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- Dr. Bill Katzenmeyer
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. Bill Katzenmeyer
LB: Today is January 25, 2006. I’m Lou Bowers and I’m interviewing Dr. Bill Katzenmeyer, a former dean of the College of Education and faculty member in the Department of Measurement and Research. Bill, thanks for coming in today and sharing with us some of your thoughts and memories of your years at USF. But before we get to USF, could you share with us some of your experiences prior to coming to USF, personal, professional activities you were engaged in?
BK: Well, there were a few. After completing four and a half years in the U. S. Navy, I served as a teacher of math and physics in Lakeview High School, as the director of Student Services, in Jackson, Michigan, and as the Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Wayne, a Detroit suburb. Then, I made the big jump to higher education, going from the Assistant Superintendent to an untenured, assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin. That was a big step down in some ways, but it was a great experience. When Duke called, my alma mater, I left Wisconsin for an associate professorship, and stayed there for 14 years. During my tenure at Duke, I was promoted to full professor, and for my last six years, I served as an associate dean in the graduate school.
LB: I recall before that you were a Navy pilot. Is that correct?
BK: Well, I was a Navy submariner, but I did fly.
LB: Did that help, being able to fly to get to meetings around the state and so forth?
BK: It did help actually, particularly since I came here knowing nothing about lobbying and found that getting funds for programs was more political in Florida than I had imagined. Marcia Mann and Carolyn Lavely educated me about lobbying. Carolyn was then the chief assistant to the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and she said, “You should come up here and lobby.” She taught me how to get things done in Tallahassee. Their “educate-the-dean” program was a big help to me, and the plane allowed me to get back and forth to Tallahassee very quickly.
LB: Now how did you hear about USF, and what prompted you to be interested in this new university? Do you recall that?
BK: Well, I do recall it, but I’m afraid my motivations were not entirely noble. Having spent a few years in Madison, Wisconsin, I learned to really dislike the cold. I loved going back to Duke because it was my alma mater. After 14 wonderful years there I thought it might be nice to move to a warmer climate nearer the water. Tampa seemed to be the perfect place to go. Don’t they have a new university there? I just happen to be looking at the Chronicle of Higher Education one day and there was this ad from the University of South Florida, so I sent in my credentials. Interestingly, I was offered two jobs at the same time; one at the University of Maine and one at the University of South Florida.
LB: That was an easy choice.
BK: Yes, coming here was the right choice. There’s no question about that.
LB: Now, when you arrived here at USF, how did you find USF compared to Duke? Of course, Duke being a well-established, private university.
BK: I found I had many more opportunities to learn here. It was indeed a very different place. Probably USF was a greater place for opportunities in the field of education than Duke. Teacher education there was valued, but it was not a major focus of the university and did not provide as many opportunities for providing services to schools. While there was much good to be said about Duke, these opportunities were appealing to me as an educator.
LB: I remember our first faculty meeting you laid out what was not a pretty picture but a realistic one. There had been a slump in student enrollment, and the administration thought we should raise enrollment. You presented a plan how we were going about doing that. Do you recall that first faculty meeting?
BK: Was that the first one?
LB: Close to it.
BK: I remember it well. Carl Riggs, who was then the provost of the University, called me about three weeks after I arrived. He said, “Bill, one of the things we didn’t mention when we hired you is that the College is generating about $1.5 million dollars less than it’s earning, and we need a plan to lay off some faculty members, maybe twenty,” he said. I thought of calling Duke and seeing if I could go back, but did not. I said to Carl, that’s not acceptable. I said that I needed three years to make the College productive. He said, “Well, you’ve got two.” And that’s when we had the meeting you spoke about. Well, we said, look, we’re in the business not only of training teachers for schools but also supporting them when they are out there.
We’re going to start offering courses and programs on school sites throughout our service area. Fortunately, the state had provided funds for teacher education centers. The money that was available to the University was only if we provided services requested by the schools and only available to the schools if they requested services from a university. Working off the base of these teacher education center resources, we took our degree programs and courses out to the schools. We were actually earning everything we used by the end of the first year. So we made the administration happy, and I think we got people doing many of good things for the schools at the same time. I thought it was a major win-win at the time. I still do.
LB: Well, some of the faculty members giving their oral histories here have talked about the fact that when you became the dean, that if they had a good idea you would fully support them. They liked that opportunity to be entrepreneurs, if you will, and do projects and so forth.
BK: I am pleased they recall the experience that way. I believed, and still do, that the first thing a dean has to understand is that he or she cannot create an outstanding college on the basis of their own ideas and efforts. The best leadership strategy is to listen carefully and watch for places where ideas and energy are coming together, and put resources there. When there are limited resources, those are the places where resources can be profitably invested. We always tried to support the good ideas that came along and tried to never stifle energy and initiative. Implementation of these notions paid off big time for faculty morale and energy, for students’ opportunities, and for the schools.