Home- College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
- Dr. Les Tuttle
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. Les Tuttle
LB: My name is Lou Bowers. Today is March 2, 2007 and I’m interviewing Dr. Les Tuttle, retired faculty member of the College of Education, Department of Educational Leadership. Welcome, Les and thank you for coming in and to provide us with the benefit of your years of experience at the University of South Florida. Why don’t we start with you life before USF, and talk little bit about your personal and professional life prior to when you heard about the University of South Florida.
LT: Well, I’m a Tampa boy. I went to high school in Tampa. I graduated from Hillsborough High School in 1952. I attended the University of Florida and I earned all three of degrees there. The last year I was there, I was a teaching assistant. In 1962, I took a job at the University of Alabama as an assistant professor of education teaching the philosophy of education. I was promoted the second year I was there to an associate professor. I was kind of lucky because I was a young man at the University of Alabama and everyone else was much older than me. I stayed at the University of Alabama for two years. My father lived in Tampa and he was ill. I knew the University of South Florida because it opened up in Tampa and I contacted Dean Battle who was the dean of the College of Education at that time to see if there were any opportunities for me. Fortunately, there were and things worked out well.
LB: What did the campus look like when you first arrived in terms of the number of buildings and faculty members?
LT: As I recall, the Administration building was here, as well as the old library, the University Center, the Math building, and the Life Sciences building. The first floor of the Administration building had classrooms and I used to teach classes over there. I was housed in the Chemistry building along with professors of chemistry and geology. There was a real mix of disciplines in those days. There wasn’t sufficient space to be able to enjoy having the people of our College to be housed in one building. It was a mix because faculty members were dispersed across the campus based on the space available rather than affiliation.
We thought at the time that the mascot for USF should have been a camel. There was sand all over the place and there were very few trees. It was really kind of barren. Many of the trees that had not yet been planted and the trees that were there had not grown very much.
LB: Can you tell me about the faculty appointments at that time? Specifically, can you describe how the College of Education faculty members had joint appointments at other colleges? LT: Yes. When I came, all faculty members enjoyed a joint appointment to the College of Education and to the College of Basic Studies. The College of Basic Studies was the general education curriculum. Everyone taught in one of the divisions of Basic Studies. I taught a subject called American IDEA.
LB: If I look a the faculty list in the College of Education before your arrival, I see such names as Bill Bott, Harris Dean, Tom Stovall, Bob Shannon, and Harold Scrivner. However, I don’t see those names appearing after that. Were those faculty members there when you first arrived?
LT: Oh, yes. In fact, Bill Bott was the first faculty member ever hired for the College of Education. Dean Battle had come over from Florida Southern College and hired Bill Bott who had been in charge of advising at Florida Southern College.
LB: Now, during your first year there was a teacher education conference called “The All-University Approach to Teacher Education.” It was held down at the Hillsborough Hotel and sponsored by the College of Education. Do you recall any thing from that meeting?
LT: No, I don’t. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. There were many conferences being held in those early days.
LB: There were several speakers on that program. What is interesting is that shortly afterwards, many of the speakers became faculty members. I was wondering if this conference was really a recruiting tool.
LT: That might be the case. That conference may have been held the year before I came to the College. But, I don’t recall.
LB: There were several speakers on the panels such as Harold Benjamin, who was known as an expert on curriculum, and Harold Taylor.
LT: Dean Battle was very enthusiastic about bringing in speakers from the outside. He brought in several leaders in education with various points of view. Usually, these took place at retreats that were held off campus and the entire faculty joined in.
LB: It looks like in your first or second year here you became the director of Foundations of Education, Guidance, and Research. Is that something that you anticipated or did it surprise you?