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For 40 years, professor inspires others to learn |
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Jim Winkler |
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Dec 27, 2006 |
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Dr. William N. Free leans back in his chair in his cluttered office on the fifth floor of University Hall. Hundreds of books line the shelves, and paperwork is strewn on his desk and nearby chairs.
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| Free |
Tall, bespectacled and tweedy, in many ways the epitome of an expert on 18th-century British literature, the 73-year-old graduate of Yale University, where he earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees, is reflective as he completes his 40th year with UT, including 11 in the pressure-cooker leadership posts of vice president for academic affairs from 1979 to 1989 and provost from 2000 to 2001.
“To me, it has been an upward movement to a larger, more sophisticated, more research conscious, more nationally conscious university than we were when I came in 1966,” he said. “To look across the river and dream about what could be on the other side of that someday with no real sense that those dreams could be fulfilled, and then in fact realize them is very special to me,” he said. “There are student dormitories and student life over there that didn’t exist when I arrived.”
Just as the Main Campus, with its fountains and pedestrian walkways, new academic and residential buildings, a unified sense of community, and green space, has quietly flourished in the last four decades, so, too, has the career of the Seaford, Del., native who was recognized earlier this month for four decades at UT at the University Service Awards.
He helped guide the education of tens of thousands of students, steer the University to higher academic heights and never-ending physical growth, mold the University into a community at large, and reach goals that distinguish it from the school it used to be.
His love affair with the University began in 1966, when he joined the faculty as an associate professor of English. The College of Arts and Sciences had been given the green light to develop doctoral programs in English and other disciplines, which meant hiring new faculty members to develop the curriculum, recruit students and teach. Free, on the Indiana University faculty at the time, found the opportunity to develop a new program appealing.
“Those were pretty heady years. Those first few classes of doctoral students went on to have good careers and now they are retiring,” he chuckled. “My students are beginning to retire.”
After serving as English Department chairman for seven years, he assumed the vice president post in October 1979, a job that gave him primary responsibility for maintaining, developing and enhancing the University’s undergraduate and graduate instructional programs.
“It requires political skills that you don’t have to have in the classroom,” he explained. “It not only involves patience, but also dealing with competing interests, setting priorities, setting goals, and dealing with people who don’t always get what they want, which, I suppose, is the unpleasant part of it because resources have always been tight.”
UT enjoyed rapid enrollment growth in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but Free knew it could not continue and budget pressures were always a demand on his time.
“We’ve always had to be very serious where our priorities were. If you were going to have a major effort in research, it meant you were not going to have something else. Trying to convince people that was the way it was going to be was the difficult part of the job of being a vice president.”
During his time as vice president, enrollment increased by 16 percent, 90 faculty positions were added in business and engineering, continuing education programs were implemented in area automotive plants, the Honors Program was expanded, and national merit scholars were recruited in numbers equivalent to large, prestigious U.S. universities. In addition, he was a prime mover in obtaining UT’s share of “selective excellence” funds from the Ohio Board of Regents, with the Department of Chemistry receiving “program excellence” funds. A weekend MBA Program also was established.
One major area that Free sees as an accomplishment of his tenure was an increase in research funding.
UT annually brought in less than $2 million in externally supported research and was not regarded generally as a research powerhouse when Free assumed the post. When he left, that figure was about $10 million.
Free also has helped the University navigate some rough shoals. He was one of four persons who ran the University for almost two years after the short, controversial presidency of Dr. Vik Kapoor; Free did much to be a steady force and to help restore the morale of faculty and staff members.
“Half of my career has been in administration, and, in some ways, that is why I now have what I think is a more youthful view of things.” he explained. “I’ve done two almost completely different things in my career. I’ve taught and done research and I’ve been a chair and provost and vice president. They are completely different things, and I’ve loved them both.
“When I left the administrative world and came back to the English Department, I came back to a world that had changed, especially in the areas of research and scholarship. So for me, I’ve not been around for 40 years, I’ve been around 15 years. Some people may have gotten tired of teaching such things as composition, but I haven’t done it as long.”
Looking to the future, Free wants to publish more. He has become interested in slave narratives and the works of William Faulkner, who Free said is the “greatest 20th century novelist.”
“You always have to recreate yourself,” Free said. “Why don’t I retire? Because I’m having too much fun writing and teaching.”
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