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Three: Serving the University of Utah
- University of California Press
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THREE SERVING THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH ANOTHER TRANSITION The decision to step away from my position at the University of California and into the presidency of the University of Utah may seemed to have been a perfectly logical step, but it was not. We would be leaving our native California , family, and friends as well as the university that was such an enriching part of our family’s cultural, intellectual, and social life. Moreover, our four daughters, ages four to twelve, would be changing schools, adjusting to new friends and home circumstances; and Libby would be setting up our new home in Salt Lake City, having just done so in Lafayette after our move from Santa Barbara. We knew very few people in Utah, apart from several hundred relatives. We were not professionally or socially acquainted with anyone either on or off campus. We knew none of the state’s leadership in government, business, academic, or religious circles. We had only our childhood recollections of the state that were as limited as they were dated. And for me, as for most men, it was going to be much easier moving into a new position with its builtin support and in-place colleagues than for Libby, who was more on her own, regardless of how much help I tried to be. And yet we knew Utah’s history, understood its culture and values, recognized the changes that were occurring in the state with its growing prosperity and substantial in-migration, and appreciated the warm and generous outpouring of goodwill that attended my appointment and our arrival. 72 My memories of Utah had always been warm and full of respect for a people who made the most of what little they had, worked hard for what they earned, regarded education as a right and accepted their responsibility to support it as a duty, nurtured the arts, and loved and valued family and friends. A Place to Stay The only glitch was our decision on housing. The university owned a modest home not far from the campus, where one of the university’s vice presidents and his family had been living. It was offered to our family to serve as the President’s House, there having been no official home for the president for decades. The size and internal design of the home, however well suited to a couple with one or at the most two children, were not right for us. We proposed that the home be sold (it was, and at a gain), and that a larger one be acquired in the general neighborhood, which we liked very much. A house to fit our family and serve as an official residence for purposes of entertaining and university functions was found and purchased at a cost of $125,000 (it had 4,500 square feet). This transaction captured the media’s interest, and critical articles on the cost of the home appeared in the city’s two major and competing newspapers. All this preceded our arrival in Utah and, fortunately, was complete before I took office on August 1, 1973. In the latter part of July 1973 I attended a Board of Regents’ meeting in Cedar City, Utah, for the purpose of becoming better acquainted with the regents and the Utah commissioner for higher education, Dr. G. Homer Durham, former president of Arizona State University and a distinguished and well known Utah educator. Much to my surprise, the issue of the house was scheduled for discussion by the regents. Peter Billings, the regents’ chairman and a prominent Salt Lake attorney, casually mentioned to me as we were heading into the afternoon board meeting that as the President’s House had been the object of not inconsiderable public interest and criticism, the regents intended to discuss the matter briefly and then table any action on it until “the furor died down.” I was startled, to say the least, and observed that we had sold our California home and planned to leave for Utah within a week, so what should we be planning to do in light of the board’s apparent intentions; and “why was I seemingly the last to know when I was the most affected?” He said, “Well, you’ll just have to find another place to stay until this matter can be worked out” and ignored the second part of my question. My reaction, however injudicious , was appropriate. I responded, not only did “I have no...