Gerald W. Smith Memoir - Brookens Library

Gerald W. Smith 20 8with increasing frequency and his contributions will get greater rec9g-nition in the passing of the years than it had at the time he was wo k-ing, or maybe has had even up to this date.IQ. I think it would be appropriate to mention here, iF you want to,he was influential not only in the developmnts in Illinois, but alsIowa.A. Yes, he moved from Illinois in 1965 to the staff of the Superintmdentof Public Instruction in Iowa where he perfomd a role almost identicalwith the one he had perfomd in Illinois, with this additional facet. InIllinois he was the forerunner to the reorganization of our state, whereasin Iowa, the reorganization of the state occurred when he was there. Thekgtlslature passed si&ficant legislation at the time he arrived, so hewas involved in the implementation of it in Iowa, rather than being theforerunner.Q. When you first began talking about this group of distinguished people,I guess I unconsciously assumed that at least sore of those would be superintendentsof school districts or fomr superintendents. Now, are thereany among them who were?A. The only one that I mentioned was James Logsden, who was at Thornton.These other people had performed their roles in the junior college asdeans. They caw into the junior college. I reerrphasize that for a perioddf 25 or 30 years, deans wwe the individuals who gave strong, conthuousleadership. Now, if you will think about it, as we were talking about theearly 1950's and the later 1950ts, there were several superintendents:Oscar Corbel1 at Centralia and Phil Dolan, and prior to hh, Fra,nk Jmsenat LPO, and I could mention that Harold Metcalf, the superintendent atBloom, who was the man there when they organized that college; and PIP.?Pnorrrpson, the superintendent at Elgin in earlier days had played a moreactive part, but by the mid to late 1950'8, you would find what we findhere, the leaders identified with it, the moving force within the Associationof Junior Colleges, which was a strong force, were these administrativeheads of the college itself, and, of course, until 1962 we have to d n dourselves that every jdor college in the State was a part of a publicschool district org~zation, either unit or high school.Q. Were these men and you approxlmtely the same age at this time?A. We were. I would say that.Q. And none of them came out of the public school background like yours?A. Oh, yes. Several of these people came into the junior college. IC:expect most of them came into the junior college, but none of them cameinto the junior college having been superintendents. A good rrmy of themmoved into it from faculty positions. No, I would think that everyone ofthese people had initially been a public school faculty member. Theymoved into the junior college from that roll, but they had not been admlnistratorsin quite the role that I had been. We were in the same, letus say, age bracket withln a decade. (lawter) I've noticed how ma@yI