DR. ROBERT UNGER: From your looking back on it, what do you think were Rathgeber s greatest achievements while he was president?

Transcription

1 Transcript of Interview with Thomas Costello - Part Three FEMALE ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Mansfield University Voices, an Oral History of the University. The following is part three of the interview with Mr. Thomas Costello. The conversation was recorded by history professor Dr. Robert Unger on April 21st, 1987 at Mr. Costello's home in Mansfield. In this interview, Mr. Costello discusses the changes the college experienced under the new administration of President Dr. Fred Bryan. THOMAS COSTELLO: When Dr. Bryan was finally selected President of the college, he wanted in writing a record of who I thought were troublemakers on campus, faculty troublemakers. I included the Dean of Women, who I liked but she was really a tremendous amount of trouble, and a History professor who was in charge of the foreign students, because he actually cut off our foreign student programs. DR. ROBERT UNGER: Terrible. THOMAS COSTELLO: And the English professor, I had a number of names on the list, I've forgotten how many. He also called in all the chairmen of the departments. He asked for a complete description of the faculty, and a rundown on if there were troublemakers in their departments, who they were, and he wanted a report on them. I remember Dr. Bloom didn't fare too well in the reports, and he was the chairperson, I think, of the History department at the time. DR. ROBERT UNGER: He was acting. THOMAS COSTELLO: Yes, he was acting. I suggested that we kept him as a faculty member, of course, but as a chairperson, he was just not a good chairperson. He just wasn't doing a good job. I liked him, and I thought he was all right. So, when Dr. Bryan read these reports, my reports, and all of the chairperson's reports, he, and I don't know how he did it, but all I know is that we lost all of these people. They didn't stay. I was disappointed in a couple of them. Dr. Balm, he got upset and left. He was a fine English professor. I had worked as his assistant in the Academic Affairs for Dr. Balm, and he had done a good job. He'd take offense to Dr. Bryan being a public school superintendent, and I kept saying to him, "Well, Dr. Bryant might be a superintendent, but he's really an orderly, fine man. I don't think I ever met a nicer man than Dr. Bryan. But, he said he wasn't academic, and so he left. We had a number of these faculty that as soon as Dr. Bryan arrived on campus, and got these evaluations, and then of course he talked to all of them, I think that he must have indicated to them that he prefer that they leave. And they did. And then, from that period on, the faculty that were hired, in my opinion, were far more stable faculty than we had in the past. What with the Rathgeber administration, they hired weak, misguided or misdirected, or something, faculty members. It was a tough period, though. I think [indecipherable] is experiencing problems here. DR. ROBERT UNGER: From your looking back on it, what do you think were Rathgeber s greatest achievements while he was president? THOMAS COSTELLO: I think breaking away from the traditional state college image of white Anglo-Saxon faculty. It was a period I think all the state colleges in Pennsylvania went through. This area was very conservative, and a republican area, and a democrat came here, and right or wrong, he thought the faculty needed some Jewish. And I remember he was very proud when he got a man in audio-visual aides, a young Jewish fellow. And he hired a good many Catholic people. He was very proud of the mix he was getting. He wanted a mix. He also was a stickler on doctorates, he wanted doctors. He wanted a liberalized faculty and a liberal arts department, badly-- which eventually was his downfall. DR. ROBERT UNGER: Well, in 1960 we became Mansfield State College. And with the mandate of being a college now is to have a strong liberal arts program. You get away from the teacher. THOMAS COSTELLO: And he put in charge, Dr., let s see, who was the first Dean of the liberal arts?

2 DR. ROBERT UNGER: Was he the guy that was here when I came here? THOMAS COSTELLO: Yes. DR. ROBERT UNGER: He had a degree from the University of Pennsylvania, in Poli-Sci, his credentials were great. THOMAS COSTELLO: Great credentials, yeah. DR. ROBERT UNGER: I can see the guy s face right now. Oh, but there were some horror stories about him from my experience being down there. He went from here, and he went down to, Shaney? THOMAS COSTELLO: Oh, that s a different one. The first Dean of liberal arts, or maybe the second, is now out in North Dakota. DR. ROBERT UNGER: I don t know who that was. THOMAS COSTELLO: I can t remember his name. But the man who was instructed to write the liberal arts program, the committee who were instructed to write the liberal arts programs, were really not doing a good job. They were not getting the job done, as a matter of fact, they just weren t getting the job done. Now, it was lack of work, they were not putting effort into this program. I remember everybody was upset about not getting this liberal arts program done. Finally when they, Dr. Balm was Dean, he was really upset. When I got the materials, I was responsible for the catalogue. And I would get the teacher ed catalogue, and it would be all ready to go, and then I got to the liberal arts section of the catalogue and it was just, I can remember going to Dr. Chapelle, a good man, chairmen, and saying to him, Look, I got your Teacher Ed, but somewhere along the line we just don t have anything for this liberal arts program. And there didn t seem to be any central direction for the program. Our first catalog with the liberal arts program I thought was extremely weak. Baum took me in-- DR. ROBERT UNGER: Wasn t his background in English? THOMS COSTELLO: Actually he taught Phrenology, the study of the English language. The man was sharp as a tack. He called me in about simple things, boy he kept me straight. The only we had was tremendous problem with the liberal arts program. And that was leadership-- [audio ends] FEMALE: I ll have to see if we have the yearbook. THOMAS COSTELLO: I remember getting a coy of that program and I was so upset. Baum, he d say, I want that done. And I d say, I don t know how I can write this. So he said, Let me see it. I brought it in and he just, oh, everybody was angry. You had a very upset faculty. DR. ROBERT UNGER: When I came, you had that guy, you had Treeber, in English, and you had the fellow in history. The three of them were always together. THOMAS COSTELLO: And Napoli, geography, what s his name? Napoli? DR. ROBERT UNGER: No, he was gone when I came. THOMAS COSTELLO: He was a terrific geography professor. But that was, no wonder we had problems. I now remember. The Arts and Science Program just got off to a very rocky start. The other thing is, Bob, Teacher Education didn t help. They were battling, and I understood. We lost stability in Teacher Ed. And as soon as you start looking into those programs and they decided first one, then two had to go, then we d have a combination course, then we couldn t find anyone to teach it. The English program, they took a good look at that. They decided part of that, the core program, was a real program. I can remember when they suggested that we drop a credit for Health and Phys Ed. And unfortunately, Dr. Schmidtz and I went to Shippensburg to present to the Board of Presidents and I had to present it because I did the work with it.

3 And I presented to the Board of Presidents and the President of Shippensburg State College said to me, Tom, you mean to tell me you graduated from Shippensburg State College and you re suggesting that we don t give credit for Health and Phys Ed? He said, Shame on you. Oh, did we get it. The Board of Presidents just threw it out. DR. ROBERT UNGER: See, that model five was put in place at the behest of Charles Holmes. Now Holmes came in 67. THOMAS COSTELLO: Right. DR. ROBERT UNGER: Because the reason I know so clearly, see I was-- THOMAS COSTELLO: Then you were here and established. DR. ROBERT UNGER: My second year, was 67. THOMAS COSTELLO: They gave me more trouble than anybody, this faculty, than anybody ever gave me. DR. ROBERT UNGER: I had problems with the man, because I was here. THOMAS COSTELLO: You know what he said to me? He said, Tom, you have no experience. I was Assistant of Academic Affairs. He said, You have no experience, how can you do this? I said, Well, let s see, I was acting Dean. I was the Dean of Men. I was the Dean of Students. I was the President s Assistant. What do you mean I don t have any experience? No, he said, you don t have any University experience. You don t understand liberal arts. I said, You re probably correct. But I do understand scheduling. I understand students. And I understand how to counsel students. And that s all I do. I don t do any of the rest. What he wanted me to do was what Smitty was going to do. And we just didn t get along. He d say to me-- FEMALE: What year was that? DR. ROBERT UNGER: 65, 66. THOMAS COSTELLO: Oh, can you find that guy s name? [indecipherable] He was a very bright man. But he got carried away with some of his stuff. Dr. Hill went right along. We had a very, very conservative elementary faculty. Oh my word. Dr. Smiley. And Dr. Bryan made him Dean of Students. He was a nice man, great psychologist, but that didn t work so good. One thing I remember the first two years under Rathgeber, the faculty, at that time, got along well. The students got along well. There were lots of activities. We were right in the middle of changing from formal eating habits, formal dining hall, to a more liberal approach of a regular dining hall, cafeteria-style and no dress. That was-- DR. ROBERT UNGER: When Dr. Bryan came in his first year, there was liberalization along that line. THOMAS COSTELLO: Yeah. The thing I remember about Dr. Bryan that upset me was, I got in all kinds of trouble, I always set up the summer program for, and the hall program for orientation for Freshmen. And we had big orientation programs. And they always read two books and we d do programs on the books. One was CATCHER IN THE RYE. And he really took us to task. The way I assigned the books was I went to the English Department and I asked them to pick two good books and have speakers for orientation. Then we had group discussions and Agony and Ecstasy? DR. ROBERT UNGER: AGONY AND ECSTASY. THOMAS COSTELLO: Was one book and THE CATCHER IN THE RYE was the other. And we were

4 able to bring down a professor who had written a very good review of THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. I have forgotten her name, but she was terrific. And boy I ll tell you, Dr. Bryan felt by far that that was too liberal a book. He went after me and anyone else in the English Department. And the English Department really never quite forgave him for that. And they were right. He just, it is the only thing that I can remember that I got upset with him about. DR. ROBERT UNGER: What do you think Dr. Bryan s greatest achievement was? THOMAS COSTELLO: Stabilizing. He really stabilized. He was a great detail friendly, he stabilized the faculty. And was able to, with his background, get the maintenance department back in even keel. Everybody seemed to feel a little more comfortable under him. That is what I think. DR. ROBERT UNGER: [indecipherable] Jenkins, THOMAS COSTELLO: Oh, by God I am telling you. DR. ROBERT UNGER: [indecipherable] THOMAS COSTELLO: Oh, brilliant. But he was absolutely worthless. Let me see this for a minute because I m going to show you the guy in the English department that I really got upset with. He told me, by God, I wasn t following the directions. And man we tried to follow those directions to pick a new President as carefully as we could. And that son of a gun, I tell you, he took me to task. He was an English professor. Okay, do they have the department chairmen in here? No. I guess-- DR. ROBERT UNGER: No, not in 66. THOMAS COSTELLO: Look how young Bob Unger looks. DR. ROBERT UNGER: Hey, look you are talking 21 years ago. THOMAS COSTELLO: Yeah, we are aren t we? Holy hell, that is a long time ago when you stop to think of it. You know we had a pretty stable faculty when you start looking through these. These people, most of them are retired and stayed here. That is pretty good. Oh, here she was. Okay, now you want to talk about problems, Eleanor Maylock. She, okay, that other guy will be in here, Merriman. DR. ROBERT UNGER: Oh yeah, he was the guy in history, with Treeber and Jenkins. They were the trio. THOMAS COSTELLO: Yeah, they were out of this world. Dr. Travis, very good professor. There s Scalford, he was a poker player. I remember that. Marshall Treeber, Purdue, MA from University of Arkansas. There s Dr. Unger. Bill, my god, all these-- DR. ROBERT UNGER: There s the chairman of Department of Humanities, back in 64, Ogle, Robert Ogle. THOMAS COSTELLO: He is the man who stood me up. There is the guy that took me to task, boy. DR. ROBERT UNGER: He wasn t here when I came. THOMAS COSTELLO: He was really, well he didn t last long, just one year. Now there is a brilliant man. I really liked him. I thought he was. DR. ROBERT UNGER: Who, Baum? THOMAS COSTELLO: Yeah. Top notch guy, very tough. Flynn. See we really got a lot of people in here. I wanted to find the guy in your department that caused a lot of problems with this fellow. I wish I could remember his name for you because I tell you he really, he really upset me. When I see that the, here s his

5 department, or somebody, here he is. He was, before he got here, in charge of young democrats and foreign students. And he was American University advisor to the ISCG class of 66, young democrats and foreign students. He got to Washington with this stuff and he said we weren t treating them right and by god they dropped our program. He was sick. He was the one with that Dean of Women. They were probably dating each other and they got to writing this stuff and it was sick. The whole thing was sick. And this Jones, he was sicker than, he wrote me a memorandum that-- DR. ROBERT UNGER: This is Jones now? THOMAS COSTELLO: Yeah, he wrote me a memorandum, and then would do cartoons. So I had to call him in there and go over all this stuff and I said, Do you feel better with this? I said, Now, you know what I have to do, I have to tear this up and throw it away. I said, Dr. Jones, Ken, this is sick. Well, he wouldn t agree with me. Well he only lasted, I guess, what a year or something? DR. ROBERT UNGER: He wasn t here when I came here. THOMAS COSTELLO: And these two guys, he was a real troublemaker. This guy was wild. I don t remember as much of him. Boy, Pete could tell you about these guys I bet. I don t think I ever ran into, I liked Sullivan-- DR. ROBERT UNGER: He was gone when I came, Peterson was gone, those are the students down there. THOMAS COSTELLO: Where all these-- DR. ROBERT UNGER: Here is Jay Foreman there. He was all right, yeah. THOMAS COSTELLO: So you, Bloom had his problems too. I never was that crazy about him. He was okay, he was all right. He was very square and I always worried about guys that got conservative. FEMALE ANNOUNCER: That is all of Part Three of the interview with Mr. Thomas Costello. To hear more please download the fourth part of the interview. These interviews are not copyrighted and we encourage you to let others know about them and to use them in your own research or projects.