Knowledge Bank

In this document President Fawcett addresses what he regarded as three major accomplishments of his administration. First, with regard to teaching, “The major problem I faced … was how to plan and deal with what clearly was going to be this massive increase in numbers that would have to be housed, and for which programs would have to be developed and revised.” The solution, among other things, involved replacing or upgrading many of the “worn out World War II, horrific buildings,” recruiting new faculty, and organizing and managing an ever-increasing number of students. “With the open attendance laws you couldn’t” turn them away. It also involved “establishing the branches which we would never have established had we had the space on campus.” Lincoln and Morrill Towers were built at a time when the cost of building and borrowing money was low. Measures were adopted to facilitate recruitment of additional faculty based on projected enrollment of the departments. An acceptable high school curriculum was developed to allow for automatic admission without condition. In upgrading research, it was necessary to deal with the “total conflict” between the three then independent agencies that disbursed research funds. These three were the Research Foundation, the Engineering Experiment Station, and the Development Fund. “We had to terminate that” [their independence] and coordinate the total research effort since all three often incurred additional expenses for the university without consulting anyone else. This reform was done despite strong opposition from Jack Fullen, among others. The third major accomplishment was the academic reorganization of the university, which Fawcett regarded as a major accomplishment. Since it was discussed in detail in earlier oral interviews little is said about it here. The second major theme of this interview was to list “three of the most distressing or troublesome events or episodes while I was there.” The first “brushfire” was the infamous “gag rule” at OSU. It was a “very vexing problem and it was mixed up with political and social change going on in the country.” Ultimately it was voided by the Board of Trustees on a 4-3 vote after a clever maneuver by Fawcett. “The second most distressing memory I have was trying to understand 1962 to 1970…what was happening to the minds of the young people who were going to overthrow the establishment,” and which culminated in the shootings at Kent State.
The third “brushfire,” one which lasted continually until just before Fawcett retired, was dealing with Jack Fullen, Executive Director of Alumni Affairs, who fervently believed that since the Alumni Association was “independent” it was “free to pick at, or attack anything so long as you didn’t report to the university.” Fullen even delayed his retirement for one year “because he was going to get Fawcett.” Fawcett founded the President’s Club “almost over Jack’s dead body.”