Dick, it is an honor to be here today
to have a conversation with you. I have known
you for since I was actually a doc student and
an intern here at AECT and I've always looked at
you look towards you as a very special person who
has such a capacity for honoring and advocating for your
students and that has been something that has stayed with
me and hopefully has become part of my style as
I deal with my students now, I'd like you
to talk a little bit about where you've been and
where you are now and then also look to the
future. But I'd like to talk about, I
know you recently retired and talk about that transition,
but what got you to that point? You've been
in this field for many years, you've been in
leadership positions, you're now on the Foundation board,
helping make taking that further through the organization. So
I want to know about your career, but then
also the role of a CT has played, Okay
, I'll give you the 50 cent version maybe and
I can encapsulate some of that. I was born
in Toronto and at the age of six they packed
me off on a train, grand trunk railway and
it was a steam train between Toronto and Chicago and
they dumped me off at the other end and the
black car picked me up and I went to this
orphanage called mooseheart And stayed there 11 years And I
say this because not because of his old, poor
me, poor me because all of a sudden I
had 500 brothers and sisters instead of just me.
But they had a motto that was and still is
inscribed on the front entrance to the school was entered
to learn leave to serve. And I guess they
did a pretty good job of indoctrinating that into me
because I've, ever since then I've taken it to
heart, that was my my role. I I
was not a great athlete, I was not a
great academic, my God, no, I mean
purely an average student never never tipping the upper scales
of the grade sheets, but so I I thought
well what could I do? And so I found
a lot of things to do. I was in
the military for four years in Alaska and uh and
elsewhere and I went to Brockport State University and got
my uh B. A. R. Bs rather
in elementary ed and then to Syracuse for masters.
And there I was fortunate in two things actually at
Brockport, I worked with Sherm sport out and Melvin's
, my Gawronski, Melvin was formerly from michigan state
and and Sherwin was a former leader of act and
then I ended up at Syracuse and lo and behold
there, I meant my my mentor of all mentors
to me and that was done ely and and done
in his characteristic uh way in basically indoctrinated me into
the the additional feeling of caring for students he cared
beyond belief. In 1962 as his student, I
with Herb McCoy drove route five and 20 on the
highways in february between Syracuse and Kansas city Missouri.
That was the first A E. C. T
. Convention. It was D. A. V
. I, then department of audiovisual instruction. And
at that time we lived on tim akin and uh
dried apricots and we stayed at the Y. M
. C. A. But we learned the dance
of the hospitality suite and learned it pretty well.
So our survival depended on the good graces of many
of the film companies at the time. Uh Well
that was the start. And and the thing that
was interesting about that meeting was that Don took me
literally by the hand and introduced me to Jim Finn
, to charlie schueler, to harclerode louis kemp and
the big names of the field in that day.
And bob Dickie for and subsequently at every other convention
or conference of G A. V. I and
A E C. T. I've only missed two
since that day because I was in Australia and Leave
. But uh those days were very, very caring
because they would then these guys would take me aside
and Jim Finn would set me down and say Dick
, sit down. Yes, sir, what are
you doing? And I tell him, why aren't
you in a doctoral program? Yes, sir.
And so on and so forth. Well, and
and that was the kind of the flak I would
get from thin and from D Kiefer. And charlie
Schueler was much more caring and friendly. He would
say dick, I really, I feel that you're
going to do well and so forth well. And
that was the beginnings. And so I kind of
got so involved with what this was because I learned
from the masters, I learned about the students,
not about me, I learned how to help a
student and why I should help it. That that
was my destiny. I couldn't do a lot of
the other things. I didn't have the great research
background and so forth. But so my way of
looking at life was explainer, look at the research
, look at the research by whomever it might be
, uh Morrison, Jonas and kemp uh Ellie,
regular youth and so forth. And try to explain
to the students what does it all mean and how
do we use what they're doing? And so that
has always been my role explainer. And sometimes I
don't explain it too well. But I have fun
doing it and and in doing that I have been
fortunate that when I was with a E. C
. T. Temporarily they sent me off, packed
me off to africa for a summer to do some
filming for them. And that being my first uh
real foreign adventure was that that was a taste of
what was to come because from that place forward all
of a sudden a passport became my best friend and
it would begin to itch periodically and I would scratch
it and say well I've got to do something and
so off I go And I've covered uh places like
going from Amsterdam to Berlin through East Germany when the
wall was very much apparent and the vocals would come
and knock on your door every 30 seconds and say
passport, passport uh had a stint as a Nasa
summer scholar. It actually lasted a year and a
half. It was a long summer working at Kennedy
space center. And in that way I got involved
with managing or measuring uh discretionary time and long duration
spaceflight because I thought well what do I know about
science? But I did know about being alone and
being, having time on your hands and what to
do with it. And I extrapolated from that to
say well here here these astronauts are going to be
you know, 532 days. One way between here
and Mars, what are they going to do all
that time? And so Eastern Airlines caught wind of
what the research I was doing. And I had
, had it been fortunate with my contacts. I
had met joan later Chretien who was, he was
the french cosmonaut, had gone up with the Russians
and he gave me a call and he said,
why don't you come to Budapest? I said,
sure, big deal. How am I going to
get there? He said, you come and I'll
tell you what what's going to happen. So I
went there and it was the International astronautical Congress and
there I met uh let Lana and I met all
of the Russian cosmonauts of the day. And and
that was a thrill. So with all of that
, then I began to and share this with the
students and say, look what happened here, look
at these guys and so forth. And I would
go to these conferences and bring back stuff and and
share that with them and see what the students did
with it. And as we developed the program over
25 years it took to do the instructional systems program
at UCSF. The thing became apparent to that these
students need to broaden their base. Students from florida
had never left the state, most of them never
had a passport. And I said, well we're
going to do something about that. So I started
hauling in kids from Asia, I hauled them in
from Taiwan and china and put them in my house
, several of them uh I wish I had a
dollar for every time they they've had bought cars for
them and everything. They didn't have any money and
I didn't either. But you know, I get
a record of a car and at least it ran
. And it was their condition, they had a
radio say here dr that go back and forth to
school. And so kids have been in my home
as well in my life ever since. And that's
because uh somehow that there is something about working with
these students. The international students are in particular.
Uh The ones that I I perhaps give the most
attention to probably somewhat probably more than I should.
Poor old american students. But they survived. But
because english not being their language of instruction it has
posed serious problems and ones that I joyfully uh reach
out to see if we can't do something about.
So that that's it's a long way around. The
thing I all by the way I ran for president
of the E. C. T. Uh Not
once not twice not three times four times I got
my butt beat all those times. But you don't
really because when you run you find all of a
sudden that you've got just hundreds and hundreds of friends
who wish you well. And and so my debt
to them to all of these people has been to
try to survey asked in whatever way I can and
now being on the foundation allows me to, to
do that as well. But so it's all about
not me, but about the students, why I'm
doing anything is because of that. And I've got
two wonderful sons and I got five grand babies.
Uh, so they keep me occupied one summer in
new york and others in California. But my other
sons and daughters are located now in, in Chengdu
. They're located in Taipei kao chung, uh,
tom shwe, uh, she in shanghai, you
name it. That's where my other kids are and
I can't wait to be, be going in december
again. Uh, to visit some of them both
in Taipei and Beijing. So with that, I
guess I've pretty well covered the waterfront of uh,
not so much who I am, but what,
what, what drives me the way it is.
I know you've had an incredible impact on this on
this organization, but also with the international division and
, and to see you as the godfather of all
these students. You know, I never see you
at a conference where you don't have your gaggle of
students following you around. I think that's, that's
absolutely wonderful. But I do in a final,
you know, we have just a few minutes here
. But in a final question, I know you're
instrumental in doing this history project And I would like
you to share your vision of why you think this
is so important and so critical for us to be
doing this at this time. It's simply put the
students why I'm doing this is there's no other reason
when I teach, I have taught these students for
25, 30 years now, 35. Uh,
and I talk about Donnie Lee, I talk about
charlie, schueler and, and jerry kemp and all
of these folks Jim Finn. And, and nowhere
had I been able to share with them in up
close and personal view of who these people are.
People like old charlie white, that old rascal,
you know, everyone tv invades my space. And
I said, oh God, what am I gonna
do with you charlie? But he's a good buddy
and he keeps me grounded to when he former a
Ct president. But the thing that has, has
held the glue together has been if we can provide
history makers and I don't refer to myself, I'm
too young to be a history maker. But uh
, if we can provide the students with glimpses of
some of these people, then there works their textbooks
. Their theories come alive and that's what it's all
about. You make it a living theory. Then
they begin to know what to do with it.