PREFACE

The initial impetus for this account of the international activities of the University of Kansas came in 1993 from George Woodyard, then the dean of international programs and studies of the university. He suggested that, because I had been personally involved in many of KU’s early ventures in international education and had continued these interests of mine beyond the years (1957-1972) when I served in a succession of administrative roles in the university, I should prepare a narrative of the university’s involvement in international programs. He knew that I had been compiling some recollections of my years at the university and that, included in these fragments, were some pages dealing with some of KU’s ventures in the international field. Thus I was in a poor position to contradict his assertion that I might, quite possibly, be able to write the story without having to research it “from scratch.”

My acceptance was, however, qualified. I did not want this to be a tale of my involvement. On the contrary, I wanted to relate what the university had done, how KU came to do what it had done, and who all had contributed. I would, in other words, attempt to produce a record of University of Kansas achievement, without, however, glossing over failures and shortcomings. My method would be to examine as many documents as I could find and talk to as many participants as were still available.

But I still faced the issue of what I ought to do with those parts of the story in which I myself had played a part. Even as I look over these opening paragraphs I am struck by the fact that the word “I” appears ten times in two paragraphs. The prospect of a publication purporting to be the story of an institution’s activities, yet punctured throughout by the word “I”, holds no appeal for me. But I am certainly no Julius Caesar and writing in the third person strikes me often as contrived, even arrogant. Thus I will try to keep the “I”‘s to a minimum but will use the first person where that is the appropriate way to tell the story.

One other constraint I faced was whether this account should include activities originating at or related to the Medical Center and the schools located there or, by analogy, at the Regents Center in Johnson County or the Medical School’s Wichita branch or the Capital Center in Topeka. (Some of these parts of the University of Kansas did not even exist fifty or twenty years ago; all of them now enjoy degrees of autonomy—which has not always been the same.) Medical schools are, for good reasons, grounded in the nature of the profession, different from liberal arts colleges or engineering schools. Academic work offered to persons holding full-time jobs has to take account of the fact that most of these students can pursue their educational objectives at only one site, that nearest to their habitat. This account will therefore be confined to events and activities on the original core part of the university, the Lawrence campus.

Several years elapsed after George Woodyard’s suggestion as other commitments delayed my compliance with the assignment he had entrusted to me. During the subsequent tenure of Andrew Debicki as dean of international programs it appeared that a graduate student at the University of Missouri at Kansas City might take on the task as his doctoral thesis. I took this man to lunch, gave him a fairly extensive oral introduction to the topic and provided him with copies of materials in my personal files. Unfortunately the student’s plans had to be changed before he could even start on a thesis. Thus when Diana Carlin, newly named to the deanship of international programs, inquired about the program’s past, she learned that the information was widely scattered. She also learned that George Woodyard had hoped that I would eventually prepare an account of KU’s international programs and that Andrew Debicki would have done likewise, if it had not been for the appearance of the UMKC doctoral student. Dean Carlin then urged me to undertake the task, and Provost David Shulenburger provided initial support. To all and each of them, my thanks for the opportunity.

Specific thanks are also due to William Crowe, librarian extraordinaire, who made it possible for me to devote much of the year 2002 enmeshed in the University Archives in the Spencer Research Library (over which he presides), and to Ned Kehde and Barry Bunch, whose knowledge of what is to be found in the archives goes far beyond the portion of the archives’ contents that the two of them, the entire full-time staff of the unit, have been able to inventory and index.

Because the University Archives continue to be a project in the making, I have not routinely included references to specific record groups and/or files in the archives; they appear only where they seemed to be needed. Other footnote references are used only to document the use of language used by other authors or to enlarge upon the text where this appeared to be necessary or desirable. Any textual statements not accompanied by a footnote should be assumed to be drawn from the University Archives or, if the text indicated my own involvement, my personal recollection. I learned in the course of my visits to the University Archives that most things I had in my personal files were also to be found in some of the many boxes on the top floor of the Spencer Research Library.

In a few instances words or phrases appear in a language other than English. Where this is the case, the foreign expression is italicized and the English translation follows in parentheses. In the case of proper names that appear in Spanish showing both parents’ family names, I have rendered them in that manner at the first mention of a person but have omitted the maternal name at subsequent mentions.
A great many people talked to me as I was writing this story, including many who were (and many who are) part of the continuing story. I shall not attempt to list them all by name, mainly because I fear that any such list would be incomplete. To those who feel that I should have sought their personal account, I offer my assurance that no slight was intended; my perusal of the documentary information made me feel comfortable enough for the limited purposes of this account.

Inevitably, the documentation I have consulted is uneven and many of the players are no longer available. In a few instances the international facets of a project appeared to be secondary in nature; in a few other instances the available information was too meager to indicate whether the project had even gotten off the ground. Thus this account does not purport to be an all-inclusive inventory.

Lastly I wish to single out three persons—now all deceased—because there would be no story without them and, perhaps less importantly, because without them I would never have been a part of the story. In alphabetical order they are: J.A. (Toni) Burzle, indefatigable advocate of educational exchange, generous to the university both in service and substance; Franklin D. Murphy, a man of exceptional vision and capacity, towering among past chancellors; and George R. Waggoner, broad-gauged scholar, inspired and inspirational educational leader, and one of the best friends I ever had. To their memory this story of the international programs of the University of Kansas is fondly and respectfully dedicated.

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