Professor Ise Is Still Active at 80
Remembers when 'North College' Hall Had Coal Stoves For Heat:
When the Sun Set Over Rail Fences Behind Snow Hall
By Judy McGhee
Ten years ago a KU economics professor retired after becoming one of the most prominent and most often-quoted faculty member on campus. By the end of his teaching career the enrollment in his lecture classes had risen from 50 to 300 and he had written numerous economics texts.
Today, at 80, John Ise is unknown to many KU students. He spends much of his time studying the history of the American West in his home library on Mississippi Street near the campus. Although he has only been out of his house twice in the past 16 months, he enjoys having visitors and is eager to talk.
"I'm always real careful and take my time," he added. "Besides, I don't get around much now."
"PEOPLE ASK ME why I live in a house that has all these steps leading up from the sidewalk," he said. "I figure I've been climbing them all this time and I don't see why I should quit now."
As he sits behind his huge walnut desk smoking his pipe and wearing a green visor to protect his eyes, he can entertain a listener indefinitely with stories about his past, the campus, or even the library which he panelled himself.
PART OF HIS interest in the American West stems from the fact that he is one of twelve children of a pioneer family who built a sod house in Downs, Kansas, shortly after the Civil War.
His book Sod and Stubble is based upon childhood experiences and is now a collector's item which has sold for $65. He also wrote "Letters of a Kansas Homesteader," and "Our National Park Policy."
Conservation and wildlife are two of his other interests. In 1958 he donated $35,000 to the Lawrence Humane Society so that an animal shelter might be built as a memorial to his son who was killed in a plane crash in 1955.
IN "SOD AND STUBBLE" Ise
tells how he was stricken with infantile paralysis and how his colle pulled him to school in a wagon every day. The dog wore a specially made harness and would wait outside the school to take his little master home.
"Although both legs and one arm were paralyzed at first, I gradually recovered the use of my arm and one leg," he said, lighting his pipe.
"I'd give anything if I could re-live those days when the collie was alive," he said.
"I'll like to jjust treat him royally," he added. "As a child I never really appreciated all he did for me."
AS HE FINISHED speaking he unconsciously readjusted his visor which had hidden a large shock of white hair. His glasses shined in the dim light of the massive lamp on his desk.
In 1906 Ise came to KU as a student and majored in voice. His classes were in North College Hall which had no electric heating system and burned coal in stoves during the winter. The building has since been converted into Corbin Residence Hall.
HE SPENT THREE additional years at Harvard earning his degree in economics. He was 21 when he entered college and 31 when he finished his work at Harvard.
Ise majored in English in addition to music and then attended graduate school at KU and received a law degree.
He began teaching at KU in 1916 and taught agricultural economies and economic reform in addition to the basic economies course.
"At that time the campus extended no further than old Snow Hall." he said.
"When I'd get lonesome for the farm I'd sit on the pasture fence at the west side of Snow to watch the sunset," he added, tapping his pipe.
"AS THE UNIVERSITY began to expand, the east wing of Strong
Library Is Listener's Lab
Would you like to listen to Handel's "Messiah" or Beethoven's "Emperor Concerto?" How about a play to read . . . one by Shakespeare or Faulkner or Albee?
You can listen to music and read famous plays in two unusual libraries located in 448 Murphy Hall.
"THE MUSIC LIBRARY is a reference library for the use of all students," said Mrs. Julia E. Stuart, librarian.
The branch library contains 2,500 long playing single records, 450 long playing albums, 600 78's and 5,000 scores. There is also a collection of rare records. Thirty turn tables can accommodate three listeners each for a total of 90 listening stations.
THE MUSIC LIBRARY has extended its hours this year. They are 8 a.m.- 9 p.m. Monday through
Go up a stairway in the Music Library and you arrive in the Script Library. Here you can check out a copy of a play, look at old theater posters and magazines, examine theater models built by students or use a publisher's catalog to order a copy of a play.
Thursday; 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Friday and 9 a.m.-12 noon on Saturday.
"MANY STUDENTS DO not realize the source material available here. We not only have the scripts of plays, on on hand are histories, criticisms and anthologies of the theater," said Wright.
There are also photographs and slides of all KU major theater productions, a collection of original scripts written by students and faculty, a collection of children's theater scripts and the vocal scores of many operas.
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Hall was built," he said. "The west wing was built next and the center section connecting the two was built later."
After Ise retired, he spent three years lecturing at colleges throughout the nation.
Looking back on his teaching at KU he remarked, "I liked my students more and more all through my career. As my classes got bigger I had to a hard time remembering their names though."
He added that he never disliked large classes.
"I hated to turn down students whom I thought I might help," he said. "Besides, small classes are costly to the University and being an economist, I'd naturally want to cut costs.
"I still feel that teaching is the greatest privilege a man can have—it's the biggest business ever," he said.
JOHN ISE
. . in paneled library
Anthropologists Dig for Indian Skeletons
Working along a shoreline and racing rising waters of Ohae Reservoir, S. D., William M. Bass, associate professor of anthropology and his KU crew will again spend the summer digging in an Arikara Indian burial ground.
They are working under a two-year National Science Foundation grant to excavate human skeletal material from the Leavenworth Site. The crew of eight have already dug what Bass estimates to be at least half, if not most, of the burials.
ALL MEMBERS of the 1966 crew were with Bass last summer: Judy Wickland, Brooking, S.D., graduate student; Bob Gilbert, Lawrence graduate student; Doug Ubelaker, Everest sophomore; Bill Rhule, Holton junior; David Evans, Pittsburg graduate student; and Pat Willey, Lawrence High School senior. Whether assistant director Dick Jantz will return is undecided.
Last summer, they uncovered 178 burials. The burial grounds are on a hill above the village site, now under water.
THE VILLAGE is important because it is one of the only positively identified Arikara sites; the others are prehistoric. Shelled in 1823 by Colonel Leavenworth and abandoned in 1832, the people remained there and farmed the land for 30 years.
The eight-week dig, probably beginning June 13, costs about $1,000 per week.
BASS'S INITIAL prerequisites for working on the dig are a major in anthropology and a course in physical anthropology. The knowledge of osteology is important to him because the Leavenworth Site dig is a salvage program. "You've got to dig all you can while you're there. I can teach them archaeological technique while we're there, but they must first know osteology," he said.
Next month, the anthropology department will begin an analysis of the specimens from last summer's dig. The finished report is sometimes 10 years in the making.
Annual to be Out Feb. 2
The first issue of the 1966 Centennial Jayhawker will be distributed Feb. 2-4, during enrolment in Alcove A of the Kansas Union Cafeteria.
Daily Kansan
Wednesday, January 19, 1966
GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK — TAKE YOUR STUDY BREAK
AT
THE SHANTY
★ HOT WHOPPER SANDWICHES
★ DELICIOUS SHANTY PIZZA
★ COFFEE AND HOT CHOCOLATE
★ DOWNSTAIR'S PARTY ROOMS
★ PIANO AND ORGAN
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