UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, May 3, 1995
5A
Hemenway leaves Kentucky reign for home on the range
Continued from Page 1A
Robert Hemenway will soon move into the chancellor's office in 230 Strong Hall. Hemenway, who grew up in Hastings, Neb., said he was glad to return to the Midwest
campus, three students come into Robert Hemenway's office. It is not usual to see students waiting to see the chancellor. Across the campus of the University of Kentucky, most students who know the chancellor know that they can come in and speak with him about anything.
Robert Hemenway speaks to members of AMANZAA, a group for minority journalists, at a recent meeting.
These three students have an agenda. Two are running for student body president and vice president, respectively, and the other is their campaign manager. They have come to Hemenway to run some ideas past him for the campaign. They speak about campus lighting around the library and the recruitment and retention of minority students and faculty members.
The chancellor's schedule is tight. The students get 30 minutes. The meeting starts at 11 a.m.
They are not the same.
They check the clock in Hemenway's office. They check their watches.
Hemenway claims to keep his clock 10 minutes fast so people, thinking time has passed more quickly than it has, get to their point sooner. This day, it seems Hemenway has reset the clock even faster; it's 17 minutes fast.
One of the students, Joe Bennett, the candidate for vice president, excuses himself early — very early
-- for a class that doesn't begin for another 25 minutes.
During the ensuing conversation, Ted Lahren, the candidates' campaign manager, tries to nail Hemenway down on specific issues.
"Do you agree that grebes are looked down upon by students, faculty and administrators?" Lahren asks. He admits the candidates' base of support lives in residence halls
"No," Hemenway says. "I wouldn't agree with that at all. I think the Greek experience is an extremely positive one for the University of Kentucky."
It's this kind of accessibility that attracted Sherman Reeves, KU's former student body president, to Hemenway.
Reeves, a member of the chancellor search committee, sat through interviews with all 16 semi-finalists and was impressed by Hemenway's upfront attitude and ability to articulate issues. But most importantly, Reeves said, he was looking for a chancellor whose type of leadership was inclusive of students.
"My most important goal was to find a chancellor who has that type of management style," he said. "The chief executive sets the tone for the rest of the campus, and if he creates a caring attitude, you hope it flows down to the rest of the offices on campus."
One of the first groups at KU Hemenway met with after being named chancellor was President's Roundtable, an organization that includes leaders from most campus organizations. As the leaders introduced themselves and their organizations, Hemenway shot questions at them. He made it clear he was there to learn as much about them as they were to learn about him.
To the president of the Hispanic American Leadership Organization, Hemenway asked if he preferred to be called Hispanic or Latino. To the president of the Native American Student Organization, he asked how many tribes were represented in the
It is all consistent with Hemenway's approach to higher education.
"You don't need a chancellor unless there are students," he said. "You don't need a lot of things unless there are students here."
Kentucky Home
And Reeves wasn't the only one impressed with Hemenway's claims of accessibility.
"The campus is so diverse anyway, it's nice that he wants to jump right in there," said Anita Hientz, president of the Stouffer Neighborhood Association.
Growing up in Hastings, Neb., Hemenway wanted to own a small-town pharmacy, complete with a soda fountain. However, once he got into college, he found that chemistry was a class that he didn't do well in or enjoy.
He experienced his change of heart at Hastings College in Hastings, Neb., and after a semester abroad in Mexico City, he completed his bachelor's degree at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
By his own account, had Robert Hemenway been a better chemistry student he probably wouldn't be the University of Kansas' incoming chancellor.
Hemenway decided to immediately pursue a graduate degree in English. After seriously considering attending the University of Kansas, he enrolled at Kent State University — all expenses paid courtesy a National Defense Education Fund Fellowship. He graduated with a doctorate in 1966 at age 24.
That same year, he was off to the University of Kentucky — an institution he could not seem to get away from — for his first job as an assistant professor of English. Even though he had a Ph.D., he didn't know everything — especially about teaching. And it took two ladies more than twice his age to teach him.
English, on the other hand, was his salvation. He made excellent grades with ease, and he soon changed his career ambition from
Kentucky had a program that allowed senior citizens to take classes free of charge, and after one of his first classes, two sisters approached him with some free advice.
small-town pharmacist to being the United States' next great novelist.
"My sister and I believe you would do better if you spoke to the class," one of ladies said," Hemenway recounted.
It seems the young assistant professor had been too intent with the chalk and blackboard.
"I learned my first lesson of teaching," he said. "You don't talk to the blackboard; you talk to the class."
Robert Hemenway KU's incomina chancellor
And ever since, no matter what his other positions or responsibilities
at a university have been. Hemenway has been a teacher. And he will teach at KU. In the fall, he will teach a 7:30 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday American literature II class. Students enrolled can expect a
rewarding
instructional experience but a lot of quizzes, said David Durant, associate professor of English at Kentucky and chairman of its English department.
"He is a tough grader," Durant said. "But I have never known one student who didn't think he or she got the grade he or she deserved from him."
Durant said Hemenway's student evaluations were always excellent and conveyed the importance Hemenway put on literature.
Hemenway left Kentucky in 1968 for the University of Wyoming but returned in 1973, already working on his "great American novel."
Zora Neale Hurston was a early 20th century anthropologist, folklorist and novelist, and Hemenway's 1977 book about her, "Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography," is credited by many for starting arebirth of attention to African-American female novelists. The
New York Times named it one of its "Best Books of 1978."
The book and the experience of researching it helped refine Hemenway's strong views about the importance of minorities' contributions in higher education.
In 1986, he left Kentucky again for the University of Oklahoma to become its dean of the college of liberal arts and sciences. But once again, he left for Kentucky to become chancellor of the Lexington campus — the equivalent of executive vice chancellor and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Kansas.
But he does not think he will be returning to Kentucky again.
"This is definitely a promotion." Hemenway said. "It was exactly what my family and I were looking for, a major university in a small Midwestern town. It will be nice to get closer to home."
Personal Schedule
Had Robert Hemenway's good friend Tom Blues known he was going to be an administrator, he probably would not have liked the man very well, he says.
But Blues, associate professor of English at the University of Kentucky, and Hemenway became close friends. Both arrived at Kentucky within a couple of years of one another in the '60s and shared an office for some time.
Blues knows the kind of teacher Hemenway is, but he also knows what kind of person he is, too.
"He's got an openness, affability and good humor that attracts people to him," Blues said. "There is a real naturalness to him. There is no artificiality to his personality."
While some colleagues and almost all students have only seen Hemenway in an official role, Blues knows the avid basketball fan inside the incoming KU chancellor.
The father of eight kids by three marriages, Hemenway admits that he could have spent more time with his children when they were younger. But he tries to make sure, he said, that they don't get lost in the shuffle of administrative meetings and budget negotiations.
"He kept more than a passing interest in basketball but more as an observer than a player," Blues said. "You only have to look at him to tell that. He likes to play basketball like he did football.
"I would defy you to show me a father who is over 50 who can't look back and see a moment when he could not have spent more time with his kids," Hemenway said. "I think all my children know that if they are in a tight spot that I'm there for them. Wherever they are in that spot, I can be there."
"But one thing that has always struck me about Bob is how available he makes himself to others," Blues said. "I know the schedule of an administrator is choked full of meeting and obligations, but I have never known him not to meet with someone if it could work out."
A special group that Hemenway always tries to work into his schedule is his family.
Those spots can be pretty spread
out. Hemenway's oldest daughter, Gina, 27, lives on farm near Dodge, Neb.; son Jeremy, 26, lives in Jackson Hole, Wyo.; daughter Robin, 25, is a graduate student at KU; daughter Karintha, 21, is a student at the University of Oklahoma; 19-yearold twin sons Matt and Langston are divided between the universities of Oklahoma and Kentucky; and sons Zach, 11, and Arna, 7, will be part of the new contingent moving into the chancellor's house.
Hemenway's partner in helping to manage a large family and putting work issues into perspective is his wife. Leah. 41.
"She is a compass for me that can keep me focused on what the true directions are," he said.
Strengthening RU
Four female professors gather for an early morning meeting of the deans of Lexington campus of the University of Kentucky. Their purpose in meeting: to discuss what it is truly like to be a female faculty member at Kentucky.
as the deans sip their coffee,
Linda Curren, assistant professor of
history, talks about her trials as a
female faculty member.
"It seems like a good ol' boys club,
and I don't belong here, and if I get tenure,
that is as good as it gets," she says.
Most deans show little expression; it appears as if they have heard it all before.
But then Curren throws out a curveball that hits the deans like hot coffee dropped in their laps.
"During my last set of teaching evaluations.
and their response was, 'My professor's body.' And I asked, 'What was the worst thing about this course?' and their response was, 'Not enough nudity."
To the side of the room Robert Hemenway writes in his journal, rarely putting his pen down. It is these types of problems and stereotypes that he wants to work against in a university community.
Since he was hired as chancellor of the Lexington campus, Hemenway hired 48 tenure-track African-American faculty members and 101 female tenure-track faculty members.
But it has not been easy. Not everyone, especially in the conservative '90s, believes in the rightness of his action. He does.
"How can you think you are not cheating students by not giving them opportunities to learn from people who might be different than them?" he asked.
His actions have been met with general approval in Lexington.
"He is the kind of chancellor that makes an effort to be inclusive," said Mary Davis, assistant professor of law at Kentucky. "What he does is not just to meet some end, but the means are important to him, too."
Another idea that came to Kentucky with Heimaway was a yearly
Mary Davis Assistant professor of law at the University of Kentucky
do you know what some students wrote? — and I doubt many male professors saw these on their comments," she says. "I asked, 'What was the best thing about this class?'
bus tour of the state with new faculty and administrators. The purpose: to expose the citizens of Kentucky to who was working at the university and what they were doing. Davis was a new faculty member who took part in the tour.
"It made us feel that we were committed to the state," she said. "When you are the main university of the state, it is important to know what your duties are to the state."
The bus tour served another important purpose in Kentucky, said Penny Miller, assistant professor of political science at Kentucky. It was good public relations.
"He has very good political skills, and this is one way of demonstrating to the public and the legislators the importance of UK." she said.
Miller said that Kentucky was not unlike many other states that found it easy to cut from higher education when its budget fell short. However, she said, Hemenway had become the master of at least maintaining what the university had.
"He knows how to sell the university, and he knows how to fight for what UK has," she said.
Those same talents will be necessary in Kansas, said Burdett Loomis, professor of political science at Kansas.
Loomis said that it was clear after this legislative session that Kansas was a state that was willing to cut from higher education when other needs were pressing. He said that the Legislature looked to universities as places where they could recover lost state money through increased tuition and deferring projects.
"Any chancellor has got to convince the Legislature to stop using the university like a bank," he said.
Hemenway's outgoing attitude and willingness to tell people why KU is important to the state will be a contrast to former chancellor Gene Budig, Loomis said.
"Budig was as hands-on as his personality allowed him to be," Loomis said. "He cared a great deal about KU, but Gene Budig was not Mr. Schmoze."
But whether it's dealing with the Legislature, attracting minority faculty members or reaching out to the student body, Hemenway knows how he wants people to regard him when leaves KU.
"I hope when I leave KU people will say, 'He came to an excellent university, and it was even better after he left,'" Hemenway said. "I think that's all any chancellor can expect after spending 10 to 12 years there."