Inside the Studio with Dr. George Kuh - Hosted by Dr. Mike Coomes

Moderator – Dr.Mike Coomes, Bowling Green State University

Panelists – Dr. George Kuh, Indiana Bloomington

“Based on the popular television series “Inside the Actors Studio”, this session will explore the life and ideas of Dr. George Kuh. Kuh is Director of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) and Indian University Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus.  A prolific author of more than 250 publications including such major works as Involving Colleges: Successful Approaches to Fostering Student Learning and Personal Development Outside the Classroom and Student Success in College: creating Conditions That Matter.  Dr. Ku is an expert on student engagement. In addition, his ideas have greatly influenced our understanding of the student affairs profession. He will reflect on his childhood, his life as an undergraduate and graduate student, and his roles as teachers and scholars. In keeping with the theme of the Convention, special attention will be given to exploring how colleges can foster student success” (ACPA Convention Program Description).

The interview with Dr. George Kuh began with Dr. Mike Coomes showing the audience a picture of Kuh in Chicago, Illinois, growing up as a kid.  Kuh shared with the audience that his father was pushing him in a stroller at 2 years old.  Kuh’s father was a truck driver, and left formal schooling at an early age during elementary school.  “He was a very street smart guy – Rudolph G was his name – Rudy Kuh” (Kuh, 2012). Kuh also had a brother – Warren R (for Rudolph), who was 5 years younger and had been retired for 3 years.  Coomes turned to Kuh and said, “as the older brother – were you nice to him growing up? “I think he’d say I was… would get him into trouble at the dinner table” (Kuh, 2012). At this point, Coomes asked Kuh what brought him from Chicago to Luther College.  Kuh shared that he had very few role models. “I was going to be a teacher and a coach, I was enrolled in Northern Illinois University – many of my peers were there – in May of my senior year – Dick Weiner – got in his pickup and got into Decorah, Iowa and it was just gorgeous. I was the president of the Luther league in my church. When it was announced I was going to Luther – there was shuddering. I flat out fell in love with the place” (Kuh, 2012). At this point, Kuh shared with the audience that he played basketball at Luther College. A picture was put up of Kuh as part of the 1968 Luther College Pioneer Yearbook.  As part of his high school biography, Coomes noticed that the word “Chips” was mentioned as being important to Kuh.  “What is Chips? (Coomes, 2012).  “Chips is the Luther newspaper. I wrote a column called the Headless Norsemen (Norse is the mascot). For reasons unbeknown to me – you wrote anonymously – you could write slanderously – I did! If we talk about high impact practices later this is relevant.  I spent more time and effort and was more engaged in the Valentine’s day article than any other project at Luther.  I was doing the research for this - they actually went to libraries - and I had this wonderful spinning yarn and the editor cut it by 1/3 to make it fit – I said ‘I’m done – you can’t take this art…(trails off)” (Kuh, 2012).

Dr.George Kuh (Left) & Dr. Mike Coomes (Right) at the ACPA Convention - Louisville, Kentucky

At this point Kuh shared with the audience that he was at Luther College around the time of Vietnam. “There were some people on campus who were very aware of Vietnam – it was not the hot button issue that it later became – I remember more about the advancements the college made about trying to create racial diversity [than Vietnam]. Luther was a bubble – we didn’t use the term there” (Kuh, 2012).

Coomes proceeded to take the discussion back towards Kuh and his career direction at the time.  “I was going to teach and coach – in fact the first interview at Ripon Wisconsin – five minutes into the interview they handed me a contract! There was discussion about hiring me as an admissions rep – college car and $6000.00 salary” (Kuh, 2012).

 Coomes - “You got married shortly after college and you moved to Chicago…”

 “That was my admissions territory – visit with the schools, cut down on travel – on the weekends you were supposed to drive some high school seniors and drive them to see the campus. One Friday afternoon I picked up five African American guys and we drove to Decorah and they began to wake up and the sky was lit brilliantly with the stars – I heard them talking about the constellations – which is not something you see in the centre of Chicago” (Kuh, 2012). Kuh commuted and did his Masters at St. Cloud State University. “I had never intended to go beyond a Bachelorette degree – after I got involved in the masters, found out I could do this stuff, got tired of selling – got the proverbial bee in the bonnet. There was a visiting faculty member at St. Cloud who put the idea in my head - the topic - Counselling the Transfer: Does it make a difference” (Kuh, 2012).  Kuh suggested that this was published 40 years ago in the Journal of National College Admissions Council and was his first publication (if you didn’t count his Norseman articles).

At this point, Coomes questioned Kuh about the shift from Iowa to Indiana University. “I applied for some faculty jobs and got into Indiana. Seemed like it would be better for everybody to go somewhere different. I did not know how strong the student affairs program was at Indiana” (Kuh, 2012).  There is where Kuh met two prominent people in his life, Betty Greenleaf and Bob Shaffer.  Kuh suggested that they were “giants in the field”, and made him feel comfortable from day one. Kuh remembered that Greenleaf had a slogan in her office - “get it done, get it done right, Have some fun getting it done” (Kuh, 2012). 

At this point, Coomes reminded Kuh that the majority of the audience were new professionals, and likely did not know much about Greenleaf and Shaffer.  Kuh enlightened the audience. “Both Betty and Bob - their homes were like sieves – they would have big events several times a year – Bob a very giving spirit – he exuded this in my presence – bob in the 60s he was the dean of students in Indiana University.  There are stories about Bob and pictures of him eating an ice cream cones with people. The faculty had such respect for him dealing with those issues (issues not mentioned). They voted him to be the President of the Faculty Council – it is a high honour, and typically held for faculty members! I remember one of his retirement parties – I gave the toast, if I could pick one person that I wish my son to emulate, it would be Bob Shaffer” (Kuh, 2012).  At this point, Kuh spoke more about his immediate family, citing times at Willy Nelson concerts, skiing, rafting, an Alaskan trip, and holding a baby alligator in Darwin Australia.

At this point, Kuh was asked to share more about the works that he was known for.  In regard to Cultural Perspectives in Student Affairs, Kuh mentioned that the work came out of a seminar.  He suggested that at the time the group felt that there was not a lot of stuff to read that was directly applicable to student affairs. They decided to change that by creating this piece. Kuh then discussed Student Affairs 2001 – Paradigmatic Odyssey. “it was in my coming of age world when we were exploring alternative perspectives – that cover is the old cover – if you get close enough you can see Dorothy, Tin man, Scare crow…when it was printed, ACPA got cold feet and thought MGM would sue us” (Huh, 2012)!

Kuh shared that Involving Colleges was about connecting people outside of the classroom, and that he personally felt that this was “his story”. Student Success in College had a much broader focus, and had “more information and more ideas about intentional interventions to engage and involve students” (Kuh, 2012). 

Kuh was then asked by Coomes to explain what a High Impact Practice was. “We were goofing one day in the NSSE shop – carving things up different ways – there is a scale in NSSE called ‘Enriching Educational Practices’ – List of activities like research abroad, etc. Anyways, we thought it would be useful to take a look at what difference participating in those things made – low and behold it makes a huge positive difference. If you’ve done a Learning Community in the first year – you are much more likely to report higher levels of faculty interaction in the later years - and then as we began to talk about things – they were finding what different data says and found similar things – with our colleagues – we began to talk about this – and they said participating in these things have compensatory effects –make up for a shortfall in one area and there you go! Students who come in with lower precollege achievement measures actually get a bump in their performance if they participate. If you haven’t done one (High Impact Practice) at Northridge 38% of them finish in 6 years – if you’ve done one - 50%, if you’ve done two – 2/3rds! We’ve written about it and talked about it – so I’m writing the headless Norsemen column –high impact practices” (Kuh, 2012).

The interview ended with Coomes asking Kuh a variation of the standard 10 closing interview questions developed by Bernard Pivot.

Coomes – “what’s your favourite word?” Kuh – “propinquity.”

Coomes – “what’s your least favourite word?” Kuh – “gnome.”

Coomes – “Who makes you smile?” Kuh – “My son especially – my brother – when we’re all together it’s...”

Coomes – “What makes you proud?” Kuh – time passes. “Pass.”

Coomes – “what sound do you love?” Kuh – “The trickling stream.”

Coomes – “what sound do you dislike?” Kuh – “I don’t like static on the line – that doesn’t sound right.”

Coomes – “what’s your favourite curse word?” Kuh – “I have so many favourites!”

Coomes – “What profession, other than your own, would you liked to have done?” Kuh – “I would have loved to write well thought of popular fiction – I don’t think I would have been a very good basketball coach but a possibility perhaps? I would have been an awful minister which is what my parents thought when I chose Luther – I would have been good for the pulpit.”

Coomes – “What profession would you not have wanted to do?” Kuh – “Surgeon.”

Coomes – “If you could have dinner with 3 people…” Kuh – “JFK, Obama – just to tell him keep the faith, George Bush would be interesting – when they get out of that maelstrom of having to defend, I think it will be interesting to see the two of them doing things for the good together.”