 I'm Ron Bolstead and I'm here at Southern Oregon University, have returned to share a few stories, some background of my 23 years here at the university and the administration. I arrived on the campus in very late 1982, spent several days with my predecessor who was completing a 35 year career as the Dean of Administration and we spent probably a week or so with him bringing, trying to bring me up to date on his 35 years of experience. This is, this was Don Lewis who was a very respected administrator here at SOU. So big shoes to fill and jumped into those, what shoes I could write at January 1st 1983 and served until the end of winter 2005. And during that period of time I served with six presidents including two interim presidents and as many or more provosts or vice presidents, academic affairs. There were four of us in the Corps, administrative four deans at that time in the starting in the early 80s, Dean of Development, Dean of Student Affairs, Dean of Academic Affairs and myself, Dean of Administration. And my responsibilities were covered, the support services, basically non-academic support services, human resources, financial resources and physical resources, the buildings and the grounds and so forth, security, parking, the business office, physical plant and the financial oversight of a number of the auxiliary enterprises, including housing and the bookstore, food service, working on the financial side of those with Phil Campbell. I was most fortunate in that period of over two decades to have extremely capable managers of the various departments and their staff members really carried the day, a very dedicated group of classified staff and their supervisors. What we accomplished in that period of time could not have been done without their dedication and I often said that and very openly said that when one or more of our folks, our support staff were on extended vacation or a sick leave or something, they were missed because each and every one of them played an important role on the team that delivered the services to the faculty and the students. Probably the most challenging portion of that period of time would have been the financial situation at SOU. Then it was, of course, Southern Oregon State College but when I joined the administration here at Southern, the region and our country were coming out of a recession and it was a very difficult time. Morale was not very high. There had been wrenching decisions that pitted academic departments against one another, competing with one another to be able to retain their faculty and their resources in the face of budget cutting. As I say, the morale was not particularly high. We began to build out of that to try to, with the support of the chancellor's office in Eugene to make the case in Salem to support higher education in Oregon. We thought we were making progress on that as the 80s concluded and, lo and behold, on the ballot in 1990 was the property tax measure, measure five, which passed and, of course, is still influencing our property tax bills today. That resulted in the passage of that measure resulted in budget cutting in higher education, severe budget cutting and it really marked the changing, a big change in the proportion of the instructional budget that was supported by state funds vis-a-vis student incidental fees. Excuse me, correct that, tuition. The tuition levels we had in my predecessor and others, the presidents of SOU, had wanted to keep tuition as low as possible, recognizing that we have many students at Southern that are first-time students here from families of limited resources. When the measure passed, we saw a steady decline from then on in the proportion of the instructional budget supported by state resources, the general fund. Whereas in those early 80s, tuition covered about a third of the instructional budget. By the time I left in 2005, tuition was covering two-thirds of the instructional budget. It was just a reversal of the proportion of tuition to general fund in our budget. And, of course, that put pressure on student budgets and placed the student financial aid office in a particularly focus to help support as many students as possible with government loans and grants. And I must say the foundation, our Southern Oregon University Foundation stepped up and emphasized fundraising to fund scholarships. During that period of budget angst in the 80s, and while continuing on into the 90s, again the foundation was asked to step up not only with the scholarship money, but with building construction money. My understanding is that the last building in the state university system, the Oregon University System, to be completely funded, instructional building to be completely funded with state general funds was our theater building here on campus. From that point on, campuses were asked to raise part of the money, that the state would not finance the full cost of constructing an instructional space. So we were faced from then on with major capital campaigns through our Southern Oregon Foundation and they stepped up. And the community stepped up. It was wonderful to see that. And not only in those years did they step up the community with their donations and support of SOU for major buildings, but also completely funded the stadium, the new stadium, which was opened in 1983. The remodel of the Swedenberg House, which we now call the Plunkett Center because of a major gift toward that project by Gilman Plunkett. And that actually saved the building. It was scheduled to be raised and just prior to my arrival on campus in the early 80s there was discussion of that. And but it was saved and saved through complete private resources coming to support that building. So the Schneider Museum, another example of the community stepping up Bill and Florence Schneider, making major gifts, actually two separate gifts that made that the museum possible. So when we were worried about state resources, when and where would they come from in the future, the foundation was there raising money to support projects which would add to the strength of this campus and its academic programs. I think another story that relates to how the appearance of the campus, the buildings, and so forth, the physical resources that are available to our faculty and students would be the North Campus north of the railroad tracks between what Iowa Street, bordering on Iowa Street out to East Main Street. This was in the master plan slated to be housing, student housing. And properties were bought on the general market from private owners with the thought that the North Campus would be housing as the campus grew, the enrollment grew. It was there were only maybe one, there was one, maybe two houses at a point in time in the mid-80s. And President Sikaro at that time, Natalie Sikaro, was informed that the Armory, the National Guard Armory located on East Main Street, might have to leave Ashland, excuse me, I correct that. The Armory located downtown might have to leave Ashland because of its age. And with the thought that the presence of the Oregon National Guard would be removed from the Ashland scene after so many years, on behalf of the campus Dr. Sikaro offered to lease the land, lease land along East Main Street to the Oregon National Guard. And that was done, very amicable negotiations with the Guard. My recollection is a 50-year lease for a dollar. And so that brought the continuation of the Armory in Ashland, an Armory in Ashland. Well it also, it also prompted a look at the North Campus. All right, here's a public building, not the university itself, but a public building located on our North Campus might the whole area there be a public service area for the campus. And the next thing that occurred that really reinforced that is that a local citizen Ralph Wenger out of Eagle Point came to Dr. Sikaro and said, you know the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is looking to site a major laboratory in the country. And they're well along in the process and my recollection is by well along in the process they'd identified three sites and the process was about to be closed. And through Mr. Wenger's energy and initiative he brought Ken Goddard out to Ashland to look at the North Campus. And Ken came out here it was my pleasure to show him the North Campus. I recall we stood in the middle of a field and he looked at the 365 360 view and he said, oh my gosh, this would be outstanding for the laboratory. And through the work of Senator Hatfield and others the funding came through the site was designated for the Southern Oregon State College Campus. And we see the history here of the Fish and Wildlife Laboratory one of a kind located on our campus and with close ties with the faculty and the sciences to this day. And Ken Goddard remains the director from the 1980s to the current time. So I think that is one of the most gratifying decisions as I look back on it that was made. So after that one of our faculty emeritus that I'm now a faculty emeritus but previously a member of our biology faculty Dr. Ron Lamb and Mr. Wenger proposed a natural history museum be located on the North Campus. So through negotiations of that the building we see there today was the result and a natural history museum was created on this campus. The area there was designated the Marco Hatfield Environmental Science Complex thinking that there might be even further expansion of the sciences, the natural sciences. The museum prospered for a period of a number of years. The usage, the number of visitors unfortunately did not continue to grow and so financially it was not possible for that particular entity to continue. And after a bit of a gap in time the science works. Leadership came forward with the concept of leasing the building and creating a hands-on hands-on laboratory if you will for particularly young people, children to enjoy and learn about science and it's become more of a multi-use facility under their guidance. So a bit of history coming out of the 1980s on that North Campus that we still see in place today the results of that those initiatives. I might interject at this point too that while I was overseeing the support services of the campus one of my primary areas of interest and involvement was working with the Jefferson Public Radio as it continued to expand under the leadership of Ron Kramer. One of my responsibilities was handling contracts for the university and property purchases and so forth and so working with Ron there seemed to be a continuous flow of initiatives to expand the scope of Jefferson Public Radio and it was exciting to work with him frankly to keep up with him. Because it involved mountain top adventures, weather adventures, keeping our wonderful stations on the air and translators, continual challenge from his standpoint and the staff of JPR. But I was his if you will liaison in handling contracts and including I would say the development of the Cascade Theater in Reading which was an initiative that required patience, understanding of the community down there on the part of Mr. Kramer and the JPR staff and they were welcomed in. They had a station operating from Reading but when the news got out in Reading that the JPR wanted to restore the Cascade Theater and move its studio into an annex to the theater the community came forth with open arms to welcome that and I worked with Ron on that. I think the most interesting from my personal standpoint the most interesting part of that that whole Cascade Theater renovation and the eventual opening to the accolades of that community was the fact that the the major renovation the major restoration was financed with Oregon bonds and nobody could believe this was happening but I can remember sitting alongside President Steve Reno at the State Board of Higher Education meeting in Legrand that particular month when this came up on the the docket that board approval was was needed to make a request to the state to sell Oregon bonds to renovate a theater in Reading California. It passed unanimously passed unanimously. Dr. Reno did a beautiful job in laying out the reasons for doing this and the importance of Jefferson Public Radio to our region which is a region that Southern Oregon University supports and so JPR was off and running working with the local leadership there and in Reading to accomplish that and it took about 10 years for me to finally get down and visit that theater and I was overwhelmed that it just was is magnificent. Another story that that I'd like to share with you is that is that of of the transition from Southern Oregon State College to university status and the seeds of this had been had were being sown prior to much prior to when it actually happened and the actual date that that Governor Kitzhaber signed the document that made the three regional institutions universities Western Eastern and Southern April 1st 1997 and he signed it in his ceremonial signing office. I was privileged to be there with with Steve Reno and the local citizen who had a long time member of our foundation board Ben Tyron. Ben really kept the torch burning that this institution should be university status should have university status and so he was invited to to join us up in the governor's office. It's made a difference. The primary purpose as I recall was to appropriately recognize the mix of programs and degrees that Southern and other institutions were offering at that time and would be offering including of course the master's degrees in a number of areas and that in terms of clarifying to the public to international students of government agencies where we might be applying for grants to have the word university would be appropriate in defining the role of our institution the mission of our institution. So that was a major step at the time worth whatever expense to print new letterhead and new business cards because it really was a boost to this institution to to have that recognition and we were pleased of course for the other our sister to institutions as well to be recognized in that regard. We have always had a regional focus here at Southern going way back when it was the normal school teaching or preparing school teachers public school teachers for our region but a more compressed region without the the the breadth of transportation and media exposure we have now and over those years the 80s and 90s yes our recruitment expanded we were not afraid to recruit beyond our region in fact into California out to Portland beyond to the east and we felt that the diversity that we could develop in the student body would be very important to the strength of our academic programs and the student experience so that the while we still remain a major resource for our region before because of proximity to high schools and families in our broader southern Oregon region definitely we expanded beyond that we had our recruiters going out Hawaii to the west and states to the east Northern California a big recruitment effort into those areas as California's placement of students in their institutions became more encumbered that they were rejecting students because of the student admissions pressure on the state institutions California state institutions we became a very attractive campus for those just over the border coming in the students could obtain the bachelor's degree quicker because they could get the classes they needed and it wasn't that much more expensive to pay out of state tuition so definitely we now see a very solid base but I'm sure still expanding or potential for expansion in California northern California particularly yeah I particularly proud of walking through the campus and seeing buildings that that were a dream at one time when we would work on the campus master plan and think well gee we need to build a proper modern facility for the for our arts an arts complex when I arrived on campus in late 82 sat down with the president one of the first things he said is run we're talking about a center for the visual arts an art complex we've got our art department spread around in temporary spaces that are not adequate but the faculty are making the most of it including photography and sculpture in an old camp white building we need to move this ahead and it took that now that was he was saying that to me in early 1982 we finally opened it at around 2000 the year 2000 so it took almost 18 years to do it but the building of the Schneider Museum planted the flag if you will where the center for the visual arts would be located and our master plan from that point on was to have us locate the art department in that in and around the Schneider Museum so it took those many years it took fund raising the Southern Oregon University Foundation had to to to generate half the money half the money that commitment was made when Joe Cox was president he knew that he knew that if if we were to get that project to the top of the list in the state system for funding capital construction funding we would have to raise part of the money so in a phone call to the chancellor at that time he committed our campus to raise half the money and of course we were overwhelmed we're going to have to raise half the money well it happened and we had great leadership through the SOU foundation put together a team of folks to manage that fund raising capital campaign and they did it it was a great success the art department could finally move out of those antiquated inappropriate facilities and be the the solid program and sub-programs that they are today another example of the fundraising in their others would be the addition to and renovation of the Hannon library that required again a major capital campaign on the part of our SOU foundation and putting that before our donors that that this is the heart of the campus is our library and we we need to modernize it and expand it because of potential enrollment expansion and I am very pleased I think of all of the projects that one came together just seemed to come together so nicely not without its challenges but it came together so nicely with Bruce Motz was the director of planning during that he was formerly the physical plant director but we at that particular time became director of planning on the campus capital planning and Jim McNamara and others oversaw that project Sue Berkholder director of the library and and her capable staff patient very patient staff keeping a library open while hammers were being used and a lot of noise keeping the dust out of the collections and so forth it was a major effort but I think for them and in retrospect the campus as a whole it was gratifying to finally open the doors on an expanded facility and modern facility the faculty of course of this campus are the most dedicated group of people I think I've worked with in those years and I know that must continue today through thick and thin the anguish of budget cutting they stayed on I see them retiring and they have retired in the last 10 years after 25 30 years they stayed with the institution because they believed in it I believed in this in their role in in instructing our students taking that that relationship so seriously it was so difficult in those years following following measure fives passage and on into the 90s to go into collective bargaining with the faculty with so limited resources it there was a point where we couldn't offer more money for supplies services and supplies there wasn't enough to cover the cost of inflation of goods and services that departments would need to purchase we could only sell the value of a view of grizzly peak so much and then other institutions would outcompete us salary wise but I think that the the faculty saw that this if they if they wanted to commit to student involvement student success and a low low student faculty ratio this southern was the place to be and that's what tipped the balance in terms of recruitment but we always wished we could put more resources on the table during the bargaining session very very difficult times and as I say the the faculty were were made their case very strongly and effectively but there were limits it got to be such a mutual concern of of the administration and the faculty leadership that that there is a point when Sarah Hopkins Powell was was the provost when we tried a new approach and that was collaborative bargaining not collective bargaining per se but collaborative where we we went through some training as teams our two teams coming together and and training and together which the first time we tried that collaborative bargaining where we were trying to be as open as possible with one another there were some rough edges but it was starting to work you could see that there was something to it and then the the second time we were met in bargaining I think a stranger coming in the room and sitting in on our bargaining session could not have told who was on which team we were sharing information we were sharing whether a possibility for movement on an issue where we felt we couldn't have movement where we could make some trade-offs and it was so refreshing such a difference from old style collective bargaining that had I not retired that's for once I could look for I could have looked forward to the bargaining table rather than the the past difficulties that were doing tail trying to reach an agreement and try to reach an agreement before the old contract expired that was always the pressure contracts expire aspiring between the administration the campus actually it was a contract between the Oregon University system and our faculty and the collaborative bargaining really helped us to move that along much more smoothly and I'm not aware today of how the approach that's being used in collective bargaining but I hope that collaborative bargaining has continued students wonderful working with the students I my my best exposure to it was occurred after measure five passed about a year later our budget director Frank Sealy retired the president approached me had said Ron you know we've got budget issues as you know would you take over and oversee the budget office be the interim budget director for a while and so I said yes and had a great great office budget crew to work with very very capable and so I did oversee the budget office for that period of time we were started using doing a lot of project projections scenarios of the future but during that period of time I had occasion to sit in when the students discussed the incidental fee that supports student activities athletics at that time the child care center and old mill village and the yearbook student different activities in the student union what a pleasure to work with the students and see how serious they were about their program their individual programs they were supporting how they work together how the student senate worked together so much maturity there it was impressive it was impressive and I worked with the athletic directors as they would make their presentations to the student incidental fee committee and at that time particularly and I think it continues to this day the student fee money going to athletics is really their predominant source of financing so those those were very serious discussions to ensure the continuity of the various sports and that they'd have enough travel money and so forth so that was one of the high spots I think of my time at southern was was those few years that I had the opportunity to work work with very closely with the student leadership otherwise the the team of student affairs or the budget staff itself would would meet with the student incidental fee committee uh anything else that you can think of good relationships were the city of ashland I another high point for me is the fact that the student town gown excuse me that the campus count town and gown relationship generally was extremely positive during that period of time how did all that come about because we just heard from Claude Curran who talked about how the the town and the community looked at the university with the scans with suspicion and somewhat of a fear there were liberals and and so the the 80s with all this regional expansion required cooperation required contribution how did how did that change when I arrived in the early 80s I I I walked into a situation where I think that was prevalent not only was that prevalent but a number of merchants sued the university brought a suit against the university there were an excessive a dozen maybe 15 local merchants who felt the university was engaging in unfair competition in transportation and craft sales in housing in catering to name several examples represented among those merchants and the crux of the problem the bigger bigger issue funneled through that was that we were bringing elder hostel on campus into our residence halls and housing them the guests in the residence halls transporting them to the festival for the plays and so forth and this came to a head during that the recession of the 1980 80 182 when the merchants were were hard pressed to make ends meet fact there were when I was in the community being recruited and and walked around downtown and drove around the community they were boarded up stores these were hard times for the for this region and and I think more generally the state of Oregon and the merchants these select merchants came together brought suit against the the Oregon University system and and Southern Oregon State College based on perceived unfair competition that suit extended on through 1983 it ended up at the Oregon court of appeals the chancellor of the state system I believe it was chancellor bud davis was himself called to testify before the the court at the I think I believe that was at the lower court level before it got the court of appeals but he had to testify to the role of higher education in instruction research and public service with strong emphasis on the public service and the aftermath of this was that each side in the case when it was finally settled and the judgment rendered felt that it had prevailed to some extent it didn't seem like there were particular losers because in the meantime while this was moving moving along and meetings with attorneys and so forth behind the scenes here there were meetings with community people folks that would step up and and try to build some bridges with the the campus and the community and we internally took a look at our policies on housing elder hostel groups and other groups that were not affiliated with elder hostel maybe alumni groups from other universities and we said we can change our policies we should change our policies and we did and we required that if we were bringing a group on campus to sleep in our residence halls they had to be here they had to be on campus for instruction there had to be a constructional component so every group that applied there was a form filled out and there was a place to fill out what is the instructional element and that would end up in Churchill Hall for review so it wasn't a delegated thing it was it had the focus of the administration the cabinet and I think that our change in our practices no longer catering an event off campus for a public event I think that that helped to to mitigate the hurt and the angst that was being expressed from the community so a change we changed our behavior I think there was better understanding of of the mission of a higher ed institution of our type on the part of the community members was the north mountain or the north campus development before that or after that after it just after it yeah yeah I don't recall when the Court of Appeals rendered its decision it may have been 1985 the Armory decision was probably about 1985 Dr. Sikaro left to become president of Portland State University 1985-86 during that period so it was just before that that these discussions about forensic slab natural history museum in the Armory took place so I'm going to edit this out the statement Sikaro was known for creating contention and polarization of issues and I'm editing this out just so you know and I don't want you to speak to it but what I would appreciate you speaking to is this idea of collaborative collaboration and cooperation because I think that's key and how that the transformation occurred and and how the community became engaged enough to support the university financially so who were the people that created this collaborative approach who were the people here in terms of creating a collaborative approach during my time here that did start with President Natalie Sikaro there were indeed some rough edges with respect to faculty relations with the president but on the community side the town-gown relationship from the president that was positive it was something to build on he transformed the foundation board for more of a social group with very limited assets so you could say well the assets are limited you know it's a social group well as those assets grew the seriousness of fundraising to support Southern became evident and I credit Dr. Sikaro with with building the expectations for what a foundation could be in supporting this institution and so he had key leaders from the community on the foundation board he had he developed positive relationships with civic officials they knew that he would be accessible to them and vice versa so I had working beneath that umbrella I found it very I could very readily interact with the city of Ashland administrators Brian Almquist parks and recreation Ken Nicholson school district we embarked in the 80s on a project on the north campus to pave Iowa street school district develop pave parking lots pave Whiteman excuse me Walker in front of the middle school we all had a piece of that we were going to develop the athletic fields along Iowa and parks and recreation would manage them so we had four entities in Ashland coming together to make something happen and it was a model I think from from then on of cooperation when we need when we were involved in a renovation of or a mitigation of of some hazardous situation in one of our buildings school district office offered space it was a mutual back and forth but I I think it was the the tone of the president that the president set with Dr. Ciccaro and then certainly Joe Cox building on that absolutely had a foundation to build on and Dr. Cox a very people-oriented outgoing individual very easily could continue to develop these relationships within the community and Steve Reno to follow him and Elizabeth Sinser Ernie Utlick and interim in there between Dr. Ciccaro and Dr. Cox and Sarah Hopkins Powell after Steve Reno left to go to New Hampshire but all of them very dedicated to to collaboration with the community and joint programs and not only Ashland but extending into the Medford area I think that one thread through the 80s and particularly the 90s on into the new century was the the growing relationship with Rogue Community College from one of early on what I felt that our institution was finding it needed to be protective of its students and and its enrollment and avoid competition with the community college for its for lower division coursework and it took time to work through the discussions of the academic leadership of both institutions and the presidents to reach a point of comfort that we weren't going to compete head-to-head for students that it would be a collaborative relationship that eventually we'd share facilities in Medford believe it or not we'd actually share facilities so and and now we see the results today of the higher education facility in Medford that we share with with RCC and that the ease of transfer of students from RCC to our upper division programs but those were kind of two steps forward one step back for years until it came together a lot of discussions the provosts coming together and meeting and other and subject matter leaders from from the academic departments getting together and trying to coordinate their their class offerings and their their prerequisites and so forth but it finally just it gelled the the groundwork had been laid but it was being laid for a number of years so collaboration there collaboration with the Southern Oregon Historical Society one time we they had a branch in our Plunkett Center collaboration with SOP TV and of course Community Access Television getting its start an emphasis here on the campus but with tremendous community support City of Ashland support very collaborative it's wonderful I I wish I knew more today about the inner workings between the university and and the city but it from looking in as a Ashland citizen it appears to be positive today the again I want to say it's sounding like there there were just a few of us acting in these capacities with these various initiatives but it took teamwork it took the depth of our campus the support staff underlying these decisions to make them happen the students needed to be well served the faculty as well and our goal was to serve them as well as we could with the resources we had