There was all kinds of dispersal of both responsibility and power. And it pretty much was clear to me with that title change that I probably wasn’t going to be considered for director, because it was like, I don’t know what the right word is. It was like a quid… Read More
Who gave you the title change, Dr. Fisher?… Read More
Yes. But you did apply the job of director when he left. I applied for the job for director when he left, as he was leaving, as they were interviewing candidates. And I did that because not so much because I wanted the directorship of the zoo, as I wanted… Read More
Was this new position or was it again the title change?… Read More
That’s an interesting question about 1992, 1992 was about the time that Dr. Fisher announced his retirement and the zoo was soliciting or about to solicit candidates to replace him. I was very happy to have the title. I was, it was a title change and it also was a… Read More
Well, I’m trying to impart to my students that are nature challenged and technologically savvy, that there’s a whole world out there, that in order to be a biologist, you don’t have to be in a lab and wear a lab coat, that there’s a whole other world out there… Read More
And I presume you do give advice, but what kind of advice would you give a student interested in the career working with animals are at a zoo society or the zoo, what would you say to them. I’d say to them all complete your degree. In this day and… Read More
Within the last week, I got an electronic message from a former student who was very interested in being involved in zoos and wanted to be an animal keeper or an animal caregiver. She didn’t care where it was, this was her life dreams. I encouraged her, we talked in… Read More
Whenever I was down, you always came along and gave me a boot.” And she said, “I’m really living my dream.” And she said, “I’m hoping that at the end of summer, that they will find me invaluable and give me a full-time position.” And I wrote back and said,… Read More
And I said, and I’d like to use my experience at the zoo as well as my field research. And he said, okay, put a syllabus together, put a course proposal together, get it back to me. Let me take a look at it. We’ll talk about it in the… Read More
They’re always upperclassmen or graduate students. It’s changed very little in terms of the basic premise of animal adaptations. But obviously it’s changed because the resources are so much more available to us now than they were all that time ago. Read More
Do you think that that now is helping your teaching of this as a significant force in conservation or what are you trying to impart to your students?… Read More
About the time that I completed my PhD and I didn’t think I was any different, but it made a difference to some people and made people, it made a difference to a lot of people but I have no idea why, I still got up in the morning, same… Read More
How do animals fit into their environment?… Read More
How do animals mesh with their environment?… Read More
I need to be able to look at questions or problems or unknowns, particularly in science and then consequently in life in a different way than I had in the past. And the PhD did that for me, both because of my exposure to people that were in the same… Read More
Let me just see if I’m, you said University of Illinois, but are we saying University of Illinois or DePaul?… Read More
No, I got my PhD, my PhD came from the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution. Read More
And then back to your, back to the original thought or the original question was how did you form your association with DePaul?… Read More
And if you take it on, you’re taking it on yourself because we can’t, it’ll interfere with your job. We can’t, you’re setting a precedent. This is not a good precedent for staff here.” So I said, okay, I’ll do whatever I needed to do. So essentially, during that time,… Read More