Jack Hartley Oral History Interview

              Jack Hartley
.  1985 
Interviewer:  unidentified man
Re:  Glendale Community College
Glendale Arizona Oral History Project
Project director:  Diane Nevill
Transcribed by:  Jardee Transcription, Tucson, Arizona 
Tr.’s note:  No intro.  Sounds like interview is already in progress.

 HARTLEY:  Then I remembered, I decided that since the agreement was one semester only on that, because I said, “I don’t want it.”  I left West High School because I found out being a librarian in a school was different from being one in a city library, and I wanted nothing more to do with it.  So I thought, well, the best I could do would be to purchase books in my field.  So with requests that came in from other areas, and a few things of that sort, I certainly just spent most of the time on American and English literature and things of that sort.  I can remember the next year, they hired somebody who apparently was mentally—do you remember her—unstable, and she called me over one day, asked me to come to the branch, and I went back.  She’d written a letter suggesting that I had purloined something like $5,000.  I said, “Lord! I never touched the money!  It’s all done through requisitions and what have you.”  There was that, and there was the fact that I seemed to have ordered [unclear] books just in my own field and what have you, that she was upset about.
INTERVIEWER:  Was that someone on Camelback or on Maryland Campus?
HARTLEY:  It was on the Maryland.
INTERVIEWER:  On the Maryland Campus.  No, I didn’t know about that.
HARTLEY:  I flew into a tizzy, which I thought was the proper response to the thing.  I didn’t realize that she was really a mental case.
INTERVIEWER:  Yes.
HARTLEY:  And as a result she said, “Oh, come back and talk to me.  Don’t be upset.”  And I said, “Why in the hell shouldn’t I be upset?!”  She was just talking to me about purloining $5,000!  I think that’s twice the budget I had!  (laughter)
INTERVIEWER:  Now, back to how you got there, Jack, you came from West High then, was that the way you came into the system?
HARTLEY:  Yeah.  That’s right.  See, that was the year when so many of us came in because….
INTERVIEWER:  Was that ’65?
HARTLEY:  No, that was ’63.  Until then, Phoenix College had always been a part of the Phoenix Union High School District, and then the voters separated it that year, and a number of us:  Ed Hoff, for instance, and Elaine, and I think Ken Wiese, all came from West that same year, and transferred out of the Phoenix Union District, into the new [unclear].
INTERVIEWER:  [unclear] you were stationed there at Phoenix College, were you?
HARTLEY:  Technically, we were all assigned to Phoenix College when we were both Glendale and Maryland branches.
INTERVIEWER:  Yes.  But the campuses, the ones that we know of as Reed Mullen [phonetic] U., and the Maryland one were opened only in ’65, weren’t they?  1965, that’s when the classes began there.  It began before then?
HARTLEY:  Began in the fall of ’63.
INTERVIEWER:  On those campuses?
HARTLEY:  Yeah.  Just let me verify that, but I came here in ’60—that is, from Iowa—’60 to ’61, ’61 to ’62, ’62 to ’63, I was at West, so it was the fall of ’63 that I began teaching there.
INTERVIEWER:  And it was then on the Maryland and Camelback to Reed Mullen Campus?
HARTLEY:  It must have been.
INTERVIEWER:  The reason why I’m questioning this is because memory becomes a little bit blurred….
HARTLEY:  Yeah, it does.
INTERVIEWER:  And the people I’ve talked to so far, including Dr. Hanley, said that the campuses opened in ’65.  And that’s all right, if that’s the way they saw it as a formal kind of thing, Jack.
HARTLEY:  I taught some classes….  I did not teach any classes at Phoenix College.  I worked there at night in a library capacity, but I never taught a class on that campus.  And I made the switch in 1963.  That was the year, I’d swear, that the state or the city or whatever district voted to [unclear].
INTERVIEWER:  Yeah, the enabling legislation for it.
HARTLEY:  Right.
INTERVIEWER:  And when you went there, you were in the function of a librarian at Maryland?
HARTLEY:  That was just an extra job, and I worked at the Phoenix College Campus at night, in the library capacity, but that was the moonlighting.
INTERVIEWER:  Yes, I see.
HARTLEY:  The actual teaching I would have to have done at Camelback Campus.  I can remember teaching something, a 101 course, at Temple Beth Israel, is it?, right next to the campus.
INTERVIEWER:  Yes, that was next to the one on Maryland, yes.
HARTLEY:  I think that was a night class.  I used to do a little teaching at night in those days.
INTERVIEWER:  Yes.
HARTLEY:  Extra job.  But my regular job, I’d have to swear, was in 1963, when I started there.
INTERVIEWER:  That’s very interesting.
HARTLEY:  There are several people who can verify it:  Jan Burner [phonetic], Warren [unclear].
INTERVIEWER:  Jan Burner said that, she said the same thing, but the other people I’ve spoken to said it was 1965.
HARTLEY:  Dr. Bud Ellis started with us that year too, so he could verify that.  And [unclear], and Andy Micus [phonetic]—we all began [unclear].
INTERVIEWER:  You all began then in ’63 then.  And it was at the two campuses that we later called Reed Mullen and….
HARTLEY:  Joo U. [phonetic] was the other one.
INTERVIEWER:  Joo U., yes.  When you had your first students, did you notice the kind of thing….  What I’m trying to pin down, I guess, as much as anything else, Jack, is this notion of a difference—which seems to me almost ridiculous to expect—between the high school experience of students—which were many of the students we had, weren’t they, at the beginning?—and those in your classes at the early part of Glendale.  Did you notice that there was any difference in the way the material would be administered, taught, the responses that were expected?
HARTLEY:  Well, we were able to make much higher demands then than we are now—I think there’s no question of it.  And I think dramatically the ages, what was it, eighteen when we started?, and it’s twenty-eight the last I’d heard now.  And we did have a few older students who were rather extraordinary.  I can remember, because it was small, I got invited to some bar mitzvahs for the sons of some of my students and things like this, in sort of a way that just doesn’t seem to happen once we’ve got larger.  Jan I both were invited to that particular one, I know.  But even the high school students were infinitely better prepared.  I don’t think that’s exaggerating, to use the term “infinitely.”
INTERVIEWER:  Well, the impression I had, as you know, I came from business and started the journalism program.  The impression I had was similar to yours, that the students we had then were of a higher quality than what we have now, in a general way.
HARTLEY:  And the thing I’ve noticed, and it wasn’t until last year that we began to observe any sort of a discipline problem at this level.  My students—I actually went to a meeting with the department to ask if other people were having difficulties, and they were.  They’re not bad, they weren’t mean, or anything of that sort.  It was just a sort of total indifference.  So they would talk, and you couldn’t shut them up.  And as I say, it wasn’t a matter of being difficult, it’s just that they didn’t know any better.  That type of thing is really just the last year’s phenomenon as far as I know.  And I talk to people not only in the English Department, but all around.  They’ve never had this [unclear].
INTERVIEWER:  Same kind of circumstance.  You said something about the … dissatisfaction there was, is the way I’d frame it … about your getting books for the Maryland Branch of the library, that they were in your field.  Why shouldn’t they have been in your field?!
HARTLEY:  Well, it wasn’t well balanced, I know that, as a collection, but it just seemed to me that since that was my area of expertise, I’d do better to do it, knowing it was a one-semester only sort of thing.
INTERVIEWER:  Rather than getting books that would be useless, that would just sit on the shelves.
HARTLEY:  [unclear] didn’t know about, yeah.  So that was my rationale.
INTERVIEWER:  Did you give assignments then in those early years—in that early year, let’s say—let’s confine it to the first couple or so—which entailed, required, or encouraged their using the library?
HARTLEY:  Oh yes, I would prepare bibliographies for my American lit. people, and insist that there were certain things in the library that they read—some of them, write a little historical background—others, just reading material that was not included in the text that I thought was worthwhile.
INTERVIEWER:  Did they?
HARTLEY:  Oh yeah, they did indeed.  I haven’t given a handout of that sort, of bibliographical material, for years now, because it was just a waste of time and paper.
INTERVIEWER:  Jack, when we began, as we know, there were the two campuses, the Maryland one and what they call the Camelback one next to Reed Mullen.  Therefore, you had separate administrative problems, did you not, inside the English Department?
INTERVIEWER:  Yeah, there were, and obviously there were some difficulties, because there was actually one department at each campus, English at Maryland and English at Camelback.  And the big problem came when Dr. Prince announced that he was going to have to make an appointment as the campuses came together, and obviously one would be eliminated and one would be kept.  And this created, I think, all sorts of hostilities that are still very much a part of the campus today, because there’s still a sort of Maryland group, and there’s still a sort of Camelback group, and they simply never melded or merged or whatever they should have done, in a way that, for instance, Mesa has an incredibly homogeneous campus.  Ours never has been.  But they’ve got the advantage over there of their administrator’s always pushing them to get together for parties and social affairs and things of this sort.  Not too long ago, when Theo Heap was still dean—I understand he’s retired now—but they arranged to honor all the people on campus who had been there since the beginning of it—dinners, banquets, pictures.  I knew nothing about it on this campus, but I heard somebody approached Dr. Waltrup about it, and he said something to the effect, “Not on your tintype!”  That was basically the difference:  this campus simply has never socialized, partly because the faculty has never quite come together, but certainly largely because administrators have made no effort to do anything to try to bring them together.
INTERVIEWER:  Now this was more than just the English Department we’re talking about.
HARTLEY:  Oh yes.
INTERVIEWER:  Do you remember the other splits there were?  That is, they had classes on both campuses.  There were some where the classes were held on only one campus, I understand.
HARTLEY:  I don’t recall the hostilities that might have been, other than in the English Department.  But I am sure they were there.  Well, I can recall some rumors in Business, for instance.  Yeah, there were some difficulties there.  And probably many others.  But memory, like desire, faileth.  (laughter)  And I don’t recall all of those.
INTERVIEWER:  Yes, I understand.  In respect to your own job on the Camelback Campus, as the campus head of the English Department, did you have difficulties in administering the affairs of that group of teachers, or were their problems, or were there interesting experiences that you would care to recount?
HARTLEY:  Well, we were at least successful in getting rid of some teachers that were hired too rapidly at that point.  And I recall one of them, when I went in to visit the class, students were going out for a smoke, and coming back in.  I heard him giving out information that it was all right to spell forty with a “U” if you were using it as an adjective, but not as a noun, and things of this sort.  And I recall talking to him, and then I said I would have to take the affair up with the dean of the college at that point, because I couldn’t recommend his being continued.  And the dean visited, and then Dr. Hamlin came out and visited, and by golly, they let him go.  That’s another thing, of course, that doesn’t happen, because we still carry some incompetents, as any school does.  In recent years I’ve heard administrators say it’s simply such a job, threats of suits.  They are there, they’re real, I know that.  It’s just easier to keep them on the payroll than it is to try to get rid of them.  And I think in the early days we were a little more successful at being able to weed out some of the mistakes.  But they were hiring people frequently after school started, because nobody knew exactly how much of an enrollment to expect.  It was a largely unknown thing.  And I think the one I’m talking about, for instance, was actually hired in the first week of classes, and you’re not likely to—unless accidentally—pick up your best people that way.
INTERVIEWER:  Yes.  Jack, as far as the campus itself was concerned, it seemed to me that there were certain peculiarities of our facilities in, say, 1965 anyway, which led to some challenging circumstances in teaching, for example.  Do you remember any of those?
HARTLEY:  I recall that we did our registration second semester for two years, in that old gym at the Camelback Ranch.  And those of us who were at the English table were sitting right in the entryway.  And you remember the draft blew through there, and for both years after registration, I went home with a strep throat.  And then the classes would actually be held—there must have been, what, eight, I would guess, four on either side, and so you had eight of the portable blackboards in there, and you had eight teachers talking at the same time, so obviously you had the problem of trying to make yourself heard to your class, and not being a distracting factor to the classes that were meeting on either side of you.  Still, it was a little more fun than it is now, simply because the people had a good attitude about what was happening, and everybody was actually more willing to cooperate than you’d have expected under adverse conditions of that sort.
INTERVIEWER:  I remember with some fondness, I guess it was, because it was a curious phenomenon to me on campus, the feeding facilities that were available.  It was very primitive—Camelback campus was, in any case.  Would you care to describe what you remember about the….
HARTLEY:  I just draw an almost total blank on that.  I don’t remember anything about the [unclear] campus.
INTERVIEWER:  I remember it was Gaucho Gardens, and they had little sandwiches and drinks and things of that kind.
HARTLEY:  I don’t remember that.  I think generally what I did, there was a Walgreen Drugstore on the corner, and I would head up to a little lunch counter, because I can recall that I was sitting there the day that Kennedy was assassinated, and first heard it from one of the women behind the counter.  And then when I got back to campus, it was beginning to be rumored and that type of thing.  I do not recall anything on the campus itself.  Complete blank.
INTERVIEWER:  You taught on that Camelback campus then for about three years, or part of three years, didn’t you?
HARTLEY:  Well, three full years.  But the parking lots were a sea of mud.  Whenever it rained, students would come in with six to eight inches of dirt on them, or they’d come in barefooted because they’d taken off their shoes and socks in order to come into the room.  So you had people wandering all over in various states of undress.  Again, it was all taken in rather good spirits.
INTERVIEWER:  Do you recall anything about the interdepartmental activities, Jack?  On your present campus, it’s so large, and the physical separations sometimes lead to isolation which might be undesirable.  Was the propinquity, was the closeness of all that went on, on that Glendale Campus, a different thing?
HARTLEY:  Oh yeah.  That was important.  In one room that I shared with a number of people, there was at least one other English teacher with me—Bob Bester [phonetic].  I don’t know whether he was there when you were or not.  That may have been a year ahead of time.  He has since become a Catholic priest.  Warren Gentry was in the same office in the Art Department.  Ned Ellis [phonetic] was in the same office from his field of biology.  And I guess there was at least one person from the Physical Education Department in there.  And we would frequently eat together and talk together and discuss the various departmental problems, in a way, obviously, that is no longer practical, no longer done on this campus.
INTERVIEWER:  Well, we tried to do that on this campus, didn’t we?
HARTLEY:  We tried.
INTERVIEWER:  Remember the colloquium that was proposed, and we had a vote on it, and everybody voted it down.
HARTLEY:  Yeah.  Nobody showed any—or ever has shown any particular interest in this type of thing.  Once, when Bertha Landrun was dean of students, she and Phil Randolph, Nonnie Nelson and I, did invite everybody to a faculty party at her place, and tried to bring them in.  And I can recall that we probably had seventy people, which was a pretty good turnout.  And so far as I know, that’s the only thing of that sort that ever did take place.
INTERVIEWER:  Jack, about textbooks:  We had no bookstore on that campus at that time.  How was it that the students got their textbooks?  What was the physical way that was handled?
HARTLEY:  I think they had to go to Phoenix College [bookstore], I don’t recall.  Although I do know that nights, there were occasions when I believe we picked up the books, took them to the students, and sold them to them as they came into the class.  I’d forgotten that, but I recall that some of my night classes, we actually did do that.
INTERVIEWER:  Yeah, it was a problem at the beginning, because you just didn’t have the necessaries available, and yet you had to work—some of the teachers, I suspect, worked from ditto sheets, or worked from memory on blackboards and things of that kind, to get started, didn’t they?
HARTLEY:  Oh, the equipment was primitive.  A blackboard was about all you could ask for.  And in some of those Quonset huts where we taught, the noise would be—I would guess the evaporative coolers—was so bad that frequently you’d go home at the end of the day barely able to talk, because you were literally shouting in order to make yourself heard.  That was probably the most … physically, the hardest thing, I think, of the whole three years, was the noise of the air conditioners in the Quonset huts where we taught.
INTERVIEWER:  Yes.
HARTLEY:  I don’t know if “Quonset” is the proper term, but those portable….
INTERVIEWER:  Temporary buildings.
HARTLEY:  [unclear]
INTERVIEWER:  Yes, which they still use on a number of campuses throughout the city.
HARTLEY:  Yeah.
[END OF RECORDING]