Home- College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
- Dr. Louis Bowers
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. Louis Bowers
AH: How many people are in the Distinguished Professors group?
LB: When we get together there’s usually not more than fifteen. Over the history of the university, I don’t know how many total they’ve awarded. When I received mine there were about ten Distinguished University Professorships that had been awarded at that time.
AH: Then and now you are among the elite.
LB: There’s one good thing. It’s a title that they can’t take away. I hope they can’t. It’s something you carry with you.
AH: You really have to go that “extra ten or twenty miles” to get something like that, it sounds like.
LB: It does take a lot of effort to be able to do all three. I had administration thrown in mine, seventeen of my thirty-three years.
AH: Of course, your interest to begin with was research and in the course of doing all these things you weren’t thinking in the back of your head, I want to get that distinguished professorship, right? It just happened over time.
LB: I really didn’t know it existed. There’s another award given for university service. Someone told me to apply for that, or they were nominating me, and I prepared the materials. In the process of doing that, I said, wait a minute, I’ve got all three areas. I won the Distinguished University Service award. The next year I had the materials already prepared, very similar, but with teaching and research added. I said why not? All they can do is say to me no, you’re not qualified. I was very honored that they said, yes, you get it. I guess I’ve been particularly proud because physical education is not at the top of the food chain when it comes with academic areas. We think we’re quite accomplished and good, but not everyone else does. I was able to earn that here. It was very special.
AH: It sounds like it’s definitely well-deserved, the kind of depth you brought to that profession and all the exciting projects that you’ve worked on over time that we got to learn about today. Is there anything else that we’ve missed? We ask some closing-up questions, but I’m just trying to see if there’s anything that we left unturned that we didn’t talk about.
LB: Not really, except I wouldn’t want to leave the impression that I did this all alone. With the grants, my partner was always Steve Klesius. He and I wrote grants together. We did projects together. For thirty years we worked together in closely along with Bill Buxton at WUSF television. He made us really look good in terms of our production with the “I’m Special” tapes and the videodisc and the digital videodisc project. With this talent and the staff there, we were always cost effective on grants. Because of the subcontract we could do with the on-campus station versus what it would cost us out in the commercial world for the same quality. Other than that, I wanted to point out that a lot of people helped me along the way. It was a lot of fun doing all those projects. They were important and also enjoyable activities. AH: In case of the process of winding down, usually the first thing I like to ask is, we kind of covered this, but what are you the most proud of when you look back at your career here at USF? It doesn’t have to be a single thing.
LB: I guess the most proud I am of everything that went into my teaching, my research projects via grants, and the service that I was able to provide for the children with disabilities and the students that I helped become outstanding teachers of physical education. While I’m continuing to do research and writing a book on how to write grants, I really felt that when I retired I was at the top. I felt that if I retired then I wouldn’t be on the down side after that.
AH: It sounds like even now you’re not in the down side. You are writing a book then?
LB: Yes.
AH: The book is to help other people to write grants and things like you’ve done?
LB: Yes, by our national association.
AH: How is that coming along?
LB: It’s coming along very well. They gave me four months to write it in.
AH: You already have a publisher in mind and everything?
LB: Yes, the American Alliance for Health and Physical Education will be publishing the book. I’m only halfway finished, and I should hopefully meet the deadline.