Gordon Gilkey Oral History Interview, June 27, 1980

IF: First of all, when and where were you born?

GG: Where I was born?

IF: Where and when.

GG: I was born 1912, March the 10th, they say, that's only hearsay. In Linn County, Oregon, on my grandfather's homestead. My grandfather came out across the plains when they discovered gold in California. He didn't find much gold, so he went up to the Willamette Valley, in Oregon, and took out a homestead in the foothills of the Cascades. Then he went back to Missouri or somewhere and picked up the family and brought them out. The homestead was established, and that's where my father was born. He was the youngest son of a large family. My brothers 00:01:00and sisters and I were born there.

IF: What did your father or mother do for a living?

GG: My father was a rancher when I was a little kid on the homestead. Then he received the offer to move to Albany to be the executive officer of the Albany Chamber of Commerce. So, he rented the ranch and then sold the ranch. We moved to Albany when I was in the 7th grade. I attended a country school through the 6th grade. I attended junior high and high school in Albany.

IF: When did you first find an interest in Art?

GG: When I was a little kid I used to draw all the time as a way of expressing because as you can see, I am illiterate in the English language. People need to be able to express themselves one way or another. So, I sought to express myself by visual means rather than verbally.

IF: When did you first go to college?

GG: We were living in Albany. I didn't have enough money to leave town, this was during the depression. So, I attended Albany College, which was about a mile and a half from where we lived. I bicycled in, and it was there too, where I started 00:03:00teaching art. After a couple of years they wanted to start some studio courses and I had attended a summer session at the University of Oregon in Art. I had been involved in art all my life, with or without instruction. I had this arrangement; if I would teach a class or two, I wouldn't have to pay any tuition. So I taught drawing and watercolor. I was an undergraduate "T.A." you might say. That made me the first art teacher at Albany College, now Lewis and Clark College.

IF: What year was that, when you started at Albany College?

GG: Autumn of 1929.

IF: How did you get the funds to go to college?

GG: I worked clearing land and worked in the harvest out in the plains by Oakview as a muleskinner. Do you know what that is?

IF: No, I don't think so.

GG: I drove horses for a thrashing outfit one summer. Another summer or two, I sat on a Forest Service lookout, Crescent Mountain above Clear Lake in former Santiam National Forest. I don't know what it is now, probably Willamette National Forest. I looked for forest fires all day long and slept at night and 00:05:00studied, too, and drew pictures. It was a very good place for a college student to contemplate and study, draw. I learned to cook for myself. I would see another person about every month. Somebody would come by, a sheepherder. Then a government: packer would come in riding a horse and pulling a mule to bring up my dry staples when I needed food. I just had a summer or two looking out for fires. I cleared land, or recovered land so that crops might be grown on it 00:06:00other summers for a dollar a day to make money for college.

IF: Didn't the depression make things difficult to go to school?

GG: It took longer to get through graduate school in the depression. It took three years to complete my MFA degree at the University of Oregon because of the depression. I worked for my room and board at a house in Eugene. I worked in a quick-copy lithography direct mail organization to make money and did all kinds 00:07:00of odd jobs. I eventually made it through school.

IF: So, you went to the University of Oregon for graduate school?

GG: That's right: I completed my undergraduate work at Albany in four years. I'd been to the University of Oregon a couple of summers on a Carnegie Foundation Fellowship of New York and American Institute of Architecture fellowship. Those were very good summer sessions, especially for that program. I met other art teachers from universities and colleges on the west coast. I was the youngest one there, the most ignorant, and the most inexperienced.

IF: Was there anything in particular that you studied in graduate school?

GG: I started out in painting and drawing. Then the next door neighbor where I lived was a professor of architecture, Eyler Brown, he went on his sabbatical in Europe studying printmaking in Belgium and England. He came back and asked me to help him build a press, which we did in the school of Architecture and Allied Arts at the University of Oregon. With the press, it was of course natural that 00:09:00I would want to be able to use it. He would use it and I would use it. I had made a plate or two already, with the help of professor Maude Kerns, who was the art education teacher in the school. I was not an art education major, but she was a very friend-ly, helpful lady, who would help students whether they were signed up in her classes or not. I came in and she showed me how to scratch on metal plates, dry point. So, my first two plates were made with her. When Eyler Brown came back and we got his press going, then I became more and more-and more intrigued with the possibilities of print-making and switched from painting and 00:10:00drawing to printmaking. But, I don't regret the painting and drawing experience because printmakers are always drawing and working with color values, too. So, all help I enjoyed, including the classes in composition, which are common to all the visual arts.

IF: What did your master's project consist of?

GG: I made 15 original etchings of the library construction of the University of Oregon. I followed it from the breaking of the ground through the completion of 00:11:00the building. I went ahead, and was encouraged by the architect, who was dean of the school of architecture and allied arts at the time, Dean Lawrence, and drew 15 more to make a book. He got WPA financing to buy the paper, inks plates. Copper was much less expensive then, than it is now. At any rate, I went ahead and made 15 more during the summer months and early autumn of 1936 and completed that book.

IF: When did you graduate from the U of 0?

GG: June of '36.

IF: When did you meet your wife?

GG: In high school, maybe in junior high in Albany. I was aware of her, she wasn't my wife then. She was not a child bride (he laughs).

IF: When did you finally get married?

GG: We got married when we both moved to New York City, she, to study at the Juilliard School of Music and Columbia University. I moved to New York in the fall of 1936-37. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 1934 in music. Then she taught school, music and English, I recall, at a public school in 00:13:00Oakland, near Roseburg, for one year. This was to make money to study as a concert violinist in Los Angeles with Calvin Luboviski. On my way to New York, I went by way of Los Angeles to check up on her. Then I went on to New York, with my University of Oregon Library book. I took some coursework at the Art Students 00:14:00League in New York, with Will Barnett, who still lives in New York, now a full-time painter and printmaker. In fact, I saw him at the opening of his show in New York last November, 1979. He recognized me immediately, and said that he was asking just last year, whatever happened to Gilkey (he laughs).

IF: How long were you a student at the Art Students League?

GG: I sort of tapered off when I got busy with my commis. I was with Barnett 00:15:00during the winter and spring of '36-37. I'd go back once in a while to see what was going on and to get special help from Will. Harry Sternberg was teaching there too, and I watched him make aquatints. I was looking for a way of making money, and armed with my University of Oregon Library book, I visited the New York World's Fair officials. I had the idea of publishing a book of reproductions and printing several sets of originals myself which would constitute a fine art record of the New York World's Fair, 1939. The Fair 00:16:00officials were quite interested. They said they couldn't fund it, they said to find a publisher to fund it. So, I checked with two of three publishers, one of which was Charles Scribner, of Charles Scribner Sons. He immediately said it was a great idea, but he said he wanted to see if there wasn't some other artist around town who might do a better job. So, he sent a "checker-outer" around and called me in about three weeks and said "Why don't you go ahead and do it?" That took most of my time from 1937 until the fair opened in June, 1939. We were 00:17:00married, too, in Autumn of 1938, October. She had come back to work at Juilliard, as I indicated. She continued her studies. At that time, too, I worked at the National Broadcasting Company doing portraits of some of their outstanding musicians. They had started the NBC Symphony at that time. I did portraits of Toscanini and some of the other personalities that came in. I also 00:18:00did a view or two of the RCA, NBC buildings there in Rockefeller Center. Then they had me write a short text in the book. Maxwell Perkins, my publisher's chief editor, shortened some of my sentences. Then the book was officially approved by the Fair Corporation... Grover Whalen, the president and George McAneny, the chairman of the board. They were keenly interested. President Roosevelt became interested in it, because he was involved with the Federal Building at the Fair and the architect, Walter Dorwin Teague. FDR wanted to see 00:19:00how things were coming. My recollection is that he wanted some of the original prints. My recollection is that I gave him some. So, those should be in the Hyde Park Library. Other sets were printed by me for some of the participating governments, as a permanent record of the Fair, also, for some of our own national collections. For example, the San Francisco Museum of Art (now the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) has a set, because they were having a fair at the same time, and I believe the New York Public Library got a set, the 00:20:00Metropolitan Museum of Art did, the Library of Congress, and the National Museum, now the National Collection of Fine Arts. So, I think there are two in Washington, and at least two sets in New York. Right now, in fact, in the building the State of New York put up for the Fair, which became the Queens Museum, there's an exhibit of the 1939-1940 Fair art. I think they have about 20 of my prints on exhibit there now at the Queens Museum in New York.

IF: Why did you decide to go to Stephens College?

GG: I had become acquainted with the Keppels, because they were New York print dealers. I also had a show at the Kennedy Gallery of the New York Fair Prints. But I became acquainted with Fredrick Keppel and his son, Francis. Keppel was chief executive officer of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. I went in to talk to him about what I could do next and he told me to "get some teaching experience. There are college and university presidents coming in here all the 00:22:00time looking for people, and also looking for money." He said that he would talk to one or two of them. I didn't think much about it, but in a week or so he called me. He said he wanted me to meet a college president from North Carolina. He called the next day and told me that he wanted me to meet with the president of Stephens College, Dr. James Madison Wood. This was the summer of 1939. James Madison Wood took me to lunch and made me an offer on the spot. I told him I had lunch the day before with the president of the college in North Carolina. He 00:23:00said that his college was much more progressive, "had a much more outstanding faculty of young people like yourself." He said that I should "just say yes now and come on out to Missouri." I said "Well, you have made the first offer. I haven't heard whether the president of the other institution really wants me or not. He said that he had to go home and ask somebody and check the budget. You seem to be able to carry it all around in your pocket. If you want me, I'll come." So, I went out with a beginning salary of about $1,200. Even so, I think we had filet mignon a bit more often than now.

IF: Did you teach at Stephens College or were you involved in other activities?

GG: I taught there for three years in the art department. I introduced printmaking instruction. I had brought my etching press on out, Mr. Scribner had purchased a press for me, which he said I could keep. I brought that along with me and right away they wanted me to start teaching printmaking. This had never been taught in that part of the country and had hardly been taught anywhere else in this country in a college or a university. Just by coincidence, I was the only student of printmaking at the time at the University of Oregon in 1934-36, who was to stay interested in printmaking. So, I introduced printmaking there in 00:25:00the heart of America before World War II. I taught drawing and design, printmaking. I helped develop with my boss, Louise Dudley, a textbook on the humanities. They had a strong humanities course that most all of the students took. This was a junior college for women at the time. But, it had some very good students from across the country, an interesting faculty, and just not the art faculty. Maude Adams was teaching theater at that time. Bill Inge, later to 00:26:00become a famous playwright, was teaching English and working with Maude Adams. I taught him printmaking and other faculty members too. On weekends we would get together. I also taught a professor at the University of Missouri, Lawrence Adams, in the same town, taught him woodcut printmaking and etching. Some of those "students" continued with their art. Several of them, at least, have become important American printmakers. I've kept in touch with them. Perhaps 00:27:00five or six of them that I could name. I still hear from them.

IF: While you were at Stephens College, did you discover that you really liked teaching art classes?

GG: I learned that I did enjoy teaching printmaking. Also, while I was in New York and in Missouri, I started to form a collection of prints, modest purchases. Prints didn't cost much then. I also traded with other artists. I especially enjoyed teaching printmaking. Then Pearl Harbor came along and that meant that I would have to go off to war. So the faculty listened to the various 00:28:00recruitment teams that came through. Some went into war industries, both men and women. Some stayed and were drafted. Some of us volunteered. I volunteered for the Army Air Corps, effective after the close of school in June l942, Pearl Harbor was Dec. 7, 1941, so I was at Stephens three academic years.

IF: What did you do when you first joined the Army Air Corps?

GG: While I was waiting for orders, I took a hurry-up course in camouflage given by the Kansas City Art Institute. I thought that I might be able to get into camouflage work, which would combine my interest in art. Such was not to be (he laughs). I was ordered to active duty at Randolph Field, Central Flying Training Command, San Antonio, Texas. Then I was sent immediately to Kelly Field, to 00:30:00Officers Training School. I was a Second Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps. After I completed Officer's Training School, I was sent to Ellington Field near Houston, Texas to head up their charts, maps and aerial photographs academic department for navigator and bombardier cadets. I worked with that for about a year, and then an advanced navigation school came to town, to Ellington Field. So, I became the supervisor of instruction for the advanced navigation school. I remained there until 1944. All the while, I was trying to get into fine arts and 00:31:00monuments work in Europe. Before I left New York to go to Stephens College, Czechoslovakia had been taken over by the Nazis. So, I wrote to President Roosevelt saying that if we got involved in the war in Europe that there should be knowledgeable people along with the troops to tell them what not to blow up. He thought it was a great idea. But, then he became busy after Pearl Harbor, with the conduct of war as President and Commander in Chief. He turned the idea over to Justice Roberts, of the U.S. Supreme Court. Then Roberts eventually 00:32:00established a commission of museum people, including Dave Finley, then director of the National Gallery. About 1943, they started identifying people in the services or people outside the services who could be pulled in as civilians in uniform to tell the bomber commands and the ground forces what not to blow up, to save things in areas of combat. The commission became known as the Roberts Commission. But the actual title of the commission was the 'Commission for the 00:33:00Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historical Monuments in War Areas.' That was a rather long title, so they simply called it the Roberts Commission. They met regularly, they did select a few people by the summer of '44 as troops were moving across Europe. The few people had no logistic support, no typewriters, no jeeps. But, they were there to advise the field commanders what not to blow up, how to save things if they were in a combat area.

IF: How come you couldn't get into this work?

GG: Because every time I requested I had to go through headquarters, Central Flying Training Commander, Randolph, and that was as far as my request would go. 00:34:00Headquarters would say "Shortage of qualified people, Training Command, basic request denied." Then it would be sent back. The winter of '44-'45, I was still looking for a way of getting over. I found out that the Air Force had assigned a high priority on certain people that they could give short courses to and make them into combat intelligence people. So, I applied for that. That had a higher priority than Central Flying Training Command, so they had to release me. I went to combat intelligence school in Orlando, Florida and to another short course at the Anacostia Navy Base in Washington D.C. Then, I was sent overseas to Europe. 00:35:00Headquarters had already been alerted that I was headed that way, so I found orders awaiting me, transferring me from Air Force to headquarters in Frankfurt. Frankfurt was the headquarters city of the U.S. Forces in Europe at War's end. The American military government headquarters was established in Berlin under General Clay. Headquarters of the theater was established in Frankfurt. I was 00:36:00assigned, for payroll purposes, to the Office of the Chief Military Historian, headquarters, Europe. But, my job was to head up the War Department's Special Staff Art Projects in Europe, which had to do with several things. It had to do with liaison with the European governments' restitution missions at U.S. headquarters who were interested in getting their Nazi looted and displaced museum properties back and their private collections properties back. It had to do eventually, after the Potsdam Agreement, with the location and confiscation 00:37:00of Nazi propaganda and German war art. This was to prevent a revival of Nazism and "German Militarism." This was after the cessation of hostilities. I worked with that until August, 1947. I helped put Europe back together, you might say (he chuckles). Single handedly, I had charge of the confiscation program. I found out what had been done, who had done it, and where it was, through quite a lot of sleuthing. I sent back to Washington D.C., on their orders, over 8,000 00:38:00items, Nazi propaganda, German war art. Few of the war artists were Nazis, some of them had been simply drafted for the Wehrmacht.

IF: Did you find this Nazi and German art scattered all over Europe or was it in any particular place?

GG: There were some depositories. There were several organizations doing this. Some of the air districts had their own staff of artists. The headquarters of the German High Command had a staff of 80 artists at the height of their program, working in the Navy, Army, and Air Force. That repository I traced 00:39:00through the German Railway express office all the way from Berlin, in April 1945, to a place in the wooded hills area on the border between Bavaria and Czechoslovakia in the Bayerischerwald. I found the former chief of the organization living nearby, looking after it, except that he wasn't. The repository was hidden, but that's another story.

IF: Did you implement any restoration work, like rebuilding castles, cathedrals, that sort of thing?

GG: At military headquarters, I was the liaison between military government and Berlin and the Monuments and Fine Art officers, working under the Roberts 00:40:00Commission out of Washington. So, I acted as sort of a clearing house. Sometimes some of the information was very sensitive, and I didn't trust telephones, I hand-carried the information. I participated in some of the discoveries of art and helped secure the art. Sometimes this involved our forces, sometimes the constabulary in the area of the military government. Then we ran out of gas by spring of 1947. You couldn't get much gas over there. Each company was assigned a ration of gas. They didn't like it for people from headquarters to come down 00:41:00and use up their gas. It was hard to operate, hard to get out and run things down. Meanwhile, my wife Vivian had taught English at Roseburg High School to keep busy, because there was a shortage of teachers in '45-'46. Then in the summer of 1946, she heard they were looking for an English teacher at Oregon State University, or then Oregon State College. She was employed as an instructor of English, although her background was in music. She didn't like 00:42:00listening to beginning violin students, because of their racket. She has a very sensitive ear. Then poor Professor J. Leo Fairbanks passed away of a heart attack in September of 1946 during a faculty meeting. So, that position, chairman of the art department of Oregon State, became vacant. Mrs. Gilkey was there teaching English when she heard about this she passed the word along to me. I'd actually made arrangements to go to work for Headquarters, National 00:43:00Broadcasting Company, New York City. Television was just coming into being. I had worked with radar, too, while in the Air Force. NBC thought I could help them with the visual director of television. But, my wife Vivian thought it would be nice if I could come back "home" to Oregon to work; I agreed. So, I applied for the OSC position and the Dean, M. Elwood Smith, and President Strand 00:44:00employed me while I was still overseas. I terminated my work in August, 1947 at headquarters, Europe. I had been kept on an additional six weeks to testify in some counterfeit trials. I had helped the criminal investigation division at headquarters round up a counterfeit ring making $50 American bills and occupation money. So, I was frozen in the theater until I got those things out of the way. Then I could come home in August of '47 to begin my duties as Professor of Art and Chairman of the Art Department of Oregon State College. I 00:45:00found that I was the only male in the department at that time. There were about four very nice ladies, three of whom had been there for quite a while. One had been there only the previous year (the wife of a veteran that was in graduate work at Oregon State). Everyone wanted to take art. We didn't have enough teachers, so I started hiring people after the first year. I arrived in Autumn of '47. In '48, I hired Nelson Sandgren, who is still there, and aul Gunn, who is still there. They are now professors of art. Another year or two went by and 00:46:00I hired Demetrius Jameson, who's still there. As the demand for art courses grew: painting, drawing, printmaking, industrial art drawing, crafts, I continued to add staff and courses until we had about 15-18 faculty members.

IF: So, including yourself, you had five to start with?

GG: Yes. I continued on as chairman of the department until June of 1964. September of '47 to June of '64. My first dean was M. Elwood Smith... for 00:47:00several years. Then, Professor of English, Ralph Colby succeeded Smith as Dean of the Lower Division of Liberal Arts. Under the direction of Dean Colby and President Strand, the Division became a School of Humanities and Social Sciences and was authorized to offer baccalaureate majors in general humanities and social sciences in 1960. There was considerable trouble getting that amount of 00:48:00identity. Chancellor John Richards, OSSHE, was opposed to it. He wanted to keep Oregon State a technical and agricultural school. He "tacked" on a requirement the equivalent of a minor in a technology or a science. So, we labored with that option for our students. Ralph Colby retired as dean in 1962. Then, Dr. Edmund 00:49:00M. Volkart, from Stanford University, a sociologist, came in as dean of Humanities and Social Sciences. He remained in that job 1962-63, one year, and was then appointed the first dean of faculty, June 1963, at Oregon State. So, that left and immediate vacancy in the dean's office. It was thought by President James Jensen's administration and Dean Volkart that one of the chairmen of the 16 departments of the School should be moved over as acting dean. For some reason or another, I was the biggest troublemaker. They asked me to do it to get me off their back during that year, 1963-64. I continued as 00:50:00chairman of the art department and was also acting dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. People did apply from around the country, two or three of them were brought in for interviews. But, by the spring of '64, they asked me to stay on, not as the acting dean, but as the dean. I was told that, in the dean's office, I would be able to help not only with the development of the school but also the fine arts and the visual arts where my interests and 00:51:00perhaps my expertise is located. I guess that is how it happened. I was not an active candidate at all, but as acting dean the Search Committee asked if they could use my name as one of the candidates. I guess that's only common courtesy. But, I ended up on top of the pile and President Jensen was very persuasive, so I said yes. I immediately sought to develop departmental majors. President Jensen was very sympathetic. About that time, too, Chancellor Richards departed 00:52:00for greener pastures in California. Richer pastures, maybe, not greener. The new Chancellor Roy Lieuellen was sympathetic to the development of departmental, undergraduate majors. We didn't know really about the Board. We developed several departmental majors. President Jensen suggested sending one of them through the first go-round to see what would happen. So, in 1964-65, we made a pitch for a departmental major that everyone needed, a subject that everyone on Campus had in common: English. The State Board of Higher Education bought that. We then pulled out the others we were in the process of developing. So, in 1966, 00:53:00we were authorized departmental majors in Art, Economics, History, Political Science, Speech Communications, and Russian Studies. We had a great lady, Anita Jurgenson, born in Georgia, Russia, who came to this country as a refugee. She was a very knowledgeable and learned lady. This program seemed appropriate at that time, too, since all the Russians were learning to speak English that we should engage in Russian Studies. That was approved too. With those underway, we advanced some more the following year. The State Board of Higher Education had 00:54:00decided that we would have to ask for language majors one at a time. Also, that we would have to ask for departmental majors one at a time rather than a blanket approval for all departmental majors. Each one of them had to qualify. So, that stretched the thing out over a period of years. In '67, we were authorized majors in French and German, along with Music and Sociology. About that time we split Anthropology from Sociology. Sociology had initiated some Anthropology courses, but it seemed that Anthropology could develop faster on its own. Thus, we established a department of Anthropology. Along with Anthropology, Philosophy, Spanish and Psychology were authorized as majors in 1968. Then in 00:55:00'69, we ran with programs in Technical Journalism, Russian Language, Religious Studies and American Studies, which incorporated courses in history, political science, literature, and so on. Philosophy and Religion had been taught together in one department when I became dean. But, it looked as if they could find their destinies as separate departments much better. So, we divided them into two different departments. In 1970, we consolidated the two original programs, 00:56:00humanities and social sciences into a liberal studies program. In '74, we were authorized a bachelor's in fine arts (B.F.A.) in the Art Department. Those were the degree programs that we developed. We were working on graduate programs in economics, and in other subjects as well. The name of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences was changed in 1973 to the College of Liberal Arts. Also, the School of Science had its name changed to the College of Science at the same 00:57:00time. This change to recognize the core of a university, the liberal arts and sciences. We taught courses for them and they taught courses for us. That gives a little outline of the curricular development.

IF: I have several specific questions. First, I would like to know if when you came to Oregon State, you had any idea of what the art department was like?

GG: I had met Leo Fairbanks while I was at Albany College and at the University of Oregon. I knew that the department was oriented around him and that the 00:58:00ladies there were teaching the courses he didn't want to teach. He was sort of an artist-in-residence and head of the Department of Art and Architecture and Landscape Architecture. When I went there, I felt, and Dean Smith agreed, that Architecture and Landscape should be separated from the Art Department. This would be in line with a departmentalization of those programs at the University of Oregon, since we were in the state system. There were separate departments of Landscape and Architecture at the University of Oregon as well as departments of Art Education, Painting, Drawing, Sculpture and so on. This was done. When I 00:59:00arrived, I was designated, with my approval, head of the Art Department. Professor Herbert Sinnard, who had been teaching there as an architect, was appointed by Dean Smith as head of the Architecture Department. Landscape Architecture was separated from Architecture for a while. The retirement of a very fine old landscape architect, Prof. Arthur E. Peck, and the hiring of a new faculty, Don Martel, Ben Solberg, George Fredeen and others indicated that they 01:00:00should be separated from Architecture. I united them at a later date.

IF: So they were separated after you got there?

GG: Yes.

IF: At the time that you got there, was everybody living happily in Kidder Hall?

GG: Happily, but crowded! Landscape Architecture and Architecture were up on the top floor. Foreign Languages was on the second floor, part of it. We were on part of the second floor, first floor and basement, and the little laundry room out in back.

IF: So that's what that is!

GG: Kidder had been a ladies dormitory. The laundry had been closed for many 01:01:00years. Kidder was remodeled under WPA and made into an Art Department and academic classroom building. Studio art departments were coming into existence across the country. I knew that Oregon State had the potential of a great department. I think, during the 31 years that I was there, I saw the department grow from a very modest, small department to a very important department with a real mission in the training of artists and people knowledgeable about art...all 01:02:00who participated in our courses. It became a major department at a land grant university. I expect that this situation will continue.

IF: Were you aware that art was just a service department with no major authorization when you came here?

GG: I knew that there was not a major in Art. I knew, too, that this was a situation to be corrected.

IF: What were the first classes you taught at Oregon State?

GG: I taught a class in Art History. It was probably called "Art Appreciation." 01:03:00I taught a course in metalcraft...out in the old laundry room. The schedule of classes was made out by the ladies long before I arrived. They decided what I was going to teach in the first year. I taught a course in sculpture, probably one in painting. I was kept pretty busy, along with the administration and development of plans for curriculum and faculty expansion.

IF: Did you try to develop new programs within the department to improve it?

GG: The comparison of the University catalog in 1947-48 and when I left would 01:04:00show what was accomplished in that one department. While I was in the Dean's office, too, the fifteen other departments grew. They had faculty members who were specialists in many subjects. There's no use in having specialists if they can't teach their specialty. They teach general introductory courses, then, in order to get the maximum value from their expertise, they teach what they know best. Sometimes this happens by accident, you hire someone to teach a basic course and then find out that you have someone who can do this other thing so 01:05:00you create courses for them, if they're valid. It only makes academic sense.

IF: Were you pleased with the facilities that Kidder Hall had to offer?

GG: I have never been pleased with the facilities of Kidder Hall, now Fairbanks Hall. I continue to be completely dissatisfied with it.

IF: Did it take you very long to make overtures to the administration about these facilities?

GG: The first thing I did was to tell them that we needed a new building. They told me that many of the departments needed new buildings. Then many of the Science departments and P.E. got new buildings. Home Economics got an addition. 01:06:00Engineering and Agriculture got new buildings. The Art Department didn't get a new building! We worked very closely on exhibits with the director of the Memorial Union, then Major E.C. Allworth. He utilized space over there for local exhibits and traveling shows. We tried to convince people that we needed good art studios and a good art museum and we're still trying to convince them of that.

IF: Isn't that the trend of liberal arts departments, they just get shuffled in 01:07:00and out of old building, never getting new facilities?

GG: No, but unfortunately it keeps happening at Oregon State. At many of the other land grant institutions, they have a full-fledged program in both music and art. At Davis, in California, a state land grant institution, they have a well-developed art department with majors and graduate work, in new buildings. In fact, all the universities that were state colleges in California, such as Humboldt, Long Beach, Sacramento, Chico, a whole list of them, they all have new 01:08:00art buildings and exhibition galleries. At Montana State, the land grand institution of Montana, they have a fine art building, fairly new. I could move all the way across the country and find such fine facilities. So, the approval of graduate programs in CLA and the house of the Art Department isn't anything to brag about at Oregon State. We were able to ride in on the coat tail of 01:09:00Geology, and get Geography into the new Earth Science Building, primarily due to the fact that the department was and is administrated jointly by the Colleges of Science and Liberal Arts. There was a plan underway, before the building was completed, to cut geography out of it, because the chancellor's office had decided that there was an overage of classrooms at Oregon State. So, I immediately eliminated several classrooms and made them into needed faculty offices. That made it possible for Geography to be accommodated in Earth Science building.

IF: Other than the fact that a new building was needed, wasn't one of the problems that was hindering the success of the Art Department during the first few years you were chairman, a shortage of art slides for some of the classes?

GG: That, and the fact that there was not a secure place on campus where we could show valuable art work. There was a very modest collection of 3 ¼ X 4" Lantern slides (he chuckles). There were no 35 mm slides. So, I bought a 35mm camera, and when Kodachrome was developed, I started taking 35 mm slides. In order to make sure this didn't get stopped short, I gave away the 3 ¼ X 4" 01:11:00Lantern slides to the Portland Art Association when they still had at that time a Lantern slide projector in use. Whether they are here now, I'm not going to look for them! I personally photographed and bound 15 or 20 thousand slides for the Art Department when I was working in the department, 1947 to 1964. Then, I continued to give slides to the Art Department. I brought in exhibits and 01:12:00photographed them, and so on. These are needed for Art History and many other classes; visual aids for the visual arts.

IF: What demand necessitated the formation of the Oregon Art Alliance?

GG: There was no organization to represent the arts in Oregon. There were local groups, but there was no central organization that enabled them to communicate one with the other. We didn't want to do away with any of the local organizations across the state. But, we felt that they had many things in common. There was a movement underway to create the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. We felt in order to participate in the benefits of those laws once they were passed, we had to have an action group in the middle of 01:13:00things. The director of the Portland Art Association, Thomas Colt and I got together and scheduled the first meeting. We announced the meeting and invited all of the organizations of the visual arts in the state to come and help set the thing up, wrote some bylaws. They elected me the first president. We elected a board of trustees and got the things going. Then we wrote a bill for the Oregon Legislature in the early '50s asking for $10,000 for an office in Salem 01:14:00to coordinate art activities, including music, dance and theater. A state senator, Alice Corbett and Mrs. Fritzi Chuinard, she was in the State Legislature at the time, they were asked to sponsor the bill in their respective units of the Legislature. They did, but the Oregon Legislature was, as always, economy minded. When they saw that $10,000 for art, the bills were not approved. 01:15:00So, we had to regroup and it was not until another 10 or 12 years, under another governor, that we established the governor's council for the arts and humanities, this under Governor Hatfield. I was elected chairman of that group. I had been working with national organizations for the creation of the Humanities and the Arts Endowments. There were bills introduced in the national congress. At the College Art Association National meeting in Los Angeles, I 01:16:00wrote a resolution on the back of a coffee shop breakfast menu (he chuckles). I gave it to the president of the Association to read and it was unanimously approved by the College Art Association of America. It called for telegrams to be sent to all of the senators and the president urging the passing of the measures. I hurried back to Governor Hatfield and told him that we really had to get an Oregon Arts Commission established to fully participate, so we could get some of the Oregon taxpayers' money back to Oregon. He asked me to get some 01:17:00people together. He didn't ask about the politics of anyone. He said "get some people from Portland, Southern Oregon, Eastern Oregon, the Coast, up the valley." I did this in his office. Governor Hatfield addressed us and told us "to organize ourselves into a council and lobby and write a bill for the Oregon Legislature, thus to prepare for passage of the national bills." This was done, and for two years, I put a lot of time into spearheading the drive in Oregon for the creation of an office and a commission for the arts in Oregon. Then Hatfield 01:18:00became Senator Hatfield and Tom McCall became governor. McCall could have appointed a new council. But, we met with him and kept us all in there to see that the job was done. We held hearings all around the state. We had open hearings in Salem, with arguments against and for the measure before the hearing committees in the Legislature. We countered the opposition with our statements, mobilized the people in the arts. So, the bill was passed, McCall signed it and he appointed the first commission. Mean-while, President L.B. Johnson had signed 01:19:00the national bill. In order to meet Federal funding deadlines my council had to prepare the first budget requests. There wouldn't have been time after the Oregon bill had become effective. So, we asked organizations to submit plans, their budget requests. We allocated the first $25,000 we had in Federal grant money to art organizations around the state and then turned the whole thing over to the new commission that Tom McCall had appointed. He left me and the co-chairman, Jerry Kieffer of the University of Oregon, off the commission for good reason. He explained that since our institutions would be asking for money, he wanted us to get money. He thought it would be embarrassing if we were on the 01:20:00commission. He appointed a couple of artists to the commission, but they never showed up to the meetings, so he replaced them. Essentially, it has been a lay group of interested citizens. That has continued to be the case down to the present time. From a very modest beginning, the Oregon Arts Commission now handles many more requests for money and much larger sums of money are involved. Oregon is now a full participant in the humanities and in the arts endowment programs.

IF: When did OSU start participating in the Endowment?

GG: As soon as money became available, in the late '60s.

IF: When did you organize the International Exhibit Exchange?

GG: That must have been about 1956. I was asked to get together a group of American original prints, to be shown in Italy. So, I said, "OK I'll do it, but I think we should have an exhibit of Italian prints to show in America." They 01:22:00agreed. So a group of American prints was sent to Italy, after an initial showing at OSU Memorial Union. I thought, since we had gone to so much trouble to get them over there, we might as well show them some other places, too. I arranged for the U.S. prints to be the opening exhibit in the new U.S. Cultural Center in Paris, there on the left bank. The British had never had an exhibit of American prints in London, a very provincial town. I arranged to have them shown 01:23:00at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Then I lent it to the Bath Academy. It was shown a number of places in Italy. One of the English artists had emigrated from South Africa, he wanted the South Africans to see it. We then sent it down to two or three of the major universities in South Africa. While I was waiting for the Italians to get their act together with the exhibit they were sending us, I said it would be easy to get together a French show. So, we got a French show together and showed it even before the Italian show made it here. We circulated 01:24:00the French show across the country and then the Italian show came. We sent it around too, to museums, university galleries. People kept writing for more exhibits, so I arranged for two or three of them a year. I did this all in my spare time, you might say, working evenings and weekends. That program developed with the cooperation of the OSU M.U., and we brought in a couple of major shows from England, three from Norway, four from Yugoslavia, one from Greece, one from 01:25:00Denmark, one from Sweden, three from Germany, Japan and France, one from Canada, one from Holland. I was never able to organize a collection from South America or Australia or from Poland. I brought in one from Czechoslovakia and four from Yugoslavia. I could never interest the Polish people in an exchange, even though they were doing great things. Then, I continued to do this up until the time I left Oregon State.

IF: Is the Exhibit Exchange still operating?

GG: It has, in effect, terminated because of the high insurance costs and the 01:26:00high shipping costs. Also involved was the lead time needed by institutions to get grants to support these programs, booking problems, insurance problems, budget cutbacks suffered by a number of the exhibiting organizations, colleges and universities. Their budgets would be wiped out as part of the retrenchment and the recession. Bookings would be cancelled. When they cancelled, there was nothing we could do. We had a contract, but if they won't pay for the expenses, 01:27:00we could not send exhibits. The program, which we initiated in the '50s, was term-inated this spring. Now we're regrouping and we will organize exhibits here at the Portland Art Museum and share them with four or five museums throughout the country. But, we'll have to do it by planning four or five years in advance so they can get their grants and we can get our grants and money together. We'll do it as we can fit it in with the ongoing programs of the museum.

IF: Do you think your post-World War Two art restitution efforts helped facilitate these exchanges?

GG: Well, I certainly met many of the active artists and museum directors then while I was working in France, Italy, Germany. When I wrote to them, they readily agreed to participate. I think that my work in Europe after the war helped in organizing the shows. Once you have some shows on the road, you make discoveries of new artists that have never been heard of before, and in their own countries, sometimes, too. They liked to participate, that gave them an outlet for exposure in this country where they had had exposure before. We sent 01:29:00a couple more U.S. exhibits overseas to Europe and to Greece. We brought in one exhibit from Greece to this country. Those shows helped to acquaint the Europeans with some of the best work in this country. Anything that will help people understand each other is a positive thing. I hope that it helped, in a sense, to advance the cause of international education. Where you have people knowledgeable on an international basis, through such an understanding all of 01:30:00our hopes for peace will have been advanced.

IF: Is it your feeling that because of the American prints that went over to all these various countries that they in some way reflect what American life is really like and the way that Americans really feel, therefore, promote a better understanding?

GG: Yes! There was an official program of the U.S. Information Agency, but by law they were not allowed to bring foreign exhibits to this country because they had no way of screening the artists. At that time, the USIA wouldn't allow communist artists from abroad to exhibit in this country. Since they couldn't screen them, they said no to all of them. I countered that by the shows that we 01:31:00brought in, I didn't inquire into the politics, I only inquired into whether they were fine artists. So, there was a very minimum if any of what you might call propaganda. Yes, USIA did send American exhibits overseas, usually to be shown in America houses or embassy buildings, where only a few people would see them. The U.S. artists in those shows were screened, too. Some U.S. artists would be eliminated on political grounds rather than on aesthetic grounds.

IF: Are you familiar with the conclusions made in the Anderson Report?

GG: The Anderson Report, you mean in education? (The Anderson Report was a 01:33:00teacher education study of the Oregon State System, directed by Earl W. Anderson, released December, 1952.)

IF: Yes. Were you concerned with the implications of this report, since you were a supporter of liberal arts and also an educator?

GG: I believed that greater emphasis should be placed on the arts, music and the visual arts. My colleagues at the University of Oregon and I visited the superintendent of public instruction in Salem and talked with him and various division chiefs and set up a program at the State level so that there would be art and music officers in the superintendent's office, with specialists there, to work with the school systems to increase the programs around the state and to 01:34:00establish standards for accreditation. The Anderson Report made some constructive suggestions. Dr. Anderson came in and made some recommendations about the development of standards. We were able to develop standards for teachers of art, teachers of music. We worked very closely with our counterparts 01:35:00at the University of Oregon in doing so. We set up standard norms and basic norms for teachers in the public schools. We insisted that the subject matter taught remain in the subject matter field, or department, rather than moving everything over to education. Education could teach education courses, but, artists and musicians should teach the subject matter. I think that condition still prevails.

IF: When did you receive your honorary doctorate from Lewis and Clark College?

GG: I was invited up to Lewis and Clark to participate in their graduation ceremonies in June, 1957.

IF: So, you put on the robe along with everybody else and got your diploma, too?

GG: Oh yes, and it was a hot day, I remember.

IF: Were you a member of the Faculty Senate or the faculty forum during this time?

GG: I was elected to the Faculty Senate for several terms and served as vice-chairman of the Faculty Senate for a term. The Senate didn't have a faculty 01:36:00chairman, the president of the university was the chairman. Under President Strand, I served a term as his "Deputy" or second in command of the Faculty Senate. I attended and presided when he was out of town: when he was in town, he attended and presided, I attended. I remember a funny incident. The Senate was voting on something, and this was at the middle of November, they couldn't seem to come to an agreement. I said that we'll have to call a special session to vote on this in order for you to study it and then vote on it, so that the item 01:37:00could meet other deadlines in the state system. The parliamentarian said that we had to have the material in hand and be able to think about for two weeks, as I recall. I said "OK, two weeks would be the 26th of November. We'll have a special session then." Somebody looked at a calendar and said "that's Thanksgiving Day!" (He laughs). When I moved to the Dean's Office, I eliminated myself from con-sideration for the Faculty Senate. Some deans, such as the Dean of Ag-riculture, allowed their names to be used and ran for the faculty senate 01:38:00and won. I felt, since I was an officer of administration, that I should not be involved in Faculty Senate legislative business because I would be sending items over there for them to discuss and hopefully approve. My position would be strengthened if I wasn't there, except as a witness when needed on things that we were proposing from the College of Liberal Arts.

IF: Before the School of Social Sciences and Humanities was established, did many students come to you and express the desire to pursue degrees at Oregon State if they were to become available?

GG: A great number of them came and said, "We're committed to Oregon State. Our 01:39:00parents went to Oregon State. Our grandparents went to Oregon State. We're here, and now we can't major in what we want. We have to major in something else that we don't want to major in, we take these other courses so that we can get the humanities, the social sciences and the arts." The customers, the students, working with the faculty, helped to develop the programs. All along, I involved the students in departmental business and in the College of Liberal Arts, I had Student Advisory Committees, I had students sitting in on committees with faculty members. I also involved students in the review of personnel dossiers of 01:40:00a faculty members coming up for tenure and promotion. I listened to the students and sought their advice, usually it was good. They had a different viewpoint. The faculty had good ideas, the students have good ideas, they still do.

IF: Was it hard to expand Art's course offerings as long as it was a lower division service department?

GG: That was a handicap, which fortunately, we were able to overcome. The Anderson Report helped, because that required courses for Art over a four year 01:41:00period. The development of the major programs at OCE, Eastern Oregon and Southern Oregon State Colleges helped, too. They said that they were regional colleges and that they needed to have full programs- and the Chancellors Office categorized Oregon State and the University of Oregon as national and international universities. We countered that saying that we were national and international, but 4,000 of Oregon State students come from the four counties of 01:42:00Benton, Linn, Lincoln and Lane. They commute. So, at the same time we're a regional institution, we're also a national and international institution. So, the commuters added up to more than the enrollment of any two of the other regional colleges, such as Southern Oregon and Eastern Oregon and the institution at Monmouth.

IF: Was there an Art Education Program developed for teachers as a result of all this?

GG: Yes, we offered degrees through education at first with emphasis in the arts 01:43:00and other subjects, too, such as English, Psychology, Sociology, Geography. They were high school subjects; we helped prepare the teachers for those subjects.

IF: So, it was proposed and accepted by the curriculum council?

GG: First these would be approved in the curriculum council of the Uni-versity and then, in the Faculty Senate, then by the Presidents and the Chancellor; then the State Board of Higher Education always had a continual interest in curricular matters, especially curricular expansion. Vice Chancellor Romney was 01:44:00there for many years bird-dogging the whole thing.

IF: So, these liberal arts education programs became a reality before the actual department majors were? What time was this, the early '60s?

GG: Yes. Throughout the '60s. Some departments couldn't participate in it because their subjects weren't taught in high schools. I think the catalog in those days lists, under the school of education, the standard norm and basic norm programs. Some students majoring in education got their PhDs majoring in Art Education.

IF: When you became dean, what was the attitude of the OSU administration, the State Board, the faculty regarding departmental degrees in the social sciences and humanities?

GG: The departments and the students wanted departmental degrees. They realized, too, the validity of interdepartmental degrees, so we kept the divisional majors in humanities and social sciences because they met the educational needs of a number of students. As an aid to students with departmental interests, to help them to get into graduate schools in those subjects elsewhere, we felt it was a disservice to the students not to be able to offer departmental degrees. With 01:46:00the help of our students and the help of our faculties and some of the faculty member of science (here were some of our strongest advocates), we were able to send them through, and get them approved.

IF: So, it was a bit of a struggle to get the baccalaureate degrees?

GG: Yes, it was a struggle every bit of the way. The first problem was the attitude of Chancellor Richards and the guidelines that had been established by the Chancellor's Office for the development of departmental majors. After the Chancellor's Office declared that there might be a commonality of general avocation at the four year level rather than at the two year level, because of the advance in knowledge, then we could move ahead it would be OK to duplicate 01:47:00work at the four year level at all the institutions. This decision paved the way for upper division curricular development and departmental majors.

IF: During this time of liberal arts development, let's say from late '50s even throughout the early '60s, did the people at the University of Oregon voice any objections to the whole thing?

GG: Well, I know what the people in the Art Department at Oregon were saying. They said that their program wasn't what they wanted it to be yet, and they told us to keep on doing what we were doing and don't try to grow, and when they got all their kinks ironed out, they would help us (he chuckles).

IF: I take it that wasn't received too well?

GG: We listened to them, but then we went our own way. I think people in Music and Geography, English, Economics, History, had similar ex-periences. But, I think a lot of that old clash terminated with the retirement of some of the more institutional oriented faculty members, from both sides. The hard feelings 01:49:00resulted from the 1930 depression decision, when the sciences and technologies were all put at Oregon State and the arts and letters were put at the University of Oregon. The University of Oregon soon made the pitch, quite properly so, that they couldn't have a real university without a full program in the sciences. President Donald Erb, December, 1941, accepted the presidency of the University of Oregon with the understanding that the University would be allowed full graduate programs in the sciences. That would have been the time for Oregon State to say that we couldn't have a real institution of higher education 01:50:00without full programs in the arts and letters. But that was not done. Rather, OSC asked for a reinstallation of a business program, which was readily granted. But, Oregon State was in a leadership crisis at the time. Acting President Frank Ballard, had been acting president for about a year. On December 7, 1941, there was a Board meeting scheduled in Portland. Acting President Ballard asked the 01:51:00Dean of Science, Dr. Francois Gilfillan, to go along with him. Enroute to Portland, Ballard asked Gilfillan's permission to advance the name of Gilfillan to acting president - that he wanted out. At the meeting, Ballard said he wouldn't be acting president anymore, he wanted Dean Gilfillan to be the acting president. At the same Board meeting, the University of Oregon advanced the name of Dr. Erb as president of U of 0, and concurrent with that request, a request for full graduate programs in sciences to be returned to the University of Oregon. This all caught the people at Oregon State with their administration in limbo. Later on that day, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Then we went into the war 01:52:00years without being able to mobilize the campus in the development of the arts and letters.

IF: Do you think that Oregon State would have received a degree allocation in the liberal arts if the people in education wouldn't have been so supportive of the whole idea?

GG: I think it would have been more difficult. We did have an understanding Dean of Education, who was interested in developing edu-cation at OSU. He knew we had the courses, the subject matter, so our graduates could go out and teach the subjects in the schools. He wanted to have the education graduates marketable, 01:53:00ones that would be able to fit into the school systems and teach. That meant that they had to be prepared. He also served as the director of the summer term as well as Dean of Education, so we developed summer programs for teachers who were already out in the field. They would come back in the summer and work on their standard norm programs. We encouraged them to work on their Master's degrees at the same time. We developed at that time the Master of Arts in General studies Program to accommodate those people and others. Since that wasn't tied in with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, it was approved by the Chancellor's Office for both Oregon College of Education as well 01:54:00as Oregon State University. I think the Board never knew how it came about or what they were approving, but they did. So, that helped open up graduate programs, interdisciplinary graduate programs at Oregon State, not only in humanities and social sciences and the arts but the whole campus. But, most of the students were in humanities and social science subjects. That was because the other schools and the College of Science already had graduate programs. If you teach science, or any subject, you should at least get you Master's in that subject.

IF: From the time you arrived at OSC 'til the time an art major was established, something like 19 years passed. Did this struggle for recognition ever frustrate you to the point where you considered leaving?

GG: I was always frustrated by the lack of recognition of the stature of the department and by the lack of physical facilities. Indeed, I thought of leaving a number of times, going where there were programs already well established, based in systems that recognized the value of full programs. But, then the 01:56:00challenge was still at OSU. I was able to work off some of my excess energies and frustrations doing my own work. I exhibited continuously then and also directed the international exchange exhibition. Then I became interested in international education in general and helped to establish overseas study programs for the state system, four of them while I was there. One is in Baden-Wurttemberg, the German Study Center. There's one in Japan, at Waseda University. Another is at the University of Poitiers, in France. The last one established while I was at OSU was the Latin American Study Center at 01:57:00Guadalajara at the University Of Guadalajara, Mexico. Those four programs I initiated, I didn't achieve them singlehandedly. I was able to get Peter Anton of Philosophy over to Tokyo to work out the details of a partnership with the International Division at Waseda and the Oregon State System. He had been a Fullbright teacher in Japan and I had previously encouraged him to apply for a funded program at Stanford for a year's post-doctoral work in Japanese Language and culture. He received the grant. So, he was ready to go to Japan. He did a fine job getting things organized with the officials at Waseda. Then, I got the 01:58:00program approved by Oregon State University and the Oregon State System of Higher Education. We had to sell each program to each of the ot-her institutions, Portland State and the University of Oregon, chiefly. As to the program in Germany, I was a guest of the Bonn government in 1962. During that 01:59:00time, I studied the different art academies and the museums, universities. I came back and wondered about the best place to set up a partnership between the state of Oregon and a state in Germany. I zeroed in on the state of Baden-Wurttemberg with Stuttgart the capital. Because number one, there were no American Universities there in any affiliated program, and number two, they wanted us. Number three, they had comparable programs so that our students could 02:00:00advance academically. I made initial overtures in the early '60s with the representative of the French universities in American in New York City, the cultural attaché. I gave letters of introduction to OSU French Professor Louis Richter in the mid-sixties, to the minister of Education in Paris. But Richter became ill, later died, and wasn't able to follow through. I gave similar instructions to Dr. Odette Cardart-Ricard, professor of French at Oregon State a 02:01:00year or so later as she was going to be in France with a group of students. She did make contact with the National Minister of Education. He told her to go to the University of Poitiers, which she did. She met the rector and helped me carry the conversation and corresponded with him over a four year period, while we ironed out all the difficulties, the dormitories and so on. Then, we recruited the first group of students. Just then the French government reorganized the whole system of higher education in France. By the time the students got there, our rector wasn't rector anymore. We had to deal with a new person. But the new person accepted the students and Dr. Cadart-Ricard, the first resident director. The study center is still there and officially integrated by an act of the French government as part of the University of Poitiers.

We developed a Latin American Studies program at OSU. Then we began looking for a Latin American Study Center abroad. Some people wanted it in Barcelona or in Madrid, Spain. Others of the faculty wanted a cooperative program with a university in Chile or Columbia or Costa Rica. But those universities were on a completely different calendar schedule. I didn't like to do business with the government in Chile, Professor Walter Kraft, a professor of German and Spanish, 02:03:00took a sabbatical in South America. During that time he looked at many of the institutions in South America. He came back and reported that there were problems with all of them. I said "I'm going down to Mexico, we're on the same calendar schedule. School starts in the fall and it's over with in the spring, whereas south of the equator it is the other way around." My wife and I went to Mexico City. I saw the minister of education and the people in the American embassy, too. They all said "because of our programs in the state of Oregon, the literal arts, agriculture, engineering and so on, the state University of 02:04:00Guadalajara might be the best bet. So, we flew to Guadalajara and met with the president, the registrar, the public relations man. I talked with the U.S. Consulate General in Guadalajara and his education and cultural officer, and arranged it. Then I had to come back and sell Oregon and the Chancellor's Office and the State System. There were several objections. We sent a professor from the University of Oregon to check it out down there to see if what I said was true. Then the final approval was given. By that time I had told Guadalajara that it would take a while to get all the approvals in Oregon, but I kept the 02:05:00president apprised of the situation. One day he wrote that he approved the whole program and named a student to attend Oregon State in September! Sure enough, he came, a graduate student in forest engineering. He was the first exchange student in the new program. We wanted all the programs to be full student exchanges; their students would come to Oregon, our students would go there. Their students would come with whatever scholarships they had, our students would go over there on state scholarships or whatever. We would waive the out of state tuition for those out of country students, because they didn't charge us any out-of-state tuition. We got the state legislature to approve that arrangement. Then we arranged for scholarships for the students; the Japanese 02:06:00and the French, the German and the Mexican students coming to us. We hoped that our students would take their state scholarships with them because we considered them to be within the state system even though they were in another country. We arranged, too, with the foreign universities for them to give several grants to selected Oregon students.

IF: These students that went on this exchange program, were they foreign language students, or history students, or what exactly was their background?

GG: These were students from all the disciplines. One requirement for the students in Guadalajara, Poitiers, or in Baden-Wurttemberg was the language requirement. They had to be able to sit in the classes across the campus and take notes and participate in the classroom discussions in the language of instruction. The same thing applied to the students who came to us from overseas. They had to pass the English entrance exams just like the students 02:07:00going to Germany had to pass the German entrance exams. If they couldn't pass it, we would put them in special classes until they did pass. The English Language Institute at OSU took care of some of the foreign students who couldn't attend our classes and couldn't make grades because they didn't know what was going on. They were put in the English Language Institute until they could. By and large, we screened the students very carefully, so the ones coming here were conversing in English and our students going to Guadalajara, Poitiers, or Baden-Wurttemberg could participate in the classes and pass the entrance exams. As to those headed for Tokyo, it would help if they had Japanese language study, 02:08:00but the Japanese language was not taught at Portland State then, and not very often at Oregon State, only at the University of Oregon. We immediately started teaching the Japanese language when the students arrived in Tokyo. They carried that along with the other classes in the international division at Waseda.

In Stuttgart, we had trouble finding housing for students because of all the foreign workers from Turkey, Italy, Yugoslavia in the industries in Stuttgart and the University, Art and Music academies there made for a shortage of 02:09:00housing., We were able to get a grant from the Max Kade Foundation of New York City as seed money, around $98,000, so we could go to the state parliament of Baden-Wurttemberg and get more appropriations to build an international house. That was constructed, and it assured rooms for 30 of our students. They were not by themselves, but mixed in with other students, Germans and so on. That was built after three or four years. There were dormitories at Tubingen University, 02:10:00where some of our students went. Now, they also go to a new university in Baden-Württemberg, Konstanz University. The program has been in existence for a dozen years in Japan and Germany, ten years in France, four or five years in Guadalajara. They are well established and serve a very useful purpose. Students find themselves; some of them find careers, some of them find each other over 02:11:00there (he laughs).

IF: When did you become desirous of having an OSU Liberal Arts program at the graduate level?

GG: This we continued to advocate even before we had departmental majors. We felt we had to take these things a step at a time. First, we had to have successful undergraduate majors. Then, if we were successful with undergraduate majors, in order to utilize the full potential of the faculty, and, so that the tax payers would get their full value from the faculty, we'll have graduate programs. We developed one which had a good chance of going through, one in economics. We sent it through the senate and they approved it. President 02:12:00MacVicar sent it to the Chancellor's Office. The vice-chancellor sent it back without it even showing it to the Chancellor. He said the status quo shouldn't be upset by having to think about this. He sent it back. The president accepted it back, but I didn't accept it back! So, as far as I know, it is still on the president's desk, unless Dean King has accepted it back. I wouldn't accept it back. It had already been approved by the college. It had been approved by the faculty senate, the president. The president held it in abeyance, but that was another matter. That was, of course, during a period of economic and student enrollment growth. We now continually have growth in student enrollment, but we 02:13:00don't have an economic expansion. I know that new programs cost money, some of them a lot, some of them less. This is why I have always wondered why Portland State, for example, could get engineering programs under the allocation system. Duplication of engineering equipment costs a lot of money. Oregon State was declared the site of the state's engineering school, but Portland State is now adding an engineering program.

IF: Did faculty and administrators from other branches of the University besides liberal arts lend some support to the idea of having a graduate liberal arts program?

GG: I had the support of, especially science, in the development of graduate 02:14:00programs. The school of agriculture and the school of forestry were very much interested in the graduate program in economics, because it would have helped them.

IF: Do you know why the State Board has taken such an obstinate stand towards having graduate programs?

GG: They are still thinking in terms of specialized institutions. They also have to balance the budget, they have to fight the battle of the budgets. The Chancellor has to carry the fight to the legislature. The state legislature always knocks it out - within my memory - new, innovative programs. They will fund ongoing programs, but how to get a program ongoing when it comes under the 02:15:00heading of a new program, it's very difficult. So, it has become a matter of politics. Portland State, with the population center of Oregon, has a lot of political strength. Whatever Portland State asks for in the realm of possibility, Portland State gets because it has the legislative support and the votes. If Oregon State were to muster full strength through the different branches and extension services around the state, through a process of education, I suppose...but that's a long and difficult road, to have extension 02:16:00agents in Baker advocating a graduate program in philosophy at Oregon State.

IF: So, there really hasn't been much progress towards getting advanced degrees in liberal arts?

GG: Only the Master of Arts in General Studies. Geography, of course, has a Ph.D. available on the science side. I had hoped there would have been a development in cultural geography which would be more in the social science realm of the College of Liberal Arts. But, they have continued to provide very good service in the preparation of geographers in the area they have staked out. 02:17:00I think eventually, as I indicated before, these programs will come. But, they will only come if people will lay the groundwork and fight for them, when the economic situation is right.

IF: Do you think that the morale of the liberal arts faculty has suffered because professional recognition hasn't been given?

GG: Yes, absolutely. That's been the problem all along. The faculty has thought of themselves as second or third class citizens. I don't know how Dean King feels, whether he feels like a second class dean or not. But, I attended meetings of deans around the country. They would talk about their graduate 02:18:00programs, their teaching and research graduate assistants, their faculty salaries and their own salaries. During those discussions, I would have to remain silent. President MacVicar told me a number of times that because we didn't have graduate programs, we weren't as deeply involved in research and were not worth as much. When you have graduate programs, you have graduate 02:19:00students, teaching and research assistants. Because we didn't have major grants to support graduate programs to support research, salary monies were allocated so that the University would keep us in an inferior position. That was true all the way down from the dean to the newest instructor. We were not on the salary scale with the College of Science or the other schools on campus. This contributed to the morale problem, too, since the salaries were available in the 02:20:00library. No matter how hard a person worked as a teacher, and we tried to stimulate them to attend professional meetings, to be creative in the arts, to do research in their fields, there wasn't a payoff when the merit monies were handed out. I have a feeling, continuous to this day, not because of who was dean at the time, but because of the attitude of the president towards 02:21:00essentially an undergraduate college, as opposed to colleges and schools with graduate programs. Here was a vicious circle. Where you couldn't get graduate programs, you couldn't par-ticipate as fully as we would want to because we didn't have research assistants to help. There were many social problems to be investigated, a spillover of problems created by science. Firstly, the problem of working with scientists in the solution of problems, with no graduate assistant. Secondly, after budget cuts and confiscation of FTE and confiscation 02:22:00of dollars and the necessity to keep up general education for students throughout the campus, this made very full-time teachers out of our faculty. My faculties taught one-third of the total student credit hours on campus. Many of them taught very heavy loads with many students and lots of paper grading, by themselves, because they didn't have T.A.'s to do their grading. They didn't have the time or energy to move in research areas that they would have liked to investigate. We were able to get some research monies. I hope that situation is 02:23:00improving. We did secure grants from the graduate council, the research council, the OSU Foundation and from off-campus funders. As long as the college is an undergraduate college, I think that situation will prevail. My attitude is that it would be best if OSU's next president came from the social sciences, arts or letters. The last few presidents have been from the sciences, or the applied science fields.

IF: When did you retire?

GG: I retired during the summer, 1977. I stayed on for two terms, Fall and 02:24:00Winter, 1977 and 1978, as emeritus professor teaching a full load of studio and lecture courses in the art department. That's allowed under a 600 hour per calendar year rule of the state system; it's a state law. Retired people who can still make it to class, think, and see, can teach 600 hours a year to augment their retirement pay. I did that for two consecutive terms. I used up my 02:25:00eligibility winter term for '78. 600 hours equates to one term. Then I was retired for 14 days, from the 16th of March to the 1st of April. I reported up here, the first of April, 1978, as a full-time employee.

IF: Would you have stayed on as Dean of CLA if your retirement had been voluntary instead of involuntary?

GG: I was dean for 14 years. That's probably too long for one dean to be in one office. It's twice too long for a president. If the president hasn't 02:26:00accomplished in five to seven years what is achievable, then that's long enough for a chief administrator to serve, no matter how good. I think after that long, it's time to turn things over to somebody else, with new ideas and new insights. I was always pushing for graduate programs and establishing the overseas study 02:27:00centers and I seemed to be always in the middle of some development, such as "The Great Hall." I never thought about leaving the office. No one that I can think of thought about recalling me, at least not all at the same time. I hit 65 and "Goodbye, Gordon, go to sleep!" (He laughs)

IF: When you retired, there was a lot of controversy surrounding the final location of where you and your graphic arts collection was going to reside. Didn't OSU make any overtures towards you about this?

GG: They came in at the last minute with a suggestion that I stay on and teach as long as I was able to, on a 600 hour each year basis. OSU would put up a museum for the collection, a modest print center museum and I could have a 02:28:00studio on Campus. But, I talked with the Vice Chancellor for facilities planning and he laughed at the whole idea. He said "There's not enough money and the president of Oregon State hasn't asked for anything like that. Once you ask for it, it's at the bottom of the list and it takes 20 or 30 years to work up to the top of the list." He said "not during your lifetime would you see such a development." The OSU Foundation was then deeply involved trying to raise money for the great hall, $10 million. They had about $3 ½ million in hand or pledged. There were a number of people they could have asked for the rest, but somehow or another, they never got around to asking them. I had written a paper 02:29:00for the facilities development of Oregon State. I didn't give any priorities. I simply said we need a continuing education center, we need a great hall, we need a music building, an art building, an art museum and we need a theater. I didn't say which should come first. I took that list to the OSU Foundation and we also visited the Iowa State University at Ames, where they have a continuing education center, a fine theater, a great hall, a coliseum where they hold 02:30:00events like we have in our coliseum. We met with the OSU Foundation and they decided to go with the biggest pile of money first, "The Great Hall," while money was still available and before things became more expensive. I enlisted Pietro Belluschi, the great architect, to make the preliminary plans, which he did. Then a drive was undertaken. The drive never did go public. The president 02:31:00said if we could get a third or a half of the money committed from the OSU Foundation members, industry and so on. Then we could go public. We got it up to 3 ½ million of the 10 million and then I left. The president wasn't ever too sold on the Great Hall, he wanted to keep me happy and Vice President Roy Young happy, and Dean Popovich happy. It took a unanimous vote from the Foundation before he became an advocate for it. Then Roy Young left for Nebraska, I to Portland and Popovich announced his early retirement. When I left Corvallis and 02:32:00moved to Portland, the next thing I knew was that they were having a meeting in Portland to terminate the fundraising campaign, not go public, but rather ask the donors to continue their money behind the continuing education center. I knew at the time that many of the major donors hadn't even been approached. But, as long as the president wasn't firmly committed, and since I had not given priorities in my list, any building would be start, whether it was the most expensive one or the least expensive. I said a few words as I was leaving at the 02:33:00Multnomah Athletic Club and told them that the main thing was that they should get started with a building program and put up one building, then another and so on. Over a period of years, everything would be up. At that same time, Eugene found out that we were raising money for a Great Hall and voters down there had twice turned down a Great Hall for Eugene. When they saw when we were going ahead, the voters passed the one in Eugene. It will be open in another year or so. I haven't seen it, but it is well underway. I think that the president of Oregon State used that as a reason to delay the Great Hall. Although, the Great 02:34:00Hall at Eugene won't have much impact on Oregon State; we still need one at OSU.

IF: Which institutions did offer to house your collection?

GG: I had discussions with the National Gallery in Washington. They were very favorably inclined. I had offers from Lewis and Clark, Reed College in Portland, the University of Oregon in Eugene. I had an indication from Berkeley and Stanford that they would like to talk about it. I didn't follow up on the out of 02:35:00state suggestions. The National Gallery in Washington D.C. was interested, too. They already had a great collection. I felt that our collection was a great one. Rather than just putting it in with other great collection in the East, it would serve a more educational and cultural purpose if it were available here in the Northwest. I didn't really seriously consider Stanford or Berkeley. I then had to choose between the Portland Art Association, the University of Oregon, Oregon State, Lewis and Clark and Reed College. In the case of the four educational 02:36:00institutions, they had no facilities then available to house the collection. They would have had to engage in a public fund raising campaign. Two of them were state institutions, but they couldn't get state money for such a facility. They would have had to do it by subscription. The University of Oregon was bogged down trying to get an elevator in their present museum. Oregon State said they would put up a little building, down by the tracks somewhere and put me and the collection in it. Reed College became very excited and said they would put 02:37:00up a new art school building and museum together and move us up. Indeed they later put up an art building, its open now. They didn't build the museum, because we didn't go there. That disappointed the art department over there greatly. Reed would serve a small student body and a local community, within a larger community... same with Lewis and Clark. The president of Lewis and Clark showed me a site by the theater and the new physics-chemistry building. He said 02:38:00"This is where we'll put you." But, he didn't have the money in hand either, and he had a campaign underway to put up the physics-chemistry building. Thus, the Oregon educational institutions offered continual teaching authorization, a studio for my own work. They didn't offer an immediate place to exhibit and store the collection. At the Portland Art Museum and School I found all of this. They made me an offer to teach part time as long as I was able to in the Museum School for professionally oriented full-time art students. They offered immediate climate controlled and humidity controlled storage of the collection. 02:39:00They offered museum walls under museum conditions, with guards during the exhibition of portions of the collection. This was made available immediately without a long term wait for what we were looking for. I think it was also a move to neutral territory. I was caught between the cross fire between the University of Oregon and Oregon State, and between Lewis and Clark and Reed. So I moved to neutral territory to an institution that serves all the institutions 02:40:00of education at all levels in the state of Oregon. Now I have tours coming from Oregon State, University of Oregon, from the Oregon School of Arts and Crafts. Then I have students coming in from the Portland public schools and junior colleges, state colleges and universities in the state of Washington. We are in a central location in the Northwest. I think we're better serving the educational and cultural needs of a much greater populous, including the student populous, than if we would have gone to any of the other institutions. I don't regret at all the move to the Portland Art Association. It was inconvenient at 02:41:00the time, since we had to sell our house in Corvallis and buy one here. I had to pick up and leave my associates that I had worked with for 30 years or more. I was busy all the while and so it was a very easy adjustment.

IF: Did the lack of graduate liberal arts programs influence your decision not to house the collection at OSU?

GG: The lack of graduate programs and the lack of fireproof facilities. They have valuable art works now stored in Fairbanks Hall, which has always been a fire trap, it remains a fire trap. This, in spite of the sprinkler system that holds the building together, that and the funny, yellow, paint-glue mixture on 02:42:00the outside. Here, there are graduate students who come from New York and Boston, Kansas City, to look at the collections at the museum, to study them. We have scholars coming from the universities in Japan to study them, art students and general students from the Northwest coming in. So, I think we're serving more effectively a larger population than if we had moved to any of the other institutions. We're not caught in any of the institutional rivalries, because we 02:43:00don't have any rivals at the Museum. We are a unique educational and cultural institution. We are the only professional art museum school in the northwest. We're the major art museum in the state of Oregon. We're the oldest and second largest museum, the largest being in Seattle.

IF: How long have you and the collection been here?

GG: We moved up here in April, 1978, so we're moving into the third year. IF: This collection is owned jointly by you and your wife, isn't it?

GG: We own our house together, we own the collection together, we own the 02:44:00automobile together (he laughs). Share and share alike.

IF: Has your wife always been a collector?

GG: She is involved in the musical arts, I in the visual arts. She goes to museums with me and I go to the concerts with her. She does have some favorites in the collection. She's very partial to the French and Italian schools.

IF: What exactly is your job here at the museum?

GG: I am a curator of prints and drawings, and I guess, of calligraphy, too. We are developing memorial collection for Professor Lloyd J. Reynolds who taught calligraphy at Reed and in our museum school. He was a graduate of Oregon State 02:45:00University and the University of Oregon, Forestry, from Oregon State and English from the University of Oregon. He was teacher of literature and calligraphy and a key figure in the development of calligraphy in the northwest. When he passed away a couple of years ago, we were determined to form a big significant calligraphy collection in his memory. So, we now have over a hundred items being made or already in the house from calligraphers around the world. You might say, I am involved with works of art on paper, prints, drawings, and calligraphy. In addition to being curator, I'll serve as long as I'm able and then I'll be honorary curator for life, I'm artist-printmaker in residence in the museum 02:46:00school. I teach one class in studio printmaking and one lecture class in the history of printmaking. I'm full-time curator, a half time teacher, a half time printmaker in residence. That keeps me busy.

IF: So you're two full-time people!

GG: Absolutely.

IF: And you still find time to create prints?

GG: Not as many as I'd like, but I'm moving in that direction. When I get things better organized around here.

IF: Not that you're, well, sort of retired, do you have time to do anything else?

GG: I'm busier now than I've ever been. I work just as long and just as hard, but it's in an area that I'm most deeply committed. I go to concerts with Mrs. 02:47:00Gilkey. I like to travel and draw and take photographs of where I happen to be. That's another type of visual expression, photography. It might as well be utilized, since it's here!

IF: Are you satisfied with the work you're doing here at the museum?

GG: I see that I'm making progress. There's much more to be done; that remains a challenge. We have visions. The area just outside this office has been made into a gallery, so that we can hang smaller exhibits there. We'll go upstairs in a 02:48:00moment, and I'll show you where we hang our temporary exhibits. I can show you where we store objects not on view. But, we need an improved storage facility only for prints, a print cabinet, where people can come in and ask to see a particular work as they would go to a library and ask for a particular book. Now we need a little advanced notice to find it, because we're not through cataloguing everything yet. Maybe in the next two or three years, we'll be through cataloguing. Only then will we be able to find everything. We're organizing our own exhibits and bringing in other exhibits all the while. That takes time. We're adding to the collection, in some cases, that means raising 02:49:00money to pay for what we're adding. So, we're trying to establish an endowment for the acquisition and purchase of original prints. That way, this collection won't be a static one, so we can keep up with what's being done around the world. I'm working closely with the financial officials of the Association to follow up on fund raising for the endowment. Also, we have plans for a major print center, quite apart from the museum. It might be in the museum, but it would almost be, a self-contained exhibition and storage, study and conservation facility for works of art on paper. We're also hoping to expand the 02:50:00instructional studios. We now have modest rooms for four of them, one for etching (intaglio), one for woodcut printmaking, one for silk screening, and one for lithography. There are improvements that can be made in each one of those areas. There's also some overlapping in today's printmaking. We'd like to set up administrative possibilities for such overlapping. We're instituting graduate instruction in studio art. I think I'll have the first graduate student in 02:51:00printmaking in September. So, at long last I'll be involved in graduate art education. I had to leave Oregon State to do it!

IF: Well, you got your wish. Before I close, is there anything you would like to add?

GG: I have the vision that the state institutions should grow and be strengthened. I do not believe in maintaining the status quo, because you're not moving ahead then, in fact you're moving backwards. There's still much to be done in every area on the state campuses, especially at Oregon State. There 02:52:00should be a full development of the potentials in the arts, humanities and social sciences, so, the taxpayers will get their monies worth from their investment in the faculty. They're good faculty members, in fact, they're great faculty members. This means graduate programs. The students, for one reason or another, who will not go to another institution but want to go to Oregon State, they should be able to get at that institution a full realization of their formal educational potential, without putting restrictions on it. As to the undergraduates, you do not now have to tell them that they can't stay at OSU if they major in philosophy, sociology, English, whatever. There are 16 departments 02:53:00with more disciplines than are represented by the departments because there are several disciplines within some of the departments. Examples are in the languages, Art, Speech Communications (that's more than talking, it's also television, radio, speech, and hearing therapy and so on). In Journalism, you can frag that out into a number of career patterns. I think the University leadership should look forward and not become bogged down in decisions that were made years ago about program space limitations. The situations; even if we 02:54:00wanted to, we couldn't go back. So, we should look forward and build for the future. That means working today, so that goals will be achieved. The people of Oregon can do just about anything that they want to within reason. I hope they will want to have a great university at Oregon State.

IF: Well, thank you very much. I'm glad you've shown interest in our little liberal arts documentary. I think that you're more than qualified to comment on this subject.

GG: Well, I have given you a lot of OSU problems that concern me, but they seem 02:55:00to fade as new problems come up here in Portland.

IF: Hopefully, they will take care of themselves. At any rate, thank you very much.