Wichita State University - Parnassus Yearbook (Wichita, KS)

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now--his annual Budget Hearing--to just talk about higher education in Kansas. I would say what he said somewhat differently, but he has indicated that in his judgement that it is going to be increasingly difficult for him to support, or for the legislature to accept, what he considers to have been the rate of financial growth. The rate of growth of financial support for higher education is going to taper off and slow down. Nationally, that is happening. l hope that it doesn't happen to the same degree in Kansas. lt still remains that the Governor is probably the single most important decision maker in the process. But, we also have access to the legislature. The Board of Regents again this year recommended a very generous increase in budget for all of the six state schools, including W.S.U. I think we're all going to work very hard to try to sell that to the Governor and to try to sell it to the legislature. But l agree with him that it is becoming more difficult .... I think that higher education is not nearly as blindly accepted as good as it was a few years ago. That there are increasing citizen concerns about whether too many people are going on, whether it's not costing more than it's worth, whether there aren't other social needs in society that are more deserving of support and that is some competition that is increasing. There is also the specter that everybody sees of decreasing enrollments because the Pill works! All you have to do is look at the schools. The elementary schools have already begun, to experience a dramatic drop. Bv 1980-84, in Kansas there will be a 3096 decrease in the number of higher school graduates. So if you're looking to higher school students for your future, you're probably looking at a declining enrollment. This year we grew, and l think when we get through with all the analysis it will be clear that we grew largely because of increase in adults, part-time students, lots of women, lots of people returning. That's going to be, have to be, increasingly true or we are going to be faced with a decline. PARNASSUS: Will our original plans for construction continue as now forecast? AHLBERG: Well, l hope so, because I think Wichita State University, as the objective data will show that the state now collects, could lose three or four thousand students and still have space needs. We still have many programs at the University that are poorly housed. Many faculty share offices, many faculty are in old houses. The College of Education, as you must know, is located in what--six or seven different buildings all over the campus. We grew so rapidly, particularly in the first five years, but we were in the state system five years before the first state facility was built. So it's my argument that W.S.U. still needs some additional facilities to accommodate even a smaller enrollment than we currently have. lt is going to be hard to sell that. PARNASSUS: With the rising expenses, do you think that our faculty faces the possibility of increased student load to avoid hiring additional faculty members? AHLBERG: That's one of the common things occuring in the nation. l'm hopeful that we can avoid that, but in many states there have been cuts in higher educational budgets, even stand-pat budgets really being cut. There's only two or three ways that you can accommodate yourself to We've been blessed with a good Student Government... and excellent leadership. that. One is to let people go, the other is not to add anybody, and the third is to increase class sizes and cut the number of courses or the number of sections they teach. All those things, in my judgement, would be done if we were faced with that problem. PARNASSUS: Would the faculty be pretty cooperative? AH LBERG: l don't think anyone among the faculty is much different than people in general. No one likes to lose a job. No one likes to be suddenly asked to teach half again as many students from the same amount of income. No one likes to do something less well than they've been accustomed to doing it and as they think it should be done professionally. So my guess is that if these things happen, there is going to be adverse results--lowering of morale, discontent. PARNASSUS: Has the controversy over the tenure system more or less vanished? AHLBERG: No, l think tenure is part of the general insecurity about enrollments and growth and stability or decline. Because the tenure system is viewed by those who do not have tenure as a threat to their security. That's very true and very real. So I think as long as there is a good deal of apprehensiveness in higher education, there is going to be some genuine concern about tenure. I think, on the positive side, that the faculty at Wichita State University by and large feel that they are participating in an orderly and objective process in which they and Ahlberg!31

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genuine appreciation for learning, for intellectual things, creative things. You have to have some sense, of what's good and what's bad, in a wide variety of areas. In that sense, you have to be an educator: you have to be interested in the process and change that occurs in people. That's really what education is all about. But also, if you are going to be in this kind of an enterprise, in the best sense of the word, you have to be a person who can represent the institution and interpret it to a wide variety of different kinds of groups of public--to those who are interested in art and music, to those who are interested in athletics, to those who are interested in simply the cost of financing it and legislature, to the alumni, to students who usually think they own lt. PARNASSUS: Don't we? AHLBERG: Sure! And so do a lot of other people! So in that sense, if that's what you mean by political, you have to have that kind of interest in relating yourself and in relating your institution--those kinds of publics, because we are a public institution. We have to justify what it is we want and what it is we do and what we can secure to the public that we ask for support. In that sense its political, because we're in a democratic system. I don't find that distasteful. PARNASSUS: How is our General Studies program functioning? Is it serving to give a Liberal Arts taste here and there? AHLBERG: Well that's obviously its intent and its purpose, and I'm very glad you brought it up because I think it's another evidence that institutionally, as a faculty, we've still a strong commitment to the idea of general education as an important component. Every person's experience ought to be said to have earned a college degree and we are committed to that. We're doing more than many and perhaps less than the strongest Liberal Arts institution. But I'm personally very much in favor of the idea of general education. The present program comes out of the fact that the central administration along with many or the deans have pushed systematically to keep it. When I arrived on campus seven years ago, the committee reported at the first faculty meeting I attended that they were unable to change the core curriculum and they worked on it two years and we did change it, we improved it. lt's not perfect, but it's an effort on the part of the faculty to provide an exposure to the Liberal Arts. PARNASSUS: In what role do you view the Student Government Association at present? AHLBERG: Well I think we've been 30lAhlberg blessed with a good Student Government all the years I've been here and excellent leadership. The Student Government provides an important component to the totality of University life. It can not only do a lot of things that are of a primary concern to students, what students are doing, but in the process it provides an important part of a learning experience. I think that students who participate in Students Government, students who participate in other activities on the university campus, are gaining an important component of their total educational experience. What people do in Student Government is not unlike what they do in the so-called real world. Therefore, it's a very good experience. lt's a part of the learning. PARNASSUS: How effective do you view it? AHLBERG: Well, I think quite effective. How you measure that is what one's expectations are. I sometimes hear students who are critical of Student- Government criticize Student Government as if they assumed Student Government should run the university. I don't think it should, so I don't put it in that continuum for critique. I think what Student Government does, it does well. And what it should do, it is participating significantly in all kinds of university governments--all committees of the University Senate now have student lf I didn't have problems I wouIdn't have a job. members, every student in the University Senate is elected to it, students serve on practically every advisory and service committee appointed in the University. I think like every other area, sometimes the student members make important contributions and sometimes they're less than important and so are some of the faculty. PARNASSUS: How do items from the Student Government reach you? or do they? AH LBERG: Well most of the things they deal with, no, they don't require my approval. They have the authority and confidence. I have to approve the over-all budget that they recommend when we allocate the student fees. But I've been here seven and a half years and have not yet changed one item, or really seriously questioned any. lt's never really been necessary. They make certain proposals for changes that I can't approve, in those cases we pass it along to the State Board of Regents--like the beer issue which seems never to die. PARNASSUS: Do individual complaints ever reach you? AHLBERG: Oh, I have students drop in with gripes. I had one in the other day for about an hour talking about Traffic Court. I've had other students come in and complain about a faculty member, or a class they were taking--I try to do something about it. If students come in irked about their schedule-- PARNASSUS: They come to you? AH LBERG: Oh, yes every once in awhile, if they don't get treated the way they think they should be or if they aren't satisfied with some decision they've had. Sometimes I can do something about it, and sometimes I don't think I should and don't, but most often I listen and try to find the proper person to get their need resolved. But I don't see a large number of students. I deal with Debbie Haynes and every other President of Student Government--she has a regular scheduled appointment, we just see each other. I of course see her now at the Board of Regents meetings. Then the editor of the Sunflower comes in on a regular schedule... PARNASSUS: Governor Bennett has stated that the days of a yearly increase of funds for education are at an end. How will this effect us? AHLBERG: Well, I'm not sure your accurately quoting him. I've heard him speak to this. In fact, he has talked directly to the six State Presidents about it. In fact we were going to have another meeting with him sometime before

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their peers are involved. They know how the decisions are made, while they are never pleasant and not always completely accepted .... I think there is confidence it is being done in an honest way. PARNASSUS: How do you feel about our faculty using collective bargaining in the future? AHLBERG: Well I hope that we can avoid collective bargaining and I spoke to the faculty at the first of the year about some of my concerns about collective bargaining in professional fields and higher education. There are worst things that can happen to higher education than collective bargaining. There are circumstances under which I perhaps might even find myself saying that I don't blame faculty. But I hope that we can maintain a system of collegial government in which faculty are involved in a very important way in all of the very important decisions. I think that's true today in decisions about what's taught, about what programs are offered, about who is hired, who is promoted: and to a certain extent, how much they're paid is determined by faculty. The administrators have to approve them and in the end, I have to approve them all. But most of these decisions are made at the levels of department. PARNASSUS: Do you see any current activity towards collective bargaining? AH LBEFIG: I might be the last to know! PARNASSUS: How do you visualize the role of athletics here at W.S.U.? AHLBERG: I consider intercollegiate athletics as having an important role in the University for an increasing number of students now that women's intercollegiate athletics is developing. For that l'm heartily in favor because I think its significance is related to student participation. Secondly, athletics is a social institution in the United States which, like it or DOT, has had a great deal to do with the public support of and interest in higher education. Universities, particularly public universities, have to find their support in a great many areas. The people who support athletics are often the people who are also supportive of other activities at Wichita State University. Some of our most generous supporters also support athletics and enioy it. In that sense, I think that athletics is a way of publicizing the University. Citizens want us to participate in athletics. As a public institution, that is some reason why we should. PARNASSUS: How much of the funds for athletics come from outside sources? Do the students really pay that much of it? AHLBERG: Well, the overwhelming part of the male intercollegiate athletics comes 321 Ahlberg from gifts and revenues. The budget forl the men's intercollegiate athletic program is roughly 31,200,000 The Student Fee support is about 80,000 or 75,000. So the remainder, except for about 50,000 dollars of state funds, comes either from gifts or gate receipts. The pnysical plan--the large stadium--is built by a combination of private giving and student fees. The students are paying about S750,000 in the cost of that stadium, which is important, but not anything like half the cost of the stadium! But students are paying at Wichita State for athletics. Women's intercollegiate athletics we now support to the tune of about S125,000. That is nearly all student fees or state revenues, mostly revenues. The state has come across in Kansas in the last three years with state resources for women. PARNASSUS: This is yearly? AH LBERG: Oh, yes. You can't hire very many Mrs. Fifes, and a basketball coach, a track coach, and a volleyball-gymnastics coach, and a trainer, and pay their travel bills and buy their uniforms. So it's an expensive business. PARNASSUS: Do you ever see a future for athletics for us? 'There are worst things that can happen to higher education than collective bargaining. AHLBERG: Oh, I don't even feel that way. I think Wichita has very creditable records. At one time, we were nationally ranked in basketball. I think that there's certainly a possibility in the not-to-distant future. lt's a very competitive world. But I think year after year, even though we haven't set any records in basketball in my days at Wichita State, we've had very good basketball teams and they play very high class basketball. I think that people expect more from football and they probably should, and certainly they should with a new coach that is in his second year. Particularly when they are playing Big 8 Conference teams which year in and year out have met a very large proportion of the Top 20 teams in the nation. I have a feeling that if the team next year is as much better as the team this year is over last year's that they might do alittle better against some Big 8 teams. I find that people are awfully critical of young men in what they expect of them. Maybe I don't expect so much. I wish they would win. That would make my life easier! PARNASSUS: You could avoid all these dumb questions about it! AH LBERG: No, your questions are nice! You ought to read my mail! Or listen to irate phone calls I occasionally receive. They're not so nice ..... PARNASSUS: Well, how would you compare the expense of processing a part-time versus a full-time student? AHLBERG: Well very often it costs as much or more to handle part-time students as full-time. PARNASSUS: I think that is a valid point. AHLBERG: Well, I think it is a point where we're somewhat disadvantaged in that so many of the state components for supporting educational programs are related to head count and credit hours. -And it is certainly true that in the area of student affairs and in the areas oi counseling, guidance, the Registrar an Admissions, that many part-time student may present more time-consumin problems than full-time students. They'r people, not half-people or quarter-people, they're full people and they have full problems even though they may only take one or two courses. And also, our University is open from 7:30 in th morning till 10:30 at night. People com to us whogfcannot come to us in th daytime. This requires us to spread our staff and I don't think this is adequately recognized. PARNASSUS: What keeps you up a' night worrying? AHLBERG: I don't worry very much Oh...occasionally I do. Everybody worries. l've got lots of problems. If didn't have problems, I wouldn't have ' job! That's one way to look at probleml Problems are also opportunities. They an a challenge. Some are frustrating .anl some of them seem to be so trivial yo wonder why you have to spend all you time on such nonsense. But as I said ii the beginning, I mostly enjoy mr problems. PARNASSUS: What do you do to relaz yourself after a particularly stressful day' AHLBERG: I play tennis! I read. PARNASSUS: What position did yo hold on our tennis team when you wer here? AHLBERG: Mostly I played second u third. PARNASSUS: As our President, wha questions do you dread being asked? have I asked them all? AH LBERG: I don't have a list of dreada questions. Since l'm proud of t University, l'm not ashamed of tl' University, and l'm very proud of ti' faculty and students I don't have ar' questions--any skeletons in tr cIoset --that worry me particularl-