Title
"Charles Slagle interview (Buena Vista College professor and coach), conducted by Sue Brinkman"
Subject
"Buena Vista College -- Oral histories"
Computers--Iowa--Storm Lake
Slagle, Charles
Golf coaches--Iowa--Storm Lake
Oral histories -- Iowa -- Storm Lake
Coaches (Athletics)--Iowa--Storm Lake
Publisher
Buena Vista University
Date
11-Jun-85
Format
audio/mpeg
Language
English
Type
Sound
Identifier
http://bvuarchives.bvu.edu/Audio/OralHistories/CharlesSlagle.mp3
Interviewer
Sue Brinkman
Interviewee
Charles Slagle
Transcription
SB=Sue Brinkman
CS=Charles Slagle
SB: [00:00:02] This is an interview conducted by SB: on June 11th 1985 with CS: , professor of chemistry and 1960 graduate of BV.
SB: [00:00:13] When did you attend Buena Vista college?
CS: [00:00:14] I attended Buena Vista College for one year in the academic year 1959-1960. And graduated in May of 1960 with a major in general science.
SB: [00:00:26] What was it like to attend college here?
CS: [00:00:29] Prior to attending Buena Vista, I attended Emmetsburg Junior College for the purpose of playing football. Then, let's stop this. [recording stops] [Recording starts] After attending Emmetsburg Junior College, I attended the University of Iowa. And just prior to graduation, purchased a newspaper in Emmetsburg, Iowa, and had intended to go into the publishing business. But decided instead to fulfill a life dream of being a teacher. And that was the reason that I attended Buena Vista College. I enjoyed it much more than the University of Iowa, primarily because of the personal touch. I grew up in Whittemore, Iowa, which is a town of about 600 people. And was accustomed to a bit more personal caring than I had received at the University of Iowa.
CS: [00:01:37] While attending high school and grade school, I worked as a printer. Also while attending junior college and the University of Iowa, I worked as a printer. In Iowa City, I worked on the Daily Iowan. And then after having purchased a newspaper, I stayed in the printing business, so it was a natural that I would work for the Storm Lake publishing company. So while I attended Buena Vista, I worked about three quarters time at the Storm Lake Publishing Company for W.C. Jarnigan, who has since passed away, but was a great benefactor to Buena Vista College, both in personal help and in financial help. As an aside, our first actual computer facility, was housed in a room furnished by the Jarnagins, both W.C. and his son, Phil, and used as a language lab. After attending Buena Vista College and graduating in 1960, I taught in high school at Thompson, Iowa, for five years. Teaching all sciences, that is, general science, biology, chemistry, and physics and also teaching advanced math classes.
SB: [00:03:01] Both at a university like Iowa and the small private college. What do you see as the drawbacks and benefits of each?
CS: [00:03:09] The drawbacks of the larger universities of course is the impersonal treatment of students with regard to particularly undergraduate courses, which have exceedingly large numbers. Also a drawback in the large universities is the inability to obtain usage of specific pieces of equipment, for instance, in chemistry. They may have only one or two pieces of a particular type of equipment and two or three hundred students which must use it. Whereas, at a smaller college, although they may have only one piece of equipment, they would routinely have only 10 or 15 students who would need to use this, and so they would have the ability to learn with hands-on experience.
CS: [00:04:05] A second thing is the fact that many undergraduate courses at large universities are taught by graduate assistants. I speak from firsthand experience because I taught as a graduate assistant when going to graduate school and also the availability of senior faculty is limited by the fact that they must be involved in research pursuits, which takes a great deal of their time and also takes them away from campus a great deal of time. So that, although, you may be taking a course from a particularly well-known personage, you actually are taking the course from one of their graduate assistants or from a postdoctoral person. In a small college setting, particularly in Buena Vista and especially in speaking of the science faculty, the majority of the science faculty in fact if we don't include the math faculty, all of the science faculty has Ph.D. in the area in which they teach. And this allows for a terrific breadth as well as depth of field, and I think that the fact that you also have a smaller student-to-professor ratio makes a more well-rounded student.
SB: [00:05:31] How well do you think a B.S. prepares a student of Buena Vista for graduate school.or medical school?
CS: [00:05:40] Every time our graduates return, for instance, someone is going to medical school and someone's going to graduate school, I ask them this question in a similar manner. I ask them if they feel that they are prepared as well as the people from other institutions. And with absolutely no exceptions they've always said they are prepared as well. Some of them say better but almost most of them say as well. Give you an example. One of our graduates was voted the outstanding woman's student in the medical school at the University of Iowa. And of course, she was in competition with people from all over the United States. Another example. One of our recent graduates is working for IBM. And upon applying for the job had to attend a school of about six months' duration. There were approximately 400 people in this school and from all over the United States. Institutions such as Caltech, M.I.T., and others and our student ended up number one in the class. So I think that her preparation was at least as good as all the others. Now, of course, she was a superior student to begin with. So one can only say that all we had to do is direct her rather than teach her but, at least, we didn't inhibit her, and so I think that the students here are as well prepared, if not better prepared, for instance, in the medical area. The students who take your courses such as general physiology have a chance to do some experimentation particularly in things such as animal surgery with Professor Poff, where there are four or five people in class and rather than reading in the book, they are able to have hands-on experience.
SB: [00:07:44] When did golf appear at Buena Vista?
CS: [00:07:47] Well, men's golf was at Buena Vista for several years. Now, I can't tell you exactly when it started, but women's golf appeared sporadically for a few years prior to my becoming the women's golf coach but it-- we actually had an organized team and participated in. Intercollegiate meets, although some of them were a bit informal. 1978. So our first actual organized team was 1978, and I attempted to not be the women's golf coach in 1981, but that didn't work, so I'm once again the women's golf coach. And we now are members of the NCAA Division 3 and the Iowa conference. So those are the meets that we-- those are the major meets that we participate in. We were, of course, associated with AIAW, which is-- Was the women's athletic organization, and so we participated in meets in that organization. However the problems that you ran into there was a fact that there was a one class organization and therefore, in years past, we've had competition against the University of Minnesota, the University of Iowa, University of Oklahoma, University of Illinois. And we didn't fare well against them, however, last year, 1984, was the first time that Buena Vista College had an athletic team which actually defeated an athletic team from Notre Dame, and we beat the women's golf team by three strokes. Now, it was not the first time we had played them. We played them the year before and lost by 10 strokes, but 1984 was the first time and, probably, women's golf will be the only athletic team that participates against Notre Dame.
SB: [00:10:01] Do you have any interesting stories from your trips as a sponsor. European interim?
CS: [00:10:08] Well, I have lots of anecdotes, none in particular that I could think of that would be of interest for historical purposes. One of the things I'd like to mention about this is that I began the European interim study tours in 1973 with Dr. Borgman. This was the third year that these study groups had-- had gone to Europe, so they actually started in 1971. It would be actually January of '72, so it would be December '71, January '72. Now, prior to that, we had had several study tours to Mexico, but they had-- had their major emphasis on Spanish, speaking Spanish and Spanish culture, and they were conducted by a variety of people, for instance Professor Bill Green of the music department, took a couple of groups, but I became involved in1973, December '73, January '74. And it was sort of by accident because I had intended to take a group to Mexico, and Dr. Borgman's group had gotten too large for the European study tour, and so we combined the groups, and everyone went to Europe that particular year. Since then, I've taken eight additional groups, so I've gone with nine groups of students to Europe.
CS: [00:11:47] In addition to the European study tours, I'm also involved in the summer intensive English institute with the Showa Daichi High School in Japan. We have two exchange groups currently with Japanese students. First of all, we have a group with Showa Daichi, as I mentioned which is a private boys' high school. And we bring approximately 35 boys, high school-age boys, here every year for a two-week intensive study in Japanese. Now, to give an example of the areas that they will study, they go to San Francisco, Denver, and Storm Lake. So they see Storm Lake as one of their three major stops in our states.
CS: [00:12:43] We also have a semi-annual group which comes from Koka College, which is a private girls' college. They come on the odd-numbered years, so they will be here this summer in 1985. They, of course, are college-age girl,s and they do things a bit differently. They have a homestay in Storm Lake and are brushing up on their English, which they've been studying through grade school, high school, and college, whereas the boys have been studying it in grade school and high school, but have had very little chance to try conversational English. So it's on a much more elementary level. Then in return, we've sent several students to the Orient, some to Taiwan and some to Japan. And we hope that this can expand in the years to come, so that we can have a more international flavor to the college rather than being so parochial to northwest Iowa. Now, being a northwest Iowan myself, I can identify with this provincialness. But I would hope that the students who attend Buena Vista would feel the same as I do. They would leave, look around the world and then decide that northwest Iowa, Buena Vista College, is the place to be, rather than feeling somehow that they're trapped and must stay in northwest Iowa and Buena Vista College. [recording stops and restarts -- the conversation shifts from interim trips to the development of computer science at BV].
CS: [00:14:22] OK, historically, computers and computer science on the Buena Vista campus would go something like this. When I was a student in the 1959-1960 school year, we had a primitive computer which was called a tab system, an IBM tab system. It was a card-operated system, and it essentially worked on a card sorter. It had only one person who was really involved with it: Professor Parks in the business department, and I graduated in 1960, and Professor Parks left in 1960, and for reasons of the way the lease was written on the equipment, we-- the college paid for the equipment for a certain period of time without actually using it. And this, in turn, led Charles Zalesky, the business manager, to the belief that we would never have, or we should never have, a computer on campus. So when I returned to Buena Vista College in 1969 after having done four years of research, which was about 90 percent computer research-- Upon asking Mr. Zalesky for computer facilities or at least the beginning of computer facilities, he said that we would never have them.
CS: [00:15:54] In the first interim that we had, which was 1972-- you'll have to check the date on that. I think it was 72, I offered a computer course, and it was the first computer course, per se, offered at Buena Vista College. It was a course in Fortran and to give the students experience, I hauled them, five at a time, to Western Iowa Tech in Sioux City, which was, at the time, housed in the old Trinity College Seminary buildings in Leeds [a north-side Sioux City neighborhood]. And we had approximately 50 students, so I had to make 10 trips, taking them five at a time, and they were allowed to do one program per semester. After that, I continued to offer Fortran, and we made different arrangements.
CS: [00:16:50] We started to use the Morningside [College] computer, which was an IBM 1130. And once again, taking the students five at a time. Except, this time, we could take two or three carloads at once with funding from the Colleges of Mid-America. We did that for a two-year period and then began using an IBM 1130 system at Westmar College [Lemars, Iowa]. Once again, taking the students five at a time, five per car, usually two or three carloads of students. In 1975, I obtained funding from the Sloan Foundation to purchase a Wang computer system. Currently, Wang computers are primarily involved in word processing and business applications, but this was our first computer system, and we used it not only for word processing and business applications but also for teaching. It's a single-user machine, so when I had classes of 60 to 70 students, I had to have 60 or 70 individual labs. We started by having five persons per lab with one person typing each time, but that didn't work out, so we had to eventually go to 70 individual labs. From 1975 to approximately 1978 and '79, this was the only machine we had-- a single user machine, programmable only in Basic. In 1979, we moved to an Alpha micro-processor, which was a multi-user processor and also a multi-language processor. And the era of the computer was firmly established at Buena Vista College. I think you can look at the records and see the history from there on. But that's the early history of computer science at Buena Vista College. One of the things that I always felt was important to me was the fact that first and foremost, by both training and desire, I'm a chemist and so I chose not to be involved as director of the computer science area, although I still teach computer science. I'm again, primarily a chemist.
CS=Charles Slagle
SB: [00:00:02] This is an interview conducted by SB: on June 11th 1985 with CS: , professor of chemistry and 1960 graduate of BV.
SB: [00:00:13] When did you attend Buena Vista college?
CS: [00:00:14] I attended Buena Vista College for one year in the academic year 1959-1960. And graduated in May of 1960 with a major in general science.
SB: [00:00:26] What was it like to attend college here?
CS: [00:00:29] Prior to attending Buena Vista, I attended Emmetsburg Junior College for the purpose of playing football. Then, let's stop this. [recording stops] [Recording starts] After attending Emmetsburg Junior College, I attended the University of Iowa. And just prior to graduation, purchased a newspaper in Emmetsburg, Iowa, and had intended to go into the publishing business. But decided instead to fulfill a life dream of being a teacher. And that was the reason that I attended Buena Vista College. I enjoyed it much more than the University of Iowa, primarily because of the personal touch. I grew up in Whittemore, Iowa, which is a town of about 600 people. And was accustomed to a bit more personal caring than I had received at the University of Iowa.
CS: [00:01:37] While attending high school and grade school, I worked as a printer. Also while attending junior college and the University of Iowa, I worked as a printer. In Iowa City, I worked on the Daily Iowan. And then after having purchased a newspaper, I stayed in the printing business, so it was a natural that I would work for the Storm Lake publishing company. So while I attended Buena Vista, I worked about three quarters time at the Storm Lake Publishing Company for W.C. Jarnigan, who has since passed away, but was a great benefactor to Buena Vista College, both in personal help and in financial help. As an aside, our first actual computer facility, was housed in a room furnished by the Jarnagins, both W.C. and his son, Phil, and used as a language lab. After attending Buena Vista College and graduating in 1960, I taught in high school at Thompson, Iowa, for five years. Teaching all sciences, that is, general science, biology, chemistry, and physics and also teaching advanced math classes.
SB: [00:03:01] Both at a university like Iowa and the small private college. What do you see as the drawbacks and benefits of each?
CS: [00:03:09] The drawbacks of the larger universities of course is the impersonal treatment of students with regard to particularly undergraduate courses, which have exceedingly large numbers. Also a drawback in the large universities is the inability to obtain usage of specific pieces of equipment, for instance, in chemistry. They may have only one or two pieces of a particular type of equipment and two or three hundred students which must use it. Whereas, at a smaller college, although they may have only one piece of equipment, they would routinely have only 10 or 15 students who would need to use this, and so they would have the ability to learn with hands-on experience.
CS: [00:04:05] A second thing is the fact that many undergraduate courses at large universities are taught by graduate assistants. I speak from firsthand experience because I taught as a graduate assistant when going to graduate school and also the availability of senior faculty is limited by the fact that they must be involved in research pursuits, which takes a great deal of their time and also takes them away from campus a great deal of time. So that, although, you may be taking a course from a particularly well-known personage, you actually are taking the course from one of their graduate assistants or from a postdoctoral person. In a small college setting, particularly in Buena Vista and especially in speaking of the science faculty, the majority of the science faculty in fact if we don't include the math faculty, all of the science faculty has Ph.D. in the area in which they teach. And this allows for a terrific breadth as well as depth of field, and I think that the fact that you also have a smaller student-to-professor ratio makes a more well-rounded student.
SB: [00:05:31] How well do you think a B.S. prepares a student of Buena Vista for graduate school.or medical school?
CS: [00:05:40] Every time our graduates return, for instance, someone is going to medical school and someone's going to graduate school, I ask them this question in a similar manner. I ask them if they feel that they are prepared as well as the people from other institutions. And with absolutely no exceptions they've always said they are prepared as well. Some of them say better but almost most of them say as well. Give you an example. One of our graduates was voted the outstanding woman's student in the medical school at the University of Iowa. And of course, she was in competition with people from all over the United States. Another example. One of our recent graduates is working for IBM. And upon applying for the job had to attend a school of about six months' duration. There were approximately 400 people in this school and from all over the United States. Institutions such as Caltech, M.I.T., and others and our student ended up number one in the class. So I think that her preparation was at least as good as all the others. Now, of course, she was a superior student to begin with. So one can only say that all we had to do is direct her rather than teach her but, at least, we didn't inhibit her, and so I think that the students here are as well prepared, if not better prepared, for instance, in the medical area. The students who take your courses such as general physiology have a chance to do some experimentation particularly in things such as animal surgery with Professor Poff, where there are four or five people in class and rather than reading in the book, they are able to have hands-on experience.
SB: [00:07:44] When did golf appear at Buena Vista?
CS: [00:07:47] Well, men's golf was at Buena Vista for several years. Now, I can't tell you exactly when it started, but women's golf appeared sporadically for a few years prior to my becoming the women's golf coach but it-- we actually had an organized team and participated in. Intercollegiate meets, although some of them were a bit informal. 1978. So our first actual organized team was 1978, and I attempted to not be the women's golf coach in 1981, but that didn't work, so I'm once again the women's golf coach. And we now are members of the NCAA Division 3 and the Iowa conference. So those are the meets that we-- those are the major meets that we participate in. We were, of course, associated with AIAW, which is-- Was the women's athletic organization, and so we participated in meets in that organization. However the problems that you ran into there was a fact that there was a one class organization and therefore, in years past, we've had competition against the University of Minnesota, the University of Iowa, University of Oklahoma, University of Illinois. And we didn't fare well against them, however, last year, 1984, was the first time that Buena Vista College had an athletic team which actually defeated an athletic team from Notre Dame, and we beat the women's golf team by three strokes. Now, it was not the first time we had played them. We played them the year before and lost by 10 strokes, but 1984 was the first time and, probably, women's golf will be the only athletic team that participates against Notre Dame.
SB: [00:10:01] Do you have any interesting stories from your trips as a sponsor. European interim?
CS: [00:10:08] Well, I have lots of anecdotes, none in particular that I could think of that would be of interest for historical purposes. One of the things I'd like to mention about this is that I began the European interim study tours in 1973 with Dr. Borgman. This was the third year that these study groups had-- had gone to Europe, so they actually started in 1971. It would be actually January of '72, so it would be December '71, January '72. Now, prior to that, we had had several study tours to Mexico, but they had-- had their major emphasis on Spanish, speaking Spanish and Spanish culture, and they were conducted by a variety of people, for instance Professor Bill Green of the music department, took a couple of groups, but I became involved in1973, December '73, January '74. And it was sort of by accident because I had intended to take a group to Mexico, and Dr. Borgman's group had gotten too large for the European study tour, and so we combined the groups, and everyone went to Europe that particular year. Since then, I've taken eight additional groups, so I've gone with nine groups of students to Europe.
CS: [00:11:47] In addition to the European study tours, I'm also involved in the summer intensive English institute with the Showa Daichi High School in Japan. We have two exchange groups currently with Japanese students. First of all, we have a group with Showa Daichi, as I mentioned which is a private boys' high school. And we bring approximately 35 boys, high school-age boys, here every year for a two-week intensive study in Japanese. Now, to give an example of the areas that they will study, they go to San Francisco, Denver, and Storm Lake. So they see Storm Lake as one of their three major stops in our states.
CS: [00:12:43] We also have a semi-annual group which comes from Koka College, which is a private girls' college. They come on the odd-numbered years, so they will be here this summer in 1985. They, of course, are college-age girl,s and they do things a bit differently. They have a homestay in Storm Lake and are brushing up on their English, which they've been studying through grade school, high school, and college, whereas the boys have been studying it in grade school and high school, but have had very little chance to try conversational English. So it's on a much more elementary level. Then in return, we've sent several students to the Orient, some to Taiwan and some to Japan. And we hope that this can expand in the years to come, so that we can have a more international flavor to the college rather than being so parochial to northwest Iowa. Now, being a northwest Iowan myself, I can identify with this provincialness. But I would hope that the students who attend Buena Vista would feel the same as I do. They would leave, look around the world and then decide that northwest Iowa, Buena Vista College, is the place to be, rather than feeling somehow that they're trapped and must stay in northwest Iowa and Buena Vista College. [recording stops and restarts -- the conversation shifts from interim trips to the development of computer science at BV].
CS: [00:14:22] OK, historically, computers and computer science on the Buena Vista campus would go something like this. When I was a student in the 1959-1960 school year, we had a primitive computer which was called a tab system, an IBM tab system. It was a card-operated system, and it essentially worked on a card sorter. It had only one person who was really involved with it: Professor Parks in the business department, and I graduated in 1960, and Professor Parks left in 1960, and for reasons of the way the lease was written on the equipment, we-- the college paid for the equipment for a certain period of time without actually using it. And this, in turn, led Charles Zalesky, the business manager, to the belief that we would never have, or we should never have, a computer on campus. So when I returned to Buena Vista College in 1969 after having done four years of research, which was about 90 percent computer research-- Upon asking Mr. Zalesky for computer facilities or at least the beginning of computer facilities, he said that we would never have them.
CS: [00:15:54] In the first interim that we had, which was 1972-- you'll have to check the date on that. I think it was 72, I offered a computer course, and it was the first computer course, per se, offered at Buena Vista College. It was a course in Fortran and to give the students experience, I hauled them, five at a time, to Western Iowa Tech in Sioux City, which was, at the time, housed in the old Trinity College Seminary buildings in Leeds [a north-side Sioux City neighborhood]. And we had approximately 50 students, so I had to make 10 trips, taking them five at a time, and they were allowed to do one program per semester. After that, I continued to offer Fortran, and we made different arrangements.
CS: [00:16:50] We started to use the Morningside [College] computer, which was an IBM 1130. And once again, taking the students five at a time. Except, this time, we could take two or three carloads at once with funding from the Colleges of Mid-America. We did that for a two-year period and then began using an IBM 1130 system at Westmar College [Lemars, Iowa]. Once again, taking the students five at a time, five per car, usually two or three carloads of students. In 1975, I obtained funding from the Sloan Foundation to purchase a Wang computer system. Currently, Wang computers are primarily involved in word processing and business applications, but this was our first computer system, and we used it not only for word processing and business applications but also for teaching. It's a single-user machine, so when I had classes of 60 to 70 students, I had to have 60 or 70 individual labs. We started by having five persons per lab with one person typing each time, but that didn't work out, so we had to eventually go to 70 individual labs. From 1975 to approximately 1978 and '79, this was the only machine we had-- a single user machine, programmable only in Basic. In 1979, we moved to an Alpha micro-processor, which was a multi-user processor and also a multi-language processor. And the era of the computer was firmly established at Buena Vista College. I think you can look at the records and see the history from there on. But that's the early history of computer science at Buena Vista College. One of the things that I always felt was important to me was the fact that first and foremost, by both training and desire, I'm a chemist and so I chose not to be involved as director of the computer science area, although I still teach computer science. I'm again, primarily a chemist.
Original Format
audio cassette
Duration
0:19:15
Bit Rate/Frequency
80 kbps