UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #1035
SIEGEL, DANIEL

SIEGEL, Daniel (1939- )
Emeritus Professor of the History of Science and former director of the Integrated Liberal Studies Program
At UW: 1970-2000

Interviewed: 	2009 (5 sessions)			
Interviewer: 	Robert Lange
Indexed by: 	Stephen A. Pierce
Length: 	11 hours, 3 minutes

Abstract: In his five July 2009 interviews with Robert Lange, Daniel Siegel discusses growing up in the Chicago area, his education at the University of Chicago, Berkeley, and Yale, and his career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He outlines his early interest in physics and how he decided to later pursue a PhD in the history of science. He compares his research and teaching philosophies to those of others in his fields, and overviews some of the academic politics involved. He offers critiques of historians of science, teachers of science, and university administration, based upon 30 years of service, research, and excellence in teaching. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the UW-Madison Oral History Program.

Key Words: Gary, IN; Jewish heritage and Judaism; anti-Semitism; Chicago IL; University of Chicago; physics; Integrated Liberal Studies (ILS); Robert Hutchins & Hutchins College; University of California-Berkeley; the 1960s; student demonstrations; San Francisco State University; high-energy physics; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Yale University; Martin Klein; history of science; Asger Aaboe; William Zachariason; Irving Kaplansky; University of Wisconsin-Madison; Irwin Heibert; E. David Cronon; Gustav Robert Kirchhoff; Isis; tenure; Thomas S. Kuhn; Michael Hinden; students; Meiklejohn House; teaching; Donna Shalala; James Clerk Maxwell; electromagnetic theory; National Science Foundation; National Endowment for the Humanities; pedagogy; faculty compensation; Phil Certain; David Ward.

First Interview Session (July 13, 2009): Digital File
Time		Keywords

00:00:00	Start of interview/Interviewer’s introduction 

00:00:24	Question: Talk about your birthplace and parents. Answer: Siegel was born July 17, 1939 in Gary, IN, the only child of Julius Siegel—a rabbi who had served in Chicago and Toronto but been “demoted” to Gary—and Celia Epstein-Siegel, who taught in Hebrew school. When he was 3, his father died, so the family moved to his grandparents’ in Chicago. Follow up: So Judaism was important in your home. Were your father’s family rabbis? Answer: Yes, for several generations. His father emigrated from Galicia around age 12, went to rabbinical school and got degrees in Semitic languages in the US. His mother was trained in Latin and teaching, and the couple met in Chicago.

00:04:04	[no question] Siegel connected his “Midwestern roots” to his ending up at UW, and thought that UW had a rich heritage of Midwestern scholars. Question: There was a Jewish community in Gary? Answer: There were Jewish communities everywhere. Follow up: What part of Chicago did you move to? Answer: The west side where there was a large Jewish community. He noted that his neighborhood later became one of the worst in America. Question: What was your grandmother like? Answer: He remarked that his mother died when he was 12, and he continued to live with his grandfather, who was charismatic, and his more reserved grandmother.

00:08:13	Question: Talk about school. Answer: Siegel quipped that he flunked kinder-garten, being placed in grade 1-C (for slow children). His mother posited that the teacher was an anti-Semite. This may have been true since while the neighbor-hood was mostly Jewish, there were few Jewish teachers. He talked about the tension this created during holidays. Follow up: Education was valued? Answer: Definitely.

00:12:02	Question: Any outstanding teachers? Answer: As a matter of fact, Siegel said, at the time whole-word reading programs were in vogue, and he didn’t learn to sound words out and read until his mother taught him in 2nd grade. Follow up: Math? Answer: He didn’t do very well in math, though they wanted to skip him a semester at the end of 2nd grade. He noted that elementary school was “boring,” so he didn’t do his work, and his writing and fine motor skills weren’t very good.

00:17:48	Question: Were you doing any science? Answer: Very little that was useful. He said he picked up his science from reading all the library had to offer. Question: Was there an expectation that you’d become a rabbi? Answer: He said that his mother wanted him not to become a rabbi because of his father’s experience and his (mat.) grandfather’s anticlerical, pro-science views. He said his wife had a similar experience in her family.

00:22:26	[no question] Referring to his heritage, he noted that for historians of science there was “something to be explained” in the preponderance of Jewish scientists. Follow up: Was your grandfather a scientist? Answer: No, he had very little formal education, but read 3 newspapers—English, Yiddish, and Hebrew.

00:24:42	Question: High school? Answer: He went to Austin HS in Chicago, where he learned basic algebra but little else useful. He entered the University of Chicago at 16 in an early entrant program. He talked about the “tough environment” in his drafting class in HS, and his junior physics class which he essentially taught because the teacher was really a biologist. 

00:28:52	Question: Talk about getting into U. Chicago. Answer: He remembered that his homeroom teacher knew about his father, and suggested that he apply to the lab school at U. Chicago. He discussed how the SAT-like entrance exam was well-suited to his reading- (but not writing-) intensive individualistic learning style, and how formal evaluations in his school experience were not suited for him.

00:34:34	Question: So you start in your junior year (1955)? Did you have a scholarship? Answer: Yes, he had a nearly-complete scholarship, $600 out of $690 a year. He explained the scholarship’s stipulations. He noted that part of the exam was to introduce you to Boolean algebra. Follow up: And you then took the full 4 years of college? Answer: Yes, at the beginning they considered making it a 5-year program. He got a ride to U. Chicago for several years with another early entrant from his neighborhood.

00:39:43	Question: What was U. Chicago like in those days for you? Answer: He said the four who rode together to the university became a good “primary community” for one another and good friends. He related this experience to advice the director of SOAR gave ILS students at UW. Question: When did you decide to major in physics? Answer: Early, though he remembered that at the time you didn’t take physics (in soph. year) until you’d taken calculus (in fr. year). He talked about the educational system slowly realizing HS students should be taking calculus.

00:43:41	Question: Outstanding professors? Answer: During the first quarter, he had a professor and text who gave “crystal-clear lectures” which were beautiful and motivated his choice for physics. Question: Did your U Chicago experience presage your involvement in ILS? Answer: Definitely; when he planned the new ILS program, he was influenced by the Hutchins Plan, which emphasized liberal arts first, and then specialization in the master’s degree. He talked about the problems of this approach and the solution U. Chicago found.

00:49:14	[no question] He additionally noted that his Hutchins College education got him interested in history of science, because he wanted to try his hand at physics research, but never lost interest in philosophy. Question: Were you envisioning yourself as an intellectual, then? Answer: He thought first of being a teacher, and being a researcher second. He talked about HS interest indices which placed his interests as literary and persuasive; also, success in physics depended on finding a group in which you could study—he ended up teaching these groups.

00:53:54	Question: You went immediately into a master’s program at U Chicago? Answer: Siegel was in a 5-yr program for physics, but in the 4th year people were taking the GRE, so he did this and applied for a NSF fellowship. He did so well that he received a fellowship and they gave him his BS.

00:55:51	Question: Talk about the years between getting your MS and PhD (1960-67). Answer: Quipping about how long it took him to finish, he talked about going to Berkeley. He applied at Cal Tech, MIT, Berkeley, UW and Illinois, and was accepted at the latter three. He talked about the size and quality at Berkeley.

00:58:40	[no question] He talked about the “Berkeley experience.” He did well on his written prelims, but almost flunked the orals—he explained that one professor made him part of his crusade for thermodynamics understanding. He talked about the proper and improper way to conduct an oral exam. 

01:02:43	Question: And you were also teaching? Answer: He was a TA at Berkeley and also taught at SF State College. He talked about the eye-opening experience that he couldn’t get a job teaching HS because he wasn’t certified; and wasn’t hired at a community college because “people from Berkeley ... don’t understand what we do here.” He explained the course he taught, mainly to transfers from community colleges. He told about trying to teach critical thinking to transfers on his first test.

01:09:12	Question: Talk about the 1960s in the Bay area. Answer: Siegel remarked that SFSU had not exploded yet, and was tolerating a level of free speech that Berkeley did not. Later, President Hayakawa would famously dismantle sound equipment at one of the more rambunctious rallies. 

01:13:20	[no question] At Berkeley, the 1960s didn’t disturb his “march toward the PhD” because he was at a lab on the edge of campus. He said he was sympathetic, but not very active—he thought there were excesses on both sides, but more on the side of the administration. He remembered when he arrived, they had just built a new student union, where many people set up tables to discuss ideas. In 1964, though, the president curtailed the table-discussions. 

01:17:37	[no question] He later learned that the chancellor had been pressured to do this by a high California official, and the president regretted having gone along with the decision. Siegel said that at the time the city of Berkeley was not sympathetic to liberal students, and talked about debates over whose land the sidewalk was on.

01:23:31	Question: Did this disrupt your studies? Answer: No, it didn’t affect him much. He thought undergraduate classes were disrupted, but not graduate studies. Question: Who was your advisor? Answer: Ron Ross, who was at Lawrence Radiation Laboratory. He explained that he was part of Luis Alvarez’ group at LRL, that there were an accelerator and a bubble chamber between which was a beam line, and that he worked on the K63 project. At first, then, he was a graduate student of Joe Murray, but this didn’t help Siegel much, so he “attached” himself to Ron Ross. Follow up: Was that a good relationship? Answer: Yes.

01:31:52	Question: Talk about after you receive your PhD (1967). Answer: He talked about deciding that he didn’t want to do high-energy physics anymore, because he hadn’t really enjoyed it, partially because of disagreements with Joe Murray. He explained how Murray had developed a method of optimizing the performance of their relatively outdated accelerator, but Siegel thought the method was wrong. 

01:36:38	[no question] Siegel remarked how this incident regarding the magnets in the accelerator was illuminating about the authority structure within science, because Siegel turned out being right in this situation. But the whole process made for a miserable situation, being at odds with Murray, and caused him to seek other avenues of knowledge. He explained getting his dissertation approved and the oral exam halfway through the PhD process.

01:41:30	Question: So it was stressful? Answer: Yes, though he got married during this time, which helped him through. After he’d received his PhD, “it was Ruth’s turn”—she got her BS and MS in molecular biology, and began working on her PhD with a Berkeley immunologist who then went to Hebrew Univ. in Jerusalem. After discovering her salary wouldn’t be as promised, they decided to leave Israel after six months and after he had tried to link up with physicists at Tel Aviv Univ.

01:46:55	[no comment] He noted that he had already been thinking about history and philosophy of science, which was not uncommon. He said he’d been prepared for leaving the research world by turning down an offer from Illinois to join a high-energy physics research group. He remarked that had he accepted that offer, he would have gotten in on the “big new thing” in high-energy physics at the Fermi Lab near Chicago.

01:52:33	Question: So how did you get into History of Science? Answer: He had always known he wanted to teach, but he also remembered liking history and philosophy of science at U Chicago and knew he’d be doing that at a liberal arts college were he to teach there. He considered classes at Hebrew University, but didn’t really want to take courses; he talked with Bernie Goldstein from Yale, though, who put him in contact with a historian of physics from Yale University.

01:57:41	[no question] Siegel talked about writing to Martin Klein at Yale, who advised him to reenroll as a grad student because history of science was becoming a formal field. He recalled leaving for New Haven before they knew he’d been accepted, but being offered tuition remission when they arrived. Ruth worked to support them through Yale, and also worked toward her PhD there. Follow up: What was Klein like? Answer: Siegel remarked that while he hadn’t been impressed with many teachers he’d had, that Klein was a good teacher and researcher. He said after one seminar, he’d complemented Klein.

02:03:43	Question: What were you studying there? Answer: Siegel thought that there were year-long sequences in history of physical and biological sciences in addition to the seminar with Klein. He said he was learning a lot of the “nitty-gritty” details —how scientists had approached problems and worked out techniques. He talked about Asger Aaboe, an expert in Babylonian astronomy at Yale.

02:08:02	[no question] Siegel discussed meetings Aaboe used to attend at Brown University. In this group, they studied astrological tables that had been discovered to be complicated charts of planetary movement. The Babylonians had worked out precise mathematical systems for predicting these movements, a level of precision that the Greeks originally didn’t have.

02:12:18	Question: Did you write an MA thesis? Answer: No, but he was encouraged to get another MA, and he did need to produce work that would establish his bona fides and could be used as a job talk. He built this from a seminar paper. Follow up: Talk about the hiring process. Answer: He said he received job offers from UW, Hampshire College, and Barnard College. He discussed why UW was the most attractive offer—it was an old, distinguished research department.

02:18:58	Question: Talk about interviewing. Answer: He came out to interview at the height of the troubles in spring 1970; he gave his job-talk in South Hall, but then they closed down the University because of the student-police standoff. His job talk was a case of independent discovery by two different physicists using different methods. Follow up: How big was the department? Answer: About a dozen people in History of Science and History of Medicine. He talked about meeting with faculty, giving a colloquium, etc. 

02:24:44	Question: Did you have concerns about the turmoil? Answer: No, he had been at Berkeley during turmoil there and New Haven during the Seale trial, and saw it as normal. Follow up: Did the Midwest appeal to you? Answer: No, he wasn’t attached to the Midwest.

02:26:08	Question: What were the expectations when you came? Answer: In terms of teaching, he followed Heibert teaching 3 courses per semester; and the research expectations were high. Among his courses was a core course on physical science from Newton on. One of his tasks early on was to redefine the undergraduate major curriculum, which continued for about 30 years and helped prepare him for work on ILS. He remarked that there were few undergraduate majors, but there were large survey courses. He talked about enrollment in the survey courses, and arriving on campus soon after the Sterling Hall bombing.

02:32:47	End of First Interview Session

Second Interview Session (July 16, 2009): Digital File
Time		Keywords

00:00:00	Start of interview/Interviewer’s introduction

00:00:24	Question: Talk about beginning teaching at UW. Answer: Siegel remarked about three teachers who became standards for him—beginning with Martin Klein. He had written in a festschrift that Klein respected his students and respected the figure he described, which went against the contemporary grain of “debunking” scientists (he referred to Koestler’s The Sleepwalkers as an example). 

00:04:26	Follow up: Is this part of a bigger trend? Answer: Yes, a reaction against authority and science generally. But also many historians of science began as scientists, and had been disillusioned by the research front of science. Follow up: You don’t share this animus against science? Answer: No, he felt more animus against the PhD process than science itself, because it exploits graduate students. 

00:08:58	[no question] He also felt Klein had respected the texts involved in studying the history of science. Follow up: Don’t you have to respect texts as a historian? Answer: Not necessarily. He talked about how many historians read Maxwell’s texts, but not his mathematical work because it’s so intricate, which he considered shoddy work. He said his evaluation of his field was that in many ways it wasn’t doing culture very good; and that many ordinary people had more commonsense views of science than did historians. He related this observation to Said’s book Covering Islam, which critiqued academia’s failure to engage with the real world.

00:16:16	[no question] Siegel talked about awards Klein had received, which he said resulted from the respect he showed to others. He went on to talk about WH Zachariason, his elementary physics professor, whose lectures were eminently clear. Follow up: How do you clarify without simplifying? Answer: He thought that the most honest thing was to let students know what is being simplified.

00:20:11	[no question] Siegel said the other reason he won a teaching award here at UW was that he refused to dumb his courses down in order to “bring everybody along.” This brought his total numbers down in teaching evaluations, but written comments impressed the teaching award committee.

00:23:24	[no question] The third teacher he referred to was U Chicago professor Irving Kaplansky, who was very “pedagogically-oriented.” He talked about Kaplansky’s habit of presenting a “stripped down” model of a theorem the day before he presented the whole proof. He had tried to use the cliff-hanger approach in his own classes. Follow up: Could people without mathematical training take your course? Answer: Yes, he talked about the course he taught for ILS.

00:27:51	Question: Were you constantly referring to these mentors? Answer: Not at every moment, but he did think about M. Klein’s philosophy often. He shifted to talk about how his choice to come to UW was one of career orientation—he wanted to teach history of science rather than science using history. While he thought he’d be able to do the latter at UW, the divisional committee ruled that he wasn’t qualified to teach physics (though Columbia Univ. thought he was). He attributed this to “crony-ism.”

00:33:08	Question: Was the physics department dysfunctional? Answer: He didn’t know if that was true, but he did know it ranked lower than many UW departments and focused on experimental, rather than theoretical physics. Follow up: So you came without affiliation with physic? Answer: Yes; he thought this was naïve, since he could have gotten a joint appointment. But he maintained some contacts in physics and actually taught some physics classes when they needed people. He thought that divisional committees were good, but fostered cronyism.

00:37:33	[no question] Siegel used the example of an ILS course to show that while other universities encouraged broadly interdisciplinary courses, UW’s div. comm. structure discouraged such interdisciplinarity because it stepped on too many toes. He talked about how different departments reacted to the proposal, and how ironic it was that it was finally approved only when an ILS member was part of the divisional committee in charge of approval.

00:44:22	[no question] He noted the disparity between public statements about interdisci-plinarity and the reality of teaching at UW. He said there’s some interdisciplinary research, but recalled the difficulty a professor had in introducing an inter-disciplinary biology course.

00:46:18	Question: So what were you teaching those first years? Answer: History of Science courses established by Heibert. He said the eminence of Heibert had attracted many graduate students. He noted how much work was required to develop new courses because the literature in the young discipline was less extensive than in some other disciplines. He talked about the sequence of 201, 202, and then later 203 (Science in the 20th C, which pioneered the field).

00:50:29	Question: So these courses met science requirements? Answer: No, they were humanities courses for science-related majors. Answer: Did you get non-science majors? Answer: Maybe so, but a minority. In ILS, however, it included many non-science majors. Follow up: Were you the only one teaching 202? Answer: No, not the only one. He alternated with another professor, but he was the only one who taught 203 usually.

00:54:47	Question: What else were you teaching? Answer: He remembered inheriting a history of atomics physics course and Roots of Physics, during which he came to understand thermodynamics. He thought thermodynamics made a strong case for the usefulness of teaching history in conjunction with science. Question: Were your colleagues helpful? Answer: Yes, it was a supportive dept.

00:58:31	Question: Where was it housed? Answer: On the fourth floor of South Hall, though the Dean’s office kicked them out unceremoniously during the 80s, which he found high-handed. He explained that when he became chair, the Dean’s office took over his 4th floor office and he had to take his books home. He explained where the department moved after the Dean’s office “took over the building.”

01:02:57	[no question] Siegel discussed how the Dean’s office took over classroom space in South Hall “using subterfuges”—because UW policy didn’t look favorably on the subdivision of larger spaces, which the Dean’s office was doing.

01:05:24	Question: Talk about the salary issues when you came. Answer: He noted that UW’s assistant professor salary offer was competitive, but this was deceptive, because associate and full professor salaries fall behind other universities. He debunked the myth that the state is to blame for this situation. He thought it was fraudulent that UW did this because it misrepresented a person’s career salary trajectory.

01:10:03	Question: What was your research on in your first years? Answer: He admitted that his research suffered early on because he didn’t spend much time on it. This he attributed to his concentration on developing effective course and teaching—he wanted to be better than teachers he’d had. He also noted that when he came, he only had a seminar paper to start his research. He submitted this paper for and won the Schumann prize; it was then published in Isis.

01:15:48	[no question] Siegel explained how this paper was both a cornerstone of his dossier and an impediment to further research—first, it ran into trouble getting published in Isis. He talked about problems the refereeing readers (who suggested Isis shouldn’t publish the paper) had with his conclusions about how the scientists came to conclusions—it didn’t show how cultural baggage determined outcomes.

01:20:53	[no question] Continuing his discussion of his Isis article, he noted that the referees criticized his mathematics. Here, he told the editor to consult other referees who understood the math better and who endorsed the paper. He said that he found out later that the first referees didn’t understand the math at all. Once he’d reworked the paper, it became a major article in Isis. 

01:25:32	[no question] He said that after two positive and two negative readers, the editor of Isis solicited a fifth reviewer, which he thought was the German historian Hans Kangro. Because of the German “hagiographic” tradition in history of science, Kangro disputed Siegel’s failure to attributed full credit for the discovery to Kirchhoff. At this point, the editor went on sabbatical, so he was able to convince the assistant editor that it was worth publishing.

01:31:24	Question: When was the paper published? Answer: 1976. He came up for tenure in 1977, so it was important to his dossier. He also had a paper concerning how relativity theory supplanted pre-relative theory, arguing that there was a phase of years during which the two theories coexisted. Question: Who put you up for tenure? Answer: Bog Siegfried; he was indeed worried about tenure, and talked about why.

01:34:30	Question: Talk about the tenure process. Answer: He said he was told that one of his tenure reviewers took exception to his Isis publications because it was evidence that he didn’t understand historical theory and method—that he was just a “retread scientist.” From the critiques and the seriousness of the debate, he knew the reviewer was Thomas Kuhn, the famous historian of science who coined the terminology of a “new paradigm” in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

01:40:52	[no question] Because his tenure was in doubt, Siegel was called upon to defend himself, which would be sent with Kuhn’s critique to the divisional committee. He explained the context of Kuhn’s criticisms—first, Siegel’s theory of simultaneous discovery went against some of Kuhn’s basic assumptions about discovery; the “real world out there.” 

01:44:51	[no question] Further, Kuhn argued against Siegel’s use of terminology—he asserted impossibility of equating words (each having their own lexical networks) like Kirchhoff’s “wavelengths” and Stewart’s “descriptions of radiant heat” through translation. He explained his own argument of why Stewart actually thought he was describing wavelengths within the context of Scottish physics.

01:50:24	[no question] Siegel described his defense of this first criticism—he xeroxed the pages from the Royal Society where Stewart refers to his findings as wavelengths and presented them to the divisional committee. Second, Kuhn criticized Siegel’s use of modern mathematical notation in his Maxwell paper for similar transla-tional reasons. In defense, he marshaled the work of his colleagues in the field, all of whom used similar modern notation.

01:53:45	[no question] He noted the specific circumstances which allowed him to respond to Kuhn—David Lindberg was a respected member of the Humanities Div. Committee, and participated in discussions though he recused himself for the vote. Follow up: How long did the process take? Answer: A matter of months.

01:56:43	[no question] Siegel also discussed the context to the story that Kuhn and his mentor Klein were competitors. He thought Kuhn was angered by the fact that Klein was elected to the National Academy of Sciences prior to him, and that he was having difficulty placing his students. Further, when Kuhn was writing his book on quantum theory in the mid-1970s which was to surpass Klein, Siegel was asked to comment on the section dealing with Kirchhoff, and he had had to respond that it was all wrong.

02:03:16	End of Second Interview Session

Third Interview Session (July 21, 2009): Digital File
Time		Keywords

00:00:01	Start of interview/Interviewer’s introduction

00:00:22	Question: Talk about your continued relationship with Thomas Kuhn. Answer: Siegel explained that it continued to center around Kuhn v. Klein. When Kuhn’s book came out (1978), Klein was one of 3 reviewers for Isis, and took exception to Kuhn’s lack of citation of his work. Siegel said his allegiance was the battle-ground. But also, part of the problem was the result of a bad joke he’d made at Kuhn’s expense during a series of prestigious lectures.

00:06:25	[no question] Siegel described his service in curriculum planning, his first effort of which was in the history of science major, which had diminished to the point that its justifiability was questioned. He restructured the major to be roughly half science classes and half history of science, so as to root the student in a science. He discussed numbers of majors and the uses to which a general science major could be put. So the department provided an essential service to UW.

00:11:20	Question: Did the small number of major call the attention of South Hall? Answer: Not necessarily, because their student hours/FTE ratio was healthy and the graduate program was very strong. Follow up: Were you trying to get more positions? Answer: Not as a part of trying to work over the major. 

00:14:11	[no question] He went on to discuss saving the ILS program (c. 1980), his second major foray into curriculum. At that time, L&S had issued a report suggesting that ILS be terminated—it was unwieldy in some majors, limited course choice (which diminished enrollment), and was something of an outdated program. He noted that he respected these opinions, and talked about hearing for the first time in the L&S faculty senate that the dean had decided to terminate it. 

00:18:20	[no question] He remarked that his previous connection with A. Ihde’s course gave him entrée to speak in ILS’ defense, that student’s in ILS were really and specially engaged in the educational process. His suggestion then was to demand reform, but not to get rid of the program without giving it a chance to change. He remembered Bob March also speaking in favor of ILS, comparing it to the heri-tage of the U Chicago and Columbia experiments. As a result, the senate voted to recommend that the dean give ILS a 3-year lease on life, which Cronon honored.

00:24:36	[no question] He talked about advising to Mike Hinden that they not wait until he became chair a year into the probation to move ahead with changes, but to assemble a planning committee immediately. After recruiting March and Lindberg, they met to talk about what to do with ILS. Unlike the meliorist approach some suggested, Siegel advocated a total reorientation of the program.

00:28:22	[no question] He talked about suggesting things until he came up with a plan people thought could work. This “plan b” looked much like U Chicago’s program—it would be a four year program running concurrently with students’ majors in which students took “sequences” in humanities, social science, and science. He proposed that the first two semesters be historical—past theory—and the 3rd and 4th semesters concentrate on contemporary thought.

00:33:47	[no question] Siegel noted that the history of ILS didn’t credit him with revolu-tionizing the program because it was seen as insulting to the “old-timers.” While they defended the merit of their individual courses, he argued that the program needed to cohere and be seen as coherent; so it was necessary that the change be a group effort. Follow up: Who had to approve it? Answer: He went through the roster of the planning committee, and discussed the dean’s review committee.

00:37:57	[no question] He talked about Mike Hinden, whom he described as ILS’ ambassador to the outside world. While Hinden presented it to the outside, Siegel wrote curriculum, standards, and propaganda. Follow up: So you started teaching in ILS? Answer: Yes, ILS 202, which paralleled the history of science course 202. He talked about the success of ILS, growing his course from 30 to 400 students, and the attendant difficulties—he needed to change his teaching style, the room acoustics was important

00:45:09	Question: Do you have to be more didactic in a class that size? Answer: He said there are different ways of doing it, but “when it was really working” he reduced class size to 325 and would go out into class and engage questions. He talked about the self-selection that those who wanted to ask questions usually sat at the front. He also remarked on current theory of how to break up 50 minutes of lecture in a large lecture setting.

00:49:18	Question: Were questions generally good ones? Answer: They tend to be good questions which pinpointed things that needed clarification. Follow up: Were you respected for your teaching? Answer: In ILS and the history of science depart-ment, teaching got noticed—he got tenure on that basis, it was part of history of science’s raison d’etre, and another professor was denied tenure on that basis. But he saw his dept as atypical, noting a committee peopled by professors who had been discriminated against because they focused on teaching.

00:55:57	Question: So by the mid-1980s ILS was on solid footing? Answer: Yes, by then there were 1000 to 1500 enrollments per semester; up to 1/3 of undergraduates take an ILS course. Follow up: Did you ever serve as chair? Answer: Yes, 1991-93. He said he was not a wonderful chair—he discovered that his strength was planning, not being an executive. Follow up: Do you see yourself as a visionary? Answer: He thought he was good at real-world planning.

01:00:26	Question: Did you maintain a relationship with ILS until your retirement? Answer: Yes. Follow up: Have you continued to be impressed with the quality of student? Answer: Yes, ILS is somewhat self-selective on the basis of its intellect-tual reputation and they also got 50 or so ILS certificate students per year. Follow up: Is ILS one of the premier L&S programs? Answer: He thought it was true, but to what extent he didn’t know.

01:04:47	Question: Does ILS attract students who are a bit overwhelmed by UW’s complexity? Answer: Yes, he talked about ILS being sold as a coherent program that met all the breadth requirements at UW. Follow up: Were ILS faculty available to students? Answer: If one was interested in getting to know faculty, it was possible. He thought having the Meiklejohn House as the center of the program had helped; while it was slated for destruction, with the tough economic times it was being refurbished. He had an office there when he was chair, and a few others had offices in Meiklejohn, but not many.

01:10:52	Question: Continue talking about the challenges of teaching 300+ students. Answer: He felt he needed “some kind of gimmick” to make it work—he moved to the physics lecture hall, limited course size, and did some demonstrations of historical experiments. He quipped about the dangers of doing demonstration experiments. Follow up: You weren’t distressed if the experiment failed? Answer: Not disastrously so. You could turn it into a teaching moment about why the experiment failed. He talked about an experiment using a bowling ball pendulum.

01:16:48	Question: How much were you teaching through the 1980s? Answer: In the humanities, the load was 3 courses per semester, which was very heavy. He explained why humanities course loads were heavier, and the lack of merit in this argument.

01:18:56	Question: What was the relationship between history of science and history? Answer: He thought it was cordial, though there may have been some under-currents. He related that during a 10-yr. L&S review of the dept, the chair asked why it shouldn’t be part of the history dept. He also related many a shift in which many historians of science are now housed in history departments, and what gets lost in this process. He noted why philosophers of science are a better audience for his work than historians, but didn’t think the matter had gone much further.

01:25:18	Question: Talk about your first chairmanship in history of science. Answer: Because the department is small, all faculty get a turn at chair—it is not a particular honor. Follow up: Were you worried? Answer: He thought a normal amount. He didn’t remember the early days, and didn’t have a very close relation-ship with Cronon, because he had the habit of opposing some of his initiatives. 

01:29:16	Follow up: In what way were you opposed to Cronon’s way of doing things? Answer: He discussed how he sometimes opposed Cronon’s initiatives at dept chairs’ meetings, which at times was against his personal and his dept’s best interests, since support could be politically useful for a small department. He described the quid pro quo (rather than student-need) nature of the relationship between deans and departments, using the TA budget as evidence.

01:37:12	[no question] He speculated that this quid pro quo approach to the TA budget was a major reason why it was taking 5 years for many students to get a BA before Donna Shalala came—educational policy was being distorted.

01:40:34	Follow up: So you didn’t go back and try to negotiate? Answer: Well, another question is “what can I offer” to the dean? He said one thing history of science could do was be on board with L&S initiatives—be good partners. He thought Donna Shalala was brought in to help solve some of these issues—to improve freshman access. Follow up: Has that change stayed? Answer: He thought so, and related an associate dean asking if something would “serve the students well.”

01:44:53	[no question] On the other hand, Siegel remembered three initiatives of Cronon’s that he couldn’t support in good conscience: first, the “humiliate-your-colleague initiative,” which based salary increase on merit and demanded that some members of the faculty get 0% increase to prove the merit principle. Follow up: Did you speak against it? Answer: He thought speaking against it was hopeless.

01:50:11	[no question] He did however speak against a second issue—the “manipulate-your-colleagues initiative,” which demanded that chairs have a vision for the department and impose that vision forcefully. Siegel opposed this based on his notion of what a chair should do—he thought the democratic process identified problems and solutions well while chairs should choose priorities. He thought Cronon didn’t like this because it wouldn’t fall in line with the dean’s agenda.

01:55:51	[no question] Third, he opposed the “misestimate-your-colleagues initiative,” which hinged merit increases on a one-to-one correspondence with a professor’s accomplishments during that year. This seemed to Siegel to unnecessarily compound the issue of misestimation—that looking at a professor’s accomplish-ment over the long term was more valuable. While this opposition cost him, he felt comfortable with contributing to governance by his best lights.

02:03:31	Question: Talk about being chair again. Answer: He became chair again because it was a small dept. He thought his first chairmanship was successful and trans-parent. Follow up: How big was the dept? Answer: When you include historians of medicine and librarians, around a dozen, one of the world’s largest history of science depts. In 1990, he became chair again, but was only chair for one year, in part because of problems in the dept, but also because of the call from ILS.

02:08:07	[no question] Siegel discussed what happened to lead him to almost resign. First, he talked about a difficult case in which a young woman colleague wanted to be put up for tenure. He explained how the appointment and tenure “clocks” work, and how the colleague felt the department had conspired to not allow her time to prepare a tenure case because of fear within the dept that she was “taking over.” Follow up: Was gender an actual issue? Answer: He didn’t think it was ever referred to explicitly.

02:13:20	[no question] This particular individual then requested that she be put up for tenure in his first year of chairmanship. She also suggested a tenure committee, something the dept hadn’t had before. Part of the context of the case was an impassioned speech made by a history colleague to be fair to tenure candidates for legal reasons. His colleagues didn’t agree, and the legal department felt the same.

02:18:25	[no question] Members of the dept argued against Siegel that by demanding a tenure committee, he was being undemocratic and being manipulated by a woman. He responded that he was “on the hot seat,” and that he could see a US judge ruling against the dept if the case went south. He dug his heels in, and tried to form a tenure committee; but when the candidate disputed the composition of the committee, negotiations broke down and they dispensed with the committee. In the end, the candidate got an outside offer and left UW.

02:23:45	[no question] As a footnote to this case, he remarked on an article in Chronicle of Higher Education that following a dept’s traditional procedures won’t necessarily keep a dept out of legal trouble—so his fears weren’t irrational. He explained why this situation existed in US legal and university culture; and discussed the disconnect between the legal teams interests and the dept’s interest.

02:28:46	[no question] Siegel talked about another element of getting in hot water with the department, concerning the relationship with History of Medicine. He talked about the unfairness that hist. of medicine faculty demanded history of science funding be allocated jointly between graduate students from the two depts, but that hist. of medicine only go to their graduate students. He initiated a campaign to change this circumstance, which didn’t make friends, but after his chairman-ship, the situation changed in order to be fair to both departments.

02:33:19	[no question] He remarked that one argument against this action was that fairness wasn’t part of academia. History of Medicine colleagues were irritated at his campaign, but also historians of science because it was causing trouble. Question: Did you decide on merit increases personally? Answer: Yes, he had argued against that in favor of democratic process, but he ceded to the majority opinion.

02:38:34	End of Third Interview Session

Fourth Interview Session (July 22, 2009): Digital File
Time		Keywords

00:00:01	Start of interview/Interviewer’s introduction

00:00:21	Question: Continue talking about problems in your second chairmanship. Answer: The last issue he discussed was a “true ethical dilemma” concerning applying to the university to have a summer course. The problem was that while UW required a previous commitment to teach the course, the dept wanted to conduct an open search once funding was obtained—which Siegel considered unfair. He explained why he didn’t want take the issue to Judy Craig, whose harsh response to another issue had not left the two on good terms.

00:07:14	[no question] Siegel related that when he informed the dept of his choice to extend an offer of good faith to the candidate, they were not happy. They awkwar-dly intimated a vote of no confidence, after which he happily accepted the ILS chairmanship. Follow up: How did the situation come out? Answer: They did get the summer course and the candidate did win the job fairly. Follow up: Had the ILS offer not come, could you have decided not to run the next year? Answer: Normally the chair’s term is 3 yrs, but since the dean formally appoints, he would have been removed on a vote of no confidence, but this didn’t happen. 

00:12:04	Question: Talk about your post-tenure research. Answer: At the time of his tenure, he was thinking about several projects. First, developing the Stewart aspect of his Isis article; he had written an article on him for the Dictionary of Scientific Biography and become an expert on Stewart. He discussed Stewart’s controver-sial work on the relationship between sunspots and the earth’s geomagnetic field.

00:15:43	[no question] Other options for research were work on James Clerk Maxwell, work on the relativistic revolution, and history of early high-energy physics. He decided to put his energy into Maxwell because he’d enjoyed learning about electromagnetic theory and thought he had a better grasp of it than many of his colleagues. He discussed a project he’d proposed to the NSF statistically analyzing early publications in high-energy physics, but while his citation analysis was fashionable, he was more interested in the Maxwell project.

00:21:43	[no question] Siegel talked about Maxwell’s achievements (c. 1855-80), in statistical mechanics and electricity/magnetism. He described the development of the Maxwell equations based on others’ experimental work, and Maxwell’s addition of the term ‘displacement current’, which was purely theoretical, but had “astonishing consequences.” From this innovation, Maxwell posited that light was simply electromagnetic radiation, which led to scientists being able to generate radio waves. Furhter, Einstein’s discoveries were based on Maxwell’s work.

00:26:40	Question: Why do people not know about Maxwell? Answer: Among historians of science and physicists, Maxwell is revered, but he is a “scientist’s scientist,” but not commonly known by the man on the street. He didn’t posit why this was. He noted that one of the themes of history of science was that scientific ideas always have antecedents, sometimes surprising ones.

00:31:17	Question: Did you publish fairly soon on Maxwell? Answer: Yes, even before the Kirchhoff paper. He continued to describe how Maxwell came to add displace-ment current—he published a long article on the subject which described magnetic fields in very concrete terms. He also talked about questions regarding whether Maxwell actually believed some of the things he used to describe magnetism, and how displacement current comes out of this paper—a coherently logical process or just “sleepwalking.” 

00:36:12	Question: Is there a community of Maxwell scholars? Answer: Yes, an international group of 15 or 20 people supplemented by scholars of Faraday and Kelvin as well. He argued that Maxwell’s approach was coherent if you understood the science, but his was the minority approach and hindered his ability to get published. He discussed having to negotiated with NSF to get funding. Follow up: When did you find time to research? Answer: Mostly in the summer.

00:41:20	[no question] Siegel remarked that the NSF funding officer had told him that the philosophers of science were the ones who supported his grant proposals. He noted that the consumers of his work were the ones who liked his method, not his peers. He explained the workings of the NSF, in terms of its scientific goal-setting as opposed to the approach of the history of science field.

00:46:21	Question: Is there merit in the history of science approach? Answer: Yes, there’s more going on than just great men making discoveries. The scientific community is important in contributing a foundation, but on the other hand Maxwell did think in some ways that others hadn’t. He thought the fad pendulum had swung too far toward community, and quipped about debates over whether signs (+/-) in Maxwell’s work were important and competition between Klein/Kuhn students.

00:51:00	[no question] Siegel described publishing a paper in which he argued for precision in analyzing mathematical physicists. An editor at the journal suggested that he preface the article by stating that his conclusions were merely hypothetical; Siegel found it ironic that the same thing had been suggested to Copernicus in the 16th C. 

00:55:51	[no question] Returning to his “Completeness as a Goal” article, it later became part of his book Innovation in Maxwell’s Electromagnetic Theory (1991), which some people consider definitive. Follow up: You’re intellectually tenacious, aren’t you? Answer: Yes, when the most important historian of science opposes your tenure, it’s a wonder he wasn’t devastated—he attributed that to his “oppositional tendencies.”

01:01:06	Question: With this book, do you feel like a historian or a physicist? Answer:  A historian; in order to do this work, one had to love the physics as a physicist, but also add the concern of the historian with context. Follow up: Was the physics dept at UW interested? Answer: Yes, again he talked about his audience of scientists and philosophers, and related this to the issue of his article in Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences. Audience was also important in the issue of accessibility. Question: So Innovation is written for a more general audience? Answer: One has to have a good physics background or be a fearless philosopher.

01:06:11	Question: Talk about your graduate students. Answer: Siegel had six graduate students get a PhD with him. Follow up: Any interested in your work? Answer: No, which is odd in the field, but he thought it better that they not be copies of him. He described the work and careers of his graduate students: A. Norberg, J. Greenburg, who had multiple schlerosis and continued his research in France throughout his debility.

01:13:44	[no question] Continuing talking about his graduate students, Siegel talked about the work and careers of Richard Hirsch (whose research moved more into technology and consumption), Albert Moyer (in the history of American science), 

01:19:40	[no question] Patrick Gerard and Craig McConnell (in history of cosmology) were two more of his graduate students. He discussed McConnell’s involvement in Cal State Fullerton’s Liberal Studies program (similary to ILS), part of a mandate that teachers in CA have a BA in their area of specialty, not just teaching.

01:25:03	Question: Talk about panels and committees. Answer: Siegel remarked about his service on the NEH panel for “Guided Studies of Great Texts.” Because he’d used Einstein’s popularization of relativity theory in class, he’d made a proposal to NEH for a commentary edition of the text, which ran into difficulty. When he later served on the panel that reviewed these proposals, he realized that the panelists didn’t believe the NEH goal of producing texts for the layperson was useful, and that the program had been hijacked. This shed light on why his proposal had had problems, and again show the consumer/profession divide.

01:31:40	[no question] Siegel talked about “being oriented toward the audience”—toward students—and his dismay at his colleagues’ lack of sympathy for students. Follow up: Is this prevalent across the disciplines? Answer: Yes, he thought because many of them are primarily motivated by research, rather than by teaching.

01:35:03	Question: Do you think UW-Madison places too much emphasis on research? Answer: He said a world-class university needed to emphasize research, but that it also needed to emphasize teaching. He didn’t notice perceptible change since WWII in the balance and was skeptical of accounts that attributed it to external funding, etc. 

01:37:25	Question: Talk about the University of Toronto. Answer: He discussed being asked by Ontario to evaluate U. Toronto’s History and Philosophy of Science program (2000). He had generally given a good review, but brought up the difficulties of joining of history and philosophy of science—both because of the structure of academia and the methodologies involved. He had suggested that the potential positive of working together could outweigh the negatives, though.

01:43:09	Question: Talk about the Pais Prize. Answer: During his later career, he got involved with the American Physical Society’s (APS) Forum on the History of Physics, which awards the Pais Prize. The first winner was his mentor Klein, but he was later a member and chair of the prize committee. He talked about taking the process seriously—recruiting nominations, etc.—and his concern for fairness, that the pioneers of the field be recognized. He quipped about justice in academia.

01:47:48	Question: Have undergraduates become more aggressive in demanding better grades? Answer: Yes; he noted that it didn’t upset him because he would have been one of those students. He was always ready to review grades, especially when a TA had graded exams, but didn’t remember ever changing a grade. He also didn’t perceive that the incidence of these cases had necessarily increased.

01:51:22	Question: Talk about other service. Answer: He served on the Midwest Junto for the History of Science, which helped to develop collegiality and was good for early career and graduate students to present in a more informal setting. He also served on the Schuman prize committee, the Pfizer prize committee, and the American Institute of Physics archive grant committee.

01:57:01	End of Fourth Interview Session

Fifth Interview Session (July 23, 2009): Digital File
Time		Keywords

00:00:01	Start of interview/Interviewer’s introduction

00:00:22	Question: Talk about teaching science. Answer: Siegel said that although he’d embarked on a research career in history, he always wanted to teach physics using historical material, but never got that opportunity because of conditions at UW. He thought historical material offered a way of easing in difficult ideas (like what energy is). Follow up: Scientists reject this way of teaching? Answer: Yes, they envision history as little stories about scientists and not real science.

00:04:11	[no question] He said another advantage of history is that original discoverers were good expositors of their ideas—which were new to people—sometimes giving much better accounts than modern textbooks. He also used the example of how to teach why we believe atoms exist—there’s a historical approach that’s authentic and an experimental approach. Also, using history is a narrative pedagogical approach, which is often very effective.

00:08:59	Question: Wouldn’t scientists say that those who need a narrative approach will never be scientists? Answer: He responded that many students who learn science aren’t going to be scientists, and talked about how popular science books have discovered narrative as well. He also responded to the critique of teaching students “wrong science,” saying that teachers can’t protect students from working through possible solutions to difficult scientific problems; rather, good teachers engage and discuss wrong ideas. But many science teachers aren’t good.

00:14:15	Question: You’re arguing for meeting students where they are? Answer: Yes, and that’s why we’re not good at science education—we don’t engage wrong ideas. He thought it tragic that science education is poor because universities were the example of poor teaching. Follow up: Did you meet with hostility from scientists? Answer: Absolutely. He discussed proposing a Historical Introduction to the Physical Sciences course, for which he wasn’t even given a real hearing because science faculty were too interested in protecting their turf.

00:19:26	Question: Do you think they saw you, a physicist, as being disloyal to the field? Answer: Yes; he said when he talked to the committee, they said there were powerful interests against him because he wasn’t part of the physics dept. Follow up: But you can’t argue that science education in the US is not succeeding? Answer: He said they blame it on the students—they haven’t been taught well, are lazy, are disinterested. Question: Would they argue that Japan and Germany don’t teach using narrative? Answer: Siegel noted that he thought history and philosophy were actually used more in these places. 

00:23:45	Question: Could you appeal the divisional committee’s decision? Answer: Not that he knew of at the time. Follow up: Do you think a different committee would’ve responded differently? Answer: It might have been possible. Follow up: What was your reaction to being turned down? Answer: He was surprised and angry—he’d thought that having a PhD in physics would allow him to teach physics at the university level. 

00:28:36	Follow up: Was UW’s response typical for major public universities? Answer: Not necessarily. Using history to teach science is making headway across the world, and hostility is particularly strong at UW. Follow up: Why? Answer: People perceived well-defined turf to keep order in a large university like UW.

00:31:19	Follow up: But doesn’t UW celebrate innovation? Answer: Siegel responded by talking about being on a committee on science education which he described as very angry people. The committee issued a report that was very critical of UW undergraduate science education—Phil Certain however liked the section Siegel had written which suggested a 4-semester integrated science sequence for non-science majors—if it wasn’t excellent, it would simply meet a quick death.

00:36:44	[no question] With the support of Certain, Siegel was charged with presenting the course to L&S. After listening to the presentation, the science departments said they could not allow such a course to draw away enrollment from their depts. Follow up: No one challenged the logic of your presentation? Answer: No, they tacitly agreed that they were doing a lousy job, but good science teaching would draw away from their FTEs—quality education was secondary to dept turf.

00:41:55	Question: Phil Certain was not in a position to overrule the chairs? Answer: He said if he’d been sufficiently motivated to continue the project, Certain would likely have supported him. But it was clear how hard it would be, especially since he was no longer a “real” scientist. Follow up: How would the course have changed the dept situation? Answer: On the ILS model, professors would have been loaned to the course, enrollment would have been credited to the home depts, and TAs would come from the professor’s home dept, which could be of crucial importance to small departments with funding problems, but could work against depts with lower level of excellence in teaching.

00:49:26	Question: Did you ever do a post-mortem with Certain about this? Answer: No, not really. He made some attempts to revive the effort, but they fell through because he couldn’t find a “front.” Follow up: Were you nervous at that initial presentation? Answer: No, not really. Follow up: What happened to the report to the dean? Answer: He thought not much—reports to deans seldom have an impact. He talked about the heavyweights who were on the committee.

00:55:07	Question: This is very illuminating with regard to innovation at UW. Answer: Yes; and he further noted that federal funding was available for these kinds of projects, so they were not only turning down innovation and excellence, but external funding. Follow up: Was this happening during Ward’s advocacy of interdisciplinarity? Answer: He didn’t remember.

00:57:11	[no question] Siegel talked about opportunities he’d had to teach science using history—for one, ILS courses, though they were only for second-rank credit. Also, when the physics dept needed someone to teach their 107 course, they let him teach it. He described innovative elements of this course—a historically oriented, but problem-based course on a mastery basis.

01:04:00	Question: Were you criticized for the way you’d taught the course? Answer: He didn’t think anyone had really looked closely at it, but that he’d gotten very good student evaluations. He talked about the goal of mastering problem situations in his course, as opposed to no sense of mastery in many physics courses. He told the story of a student who refused to use a calculator because she wanted to master the material. Follow up: How often did you teach this? Answer: 2 years.

01:08:29	Question: Talk about your service on the faculty salary committee. Answer: He thought he was on that campus-wide committee during the late 1980s, charged with looking at faculty salaries and benefits, and which published a report yearly that went to the faculty senate. Before serving on the committee, he’d had a notion that something strange was going on with salaries; but the committee accumulated data that made it clear something strange was really happening.

01:12:30	[no question] Siegel said that the data showed that while UW budgeted salary increases were similar to peer institutions, UW salaries were falling behind. The standard explanation was to blame the state, but he discovered that some budgeted money was being diverted to other purposes, creating the discrepancy. He said the 1.5% was being used for underfunded or new positions and to compensate for the percentage of faculty in L&S which no longer were receiving research grants.

01:19:59	[no question] He remarked that some of the 1.5% per year had also gone to fund academic staff, especially in information technology; hiring full professors (rather than assistant professors), which made the salary structure top-heavy; and even supplies and expenses, a part of the budget which was really tight. He thought that these were all good uses, but meant that UW salaries slowly fall behind others.

01:24:40	[no question] Siegel questioned whether his analysis was correct. The admini-stration disagrees, but he said Irv Shain, Don Nichols, and Tom Kurtz agreed and acted upon the problem. Shain announced in a faculty senate meeting a flaw in the salary structure and proposed means of correcting it, but Siegel thought the deans and system administration opposed it. He thought Shain, who was an insider experienced at applying real world mathematics, was devastated by the defeat.

01:30:31	[no question] Continuing the salary discussion, he talked about Don Nichols, who chaired a committee on faculty compensation, etc. At one point, Nichols let Siegel read a memo he’d written that subtly accused the administration of not giving appropriate salary increases. Siegel speculated Nichols never acted on the issue because he wanted to be dean of L&S. He discussed how Nichols explained the conclusions he’d come to.

01:36:20	[no question] Continuing the salary discussion, he talked about Tom Kurtz, who again was experienced in applying math to the real world and chaired some powerful committees. Siegel suggested to Kurtz that the joint budget subcom-mittee take up the issue, which they did; and the committee’s report suggested that future administration needed to fix the way they dealt with salary increases. But when the report got to the university committee, it got quashed and never went to the faculty senate as a whole. He said he gave up on it at that point.

01:42:18	[no question] He felt that there was deception in the university’s position, by blaming the state for something the administration was doing. He explained why this could be sustained by outlining some of the mathematical nuance of how salary increases are made to look equivalent to budget increases. He thought money was being diverted from what should be promotional increases.

01:46:51	[no question] Further, he felt the commission on faculty compensation and benefits was not doing its job. He noted that discussions of salary, etc. in the regents’ meetings were far more intelligent than in the commission, which he attributed to a more ideological approach in the commission rather than real-world approach of the regents. 

01:50:09	[no question] He also blamed the administration for not wanting to supply the commission with information. He explained their reasons: the Office of Budget Planning and Analysis argued they were not staff for the commission and decided their own agenda; Shalala had said they needed to present a united front to the state; the commission was operating on Robert’s rules of order, which allowed a minority to issue requests for information. So the administration effectively hobbled the investigation of the commission.

01:56:46	[no question] He also discussed the issue of rewards or punishments for members of the committee, based on how cooperative they were with the administration—he gave examples of members who later became deans, provosts, and directors. On the other hand, “critics were denounced in more explicit ways”—he gave the example of Ward silencing him in a faculty senate meeting. While faculty members later said Ward was out of line, no one supported him in the meeting.

02:01:48	[no question] Siegel went on to discuss a series of op-ed pieces written in the State Journal; Siegel wrote one and John Torphy wrote a nasty reply claiming his ideas were crazy and untrue. After a letter to Ward (claiming Torphy’s remarks were untrue and asking for an apology) went unanswered, he was diverted to Phil Certain, and asked to not try to pursue the matter with Ward. He posited that David Ward was somewhat non-functional and paranoid in his last year of chancellorship.

02:07:40	End of Fifth Interview Session

End of Oral History #1035