USF COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
FIFTY-YEAR HISTORY
Celebrating 50,000 Educators in 50 Years
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- Dr. Bill Katzenmeyer
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. Bill Katzenmeyer
BK: All that. And it’s a great placement for graduate students. You have a working laboratory similar to what you would find at places like Educational Testing Service or at Iowa City where they administer and score the SAT and ACT.
LB: I know you were involved in the Professional Development School Program. I think initially Pasco County, maybe Weightman Middle School, was the first one with the College?
BK: Weightman and then Cypress Creek. Then two down south in Hillsborough became professional development schools. I thought it was a very good idea that we would have faculty assigned to those schools and that it was a good opportunity for faculty members as well. It worked very fine for a while, but I think since I left as the dean I’m not sure how much of that is still prevailing.
LB: I don’t hear much about it, but it’s still there because King High School continues to be a professional development school.
BK: King High was added toward the end of my tenure. I still think professional development schools are a very good idea because they serve the needs of faculty to stay current in the realities of schools right now, and provide opportunities for collaborative research and development activities.
LB: Through all these years and all of these projects you had a right-hand person, Dr. Ed. Steiner, Associate Dean for Administration. I hope to get him in for an interview.
BK: Yes, Ed was the right person in the right place at the right time. We had an open book policy with regard to the College budget. Ed managed the budget for some 12 years. He was patient and caring. He was accurate and he was thorough. Faculty and staff learned to trust him completely. He was always dedicated to using resources well and to the continuing improvement of the College as a place for faculty to find fulfillment in the teaching and research, and a great place for students to learn and grow professionally and personally.
LB: He kept track of everything and kept us apprised us of finances and regulations.
BK: You recall Hugh Hoffman was working as Associate Dean for Administration. When Hugh indicated he didn’t want to continue, I sent out a memo to the faculty seeking nominations for someone to replace Hugh as our financial person. This would probably have been ’81 or ’82, something like that. We received nominees from individual departments. I guess we had eleven or twelve departments at that time, and there was only one person who had nominations from more than one department. It was Ed Steiner, who had been nominated by faculty in nine different departments. I said, “Okay, he’s my person.” He was a perfect match for me because Ed is sequential, he’s absolutely trustworthy, and he gets everything done. We adopted the policy that anybody who wants to see the total budget of how things were spent was welcome to come into the Dean’s Office look at it. I don’t think I ever heard anyone complaining about how the money was being handled. Ed did that so well for us.
LB: They pulled him back in on several occasions.
BK: They realized they couldn’t do without him so they’d bring him back. Ed Steiner, Ed Uprichard, and I functioned very closely together along with Jane Young and Dick Puglisi. We never proposed or talked about anything until we had an idea that it was worth talking about. Then we’d go to the administrative council, and I think we all sort of trusted each other reasonably well. Ed’s contributions were just enormous. Ed and I still sing together in the same choir. He’s a really wonderful person and has been enormous asset to the College.
LB: Definitely yes, for many years. I’m wondering…you served under several presidents, more than you care to remember probably or could count, but were there any particular challenges?
BK: And provosts.
LB: And provosts, that’s another one we can talk about.
BK: Provosts were more of a challenge than the presidents. John Lott Brown was the president when I came. He was probably the only true academic president. J ohn Lott Brown was a heck of a guy. I have one anecdote about John Lott Brown. After I’d been here about four weeks he had a party and he invited all the deans to come. I went along. We had been chatting for a little while, and I said, “Gee, when are we going to have a football team?” The president looked at me and said “Bill, I’m opposed to football, and if you know what’s good for you, you will be, too.” So I shut up about football until after John Lott Brown had left, but I admired him as a president. He was a fine, fine person. Now, didn’t we have a president between him and President Borkowski?
BK: Borkowski was our musician president. He was fine to work with except when he got under the influence of Bert Hartley and told us we couldn’t have the school on campus. And you know Betty Castor came in as I was leaving. I’d already announced that I was leaving the deanship, so I didn’t have much to do with the presidents after that, but the provosts were a different story. They were a lot more challenging.
LB: Working directly with them?
BK: Yes.
LB: You worked with Jerry Miesels?