ORAL HISTORY REVIEW
with
MR. ALBERT I. GODDEN

[June 11, 1976]
[by James R.Sweeney, Old Dominion University
Norfolk, Virginia]

Listen to Interview

Today I'm pleased to be talking with the Director of Off-Campus Credit programs, Mr. Albert I. Godden. Mr. Godden served many years in the Technical Institute in the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary.

Q: I'm going to first ask him a question about his background. Could you provide me with some information about your family background, your education, and your early career interests?

Godden: Well, I come originally from Oswego, New York. I was a student at Oswego State Teachers College in Syracuse University. I obtained a bachelor's degree there. My mother was an English teacher. My father is a banker and I have a younger brother who's in business.

I heard about Old Dominion, or as it was in those days, Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary, through a teacher's agency while at college. I was interested in moving south and had a wife who was a graduate of a teachers college. So, we looked in to the possibilities here.

Q: Well, that answered the next question of why you came to the Norfolk Division in 1949. When you came, what courses did you teach in the Technical Institute?

Godden: I was assigned first to set up a program in cooperation with Norfolk City schools for students who had failed three times in succession. Half of my time was devoted to setting up this program with Norfolk City schools and the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary. The other half was teaching math and physics and science for the regular students on campus, and one or two architectural classes, as they were needed in the regular School of Engineering.

Q: In a news story in 1953, you were quoted as being "enthusiastic about the opportunities for women in drafting" and were expecting a considerable female enrollment in the future. Two questions on this. At the time that you were teaching the technical courses, did the female enrollment expand as you predicted? Did you think it would expand in the future?

Godden: Yes at that time we were offering classes at the Technical Institute on a part-time basis to high school students. Art or drafting fields were one of the classes that were offered within the high school, so it was a natural carry-over to the Technical Institute.

At that time we had approximately four women at the end of the year. One young lady started out and then three more followed. Gradually in the evening classes which were offered to the public, we would find, in some cases, 25% of the class will be women and they were an employable drafting student.

[2]

Q: What role did the Technical Institute play in the early 1950s and the over all college program?

Godden: Well, the Technical Institute originated, I understand, as a part of the war training program before World War II. In fact, one of the largest programs when I came here in '49 was an aircraft program, training people for the aircraft industry and for the Navy base. It grew into a technical, vocational-type training program in which the public schools sent students on a half-time basis and the student graduated from high school with a diploma and vocational training at the same time. It was approximately the largest part of the campus in '49 because naturally students were away at war.

Q: Was the Technical Institute treated as a stepchild by the college's administration or by the faculty?

Godden: Originally you might feel that there was something of that attitude, but they both had goals; the Technical Institute was aimed at training technicians which were needed in those days and vocational students in automotive, aircraft industries. There was some attitude of the faculty back and forth as to looking down on the faculty of the Technical Institute, but gradually you found out that the English teacher had to have the car fixed and they could do it in the Technical Institute with an eighteen year old boy, and the thirty year old English teacher didn't know which end was which.

Q: In 1954, you served as art director for the faculty "Sign Post" series on WTAR-TV. Could you tell me more about this?

Godden: Well, that's a long story because when I first came here, Norfolk did not have a TV station. When CBS came into Norfolk to establish WTAR, they looked to the university for whatever expertise they could find and I was lucky enough to have been chosen as one of their original art directors.

It goes into a long story about having your big program here in the stadium, CBS introduced several stars and the Technical Institute provided the lighting and the sound. Actually as art director I find, I was art director from '52-'58, that few people realize that the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary from '52-'58 provided all of the public service broadcasting for WTAR. We had TV programs of 12-15 minutes duration at least three times a week and a half-hour program on Sunday which we jointly operated with William and Mary. William and Mary would send down programs on Sunday.

Q: You served under two directors of the Technical Institute, Mr. Lee Klinefelter and Mr. Edgar Kovner. Could you discuss the administrative styles of these men and the progress of the Technical Institute under them?

Godden: Essentially there were three. One isn't shown in the records because the original art director was Donald Parks who currently is working with Norfolk City schools, and Lee Klinefelter and then Ed Kovner. I think you'll find that they were all three individuals and had the same goals, that is, the fact that there was a need for technicians; a form of training between the regular college student and the engineer.

[3]

You'll find that Lee Klinefelter was an engineer, electrical engineer who established the first radio station in Norfolk and at one time was a teacher at Ruffner Junior High School. Lee Klinefelter had the tendency to push vocational programs.

Ed Kovner took over after Lee. Ed and I and several of the staff pushed the program into an engineering oriented program and we were the ones who pushed to have the Engineering Counseling of Professional Development Certification of programs and we're also instrumental in setting up the Southern Association Accreditation.

Q: In 1959, you became assistant director of the Institute under Edgar Kovner. Now, what were your duties as assistant director?

Godden: It's pretty hard to define, but at that time, the Technical Institute provided services for not only the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary, but the five colleges of William and Mary. The original printing facilities for all of the five colleges of William and Mary resulted from having printing classes in the Technical Institute and then expanding it to where all printing for all the five colleges was done here on this campus. We provided a large amount of the maintenance at that time too, using the maintenance as training in the electrical and in mechanical.

The assistant director of the Technical Institute, in those days; you must remember that the Technical Institute was a year-round operation, in fact the Technical Institute didn't even have the month off. We were on a quarter system; taught four quarters a year and we operated from 7:30 in the morning till 9:45 or 10:00 at night. So, the assistant director's responsibility not only was a day operation but a night operation. We had almost as many students on campus in night classes under courses that were certified by the V.A. and by the State Department of Education and Vocational and Technical subjects. So that both Ed and I found our day was from 7:30 in the morning till 10:00 at night. We'd take turns to see who's going to work the next night.

Q: You were also in charge of the Print Shop, as you mentioned. How long did you hold this responsibility and exactly what were your duties there?

Godden: Well, the Print Shop was established as a part of the printing trade class and for about ten years, I took over after Mr. Klinefelter who was responsible for the Print Shop. We were responsible for ordering materials, supplies, equipment and provided all the printing that was needed by, as I said before, the five colleges of William and Mary and our own campus at the time. Most everything that was used in the way of paper, printed reports, budget reports, forms and books, were printed within the plan. At one time we started out with One Multilith press and wound up with eight. We operated from 4:00 in the afternoon till 6:00 the next morning. It was a night operation because during the day we had to teach classes,

Q: In 1962 the Technical Institute won accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. It was the first such school in the country to be accredited in a special purpose category. Could you recall

[4]

the Institute's preparation for the accreditation, the visitation by the Southern Association committee, and the reaction by the Technical Institute faculty and the college administration to the news that the Institute had been accredited?

Godden: Well, Ed Kovner was director at the time. Prior to that Mr. Klinefelter and I and Ed and several of the faculty had talked about the possibility of accreditation by the Engineering Council of Professional Development. So when Lee Klinefelter retired, Ed took over and Ed and I went ahead with the planning. We found a real problem because we bit off more than we could chew. At the time, we went for both accreditation's in the same year. Al though the self-study reports that were necessary were quite similar, the standards established in certain programs were quite different. The standards being that one would be a rigid rule and the other would be a rule of meeting the needs. So, at the time, the Technical Institute was up for accreditation by both organizations at the same time. The unique thing about it was that there were no self-study standards established for a technical institute at the time. So the secretary to the Southern Association looked on Ed Kovner and the staff of the Technical Institute to establish a self-study and to write the guide and to do the self-study using a four year college program as a basis. We found it was quite interesting and quite difficult at times, but it was quite unique in the fact that we established the standards which are now known as "special purpose institutions".

Q: Did you comment on the reaction of the faculty and the administration to the news that the Institute had been accredited?

Godden: Needless to say the administration of the Technical Institute and the college, they were quite overjoyed to find out that we were accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools as the first "special purpose institution" in the country. Many followed suit after the establishment of our standards.

The faculty of our own Technical Institute, at that time, had some misgivings in one sense because to meet the standards, they had to go to school and upgrade themselves in many cases. They found that they were competing with college graduates of a higher caliber than they had in the past. They found that they were also mixing with college faculty who had been brought to the Technical Institute from the main body of the campus just across the street in many cases. And they found that there was quite a difference between the regular college faculty and the technical faculty One of the big problems was loads. A Technical Institute faculty member would teach twenty-eight hours a week when his counterpart on a campus teaching a math class would be teaching twelve to sixteen hours a week, So there was some difference, but in most cases after the first year, it just disappeared.

Q: In 1964, the Board of Visitors voted to create the Community College Division which would include the Technical Institute. You became director of the Institute while Mr. Kovner became dean of the community college. What were your new duties as director of the Technical Institute?

[5]

Godden: Essentially what had happened was that the state had decreed that no longer could the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary operate a two year program. The state had created a community college system and Old Dominion University or Norfolk Division had on its campuses, several two-year programs, the Technical Institute, Business Education, and the like. So that to keep from conflicting with the state system they created what was known as the "community college division", that is they combined all the two year programs under one head, Dean Kovner, which included the Technical Institute. At that time I became director instead of assistant director and all that happened, my duties increased.

Q: What effect did the Technical Institute's absorption into the Community College have on the Institute & faculty, programs, and enrollment?

Godden: Really, it didn't have a large effect because at that time, the faculty were crossing between the Technical Institute and the main body of the campus or the academic side. We did, however, go out and hire full-time faculty within the Technical Institute to teach special subjects that we had not had in the previous years. One of the first was Conrad Festa, brought in to teach English rather than our having to borrow English teachers and went out and hired full-time math faculty rather than borrow faculty. I think that at the time, we became a closer unit within the university and that helped to break down the barriers or the differences between the two faculty. Suddenly we found full-time English, full-time history, full-time mathematics faculty in the Technical Institute rather than borrowing faculty from the university.

Q: The Technical Institute was involved in another administrative shake up and became the Division of Technology. Mr.Kovner served as dean and you became Director of Engineering Technology Programs. Did your responsibilities change in this position?

Godden: After the creation of the Community College Division, a new dean was hired for the School of Engineering. Dean Rotty was the new dean. Emphasis was now placed on the management side of engineering. One of the changes that was being made at that time was to do away with two year programs on a campus to meet the needs of the state rules that we not operate a community college. So the Technical Institute basically became two years of the School of Engineering. In that case, I just worked for the Community College Division until we completely phased out the Community College Division.

Q: Your letters indicate that you took a profound interest in your students both personally and professionally. Could you discuss your philosophy of teaching and recall your relationships with students?

Godden: Well having come from a family where one of the members of the family was a school teacher, and currently in a family where the wife is a school teacher and one of the sons is a school teacher, I was pretty well steeped in education. I have a background that comes from the Sheldon theory of those who know your history of education.

I kind of feel that one, an educator's purpose is to teach in a short period

[6]

of time, experiences that a student has to gain in a long time period; that is, the fact that when somebody writes a book, they put all their experiences of thirty or forty years and the experiences of those people they've read about all on one capsulated educational endeavor. So, what a teacher is supposed to do is to provide the student with enough background so that he doesn't have to start as a caveman and grow up the years that we've grown up too; the fact that no student asks a stupid question; the fact that he just didn't have something told to him in a language that he could understand or it wasn't related to his own personal experiences in such a way so that he in turn could adapt what he was hearing to what he wanted to know.

I think that all education is that same way. It just depends upon the degree that the teacher has and the degree of emphasis you place on the fact of whether the student learns or not, Too much, nowadays of presenting material and either you get it or don't get it.

Q: Did you ever consider the pursuit of a doctorate?

Godden: Yes, I did. When I left the university in New York State I had to go back several years later and finish up my masters. Then, I was under twelve months contract all the way through. People who are under twelve months contract in a quarter system, find there's little time to do anything. I can remember years when in order to provide people with. Leave, sick leave, we would double up on teaching. A man would teach eight hours a day, five days a week for four weeks and the next week he'd teach six, so that he could get a couple of hours off.

Yes, I did start my doctorate in Oklahoma. I was lucky enough to receive a grant and immediately after that, I found that it wasn't possible to get away from the university again. Since then, all I've taken is occasional courses.

Q: In 1967 you served as a member of the accreditation team for the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools which visited Fayetteville Technical Institute in North Carolina. What do you recall of this experience?

Godden: Well several of the faculty of the Technical Institute after it became accredited were chosen by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools to go out as their representatives and serve on visitation teams for technical institutes that were applying for accreditation. After all, the Technical Institute of the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary established the standards by which they were to be judged as being acceptable or nonacceptable to the accrediting association.

So, one of my experiences was Fayetteville Technical Institute which since then has become Fayetteville Community College. It was quite interesting to visit it because I had not had the experience of visiting a technical institute that had been constructed from a high school program and still had within its boundaries, remedial education from childhood on up through adults. Since then, the Technical Institute has become a community college and is fairly strong. It did receive accreditation and was really happy about it.

[7]

Q: In 1969 you became Director of Extension and Public Services. First, why did you leave the Division of Technology?

Godden: Well, basically at that time the School of Technology (or Engineering Division of Technology) was within the School of Engineering. I had been offered by the Provost, the position of establishing an off-campus program and taking over evening and summer sessions under Dr. Pliska. I had qualms about taking it until Dr. Pliska came and met with me for several hours and asked if I would work with him. He, at that time, was handling evening, summer, and what little extension there was at the time and it was too much of a burden operating from 7:00 in the morning until 9:45 at night. So, I decided that the time had come, I had spent enough time in the Technical Institute, to see what I could do in some other areas.

Q: What did you direct in the area of "public services"?

Godden: In the area of public services at that time, there was very little. We did establish a number of programs, one which was unique. We found that the women's clubs in Norfolk areas were providing their new members with training programs. That is, helping them identify the services that were available such as judiciary, the children's court and what it could do, and all of the services that they as a women's club would be working with, Each women's organization had its own training program. Dr. Pliska and I and several members of the staff, talked to them, combined them together, and set up one training program on the campus in which all of the women's organizations and women's clubs would send their members and we would provide the training in one shot. I can remember classes of two hundred. We called them classes because all we charged was a nominal fee, There was no credit attached to it.

We also provided services by going out and teaching special non-credit classes in different fields as the public demanded it. We had a number of seminars, institutes, and workshops which in those days weren't even recorded on paper. It was just the matter of meeting the needs of an organization that needed some particular expertise from our campus.

Q: Was that the full extent of the college's extension work in 1969 or were you also having regular classes off-campus?

Godden: In '69 we did have a number of classes. I can remember Dr. Tonelson was teaching on Eastern Shore because it was prohibitive to bring students across from Eastern Shore twice a week. It seemed quite illogical to have a class for an hour and a half on campus and travel six hours getting to it and back which made a seven and a half hour trip to get an hour and a half of instruction. And it became ridiculous if you had to do it twice a week. At that time, there were classes on some ships in the harbor. I think the enrollment around that time was somewhere around a thousand students total, although we didn't call it an off-campus extension program. Few people thought about it and at that time, our Provost and the attitude of all the faculty too was that you couldn't teach a college class unless you were within the "ivy halls" of the Norfolk Division of the College of William

[8]

and Mary. It became quite a problem convincing faculty they could teach in a room off campus.

Q: Did you have any specific set of goals in your new role as Director of Extension?

Godden: I think my goals were set by the Provost and Dr. Pliska at the time, That was and still is, the fact that we should provide educational courses, regular college courses where, when, and how the public wants the course. We now deal with industry, the Navy, the public school system, and the average person in the community. I think our goal is always going to be, can we meet the needs and can we meet the needs in a way that is not being met by the normal university classes.

Q: In 1972, your title was changed to Director of Evening and Extension Programs. Did the addition of evening programs prove too burdensome a responsibility for one person? I noted that in 1973 you were listed as the Director of Extension Programs only and that the evening college was administratively separate.

Godden: People who looked at the history of the University will find out that in the 40s, late '49, Dr. McClelland was the Evening College, as we called him at that time, Director, and Dr. McClelland had a little office in a ramshackle building on the campus. Suddenly we had an evening college enrollment large enough to call for a change in administration. Dr. Pliska took over the evening college at that time he was also responsible for summer school and public service and extension programs.

It became a problem as the University's been confronted with over the years. One man is responsible for so much, you gradually begin to realize that he needs an assistant, and then the assistant needs an assistant, and you need to break down the program. You find many employees in the past, in the sixties, were working twelve months, 15, 16 hours a day and at that time, just running evening classes alone took a full-time person. Running extension classes was taking a full-time person. Running summer schools was taking a full-time person. Present-time, I think it's even larger than that.

Q: During the six years you have been Director of Extension (or Director of Off-Campus Credit) Programs, how has the program developed? Have you achieved your goals?

Godden: On number one, no, we haven't achieved our goals, but we do have a record to look back at. In the six years, we've jumped from l,200 enrollments to this year 9000. We have almost as large a body off campus as we have on campus in FTE's. Our problem is that we're getting so broad and so wide spread and we're making such heavy demands on the schools on the campus, that something is going to have to give pretty soon, The addition of the PACE Program doubled our enrollment. It doubled, more than doubled the area in which we're involved. When you stop to think that we're flying people to the Mediterranean area and teaching classes aboard ships running

[9]

up and down the Mediterranean, it becomes quite complex, let alone handling books for an additional 5000 students, mailing books, or sending books and administering records for another 5000 students, It gets quite complex. No, we haven't reached our goals yet. Our goal is to have more students off campus than there are on. It won't be very long before we'll be doing it, I'd assume the next three years, the off-campus enrollment will be around 15-16,000.

Q: One question in addition that I didn't have down here, could you tell me something about how the Old Dominion University got the PACE contract?

Godden: The history of the PACE contract is a unique story. The military has always been interested in retention that is, keeping the enlisted man and the officer in the Navy as long as possible. One of their endeavors is to provide educational courses of one type or another where the Navy people are, either aboard ships or on the Navy bases or in the community. Years ago, they went into a contract with Harvard University Corporation and designed a series of courses which would give credit to submariners in the Polaris submarines because they often times are at sea for six months at a time.

The courses were designed under what was know as "Program Afloat for College Education", PACE. The courses were constructed of films; thirty minute films which were supposed to be the equivalent of a one hour lecture on campus. Several films constituted one year's subject matter.

For a long time colleges and universities frowned on the PACE Program and then when it was modified to reach similar programs that were operated by ODU and other schools. They put faculty aboard the ship or hired people aboard the ship who had full credentials and were fully qualified to teach on the campus.

When Dr. DeRolf was chosen as Dean of the School of Continuing Studies, both I and the staff and the administration told him that one of our objectives the first year, was to bid and see if we could contract with the Navy and have the PACE contract. Luckily we were the awarded bidders this year. We hope that the next contract will be a three-year contract instead of one. It's unique in the fact that we bid on one year's contract with the addition to have been increased to an additional thirty-five, so that we're offering over sixty classes without having a new contract. We hope that this is reflective of the Navy's acceptance of our offerings up to know and we hope that it will also be reflective of our acceptance of a new contract next year.

Q: One other point that you brought up that I hadn't mentioned, how did we come to teach classes at Guantanamo Bay and are we still involved down there?

Godden: For those who knew Dr. Whitehurst when he was here, you can credit him and Dr. Pliska with this. It seems that the Navy was interested in having classes taught in, as we call it, "Gitmo", or Guantanamo Naval Base.

[10]

Bill Whitehurst, Dr.Pliska, and I believe President Webb were requested to fly down and look over the situation. At that time, the program was established using not only faculty going to Gitmo; in those days, faculty who were doing reserve duty in Guantanamo Bay and all also qualified people who lived in Guantanamo Bay and faculty of the high school system down there and the school system. It's grown since then to where we're running on an average of eleven or twelve classes a ten-week cycle. We cycle ourselves at the end of a group of courses.

Q: Do you find it possible to use University faculty or do you have to hire part-time faculty?

Godden: I'd say that it's about 75 percent part-time faculty who are people in Gitmo and about 25 percent of it is faculty that we fly from here down to Guantanamo Bay and they teach the course down there.

Q: Have you found it easy to cooperate with school officials whose facilities you use for the off-campus courses?

Godden: To a large extent we do. We sometimes have problems with asking for a space where the school officials don't have the space because as you'll notice, the Tidewater area's grown so fast that the schools haven't been able to keep up with them. We do have controversies. Controversies have appeared in the paper and I'd rather not discuss some of them.

Q: What are the geographic limits of the extension program?

Godden: Well, we hope to say that at the present time, we cover about half the world, but really what we do is we cover planning districts 20, 21, and 22. That's all of Eastern Shore, from Yorktown on south to the North Carolina border and as far west as Smithfield. We also have the program in Gitmo. We have the ships at sea. We're operating in the Mediterranean and the North and South Atlantic and in South America. Under the contract next year, if we are awarded the base contract, we will be dealing with all ships home ported in Norfolk wherever they may be. We did at one time have classes on carriers in the Bay of Tonkin. We pretty well cover the whole globe.

Q: What effect has the founding and growth of Tidewater Community Colleges had on the development of the ODU's extension program?

Godden: Well, needless to say, many people in the extension business throughout the whole state of Virginia and other states, frown upon the attitude of the State Council on Higher Education or whoever sets the rules and the fact that the community colleges may offer off-campus courses of a one and two hundred level. The senior colleges may not. A senior college boundary is its campus. The boundaries of the community college are the state and it becomes quite disturbing when you find a community college can operate a course that you would normally operate on campus, right across the street from you with permission and yet you can't offer one across the street yourself. It's quite a conflict. With the introduction of the

[11]

community college system and with the rules that we may not, as a senior college, offer freshman or sophomore classes off our campus, we've lost about 50 percent of our potential enrollment.

Q: What do you see as the future role of extension programs in the university's growth?

Godden: Well, during the past two years we've pushed into newer fields. We've run TV courses, newspaper courses. We're going to be working on home study-type courses. I think you're going to find that the largest growth on the campus for the next four or five years is going to be in the field of extension and in the new programs that are introduced on the campus. I venture to say that with the advent of correspondence-type courses or newspaper and TV pushed more than they have been in the last two years, that the growth is going to occur in extension.

Q: To what extent have you been able to use the university's regular, full- time faculty in extension courses?

Godden: Records show that at the present time over 50 percent of the classes off campus are taught by full-time faculty from the University. Again you can reiterate the same figure, 57 percent of those classes are taught not only by the full-time faculty, but as part of their regular load. We even have some faculty who are teaching a full load of twelve hours off campus. You must recognize that we, as a University, offer degree completion programs in the community. We offer a master's degree in Fortress Monroe and in Virginia Beach in which a student may obtain his complete degree work without ever coming on the campus. Naturally it's being taught by full-time faculty from the campus.

Q: How would you characterize the service which our offers provide the community?

Godden: I think it's probably what Dean DeRolf would say before. The University now is providing educational endeavors where, when, and how the public would like them. At the present time, our largest emphasis has been in education in dealing with the military. But, gradually, industry is accepting the role of having to have college classes with their own organizations and we are beginning to meet those needs.

Q: One other question, I think, on continuing education. Do you think that we will see a weekend college at Old Dominion?

Godden: Knowing that nobody is going to listen to this tape for at least a week, I can admit we've been running Saturday and Sunday classes. When my dean found out, he kind of sat back and wondered what was going on. I've learned a long time ago, somebody's got to do it and if you wait long enough, it'll probably get done in two years. In extension, we try to do it and then let people know it's been done and how successful it is. It gets you in trouble. I don't think the administration at this time does know that we've been operating weekend classes, but they'll know now.

[12]

Q: Do you prefer teaching or administration?

Godden: I don't know in all honesty. I find that probably a large part of what I'm doing right how to do something that in many cases hasn't been done before, at least, I haven't seen it done before. Also I find that a large part of this job is spending hours showing the University that what's being done now meets only the needs of the rigid format that's established on the University. Our large problem is teaching the services such as computer registrar, the fact that things don't start in September, end in December, start in January, and end in May. The average public once it leaves college, begins to realize there's twelve months in the calendar not 2, 3 months, breaks where you start and stop, and start and stop. Our largest enrollment off campus occurs after the campus has decided that it can't run a class because there isn't a large enough number of students to sit in the room. We wind up with a class twice that size off campus. We also find that the 'John Q. Public' is looking for a course that was established in September because he didn't know the need of it until October or November. We spend half our time teaching the campus that there is another world off this campus.

Q: Looking back, what would have been your chief satisfactions and disappointments at the college?

Godden: I think my chief satisfaction is the fact that I've been able to keep busy and one, that I did have the time for teaching. I suddenly realize, with the starting of this tape, that it's been twenty-seven years since I came here, the fact that I've been able to grow along with the college. I can remember when there were forty to fifty faculty members and we all got together in a small room. Now, I had the occasion last night to meet a faculty member of the School of Engineering. I hold tenure within the School of Engineering. He's been here three years and I've never met him. I'm beginning to realize the University's getting so big that no one individual's going to be able to know as much as I was able to know in the past.

I'm quite aware, though, that the time has gone when each individual faculty member, as we did in '49 and '50 and '5l, pushed as hard as we could to put the name of the University before the public. The time has come now where faculty members are more concerned about teaching 6, 8, or 9 hours and then going out and doing research and work like that. I think that the image of the University, though it may reach the public, is not being pushed as it was before. I find fewer and fewer people around the campus who try to say, well when I leave the University, I'm going to see what I can do to show these people what it's all about. More of them are going home now and settling down. I have to admit, though, that the University has become nationally known. I've traveled for the Southern Association and for other organizations. We are becoming well-known.

I'm real sorry though, that we haven't become as flexible as we could. You need flexibility to run an off-campus program. You need flexibility

[13]

to meet public needs. You need flexibility to identify things over and above the normal baccalaureate and masters degree subjects. We need more flexibility.

Right now the University has a set of rules. We follow the rules. The state has a set of rules. We follow the rules. But the average public that we deal with are not interested in the rules, they're interested in learning something. They're not so worried about how many forms they have to fill out and getting a "z" grade and things like that. They're more interested in what's going to take place in the classroom or in the room in which they're having their classes.

Q: Thank you very much, Mr. Godden.

Interview Information

Top of Page

Find out more about the Technical Institute from the "Building the University" exhibit.