So I'm not sure how much you were told about
the project, but this is for the School of
Architecture. 50th anniversary, thank you. College of
architecture Um 50th anniversary is coming up and so we're
making a film about the history coming open 2012.
I think Jeff Davis said it was 2014, but
I could be wrong. I know it depends on
where you count from so well, I would love
to my understanding, I've interviewed a number of people
and I've heard that you made that possible that you're
really the reason there is a cause some fruits of
that. Can you tell me about how that how
that happened, what what it was that made you
decide the Virginia tech needed that talking about architecture specifically
, I believe in pinnacles of excellence as a route
to transform university. And I saw in the subdivision
of the School of Engineering and Architecture the opportunity two
paint on clean palette with the College of Architecture.
He was obtaining the leadership of an outstanding individual.
Lynn curry was retiring as head of architecture and he
recommended, among others, chuck Mercury, who did
his undergraduate work in Architecture at MIT Regine Market Harvard
and had innovative and exciting ideas about changes in education
, architectural education specifically. So I sat on request
to recruit charge and was successful and he really transformed
architecture. He was making such major changes in the
curriculum. I frequently had block born and he did
a tremendous job. College architecture became one of the
pinnacles of excellence of Virginia tech. Absolutely. And
so so he didn't, it wasn't a situation where
uh you put out the job posting and he applied
, you went after him, we went out for
immigration. And was he, how did you get
? What was that chuck was interested and having an
opportunity where he could implement the innovative ideas he had
once he saw that we were willing and had the
determination to support him. We worked at it coming
. I think thinking came in 1964, he was
and an architectural firm in Cincinnati at that time,
part of the agreement to recruiting was to provide an
opportunity to consult with that firm which we worked out
and so yeah, I've also heard about the,
the blocking. I was interviewing Tom Reagan. I
don't know if you, you know him and he
he said that because there is another Professor Ferrari,
another person has come up a lot as being very
critical to the program. And what I've heard from
a number of people is Ferrari couldn't have been Ferrari
without Burchard and Burchard couldn't have been Burchard without you
. They were a very effective team. Some of
the two was greater than each other man. Can
you talk about that relationship between the 2? It
was really pointing counterpart. They were different, had
different ideas, but their remote leaders and both interested
in monumental change, which came about, as I
said, there were so many in some dramatic changes
in architectural education at that. There was some opposition
naturally and I had to block for the team occasionally
, but it's well worth there. And another thing
I heard that I thought was fascinating. Um,
and you can tell me if this is true or
not, and also bear in mind, I cut
myself out of this. So if you can just
kind of reiterate the question a little bit that what
I was told was that you told Bircher when he
took the job. I don't care what you do
, just make this a top school that's true and
recruiting chuck we've lost. And I told him I
was interested in and supportive of his dramatic ideas,
changes in our troubled education and he had a free
hand if he would come to tech as long as
he had a goal and achieve the goal, making
it a top quality program. And he did just
. And what kind of things did you do that
that led to that? And also what kind of
things did you do that you have to, you
have to block for him? Well, massive changes
in the curriculum and those changes required approvals up the
lines. Mhm academic organization and they were so dramatic
and so massive that I had little influence from time
to time getting through another interesting chapter and chuck's legacy
to attack with choral hall. Mhm Tech had a
tradition of the buildings that you see that are so
much yeah, mental picture of basically and generally designed
by architectural firm in Richmond Carnell and johnson who were
strong supporters. The attack chuck had innovative bodies on
the building too. And we utilize an offer for
which chuck had a major hand in selecting and then
we're very, that he would have a significant voice
during the design and he did and it has stood
out as one of the very handsome buildings on the
campus and very effective building. One interesting aspect of
the utilization that building I recall was chuck idea of
letting the students develop their little work area and creative
and innovative way and sometimes vicious building when one and
all the little structures, but that proved to be
a very effective educational there and those students graduated have
done very well. So yeah, that's a great
story because the building is very different than everything on
campus. Was there was there any pushback on doing
something that wasn't me? Oh God, there was
again, as I said earlier, I believe in
pinnacles of excellence and architecture with one of them,
there were a number, we were pushing along on
the camp and when you push hard on a system
you get some strange and there was some pushback,
but I think today everyone really loves and appreciates Cobo
Hall. Absolutely. And just lost my question.
Something on the pushback. Um, oh, so
one thing that interests me, um, I actually
was a freshman in the architecture program, 1995 left
and went to cooper Union for a while, ended
up in film at N. Y. Now and
back in the grad program to finish my architecture education
. So I have a great love for for Virginia
tech and the and the program there. And one
thing that has interested me and researching all of this
is, it really seems like, you know,
a lot of this was timing. You know,
you being the president and finding burchard and it being
a time and you know, nation's history where you
were free to let him be free and develop a
new program. And I just wonder, do you
think that that could have only been done then?
Or do you think that something like that can happen
now or is that? Well, you asked if
it was a time when I was free to let
chuck run free. It wasn't that easy. In
fact, in some ways there were more restraints,
homogeneous thanks. And now, although there also in
areas less restraint to, but it was a time
of opportunity in the sense that higher education was growing
very rapidly, that man added enrollment. And if
we did our work effectively in the legislature, I
meant adding appropriations and new buildings. So it was
a time when we were adding faculty which gave chuck
the opportunity to bring in keen, dynamic, innovative
new faculty. It meant a time when we had
an appropriation for the building and we were building buildings
rapidly in those days. So it was a time
of opportunity. But with the time of challenge to
there was a state Council of Higher Education which what
really trying to hold Virginia tech back feeling it was
frightening the University of Virginia, actually Virginia, taxing
university of Virginia and other things worked hand in hand
as they do now to the benefit of both institutions
. Uh huh. So one thing of the,
from the time that has come up in a number
of these interviews, um is when Coco got taken
over ah during the sixties, is that, can
you talk about that? I understand. I mean
, that must have been an awful situation to deal
with. You ask if the time Kogel Hall was
taken over, it was a difficult time. I
think the term taken over is too strong. There
were about two dozen architecture students who stayed in the
building after hours and said they were going to stay
until we closed the university time of tension time campaign
and we persuaded, persuaded the students that they violated
student I policies, there will be disciplinary action,
but if they would come out, there would be
no civil action, no legal. And they came
out about the next night over 100 students occupied Williams
home and that was a more aggressive move. They
carried in food and water, pile of furniture in
the doorways and change the doors. And it was
the largest classroom building on the campus At 8:00 next
morning, literally thousands of students during the day would
use that classroom for their classes and we had the
potential of people getting hurt. So we call in
the state police. I went around the building with
a bullhorn, gave him the same message we gave
the architecture students that the valley student I policies,
they needed to come out and be subject to arrest
for criminal trespass. They didn't. So we jerked
off the doors, put a chain on the door
truck, pull the doors open and all that group
off to jail and moving band. And that ended
the student disruptions on this campus at a time when
across the universe across the country, universities were suffering
violence, motion and being forced to discontinue their place
. Our position was, students had paid tuition.
We had students who are graduating except the jobs based
on their graduation and the university would continue to provide
the opportunity for their education. We did recognize at
the time extreme concern among students, among young people
across the country really. And we set up a
program that any student to Faried of conscience felt he
or she could not do justice to his or her
studies. They could leave without penalty, complete to
work back up work in the summer, but there
weren't enough for some someone just to close. Mhm
. Nonstarter. It sounds like you handled it quite
perfect. Uh So I want to go back to
it just, it seems very visionary to me that
you how that you saw the need for not just
a school of Architecture College of Architecture, but that
you didn't want to just start one. You wanted
to really come out of the gate strong and have
a top school. And I just, I'm really
curious to learn more about how that whole process started
. You know what you saw, what you identified
was it that you saw things happening at, at
other schools that you wanted to tech to get involved
in or how did you? Uh huh. Come
about, starting out When I came back as president
in 62, I used the language BP. I
land was a sleeping giant. It was a land
grant school, had unlimited opportunity, needed to change
in a variety way and did present an opportunity to
develop top Flight Research University. I've used the term
before, but I believe you can do that,
feeding on the best you have and building peaks of
excellence, pinnacles of excellence and then filling in from
there, Architecture was an obvious choice because we were
separating architecture from the School of Engineering and Architecture,
making it a separate school, ultimately separate college.
And from my perspective, it was simple chuck burchard
do it out as a shining star who have given
the opportunity, can build a nationally ranked school.
So I simply said to him, you've got a
blank page and my support fill in the page,
but the goal is to be the best and he
moved to college architecture into the national ranking effectively and
quickly. And can you talk about some of the
people that he brought in that you think were instrumental
? That's the long ago, I'm having trouble with
names like Olivia, Ferrari or and dr Ferrari was
a good example and they were dr Ferrari and Dean
Burchard worked hand in glove work together effectively. They
were quite different in personality and approach and they complemented
one another very well. Great. Let me check
my I think I've covered everything. You're quite pithy
, it's wonderful. Uh huh. Okay. one
other question was it wasn't just architecture that you were
you were creating at that at that time, There
were other schools, you can talk about that and
just the wider the wire vision that you had.
Mhm brasilia tech as a land grant university. Traditionally
, with the College of Engineering College of Agriculture there
we're no degree programme in the liberal arts and humanities
and tunes from the professional schools, Engineering Architecture business
from Economics. We're required to take courses in the
humanities and social science, but there were no students
in those courses pursuing degrees in those areas. The
best students in a class set the pace, the
decline, the best students in the class determine the
rate of learning and the quality of learning. To
a very large extent this best students in the subject
tend to be those who are strong interest in this
in this subject and pursue it as a major course
of study. So we set out about to create
a college of Arts and Sciences with the greek problems
and humanities and graduate problems in your mind. The
steakhouse of our education opposed those steps, but we
moved along anyway. When we had a critical mass
. You call the School of General Studies. We
changed the name to the College of Arts and Sciences
. The State Council of Higher Education wrote that they
denied the approval such a chain and we simply ignored
that and said that then designation of the units in
the within the institution was an institutional matter and move
forward. There was a little puff and smoke.
They were creation of the College of Arts and Science
which more a good supplement to the College of Architecture
. Right. Well that's all that's not. Mhm
. More than I could have hoped to get anything
else. You want to talk about? Anything you
want to add about? Any any of the anything
about the creation of the school or the building or
virtue or anything like that. We missed the merchants
. I remember chuck did a little book of poetry
and memory of his wife. He will, he
was a job. So he was a friend.
Any other personal stories about him you want to tell
her? That's probably no. Okay. All right
. Okay. Thank you so much.