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- Dr. Dick Puglisi
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. Dick Puglisi
LB: I have a hint that you could also tell me about the Center for Economic Education. That’s a unique story also.
DP: When the Center for Economic Education was first established at USF in 1975, it was part of the College of Business. It seemed to make sense to put the Center for Economic Education in the College of Business, because most centers of economic education nationally are in colleges of business. And the gentleman who was appointed director was a well-known economist in the College of Business. The College of Education would assign a faculty member, I’m not sure if it was one-third or one-half. I think it was one-third to the center to basically work with the director and deliver a seamless kind of conceptual operation with K-12.
After about four and a half years, I had heard from school district friends that the center had some real problems. For whatever reason, the inability of the center to articulate and communicate effectively with the schools, and to some degree the business community, was its downfall. There was a lot of criticism of the center’s leadership from the school district, and from certain elements in the business community, to the point that Dr. Carl Riggs, God bless him, who was our Vice President of Academic Affairs at the time, conferred with Bill Katzenmeyer and Bob Cox (Dean of the College of Business Administration) and basically said this center was starting to become a public-relations nightmare for the University. Dr. Riggs stated that USF was seriously thinking about dismantling it and letting it go away.
Bill Katzenmeyer said rather than to abolish the center, place it in the College of Education and have the College of Business play the supportive role. Carl Riggs said that it sounded like a reasonable idea and he said to Bill Katzenmeyer, “Let’s give it a try.” Bob Cox, to his great credit, what a fine gentleman he was, understood that and supported it. He was very supportive, and the next thing I know there was a knock on my door. I was a faculty member in social studies at the time, and I was really thinking of trying to do some other kinds of things in the College. Ed Uprichard, who was a good friend, knocked on my door and said, “Dick, you need to be aware and be prepared that Bill Katzenmeyer is going to be calling you to talk to you about the center and the possibility that you might want to lead it.” I said that I wasn’t interested at all. I knew from my friends in the school district that the center had an awful reputation, and I didn’t want to be involved in something that’s going to be a problem. He said, “Well, think about it.”
Sure enough, Bill Katzenmeyer called me. Bill really didn’t know me but Ed Uprichard did, and I know it was Ed Uprichard who said to Bill Katzenmeyer, “What about Dick Puglisi?” So the next thing I know, I’m sitting with Bill Katzenmeyer, and Bill’s talking about the Economic Education Center and I’m saying, “Well, I don’t know…” but then I accepted it. It was the best decision I’d ever made. It’s been the greatest opportunity for me, and I have thoroughly enjoyed 25 years as director of the now Stavros Center, but I tell you those first six, seven months were not pleasant.
LB: Now, where along the way did the Stavros Center come in?
DP: I think it was January 1980 when I officially became the director of the Center for Economic Education, and we were located on the sixth floor of the library. The library had been kind enough to give us some space. There were three or four offices, and what we did was we took these huge metal file cabinets and lined them up and created a space for our workshops. I’m sure the library never intended for us to do that, but we shared the sixth floor with parts of the Engineering College.
I recall that I was sitting in my office one day thinking what to do. My task was not only to teach teachers about economics, but to also help them understand about entrepreneurship, business, and so forth. I’m sitting there and it occurs to me that maybe I should get business people involved, and the model would be that we would have business people teaching the content, and then we would help the educators translate the content back to their classrooms. I started to get involved in networking and contacting local business people. I’d see a name of a business leader in the paper, and I would call them and tell them over the phone about what we were trying to do and little by little they started to get involved. I think what really helped me too was that I became connected with some people in Rotary clubs and got to network with Rotary members and started offering courses which involved business speakers as my faculty. Once we did it in Hillsborough we then went over to Pinellas. That’s how I met Gus Stavros in either ‘81 or ‘82 when I was trying to network with the business community in Pinellas. Gus Stavros was one of those business leaders, and we hit it off. He became involved in teaching along with other business leaders, because every time we offered a course, we had any where from 10 to 11 business leaders who would teach for us. After the business presentation of the content, then we’d help the educators translate. Gus started in ‘81 or ‘82 and we’ve had a great relationship. He’s a wonderful person.