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                                                       LOIS LUND
                                                     March 14, 2000
                                                      Jeff Charnley,
                                                        interviewer
Charnley: Today is Tuesday, March 14, the year 2000. We’re in East Lansing, Michigan, and I am Jeff Charnley
interviewing Dr. Lois Lund for the MSU [Michigan State University] Oral History Project for the sesquicentennial of
the university, which will be commemorated in the year 2005. As you can see, Professor Lund, we’re
tape-recording today. Do you give us permission to tape?
Lund: Yes, definitely.
Charnley: I’d like to start first with you talking. You said you had an introductory statement where you’d like to
give some background. If you would be pleased to do that, then I’ll have some questions for you. So I’ll turn it
over to you.
Lund: One of the things that I thought I’d share with you is that I was an administrator for twenty years in three
locations in the U.S. Prior to being an administrator, I was a teacher at the collegiate level for twelve years.
Following stepping down from the role of dean, I became again an instructor, a professor, for eleven years. So I’ve
had kind of a balanced administrative and teaching role for over these forty years.
           The thing that I wanted to share with you is what this field that I’ve been involved in is all about because of
the stereotypic view of home economics, human ecology. So I thought it would help you and listeners to have
somewhat of an idea of how this thing started and then how it changed and why it changed in the way it did, because
it enters in to what we were able to do here at MSU.


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          The concept of home economics was initiated in the mid 1800s. Really, it took real value during the
Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution really changed the United States industrially in factories and
businesses and so forth, but it did not change positively homes and families within homes. There was great fallout
that really was deleterious to households.
          Human ecology, home economics, domestic science, whatever you want to call it, is the application of
science to the management of the home and its near environments. So it includes such fields as human
development, including child development; human welfare, including study of health and well-being and food safety
and nutrition and prevention of disease; it included financial well-being, the study of financial well-being; it included
the study of housing, of interpersonal relationships within the close environments of the family. So initially this
field, which started in the 1850s and really took shape finally around 1910, was chiefly a woman’s field. There
were a few men, illustrious men, who entered the field, particularly in the area of science and related to nutrition.
But initially, there was a very strong stress on the application of science to problems of families and households.
          There also was stress on simplification. This was the end of the Victorian era, in which every home was
filled with goods and hangings and drapes and you name it. It involved not only tremendous amount of labor, but it
also involved the hiring of mostly immigrant labor in order to manage the home. When that immigrant labor went
into industry, rather than working in households, there was a loss of that kind of help. Immediately the person who
was the homemaker was responsible for managing everything within the home. That meant that you either
simplified or you made household work an incredible job.
          So this field that dealt with home and family began to evolve as a scientific field aimed at the management
of the household, the management of people, and the management of things in the period of time between 1900 and
1910. The field eventually organized as a collection of applied sciences, both physical and social, with the focus on
family and home and the near environment; that is, the near community. The titles that the field was given was
domestic science, domestic economy, home economics, and eventually, today, a change into human ecology.
          This movement from home economics to human ecology produced some wondrous historic stereotyping.
Let me explain what I’m talking about. Not only related to a woman’s field, but also a field that dealt only with


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home and family and never ventured beyond the household door. MSU was founded in 1855, and it was founded as
an agricultural college of the State of Michigan. The very first class that came in was in 1861. It was an all-male
class, and was preparing some jobs in agribusiness, as we call it now, but primarily farming as an industry.
          In 1862, Justin Morrill sponsored the Land Grant Institution Act. At that point, money came in from land
grants to certain kinds of education. It states in that land grant that it is to promote the liberal and practical
education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life, and predominant among that was the
profession of homemaking and motherhood.
          The first class to come into MSU was in 1870, of women. There were ten coeds that came in at that time.
Those women really studied the agricultural program. They had a few classes that were related to women’s efforts,
but primarily it was an agricultural program.
          In 1888, a program was funded by USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture], called the Agricultural
Experiment Station Program. It was further funded by Agricultural Research Service. Many research-funding
programs were evolved through USDA, some of which were located in the states. AES stations were located here at
MSU. Funding was given there, by the feds, matched by the state, and the faculty in those units were university
faculty and fitted into the promotion and merit increase and the whole thing, but research was identified for
agriculture and agriculture-related areas. Home economics was identified as a related area.
          Another program that was established was through the Smith-Leaper [phonetic] Act. The Smith-Leaper
Act established the Cooperative Extension program. The Cooperative Extension program was also a
USDA-administered program, but it established cooperative extension services in each state in the Union, and
primarily in each county in each state, and specialists and extension agents in both agriculture and home economics
were established throughout the state through that system.
          Another public act was the Smith-Hughes Act, which was around 1918, and it established vocational
education in both agriculture and in home economics. This meant that high schools were mandated to teach
agriculture classes and to teach home economics classes. The first home economics curriculum was established here
at MSU in 1896. It was called Domestic Economy.


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          Now, the reason that I’m telling you all of this is that briefly, what we have historically is a field that is an
applied field, with focus on home and family and their environments. It's essentially science, physical and social
oriented. It is female-dominated and it is agriculturally-dominated and controlled, not by people within, not by
faculty or by leadership, but by public policy, because legislative acts and funding were directed to the home
economics, domestic economy, whatever you want to call it in those days. Those had very significant shaping
characteristics on the field.
          This domination by public policy acts of agriculture continued up until after World War II and into the early
fifties. The change really occurred as a consequence primarily of increased opportunities for women and
diminished funding for agriculture. These kind of ran as two times. There also was much more sophistication in
the areas within home economics than could be supported simply by agriculture. So what you began to see was
home economics breaking out of the barriers that had formally supported it.
          MSU’s struggle began in the 1960s, and it culminated in the decision to form the College of Human
Ecology in 1970. I tell you this because that enters into what we were able to achieve during the years when I was a
dean.
          One of the things that I should share with you is that when I was trying to develop some notes, so that I
could tell you what this was all about, I began to realize that all--I’m very history-conscious--that all of the records
that I had evolved over some years as a dean were stored in the basement of the Human Ecology Building. Those
records included enrollment trends, significant collections of records, where we did analysis year by year, including
budgetary analysis.
          Shortly after I stepped down from the dean, that basement storage area was sealed by the university because
of asbestos contamination. So, to my knowledge, they are still sealed. So, prior to my departure, I had placed as
much of the historical data down there as was appropriate at the time. Very little of the annual data that I evolved
that should be in the archives was placed in the archives because it is contaminated, which is an interesting kind of
thing. [Laughter] It may be that sometimes history becomes contaminated, but not by asbestos.


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          I did not go through and pursue getting those records. I didn’t go through the channels to do that, but at
some time someone might want to do that. My recollections here are based on what records I took home, that were
my personal records, and included two drawers of speeches and reports and items of that sort which I went through
to draw out the kinds of things that were done year by year. I think, on the whole, that what I’m going to share with
you is almost as accurate as would be true of the actual data, but they may be a little slanted.
          Let’s see, you asked about my general education and professional background. I was born on August 9th
of 1927, a very auspicious year, since that was the Year of the Hare, and the Year of the Hare is an auspicious year.
I was reared in Deep River Falls, Minnesota, which, at the time I was there, was a population of about seven
thousand.
          My father was a businessman. My mother was a science teacher in high school. She taught chemistry.
After her marriage, she became a homemaker and mother. They believed in two things: success through education,
and responsibility to community. I have two siblings. An older brother who is three years older than I, he has
degrees from Harvard and from Harvard Business, and has been both in business and education. He is seventy-five,
but he is currently continuing work at Boston U. We don’t give up. [Laughter] A younger sister, who is five
years younger than I. Her degrees are from the University of Minnesota, and she has worked in education and in
business. Her degrees were in economics.
          I graduated from high school in ‘45, valedictorian of my class, and was graduated in ‘49 with a B.S., with
high honors, in foods research. One of the things that happens in families is if you admire your parent, you
sometimes follow your parents. We all admired my mother, and so we all dipped into science avidly. In 1954, I
received a master of science, with a major in food research and a minor in higher education. The thesis work I did
was on ascorbic acid and dehydro-ascorbic acid.
          Then a Ph.D. in ‘66; again a major in food research with what was a minor in agricultural economics and a
collateral field of higher education. What I found was that I was teaching and reading at the desk, materials in food
science, but that when I came home, I was reading economic journals. And I began to realize that I was a
combination of the interests that had been in my family, of both business and education, and with very significant


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interest in business, and particularly financial management. The dissertation that I wrote was on an eclectic
approach to study of children’ consumer behavior relative to food. A colleague of mine, Mark Greenberg, worked
with me in developing a technical bulletin on that, which came out on ‘69. That research was supported by the Food
and Consumer Economics Research Division of ARS in USDA.
          I have some observations. I was reading in the Yankee magazine, this month’s Yankee magazine, and
there’s an article here about Barry Moshier [phonetic], who is a very significant illustrator and publisher of precious
books. He is talking about his background, and he said, “We are, all of us, shaped by experience.” Moshier is a
man keenly aware of his formative influences, and he views bygone factors, elements, personalities, influences, and
epiphanies, what he calls vectors, as crucial in understanding not only himself but his art. I think that’s true of most
of us, that we are an accretion of experiences and we are not really independent, we are what we become.
Charnley: In the course of your graduate study, when you were working on your dissertation, how was it that you
came to choose that area? Was it another teacher, or was it just an area that you saw the need for, or was it
suggested to you? How did you come to choose that?
Lund: In my dissertation?
Charnley: Yes.
Lund: I was interested in consumer behavior. The field of economics, for many, many years, consumption
behavior was kind of a stepchild, because production behavior was the key thing for most of the years. Even now,
there is relatively few people who are interested in consumer behavior, with the exception of predicting what people
will take off the market.
Charnley: Like in advertising, that type of thing?


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Lund: I was really interested in that. I also was interested in an eclectic approach, that is methodology, studying
not just direct vectors to an action, but a multitude of characteristics that children exhibit, that makes them move in a
certain direction. So when I said an eclectic approach, this studied the child and family, it studied the child within a
school, it studied the child within the market, it studied the child within nutrition knowledge, many different areas of
concern which I then used factor analysis, which was a new technique at that time, to separate out, to see if we could
get a picture of the kinds of variables that were determining certain kinds of behavior. That was interesting to me,
which was a methodological study.
          Up until the mid sixties, if you wished to do an analysis with many, many, many variables, factor analysis
was so complicated and so time-consuming, that until the computer services were available, became readily available
to researchers, there was no way to undertake them. I’ve forgotten how long they said it would take if I had to do it
by hand, but I mean I wouldn’t live that long.
          This was in the day of cards, you brought your cards in and you gave it to the machine. The machine
cranked and cranked and cranked and cranked and cranked and cranked, and eventually you got some kind of
response from it. Nowadays, that would take seconds. So the researchers today have enormous benefit gleaned
from this kind of services that have been evolved.
          Funny things did happen, though. One day I brought in a box of cards and gave them to the computer
people. Waited and waited and waited. Finally, after I went back the next day, they gave me the box back and they
said, “Well--” I looked inside, and the machine had taken a nice big bite out of all my cards. And in the cavity, it
said, “Delicious.” [Laughter] Wonderful. In those days, you never ever had one set of cards. You always had a
backup, or two or three.
Charnley: And you did in this case?


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Lund: Oh, definitely. I knew enough not to trust anybody. But that really was interesting to do. The
methodology used became one that was able to be used by other researchers, not only in consumer behavior, but in
studying nutrition. So that was interesting to me, that it was picked up and used.
Charnley: Would you say again what year you finished your degree?
Lund: I finished it in ‘66.
Charnley: And what was the university?
Lund: University of Minnesota. All of these were Minnesota. Why one university? Okay. Because I get asked
this question every so often. One university for two degrees, like for bachelor of science and master of science is
sort of usual. That’s not a problem. But many people have asked me why I stayed on to take a Ph.D. at University
of Minnesota. I stayed on because there was almost no opportunity for a woman to study economics anyplace else,
who came with a background in food research. It was only because I had worked with several of these people, knew
them, and could talk with them and could explain where I was coming from and what I wanted to do, that I was
allowed to even try out for a place in the Ph.D. program in Ag Econ.
          I was told that I would need to re-register and re-take the Ag Econ courses so that I could prove that I could
compete with the undergraduate students. So I did. I wasn’t going to argue. I wanted my goal. About one-third
of the way through, the students in the class went to talk with the professor and said, “Do you know you put this
woman who creams off all the As and it’s not fair to us. I mean, that’s not fair!” Fortunately, the protest of the
students helped me get into the Ph.D. program. [Laughter]
Charnley: That’s interesting.


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Lund: And who am I to knock that?
Charnley: Small revolt.
Lund: A small revolt by the right people. It was an interesting time. I was born during the Depression. In fact,
my father lost all of his savings because his bank failed, I mean the bank he had his money failed, just before I was
born. I grew up in the Depression years, and I was a young woman during World War II. The role of women
during that time was extremely interesting, because from 1927 when I was born until the late thirties, women’s role
was as homemaker and mother--period. But when the war broke out, there was no one to run the machines. There
was no one to do this, there was no one to do that, there was no one to handle the traffic in the street. So women
were then put into career--well, women were able to work in jobs that paid money. And the minute the war was
over, there was enormous pressure placed on moving women back to homemaker and mother.
         The biggest propaganda I’ve ever read came out from that time. Very, very interesting to go back and
read. You were supposed to go into the kitchen and into the nursery, and, by George, everybody did that. Well,
those of us who had lost our future partners had no one to go back to in homemaking and nursery, and so decided to
go on for further education. But out of this, this anger by women, came some of the feminist movement. Also
came the civil rights movement, and attention paid to disabled people, to disadvantaged people, to minorities, to
children, to elderly. All of this began to surface at the same time because of real discontent among fifty percent of
our population. And it’s still true.
         Then there also were tremendous career opportunities that began surfacing after World War II. So, at my
time, when I was doing professional study and the early career years, there were very few women my age who were
studying for a Ph.D. They were all having babies. I don’t denigrate that; that’s just the way it was. So that you
could count probably on one hand the women my age who got a Ph.D. as I did, and who were interested in any
administrative role or even any paid occupation. So for many years I served as the single female administrator in
many institutions. That was especially true in the sixties and the seventies.


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          You asked about the positions that I held. I was an instructor for several years. But administratively I
held the title of assistant director at the School of Home Economics at the University of Minnesota. Once I had
completed my Ph.D., I was instantly asked if I would serve as assistant director and agreed to do so.
          Then I had a phone call from Roy Cottman [phonetic] at Ohio State and wanted to know if I would come
over and interview for a position of associate dean in their College of Agriculture and Home Economics. Do you
notice agriculture and home economics, that tie? I said that I didn’t really think that I wanted to, and Roy says,
“What do you mean, you don’t want to? The least you could do is come over here and look at us.” So I got kind of
cajoled into it, and so I did, and was there for a period of time.
          When I was there, we had a series of meetings of students who would come and meet with our students at
OSU. Ohio State was one of the ten largest Home Ec programs in the U.S. It had over 1,000 undergraduate
students and about a 180 graduate students.
[Begin Tape 1, Side 2]
Charnley: When the tape ended, Dr. Lund was talking about her experience at the Ohio State University as
associate dean.
Lund: We had over 140 faculty. This included about 100 extension agents, who were out in the state as well as on
campus. Our on-campus faculty were around forty. The school was third nationally in the number of Ph.D.s that
were awarded annually, and it was involved in programs funded by USAID in India and in Brazil. When I was
there, I visited those programs in India and Brazil, and reviewed them on executive visit.
          But in 1971, we had a meeting, probably one of our honoraries, in which students came from all over this
region to meet with us. I made a speech and also interfaced with them. Much to my surprise, one of those students
went back to MSU, where she was a student, to recommend to Associate Provost Dorothy Arata that she had found
the dean for the College of Human Ecology, which had a vacancy at that time. Dorothy Arata told me later that this


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was the first time that the provost’s office had ever had a student come and recommend someone for deanship. I
had some question about it, too. [Laughter]
         But Dorothy called me, and I said, “I’ve only been here four years. I’m not sure that I’m interested in
moving at this time.”
         Dorothy said, “Well, the least you can do--." You see, here we go again. "The least you can do is come
and talk with me.”
         And I said, “Okay, I will come and talk with you, but at my expense, not yours. I do not want to be
beholden, and I will meet you in Detroit, at the airport." So I went with eleven pages of questions. [Laughter]
Charnley: Only eleven? [Laughter]
Lund: Which Dorothy was kind of surprised about. She responded to most of my questions. After that meeting, I
received an invitation to come and interview for the position, and after much consideration, I finally agreed to do so.
 I met the expectations of the interviewers, apparently. The position was offered, and I considered it and then I
accepted it. I joined MSU on January 1, of 1973.
         The question is, what attracted me? Sometimes I wonder about it myself at this point. [Laughter] One of
the things that attracted me was this was a mature college. It was established in 1896, and it had characteristics of
maturity, which interested me. The faculty had just gone through a review of organization and program and
directions and so forth, and I thought what they had come up with was both interesting and challenging, not only in
content and in concept, but in possible administrative structure. I also thought that maybe these new
conceptualizations that they were putting forward might free the discipline from all of the old concepts and stigmatas
attached to the old concept of home economics.
         It also appeared to be a pretty good environment for cooperation with other disciplines and units, because I
met with several other deans and department chairpersons in other units, and they were very welcoming and


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indicated interest in interaction, which pleased me. There was very strong interest evidenced by Provost [John]
Cantlon in my coming, including indications of support, financial support from central.
           I met with the alumni, those who were able to come, and there was strong alumni support. This is the first
time that alumni had ever been asked to come and participate in the interviews. I was interested in seeing what the
alumni looked like, and were they really interested and supportive, because the alumni are one of the primary sources
for development fund money.
           They had pretty respectable and teaching and extension programs on line. They could be improved, but
they were respectable. They had a very significant student body and a hard-working faculty. They had usable
facilities, not good, but usable, and there was improvement possible. And, finally, they guaranteed me a parking
space. [Laughter]
Charnley: A real premium. [Laughter]
Lund:       First things first.
Charnley: The building where it’s located, what was it called then?
Lund: It was changed to Human Ecology at that point. It was called Home Economics. It’s always been called
by its disciplinary name, but it was changed to Human Ecology at the point of change in 1970.
           You asked about the changes that I was able to stimulate or help pursue in the college during my tenure as a
dean. There are some things I need to talk to you about relative to significant administrative issues, that occurred
during the first five years of my administration. One thing that was extremely difficult to deal with was the concept
of the college as being the woman’s program on campus, the women's program on campus. Much more difficult to
deal with than then the "women’s program" label put on nursing.


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          Also difficult to deal with was the concept of home economics as being domestic science, with all of that
stereotypic perception by everyone, including out in the state as well as on campus, versus the concepts espoused in
human ecology, which was the change over into a new perception. There was a perception among students that
courses were no-brainers, which was not true, but there was that perception. And we had some that were
no-brainers.
          There also was, relative to this, lower salaries for our faculty and lower salaries and opportunities for
graduates. I can give you an example. In child development, one of the courses at that time was nursery school
teacher, or pre-school teacher. After a student had studied for four years, at a cost of somewhere between twenty
and twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand dollars, they then graduated at no matter what level in their class, and
then out to a job that paid nine thousand a year. That was unacceptable. Unacceptable. But the American public
supports and does not support some effort. And pre-school education at that time was not supported by the
American public. It is a little better not, but it's still not good.
          We had several of those kinds of careers that people went into, and I would have parents call me and ask
me, “How come?” I had very little way to explain to them that I too was confused about this. When students came
to talk to me, I told them about this, so that when they made their decision, they knew within the context after making
their decision. I think you can make a decision that is not wise, but it has to be with knowledge.
          We had an enrollment swell in the college between 1970 and 1974. I arrived in 1973, and we had a 144
percent increase in students, undergraduate students. We had an undergraduate student body of 2,200
undergraduate students, which was about 700 more than we could handle. One of the reports that I wrote, I
remember reading this phrase, “At the same time, other units of higher education are observing severe drops in
enrollments and a lessening of interest in program offerings. We are experiencing a rapid increase in enrollments
and a clamoring demand for our programs. At the moment we gain full competitive advantage, the bank closes.”
What amazing irony, because this was the time when funding began to diminish, so there was less and less funding,
even though we had more and more need for it.


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Charnley: Can you think of any other, right at that time, what attracted students to the field?
Lund: I think it was the change in the perception and the promise. There was a change in that students and faculty
and so forth were told that this was a new college, it was a new concept, and new preparations for careers. So
students came. They thought of it as having opportunity, and there was.
Charnley: And the funding in the seventies was still tied to agriculture?
Lund: Some of it was.
Charnley: Some of that had diminished?
Lund: Funding, particularly in research and in extension. Funding for general education programs like academic
programs, primarily through the university, but there was a continuing tie perceptually. In other words, if it wasn’t
really consistent with a frame of reference that was kind of agricultural, than it wasn’t fundable. But money didn’t
come from ag on that sector.
           We had a gradual decline in undergraduate enrollments after 1975, in part because we tried to do some
management of students. So eventually, we got to an enrollment around 1,500 undergraduates and 250 graduates,
and we were able to handle that with the faculty we had. There were some faculty shortfalls. The numbers were
inadequate for student enrollments. I commented on that.
           The proportion of faculty holding terminal degrees, that is, a Ph.D. degree, was lower than it should be, and
the proportion of faculty experienced in research and doing research was low. We had very limited research
funding. The research funding was primarily coming from AES, from the Agricultural Experiment Station. So that
certain sectors received funding, like nutrition and the food-related sector, but other sectors did not. There was very
little action by faculty to seek outside funding for research. And because of all this, there was very limited refereed


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publication. When you have those things, then you have faculty salaries that are lower. They were
non-competitive, both on and off campus.
          Then this was a time when the money was being withdrawn. The legislature was cutting back on funding
for all programs in the university, and there was a very significant loss of operational and academic program dollars.
That retrenchment was felt very severely in the college. It was not well funded to begin with, and then when the
promises of the provost to support did not come through, except for a parking space, that was felt very sharply.
          So what you had when you had this great swell of students was a tremendous loss of personal time and of
professional time, and especially research time. Faculty simply were consumed by being within the classroom,
being a warm body in front of students.
          Then, I also found that no attention had been paid to the development of an endowment or a gift-fund
program. In 1973, when I arrived, the development program for the College of Human Ecology, was $13,000.
          Then we had another issue that surfaced, and that was the administrative structure of the college, as
designed by the faculty. This was a time, late sixties, was a time when there was a love affair with interdisciplinarity
that everything should be done teamwork-wise, everything should be done in an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary
fashion, that research should be many people working together towards a common focus, and so forth and so on.
The college was designed with three departments that were essentially discipline-based. One was Food Science and
Human Nutrition, one was Family and Child Sciences, and one was Human Environment and Design, which had to
do with housing and external, like clothing and so forth and so on. These three departments had a definitive focus
within themselves.
          Then there was a third department which was called Family Ecology. Family Ecology Department was
designed as a multidisciplinary unit, drawing FTEs [full-time employees] on a contributed basis from each of the
other three departments, and these faculty were to teach in FE and do research on an interdisciplinary mode within
FE. The Family Ecology Department was defined as serving--and I’m quoting--“the key integrating function within
the college.”


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          Now, there were many units, not just human ecology, that were established with this kind of a concept
during those years. There was a kind of a love affair with this kind of thinking. This concept, which developed in
our college in the late sixties, was approved by the faculty in 1970, but it was conceptually late in arriving, from the
U.S. standpoint.
          It was found in time to be nonfunctional. Conceptually interesting. Family Ecology could function only if
faculty were willing to share significant time to participate in interdisciplinarity. And participating in
interdisciplinarity requires more time than individual participation, vastly more time.
          Now, the university environment was verbally supportive to ID work, but was nonsupportive reward and
promotion-wise. The faculty are not stupid. They wised up eventually to the fact that rewards, financial and rank,
were dependent on individual achievements and documentation of such. In reality, very few of these
multidisciplinary efforts were recognized any place other than verbally. At the present time, they’re being done
away with, even now. You have one within your college which is under review at the present time, as I understand
it, which is of that same nature, and it is a real problem.
          So over time, faculty and departmental support for the administrative structure of FE just simply eroded.
In 1979, the faculty of FE recommended and voted to terminate their department. This recommendation was
forwarded to me for action by the college. There was full college support, supporting the recommendation. It was
forwarded to the university, and it was supported by the university. So FCS, the Family and Child Sciences, became
Family and Child Ecology officially in 1980, and faculty affiliated with the former Family Ecology Department
joined this new department of FCE.
          One of the functions--it’s a long saga. One of the functions of the original FE Department was to teach a
core studies series of courses, with emphasis on the concept of family as ecosystem. These three courses start at the
freshman level and continue as a final course at the senior level, but as the curriculums in the other three departments
became increasingly professional and technical, the students rebelled against taking these courses that forced them
into a focus that they had no interest in. So gradually--and this happened even before the department was


                                                                                                                         17
terminated--the series of courses was changed from a structured three-course requirement to one elective course. I
think that that’s still on the books, that one elective course, but I need to check on that.
Charnley: Do you remember the title of that, what that course was? I can look it up.
Lund:      It was referred to as simply--and there was a series of three courses--it was simply, I think you’d have to
probably call the Human Ecology. I don’t remember all the details. One was Families and Ecosystem. That may
be the title that has continued for the elective.
          But teaching and administering the core studies program was a nonprofessional return job. There was little
opportunity for advancement and there was no research potential, so that any strong faculty who were at one time
involved in this withdrew from any affiliation with the program, and despite very significant financial and time
investment, the program was never successful. So that was one thing that they lost that people had hoped would be
successful.
          Then the Institute for Family and Child Study was established in the sixties as a collegiate program. The
child development labs were located in that institute. As with the design of FE, the theory was to operate
interdisciplinary research studies using faculty also from the three departments as well as other university units, with
focus on study of family and child, but only a few Human Ecology faculty saw the advantage of working within this
sector, in part because of the time involvement and the inability to obtain funding for research for these types of
research.
          So eventually the child development laboratories were moved, were literally taken out of the building where
the institute was, and were relocated, and the Institute for Family and Child Study was moved from collegiate
identity to the university administration. It has a title and is now still in existence: Institute for Children, Youth, and
Families, and is housed, if I remember, in Kellogg, right now.
Charnley: Is that administered by the provost?


                                                                                                                        18
Lund:      The unit retains affiliation with CHE, with the College of Human Ecology, but it’s administered as a
university institute. This move, that shift occurred after my departure as a dean.
          There was something else that happened which is interesting, and that is very significant changes occurred
in the funding and organization of the national and state extension programs, the cooperative extension programs.
That is still continuing. But that resulted in very significant changes in the kinds of services that were extended by
personnel within the College of Human Ecology, especially extension personnel. And most of the changes there
also occurred after my departure as a dean.
          Within all the universities and academic units during the early seventies, student riots and rebellions and
faculty rebellions occurred. Most of these agitations occurred because people were interested in having
participation rights in governance, not only students, but also faculty. Also, because of the riots, there was built a
considerable credibility gap between citizens and faculty, between town and gown, relative to units of higher
education. There also was a considerable credibility gap that rose between faculty and administration. The
seventies were troubled days for academic units. I think some of what we see today is carried from perceptions that
started in the seventies, kind of a discontent with what was going on and an attempt to change in order to make things
better.
Charnley: Did you see that in the students in your college?
Lund:      Oh, yes, and particularly saw it in the students at Ohio State. We had an honest-to-goodness rebellion by
students at Ohio State very similar to what happened here.
          [Clifton R.] Wharton [Jr.], in fact, told me one time that when he first came to Ohio State, that he had just
gotten into Kolls [phonetic] House, and he and his wife were getting settled and had gone to bed and were sleeping.
He said all of a sudden, there was a banging at the door, terrible banging at the door, and he said he went, and there
was some of the administrators who said, “You’ve got to come and talk with the students. You have to come talk to


                                                                                                                      19
the students.” He said they were rebelling near the Student Union. Well, the Student Union is immediately next
door to our building, or the Human Ecology Building. He said, “I got out there on the street, and they handed me a
bullhorn, and I didn’t know how to use a bullhorn.” [Laughter] He said, “But you do what you’re called to do
when you’re an administrator.” Which is true. It’s true.
           When I was at Ohio State, students rebelled there. They marched into McBride Hall, which was the hall
that our program was predominantly in, and marched all the way around what I called the donut. We had spaces in
the middle of the building and then faculty offices around the edge. So there was a corridor that went all the way
around. Marched all the way around the donut and into my office, past my secretaries and into my office. Stepped
on the chair that was at the end of--this was all [unclear], stepped on the chair, the end of my desk, marched across
my desk, stepped down on the other side, and sat down on the floor. After they got that done, I said to them, “Now
if you’ll just explain to me what it is you want.” [Laughter]
Charnley: Were they able to do that?
Lund: Yes. They wanted a daycare program for women on campus. I said, “If you’ll leave that with me, I will
talk with administration, and we’ll see what we can do.” So we were able, eventually, to establish a daycare
program. One of the women who worked with me on that, a woman of partial American Indian background, she
came by the other day and we had dinner together. It was a pleasure to see her, too.
Charnley: Did she stay at Ohio State?
Lund: No. She is now at Wisconsin and is working with some of the programs there, social service programs
there.
Charnley: Did you encounter anything similar when you got to Michigan State?


                                                                                                                     20
Lund: Less here, because it was primarily over. The riot was over. But I did find, when I came here, that the
students wanted to have access to the dean. They wanted to talk over problems. They wanted to discuss issues and
to have their ideas presented. So we formulated two groups. One was an undergraduate advisory council, which
had representatives from all four levels, freshman, sophomore, and so forth, plus males and females. Then we also
established a graduate advisory council that met with the dean. We met at least once a month, and they were very
instrumental in achieving some changes.
          One of the things that I was interested in was developing a library for our college. There was a reference
library for students. The students helped in the design of that laboratory. They literally came forward with designs
of how they would like to have a library designed to serve them. We were able to take those ideas and adapt them
so that the central administration would also appreciate it.
          But we did do some of those things. We were able to handle several of the interpersonal relations
problems that occurred when there were faculty that simply didn’t want to communicate with the students, with the
exception of being in a classroom.
[Begin Tape 2, Side 1]
Charnley: This is tape two. This is Jeff Charnley interviewing Professor Lois Lund.
          We were talking, when the first tape ended, about the early 1970s and student reactions to the Vietnam War,
riot and protest and how in human ecology the students were able to find an outlet for some of that.
Lund: I’m not certain that what we did met all of their needs, but they did have access to administration. I tried
hard to listen and to do what I could in achieving a sufficient number of the things they wanted that they felt that
their input was important, because I think the hardest thing for students is not to be heard. When not heard, they
never get response. So we worked on that. When I arrived in ‘73 here, most of the real rioting kind of action was


                                                                                                                     21
over with the students and they had settled down. I’m not sure that that settling down was profitable for them.
They probably should have kept rioting. Nonetheless.
          There were some other changes that occurred that were positive changes. I’ve talked about things that
caused us problems, particularly administrative problems as I working along with the curriculums and so forth. But
we, over time, were able to improve the program quality. The College of Human Ecology undergraduate program
was ranked sixth among 551 institutions offering a home economics degree in 1985. That ranking was by the
Gourman Study--that’s G-O-U-R-M-A-N Study--on the basis of program quality and effectiveness. Our programs
in CHE were ranked within the top ten for several years. I’ve not watched that ranking lately, so I don’t know what
happened to it.
Charnley: That was at the end of your tenure as dean?
Lund: Yes. That was in ‘85, was when that came out. But it was a pleasure to see that. Sometimes you have a
hard time, you have a sense in your own self that the quality is improving and you see evidences of it when you start
evaluating programs, but it is always good to have someone from outside say, “Yes, you’re right.”
Charnley: This was an important national study?
Lund: Yes. We also saw in that period of time when I was a dean, very significant increase in the number of
faculty that were recognized nationally and internationally, and also locally both here on campus and in the state, for
their outstanding work, and particularly notable improvement in research contributions and publications.
          I was interested that the concept of ecology was accepted nationally and internationally. Sometimes I think
that it was conceptually not accepted, but as a word was accepted as a title for the field, because people seemed to
think that it had more status than the word "economics" after the introductory work.


                                                                                                                      22
          We developed a logo for the college, which was kind of fun, to reflect the interactive nature of the units.
That logo is still in use, which has been interesting to me.
          I was distressed about the perception in the state, when I first came, of home economics as being only home
and family, only homemaker and nursery, and worked with Cooperative Extension to develop a program which
introduced the new college and the new college concepts to businessmen and educators and public servants of
various kinds in six regions in the state. We called that program Interaction ‘75. It went out in the spring of ‘75.
And it was a lot of work. We had money both from the provost and from CES to do this, but it was very productive.
 We got good response from it, and I do think it helped some to change the stereotypic view of the college. There
was great interest by our alumni in the state, who really were happy that we did this.
          One of the things that we did was to review all of the programs, the academic programs, within the college,
revise them where it was necessary to achieve professional relevance and quality. Where programs were no longer
really relevant, we deleted them. A few new programs were added, but not very many. Where there were
professional programs, we had them reviewed for professional accreditation, and I think all that we had reviewed
were given professional accreditation.
          We developed the first--I didn’t, but developed in the college--was the first external master's degree
program to be offered overseas in human ecology. It was established in 1982. The program was developed and
continues to be administered by Dr. Norma Bobbitt. The purpose of this program is to prepare professionals for
leadership positions in business and government and community organizations that provide human services to
individuals and family. It’s a project that is sponsored by the Department of Defense. Approximately 260 students
have graduated with their master's degree over these years, and approximately 50 faculty have gone over to Okinawa
to teach in regular classes. The program is located on the U.S. base in Okinawa, Japan. But it has provided an
international contact for our faculty, which has been worthwhile, because it has introduced many faculty to working
outside the States. There now are many faculty who have international programs as well as national programs, so I
think this first step was very valuable.


                                                                                                                      23
Charnley: Does that continue today?
Lund:     Yes, it continues today. It was refunded a year ago for, I think, another five years. It’s an interesting
program.
          We really had so many students on hand when I first came, that we never thought about recruitment, but
when we began to realize that we might go below 1,500 students, undergraduate, we developed the first student
recruitment programs. We established it in the late seventies and early eighties. It was effective in stopping the fall
in undergraduate enrollment.
          One of the things that I noticed when I first came in was that there were so few scholarships and fellowships
in the college. The number of college scholarships and fellowships that we finally were able to give to
undergraduate students increased from ten in ‘72 to forty-four in 1985. We also established collegiate fellowships
for master's and doctoral students. The first doctoral fellowship for minority students in human ecology was in
1981.
          Another thing that we worked on was to try to develop career ladders for students that were rewarding.
This always was a matter of great concern to me, because I think if you’ve invested what you invest in a college
education, you sure should be able to get a life-supporting job. The job should be a career, an initial job that allows
you to move up the ladder. So we worked on that. In some sectors it went very well.
          We had very grave economic setbacks in Michigan over those periods of years.
Charnley: In the early 1980s, especially.
Lund: In the late 1970s and 1980s. But I was able to obtain good increases in FTEs of faculty and graduate
assistants and clerical and technical staff. We absolutely had to have them. I was able to get some funding for that
and also was able to get significant adjustment in college faculty salaries. I argued for and achieved market


                                                                                                                    24
adjustment funds each year when these were offered so that salaries were at national competitive level when I
departed as a dean in 1985.
          We made very significant effort to hire faculty that had both strong teaching as well as strong research
experience. I fear in the past there had been kind of a token attention paid to that. But unless you have strength in
both sectors, you have a weak faculty. We were able to hire faculty who had this. We were also able to bring
faculty in with compatible education and research background, but who came from sectors other than traditional
home economics. So we were able to expand the purview of backgrounds of people through hiring beyond home
economics background. We also hired both men and women.
          I was very pleased to obtain very significant improvement and merit increases and promotions for CHE
faculty who had met the requirements, and many of them had met the requirements. But it was a case of arguing the
case and then bringing it to the [unclear].
Charnley: At the provost level?
Lund:      At the provost level. I was pleased that we were able to do that.
          One of the things I was interested in was diversity issues. We had had affiliation with 1890 schools, 1890
land grant, which are the black, minority, technically black land-grant schools. We had had very close affiliation
with faculty in those schools and worked with them on many efforts. But I was interested as to the commitment of
home economics to minority hirings and minority promotions and raises. So in 1979, I did a survey of colleges
relative to racial and sex employment patterns in academic units of home economics, human ecology, and shared
those data with people across the United States. Eventually those data became a benchmark, U.S. benchmark data.
But I was interested in it. It was really interesting to look at.
Charnley: Did you publish that study?


                                                                                                                       25
Lund: Yes. We published it as a monograph within the college.
          One of the things that I thought was necessary was to establish an advisory committee for students that were
minority students. So just as we had evolved the dean’s undergraduate advisory committee, we evolved three other
advisory committees that were on minority affairs. One was on faculty, one with undergraduate students, and one
with graduate students. So that there were three committees that I met with that had to do with minority issues. We
met regularly on matters of importance relative to minority faculty and student relationships and opportunities, and
so forth and so on.
          One of the things that preoccupied me, because I thought it was so terribly closely tied to salary and to rank,
was research and the building of the research program in all sectors within the college. So early on, I took some
money that I could find, and established the College Research Initiation Grants Program, which provided money to
faculty as start-up dollars, to start up research, to get started into research so that they could search for outside
money. We were able, I think partially through the instigation and initiation of this program, were able to get
faculty started and get their feet wet in research. By 1985, when I left, we had over twenty-five percent of the
faculty were heavily involved into research, which I was pleased about.
          There was very dramatic improvement in outside funding for research in the college in all sectors, not just
within the science areas and nutrition, but in other sectors, as well. Along with that was increases in merit awards
and promotion and also in publication, refereed publications and presentations, and the whole kit and caboodle.
          A comment about one program in Cooperative Extension Service. Cooperative Extension Service, in the
days when I was dean, contacted enormous numbers of people with education and with programs and so forth and so
on. But one of the programs they had, which was sponsored by USDA, was the expanded Food and Nutrition
Education Program, which was designed to provide nutritional information and food purchase and preparation
guidelines to families. It was directed to the poorest families in the community. We reached over 10,000 families a
year through this program. This was a very successful program. This continues today. There were many other
programs, but I’m not going to give you detail on that. I just thought that this program was very successful.


                                                                                                                       26
          We did not have good facilities at all times. So one of the things that I tried to do was to seek monies for
renovation and to do some major renovations of areas. When I went back to count it up, I’d obtained money for
major renovation of thirty-three college offices and office suites and classrooms and labs. Work was completed in
those years in which I was dean.
          We had a major fire in the Human Ecology Building. It occurred on May 24th, which was a Saturday,
1975. The fire destroyed faculty offices, and the full CES office suite and all of their files. It melted things, melted
computers, melted telephones. Very disastrous fire. We had good support obtaining funding for the renovation of
the affected areas, but an enormous expenditure of time on that.
Charnley: Did they ever determine the cause?
Lund: Yes. It was an error by an individual.
Charnley: Human error, not direct arson?
Lund:     No, it was not arson, not by the least. It was simply an error.
          One of the things I told you about was the building of our library. The students also participated in the
design of a student lounge. We hadn’t had a student lounge before. I thought that students should have a place to
relax and design that space by themselves. So an area was identified and the students were told, especially in HED,
“You tell us what you want and we’ll find funding for it.” So they did. They came forward with two or three plans,
which were reviewed by student groups as well as faculty. Then we went out and got alumni gifts to support the
funding of that. It was a good effort.
          We opened the first MSU collegiate micro-computer laboratory for classroom use in 1985. The
networking capability was planned in ‘85, but it was completed in ‘86. That is now interpreted to be a university


                                                                                                                    27
computer laboratory. We also established, as most other colleges at that time, a computer network system within the
college, so that we could reach each other with computer services.
          We tried to do some things that would contribute to the MSU program. We established a College of
Human Ecology Distinguished Lecture Series. We established that in 1977. The first person we had come to speak
was Shirley Chisholm. Shirley Chisholm was a black legislator from New York, the State of New York, with very
deep interest in child development and programs for young children, particularly for minority children and
disadvantaged children. She gave an excellent speech, and we were glad to have her.
          The next year we had Ken and Elise Boulding [phonetic]. The Bouldings were economists, and they spoke
about their studies and their books and writings, and so forth and so on. Very nice presentation and it was nice to
hear from them. They were unique in that they were a couple that worked together as economists, and it was nice to
see that.
          The third year we had Bob Keesham. Bob Keesham is Captain Kangaroo, who you probably--you’re
smiling, so I guess you remember him. [Laughter]
Charnley: Days home from school.
Lund: [Laughter] There were several others. We tried to select people to come and speak who would be of
interest to the general MSU population.
          We also established the monograph series, publication series. There were five books that were published
during the time that I was a dean. One was the Michigan Family Source Book, that was written by Boger and
Andrews, which gave solid information, benchmark information, on families in Michigan. Then the survey that I
mentioned on racial and sex employment patterns which I did was also published by this group. Then we published
a trilogy, a series of three books, on the philosophical studies in home economics, which was written by Marjorie
Brown. These were well received, especially the last. Well, the first two were really reference materials. The last
one was very well received by people within home economics, who were searching for a philosophical understanding


                                                                                                                     28
of this field. Marjorie Brown was perhaps our most intellectual philosopher within the field during that period of
time, and probably ever.
           During the eighties, I also worked with the Office of the Provost to develop and then to establish an MSU
Administrative Internship Program, because I felt that we needed to have people have opportunities to see what
administration was like, to experience what administration was, to know something of the tasks that were involved,
something of the perceptions that were required, and so forth, so that people would be interested in entering
administrative positions.
Charnley: Was this for faculty or students?
Lund: These would be mostly graduate students and normally Ph.D. students, although it could also be faculty. It
was open to faculty. It was patterned after the ACE Presidential Internship Program that had been around for a
number of years.
           I have for many years maintained contact with international home economists and international programs in
several countries, in South America, in India, in Korea, in particular. The programs in Korea eventually took on the
title of human ecology in part because of interaction that they had with me, and was instrumental in helping those
programs see that there was research potential in areas other and areas in addition to human nutrition.
Charnley: You traveled to those areas and helped set up those programs?
Lund:       Yes, I have traveled. I haven’t helped set them up. I did most of it by telephone and by writing and by
some travel, but not being there. I also had some assistance from Dr. Bobbitt who was my associate dean, who did
interact with these people. But it was nice to have that affiliation.


                                                                                                                        29
          The community services external master's degree program that I commented about earlier, I think was a
very good program in starting people doing international work and being comfortable in doing international work.
Sometimes the problem is the comfort level, achieving a comfort level for faculty.
          The last thing that I wanted to comment on is the development of the development fund program. It was
simply nonexistent when I arrived in 1973. Together with my associate dean, we worked to establish strong
affiliations with alumni and emeriti and college friends. There was no support staff extended at this time. We did
it ourselves. What we did was to establish a human ecology national alumni and emeriti network. Through
personal contacts and travel all over the United States, we were able to increase the college development fund
support, real and pledged, from 1972, which was under 13,000, to over a million by 1985, which was quite an
achievement in its day. Nowadays, with the kind of support you can get, where someone is doing this all the time,
you could do far better.
Charnley: So it was nonexistent at the university support for--
Lund:      It didn’t exist. It wasn’t considered as being necessary, apparently.
Charnley:       Did you face any opposition within the university?
Lund:      No. They were happy we would do it. Anytime you can get money, you know.
Charnley: Was there any major success that you can point to? Was it through an individual or a corporate
contribution? Anything that stands out?
Lund: Primarily through alumni and friends. Several of our alumni would leave like one and two hundred
thousand, at a stroke, in their wills, would identify it as part of their will. Most of it was relatively small increments


                                                                                                                   30
of maybe fifty, sixty thousand, that were given. You were just happy to receive any kind of support. Even to
receive verbal support made you feel good, because you knew that they had you in mind.
         Well, nowadays, there is an organized structure on how to get money from friends and so forth, but in those
days, my associate dean and I sat down and said, “What can we do to achieve this? What is the very best way to
achieve this?” Whenever we made a trip anyplace, we visited with all of the alumni we could meet in that area to
explain what were doing and to ask for their support. It did pay off, but it was enormously exhausting work on top
of everything else.
Charnley: Personal contact that you had to make?
Lund: Yes. But it was rewarding to see that they appreciated and were willing to give.
Charnley: Associated with that, did you organize any on-campus like an annual activity in conjunction with
homecoming, or anything?
Lund: Oh, yes. We always had lots of that sort of stuff. There was always something relative to homecoming.
We also had a Human Ecology College Day, or something of that sort, I can’t remember what it was called, in which
we had guest speakers. It usually was a whole morning of lectures and so forth and so on, and then a luncheon and
always a speech by the dean, which we tried to bring to them not only what we were doing, but also ask for their
help. That was well attended for many, many years. Then it sort of faded, because it’s a kind of thing that many
people have other things to do. So it sort of faded. I think it was phased out finally sometime in the eighties. But,
yes, we did do those. I didn’t mention those, whether it was something every weekend. [Laughter]
         You asked about administrative style. I’m interested in administration. I really am. I find administration
extremely intriguing; that is, trying to help people do the job that they say they want to do.


                                                                                                                         31
[Begin Tape 2, Side 2]
Charnley: We were talking about administrative style. You were commenting about how you saw yourself as a
facilitator.
Lund: That’s right. I see myself as having provided support and opportunity where it was appropriate and where
it would be advantageous. I think of myself as being open, but able and willing to make hard decisions if necessary,
where necessary. I believe in participative management and I believe in anticipatory planning. I believe in
planning that allows you to anticipate what might happen and to think about the consequences of actions. So many
people make decisions, but they never think of the end consequences, and I think you have to anticipate what might
be going to happen, and even sometimes when it’s bad what might happen, you still have to make a decision, but at
least you are ready for it.
Charnley: So long-term planning’s important.
Lund: Very much. My cup of tea. I enjoy long-term planning. I enjoy financial planning. I think of myself as
being open to new ideas and new techniques. I’m willing to experiment.
          I really do believe it’s important to recognize and to appreciate faculty contributions in all sectors: research,
teaching, and service. They are all critically important and all valuable, and I do not believe in giving credit to one
sector without giving credit to other sectors.
          I try to respect staff and other co-workers, because they are the front face of any unit. Your secretary is
more important than you are, frequently, in presenting a face to the people. I’m a very strong supporter of equity
and diversity, to the point of arguing on behalf of equitable treatment in particular.
          I am a strong believer that a knowledgeable faculty is essential to wise decision-making within units and
within colleges. I don’t believe faculty who know nothing and understand less can make wise decisions. I think


                                                                                                                      32
that when administration doesn’t share with them sufficient information so that they can make wise decisions, that we
have done our faculty a serious injustice. I feel the same way about politics. I’m willing to wait, if necessary, for
faculty to comprehend, unless change is necessary. I’m willing to move ahead if it’s essential, when you can’t wait.
I believe in calm despite all chaos, which sometimes takes some energy.
          One of the things that happens when you go into administration is that you carry a lot of responsibility that
not very many faculty think about. One is you serve as a role model for all of the students, graduate and
undergraduate, and you serve as role model to some faculty. So you try to support these people as best you can,
verbally as well as financially, where it’s possible.
          You need to make decisions that are in the context of the goals of MSU and Michigan, the State of
Michigan, where it is at all possible to do so. You are responsible for presenting the dynamic and pertinent nature
of the college and its units to every audience you meet, because you represent the college. You represent the
college within the larger university at all times. When people see you, you are the college. You can’t get away
from that. You have to argue the college cause to university and state leaders, and that’s especially true when you
are arguing for funding or additional faculty, or space, or anything of this sort. You have to be there to support the
faculty and to argue their point.
          You need to be as objective as you can in evaluating program and personnel and situations. Probably the
most difficult thing to be objective about is to evaluate situations, because sometimes interpersonal relations are
very, very hard to evaluate what really went on. You became a national and a state and sometimes international
spokesperson for the college and for the ideas within the college, and you have to handle crises that you never
thought, ever, you’d be able to handle, and yet you have to handle them with knowledge and wisdom and serenity.
I’m not sure that what serenity isn’t the thing that goes first.
          You asked about dealings with the university. I consider that on the whole, my relations were good, with
the university.
Charnley: While you were dean?


                                                                                                                     33
Lund: When I was dean and any other time. But it was very apparent that CHE was the home economics unit on
campus and was in many ways viewed as the auxiliary of agriculture.
          It was frequently hard, as a female dean, to be heard. What I learned was if I had a really good idea--and
every so often I had--that in order to get my idea on the table, I would feed it to a male dean. Very frequently the
male dean thought it was his own idea when he presented it, but once it was presented, I argued for it.
Charnley:      Was there one dean that was a conduit more than others?
Lund: Whatever works is what you use. I had a nice fight with Athletic Director Rogers when he was here,
regarding the inadequacy of funding and space and equipment and coaching for women’s athletics. I am not an
athletic person, but I am sure am supportive of women’s rights. Gradually over time, the deanery, as I called this
collection of deans, came to realize that Title IX was not going to go away. The person who made, I think, the most
impact on this was [M.] Cecil Mackey, when he was here as president. When I told him that shortly before he
stepped down as president, he said, “Isn’t that nice? You’re one of the few people who ever noticed.”
          Monies during my tenure were very tight, but generally we were able to get money for renovations and for
promotions and for salary adjustments, but what suffered was operational dollars. The operational dollars were
really severely cut.
          Sometimes we had gender issues which arose when a promotion was discussed. I don’t like people who
talk about the fact that a person should not receive a promotion because they are a wife and a mother and a woman.
So there were a couple of fellows that got some discussion as to whether this was not a biased decision. I don’t
believe in that business.
Charnley: Promotion based on merit?


                                                                                                                     34
Lund: I believe in promotion based on merit. When you come with adequate merit documentation, and then the
argument is, “But that means that the wife will have a higher rank than the husband, and both are in the university,"
that’s unacceptable, and the person involved learned it.
         Budgetary planning became a game in the university. By the mid eighties, there was one time when all of
us deans rewrote the APPNR, which is the annual planning document, seven different times, with seven different
refinements. All too frequently I became aware that the reports we were sending in were not studied. Provosts, in
particular, were not aware of what the contents were and the proposals that were being made. I found that
discouraging and appalling.
         I also found that it was almost impossible to lead. Administration suggests that you’re going to have some
opportunity to do leading. It was almost impossible to lead when time and monies were consumed by university
projects of very limited value and of limited return. These projects took precedence over academic programs.
         So at that point I stepped down. My interest now, when I became a faculty member and returned to one of
my favorite occupations, which was teaching, was to continue interest in consumer behavior and in administration of
higher education. I continued serving as a consultant to collegiate programs across the United States.
         About since ‘85, I really moved on two thrusts. One was to give attention to the market for food and for
food services by mature consumers. That would be what you would call the elderly. And then to the development
of the new undergraduate curriculum within FSHM. What I developed was a curriculum called Food: Technology
and Management. It was a curriculum developed jointly with the College of Business. It was first offered in 1992,
and there were some thirty graduates by the time I retired in ‘96. Because when I retired there were no monies to
replace me in Food Science and Human Nutrition, the program was moved to become an option within the food
science undergraduate program, and it continues in that regard today.
         This program was based on a research work that was done from funding by U.S. Department of Agriculture
challenge grant, which Dr. Bobbitt and myself obtained from USDA. This is a curriculum that in the senior courses,
the core study was by case study. I visited Harvard and Boston University and used their model of case approach,
and developed twenty cases, which was quite a task, which could be used in the senior classes in the FTM major.


                                                                                                                     35
          I also worked to develop an internship program for FTM majors, and that program was implemented. The
thing that I was anxious about is that students have experience in decision-making and in teamworking on
decision-making on problems that actually occurred in business. And then, secondly, that they be given
opportunities between their sophomore and junior and junior and senior years in participating in internship programs
someplace in the United States. About eighty percent of students who took internship programs, their first initial job
was within the company in which they’d done their internship, so it was a good move to participate in an internship,
because it was an initial step into career.
          You asked about philosophy of teaching. The one thing I have to say is that learning should be meaningful
and it should be exciting. You should enjoy it. When I studied higher education years ago, one of my professors
said that education should be like two people sitting at two ends of the log. One end of the log is the student, and at
the other end of the log is a teacher. Over time, as a student learns and the teacher teaches, they should come
together and come to merge as one. That concept of shared learning is a concept that I think is exciting not only to
the student, but also to the teacher.
          I believe teachers should help students to function by themselves. I stress and have always stressed
problem-oriented teaching. I think the case system is excellent for certain types of things that you want to do. It
can stimulate independent and critical thinking, which I think is important.
          And it’s important to know your students, to confer with them, to listen to them, and to observe them, to see
what they’re doing and see what they’re thinking. It’s important to expect excellence and to expect work. What I
have observed is that students respect you for your expectations. They live up to what you put in front of them.
          You asked about community involvement. For a number of years, for fourteen years, I served on the Board
of Directors of Consumers Power Company, no known as Consumers Energy, served there from ‘83 until ‘97, and
also served on a CMS Energy board from ‘87 to ‘97. Stepped down from that in ‘97, retired at age seventy from
that role. I really enjoyed that work and that interaction with an ongoing dynamic company. That was an education
in itself. It gave me an opportunity to expand my horizons as a consumer expert. At first, when I was first
approached, I thought to myself, “Oh, my stars! I’m not sure I’m up to this, because I don’t own a big company,”


                                                                                                                    36
and so forth. But they assured me that what I had to bring of an academic standpoint would be of value, and it was.
It was.
          The thing that tickled me was the university, when they heard that I had been asked, said, “Oh, go ahead and
accept it. You’ve got to accept. This is important.” And I said, “Well, but I may need some advice.” “Well give
you all the advice you need.” Never heard from them again.       [Laughter]
          Also worked with the Michigan Office on Aging on a study of the consumer behavior of elderly, and
interacted with numerous businesses in Michigan and throughout the United States in developing case studies and in
developing the internship programs. That was fun. I really enjoyed doing that. Lot of work, but I enjoyed doing
it. Also started work with some of the nonprofits.
Charnley: In the local area or statewide?
Lund: In the local area. In developing endowment programs.
Charnley: So your experience in fundraising for the college worked.
Lund: No, not colleges. This would be nonprofits, like churches.
Charnley: Yes, but I meant that your experience that you got in developing the endowment for Human Ecology.
Lund:     Yes, yes. It’s more sophisticated now than it was in those days, but it’s the same kind of approach. I’m
enjoying that.
          You asked what my reflections were on my career at MSU. Well, by the time I stepped down as dean, my
impression was the college was in better shape than when I came in. The college structure was administrable, and
the funding was pretty sound in most areas. All of the chairpersons in place were strong and were experienced,


                                                                                                                     37
which was not true. There was full staffing. There was a good balance among teaching and research and service.
Most of the professional curriculums had been revised and approved and were appropriate. They were accredited.
          Research programs were in a strong growth mode after severe funding shortfalls, and, of course, it’s
increased since then. Enrollments were stable and we were able to handle them. The off-campus offerings and the
international contacts and relationships were strong. The off-campus offerings in Okinawa has held up extremely
well and been very profitable for all involved.
          The service programs, particularly those in Cooperative Extension, were highly functional when I left, but
the funding and the organization of CES began to deteriorate and to change, so there had been some significant
changes in that since.
          The endowment program and the development fund program was in a strong growth position for a first
time. Now, of course, personnel are hired to do only that. That’s a good investment. Promotion and merit
increases were competitive. I’ve commented about that. The computerization of the college and classrooms were
completed. So in 1985 when I stepped down, it was a pretty good time to step down. Also, after I had done the
APPNR seven times, it was time to step down.
Charnley: We just finished ours, by the way. [Laughter] So I know the feeling.
Lund: You understand. Yes.
Charnley: Not seven times, though. We only had to do two revisions.
Lund:     Well, I tell you. I finally took to just reshaping the phrases and putting phrases in different places.
          As teaching faculty in FSHN, in Food Science and Human Nutrition, in the time from 1985 to the end of
‘96, I was able to achieve the goal of establishing a functional undergraduate major, stressing both food science and
business. I consider that to be a terribly important relationship, because food science students enter business, and


                                                                                                                     38
unless they have some knowledge of business practices and business techniques and perceptions, all they’re going to
be is a technician. But that they know these other things and can later on, if they wish, enter into a master's MBA
program, they can enter administration if they desire to do so. So without that, they’re handicapped. So this opens
doors to my students.
          We obtained some research dollars to do this program, and the College of Business was very supportive in
working with us. We had very good response from business. They were really interested in seeing this put into
place. So it was good to see that that program was on line, and I felt good that I had a job well done by the time I
stepped down in ‘96.
          Then you asked about all the faculty with whom I worked.
Charnley: [Laughter] Not everyone.
Lund:      [Laughter] I identify just a few people that I was particularly impressed with. One was Cliff Wharton,
who was the president when I came and was president for five years while I was here. Cliff’s background was in
agricultural economics. He worked with the World Bank and came from an ambassadorial family, so he had had a
vast international background. Cliff not only was an intellectual, but he was a highly cultured individual. When
you talk with him, you will enjoy it enormously. He handled all kinds of terrible problems, especially with trying to
get the student rioting handled, and I thought he did very well. He and his wife also were instrumental in getting
started a cultural revolution on this campus that occurred when Wharton Auditorium was created. Without them
being here, I don’t know. I think we’d still be shuffling.
          Cecil Mackey I have great respect for. He was the president who came after Wharton. He was asked to
come to reduce the size of programs here at MSU in accord with the funding base, and he did the job. There is no
way to do a job in which you are asked to cut funding and be loved. I thought that he handled it extremely well. I
think that when he went into the College of Business, his contributions there have been enormous, that he has lived
above any indictments, and I’m really extremely gratified to watch his progress.


                                                                                                                  39
Charnley: It’s almost reminiscent of John Quincy Adams experience, difficulty during presidency and then he
made a greater contribution in Congress. Or now as going back in the faculty, being a faculty leader.
Lund: Absolutely.
Charnley: He’s had a very important impact on the institution.
Lund: Yes. I say to myself how sometimes someone has to come along who has the strength to achieve the
changes that are necessary and take the guff.
          I liked Dorothy Arata, who was the assistant provost and was a professor in nutrition. She was
straightforward, eyeball to eyeball. She told it like it was. Enormously intelligent. I found her, when she said
something, she meant it, and she delivered, which is not always true with people in administration.
          Dick [Richard] Lewis was the dean of the College of Business. He was just excellent in working with the
establishment of the undergraduate program in Food Science and Human Nutrition. I had known Dick for a long
time and like him as an individual, have great respect. He is a cooperative person. He’s willing to listen and to
find out where cooperation was possible.
Charnley: You were deans together at the same time?
Lund: Yes. I also liked Jim [James] Anderson, who was the dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural
Resources. He also became vice provost in ANR. Jim was an unusual dean of agriculture in that he listened and he
valued what you said and weighed what you said, and then made a decision, not off the cuff, but after study. He
took the whole into perception. I respected him for that. He also was a nice guy. Every so often he [unclear].


                                                                                                                       40
          I thought John Cantlon as a provost was interesting. He also became vice president for research and
graduate studies later. All of this went on when I was in office. John Cantlon really truly supported the concept of
human ecology in all of its multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity and all of this stuff, and he really wanted
desperately to believe it would work and, I think, had a lot to do with supporting these efforts, not financially, but
verbally, because he really wanted so much for it to operate. I found him interesting in that regard, because at times,
when you were trying to discuss it, it’s not administrable. Still, the dream was there. The dream.
          My associate dean, Norma Bobbitt, who I’ve commented about from time to time, is one of the smartest
women I’ve ever known, very bright, very work-oriented, just determined to make something work. She has been in
more international locations than anybody I’ve ever known. She is a productive, distinguished person. When she
leaves the college, when she retires from the college, which is not now, but in the future, the college will be very
short of an individual that is very significant.
          But I want to tell you about a person who was not in the college when I was there, but who I met later.
That is Mary Lewis. Mary Lewis was a professor in child nutrition. She was what I would call a true intellectual
and a humble scholar. We went out to California to a series of meetings and met with two emeriti out there. One
emeriti was a person who was internationally recognized and knew it, who had all the accoutrements that academic
people have, and had arrived. Mary Lewis lived on the top floor, the second floor, of a very small house. She had
a living room, kitchen, and a bedroom and a bathroom. Very simply. You talk about voluntary simplification.
This was voluntary simplification. She was well into her eighties. She did not have a car. Every day she went to
the library to study and to write.
[Begin Tape 3, Side 1]
Charnley: Dr. Lund was talking about Mary Lewis.


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Lund: She saved all of her money, and lived a very, very quiet, money-saving, humble life. She left an
endowment to MSU College of Human Ecology to support research and programs in child nutrition. I had never,
ever known anyone like her, never. But I think of all the people that I have met in this college, she is the one I most
remember and am the most grateful to because of a kind of image that she leaves in your mind, which is beautiful.
          There was one other question that you had. That was what am I going to do now that I’m retired.
Charnley: [Laughter] In your spare time.
Lund: In my spare time. Well, let me tell you that back when I was a kid, I wanted to go into archeology, and my
grandfather, who was a practical soul, said, “No woman is going to amount to anything in that field at the present
time.” True. And, “What do mean, you want to do things like dig up people? What kind of business is that?”
When he described it that way, and I was in high school, I sort of decided maybe he was right. However, that does
not mean that I still don’t have tremendous interest in information and study of the historical periods that we know
relatively little about. So I’m interested in the eras 200 years before the common era started, and 200 or 300 years
beyond that, 500-year span. So that’s what I’m studying. It’s a private study. I have a good time doing that.
          Also I’m working on helping units develop their gifting programs, the development of programs. I find
that interesting. That keeps me busy.
Charnley: Have you been traveling?
Lund:      Well, no, and I want to tell you why. Because when I was a dean, I visited every single airport in this
whole U.S. and several overseas. They’re all alike, and not very interesting. I’ve seen all the sights, so when I
open the National Geographic Magazine, I say, “Been there, done that.” And you eventually decide, “Maybe home
is where I should be for a while.” So maybe in the future I’ll go stomping off again, but I think it’s unlikely.
[Laughter]


                                                                                                               42
          I also have acquired two basset hounds. Basset hounds are a dog designed by university committee. The
front is not related to the back. It’s one of those things. So I’ve become a mother of a kind. [Laughter]
Charnley: I want to thank you for the time that we’ve spent, and sharing your knowledge and experience here as a
dean and faculty member at Michigan State. I do appreciate your taking the time. Thank you very much.
Lund:      Thank you, Jeff.
[End of interview]


                                                               43
                                                      Index
Agricultural Experiment Station Program 3
Anderson, James 43
Arata, Dorothy 11, 12, 42
Bobbitt, Norma 24, 30, 37, 43
Boulding, Elise 29
Boulding, Ken 29
Cantlon, John 13, 43
Chisholm, Shirley 29
College of Human Ecology (formed in 1970) 4, 16, 19, 22
College of Human Ecology Distinguished Lecture Series 29
College Research Initiation Grants Program 27
Consumers Energy 38
Cooperative Extension Service 3, 23, 27, 40
Domestic Science
Origins 2
Family and Child Ecology Department 18
Family Ecology Department 17
Food: Technology and Management 37
Gourman Study 22
Home Economics
Origin 2
Human Ecology
Origins 2
Human Ecology College Day 32
Institute for Children, Youth, and Families 19
Institute for Family and Child Study 18
Interaction '75 24
Keesham, Bob 29
Land Grant Institution Act (1862) 3
Lewis, Mary 43, 44
Lewis, Richard 42
Mackey, M. Cecil 36, 42
Michigan Office on Agency 39
Michigan State University 3, 12, 13
First home economics curriculum 4
Women admitted 3
Michigan State University Administrative Internship Program 30


                                      44
Ohio State University 10, 11, 20
Rogers, ______ (Athletic Director) 35
Smith-Hughes Act (1918) 4
Smith-Leaper Act 3
University of Minnesota 9
Wharton, Clifton R., Jr. 20, 41