Ohio University - Athena Yearbook (Athens, OH)

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and broadly about what your problems are and how you ' ve gone about solving them. Therefore, 1 created a group to look into how we could open up the budget process and accomplish these goals. Out of this came the open budget hearings. Secondly, I am a decision maker-implementer. Once as a catalyst you ' ve created a mechanism to look at a problem and that mechanism has produced a solution, or set of reccommendations, then I have to review those recommendations, accepting them, rejecting them, or modifying them. You have to be careful to articulate your reasons. Once a decision is made, I feel a responsibility to follow it up to see that it is carried out in the way it was originally intended. Thirdly, I am the chief communicator of the institution to the many publics we deal with, internally and externally. By example, there ' s a role to be played. That is, if I ' m open, candid, accurate, and if 1 I try to be responsive don ' t have the information say that I ' ll get it. What do you feel you have accomplished here at Ohio University? I often wonder about that and it is sometimes hard to really categorize it. One, I think we have perhaps most importantly, opened up the university. It was pretty closed when I came. A few people made the decisions, they made them privately, there was very little explanation of them, and very little understanding of the ingredients that went into them. My most important accomplishment was the democratizing of the university or at least moving us in that direction.

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Do many people really know this man? After two years of practicing law in Chicago, III. and serving as a legal consultant to the governor of Illinois, Dr. Sowle returned to Northwestern. From 1958 to 1965 he served as a professor of Law and Associate Dean. In 1965, the Sowle ' s, by which this time there were two additions, Leslie, now 14, and Stephen now 12, moved to Cincinnati. Dr. Sowle served as dean of the law school, and later acting vice- president for academic affairs. In 1969, Dr. Vernon Alden, then president of Ohio University, retired and Claude R. Sowle came to Athens. by Michael McGraw What do you see your job as? My job has three principal parts to it. First of all, 1 see myself as a catalyst. By that I mean looking at the problems of the university, the potential of the university, and trying to segregate those things which need to be done. The next step is setting in motion the necessary things to get the job accomplished. For example, in the old days perhaps the presidents felt that they could see what the problems were without consulting anybody, see how to handle them, and proceed to handle them. Things are too complex for that today. Therefore, I don ' t see myself as having the answer to every problem. I think I have to continually attempt to identify the problems and then to create the mechanism for the solution. An example is the open budget process. When I came it was apparent to me that down the pike we were going to have some tough financial times. The influence of higher education in the 1960 ' s simply was not going to be the case during the 1970 ' s. If you ' re going to get into tight times you need a system where by you can make the wisest decisions possible for the use of funds. You also have to inform the university community regularly DR. SOWLE 17

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Secondly, would like to think that we are jiiut.ii muic utuuumuuic, in terms of being better stewards of the taxpayers and students money than perhaps we were a few years ago. There is a real sensitivity to this sort of thing. Third, I would like to think that we are more responsive to students and their needs than perhaps was true in the 60 ' s. We ' ve created an atmosphere around that people whether they like it or not, do try to treat the students by and large as well as possible, but we have a long way to go. I do not think that since I have been here we have had improvement in academic quality and I think part of it was that we have been so distracted with other things that we haven ' t put the proper amount of time in it. Secondly, the resources have been such that I think there has been inevitably some erosion of quality as a result. In the next year or two my main thrust will be in the direction of improving the academic quality of the institution. urging greater rigor, demand, and chaiiange being imposed on students. 1A71 . 1 11 like to see for the University? J would like to see the university stabilize someplace around 17,000 to 18,000 here on the main campus, 1 think that if anything were too big for our location, in terms of Athens, the geography in this area, and our remoteness. Now we are about at the right size, perhaps we can ' t turn the clock back very much, we don ' t want to. Secondly, we need to work out a funding system DR. SOWLE 19