Kelly, Jack, 23 September 2008 (Part 1)



1









Jack Kelly
Marist College
Poughkeepsie, New York
Transcribed by Wai Yen Oo
For the Marist College Archives and Special Collections



Kelly, Jack, 23 September 2008 (Part 1)



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Interviewee:
Jack Kelly
Interviewer:
Gus Nolan
Interview Date:
23 September 2008
Location:
Marist College Archives and Special Collections
Topic:
Marist College History
Subject Headings:
Kelly, Jack

Marist College Faculty

Marist College – History

Marist College (Poughkeepsie, NY)

Marist College – Social Aspects
Summary:
In Part 1, Jack Kelly talks about his early years before coming to Marist. Afterwards, his role as an
Instructor in the newly-formed business department. He then goes on to become a Dean of Management here at the
college. Jack Kelly talks about the development of the campus, the changes he oversaw, and how the college should
develop in the future.






Kelly, Jack, 23 September 2008 (Part 1)



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00:04
GN:
Today is Tuesday, September 23
rd
, 2008. We’re meeting in the Marist College library. We have an
interview this morning with Dr. Jack Kelly, the former dean of the School of Management. Morning. Jack.
00:22
JK:
Good Morning, Gus.
00:23
GN:
Jack, as you know, this is an interview that is going to go into the archives to kind of give us a
picture of yourself and your participation in life at Marist. And then later on this afternoon, we’ll try to say
something about the development of the School of Management from its earliest years to where you brought it
and it has gone since. So this is like in three parts, this morning. Your life before Marist, your life at Marist and
where you see Marist going now since you've left. So briefly, where were you born? Where’d you grow up?
State, town, city. No dates required.
01:06
JK:
Well. I was born in Brooklyn, New York and started grammar school there. My folks moved when I
was probably sixth grade or something so probably ten or twelve years old to northern New Jersey, to an old
town called Westwood, New Jersey. Finished grammar school there and then went on to Saint Cecilia’s High
School in Englewood, New Jersey which was probably most famous for being the first job of Vince Lombardi,
the famous football coach. When I got out of high school, I went into Fairfield University in Connecticut, first
resident class who developed the new university. And then went on Boston College for the doctorate although
you know took me a while to finish it. I did three years of coursework and then wrote my thesis for a number of
years.
02:01
GN:
OK let's go back to the school years. What kinds of things did you enjoy in school? Were you
particularly good Math student? Or history student? Or…a particular area of interest.
02:13
JK:
Well, music was always an area of interest. I sang a lot, Glee Club. When I was in college, the Glee
Club at Fairfield was like a football to me […] Every single male student, it was an all-male school, tried out
for it. And we're about a hundred strong. Cut brackets, TV, selling major auditoriums […] I was the president
of that since then I have sung various choirs and church groups. I do sports.
02:50
GN:
You ever solo?
02:53
JK:
Never soloed. It was a […]
02:57
GN:
Anything else in school? Did you ever play sports?


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03:00
JK:
Yeah. I played sports. Usually I played some high school football. And Coach Vince Lombardi was
the coach a year before me. Actually I never really played under him as I remember.
03:14

GN:
Oh too bad. I think that could have been nice.
03:16

JK:
He did come for a couple of practices and beat us on and move on. Never started a game or anything
I wasn’t that good. And in college, I basically was doing intermural sports.
03:30
GN:
During your high school years and summers, did you ever work? Were you ever involved in any
kind of employment?
03:36
JK:
Yep. My dad was a big corporate executive and the White House advisor on Cuba. But he insisted
that his sons work. My first job was with a small printing company that printed a weekly newspaper and I could
always remember I was in the basement, no windows. And I was melting lead, 550 degrees Fahrenheit to pour
the ingots that went into the liner type of machine to make it type.
04:06
GN:
We had one here you know. Did you ever see that? Brother Tarcisius?
04:09
JK:
I did see with Brother Tarcy. And my brother Doug cesspools for a local laundry. So we had a […]
04:17
GN:
Got your hands dirty in the early years.
04:19
JK:
When I was a senior in high school and then Christmas during college, I would work at the Main
Store in the local town. When I was in college, I worked for Wall Street Bank every summer. It was a really
great job. One summer, I was actually buying and selling some of the stocks from the exchange for the bank's
customers. One summer, I spent in a foreign department getting the others a credit. And then senior year, the
bank was merging so they asked to interview every employee in the bank and write up a job description to help
them in the merger. But it gave me a tremendous overview of banking.
05:01
GN:
Is there a relationship between those jobs then and your interest in economics? Or how did that
come about?
05:07
JK:
Yeah working in the bank really peaked my interest in economics. As an undergraduate at Fairfield
in those days, it was a Jesuit institution, everybody was a philosophy major whether you wanted to be or not. So
we all had to take twenty-seven credits in philosophy and twenty-four credits for your major as I remember.
And you had to pass an oral exam in front of three philosophers from outside the university, junior year and


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senior year. I faced Avery Dulles and (?). He was the author of the textbook at the time. John Foster Dulles’
son. It was quite an experience.
05:51
GN:
Was Dulles at Fairfield at the time?
05:52
JK:
No, he was brought in outside just to hear those exams. So the Wall Street jobs really perked my
interest and I was an economics major. When I was a senior, I thought I might like teaching so I decided if I
could win an assistantship where I could teach. I'd go into a Master’s in Economics. If not, I go back to Wall
Street. Well luckily, I won one and I taught for that year and I loved it. And I stayed right on for the doctorate
and never went back to Wall Street.
06:26
GN:
So you did some teaching while you were studying. In Boston College or?
06:33
JK:
Yes at Boston College. I had a teaching assistantship my first year and a teaching fellowship the next
two years. And an instructorship over the summers.
06:43

GN:
And when did you hear of Marist? Or how did that come about?
06:46

JK:
That’s an interesting story. I came out of grad school in 1862…
06:53

GN:
Let’s try it again.
06:56

JK:
1962. And economists, faculty in economics, were in very short supply. The American Economic
Association had its annual convention in New York City that year. And they’ve always had big job market. So I
went to that convention but I went with the resumes of all my colleagues, five or six of the graduate students
because they couldn't get in there. So I signed up for a whole bunch of interviews. Every interview I had, I
answered about four/five different ways based on how all of these other guys would have answered it and
myself and handed out the resumes. One of which was…the interviews was with Brother Cornelius from
Marist. So on the basis of that he asked me up for an interview. And then that interview was actually
fascinating. It was with Dan Kirk who was the acting president at the time. Linus was…
07:58
GN:
Finishing his doctorate, I’d imagine.
08:00
JK:
Yeah or the second novitiate. Might have been the second novitiate.
08:03

GN:
Second novitiate, perhaps yeah. Those two spells.
08:10

JK:
Dan said I don’t know anybody. I don't know what to do. He named the salary. And I’ll tell you it


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was $6500 and it was 500 dollars more than my professor at graduate school was making. He was only making
$6000. The other thing I remember is my brother drove me up here. My brother was a year younger. And he is
a chemical engineer. And he was the Union Carbide at the time. And he looked at the stained-glass windows in
Donnelley which was ultimately became the library. And he asked Dan Kirk, what they were glued on with. He
said, “Some kind of epoxy.” And my brother looked at it and he said, “I deal with this. In my research. I’m a
chemist. And we never had anybody glue pieces that big.” He said “That window stays together for a year or
two I’ll get you international publicity.” And as you probably remember, shortly thereafter the pieces kept
falling off the windows. So I came here basically because I had that interview. And I kind of never really
thought I would like to come to a new school where I can make an impact immediately rather than be a, you
know, 24
th
economist in a twenty-four-man department at a big state university.
09:31
GN:
Was Louise involved in this decision?
09:33
JK:
Yes, she was. The other issue that was up was I hadn’t finished my doctorate. And my doctorate was
solely economics. So for research, I had to be some place where I could get to Harvard’s Russian Institute,
Columbia’s Russian Institute, the Library of Congress or the Rand Corporation on the West Coast. So I pretty
much eliminated. And I seriously considered the University of San Diego. Saint Peter’s, Saint John’s and
Marist, Georgetown. These were places that were putting me close to where I would have to go for my
research. But Marist was… they knew me. And that just kind of struck a chord with me.
10:21
GN:
Yeah. The question I have, “How would you ever take Marist when you had other options like
that?” Because it was such a young, developing thing. So maybe that's why.
10:35
JK:
Well it’s fun because years later we were at a convention in San Diego. Louise was with me and was
standing on the campus of University of San Diego. I was thinking, “Oh man, look at all the ocean.” And she
says, “Don’t move, Kel. Don’t move.”
10:53
GN:
Did you know anybody here outside of? You met Cornelius and …
10:57
JK:
I met Cornelius and that was it. And it was sold.
11:00
GN:
Okay so when you came to Marist then. What position did you come to do?
11:09
JK:
I came as an instructor of economics in the brand-new department of business and economics that


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Cornelius was the chair of. That was ’62 and by ’66, I had become the chair and I ran it all the way through the
next 32 years.
11:25
GN:
Okay. At the time then, was it liberal arts?
11:30
JK:
Right, they had just instituted a B.A. in Business, which was virtually unheard of because almost all
Business degrees were B.S. or B.B.A. But it was a B.A. and it was a minimum of… or maximum I think like
twenty-four credits in business. So you still had over ninety credits in the liberal arts. If I remember correctly, it
was the part-time adjuncts that played a major role in putting that together. And that was the year before I came.
Now it would have been Ted Prenting who was here at the time. Left and then of course came back. He was an
adjunct. And Sal Catalano … Jim McGovern.
12:17

GN:
That’s a new name.
12:19

JK:
And of course Brother Cornelius. And then we changed it shortly after at least we changed it from a
B.A. to a B.S.
12:29
GN:
OK. Now as you move along, you started off just teaching?
12:34
JK:
Yes, I started off just teaching. I think they had three credits, no two-credit courses. My first course I
ever taught was a business course called, today they call it “Government and Society.”
12:54

GN:
Business and society.
12:55

JK:
In those days, it was “Public policies towards business” or something like that. And I basically made
it in the antitrust course. But my very first class that I ever taught happened to be an evening class in 1962. And
of course, evening division was probably bigger than the day division and they were like IBMers and Physics
was a lot of our majors so I walked into that classroom and I was the youngest guy in my class.
13:23
GN:
Yeah, that must have been something. And outside of teaching, what do…did you have advisees or
is there any kind of other responsibilities that you had?
13:34
JK:
We had advisees. Everybody had advisees. […] it was just getting started. And I don't remember
what the first committee was that I served on. We were undergoing Middle States our first year I remember
that. I got involved in that. I was on some committee or two. And I can always remember the chair with that
very first Middle States committee was with Brother Urban from Saint Francis College in Brooklyn and I just


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remember because he spent all the time in our office. Because he was an accounting professor or something.
And it was the later Middle States where we had dynamic people that got involved in it. And then I spent…
14:20
GN:
So that's the first course you talked about. Did they repeat or? Did they have four different courses
to teach that first year?
14:27
JK:
In the first year, I remember I taught, “Public Policy and Business” and ‘The Principles of
Economics.’ I probably had … two credit courses so I probably had five or six of them. And I probably had like
three sections of each, “Principles of Economics’. I don’t remember specifics but…
14:47
GN:
Did you teach in the summer as well?
14:50

JK:
Yeah.
14:51

GN:
That was part of the deal.
14:51

JK:
Extra compensation, I had four kids. Well at the time I had two. Two more who came along.
14:57

GN:
Who else was with you? Who taught…?
15:03
JK:
Yeah. When I came when I arrived in ’62, the old rooms, 203 and 209 in Donnelly … Andy Molloy
had constructed plywood cubicles. And they were the first offices where people had any sentiments of privacy.
And I was in 209. Roscoe Balch was there. Jim Thomas was there, taught Math. Of course, Yuan Chung Teng
who taught history came with me.
15:31
GN: Was George Sommer …?
15:32
JK:
He was in 203. George Sommer, Bob Norman, Eddie O’Keefe. In 209, with me was Richard
McCarthy. He then left. And you can help me on the name here. John Bosco Normandin was?
15:50
GN:
yes John Bosco is right, yeah.
15:53

JK:
And Shurkus.
15:58

GN:
Mike Shurkus. And these names are familiar to me but they’re kind of…off in the fog now. I can't
put that: who was here, when? When did this all start? Then when … was it two or three years? When did you
become more than just a teacher … now become kind of a chair?
16:18
JK:
’66. I took over from Cornelius as chair of the department.



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16:22
GN:
And you came here in ’62?
16:24

JK:
I came in ’62. So it was four years.
16:28

GN:
Four years later, okay
.
What kind of administration did we have? Did we still have a Dean? Was
John O'Shea or …?
16:33
JK:
I remember Mike Kelly acting for a while as Dean. Then John O’Shea was Dean. Then, the first
real-quote Dean was LaPietra. Zuccarello and Molloy.
16:59
GN:
Was President Foy an influence in those years?
17:04
JK:
Yes, he was. A major influence. I can remember when we first decided have tenure. And I can
remember President Foy asking me in the office saying, “What do you think about tenure?” Because I was one
of the only laymen. I don't know remember my answer but I remember saying something to the effect of, for
young lay faculty, it was obviously important to us to have some kind of security and so on. But I can
remember those original discussions on tenure. I can remember the original discussions on co-ed.
17:48

GN:
Oh yes oh yes.
17:50

JK:
In fact the year before we went co-ed, Saint Francis had a school of nursing. And they wanted us to
take that over because I remember I was chairman of the faculty. The nun, when the vote was turned down and
it was turned down because we didn’t want to go co-ed, she came into my office and cried. And in the very next
year we went co-ed. In the first co-ed was a Nun, Theresa Paul with the…
18:20
GN:
I was the only one teaching nurses at the time. At the hospital, I taught one of the English courses at
the time. So I can recall that that some. Another point here is you did mention Middle States. Is that the first
visit from an outside agency coming in? Or was… any business associations involved with the
recommendations?
18:44
JK:
No, when I first came in ‘62. And I think that was the first Middle States. Or ’63. But you know
right of then with Brother Urban. That was my first experience with it. But the next Middle State visit, I don't
whether it was five or ten years out.
19:05

GN:
Yea, we didn’t get it the first shot. Then they came back in like three years.
19:09

JK:
The hotshot on the team, I don’t think he was the chair. He was a fellow by the name of Jerry Zoffer.


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Jerry was the Dean of the Business School at University of Pittsburgh. And he was a type of guy that was in
constant motion. It was fascinating and he's always in charge of everything. And he became one of the foremost
business school deans in the country. He was president of all the major Dean associations and so on. Every
business school Dean in the country knew who Jerry Zoffer was. He took me under his wing and said, “I'm
going to get you involved in the Middle States.” And I have done now some twenty to thirty […] and career.
And Jerry also started the notion of business school Deans kind of mentoring younger Business School Deans.
You know so we've all done that and I have mentored one also. Those associations for me were the most
professionally satisfying. And I probably had closer friends among these elsewhere than among the faculty here
because I could really rely on them for help. And they had better understanding […]
20:38
GN:
Right. Speaking about people here though. Did you… Were you responsible for the hiring now of a
number of others to come on board? Like Kilgariff would be a name I suppose.
20:49
JK:
Yes I was responsible. I guess as the Chair. I mean obviously the Vice President …and often the
President for just about everybody. Certainly John Griffin, Greg Kilgariff. And then you just take off from
there.
20:07
GN:
Was Van Tassell before you…or?
20:09
JK:
We hired Van Tassell when he was full-time. He has since been back as an adjunct.
20:16
GN:
Jim Fay was part-time…?
20:18
JK:
Jim Fay was part-time, always part-time. He was joined with [...] But going way back to early years,
Pete Farrell, Jack Sherlock. Farrell …. Hired. But Sherlock then became the college’s first director of
placement. [...] Oh boy, Fred Jordan was an early accountant we had hired. Ted Duval …
22:04
GN:
Are these full-time people?
22:06
JK:
Full-time. Some only lasted a year or two. Ed Gerish was a great star. Ed Gerish taught marketing.
When I saw that resume, he was living in western New Jersey which was the town I grew up in. When I looked
at the address and I actually knew the house he was living in. And I saw that he was a vice president of Exxon
and he was an assistant secretary of commerce. So we hired him. And he told us, he was pushed out of St
Peter’s College because he had turned sixty-five. So we gave him a three-year contract. He was actually very


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professional man and although he wasn't dynamic or anything the kids really liked him. On the April of his
third year, he taught a class, brought some students home, had a cup of tea in his apartment. And they left and
he got dead.
23:04
GN:
That’s how you spell his name?
23:06
JK:
G E R I S H. Ed Gerish. So at the funeral home, President Foy contacted me and said, “How old was
Ed Gerish?” So I said, “Well. St Peter's retired him at sixty-five. He gained a three-year contract so he’d be
sixty-eight. So we … his obituary and he was like eighty-seven. So I go to the funeral home and I asked, Can I
use your phone? I called Saint Peters and asked, “How old was Ed Gerish?” They tracked it back and it said he
was sixty-eight. I called […]’s and asked, “How old is Ed Gerish?” And he tracked it back in his files and he
said, “sixty-eight.” Yeah so, he has taken fifteen or sixteen years of his life. Worked for many, many years.
Here. And when I found out when he was assistant secretary of commerce, I finally checked on him – although
it doesn’t speak well of me – it was the Hoover Administration. Before and after, yeah.
24:11
GN:
We kind of moved ahead on the story… all without necessarily filling in the spots. How does the
business department grow? We talked about marketing. We talked about management and the various […] Is
this your thrust from your experience? Well that, you know there needed to be a widening and increase in
offerings?
24:39
JK:
We always had student requests for you know, “We want more of this. More of that and so on.” Like
Finance or Accounting. Since I came out of a liberal arts background, I was … and still am an elitist with
regards to education. I really believe in the liberal arts and I fought hard all my career at Marist to keep them
required. We were the last ones to give up language. I was fighting to keep philosophy as a required course for
business majors. So in discussions with the early faculty but I would say I probably played a major role in it.
We had decided not to put in majors in Marketing and Finance. But to go to concentration. It was a way to
appease the students and give them some in-depth studies
25:38
GN:
Three courses
25:40
JK:
Without three courses was all it was. Plus, you had the basic principles course. So the idea was we
were giving them some in-depth study in a field of their choice but we were really concentrating on a great


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breadth of education. I used to say all the time… that when I spoke to parents and so on. If you think of any
operating enterprise, a business or a government, a church … no matter who it is… They got to do four basic
things. You got to staff your operations. You got to finance your operations. You gotta sell your product or your
service and you've got to perform your service or produce your product. Every organization exists in a societal,
legal, and economic background. So I said that … so business majors get one course in working in finance,
personal production. You have law courses, business in society type courses. You need the language of
business which is accounting. And you need certain tools which is Math and Computer Science. I said that’s
your business majors.
26:36
GN:
You even had public speaking in there for a while. You need to be able to talk to people.
26:41
JK:
And…listen. You need to be able to talk and listen. And I used to argue with the language
department all the time about… Please create courses in languages for business majors. But don't tell me it has
to be elementary 102 or intermediate 102. Because you need too much of …. It never really come about.
27:08
GN:
What would you say was the driving force for this creation? Was it I.B.M? Was it the local
community on campus? Was it … The alumni was not really a significant part yet. Was it your own faculty
that…?
27:26
JK:
I think the driving force for the business major was the culture and society at the time. Every college
and university was facing the pressure to have a business major. Because as college was becoming more
expensive every year. Of course I don't know how our kids are going to do it today. Even you know twenty,
thirty years ago we thought it was expensive. And one of the biggest problems that some of the elite liberal arts
college had is… they were having trouble in getting the male population because they didn’t have a business
major or an accounting major. So it was just the... And if you go back to those years, the typical Marist student
was a first-generation college student and from a lower to middle income family heavily out of Long Island,
post-depression, looking for security to get that first job. And therefore they wanted practical types of
education. I would say. I was more than the ones that kept digging in my heels to… I never wanted a
Bachelor’s in Business Administration. And the B.S. was as far as I would go, concentrations was as far as I
would go. I never … I mean… a major I was in charge was in finance and so on. I tried to surround it with


Kelly, Jack, 23 September 2008 (Part 1)



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more and more economics. Because that was the liberal arts influence. I was a big believer in the Core. Then of
course, around… after I was in that job for four, five or six years I started to become very much aware of
accreditation agencies and business associations. And I aligned myself with those that wanted the breadth of
education. The depth comes after you’ve been on the job for a few years. You know after that you can go get a
Master’s or something.
29:29
GN:
I made a lot of sense to have you know as you described the principles the three or four principles of
you know, structure of economics. In the society you’re gonna live, you gotta be able to sell a product as well
as make it well. But then, it's hard to think of a college graduate with not having any history or philosophy or
any literature or not being able to write.
29:50
JK:
That's the difference between a college and a training school. In a training school, you’d go to
DeVry and some of these institutions and they say you know we train you in this highly technical field and it's
probably excellent high-tech training but there’s no breadth to it. And I mean I know people and. But there are
situations where people have narrow educational background. And I can say from experience now looking back
watching them perform in a professional setting, they are narrow-minded. They never had the breadth to
teaching. I thought it could have… came … It’s because of the individual, their training and their background.
30:43
GN:
I was asking about the other source of influence … Our evening school was very popular for so
many years. In fact, some of the courses were only given in the evening school. Is that so? Or am I jumping the
gun? Is that the MBA program?
31:02
JK:
That was the MBA. Everything we had in the evening, we had in the day.
31:06
GN:
We did have a BA or an undergraduate course in the evening in other words.
31:15
JK:
We had the same degree. But in fact we had so many evening classes. I mean so many evening
students. Very often it might only be one section of the course. We would teach it in the evening rather than in
the day. Then the day students have to take the classes in the evening because we didn't have enough students
from two sections. So we traditionally offered a huge amount of programs in the evening. Because of our large
evening population.
31:43
GN:
I don't know if you would recall this. But in my memory, there was a time when evening was so


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popular. And it was mostly IBM that we would close for two weeks in the summer. When IBM closed its
premise…
32:02
JK:
I do remember that. I also remember that the cocktail parties I had with evening students with Dr.
Schroeder.
32:08
GN:
Coming out is the influence of IBM in terms of providing us with students. Because IBM would pay
for it.
32:20
JK:
Yeah. In fact one of the early issues that we had was … When I first came physics was the largest
major here because of IBM. Mike Kelley. Brian Desilets. So IBM was not supporting some of the business
courses. For example, we were probably delayed in getting the MBA in because IBM wasn’t supporting the
MBA degree. They didn’t get the same level of support as someone else in the physics program.
33:04
GN:
I want to get back to that this afternoon on the development of the whole business here. Okay. So
you were place. You have this job. You’ve been working at it for a number of years. And then you were here
for thirty-seven years. Now, after thirty-seven years, a lot has changed. So I was wondering, you know, from
your understanding and seeing students when they first came. We were first here. And students when they were
coming when you were last here... You know what kind of contrast would you say you know. Would they be
more intelligent? Would they be better financially situated? Were they more adept than the first students?
33:57
JK:
The first … the first-generation college from their families lower to middle income. Narrower in
background. Probably never even looked at major universities and so on when they would come. They didn't
pick Marist over Notre Dame or Georgetown. They might have gone to their local, state university or
something. They came heavily out of the Catholic tradition. Because their parents were Catholic and you're
going to go to Catholic schools. Good-natured, homogeneous. You know in the background and in looks. All
from Long Island. Lower-middle income. Heavily Irish and Italian backgrounds. Then as we went to … of
course, the biggest change was going co-ed. And when we went co-ed, the females brought a sense of
intellectualism that wasn't quite there the males before. And it started to, I think, raise the levels. But the same
time that that was happening the college was growing up and we were now started to get faculties with
doctorates. We were starting to see some faculty research. The college was become quote, more of the


Kelly, Jack, 23 September 2008 (Part 1)



15

traditional college rather than a startup institution. By the time I left, we were competitive with institutions
across the country. And we're even more competitive I think today since I retired when I look back.
35:43
GN:
When you’re talking about those colleges you're talking about, Iona, Siena…
35:50
JK:
Originally yea. We were very similar to those institutions and … if you took a look I can remember
… we used go over to take a look at it from admissions to show all colleges that also…. They looked similar to
ones that you talked to. They all had a SUNY as backup when they came. But we really weren't in competition
with high-rated or higher thought-of institutions.
36:25
GN:
Holy Cross. Boston. How were we with Fairfield? Was Fairfield and Iona better established?
36:33
JK:
No…slightly. When I went to Fairfield, I was one of the first residents. So they are only a few years
ahead of Marist. So, they had the advantage of the Jesuit mystique and the advantage of bringing Jesuits with
the experiences at other universities. When I was a student there but I studied and took courses for five Jesuits
who were all former presidents. What I think Marist certainly caught up to them in many ways and passed them
because I followed them very closely. My fifty years will come in the spring. And I knew the Dean of the
Business School quite well.
37:26
GN:
I know it's possible because I have friends who went to Fordham and never had a Jesuit. I don't
think that's possible at Fairfield. Or maybe it's just possible now.
37:36
JK:
It might be possible now. My daughter’s a Fairfield graduate and I don’t know… In fact, do you
remember Marty Lang? Well my daughter who is our oldest, first went to Fairfield, very homesick the first
couple of months. After Marty Lang got a word of it, I don't know how I didn't tell him. He immediately hired
her to babysit…
38:00
GN:
Myself and LaPietra visited him yesterday. We went over to Fairfield along with our wives. It's a
kind of annual visit. He comes here. And we go there and then we meet in Florida. Because he lives from
Naples. He lives in Marco Island where he rents there for a part of the summer. Coincidence about that…
Students. We're talking about to change in students. Academic ability. When you were leaving, how our
requirements had raised somewhat in the water?
38:36
JK:
I think the students… you can track that back by class rank, SAT. I think you can see a steady


Kelly, Jack, 23 September 2008 (Part 1)



16

increase over the time in the history of Marist. Yeah. I've had since I retired. You know I've done a lot of work
for New Jersey Commission of Higher Education, working full-time with them for a while. Been to numerous
college campuses, you know, I was the President of the Association of all Business School Deans. And I'm a
just as with any of these top institutions all across the Northeast. And those same faculty. The fact that business
school here got this very prestigious accreditation, I think it speaks volumes. I was the first and only doctorate
in the Department of Business and Economics and with the Division of Management here and then School of
Management and when I left, I think there were twenty-five PHDs.
39:48
GN:
Well that moves us to next question about the change of faculty and administration. Your faculty
increased and they came with degrees. First, in the early years, they were going to finish them. And you
yourself had to finish. What about the Deans now? Did they play more and more of a role in the college? You
think of van der Heyden at the end and Kelly at the beginning. Yeah there was a quantum leap.
40:18
JK:
Big difference. The earlier deans were record keepers. Because they were kind of putting everything
together. I don’t even... control the schedule and so on. The later Deans, someone like van der Heyden is a
unique individual. As you know, I was very close to him right now. To me, he’s the epitome of what a
university person should be. In terms of the intellectualism.
40:55
GN:
Multilingual. Well-read. Knows art.
41:00
JK:
He also could be political. He could read people. He was a master at getting what he wanted with
different types of people and events. He was the perfect president… to the international community. You know
I think of the other president... You know I knew some of them while I was here, from Lahey to Mark Sullivan.
That’s a totally different caliber of what was going on with … sheriff here in the middle of the …. Trying to
corral everything. And it was Mark van der Heyden, the first Dean that really gave me the support that I have
fought for years for business, public administration… others didn’t understand it and didn’t necessarily believe
in it. But he did.
42:08
GN:
Part of that is finance of course.
42:11
JK:
Part of it is finance. I knew we had to have PhDs and they were going to expensive. We needed the
research money and that’s expensive. The Deans didn’t necessarily pick up on that.


Kelly, Jack, 23 September 2008 (Part 1)



17

42:27
GN:
But you have to give […] credit for that. He went and got the money for a number of those
enterprises to the research and for the development. Next phase: the physical aspects of the campus and the
development. I mean you might scratch your head and say, is this the same place?
42:48
JK:
I came and it was Donnelly Hall, the circle. And Sheahan, later Leo… Champagnat...
42:55
GN:
We had a gym. They said we had a gym. It was over there if you had seen.
42:59

JK:
I played basketball in it. With Linus and so on. The original dorms which had the four beds, they
were the original faculty offices. So I can remember Cornelius and myself. And while Hannah Wallace. She
passed away I believe. She was Rosemary Molloy’s roommate. Took sociology and maybe Griffin was around
then too. I can remember because it was an all-male school and you know. I shared an office with Harry, well.
43:43
GN:
Let me go on to something else here now. You were at the helm of this thing for such a long period
of time. Looking back, what would you say were maybe two or three of the major problems that you had to deal
with? To bring the thing along. Was it the amount of students? I mean did you find them difficult at times? And
wanting more that we could get or?
44:15
JK:
No, I would say. This might be different from what others would say. I knew if Marist was going to
really make it in the future in the twenty years out from whenever I would be talking. But they had to get this
AASCB accreditation. And it was a five-year plan and Dennis I remember, remarked that and when they finally
got in, he said, “The funny part is Jack actually was working on it for about you know five years before that.”
The funny part is that Jack was working on it for twenty to twenty-five years before that. One of the reasons we
became divisions is because I knew you had to have a separate school with a dean who needed a C.S.V. And I
took that as a legitimate first step towards and … Management was the first division. And many others came.
Trying to get faculty with doctorates. And sometimes looking the other way, you know we hired an excellent
teacher who worked for Chase but his doctorate was actually psychology. So I had to learn how do you make a
case for a doctorate out of field. AASCB now accepts that as long as these publications are within the area of
expertise. A big coup for us was hiring somebody like Les Cone who had a doctorate in marketing and
respected and published.
46:53
GN:
Well how did you to hire those with a minimal salary?


Kelly, Jack, 23 September 2008 (Part 1)



18


46:57
JK:
It was tough. And I had to really lean hard. We probably used many more adjuncts that we could. So
that instead of two full time doing it, we had maybe one full-time […]
46:09

GN:
Take extra money
46:13

JK:

…
In the adjuncts. Some deans were more supportive of me than others. It's also true. And I
probably should be careful saying this. In my later years at the tail end, other Deans including never knew the
amount of money that I was dealing with. I had some corporate support. I had… for number of years I had a
vest pocket sabbatical but it was corporate supported. I didn't have to go to the tenure committee. I can just give
it to somebody that I think deserve a break. And some of those salaries of those people were better than the
salaries in other division and schools. Part of it was getting some good people and using them to really put a
hard sell on others. For example, when we got Dan Cooper in Finance, he was a superb instructor. I just worked
on Dan because he came all the way from the West Coast. He was Jesuit-trained, I was Jesuit-trained. We
talked about that. He came just because of the sell I put on. We got a guy like Jeff Black, who ultimately, we
lost. He was a dynamite instructor in economics. He came because of Dan Cooper…
47:43
GN:
I remember Dan Cooper alright. He was also into computers…
47:50
JK:
He was big-time into computers. Then we got Rob Walsh, superb in Accounting. Got a doctorate
from Notre Dame. And it was during that period of time also once we decided to the AASCB, this was seven or
eight years before we even filed for it… I want everyone in on the three-or-five-year plan… privately. What
they would have to do or whether they would have to leave. And only one case did we have a fight with tenure.
And all the others, they just left. I’m not going to name names… but.
48:27
GN:
. It's a touchy question but I am moving to the difficult problems that you know. And every now and
then somebody doesn't make the mark. You know and you have to. I had that experience first of a music
director heading for various other occupations. You know. So then I needed things to do. And I'm sure you had
your share of them. And it takes the sweetness out of the job sometimes to have to do that…
49:59
JK:
It was the toughest part of the job. I hated the evaluation process. Simply because it’s difficult. I said
to somebody years ago. I think I used the word fire … that I fired more people than maybe the whole institution


Kelly, Jack, 23 September 2008 (Part 1)



19

put together. That’s not really true. I really didn’t fire. I didn’t renew contracts. A lot of people, I could go
through thirty, forty names… full-time and part-time that I simply didn’t renew their contracts. A couple I
would name, denied tenure. Only once in my entire professional career has somebody fighting an appeal […].
But I think I did it in a fair way in that I lay out these long-range plans for people with them. And saying I have
to have people who have doctorates and who are writing if you can’t achieve that here, you have to go. So we
worked deals. So if somebody said I really want to be a veterinary, can you keep me on a couple of years so I
can get my science requirements and then I’m getting to vet school. And I said, yes. That worked out well…
50:09
GN:
Often times… Sometimes it is a clash on experience but oftentimes it's the outside areas of not
having completed a degree and not published at all or not making presentations or… You know
50:31
JK:
Well, that became more and more important as we became close and close to the AACSB. The
earlier ones primarily were teaching issues. Well, conduct issues. I had a…couple of cases of…?
50:43
GN:
Sexual harassment or?
50:45
JK:
That type of situation.
05:49
GN:
We didn't have that in the other departments. We were watching …
50:54
JK:
So. And some of those but in one case where I was about to fire a tenured professor. He got angry
and just jumped up and screamed I quit and I said I accept. And that was the end of it.
51:07
GN:
Looking at the college where it is now or where it’s from. If you had a say two or three things that
were most significant to bring about this change. You would say I think these are… they…? Maybe our
location. But that just happens to be a geographic fact. What about the climate here? Why did you stay?
Certainly, you had an office…
51:42
JK:
I think I stayed for a couple of reasons. One was personally family raising four children on and
Hudson Valley is a fantastic place to raise children. I just didn’t want to uproot them. And when some of the
jobs offers had come through that I really seriously considered when my kids were in high school age… I really
did not want to make a change in those years for them. The other thing was I could see Marist continuously
moving…advancing. Whereas I saw other institutions, I wouldn’t say drying up… but falling in my estimation
in the terms of an academic institutions, part of it might have been location. Part of it might be the student


Kelly, Jack, 23 September 2008 (Part 1)



20

body…goes with the location, the student body might not go there.
52:33
GN:
Some college are close…
52:38
JK:
But we just kept moving. The other thing was…you know, I … Dennis Murray. Yet what made this
institution that it is today, I think Dennis deserves a tremendous amount of credit. When you look back, he just
had a vision and he was able to pull it off in a number of different ways to make this college an
attractive…vibrant …institution but one that is constantly growing in academic …
53:24
GN:
Capabilities and prestige.
53:26
JK:
To me it’s very important. It was very interesting because you know when Linus left and Dennis was
hired. This is telling whole story of the school that … which nobody really knows about. I threw my name in
the hat. I just wanted to see what would happen. So did a dozen of other people. And I never really expected
anything to happen. But turns out, I outlasted all the other candidates. I also stood up … of these institutions as
an outsider. But the chairman of the board, he personally came into my office to say … but you outlasted
everybody else. Which I took a very nice compliment to me. I just kind of said that, well I was seeing things the
same way that other people were seeing things. …Dennis had a much broader vision and he was more
concerned with the inside than the outside. Than I was. I was more concerned in the academics.
54:42
GN:
. And of course, you had the biggest department here which kept the whole boat afloat. And the
communications department. What were things…if you had… that you weren’t able to change that you wish
you could change. Is there something in that…
55:03
JK:
Well, just some personal things. You and I both really leaned into it. The faculty refused to allow
with administrators to advance in rank. That always just struck in my core. Because I was a full-time
administrator I couldn’t go off… Not too much else I would have changed. I might have wished that we could
have moved faster towards the prestige of the business school in terms of getting the AASCB. And the fact is
we did do it and we did it in time. It didn’t… My entire professional career was pointing towards that. Anything
else I would have done, I really don’t think so. I mean … I … I really feel like I won my belief that we not
over-specialize the undergraduates. Nor did we even have it at the graduate level. The MBA were also not over-
specialized. Some MBAs are highly narrow. The MBA actually was created for engineers who got into



Kelly, Jack, 23 September 2008 (Part 1)



21

management positions. So by definition, it should be a broad-based degree. If you wanted to be a Bachelor’s in
Marketing and then Master’s in Marketing, you should be getting an M.S. Could be an MBA. A lot of schools
violate those principles. I’m kind of an elitist, I don’t like it when they do that. To me, education means
breadth. Particularly, what you’re applying for, that you don’t overspecialize and become a training institution.
56:47
GN:
Yeah. In your time here, you certainly made a number of friends I suppose. And the place itself is
where there's a certain kind of congeniality I think that I would say goes with the Marist. Because of the people
who are able to create that. You know. And so is it true that you have maintain friendships with colleagues
and...?
57:11
JK:
I think so. Two gentlemen that was actually the closest to me and personally, we became. Once I
became a full-time administrator, it was difficult to get too close to other faculty in the School of Business. The
School of Management. Because I was a boss. So…that was always difficult. I got very active then in those last
ten, fifteen years in the external accreditation committees. And I got very, very close to other business school
deans. Very close and still are. Only whom remains…others retired. We still have contacts with each other. I
am still in contact with a lot of people from Marist.
58:15
GN:
Yes. You know that you mentioned not before that there were some times when you would didn't
exactly agree with him. I was in some meetings that did happen. I was at a meeting where we did have to bring
the President down to keep you from resigning. Some demands were being made upon seeing…evaluations,
contracts, and all of that. That was nobody else’s business, you know. It’s been a good run. We’re certainly glad
that you did come and stayed the time you did. Helped bring us to where we are today. We’ll end this now and
hope to pick it up in another score, namely the development of the school we have now from where it came.
We’ll do that this afternoon. Thank you.