McGrath, Rev. Thomas A., S.J. - Oral History (transcript)

              Fairfield University
Oral History Transcripts
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Rev. Thomas A. McGrath, S.J.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology
April 2, 1992
Rev. Thomas A. McGrath, S.J.
a brief biography
“Everything was common good. That was the touchstone of law, rule, regulation,
discipline, value selection and then the modern liberal made it very clear that… if you want
common good, you pay attention to the person, individual rights, Civil Rights, respect for
person. Those were powerful days.”
Rev. Thomas Augustine McGrath, S.J. was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, on May 4,
1919. He entered the Jesuit order in 1937 where he studied at Shadowbrook in Lenox,
Massachusetts and was ordained in 1950 at Weston College, Weston, Massachusetts.
Father McGrath received an A.B. in Philosophy in 1943 and M.A. in Philosophy in 1944
from Boston College. He went on to earn an M.A. in Clinical Psychology in 1948 from the
Catholic University of America and his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 1960 from Fordham
University. He taught at Boston College High School from 1944 through 1946, and was
also an instructor at Georgetown University during the summer of 1947. Father McGrath
first joined the Fairfield University faculty in 1957. He was named a full professor in 1969,
and twice served as Chairman of the Department of Psychology, from 1962 to 1970 and
then again from 1973 to 1976. He also served as the Director of Psychological Services.
After retiring as professor emeritus in 1989, Father McGrath became known nationally as
a lecturer in management and organizational behavior, speaking frequently to large
companies and banking associations. He also remained active as a priest, celebrating
Mass at various churches. Father McGrath was a licensed psychologist and a past
president of the Connecticut Psychological Association. During his professional career,
he was a member of the American Psychological Association, the American Management
Association, the American Catholic Psychological Association, the New England
Psychological Association, and the Academy of Religion and Health. He also served as
a trustee of St. Peter’s College in New Jersey and was at one time trustee of the Center
for Financial Studies in Fairfield. He is the author of Jesuit Guidance Program, published
by Georgetown University Press in 1951. In honor of Father McGrath, Fairfield University
established the Rev. Thomas A. McGrath, S.J., Scholarship in 1986, a need-based
scholarship awarded to a student majoring in psychology. In 1992, Father McGrath was
awarded a 50th Anniversary Jubilee Medal for service to Fairfield University. Tragically, he
was killed in a car accident on the Merritt Parkway on May 31, 1992.
Sources: Public Relations Files, Folder “Thomas McGrath,” Fairfield University Archives and Special
Collections; “Thomas A. McGrath, Psychologist and Priest, 73,” New York Times, June 6, 1992; “Father
Thomas McGrath, retired Fairfield Professor,” Catholic Transcript, June 5, 1992; “University Prof Dies in
Crash,” Norwalk Hour, June 1, 1992.
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INTERVIEW WITH THOMAS MC GRATH,S.J.
April, 1992
PUESTION #1, VHS #1 (0-02-171 YOU CAME TO FAIRFIELD IN WHEN, IN
195-?
ANSWER: In 1957, I came in O57.
WHAT BROUGHT YOU HERE TO THE UNIVERSITY ORIGINALLY?
A fiat from on high. I was told to come and I was very
discouraged. I thought I was going to the Hub of the University,
you know, Boston and that's where I couldn't believe they were
going to send me to the boondocks. In those days, 95 wasn't
I
built, wasn't finished, this was real country and I was, for 6
\
months I was so flat, they told me to do it, so 1'11 do it. But I
got thrown a little bit. After about 6 months, I was afraid they
were going to take me away because I got my roots down and I loved
what I was doing. I felt important again. After the first 4-5
months. '
PUESTION #2, VHS fi (0-03-121 WHAT KIND OF REPUTATION DID ,
FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY HAVE IN THOSE DAYS?
ANSWER: I'm not sure. It was just sort of not known, but we
had gotten over the earlier years where it was mainly your
returning Vets; that was your main, but it was considered a small,
limited ... we didn't have departments, we didn't have a Psychology
Department when I came, undergraduate Psychology. I came to the
Grad School and it bothered me that there was not...and my title "
was Director of Psychological Services. I came as a trained
Psychologist, to do a lot of testing of students, counseling of
students, training
of faculty and counseling and.teaching in the Grad School of
Education for Psychology courses, but the big thing that I wanted
to do was get to undergraduates and so they finally got some money
together and I think there were 2 of us. I hired one person and
we sort of taught all the basic courses. Each year we brought
them through we would add another course for a Psych major. Those
were exciting years. After I got over my depression and realized
that life goes on, even outside of Boston.
OUESTION #3, VHS #1 40-04-34) NOW WHEN YOU SAY THOSE WERE
EXCITING YEARS8 WHAT CREATED THE EXCITEMENT FOR YOU? WAS IT
STARTING SOMETHING NEW?
ANSWER: Well, I loved to teach. I liked the students. They
were all male at that time. Of course I was very happy when we
got up to changing that one. I also worked so hard. You were
teaching 4 and 5 courses. The day was so full and in those days
you always had to go out to a parish on Sunday to help out, in the
local parishes, so you put in a long, long day. I found that
good. I liked to work. I was very busy. I liked to see the way
they let me grow and it finally ...y ou know you develop a
department and then you get happy with and proud of and you don't
have to teach all the courses yourself.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 2
a DUESTION #4, VHS fi (0-05-37) DID YOU BUILD THE DEPARTMENT
YOURSELF?
ANSWER: That's right. I was the Chairman in those days and I
was also the Director of Psychological Services, so that to do it
both and then to teach in the Grad School, too, it was, those were
great days though. I enjoyed it.
QUESTION #5, VHS fi (0-05-52L THERE MUST HAVE BEEN SOMETHING
NICE ABOUT NOT HAVING TO SPECIALIZE QUITE AS MUCH AS A UNIVERSITY
REQUIRES YOU TO DO TODAY.
ANSWER: Thatls right, of course, you never thought of
publishing. First of all, I just got over the agony of a Ph.D.
thesis, the most unhappy 2 years of my life was doing a Ph.D.
thesis, so I didnlt even think. here was just no time for that
time,of richness in development. You just got good and you taught
so many different courses. You kept up very much in the field if
you wanted to do it well.
QUESTION #6. VHS #I, (0-06-28) NOW YOU SAID YOU WERE IN CHARGE
OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES~ so YOU WERE DOING SOME'COUNSELING OF
THE STUDENTS. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE STUDENTS THAT YOU WERE
WORKING WITH? WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE WERE THEY?
ANSWER: Well, back in those days, we believed that we could, we
still believed in a lot of testing -- Intelligence Testing,
Personality Testing, Testing for Maladjustment in the Student,
that type of thing, so that you always started off with the
0,raP History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 3
a freshmen and you put them through a whole day, a battery of tests
and then this would come back and that would give you,,at least I
would sort of sort out, sift out, these maybe 15-20 students'
tests to be quite fragile, psychologically because men, lots of it
is built in. They just left home. So a lot of that didn't work.
We put a lot of time in on it and I'd call students in and after
about 5 minutes, I'd look at the test results and I looked sort of
sad and down and depressed and I'd see the student and he was
fine.
He didn't test well or whatever and I was using the new Navy test
at that time -- they selection test for Submariners which was the
best thing on the market at that time. We got away from that, so
I would just see students who got into trouble as far as • discipline was concerned or obviously, talented students who were
flunking or at least, doing very badiy. Most of my referrals came
from faculty or what we called the Dean of Men in those days, the
people who were in charge of dormitory and dormitory life and
things like that.
QUESTION #7, VHS fi (0-08-19) WHEN YOU WORKED WITH STUDEN!CS WHO
WERE FLUNKING, WHAT DID YOU FIND WERE SOME OF THE REASONS BEHIND
THAT?
ANSWER: Almost always, the first was trouble at home and being
forced to go to college -- those were the 2 most common problems.
A serious tension in the home, a lot of tension between the father
and the mother, a recent divorce, that type of thing which they
see as a profound loss and they can't understand it. That,
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 4
because in those days, it was before the drug years and before the
heavy college drinking type thing. I didn't have much of that.
Most of it was family problems and being made to go to college. I
used to plead with parents, don't make them. You know, some
parqnts would make them and the student would get through, but
most of the ones who got into trouble, you could tell were very
bright, they should be doing A and B work and they're pulling CIS
and D". They're below the cut-off point on their Q.P.A. so they
were being pressed by the Deans and people like that. You'd get a
lot of referrals from Deans. It was easy type stuff to work with
a student. It usually was a reactive
depression from coming away from home and all the security and
the service that they go there, being on their on, that sort of a
loss and if there's a problem in the home, then you'd start to get
a good bit of depression was the main thing.
QUESTION #8, VHS #1 (0-10-03) WERE YOU ABLE TO HELP M Y OF
THESE STUDENTS?
ANSWER: Well, I thought I did. At least, when you...as a
Clinical Psychologist, that's always the big question, so you aim
for a percentage and the rule of thumb was 113 show significant,
113 don't, the other 213 may be, I think that's a very glib
division. I'm not sure that we always get our 113, but I wasn't
handling serious disturbed, except now and again. Every now and
again, one of the things I .did, the best thing that a Clinical
Psychologist did was spot somebody who truly needs good, top-
@ flight psychological or psychiatric attention when they get
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 5
profoundly depressed. You know, you're afraid of suicide and to
spot that, you don't do much except get back to the family and get '
them some help. A lot of it was very reactive to something that
happened, something that was going on.
9UESTION 89, VHS & (0-11-10) DID YOU EVENTUALLY ABANDON THE
TESTING?
ANSWER: Yes, I think most people do. I think there's very
little. By that time, the S.A.T.'s had come in, the College Board
system and that was sort of a better predicting item for what
level they should be functioning at, so we tended to and I lost
confidence in a lot of the paper and personality tests, so I just
had to. They were expensive, they were very time-consuming and I
couldn't justify it. When you first come out of a doctorate, you
spend, I don't know how many credits in testing with Rorscharct,
we'd draw
persons and all these fancy tests. You sort of stay committed
for a while until you really hit the real world and you're not
sure it's worth it. I found I would learn as much from an
interview for professor or somebody. If I sat and talked to the
students I would learn almost as much, faster and less and more
economically.
QUESTION #lo, VHS & 10-12-13) YOU SAID YOU WERE ALSO DOING
SOME TRAINING WITH FACULTY AS WELL.
ANSWER: Yes, we used to have training sessions for the faculty
-- mainly on some of the newer concepts of stress and the negative
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 6
emotions. Stress isthe presence of negative emotion -- anger,
fear, anxieties, guilts, a lot of self-pity, any of the negative
emotions, the type of behavior that ... we'd always argue from the
behavior. Now, if you see aggressive, pushy, destructive
behavior, you know one thing -- anger. Now what causes anger?
Something's bugging. If you can get to that, that's where you
work and the emotions settle down and the behavior falls in. Now,
to teach what we call the psychodynamic approach rather than a
sort of punitive or angry rebuttal or return, that was very well
accepted by faculty in those days. They were young, they were
very serious about what ... they were very committed to students,
they were here all day long and even more to say than the contract
would even ask them to. Now, we're trying to get faculty to put
in the contract hours these days. There was tremendous eagerness,
devotion, commitment on the part of faculty so they were wonderful
to work with. ' Anything you taught them, they were very grateful.
They came brilliant in their area, beautifully degreed in History,
Math, but very unsophisticated
psychologically, so they listened well and I thought that was
one of the important things that I was doing at that time.
OUESTION $11, VHS #1 (00-14-10) HOW OFTEN WERE THE TRAINING
8EssION88 WAS THAT SOMETHING THAT WENT ON EVERY WEEK?
ANSWER : No, not that aften, but we would always have one at the
beginning of every.year, agood morning, a whole morning or a
Oral History: Thomas M~Grath~8.J. Page 7
a wrong, the good and the bad, the appropriate and inappropriate,
because behavior is never quite that neat. A lot depended on who
was the Dean, what support I got, but faculty days were very
often, had, at least part of the day, very simple psychological
concepts that regular people had never picked up in their own
education.
9UESTI. ON #12# VHS #12 (00-15-049 .
YOU WERE WORKING, I GUESS0
WITH BOTH JESUIT FACULTY AND LAY FACULTY?
ANSWER : Thatfs right. We had a lot of Jesuits in those days.
THE BALANCE, I GUESS IN THOSE DAYS, WAS ABOUT 50-50?
Yes. It was always ...p robably when I first came, we might have
a had the edge a little, but it stayed very balanced for a long time
and then, of course, we just didn't get the Jesuit manpower that
we wanted ... if we had to and I could never find a Jesuit to come
to Fairfield so I had to hire lay people. At that time, money was
so tight and I mean really tight -- that pie was a small piece of
pie that got cut up. I used to spend so much time fighting,
arguing, pleading with the Deans to give me one more faculty
member and then Holy Cross would outbid me, or B.C. would outbid
me, so I'd lose some really good people.
PUESTION #13. VHS #1 (0-16-12) I WAS GOING TO ASK YOU WHETHER
THE SALARIES WERE COMPETITIVE.
ANSWER : No, no way, so Ifm sure that hiring somebody you wish
you could have done better, but with the money that they had, some
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 8
of the biggest fights that I had with Father Coughlin was "1 need
it, youqve got to give it to me. And he says "That what
Chemistry says, thatts what Math is saying." He was in a tough
job that time. We were real tough on him. He was a great Dean
though.
COUGHLIN A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO. I GUESS HE WAS DEAN OF MEN FIRST
AND THEN BECAME ACADEMIC DEAN. IS THAT CORRECT:!
ANSWER : No. I don't think he was ever Dean of Men. He was, he
came and started to teach in the Graduate School of Education and
then I think he was Dean of the Graduate School and then became
Dean of the Undergraduate or that might be just the opposite now
and finally they made him Academic Vice-President, but that was
many years, he was THE Dean with Assistants. He first had one
assistant, a former Psychology Professor, Dr. Murphy, Vin Murphy,
so those two pretty much ran the shop. Coughlin was the voice on
policy and Vinny made sure that the policy was sort of worked out
and followed.
PUESTION #15, VHS fi (0-17-39) WOULD YOU DESCRIBE FATHER
COUGHLIN'S STYLE?
ANSWER: First of all, he was brilliant, charming, a fantastic
sense of humor and he stayed, he kept his cool., My only anger
with him in my whole life was I never won an argument with
~oughlin. Never. He is so bright. He was fascinating at a
Faculty Meeting. He had such a quick mind to spot a flaw in an
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 9
argument, but I don't
think I ever heard him get nasty with anybody. He always did it
with a niceyintelligent answer. I think, he was a giant on this
campus.
GUESTION #16, VHS #1 (0-18-28) I WANT TO TALK FURTHER ABOUT
RIM, ESPECIALLY IN THE MCGUINNESS YEARS, BUT I WANT TO GO BACK A
LITTLE BIT. YOU CONTINUED TO BE DIRECTOR OF PSYCHOLOGICAL
SERVICES RIGHT INTO THE LATE '60'8, I GUESS.
ANSWER: That's right. I forget the date.
"8 -- I HAVE IT. DID THE STUDENTS CHANGE AT ALL DURING THAT 10
YEAR PERIOD?
Oh, yes, they did. By that time, of course, we had the beginnings
of the cultural revolution on the campus which was one of the
greatest things that's ever happened to this campus because the
kids, in imitation very often of the kids from Yale or Harvard or
Columbia, anything that they did in Yale, we had to do, probably
not with as much class at times, a lot better in lots of ways, but
they got there and they made us face up, that we were behavior-controlling
and thought-controlling and a parochial college. They
made us face American university life and college.life, so even
though I used to get very angry with their vulgarity, their
rudeness, their lack of respect and all the rest, they
accomplished an awful lot. They really did.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 10
QUESTION $17. VHS #17 (0-19-46L DID THE PROBLEMS THAT STUDENTS
WERE BRINGING TO YOU OR THAT YOU WERE WORKING WITH THEM ON, DID
THEY CHANGE AT ALL FROM LET'S SAY 1957 TO '603 DID YOU SEE...?
ANSWER: In the '60ss, in the late '60's and early '701s, they
didn't have problems, they just wouldn't admit they had problems
and they
were working off so much of their anger. You know, by tearing
the place apart, taking over buildings and I was chained out of my
office for a couple of days so I couldn't even get to the office.
They used to let me sneak in through one of the windows, but they
didn't want to break their ... but I guess, at that time, they
realized that they probably should hire more in the Counseling and
Psychological area and at least I got free from it. The Grad
School and the Undergraduate School were taking so much time too
that I forget who we hired, but we did start hiring people who
could counsel.
QUESTION 818, VHS fi (0-20-59) THE PRESIDENT WHO WAS IN BEFORE
ALL THIS, BEFORE FATHER MCGUINNESS CAME IN, GUESS IN '64, WAS
FATHER JAMES FITZGERALD.
ANSWER : That's right. Big Jim.
BIG JIM.
A 'Tower of Power' we used to call him. He was Rector and
President -- both at the same time and I think Father McGuinness
thought that was absurd and he separated himself. He was Rector
for abouta year and then he changed.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 11
9UESTION #19# VHS #1 (0-21-30L FROM YOUR EXPERIENCE FROM
WORKING WITH MANAGERS IN A CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT, HOW WOULD YOU
DESCRIBE FATHER FITZGERALD'S MANAGEMENT STYLE?
ANSWER : Old school, authoritarian, sort of, probably a little
bit, typically the religious superior type, much more concerned
about the behavior of the Jesuits than the development of a
university. I think the university was developing by itself
anyhow at that time and it was sort of had picked up enough
momentum so that he just kept an eye on the finances, I think.
9UESTION #20# VH8 #1 (0-22-13) DID HE HAVE ANY PARTICULAR
VISION FOR THE UNIVERSITY AS FAR AS YOU CAN DETERMINE?
ANSWER: I don't think so. I'm not sure. He was very good to
me and very supportive; if I couldn't get money from Coughlin, I'd
go and plead with him and sometimes I won and sometimes I didn't.
He was typical though of that time. He sort of'kept, he would
fight hard for the Jesuits to be assigned here. He did all the
background work and left the place very much to his Deans to run
the schools.
gUESTION #21p VHS #1 (0-23-01) WHAT WAS THE ROLE OF THE JESUITS
IN THE
UNIVERSITY DURING THIS PERIOD? DID THEY HAVE A VERY BTRONG,
POSITIVE ROLE
HERE?
ANSWER : Oh, I think so. In those days, well we had numbers for
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 12
instance at a ,Faculty Meeting and we'd sort of thought not always
the same. You would get good arguments now and again between two
Jesuits at a faculty meeting, but we did. Also, it was a young
lay group coming in and I think they had to get, to develop a
certain amount of ego strength against this group of black robes,
you know, who sort of owned the place and in those days, we
thought we owned it, We finally saved up to separate
incorporation. Those were fascinating days, too. What else
should I...?
QUESTION #22, VHS #1 (0-24-02) DO YOU THINK THE LAY FACULTY
FELT AT ALL8 I DON'T WANT TO SAY OUT OF PLACE8 BUT DO YOU THINK
THEY FELT FRUSTRATED BY NOT HAVING MORE CONTROL HERE AT THE
UNIVERSITY?
ANSWER: Yes, after ... I'm terrible about dates, but once we
started to develop in terms of our student body,and become more
widely
known, we were getting a better group of students in terms of
native talent and even the socio-economic level that they came
from, more and more were living in dormitories, we became sort of,
we had 'a lot of young faculty coming in and I think at the
beginning, they found that they weren't probably listened to as
.7
much, that we felt that we knew what we were. doing, this is our
place. I think there was a lot of valid resentment for .that type
thing and finally, it would show, but it was part of the
growing pains in those days. I respected an awful lot of the
young guys who were.taking us on a little bit.
Oral ~istory: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 13
9UESTION 823, VHS #1 (0-26-00) DID THE JESUITS SHOW ANY
WILLINGNESS TO BE FLEXIBLE, OR COMPROMISE, OR GIVE THE LAY FACULTY
MORE e 0 rn :!
ANSWER : I think so, mainly because of...both Father Healy, the
Dean before Coughlin and Coughlin, I thought their relationship,
because they were always there, they were good listeners and they
were kind people so that they saved it a good bit because they
were both flexible. One thing they couldn't get flexible with was
the finances of it, but on the rest, I think they left people very
free to grow, or not to grow themselves.
QUESTION #24, VHS #1 (0-26-00) WERE THERE ANY MEMBERS OF THE
FACULTY IN THIS PERIOD THAT KIND OF STAND OUT IN YOUR MIND, PEOPLE
WHO WERE STANDING UP AT MEETINGS AND TAKING PA;RTICUL.AR POSITIONe
OR TALKING OUT?
ANSWER: Yes. I should think so. I'm terrible about names.
There were some Jesuits who were very, very quiet and then there
were others who spoke out a good bit. Jim McEleney who was a
Jesuit at that time. I'd say almost all of them. Bernie Scully
was, except that he was very conservative, but he had a loud voice
and he was
a big, physically big man.
9UESTION #25, VHS #1 (0-26-48) THE LAY FACULTYe PROFESSOR
DONNARUMMA OR ART RIEL OR CHESTER STUART, WERE THEY INVOLVED?
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.Jo Page 14
ANSWER : Oh yes. Those were great, those were giants and they
put in long, long days. They were models, I think for the younger
group, but those were the great names in our lay faculty at that
time. They were as committed as we were and were here as many
hours as we were. Those were great names.
QUESTION #26, VHS & (0-27-17) WHEN WE TALKED TO CARMEN8 HE
SAID THAT THIS WAS THE PERIOD WHEN THERE WAS A REAL SENSE OF
.'COMMUNITY BETWEEN THE LAY FACULTY AND THE JESUITS...
ANSWER : We got along so well, we really did, none of the
tension or the "We-Theyw bit. I guess some of it was there, but
they were very accepting of the fact that the Jesuits put their
sort of finances on the line to do this. They had much more
respect for the early roots, 'cause many of them were here.
Carmen was here from the very first day and it was great
comradeship and comfortableness, very little tension or anger
that, as we got bigger, ... Most of them, back in those days too,
were very sort of traditionally raised Catholics in that mainly
Irish or Italian and they were brought up to sort of let the
Priest lead, but not, I don't think, they got heard and they spoke
a lot; those early laymen were great people, they gave so much for
such poor salary. They really did.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 15
9UESTION #27, VHS #1 (0-28-42) I ASKED CARMEN THIS QUESTION
'CAUSE IT KIND OF INTRIGUED ME. HOW DID THEY SUPPORT THEMSELVES?
ANSWER: .I don't know. They didn't live in the town; they all
lived in Bridgeport; Carmen lived up in the Valley. A lot of . .
them, a 'couple did, but they lived in very small, simple/little
houses. They lived a very simple life. Many of them worked in
the summer, you know, painting houses, working in hardware stores
and things like that, but those were very peaceful days.
PUESTION #28, VHS #1 (0-29-29) NOW THERE STUDENTS8 BY THIS
TIME8 WHO WERE LIVING IN DORMS ON THE CAMPUS.
ANSWER r That's right.
IT WASN'T JUST ALL STUDENTS FROM THE COMMUNITY WHO WERE DAY
STUDENTS AT THIS POINT.
By that time, when I came, they had just finished two dorms --
Loyola and Canisius and we kept building the dorms and they filled
the dorms. The great building dorms was in the time of Father
~c~uinnesasnd the bottomless pit called the United States
Government. If you asked at all intelligently with any type of
valid reasoning, they gave you enough to get going on a new
building, a new dormitory.
OUESTION #29, VHS #1 (0-30-10) DID YOU EVER LIVE IN THE DORMS
WITH THE STUDENTS?
ANSWER: Yes. For 13 years, I lived in Gonzaga and then I just
Oral ~istory: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 16
couldn't .take it any longer. That was in the late '60's. It
finally started to get to me. I needed a night's sleep to do my
day's work and it was starting to get me 'cause they would come
home singing bawdy songs underneath my window, throwing pebbles at
the
window to wake you up because their yelling would already wake
you up6 Those were the weekends. But that was usually, that
didn't start on Thursday, that would be Saturday night which was
sort of a wild night, one night a week, but I still needed the
sleep.
9UESTION #30, VHS #1 (0-30-54L HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THAT
EXPERIENCE OF BEING THERE8 LIVING WITH THE STUDENT? WHAT WAS IT
LIKE?
ANSWER: Well, I didn't have any official position. I was not a
Corridor Prefect, so I didnst have to face the discipline thing.
There wasn't enough room for us, the Jesuits at that time, to live
any place else, so I lived %own one end of Gonzaga, on the third
floor, so I was sort of protected from it, but only by a cloth
curtain. I really didn't mind it for many, many years. As a
matter of fact, I would have preferred it to say, living in
Bellarmine, which was a terrible place to live. It looks grand,
but it was a tough place to live, the windows didn't close, the
screens in the summer...I was very happy not to have to there in
Bellarmine.
OUESTION #31, VHS fi (0-31-481 DID STUDENTS COME TO YOU AT ALL
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 17
FOR ANY ADVICE OR COUNSELING WHILE YOU WERE LIVING.IN THE DORM?
ANSWER : I don't think so, mainly because I wasn't in charge. I
would have a lot of them referred to me by the Corridor Prefect
and they'd come' over and make an appointment or the Corridor
Prefect would send them over and say "YOU see McGrath or else,88
you know that type of thing. So many of them were, that "or elsetg
didn't always help them for me to get them to be comfortable with
me. At times, they would see me as part of the control system and
I
didn't want to be labeled or seen in that role at all. If you
want them to come to you, then they can't see.you as an authority
figure, but as a help.
. QUEBTION #32, VHB #1 (0-32-23) YOU KNOW, BOMETIMEB LOOKING BACK
IN RETROSPECT, FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF '60'8, '70'8 AND '80'8, THE
050'B AND EARLY '6OVBBEFORE ALL THE TURMOIL, IT BTRIKES YOU A8
BEING A PERIOD OF GREAT INNOCENCE.
ANBWER: Oh yes, really and truly. It's a good way -- peaceful
and quiet. The little erupti'ons were minor, there was no great
anger or sandals, very peaceful period to be here, at least I
think of them as very happy days and also think that once we
opened the school to women, that made a significant difference at
that time. I even think the place looked cleaner, th$ vulgarity
level diminished a certain amount, not that that wouldn't happen
today, but in those days, the presence of women made a tremendous,
a you could sense it. Also, they started, the students on campus
stayed on campus more, they weren't piling into some old jalopy
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,B.J. Page 18
and tearing off to New Rochelle or Manhattanville or some place
like that, so we became much more of a campus. We needed those.
It took a long time to convince people to do that. Some of the
alumni resisted for a long time.
OUESTION #33, VHS #1 40-34-04E THE STUDENTS IN THE LATE 050'S
AND EARLY '60'8 ... I MEAN I WAS IN COLLEGE FROM O63 TO "7 AND
SORT OF SLIPPED OUT JUST AHEAD OF THE WORST OF THE TURMOIL, THE
STUDENTS, THEY SEEMED TO HAVE A GREAT COMMITMENT, THEY WERE THERE
FOR A 4-YEAR EDUCATION SO THEY COULD GO OUT AND EITHER BECOME
DOCTORS AND LAWYERS, GO GET A JOB OR SOMETHING.
ANSWER : They took it quite seriously. Whatever their
assignments were, you'd sort of, thereld always be 1 or 2, but
more of them would do what they were expected to do. They would
come to class almost every day. You didn't have the absentee
things. It was a neater, easier operation all the way through.
THERE WAS KIND OF A BUILT-IN FEELING OF RESPECT FOR THE PEOPLE IN
CHARGE.
Pretty much so.
YOU WERE THERE TO DO WHAT THEY TOLD YOU TO DO.
Yes, that's right. They accepted us in loco parentis, you know,
in place of their parents and their parents expected that of us
and parents made it very clear, you get in trouble and I hear
about it, you know whose side I'm on. We had that incredible
support from parents in those days which was traditional; all • educators did. I don't know where we lost that support, but we
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 19
have lost it -- all the way through. I spent a lot of time e teaching the Psychology courses to Graduate School teachers in
those days and they were a peaceful, eager group because theyhad
great support from the citizens and the parents especially.
QUESTION: #34, VHS #J (0-35-53L WHEN FATHER MCGUINNESS CAMEl
HE CAME IN AROUND 1964 WHICH IS SORT OF THE BEGINNING OF WHEN
THINGS STARTED CHANGING, COMPARING HIS STYLE AS A PRESIDENT WITH
FATHER FITZGERALD, WHO PRECEDED HIM, HOW WOULD YOU COMPARE THE TWO
APPROACHES AND STYLES?
ANSWER: Oh, he took a very modern management approach. He was
a great leader and made up his mind he was going to build a
respected university and started it. He found money somehow or
other, built buildings, hired very professional people. for
Admissions and even his whole P.R. approach to the whole
community, he reached out and was a very eloquent man and a very
gracious man, very articulate, so he wooed the community, the
surrounding community a lot. We got good support. He was the
first one who started to get industry, would start to build
headquarters here. They were just barely coming in to this sort
of 50 mile radius and he started to do fund raising on a very
professional level, brought in professionally trained people
instead of saying to some Jesuit "You bring in the moneyu, but we
would try to do it. He was a great president.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 20
OUESTION #35, VHS #1 (0-37-24) WAS THERE A SENSE THAT, AS BE
CAME IN AND BEGAN TO MAKE THESE CHANGES, THAT THE UNIVERSITY WAS
REALLY CHANGING?
ANSWER : Yes, the university was changing radically because of
that period of time, the unrest at that time. Then we tried...we
had some good government money for trying some more exploratory
things like the 5-year program for our minority students which was
a terrible disaster, but was such a well-meant thing because the
Black students felt sort of, they came insulted to begin with
that we think you need 5 years what a white kid can do in 4, so
there was a lot of anger in our Black students. They banded very
tightly together and we tried so hard with such little success
because I don't think we were doing it correctly. We made a lot
of insensitive mistakes and I was part of it; as a Psychologist, I
think lots of times I should have spotted, rather than having had
it said to me, I should have known that. My students taught me an
awful lot. They really did. Those early Black students were very
hurt and very angry, but they had a free education and they needed
it; that's the only way they were going to get it and a lot of it
really dug in and profited from it, but they were angry.
OUESTION #36, VHS #1 (0-38-53) WHAT WAS YOUR INVOLVEMENT WITH
THE BLACK STUDENTS?
ANSWER : Not much because they wouldn't come near us, only
trying to put out the fires, now and again. I spent some
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 2 1
terrifying hours when they took over the Science Building, that
type of thing -- trying to get them to settle down just a little
bit, talk a little bit. I'm not sure any of us had, at the.very
beginning, because we didn't have one of their own people at that
time. We were all white and we knew all the answers. This is the
way they were reading us. I don't know any college who did it
well, but I know we did not do those early years well. I can't
imagine how you could be more sincere in your effort and also more
dumb.
9UESTION f37, VHS #1 (0-39-53) WHEN THE FIRST BLACK STUDENTS
CAME IN UNDER THAT 5-YEAR PROGRAMl WERE THEY THE FIRST BLACKS.WH0
WERE HERE ON THE CAMPUS?
ANSWER : We had one, maybe 2 a year, usually from your upper,
middle class, you know, coming from high level, socio-economic
homes,
their parents.were educated; most of them were professional. If
we had Black students in those days, their fathers were lawyers
and doctors or significant people in industry who made it anyhow.
Now they were, that was a very small group, an extremely small
group.
OUESTION #38, #1 (0-40-32) WHAT WAS THE IMPETUS TO EXPA,ND AND
DEVELOP THIS NEW PROGRAM?
ANSWER: Because we knew we didn't want to be an all-White
college and even our basketball recruiting, good, top-flight,
talented Black students didn't want to come and there were many
Oral ~istory: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 22
things that made us face up to it. Also, the cultural revolution
was going on where we finally realized that there was terrible
racism, that racism is contempt for a human being and we started
to click on that and I think we were very dumb about admitting how
racist we were without knowing it, without meaning it. When I
think of...I came, I grew up, I'm sure as a racist and didn't even
know it, but I also grew up to be a Male Chauvinist Pig and I
didn't know it. I grew up a bigot and I didn't know it, so the
kids made us, at least they made me, very aware that that's
contempt for human beings and it is totally unchristian. Now, I
knew it intellectually, but in my guts, I could have been quite
dumb to it. I think a lot of us were dumb to those 4 terrible
forms of contempt for human being -- racism, bigotry, male
chauvinism and sexual harassment -- ugly, ugly stuff and there, a
lot of the anger and tension at that time was because Civil
Rights, before that time, everything was common good. That was
the touchstone of law, rule, regulation, discipline, value
selection and then the modern liberal made it very clear that
that's not ... if you
want common good, you pay attention to the person, individual
rights, Civil Rights, respect for person. Those were powerful
days.
OUESTION #39, VHS #1 (0-42-39) TO CONFRONT SOME OF THESE
ISSUES, I'M TRYING TO IMAGINE THE CONVERSATIONS THAT MUST HAVE
BEEN GOING ON HERE WHEN YOU ALL IN THE JESUIT COMMUNITY, AMONG
JESUIT AND LAY FACULTY, CONFRONTING, AS YOU SAY, THE FACT THAT YOU
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 23
HAD BEEN BIGOTS WITHOUT KNOWING IT.
ANSWER : I was trained, from birth, to be a bigot. I donDt know
why I had to get to be 40 before I suddenly realized I was a
bigot, but my father was, my uncles and you know, we were bigots
because we thought we were little Irish kids, persecuted by those
Protestant kids who had more money, went to better schools. It
was, but once we started to pay attention to human rights and
Civil Rights, that changed this whole campus, but there was agony
in the changeover.
GUESTION $40, VHS fi (0-43-30) WAS THERE A LOT OF RESISTANCE
AMONG SOME OF THE FACULTY WHO WERE HERE -- TO SEE THIS CHANGE?
ANSWER : Oh yeah, some of them never faced it. They were still
common, good people. If it's good for the group, it's good. If
it's good for the church, the university, it's good, no matter
what. Dumb-driven concept of loyalty. Boy was that part of the
tension. That was a deep, deep wounding part. This is true of
every college campus, not just Fairfield, it was national and I
traveled a lot at that time and gave a lot of workshops and things
like that so that I saw it a lot, every place; it wasn't just
here.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 24
QUESTION #41, VHS #1 (0-44-16) WHAT WERE YOU GIVING WORKSHOPS
IN?
ANSWER: Vatican 2 in .the I60's, from about certainly Vatican 2
was '62 I think 'ti1 about '65 that my church realized that maybe
we're pushing common good a little too much. So, we have
beautiful, fat peasant pope and he faced it and he opened up the
windows and it shook everything to the roots. So, I did an awful
lot of workshops in terms of Guidance Personnel in our high
schools and colleges, did a lot of work with religious superiors
as they adjusted to their people in their community. Those were
very busy days, including workshops for Jesuit Superiors in Rome,
the English-speaking Provincials would be brought to Rome for very
intensive re-training in terms of Civil Rights and Human Rights.
QUESTION #42, VHS #1 (0-45-27) YOU WERE DOING THIS BECAUSE OF
YOUR TRAINING AS A.PSYCHOLOGIST?
ANSWER r That's' right. I used to run workshops on campus every
summer for religious Superiors that were overbooked. Sincere
people knowing that they had to be leadership in convents, in
schools, church-related things. Those were busy summers, very
exciting summers. I felt very,worthwhile in those days.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 25
OUESTION #43, VHS #1 (0-45-57)- AS YOU KNOW, FROM THIS
EXPERIENCE AND ALSO YOUR WORK IN CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTS, BRINGING
ABOUT CHANGE AND SUPPORT FOR CHANGE IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE MOST
DIFFICULT..
ANSWER : This is what got me into industry. This type of
workshop for religious Superiors. I gave a talk, a luncheon talk,
to the Lionss Club, one of those groups -- men's group that meets
regularly and I said this type of thing to bankers and lawyers in
the area, the insurance people. They hadn't even thought about it
and how management how to change; the management.of people
could no longer -- we call people Managers and they weren't
Managers, they were bosses, carried a big stick and very
arbitrarily at times, so I caught on. That's how I got 'into
Consulting. Sam Hawley who was a great President of People's
Savings Bank, very powerful, strong, beautiful, caring person --
his bank was expanding tremendously and he couldn't put old
managers and young managers in the same room -- there was such a
radical difference, so I started there with consulting work and
then it sort of spread.
QUESTION #44, VHS fi (0-47-22) IN AN INTERESTING WAY AND THE
ANALOGY ISN'T EXACT CERTAINLY, THERE WAS SOMETHING OF A MANAGEMENT
CRISIS GOING ON HERE AT THE UNIVERSITY.
ANSWER : Oh, there sure was.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 26
a QUESTION #45, VHS #1 (0-47-321 THERE THE PEOPLE WHO WERE IN
CHARGE WHO HAD BEEN USED TO RUNNING THINGS A CERTAIN WAY WERE NOW
GOING TO HAVE TO LOOK AT THINGS DIFFERENTLY.
ANSWER: Definitely. Definitely. The young faculty insisted
you must listen to me. You must give me enough respect, whether
you like what Ism saying or not and lots of times, they didn't.
McGuinness handled that about as well as I could imagine anybody
doing it. Then, the next Father Fitzgerald came in and we were in
such terrible financial straits that we desperately needed that
man and that was his focus. Each man brought his own strength to
leadership.
QUESTION #46, VHS #1 10-48-14) GO BACK TO FATHER MCGUINNESS
a AGAIN BECAUSE YOU WERE SAYING THAT HE WAS ABLE TO LISTEN TO THE
YOUNGER FACULTY* WHAT EXACTLY DID THEY WANT HIM TO LISTEN TO?
WHAT WERE THEY SAYING?
ANSWER: First, to be listened to. To have a voice in
compensation. They were struggling to get married, to buy a
little home in Fairfield County. They were sick and tired of
having to go 40-50 miles where they could afford to live. I guess
a diminished teaching load was a major issue. They were all
teaching four courses instead of three which was sort of
nationally the accepted norm. They wanted more time for research.
All of these things --McGuinness heard them and'we slowly changed
on that, but they --a voice in academic policy. They wanted to be
heard and the right to be listened to; that was basic screech that
a probably McGuinness did about as well as could be done. Many of
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 27
the Jesuits would see that as a loss of power and control and that
type of resistance to the younger school; the people that came
really felt they had a right to be listened to, very respectfully.
QUESTION #47, VHS #1 (0-49-499 WAS FATHER MCGUINNESS ABLE TO
BUILD A CONSENSUS AROUND THIS POINT OR VIEW OR DID IT JUST KIND OF
HAPPEN GRUDGINGLY?
ANSWER: It happened grudgingly, slowly. They forced us to it.
That's what I meant by saying the students backed them. They
backed the students and you have to listen and if you listened
enough, you started to see that they do have to make some changes.
If we want to stay in business as a true university where there is
freedom of thought, freedom of expression, academic freedom, if
weare going to bring all those things here, which is the absolute
guts of a good university, you canst tell me what book I'm going
to read, you canst put it behind bars, my books and all of those
things. It was busting out, not just here, but on all parochial
colleges -- and not just Jesuit colleges, but your Lutheran
colleges. Lutherans ran superb colleges and universities in those
days.
PUESTION, #48, VHS #1 (0-50-57)- DID THE ACTUAL MOVEMENT FOR
CHANGE DO YOU THINK SORT OF BEGAN WITH VATICAN II? WAS THAT THE
TOUCHSTONE HERE OR THE IMPETUS, THE FIRST PRECIPITATING EVENTo
WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT?
ANSWER: No, I think Vatican I1 came as a result of the unrest
in Europe that hadn't hit this country yet -- the basic unrest of
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,G.J. Page 28
Civil Rights and human rights and all that went, that was in • Europe, and freedom to dissent from the church, from any of the
governmental structures -- that was deep and the Pope, as he
traveled before he was Pope, I forget what office he was in
charge, but he traveled all through Europe and he never found
young people in the churches, all old people. It scared the heck
out of him. He said "Wegre doing something wrong,It but dissent,
before he came here, was deeply rooted in Germany and Holland;
that's in industry as well as in the churches and universities;
there was a strong movement that we, then, imported from Europe
and he saw it coming and said we have to face up to this church
and this highly regulated authoritarian monolithic organization.
- 9UESTION #49, VHS #1 (0-52-281 W?IAT WAS THE IMPACT OF VATICAN
I1 HERE AT FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY?
ANSWER: Well, like any massive change, it brings conflict and a
lot of stress and a lot of touchiness, so you had Jesuits and
older
faculty wanting the old system -- keep it total, keep it control,
common good of the church and you had a lot of us who were on the
other side. There was great tension at that time in the Jesuit
community and in faculty meetings, a good bit of ... actually I'
sensed there was a lot of tension and stress there, a lot of
anger, fear, a lot of uncertainty where it all should get shaken
down. into and filtered out, but those were big growth years
though. A lot of growth was going on in that pain and that
a uneasiness. It settled us down into a respective academic
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 29
institution. We would not have our rating that we have today
unless we went through that.
gUESTION #50, VHS fi 10-53-37) WERE THERE SPECIFIC CHANGES THAT
HAPPENED AS A RESULT OF VATICAN I1 AT FAIRFIELD?
ANSWER: Specific. Theysre more generic. Attitudinal changes.
Out of attitudes, I'm sure, if you pushed me. Well you really
listened to faculty. They were put on committees. The committees
were listened to. We changed our Board of Trustees and started
importing very talented, committed lay people to advise us, not
just in finances; that's a mistake. We could always buy
crackerjack financial advisement, but we also had brilliant
businessmen who were automatically brilliant financially. But
they brought ... most of them at the beginning came from former
Jesuit colleges so they had some feel for the history and the
Jesuit roots, but then we started to bring in anybody that we
thought would be of significant voice in the development of the
University so that we would be significantly part of the
university world in America.
QUESTION $51, VHS fi (0-54-54) NOW THIS WAS FATHER MCGUINNESS
WHO MADE THIS DECISION, RIGHT?
ANSWER : That's right.' Well, almost all college Presidents did
at that time as a result of Vatican 11. We finally faced, we even
faced up to state law that we did not own this, we were Trustees,
the Jesuits were Trustees of this University. So, even though we
had started it, it didn? mean we owned it. We were just the
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 30
overseers of an academic institution.
PUESTION #52, VHS #1 (0-55-2218 SO FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW, ONE
OF THE IMPACTS OF VATICAN I1 WAS THAT A PERSON LIKE FATHER
MCGUINNESS WOULD SAY "LET'S OPEN UP THIS BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND
ADVISORY BOARD TO SOME LAY PEOPLE."
ANSWER: That's right. And let's not ever again think of a
man's credentials of "Is he Cath~lic?s~o~ we started, we opened
us, we hired many Jews, many non-Catholics, as long as they had
credentials. I think all of that opening up was beautifully
enriching and just the multitude of ethnic and racial -- was
always our biggest failure at that time was we could not boo or
win top flight Black professors and we still...we get out there
for them ... everybody wants crackerjack credential Black professors
and so do we, but it's tbugh to compete financially.
QUESTION $53, VHS #1 (0-56-36) THIS IS, AS I RECALL, ONE OF THE
DEMANDS THAT THE BLACK STUDENTS MADE WHEN THEY OCCUPIED AND FATHER
MCGUINNESS AGREED TO THAT AND THEN I GUESS THE PROBLEM BECAME
@WHERE ARE WE GOING TO FIND THESE PEOPLE?'
ANSWER: It did. I don't think we've ever disagreed. I don't
think we've ever stopped trying. Just now that we have finances,
even now that we have the finances, which we didn't have in those
days.
We were running in the red in those days. McGuinness ran this
place in the red and finally Sam Hawley, the great banker, got a nervous and put a consortium in and then we had Father Fitzgerald
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 38
come in, but we still can't get enough Black professors. As
Chairman, I tried, I tried so hard to hire Black professors. I
interviewed I don't know how many of them. I'd always lose them
on the money end; I don't blame them; I don't know why they would
come here even. They were such a few. I think Walter Peepke was
the only Black Professor that we had. He was one of our master
teachers, one of the backbones of the early days of the
University, totally committed teacher.
9UESTION #54, VHS #1 (0-57-57) DID YOU HIRE HIM?
ANSWER: No, no, the History Department. He was here, I think,
when I came here or just before or around my time, but established
himself as a very superior teacher and a voice crying in the
wilderness. He would try to support, he would try to chase people
to bring them in. I wish we could figure that one out. I really
do. I wish we could use some sort of a special endowment to pay
them, but better than a white professor in the same place except
that that would raise all types of touchy points.
QUESTION '#55, VHS #1 (0-58-42) DURING THE UPHEAVAL THAT
INVOLVED THE BLACK STUDENTS, WERE YOU INVOLVED IN TALKING WITH
THEM AND TRYING TO DIFFUSE IT?
ANSWER: A lot. And so was '~c~uinnetsoso . He got right in the
middle of them, walked right in and we, I certainly, think a lot
of us were afraid that he would get hurt and he stood right up and
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 32
talked and argued and fought and explained, got booed, got
cheered, got excrement dumped at his office door, took a lot of
guts. We
needed him very much at that time.
DUESTION #56, VHS (0-59-22) FATHER COUGHLIN SAID SOMETHING
THAT WAS VERY CLOSE TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING? THAT HE WAS REALLY THE
RIGHT PERSON AT THE RIGHT TIME.
ANSWER : He was. Very much so.
9UESTION #57, VHS #L (0-59-32) WHAT WAS IT LIKE TALKING TO
THESE STUDENTS? FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW? I MEAN, WERE YOU AFRAID?
ANSWER: Yeah. I was afraid especially I was afraid of a couple
of meetings with the Black students when they had, you know, that
reinforcement rod that they put in concrete, sharpened. They all
held one. I'm smart enough to know that that was the worst. It
settled down after that so then you could talk a bit more
comfortably with them and they had their own leadership. By that
time, we had had a couple in the Counseling Office, the
Administration, that could help them voice what they wanted.
Still don't have enough Black students. We've never had enough
Black students, even with the Presidential ~cholars~ipwsh ere they
can get a free ride.
Oral History: Thomas M~Grath~8.J. Page 33
9UESTION #58, VHS #1 (1-36-009 DID YOU EVER HAVE THE FEELING
DURING THIS PERIOD THAT THINGS MIGHT JUST SOMEHOW SLIP COMPLETELY
OUT OF CONTROL?
ANSWER: They did once or twice. McGuinness was great on that.
He refused to bring the State Police in. He just would not let it
become a police matter, although I do think once they did come in.
I can't remember.
9UESTION #59, VHS #1 (1-01-03) I THINK HE BROUGHT THE SHERIFF
IN. MY NOTES TELL ME AS A RESULT OF THE KENT STATE THING WHEN THE
STUDENTS WERE SITTING IN.
ANSWER: Yeah. Because the State Police were cominginto other
campuses at that time, were being invited into other campuses,
. just to bring order, but as far as I know, McGuinness never had to
bring them in and there was great screech on the part of the
faculty, .I1You cannot keep me out of my office, out of my
classroom. They should not be allowed to do it." And so he felt
he had to talk his way through it.
DUESTION 860, VHS #1 (1-01-44) DO YOU THINK THAT WAS THE RIGHT
WAY TO GO3
ANSWER: Yeah, I do. Oh yeah. I was so glad he didn't bring
State Police in because a couple of times when they dia bring
State Police in, at least on TV news programs that night, it and I
thought, I was very impressed with the State Police, the way they
a handled, but they got hurt, the State Police got hurt. They had
Oral. History: Thomas McGrath-,S.J. Page 34
to use some tear, some drug type thing -- Mace -- we didn't have
to go. I donut think we did.
OUESTION #61, VHS #1 (1-02-28) I READ THAT, AS A RESULT OF
FATHER MCGUINNESSV AGREEING TO SOME OF THE DEMANDS OF THE BLACK
STUDENTS, THERE WAS A GREAT UPROAR AMONG THE ALUMNI AND SOME OF
THE FACULTY THAT HE WOULDN'T BACK DOWN AND SO FORTH AND SO ON.
DID YOU TALK TO HIM DURING THAT PERIOD? WAS THERE A FEELING THAT
SOMEHOW THE RUG WAS BEING PULLED OUT FROM UNDER HIM?
ANSWER: I don't know. I never thought about it. He certainly
got strong opposition within the Jesuit community and within a
large segment of the faculty. He, I was never part of his
consultant group.
He had a group, I dontt know what he called them that he would
bounce things off of, but it was a group that he selected himself
so that later he changed that. Thatts where....Oh no on that
group he had faculty'too, but he would pick the faculty, that type
of thing, which was a big step too. I dontt mean this as
negatively as it might sound. He put up with a lot of opposition.
9UESTION #62, VHS #1 (1-03-54) HE DESCRIBED HIMSELF ONCE IN AN
ARTICLE THAT HE WROTE AS A LIGHTNING ROD, THAT THAT REALLY IS WHAT
HE BECAME FOR ALL THE FRUSTRATION THAT THE STUDENTS HAD, THE ANGER
THAT THE FACULTY OR THE ALUMNI HAD. IS THAT A ROLE THAT YOU THINK
SOMETIMES LEADERS, WHETHER IT'S POLITICAL, OR CORPORATE OR
UNIVERSITY HAVE TO PLAY?
ANSWER: Sure. Yeah. Times of great upheaval. We sort of need
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 35
to blame somebody for change that we don't want although I thought
an awful lot of the change that he went along with was an
intelligent judgment for my part. We could not defend the
previous mode of administration. You cannot rescind from the
culture. The church cangt. Industry can't. What's going on in
the culture, the people and the value changes that have gone on in
that thing from common good to individual rights, that's a big
jump and he saw that and he paid attention. Where there were the
common gooders, you know.
OUESTION #63, VHS #1 (1-05-15) WAS THERE EVER A RISK AS WE
HAVE MOVED AWAY FROM THE COMMON GOOD TO LOOKING AT THE INDIVIDUAL
RIGHTS OR THE MINORITY RIGHTS OR WOMEN'S RIGHTS THAT WERE RISKING
WHAT I THINK ARTHUR SCHLESSINGER TALKED ABOUT AS A DIVISION WITHIN
THE CULTURE8 THAT THERE ARE GOING TO BE SO MANY GROUPS8 BUT YET
THE UNITY BETWEEN THEM IS GOING TO BE LOST.
ANSWER : I guess. I wouldn't think of it that way. I think
there's been a blending, a settling down, where both sides started
to realize, right now, I think, it's not my country right or wrong
anymore. It's my country right. Now that makes for little
factions,. but it's not that blind, dumb driven "my churchn right
or wrong. That old concept of loyalty, that went and a lot of
people, that terrified a lot of people. That loyalty has to be
won, it had to be booed. Now, after that happens, I think people
have grown to the point where there is some melding of the two.
There is a blending of...without the terrible ... there is a wild
pendulum-like swing, way out to the...even the Miranda
oral History: Thomas M~Grath~8.J. Page 36
decision...even a criminal person is more important than common
good. Now we've been taken back as much as we can off, but that's
how far it went and outraged people and of course, crucified law
enforcement, but I don't know about the faction. I never thought
of it that way 'cause I've sensed that there is, even in industry
I've sensed it, that the common good of the company until
recently, they backed off.. The people that were part of it
contributed to the common good. However, Schlessinger's a much
better analytical mind than mine.
9UESTION #64, VHS fi (1-07-32)- SURELY8 THOUGH8 WHAT YOU'VE
DESCRIBED AS A MOVING AWAY FROM THE COMMON GOOD AND A RECOGNITION
OF THE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS IS EXACTLY WHAT WAS GOING ON IN THE
u60°S.
ANSWER: That's right. That was the big issues -- Civil Rights,
Human Rights. ,
AND THERE WAS NO LONGER, AND IT IS SAFE TO SAY FROM WHAT YOU'RE
SAYING8 THAT PEOPLE JUST HAD THIS BLIND LOYALTY TO THE UNIVERSITYB
RIGHT OR WRONG.
Yeah. That's right. No more. That all went. Including with my
church. With this nation. They left the country. They booed it,
they mocked it, they spit on it. It's a revolution. Revolutions
are always violent.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 37
a QUESTION #65, VHS fi (1-08-161 DID YOU HAVE A SENSE DURING THIS
PERIOD --DID YOU EVER SORT OF ASK YOURSELF ''I SEE THINGS CHANGING
AND WE'RE MOVING AWAY FROM WHERE WE WEREt BUT WHAT IN HEAVEN'S
NAME IS GOING TO TAKE ITS PLACE?"
ANSWER: Oh yeah, I know. I think of that a lot about the lack
of Jesuits on campus. You live with it if youqve given 35 years
of your life to a place and we canqt get ... they just arenst
there. Theysre not coming through the supply system that we have,
so I worry about that. That's my major concern, but that's
happened to other great colleges and great universities, that were
once church-rooted and church-related and the university goes on.
I feel that's ... this will be a significant university forever
and we will be part of it -- the roots, the early beginning
wouldn't have happened without us, so I feel very proud to be part
that. I just wish that we were able to be more an active part of
it forever. We might not be.
PUESTION $66, VHS fi (1-09-30)- THE FINANCIAL PROBLEMS THAT THE
UNIVERSITY BEGAN TO RUN INTO IN THE '601St WAS THIS AS A RESULT OF
ALL THE BUILDING? ANSWER: Yeah. Significant overbuilding,
with a lot of good government support that made us feel safe and
we didn't count. Those were the days of Kennedy and Johnson --the
bottomless pit to the whole idea that if you want money, have it,
for anything --roads, university building, whatever and McGuinness
ran with the ball at-that time. I think he took some chances. He
Oral ~istory: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 38
had a lot of guts, but we did get into financial --we got to a a point where the banks got worried and then the banks came in and
couldn't have been more supportive.
QUESTION #67, VHS #1 (1-10-27) DO YOU THINK ALL THE BUILDINGR I
MEANR WAS IT TOO MUCHR TOO FAST?
ANSWER: I don't think so. I think it was a response to a need.
We were overwhelmed. We stated getting overwhelmed with
applications, good applications and we had to go. We sensed that
we did. We had the manpower, we just needed to build dormitories.
I wish we didn't build dormitories now, I wish we built townhouses
and I wish-we didn't build some of them that are quite ugly. That
was part of the rush. I thought there'was a demand, a push
coming, from the world that we were part of. We were proud enough
to want it to grow. We were given enough to like to see this
become a significant part of American university and college life.
DUESTION #68, VHS #1 (1-11-25) DO YOU THINK THERE WAS A SENSE
THAT YOU EITHER HAD TO GROW OR YOU WERE GOING TO DIE?
ANSWER: That's right. Or we were going to stay very third
rate. We
could have stayed third rate. Some Catholic colleges have. Some
would just die, ultimately, nothing dramatic; they would just fade
away and that's been true. There are many, that for whatever
reason, I think we chose to move with it and got extended a bit,
a but not the point where it wasn't remediatable.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 39
QUESTION #69, VHS #1 (1-12-081 NOW WHAT HAPPENED? DID THE
BOARD OF TRUSTEESR AT SOME POINTo SAY "ENOUGH"? ARE THEY THE ONES
WHO PUT THE BRAKES ON THE BUILDING?
ANSWER : I think the bankers did. I'm pretty sure. Of course,
the government also started to realize that it wasn't a bottomless
pit, that we were spending more than what was even close to what
was coming in. That financial awareness in our government, I
think, slowed us down, too, to know that the money wasn't there
anymore.
DUESTION #70, VHS #1 (1-12-45) DURING THIS PERIOD WHEN YOU
REFER EARLIER TO THE FACT THAT SOME FACULTY WERE BEING LOCKED OUT
OF THEIR OFFICES AND AT ONE POINT YOU HAD CHAINS THAT YOU HAD TO
GO THROUGH. WHAT WAS IT LIKE TRYING TO GO ON AND TEACH COURSES AS
IF EVERYTHING WERE KIND OF NORMAL WITH ALL OF THIS STUFF GOING ON?
ANSWER o I donqt know whether I could even begin to explain it.
You flipped from anger and defiance, "they're not going to do this
to mel1, but at the same time, they were bigger than I was and I am
intelligent enough not to fight if I know I'm going to get
creamed. The best you could and I would, at times, I would go up
to them and reason with them and say really I1I have to get to that
office. There are people depending on me -- some students
depending on me. At least.let me work.'' And they would almost
always open a door in the back or the window. They wouldn't let
me in the front door where there were chains, but they always had
Oral History: Thomas M~Grath~8.J. Page 40
a window or a door or something. They'd help me up, over the
window, help me get on the.inside. In those days, we still had
the old cassocks on, too. Trying climbing a window with that robe
hanging around you is not the neatest thing that you do in your
life.
QUESTION f71, VHS #1 (1-14-11) WAS THERE A FEELING, I'M SORT OF
TAKEN BY YOUR DESCRIPTION THAT THE STUDENTS WOULD BE THERE, THEY'D
LOCK YOU OUT8 BUT THEN THEY'D SORT OF HELP YOU IN.m.1 GET A
FEELING THAT THERE WAS STILL A MUTUAL RESPECT HERE...
ANSWER: Oh, yes, a lot. They had to do what they wanted to do,
but for the most part, except for Father McGuinness who they
really dumped on him and yelled awful and so on, they gave him a
hard time. I never had to put up with that. They scared me at
times, but I don't know. Very seldom did I feel unsafe. If I had
enough courage to go up and talk to them that they would tell me
to go around the back, there's somebody to let you in. And they
didn't stop the classes that much. I think we never lost more
than 112 day or full day; I think the worst was a couple of days
where they just would not allow classes to take place. That
frightened me a little bit. That was probably the most difficult
thing for me to stay cool on.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 41
OUESTION 872, VHS #1 (1-15-27) FROM YOUR POINT AS A MANAGEMENT
CONSULTANT, HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THE TRIPARTITE PLAN TO RUN THE
UNIVERSITY, WHERE THERE'D BE FACULTY AND STUDENT INVOLVEMENT AND
ADMINISTRATION INVOLVEMENT?
ANSWER I I thought that was the only way to run it. There
weren't a lot of us that thought that way, but I thought that was
the only way
to run the University. See, administrators come and go, students
come and go. The University is the faculty. You've got to pay
attention to them. Pick the right ones. Eliminate the ones that
aren't. Now, we haven't always done that, but so that there is
that factor there that's a weight -- a negative weight -- but
you've got to listen to faculty. Give them as much a voice as you
can give them intelligently. The one area that I think we have
not, but I think Father Kelley is trying to face that is in the
finances. That was the last thing that you sort of give up. The
only power that an administrator's got is control of the space and
money, so you have to use that if he defend what he believes in.
That gets you into the whole financial dimension and I don't know
anyplace who does it well and we're struggling to do that well so
that we don't go through some of the bitterness that we live with
every 2 years, or whatever length our contracts sign.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 42
OUESTION $73, VHS #1 (1-17-18) NOW THE TRIPARTITE APPROACH WAS
ANSWER : That's right. It didn't. It was voted down I don't
know how many times, but it came in. I don't think it ever came
in by a formal vote or a proclamation. It came in. The students
demanded to be heard. The faculty. And they were heard on every
single level. And even to some degree, the faculty committee on
finances. It was a committee with the Trustees, it was a
significant committee.
QUESTION #74, VHS #1 11-17-53) HOW DO YOU THINK IT WAS VOTED
DOWN IN THE EARLY '708S6?
ANSWER : Afraid of losing power. Yeah. I think that was the
main thing.
Control. Power. They were afraid that if we did that, we
would...and we gave up a lot. We gave up an awful lot. The one
thing that I think we gave up most is that we have to depend on
the faculty of a department to vote in a Jesuit. We would like to
see a Jesuit preference, just as we would like to see a preference
for minorities in a whole lot of other ways. And in some
departments, the Jesuit preference is there and in other
departments, it is not.. Thatss the one thing I was most
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 43
sensitized to.
DUESTION #75, VHS #1 (1-18-48) THE UNIVERSITY DECIDED TO GO CO-ANSWER
t I guess so.
I DON'T REMEMBER THE DATE, BUT IT WAS AROUND 1970. WHAT LED UP TO
THAT DECISION? WERE YOU PRIVY TO ANY OF THE DEBATE?
Oh, I certainly made enough speeches about what I thought it would
do for the campus and that we become a real university and not a
parochial setting, that this would open it up, it would be more
human, it would be more powerful, much better in educational
growth and development. As a Psychologist, these are my ... it's
easy for me to defend that and it wasnlt'because Ism...if you
trained as a Psychologist, it just doesnst make sense to have all
male or all female, I donst think. Now there are places who do
it, especially the women seem to do it better than the men. I
just think that's a sad way to go to college.
9UESTION #76, VHS Aci (1-19-48) WAS THERE RESISTANCE TO THIS?
ANSWER: Oh yes. A lot of resistance. But it collapsed sort
of...it just takes time...a new idea. Sometimes you don't get it
the first time, so you back off and you try it again. So I think
probably took 2-3 years, with the alumni. They liked it all men
and all macho and we, at that time, our alumni were sort of good,
simple, from simple, poor homes, many of them first-generation in
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 44
college themselves and liked the macho male comfortableness and e liked walking around in their jock straps and all that if they
felt like it. I thought that they" have to be...I think that
they thought it would be a negative. I think most of the Jesuits
felt that it would be a positive thing because the other Jesuit
places that had done it ahead of us gave such powerful support and
I don't think that, was one of the things that many Jesuits
resisted. I'm sure there were a couple and I couldn't even
remember a name, even, on...but there must have been just 'cause I
know when you get that many people, you've got ...
QUESTION #78, VHS #1 11-21-12) WAS THE DECISION AT ALL IMPACTED
BY THE FINANCIAL CONDITION OF THE UNIVERSITY?
ANSWER: I don't know. I never heard that. I've heard that
about the Prep, that it would help financial if we went co-ed in
the Prep School. I don't ever remember that being ... because by
that time, I don't think we were that financially ... maybe it was
when we a little financially overextended. When did McGuinness go
out? He came from #-64 to ...
I THINK ABOUT '72, '73.
'72. It was done in his day. I don't think so. Maybe, but we
were living fat in those days, I thought. We weren't paying that
much attention to everything. We were paying the bills and we
were building buildings and we were getting lots of applications.
Each year the level of talent, the S.A.T., the level of talent,
was going up.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 45
DUESTION #79, VHS fi (1-22-27E YOU WERE TEACHING, LET'S SAY
AROUND 1970, WHAT WERE YOU TEACHING AT THIS POINT?
ANSWER : I was still teaching one course in the Grad School to
School Psychologists and Guidance Counselors in that program and
2-3 undergraduate courses, mainly in the area of...what I always
to teach Psych 101 because I wanted to get those kids excited
about Psychology, so all my life I taught that course and I was
very jealous about guarding it and others wanted it and they
couldn't take it away from me. After that, I taught the
fascinating courses like "Personalities Theoriest8," Theories of
PsychotherapyN, "Theories of Psychopathologyn -- Abnormal Psych,
the kids would call it. You've got ... it8s an easy field to teach
because there's sort of a built-in -- if you're any good at all,
you can look really great because the kids really love to
understand themselves a little bit better, to understand their
parents better, their friends better, so I think I was a good
teacher in Psychology and I think I would have been,a lousy
teacher if I was in History or Math or something like that because
Ism a people person and I loved the more I knew about a person. I
found it easy to be a good teacher in Psychology.
OUESTION #80, VHS fi (1-24-00) THE STUDENTS WHO MAJORED IN
PSYCHOLOGY.eeWHERE WOULD THEY GO AFTER GRADUATION, USUALLY?
ANSWER: Some of them, we always got a group into Grad School
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 46
where they became professional psychologists and back those days,
there was still a little hunk of money for graduate programs and.
so forth. We built a very good reputation because we would only
support
students that we knew could go all the way, that they had the
talent and the discipline to put in a good 4-5 years more and I
would always say, I1You're going to be 28, be there. I donDt care
how many years it takes you. Someday, you're going to be 25, 26."
So, that helped a lot because good grad schools started to accept
our students and they did well and if one kid did well, the next
year they would look again at Fairfield students. It was tough at
the beginning, really tough to get the good grad schools to look
at our kids, 'cause they never heard of Fairfield.
DUESTION #81r VHS fi Jl-25-07) HOW DID YOU GET THE GOOD GRAD
SCHOOLS TO LOOK AT FAIRFIELD?
ANSWER: Probably by pleading, writing very careful letters of
recommendation, always indicating the program, the courses that
these kids had taken, the extent of it, I hope the richness of it.
It's a good undergraduate program, still is. They, you know,
because they were also taking'G.R.E.'s and a very brilliant
student great on G.R.E.'s, he looked great in terms of his Q.P.A.,
he got very strong letters from two or three of us, his own
letter, what we call a covering letter, why does he want to go
into becoming a professional Psychologist. A lot of them became
lawyers, they sort of mi,nored in Political Science and American e History and things like that. Then we put in a special program
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 47
UESTION #82, VHS #1 (1-28-27 WERE THE EXPECTATIONS GOING INTO
:HE w80BSI WERE THE EXPECTATIbS THAT THEY HAD GOING INTO THEIR
FIRST JOB IN INDUSTRYI HAD THEIR EXPECTATIONS CHANGED DO YOU
THINK?
ANSWER : Oh yeah. Not now. I don't it ever remember being this
now. There is no expectations. They are all trying to think of
''What else can I do 'cause the job market is so bad?" But, they
did a lot of them, a lot of them did think that he they went to
college you were automatically employed and that, at times, has
been very sobering that itss not automatic, it's who you know and
if their father, uncles and aunts, if people had good contacts, it
made it a lot easier, but our own Placement Office became top-flight.
We really put a lot of good money and good talent into
the Placement Office back then. That was one of the most
important things we did to give students security about making
that next step. They all go out scared, but now they've had
interviews and mock interviews 'and tapes of their own interview.
They've read the little pamphlets on it. They go out very well
prepared.
Oral History: Thomas M~Grath~8.J. Page 48
a GUESTION #83, VHS #1 (1-30-02) JUST GOING BACK NOW TO AR0.m
1973-1974 WHERE FATHER MCGUINNESS IS ABOUT TO LEAVE AND FATHER
FITZGERALD IS GOING TO COME. IF YOU HAD TO, I'D JUST ASK YOU TO
SUM UP FATHER MCGUINNESS AS A PRESIDENT, AS A LEADER -- ARE THERE
ANY ANALOGIES THAT WE CAN MAKE WITH A GOOD CORPORATE MANAGER, A
GOOD CORPORATE CEO? IS THERE AN ANALOGY HERE AS TO WHAT HE DID
FOR THIS UNIVERSITY? OR IS IT A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT KIND OF
ENVIRONMENT?
ANSWER: I don't know. I've met many CEO's in industry, usually
in a superficial drinks out and dinner, something like that or
they Id
sit in and I'd say hello to them afterwards. I would say he's as
bright and very articulate, as a matter of fact, eloquent,
movingly eloquent. He holds a group well; even when they hate
him, they listen to him. They'd take him on afterwards, but they
listened. He was also, I think they sensed him as a caring. A
lot of'people would deny that, but I think he was a very caring
man. I think he kept up on where things were in ~merican
education nationally at that time. He read, he was scholarly
about his job, he stopped being scholarly I think about whatever
his major was, his own discipline, but he knew what-was going on
in this nation, in other universities and stayed with it. He was
the first one who I think really became quite sophisticated in
financial matters and fund raising and developmental things. He,
a more than anybody else, got respect in the New England area as a
member of the New England Association of College Presidents. He
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 49
a was, they paid a lot of attention to McGuinness. He brought great
respect from that level to us and so did Father Kelley. That was
one of Father Kelley's great strength, too. Hess continued that
in terms of industry and in the peers that he travels with, but
McGuinness was the first one to really go out there and woo
respect from other leadership, other colleges and the leadership
of other colleges.
OUESTION #84, VHS #1 (1-32-28) WHAT BENEFIT DO YOU THINK THAT
HAS FOR A UNIVERSITY?
ANSWER : That's the word of mouth that goes out about the
University. If another college president, because he knows more
about what's going on at Fairfield, they're the ones that Barron
and all these other people -- who are they going to check on,
they're not going
to ask Father McGuinness about Fairfield -- they're going to ask
his peers and they listened to how he solved his problems and
where his ... so that probably was the most important thing that
he did and did well and all the presidents since then have done.
That's very important. A place to be respected.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 50
PUESTION $85. VHS #1 (1-33-19) NOW FATHER FITZGERALD CAME IN
AFTER FATHER MCGUINNESS. I HAD THE PRIVILEGE OF INTERVIEWING
FATHER FITZGERALD 3 WEEKS AGO AND IT WAS A MARVELOUS INTERVIEW. I
WAS VERY TAKEN WITH HIM BECAUSE HE REALLY HAD A VERY FIRM VISION
OF WHAT THIS UNIVERSITY OUGHT TO BE AND EVERYTHING HE DID WAS TO
CARRY OUT THAT VISION.
ANSWER: I know. I think he was the most idealist and also
free. Things had settled a little bit. He didnt.t have some of
the pain that McGuinness had to take. Things had settled then and
he also read books, as well as any financial Ph.D. He read
figures and he had enough guts to say ItWe1reg oing to spend only
what we can put out." And he did it tough at times. He could be,
never nasty now, but that and he walked this campus every single
night and sat on benches with students. They knew him. He lived
every night. After dinner,. every night in the Jesuit community,
he walked the campus, in and out of buildings. If it was raining,
hew just go through buildings, but he was highly visible and
those were the two strengths that I saw in him. He gave more time
to students than any president that I've ever seen and he was
awfully smart about reading figures and getting us financially
secure. He started the development up on a professional level,
didn't always work but he started, he knew he had to get outside
money. I would have expe'cted him to be good,
I don" know at that. I know he must have been doing a lot of
that -- that I wasn't paying &tention to.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 51
QUESTION #86, VHS fi _(I-35-36) HE WAS SAYING THAT ONE OF THE
THINGS HE WAS TRYING TO DO WAS TO RECRUIT VERY GOOD ADMINISTRATORS
INTO THE UNIVERSITY.
Thatss right.
VERY IMPORTANT THING TO DO.
ANSWER: And I think he did. I also think he eliminated some
of the weaker ones by bringing in somebody else. He could be, not
tough, firm. Once he made up his mind, he could be, he followed
through and took whatever he had to take.
QUESTION #87, VHS flcl 11-36-15) I ASKED HIM ABOUT THIS? I GUESS
AT ONE POINT THERE WAS AT ONE POINT AN OPPORTUNITY THAT FAIRFIELD
MIGHT HAVE PICKED UP A LAW SCHOOL HERE. THERE WAS ONE UP IN
HARTFORD AND I ASKED HIM. I SAID "NOWI WHY DID YOU DECIDE NOT TO
DO THAT?" AND TO A LARGE DEGREE IT WAS THAT IT DIDN'T MESH WITH
THE VISION THAT HE HAD FOR THIS UNIVERSITY. WAS THERE ANY FEELING
AMONG THE FACULTY THAT A LAW SCHOOL WOULD HAVE BEEN BENEFICIAL?
ANSWER: Oh yes. I think once they started to see the books
balanced, then everybody wanted growth and 'the Law School, if you
do it well, is a prestigious thing to have. It's also a powerful
source of political support for the rest of the future. I never
paid that much attention. I would have voted for a Law School if
you asked me at that time, I would have said "Yeah that would be
good.I1 But I would have said, "Not as good as a Social Work
School." I would have preferred to build a top-flight, first-rate
School of Social Work where people come out with a Masterss Degree
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 52
a in Social Work because we weren't ready to go Doctorate in
those days. I would have much preferred him to let me go and add
a Ph.D. program here in Psychology and he wouldn't. So I was in
sort of my own framework of reference was if he did it, that would
have been fine, but I was fighting for other things at that time
that I thought were more important.
QUESTION #88, VHS #1 (1-37-53) WHAT WOULD THE UNIVERSITY HAVE
TO DO TO BE ABLE TO BRING IN^ LET'S SAY A DOCTORAL PROGRAM IN AN
AREA LIKE PSYCHOLOGY?
ANSWER: Put about a million dollars into the library, make it
bigger, library, it determines, research facilities, that means
space and equipment and top-flight -- the importing of top-flight
research professors, not teaching professors. Up to that time, we
had teaching professors. I hired a couple of research professors
because we had government-money to do it back in the 'fat1 days
where I could get government support for a Research Institute, but
it's an expense. You either do it well or you don't do it, so you
have to go at it,- I think, very first class and it was very
expensive. I had one of the men from Fordham come down, the
Professor that I did my thesis under, that I had high respect for,
who had seen Fordham do it and was a very powerful support of the
Fordham program -- probably the single most important person in
Fordham's final APA approval as a department. So, I hired him to
come and help us think through and I hired him for $3,000 which I
thought was horrendous and then he gave it back to the University
as a gift -- beautifulguy -- Joe Cubus --beautiful man. I don't
Ora1,History: Thomas I4~Grath~S.J. Page 53
remember where those records are now, but he priced it out I don't
know. I think a law school would have been less expensive.
QUESTION $89, VHS & (1-39-39) DOES'A DOCTORAL PROGRAM, SINCE
IT DOES REQUIRE RESEARCH PEOPLE,IS THAT REALLY IN KEEPING WITH
WHAT FAIRFIELD IS2
ANSWER : I thought it did and I still do. I think that we
should have a couple of top-flight Ph.D. programs, not law school.
Other people would say no law school, but you have to be ready
Ph.D. and I'm not sure. Now that I look back on it, I think it
would have been a mistake, but I fought very hard to get a Ph.D.
program in Psychology. I think Joe Cubus said "If you canst
underwrite it, don't touch it." I forget who was President at
that time. I think it was Tom, although I bugged both of them
about the Ph.D. program. I wanted to strengthen our Graduate
School of Education by doing this. .I felt that this was about...I
didn't want to stay on that level and I was teaching in the Grad
School all my life. I've been teaching in the Grad School 'ti1
the last maybe 5 years. I just felt we could enrich that program
a lot and give it a I don't know a more academic respect so that
we weren't just teaching teachers how to or guidance counselors
how to and things like that and that's what Grad Schools of
Education tend to be is a "how tou place and so I wanted some type
of a research strength that we'd go in that would bring prestige.
Nobody agreed with me on that. I didn't win that one at all.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 54
QUESTION #go, VHS #1 (1-41-30) WAS FATHER FITZGERALD CARRYING
ON SOME OF THE PROGRAMS THAT HAD COME IN UNDER FATHER MCGUINNEBS)
FOR EXAMPLE) THE EFFORT TO RECRUIT MORE MINORITY STUDENTS -- WAS
THAT CONTINUING DURING THE LATE '701S?
ANSWER : I think so. I don't think we ever stopped doing that.
I don't know how much money he put into it because he was trying,
but just knowing the man, I would say yes he did that, but other
than a good guess at the type of person he was.
GUESTION #91, VHS (1-42-09) WAS THERE MORE OF AN EFFORT DURING
THIS PERIOD) I KNOW ONE OF THE HALLMARKS OF FAIRFIELD TODAY IS
THIS EFFORT TO REACH OUT TO THE COMMUNITY, 'FOR STUDENTS TO GET
INVOLVED WITH THE BRIDGEPORT COMMUNITY OR APPALACHIA...DID ANY OF
THIS BEGIN DURING THE '70's OR WAS IT STILL...?
ANSWER : I don't think so. I think this is when we started to
get professionally trained people in Campus Ministry. All of this
happened because it was there from Vatican I1 -- service to the
poor, the preferential option for the poor and how one of the
essential dynamics of being a Christian is service to those need;
it's a service-oriented religion as far as the covenant -- the
whole idea of giving of self to the needy, the poor that we'll
always have with us, but I think more than anything else, that
came post Vatican I1 as we started to bring in professionally-trained
Campus Minister. Before, we'd just take a nice kind
priest and put him in, whether he knew liturgy, music, theology;
@ he had basic theological training, but you need professionals to
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 55
do it.
gUESTION #92, VHS #1 (1-43-33E WHEN DID THIS START -- DURING
THE '60°S?
ANSWER: No. Way after that. I think these are the first three
professionally-trained Campus Ministers that we've got and what a
difference they've made -- tremendous difference. That's, I am so
impressed with that whole...well first of all we have a beautiful
chapel now instead of buried in a cellar over in Loyola which was
always an embarrassment. It used to be a cafeteria. I don't
know. It's part of the growth ... we've got a touch of elegance
now in that, not just, commitment, but there is an elegance to it
that I think is awfully comforting to me.
PUESTION #93, VHS #1 (1-44-30) WHEN FATHER FITZGERALD LEFT IN
1980, HAD YOUaaaWHEND ID YOU RETIRE? ANSWER: Let me see. I
retired 3 years ago--O87. '88.
QUESTION #94, VHS #1 11-44-44) WHAT DO YOU THINK HIS LEGACY TO
THE UNIVERSITY WAS? WAS IT A STRONGER PLACE WHEN HE LEFT?
ANSWER : Oh yes, much stronger. He made it safe. He made it
professionally sound, financially, he hired, once he got the books
under control, he hired people. There are so many things to
respect him for, I probably because I am a Psychologist, I liked
the way he talked and was visible with students. The end of the
day I was glad to run away because I had them all day and of a course he didn't have them all day because he was in his office;
Oral ~istory: Thomas McGrath,SaJm Page 56
he put in a long day, but he would always come out and spend time
with students so he had a reading of the student attitudes and
gripes and problems of the University -- very grass root type of
person.
OUESTION 895, VHS #1 (1-45-52) WERE THERE PARTICULAR PROBLEMS
OF THE UNIVERSITY DURING THIS PERIOD THAT HE FOCUSED ON OR DEALT
WITH BESIDES THE FINANCIAL, I MEAN FROM THE STUDENT POINT OF VIEW?
ANSWER: I think things had started to settle down pretty
peacefully then. They were willing to talk to them as well as he
was willing to talk to.them and you know it took him a while to
build a following. When he first walked the campus, everybody
would go away, any place, just because hews walking around with a
collar on, but he broke through that very slowly. He knew his
buildings too, maintenance and all that. He realized how
expensive it is if you don't maintain them, put a lot of money
into maintaining the buildings. I know. What buildings did he
build? I think he...
I THINK JUST THE STUDENT CENTER.
The Rec Plex. He did the Rec Plex and I think the Student Center
was under McGuinness, I'm sure. He got a lot of lip on that one
too; about the pool. He was a swimmer. His exercise was
swimming, so everybody thought that was a little preferential
treatment for people who liked to take a swim. He was very
faithful about keeping himself in shape and he did the same at St.
Louis. He turned that place around, saved it, saved it. He did
all his learning here I think, so he knew what to do when he got
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 57
there.
gUESTION $96, VHS #i (1-47-27L WERE THEY ANY DEPARTMENTS DURING
THIS PERIOD THAT' WERE GROWING OR NEW DEPARTMENTS BEING STARTED
DURING THE '70'8 THAT YOU RECALL?
ANSWER 1 Probably building the computer -- that was a big thing
that McGuinness put a lot of money and effort and time into.
McGuinness started the computer and I think Fitz continued that
and then you put the computer and math together, which is the only
thing that makes sense unless you just wanted to turn out
technicians, but if you want academically-trained, scientifically-trained
computer people, you tie it in with math and that was the
big one. All the departments I think grew. As the University
grew, we needed more and more professors and professors that were
publishing, publication became a much more...I was on the Rank and
Tenure, the most agonizing faculty in this whole University to be
on is Rank and Tenure, where you're judging your peers. This is a
tough one and an agonizing one because you hurt some.
OUESTION #97, VHS #i (1-48-46L SO PUBLISHING HAD MUCH MORE
INFLUENCE ON DECISIONS AT THIS POINT? ANSWER: That's right.
That's right. And it was a lot. If you were a good teacher
before that...when I got my promotions, I was doing a lot of
things so they sort of felt well he deserves it and I had minimal
publications, not even great ones. You know, I'd cover myself by
getting it published some place, but we became very serious under
Fitz because he came from Georgetown, he was strongly influenced
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 58
by the strengths that Georgetown had and he brought a lot here
through his Deans and made it, I think, an academically richer and
sounder. A lot of people resented the
stress on a basically undergraduate college -- not much emphasis
on publication. And there are two sides to that one too.
OUESTION #98, VHS &,(I-49-53) DO YOU HAVE A PARTICULAR POINT
OF VIEW ON THAT YOURSELF?
ANSWER: Yeah, I think we should expect people to publish for
promotion and so forth as long as they can do that and still be
top-flight teachers and give contracted time to students, be there
to students and if they do research, that they must have, if it's
at all unwritten by the University, they must include students in
it...with their names, you know, it may be the fourth name. In
that sense, but going off in their own research laboratory, we
will never be a carnegie Mellon or Harvard. I don't even want us
to be. It's not what we are here for. That's not our focus. Our
focus is to educate scholarly educated Christians.
PUESTION 899, VHS & (1-50-53) WITH ALL THE WORK THAT YOU WERE
DOING IN THE CONSULTING FIELDl SPEAKING AND WORKING WITH DIFFERENT
CORPORATIONSl DO YOU THINK THAT THAT ALSO RAISED THE PROFILE OF
THE UNIVERSITY?
ANSWER: I think so. I think that was a very large part of my
motivation to do it because after the romantic notions and gets
off of traveling all over the country' and speaking to General
Motors and ATLT and things like that (that sounds great for a
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 59
while), but coming back red-eye from California and teaching the
next day, it hurts after a while. My motivation was, first of
all, it was a different classroom and I.loved to teach. Secondly,
it was, I don't know how many thousand people in industry heard
about Fairfield; they'd want to know about it and the thing that I
was delighted with too is that I kept bumping into our graduates
from Fairfield, Georgetown, B.C. and they'd always come up because
they never thought of a Jesuit being in that type of role. After
the beginning, although right to the end, because I always worked
with my collar on and I always insisted that I be referred to on
the calendar as Thomas A. McGrath, S.J. That caused lots of
ripples in the troops that were coming, lots of humor and a lot of
sort of nasty cracks. I put up with my share of nasty cracks on
the evaluation sheets and things like that, but I was very
motivated because I thought it was good P.R. for the University.
OUESTION #loo, VHS #1 (1-52-48)- DOES IT ALSO ENRICH YOUR
TEACHING IN THE CLASSROOM?
ANSWER : Oh yes, very much so. So that it was...'cause it was a
source of excitement and I had to really read about the real world
and my whole focus was away from you know clinical and diagnostic
stuff, into Industrial and Organizational Psychology, which was
coming strong. Industry was looking more and more for Industrial
and Organizational Ph.D.'s, so that made me very eager to get all
students graduating as Psych majors into an Industrial Psychology
course and I liked teaching that course. We still do teach it,
but it's not as, since I've left, pushed as much.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 60
QUESTION #101# VHS #1 (1-53-44) FROM YOUR VANTAGE POINT AS A
UNIVERSITY PROFESSORI WHAT DID YOU FEEL THAT YOU BROUGHT INTO THE
INDUSTRIAL OR CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT?
ANSWER: A humanistic approach to people -- fundamentally to
explain what happened in the '601s, late '60's and '70's --
individual rights, human rights, quality of life in the work place
and that isnDt pretty pink walls and nice washrooms, it's the
respect that they get, the reinforcements they get. That, I
thought was trying to make managers and seniors officers and
things like that more
reverent to their people, more reinforcing to their people. I
was trying to get them to change their management and leadership
style. We went through different theories of management from the
old authoritarian one to the Japanese management style, so I spent
a lot of time teaching Awuchies, what he was saying about the way
the Japanese do it and that made me very popular because I would
explain something clearly to them and then modify it a little bit
and get my own little cracks in at them about human beings being
human beings with rights and especially, quality of life in their
related lives. I spent a lot of time on what I called the
Dynamics of Relationship with them and they listened. It's like a
lot.of -- no, these are brilliant, brilliant men and women who
never knew or had explained to them what ahuman relationship is,
psychologically, the dynamics of a relationship, the four levels
of dynamics. That became very new to them because none of them
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S..J. Page 61
a had Psychology courses; they were all brilliantly educated,
though, so it was easy to do that. I found it very easy because
it came new to them and I didn't get into any of these gimic-y
things about personality types, about Type A's and B1s; I thought
that was, I still do think that's a lot of nonsense and some of it
is fraudulent. So I was different I didn't go through any of what
I think are gimic-y type stuff. I just taught what I knew about a
human being.
OUESTION #102, VHS #J (1-56-19) FATHER KELLEY COMES IN IN 1980
AND HE'S REPLACING FATHER FITZGERALD. HOW WOULD YOU COMPARE THEIR
STYLES AS FAR AS RUNNING A UNIVERSITY? ANSWER: Very different.
They both came from Georgetown, so they had a heavy, strong,
academic excellence and quality academic education so they both I
had that in common. Kelley also paid a lot of attention to
financial soundness. His greatest single strength, though, was in
advancement, in university development and advancement. He made
that top-flight professional, he brought top-flight professionals
in to do it with him and it's, as least as I see it, that's the
most painful thing to do is to beg, with class and he begged with
class. He did all the smart things. He spent money to get money.
He had a good team behind him but I think he lost touch, to some a degree, in that major effort, and especially the major drive that
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 62
he headed, something had to give and his contact with students and
faculty had to give. Now, I think every man who's been our
President, once we got professional about them and not the Rector-
President thing, brought something to the University that was
needed at that time. We needed to expand. We needed to get a lot
more endowment if we were going to talk about the poor -- for the
preferential treatment of the poor -- we need money to do that.
We need a decent place to worship. We need a place, if we are an
Arts and Science, and especially if we have any respect for our
tradition and ideal, that this is the most powerful humanizing
force is the whole Arts area. Somebody's got to put money, tons
of money into those things that we didn't have. Now, this was
his vision and his ideal, but he couldn't have had it unless he
had the two men before him. He couldn't have done it. He built
the next step, I think -- academic excellence and, especially
strong humanistic, and also excellent support to the Business
School -- the separation of the two and wanted it first class. He
made sure it got to be first class within that timeframe that you
have to go through. Each one comes with his own strength and his
own vision and I thought each one of those men had a vision that
was, that made it possible for Kelley to do what he did.
PUESTION #103, VHS#l (1-59-33) IF YOU LOOK AT THE CHARACTER OF
THE UNIVERSITY DURING THE '80'6 AND WHERE IT SITS TODAY, HAS
IT...HOW HAS IT CHqNGED IN THE 30 OR SO YEARS THAT YOU'VE BEEN
HERE? ANSWER ON VHS #2.
ANSWER VHS #? (0-00-09) Well, sort of said it from a behavior-.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 63
a controlling, thought-controlling, parochial college
struggling ... it's got a significant place in the American
university system today -- very respected, nationally. A lot of
men that Iqve had in, in management, have sent their kids here and
they send them to me first so that they will be comfortable. The
character has changed. It's with a lot of the pain that exists, I
think, as the young professors try to teach here and raise a
family in this Fairfield County area. Thatss a tough one to beat.
The housing, they tell me food, clothing for children, shoes cost
more in this area than in other places. I think we are...the loss
of Jesuit voice and Jesuit impact and we canqt have an impact
unless we're present and the numbers are down, so that's changing
the character, radically. I think it is still, it's less
Christian
in many ways and yet, it's more in others, so I don't know. With
our students, the population that are giving service, say to the
poor and are stronger; that's a beautiful number, but it's small.
I think there are more materialistic attitudes in the University
than I ever remembered before in terms of the way we energized
students, the way we teach students. Money, prestige, success --
they have lived through the greed things of the '80's and that
impacts us, too. So, in many ways, it's not I think as fulfilling
of the Jesuit ideal as I would like. It's making it harder to
fulfill it. There is more resistance on the part of it on some
small group of faculty, so there is new tensions in that.
UESTION #104, VHS #2 (0-02-33
io you THINK THERE 18 A RISK T L T THE uNIvERsITy m y BECOME Too
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 64
SECULAR?
ANSWER: Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I think it is. If you look
at the total picture, it is and yet there is a group of students
that we are impacting, I think, that is awfully important, but we
don't have the numbers now.
PUESTION #105, VHS #2 (0-03-048 I OFTEN WONDERED AND WE TALKED
ABOUT THIS ALMOST AT THE BEGINNING OF THE INTERVIEW -- THAT THE
CHARACTER OF THE UNIVERSITYt THE REASON WHY IT WAS FOUNDED IN THE
FIRST PLACE, WHICH WAS TO SUPPORT AND PROMOTE THE JESUIT IDEAL,
THE JESUIT APPROACH -- AS THE UNIVERSITY BECOMES MORE SECULAR,
ISNV THERE A REAL SENSE THAT THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF THIS
UNIVERSITYt THE WHOLE REASON FOR IT IS GOING TO BE L08T SOMEPLACE?
ANSWER: It might. We all live with that. We're too
intelligent not to worry and regret it and sweat it, but we don't
have any neat solution to it. Reality is there in terms of the
value systems
of our faculty, the lack of Jesuit presence, lack of the
manpower, itDs reality, it's there. If you're almost 73 and'
you've put a lot of time in it, there's a certain amount of worry,
discomfort in it. I know I gave it my best shot and I feel now
that the Lord or somebody's got to ... reality is there and it's a
movement that I sense that I don't see a solution to it. It's
part of the tension in the faculty and tension between...there are
members in the faculty who don't like on this stationery the
little motto that we have had for the number of years "In Pursuit
of the Jesuit Idealff. They don't like that; they find it
Oral History: Thomas M~Grath~8.J. Page 65
offensive, as a matter of fact, probably because we havenst, in
spite of serious effort, explained it, or if we have, we are -
explaining it to the saved, you know the guys that are sort of
brought up with it, the ones who understand it, the ones who sort
of sense it, but that type of dynamic is at work.
9UESTION #106, VHS #2 (0-05-35) IS THE SENSE OF COMMUNITY THAT
WAS HERE IN THE O50W WHEN YOU FIRST CAME, IS THAT SORT OF BEEN
LOST?
ANSWER : Definitely. Definitely. We invite the faculty to the
Jesuit House more often than ever before. We have regular
meetings where they come and eat with us and have a drink with us.
We invite them to parties. We're still doing that and weDre
getting a very good response, but it's a percentage-type response.
There are a lot of people who wouldn't come to any of those
things,; or if they come, they'll say I1Well, itDs a free mealloe
QUESTION f107, VHS #2 (0-06-14) ON A MORE PERSONAL NOTE,
LOOKING BACK OVER THE YEARS YOUVE SPENT HERE, WHAT IMPACT DO YOU
THINK YOUVE HAD ON THIS UNIVERSITY?
ANSWER : I know I did more good than harm. You know, I gave
more than I took. I've had a very rewarding happy life. I'm very
happy I did what I did, so I think I've been a significant part of
all the good stuff that I think is there in the University.
QUESTION #108, VHS #2 (0-06-56) ARE THERE PARTICULAR INCIDENTS
a OR PARTICULAR EVENTS THAT YOU WERE INVOLVED WITH THAT YOU LOOK
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 66
BACK ON NOW AND SAY "HOSE ARE THE ONES THAT REALLY STAND OUT FOR
MEU?
ANSWER: Yeah, the '60's. I think my voice was important in the
'60's. I think I was very respected by the faculty so that they
would listen to me. They would let me talk to them and teach
them. I think on the significant committees, like the Academic
UESTION a VHS #2 (0-7-49 YOU HAVE AN INTERESTING VANTAGE
:OINT BECAUSE YOU MOVED BACK L D FORTH BETWEEN THE CORPORATE WORLD
AND THE UNIVERSITY. IF YOU JUST HAD TO SPECULATE OR PHILOSOPHIZE
A LITTLE BIT ON THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITY TODAY, IN THIS SOCIETY OR
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CORPORATE WORLD, OR ITS ROLE PREPARING
STUDENTS, WHAT WOULD THAT ROLE BE FOR YOU?
ANSWER: Whatever -- to try to brea{ through some ofthe
dissati<a,ion i' Ameryca' industry about what we are doing -- the
product that we*e sending to them. And Itm not talking about the
illiterate now or the terrible deprived people that are coming to
them for the service jobs in industry. I'm talking about people
who are
broadly-educated, but crackerjack finance people, crackerjack,
probably more than anything else in the whole area of clarity of
speech, elegance in writing, or at least, strong, firm writing.
The communication skills -- they would like people to speak
the English language correctly. We still have students graduating
from the University saying ItMe and my brotherw. A beautifully-educated
person sees this very bright, top-flight genius that
wetre turning out at times in computer and math saying "Me and my
brothertt.- - that throws them. Their lack of ... if they have
specialized, their lack of real elegance, classical reading
the scope that they would like to see, their knowledge of History,
their knowledge of the world and the geography of the world.
They're asking us to do a lot$-- to turn out, and Itm not sure we
can. I think we can do a better job on the communication level.
I would love to see everybody take at least one semester of
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 68
Rhetoric, standing up and making a speech and speaking the
language with a touch of class and a touch of elegance, as well as
grammatical soundness. I think they felt that they got it and
they're saying this about Harvard, not just Fairfield; they're
saying this about American education. As I read them, these men
graduated from Yale and Harvard and Princeton and all the other
great places and they speak the language and all that, but they
see some of their recruits who haven't read, who haven't kept up.
The Age of Television -- the complain about that a lot and they
want us to do a better job onit. I think they respect us for
what we're doing -- in turning out a chemist, turning out a
Bachelor of Chemistry. On the Sciences;they think and the basic
disciplines, I think they have a lot of respect, from a Liberal
Arts College, they would expect, I think, a lot broader knowledge
of History or Philosophy, of Languages. I think also they think
we're not stressing Languages ... sort of the old traditional
classical educational approach. I'm very sympathetic to this, but
I don't know how to beat it either. I don't what to tell them
where we are -- the books are there in the Library. I don't know
how we get the kids to read them. I said "Make themv1. Well,
that's not easy to make them read. There are so many ways they
can fudge it. I think you get more screech from industry too on
the literacy level, the lower grades, the early grades, before
college. I find them, people can't read, can't read simple
instructions on how to operate a machine or a computer or
something like that. They have to teach them that. raining and
@ Development is a big expense in industry today. One, big heavy
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 69
burden. I felt they should be able to read on a better level,
write on a better level, write a report on a better level. That's
sort of what I pick up. I think they have to put their money on
the lower levels to train people to do the manufacturing, the very
basic labor, things which are very complex and complicated, how to
work with a robot now, they have to train them themselves. We'd
like more sophistication. However, in an ideal world, maybe that
could happen.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J.. Page 70
a DUESTION #llO, VHS #2 (0-13-20) COULD YOU BE MORE SPECIFIC WITH
ME. WERE THERE PARTICULAR TIMES8 PARTICULAR INSTANCES.
ANSWER : At a faculty meeting, I sensed that what I said was
listened to. In the faculty days, when we were talking about
faculty development, the management of students during the
difficult days, I felt that my voice was heard much more then than
i
it has in the say, last 8-10 years, just because I'm much older
and I had slowed down a lot. I sort of felt that I had put in my
time. Industry was a distraction, too. You can't do everything
and I felt that was very important so that.1 was missing, say a
faculty meeting morethan I ever did before. Once I would never
miss a faculty meeting. At the end, that was a drain, a
,'
distraction from it. I also think, too, that they don't think
!8 that the future of this University rests as much with Jesuits as
they once did. They still admit that we do pull from students
just because we are a Jesuit university. Their parents want. I
think a lot of the young people sort of say llWell,t hat will go
away, if we wait it out, that will go away.'' So, no Jesuit voice,
unless you're in a significant position of administration and even
there, it's different. The community older, the Jesuit
community is older, we just don't have the sheer physical and
psychic energy -- not enough young guys. Look, the young guys we
have here are listened to very ... somebody like Tom Regan, Brian
Lanane when he was teaching here, Tom, the young Jesuits are very
respected and very listened to; they're also top-flight. We
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 71
I*
don't have the numbers, but the people that we've got are very
quality people in their profession and in their Jesuit lives. We
just don't have enough of them; it kills me.
OUESTION #Ill VHS#2 (0-17-06) DO YOU WANT TO ADDRESS THE m E A
OF GRADUATE EDUCATION AND WHAT THE STRENGTHS ARE?
ANSWER: Yeah, it was once one of our great claims to fame. It
spread a lot of respect. We trained a lot of high school
teachers, high School Administrators, Guidance Counselors and what
we called School Psychologists. I think we were respected as THE
Number 1 because we weren't competing with Yale and Wesleyan, but
we were the Number 1 training of teachers -- powerful group and we
continued to be until, all of a sudden the teaching profession
sort of came apart in terms of public support, public respect, the
quality of public school education came apart, the pay scale was .
insulting, you couldn't live on it so they were painting houses4
after school and that type of thing so that the Grad School
suffered again from reality and the shift in the culture. The
lack of respect for, we were training mainly public school
teachers and getting them certified all the way from K-8 and from
high school -- that was probably the most important thing for our
making a contribution to the State of Connecticut, to the
communities here. We turned out really awfully good people, but
we were also getting awfully good people. They come in talented,
they wanted to be teachers and they had the intelligent level that
a we needed. They spoke correctly when they came. They wrote,
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 72
they'd write a good paragraph for you. Then, because the pay
scale and the public attitude shifted, we weren't getting the
level of talent and that became very flattening on the part of
. .
professors where you weren't teaching what you wanted to teach,
you were trying to teach to read, not to teach reading, but to
learn how to read themselves. It was a talent shift that was very
shattering and sobering. It's just now shifting back. It's
coming back now once again and in order to save Grad Education,
then we started to throw in Marriage Counseling Master's and other
,
things to save the School. The state certification office, I
think, watered down some of the requirements because they needed
teachers and it's fine to have noble requirements, but if you
don't have people coming through, that's a whole different sort of • history. Now, we are coming back to that, but that means we need
a different, a younger professional educator coming in to run that
School and to handle that school. But it was once a most
significant contribution to the whole State of Connecticut because
they came from miles around. Those were happy days. Towards the
end, I must admit I just got so disaffected that I asked to be
relieved of that and took extra undergraduate classes. I always
had at least, most of the time I was teaching two courses there
and two in the undergraduate. Then I finally got it down to one
in the Grad School, mainly because I was, I just wasn't feeling '
any type of good feedback that I was getting someplace with it
because the reality that we were dealing with was tough. I donvt
know whether that answers that or not.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 73
9UESTION 8112, VHS #2 (0-21-121 DO YOU REMEMBER ANY ANECDOTES
ABOUT WHEN WOMEN FIRST CAME OUT OF THE CAMPUS?
ANSWER: I thought there was going to be a lot more sexual
innuendoes and sort of sad humor. No, it was so smooth and
everybody walked on
eggshells. The guys dressed better, they stopped throwing beer
cans out of the window 'cause women didn't like that. It had a
lifting affect. They had more fun. They'd sit and they were more
polite when the women came because women sort of expected it.
Women were outnumbered at the beginning so they loved that, the
women were very happy. They had nice dormitories. We spent a lot
of money setting up their quarters in the dormitory. I don't
know. It just was healthy.
9UESTION #113, VHS #2 (0-22-26) HAS THE MALENESS OF THE
UNIVERSITYl AND BY THAT, I GUESS I MEAN MORE THE POWER STRUCTURE
OF THE UNIVERSITY, HAS THAT NOW CHANGED TO REFLECT THE FACT THAT
WOMEN ARE HERE AND PLAYING A GREAT ROLE?
ANSWER: Yeah,-- because it got to be absurd when'the women first
came here we didnst have many women faculty. We had very few
women faculty as a matter of fact, so that became an important
imperative, you know, look for women. You know the last time in
the Psych Department we were ordered to women this time. That was
it. That was a good influence. I think I was going to say
a, something just a minute ago and I'm getting tired and I'm
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 74
a forgetting what I was going to say. An anecdote. What should I
say? It worked quite smoothly. As a matter of fact, it's much
more difficult today. I think there was great respect for one
another. There was more privacy, a sense of privacy but that's a
cultural change and it's had a significant impact. I think women,
in those days, did not get drunk. I think they knew 'enough not to
get drunk. It was a different time. Murray asked for an anecdote
and I can't think of any one exact thing. Women tend to be, most
of the time, cleaner, although some of our maids say "No, that's
not
true." I'm not sure. I can't.
I THINK THAT'S FINE. I THINK THAT WILL DO IT. THANK YOU VERY
MUCH a
You are welcome.
Oral History: Thomas McGrath,S.J. Page 75