I have always been a boatrocker. I am direct and concerned about things around me. When I see something I feel is wrong, I say it. I believe I'm willing to listen to other opinions and will change mine if the facts seem to warrant it.
This account is not sour grapes. I've had a good life and basically I'm pleased with it. I think I've fulfilled my niche.
I always gave much more than I got!
We get kids out of high school. They come to Cal Poly ready for something more, something tougher, something that will make them into informed adults. And what do we do? We spend a week telling them that it is like high school. They can relax. We will even show them the library. In my opinion, any student that can't find the library on his own should go somewhere else.
As for ineffectual teachers, it is important the students have some. They are used to have everything laid out for them. They don't have to make decision about what is important, they are told what is important. They don't have to go find things out for themselves, it is all outlined for them by the "good teachers". They get pre-masticated courses where they have no responsibility for the input or the outcome. As long as they listen and do what they are told, they will get through.
But they need the information we give them for their life choices. When they graduate, who is going to follow them around and outline what they need? Themselves, only. And where do they get a little practice of this? In the classes of the ineffectuals. If the student could only recognize the importance of this, they would quit hounding the ineffectuals and destroying the morale of the competents by their witch hunts. When this happens, they should recognize the need for themselves to step up to the plate and learn the course on their own! The information in their field will double in twenty years, quadruple in forty. They don't leave school prepared for their life's work. They don't really even know what it is, yet. They have to learn to evolve and they have to do that for themselves.
In my opinion many of the good and popular teachers defeat this goal by doing everything for them. What this does is graduate a bunch of students into the world that are not equipped to cope with it!
I came to Poly at a most critical time, Fall 1963. Poly was a nice small school with a good reputation in several fields. It was different from the other State Colleges and the Legislature knew it and would give them things not given to the others and felt no need to explain why. I precipitated a discussion of publication of new manuals for the 2 quarter Engineering General Chemistry course and the one quarter Survey Organic Course. The "Old Guard" had their names on the existing manuals which were unuseable. I suspect they were getting a royalty but I never really knew. I forced a discussion in the staff meeting which resulted in a vote to rewrite these manuals and I was given the job of revising the General Chemistry manual. This was easy because I already had most of the experiments rewritten. I used every publishing trick I knew to hold down the price. I even published it at Achievement House. The previous manual had been selling for around $5 in the bookstore. Mine sold in the bookstore with their markup for 37¢. They were so cheap the students were buying two and we had to extend the run. We kept the price of these manuals under a dollar for several years. Then we incorporated an off-campus non-profit called SLOCHEM and collected a small royalty which was used for special purposes such as helping students attend meetings. Needless to say the Old Guard was deeply offended by this which I felt when I came up for promotion.
I paid the price for this in the scheduling and in the ordering of equipment. The department had expanded to 30 full time faculty, all Ph. D's. Fifteen of them were Organic professors including me. Fourteen of the fifteen were allowed to teach the organic majors chemistry course. One was not. The degrees of the existing faculty were from Boise State, Brigham Young, Arizona, Purdue and others. I have trouble believing that my degree from Harvard made me incapable of teaching this course. I must add one small exception. I was scheduled to teach a section of the first quarter one fall when in desparation they had to open another section. The course was scheduled into a room in the engineering building with none of the visual aids in the chemistry building. Also it was over five weeks before the textbooks came in. I was never scheduled again. I followed the grades of my students in their following two quarters and I could see no evidence of their being hurt by having had me that quarter.
There was great dissatisfaction with the Department Head's autocratic administration of the department. For instance, when two new professors presented a proposal to him for a somewhat different way of teaching the organic survey course, he listened politely while they explained it. When they were finished he a took a sheaf of papers from a shelf and held them toward them, saying, "All these people want your jobs." They did not have tenure yet so they got the message. He continued this kind of behavior and his treatment of me was so obvious that he was relieved of the Department Head position and returned to teaching status. This story is much more complicated than I have indicated here but I have chosen not to dwell on it.
I was turned down for full professor unanimously the first time I came up. I had expected that. When I was turned down unanimously the second time the next year, I was unhappy. At that time when we voted on people for promotion we had to assign a number between 1 and 5 to each candidate. The candidate had to average 3.5 or better to be promoted to Associate Professor and 4.5 or better to be promoted to Full. This procedure was called "Peer Review" although one never voted on peers, only on those of lower rank!
After the first fifteen years I quit asking to teach the organic majors course because it was obvious they were not going to let me. At this time we had a different department head and my more "friendly" colleagues had taken over the scheduling. One of the more prominent members of the new "ruling" group was my office partner and must have been aware of the situation. Another of the ruling group eventually became Dean and he too was very familiar with my story. And yet, they continued the same scheduling policies that I had endured from the beginning.
Nothing changed for me.
I have to admit I have never understood this.
Also needless to say, I retired with great pleasure.
I joined the Physical Sciences Department and was the eighth faculty member of the Chemistry portion of this department. The other seven were all tenured full professors and were jealous of their power. They were the Old Boys. I was the brash new Assistant Professor and therefore should have no opinions and should do my job and shut up.
Unfortunately for this scenario, I had been a Fighter Pilot, Operations Officer and an Engineering Officer in World War II and was used to deciding what was right and wrong. I left the service as a Captain, a single engine fighter pilot having flown P-40's, P-47's and P-51's. Surviving this gives one a rare kind of confidence. Losing 28 out of 45 fellow pilots gave me a feeling of responsibility. It gave me the feeling that since I had been allowed to live, I would have to behave in a way those 28 unlucky ones would approve. I know what this sounds like and make no apology for it.
When I left the Army Air Force in November 1945, I was not sure what my ultimate goals were to be. After some experimentation I settled on Chemistry and graduated from the North Dakota Agricultural College in Fargo ND, now the State University with a BS in Chemistry.
I went to the George Washington University in Washington DC and got an MS in 1951. Then I went to Harvard and was granted the Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry in January of 1956.
Several different jobs followed not important here. And finally I applied in 1963 to Cal Poly and was hired.
The first five years went reasonably smoothly although I sensed what I felt were some unhealthy systems in place. During this fifth year it was decided that the Physical Sciences Department would be dissolved and two new departments would be formed, Chemistry and Physics. It was lucky for me that at this fifth year I was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor. If this had not happened at this time, I'm positive I would have been released the following year. My actions over the first five years had alienated almost every one of the Old Guard. I changed the experiments in the labs they had regarded as private property for years. I didn't ask if I could change them. I simply re-wrote those that didn't work and substituted for those I thought were inappropriate. I was under the illusion that such "improvements" would be welcomed and appreciated. Yes, I was ingenuous and probably still am. >br>
I tried to order some equipment. When I first got there the Beckman infrared machine was unused because there was something wrong with the cells. I dismantled them and found that the salt windows were ruined by someone using an aqueous solution. I used new windows and reassembled the cells and they worked perfectly after that. This machine was a pet piece of equipment of the Department Head. This did not make me popular with him and he was of course one of the Old Gaurd. I tried to extend the capability of this machine by ordering a Carver Laboratory Press so we could make KBr pellets. I asked for several years for this press and never got it. Finally they were redesigning the B wing for Physical Chemistry and the man in charge of the project ordered a press and gave it to me when it arrived.
The University Personnel Review Committee wrote me and said since I had been turned down for the second time, would I like them to look into it. I wrote back and said, Yes, go ahead, I think you will find it interesting.
There were six professors at this time and I received five votes above 4.5 and one at 3.3. The full professors had a private unwritten agreement that whichever way this went, they would vote unanimously. And so the final paper had them all signing for non-promotion although five of the six had given me ratings above 4.5. it was a blackball system. The Personnel Review Committee wrote an excoriating letter to the department. The new Department Head voted for promotion as did the Dean and the rest and I was promoted. I have always felt that the five that changed their vote to non-promotion were glad to do it because they knew if I got into their little club they would not be able to do this kind of thing anymore. They knew I would never change my vote like they did. And furthermore they knew I would make it understood to the rest of the department just what they were trying to do.