Joining the WIU History Department in the Late 1960s

I came to Western Illinois University and Macomb in 1967, shortly before the start of fall quarter. I had been on campus once before, two months earlier, for a brief job interview, and the Department of History had seen fit to hire me at the rank of assistant professor.

But I knew very little about Western—and I knew even less about Macomb.

My first residence was at Eggers Apartments on West Adams Street. It was a furnished “efficiency” apartment, which rented for $115 a month—and that included water and cable television.

That was my “bachelor pad” for the next five years.

Of course, I was not aware of local issues and developments at that time.

I had just joined a university in the midst of a period of rapid growth and transition. When I started that fall, Western’s student enrollment was 7, 200, and less than ten years later it reached just over 14,000.

During that period the campus was dominated by the construction of classroom buildings and residence halls, almost all of those being north of the recently expanded University Union.

Classes were large, and classrooms were sometimes scarce. During that first quarter, my classes were scheduled in Sherman Hall, as well as in the auxiliary building (now the WIU Art Gallery) and Morrill Hall (now known as Knoblauch Hall). The History Department offices were in Sherman Hall, and my first office was on the second floor at the end of a hallway, underneath a window air conditioner. One of my ongoing duties there was to swat and squish an unending stream of boxelder bugs that came in through a gap in the window frame.

In December, the History Department moved to its new home, Morgan Hall.

That was to be my work place and campus domicile for the next forty years.

Until January of 1967, History had not been a separate department. It was simply part of a larger section called Social Sciences. It had contained the fields of philosophy, sociology, political sciences, and geography. All of them became separate academic departments in that January.

I was the thirteenth faculty member, one of four who was hired in 1967. I was single, lived alone, and had no nearby family. I also knew nobody in town. But on campus the core members of the new department made me feel welcome right away. They invited me to their homes, fed me, and most importantly, nurtured me in how to be a responsible and productive faculty member. They also taught me about the crucial role that professors had to play in university governance.

I will always be grateful to colleagues such as Spencer Brown, Bill Burton, Bill Combs, Victor Hicken, Rosanna Ledbetter, Nick Pano, John Raatjes, and George Shadwick.

History was a hard-working, successful academic department, but it was also a kind of meaningful social group. Almost every Friday after work, we would usually gather in someone’s home, spouses included, and we all snacked and socialized.

Looking back on those times, I recall that the conversations were jovial, and the anecdotes and stories were always hilarious. So, all the people in that new History Department sort of became my Macomb family.

Don Daudelin was the United Campus Christian minister. At about the time I came to Western, he and his wife Karen started hosting a faculty luncheon every noon, on Friday, in a house across the street from Sherman Hall. For a dollar or two, faculty members could get a serving of casserole, a dinner role., and a dessert. The food was always great, and the camaraderie was just as good. So, every Friday thirty or so faculty members would gather for food and informal conversation. That group might be thought of as “the young turks,” who were committed to faculty governance, helpful societal change, and progress on all kinds of issues at Western Illinois University.

It was during those occasions that I also got to know like-minded faculty members outside of my own department. A partial list of those faculty would include Bryant Keeling and Maurice Nielsen from Philosophy, Charley Jones and Gordon Mock from Mathematics, Norm Anderson and Allen Flint from English, John Blaufelt, Arlen Fentem, and Ron Nelson from Sociology, Irv Berg and David Frier from Political Science, and Lois Mills from the Library.

Those individuals broadened my knowledge and helped me to understand the campus issues better.

And many of them became my lifetime friends.

So, I was fortunate to have many individuals who contributed to my sense of meaningful belonging at Western, during an era of significant institutional change.