Purdue University - Debris Yearbook (West Lafayette, IN)

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DEBRIS Now, after twenty-five years as Pres- ident of Purdue, Dr. Hovde has an- nounced his intention to retire. Though expected, the impact ofthis decision has been great. The questions raised by the action, concerning both Dr. Hovde and the Presidency, make this subject a logi- cal place to begin the interview. DEBRIS: Dr. Hovde, one of the most significant events of the 1969-70 school year has been the announcement of your intention to retire in June of 1971. What prompted you to choose this spe- cific date? HOVDE: 1 chose this date for several reasons. First, I will have served as President for twenty-five years, and I believe, as do many other knowledge- able individuals, that the University would be better served with the new, vigorous and energetic leadership need- ed to help face the gigantic and complex challenges that lie ahead for all ofhigh- er education in America. My personal service contract with the Board of Trustees permitted me to choose my retirement date provided that notice of a year and a half be given to enable the Board to undertake the search for and appointment of a new President. Another reason is that I believe I still have a few years of important service to give to the University, primarily in the work associated with the University's new fund drive, the success ofwhich will mean a great deal to the future of Pur- due. The demands upon the time and energy ofthe President are so great that he cannot devote the necessary time to the fund-raising aspect of his total responsibility: DEBRIS: Your intention to retire has presented this matter of seeking a suc- cessor. Could you go back these twenty- five years and relate some of the cir- cumstances and events surrounding your succeeding Doctor Elliott in 1946? HOVDE: Dr. Edward C. Elliott, my predecessor, reached the mandatory retirement date in June of 1945. The nation was still at war, although Ger- 22 many capitulated in May 1945. Purdue's famous Dean of Engineering, Dr. Andrey A. Potter, was named Act- ing President in July 1945 to serve until a new President was chosen. In the spring and summer of 1945, the then Board of Trustees compiled a long list of potential candidates, many of whom were at that time engaged in war work, as I was. I was told that my name had been put on the list by Dr. James Conant, the then President of Harvard, under whom I worked for several years of my wartime service, and by Dr. Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. I was personally approached by a member of the Board of Trustees early that summer to ascertain whether or not Iwould be interested in Purdue. My answer was, Yes , and this was fol- lowed by other interviews and an invita- tion to visit Purdue that summer to meet other members ofthe Board. In August, after the war in the Pacif- ic came to its end, the Board offered me the opportunity to come to Purdue as its new President. I told the Board at that time that I could not report for duty until January, 1946, since I was obligated to supervise the closing down of the rocket research programs and laboratories to peacetime direction under the auspices of the Army, Navy or Air Force. DEBRIS: Did you have a career of this nature in mind? HOVDE: My career in educational ad- ministration began with my first job in 1932 when I was appointed Assistant Director of a newly established experi- mental college at the University of Minnesota, called the General College. I had returned that year from my stud- ies as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford Uni- ersity in England and I became direct- ly involved and interested in many of the new ideas in higher education which were being tried out at the University of Minnesota at that time. Special general education survey courses were being developed. New counseling techniques in breadth and depth for all students were being tried. Audio-visual tech- niques were being developed. New examination techniques were being tried - all of which were primary ef- forts that later were adopted through- out the structure of higher education in this country. In 1936, I left the University of Min- nesota to go to the University of Ro- chester in Rochester, New York, as As- sistant to the President and there ob- tained further experience in many areas of university administration in one of the leading private institutions in the East. Early in 1941, when the nation was beginning the process of building its military defense, I was invited to join the staff of the National Defense Re- search Committee to serve as director of a mission stationed in London, Eng- land, to handle the exchange, between the two countries, of scientific informa- tion on the instrumentalities ofwar. My wartime service extended over a period of nearly five years. When it ended, I was involved in the management of the rocket ordinance research program which developed new rocket weapons for the three Services. DEBRIS: A man of your background must have been of interest to many in- stitutions, why did you choose Purdue? HOVDE: I did not choose Purdue - Purdue chose me. I accepted the Purdue invitation because, for one, Purdue was a land-grant institution of the State of Indiana and I believe deeply in the land-grant philosophy. Also, Purdue was located in the Middle West where I wanted to live, and the major thrust of Purdue University was in the field of the pure and applied sciences and my own training and interests were directed to these areas of higher education. Fi- nally, at that time Purdue was a great university and had the potential of being one of the truly great universities of the entire country. DEBRIS: The administration of any school the size of Purdue is an enor- mous job involving a great many peo- ple. How would you define the role of the university president in the operation ofthe institution? HOVDE: This question is too big to

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DEBRIS INTERVIEW T J I a candid conversation with the man who has been Purdue s President for nearly a quarter ofa century. When it was announced recently that Dr. Frederick L. Hovde had been cho- sen as the 1970 winner ofthe National Collegiate Athletic Association's An- nual Theodore Roosevelt Award, the students of Purdue suddenly found themselves with a celebrity as their president. The Teddy Award is the NCAA's highest honor. It goes each year to a prominent American for whom competitive athletics in college and attention to physical well-being thereafter have been important factors in a distinguished career of national signtjicance and achievement . The late President Dwight D. Eisenhower had been apast winner. Ifplacing the President ofPurdue in a category with a President ofthe Unit- ed States seems odd, it shouldn't, for Dr. Hovde is one of the most honored and highly respected men in thefield of education today. Though born in Erie, Pennsylvania The wholepurpose and objective of the corporate university is to pro- on February 7, 1908, Hovde could not call this home, for soon after his birth the Hovde family moved to Devil's Lake, North Dakota. It was here that Hovde's father, a meteorologist, chose to settle and where Hovde spent his childhoodyears. In 1925 he entered the University of Minnesota. His achievements during his four years there, both academically and athletically, are part of history. Hovde earned varsity letters in 1927 and 1928 in both football and basket- ball. In football, as quarterback ofthe Minnesota Gophers, he was the leading conference scorer in 1928 and was named to the All Big Ten team. Aca- demically, Hovde was elected to mem- bership in Tau Beta Pi, Phi Lambda Upsilon, and Sigma Xi. He graduated with a bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering in 1929, not only with hon- ors, but with a Rhodes Scholarship as well. 3 .4 .-51534 ,l . Ido not believe students oftoday dU'fer very much from university With this scholarship, Hovde was able to spendfour years, 1929 - 1932, studying at Oxford University in Eng- land. There he received a Bachelors Degree and a Masters Degree. Upon returning to the United States, Hovde was appointed Assistant Direc- tor ofthe General College at the Uni- versity of Minnesota. This began a ca- reer in education that, except for jive years devoted to war and defensive work during World War 11, was to span four decades. When he came to Purdue in 1946, Hovde at thirty-seven, was the youngest man ever to become President ofa Big Ten university. During his tenure as Purdue's President, Hovde has received honorary degrees from eighteen col- leges and universities. He has served on the Board ofDirectors ofsuch corpora- tions as General Electric and Inland Steel. He has received countless awards and honors. In thefinal analysis, the Presi- dent is the only individual who can vide better educational services and students of earlier times. speak authoritatively and effective- opportunitiesfor its student body. lyf0 the Udml 1f5ffUfl0 - 21

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answer in a few words. The corporate university today is a large and highly complex organization with more than ten-thousand employees and an annual cash flow budget of more than one hundred twenty million dollars. Its people are organized to serve not only the more than thirty-six thousand regis- tered students, but also thousands of others in the University extension and adult education programs. The president of a modern university is the responsible senior administrative officer and is the only person who can represent the University in its manifold relationships with its many constituen- cies. It seems that only the president can speak for and make the final ad- ministrative choices in the total deci- sion-making process which goes on con- tinuously in a changing and developing institution. Every segment of our society is inter- ested and has a stake in what the Uni- versity does and how it does its job. In its work, the University serves almost every type and kind of institution, both public and private, in the total econom- ic, social, and political matrix. A partial list of the University's con- stituencies with which the President and his staff must deal are: the Board of Trustees representing the people of the state, the General Assembly and the Governor representing the political authority of the state, the municipal and county authorities in the areas in which the University and its regional campuses are located, the staffs ofthe University A faculty, service, and cleri- cal, the student body of the University, the parents of the students, many de- partments and agencies of the Federal Government, professional and scientific societies, the industries of the nation which employ University graduates, the philanthropic and educational founda- tions of the country which support Uni- versity educational and research pro- grams, other countries throughout the world which send us students and with whom we have educational service con- tractsg and, finally, the alumni of the University, more than one hundred thousand strong, who are deeply inter- ested in and a vital supporting force for the freedom and maintenance ofthis University. DEBRIS: But how do you fit into all this? HOVDE: In the final analysis, the Presi- dent is the only individual who can speak authoritatively and effectively for the administration, and it seems that every constituency of the University wants to go to the top for definitive ac- tion on almost every kind of problem, large or small. DEBRIS: So you're the one everyone looks to, you're the center of this complex. HOVDE: It seems that the President, by virtue of his authority and responsibili- ty, must also take the blame for every- thing that happens. He is responsible to all the constituencies ofthe University for everything that anybody does - individual students, groups of students, staff - that others may not approve or like, such as the live-in? in the Memo- rial Union in May, 1969. DEBRIS: So you look at the role of the University president as more ofa public relations role than as . . HOVDE: The relationship of the Uni- versity to all its constituencies is indeed a major public relations responsibility of the President and his staff, but the most important responsibility is that of organizing the management ofthe peo- ple who do the Universityis work so that its teaching, research, and public service programs are done efficiently and well. It is the quality of the work of a University that builds its reputation. DEBRIS: In other words, you're the one who coordinates all this? HOVDE: The primary administrative authority given to the President of the University includes two basic elements: first, the power to employ the staff and, second, the power to allocate the use of the University's resources of money and facilities. The authority to deter- mine the curriculum and the require- ments for University degrees is vested in the organized faculty ofthe Universi- ty. But it is the President's responsibili- ty to provide the manpower, facilities, and money to achieve the faculty-deter- mined academic objectives. DEBRIS: In relation to what the stu- dents did in the Union in May, 1969: The University President, as well as the remaining administration, has had a relationship with students that has in recent times been marked more and more by conflict. HOVDE: Conflict is not, in my judg- ment, the appropriate descriptive word. DEBRIS: But . . . HOVDE: There are some organized groups actively engaged in conflict with the establishment, there are other groups of students deeply interested in seeking changes in existing policies, procedures. etc. DEBRIS: Let me rephrase the questiong the relationship between administration and students has been marked more and more by confrontation. I-Iow would you explain this? HOVDE: The techniques of confronta- tion and protest are well known and thoroughly understood by the leaders and organizers ofgroups which seek to accomplish changes in the social, eco- nomic, and political structure of this society. The publicity which results from a confrontation dramatizes the problems and thereby stimulates action and reaction to the solution of society's problems. The right of free speech and the right of citizens to assemble peaceably are Constitutionally guaranteed. When organized confrontation interfere with the rights of other citizens, they are un- lawful and must be dealt with accordingly. DEBRIS: How do you explain the many student takeovers ofadministration and other campus buildings? HOVDE: The takeover ofa university building by a group of students is a de- liberate and organized operation in- tended to achieve by force as objective of the group, but the answer to your question can be given only by the lead- ership ofthe group which planned and carried out the takeover . DEBRIS: But isn't this something that has just come into being in the last cou- ple ofyears. HOVDE: No, student riots, demonstra- 23 DEBRIS l