PSU Magazine Summer 1990

Dr. Rarnaley spoke this May at PSU Salutes, a luncheon honoring outstanding alumni and friends of the University. and go to performances of local artists. I look at the buildings, walk the trails , and learn to recognize the local birds and flowers. I'll go through a total immersion process , and gradually I will become an Oregonian . Q: Tell us about your family. A: I have two sons, or I should say they have me. My older boy will be a senior at Stanford University. I mostly communicate with him through Bitnet, electronic mail, because he is computer literate and I am learning how to be. The prospect of talking to Alan is a good incentive to sit down and use my computer. My younger son, Andrew, just graduated from high school and will be a freshman at the University of Kansas this fall. I am still assimilating the information that I am now the mother of young adults. Q: You were a successful researcher. How did you switch to administration? A: I regard administration as an act of scholarship at its best. I am behaving the same way as any scholar: trying to discover underlying meaning, putting things together, making sense out of them , anq using that information to help people. I discovered several years ago that I was more interested in the translation and helping stage than I was in the discovery stage of scholarship, even though I enjoy research . Now I apply the same ways of thinking I once used in my laboratory to my work as an administrator. I have not given up teaching and will return to the classroom at PSU in a year or so. I am often a~ked , which is more important, research or teaching? The answer is both, because you are doing the same thing, but in a different place with different audiences - asking questions that matter and exploring ideas. The way that I can best use my scholarly skills is not through individual service to particular people, but through creating a climate of opportunity for a large number of people. Q: How do you describe your management style? A: A lot of people have asked me that. I have said that my management style is Socratic. The Socratic method of teaching involves exploring ideas with your students and drawing the answers to difficult questions from your interaction with them. Most of the time , people who come to me with a problem already have the answer. Often, however, they don't realize it, or if I put together the right team of people, collec– tively we will find the answer. It is my job to create conditions for that answer to emerge and for people to thrive. That is what the Socratic method does . Q: Do you have a message for PSU alumni? A: Every single alumnus and alumna is an ambassador for the university. Our alumni represent us both in the way they lead their (Continued on page 18) PSU 3