[This text is machine generated and may contain errors.]

Mary Jo Bratton (0:02)
This is an interview with Dr. Elmer browning and my office on June 21 1984.

Elmer Browning (0:10)
I'll speak anymore.

Mary Jo Bratton (0:12)
No, I think it's a microphone and that if we come to something that you would rather not have on record, let me know.

Elmer Browning (0:23)
I doubt that we do that.

Mary Jo Bratton (0:26)
I just think some people feel more comfortable if they,

Elmer Browning (0:29)
For some of the years when we had campus problems. I would just say I don't know.

Mary Jo Bratton (0:36)
I was hoping you did know. I have written it's not written [Inaudible] I guess spent more time on that particular period in 1942 through 45.

Elmer Browning (0:56)
By him when he first came in office, about first two years of his administration. And then I saw the problem that time. And then I went overseas during the war, and therefore can say, I don't know, because when the trial and the critical time came, I wasn't the on the campus

Mary Jo Bratton (1:24)
When were you in Germany, you were in Germany, or you were...?

Elmer Browning (1:27)
in the war?

Mary Jo Bratton (1:28)
Yeah

Elmer Browning (1:30)
I was sort of OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, and not a fighting soldier in England and in France, or in Germany.

Mary Jo Bratton (1:42)
When was that?

Elmer Browning (1:46)
Uhh 43 to 45

Mary Jo Bratton (1:49)
Oh, you weren't here, during the time of the...

okay, the trial started in the spring of 45 [Inaudible]

and '36 is that right, you came, and that was at the beginning of the [Inaudible] you started that.

Elmer Browning (2:47)
I came in January, alone. And by fall, we hired a second teacher just a few teachers that year that just to do the work. Basically, there there was emphasis on typing and shorthand and then the office skill,

Mary Jo Bratton (3:17)
secretarial education.

Elmer Browning (3:18)
Yes, secretarial education

Mary Jo Bratton (3:21)
Then they could go on

Elmer Browning (3:22)
it was a teacher education, and teacher education. We started in January 36. We graduated four people four years later, with a certification. For year in 40, we graduated the first certified teachers

Mary Jo Bratton (3:46)
starting from I believe that was a program Dr. Wright had been wanting to implement during the depression and they had been waiting until funds were available.

Elmer Browning (3:59)
Dr. Meadows, I recall told me that to find someone who, who was anyway, the the treasurer of the college had died, I believe. And he was looking for a treasurer and one to start the business department and couldn't find any one person who would agree to do both things. Yeah. So Doctor Meadows hired me with a teaching job and Fitz Duncan for the treasurer.

Mary Jo Bratton (4:40)
I didn't realize he was trying to have a combination.

Elmer Browning (4:43)
Yes, he was trying to have a combination.

Mary Jo Bratton (4:46)
That's Pretty hard.

Elmer Browning (4:48)
Yeah, recover is telling me that he had offered it to somebody who didn't want that combination.

Mary Jo Bratton (4:57)
Well, it'd be a pretty hard one to

Elmer Browning (4:59)
It doesn't do, it doesn't do is not feasible. I wouldn't want the treasurer job and a treasurer wouln't want the teaching job. They were just two different jobs.

Mary Jo Bratton (5:14)
How would you characterize Dr. Meadows as what were your impressions of him when you came and began?

Elmer Browning (5:21)
Well, I might not talk to a lot of people who would disagree, but I just tell you my thought I liked him very much enjoyed working for him and had absolutely no problem because he was very interested in building a Department of Business and was compatible in every sense. But the problem was, were beyond my knowledge and that, that what they really were, I was really surprised when he got into such serious trouble.

Mary Jo Bratton (6:05)
I have heard over any controversial issue such as this, you expect to hear different thanks. But I had gotten the impression that there was a a growing, I guess, what they called faculty Rift or some hostility developing between him and some of the other department. Directors before the issue of his financial dealings tanked.

Elmer Browning (6:35)
There were two others that I would not call by name, who irked at not being given the job, or that thought really, still working to try to get the job. President. I don't know that I was new here. I wouldn't have much of perception proper. Politics was but there was uneasy uneasiness and competition among the faculty. The financial thing, I didn't see that he had really mislaid any funds, but he had done enough minor things to cause a little stir. Yeah, that's all I saw. I didn't see anything. That's when

Mary Jo Bratton (7:31)
I you were the manager of the students stores. The faculty manager?

Elmer Browning (7:36)
I was there before I left to go overseas, I was interviewed quite a few times by the auditors who were here in the court, but the auditors about the funds, and oh, God knew and the other the man ahead of me who manages stores.

Mary Jo Bratton (7:58)
That was Frank or Wright.

Elmer Browning (8:00)
Frank.

Mary Jo Bratton (8:01)
Frank. And Wright had it sometimes?

Elmer Browning (8:07)
All that I can say was that some of the funds had been turned over to him. It wasn't a secret at all. But apparently, it didn't go through appropriations at all. But I don't think that he knew or realized that he was doing such an illegal thing. Of taking those funds from the coverage stores and using them for construction on the campus. I don't believe he put any of it in his pocket.

Mary Jo Bratton (8:40)
One of the major charges against him was that he had presented you with some receipts, which you legitimately paid. I mean, he presented you as manager of the store with some receipts for materials that he had bought, and you reimbursed him. And some of that was later called into question as whether or not you're reimbursing him but with what he had done with those funds.

Elmer Browning (9:15)
As I recall that he didn't give me bills to pay to the to the person who done the work. I gave him money. Yeah, I remember us good $2,000 at a time. And he would say that they look for this or that. Yeah. I know. That's what the auditors were

Mary Jo Bratton (9:37)
And that you had legitimately given it to him for legitimate purposes. That was what he had done with it.

Elmer Browning (9:46)
I had the impression finally getting the building was built. And he was using some of those funds to to complete the basement of finding in the math department with was moved at that time, from the attic of Austin building over to the basement of Flanagan. And every bit of that basement or petitions, everything the costumes was done with that money that I was giving him. I think he had other sources. I don't know now what they would have been. But I think this student stores was the main source of money with which he finished the basement or Flanagan.

Mary Jo Bratton (10:30)
There was some question also is whether he had actually paid some of the workmen the amount that he said he had, I believe that was part of the of the problem. When you were here, weren't you? When all of this sort of erupted?

Elmer Browning (10:47)
Oh yes

Mary Jo Bratton (10:48)
And I understand there was a real divisive quality on campus between those who supported him and those who didn't? And I don't see you in any of it. So you must have been neutral.

Elmer Browning (11:05)
I was so new. I guess I was neutral. But another thing was that there was those photos, those elements for and against him. Were elements. Were at that time old timers, because they had been through rights administration. And some of them like, documented and some of them worked against him. Yeah. And, and I knew who they were, I knew what the who was at batt. In other words, I knew the elements and the elements against them as us. So three men who were working against him, were department heads. And as I said, I think I thought at that time, jealous of the fact that he had been the one made president. But the auditors came in and these funds came up and that gave them something to work on.

Mary Jo Bratton (12:09)
To work on, then there was been some that suggested that these dissidents, I guess one could say were had in some way, involved auditors in it or had called her attention. I think some people now, but I haven't seen I couldn't find it.

Elmer Browning (12:30)
Well, I agree with those people. That when the auditors interviewed me, we came to the store to check those funds and talk about those really did feel that that was true that they came representing those three men, or one or more of the three man who were cooking at the stove. And then they immediately saw they had something to something that was scandalous, or at least they thought it was. And that is absolutely true that he was always on the defensive. He didn't have a friend among the auditors. And I thought that was a little tragic. Auditors are auditors. They don't really go out to find illegal things they really want to find the truth. Yeah, I wasn't sure that that was what they were doing. I don't know that because the trial I said came after I left don't know how it came out in the trial. They were always asking me to identify the funds. And I don't think at that time he was denying it either. That he had these funds, as you said, I think it's more that they weren't after it being illegal maybe for him to take those funds but dependent on what he did with them. Yeah.

Mary Jo Bratton (14:08)
I don't think there was any any every question that they could use the funds for School purposes.

Elmer Browning (14:13)
There's one thing that came up at that time that I thought was senseless. irrelevant to guilt or innocent if he had taken the took the Garbage from the dining room dining room was about two or three. And he said he and another person had hogs they fed, it didn't seem to me to be important because it was so illegal because no one else would have done that but it was black mark on his Record. Yeah, rather rather small for a college president to be involved in a little operation in which he was raising hogs and depending on the university dining rooms.

Mary Jo Bratton (14:13)
yeah.

Elmer Browning (14:14)
That came up, that came up, everybody talked about it you know?

Mary Jo Bratton (15:23)
It does sort of get to be a little bit about embezzling. Yeah, I'm just saying what sort of a President if he had resigned in 1941, after you've been here, five years, and he'd been in about seven or eight? How would you characterize his presidency?

Elmer Browning (15:49)
At that time, at '41, I would characterize that as very, very good to do this moving around, all across the board. And with no regard for financial dealings at all, but academically, he was doing a good job.

Mary Jo Bratton (16:10)
He seemed to be trying to put into effect a number of programs that Dr. Wright did the had on the drawing board, but without the funds to do it and then as the economy during the late 30s, swipe a business. He put that in and try trying to do some other things that school,

Elmer Browning (16:35)
I think the fight, the division on the campus after about that time destroyed him. Whether it was his fault or not, but very definitely, I thought that at that time that he shouldn't compromise it. And both sides should. But neither one wanted to compromise. And so they fought it out to the end, and he lost to the bitter end. But he was good edition a came from the English Department a highly cultured, gentlemen, in every respect, the face out with a gentleman and just didn't and I came here quite interested in the welfare of open College. No apparent trouble for anyone that was another star was surfacing, surfacing.

Mary Jo Bratton (17:37)
I've heard some people refer to him, not necessarily critically, but just refer to him as sort of paternalist as administrator, and I believe some said They even called him like father, but he was very fatherly or very realistic. Which was not inconsistent with the way colleges were operated.

Elmer Browning (18:02)
No. I don't think so

Mary Jo Bratton (18:05)
At that time. But he was rather paternalistic person.

Elmer Browning (18:09)
He was toward me because I was young. One of the youngest members of the, he didn't talk down to me, but he was always giving fatherly advice. And none of it bad, but some of it not good either. But not to stay just quiet and not react either way. Yeah. Go ahead and do what I wanted to. Because he would know nothing about the business school, the business department that he was,

Mary Jo Bratton (18:46)
I never thought of trying to look on this. And extending that sort of paternalism where people get to feeling as he might have done after being there 25 years before he became president. This was just sort of a his extended domain, that he handled it as you would handle family finance. rather prevent as you was a very highly organized business.

Elmer Browning (19:17)
and he handled people that would do, and some of them resented it.

Mary Jo Bratton (19:21)
Yeah, and some of them liked it,

Elmer Browning (19:23)
And some of them liked it. As a newcomer I was getting what I wanted to do was in no time until we got up a pack of eight or 10 people

Mary Jo Bratton (19:35)
It was a growing department.

Elmer Browning (19:37)
I came in 36 When I left in 68. We had 1000 students, 54 teachers. And you know that not only Dr. Meadows but all the other presidents had supported me

Mary Jo Bratton (19:52)
very much.

Elmer Browning (19:55)
A lot of support.

Mary Jo Bratton (19:57)
that, but I just wanted to since that you came in being new. I've talked to several other people about this period. But not anybody that was in the situation you were coming in new and un-involved without tangling before this was developed, and it's a you were there for that, did you get the impression that there was some friction also between him and the students before this erupted?

Elmer Browning (20:31)
No, not at all. I thought that the students, my impressions, student unhappiness was also to some extent agitated by the people who are opposed to him. And because so many of our incidents of student revolt about things that really they can mattered with. And that there at least for the first four or five years, I didn't see any student rebellion at all. But then suddenly, it came forward in there. Now, what was...

Mary Jo Bratton (21:20)
How it developed, and then well, then new constitutional law, student government.

Elmer Browning (21:28)
Student Government was something new. One of the things that made them a little cocky about it was the boys were coming in. It had been all girls and I must say the girls, that's not to say probably would have been easier handled had it not been a co-ed thing. And about 41. The boys are coming on to campus, and also they, the rebellious type of people

Mary Jo Bratton (22:03)
come in a little

Elmer Browning (22:05)
advisor to two or three organizations, and student government at one time, the worst rebellion from the students was when I got back from the war. And the GIs were pouring on the campus. And then there was trouble. Because of GIs were so much older than the typical student. And there was a lot of agitation. But I believe maybe that was after Meadows.

Mary Jo Bratton (22:39)
You, or you were in England, in France during 45 and 46, about a year for you, were you there and then turned, I guess, Dr. Cook was here for one year.

Elmer Browning (22:59)
He was the most unhappy with the presidents. It never did get a he was here that one year. And what's the GIs were pouring on the campus? And he was very disturbed about the progression ship between men and women students, you know, and more drinking than usual than they'd ever been used to it always just a new campus. We're dealing with boys. They were Yeah, they were dealing with veterans of the war and that wasn't easy. He was the day he walked on the campus it started throwing up his hands in despair and quit raft he couldn't have it.

Mary Jo Bratton (23:47)
Yeah, that was sort of a transitional time. And then Dr. Mesick

Elmer Browning (23:54)
Dr. McGinnis is acting president before Cook for about a year, Dr. McGinnis was a real close friend at West Virginia. He and Dr. Meadows and Dr. Ray Barker and very much but McGinnis myself, darker Meadows where Oh, hunting pals, because in those days you never had anything to do on Tuesday, Thursday afternoon, you go hunting.

Mary Jo Bratton (24:32)
You didn't have classes.

Elmer Browning (24:33)
No, [Inaudible]. We can always get there during the week or three afternoons to go hunting. You wouldn't imagine that now.

Mary Jo Bratton (24:45)
You did more hunting than fishing. Where did you go just off...?

Elmer Browning (24:52)
Bird hunting. You used to go down toward grams.

Mary Jo Bratton (25:04)
Strange because Barker was one of those them that was not just something that was more unfriendly, but they had been friendlier earlier.

Elmer Browning (25:13)
Yeah, they've been friendly or on with them. I knew there was friction between them, but they still hunted together. And it had developed to a hatred, developed later.

Mary Jo Bratton (25:29)
Dr. McGinnis had a rather unhappy period to because it was in the midst. It wasn't of His creation, but was difficult.

Elmer Browning (25:39)
And I don't think, Dr. McGinnis really wanted to be in prison, but in soda was pushed. There's nobody else to do it. And he accepted. I don't think he would have ever accepted the presidency because he was so perplexed about that recent history that he would have been, he would have dreaded it. Yeah.

Mary Jo Bratton (26:05)
So he had some cooling off time. Finally, by the time Dr. Messick arrived, it was a whole different situation then.

Elmer Browning (26:13)
It was beginning to settle down.

Mary Jo Bratton (26:18)
that's when it became truly co-ed. And I guess your school in your department, which was really growing fast?

Elmer Browning (26:28)
Yes. After at about 45 on was getting a lot of the men students and new men students, so we were growing fast with that coeducation on which I liked, and we could get new department, new sub departments in the business. In the family, I made it a school, but we can do so many more things. And we got away from just the secretarial setup,

Mary Jo Bratton (26:57)
gradually evolved into school with more businesses.

Elmer Browning (27:03)
And finally, we take over the economics from Dr. Ad Frank's department because AACSB required that we do we were I was I was between the devil and the deep blue sea on that because AACSB said forget it, but I say forget about it. If you don't have economic shear and out of school business, the administration resisting putting it over. Then the School of Business and an ad and I were always good friends. There had to be an undercover competition. Not really personal. But found me the administration under Dr. Massey, before he went out, decided that it had to be so they just ordered economics professors over.

Mary Jo Bratton (28:04)
How would you describe Dr. Messick as president?

Elmer Browning (28:08)
Oh, in every way favorable. Yeah, the good present. personality was not, not autocratic. And anyway, with me, very sympathetic about ACSB ambition we did I think all he could have done to get us the funds over that time, as sometimes doubted that we were getting funds at the legislature meant for us but got shuffled after got here. I think that occasionally happened, that they thought they were appropriating funds, maybe for 10 more PhDs for school business because the legislature was also cognizant about ACSB that they were appreciative of the what it meant to the university to have an AACSB school that you're who are just told me this morning said You're fortunate that it is a ACSP school. And he said, Yes, I wouldn't have come here if it weren't, you know, which is true. You wouldn't get to get mad. But,

Mary Jo Bratton (29:33)
There are still a lot operating without it, aren't there? I mean, it's still a very select group of schools that are accredited.

Elmer Browning (29:43)
I imagine. I imagine it's still very slow right? At the time we went in six, there must have been seven could have been 66 When you were one of Four schools admitted that year, and there were 122 members of the AACSB on we four schools made it 146, 126. And at that time, there were some over 1200 departments and schools of business in America. Department school and set was 126 out of more than 1200 in the nation. And my guess is still that exclusive, that of all the schools who offer seriously business education, that that percentage of them are in a CSV because of the finances that took money here. They appropriated together and there are a dozen schools here in the state and we're them that could never hope to get that kind of money. The privite schools especially.

Mary Jo Bratton (31:05)
Well, not Dr. Messick was very interested in developing the school very well, it was still Department of Business. And he was what he was interested in.

Elmer Browning (31:15)
And therefore he saw the fact that development meant an ACSB membership, or not well, so he was interested and sincere and pushing for therefore have a good opinion of Dr. Jenkins stead and Dr. and Dr. Jenkins came in. We were no mistake, and we didn't come in ACSB. Under Dr. Messick . We came in under Jenkins. They both they both pushed it.

Mary Jo Bratton (31:56)
It took a long while to get through it. But under Dr. Meadows, how would you describe him in general? How is your as a college president? It's quite different from Meadowa and different from Cooke?

Elmer Browning (32:14)
you mean Messick?

Mary Jo Bratton (32:14)
Messick, Yeah

Elmer Browning (32:17)
Yes. I'm not sure how I would say Dr. Messick came here from New Jersey. And had it seemed to me a broader experience in administration that Meadows. And Cooke didn't have nor Dr. McGinnis who was my best personal friend of all, but he had only had experience here on this campus. So I felt that Dr. Messick was more mature or maybe less naive, and has been famous than the others had been. That's not against them. That was my opinion. And also carried over to Dr. Jenkins, that they had a broad outlook about education. Both of them sympathetic with the faculty and the students. Although in both cases, there were people who severe they dislike them the extent to

Mary Jo Bratton (33:34)
There's very few that people haven't.

Elmer Browning (33:38)
You don't get anything done if you were on everybody's your friend

Mary Jo Bratton (33:44)
I think we've accepted Dr. Wright, I don't know, maybe it's too long paths for people to remember. But he seems to have had the fewest critics.

Elmer Browning (33:51)
Yeah, that's what I thought when I came here. I didn't hear anybody say anything about him. Credit, nothing at all, nothing at all. But those days, that was the day that was the atmosphere of that day. And it was changing very, very fast.

Mary Jo Bratton (34:13)
But it's in recent times. It's wonderful, but I got an impression that Dr. Messick was really the one who charted the school and what you could call the takeoff period. I mean, it was under Jenkins that it developed rapidly, but Messick it was collecting its momentum.

Elmer Browning (34:38)
I heartedly to agree with Dr. Messick was building what had to be a very modern university. It had to be had had take off onto in a lot of directions. That hadn't been thought of that before. And he did At the very well he put the foundations in for this campus. And then Dr. Jenkins was person built on a different in a different mode, who was quite competent to do something about that was to build on that foundation that when the minute Dr. Jenkins stepped into the office, that was a feeling I had. Now we have a person who will build on it, it really down the medical school on everything else that was going on supporting they getting the school into ACSB, the school.

Mary Jo Bratton (35:38)
I was very interested in following your battles. From the time Jenkins became president, he seemed to really put the School of Business became the school and 61. But that seemed to be one of his priorities. To push very fast to get both the MBA program and the accreditation. Yes,

Elmer Browning (36:09)
he had a concept there that was up this. He had to do it. Had to get an MBA you can't, for instance, get an MBA. Ratification in the ACSB unless you're also an AB

Mary Jo Bratton (36:28)
I got the impression that was a real battle with the Board of Higher Education.

Elmer Browning (36:33)
Yes.

Mary Jo Bratton (36:34)
And that you and he were fighting?

Elmer Browning (36:36)
Yes.

Mary Jo Bratton (36:37)
Because they were obviously very opposed

Elmer Browning (36:40)
Yeah, they had a tough job, man on the higher board at that time, was had been in my scool of business for a while and then moved over and graduated and became Robert Morgan. And you know about him, I guess in your research. Now, these people had to look at the whole school and he just couldn't go up there and say, well, the School of Business has had to have PhDs this year when maybe didn't have funds for 12 for the whole university. And our demands were great. And therefore it put me on the spot makes it ridiculous demand. And yeah, Dr. Messick and Dr. Jenkins. Scope. So now, when are you gonna get an ASCB? Next year, next year next year? So um, is it weird? We waited 12 years of any toes from the time that we got the idea Working before we were members, from the time that we first started any movement toward membership. And they would support me and having experts come here and a CSV with sem three years, my three Dean's not my choice. The only thing that they weren't allowed to do was send me ACSB deans from within the state. There were only two AACSB names in the state that damn that was weak for US and Canada but neither one of them ever served on a committee that didn't permit that. Which you can say Well, anyway, these men would come every year stay two or three days. Go in with library go over everything. Karin will tell you that week before they came with do weeks of work gathering data. Then it started around in November and everywhere. That one they would they would say to me, man, we've got these gripes that you're just not doing anything. Do you want us to write to you and you give it to Dr. Messick or Dr. Jenkins? Invariably I said no. Or they say you want us to tell him when we go about to say get back. So in every case, I said, tell him, tell Dr. Messick that we're we can't get anywhere without more books in the library. They were they'd say a man that made a point for me. If I told them that, they'd say well you just want to be big somebody and ACSB or something like that. So they've addressed it. But this put us on the spot with as you say, with [Inaudible] than that evolved into money they can afford it that um, it was a fight, not a hostility. They didn't I don't think I made an enemies back. But their boss until the money got more plentiful, we just can, can dissolve. And Robert Morgan was the one that would tell me that because he was a personal friend. And he would say to me, you understand the Board sympathizes, but they will not do them. They'll not give you that many PhDs this year.

Put everybody else but but legitimate one took along, not a hostility at all.

Mary Jo Bratton (40:35)
Hard work to achieve it.

It's come a long way. Well, was it 32 years under your belt?

Elmer Browning (40:57)
I never, I worked under the five presidents and I didn't have a hard time with any of them. And looking back on it, I can understand their resistance to my pressures more than maybe I understood it, then. You know, yeah. I could see after it was over that I put them on the spot

Mary Jo Bratton (41:22)
while trying to do what they wanted you to do.

Elmer Browning (41:24)
With the funds that were available or?

Mary Jo Bratton (41:34)
out it's really, we have a very interesting history more politically involved than most schools.

First, it was a political battle to get started. And that never let up.

Elmer Browning (41:55)
The year before we got accredited. And the meeting was in San Diego and Karim prepared all of the papers. I was a little optimistic that we would that the accredited that year. And when I got to San Diego, a friend, Dean of the School of Business University of Wyoming who had been here on one of my committees, he called me aside during the meeting to count the three day convention. He said if I were you, I'd withdrawal that wait another year, because there are some people opposing and if they win the vote opposing you might be 15 years getting over that.

Mary Jo Bratton (42:47)
Oh, it's a black mark. If you've been turnded down

Elmer Browning (42:49)
It's a black mark if you've been turned down and I quickly listened so I quickly went through the the application and called him and next year. Another committee. They straightened out of what my friend told me personally is all of a secret have to tell me he didn't have a right to tell me what they were really pinning me down on that was negative. But I came back with not that and told Dr. Jenkins, and we worked on it. Next year. We put it through

Mary Jo Bratton (43:26)
what you had had more doctors.

Elmer Browning (43:28)
Yeah, you had one doctor. It's one of the things and more of every was a problem always had to have more books and economics and business. Wendell never, never resisted. Again, money. Yeah, he worked 100% for us. One of the times when Dean from Washington University came and I knew some books that he had written this dean. And I said, Well, no. Get those books for me. And then when this guy comes up, sure and put them down which he did.

is nice to talk to you.

Mary Jo Bratton (44:24)
Do you talked about the political?

Elmer Browning (44:32)
CSB with?

Mary Jo Bratton (44:34)
Dr. Jenkins was thoroughly supportive of upgrading.

Elmer Browning (44:42)
Yeah, all of them.

He was. He was appalling because, for instance, the School of Nursing was coming up and going prospering under massive again, Jenkins and that was new when I became a dean, Dr. Gray and Art had become been just a little bit ahead of me in school businesses made the Deanship that so was nursing. And that was, it was one of their new babies to route. Yeah.

Mary Jo Bratton (45:23)
Not objection, a lot of a lot of funds, but he was very supportive of the MBA program. Well, of course, in the accreditation

Elmer Browning (45:32)
that came after I left, but I was...

Mary Jo Bratton (45:36)
You had done the groundwork.

Elmer Browning (45:38)
Only that it made it easier for a gym. Not only easier, but possible for Jim to do it since we had become a ACSB degree. The next step was to be an MBA, but I was surprised that Jim did it so fast, I think took him two years.

Mary Jo Bratton (45:57)
You mean the accreditation? For the MBA MBA? Yeah.

Elmer Browning (46:02)
The accreditation,

Mary Jo Bratton (46:04)
but the degree itself was approved? Was

Elmer Browning (46:08)
the degree itself it proved? You don't know. Yeah,

Mary Jo Bratton (46:11)
it was approved in 66. The Board of Higher Education, yeah, approved it in 66, that we couldn't proceed with six

Elmer Browning (46:23)
I don't know Whether we have that permit granted,

Mary Jo Bratton (46:27)
maybe hadn't granted.

Elmer Browning (46:31)
I went to Mercer University, then and put there for a years. And Jim I was in close contact with Jim on the telephone. Jim was calling me constantly just to review some of the things. I think I helped them them but it was during that, that the MBA was accredited.

Mary Jo Bratton (46:54)
And it was quick. It

Elmer Browning (46:56)
was quick, quick,

Mary Jo Bratton (46:58)
after the degree was finally approved my impression, reading the files on the Board of Higher Education from 60 to 66. They were very resistant.

Elmer Browning (47:16)
I was teaching in the MBA program. Information in Europe. You know the story

Mary Jo Bratton (47:29)
I have and I was very interested in following this NBA accreditation fight because that was one of the major struggles and achievements in the early 60s. Throughout that because you got it in 66.

Elmer Browning (47:50)
In the 60s, the real issue, saying that mega developed in the 60s, although we'd been working on it a long time, that will cause

Mary Jo Bratton (48:01)
Well, now the first official notice I had seen about the MBA program was about 1959 that Dr. Messick had made some mention to the Board of Trustees just before he resigned for anticipating working toward the MBA program.

Elmer Browning (48:23)
I was teaching I had moved over to the MBA program. And we hadn't applied for ASCB because for MBA, because we knew there were some more things to be done for them came through Jim's administration.

Mary Jo Bratton (48:45)
But it was based on earlier

Elmer Browning (48:50)
work. We were getting students then I recall right just the last year to ever getting most of our students from the client at Kinston. The

Mary Jo Bratton (49:07)
The graduate program

Elmer Browning (49:10)
They were coming in with degrees in business from some other school. Some of my graduate but mostly from other schools. That Department hired them from the north and they were coming out of established schools and

Mary Jo Bratton (49:29)
They wanted to upgrade their degrees, changes every time you come back doesn't it.

Elmer Browning (49:46)
Yes its really is an inspiration to come back and see so many friends and see the university moving like that.

Mary Jo Bratton (50:01)
You had a reception for you this morning?

Elmer Browning (50:03)
Yes, Jim Baird, Jim had to leave downtown. But Dr. [Inaudible] gave a little coffee and questions. So between them. I was there till 12 because the professors who knew me or were even the new ones in school business were just dropping by the time they could get off from the schedule, you know, pretend.

Mary Jo Bratton (50:34)
Second term.

Elmer Browning (50:35)
Yeah. 10 or 15 minutes for a cup of coffee, but I got to see a Dr. Howell. What is the name of the Dr. Howell's last president he was there.

Mary Jo Bratton (50:50)
Angelo Volpe

Elmer Browning (50:52)
Yeah. You came. But it was mostly old timers, some of them. About six or seven were retired people from the School of Business who, who came back, but most of them were people who were still working in the program. And we're people who are in the not in the School of Business, not in the secretarial sciences that were under me in the School of Business.

Mary Jo Bratton (51:21)
They're not in technology.

Elmer Browning (51:25)
Jim had to move them over there, fortunate they didn't have to do that because I hate to do but it's ACSB just said it had to be done. So it became Jim's job up here that that was the point of most of the telephoning between me and Jim, when I was about the technical side over the pay what they would do, because he knew that I had been the one ACSB batted over the head, because of the sector. So yeah. That was a bad decision to have to make. Quite a while upon. Yeah,

Mary Jo Bratton (52:07)
but it's one of those things. It's one of the requirements. Yeah. Sure, in the School of Technology, they've thrived. Just as mentioned several times, Corinne, heat secretary for the school.

Elmer Browning (52:25)
Of Business

Mary Jo Bratton (52:26)
Has she been there a very long time?

Elmer Browning (52:29)
Yeah. So long time. There's a [Inaudible] in the School of Business. Francis, my goodness, she'd be shocked if she knew I didn't know. She was my secretary for two, three years and then Korim. But Korean nmas had been my secretary for more than 10 years, and I think closer to 15, before you... So she she went through all this ACSB.

Mary Jo Bratton (53:13)
And she's still?

Elmer Browning (53:14)
Still secretary at the school of business.

Mary Jo Bratton (53:16)
I know down but I had, I had a paragraph and one of the last chapters, including some acknowledgement of a number of women who've been in positions of responsibility and very low visibility. And number of the secretaries I find that have been here 25 years or more should be acknowledged for their loyalty.

Elmer Browning (53:46)
That's the role she played very low visibility, but absolutely essential. But that time in the 60s, we were we had five or six sub secretaries in the department, two sub department heads, marketing would have a secretary, accounting and so forth. I believe at the time we were processing finally, the application, we had six secretaries under the supervision of Korem. So we had a understanding of all the department heads who had them around over the building that when Korem press the alarm button, that they weren't for me that week or two or three days. They did it they knew what we're in and he was the one who Korem is the one who coordinate ever been completely behind the same, extreamly efficiant.

Mary Jo Bratton (54:49)
But I have not heard I don't have one. Listen, I'm glad you mentioned it.

Elmer Browning (54:54)
I'm glad I did too, because if there's any one person that deserves credit for that accreditation, Korem more than than anyone.

Mary Jo Bratton (55:08)
Well, I'm sure

Elmer Browning (55:10)
She is quite an easy going person that you might think, was so nice and comfortable to work with that she wouldn't be productive. But it wasn't true. I see knew how to get these other secretaries to work. And have a morning when I hadn't corral them for the, whatever AACSB report needed. She'd call them in the morning and run it up. And by the end of the day, they'd have it done. And she would have knowledge enough to tell them to brief them. That was a pretty part about it. She was she knew what AACSB wanted. And she had put it together and then she had to have a meeting and the way they would go to their own typewriters and their various departments to type it up, and they were [Inaudible] by their own bosses it was...

Mary Jo Bratton (56:10)
To get that top priority

Elmer Browning (56:14)
Is just as on the other end of the line. Korem knew the top priority was not for me, but for Dr. Jenkins, who Dr. Messick if they call the other way around because they called her and I was an in or out or something see what immediately not asked to wait to ask me she'd go and do what Dr. Jenkins said yet have a two o'clock that afternoon she was good. She did, she knew her way around.

Mary Jo Bratton (56:50)
I'm glad you had brought that up because I wouldn't want to leave out somebody significant.