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- Dr. Augie Mauser
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. Augie Mauser
LB: Your specialty was mental retardation, right?
AM: Initially, back when I started my professional training, mental retardation was the basic bread and butter area related to individuals with intellectual deficits. A little bit later in the mid-1960s we started to focus on kids with specific learning disabilities. These were kids with average or above average intellectual levels, but were those children who had academic achievement difficulties in school. In my doctoral training I had a typical blend of minors and cognates that included psychology and language development. But I also had coursework in reading disabilities so it fit right in with the emerging field of specific learning disabilities. I would say that as far as an area of personal expertise it would be specific learning disabilities which are commonly known as SLD. But I was always interested and involved in a variety of other things. I worked with kids with emotional disturbance and behavior disorders including those who were legally juvenile delinquents. The student with SLD and who was a juvenile delinquent was one of my early professional interests.
Additional work and interests were in the area of the gifted and talented. In fact, one of the professionals outside of you, Lou, and a few others that I knew of at USF was a professional superstar down here at the time by the name of Dorothy Sisk. I knew her well and had worked with her on programs for gifted and talented. In fact I was really interested in children who where psychometrically gifted but also had some problems in learning reading or math. These are those very bright kids who had problems during the school year but as adults could make major contributions to society. Right before I retired from USF a few years ago, I was doing some research on community and employment transition programming for students with disabilities. I’m proud to say that I was very much focused on kids finding a niche employment area or a self employment business operation. In the world of work and employment, you’ve individuals with certain behavioral and social characteristics that cannot work for certain employers and, in particular, have difficulty in working with groups or teams of individuals. My deal was to help them to find an occupation or type of work in business or industry in the community that could provide that right niche for them. I didn’t want special needs individuals to be trained only to take the very low level types of jobs. I wanted to prepare such individuals to run their own businesses. When you are the boss you can get by with a variety of behaviors because you are the boss and not just the employee.
LB: Now, you took over as Chair of the Special Education Department in 1983 or 1984?
AM: It was 1981.
LB: You had about 11 faculty members there and the Department of Special Education has always been noted for their grants. Were there a number of grants awarded during your tenure there?
AM: Right, we still have one going on that was initiated in the last year that I was there. That was the grant for migrant workers that Ann Cranston-Gingras set up and continues to be a model program. I’m very proud of her and that program as well as many others that have been developed. Yes, the Department of Special Education in my tenure, as well as before me and since I have retired, has always had a great number of both state and federally supported grants. Yes, I believe I do have some interesting perceptions and things to say. I have seen significant growth in both size and quality since I arrived at USF in 1981. When I came down to USF from the Midwest, I was really sold on doing good things. I tell everybody that’s why I came to USF, which I think is very important. The place has changed so much since 1981, all for the positive, of course.
AM: As I have told this story many times, I literally scratched my head when I first came to USF in 1981 and thinking to myself, “Did I make the right decision?” I had inherited a great group of people as faculty members. Many of them came to USF when the University first started. Believe it or not when I was at Indiana University, a faculty member from Indiana University was on loan here to help set up a department at USF. His name was Daniel Oresganon. He returned to Bloomington in the early 1960s and was telling the faculty about this new university, what a neat area Tampa was. He also said, “Can you believe this? They are having difficulty recruiting faculty members to this wonderful place.” Of course, this is not the case today. You do know this was way back when USF started in 1960. At that time there was not the collection of distinguished programs and professors as there is today. I’m sure there was no medical school and in particular no Moffitt Cancer Research Center. And also, there were not athletic teams as there are today. The original faculty and staff members were certainly individuals who came here with a pioneering spirit and for the professional opportunities that were evident. Today, there is certainly a different culture and a different attitude. USF is a totally different place today and will certainly be different and even more eminent twenty years from now.
USF has become a research university. I’m sure the original faculty requirement and focus was on teaching. Today, faculty members are recruited, retained, and rewarded on the basis of a blend of strong research, strong teaching, and a commitment to public service. And this is the way I feel that it should be. In retrospect, have some interesting memories. I came in like a storm from several other universities where we worked 24/7, 365 days of the year with two or three days off max. And when we’re not on the road giving speeches or doing research, we were on campus. We were in our office all the time. It was a different culture at that time at USF.
Today, it’s different at USF. We have many, many individuals doing research and the faculty members are recruited on the basis of their research skills and so forth. My time and experiences at USF turned out to be a very wonderful and rewarding experience. There were a lot of different changes that did take place in the University as well as in the department and College of Education. I can honestly say that after I left the chair position and went to Washington, DC our department continued to grow and achieved national prominence. Wonderful individuals, like Jim Paul, came in to lead the program. Money was loosening up and we acquired bright, young new faculty. Through hard work, cooperation and collaboration, the research dollars came and continued to be awarded. And it’s what it is today. The Department of Special Education is a wonderful place. Daphne Thomas is presently Chair, and before her it was Betty Epanchin, who had followed Jim Paul. I’m comfortable with how things are. I’m proud of the Department of Special Education and the University. I truly love USF and Tampa. I’m very active as you know in the community with a variety of organizations and also with the USF Athletic Association and Department of Athletics. My wife, Jean, and I financially and emotionally support USF a heck of a lot more than I do my own alma maters, which is fine. I’m no longer a Bears fan either.