A n O r a l H i s t o r y O f C o l u m b i a C o l l e g e C h i c a g o

M o r t K a p l a n

Today is April the 14, 2004.This is an interview with MortKaplan, Professor of MarketingCommunication and Director ofPublic Relations Studies.

So we’d l ike to s ta r t by asking

you when d id you come to

Col umbia and what wer e the

c i rcumstances that b rought you

h e re ?

It was 1987. I had a public rela-tions company and I sold it to aneven bigger company, KetchumPublic Relations, and I becameexecutive VP of that company forfour years of my contract. Duringthat period, I used a lot ofColumbia College interns, and Ihired a lot of Columbia Collegeinterns. That’s how I kind of gotfamiliar with the college and anumber of them are still out thereworking in the field, and it’s reallykind of nice to see that happen. Ichecked out of the company,cashed in my chips, went to live ona beach in LaHoya for a year. MikeAlexandroff, who was the presidentof the school, talking with LyaRosenbloom, who was then thedean, thought that it was time theyhad a public relations concentra-tion here and so I said nothingdoing. I’m out here for a year andduring one of my trips to Chicago,Mike and Lya took me to theUniversity Club, and Mikeschmoozed me pretty good andsaid, you know, we would love tohave you do this. I think there’s allkinds of issues that really requirepublic relations attention.

And we talked about things likepro-life versus pro-choice and guncontrol versus the national rifle

association and environmentalissues. And I said, Mike, I prom-ised myself a year out of thecaldron and when I come back,maybe then. He said, no, we’ll waitfor you, and he said while you’reout there think about the curricu-lum, think about the teachers thatyou would like while you—as onlyMike would say—while you’redrinking your fresh orange juice,pally. He liked to call people pally,you know, and drinking your freshorange juice and walking on thebeach, think about the program,and we’ll wait. And this was Aprilor March I believe of that year, andI came back in September andstarted the PR program.

That’s how I came here, and Ihad—I can’t remember whether Imet Mike through Lya or Lyathrough Mike. I think I met Mikethrough Lya because I had been thefounding president of an organiza-tion called the Illinois ArtsAlliance, which is still very potentcitizens advocacy group. And Ithink I met Lya during those situa-tion, that circumstance, and sheintroduced me to Mike and askedme if I had thought about teachingnow that I was out of the commer-cial aspect of the business.

So they contacted you out—they

came af te r you and t h rough your

r eputat i on in t he bus iness wor ld

and asked you. I ’m cur ious about,

i f you cou ld expand on Mike

say ing , you know, giv ing you your

ass ignment . It sounds l ike he ’s

say ing d ream up thi s and we’ l l ,

you know, make sure i t happens .

He was very good at that, youknow. Mike had this marvelousinventive mind about where hewanted to take the school and

when we had lunch, he reallytalked about the kinds of things hesaw for a PR program. He wantedpolitical stuff. Mike was very, verypolitical. He wanted—and conse-quently I developed a course calledpolitical and governmental publicrelations, which to this day weteach, and he wanted issues.Interestingly enough issues hasbecome a course. At the time itwasn’t a course, public relationsissues. I knew what it was that Ifelt the students needed to learn tohave a career. Issues wasn’t one ofthem, but there are so muchmoney now being spent on publicrelations issues. As I look back, Ithink how prescient Mike was tohave wanted that at that time andit took me probably 12 or 14 yearsbefore I put that course in becauseI couldn’t get students involved init. Well now that’s a course. Wefinally have 13 students in thecourse and it is going this year, andpublic relations issues is taughtbecause so much money is beingspent on that.

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Just think about an issue like casinogambling in Illinois. It’s not aproduct. It’s not a service. It’s not acompany. It’s an issue. You know,the U.S. Conference of CatholicBishops paid I think a half milliondollars to a public relations firm tohelp get the story, the pro-life storyout. That’s the kind of money that’sbeing spent these days on issues.Not corporate reputation, notcompanies, not new products, notservices issues, and Mike was on tothat 18 years ago.

And then the r e la t ion o f the

issues, and how they ’r e

p r esented , d iscussed and i ts

impact u l t imate ly on leg is lat ion?

On legislation, on society, onpublic opinion, the hearts andminds of people, all that so it’sinteresting. When I think backabout Mike talking about issues atthat time and talking about thekind and politics and governmentPR at that time, it’s kind of inter-esting that he had the vision, whichhe did, to see that that should beincorporated and that it was timefor a PR concentration. Thereweren’t a lot of PR concentrationsin the country at that time. Nowthere are, but 18 years ago therereally weren’t very many. And whenI did some research about it, Ifound all kinds of horrendous stuff.

I talked to a professor at one of thebranches at University of Florida,for example, and she had been anEnglish Ph.D. and she hired allEnglish Ph.D.’s. I said there’s not aPR course in there, and it’s becausenone of them had any practicalexperience or knew anything aboutPR. You know, they were teachingthe theory of propaganda, interper-sonal communication, all thosethings that were fine. I don’t deni-

grate them, but they certainly werenot going to help somebody get ajob in public relations.

Wel l maybe you cou ld expand on

that . So you’ r e coming not f ro m

the educat i on academic . Yo u ’ r e

coming f r om the business and t he

app l icat ion . What d id you, when

you s ta r ted t h ink ing about th is ,

what d id you ident i f y that needed

to be t aught? What were t he

th ings you were t each ing your

i n t e rns t hat t hey wer e n ’ t gett i ng

t h rough thei r educat i ona l ( i n a u d i -

b l e )?

I’ll give you a great example of howa course came up, and I struggledwith this and had to convince LyaRosenblum that it was a coursewithout a textbook or anything likethat. I had an intern fromColumbia College, and I gave herall kinds of material and I saiddraft this as a brochure. You know,we need a brochure. I talked withher. I gave her all the information.She came back to me and did apretty decent job. I sent her backfor two or three rewrites. Finallywhen I said to her okay, we need5000, 2-color jobs, go do it, she fellapart. She didn’t know what to do,and I realized there are so manypractical parts of this businessthat—she could write it, she wasgood writer and she could followthose instructions, but go and doit. How do I do that? Where do Istart? So from that idea I developeda course called public relationsresources, the tools of the trade,and the things that can’t really bedone well in the classroom aredone.

A designer and a printer come tothe class and talk about so you’vegot a brochure, how do you findMr. Designer or Miss Designer?What do we charge? How do you

look for us? How do you bid a job,says Miss Printer. How do you getbids for this? What do you do andthat particular course had its incu-bation in that little assignment.And so the result is we’ll bring aphotographer, we’ll go to a photog-raphy studio to see a publicityphotographer telling them this iswhat I need from you to do myjob. This is what you need fromme. Here is a good picture that anewspaper will run. Here’s a badpicture a newspaper will not runand why. I will—we go to clippingretrieval services so that if you sendout a press release to 500 newspa-pers and the boss comes in and saidthat was a great press release. Whoused it? You don’t scratch yourhead and say I don’t know. We goto Bacons right down MichiganAvenue where they will show youtheir media directories, which willallow you to pick out the 500 foodeditors or sports editors, and theywill for $2.00 or $200.00 a monthand $2.00 a clipping, read all thosepublications and send you whatwas run, done.

So those are things that you can’tteach in a classroom, and it’s a verypractical course. It’s perhaps not astheoretically educational as othercourses, but it’s really stuff that apublic relations person needs toknow. And the result is that thekids that come out of this programare light years ahead of most otherschools because there’s nobodyteaching courses like that, and so Isimply thought to myself, while Iwas drinking orange juice andwalking on the beach, what are thekinds of course that they need?They need a writing course so wehave PR writing. They need thiscourse, public relations resources.They need special events, how to

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manage and promote specialevents. You’re not going to be inthis business without promoting aanniversary, a plant open house, amarathon race, a this, a that. Youknow, you’re going to be involvedin special events. How to manageand promote it.

You’re not going to be in the busi-ness without being able to handlecrises. We are in an era, my God,of change, conflict, confrontation,and there’s not a day goes by wherethere’s not a crisis and who dopeople turn to? They turn to thePR people. You know, help us outof this jackpot. What do we donow and so we have a course calledpublic relations cases and crises. Wehave a course called public relationspresentation skills. You’ve got to beable to present an idea. You have tobe able to sell an idea to a journal-ist, to your boss, for a budget, tovirtually anything so it’s extremelyimportant and it’s important for allstudents to take that, but this is acourse in our department presenta-tion skills that’s important. Wehave a course called public relationsfor government and politics, andthe teachers that I have hired, Iwrote all the initial syllabi. I devel-oped all the courses and hired allthe teachers, and that was in thevery beginning. And since thattime, other instructors have comeon and adjusted their own syllabus,which is fine, you know, andwe’ve just kind of sailed along andwe’re very contemporary, verycontemporary.

W h e r e do you f ind your teachers?

In the business. I am not a teacherwho knows public relations. I am apublic relations professional whoknows how to teach, and I havemade it a point of hiring PR people

who know how to teach not teach-ers who know something aboutPR. There’s a big difference. JaneKanepa, who teaches how tomange and promote special events,was special events coordinator forCarson Pirie Scott and has her ownspecial events company. RobinMattel, who teaches PR crises, wasVP of PR for major airlines. AltonMiller, who teaches politics andgovernment, was HaroldWashington’s press secretary so I’vetried to find the appropriate teach-ers for these niche courses, and Ithink the result has been, youknow, very fruitful.

How do you—I mean because

c e r ta in ly someone that is

successfu l in PR doesn ’t neces -

sa r i ly mean that they wou ld be a

g reat teacher. How, I mean, how

do you get a sense o f—do they

t r y out? I don ’t know.

They are trying out when they talkto me and when I talk to them,and, you know, I know who thepeople in the field are. I can’talways get the people that I want.You know, they’re working. They’vegot good jobs, you know, but I canalways get them to come over anddo guest lectures. So we get a lot ofthose people that we could neverafford to hire, and somehow thepeople that we do hire, first of all,like most of the departments, weuse mostly adjuncts. There are onlytwo full time people in the PRprogram. That’s Alton Miller andme. He teaches PR writings, anumber of sections of that, and heteaches politics and government,and now he’s teaching an introcourse also.

I’ve taught most of them at onetime or another in the beginning,but I find that I need to teach onlythe PR intro courses now because Ineed to see how those students are,

the ones that I want to encourage,the ones who come into thepipeline. If I still taught theadvance courses, I wouldn’t beseeing any of those people. Iwouldn’t be able to take somebodythat I think will have a great careerand encourage them to take morePR courses so I wind up givingmyself intro classes for the mostpart now.

T h a t ’s in te res t ing because a lo t

of t imes t eachers wi l l asp i r e t o

teach the more advanced o r

gett ing the students at that end .

So do I.

Yeah and but why is i t impor t a n t

fo r you? I mean you see i t as

kind o f mentor ing as we l l and

n u r t u r i n g .

Right, I see them in their first classso that I can see who I think mayindeed have a great career in PRbecause, you know, we have corecourses. They have to take intro toPR, but they don’t have to takeanything in PR after that. So byteaching those intro classes, I seethe ones that I think may have agood career or promising career inPR and I encourage them to do it.In the beginning, it was because Iwas building a program and Ineeded to get people taking theother courses. Now that theprogram is sailing, it’s more for thatreason getting really good peopleout there into the field who couldbe good at advertising or marketing‘cause that’s the way we’re struc-tured. But I also see them good atPR and they respond to that, and Ithink they we have a lot of peopleout there now that are fromColumbia College who are doinggood PR work.

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Just anecdotally, and it doesn’t haveanything to do with the PRprogram, but about three weeksago ABC television interviewed meon the Mel Gibson movie and Isaid I hadn’t seen it. They said wewant to talk about the promotionnot the movie so I did the inter-view. And after the interview wasover, and this staggered me for itsirony, the reporter said to me, youknow, I graduated from ColumbiaCollege, in the journalismprogram. And the cameraman saidyou’re kidding, I graduated fromColumbia College in the televisiondepartment. So here we were, thethree of us, all Columbia Collegeaffiliated, and I thought howwonderful, how typical, and howappropriate for Columbia.

And Mike A lexandro f f is p ro b a b l y

looki ng down and smi l i ng .

I’m sure he was.

Cou ld you , as the f ounder o f the

p rog ram and the person that Ly a

and Mike reached out to , cou ld

you speak a b i t about t he h isto r y

and evo lut ion o f the depar t m e n t

pub l ic r e la t ions, market ing

communicat i on ‘cause I don ’ t ,

you know, I t hink t hat ’s impor -

tant to kind o f document.

Well when I got here, John Turiniwas the head of the departmentand, you know, the –-

And what was t he depar t m e n t ’s

name, do you r e m e m b e r ?

It wasn’t marketing communicationuntil I’m really not sure. I meanI’m not sure whether it was theadvertising department and thenthey began to (inaudible) to evolve,but I know when I came on therewas now going to be a PR concen-tration. And somewhere in thatmix, as best I can remember, thename was changed to marketing

communication. It wasn’t alwaysmarketing communication.

So i t wou ld conta in adver t i s i n g

pub l ic re la t ion and market i ng .

And marketing, right, theoreticallyand actually public relations andadvertising are part of marketing,but there were so many jobs andsuch a distinct discipline in PR andin advertising that the decisionswas made to call it marketingcommunication and have market-ing advertising and PR. Eventhough—if you’re out there in theworld advertising marketing, Imean sorry, advertising public rela-tions, sales promotion, those are allparts of marketing, but, you know,it works best this way because theyare individual disciplines.

And I want t o, be for e we go , to

ta lk a b i t mor e about t he courses

that you devel oped ‘cause I t hink

t h a t ’s in ter est i ng , and what the

purpose was beh ind the o r g a n i z a -

t ion o f i t .

It was simply my saying to myselfwhat do I want from someone Iwant to hire because I probablyinterviewed 500 people. You know,my own company was pretty big.We had 35 or 40 people here inChicago, and when I sold andbecame executive VP of Ketchum,they probably had 7 or 800 peoplearound the country. And I justasked myself what do I expect fromsomebody that I hire? That’s reallyhow I developed the courses. Whatwould I want them to know? Andkeeping in mind what Mike had inmind, my initial thought was notto have a political and governmen-tal PR. That was too narrow, but Iknew Mike wanted that and so Iinstalled that.

The PR resources, as I said, camebecause I saw what this studentcould do and what she couldn’t do.The crises, I had handled so manycrises, you know, in my time that Iknew that we’re in an era wherecrisis is communications is reallyimportant, and how do you get thecrisis behind you? And what arethe, what’s the importance of thefirst 24 hours in a crisis, and howdo you develop a crisis communi-cations team? And, you know, itjust seemed a natural based onwhat I knew. I also knew PR writ-ing was essential. Writing wasessential, is essential. I still thinkabout tweaking PR writing andmaking it into two courses ratherthan one. PR writing one and PRwriting two, which we may do, butat the moment we have one PRwriting class because you can’t be inthe business if you, without writ-ing, and it isn’t just press releases.

People talk about equate publicrelations with press releases. If Iwant to book a guest on your TVshow, I have to send you a queryletter. I have to persuade you. If Iwant to strategize with you, I haveto write you a strategy. You know,if you are, whatever you’re doing, ifyou’re trying to influence legisla-tion, if you’re trying to roll out aproduct, if you’re trying to recoveryour corporate reputation, youneed a strategy and I need to writethat strategy. I need to write a vari-ety of things. I need to write publicservice announcements. I need towrite video news releases so writingis integral to the PR business. Nowyou don’t have to write like JamesBaldwin or Ernest Hemingway or,you know, the great writers, butyou can’t be afraid of writing. AndI encourage all the students to goto the writing center, to take PRwriting, to take composition one,composition two, take as much

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writing as you can ‘cause it’s impor-tant, and so it really stemmed fromwhat I began to muse over. Whatare the most important things Ineed from somebody who comes into the business? That’s where allthese courses flow from.

How d id you fee l about becoming

a teacher?

I wasn’t sure. I really wasn’t sure. Ifelt that I had the knack because Ihad given so many speeches andcoached so many people in speak-ing and I still do. As a matter offact, I just wrote a book called“When You Speak, Do TheyListen” on public speaking, and Istill do a lot of public speakingcoaching. And so felt I was prettygood, but I didn’t really know andI had a wonderful experience whenI first started and it was a frustrat-ing experience. Students wouldcome in late, which they still do,or, you know, you’re a teacher your-self so you know how that happens.And I was very exasperated and Icalled a friend of mine at theUniversity of California. He was aprofessor in charge of the teachertraining program at the Universityof California, and we wereboyhood friends. And I said, Dick,you know, this is driving me nuts,and his first response was to laugh.And his second was to say justremember, you can’t fire a student,and I got a big kick out of it.

And I remember that, but what Istarted to do in class was to sayyou’re fired if somebody came inlike the third time late. I would sayyou’re fired, and I would tell every-body that’s what happens whenyou’re out there working. If I can’trely on you to be in here on time,I’m going to fire you. So I would

say that to students. You’re fired.You know, Joe, you’re fired. Youknow, clear out your desk, and thefirst time I did it, you know, theywere kind of startled and, youknow, stopped in their tracks. Isaid I’m just kidding, sit down, butlet me explain to you. So, youknow, I mean he gave me some tipsabout that and then I just sort of, Itook textbooks and I discoveredthat I was at odds with a lot ofparts of the textbooks.

And I have an ongoing relationshipwith the author of one of the majortextbooks in the field because I’malways writing to him and sayingthis is not right and I think youought a revise that in your nextedition. Well last year he put me inthe book as acknowledgementthinking that he was going to getme off his back but of course hedidn’t. You know, I keep right ongoing so there are some things thathe really should highlight that hedoesn’t. There are some things thatare I think a little at odds withwhat the prevailing strategy in thefield, what the prevailing view is,you know, out there rather than inthe textbook.

So I usually do that, and I encour-age all my instructors, all ourinstructors to do the same. Pick thetext you’re most happy with andthen improvise, put your ownimprimatur on the class, and Ithink we all do that. All the teach-ers I have do that. They’re all indi-vidualists. They’re all professional.They all have good experience, andthey all put their own stamp on theclass. What else can I tell you?

What about your t each ing st yl e o r

p h i l o s o p h y, you know, i f you cou ld

ta lk a b i t about t hat .

Very informal. It’s very informal.It’s peppered with illustrations ofmy own career versus others.Today, for example, I showed a filmof an old Bob Newhart episodewhere he was a psychologist, andhe was mouse trapped in a TVinterview by somebody who istreating him very kindly and thenwhen the cameras went on killedhim.

Is that what a mousetrap is?

Yeah, well, you know, it’s a trapand but I showed it by way ofintroducing a discussion aboutyour responsibility will be to helpsomeone go on television.Somebody who—your boss, yourclient, your supervisor, somebodywho’s never been on TV before,and you have to show them how todo that, and then we always, myphilosophy is that we always talkabout current events in thiscontext. I talked about the presi-dent’s speech last night, and I askedthem to think about it from a PRstandpoint. After we talked aboutPR and television, and they wereterrific, you know, one of them saidhe bridged. Well bridging is a termthat we use so that if I ask youwhat time is it? And you don’twant to tell me, you say, you learnhow to say well I’ll tell you whatthe time is, but let me tell you whythe weather’s more important. Andthat’s what the President did lastnight, and I was so proud of thiskid because he realized that thePresident in responding to thequestion, didn’t really answer thequestion. Answered the questionthat he wanted to answer and madethe little speech that he wanted tomake.

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Well that’s what you learn how todo, you know, when you’re talkingso in the Bob Newhart show, hewas being killed by this person.And so I asked the class whatwould you have done and one ofthe young women said I neverwould’ve allowed him to go on thatshow, and I said good for you.That’s the very first thing so wetalk in terms of contemporary prac-tice a lot, and I want the studentsto understand, not regurgitate defi-nitions. I mean they have to havedefinitions. I have to give exams‘cause that’s the way we keep score,but I want them to get their armsaround it and understand it. And Idon’t care whether they give me adefinition back that I have giventhem as long as their definition issuch that I understand that theyknow what it is. That they knowthe answer. They may not put itinto the words that I want, butthey know the answer and that’sfine with me. I want them tounderstand.

Also I’m a great believer in encour-agement. I mean I spend moretime on encouragement and onethical practice because I wantthem to know that public relationsis a business where it’s very hard tomeasure creativity in the classroom.And it’s very hard to measureenergy and initiative and the kindsof things that can help you succeedin public relations so even thoughyou may not have scored as well asyou would like on an exam, don’tthink that to mean that you can’thave a good career in PR becauseit’s just not true because of thereasons that I set forth. So I have avery encouraging style. I let ateacher go because he was too cyni-cal. He was a very good teacher

and a very good professional, but Isaid I can’t have you discouragingthe students like that and I let himgo. I think that’s important.

I think ethics is important becausewe are in a business, in PR adver-tising too but certainly in PR,where the ability to manipulate, theability to mischaracterize, the abil-ity to spin, if you will, is so preva-lent that I want students to under-stand you have to draw a linesomewhere, you know, and youcannot—it’s okay to say this glassof water is half full, if you’re in thePR business, the same way it’s okayfor the journalist to say it’s halfempty because that’ll sell papers,but you cannot you lie. You’ve lostyour credibility and you’re credibil-ity is the most important thing thatyou have in dealing with yourpublics, you’re various publics,whether it’s stockholders, whetherit’s employees, whether it’s thepress. Certainly no matter whoyour stakeholders are, you must asPR people maintain your credibil-ity. You are the conscience of theorganization or you should be. Youare the guardian of the reputationof the organization, and I guessthat’s a long way of answering ashort question about my philoso-phy of teaching.

Can you te l l me a b i t about your

students? What were they l ike

when you f i rst came in the la te

8 0 ’s and how have they changed?

I think they’re much sharper. Ithink they’re smarter. I also thinkin some ways they might be a littlemore cynical. They’re much moreinterested in money. I don’t depre-cate that. I think that’s fine. I thinkthat there’s just so much morecommunications vehicles now thenthere was 18 years ago. There was

no Internet and that’s two sides ofa coin. It’s good and it’s bad. It’sgood because there’s so much moreinformation available to them. It’sbad because it becomes a crutch.They’re not reading newspapers likethey used to. They’re not paying asmuch attention to that as they usedto because you didn’t have anInternet so you watched televisionor read the newspapers. There’s somuch more reality television andthat kind of crap going on todaythat deflects them from what theyreally ought a be paying attentionto. I do ask that they watch TVand read the newspapers and listento the radio differently. Let themfilter it through their public rela-tions lens so they can see what atPR inspired story was versus aregular news story, and I thinkthey’re sharper today.

I also think they still don’t reallyknow what public relations is. Whodoes until you’ve been exposed toit, and some of them have a misun-derstanding of what it is. I think,when I first started here, I thinkthe level of student just wasn’t ashigh as it is now. It just wasn’t.Why is that? I’m not sure. I’m justnot sure but it’s not. I will say Ithink there were more minoritystudents at that time, and I thinkpossibility the cost of going toschool today has whittled that out.I think it’s lamentable. I think weneed to have, being true toColumbia College and what it is,we need to actively recruit minoritystudents and I’d like to see thatdone.

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Cou ld you speak a l i t t l e b i t about

that r el at ionsh ip o f a pub l ic r e l a -

t ions t o the l ar ger schoo l and t he

miss ion o f Co lumbia Col l ege?

I think there is no department, noconcentration that speaks more tothe mission of the college thanpublic relations. If we’re talkingabout the phrase that everybodyuses, the only part of the missionstatement everybody uses, author-ing the culture of our times, who’sgoing to do it? But the public rela-tions professional who is in factdeveloping issues is in fact workingon environmental issues, workingon governmental issues, workingon legislation, working on thethings that in fact author theculture of our times. That’s whatpublic relations is all about espe-cially when you get away from thenarrow focus of the reputation ofmy corporation or the introductionof the Frisbee or that type of thingso that becomes important.

And so as k ind o f the extens ion

o f that idea o r idea l of author ing

the cul tu re of your t imes, I mean

has the co l lege changed o r have

you been ab le , aga in w it h that

r e la t ionsh ip between PR at

Co lumbia and Co lumbia Co l lege ,

has the r e la t ionsh ip changed

at a l l?

I don’t think the relationship haschanged. I think Columbia is astrue to that now as they were then.I think the difference is they’re ableto do that now more than theywere able to do that then with theadvent of new courses and newconcentrations and expandedcurriculum. I think the possibilityexists for us to do it better nowthan then. Just the mere advent ofa public relations program, youknow, allows us to do more of thatwithout even respect to other

departments within the school. SoI think that has, I think thatmission has remained, but I thinkthe wherewithal to accomplish ithas become better.

What—cou ld you t a lk about some

other chal l enges that t he col lege

has faced since you came

that you t hi nk a r e par t i c u l a r l y

i m p o r t a n t ?

I think restructuring is probably,you’ll probably hear that all thetime, but that’s probably becauseit’s so true. You know, beforerestructuring there was one deanand they were, and as the schoolgrew there was still one dean. Andas it continued to grow there wasstill one dean, and I will say thatboth the deans, Lya Rosenblumand Caroline Latta, did Herculeanjobs. You know, I used to have aboss in the PR, my first PR jobwho used to say I can’t be at threeweddings with one fanny, and yetthese deans were expected to do allof that. And so I think restructur-ing gave us the ability to get thingsdone, to break bottlenecks, to dothings that—well the growth of theschool has been enormous as aresult of that so I think restructur-ing has been something extremelyimportant from that standpoint.

You ment i oned Car ol i ne Latta and

you ment ioned Lya Rosenb lum a

coup le o f t imes , two very impor -

tant f emale f igu res at Columbia ,

but Co lumbia ’s al so come under,

over the years , some cr i t ic ism of

we l l emphasiz ing d ive rs i ty and

o p p o r tun i ty t hat i t has been as

s t rong an oppor tun i ty f o r women.

Can you comment on that o r what

is your—

I think that’s, I think it was true. Idon’t think it’s true anymore. Ithink there’s been a big break-through. In fact when MargaretSullivan became chair of our

department, she was a candidatethat I was in complete support of,and I was on the committee. Andboy, I’ll tell you if I ever reachedthe heights of oratory, it was in herbehalf because I thought she coulddo the job and she has. She’s beenphenomenal.

Was ther e r esis tance? D id you

f e e l —

No, I didn’t feel there was resist-ance because she was a woman. Ididn’t feel that. There was justnatural resistance because therewere other candidates that peoplewanted, but I never felt it was that.I don’t know why it happened thatway. I mean maybe you’ve got abetter idea than I as to why ithappened that way. I talk aboutturning the tables on an inter-viewer, but I never felt that was thecase. It just, it happened and I’mdelighted that that changed ‘causeit certainly has.

And when we look back agai n

since you came to Co lumbia,

what other is sues do you th ink

Col umbia has had to face o r

cont i nues to face?

Open enrollment. In fact, one ofthe things that I used to do a lot ofwhen a crisis developed, whensomething happened, I used to geta call from Mike, from Lya, fromJohn Duff, from Dr. Carter, youknow, come and let’s talk about,give me some advice. And Iremember one very specificallywhen I think John Duff was stillthe president, and there was theusual crisis about open enrollment,usual criticism coming to us aboutopen enrollment. And I met withBert Gall at the time, and Bert, andthere were a couple other people inthe room and I can’t remember,

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and they said we’re going to have topromote again, you know, how westand on open enrollment. Anyideas? And I said I have one ideathat ought a shut everybody up.

I said find me a handful of studentswho couldn’t get into any otherschool who have become reallysuccessful. Can you do that? Bertsaid you bet we can, and theyfound a couple of students. I meanone was a young African Americanmale who was I think salesmanager for a major radio stationwho was making about a quarter ofa million dollars a year who said hecouldn’t get in anywhere exceptColumbia. And then there was ayoung woman who also had a bigjob somewhere who couldn’t get inanywhere, and I said get themready, get them ready to testifywherever you want them testify tospeak wherever you do, and findsome more, and that was the kindof thing that I would usually getcalled in on. You know, we got aproblem from a PR standpoint, anyideas, and I wound up doing a lotof that.

Wel l that ant ic ipates my next

quest ion , you know, that I was

goi ng to ask you . Have you ever

worked fo r Co lumbia in your

p ro fessi ona l capac ity, but as a

consu ltant? It sounds l ike you

h a v e .

No. Well I mean I have informallyon issues that I don’t think weought a talk about.

O k a y.

And sure, I mean why would theygo outside, you know, when here Iam, you know, and that, I don’tmean that to sound egomaniacal.But I mean I’ve had all that experi-ence so, you know, sure, I was only

too happy and still am to makewhatever contribution I can in thatcontext.

And any advice l ike I ’m th inki ng

now today a cur rent issue

c e r ta in ly is sta f f o r gan izat ion and

recent ly ( i n a u d i b l e ) we had the

un ion izat ion o f the par t t ime

facu lty here at Co lumbia. When

you ta lk about c r is is manage -

ment, w ithout maybe bei ng

speci f ic , but just your vi ews on

some o f these issues that the

co l lege faces as i t gr o w s .

Well I mean are you talking specifi-cally union questions or any kindof questions?

Or r ela t ionsh ip between sta f f and

admin ist rat ion and w ith look ing

at t he par t - t ime example that

was the i r, u l t imate ly t hat was the

so lut ion t o o r gan iz i ng ( i n a u d i b l e ) .

Right, I’m not sure I’m confidentabout addressing that issue to tellyou the truth. I’d have to thinksome more about that and this isn’ta time to think so.

O k a y, I want to , be fo r e cer t a i n l y

the end o f the i nter v i e w, I wou ld

l ike you to t al k a b i t about the

I l l ino is A r t s Al l iance and your

ro le in that because t hat

c e r ta in ly is , addresses issues

that a r e c lose to t he hear t .

It also addresses my relationshipwith some memorable people herelike Fred Fine and well I had mypublic relations company. I hadalways been involved in arts andculture just as a personal passion.I’m very passionate about theater,about music, about, you know,literature, and that kind of thing,but I had a PR firm that was a realkind of knock them down, dragthem out, you know, issues, politi-cal campaigns. I’ve handled about30 political candidates for senate,for governor, for all that, and there

was a movement afoot to cut thearts council budget during a timeof budget crisis in Illinois. And alot of arts organizations gottogether and said we’ve got to headthis off, and we need somebodywho knows politics and the arts.And somebody suggested me, andthese organizations called me andthere were about a 100 of themmeeting at the cultural center onevery freezing day. And I was at aconvention in Las Vegas, and theycalled me there and said we’regoing to meet, you know, Monday.We’d like you to head the IllinoisArts Alliance, a fledgling organiza-tion we have an idea about form-ing, and I flew back and I saidnobody’s going to be there. Youknow, it was like zero.

I got off the plane. I took a cab tothe cultural center. I walk in theroom. There had to be a 100people representing different artsorganizations. I said oh my God.You know, this floored me and theysaid you know politics, you knowgovernment, you know PR, youknow the arts, we want you to bethe founding president of an organ-ization. It wasn’t even the IllinoisArts Alliance at that time. It wasjust a group of people who gottogether and we did, and westopped them cold. You know, thearts council budget was saved. Itgave us the impetus to begin theIllinois Arts Alliance, and I hadmet Fred Fine earlier through hispartner Frank Freed. They hadTriangle Productions and I metFred one day just prior to theIllinois Arts Alliance because Frankwas a friend of mine. Said bringyour kids to see a show. My kidsloved a group called Sha Na Na,and they were sold out. So I met

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this person who was the mostimprobable looking rock impresa-rio Fred Fine, and he took my chil-dren up to the light booth to watchthe show. That’s where I first metFred and then I met him again inthe Arts Alliance context.

And we became very good friendsto the point where when Fred wasnominated for culture commis-sioner of the City of Chicago andthere was a hue and a cry about hiscommunist background, I organ-ized a rally of all the arts organiza-tions who demanded to be heard attestimony in his behalf. And wehad about 50 organizations testify-ing and one of the great anecdotesthat I remember about that testi-mony here are the aldermen sittingup there hearing testimony from allthe arts organization. We’re talkingabout the importance of havingFred and so on while they werethinking a communist background,you know, bull, and here comesEsse Kupcinet, Irv Kupcinet’s wife,and she testifies on behalf of Fred.And then she starts to sit down andshe thinks better of it. And shegoes up back to the mike and saysand by the way, Irv feels this waytoo. It was a wonderful, wonderfulappendage to her comment. Shewanted those aldermen to knowthat Irv Kupcinet supports him tooand by the way, Irv feels that waytoo. And Fred and I became veryclose friends and collaborators‘cause he was very active in theIllinois Arts Alliance, and I servedas president for several terms, andof course today it’s a huge, power-ful, potent organization with bigbudget doing wonderful things.

And I mean that ’s i nter est ing too

because you ta lked ear l ie r when

you wer e be ing in te r v iewed about

the Mel G ibson mov ie t hat k ind o f

Col umbia t r i age t her e . Do you

th ink that Columbia had a s igni f i -

cant in f l uence impact on

Chi cago, the a r t s ?

Oh absolutely.

And i f you cou ld g ive, you know,

some examples.

Well I think that triage was one ofthem. I think that Columbia withprograms like it has, the (inaudible)program, the editorial cartoons, thesemester in L.A., that we havewhere we’ve developed our ownhere also, we have an opportunityto impact industry. I thinkColumbia with our music center,with the programs that we put out,the photo gallery, I mean all of thatstuff is terribly important to theCity and helps to stamp Columbiaas a leader in the arts communityas well as fulfilling its mission as acollege. I think they’re that perhapsmore than we even realize.Columbia stands out as a contribu-tor to the culture of the City prob-ably. I can’t think of another schoolthat does more.

Do you, a r e we s t i l l the most we l l

kept secret o r do you t hi nk

C o l u m b i a ’s name is—

I think that’s a myth. I really thinkthat’s a myth. I do not think weare. I think that those of us whoare here always want people toknow who we are, and we’re disap-pointed when they don’t. And ifsomebody doesn’t recognize us forwhat we are, I still object to that. Istill get teed off when I hear some-body say oh, aren’t you the, you’rethe theater school or the radioschool or something like that. Wellyou can’t expect everybody to knowthat. Do I want us to be knownbetter? Yes. Do I want us to be

known more widely out ofChicago? Yes. Would I like us to beknown internationally? Yes. Do Iwant us identified as the bestcommunications art school in thecountry? Yes. I think it’s been amyth that nobody knows who weare. I mean we’ve got almost10,000 students there. Somebodyknows we’re doing something right.

What do you th ink is the b iggest

cha l lenge fo r Col umbia in the

f u t u r e ?

Managed growth. I think there’s alimit by capital equipment, by realestate, by our ability to absorbstudents. I think that’s going tobecome a problem. Can we takecare of 20,000 students? Wecertainly can’t do it now. What’sour plan? How are we going tomanage that growth? We havespace problems. We have real estateproblems. I mean not problems,but challenges certainly if we’regoing to and I think we’re up tomeeting those challenges. Youknow, we’re still buying buildingsnext door to the Wabash buildingin order to accommodate that, toaccommodate our students whowant to come from out of state.And I find particularly in ourdepartment and probably true ofall over the school, we findstudents who are arriving fromeverywhere and I think that’s fasci-nating. I think it’s because of a lotof reasons. We have teachers whodo what they teach. They’ve heardabout us. You know, they like theatmosphere here. We have a greatreputation for being interactivelycreative with students. They likethe small classes. They like thehands-on, a lot of reasons so some-body knows that and they keepcoming, but I would say probablymanaged growth is probably thebiggest problem from where I sit.

A n O r a l H i s t o r y O f C o l u m b i a C o l l e g e C h i c a g o

And what do you th ink a re some

of the most posi t ive changes t hat

have taken p lace at t he col lege?

Well I said I think restructuringhas, I think separating us intoschools as part of that restructuringis a very positive change. I think itcreates some affinities that allow usto do certain things with otherdepartments within our variousschools that I think all goes well forour future. The idea of combiningcourses, having duel courses, usinginstructors from other parts of ourprogram, I think that’s become veryhelpful in the context of restructur-ing. And I simply think we’ve,we’re becoming big league, and Ithink as a result of all of that thosethings that we have talked abouthas taken this—I don’t know whatthe enrollment here when I startedwas. I got to believe it was probably4,000, something like that, and as Isaid we’re bursting at the seamsnow. And I think a wide varietywho’s—I also think the quality ofour instructors is really good.

You know, I’ve met so many peoplehere from other departmentsduring that long period that I’vebeen here and I’m just impressed.I’m impressed and also because theclasses are small, the teachers canbe dedicated. You know, I thinkteachers, college teachers, collegeprofessors by large are dedicated.Why would they go into it other-wise? I think that dedication isknocked out of them by having400 students in a class or having tosee 800 students in your program. Ithink the fact that we are smallallows the dedicated teacher to staydedicated.

You ment ioned F r ed F ine and

w e ’ re kind o f w ind ing down, but

a re t her e any other peopl e that

come to mind when you t hink

about Col umbia , when you t h ink

about your tenur e here ?

Well I mentioned Mike. Imentioned Lya. I mentioned Fred,people who are no longer here.Interestingly enough I think therewas also one guy, Bob Thall’s pred-ecessor, John Mulvany, was a verycreative guy. I used to fight withhim like cats and dogs. He had aphilosophy, not a philosophy. Hewas an original thinker, and I usedto argue with him about a lot ofthings but I never lost my respectfor him. He would tell you it’snight outside, and he would giveyou nine reasons for it when yousaw the sun shining. And so thatcould be infuriating, but you hadto deal with him at that level. Youhad to deal with him at an intellec-tual level, and I found him veryengaging in that way. Who elsethat’s no longer here?

Yeah, Daryll Feldmeir, who headedthe journalism department. Darylwas I believe the managing editoror the editor of the Chicago DailyNews, and he came here to headthe journalism department and hewas just terrific. He was smart, hewas compassionate, he had beenthe editor of a major daily newspa-per, and when he came here tohead the journalism program, hebrought all that knowledge andwisdom with him and an ethic.And he was beloved by the peopleof the Daily News, and he had anall too short career here. Youknow, he was here for a time, but Idon’t know how long he was hereactually.

Can you repeat h is name?

Daryll, D-a-r-y-l-l, Feldmeir Ibelieve was his last name. I thinkI’m pronouncing it correctly. Ididn’t know him extremely wellbecause he was in the journalismdepartment. I knew him wellenough to have that kind of regardfor him. I knew John Turini verywell. John had been—I knew Johnwhen he was in the advertisingbusiness. He was MargaretSullivan’s predecessor as chair of thedepartment, and John had a Ph.D.in, from the University of Chicagoin market research and had had avery successful career in the adver-tising business. He was a memo-rable character.

Nat Lehrman, who also becamehead of the journalism program, Iknew at Playboy when he was atPlayboy, as I knew John Turenywhen we were out in the fieldworking together all of—nottogether, but I knew them all. Wehad a collegial relationship when Iwas in the PR business. Nat was atPlayboy, John was at Edward H.Weiss and then Lee King andPartners Advertising, and interest-ingly enough we all came here, andwe continued a semblance of therelationship that we had had in thereal world. Real world, I findmyself using—I never used to usereal world till I got to ColumbiaCollege because that’s whatstudents talk about. What’s it likein the real world? So it’s becomepart of my vocabulary.

How do you stay f r esh o r ab r e a s t

of what’ s go ing on in the r e a l

wor ld as you know—

I still do consulting and thankgoodness Columbia has a policythat encourages that because Ithink if you were asked to simply

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do your teaching and your admin-istering and your counseling, Idon’t think I could keep up withthat. I read all the journals. Ibelong to the trade associations. Iencourage all the instructors in myprogram to do the same, and I do aconsiderable amount of consulting.I pick and choose. I don’t want tobe tied up in a project that’s goingto impinge on school, but fortu-nately at this stage of the gamewhen I’m no longer a wunderkindbut a gray eminence, I’m picked formy brains and my strategy and Ican do that. I don’t have to spendhours over a computer or that typeof thing so I’m able to do that, andI find that I’m doing that a lot witha lot of different people, you know,public officials, organizations,issues management, you know, thatkind of stuff where a good idea is.

I tell my students, come up with agood idea. There’s a business thatpays a premium for a good idea.You know, I used to I look on thecasino issue interestingly because Iused to represent the Village ofRosemont years—in fact, I namedthe Rosemont Horizon theHorizon. And, yeah, and I said,you know, tell my students a goodidea is worth its weight in gold.You can make a career out of beingan idea generator, and when Irepresented the Horizon and I toldthem you got to be prepared forthis too and this is why you have totake presentation skill training, Icame up with the idea, brought thedesign to the board of trustees, andthey hated it. They hated it. Oneof them was a, the local barber, oneof them was a real estate person,and they weren’t the most sophisti-cated people in the world. Good

people, but it’s a small town. Andthen the mayor walked in, DonStevens, who was the mayor then ashe is now, and he said the Horizon,I love it. And I felt like a guy whowas going down for the third time,you know, and I had these flipcharts and drawings and I still kidhim. I said if you didn’t walk intothat meeting that day, no matterhow persuasive I was being, thisplace would not have been thehorizon. Well now it’s not.

I’m a little upset about it because Iused to take my kids and mygrandchildren by and say I namedthis place. Well now the UnitedCenter or not the United Center,All State gave them a ton of moneyto change the name so it’s nolonger. But I was a big man withmy family because I had 20 ticketsto everything they did there, and,you know, but part of the experi-ence of my instructors in theprogram and myself is you canbring into the classroom so manyillustrations that make the pointthat you’re trying to make ratherthan memorizing something from atextbook. You know, if I talk aboutcrisis communications and thethings you have to be prepared for,I can talk about it in the context ofa crisis. When the RosemontHorizon was being built and beamsfell and killed workmen and therumor went around that the placewould never be safe because the jetsflying overhead would make itunsafe, what do you do? And Iasked them what would you doand that engages them in an entirediscussion about how we handlecrisis communications and what wedo. So I think all of the instructorsin the program are able to do that,which makes the program so realrather than textbook driven. It’sreality driven.

You know, when Robin Mattel whohad handled PR for airlines talksabout crisis, he knows what he’stalking about. Airlines are going tocrash. They just don’t know when,where, and why, and he talks aboutthat and talks about crashes thathe’s handled. And Dorothy Browntalks about presentation skills andthe need for that. She talks abouthow she did that for the AmericanMedical Association and used totry to talk to doctors about how totalk to patients in English ratherthan in medical speak so, youknow, I think that’s the value ofwhat we do in the program as wehave it.

And I want to add one gratuitousthing, if I may. You asked, youknow, what are some of the thingsthat I’m proud of. I’m proud of thestudents that are out there workingin the field now, but we also havean organization, the public rela-tions students society of America,and they won first prize nationallyfrom around 200 colleges anduniversities in a public relationsprogram for organ donor aware-ness. And they went to the meetingof the public relations society ofAmerica, brought back 1500 bucksand a trophy, and one of the judgestold me that the creativeness of theprogram, they beat 200 collegesand universities that they weretrying to decide between the lasttwo finalists. And they gave it toColumbia College because thestudents took their presentation,wrapped it in dry ice, put it in anorgan donor cooler, and mailed itto the judges, and that’s, thattipped the scales. One of thepeople said have you ever had amore creative presentation? Organdonor awareness program sent to

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us in an organ donor cooler, and Istill am proud of that. You know,that was just a couple years agothat they did it, and by the way,the guy who was president, theyoung man who was president ofthe club, is now working for NBCPR in Los Angeles, and I really feelold today ‘cause I got a call thismorning from a mother whosedaughter was in one of my classesand she wanted to tell me she wasin my first class here at ColumbiaCollege. A mother and daughter,yeah, how about that?

R e a l l y. That’ s g rat i fy ing.

Yeah, very much so she sent herdaughter here. Sure, so that feelsgood.

Wel l we’r e at the end , but I do

want t o ask you one more ques-

t i on o r two. Have you ever been

tempted to leave and why do you

s tay at Col umbia? What keeps

you here ?

No, I’ve never been tempted toleave. I think what keeps me here isthe fact that this is a school thatgives you a wide birth, and I thinkif I were told to teach a course thisway or if I had any kind of stric-tures like that I’d be gone in aheartbeat because as I said, youknow, I cashed in my chips from acompany that bought me, and Iwas living on a beach. Well obvi-ously I wasn’t going to spend mylife as a beach bum, but I wouldn’thave to spend it at Columbia orany other place if I didn’t have thekind of latitude to do the kinds ofthings. I’ve installed courses like,you know, no other school has. Youknow, the dean said okay, youknow, okay, doesn’t sound particu-larly academic to me, but if you sayit’s important to, you know, career,fine.

I’ve been given that and given thatencouragement to continue tocounsel and do those kinds ofthings. And the people that I havemet here, it’s a very collegial atmos-phere. I taught at Northwestern. Itaught at the Medill School while Iwas, still had my PR program. Itaught graduate students writing,PR writing in the journalismschool at Medill, and I also did alot of guest lectures at theUniversity of Chicago and atLoyola and was invited to, youknow, become adjuncts there. Ijust—Columbia is right for me as Ithink it’s right for a lot of peoplewho feel as I do about it.

Wel l I want to t hank you ve r y

much for your t ime.

You’re welcome. Who doesn’t liketalking about themselves?