Identifier,500005
Interviewee,"John J. Boyle, III"
Date,7/3/14
Interviewer,"John Horan, II"
Abstract,"John J. Boyle, III, longtime Clevelander, discusses his work at Cleveland State University (CSU). His long career at CSU includes being involved as a student, serving on the board of trustees, and as a vice president under President Michael Schwartz. He talks about parking issues around the campus, and how he has worked at resolving them. He also brings up the antagonism between the city council and CSU, but the university worked hard to correct their image and connect to the community. Boyle emphasized taking CSU out of a ""fort-mentality"" and making the university become part of Cleveland as opposed to just being in Cleveland."
Tags,"Cleveland, Cleveland State University (CSU), St. Ignatius High School, Union Commerce Building, parking, urban planning, scheduling, Urban Affairs, Michael Schwartz, Njeri Nuru, Claire Van Ummersen, neighborhoods, commuter students, downtown, redevelopment, brutalist, city planning, African American, transparancy, community"
Special Notes,"In the 29th minute he gets up to point at a map and the audio gets faint, but his voice is still distinguishable "
0,"Introductions, Born Feb 5, 1940 in Cleveland, OH been here since except for four years when he went to Boston College"
1,He went to St. Ignatius High School and he loved it; Talks about how the high school has expanded tremendously; He went to Boston College from 1958-1962 came back to cleveland and got his masters in 2002 from Cleveland State in Urban Planning
2,"Explains why he took a 40 year gap; was on the board at CSU, but just before he was on the board he enrolled in the phd program and when he joined the board he had to stop being a student and took 9 years off before he returned to get his masters - he mentions how he needed to get approvals to get back to school"
3,He was trying to save 12 credit hours that he took in 1988; says that he took 3 classes and in the time he took off they went from 3 hours to 4 hours per class and that they have since gone back
4,"Talks about going back to school taking the GRE and other exams that he says he was a little rusty for, but he says that he did ok because they let him - but it did not hurt that he knew the dean"
5,"First involved as a student in 1988, but before that he had tickets to see the basketball team as far back as 1981 (circa); but before that even, he worked at the union commerce building and he parked at the municipal lot near CSU for 25 cents"
6,He remembers getting upset because the university moved and began building on his lot - this was in 1964-1966; He recalls the big building project around the creation of the new university
7,"He says that all of the building was on what had been parking lots; He talks about when he came back as a Vice President parking fell under his purview, and they had two fewer parking lots; slowly but surely parking was less and less of a problem - aided by a deal with the RTA"
8,"He says the interesting thing is that there are far more students now then previously and there is not a real problem with parking anymore; He says that previously people would line up for 25 mins to get a spot - he would advise people to drive north, but people did not want to venture"
9,The real reason was a scheduling problem because professors wanted their classes at certain times of the day; but once the schedule was resolved the flow was evened and parking was less of a problem
10,"Explains how he knew that there was a flow problem because of class scheduling, but the department resloved that with the registrar; also thinks that the two-tier system helps with the parking"
11,"He has never had any problems recently, but in 2002 he had many day where he could not find a spot; in 1988 the Urban Affairs Building was in a different builidng and moved to the Price Building "
12,Says that the Price Building is next to where the current Urban Affairs building is now and describes how they would be in classes in the Price watching the new building go up; says that Urban Affairs was part of a second round of building
13,"They had the groundbreaking in 1989, they had just gotten the funding for Wolstein; While he was on the board they put up Wolstein and the Urban Affairs/Business College, but nothing happened until Michael Schwartz took over in the early 2000s"
14,They realized that they needed to attract students that were not just commuter students; While he wasn't involved in the first round of building he could see it from his offices
15,"Says that there was nothing between the university and playhouse square calls it ""dead turf"" no places to eat nothing much for kids to do; students would come in take a course and then go home no one would stay there; the old student center was not conducive for people to hang around here"
16,Students would make their schedules with this in mind; CSU a place where kids took classes but not a university; Once he became part of the board he became aware of the financial problems that went along with being a state university
17,Talks about where money came from for the university; the state took more than 60percent of the budget when he first joined the board; but because the university had a lot of parttime students it was different than an Ohio U. or Miami (OH) U. that had traditional 4 year students; average age was around 28 when he first started
18,The students taking the courses were not 18 but 28 and the state never really understood the differences between the two types of students that go through universities; talks about the funding model that the state has
19,It revolves around how many students are taken in at 18 and graduate within 4 years; Talks about the changes that the funding model has gone through over the years
20,"Talks about how the old funding model paid them for 10,000 students, but they had 18,000 students and they had to figure out how to accommodate without the funding"
21,Says that they graduate more seniors than they take in as freshman because people transfer in from community colleges; and under the current system they do not get money for these students because they do not start as freshman
22,"He has continually argued for change, but gets rebuffed and thinks that the current legislature is not pro-higher education; he says that they think that education is a personal, individual good not a common good"
23,"Talks about how CSU has dealt with these problems internally, partiall making wise economic decisions and by having the students pay more"
24,"Talks about how the faculty is kept at a level that is a good balance, also they rely on getting funding for research"
25,"Touches upon the 1995 Plan to redesign the university, he was on the board that approved this project; the plan was designed to connect the university directly to the freeway by having an on and off ramp"
26,"However he says that once he went back to school he realized  that connecting CSU to the innerbelt makes it a communter school permanently; he thought community connection was better; says that the mentality in the 1990s was to build this and build ""a moat"" around it"
27,He thinks that the Cleveland comeback started around the Gateway project and people wanted to move back downtown
28,The next board that he worked with had developers on it who said they needed to create dormatories and create campus life which would connect the campus with the university - started around 2000
29,Downtown became something you wanted to be a part of not a part from; Gets up to explain what the changes are proposed on a map he had
30,"Describes what the plan to connect CSU to the freeway entailed, but they did want to develop the north part of the campus"
31,The new administration came in and changed things; he describes the thought processes for the 1995 plan; the new administration was headed by Michael Schwartz who came from Kent State
32,He thought of the University in a different way - thought of CSU as part of Cleveland not just in Cleveland and this thought process was spearheaded by Urban Affairs Department; 
33,"The new plan that is still in place, it was developed in 2003 ""connections to the city"" in all four directions; they had to build the university and a neighborhood"
34,"Developers are now knocking to build around CSU which never happened before; They took the plan to the board and they adopted the plan and they then wanted to send it to the city planning commission, but the board did not want them to do that because it may create a new zoning classification "
35,"The work around was that they sent it to the planning commission, but not submitted it; "
36,"Points out that the fears around zoning were unfounded because CSU is sovereign and separate from the city, they only submitted as a courtesy"
37,"Calls the architecture ""Soviet Architecture"" says that there was a brief period of time when that type of architecture was en vogue, but it flamed out quick"
38,Recalls Boston City Hall is in the same vein of architecture that wore out in 10 years - not timeless; They invested in a style that was not conducive to the community
39,"Talks about Joe Cimperman and how he was opposed to the the fortress mentality; gives an anecdote about benches; They wanted to teardown a building, but the city government blocked it because they thought that CSU did not care about the city"
40,That has since changed - the university is more collaborative - glass that goes both ways; They still get flak around the Urban Affairs builiding that has glass that only looks out not in
41,Conscious of that they now put transparent windows to make the university part of the city; in the 2000s they worked very collaboratively with the city
42,This also helped with recruitment as well because prospective students thought it was an urban campus; He says that they worked very closely with Joe Cimperman once they both realized that CSU wanted to work with the city
43,Says that Cimperman let them do things that were being halted in the past and gives an example: the rec center; describes the old rec center that was an igloo structure designed by Buckminster Fuller
44,Tells how this rec center was an interesting piece but ultimately did not like it; one of the hubs of this design was sent to the Buckminster Fuller Museum; Another example of the collaboration surrounded the renovation of Fenn
45,"The city saw this and jumped on board with their plans; Cimperman was redistricted and was no longer representing the area around CSU, but he remained on the planning commission"
46,Talks about the employment record of Michael Schwartz at CSU; Says that the previous president Claire Van Ummersen left and they placed Schwartz in as an interim president and then he became the president; when Schwartz came in he told Boyle that Boyle could not leave
47,Explains what he meant by why Schwartz wanted him to stay; 
48,He thinks that the team that Schwartz surrounded himself with worked well together and with him; 
49,Schwartz dealt with the aftermath of the shootings at Kent and that is where he got a very clear perception of how a university needs to work closely with a community
50,Talks about when he was on the board and there was animosity surrounding African American relations; Also talks about the Peoplesoft fiasco
51,"Describes the Peoplesoft disaster, which when the website went down - meant that students couldn't register and payments were lost - congressmen were set up in the student center taking complaints"
52,"Grades were lost in space until they reconstructed those, but finances could not be reconstructed as easily; also coursework records were lost; CSU was an alpha site and did not realize what being an alpha site meant"
53,"Continues to talk about the Peoplesoft problem, they sued them and settled out of court, but the damage that was caused in the community and among the students was huge; needed to build back up from that"
54,"Says that the whole event was a mess and it took a new person in the administration to turn it around; not one person's fault, but needed to change management compares it to baseball"
55,"Talks about how they went about fixing the problem, they still use Peoplesoft today - one of the top programs now; also hired Njeri Nuru to the minority office"
56,That change improved relations with African Americans in Cleveland; moving towards no discrimination from the 1990s when they were perceived as the whitest university in the state
57,Mentions high school counselors and how much influence they had on where students go
58,Many of the Cleveland Public School counselors did not recommend CSU and CSU hosted programs to change that perception; 
59,Then suburban counselors also were discouraging students but for different reasons; started an honors program and created scholarship programs; changed from open enrollment to selective enrollment
60,Schwartz was instramental in that change and he brought in leaders from the African American community and explained to them their rational for changing the rules
61,Gave the high schools 2 years notice that they were changing their policies so that the high schools could establish college prep courses
62,Talks about the history of the university and says it's typical to most urban universities and it was created to be years 3 and 4 for students from Tri-C
63,Says that all urban universities went through metamorphasis from being that year 3 and 4 school to a full on 4 year university; says that it is the third biggest graduate student population in the state (state universities)
64,"Says that is what makes them a world-class university because they can accommodate those looking for graduates, traditional 18-22 year old undergrads, and those who have to take parttime courses"
65,Thinks that CSU will continue to be a catalyst for progress in Downtown Cleveland - students like being in the urban environment; talks about his own grandchildren
66,"Says that kids from Cleveland are looking for that type of urban experience, they don't want to go to a field; says the value is great at CSU"
67,Thanks and END OF INTERVIEW
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