ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH DR. ANNE RAYMOND SAVAGE Studio, Gornto Teletechnet Building Old Dominion University Norfolk, Virginia November 3-4, 2004 by Ann Pettingill Listen to Interview

Ann Pettingill: I'm Ann Pettingill. And I'm here today which is Wednesday, November 3, 2004 to interview Anne Savage for the Perry Library's ODU Oral History Program. Anne retired from her position as Vice-Provost for Distance Learning here at the University after 33 years. She retired this summer and has agreed to talk to us for recording some of her experiences here at the University and some of her background. Thank you very much for coming and talking with us. And I'm going to start out by asking you about your background. Where were you born and where did you grow up?

Anne Raymond Savage: You know, you think that where people are born and how they grow up doesn’t really make any difference, but as I've thought through this particular event in my life here at Old Dominion, I keep going back to where I was born and how I grew up having such an impact upon me. You think you know your roots until you really examine them. I grew up in Rhode Island and . . . I was the youngest of 11 children, and my father raised us because my mother died when, you know, I was just an infant. So I used to think, you know, that being young in a large family made me a very independent, self-sufficing kind of person, and I always thought that. And I like to analyze really, you know, what effect it had on us, a large family in a rural area in Rhode Island at that time, you know, have upon you. And certainly you bring a whole bunch of culture to your life and to your job certainly.

Pettingill: What was your family ’s background?

Savage: Well, my father was Scotch-Irish-English, you know, working class. My mother ’s family were immigrants from French Canada and you know they were working class, too. So we were very much a blue collar family that was very, very typical of Rhode Island in the turn of the century when big families--Roman Catholic, French-Canadian as well as immigrants from Europe. The town in which I was brought up in, in fact it was probably about seven miles long and every mile there was a different ethnic catholic church with its own ethnic school -- so that was kind of fun. English was a second language there, whether it was Polish or Portuguese or Italian or French, very much it was trying to hold onto the ethnic backgrounds which they had. Kind of interesting.

Pettingill: So you weren’t in Providence. You were out in a rural area.

Savage: In the country, right.

Pettingill: Were you close to the shore?

Savage: No... well, of course in Rhode Island you are close to everything you know. You know it doesn't take too long to get to one end or another. Now my father built the electrical background for a new reservoir system that served Providence. So our house was one of three that was still in the area, and it was tied to the electric power generation of the dam. Although it was a purification plant and supplied water for mainly Providence, it also sold electricity so my father was able to keep us all at home because if anything went wrong at the -- we used to call it ‘The Dam’ -- if anything went off the dam, then our electricity went off because that was the trigger. And he would be out of the house in a shot and up there with the electrical thing.

Pettingill: So basically on the spot all the time.

Savage: On the spot all the time, right.

Pettingill: So what was your family and home life like? A little bit about that while you were growing up. You had fairly unusual circumstances.

Savage: Yeah, very. I went to school when I was four and I think that was probably the biggest thing because we didn’t have kindergarten. My father really needed to get us into school. And they let me go to school, and so I was in school from the time I was four, first grade. I was one of two girls in my local school, so I mean I maintained an actually close friendship with the girl that was the other person in my first grade and the new girl that moved in, in the second grade -- so there were three of us.

Pettingill: That was exciting that day I guess.

Savage: It was exciting yeah right. So it was a little rural school, and we didn’t have a telephone. And we had indoor plumbing -- not everybody did -- but it was very rural and very family oriented and very Victorian.

Pettingill: Well you had a lot of mothers and fathers I guess, with all those older brothers and sisters.

Savage: Yeah, no question. And my brothers were my heroes. I have three brothers that are closer in age to me and they were just my heroes. And they all turned out to be engineers and inventors, and so they were always fun to be around. And my sisters took more of a nurturing role with me and had... you know, that was good. So yeah good... overall really good.

Pettingill: So when you are looking back would you say that education and career for a woman was a value in your family, or was this something that um... you know...

Savage: Boy oh boy, you know I think that was one of the best questions that you all came up with, you know, about that. I thought back to that, and my father gave us a dollar each when we passed the grade and on our birthday. So our birthday had equal value to passing. Education was very, very high on his agenda. He didn’t quite know how to do it, but he did instill in us a very high value for it. Of the eleven of us, nine of us went to college. And I think for a poor rural family, we were the first ones to go on. My brothers went into the military and financed their way primarily because of the military. Two of my sisters went into hospital nursing programs and I went on to the university. Two other sisters went on after that. You know, high value in the family.

Pettingill: So how did you happen to choose the University of Rhode Island?

Savage: Oh good. Oh, I love this because I was really the first woman in my family that was able to go away to college. You know at that time you had to be a teacher or a nurse. And in Rhode Island there were two schools that you could become a teacher at, because... While my first choice was to become a nurse, I was too young, I was only 16 when I graduated from high school, and you had to be 17 to go into a hospital-based nursing program.

Pettingill: So fate decreed your career path.

Savage: Absolutely. More than once... more than once... the fact that I was a woman at that time determined where I went. So I decided, well I can’t be a nurse, so then the obvious other choice was to be a teacher. So then the choice became Rhode Island College, which was a commuter college, or the University of Rhode Island. And of course my best friend was going to the University of Rhode Island; her three sisters had gone there. And I remember being in my kitchen one very dark winter cold night with one of my brothers. And we had an intercom system in our house because my brothers you know created that. And the question on the application was, do you plan on staying at college? And my brother, going to my father and turning on the intercom and he said "Dad. It's a question," you know, "can Anne stay at college?" And there was pregnant pause and my father said, "Yes." And my brother and I danced on this big old kitchen, an old-timey kitchen. We just danced around. I was going to get to go away to college. So that’s how... that was the only choice -- the commuter school or the residence school. My friend was going to the residence school. So I got to go to the residence school. Now I earned half my way, but you know that was irrelevant. You didn’t move, unless you had the permission to do so. So I got to go. And once I got to school, I was going to be an elementary teacher, but I got into a science class -- a biology class -- a freshman biology. And the lab instructor was kind of neat and so kind of took a kind of interest in me because... I don’t know why but... you know, the dissection which I don’t care for a whole lot anymore but at that time you know I got the most difficult dissection labs in freshman so I thought I really like this, I think I'll major in biology and become a biology teacher. So that’s you know again fate, you know, moved me into that. That turned out nice.

Pettingill: And somebody kind of taking an interest in you...

Savage: Yeah, yeah.

Pettingill: Were you working all that time?

Savage: No, I could only work in the summer. Not because I didn’t want to, but Kingston, Rhode Island is in a rural part of the state, and there are no jobs. That was a prob... I would have loved to have had a part-time job, and I would have taken a part-time job in school, but there just were none.

Pettingill: They didn’t have that then.

Savage: I had ho option to do so. I remember addressing envelopes for the President’s Office on Christmas you know one year, but other than that the options weren’t there.

Pettingill: So what was your job in the summer? Did you always do the same thing? This was to help support your going to school.

Savage: Yeah, yeah. No, I actually taught swimming.

Pettingill: Oh, you did.

Savage: Mmm hmm. Yeah. That’s why I almost considered majoring in P.E. too, but I thought nah, nah, nah... And I thought about majoring in Home Economics, so I said no no no, I can’t -- I can do it but I am not sure I teach anybody else to sew. But biology rang a bell; that felt good.

Pettingill: That was good.

Savage: That was good, yeah.

Pettingill: So did you... and you were thinking about what you wanted to do throughout that whole time. About what you wanted to do when you graduated.

Savage: Yeah, I wanted to teach. I wanted to teach -- no question about it. Now, when I graduated and I got a job... but I had decided also to marry before I got out of high school, I mean before I got out of college. And I had a baby right away even before I graduated from college, so I moved on very quickly in my life.   But I still was able to graduate on time and finish my student teaching.

Pettingill: And how did you do that? Did you have somebody helping you take care of the baby?

Savage: Oh my sister, my sister, a sister, you know ... family yeah helped me out. So she took care of the baby while I was finishing my student teaching. And I finished the student teaching and I got a job you know in that school district. But when I was going to have my second child, you were out of there. You were not allowed to teach school pregnant. So …

Pettingill: And what year was that?

Savage: That was the... that would be 1960, 1960.

Pettingill: So that was just a general rule, if you were pregnant you can ’t be teaching.

Savage: Right, as soon as you begin to “show” you, even though I was the junior class advisor and they signed a petition to keep me and I wanted to stay, but I couldn’t. As soon as I began to “show” then I had to leave the classroom. So, you know, I had to kind of sneak home and settle in and you know be a mom for a while. And my husband had a severe accident, so I substituted for him. And then I thought, well I'll go back to teaching, and I was the very first married woman hired by a neighboring school division -- very first woman.

Pettingill: You were hired for what level? What level were you teaching?

Savage: High school biology and chemistry. So I taught there and so when that marriage fell apart, I thought uhh you know these people have just hired me... I am the first woman that they have hired and now I am divorced and in a primarily Catholic community... the parents are going to go before the school board and say you've to get her out of here. And I just couldn’t... I couldn’t endure that image, so I decided okay it was time for me to finish my master’s degree. I got an assistantship at the University of Rhode Island, and I moved down to the University of Rhode Island to finish my master’s degree in Oceanography.

Pettingill: And with your children?

Savage: With my, oh yes, with my children, you know, under my arm. And I finished that, and I fell into a position at the University of Rhode Island for a couple of years after that to replace somebody that was on leave. And I really liked teaching at the college level, but then I realized that I needed to have my doctorate. So I thought well now what am I going to do, and where I am going to go, and I decided upon Oregon State because they had a program that I wanted on how to train science teachers because that was my job at URI.

Pettingill: So, how did you... did you do that research yourself or did you talk to people...?

Savage: I talked to people. I talked to people and I, of course, I was teaching at the time. I was teaching courses in methods to teach science. And so I was just coming out of graduate school as well, so I was always in the journals. And so I picked up that there were a lot of journals that were written by faculty at Oregon State both in Oceanography as well as in Science Education. And I thought you know, Oregon sounds like a good place to go. Now I had never been west of Indiana and so to make the decision to pack up my three children and move to Oregon was again, now that I think back on it, kind of a gutsy move. Particularly since they wouldn’t let me live in married housing because I wasn’t married, but they wouldn’t let me live in single housing either because I had children. So that meant that I had to rent something before I went out there. And they wanted me to come out there. Of course, that was too far to go to do that, but I picked up the three kids and we moved to Oregon.

Pettingill: And this was Salem, right?

Savage: No Corvallis.

Pettingill: Corvallis, okay.

Savage: Corvallis yeah. Salem, Corvallis, and Eugene are all in a line in a valley between the Cascades and a mountain range so they were very close to each other. You have the University of Oregon that was you know just a little south and then Oregon State, and then in Salem you had Williamette University, which is a very old private school, and then of course, Portland north of that.

Pettingill: Yeah, so you really had a lot of resources right there.

Savage: Right.

Pettingill: For any school that you would be in.

Savage: Right. It was a glorious two years once I got adjusted to being away from my family.

Pettingill: So, how did you--what was your support system there for taking care of your children while you were there. I mean that’s a pretty high demanding thing to be doing the graduate courses in research and so on?

Savage: Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm. I really had classes while they were in school. They were young, but they were in second, third, and fifth grade. So when they went to school I went to school. And . . .  I would take them to the library or take them to the lab or I would do my work at home. We lived one block from the University, and they lived one block from the local school. That was a prerequisite when I moved out there I wanted to be right near the University, so I rented a professor’s house and made that decision so I could stay with them. And social life was really always graduate students and family, so it was always you know . . . somebody catching a salmon and going to the local park and everybody brings their children or everybody meets at a pizza parlor for you know family night.

Pettingill: So you weren't the only graduate student with children?

Savage: Oh, no, no, no.

Pettingill: So you had plenty of people that were in the same . . .

Savage: Oh yes, absolutely. It was a big program, a big Science Ed program. I was one of two women again in the program. The other woman was older and didn’t have children, but the men did. So you know, my support group was really the men in the program and their wives, and we got to be very close. In fact one of my whole reasons for coming to Old Dominion in Virginia was the fact that one of my friends that I made out there was going to the University of Virginia and had taken a job there. So I thought well it’s still Virginia, so we were both coming back to the east coast, so you know support, kind of that support.

Pettingill: Well it seems like you finished this program amazingly fast.

Savage: Oh, I was motivated.  I had taken classes while I was at URI that transferred.

Pettingill: So you were ahead when you got there.

Savage: I was ahead when I got there, but I... every course that I took I had in mind approximately what I wanted to do my dissertation. So when I did the advanced Ed-Psych class, then I did the background, the Ed-Psych background for my dissertation topic. So I was able to get ahead on that and move along on that.

Pettingill: What was your topic?

Savage: My topic was the role of non-verbal communication in teacher expectation as measured by student performance. In other words, my thought was that--that teachers who use positive non-verbal communication were going to be perceived by their students as a more positive effective teacher. I was really interested in what makes a good teacher good. You know, what makes some teachers stand out from others? I was curious about good teachers.

Pettingill: And did you find a positive correlation between their positive non-verbal communication with student performance?

Savage: There was . . . there was a positive correlation between its use, but not to the definitive... not definitively. I found that really those teachers who are able to read non-verbal behavior more accurately were probably the better communicators.   Many people think that they’re reading non-verbal behavior appropriately, but in fact what’s happening is they’re misperceiving it. They may think that a student really, really likes them, but frankly that student is ridiculing them and they don’t--and for good reason. It was a real lot of fun to do that and certainly following around.... following these student teachers through their student teaching, through their preparation for student teaching all over Oregon you know.      

Pettingill: And you are interviewing student and new teachers.

Savage: I'm video taping them actually and then I am analyzing their behavior in five classes and interpreting their behavior and doing some surveys of the students themselves, and that was kind of fun. So that ’s how I a little bit got into TV, was because I had to schlep these at this time was one inch... it was not these nice little camcorders that fit in the palm of your hand. They were very heavy one inch impact machines that had cords that were always breaking. And the science classes in Oregon always seemed to be on the third floor of these old junior and senior high schools. So yeah, it was kind of fun.

Pettingill: So you got into technology right at the start. And were you one of a few that was using technology in your program at Oregon?

Savage: Yeah. There were two others and so we shared. The other two were working on actually non-verbal behavior of science students. Yeah. And of course, living in my house growing up in Rhode Island my father was an electrician and I remember at nine or ten getting up one morning and he used to fix toasters and irons in those days when you used to fix them and not throw them out and buy a new one.

Pettingill: And of course your brothers were building the intercom.

Savage: Right. Right. But I remember asking him one morning, "Daddy, will you teach me electricity?" you know. And I remember him smiling and because I thought you know all these little gadgets are kind of interesting you know. He just smiled and I went out and did whatever a ten year old girl does, but I was interested.

Pettingill: So thinking about your teaching just for a minute because you were actually named the state Teacher of the Year in Rhode Island before you even went on to this, so you were really into teaching, and you must have been into a lot of communication already.

Savage: Yes, yeah, yeah.

Pettingill: So what do you think went into that? What made you a good teacher do you think?

Savage: I think um... good question. I don ’t think anybody really has, and I can only answer from a personal... I just put my heart and soul into teaching. The subject matter was a vehicle. It was the individual that was in my class. I really listened to them. I tended to them. When they asked me a question, I tried to think about what they were really asking me. What was their motivation for asking that? I didn’t make it a teacher-centric classroom of read, write, and regurgitate, you tell me what I'm telling you, because I think it’s important. It was more I valued... I valued their questions. I valued teaching them, but asking what is it about this that you don’t understand or you want to know more of or piques your curiosity. Knowing what piques your curiosity might be different from the person next to you or behind you. So it’s kind of like playing, playing being an orchestra conductor. Always being... having an ear out you know for the oboe versus the violin. What's going on in them, you know, making them interested in the subject matter. But it went beyond that you know. It went beyond you know getting down as close as a personal level as you can as a teacher with five classes. I just loved them you know. I just enjoyed it. It was just a lot of fun.

Pettingill: And of course I am sure they picked up on that.

Savage:   Well, I hope so.

Pettingill: So okay, so you're experienced in teaching on so many different levels because you did a lot of different levels. You have really unique perspective on students and just looking back now over the whole range, how do you think they have changed? Do you think they have changed over the years?

Savage: Kids?

Pettingill: And in what ways?

Savage: I don ’t think that the basic... I don’t think that the basic needs of kids have changed, but I think that the pressures on them have changed. I have grandchildren now and so I think you know what is the right moment? What is the right vehicle for getting at them? And I still think the right vehicle is listen... listen, listen, listen. Pay less attention to what it is that you want them to know and listen more to what it is that they have a misperception of or a lack of understanding of. I tend to value now more what people ask me than what they repeat about what I have said. What I say is really irrelevant. I hope I use my knowledge base so that when somebody says something I can discern whether it's accurate or not. But if you listen really carefully you can learn yourself from people that you wouldn't expect that you would learn from because of their perspective.  I think one of the best examples of this is... my daughter had a friend who I used to take to you know when they were younger I took to horseback riding and one day -- and the girl was a very bright girl. One day in the back seat she was saying how many seeds do you have to plant to get a zucchini? I was just listening and so my daughter said "Well we make a... " you know "...a circle and we put six seeds in a circle and one in the center -- isn’t that right mom?", and I said "Yes that’s right." So what the little girl said "But, but one seed grows into one plant and on that plant there are lots of zucchini," she said "but zucchini have lots of seeds." So I began explaining and I began thinking she was thinking how can something with lots of seeds come from one seed -- that's what really she was asking about, not how we planted it but how can something--you know, she knew zucchini had seeds in it. So I went through and I explained the flowers, the different numbers of seeds and peas and apples and all of that, so I thought okay I have got the lesson through but fifteen minutes later you know almost there she said, "But what about tomatoes?" You know, she was mulling it all out.

Pettingill: She was definitely thinking about what you had told her.

Savage: Yeah, yeah, yeah, tomatoes have a lot of seeds and I know there are a lot of tomatoes on those tomato plants and you are telling me it all came from one seed, now wait a minute there is something wrong with this story here. So I mean that’s, that’s the kind of joy there is and most people say who cares you know a tomato is a tomato, but I think its just. . .its just analyzing and thinking about stuff all kinds of stuff whether its tomatoes or zucchini or anything else.

Pettingill: Do you think that the student expectations have changed over the years in your experience with them directly?

Savage: In my experience, no, no. Would I want to go back and teach high school biology again, no. I thought about it. In fact, I thought after retirement I ’d actually go back and substitute and I'm not sure that I could be who I am best at being with the way society is today and how schools are run.  I worry about you know the Standards of Learning are wonderful it raises the bar so to speak on teaching and learning however when one gets so focused upon teaching Standards of Learning that it doesn’t give you the time to encourage talking about tomatoes and zucchini, that’s you know that’s you don’t have enough time if they are going to actually--you got to tell them what they have to learn in order to pass the SOL and I that’s not me and I worry about that.

Pettingill: And it leads to some limited opportunities for learning.

Savage: Well, you know, Piaget really was a very key person in terms of his writings for me and he used say, “pay attention to what children ask you.” Don’t get so wrapped up in them being able to repeat what you have told them. Listen to what they have to say. You know society values divergency, and yet everything we are doing in Standards of Learning and everything is really convergency. If you have the right answer to this question . . . I like thinking about the answers that aren’t right, but maybe are right. I have a son who you know loved atlases, and he used to follow them all the time and one of the questions on a social studies exam for him was, what city has the highest population in the United States? Well he knew that Los Angeles had passed Chicago and so he went up to the teacher and said "Do you want your answer or do want the right answer?" You know I mean you get too wrapped in getting people to answer . . .

Pettingill: What was her answer?

Savage: Well, I don ’t actually remember you know . . .

Pettingill: I'm she was taken aback.  

Savage: Yeah, I think so, but I'm more interested in the new answers. I'm more interested in thinking about it and that's probing all the time and sometimes that can annoy people when you probe too much.

Pettingill: When you look back at your, at your learning career as a student did you have any teachers that modeled this behavior that you were trying to model when you became a teacher? Did you have any that actually did that or were you mostly learning it in your studies?

Savage: I don ’t remember being in a position like that. I remember being more convergent it just--it was just my . . . I think it was the studies and readings and thinking about Piaget and, and what makes a good teacher. I have to say that you know where I am or where my career led me the biggest building blocks were you know my home life and the values in the home life and my, my training as a teacher. Being, being put into a position of thinking about what you're going to influence young people with was to me a tremendous responsibility. I mean they--you had these young people in your hands and you had an opportunity to affect them in a positive or negative way. We have all had positive and negative experiences in school with teachers and sometimes we tend to emulate that, but regardless they did affect you and teachers are very important and today I worry about you know taking someone out of one job and transitioning them to the classroom like you're refurbishing a living room. I'm not entirely against it but I do--I am concerned with the immersion of the culture in a teacher preparation program a good one that allows you to give thought to what are you going to teach? Why are you going to teach it that way? How can you teach it best? How do you evaluate it? Why do you want to teach that at all? What’s the significance of teaching that? I'm looking at my grandchildren now in seventh grade that are learning tenth grade and eleventh grade science biology and I'm thinking, they're not ready for that. I taught you know seventh graders and eighth graders and they need a whole lot more structure. They do need more guidance there. I still have more questions than I have answers about it but there are some things that I learn about that I put on and they don’t feel good. Other things feel good.

Pettingill: So you are in Oregon, and you know someone who's coming to Virginia, so Virginia is definitely on the map here. So, so how did you hear about the job at ODU and what was the job at ODU?

Savage: The job was the kind of job that I wanted and that was training science teachers and at that time the person who was the program chair at Oregon State was also the national President of the Professional Society of Science Teachers. A professor here at Old Dominion by the name of Allen Mandell was a science educator and because he was a professional science educator belonged to the professional group, knew Oregon State was a good place to get people in the program, liked the chair, and called him up and said, "We have an opening at Old Dominion. Do you have anyone that might like to come to Old Dominion?" Well, the same thing had happened up at UVA so you know frankly you know, I wasn't recommended for the University of Virginia job, not because I wasn’t really better but women still weren't-- they still didn’t have the edge or even equality so being the University of Virginia my colleague who did want to come back to the east coast--he had originally come from New York . He had first dibs. And so he was recommended for that and got the job. Old Dominion wasn’t you know, high on the scope for my program chair and he said, "Well, I may have someone," and so asked me about it and I thought well I wanted to come back to the east coast. "Okay, you know I’ll think about it." But the story about coming here is really incredible. I got the call and . . . from them to come here for an interview and I said, "Do I have to come for an interview?" I had three children and no one to take care of them…

Pettingill: Did they know that?

Savage: They knew it after they, I said I--there were three reasons why I didn’t want to come for an interview: One, I had no one to take care of my children for five days. Number two, at that time you had to pay for your expense--your trip and then they reimbursed you. I didn’t really have the money to come. And thirdly, I was busy working on my dissertation so that I could leave and finish on time and couldn’t see taking five days out of my schedule and two days for travel and three days here. So, I said, "Do I have to come for an interview?" So they said,. "No you don’t have to come for an interview if you want the job it’s yours." So I was offered the job . . .

Pettingill: It was the perfect answer to the question.

Savage: Perfect answer, I said, "Okay I'll take it." So that was it. They sent me my contract in the mail for the big $12,000 and I took the job.

Pettingill: And had you ever been here?

Savage: I had never been to Virginia in my entire life. Never, but I hadn’t gone to Oregon either, I guess I can go to Virginia. So I did. Then I didn’t have any place to live here so that when I went to ship a big box of stuff, I didn’t have an address so I sent it to the School of Education--big, big plywood box 4 feet by 4 feet by 8, you know. I had no address so they shipped it. So when I did arrive I went to the dean’s office and the secretary said, "Are we glad to see you. Your stuff is under the stairwell in the Education Building." So then I had to find somebody to come out and lug all my children’s stuffed animals you know and all their books and things.

Pettingill: How did you come across country with the children?

Savage: I sent them to Rhode Island to their-- to my mother-in-law who lives on a lake up in Rhode Island. So, I sent them there for two weeks and then I sold everything, sold the car and I flew to another brother who lived in Northern Virginia and he drove down with me to find a place to live and then I looked around and got a car and moved down here.

Pettingill: So where did you move to first thing, when he brought you down?

Savage: Moved out into Virginia Beach and I did that because at the time you know, neighborhood schools were not something you could rely upon. You could be moved around so while I would have preferred to live next to the University I really felt that my children had been moved from Rhode Island, to Oregon and now to Virginia and they needed to have some stability in their life and so I wanted to make sure they went to a neighborhood school so I moved to a Virginia Beach neighborhood and rented a house out there.

Pettingill: And was this right at the start of the fall semester?

Savage: Yes, yes, right at the start. Yep.

Pettingill: So what were the facilities like for teaching here at the time?

Savage: The facilities were tremendous. The person who actually had--Allen Mandell -- had made sure that there were wonderful, wonderful facilities for teaching science ed. in the Education Building. It was well stocked. The room was tremendous. It was really, really a very good situation. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I had known a graduate student when I was in Rhode Island who had gone to Old Dominion. She had gotten her degree in biology and she was in the zoology program at URI. And so I was comfortable with that and I immersed myself with the College of Science right away. And then I also taught for the biology department as an adjunct because my background in oceanography as my master’s, allowed me to teach a course on coral reef ecology in the summertime so I brought--I set up right away a class that we taught in Jamaica on coral reefs in the summertime.

Pettingill: So, by the next summer you were doing that class?

Savage: I was doing that class down at the Discovery Bay Marine Lab with about eighteen University students down there.

Pettingill: And were they diving?

Savage: Diving and snorkeling, those that were certified could dive those . . .

Pettingill: And so you had already learned that somewhere along the way?

Savage: I had. When I was on the faculty at the University of Rhode Island I had in the Oceanography program I had an opportunity given to me that was really exceptional and that was to go on an Oceanography research cruise to the Bahamas to study coral reefs to be one of the scientific crew. So, for three weeks I had the opportunity to fly to the Bahamas meet the research vessel down there and spend three weeks on the research vessel down in the Bahamas studying coral reefs. The only thing was I had to be certified to dive before they would allow me to go. And I had made a friend as a graduate student at Rhode Island who was a female and so we were able to share you know a room and that was a wonderful experience; an opportunity that was incredible because we went to all of the out islands. We did our major research off of Andros and my job was they dissolved oxygen in carbon dioxide which is very big to biologists, but that meant that every four hours I had to take the sample and bring it down and label it correctly put in the freezer in the hold of the ship so that when we came back to the lab we could analyze them and for the oxygen and carbon dioxide. So that was my job you know as part of the crew to do that, so I had a great time on that.

Pettingill: And so Andros Island was one of the -- it is a distance learning site?

Savage: That ’s correct. It is. And it was because of that -- because when we were down there we were never allowed to go on land. So when we met someone out in . . . Washington who was being transferred to Andros Island, I said, you know, I said, “I know Andros Island but only under water off the shore,” and you were never allowed to step foot on that because you know that's against immigration. You can’t -- you can’t just step foot on you know. So, well he said, "Let me change that when I get down to Andros and I will invite you down to set up a site." So I said, “Okay.” Because it is -- Andros is separated in half by what they call a bite (sp). It's just a water -- it's just you know a culvert or whatever that separates it nearly into two islands. So we were doing our research off the middle bite and because the water was going from one side to the other more water current and stuff, heavy underwater current. So it was fun to go down there and see Andros Island from the land side.

Pettingill: So, when you got to ODU the campus was pretty small. So what kinds of changes have you seen as it's grown over the years?

Savage: Well, for the first seven years I was a happy camper, a faculty member. I taught elementary school teachers, pre-elementary teachers how to teach science. And then I picked up the secondary when Professor Mandell passed away. And the graduate classes and then I taught you know, for the Biology department in the summertime. And we developed a master ’s program in how to teach science, primarily with the Virginia Beach public schools and we gave them one credit science classes so that they could pick up a lot of science classes to get certified to teach science at the same time. The University was small, but the Science Ed program was very big. We used to have 300 teachers on a waiting list to take classes in how to teach science.

Pettingill: What department were you in?

Savage: Curriculum and Instruction.

Pettingill: Who was the chair?

Savage: The Chair of the department was Allen Mandell and then became Mark Fravel and then they reorganized you know since that time.

Pettingill: And how many people were in there like yourself teaching a science?

Savage: There were three of us which is quite a bit you know just for science education. The year after I came I was given the opportunity to hire someone else because it was a required course for the elementary teachers and, and that was were the biggest area was both at the graduate and undergraduate level. And then we'd have a part-time person on top of that. We grew the program so we had three full-time science educators and couple of part-time ones.

Pettingill: Did you--were you able to participate a lot in, in sort of deciding the future of the program or how it developed and grew?

Savage: Well absolutely, absolutely. In fact, you know it was on the faculty members shoulders to really create those programs that you think were the best for the, for the creation of the best possible science teachers or the best possible elementary teachers to prepare them for teaching all kinds of things in the elementary school. A little side bar another little story here the story was . . . when I remarried and I had another child and it was time to go to first grade I was trying to decide which school, well the public school or the private school so I went to the local public school as Mr. and Mrs. Citizen, my husband and I and my child and we sat in the back of the first grade and it ’s kind of like an intellectual desert in the class and I knew that this was a hand picked teacher that the principal wanted me to see. So when the class was all through and I watched children just, just copy things off the board, draw papers, write stuff but there was no interaction between the children and the teacher and that didn’t feel good to me. But I said to the teacher afterwards, I said, without her knowing who I was, “Do you ever teach things like social studies or art or music or science?” She says, “Well, we teach science" she says "but we don’t teach it until after Easter.” So I said, “Well why don’t you teach science until after Easter,” and she said, “Well we planted our seeds before Easter one year but the seeds the plants came up while we were on break and they all died, so we don’t teach science now until after Easter.” You know I just could just feel my skin crawl you know just . . . first of all that’s all the science they get when they're first graders and just so curious about dinosaurs and stars and rocks and bugs and plants, but you didn’t teach it until after Easter, that didn’t feel good to me at all so I chose not to send them to that particular school. But anyway, as a sidebar I think you know all elementary teachers you know have a responsibility for whether there is art or music or social studies or science you know although you know again, in today’s time they don’t find that they have lots of those options open to them. But over time you know -- I mean because I had the science background in the late ‘70s there was a movement on helping faculty at the universities across the country to become better teachers. And we had a program here at Old Dominion and they came to me and they said . . .

Pettingill: Who? Who came to you?

Savage: Actually it was Dave Hager and the Dean of the College of Education at the time an acting Dean by the name of Dennis Rittenmeyer because I felt that I wanted to do something else about then and I had applied for the job as the Associate Dean of the Graduate School and they said no Anne you don ’t want that job, there's another job that we think you would be better at and that is the Center for Instructional Development needs a half-time person, which was what I wanted, a half-time.

Pettingill: Actually that center already existed.

Savage: That center already existed. Conrad Fester started it with a SREB grant Southern Regional Education Board grant that was given to the University to help faculty become better teachers. To help them you know learn how to question, learn how to develop course syllabi, you know just most university faculty never have the opportunity to think about teaching and learning.

Pettingill: When was that started? Do you know?

Savage: About 1975 or '76 and when I was recruited to take it on it was in 1978. Conrad wanted to go back to the faculty in English full time because what he was doing in that job didn't count towards his promotion to full professor in English. He needed to be doing publications in English not in higher education faculty development.   So he decided that he would do that and as you know he ended up becoming the Provost at the University of Charleston. He was the acting dean here and left to go to Charleston.  And I have been working with him for the last twenty-five years on the summer Institute on Teaching and Learning with Larry Dotolo up in Williamsburg.  Anyway, they recruited me for that particular position. They didn’t want me to get into the professional quagmire of helping faculty becoming better teachers was part of my--really teaching and learning was part of my job here my home department in curriculum and instruction because I had a science background I had what was called intellectual acceptance by faculty that weren’t you know, in education that another words I had credibility with the academic community.

Pettingill: You had a solid discipline.

Savage: I had a solid discipline and so they said that you know I would be perfect to take on that job. So I took it on you know.

Pettingill: And that was something that you were already really interested in it sounds like.

Savage: Teaching and learning again. Still the same old thing teaching and learning, helping people become better teachers.

Pettingill: What had you done on campus to make Dave Hager think of you? I mean you must have been doing sort of active things out there to come to people’s attention not just in your classroom teaching. What made them think oh let’s talk to Anne about this?

Savage:  I really don’t know. I was pretty active as young faculty member. I had gotten the teacher of the year award the third year that I was here. It was very new at the time. I created the new programs for training science teachers. I taught for the biology department.

Pettingill: So, it sounds like you were fairly innovative.

Savage: I liked to move. I liked to move around. I liked to look at new things and new ways of looking at stuff. Yeah.

Pettingill: And they noticed that you liked that.

Savage: Right. And then when I applied for the Associate Dean of the Graduate School they said, "Oh no, no, no that’s not for you. That’s you know you like to think outside the box. You like to play in the arena a little outside and Associate Dean of Graduate School was probably pretty, pretty regimented job you know pretty much policy driven. Why don’t you think about this?" And so they--you know Dennis Rittenmeyer recruited me, David Hager was the chairman of the search committee and interviewed me and they said you know "This would be good thing for us if you did it, would you please do it." So I thought okay I'll do it. You know, it's half-time and I can be doing something new and different. I was always--if I stayed in one place too long it just kind of kind of got sticky feet or something. It just didn’t feel right.

Pettingill: So it would be half-time doing that and then half-time still teaching.

Savage: Still teaching right. But then you know, several things happened at the University. The Director of the Media Center resigned and they thought well you know we need to we need to put that into this faculty development; media center. We had a big grant in science on testing and they said we need to--we need to . . . you know put this into the main stream of the University let’s put that together. So it was computers that were just coming onto campus, computer based learning which was just coming on campus, so let’s take this computer assisted undergraduate science education grant to the College of Science and let’s take it off of soft money and put it in the hard money, merge it with the media center, merge it with the Center for the Instructional Development and call it all a Center for Instructional Development. And Anne can just assume the responsibility for it.

Pettingill: Full time then?

Savage: Full time. So I said okay I'll do that.

Pettingill: And where was this located?

Savage: In the--actually over in the old library, Hughes Hall.

Pettingill: Oh, uh huh.

Savage: Down . . . first on the first floor and then we moved up to the second floor.

Pettingill: So after the library left, you all moved into that space.

Savage: That’s correct. That’s correct. That’s correct. We made our own walls and I inherited all of that. Made a little TV studio up on the second floor of Hughes Hall and. . .

Pettingill: Using this grant money?

Savage: Well, I think when we talk about the Center for Instructional Development’s early beginnings about the late 1970’s it just began to grow and take on a life of its own because of organization changes at the University. As I mentioned the. . .the desire to turn the cause grant which was a NSF grant from soft money into actually part of the University infrastructure the departure of the person who headed the media center all at the same time said let’s look at an organization that is more broad based to support faculty. Anything that helped faculty become better teachers was something that I was very interested in and so I saw the media center and the cause grant both falling into that category. The cause grant was on how to create really better tests and how to work with a large science sections in creating better tests. It was really a back door process of helping a faculty member- teacher think about what they were teaching. Because testing did that if you analyze you know large databanks of test items you have an opportunity to think about that. And the work of Kneeland Nesius and Nancy Wade who are still both on this campus was incredibly ahead of their time and they worked very hard for this. So being surrounded by faculty who were interested in this was also a lot of fun for me. So the movement from a half time position to full time was an easy one for me. I could still teach my summer course in Jamaica and working with primarily faculty in their support throughout the year was really good. But then about 1981 . . . another--maybe 1982 . . . another big organizational change occurred at the University and we had at that time a very large and in my opinion a very successful School of Continuing Studies. The dean of that school by the name of John DeRolf was very entrepreneurial he always was thinking outside the box and was always looking at things like international travel, television, Saturday morning seminars, putting courses on in the Virginian-Pilot, offering courses on military bases, offering courses at the local schools. We had a lot of courses that were being taught off campus in a non-traditional format including I might say, my course in Jamaica, which in order to set that up I had gone through the School of Continuing Studies which not only involved that particular aspect of how you administered that program, but because it was international it brought those two offices within that school together. I remember Bob Ake who was a faculty member in Chemistry taught a class for biology as well on birds and he would go to international sites to teach his ornithology class. So we had a very similar you know experience with that particular college.

Pettingill: So this idea of outreach which sort of culminated in the distance learning programs we have, really had roots way back at ODU.

Savage: Oh yes. Oh absolutely and I didn’t invent them. It was invented as part of the culture at Old Dominion University. Old Dominion was a non-traditional school that served its constituency. The moment I stepped on campus I knew that I would be traveling to the Eastern Shore or up to Middle Neck or any place else in Virginia to teach a class to teachers and it was part of our culture. And that was perfectly fine with me and certainly expected of faculty when they took the job here. We even had a school at Guantanamo Bay, an extension office down there, so we would even teach classes down there. Or hire people down there to teach those classes. So that School of Continuing Studies was very big and very successful. However, the climate at the time at the University from an organizational point of view was one in which there were two academic themes specifically that--again this is my opinion, some were, were somewhat uneasy about a non-academic school being so powerful if you will, power coming from the tuition dollars that this school brought in. In other words, their whole operating budget was based upon the tuition dollars that they collected. Those two academic deans felt like that was money that wasn't going into the academic deans’ coffers therefore they agitated successfully to dismantle the School of Continuing Studies. That meant that International Programs went off by itself. Television went to me. Summer school went over to a new division for summer school and academic affairs. The non-credit units were each picked up by the academic colleges. In effect it was dismantled piece by piece.

Pettingill: Now what year was that again?

Savage: About ’81 or ’82, about that time. So at that time I inherited the one position that was dedicated to television classes and we worked more closely with WHRO at the time, we had a sunrise seminar, early...very early in the morning. It was also a correspondence course with Virginian-Pilot and we had done three actual audio classes, audio tape classes with history faculty. So, it was a very new kind of event . . . a kind of a new kind of thing that was going on, but the timing was such that then in 1983 the state decided that they were going to create a school for . . . not a school but they'd create a program whereby individuals could get graduate degrees in engineering in Richmond and in Northern Virginia where there were not colleges that had graduate degrees located. The only three schools that offered graduate programs at that time were the University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech and Old Dominion. And I think I might like to maybe tell you this parable that occurred at this time that people have enjoyed. And I said that, you know once upon time, meaning 1983, you know the great center of Richmond decided that they were going to hold a dance that they called graduate engineering and so they went to our beautiful step-sisters in Blacksburg and Charlottesville and said we want you to come to this dance because you are so beautiful we want you to originate the classes if you will for these graduate engineering programs. And we in Norfolk said, "Well, you know, we thought we were pretty you know. And couldn’t we go to the dance too?" And the people in Richmond said, "No, no, no. You are not pretty at all. You know you have braces; you know you are not very pretty; and so no you know you just stay there but we are going to give your sisters each a million dollars so that they can go out and get their hairdos and their new dresses and their new chariots and all the equipment that they need you know to transport them to Richmond and Northern Virginia. And well we'll give you, you know, a little bit of money but maybe because we want you to take care of your sisters you know down there but we really want you to stay in the kitchen. So I mean you can order pizza in if you want but you stay in the kitchen." And so we said, "Thank you for that little bit of money." And so they wanted us to really you know order pizza in, but we said, "No. We're going to not order pizza in. We're gonna make our own pizza. So we’ll put our money towards a pizza machine." So our money went to not a one way microwave so that we could see our sisters from WHRO across the street. We're going to put in a fiber optic link under Hampton Boulevard to connect us because that way not only can we see our sisters and do what we have been asked to do but we can also send our pizzas on the road. So that seems good because you know the road goes both ways on fiber optic where as microwave it only goes one way. You can only order in. You can’t order out. So we ordered our pizza machine and we put it over in one of the buildings. And we had a nice room so we could see our sisters from Charlottesville and Blacksburg at the dance. And we, we, we put things in the paper so that students could come and look at them at the dance. And you know when they were at the dance we decided to have a dance ourselves and we sent pizzas out with our little dance. So the next year we raised our hand and we said, "You know are we pretty this year?" And they said, "No. You are not pretty this year, but you know your sisters really need new dresses, new hairdos so we'll give them another million dollars each. Well this went on you know in the ‘80s, ’83, ’84, ’85, ’86. Finally in ’87 they said, "You know we've been noticing you down there you know I think maybe you might be pretty. So maybe you might want to do engineering management ‘cause we don’t have engineering management so if you want to send up your pizza with anchovies well you can do that. That is the only one you have permission to do is you can send out that pizza." So, we did that but during the ‘80s and so they gave us a little bit more money to--you know to send our own pizzas out, but during that time we kept saying here on campus, "How do we make Richmond believe that we’re pretty?" What can we do?" And we said, "You know if we send our pizzas out to Massachusetts and Florida or Ohio or California and people say this is the best darn pizza we've ever had, they're not going to say necessarily that Old Dominion University is pretty," but they are going to say to Richmond "You know you've got school in Virginia that's been making some darn good pizza you know." And, and Richmond is going to have to say, "Well, who’s making pizza and sending it to California?" And so they had to look around and every time they turned around, "Gee Virginia is really forward thinking." Well it was our pizzas that we were sending out and our pizzas took the form of television programs, training programs . . . programs for teachers, programs that were motivational in the business community. In the ‘80s workforce development was huge. Economic development was huge. So when we weren’t using the pizza machine, so to speak, to send our graduate engineering classes around the area, we were using it to develop programs that were used in education, in business, in nursing and all kinds of things like that. So we did get the attention of Richmond at that time.

Pettingill: So they would be things that weren’t necessarily for credit . . .

Savage: That’s correct.

Pettingill: ...but that people could use for . . .

Savage: Right.

Pettingill: ...their own growth and professional development.

Savage: Exactly. And that’s really what led us then to do the space bridge with the Soviet Union in 1988. We thought okay, well we've done this with the United Nations building and we've done this to the southeast. What next? Okay we are going to do something international. Okay so international, where, where, where do we want to do a television program?

Pettingill: And this is you and who working on this idea?

Savage: I had a staff member by the name of Mark Tisone and I had another staff member by the name of Sally Jorgenson. I also had two individuals who worked within the unit that--one was an incredible audio person and it turns out that in the early days of television it's easier to deal with the video signal than it is the audio signal. Audio is special and if you don’t have good sounds nobody cares how good the picture is. He was really very good. And there was an individual on my staff who actually had a master’s degree in television production and he had an undergraduate degree in art and theatre and so he was very artistic. So from the point of view of creating programs he was a true artistic director. Now he didn't have that job when he was here. He was designing slide tape programs you know really but he had this background. So he knew how to produce a program. There was nobody else here that knew how to produce a program. And his name was Alex Leidholdt and he's now on the staff I believe at James Madison University teaching communication. The audio person has passed away.  But we had kernels of everybody had an expertise, if you will, that when we came together we were a unified piece. We were a small group, the little engine that could, and we had no business negotiating with the Soviet Union you know about doing this space bridge. I mean we had no idea what we were doing, but we were darn sure that if we just figured it out we could do it. Well, the first thing that happened was that we decided which country and we said the Soviet Union-- the former Soviet Union. Why because there was a faculty member who had taken advantage of our little pizza machine to connect to the local cable channel to teach Russian, his name is John Fahey and he was on the faculty in foreign languages, taught Russian and so he teaches classes and they would be put out on the local cable channel in the morning. And I knew that he took students to the Soviet Union each year, so we asked if we could tag along with him the next summer. And he kind of got scared because he thought oh my god you're gonna to bring television cameras in the Soviet Union I'm going to be put in jail. It was a different time. So, he said. "Okay, but you can’t be with me. You can go to the same place and follow me."Because we didn’t--how would we know how to get around the Soviet Union I mean we wouldn’t know. He knew how. I'll be there but I can’t be with you. I mean I'll be with you, but I can’t be with you on an official basis. So at the time we had a President by the name of Joe Marchello and he had actually come from the University of Missouri--Rolla and there was a huge national movement in the early 80’s in terms of graduate engineering across the country. As an engineer himself, he knew about that and so had been totally involved with that at the University of Missouri at the Rolla campus. So when he came here in about 1986, I think, he came here with the full understanding of graduate engineering and what needed to be done. And so he was always looking over his shoulder at what was a fledgling operation anyway. But I went to him and I said to him, "Dr. Marchello, I'm thinking about doing a program with the Soviet Union." And he said, "Okay." And I said, "Do you care?"And he said, "Why would I care?" And I said, "Because it's a Communist country." You know I thought maybe some college president might feel as though he did not want his institution doing business with a Communist country. You know that was how I was brought up you know you didn’t think Communist. And he said, "Nah I don’t care about that." He was kind of gruff in his way and he said "I don’t care about that." And so he said, "How much is it going to cost you?" And I said, "Well I don’t know." I said, "It could cost me as much as $250,000," because that's what I was told from someone out at San Diego State who had done a space-bridge with the Soviet Union. And he said, "Where are you going to get the money from?" And I said, "Well, I don’t know but I think based upon the experiences that we had had in ’84, ’85, ’86 by selling licenses to our television programs we had always made a profit on what we did, particularly the business programs. We would create a budget of about $20,000 to produce the program. We would earn anywhere from $40,000 to $60,000 off the program with license fees and selling the tapes. So we had had a couple of years under our belt of using someone else’s nickel to produce the programs. This was never funded by the University. We earned all of our own money, but in the process we were able to use that money to put ads in the paper like the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times where one ad was $20,000. And how we could bring in people like Louis Rukeyser and Jane Bryant Quinn and um . . . Tom Peters and Ali McCormick and Anne Garrels. We had them all on this campus you know in programs. So I thought well we can earn it--you know I think we can earn it and I think if we get good video footage in the Soviet Union we can probably sell that footage. Well he said, "Suppose you don’t make that much money." I said, "Well, I don’t know." And he said, "Well, I don’t know either, ‘cause," he said, "I don’t want to hear if you don’t make enough money to cover it." I said, "Okay." I said, "I think I'll be able to do it." I said, "I think I'll be able to budget it as we go and cover it. I'm not sure it is going to cost us that much." "Alright. " So he gave me kind of permission to play in this arena and it took us a year. We had a wonderful advisory group of again going back to teaching and learning . . . an advisory group and I had them all come to talk. I said, "This is the idea we had." And the idea that I had originally had was that I was going to teach high school social studies students about the geography of the Soviet Union, about the cities, about the art, about the architecture. I wanted them to see what the former St. Petersburg looked like or what Moscow looked like and that. And so I had this wonderful group of social studies educators, somebody from WHRO and a couple of other people in this advisory group. And I will never forget the social studies supervisor from Chesapeake, and I have forgotten her name now I can picture her, but she listened to me and she said, "Anne," she said, "this all sounds good, but " she said, "you know unless you do a program on something that kids are interested in they're not going to watch it." Well I thought bingo. You are darn right. And I said, "Well." I also knew that I didn’t have entrée into the public schools but all of these social studies supervisors sitting around the table did. So, I asked the question how can we find out what they're interested in. And they said, "Well, we can ask them." So we had then the social studies supervisors of Norfolk, and Hampton, and Newport News and Virginia Beach and Franklin and Suffolk and the Eastern Shore all said, "Yeah, let’s make up a questionnaire and we'll say if you were to talk to or you were to learn something about the Soviet Union what would you want to know?" So they did that for me and they came back and after we collated it they said they wanted to know . . . they wanted to know about teenagers. They didn’t want to know about any architecture. They didn’t want to know about any geography. They wanted to know what teenagers in the Soviet Union ate. What did they do after school if they couldn’t work, which they couldn’t do. What was there school like? What did they wear? What about their sports?

Pettingill: So real life questions.

Savage: Real questions. What about their families? So it became a done deal, they wanted to know, okay. What do you eat? Where do you live? What's your family life like? What do you wear? You know, what’s your school like? So it became laid out for us in terms of programs. So we then decided that we needed to do two programs that told them about Soviet life and we needed to have young people involved, so we got some exchange students who were over in Moscow to participate.

Pettingill: And who organized that part of it, to get them involved?

Savage: Oh gosh. You know we were such a team.

Pettingill: You already had contacts by then . . .

Savage: Well, you know, I think Mark did most of the international contact. We went first to Vladimir Posner who's a big name in broadcast television, but we finally got to the office, and then--to the right office. And Sally Jorgensen did part of it and I did part of it and we had kind of almost every other morning meetings for an hour about what needed to be done and who to contact and we just kept on it until we got the right people and we went over there and got the right people. The laying out what the programs were to look like fell on Alex Leidholdt who was the producer-director of the program, so what the programs were going to be looking like. Sally took on the responsibility of curriculum you know there was a very small group of us, but we helped each other on that, but it was all about teaching and learning and kids. So then we piled together a small group to go on this trip to tag along with the international foreign language group. We almost didn’t get to go. We almost got bounced from the group because we had a T.V. camera.

Pettingill:  How many of you were there?

Savage: Three.

Pettingill: Three of you.

Savage: Um hmm . . . but we made it.

Pettingill: And they did let the camera come in?

Savage: They did let the camera come in, but it . . . we had to do some things around the corner about you know to get the family life. We really had to, to pay the families money to go into their home to let them video, we, we, we ended up having to pay things that we--that I actually took out of my own pocket. It wasn’t a whole lot of money but . . .

Pettingill: And you sort of had to do this on the spot as you figured out the situation that was existing right them.

Savage: On the spot. We discovered when we got over there that they were rock and roll bands. You know this is in the ’80s, you know in ’87, you know. We didn’t know there were underground rock and roll bands. We didn’t know that there were motorcycle gangs over there. Now we didn’t show that, but we had footage of it.

Pettingill: Does this footage still exist?

Savage: Um hmm, um hmm. Oh yes. We have that footage. So well anyway we came back and we cobbled together the program and to make that long story we did the two national programs and then we did the international space bridge which was a live uncensored program for 90 minutes between Moscow and Norfolk, Virginia in that little room on the second floor of the Education Building that we had turned into a studio.  We had translators from the United Nations down. The technology was incredible. Two weeks before the program we realized that we didn’t have the technology down right because we could only get two signals out of Hampton Roads up to Richmond for an uplink up there. In another words, there was a microwave two and from Richmond for the graduate engineering program. There was no uplink in this region. So we had to microwave to and from Richmond. However we could take both of them both signals and turn them into two one way signals, so we had two signals. One a domestic feed and one an international feed, however what we realized is that it’s not just two signals of you looking at me and me looking at you because then what you get is a picture of me looking at you, not you. You need a mixed minus. You know you need a signal minus somebody looking at you. It turned out that . . .

Pettingill: And you all were thinking about this how far . . .

Savage: And we had already advertised it and everything. And we only had two roads to Richmond to an uplink up in Richmond, what are we going to do? And it just happed to be that WHRO was testing a localized microwave with CBN so we went to CBN and we said . . .

Pettingill: The Christian Broadcasting Network?

Savage: The Christian Broadcasting Network and we said, "Can we use your uplink?" Because the signal was still in. It was the audio and the video signal. "Can we use your up link for a domestic program?" So, they said, "Yes." And of course then they couldn’t charge us for it, so that eliminated an expense. But I mean that wasn’t the issue. The issue was we needed to have that uplink because that was the only one in the Hampton Roads. So anyway we got that all straightened out two weeks before that program. But I have to say that March of 1988 was when we did that space bridge and I have never been as electrified in my entire life.  We had--when the signal was up and we could see the room over in Moscow and all the kids milling around and there was a T.V. in their room and then they looked and you could see them looking up and they could see all the kids here. We had fifty kids come in from every state in Virginia -- one student and a chaperone come in from every state, every single state took the responsibility on their own nickel including Alaska and Hawaii to send a student here. So we had fifty.

Pettingill:  So it was like a high school student.

Savage: High school student right. And it had to be you know whoever they wanted to, so we had fifty students representing fifty states in that room. And then I made room for some of the local schools, you know, for the social sciences supervisors you know you each get two or three, and we probably had sixty or seventy kids in the room, but that’s about all we could hold in there legally. And so, they got to be in the room and we had produced it so that they had--they did a little skit and we did a little skit. They did a little skit about these rich spoiled teenagers and they would say, "Daddy can I borrow the helicopter today," you know, that was their view of us. Where as we did one in which the kids did a skit in which the woman was working and the man was drinking too much on the sofa so that was our perception of their home. Then they did one--a little slide show to see if they could recognize things like a hamburger or the Golden Gate Bridge or things like that and they did the same thing over there. And so that kind of broke it up a bit other than that it was live and uncensored and carried by PBS live.  And . . .

Pettingill: And were they asking each other questions?

Savage: They were asking each other questions in between time and then we broke it up into five segments on food, on fashion, on family life, on education, on sports. So they were able to ask questions so and they had teenagers from all over the former Soviet Union which really you know covered eight time zones, you know if you look really at what the Soviet Union covered over there. And they all wore their native dresses so you could see really that there were you know people with different ethnic backgrounds within the Soviet Union which you know dispelled all of that.  We actually had one person who represented the Navajo Nation in Arizona but pretty much you know, we were across the board, too. But you know they asked each other questions. It had to be just electric I mean, we were so spent when it was over the fact that we were able to do it, it ended up costing us actually $92,000 and we made a little over $100,000 on it, but we got a lot of visibility on it, including Richmond thinking that we were pretty, pretty and that time you know I mean to pull that off and we won eleven awards you know national awards big awards that we won you know for that particular program.

Pettingill: So ODU received a lot of recognition.

Savage: Absolutely, we were on the map. I mean we went up to—what’s the little T.V. Digest is that the T.V. Guide to see if you know to see if they would put something in the T.V. Guide about us and that T.V--and the editor was sitting there. There were two of us. I can’t remember who went with me up to New York to ask him if he couldn’t put something in the T.V. Guide about the program coming up. And he said, “You are doing what?" You know. " With who?“ he said,--and about that time one of the networks had just sent somebody over for a town meeting and they had sent 225 people to set up this space bridge and we had eleven people and he said you know its--you know "I don’t have enough time to do this," he said "Eleven people did this?" He said, “Next time you do this come up earlier and I'll do something,” but he just kind of—he just sat there and just shook his head the whole time we were there like "I can’t believe that you all are going to do this." And it was perfect. The technology worked perfectly there wasn’t one single glitch. The program went very, very well.

Pettingill: It sounds really exciting.

Savage: Right, right.

Pettingill: And President Marchello must have been happy, you covered the cost . . .

Savage: He was so happy.  He became exceedingly excited about the program and actually went so far as to host a meeting at a private club that he belongs to in Washington DC for press release.  So he went up there and opened up the private club to really a very nice press conference that got a lot, a lot of coverage. He also contributed to paying for like refreshments for all the press that came into Norfolk for that. I mean they were down--it was the former Waterside-- the former Sheraton _______ no it’s not a Sheraton any longer but the hotel down on the Waterside there and that went very, very well. I mean, there was press from all over the country. We had the chaperones and each of the fifty people so we had probably a crowd of 400 people down there so the President helped me out a lot.

Pettingill: So you had huge logistics . . .

Savage: Huge logistics. We brought them all out on the Spirit of Norfolk the night before and it was such a lively crowd that the boat had to keep going back. We thought they'd be done with and that everyone would be sitting looking at each other, but all they danced and they sang and they had a good time. And we had people from on campus you know participate with them in the school division. And they were having so much fun they turned around and went back out to the bay and they came back and they went out to the bay again and it was, it was--I think in probably all of the things that I've ever done in my entire life I think that has to be right there at the very top. It was an exciting event and it did put the University on the map and it didn’t cost us anything to do so because everybody else paid for it, and so that was good.

Pettingill: And you must have been somewhat unique on campus in that whole aspect of bringing money in and being able to pay for your own programs.

Savage: Well that's the whole concept behind continuing studies and the school of continuing studies and the entrepreneurial... if you want to think outside the box, that's the way you think outside the box.  And that as an organizational model was a very, very good thing for Old Dominion to be involved with. Breaking that unit up you know I personally never thought that was such a good thing to do to decentralize it, although some schools have a successful decentralized model. In the break up, I inherited the unit myself to be able to do it on my own, so we could continue to do what we did because we had our own budget that was a . . . um . . . you know, what’s the word I'm looking for--you were in your own money for it, so your budget is whatever it is that you earn. You don’t spend more than what you earn and we have a budget within Distance Learning that allowed us to do the programs that were outside the box, so obviously in the decentralization process I inherited the ability to be able to do that, which was good.

Pettingill: The great potential.

Savage: Yeah, the great potential to do that, which we are still doing you know today. We still do different kinds of training programs that keep us up to date with the technology and keep us on the cutting edge and give us the opportunity to work with things that are just a little bit different. And I think that's helped the organization in the long run.

End of Interview, Part 1

Interview, Part 2
Thursday, November 4

Pettingill:  Hi, I'm Ann Pettingill. I’m meeting again, today Thursday, November Fourth with Anne Savage and we’re continuing our conversation on her time here at Old Dominion University. And Anne, tell me some of the challenges that you faced in getting the faculty ready to accept new technology.

Savage: I don’t really feel as though I really faced challenges with the faculty . . . um . . .and I don’t know why. I have this inherent feeling that there are faculty that want to step up and try new things and so the process that I’ve always engaged in is to find those individuals, and usually they find you, who want to think outside the box and try new things. Usually you have more faculty knocking on your door saying, "Can you do this or can you do that or can you help me do this?" than you probably have opportunities to help them, so you begin to you know become sensitive to those faculty who do want to utilize technology and are willing to go out on a limb. Once you have them and once you help them engage in the use of technology they become your opinion leaders for the rest of the faculty by mentoring them.

Pettingill: Who were some of those faculty members who were more or less beating down your door?

Savage:  Oh, let me give you a good example is Lytton Musselman you know the current chair of the Biology department. But way back in the early ‘80s when people were beginning to look at computer based education he came up with an idea of using the computer for the helping the students learn how to classify plants so he would have a box of plant specimens in the computer lab and with a computer program you know it was an easy branching program, but it was very out of the box thinking at that time. He was a very good example. He’s one of those individuals that continues to use technology. He has his college sophomores working in groups and doing field work using digital cameras, taking pictures of their studies working together to write their report, developing PowerPoint slides for a presentation to the rest of the class, and then teaches them how to post them to the course Web page. He’s been doing this now for over two years so, you know, he’s one. Kay Palmer in Nursing was another one, used the web for developing simulations for Nursing students in terms of hospital care. We had lots of faculty in the College of Arts and Letters that were interested in learning how to do more with questioning techniques or in small group discussion so they've been serving as a clientele, a pilot group on how to arrange the seating in a class in order to engage students -- all students -- in a class even though you're televising the class. So you know we've experimented with them in terms of how to arrange a class for distance learning specifically with their concerns of wanting to engage the students in a dialogue. So, it depends upon you know the discipline that they're coming from but there is never really any opportunity to worry about faculty engagement. And then I've read since that time that really the biggest obstruction to faculty is their fear of failure and I never thought about that and after that made sense too.  I mean faculty are willing to engage in and try new techniques. They just don’t want to fail at it. And so if you can help them not fail then they're happy because they move on with it. And so that's really something that I think you know is . . . that can be said about faculty. There--you have some that are a little reluctant but I think they're a little more fearful of "Am I going to be successful using this? I know I'm successful in this venue. Will I be successful in the others?" And another article I read at one time said that faculty are the ultimate researchers they try out what works for them and that’s what they use and they throw away and don’t do any further those things that don’t work for them.

Pettingill: Did you get back any feedback on that sort of thing when you were working with them? Well this doesn’t work.

Savage: Yes and not all things work with all faculty. You can’t predict necessarily what’s going to be working you know what’s going to work for all faculty. You get a sense of it but you don’t have a clear recipe book for when a faculty member steps up that you can inventory his or her personality and skill set and then say this is what we need to do for you. It doesn’t work that way.

Pettingill: And of course the disciplines all have different needs as well.

Savage: Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.

Pettingill: Tell me more about the early days of distance learning at ODU. What was the next step after that joint program in Engineering that the state more or less initiated? What happened here and what disciplines were first involved in distance learning after Engineering?

Savage: Mmm hmm . . . During the 80’s it was a very dynamic environment here at the University in that we were trying to get the attention of Richmond on one hand so that we could be invited to that dance so to speak, the Engineering dance and we were always working on that end. At the same time we were indeed providing the Engineering school to deliver some of their classes to a regional audience. So where we had sites for the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech we used that network to deliver graduate engineering courses to the very same sites when they weren’t using that same facility for those classes. So we could do that on a regional basis at that time. We also had some pioneering pilot things going on with Arts and Letters in that we taught foreign language. Russian and Japanese were delivered to the homes by cable through this inter-connect.

Pettingill: And that pretty much came out of the continuing studies idea.

Savage: Yes, yes. It did come out of the continuing studies idea but it still was a mechanism by which we were experimenting with different disciplines than what was going on across the state. We also had a graduate student by the name of Edith Ites (sp) . . . Edith, I have forgotten her last name now, a graduate student in Education who worked with Dwight Allen and they were always pushing outside the box in terms of using the system for going outside the state to originate classes. And so we had some education classes, some technology classes in teaching that we offered on occasion, one course each semester. We also had a very exciting health science course that was taught by Claire Houseman who is here and we originated from a different country each week on a different issue. Women’s Studies came from the Soviet Union. Food issues came from Geneva and the World Health Organization. Famine and family issues came from the United Nations. Border town diseases came from Texas. Water quality came from Canada. So I--that was an interesting course that we worked on. It was a very difficult one to produce but Claire worked very hard on that.

Pettingill: And this was a televised?

Savage: This was a televised class.We didn’t have high enrollments but we were using these venues as an opportunity to experiment because we really hadn’t been in the broadcast television mode. Now the graduate engineering people were the first obviously to step up to the plate and said if you can get me a signal to NASA or to here or to there we'll teach the course. Roland Mielke was the chairman of the Electrical Engineering department at that time and indicated that, that they definitely wanted a blackboard upon which to teach and I said, "Well you know you don’t use backboards in a television environment you know you use the overhead camera." "No, we needed a blackboard." And I said, "Well you know blackboards don’t work," but I went out and bought them a blue-board and it got put up as kind of a backdrop but they get used too using the overhead camera and the overhead pad and the tablet and so they never had to use that that quote un-quote "blackboard" and they got comfortable in the training to go on with that.  That expanded then to-- from Engineering which was the first discipline to Nursing. Lindsay Rettie was the Dean of the College of Health Sciences then and Brenda Nichols was a department chair before it became a school. And they said if you can get us a signal over to the Eastern Shore then we know that there are nurses over there with their RN certification who would like to work towards their baccalaureate in Nursing. So I worked with WHRO and we were able to a make a connection, a microwave connection, from Norfolk up to NASA Langley to their gantry that then sent the signal across the Chesapeake Bay to the Northampton Accomack Hospital which then dedicated a room and so we had the first nursing program over there.

Pettingill: And how many students? Do you remember?

Savage: That was fairly large.  I think that we had close to 20 students over on the Eastern Shore in the first group to go through that program beginning in 1985. The first semester we did this was 1984 and we had 13 students in graduate engineering classes. I think it was we had three or four classes so it wasn’t a lot but they were students that couldn’t come to campus so they were students that we wouldn’t have been able to reach. So we--that became very solid. Engineering became very program oriented and solid. Nursing was very program oriented and solid and then we added on Norfolk General Hospital and then Obici Hospital out in Suffolk. So we had three sites by oh I think it was 1988 of RN nurses moving to a baccalaureate program.  And then in ’89, there were some folks from Martinsville that were listening to us talk about this and they said, "Is there any way that you could get a signal to Martinsville because we have a lot of nurses down here that would like their bachelors." So . . . it turned out that after the Soviet Union space bridge in 1988 President Marcello at that time called me up, that was then in March of 1988 and he called me up during the early summer of 1988 and he said, "Anne, do you have a satellite uplink on your Christmas list?" And I said, "Certainly sir." And he said, "Well you've got it." So that he said, "I'm giving you $250,000 to go out and buy an uplink." And of course we all knew that we wanted a K-U band uplink whereas between the years of 1986 or 7, I’m not sure which year, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech were purchasing--they had purchased for them a different technology, a C-band satellite. Now those dishes are bigger and they are more powerful, however . . . they require bigger dishes to bring in the signal and the newer technology was K-U band. It is kind of like the difference between AM and FM radios. It’s just a different energy level. So, we knew that we wanted to go with the newer technology of the KU band and so I put in a request to Richmond to buy a KU band uplink. At that time Old Dominion University was perceived as a regional institution and therefore Richmond questioned why would we need a satellite uplink if we were a regional institution. What were we going to do with that? How were we going to pay for it? I think this is a very critical point at Old Dominion’s juncture because we now then going back and drawing upon the experience of the early ‘80s now we are here in 1989. We have experienced now playing with non-credit training programs that we licensed across the country, originating programs from outside of the country never mind outside of the state, you know doing a space bridge with a formidable international partner all on someone else’s nickel. It didn’t cost us anything to do that because of the fiscal model that was in place no one gave us any money to do that. We had to earn the money back in order to do what we did. That’s a down side but the upside of that was that there were no restraints upon us in terms of expectations to the extent that we could think creatively and meet unmet need across Virginia or across the country then that was the non-credit model.

Pettingill: So you were able to say to Richmond here are some very good reasons why we would do this. And we could do it.

Savage: And we could do it. Not only could we do it, we are fiscally able to not ask you for money to do that. Their concern was two-fold at the time: one, the ability to purchase a piece of equipment at that cost at that time was managed in Richmond and it was somewhat threatening to the Public Broadcast stations who did not have their own uplink and here we were going to buy an uplink. The agency that was to approve us getting the uplink was the parent organization of the PBS station. They didn’t have the money to buy it and here we were buying one. So it was a little sensitive to say the least. What we did was we formed a strong alliance with WHRO. We agreed to put the uplink over on their land connected to the fiber optic link that we already had placed there for the microwave instead of the microwave and that they could use it when weren’t using it. So by developing that relationship they were our partners to try to get this approved. It was not approved easily. I had to go before that board three different times one of which was in Roanoke and one of which which is the second visit which they approved it. I got on the road to come back from Roanoke to Norfolk. It was a day trip for me and only to have them bring it back up on the agenda and vote it down. Well, I have never heard of such a thing. And that was before cell phones and I remember pulling off at a rest stop on my way on 81 and calling the Provost and saying, "I've got it approved." By the time I got to Norfolk it was disapproved again and I had to go back to, to Richmond. Their concern was if we were a regional institution why did we want to deliver credit courses outside of the region. It was not in our mission. No, we said we would change our mission and that was not satisfactory however it was satisfactory that we were going to use it and pay for it through the continuing education model. And I had such a nice track record of the Soviet Union program and all of the training programs they couldn’t argue with the fiscal viability of us being able to do that. That happened at the same time now as we have been experimenting, you know, with foreign languages. We also taught two 100 level classes to the Virginia Beach public schools and Norfolk Academy so seniors at those schools were able to enroll in 100 level classes. So here we had experience with the broadcast station, with the cable channel, with receivers around the country, with a microwave network within Hampton Roads, so we had experimented and become quite capable of doing television production and had won a lot of national awards. So that when in 1989 a . . . the electric power commission in Roanoke went to Richmond to the coordinating board for higher education--the state council for higher education in Virginia and said, "We really don’t need more graduate engineers." Remember this is the era of early workforce development and economic development efforts in the towns. They said, "What we need is more trained workers in our industry. We don’t have enough engineering technologists. We need the workers at that level." Old Dominion at that time was the only school in Virginia that had an accredited Engineering technology program so they had to turn to us and say, "Would you be interested in providing engineering technology to the Roanoke area."  Obviously we said, "Yes." It was within the School of Engineering and the Dean of Engineering made two very, very important decisions that . . .

Pettingill: Who was the Dean then?

Savage:  The dean was Jim Cross. He made two important decisions that then was... became part of the whole sub-straight for our Teletechnet initiative. One of them was that he felt as though he could deliver engineering technology to Roanoke if he could do so by delivering it to the community college in that area which had an associates degree in engineering technology so that it would transfer the first two years into the four year program. He did not want to deliver a four year baccalaureate program. They wanted a baccalaureate program. He did not want to do all four years because it was just very complicated to do that but as a two plus two in a partnership with the community college where they got the academic prerequisites for the engineering technology program. They had the laboratory facilities. They had faculty that could help with the laboratories. They had a network in the community of what needed to be done with the curriculum. All of those things were very important to him and said if that's the case we can do that.

Pettingill: And this was in 1988 or '89.

Savage: ’89. So I think that we began actually delivering the courses in 19—in the spring of 1990 really. But we did it using the KU band uplink because there was no room on the C band. There was already a KU band dish at the community college.

Pettingill: And what community college was it?

Savage: It was Virginia Western Community College which had a very fine Engineering Technology associate’s degree. It was interesting that the politics of that in Virginia became one in which the community colleges that had those programs began to compete for whether or not they were going to be a receive site for engineering technology.  They all wanted to have it. Therefore they went to their legislators to lobby for them becoming a site. So once Roanoke became the first site, Richmond lobbied strongly to become the second site. Danville lobbied to become the third site, but they were actually bumped by Lynchburg because of the politics of it. There was a more powerful legislative group in the Lynchburg area. So while Danville lobbied for it and won it, they didn’t get it until the fourth year.  So, in 1990 we’re in Roanoke. 1991 we’re in Richmond. 1992 we’re in Lynchburg. And at that time now we’re delivering the baccalaureate in nursing to Martinsville and then two other community colleges in the west that came up to us on KU band on our own in engineering technology.  Together we had partnerships with seven community colleges for those two programs.  We were still doing the other kinds of things that we were doing in terms of training and offering courses to high school students and doing the foreign language and doing some of those other things.  But in 1992, State Council for Higher Education said, "You know, there’s a lot happening in Norfolk. I wonder what they could do if we gave them some money?" In 1991, former President Koch came into office here. And it was in 1992 that he stopped me in the hallway and said, “Ann, I think we have an opportunity because I have been contacted by the State Council for the purpose of asking us if we gave you some money, what would you do with it to deliver programs with technology?”  So, he and I sat down to write the proposal and he was very instrumental in the direction that it took from an economic point of view.  I had developed some experience in terms of the partnership with the community college.  It was the right thing between the nursing and engineering technology to do a two plus two with the community colleges, to only do the last two years of the baccalaureate degree, do KU band delivery, use the community colleges as the locations, and by offering up six programs initially that were all what we call economic engines for the community. We hit the real big buzzer of the time which was economic development.  So, we identified the bachelor’s degrees in criminal justice, in business management, in teacher preparation, in professional writing, engineering technology and in nursing, and those were all very, very important programs to bring to the community college location.  Dr. Koch brought to the table his you know strong background in economics and laid out for me and mentored me in terms of thinking in terms of how many students do you think that you could indeed provide access to, multiplying a registration times a tuition dollar, and then using that total amount as half the cost of the total budget. And in backing out of that, what is it that I would need in order to budgetarily prepare for this big initiative.  We wrote the proposal.  We offered . . . we offered to provide within six years each of the 23 community colleges access to these programs.  We were going to provide access to 4,000 students by the end of the decade by the year 2000, and that we were then asking Richmond to fund us at the level of approximately three million dollars of state money and then to hold on to the tuition dollars that we also would generate from that, so that became the budget.  We asked to spend the money and the first thing that we wanted to do was to buy seven new faculty-- one for each college and two for the college of sciences that we needed to have infrastructure, that we needed to have personnel, that we needed to have operating dollars.  So we were then able to back out what it was that would have to work with our budget.  And that was a very exciting time for me in professional growth in terms of developing a business plan.  Something I had done again in continuing education but I had not done with tuition dollars before of this magnitude.

Pettingill:  And the state accepted the proposal?

Savage:  They accepted the proposal.  It was--the timeline was short.  I remember he asked me to work with him. I think it was the beginning of August. And he said he wanted the proposal out of the University by the end of October.  So that was you know really less than three months because it was towards the end of August.  We made lots of visits to Richmond to talk to the Senate Finance Committee, the House Appropriations Committee. We talked with obviously with the State Council. We talked with planning and budget. We talked with all of the agencies.  They gave us a series of questions that we needed to answer but by and large we were pretty satisfied with that proposal. I also had to . . . you know work out a schedule of classes and what we would need in subsequent years.

Pettingill:  So you must have been also talking to the people here on campus, to the various departments?

Savage:  Oh, no question, absolutely, absolutely.  That was one of the very first things of course we did to engage people in the conversation.

Pettingill:  And what was their reaction?  Were they all--I mean obviously nursing and engineering technology were already involved.

Savage:  I think that that’s--that was a very key point, again you know, you said, one of your questions was, “How do you get faculty to accept this?”  Well here we had two very successful programs. We had worked with Education. We had worked the College of Arts and Letters. We’d worked with the College of Business on their business training.  So, it wasn’t a new concept to them. It was a big concept. It was like "You want to do what?"  You know, "Where? How? Us?"  You know, "We’re going to do this?" "Sure we’re going to do this."  And we had I think that you were here at the time, too. We had lots of what we call summits.  We sat down around the table to say, "Okay, if we’re going to do this what do we need to worry about?"

Pettingill:  Lots of people around that table . . .

Savage:  Lots of people around that table.  "What are the issues?" You know. "What are the problems?" You know, "What.... " When somebody would just bring up a problem or bring an issue or bring up a policy that needed to be revised, we all kind of nodded and whomever was in the best position to figure out a solution to that problem or a revision to that policy, we just did.  We just all kind of sat around the table and figured it out.  We had no road map, certainly, but we certainly knew how to sit around the table and hold hands and figure out a strategy.  The State Council received the proposal at the end of October. We made some slight changes to it so that it would be ready for the General Assembly the first week in December.  It was in their hands in December and in January they voted to fund this with--beginning with . . . The first year they wanted a needs assessment, so in 1993, ’92-93, that year they gave us $60,000 to do a statewide needs assessment, you know to validate that.  And at the same time for me to go around and meet with each of the community colleges in the state to say, “Are you willing to partner with Old Dominion University in this partnership?” Knowing that we had already had seven of the 23 community colleges, and so that was a fun trip. Well it was multiple trips for me to go to visit because I had never been to even some of the parts of the state that are frankly eight hours away from here. They're further away than my home up in New England if you really get on the road to get there. And we put that into place and ready to go with the first classes beginning in 1994, so Fall of ’94 to expand what we were doing so . . .

Pettingill:  So, they were very receptive, all of the ones you ended up talking to.

Savage:  They were all very receptive. I would say that there was one hold out.  They go, "Well, we’re not sure if we want to do this", and there were two or three other community colleges that met at the same time with us down in southwest region that were wary.  The way that the college president put it to me was, "We like the idea but how do we know you’re not selling snake oil."  I’ll never forget those words because I thought snake oil, you know.  He said, “We've entered into partnerships with four year schools before and they end up picking up their tents and moving on, you know and it doesn’t work out.  How do we know that you’re just not going to pick up and leave?”  And all I could say to him was because I said we wouldn’t. It’s my word, you know. It’s my word.  That’s all I can tell you is that it’s my word as long as I’m here you know it will be as it is.  So they shook their head kind of, "Well okay."  The one hold out said, “Well, I’m not sure.”  So I put that school on the very bottom of the list.  We could open up six schools a year, so we started with the seven already, so we ended up the first year of ’93-94 we opened up six more sites or 13.  Then in ’94-95 we opened up six more, which gave us 19 and then the last year I was going to open up the last four.  And I got a call the first year we were in operation ’93-94 from the president of that school saying, "Is there any way that they could bump another school and move from their third tier up to the second tier?" and I said, "No. " You know. "I know. I knew you were going to say that but no we not only want to participate, we’re anxious to participate." And I said, "No. I just couldn’t do—I couldn’t bump somebody who said they were going do, you know, participate the first time around."

Pettingill:  So enrollment must have grown each year then.

Savage:  We knew that the very first year we had the very first semester that we started in ’94 due to the budget cycle . . . the budget needed to leave the University for the General Assembly to go up in December.  I needed to be able to show in the middle or the end of September that year that we had met our enrollment goal and maybe exceeded it so that we could show the legislators that you gave us some money and look what we've done with it. We exceeded you know what we thought we could exceed for those 13 sites that first year, and we were able to say, "It is not only a good idea, it’s a darn good idea and it’s really taking off big time and maybe you want to now consider giving us the additional money that we asked for that second biennium. " And they, they did.  They said, "Okay now what new sites or what new programs?"  Then it became, you know multiple channels.  We were only on one channel. In other words we would offer 40 courses a year--I mean a semester. Then we realized we needed 80 courses a semester. Then we needed 120 courses a semester.  We offer now nearly 500 courses a semester.  Then the technology changed from analog satellite to digital satellite and then we also moved on with the video streaming technology.  So as the technologies have evolved, we have evolved as well but we’ve held on to the original concept of the two-way audio, one-way video as a mainstream because it’s very successful.  We’ve done a lot of work now wondering about . . . if a student were given the opportunity to move from a television classroom where they can interact with a faculty member in an oral way and then of course, use of the Web became increasingly important for all the ancillary materials but would they switch to an asynchronous web-based class and move out of the synchronous class of going to the site. So, we had to ask our students that. So the last three years we’ve been, we’ve been asking our students questions like that and what we've found out is that students would say to us that very few of them would move into an asynchronous mode today, right now and they would do so because of the flexibility of the schedule.  Most of the students, about 85 per cent of them say, "It depends upon the course.  If it is a course that I feel is going to be very difficult for me I. . . " then they select. . . " I may need to go to class every week and be kept on a routine because I don’t have the self discipline to stay in that routine and I’ll get lost. " Another student might say, "If it’s an elective course and I can choose my elective then I might choose to do that in an asynchronous format.  If it’s a required course I want to get in there and interact fully, wholly every week with my fellow students."

Pettingill:  So they’ve become fairly sophisticated consumers of this education and they know what they need.

Savage:   Surprisingly so.  They take, they take . . . assessment of themselves.  They say, "I am someone that is an independent learner" or "I am someone that is not an independent learner" or "I am an independent learner if its an elective" or "I’m an independent learner" or " I would prefer independent learning if I think I’m going to have difficulty with the class."  Someone else might say, "I’m going to have difficulty with this class and I’m a dependent learner, I better stay in the synchronous class. " They said, "Give us the choice so that we can match up what fits our learning style the best." And I think that is what teaching and learning has been seeking for since you know I was a young teacher you know a long time ago. 

Pettingill:  So looking back on the distance learning over time, what ideas do you think really worked and what ideas did you kind of try out and then discard because they weren’t so great? Or not right for the times maybe?

Savage: When we--when we developed the first classroom way back in 1984, the idea of a blackboard that was kind of a security blanket for the faculty was something that they recognized they didn't need. We used overhead cameras on a pad or an overhead that they used. That evolved very quickly into use of PowerPoint and computer generated teaching aids. So that kind of evolved over time. We had in that class interestingly enough what they call a telesine which is a mechanism by which a faculty member would have control over showing slides or some of our videotape. That didn't work out because faculty didn't want to be bothered with that. At first they said they wanted to have the flexibility of being able to do that. They really didn't. They really wanted someone in the control room to handle that.

Pettingill: A lot to manage all at one time?

Savage: Exactly.

Pettingill: Teaching and the people there and the...

Savage: Exactly. Exactly. As new opportunities have arisen for them.... obviously when you first learned how to use PowerPoint slides that was a daunting training task for the faculty. However, you know, with some training that obviously has worked out well. It worked out so well that the classes began to look too much like each other. And, oh gosh, not another PowerPoint presentation. So we had to move beyond just PowerPoint, which they did as technology allowed that. Again, the use of the web where we first told the faculty that they would need to develop a syllabus that would be posted to a course web page. That, again, was a daunting task for faculty. They were scared that they wouldn't be able to do that. But again with training that has now become part of the fabric of teaching on television . . . being able to see the students you know the two way video keeps coming up, but frankly if you have 60 sites or even if you have ten sites, you can't keep visual contact with ten sites. It is not important for 90 percent of the instruction for faculty to be able to see their students. I think that they want to see their students because their students would exhibit behaviors that would validate that they're on the right track or what they think is on the right track, but I think it's distracting. There is no need for them to see the students. The students like the anonymity of not being seen and with the exception of some disciplines and some courses where you do have to have the two-way communication. In those classes we restrict the number of students in that class so that we can accommodate the pedagogy for that particular discipline. But that's kind of dissipated. You know at first faculty were very worried about not being able to see their students.

Pettingill: So everybody has kind of gotten used to it. And they know what to expect and how to deal with it.

Savage: Right. Right.

Pettingill: Because they have to really talk and initiate contact with the students out there.

Savage: That's right. I think we've been blessed here at Old Dominion by having an absolutely incredible group of instructional designers within the Center for Learning Technologies that have been able to work with faculty to design the pedagogy for their particular discipline and their particular personality.

Pettingill: That's something that you've really done over the years is expand the role of that center and increase the number of people available.

Savage: If there's a leading edge for Old Dominion it is due to the quality of the people that we have in our Center for Learning Technologies. They grew out of, if you remember from our conversation yesterday, that was how I got into administration to begin with. You know, developing a unit to help faculty use technology to become better teachers. It was a very small unit that grew and took on a life of its own but my heart of heart goes back to the teaching / learning process -- helping the faculty be the best instructor that they can be. And, oh by the way, using technology in that process. So that part of this organization that we call Distance Learning is something that organizationally has evolved since 1977 that other institutions when they assume responsibility for a Distance Learning organization assume a responsibility for an organization that will support the students that's more of a continuing education unit that is put into place to help the student success. We happen to have both. So we're fortunate in that not only do we support the students at the sites, but we also support the faculty who are trying to do their best for the teaching and learning.

Pettingill: So you have a new--a building here that's fairly recent. What was the planning for that? When did it start?

Tape 2, Side B

Savage: The planning for the building began almost immediately upon funding for Teletechnet. I believe the approval came in . . . 1995 or 6 -- the approval for the building. So we began developing the plans for that wondering what needed to be in here. In a broad brush stroke we saw four areas: One an administrative area. One a faculty development area. One a classroom area. And one an area that had high student and outside traffic. So the architects envisioned putting those you know, they went through their process of putting together those functions that had some more needs and they ended up with developing the building where the first floor was the high traffic area. The students come in to the laboratories. Faculty come in to, you know, graphics and provide the mail room with the materials to be shipped out either digitally or through the mail. Originally the media center was in this building too so we had a loading dock and equipment for that. So the first floor became high traffic. The second floor was where our classrooms were. And we knew that how many classrooms we had were all that we were going to get so we had to really think about the future so while we were only using at the time four channels, we developed really eleven classrooms. And frankly some nights all of those classrooms are already in use for one reason or another coming out of this particular building. That would be a very flexible dynamic building with all of the engineering would connect all of the networks to the roof. The third floor would be lots of nooks and crannies for production in support of faculty. And the fourth floor was primarily administration with some faculty development spinning off up into that floor too. The architects came up a wonderful design for the building and that's something that I think everybody has enjoyed working in. And of course they're sitting in the back of the first floor which is the studio because we envisioned continuing on with the development of broadcast television programs from this particular facility which is used continuously for broadcast television as well. And a partnership with the Communication Department has allowed students now in communication class--in mass communication to come over to Gornto and have access to this building and learn how to produce television programs and then we have a nice ready-made group of students that then we can hire for projects and working with our local cable channel -- our campus cable channel -- the little programs that we play between classes. And that's been a nice partnership as well -- like our partnership with the College of Education with their instructional design program. We'll provide opportunities for graduate students to actually become involved with the instructional design of technology delivered classes and space for them to work in over here which is a wonderful opportunity for their graduate students and their program to have access to the resources in this building.

Pettingill: So what do you think have the significant challenges and successes been for distance learning and where do you think it's going for the future for the University?

Savage: That's going to be a very hard question for me to answer since you know I've retired from my position. I can tell you where I would want it to go. Whether or not that vision is picked up by those responsible at this particular time would have to remain to be seen. I think the biggest challenge for me was the fact that our computing infrastructure did not keep up with our television infrastructure so that I couldn't move into the web delivery as soon as I would have liked to have. I was not able to develop asynchronous programs as early as I would liked to have. And had it not been for Dr. Koch in the year 2000, we wouldn't really have been able to initiate the video streaming delivery that we did in 1999 and 2000, which is going very well. That's been a challenge. Now the computer infrastructure is up and running, but we've missed the mark, you know. Other schools have moved into that venue and it is more difficult for us to do that. There is a-- the second area is the policies and procedures to keep up with the delivery of courses in a technology format. If you look at a faculty manual or a student manual there are policies in there. Some of them for example there is one that I recommended that we change on class attendance. Since if you miss a class there's no way of making it up. Well, that was before every single class that we have now is not only videotaped. It's put in DVD, put on a server so you can actually access the class from anywhere you happen to be, you know, that night. So the class attendance policy really needed to be redone. We have recommended and made changes to the policy but they haven't been embraced at the University level yet -- .the policy on copyright, the policy on faculty workload, are still somewhat in flux and needed to be renewed. So I'm hoping that it won't be too much longer before those are addressed, but those are big challenges because unless you have policy you don't have direction and you don't have that same sense of we're all going in the same direction. I'm not sure that Distance Learning is as high a priority today at this institution as it was. I think that the stresses and strains on higher education in the year 2004 are different than what they were in 1994, and I acknowledge that. There are more students wanting access to education. I would hope that we would be able to embrace both technology delivery as well as campus attendance. Some people think that you can go in both directions. Some people feel as though one direction is preferable to another. I would hope that we would be able to continue and grow. I would like to see, if I had my choice, that each of the classes that we offer -- Teletechnet which has been a very tight curriculum. One of the things that we found on campus is that curriculum was always changing. When you have a technology delivered curriculum, you just can't change the makeup of that curriculum on a semester basis or on a yearly basis. We're certainly not against curriculum changes and we do, but if you create a course in asynchronous format and then decide the next semester that that course is no longer a course that's required in the program that's a lot of wasted resources. If you put a lot of resources into the creation of it, which we do, we need to think very carefully about it. We also offer our classes on a schedule that's--that really promises students that they can finish their degree in a timely manner. No, there isn't that kind of oversight for the on campus classes. I would hope that we would be able to offer classes by satellite, by video streaming, by asynchronous format, and that individual students would have the option of enrolling and registering for whichever delivery met their need. And that it would be seamless and in that particular process. That would mean that we'd have multiple deliveries of the same course that made up the curriculum for the programs that we offer. I'd like to see us expand some of the programs that we offer currently. I'd like to see us expand some the very interesting use of the technologies that I've seen faculty use by engaging their students in creating digital video, digital photos, participating in small groups, writing as a group, posting reports to the web, sharing that particular data. I'd like to see that done in more courses. I think that's a very powerful learning experience and a very powerful tool that students leave the course with. Not only how to do that, but how to write, how to present, and how to participate as a good team member. I'd like to see us do more of that, and then to continue to evolve as the technology evolves. As everybody knows, you know there's really no barrier to access, it's managing the support system for those individuals.

Pettingill: Now I'm going to change things completely and ask you: In your time here at Old Dominion have you noticed and observed changes in the status or contributions of women -- administrators or faculty or however you want to interpret it -- over the time you've been here?

Savage: I have thought about my own role as a woman for many years now because the first time that I really thought about the fact that I'm a woman. I didn't understand what other women were saying about their environment. I had clearly grown up in a man--a male environment both in my home with my brothers and in the field of science. I was surrounded by men and didn't think of myself as a woman. I just though of myself as a person and didn't understand what other women were saying. It's only--so when I came to Old Dominion, it was the culture as I've mentioned before I was the first married women that a school system hired. I didn't question that. I didn't question the fact that I had to leave my very own first teaching job because I was pregnant. I didn't question that. I didn't question the fact that I didn't get the fellowship as a doctoral student at Oregon State because I was a divorced female and therefore not reliable and they gave it to a male who then dropped out in the middle of the year. I didn't question that. That was the way things were so I didn't know what all to do was about until probably ten or so years after I became at Old Dominion that I began developing some sensitivity for my fellow female colleagues. I began then to question things like salaries or promotions and tenures and say gee you know that really did happen to me too. But I didn't question it when it was happening to me. I just wasn't sensitive to it. That was just the way things were. If you had meatloaf on Wednesday night, then you had meatloaf on Wednesday night and that was the way things were. I didn't question it. I have become in the last ten years, not an active feminist, but a empathetic feminist in that I have become very sensitive to what it means to be a woman in higher education and that there are things that are right and there are things that are wrong. And equal means equal. And equal means equal among all equals, women being one equal. And so I'm very sensitive to that and I am very sensitive to anytime I think that well you know that there might be any inequality. I am sensitive to it and I'm empathetic with it. And I think that the biggest thing for me was watching what happened in Teletechnet where we used to sit around the table. It became obvious to me that there was a lot of people sitting around the table, but most of them, 90 percent of them, became women. And that we were very supportive of each other, very problem solving oriented. There was nothing about power. There was nothing about competition. There was nothing about well that's your job not my job. It became an environment that I appreciated and recognized as well you know this is a different environment for me where it was a very positive support. I'm not saying that men aren't. I'm just saying that I became sensitive to women do seem to approach problems differently and I became sensitive to that and appreciative of that. Now whether that's right or wrong I don't know, but I became--at least acknowledge it. I think the environment for women on this campus has been in my opinion very good, but I never, as I said, I never was really sensitive to the issue of being a woman, you know, because of my background. I am empa--I'm definitely empathetic now, but as I am for any, any group whether they're women or whether it's ethnicity, or race, or religion, or whatever it happens to be that people would want to discriminate on. You know that's really permeated my whole being really in ten years so women are just one part of it.

Pettingill: You've worked with six of the seven University presidents and do you have any special memories you'd like share about your work with any of them? And what would you say were the strengths of some of the ones that you've worked with?

Savage: I actually worked with Dr. Webb when he wasn't president though. He was a faculty member in Physics and he used to teach a course for me on everyday physics for teachers. And there are lots of stories about how he used to run these machines up and down these large lecture halls. He was a terrific person. So from a science point of view he was a physicist and so from a science point of view, you know, I had my insight into him. Dr. Bugg was president when I came here and I came here with an oceanography background and I went to him one day and I complained to him that I felt as though there was too much disparity between the biological oceanographers and the biology department that--the difference between marine biology taught in biology and biology--biological oceanography was kind of an empty definitive line here. But at the time again we were restricted to offering really only physical oceanography when we began that because _________ had the--we weren't to duplicate the biological oceanography offered by __________ which I thought was very unfair. So therefore we offered marine biology in the biology department. So I remember going to him and complaining that we needed to do something about the differences between marine biology and there was a man by the name of Jacques Zaneveld in Oceanography at the time who I thought was just terrific and he couldn't go anywhere because we weren't allowed to do biological oceanography. So Dr. Bugg asked me to chair the committee as my first year faculty after I went and complained to him about that.

Pettingill: Then he made it up . . .

Savage: He made it up, right! He asked me to chair a committee that was looking into development of an interdisciplinary degree which as you know the bachelor's in disciplinary studies and I thought "Oh my god! You know, I chair this committee of people all over campus and like..." but, you know, I muddled through that, but that was a memory I had of him. Dr. Rollins delega--he was more of an external person and more into arts and letters. I interacted with him because his wife loved lilacs and I didn't know that until she passed away and I . . . and so I brought him a lilac tree, you know, that he could plant in his yard because at her memorial service there was a poem that she had had read about lilacs and especially ________ and how my mother had a lilac and lilac was very special to me too. So that was a little story there.Then we had Dr. Rollins--Dr. Marchello and Dr. Marchello I told you the story about the Soviet Union--about, you know--Oh, I do remember another story about him. He called me into his office one day and he was fairly gruff and he would say, "Anne, I want to know what you're doing about this." Well, I'm doing this and that and the other. "Well, what else are you doing?" "Well, I'm doing this and that." He said, "Well." He said, you know, he said, "If you're not careful," he said, "I'm going to have you report to...." and I won't name the name, but he but "You're going to have to report to so and so." Who happened to be a new administrator on campus that I liked on a personal level but I didn't care for on a professional level. So I looked at him and I said, "Dr. Marchello", I will not say the name, "I will never report to him. He can report to me, but I will never report to him." Which I thought was fairly gutsy for, you know, someone to say to the president, but I knew he was kind of gruff in general. "Well," he said, "Okay, out of here." You know, "Go on. Go on." I never had to report to so and so, but so and so never reported to me either. We used to laugh about that. You know, his daughter is on the staff here now and I told her that story. She said that actually he used to come home and tell the family stories about me so okay.

Pettingill: I bet they had a great time...

Savage: Yeah. There's no question about that. And then, of course, Dr. Spong came in and Dr. Spong really delegated the operation of the University to his . . . really his executive vice president and I didn't really have a whole lot to interact with that president. It was when Dr. Koch came in that really--he took really a hold of the technology delivered programs and really mentored me on many levels -- the economics of it, the business plans, the things that he wanted to reach in terms of his priorities and so we interacted on many levels over many years. And I think that we mutually respected each other and I really enjoyed most of the time with what I had to deal with Dr. Koch, yes. And, of course, Dr. Runte is here now and she's--she certainly wants to continue with Distance Learning.

Pettingill: So looking back what have been your chief satisfactions.

Savage: I think beginning the Center for Instructional Development Process and developing that support for faculty. That was satisfying. I think I did a good job there. I think I did a good job with the Soviet Union program. I think I probably am proudest of that. And then, of course, the expansion into Teletechnet -- into the Distance Learning Program would be the third thing that that I had. I had a lot of fun along the way, you know, teaching in Cuba, teaching in Jamaica, starting the Sea Camp program, you know, doing the teaching with the teachers during the micro teaching and the mini courses with Virginia Beach. There was a lot of fun that I had here. I smile a lot when I think back and I have very few, very, very few, moments when, you know, I dragged myself home in an unhappy manner and went home and said, "You'll never guess what happened." There were very few of those experiences that I had.

Pettingill: So what are your plans for the future?

Savage: You know, I'm not sure. I keep trying things on for size. I try a new recipe or--I just finished some surgery for a knee replacement and so I'm getting my strength back now -- certainly travel, certainly -- more with family and more interaction with friends, particularly, you know, my friends who go back to my college roommate and, you know, way back when I was . . .

Pettingill: That person from the first grade.

Savage: That person from the first grade. One of the pictures on my bureau in my bedroom is a picture of the three of us at a reunion a couple of years ago and that friendship extends 60 years, and I think that that's a good one to keep going. And I've made friends here that I like to spend time with and then there's only so much time in a day. I read and I'm toying with some writing and I haven't quite settled in yet.

Pettingill: It's a great time for exploration.

Savage: Exactly.

Pettingill: Well, I really want to thank you for taking the time to come and talk with us and your conversations will be a wonderful addition to the Perry Library's oral history program on the history of the University and our opportunity in getting to talk to a campus leader such as you are who's made such great, great contributions in teaching and technology and distance learning. It's been a wonderful opportunity for us. Thank you for sharing this.

Savage: Well thank you for letting me babble at you for hours.

Pettingill: Thank you very much.