 Go ahead and introduce yourself, your name, and how I won't give in at UC. My name is Richard Kretschmer, Jr., and I was hired in 1969, and I retired in 2010 and taught about four more years and then officially retired in 2014. What subject did you teach? I was in the Department of Special Education. My area was hearing impairment, but I taught a course in language development for the entire 41 years, 45 years that I was here. And it was a required course in special education and in speech and hearing. And I had students from reading, from linguistics, from English, the foreign languages in the course, too. What made you get into special education? Well, I'm a coda, a child of deaf parents. And my parents were deaf, and I was raised in a deaf household. When I decided to go to college, or when I was allowed to go to college, I decided that I would go into deaf education, and that's what I did. How was it, you know, being raised by two parents at hearing disabilities? Probably just like you, you were raised by two hearing parents. My first language was ASL. My family was the only deaf family in the community. And so I learned to talk, I learned to sign, and then I learned to talk. And I spent all my time in a small farming community in Illinois, and was in the, to the chagrin of everyone, I was in the academic track. And the reason I say that is that I came from a very socially stratified community. There were the very wealthy and the wealthy, and then there was the poor. And the two groups didn't mix very much. And I was one of the poor kids that was in the academic track. What do you hope students take away from your class when you taught at UC? Well, what I wanted was two things. I wanted them to have a very, well, three things. It was a year-long course. And in the first quarter, my expectation was that they would have a very strong understanding of how language and communication operated among adults. So it was very geared toward adult communication. The second quarter was language development. And my expectation is that they would come out with a very strong understanding of how children go about the process of learning language. And then the third quarter was on special needs children. And my expectation was that they would take the first two quarters and apply it to working with children with disabilities. Why did you want to teach at UC? Well, I was working at Gallaudet College in Washington, D.C., and I proposed to my wife, who was here in Cincinnati. So we had to make a decision would she come to Washington or would I come to Cincinnati. I made the decision that she needed to be here more than I needed to be there. So I came to Cincinnati and applied at UC. They didn't like, didn't want me, so they turned me down. So I wrote a grant, a five-year research grant, got it funded and worked at the Cincinnati Speech and Hearing Center. Then all of a sudden they became interested in me and then they hired me the next year. What do you think would happen if you took the job in D.C.? I probably would have stayed within the deaf communities and it was actually probably a very good thing that I came here to UC because UC provided me with the platform to broaden myself and to broaden my professional goals. What was the hiring process when you came? I know what you said was a little difficult. Well, when I came here there was a rule that, anepotism rule. My wife was in speech and hearing and they wanted to hire me but the university said no. My wife was already employed and you couldn't have a husband and wife in the same department. So I came over here to education over to education and I was interviewed by the faculty, every member of the faculty and I was interviewed by the department head and then I was interviewed by the dean and the dean is the one that nixed me because he was in deaf ed and he and I philosophically didn't have the same viewpoint about deafness so he decided that I wasn't a good fit but then he left the next year and they hired me. Now you mentioned you had problems with the dean when you got to be hired. Did you feel any problems with other faculty members? No, no, no. UC was the best thing that ever happened to me. Can you go further? Did they meet any of your needs? I was hired when we were making the transition between a city institution to a state institution and part of that transition is that they wanted to increase their research visibility so they hired me specifically to beef up the research capabilities of special ed and so that's so I was hired to do that and I became the director of the doctoral program in special ed and and I accomplished what they wanted me to accomplish. I managed to make it a well-known doctoral program in the nation and even internationally. Did you write any books? Yeah, I wrote two. One is considered a classic in deaf education and the other one I was co-authored by a woman Alice String who at the time was probably the most well-known person in language development for the deaf in the country and she asked me to help write a book with her so I wrote half of the book and she wrote the other half and the classic is written by me and my wife and I'm very proud of that book. It was quite a breakthrough and people still remember it. I guess it would be really special since you wrote it half a year with your wife. Did students change every time at Nega time at UC or how did it change? Well, first of all I got older. When I was first started I was about the same age as the students and as I got older the students seemed to get younger and younger and younger. However, I think I connected with all of the students pretty much. I think the major change is technology. That's when I saw the biggest change. Students were connected to their phones and connected to their computers even in class which didn't bother me. I mean that's okay. In terms of the quality of students I don't think I saw any difference. I think the quality has always been consistently high. Has technology changed by the way you taught hearing impaired students? Yes. The big thing right now and toward the end of my career and I became very interested in it was cochlear implants and that has made a big change in the field and it's also set up harden the divisions within the field because there's the pro cochlear implants and then there's the anti cochlear implant people. In other areas of special ed there's technology has really made major changes in terms of like voice recognition, voice generation, devices for the blind, the auditory encoding systems. So there's been a lot of changes but the basic principles of special education are essentially the same. I mean it's just the trappings have changed but not the substance that has changed. As you see that they leave the cochlear implant ready for or against it? The people that are against it are the diehard signers who feel that cochlear implant is going to destroy the deaf community because it's it allows deaf people to go into the hearing society and much more freely. The people that are for it are the people who are very anti signers and the irony of it is is that a lot of the cochlear implant kids when they become adults learn sign so that becomes both talkers and signers but so that's hardened the division that's been the main division in deaf ed and that's hardened the divisions. How has the faculty changed over time? I think when I first came here the faculty was very much into service and that's consistent with the fact that it was a city institution rather than a state institution. When we made the switch to state I think the the service component has become less and less important and research has become more important and I have mixed feelings about that. I believe in service and I believe that every faculty member has an obligation to connect to the community but I also believe very much into research so I think there needs to be a balance between the two but I see the weight going more toward research and less and less towards service. Who would you prefer? Would you prefer research or service? Oh I'm both and the reason I say that is I ran a preschool program for 12 years at a non-profit institution while I was simultaneously a faculty member and so what I was able to do is to take my research and apply it directly to children and I think that's the best of both worlds is when you can find the service but also where you have the opportunity to actually apply the science into into that service. What are you most proud of at your time at UC? I think the thing that I'm most proud of is that I two things one is I had 68 doctoral students that I completed dissertations with and I'm very proud of those 68 students and what they've done in the field. They've helped make major changes in in the field and I'm very proud of that. The second thing I'm proud of is that I taught a course for 44 years and students still remember the course. I actually saw a student who was in my very first class and she was talking about how she remembered the class very fondly and how and she actually remembered some of the content which is also appealing to me. So those are the two things I think I'm most proud of. Is there any students that graduated or got their doctorate? Are they still working that field now? Oh yes I have probably of the 68 that are there I would probably say about maybe 55 are still in the field and the others have either died or retired. Have they made any more significant improvements? Have they made any more like significant improvements? Yes one of my doctoral students became the head of special education in the province of Ontario. I had two or three students who had done some major funded research at Gallaudet and at RIT, Rochester Institute for the Deaf. A lot of my students have written books. I've got copies of the books that they've written. So yeah I think they've made major contributions and they're even today they're making contributions. Like how so? Well I just got a call from a lady who's head of the program, one of her programs down in Florida and she's done some major kinds of work in the public schools in Florida and she's doing research connected to that and what she was telling me was I was very impressed with and so they're still there. What changes does your witness at UC? What changes? Well I think the major change is going from the State Institute, I mean the city institution to the state institution. I think that was the right thing to do but it changed the mission of the of the university and it was both a easy transition and a difficult transition. The second thing I think that is is different is that we've gone pretty heavily into research and I know there's a lot of attempt to bring service and teaching focus back into the into the mix but having talked as I talk to the younger faculty they seem to be less interested in teaching and less interested in service and more interested in doing research and I think that's okay I mean if that's what people want to do that's okay it just happens it happens not to be what I am all about because I I believe that the three were equal. Who were some of the easy transitions from from city to state? Well I think the city never got over the fact that we made the transition even to today I'm not sure they reconciled the fact that we've made the transition. The second thing was the faculty because the faculty most when I came on most of them were hired when it was a city institution and they were very very geared toward service in the community and all of a sudden the rules began to change and I think that they found it difficult and as the rules changed the new faculty that were hired were slightly different than them and so there became sort of a division between the service people and the non-service people and I think the students changed too that you know you talked about changes I think that's when it began I saw the biggest change because the the the population became more widespread before it was almost 90 90 percent Cincinnati and then all of a sudden we started having students from international students and we started having students from all over the country coming and that changed the complexion of the student body. Did you like the bigger student size for state of population? Yes, I actually helped contribute to it. That was the period that I was out doing a lot of outreach nationally and as I was doing that outreach I would have students contact me that they had heard me and wanted to know more about the program and so I would say that during that period of time I don't think I had any students from Cincinnati. Did you like it? Yeah, yeah I like the diversity. It was fun having someone from California and someone from Brooklyn in the same class and because they had very different viewpoints on life and how they saw life and it was fun to see them congeal into a group and and that was very exciting to see because they would come as individuals and by the time they left they became this sort of cadre of people who who still were in contact with one another when they left and that was very very gratifying to see. Did you see like the people from California and Brooklyn like the city of Cincinnati and like the University in general? Yes, a lot of people felt that they were being exiled to Cincinnati particularly in the New Yorkers. They all thought that because they never been west of Manhattan but once they got here they found it they really liked it. They were a little surprised at how southern the city was because they expected more something like Chicago as opposed to Cincinnati but they all came to like it. Most of them had families. They brought families and they were very pleased with the cost of living. Most of them had lived in places that were twice you know they could get the same. They could get twice the living accommodations that they had where they were living and they were also very pleased with in general with the school systems so they came to like Cincinnati and they remember their their experience here quite fondly. And you mentioned the difficult times that you see over some of those. I remember a faculty member of a faculty meeting where the people who had been hired prior to the transition were accusing the ones that had been hired after the transition of not caring about the students and I really objected to that because I thought that I I personally felt that I cared about the students and really wanted the students to do well. And I remember one faculty member saying that there was too much emphasis on research and I felt that there was not enough of emphasis on research at that time. So it got pretty testy at times but eventually I mean we all work together. I mean I don't want to give the impression that it was chaos but sometimes it got a little tense. Was it just like the older generation and newer generation? Well I don't think it's old and new new is so much the service oriented people versus the research oriented people. Okay and what were some of the incidents that were handled in a way that disappointed you at UC? I think the hardest time for me was when the union was formed and the response of the administration to the union. And did you, how'd you feel about the union? I was very pro-union. Okay. And I went out on strike both times. And I was a little disappointed that the administration wasn't as sincere in their negotiations and that was a very tense time for the university. Fortunately we got past it but it was a very tense time. And what did you do? How did you partake in that strike? Well the first time I did, I have to admit I crossed the line only to teach my class because I felt a duty to the class but other than that we didn't come on campus. And on the second strike I actually joined the pickets and was picketing. I'm not comfortable with that but I decided that I decided I had to do that. And how long did the strike last? Not very long. It was maybe four or five days. And then the negotiations stepped up a step and it finally got resolved. And how did the administration feel about you teaching the class during strike? They didn't know. I don't think the administration has a very good notion of what goes on at their university at that time. I think they were more concerned about administration than they were about the faculty per se. And where you had the time where Warren Benes was the president, how did you feel about him? I know there was some faculty that had mixed feelings about him. I think he had a very difficult job. I'm not a touchy-feely kind of person and he was into touchy-feely big time. I have mixed feelings. There were parts of what he did that I liked and there were parts of what he did that I didn't like. So I can't give you a definitive answer as to how I felt about him because you'd have to give me the very specific situation and I could then react and say I didn't like that or I did like that. What were some of the things that you did like about him? I think he was a very personable guy and I think he was a good spokesman for the university. I don't think he was always honest but in his mind he thought he was honest but I don't think he was always honest. I think also the I know that many of the community leaders were very upset with him because he wanted to make the transition to state. I think that was the right decision. I mean I think I'm going to stop there. How does the campus change since you started? When we started it was like a little village. Now it's become a city. The building program that was started and completed I think has transformed the campus for the good because when I talk to incoming students particularly undergraduates often the campus is what decides them to come because of how it looks and how it feels. But in the process of becoming a city it has also has the problems of cities of congestion and things of that nature. I think overall I think it's been positive changes. As far as the another changes I think and I know this sounds contradictory but I'm pleased to see more emphasis on undergraduate work and trying to really upgrade the undergraduate experience. I always felt that the undergraduate experience that you see was lacking particularly when compared to my own experience at Northwestern I felt that it didn't it didn't measure up but I feel right now it's beginning to measure up. And who were some of the things that were laggreens? I think it was much too focused on the traditional curriculums and I always had the feeling that the undergraduate program at least in my department was sort of an afterthought and now it's become front and center along with the graduate programs and I think that's that's that's good. I don't think they're all equal I don't think because we're a state institution and we're dependent on grant monies and that stuff but I think it's it's uh I don't think the undergraduate program is necessarily the stepchild anymore. I think it's a full you know it was true sibling now it may be the younger sibling but it's a true sibling. And how was the Northwestern? Do you experience that Northwestern different from? Northwestern was uh very uh we did a lot of hands-on even back in 1950 let's see 1962 it was very hands-on uh I mean there was a lot of lecturing and that kind of stuff but uh and and I always felt I knew why I was taking the courses and all of my classmates felt the same way that they knew why they were taking courses I didn't always feel that you see that students knew why they were taking a lot of the courses they were taking and I hope that's changed a little bit now that students sort of see the purpose of the course and uh at least in special ed I know they they feel that way even the liberal arts courses that they're taking they can see why they're taking those particular courses uh whereas at Northwestern we always we always had a sense of why about UC's priority shift that since you started here. What? How have UC's priorities shifted since you started here? Well the main shift was that we went from a state institution I mean a city institution state uh the uh and and as a consequence research has assumed a high priority at the university. Rightly so because if we didn't do that then we couldn't begin to compete with other major universities. I think that the undergraduate programs have gone up and down as a result of that but I think we're on an upswing at least I hope I you know you're both undergraduates you should you could tell me if it's going getting better but I I think it's getting better. The and and the people who set the tone are the presidents and each president has a different tone and uh but there's there's a consistency from president to president and there has been a shift since Benus uh toward more of this academic uh research and also an emphasis on recently on undergraduate work. Okay and what were some or maybe some of the presidents that were you know there were more research based presidents at a time? Uh let me rephrase that okay um I think uh our current president is uh uh very research oriented and justifiably so because of his background so but he also has a very strong interest in undergraduate education uh our uh previous president and I'm blocking on his name that's old age. I think uh was all cut from the same piece of cloth that he was very research oriented but he was also very undergraduate oriented. Um I think the president before that Nancy uh I'm blocking again. Zemper. Zemper. I think she was uh more interested in and undergraduates than she was graduate. Um and I'm going to stop there so I mean I I think it's just sort of I mean the basic parameters are the same but it's sort of the emphasis changes within within the presidency. And where do you see you see going in the future? Up. Up. The plan where? I think they um I think our ratings across the universe across the university national ratings across the university is increasing and I see us getting more and more national visibility. Um I'm not a big sports guy but I have to admit that the sports program helps us uh because I know it's a Northwestern once they started winning all of a sudden uh visibility rank and file person uh suddenly appeared. And and the reality is that you have to be visible to the academic community but you also have to be visible to the community at large if you want to draw nationally. And and I think University of Cincinnati is doing that by virtue of the diversity of the population that's here. How do you feel about the changes you know changes for like the athletic department you know they're starting to build new stadiums? I'm okay with that. Um I know a lot of my colleagues may not be okay with that but I'm okay with that. Uh what I'm not okay with is that it becomes a major major drag on the financial drag on the on the institution. Uh I happen to go to all of the basketball games, I go to all the football games, soccer games, lacrosse volleyball and I enjoy it and I've met the student the student athletes and there's a misconception about student athletes that they're kind of dumb and draggy and actually they're quite quite sharp and quite with it. Uh now they do get privilege in the sense that they get tutoring that a lot of students don't get and so forth but they uh they they do okay and so I'm as as long as they're winning and they're doing what they're supposed to do I'm okay with that. How have you seen UC connect to Cincinnati and like that? Well I think we're getting back to get being reconnected. I think when we made the transition we sort of distanced ourselves a little too far but I think we had to because the city thought they owned us and we went through a period where you'd you'd hear politicians and you'd hear news peoples still talking about us as that we were owned by them so I think that needed to change I mean because we're not owned by the city of Cincinnati but I think what's now happening is that we're beginning to reconnect and we're beginning to come back to the community as witnessed by all of the campus not just on campus but around campus and the fact that schools were more connected with the community at large uh and I hope that continues because we're urban has a risk I just hope that the wound by situation become too dependent but on the other hand that that's where the money is and the federal government is becoming less and less generous so the reality is is that we do have to have some connection with the with the larger community like Macy's and B&G and so and I'm okay with that you know I can live with that there was a time in my life when I couldn't but I can I can now what are you most proud of at your time at UC? Winning the Dolly Cohen award and what is that? I won that way back when I first started my career about in the 70s and I was the reason I'm proud of that is that it's an award that usually is generated by the students the students do the nominations and get the departments to nominate people and so forth and in my particular case they when they showed me the portfolio that was developed it it brought tears to my eyes I was overwhelmed by the comments made by the students so here she had a real connection with the students yes I I loved I loved the students my largest class was 110 graduate class and while I the thing that I was proud of was that by the second week of class I knew the name of every student in class and the was that I wrote individual exams for every student and so what I would interview the students what their interests were and then when I tried to cater it uh to each individual student and I did that for every year that I taught uh so my computer is was low it's currently loaded with old exams that I've written for students uh and I tried very hard not to duplicate exams uh because uh students are different the smallest class I had was the first year I taught I went which was about 30 and then it went up to 100 and then it started tapered off to about 80 I'm very good at lecturing because I'm very good at tying it to practical practice practicalities and the students seem to respond to that so I class size didn't bother prefer small seminar classes but I was okay with and I'm inherently an actor uh so I I was very good at I was a very good lecturer and uh and and my assigned my midterms in my finals always uh had a practical application so they had to go back out into the community collect data bring it back and then answer the question so that I could maintain that connection to the community so I guess it depends on how you want to look at it uh it was more like acting what else would you like me or would you like to tell me about UC you know I'm very grateful to you see um I was hired at a time when they were making a transition and I was hired to do a certain task and that task is when I let me back up when I was in high school I was in a uh in a in the academic track but no one expected me to go to college and so when I went to college and I met all these professors I said to myself I want to be like them and UC allowed me to be like them uh it gave me the opportunity to become connected to the larger academic community both nationally and internationally and UC allowed me to build a reputation that I don't think I would have a cotton if I had stayed in dc uh so I'm very grateful to you uh to UC and I think it's it's a good place to work I don't I don't know if it is now because I don't work here anymore but it was a very good place to work and and I'm very grateful to UC and I guess the administrators everybody everybody helped you out yeah everybody uh again I I went through a lot of deans a lot department heads but in in general they were very supportive and very uh did the right thing uh and uh I was okay I I've been okay I mean it hasn't been a better roses but I'm okay with UC I'm okay with UC like could you say all the departments had one goal now is the service of students in special ed we were very student oriented so I can't really talk about the rest of the university student oriented and and I can honestly say for the department heads in special ed uh the student always came first and as a consequence the student experience both at the graduate level and undergrad for this first I think I've said everything I can say unless you want me to pad more I think we're good okay