36.480

you know, massively reinvigorated, revitalized, renewed. And so that was, you know, how do you do it now? Do you pay for it? And so sure, you know, we built, I think, 23 brand new buildings and refurbished. I don't remember how many others. And, you know, unfortunately, as a result of all of this and other things by successors, of which there have been many, unfortunately, are having

05:35:36.480 - 05:36:14.320

to struggle with, you know, how do you make the payments on the debt that my board and my administration incurred on behalf of the institution. So, but, you know, change comes slowly. I propose this set of issues and editorial in science by Yale, I think he was an economist, Eli Nome, N-O-A-M, entitled technology and the dim future of universities is telling, by the way, by dim,

05:36:14.320 - 05:36:49.920

he didn't mean poor, but dimly seen. You just, you know, he could tell in from what he was seeing, if you wish, that economy was changing and the technology was changing. And when both of those change, he saw that the institutions themselves had to change how much and in what direction he couldn't tell. And I think we still can't see that as well as we'd like. So Lewis Collins

05:36:49.920 - 05:37:17.280

talked about, you know, electronic dream team, an electronic Olympic village, a place where kids could come and get their education not only from that place, but from everywhere else. He had a couple of other ideas, I forget what he titled them, but, you know, somebody had a video out that was sort of envisioned by a combination of iTunes and Amazon,

05:37:17.280 - 05:37:43.600

and imagine a company formed around education that was an agglomeration of iTunes and Amazon. What would you do to make that successful? You know, how would you, you know, Coursera and edX are doing some of that, you know, but they're nowhere near what could happen. Yeah, anyway.

05:37:44.720 - 05:38:10.400

No, it's interesting. Yeah, yeah. I mean, did Akron offer, while you, I mean, did you guys transition at all or offer online? You know, was the Polymer dream team to be simple? We've got a very substantial electronic online program, and I'm sure it has expanded with the pandemic. Obviously everything went on, so everybody all of a sudden had to do that.

05:38:10.400 - 05:38:33.920

The thing that surprised me the most because I was at that time teaching a series of colloquia, which relied very much on students participating and stimulating discussion. And I was surprised to see that students online were almost more willing to participate than while they were in the classroom themselves. So that was an interesting surprise to me.

05:38:35.760 - 05:39:09.440

We had issued a call to our colleagues at APLU. I chaired a meeting, I forget why it was 2012, 2013, something like that, where we were asking how could we indeed take advantage of these resources in a way that would make it possible to create a better product overall for students. And so one idea is,

05:39:10.880 - 05:39:36.800

you take all of the courses that are online and try to make some sense of them and decide which are good and which are poor. Why does every faculty member have to put their own unique course online? And obviously if you're teaching an advanced course in policy, you want Neil Lane's course, for example, or if you were alive, Jack Marberger's course,

05:39:36.800 - 05:40:02.560

and they got the experience. But if you're teaching introductory math, there are thousands of people who can do that. Well, who does it well? And how can you sort through that in a way that say, okay, we think this course would do better for you, and this one might do better for David, and this one might do better for Joel. And what is the category of Kenny and Joel and David

05:40:02.560 - 05:40:38.560

and so forth that might create an economy of scale as well as an improvement in the effectiveness and success of those educational programs? And so we came up with an idea that I think sort of encapsulated some of those. We called it IAM, I for integrative and A for assessment, because we felt that what was lacking on the one hand is an ability to integrate the available

05:40:38.560 - 05:41:08.400

offerings into some portal that would allow some semblance of ease of use and ability to select. And secondly, we thought at that point it would be essential for us to be able to assess whether anybody had actually learned something either in the classroom or out in such a way that we could stand behind that and say, oh, this guy or the gal already knows this

05:41:08.400 - 05:41:39.120

at this level and doesn't need for the training or can qualify for credit from Rice or Akron or Stanford for anything because they know everything that we teach. So if we had a framework for integrating the offerings and for actually assessing whether anybody actually is making progress in their education, I think we'd go a long way to beginning to come up

05:41:39.120 - 05:42:09.280

with a solution. And anyway, we call it an integrative assessment model IAM. Interesting. Did you say, when you say we, was that with APLU or was it with Akron? Well, we tried to convey that to APLU and certainly you could say that the president of Purdue certainly listened, although he wasn't at that meeting in particular,

05:42:10.000 - 05:42:34.160

but what Purdue's trying to do is along those lines, Coursera and edX is along those lines. But I'm almost afraid to suggest that a company might do it better than any traditional educational institution but who knows. Yeah, I mean.

05:42:34.160 - 05:42:55.200

Poorly seen, Tim. Yeah, it's a lot of, I'm sure Dave can attest to the transition into fully online teaching was a challenge. An individual interaction with individual students is still important and the interaction

05:42:55.200 - 05:43:29.200

between students, one with another and the socialization, all of those are components of a traditional campus that may not be needed by every student, but it's certainly important to many and certainly individual professors have a role and I'm sure each of you can tell stories about individual students that you've impacted in ways that other faculty didn't or couldn't.

05:43:30.160 - 05:43:57.840

Right, that's true. Well, we've got about 10 minutes left and so usually what we do at this time is turn it over to you if you have questions for us or if you think we've missed something that you'd like to us to ask about or generally it's an open forum for whatever you'd like to

05:43:58.480 - 05:44:10.960

to speak about. Well, thank you. I'm not sure I have anything to add. Many of my comments obviously have been prompted by your questions and what little

05:44:11.600 - 05:44:38.640

figments of funds, snippets of memory that has elicited. From our discussion today, I would truly value seeing if you can come up with some sort of summary of some of the ideas that some of us might have about what's important going forward, but an institution like PCAST or for that matter in the nation in terms of science and technology

05:44:39.520 - 05:45:06.480

generally and advice to the president and another. So people like Ralph Camori and some of the others that are still around be very interesting to see what they say and see if there's some common threads or which ones seem to rise to the surface more often or just stand up to you.

05:45:07.600 - 05:45:20.080

So I'd value that a great deal. Good luck to hear from you. And other than that, if you have anything that you want to follow up on then feel free to just give me a call and we'll see what it is.

05:45:20.080 - 05:45:38.640

But I've enjoyed your questions and David, thanks for listening. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, it's been really great. Thank you for being so candid and sharing your perspective.

05:45:38.640 - 05:46:00.160

And we hope to do just that. So we will certainly in terms of compiling threads and themes and perspectives. And as you know, Dr. Ralph was not shy about his opinions on these matters. So I will certainly pass those along to you as well.

05:46:00.160 - 05:46:14.720

And I do want to look up this national biotechnology policy board because I'm very curious about it. So I will get back to that. I hope you found it. I'm pretty sure that it was formed essentially right around the time that I moved to Alaska.

05:46:14.720 - 05:46:33.760

So it would have been 86, 87, 88 somewhere around there. I would guess. But anyway, I long ago put those things or left them at Akron or Athens. I'm not quite sure where.

05:46:35.120 - 05:46:44.560

Thank you, Kenny. Thank you, David. Yeah, thank you so much. And we will follow up with the transcripts and that whole process afterwards.

05:46:46.800 - 05:46:55.120

And yeah, if anything comes up, we'll be sure to contact you. Please. Please. Thank you very much.

05:46:55.120 - 05:46:59.920

Okay. Thank you. Have a wonderful afternoon. You guys too.

05:46:59.920 - 05:47:02.560

Stay well. Stay well. Bye-bye. Bye.

05:47:02.560 - 05:47:02.960

Thank you.