'A Most Rare Vision' - A Conversation with Chancellor Brewer
Phillip Arrington's interview with Dr. Thomas Brewer appeared in the ECU Report in 1979 a year after he became chancellor at ECU. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: Arrington, Phillip. "A Conversation with Chancellor Brewer," ECU Report, Vol. XI, No. 1, Spring 1979.
Changing chancellors of universities resembles changing presidents of nations. A new face appears, bringing with it -- what? A country's populace is anxious, wincing at change yet longing for it; a university shudders, as if its hard shell of custom and constancy had been pierced by some alien form.A country's citizens wring their hands, trying to smile at the unknown. At the university, professors ponder, students hope, administrators prepare.
Yet a year has passed since Dr. Thomas Brewer assumed leadership as the new chancellor of East Carolina University. Like many, I knew little about him. Except for the press, the predictable rumours, a faculty speech or two, his vita, he was a stranger. When I arrived at his nearly redecorated office early that April morning, he was there to shake my hand with a quiet welcome.
The office was beige, bright, even with the windows curtained. Turpentine told of new paint; vinyl vapors, of new furniture. Beyond his desk, ordered and clear, above his chair and to his back, black frames bordered large prints of several Bill Mauldin cartoons. He took his chair across from me, remarking on the photographs to be taken, a bit uncomfortable, like most of us, in front of the camera's eye.I switched on the recorder and we began: I, to explore the vision of the man who would guide one of North Carolina's leading universities for -- how long? and where? he, to disclose his hopes, his fears -- all that goes in to a position of power and authority, all the while aware of the all too human condition.
"The burden of government," Dr. Johnson once lamented, "is increased upon princes by the virtues of their immediate predecessors." I wondered if this were true for all positions of power; I wondered if Dr. Brewer felt that "burden," following the soon-to-be legendary Dr. Leo Jenkins. No, princes and chancellors, he reminded me, are different. "Maybe princes have burdens because they don't have any choice about it. As my old dean once told me, 'I did not fill out your degree card.' I am not here because I inherited a position by blood; I am here by choice. If anyone ever complained about the burdens under these circumstances, they have no one to blame but themselves."
Still, the shadow of the Jenkins administration hovers, but Dr. Brewer gratefully accepts that fact. "There is no doubt that Leo Jenkins did a tremendous job for ECU in the 18 years he was chancellor. He took the university from a teacher's college to a rather large, diversified university, with a medical school. In doing this, great battles had to be fought, and Dr. Jenkins fought them successfully and deserves all the great admiration shown to him by the people of eastern North Carolina. "Rather than compete with achievements of the past, he accepts them as gifts; the ghosts of the past can only threaten those that would deny them. Dr. Brewer puts on Dr. Jenkins' mantle, cut from the same cloth: "We are after quality, we are after excellence. Everybody supports this."
Yet that sense of quality must be different. Dr. Brewer, after all, has lived elsewhere, taught elsewhere, been shaped by different experiences than what he will find in eastern North Carolina. After living in Iowa and Texas -- with different climates, cultures -- what, beyond the obvious career objectives, brought Dr. Brewer to East Carolina University? "The excellence of the university," he answered. "The North Carolina system of education is well known throughout the United States. The reputation of ECU is far better known outside the state than in the state itself." "Besides," he explained, "we found nice people everywhere. The people of North Carolina are genuine; they are not pretentious, they are very open, a very fine people. In terms of culture, we have had so many leveling influences -- television today, movies before -- that there's no difference in disco in Greenville from disco in New York City.A banker in Greenville would be comfortable talking to a banker in Chicago or San Francisco or anywhere else. There are some regional differences, but overall, the American shows great homogeneity."
Like the homogeneous American, the Chancellor expresses concern over the quality of higher education -- both as an educator (Dr. Brewer continues to teach courses in economic history) and as a parent (he and his wife, Betty, have two children, Diane 22, and Tom, Jr., 16). In his first faculty speech, the Chancellor spoke of an "erosion of confidence" in education. Yet this, he would agree, is part of "an erosion of confidence in all institutions in our society." Statistics would disclose, though with no oracular certainty, that people have confidence only in the garbage collector.Education's confidence rating is "higher than all the others -- around 40%, whereas government and business is around 20%"; yet, even without statistical scaffolding, "all you have to do is listen to people talk about confidence in our various institutions. Everything has eroded; higher education has eroded along with it."
Moreover, education cannot cast any stones. "After Sputnik, the entire nation went on a big 'higher education rage', particularly in the areas of science and technology." This enthusiasm spread, exacerbated by "tremendous financial support coming from the legislatures, as well as private sources." "Higher education contributed to this by making many statements," many promises.The same casual chain unwound in the 1920's, with the business community in the role higher education found itself in in the 60's. "Then, business persuaded the American public that it should be given the stewardship of the nation. There was Calvin Coolidge's famous statement that the 'business of government is business.' A tremendous public relations campaign to sell this idea followed. Then came 1929. No one class of citizens ever came crashing down as hard as did the American Businessman. I don't think he's ever recovered from that."
The rise and fall of the American's faith in higher education follows a similar line of development. Education began to be interrogated, and interrogating."With Vietnam and its effects, the disturbances that took place on the campuses, many Americans took a different view of our universities. 'What kind of kids,' they asked of us and themselves, 'are the universities turning out? We have all this violence and wanton destruction . . . '"Yet this was not all.The economy began to change as well."In the 60's even History and English majors had their choice of four or five jobs. Yet, despite the demographic differential, graduates found that a college degree was no longer a guarantee of a job."
The danger in the public's lapse of faith, for Dr. Brewer, is that the truer purposes of education will be forgotten. "I firmly believe that education is not just a way to improve the economic quality of life. Education is absolutely essential for the survival of civilization. The only thing that keeps us from barbarism is civilization; education is the greatest mainstay of civilization. Without it, civilization will sink."
Nevertheless, a link between education and Mammon does exist. It is not merely a rhetorical flourish, "regardless of what people say." "There are," Dr. Brewer reminds the more utilitarian, "fewer unemployed college graduates in the country than non-college graduates -- about 1 1/2 to 2% of the total 7% of unemployment. If you look at earnings, a college degree is beneficial.All of this, of course, adds to the real value of education -- humanization. Even if there were no economic benefits directly, college is still worth it simply for the humanizing experience that is there."
If, with his emphasis on the human factor, Dr. Brewer appears to be a "humanist" in his educational philosophy, he is not a "humanist" cut off from the more practical ends of education. "It is," he insists, "perfectly legitimate to prepare a person for both goals -- not just legitimate but essential that the university prepare the young for a full life, to be a person. I would violently oppose allowing someone to take 120 hours of real estate and call it a 'university degree'. We must be constantly vigilant against those advocates of professional and career education who would want to consume too great a part of the curriculum. We do have certain goals in mind, certain things that we believe constitute a university education."
Those "certain goals" have, in the past and presently, been realizable through general education requirements. I asked Dr. Brewer if his remarks implied any kind of rebalancing or restructuring of the general education requirements: to put more emphasis on the humanities. Admitting the controversial nature of the question, he approached it, once again, from the vantage point of historical perspective. "The pendulum," he began, "swings all the time. In the '60's, in the throes of Vietnam, educators suddenly decided that we could not define a 'general education' anyway; so we should do away with it.Some schools capitulated, many did not. Now we see a movement back to general education requirements. The central question is, how much general education? And in what? This is a real difficult question for faculties to attack. The first thing you have to ask is, what are we trying to do with general education? What do we want the student to come away with? With knowledge expanding and living becoming increasingly complex, how do we justify this course over that one? I'm a maverick on these issues. If the subject is economics or history, does it have to be a particular economics or a particular history? If the humanizing experience requires students to know western cultures, then there is an objective to be realized. If, however, the objective is understanding the discipline of history, how history functions in our society, the effect it has on our lives, how historians go about doing their work, why not Asian Civilization? At East Carolina University we are entering a planning process and, in the next 18 months to two years, I fully expect that the 'general education question' will get a full blown airing campus-wide."
Another recent controversy in education -- North Carolina's high school competency test -- has been receiving its own "airing" and Dr. Brewer, who admits that, next to eating, impatience is his greatest personal flaw, excited some of North Carolina's press with his comment that the state's test "is an insult to us all."Press reaction was prompt and predictably divided about what his statement meant."that was a statement made in a speech in Edenton," he smiled. "Sometimes you have to slip in a little shock treatment to get the audience's attention, but I was saying that our goal in public education is to obtain a 12th grade education for a 12th grade diploma. I know the Governor agrees with this. I don't think that there is anyone who could help but agree, but that is our goal. I'm realistic enough to know that we're not going to get there this year; it may take 50 years.No state is there yet, but we must never lose sight of our goal."
The "goal", the ideal, is an ever-present shibboleth in Dr. Brewer's language; it is the part of his vision that perpetuates the vision itself. Although he finds less time to feed his hopes and aspirations with the proper nutriments (he, with no offense to them, seldom reads the work of poets, though he does read some philosophy.Kierkegaard for example), a passage from a speech to the Friends of the Library intimates the contours of his own view of what constitutes greatness and excellence.He observed in that speech that "a society produces greatness only in terms of its understanding and appreciation of greatness." Because so many modern sages drone on about the impossibility of greatness in the 20th century, I asked Dr. Brewer what individuals in recent history mirrored our understanding of "greatness.""In the last 40 to 50 years" he recalled, "it has become more difficult to single out a particular group that society designates for greatness. "Unlike the 20th century, the late 19th century's sense of John D. Rockefellers, the Andrew Carnegies. "People mention early 19th century politicians, but one of the problems was that people weren't recognized asquickly then as they are today. With our mass media, a much more encompassing definition of greatness emerges. Still, the definition will be based on success.But that isn't everything.The public is sensitive to a person's attitude, whether that person is a 'good' person or not. People of all political persuasions would, for example, classify Hubert Humphrey as a 'great' person. He was never President, yet what he symbolized would elicit this response.There are others, however, that are given awards, honored by society only to have the public change its mind -- not necessarily by or because of historians.Some may disagree, but Eisenhowerillustrates this type of greatness. Though he had no 'great' qualifications to be President, Eisenhower was rewarded on the basis of what he did in the second World War.Truman is another case.Americans who disliked Truman intensely during his presidency now have a greater appreciation of him. Living in a society that has lost much of its confidence in institutions, we value him now for his principles. He was honest. Since our society has grown cynical, people seen as having candor will be elevated to some level of 'greatness'."
Dr. Brewer's enthusiasm for the "greatness" of the recent past has influenced his own personal standards and the standards of those around him.His well-known and active support and encouragement of research and publication at East Carolina University are reflected in his own accomplishments as an editor of several books and as co-author of A History of the Missouri-Pacific Railroad Company , in progress. I was curious about the relationship between being a "great" teacher and the disciplines of scholarly research and publication."I don't like to talk about publication and research," he explained, "you have to talk about creative activity, or the equivalents of scholarship. Many disciplines would find research and publication inappropriate ways to demonstrate creative activity, in the School of Art, for example, or Music.A university has several missions: teaching, creative activity, service. East Carolina wants to do all of these things because we are a university and advancement of knowledge is the fundamental mission of a university. Besides teaching our young people, this is what society expects from us. Teaching will always be fundamental to the success of this institution, yet the truly great teacher cannot be a great teacher if that person does not desire to advance knowledge and the discipline.We are not talking about what in higher education is known as 'publish-or-perish.' In a 'publish-or-perish' institute, research is the fundamental mission of the university; teaching is secondary. This is not what we are saying for East Carolina. We are after great teaching, but creative activity is necessary to make that teaching better."
Of course, creative activities need funds. In his faculty speech, Dr. Brewer emphasized that excellence depended on private sources of income as well as public monies.Yet how can the university, how can the chancellor stimulate the university's friends and alumni to continue and increase that support? "The real way you generate support from private sources is if they have the impression that what you are doing is good." "It is difficult," the Chancellor added wryly, "to attract money to something that is not good. This is a good university. We have to make sure our friends know this and appreciate it. One thing we must be vigilant on is communication: to make sure that people understand what goes on at East Carolina University. Universities have only two ways to go: a university can get better or it can get worse. None of us has any intention of ECU being worse ten years from now. Our friends need to understand this and be willing to support us. How do we get them to understand? Through publications, through organized alumni chapters. The big thing that we have done this year is to re-organize on the vice-chancellor level; next year we will have a vice-chancellor for institutional advancement and planning. The major role of this office will be to generate support from alumni, friends, foundations, corporations, all the sources which support universities." These funds will, hopefully, give East Carolina that "margin of excellence" enjoyed by great universities.
Despite the fact that Dr. Brewer's tennis backhand has failed to reach his standard of excellence ("I haven't played tennis for over a year"), he enthusiastically supports athletic excellence as a complement to the academic excellence he envisions. "We had a great year in athletics," he exclaims. "We were able to solve our Title IX problems and we're on the road to having a good women's athletic program in addition to our men's program. Our biggest problem is the budget; our other problem is the formation of some kind of conference. We do not believe that ECU can remain independent or should remain independent. It would be a new conference, made up of ingredients.But the Trustee Athletic Committee and the University Athletic Committee are just starting to seriously discuss this."
With this, Dr. Brewer reminded me that I had forgotten to ask him one question:Having been chancellor for almost a year now, how have things gone? Smiling as I parroted his question, he confessed, "I am very satisfied. We have had great support from the trustees, faculty, staff, and students. "He spoke of everyone's "positive attitude," of Bill Friday's outstanding leadership: "North Carolina is privileged to have such a man heading the system." He admits to having been made "even more aware of the unique relationship between the people of eastern North Carolina and the university," even as he hopes to do more "to improve on it in the future." He is confident that "re-organization of the vice-chancellors is going to provide an administrative structure which will allow us to answer the questions and meet the challenges of the next decade."A "Skills Development Task Force," he notes, has been formed to "maximize the educational potential of the campus," along with a "Computer Task Force" which has ready a report projecting the university's direction for the next ten years. Moreover, Dr. Brewer expects the Planning Commission over the next two years will give an "idea of where we would like to be in 1990."Lastly, he recalls that much of his time has been spent "meeting and getting to know people." Having made over 160 appearances, he admits they were "very beneficial for me." "It has been a fine year."
We rose, shook hands amidst departing pleasantries, and went outside, into the cloudy, humid April morning, to shoot a few more photographs.All the while, the new chancellor joked about the camera, the way he walked to work, seemed possessed of the glitter of high spirits. Here was East Carolina University's new Chancellor, briefcase in hand, a man who began dating his wife, Betty when they were but early in their high school careers (he in the 10th grade, she in the 9th) and marrying in their teens. (They are to celebrate their 28th anniversary this summer.) Here was a chancellor who considers John Belushi and David Steinberg (not Bob Hope or Henny Youngman), his favorite comedians; who believes Angie Dickinson is the most beautiful woman in the world, aside from his wife; who wonders when people will cease to think of him as "the new chancellor" so that he may become more relaxed in his role.
As I left him, I was more certain about a number of things. Before, I had wondered: Would he laugh? Would he respond openly to my questions? Would I be able to expose some part of the man's vision for East Carolina? Of course, he did laugh -- often; he did respond -- with intelligence reined by perspective. As for vision, Dr. Brewer's philosophy of education, his hopes for East Carolina University, his anxieties over the general state of western civilization -- they are not unique to him. Plato had fretted over the collapse of Greece only to espouse utopian dreams for an ideal educational system. Francis Bacon had done the same in the 17th century; so, centuries later, had Matthew Arnold. All of these men, like Dr. Brewer, thought that excellence was a hard ghost to ignore -- this shadowy idea of "excellence." If Dr. Brewer's ideals represent a surrender to the seers of the past, it is a surrender that assures East Carolina University future victories. His desire for quality incites hope and inspires those ready to translate his vision into palpable examples. Nothing more can or should be expected of him.
