 The following is a production of New Mexico State University. I will use the podium since I have a few notes. That's the only way I can get through everything that I want to cover in this short period of time. Well, congratulations to all of you that have joined New Mexico State University. You've joined a great university, a unique university in many respects, because we are a land-grant college, and a land-grant college is different than an ordinary university. And we'll talk a little bit about that both as it impacts locally on this particular university and from a national viewpoint. But first, since you are new, I'll tell you the story of what I call the now-famous tissue issue. And you can't be here very long without knowing about this particular issue. It's not necessarily a land-grant mission, but it is important. Some time ago, we had an editor of the Roundup by the name of Jess Williams. He called himself Kouchip Williams, and he wrote under that byline, Kouchip Williams. He wrote an article in the Roundup and he said he did not understand why a prestigious university like New Mexico State University could not afford the roll-type tissues in the bathrooms on campus. He said those little squares, and this is a dispenser. He said those little squares, they just do not do the job. And he wrote two big long columns about the problems with these little squares. Well, I read that with interest. You know, you have to read the Roundup to find out what's going on in the student side of the university. And I sympathized with Kouchip. When I moved into the President's office, the bathroom next to the President's office was equipped with these little squares. It took me six years to convince the physical plant department to provide roll-type tissues for the commode next to the President's office. And that was the only one on campus. But since I sympathized with Kouchip so much, I wrote a memo to Doug Black, who was director of the physical plant department, and I said, Doug, you know, I think Kouchip has a point. Would you look into this? Well, he wrote me a two-page memo. I mean, it was the saddest memo I have ever seen. He told me how many commodes we had on campus, and I was surprised we had that many. What it would cost to convert to the roll-type tissue, and the boys would take these rolls and they'd decorate the girls' cars and the girls' dormitories, and the waste that would be involved, he gave me an estimate of the cost of conversion. Well, by this time, we had named Dr. Halligan as the incoming President. So I bundled up Kouchip's article, Doug Black's sad memo from the physical plant department. I sent it to President Halligan, and I said, Dr. Halligan, here's one issue, the tissue issue, that I'm transferring to the next administration. If you need a consultant on this job, I'll be glad to serve in that capacity, but you'll have to provide a bathroom for me next to my office equipped with the roll-type tissue. Well, Dr. Halligan moved to New Mexico State University. They transferred me, they gave me an office over in international programs in Garcia Annex. Well, I checked out Garcia Annex, here are these little squares. But Kouchip Williams and the students had made so much fuss about the tissue that Corbett Center, the Student Union, had been converted to the roll-type tissue. So every day I'd walk from Garcia Annex over to Corbett Center so that I could at least have the luxury of the roll-type tissue. Well, I went on and on and on and on. Finally, John Owens, the Dean of Agriculture, called me over, and they presented this mounted tissue issue plaque. And he and Doug Black informed me that all of the commodes on campus had been converted to the roll-type tissue. It took 14 years under my administration, 8 years under Dr. Halligan before we got the job done. So you see there are some problems with bureaucracy and the decision-making process. Anyway, that story got all over the state and we had some really interesting comments about it. But back to the land grant mission. This university opened its doors as Los Cruces College in 1888. The college was started by Hiram Hadley. There is a building named after him, the administration building, and a few local citizens. When Hadley, our first president, died in 1922, Dr. Harry Kent, the then president of the university, summarized Hadley's vision of the university in these terms. He built for both men and women because he had a vision of the duty and usefulness of each. He built a college which could conduct research because he loved truth. He planned for the application of science benefiting humanity because he believed that all should have plenty and be happy. He knew that knowledge meant power. He realized that joy comes with culture and refinement. He worked and prayed that the school should stand for the highest morality, the strongest faith, and the greatest tolerance. That was the vision that Hiram Hadley had. It wasn't too long after Los Cruces College was started that they learned about the Morrill Act, the Land-Grant College Act, and the possibility that this college might be designated as the Land-Grant College for the territory of New Mexico. The first step was to get legislation from the territory of New Mexico. And the result was what they called the Rode Act, which created a university in Albuquerque and in St. Asylum in Las Vegas, a school of mines at Sacoral and an agricultural college at Los Cruces. This act, the Territorial Rode Act, opened the way toward the Land-Grant status under the Morrill Act of 1862. Now the Morrill Act of 1862 is undoubtedly the most significant national legislation enacted in the United States relating to higher education. The act directed that 30,000 acres of land for each senator be set aside with the income from this land designated to help finance a college in each state and territory. The mandate for education contained in the Morrill Act was clearly a break from the highly exclusive European academic tradition. And I quote, the leading object shall be, and of course you see that on all the doors, the leading object shall be without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics to teach such branches of learning as are related to agricultural and mechanic arts in such manner as the legislatures of the states may respectively prescribe in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrious classes in the several pursuits and professions of life. Now the intent of Congress in passing the Morrill Act was to provide educational opportunities to the children of the, quote, clerks, artisans, storekeepers, farmers, miners, mechanics, teachers and laborers as well as the children of clergymen, lawyers, physicians and wealthy merchants. Now this requirement for open admission to extend out to everyone, the charge is clear. The land grant college is to make education available to the masses and to encourage all those who desire an education and have the motivation to pursue an education to gain access. This does not and should not mean sacrificing standards in academic programs. A couple of more comments about the teaching mission, which was certainly unique in those days. The Morrill Act obviously laid the groundwork for diversity in the student body and in the faculty and staff as well. Our first graduating class in 1894 consisted of five students. One was a girl, Agnes Williams, and one was Hispanic, Fabian Garcia. Now Garcia was a native of Chihuahua, Mexico. He started the first research in Chile and eventually became director of the Agricultural Experiment Station. He was recognized nationally and internationally as the leader. Now I said that was the first graduating class. Actually the first arrangements were made for a first lone senior who was scheduled to graduate, Samuel Steele, when he was shot by a drunken cowboy in downtown Las Cruces. So all plans for the commencement at that time had to be canceled and you all know the tradition now that we have about Samuel Steele and recognizing him as the first potential graduate of New Mexico State University. And so you see or charge for diversity in the student body, but there's also a charge with that for diversity in the faculty and staff. And we went through a great deal of struggle to try to eliminate a lot of the deficiencies in our staff, to try to bring female salaries up equal with male salaries. There were lots and lots of areas where there was discrimination and lack of true diversity. And we had to satisfy the Dallas EEO office, Equal Employment Office. We worked with that particular office in Dallas. They blocked our contracts, grants and contracts a number of times because we couldn't supply enough information to satisfy them that we were not discriminating against their own employees. One of the interesting inquiries that came out of that from the Dallas office was an inquiry he wrote to the personnel office and he said, how many employees do you have broken down by sex? He said alcohol is much more of a problem with us. So that's the end of that EEO story. Anyway, we're proud of our diversity and we'll build on that base. Now looking more specifically to the research responsibility, the second significant piece of legislation, Building on the Moral Act of course was the passage of the Hatch Act in 1887, establishing the agricultural experiment stations and clearly defining the role of research for the land grant universities in cooperation with state and national governments. This too was a new approach to higher education as research had been carried out primarily along the European traditions, that is with separate institutes not tied to the teaching mission. The association of research with teaching has been an important element in building the economic base we have in the country today and has been essential to quality graduate programs as well. It is clear that the responsibility for research unique to the land grant college was clearly identified in federal and state legislation and that pattern now has been adopted by nearly all of the universities but none of the other universities have the legislation to back it up and none of them do as effective a job of outreach, tying research to teaching as the land grant college. So it's certainly a tradition worth maintaining. However sometimes research may lead to trouble and I'll give you an example here. One year we had cleared our budget through the Board of Regents, through all the administrative channels, Board of Regents, taken to the Board of Educational Finance which is now the Commission on Higher Education, cleared that channel and took it through the legislature and to the governor for final signature. The governor has a board, he calls it the Board of Finance and at that time Governor King was governor and on that board was a former governor from Portalis, New Mexico, Governor Burroughs. And Governor Burroughs said to Governor King, I wasn't present when this should have been routine approval of the budget. Governor Burroughs said I'm not going to approve the Mexico State University's budget and I want President Thomas to come up here and talk to me. So I went to Santa Fe in a hurry and Governor Burroughs pointed this figure in my chest. He said your people, he said your people have developed a peanut at the Clovis Experiment Station that cannot be processed by my equipment and I'm the biggest peanut processor in the state of New Mexico. You should not have released that peanut. Well, I call this peanuts in politics, you know. Anyway, I came back to the campus and I got Phil Landek was then the dean and Marvin Wilson was the director of the Experiment Station. I said what in the world are we going to do? Here are our buddies that held up for peanuts. And Marvin, Phil, they talked round and round and then finally Marvin Wilson said well he said that we've been working on that peanut, you see. New Mexico produces at that time over 90% of the Valencia peanuts in the United States and we had developed and released Valencia A which was a great peanut. Now this was to be Valencia B. And Dr. Shea who had been doing research on this said this new peanut is a good producer. It has some disease resistance which we didn't have in the other peanuts. He said it's ready to release. So he talked Dr. Wilson into releasing the peanuts so we went through the regular channels for releasing a new variety and here this was to be Valencia B. Well, but I said what are we going to do about this because it's been blocked. But it's been blocked. And Marvin Wilson said well he said you know that peanut didn't have a little odd shape. He was a good producer. It had a lot of disease resistance but it had a lot of shape. He said why don't we just pull that peanut out of the release list. So I called Governor Burroughs and I said we pulled that peanut. Don't worry. It's no longer being released. So we got our budget released. Well the interesting thing about this is that we had to transfer Dr. Shea from Clovis to Los Lunas. We had all kinds of discussions in the Board of Regents and all over the state about this peanut. We never did release Valencia B but we released Valencia C sometime. They were a great peanut. And we still produce peanuts. It's unlikely that either peanuts or politics will disappear from the state of New Mexico in the near future. So that's a little story about research. Now we go to extension and most of you are in extension or related to extension. This third mission, again implemented by land grant colleges came with the passage of the Smith Lever Act in 1914. And the papers in Las Cruces at that time said this is a great day in New Mexico because we now have another charge to the university and a way to implement it. The Act established the Cooperative Extension Service providing a mandate for extension and continuing education for the land grant colleges. Now this mandate forged a special relationship between land grant colleges and the people and the industries and the governments of their regions. It established an organized approach to the task of technology transfer moving research information more rapidly and more directly into application by business, industry and agriculture. The commitment to public service first mandated in agriculture and home economics is now an accepted responsibility for all departments in the university. And even some non-land grant universities make attempts at this but they still do not do the job as well as the land grant universities. Now I should add that there were some attempts quite a few attempts toward extension, the philosophy of extension and technology transfer before the Smith Lever Act of 1914. Simon A. Knapp worked at Iowa Ag College as really defined as the founder of agricultural extension because he tried a lot of different approaches to take research information to the farmer sector of our economy. And therefore he's recognized as a father of extension. The National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges now has a Simon A. Knapp lecture in honor of his efforts as a father of extension and I had the privilege of presenting that lecture to the Land Grant Colleges Association in 1991. I should tell you one story here about extension and communications. We've got all kinds of communications specialists here. Right after World War II we had the Marshall Plan. We had all kinds of techniques in place to try to help rebuild both enemies and friends and allies alike. And I was on a PL-480 project working with the American University at Thessalonica, Greece. It was the first foreign assignment that I had after World War II. I was, I don't understand Greek and I don't understand some of the Greek organizations on campus even. And I don't speak Greek. So I was working through an interpreter and I was speaking to this group of agricultural agents or equivalent of county agricultural agents in Greece. They were all, a lot of the other countries were trying to model after the American system, the Land Grant Colleges system. And I started out the lecture like I usually do with a joke and I selected the wrong joke. I selected one that took quite a long time to hit the punchline and instead of having sentence-by-sentence translation why I went through the whole thing, you know, and I hit the punchline and there wasn't anybody who responded at all. And I turned to my interpreter. He said just a few words and everybody laughed. And so after the lecture was over I cornered him and they said, oh, you know, we've been traveling in the country here in Greece for a long time visiting these farmers. And sometimes I'd talk a long time and you'd say just a few words and sometimes I'd say a few words and you'd talk a long time. I said, I don't care what language you think in or speak in you can't tell that joke in that few words. Well, he said doc, he said, we don't understand your sense of humor too well here in Greece. He said I just told him the professor told the joke and now everybody laughed. I know sometimes our attempts at communication fall flat. Now I should mention another significant piece of legislation that was passed in 1917, the Smith Hughes Act which creates vocational agriculture programs in the United States. Again, the Land Grant College, although not specifically restricted to the Land Grant College but the bulk of that program fell under the responsibility of the Land Grant College and that with the FFA programs and like the 4-H programs in extension has been a very effective program and one in which we have and continue to accept a large responsibility for implementation. Since you're in the College of Ag and Home Economics I should mention a little bit about the New Mexico Department of Agriculture. In the beginning of the Land Grant College the responsibilities for regulatory activities, a lot of market development, other kinds of things were in the College of Agriculture and Home Economics. Most states, well all states except two have moved regulatory activities and a lot of other activities to the Governor's Office. We remain one of the states where the Department of Agriculture is under the Board of Regents and you've probably already read some about the controversy that may be generated as a result of the new Governor's approach to replacing people on certain boards and commissions in certain capacities. The Department of Agriculture under the Board of Regents has burned very effective, much more professional than where the departments are in central government. In some states they elect the Secretary of Agriculture, some states the Governor appoints the Secretary of Agriculture. In our case it's under the Board of Regents. There's a lot of interaction between the Experiment Station Extension people and the State Department of Agriculture and we're a much more professional organization and I would hate to see that lost. Every Governor while I was in the presidency has tried to move the Department of Agriculture to Santa Fe. They've been unsuccessful because of the support of the Farm and Livestock Bureau, the Cattlemen and all the agricultural organizations. And even though there are sometimes some questions about what responsibility rests with the Experiment Station Extension Service and the Department of Agriculture, we've had an excellent relationship, it's been very effective and Frank Dubois, as many of you know, is going to retire this summer so that will be quite a political battle when that comes up. Now I'm going to wind this down by making a few comments about the book and make a presentation to Susan. She mentioned this book. My son said, you know, that'll never sell calling it the academic ecosystem. And it hasn't. This is a century-long history of New Mexico State University and if I had to just put a century-long history of New Mexico State University people might have looked at it the second time. But you see my background is ecology, range ecology. And the reason that I call it an academic ecosystem is that it is an ecosystem. There's interaction between the physical components, that's the land and the buildings and the laboratories and all of the physical components, the biological components which are the students and the faculty and the Board of Regents and the Governor and the people and the alumni and all of the other different groups, physical, biological and nutrients in the system and that's the monetary side, the financial side. These three interact to create an academic climate and out of that climate should emerge the major goals of the institution. That's the expansion and transfer of knowledge and preservation of knowledge. But there's pollution in the system just like all other ecosystems. There's contamination. There are even a few endangered species. Twelve of the twenty presidents have been fired by the Board of Regents for example but there are other endangered species in it. So it is an ecosystem. But maybe that wasn't the right way to tell the history of New Mexico State University. See, I started at the request of the deans to write about my experiences just before I retired for posterity. So I prepared this book, Everything I Know About the University Administration. It has thirteen chapters in it and I've got chapters on the students, the product and the problem, the role of the regents, research, extension, academic freedom, tenure, controversy in the role of press, affirmative action, equal employment opportunity, private giving, alumni relation, everything in here, thirteen chapters. It was put out by the Aggie Press on Friday the 13th, in 1983. And as you know, all the pages are blank. I've autographed this to Susan. See page twenty-seven. Now, the problem here is that this was put out in 1983. There have been a lot of changes since 1983. That's a long time ago. So I got me a stamp and it's a revised edition stamp and I've stamped this with a revised edition. That brings it up to date, Susan. So it's all in there in case you have estimations. Thank you so much. Thanks, thanks a lot. That winds it up.