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[ Silence ]
>> Those of us across the street
in the academic building thought,
very little of the people who were on this side of the street
over in the Technical Institute that they were the kids
who just weren't able to make it and I found out later
that really wasn't true.
Some of those were pretty smart kids who got a good education
and went on to college.
The other thing was that it was the physical appearance
of the buildings, not that the high school was so great,
but the physical appearance of the building seemed to detract
from the campus, that we had although I was never
in the building, but just from the outside,
we thought at the time, you know,
what's going on over there?
It's not that attractive of a building.
[ Silence ]
We worked with rehabilitation students at that time,
the Technical Institute because of the type
of programs they had, had a huge, huge number of students
who were physically handicapped.
Amputees, all kinds of things, visually handicapped
and they came here for a three-week diagnostic program,
where we would test them in a variety of aptitude tests,
psychological tests -- try them out for a period of three
or four days in various shops along with their abilities
as they were shown on the test and then their abilities
with whatever their physical handicaps were and at the end
of three weeks then make a recommendation
to the rehab counselor who was here.
There was a full-time rehab counselor here at the time
as to, "Yes we think this person can be a draftsman, or welder,
or auto mechanic" or whatever it might be.
[ Silence ]
Once I got here, I saw
that there was a pretty exciting dynamic place and the fact
that these kids weren't sitting in a classroom so much
as working in drafting tables and down in a welding shop,
and working on cars and you know it was,
it was a totally different view that I had
at that point then what I had.
So I don't remember that I realized it at that time
but it didn't take me long
to figure this is a pretty good place.
[ Silence ]
There were people that came here from all over the country
to interview electricians, machinists,
because they weren't trained anywhere as well
as they were trained at WTI and I remember talking to someone
at one time who came from Alabama
to interview some electrical construction people
because he said, "we need to have people that know how
to bend conduit" and he said nobody teaches that.
Well, over in the electric shop, there was a huge room
which had racks of pipe, training people how
to bend conduit and that's the kind of place it was.
People were not concerned about how it looked,
but that the graduates knew how to bend conduit and knew how
to do things in a machine shop, you know, but they came from all
over to interview these graduates.
[ Silence ]
We went to the traditional semesters and fifteen credits
and all of that kind of thing.
Well that changed the way this school had operated for years
because it was based previously on hours.
It was two thousand hour or twenty-two hundred hour program,
or whatever it was, and as soon as --
and they did individual instruction, so that as soon
as somebody graduated the next person
on the waiting list came in.
So almost any time of the year an employer could come here
and find somebody ready to graduate.
And they had a program that, even if you were close enough
to graduate, you could leave and do your last hundred
or two hundred hours on the job and get credit for it
and still get your certificate as a machinist
or electrician or whatever.
Well, when it went to the semester hours,
the instructors said this is not good,
because now we're only going to have people available in --
in May and January, instead of twelve months a year
and there were some employers, I think, at the time,
who were a little upset about that
because when they needed a diesel mechanic,
they needed them now --
they didn't want to wait until the end of May to get one,
so that was a -- that was a big change for instructors
at the time, and for some employers as well,
to find out that now they had to wait now that they had
to convert 2200 hours into credit hours and shop hours,
and it was a significant change for a lot of people
on the campus to change from the hours and the --
and the way people graduated to college thinking
and college semesters.
[ Silence ]
I think there was a lot of --
of excitement, because I think we thought we were going to grow
with the -- with the way it was set up with school districts,
we saw an increase in enrollment.
Or, at least we anticipated there would be an increase
in enrollment and certainly there was
because there would be funding for it now,
so I think there was -- there was a lot of anticipation
that maybe this meant with bigger enrollment,
better facilities -- you know,
new buildings, that kind of thing.
[ Silence ]
We didn't have the marketing or admission staff
to be spending time out in the school districts
and other places to really market it.
We sort of relied, I think, on some of the high school kids
that were still coming here in the programs,
so there's probably a lot of things
that we could've done better at the time,
if we would have done a little more planning and thinking
about marketing and really working on trying
to increase admissions but I just don't remember that --
again, as I said, it was Grant Berry and eventually,
later we hired a Director of Admissions, Bob Hans,
was the Director of Admissions and he started to make trips
to schools and so on, but it took us a few years to get all
that going and to get, I really think, to get the image changed
that we were -- we were "your local college" and this is
where you need to come and for a good, low cost education and,
and get that message out.
[ Silence ]
He was admissions, he was financial aid
and he was the registrar at the time before they hired somebody.
Grant was a kind of a calming influence,
I think, on everything.
Everybody would be upset about all the things going
on with transition and courses changes and this and that,
and Grant was -- I never saw Grant get angry,
never saw him raise his voice, he just had a good sense
of humor and he just kept things rolling along
and kept me rolling along and, had this little tiny office
which was about half the size of this studio that we're in and,
he had room for two chairs for parents or maybe three chairs
for parents and a student to come and sit down.
That was it.
But he was quite a guy and I think --
I think during that transition period he probably had more
influence in making that work than a lot
of people realized at the time.
he was -- he was a good guy.
[ Silence ]
Kenny was a dynamic individual who,
who loved this place probably as much or more
than Dr. Parkes did, who was one of the founders, but dynamic.
Always in a hurry.
Willing to go anywhere and talk about this place.
Willing to spend time with the school district's school people.
I think he was -- while he liked the students
and the programs didn't spend as much time down with faculty
and students perhaps as he --
as he might have but he was so busy doing other things,
doing presidential type things at the time with the college
and I think because the colleges were so new in Pennsylvania
and we were I think the second one, and so there were a lot
of things going on in Harrisburg.
There was, there was a coordinator
of Community Colleges appointed in the Department of Education
and Kenny met with him and was in Harrisburg a lot.
But -- but just dynamic and I think he probably had a vision
that he saw what the Community College could do for this place
and that maybe it had reached its limits as a --
as a technical institute
and with the Community College movement was smart enough
to get us in on the ground floor
and a great tribute to him that we did.
[ Silence ]
Went to a Board meeting
and at all Board meetings the Deans were always expected to be
in attendance at Board meetings and as I walked
into the room Dr. Boone from Lock Haven he said hey he said,
"Hey, come with me."
He said "I left my coat down at the Ross Club."
he said, "I need to go get it, ride along with me."
I said "Sure."
So I got in the car and we were driving down and he said
"We just had a meeting down here and we decided that we would
like to ask you to be the Interim President."
And I about fell out of the car seat, I said "What?"
"Yes, yes," he said "We talked about it, we talked about it
with Feddersen and he said, "We would like you
to be Interim President while we have a search."
And I said I didn't know what to say, except that I would
like to talk to Dr. Feddersen before I say yes.
And I think when we got back
to the meeting I think they all looked at him
and were expecting a nod or something
and I hadn't agreed to it yet.
[ Silence ]
He said, "I made a list of the qualifications that I think
that the Interim President should have,
maybe not the same list of qualifications
as a permanent President,
but for the Interim President this is what I think it
should be."
And he said, "When I looked at all of the Deans,"
he said "You had fit the bill, you had the qualifications."
And he said, "I went through this
with the Board and" he said "they agreed."
And I said "Well, if that's the case then I don't see how I can
say no."
So that was in, I think early June or end of May,
and he was leaving on June 10th or June 12th or something
like that and I became the Interim President.
[ Silence ]
They met on a Tuesday night and they met again on Thursday
and about midnight I got a call from Bob Bowers at home,
got me out of bed and said, "If we do another half percent,
I think we can settle this tonight."
Two meetings it took.
And I didn't have authority to go over what,
I mean Bob knew what the limit was
and I didn't have any authority and its midnight
and the President of the Boards not available,
I mean, what do you do?
So I said, "Yes.
Go ahead."
And I took some flak for that a little bit later from the Board,
but we got a contract agreed to that night.
[ Silence ]
I had a great time and you know, I said initially right up front
to the Board that I was not a candidate,
that I had already exceeded my goal by being a President:
my goal was to be a Dean and I'd done that, and I said,
I'm not interested in being a President.
But I will have to admit, as I have to many people later on,
that as the time went on it became kind of fun
to be number one, to be sitting in that seat
and having people respond to you.
[ Silence ]
By the end I almost said, "Gee,
maybe I should have been a candidate, you know",
and I had the opportunity -- in fact we were at the last meeting
with the Board and they were viewing the final candidates
and one of the Board members spoke up, "You know,
I still think we ought to get Dave to apply."
And a couple others nodded their heads and said,
"Yeah I think we should: he's done a good job."
And I said "No."
I said, "I had my opportunity and I told you no
and I said I don't think it would be fair now at this point
to throw my hat in the ring."
And I said, "No I won't change my mind."
And I didn't.
But I think I, it was gratifying that some of them felt
after nine months that I had done a good job
and that they were willing to consider me to stay on.
[ Silence ]
I mean I've learned so many things under WTI
and the community college and then when I came back
with some experiences in hand, it was just,
it was just a great place and I had great experiences here.
Probably the height of my career in terms
of being the Interim President certainly
as my professional career although I went along
and did a number of things after that but I have very,
very fond memories of WTI and the community college
and I think it really gave the boost of my professional career,
my decision to be a student life person to start with.
[ Music ]