Interview with Ronald Horvath, January 3, 2007

O'HARA: This is Adina O'Hara conducting an oral history interview with Dr. Ron Horvath at Jefferson Community and Technical College for the Community College Oral History project on January 3rd, 2007. Dr. Horvath, in the 1960s the demand for a community college in Jefferson County was -- exceeded expectations. Jefferson Community College 00:01:00received 1,911 applications from prospective students during the summer of 1968. With the approximately 600 spring semester students returning from the spring of '68, fall enrollment reached 2,500 in its first year, fall of 1969. Because you became the third president of Jefferson Community College in 1975, can you explain -- will you explain the growth of the community college during your presidency?

HORVATH: From '69 to '75 or beyond --

O'HARA: Beyond.

HORVATH: Beyond. Okay.

O'HARA: Yeah, when you came here.

HORVATH: Part of the answer to why the growth of community colleges, not only in Jefferson County, not only in Kentucky, but across the country, part of that answer simply lay with the fact that education was in high 00:02:00demand from the adult population, that is, those students, basically in their 30s, in their 40s, some in their 50s, who never had the chance to go to college. They were part of the World War II generation. They were deprived of opportunities for colleges simply because colleges for the people did not exist. But it was the passage of the G.I. Bill back in the late 1940s that stimulated the growth of higher education. The adult students, the returning war vets, literally kicked open the doors of higher education in this country. And that train just continued right on up through the '60s and '70s and continues today. In the '60s and the '70s, community colleges were being built at the rate of one a week across this country. And again, tens and hundreds 00:03:00of thousands began to enroll simply because people were looking for opportunities for higher education.

O'HARA: And what was your background before you came to Kentucky?

HORVATH: I was born in New York City, but grew up in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, primarily. My parents -- my mother finished the 8th grade, my father was a high school dropout, went to work. This was the Depression time. He finished his GED in the Army. So I was the first one in our family that, first of all, finished high school, and second of all, went to college. So I came from a family where education was not a tradition. We did not have a lot of books in our house, did not have a big emphasis on reading and diversifying, but my parents were 00:04:00very, very interested in my getting an education. And that's primarily the family background. I often said when I spoke about the community colleges, I said, "The only reason I never went to a community college, they didn't exist when I graduated from high school." For the most part. There were a few across the country. I graduated from high school in 1956. I would add parenthetically I was only ten, but I -- no. (both laugh) So there was no community college to attend. The next best thing was a state teachers college in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania had a very fine system of state teachers colleges. So I started in 1956 as an English major at Kutztown State Teachers College 00:05:00in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. There were 1,000 students that attended that institution. That's -- it was relatively small. Completed a bachelor's degree in English, graduated in 1960, took a job teaching English at Parkland High school, a suburb of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Taught English for six years. A community college opened -- Lehigh County Community College opened in 1967 in Allentown. I applied for a job as an English professor there and was hired and became head of the English department. I think I drew the short straw. Nobody else wanted the job, but I took it. And I stayed there until I left in 1973. But in the interim, in addition to teaching English and being a professor of English, I was also an associate dean of liberal arts and 00:06:00became the first dean of liberal arts, and vice president for planning and development. And then I left to go to Binghamton, New York, where I was academic vice president, later acting president. And we came to Louisville, Kentucky, in 1975 as the director.

O'HARA: Because of its geographical proximity to the University of Louisville, the establishment of a community college in Jefferson County involved an agreement between Kentucky's two universities, UK and U of L. Could you explain Jefferson Community College's relationship with U of L while -- during your tenure?

HORVATH: The relationship with the University of Louisville varied, depending upon the time and depending upon the circumstances. There were various attempts that were made, either by legislators or 00:07:00community people or, at times, some of the University of Louisville administrative group and board, to take over Jefferson Community College. In some ways, Jefferson was viewed as competition for U of L. It was viewed in some cases as a threat to the growth of the University of Louisville. And there was a certain feeling, I believe, that U of L thought we were getting state resources that U of L was entitled to. The irony of that position also involved the University of Kentucky, because at one time the University of Louisville was strictly an urban institution and was funded in part by the city. And when it got moved into the higher education system in the state, it began to take resources from the University of Kentucky. And the University of 00:08:00Kentucky felt that U of L was taking resources that it was entitled to. So there was a good bit of institutional rivalry that existed between and among the institutions. Jefferson, I think, was kind of a pawn that was caught in the middle of that thing. But I would add again, as a -- because it wasn't -- it didn't end that way. I established some pretty good relationships with Dr. Donald Swain, president of U of L. And we had, I think, a pretty good working relationship. There were several projects that we cooperated on, and as time went on, the idea of a threat became less and less. Matter of fact, Don Swain's predecessor was Woody Strickler. Dr Strickler was a graduate of Lehigh University, which is where I earned my graduate degree in Pennsylvania. 00:09:00So -- and I didn't know Woody. He died very quickly after we got here. He had left the job already, and there was an interim president. Bill Eckstrom was the interim president, and then Don Swain got hired. I also had a very good working relationship with Dr. Eckstrom, who at times -- I think he served at least two or three different times as acting president, in between presidents, as they were searching for presidents. And I had a very, very excellent working relationship with Bill Eckstrom. Bill knew what the value of the community college was. There was no perception of a threat there. But at any rate, as I said, the early -- I would say from about '75 to 80, relationships were a little touchy. We had some very frank discussions. I always felt -- and I tried to convince Don Swain to really give it some serious 00:10:00consideration, I would say to Don Swain, "Don, no university in this country has ever achieved an excellent reputation for the quality of its undergraduate work in a public institution. It's always built on the graduate programs, the professional programs, the high-powered faculty that you attract. They don't teach freshmen, they don't teach sophomores. They focus on the upper division and so forth. Why doesn't U of L consider going to an emphasis on upper division and professional and graduate school, taking your 500 students, freshmen students, each year to play basketball, football, theater, and do whatever, you know, 500 freshman students can do, but leave the bulk of the freshman-, sophomore- level education to JCC, in addition to the technical programs, and also the transfer programs." I always tried 00:11:00to impress upon him the need to try to establish a bachelor of arts in technology. Said, "Don, just turn the traditional liberal arts education upside down." Typical liberal arts education, general studies for two years, then you have a major for two years. Said, "Technical programs, they start with the specific programs, top it off with two years of general education at U of L, and wind up with a bachelor of arts in technology." I said, "You'd have more students than you could shake a stick at." They never really pursued that.

O'HARA: But they did take your other suggestion, to go with the emphasis on the upper level and graduate to a certain degree?

HORVATH: Well, yeah. They expanded that, but they never really abandoned the freshman- and sophomore-level. And I think there was a certain pressure that existed on U of L in terms of the West End, in terms of 00:12:00the black population in the city. U of L did make some outstanding efforts to attract black students, African-American students at that time, from the West End. They established some centers in the West End and really tried to muster that population into their student body. And I give them a lot of credit for that. It was a high-risk population, but they established a lot of good things out of that.

O'HARA: During your tenure, was there any cooperative agreements between JCC and U of L, in regard to transfer, your students transferring their general education credits or, like you said, even their technical component over?

HORVATH: They evolved over a period of time, as Jefferson got more in touch with the other area institutions through the Metroversity. For 00:13:00a long time JCC could not join Metroversity. Metroversity consisted of the University of Louisville, Indiana University Southeast, the two seminaries, plus Spalding College and Bellamine College. And you talk about a mixture (Horvath laughs). Public, private, Protestant, Catholic, secular, religious, and so forth. It was a pretty good group. For there a long time I did a lot of persuading with the UK people to get us -- to allow us to join. And we finally did, and that helped the whole situation. So as we developed transfer agreements with Spalding, it was the first one. Sister Eileen Egan was president of Spalding at that time, and she was very open to transfer students. And that kind of set a little bit of a positive tone for our students 00:14:00transferring. But for the most part, students were able to work with some very understanding and very cooperative faculty advisors at U of L. And they knew where to go to get -- make sure their credits transferred. And sometimes they did, and sometimes they didn't. But - - and that situation existed here, not in isolation, because it existed all over the country.

O'HARA: Sure, sure.

HORVATH: It was, you know, transfer students, you know, that was something that was different. "If you don't take English at my institution, you're really not taking English." Well, that's -- fortunately, that snotty attitude has disappeared, not totally, but for the most part I think it has. Because we had some faculty here -- probably at any one time, we probably had 15, 20, 30 faculty members who taught at other institutions of higher education on a part-time basis. 00:15:00So -- and Tony Newberry was a perfect example of that. He used to teach one class in American History, I think, at U of L. They wouldn't take the American History that he taught here, but they would take it when he was teaching the same course (Horvath laughs) at U of L.

O'HARA: How ironic.

HORVATH: But -- and that existed all over. So again, we had a lot of very excellent faculty members that helped to smooth that transition between the two institutions and the transfer students.

O'HARA: Now this consortium --

HORVATH: Yeah, Metroversity.

O'HARA: Metroversity. I'm not familiar with that.

HORVATH: Well, it still exists. It -- I guess it's very low key at this point. I think it's housed right now at Jefferson. They -- I'm not sure, there were so many different thrusts that Metroversity had. A lot of the librarian folks worked together, the library people, and 00:16:00they established that you could borrow a book -- if you were a student at U of L, you could take books out of the seminary or if you were a student at the seminary, you could take out -- you could take books out of the Jefferson library. So the library folks were very much tuned to cooperation. And that's how you find ways to achieve cooperation. It's easy to pick a fight. But if you can find people that will work together, that know one -- see, once they start to know one another, you know. And a lot of folks at Jefferson earned their graduate degrees at U of L. So the faculty at U of L who had these people as doctoral students and master's students knew the quality of the students and the teaching -- they had as students were teaching here.

O'HARA: They had more commonality than differences.

HORVATH: Of course, of course. That's -- I think you hit the nail right on the head. We have more in common that we had differences.

O'HARA: But it sounds like -- with your lengthy tenure of 20 years, it sounds like you must have been good at pulling people together.

HORVATH: Well --

O'HARA: I mean, I can tell.

HORVATH: Thank you. (O'Hara laughs) I will say this. I had an awful lot of excellent, excellent faculty and staff people that worked at this institution here. Person for person, I was blessed. I really was. The number of excellent deans I had, the department chairs, the faculty. I mean, there were some super-duper teachers that we had here. They would work. They worked 50, 60, 70 hours of registration, because it was all hand registration, no computers when we started.

O'HARA: Lines out the door.

HORVATH: Line 'em up and . . . you know. So again, as I said, I was 00:18:00blessed with the -- you know, there were people who were committed to this institution, and they put their time and effort where their heart was, and that was working with the students. They just loved to work with students.

O'HARA: It was teamwork.

HORVATH: We tried to focus on what it is that this faculty did best and that was teach students. That's how we wound up as number two in the nation.

O'HARA: Wow! Wow! My goodness. That's incredible. I'm going to switch over to another topic just a little bit, a related topic. Since you were doing so good with this campus here, with the main campus downtown, could you tell me about this branch campus that started in Stuart High School?

HORVATH: Southwest. Yeah. That -- the opportunity to help develop that project into a full-blown campus was another factor that led me to 00:19:00take this job here. When I came for an interview, Stuart High School was where the Southwest campus was located. It was a high school at that time. We had some trailers out in the back of the school, and then they used part of the school in the evening. The interview I had was with the campus director at that time, Pat Lake, and one faculty member (Horvath laughs). There weren't enough chairs for all of us to sit down, so I sat in a desk and they sat in the chairs, and we had an interview out there. But in talking with some of the advisory board people, a couple of them were from the southwest part of the county. It was evident that these people had been so neglected over the years 00:20:00that they were bound and determined they were going to get a college out there. They had tried since the 1940s to get higher education in the southwest part of Jefferson County. And a strong citizens group, they just never had the political clout to get it done. And it was not until UK opened JCC that the efforts got renewed, "Okay," you know, "we'll take a community college out there." It's my understanding that Otis Singletary met at that time with, I guess it was, Woody Strickler, the previous president prior to Don Swain at U of L, to basically say to Woody Strickler, "If you folks aren't going to do anything for the southwest part of the county, then Jefferson is going to open up a campus out there and start some higher education opportunities out 00:21:00there." And that was an agreement that was made between the president of UK and the president of U of L. And U of L said, "Well, if you want to do it, that's not -- we're not going out there." The southwest part of this county's had a very negative, you know, reputation. I don't know why. It's a blue-collar area. Folks out there were just -- that's part of that World War II returning group that, you know, wanted higher education. So I saw that opportunity to put that campus together, to develop a plan for it, to do some architectural things that I firmly believed in. And we went at it, and we got some great cooperation from legislative folks out there. One of the state legislators, State Senator Bill Quinlan, was one of the leaders out there. Al Bennett was a state legislator, House of Representatives. 00:22:00He was very strong. Archie Romines was another one. There were about half-dozen legislators and civic-minded people out there that really pushed to get that campus funded, and it's thriving.

O'HARA: And that was the first branch campus of Jefferson, correct?

HORVATH: Yes, yes. But (Horvath laughs) one of the ground rules I established, because we were getting an attitude on the downtown campus, "This is the main campus, that was the branch campus." I said, "We are one college, two campuses. One college, two campuses." I said, "If I hear you talking about the branch campus and the main campus, I'm going to stop and I'm going to correct you." So you know, "let's learn the lingo."

O'HARA: Smart on your half -- on your behalf.

HORVATH: No second-class citizens.

O'HARA: Unh-unh.

HORVATH: And you know, some faculty that taught downtown, they wanted to move to Southwest when that campus got built. Some taught in both places. If we didn't have a full load of music downtown, then they taught a couple music classes at Southwest. And then along came Carrollton and the same routine. I said, "That's not a branch campus. We are one college with three campuses." And now we're one college with five campuses. But to me, that was a very important difference that had to be eradicated, branch and main and so on and so forth.

O'HARA: That's very wise. I hadn't heard that before.

HORVATH: Well, students were taking classes on both campuses, some on three campuses.

O'HARA: And there's no use in having a hierarchy. It doesn't serve anyone.

HORVATH: That's right. That's right.

O'HARA: Well, that -- I'm glad you pointed that out. Well, we know the 00:24:00outcomes of those early decades at Jefferson Community College. We do not know the internal dynamics of growth and change. What was the role of terminal programs -- or technical programs at Jefferson Community College during your tenure?

HORVATH: Well, I'm curious that you did slip with the term "terminal programs." The only terminal program that I ever heard of at community colleges was mortuary science.

O'HARA: I like that. I like that very much. (both laugh)

HORVATH: We found over the years that a student who wanted to continue his or her education could do it. There were many private institutions around this country that were taking -- they were taking students left and right and giving them full credit for what they had taken at the community college. I'll give you an example. Going back to 00:25:00Pennsylvania at Lehigh County Community College -- this is in the late '60s, early '70s when I was there -- we had a very excellent police administration/police science program at the college, a two-year program. And a lot of vets went into that program. They were coming back from the Korea, they were coming back from Vietnam and so forth. And we had well over 100 students enrolled in the police administration program. And what we found after a couple of years, we had probably two dozen or three dozen students who transferred from Pennsylvania to Eastern Kentucky University into their police administration baccalaureate program down here. Full credit for everything.

O'HARA: Really?

HORVATH: Absolutely.

O'HARA: So there was none of this, some courses transfer and some don't kind of, you know, history that we have. That's wonderful.

HORVATH: So that was always my point. And going back to what I was 00:26:00trying to get Don Swain to do, take the typical example I'll use. A student takes culinary arts program at Jefferson. Okay. Food preparation and all that other stuff. Now, here's a student who becomes adept at food preparation. But maybe you have a student who wants to open a restaurant, so why not provide some upper-division courses, business courses on managing businesses, running businesses, accounting, all the things that you need to run a business, a small business, a small restaurant. You just take that typical four-year approach and just flip it upside down. Two-plus-two, and there it is. And that's happening more and more today. It's very --

O'HARA: It's finally taking off.

HORVATH: -- common. That's absolutely right.

O'HARA: After years and years of having a lid put on things.

HORVATH: Fighting and fighting and fighting. I mentioned before that I went to a state teachers college. Well, Pennsylvania went through 00:27:00all the same things with community colleges developing and students transferring. I just got a report, an alumni report from Kutztown, probably within the last two or three months, about 40 percent of the students who attend Kutztown -- it's now Kutztown University -- are former community college students, 40 percent. Forty percent. See, all those artificial barriers that were created got torn down.

O'HARA: That's wonderful.

HORVATH: And it was people who did that, and it was students who said, "We're not going to put up with this stuff anymore."

O'HARA: But it was leaders like you.

HORVATH: The legislators were saying too, "Why don't the credits transfer? Let's go ask U of L." They were down there knocking on Don Swain's door, and he couldn't answer it. So they -- it was a forced kind of thing. I think I strayed from the intent of your question --

O'HARA: No, no, no.

HORVATH: -- by focusing on that technical --

O'HARA: Actually, you answered it better than most. (Horvath laughs). Yeah, the word terminal is sort of an old term.

HORVATH: But technical -- career programs, technical programs and so forth, designed for immediate employment.

O'HARA: Exactly.

HORVATH: Immediate employment.

O'HARA: And now we see them --

HORVATH: You get the skills and you go to work.

O'HARA: Now, that leads to my next question. There were area technology centers which offered a technical diploma or certificate-level programs to both secondary and postsecondary students across Kentucky. During your tenure at Jefferson Community College, was there any coordination with these area technology centers?

HORVATH: Yes. Yes.

O'HARA: Tell me about that, please.

HORVATH: Okay. I'll mention Fairdale High School as one example. We had many innovative programs at Fairdale High School, which was in the southwest part of the county. They had some very excellent technical 00:29:00programs, and we were doing some teaching of some courses at Fairdale. English, math, whatever they needed, we would -- these students were still in high school, but they were capable of handling some college- level work, and we provided it to them. We did a lot of sneaky things ----------(??).

O'HARA: Were they getting college credit for them?

HORVATH: Oh, yeah.

O'HARA: Great.

HORVATH: Well, we would do it ex post facto. With UK there were a couple of things I had to do, and most of the other presidents did. It was easier to get forgiveness than it was to get permission. So we would do some things and we'd say, "Well gee, you know, we've got these students, and they did very well in English. You know, their ACT scores are up. You can't deny them credit." Well of course, you couldn't deny them credit, so -- laughter--O'Hara) but Fairdale is one example, of a lot of good cooperative programs. And we were offering -- and the program just snowballed with college courses in high school, 00:30:00advanced and credit. But we also had some work -- some cooperative work with Jefferson State, as it was known at that time. It's now the technical campus. I was on their advisory board, and we attended monthly meetings. It was obvious that they did have some very excellent programs. And we had some faculty that participated in helping the faculty at the technical school to expand some of their coursework and programs and so on and so forth. Commercial art comes to mind immediately. We had a very excellent commercial art department. They worked with the people at the technical schools. It increased the quality and expanded the offerings of the technical school. So again, it was faculty working with faculty. And that worked out very well. Just get the administrators out of there and just go to it, folks. 00:31:00(O'Hara laughs). And again, they found they had more in common than they had differences between them. The commercial art faculty people here had very highly developed skills, and so did some of the technical people at the vocational school. So those programs evolved over time. Probably the hardest group to try to do some articulation with was the nursing folks. And that existed not only between the LPN programs and associate degree nursing, but also with the associate degree nursing and the baccalaureate nursing. They were the toughest bunch to crack.

O'HARA: Pretty fixed in what they saw as the requirements.

HORVATH: I would never go to a meeting with a bunch of nursing faculty if I had a gun with me, (both laugh) because I would have used it. I say that tongue in cheek, of course.

O'HARA: Oh, I understand. That's interesting to know. Yeah, I can totally see that.

HORVATH: They were very, very, very rigid.

O'HARA: Nursing was the first technical program introduced into the community college, I believe, in Kentucky, or one of the first.

HORVATH: Yeah, yeah.

O'HARA: And Henderson, I know, had nursing.

HORVATH: Yeah. Have you been to Henderson already?

O'HARA: Yes.

HORVATH: Did you talk with Pat Lake?

O'HARA: I haven't talked with Pat yet. I -- during my dissertation, which I'll tell you about, I interviewed community leaders. And now we're going back and interviewing --

HORVATH: Oh, okay.

O'HARA: -- presidents and such.

HORVATH: Pat Lake worked at Jefferson at one time. He was the director at Southwest Campus.

O'HARA: Oh, so you worked -- you knew him very well.

HORVATH: Yeah, absolutely. I said to him, "Pat, go get your doctorate. If you want to stay in administration, you need a doctorate." And he commuted to Indiana University. Took him about three or four years, and he finished that thing. Then I moved him downtown as the academic 00:33:00dean down here, and the job with Henderson came open and he got it -- --------(??). I've got three or four people that worked for me at one time or another that went on -- like Tony was one. Tony worked here. And I wish I could have kept Tony here. He was right in the middle of -- he had a job offer at Southeast Community College as the associate director, the academic dean. The person I had as the academic dean here, Nancy Hoover, was getting ready to leave -- she was taking another job -- but I wasn't sure that the timing was going to be right. And I did have a talk with Tony, and Tony said, "I have mixed feelings about leaving here." I said "Tony, you have the Southeast job. Take it, because that's a sure one." I said, "I'm not sure what's going to happen over the next three or four months here, you know, with faculty 00:34:00involved in the process and so on and so forth." And --

O'HARA: But isn't it interesting? He's come full circle back?

HORVATH: Yeah, he's back. So at any rate --

O'HARA: Small world.

HORVATH: I got a little sidetracked there with Henderson and so forth.

O'HARA: No, interesting. Well, what you were saying about the technical programs, and it was after you left in '95, but House Bill 1 was introduced in '97, which merged the community and technical colleges together.

HORVATH: Yeah.

O'HARA: And some of the discussion about moving the postsecondary technical programs out of the Workforce Cabinet and out of the area technological centers and bringing them with the community college was to avoid duplication. Do you see a benefit to the -- bringing those groups of people, some of them that were already working together 00:35:00collaboratively --

HORVATH: In the long run, yeah, the benefits had to be there, they really had to be there. Because as I said before, mixing the technical education with the general education is really what education is about. You can't live in a situation -- it's my belief -- that the shop teacher teaches math and English and whatever. You know, you've got to have the balance in general education, and that's what I really liked about the community colleges with the technical programs. It didn't matter what technical program you introduced, they were basically half and half, half-technical, half-general education. And math was taught by the math faculty, English was taught by English faculty, and the 00:36:00specialized courses were taught by the specialized people. You got the best of all worlds. So there's no question about the fact that the vocational programs had to be upgraded. Vocational education has have had a negative -- in the past, they have had a negative reputation. For instance, African-American students, black students, wanted no part of it. They consider that secondary -- second-class education. They really avoided it. You know, some of those jobs -- some of those programs lead to very highly skilled jobs. They're very, very suspicious of taking a technical and vocational course. So those technical programs had to be upgraded, and I think they have been. I can't say with any certainty that they have, but at least that's the 00:37:00impression I have. And not only here, but just across the country. You get people that have more in common working together, you solve their problems.

O'HARA: The marriage -- the cooperation that you described here, even prior to '97, during your tenure is impressive. I think that it varied throughout the state of Kentucky, from community to community. Some of them, like yours, I think, worked very closely. And others really had nothing to do with each other. So I think you bring a really key -- bring to light a very unique relationship that was important. But you grasped that concept decades before others did.

HORVATH: Let me tell you what we did at Southwest, because I talked about, you know, the architecture, the buildings and so on and so forth.

O'HARA: Yes, tell me about it.

HORVATH: I always believed that you don't want your English people all together, you don't want your math people all together, you don't want 00:38:00your physics people all together, because all they do is talk about math and science and physics and English. You just want a little bit of things. So when we put the conceptual design on paper for the Southwest campus -- and Pat Lake was a part of this too -- I said, "Pat, one of the things we want to do, we're not going to build faculty offices so that they can hide. We're going to put them right in the middle." We had a very wonderful architect that we worked with by the name of Bob Bajandas. He worked for a firm in town, Luckett & Farley. Bob is on his own now. He's a very well-respected architect in the city. We explained -- I explained that concept to Bob Bajandas, and he put together basically V-shaped buildings at Southwest campus. The faculty offices in those V-shaped buildings, right in the middle. So a students walks in -- now, there are, you know, side entrances, 00:39:00but the main entrance to the building is right through the faculty offices. And that's where faculty and secretaries and administrative assistants, that's where they lived. The faculty at Southwest voted to intermingle themselves, so not all the English people are together, they're scattered. Some -- more of them are in the humanities building, but there are faculty scattered all over the place out there. But they decided to do that themselves.

O'HARA: Really? I find that really neat that they voted -- that you were behind the vision, but they worked together cooperatively enough to see the benefit of different knowledge and how they could interface that knowledge to benefit the students.

HORVATH: And we did a little bit of that too, although a little more difficult with the buildings so far apart and traffic and 00:40:00everything else, downtown, but we managed some integration of faculty, particularly in the old seminary building.

O'HARA: Interesting.

HORVATH: Now again, the offices were pretty well set, and we did not disrupt people moving them around unless they really wanted to. But we achieved more of that at Southwest, just by designing -- getting the architect to design those buildings in that V-shape, so faculty are sitting right in the middle there ----------(??).

O'HARA: And now I want to go visit. (O'Hara laughs) I want to go see it.

HORVATH: I'm telling you. (Horvath laughs)

O'HARA: That sounds very unique. I mean, I think that sounds like a great idea. For a local community, there were cultural and economic benefits involved in community college development. Some of the community colleges promoted cultural activities by arranging for entertainers and lecturers to appear on the community college. Now, you all are a metropolitan area with culture already all around you, 00:41:00but how did Jefferson Community College serve the local community, in addition to offering traditional college classes?

HORVATH: We found, over the years, that the best thing we could do for the community is to make the expertise of the faculty available to various organizations. So one of the -- well, let me back up a little bit. The University of Kentucky, including the Community College System, had certain work requirements that faculty had to perform -- and when I say faculty -- and administrators. You taught your classes, you advised students, you did institutional service, committees and whatever, and you did community service, and you did professional development. So we focused in on community service. How 00:42:00can a faculty member, however they split up their time -- and that was a negotiated process. They always wanted to get down to, "How many minutes a week do we have to do it?" "We don't talk about minutes. You just get the job done." But you divide your distribution of effort by percentages. Teaching is obviously your main -- for most, teaching is your main -- so you're looking at 60 to 70 percent teaching. Professional development, probably 5 to10 percent. Community service was 5 to 10 percent. Institutional service, about 5 percent. It can vary form semester to semester. Sometimes you're working on some other projects, you arrange and you negotiate your distribution of effort with your program coordinator, your division chair. If the dean has to get involved, he gets involved and I'd sign off on it. So you get your distribution of effort, and that's where the whole 00:43:00community service concept fit in. And we had faculty people that did all kinds of things. They sat on boards in the community. They taught courses. If the YWCA was having administrative problems -- and they always had administrative problems -- either I'd go over there and do a couple of workshops for the board on the role of a board, and how you -- you know, all those good kinds of things. If they were having problems with some of their maintenance people, I could get one of my maintenance people to go over and talk to their maintenance people. So they -- even the maintenance people were fulfilling a community service role. I sat on four or five different boards and agencies around the community. I did my institutional service -- or community service, 00:44:00and that's how faculty fulfilled their institutional kinds of things. Some of the projects were a little less impressive. Some were very, very excellent. They worked with some -- I had some theater people work with some of the Actors Theater people here. Some worked with the orchestra, and all kinds of different roles. We had a very wide open, all-inclusive process of what counted as community service.

O'HARA: Sounds like you just didn't put a lid on things. You let people think outside the box, and -- as long it was genuinely helping.

HORVATH: Adina, I always believed -- and again, this is one of my speech topics -- I always believed that at least half the people who worked for me were smarter than l was. And I mean that sincerely. Now, I had my skeptics out there. They'd say, "Horvath, in your case it's more like 95 percent are smarter than you." And I said, "Okay, I can accept 00:45:00that." You know, that's life, but I really believe that, that half the people that worked for me are smarter than I was. They had good ideas. Ninety percent of the good ideas that got instituted at this institution came from faculty and staff. They didn't necessarily have the expertise to implement it, but they had the ideas. We just kind of turned them loose, turned them loose. I didn't bring any with me, and I don't even know if any exist anymore, but in the early '80s when we really started with this project -- again, going back to that concept I gave you before, you know, the thing faculty do best is to teach -- so okay, we're going to capitalize on that. Let's come up with a pamphlet of some kind, some kind of written document, of some good ideas to teach, how to teach, in your classroom. We did it with a series of 00:46:00workshops with the faculty. After a faculty meeting, we'd kind of, you know, go through the main business of the faculty meeting, we'd divide the faculty up into groups of, oh, maybe eight -- seven to ten people. Mix all the disciplines together, not all English people, not -- my secretary used to assign them.

O'HARA: That's great.

HORVATH: Appoint a moderator, appoint a recorder. I said, "Okay, we're going to spend a half-hour, go to different rooms, you give us four, five, six good ideas that you can use -- that you use in your classroom that makes you a great teacher. So we put all these things together. The first pamphlet we came out with was a little thing we did on ditto paper for God's sakes, it was purple. Thirty-nine teaching tips. Well that subsequent --

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HORVATH: Testing one, two, three, four, five. Okay, so we came up with that one pamphlet. Ninety-five teaching tips. We duplicated 00:47:00copies. We got some pretty good publicity talking about the things, the various competencies. And it was one of about four of five pamphlets that were put together. We did -- we put them together administratively, but based on ideas that came from the faculty. One was on advising, one was on teaching tips, as I said. The one that we spent a great deal of time on was identifying missions and goals. And I'm sure Tony has copies of those things.

O'HARA: That would be fascinating. Yeah, I would love to see those.

HORVATH: I probably have some at home. I'll make a note of it. I'll see that you get the pamphlets.

O'HARA: I'd appreciate that.

HORVATH: I don't think they produce them anymore. It was an idea. And we had institutions from all over the country that would hear about them, if I'd go out and do a speech and talk about the teaching tips 00:48:00and so forth. And they would write for them, and I'd say, "Okay, we normally charge $1,000 (O'Hara laughs) for these, but if you promise to use them to improve the educational programs for students, we'll send them to you for free."

O'HARA: I love that.

HORVATH: Okay. I lie a lot. That's okay.

O'HARA: Well, I like the concept.

HORVATH: Well, again --

O'HARA: Sort of see examples of how to implement it.

HORVATH: It was an opportunity for faculty to say, "Here are some good things that are happening in my classroom, that I'm doing, that -- ." And we said from the beginning, "Look, not everybody can adapt every one of those teaching tips. The styles don't fit. So go through that list of 95. If you find five or six that you want to try, go ahead and try them. Some are going to work, some aren't going to work. But this thing is the product of faculty thinking. Go to it."

O'HARA: And it makes them really think about the way they're teaching. It also makes them think, "What am I doing right and what do I need to work on?" So it's also an -- just the workshop itself, you know, I think was extremely useful.

HORVATH: Yeah. Now, one outgrowth of that -- and again, a lot of credit for this goes to the Community College System. Somehow or other, a couple of staff people in Lexington heard about, or somehow experienced, the University of Massachusetts started a teaching improvement program. Basically, what they did, they took graduate students and they did some training with them, but they made the graduate students available to their regular full-time faculty that were having difficulty in the classrooms and evaluations weren't 00:50:00very good and so on and so forth. So they worked with this teaching improvement program, and it was kind of a rigid thing. The graduate students would meet with faculty member, they'd go in and observe the classes, they did some videotaping, and it was a very formalized kind of program. Well, we heard about this from the staff people, Mike -- he works for KCTCS now. He does their professional development, I think. He's still doing it, used to work for the Community College System. I can't remember his last name.

O'HARA: Doing all the professional development.

HORVATH: Real sharp guy. At any rate --

O'HARA: It's on the tip of my tongue. I'll figure it out.

HORVATH: But at any rate, he was the one that latched onto it, and he coordinated it for the Community College System with the various institutions. I fell in love with the idea as soon as I heard it. You 00:51:00turned it over to faculty, okay. So what I did, I talked with about 30 or 40 faculty people. I said, "Simple question, who's the best teacher we have at Jefferson? Just you know, right off the top of your head, who's the best?" Well, one name kept coming up and up and up. She was head of the reading and study skills program. Vera Quinn was her name. And she had a reputation as a superior teacher, and she was wonderful. So I talked with Vera one day, went over the program with her. I said, "Vera," I said, "you know, I've talked to people around here. And I don't like the idea of even thinking about using graduate students." Said, "We've got the best teachers in the world here. Would you like to coordinate this program?" "What do I have to do?" "Well, you're going to work with individual teachers. Probably have to get somebody to help you, so you're going to have to go out and identify 00:52:00one of your colleagues. We'll give you a reduced load. No extra pay, we'll give you a reduced load. And you work with three or four or five students -- or faculty members each semester. And UK's going to provide a training program and so forth." So anyway, to make a long story short, we set up this teaching improvement program at Jefferson. Turned it over completely to Vera Quinn. It was totally confidential. Faculty volunteered to serve in it or to be part of it. Interestingly enough, the ones who volunteered for the first couple of years were the best teachers we had. They wanted to get better. But the faculty were in it. It was totally confidential. I would meet with Vera maybe once or twice a year, and, "Vera, you know, what kind of stuff do you need? What do you need money for?" And we would provide some separate funding 00:53:00for books and office stuff. And whatever Vera needed, Vera got. But that program spread around the college. And frankly, we had some faculty people who were really in trouble. They just weren't doing the job. They get involved in that teaching improvement program, and the change --

O'HARA: Really?

HORVATH: -- in student evaluations, just phenomenal, phenomenal improvement.

O'HARA: Wow. Incredible.

HORVATH: And again, that evolved over a period of time. Faculty were afraid in the beginning. "Oh, you know." "Confidential," I said. I said, "The only way I know who participates in that program is if some faculty member says, 'Hey, I went through that program last semester, it was great.' Or, 'I went through it and it wasn't good.' But if you don't tell me, I don't know. I could put Vera Quinn in a torture 00:54:00chamber, and she would not tell me. She would not tell me."

O'HARA: So you give them ownership. And you empower them, and they get past the fear, and they make something better.

HORVATH: Yeah. I don't think the program exists anymore. I have no idea, because I've stayed out of ----------(??). But Vera was the first leader of that program, and there were two or three others that followed her that did a magnificent job with it. And how many people ever went through the program, I have no idea. But they -- each semester -- and we had four or five people, faculty people, who worked with the others, and they all had three or four or five clients. And sometimes they had some real tough clients and they only had two clients. It was okay. I said, "Vera, you set your -- you set the workload for these people. I'm not going to interfere with that. You go to it."

O'HARA: That's why it worked. You empowered it.

HORVATH: That's why it worked. They went to it.

O'HARA: But you were the visionary this whole time with all these 00:55:00things. I mean, it's impressive.

HORVATH: But again, there were so doggone many excellent, excellent people that had the ideas that just went ahead and did it. Okay, so we got off on community service and institutional professional development.

O'HARA: No, this is great. One thing my husband always tells me is that all good leaders never take credit for themselves. They always give it to their staff. So I'm very impressed. I mean, I'm enjoying these stories. I'm getting ideas I'm going to take back home.

HORVATH: But again, Adina, please, it's not about Ron Horvath..

O'HARA: I know.

HORVATH: It's about, you know, what the faculty and staff --

O'HARA: And staff.

HORVATH: Yeah. And I mention staff so often. Very firm belief in the role of staff. I mentioned the custodians -- well, you know, the maintenance people.

O'HARA: Sure.

HORVATH: We used to do workshops for the maintenance people. I had 00:56:00a great superintendent of buildings and grounds, downtown and at Southwest, although downtown was -- this was the hard place to keep clean. I said, "Look, your guys are responsible for taking care of this campus, making it look half decent." I said, "I don't want people walking on this campus saying, 'God, look at all the trash around here. You know, the place looks like hell.'" I said, "If you're going to attract students, and when we have community people, I want them to say, 'Gosh, this place looks pretty good, you know. You do a pretty good job, keeping it looking neat, flowers, plants, all that.'"

O'HARA: Very important.

HORVATH: Green space. Well, when my successor got here, the place -- I mean, he had Boy Scouts coming in here cleaning up the campus, volunteering to clean up the campus. It was terrible. But at any rate, that's how the maintenance people got involved with institutional service. They had a role --

O'HARA: It was an important role.

HORVATH: -- in recruiting and retention of students. Said, "I don't want people walk in here and say, 'You're not going to go to college here, are you?'" Oh, no.

O'HARA: You give them a purpose and a meaning, and you express their importance in attracting students and maintaining students. And they enjoy their jobs because of that.

HORVATH: And same with secretaries, too. If we bring a national figure in, John Roueche from the University of Texas, the guru of community colleges -- I don't know how many times we had John do worships for faculty. But I always had John do workshops for classified staff people. "Secretaries are going to be tied up in the afternoon, and office assistants and -- ." John Roueche used to tell me, "I never did a workshop for classified staff before." I said, "John, it's a good learning experience." I said, "I won't even charge you for it." (both laugh)

O'HARA: I like that. He learned as much from -- I tell you what, 00:58:00they're a valuable source of information. I'm always delighted when I can find a secretary to a president or someone to interview, because they just -- the information they hold is invaluable. So it's good.

HORVATH: Again, every job I've held, I've been blessed with really great secretaries. And I call them secretaries. I think that's a very honorable title.

O'HARA: Yes.

HORVATH: I always considered it an honorable title. Anybody who can take shorthand like that and type and all those ----------(??). (both laugh)

O'HARA: It's not easy. My husband's former secretary was very proud of that title, principal secretary. And she was in a group, an association. And I -- he always respected her because she took her role very seriously. And it's very important.

HORVATH: We did workshops for Professional Secretaries of America. They had a chapter here, and most of our business faculty had membership in 00:59:00that. I spoke to the group a couple times too.

O'HARA: Well, one more question.

HORVATH: Go ahead.

O'HARA: The relationship between UK and its community colleges was unique across the nation. What were the benefits and drawbacks of Jefferson Community College's relationship with the University of Kentucky?

HORVATH: Well, there were many benefits, but just to back up just a little bit. There were two other systems around the country that had organizational patterns that were similar to Kentucky's. One was Alaska, and the other was Hawaii. I'm not sure those systems exist the way they were, you know, back in the '60s and '70s when I came. But having come from two states where the systems were very, very 01:00:00different in forms of sponsorship -- in Pennsylvania, for example, the -- most of the community colleges in Pennsylvania were sponsored by school districts or combinations of school districts, and that was a very rough relationship. It really was. The school districts were obligated to provide one-third of the operating. It was supposed to be one-third state, one-third students, and one-third school districts. State, students, school district. It never really worked that way, because in Pennsylvania, most of the school districts put a lid on what they were going to provide to the community colleges. Again, a competing for resources, you know. So the funding situation in Pennsylvania was not great. Lehigh Community College, we had to delay 01:01:00our accreditation from Middle States for a couple of years because the articles of agreement that we had with our school district were just impossible to work with. For instance, it required unanimous approval, and we had 12 school districts sponsoring the college at that time. Their cost was dependent on the number of students who attended, so it was, you know, a pro-rated kind of thing. But the approval of the budget required unanimous approval of the school districts, all 12 of them. And I mean, I was not involved with that part of the operation. I was a faculty member and division chair, but I know it drove the president and it drove the board of trustees, board of directors, nuts. You know, one school district would say, "Well, we like what you're doing in A, B, and C, but we don't like D, E, F." Another school 01:02:00district would say, "Well, we do like D, E, F, we don't like A, B, C." I mean, they were nickel and diming the board, and it got particularly tedious when it got to buildings, you know, priorities for buildings. You know, "We're not going to put our money up to buy a -- build a gymnasium, heavens, no." And, "You want a student center? Why? We need classrooms." It just went on and on. So the funding situation, the point I'm making is -- was not very good in Pennsylvania. Now, in New York, it was just as bad because it was -- that was a combination of many different plans that could support the local community college. They were called A, B, and C plans. Basically, in Broome County, we were sponsored by the state legislature. Now, some of the other community colleges were sponsored by -- not the state legislature, the 01:03:00Broome County Legislature. Some of them were sponsored -- some of the others were sponsored by school districts. Some were a combination of school districts and county legislatures and so forth. But in Broome County, for example, the college was looked at as another department of county government. So when I would go to the meetings of the various boards with the county legislature, I mean, I'd sit there with the guy who was head of transportation in the county, the guy who was head of garbage collection, you know, another one responsible for emergency medical services. I mean, the college was just another part of the government. So that's the background. I can't -- and God, we were fighting all the time. And of course, New York politics, you know, is right at the top of the list. Now you know, Broome County is a very 01:04:00conservative, upstate, Republican district. Their idea of affirmative action was to allow three Democrats to get elected. I mean, they thought that was wonderful. (Horvath laughs). "Hey, we've got three Democrats in the legislature." They hated them. So if I would go with a proposal for something at Broome, either as academic dean or as vice president or as president, if I could get the Democrats to oppose what I wanted, I knew the Republicans were going to pass it, because all the committees were, like, eight Republicans ----------(??) Democrats. But the last thing I wanted was to get the Democrats to support it --

O'HARA: Interesting.

HORVATH: -- because the Republicans would oppose it. (O'Hara laughs) So it was a political nightmare. It really was. Plus, in New York with the Taylor Law, right to strike -- I mean, we went through unionization 01:05:00in Pennsylvania, went through unionization -- it was in place in New York when I got there. And it was really contentious. I mean, it was really contentious in Broome. It wasn't like that all over the state, but the unions were very, very strong. And one of the advantages I saw in Kentucky was that you're not going to be spending all your time dealing with contract negotiations and so on and so forth. I mean, it was -- the late '60s and early '70s were very contentious in most community colleges in most of the country, with the unions trying to establish their rights and so on and so forth. So when I saw the Kentucky opportunity, I thought, "Well, I'll get a chance to do some really educational kinds of stuff and not deal with -- you know, 01:06:00have to deal with union representatives. Don't have to deal with the politicians and so forth." Dealt with some, but at any rate, it seemed like a good opportunity to do some educational kinds of things. The fact that the University did provide a good deal of cover, had a good deal of expertise. We struggled with our place in the University. We were looked on as stepchildren and so forth. It wasn't until the system began to grow, that it got larger than UK, which just scared the hell out of them in Lexington. (both laugh) And we finally got a little bit of recognition. And again, it was -- you know, a number of the presidents and deans and faculty that were around the System had gone through the educational program at UK, so these are former students and graduates of UK, in the graduate programs that were out 01:07:00doing the field-hand work. So there was that acceptance that was there. But again, to the University's credit, it did provide the real emphasis on academic quality. And that was very, very important to me, it was very important to the System, because without that emphasis on academic quality, if somebody's not watching -- and of course, SACS has a very, very, at times, overbearing approach to their focus on quality. But contrast it with Middle States Association, which said, "Whatever you want to do is okay with us. You know, it's okay."

O'HARA: Interesting.

HORVATH: SACS had more emphasis on standards. Now, some of the standards were a little crazy. (O'Hara laughs) You had to have a certain number of books in your library.

O'HARA: Yes, I remember that one.

HORVATH: You know, it's not a matter of how many books you had. How much do they get used? I mean, we had hundreds of books over there that 01:08:00have never, never been taken out, never seen the light of day. But at any rate, that's a minor point. But the emphasis was there in terms of the focus on quality and maintaining standards and being sure the college curriculum met the SACS requirements, made sure the faculty qualifications were in place that had to be in place. So that emphasis was there on quality, and I really liked that too. Now, we got into some horrendous fights at times over interpretation of policy and so on, but that's okay. It was -- you know, I think we won most of those battles. Now, with Charles, we lost quite a few, you know. It was always a 13-1 vote. "Did we lose again?" (both laugh)

O'HARA: How about financing? It sounds like in Pennsylvania and New York, there were some contentions -- you weren't just fighting among 01:09:00other higher education institutions for your piece of the pie. You had a much bigger pool, politically and financially, ultimately. Like you referenced, and I've heard this multiple times, especially in the beginning, the community colleges in Kentucky were a bit of a stepchildren.

HORVATH: Oh, yeah. No question about it.

O'HARA: But financially, did they gain? How was it financially?

HORVATH: At that time, that was the only way. UK was the only game in the state. U of L was not part of the state system at that time; they were municipal. And Eastern and Western, they were the state teachers colleges. I mean, when I talk about Kutztown, Kutztown was the same as Eastern and Western. It was -- they started out as teacher training institutions, which at one time, ironically, were all two-year 01:10:00institutions.

O'HARA: Yes, right.

HORVATH: They were all normal schools, they were called.

O'HARA: Right. A century ago.

HORVATH: What comes around goes around.

O'HARA: It's interesting.

HORVATH: So UK was a big arm of -- big umbrella protection for the community colleges in the state. The community colleges -- without UK in the beginning, the community colleges would have never survived. They would have gotten killed.

O'HARA: I put that in my dissertation. That was my final conclusion, that initially, they would not have survived. Academically, they wouldn't have held enough muster to make it on the higher education scene.

HORVATH: Now, the state legislators were always suspicious of Otis Singletary. They said, "Otis, we know you're screwing the community colleges. We can't prove it, though." (Horvath laughs) So they started earmarking some funds that had to go to certain community colleges. Well, the legislator -- it got to be a political kind of thing. Those folks at Hopkinsville wanted something, and boy, their legislator down 01:11:00here was a tough guy. And somebody from Southeast Kentucky, he said, "Well," he said, "well, Jefferson folks, if you want your stuff for JCC, you gotta support my -- you know, my Southeast Community College building project or program." So they did -- they learned the art of politics. But they never trusted Otis. And I mean, he was always over there testifying that, "Yes, the money went to this and that and all that other stuff." But --

O'HARA: Sounds like almost a check and balance, in a way. I mean --

HORVATH: Yeah. Yeah. Otis knew they were breathing down his neck. He swore all the time he wasn't doing us in. (both laugh)

O'HARA: Great, great stories.

HORVATH: But again, the role that UK played was absolutely essential, absolutely essential. And I could see it coming, because there were various attempts over the years to cut up the Community College System. 01:12:00Well, the most popular plan was to give -- you know, JCC would go to U of L, and Henderson would go to something, and Paducah would go to Murray, and --

O'HARA: And five districts across the state.

HORVATH: They were all cut up and so on and so forth. But that -- you know, we were able to fight against that because the System operated about as well as any system could, at least from my perspective anyways. I mean, there were certain times that some of the colleges got some things that I knew I had to wait in line to get, you know, that by God, the Speaker of the House was from Henderson, and Henderson was getting first dibs on that building. I understood that very well, and I knew what our priority was. And that wasn't going to change. So we supported it at Henderson. I just use that as an example.

O'HARA: Sure.

HORVATH: And it worked out that way, and I think Stan Wall and Charlie were both very good at analyzing the priorities and the realities and the politics. And so I never felt that Jefferson was really getting the short end of the stick at any one time. We may have had to wait a couple years for what we wanted. The faculty here, they got the feeling, well, we're the biggest and we're the best, and you know, blah, blah, blah. They -- you know, they got a whole lot more votes out there than we have here. Understand that. So we have 27 legislators in Jefferson County. The rest of the state, they got three times that number, so don't -- you don't want to get involved in that kind of --

O'HARA: You had the big picture.

HORVATH: That's right.

O'HARA: You always have to keep the big picture.

HORVATH: And the presidents, I think for the most part, worked together in supporting one another's projects. You'd go to those hearings in the state legislature and you know, the communities and so forth, and 01:14:00they'd always ask, "Well, what do you think about Hopkinsville getting this building?" "Well, yeah. That's what -- we know. We participated in setting the priorities, and that's what the priority was, and we're willing to live with that. But next year we'll be back looking for our priority."

O'HARA: Everybody agreed.

HORVATH: Yeah. Yeah.

O'HARA: Well, that's great to hear that much cooperation.

HORVATH: Yeah, yeah. It was -- don't get me -- we fought like cats and dogs behind closed doors, (O'Hara laughs) but when those doors got opened up, it was -- you know, there was unity. There was unanimity. There really was.

O'HARA: That's the reality of life. That's the way it works.

HORVATH: Get along or get lost.

O'HARA: Well, are there any questions I have not asked, that you wish I had?

HORVATH: No, I think we've covered it all, Adina. You had me thinking about quite a number of things that I hadn't thought about in a long time, which is one of the benefits of retiring. And I did bring along 01:15:00-- these are not copies, but if there's anything you want in here, I can get copies of this stuff made. When we got that national honor out at the University of Texas, I mean, we got some great, wonderful local publicity --

O'HARA: I'd like to see that.

HORVATH: -- out of that kind of stuff

O'HARA: Yeah, when you were talking about second in the nation --

HORVATH: Miami-Dade wound up on top. They had zillions of dollars to work with. But the best compliment I ever got from my national colleagues -- and I did serve a three-year term on the ACC board. It was known as ACJC at the time, American Association of Community & Junior Colleges. What they'd always say, the board people I got to know, "Ron, you can get more done with no money than anybody we've ever seen." I said, "Well, you learn to lie, cheat, and steal." (O'Hara 01:16:00laughs) "Plus we robbed banks on the side." (O'Hara laughs).

O'HARA: Plus, you knew what other states had to deal with. And once you've seen what other states -- or what other places have, or once you've been in another circumstance, then you start to appreciate what you do have and you learn how to work with it.

HORVATH: Yeah. Yeah.

O'HARA: This is wonderful. Well, this is great. Well, I want to thank you for taking the time to do this interview.

HORVATH: Oh listen, it's been my pleasure. It really has.

O'HARA: And we may do a follow-up one if you think of more stuff to talk about.

HORVATH: That's quite all right.

O'HARA: I've really -- I've learned a lot. I've learned a whole lot. And --

HORVATH: How many other things have you done around the state? Or is this kind of where you started?

O'HARA: Well, for my dissertation -- and I'm going to go ahead and conclude this part.

HORVATH: Okay. Okay.