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- Dr. Connie Hines and Dr. Jeff Kromrey
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. Connie Hines and Dr. Jeff Kromrey
JK: Yes, and we still face those challenges.
CH: We still do.
JK: We were talking about funding for dissertation support over the summer. The state does not fund that sort of stuff. Yet, we have faculty who dedicate so many hours over the summer and they should be recognized somehow, so that’s still going on.
LB: One last question, you mentioned technology earlier and it has affected all areas of direct instruction, research certainly, and so forth. That’s been relatively rapid in a short amount of time, how’s that particularly affected what your students are able to do and what you’re able to do in own research?
JK: Oh, my goodness. Statistics has changed dramatically. When we started back in the late 80s, early 90s we were still doing things on hand calculators and just a little bit of experience with computer software and I think. Did we still have punch cards in those days?
CH: No, not at the time that I came. Well, I remember I had a desktop shortly after I came. But students didn’t have that.
JK: Students were still using key punch cards.
CH: But I did get a desktop because of my work with SCATT and I remember this person asking me “what are you doing with a computer since you don’t have a grant” or something along those lines. I thought, “What!” You know, we have come very far from there to this point. Now everybody has a computer. But in terms of what Jeff said earlier relative to statistics and the teaching of statistics when I came back to the department after nine years in the Dean’s Office it was quite a learning curve for me. Jeff, John, and Bob have just been wonderful colleagues in terms of helping me as I tried to get back up to speed on things. There was really quite a change in our use of computer technology and software in our teaching of statistics and it is wonderful now in terms of what students can do.
JK: I think it has made the teaching easier and better. The students are leaving our courses now knowing more about the stuff we’d like them to know about data analysis and making sense of what they think they’ve learned than they did 15 years ago. In addition we can reach students we couldn’t reach before. We have a student down in the Virgin Islands.
CH: Yes.
JK: He’s been taking courses from a distance, participating by telephone.
CH: Our use of Blackboard, I think has been also really very helpful in our courses, so technology has really helped a lot.
LB: Okay, I think I’ve exhausted my questions I had for you, but don’t go away hoping to say more.
CH: Now, as we look back on the College, I don’t know, I think it has been a great place to me. I think we have much more to offer the state and the country. I think the national reputation of our faculty have grown quite a bit. In my 20, what 22 years here I have just seen just tremendous changes. Look at our new buildings, I mean it’s just absolutely wonderful in term of what we have. We have grown and we have done quite well as a College. I think the challenges are in terms of what Jeff said, if somehow we could just get more faculty members, more faculty lines and more resources that would be great. I really do think that as a college we seem to be under-funded, but that’s not in our hands, I guess.
LB: We certainly had a lot of growth in terms of numbers and quality, both of you played an important role in that development and in the quality of our programs in that you reach all students in the college and that’s an important contribution to make. I thank you both for giving up your time today to be a part of this, this 50 year history of our College and hopefully you will be able next year to get a CD with all this information on it.
CH: That would be great.
LB: Illuminated with photographs and as I think I mentioned to you earlier if you have any memorabilia, photographs of faculty or staff meetings or anything that you would like have included in the section on the history of the Measurement and Research Department.
JK: I know we have some old photographs in there of the annual meetings and I can look through there and see how many faculty and students from our program versus the state of Florida that there are in general.
CH: And I know that Carolyn Lavely has some. I was visiting her office area the other day, and I saw some photographs of faculty, some of whom have left USF, in a hallway. It would be quite interesting to get some of those photographs, you know. You are going to have photos of our old building, FAO?
LB: Well again, I thank you for coming. I appreciate your willingness to do that for us.
CH: Good, it has been a pleasure to do that.
LB: Thank you both for all that you have done for the College of Education and USF for so many years.
End of Interview