LOUIS ZUCCARELLO


Marist College
Poughkeepsie, NY
Transcribed by Jamie Edwards
For the Marist College Archives and Special Collections



Transcript – Louis Zuccarello

Interviewee:
Louis Zuccarello

Interviewer:
Gus Nolan

Interview Date:
1 November 2001

Location:
Marist Archives and Special Collections Reading Room


Subject Headings:
Zuccarello, Louis



Marist College. Political Science Department



Marist College—Faculty



Marist College—Administration



Summary:
This interview begins with Louis Zuccarello’s youth and then his
beginnings as one of the first lay faculty members at Marist College. The interview then
goes on discuss various faculty and the different roles that Zuccarello took on in
administration. He talks about each one of these roles, how they were different, and how
each posed unique challenges. He also expresses his concern for the Marist Brothers
fading authority within the Marist College. The changing of course requirements is
discussed, showing its initial start and growing of requirements. The interview ends with
Zuccarello’s feelings towards distance learning in the future and the direction of the
college, as well as the ongoing relationship between lay faculty and the Brothers.


Louis Zuccarello

1

Gus Nolan
: What is your full name?

Louis Zuccarello
: Louis Corado Zuccarello.

GN
: Were you named after any member of the family?

LZ
: Yes, I was named after my father. Louis is after my father, and Corado is after my
grandfather who I never met.

GN
: Where were you born and when?

LZ
: I was born in the Bronx, New York August 16, 1936.

GN
: Do you have any siblings?

LZ
: Yes, I have sister. Her name is Mildred.

GN
: And where did you grow up?

LZ
: I grew up in the Bronx, New York.

GN
: Could you be more specific? Where in the Bronx?

LZ
: I grew up in the Wakefield section of the Bronx, not far away from Mt St. Michael High
School, which was run by the Marist Brothers and which I attended for high school – the north
Bronx on the Mt. Vernon border. It was a lovely neighborhood. First I attended PS-87, and then
I was finally accepted as part of the Italian group that integrated St. Francis of Rome parochial
school, which was predominantly Irish. So they finally admitted a few Italians and I was one of
them. [Laughter]

GN
: Could you say something a little about your parents? What did your father do? Do you
remember?

LZ
: My father was an immigrant who had aspirations, when he was a young boy, of being a sea
captain, but his family fortunes were poor. His father died, and so he migrated to the United
States around 1920. Eventually, he became what you would call today a seamstress, he actually
became after that a tailor, and eventually ended up opening his own little blouse-manufacturing
factory. My mother was a seamstress, that’s where they met, and when my father died at a very
early age – forty-eight – she took over this small business that they had.

GN
: And where did you go to college?

LZ
: I went to St. John’s College – Brooklyn, then Jamaica. We moved to Jamaica, to the
Hillcrest campus. And I did four years there, and then I did graduate work on a part-time basis at
Fordham University. I got three graduate degrees: a master of arts, a master of science and
education, and eventually a PHD in political science at Fordham.

GN
: What drew you to the Marist College campus?


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LZ
: Well I was a…I had been a student at Mt. St. Michael High School, or as we call it Mt. St.
Hatten Michael Academy, for boys day and boarding school in the north Bronx. And one of my
teachers was very influential in my life - Brother Edward Lawrence at that time, but then he
became Edward Cashin – was my history teacher as a sophomore and as a junior and as a senior.
He was also the debate coach. And he encouraged me to come into debate. Eventually because
of my success in debating, I got a four-year scholarship to St. John’s, which was the only way I
could have attended a private college, because of our family finances. And he eventually went
on to become academic vice president here at Marist and knew that I was going for my graduate
work in political science. There was no political science program here at Marist. He encouraged
me to apply for a position, and eventually I was offered a position here at Marist.

GN
: When you arrived at Marist – you were one of the first lay faculty to join the institution –
how would you describe the relationships between the lay faculty and the Marist Brothers?

LZ
: Very collegial. Very collegial, supportive. I would say that we tended to be very young.
Many of the lay faculty, as a generalization, there were some older gentlemen. We were very
young, and the Brothers were young comparatively. But also the leaders, some of the leadership
positions, they were a little older than we were. So we thought that we were working together to
build the college.

GN
: Just in passing, can you remember some of the lay faculty that you worked with, and who
stands out in your memory?

LZ
: Well many of the people that remained here…well, I remember the people in my
department were: Roscoe Balch, Jerry White, Vince Toscano, Tom Casey, Bob Lewis, George
Skau were very important. Among the laymen, those are some of the – Bob Norman – some of
the people that come to my mind. I wasn’t friendly with them but I certainly knew people
like…not that I was unfriendly with them, but I just wasn’t as close as the people in my own
department. People like: George Sommer, Don Drennen, and Milton Teichman.

GN
: Were they all about the same age?

LZ
: That last group was a little older than we were the first group. I was thirty years old when I
came to Marist. And I would say that they were probably…they were in their late thirties or
early forties.

GN
: When you first came, Marist was rather a very simple campus. What was your view of it
then and the progress that has been made? What stands out as a significant achievement in the
building arrangements?

LZ
: Well, when I came, you know, everything, all the classes and administration for the most
part was conducted in the Donnelly Hall building, which existed. And we would go over to the
Campus Center for lunch. And it was much more collegial lunch because there were fewer of us,
this was a gathering place. We didn’t have a lot of other places to go. So that was another
center. And I would say those are the two centers that I remember: Donnelly Hall, and basement
area of the Campus Center which had a cafeteria there, and the bookstore was located there also.
So I mean the way in which the campus has evolved is just exploded. I think for the better. But


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it was a different college when I came, because it was smaller and it was more…we didn’t have
as many programs, we didn’t have as many students. The presence as the Brothers was much
more pronounced because we had many students who were studying to be Marist Brothers and
they would be in the classrooms with their robes on, and…I don’t know if that’s where you want
me to go, but--

GN
: Well, it’s fine. Just spinning off that, what were your initial expectations, in relation
toward Marist? Did you see it as a developing college that would blossom, or did you see it as
an opportunity to be able to move ahead and create new courses…

LZ
: --When I came here, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I was excited about
teaching in college, at the college level. But I was really very green, but I had been teaching for
eight years at the high school level, so I wasn’t inexperienced as a teacher. But I can’t say that in
1966 when I came I had any way of foreseeing what Marist would become. As we were here,
and I talk about other people of my generation, there where things that had to be done that we
learned had to be done as far as curriculum. There were things we were interested in that we
wanted to bring to the college. For example, in my case, we didn’t have a political science
major, so I knew that one of the expectations of me was to help develop the political science
program. But then, you know, as you become more experienced, your interests broaden. And I
became very interested in curricular programs, academic programs. And this was the great thing
about being at Marist, was that you were always encouraged. You were always supported. But
we had a lot of debates and discussion about different things, but we soon came – in 1966 when I
came here I didn’t realize it – but we soon came to realize that we were partners, all of us in
building this college. And we could make it become whatever our own imagination and
creativity would allow it to become.

GN
: I’d like to get back to some of those points about the core and the development of various
aspects of it a little later on. But in this initial part of the development and the changes, two
significant changes would be on the historical record. One would be the arrival of women here.
Were you here for that initial influx of the female population who have now become the
dominant force in terms of numerical counting’s here?

LZ
: What I remember the debates in Adrian Hall when there was a proposal to have Marist
adopt the St. Francis nursing program. And one of the arguments against doing that was that that
would mean that we would be co-ed. And I seem to recall – I may be wrong on this – that
somebody said that the Marist Brothers were not allowed to teach women, and so somebody
invoked that as a kind of legalism. I myself thought it was a good idea to bring in the nursing
program because it would add… The women’s issue was never really a big issue for me because
I had spent six years teaching co-ed classes. So I really thought, well whatever the college
wanted to have as their character. But I remember that and then I remember there were women
in the evening division. And then women came to the campus. They were part of the group and
they quickly integrated themselves in, became partners and leaders in activities and all. But this
was not a significant transition for me, at least personally.

GN
: Another change and I’m not sure if it was a visual change that you saw or in any way
impacted, but there was a point in time when the Marist Brothers transferred the college over to
the Marist College Educational Corporation. Did that impact the students or the faculty or did
you even know it happened, or was there any significant effects of that?


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LZ
: I knew that it happened after the fact. And when I found out about it, when I began to think
about it, I was upset at the way it was done. And even today, I am still upset about it.

G.N.
Why?

L.Z.
Mainly because I don’t think that there was anything wrong with the transfer or whatever,
but what I did think was very wrong and was very upsetting – and I think it has impacted the
college – was that the Marist Brothers essentially gave up all say in the future direction of the
college. So that it’s possible today, it was possible at the time of the transition to Dennis
Murray, for someone to come in here that could kind of do everything contradictory to the
heritage and the reason for the foundation of the Brothers. So I thought that it would have been
wiser for the Brothers to do this transition, but to maintain some kind of review or control, even
through membership on the board of trustees or by review of the president or whatever. Because
after all the Marist Brothers where the ones who put their blood, sweat, and tears and
imagination into building this place. But today, somebody could take this place right away from
them. So yeah, I was very concerned about that.

GN
: Let’s change the pace a little bit and talk about your career here. Moving from teaching to
moving into other distinct careers I think that we could say you’ve had and maybe you could
comment on them. You moved on to be a chair person of the department of history and political
science, and then you moved on to be the vice president and academic dean, and then you moved
on to be the director of core liberal studies, and then finally, now, the center of teaching
excellence. Could you segregate these out and talk about your experience? Were any of those
more enjoyable than others, or were there some that were enjoyable and rewarding and you wish
that it continued, or are you glad that you had enough of each in its own time and you were
happy to move on to something else?

LZ
: When I came to Marist I didn’t understand what administration was all about. I was a
teacher, I was in the classroom I had no idea about those things. Gradually, I did start getting
involved in certain kinds of administrative related things a long range planning committee and
things of that sort. And I found that I liked it. I liked being the elected chairperson of the
department. But I think that the administrative…they were kind of like building blocks. And
then as chairperson it took me into a larger forum of administrators to the chairperson’s council.
And I remember particularly serving under Richard LaPietra, who was the academic vice
president, getting more involved in more complex administrative issues. And I found that liked
it, I thought that I made a contribution. And so eventually, when Richard decided to step down
from being academic vice president I did throw my hat in the ring for that position. And the
major reason that I did it was because I was interested in curricular reform. And also I was
interested in dealing with the problem I thought we were facing as a college which is how now as
an independent college, could we integrate aspects of the heritage of the Marist Brothers, of our
Catholic heritage, into the curriculum in a way that would allow us to be truly independent but at
the same time, would value our past. So those were my motivations for getting into
administration. And because I liked it, I must’ve gotten some psychic pay off out of it. I don’t
mind a lot of work, hard work etc. So then I went and became academic vice president. At that
time, it was really academic dean and then it was changed during my tenure to academic vice
president. Linus Foy was very stingy with titles. You know, some presidents just keep throwing
out titles instead of pay raises, or whatever. Linus was stingy with titles, but I think that…


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GN
: He was more stingy with money [Laughter]

LZ
: You better believe it. When we came here, I said that they gave us a contract and a cord of
St. Francis to wrap around our waist. But he was the model. It was not one of these situations
where he was so well paid. He kept the lid on everybody because he was so modest in his own
remuneration. And so I always admired him for that and at the same time, figured he could have
been more generous with himself [Laughter] and even more generous with us. So I served five
years as academic dean, it was a period of transition. There were a lot of things starting up: there
were financial issues that had to be dealt with, the faculty was changing, and there was a new
public policy. The college, I think, was at really a moment for change, and what I invested my
efforts into was curricular change and the heritage issue - which I was very committed to - and
then you know just trying to, I don’t know, keep a collegial spirit.

GN
: What were the most rewarding things of that time for you looking back in that five-year
span?

LZ
: I think that, you know the passage of the Core Liberal Studies Program I was very happy
about. I think that, you know I was able to continue the tradition of being an honest
administrator. I think that we were honest with the faculty; we were honest with each other. I
thought that that was rewarding. Dealing with faculty development, you know, on the modest
scale that it existed in at that time. And then, you know, being able to put out fires. I never
imagined when I walked into that office, the kind of issues and problems that came up.

GN
: Just single out one.

LZ
: One that I think captures the whole thing – it really captures a lot. It was a Friday
afternoon, and every week was a horrendous week, I mean total workload. And I am a
workhorse, so you shovel it to me and I shovel it back. But I mean it was tough at times, because
the workload was so excessive. So Friday afternoon you’re beginning to think well maybe
things are going to level down. And so three o’clock in the afternoon on Friday, John Warenko
who was head of the art department walks into my office and he says, “You know, I need a
policy decision from you.” So I look at him, because you think he’s supposed to be the sage
with all this information. He went to graduate school, studied and specializes in political science
he says, “What do you want do about the nude models?” I said, well look John you’re going to
have to explain that to me.” So he said that most schools, students can qualify for work-study to
serve as nude models for the art program. I had no idea what to do. [Laughter] I had no idea
what the answer to this thing was. My first thought is, “well what do other schools do?” I said,
“I can’t give you an answer on this right away John.” But I singled that out because I don’t think
that if anybody prepared to be an administrator, [Laughter] or to, you know, to deal with the
problems you think you’re going to deal with, those are the kinds of issues that come in from left
field that you’re supposed to resolve. One other was a call from a faculty member that he had
just been arrested and what could I do for him. I mean these are things that, you know, just are
so out of curricular reform, academic reform. But you know you deal with them, and eventually,
there is awe. And one of the things that I…one of the models I would come out with is that after
those five years, I said, “you know what’s a good model? This too shall pass.” [Laughter] It’s
going to end. So those are just things I remember, they’re not the most profound, but that’s what
I remember.


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GN
: I can see that they would different. Not too many people would have to make these
decisions. One more area there is as director of the Core Liberal Studies, maybe you could say
something about your view of that program in its inception and where is it now and the role that
you played to bring. It certainly is one of the backbone academic points of the college.

LZ
: Well, you should know that the prior curriculum was what was called a sixty-sixty
curriculum: which gave sixty credits to the department major, to do whatever it wanted with it –
you could have requirements up to sixty credits – and sixty credits were given to the student, to
decide whatever he or she wanted to do with it. The theory was, and Harold Hutchinson was the
expert who presented this to us, it’s like going through a cafeteria line. If you have a structured
curriculum and you want to go appetizer first, entrée, dessert, etc. He says, “But if you just give
them sixty credits,” he says, “you’ll be surprised. They’ll go through that line in different ways,
but at the end, they’ll have sweets, carbohydrates, proteins, they’ll have everything – all the
basics.” Well, we had some doubts about this but we looked at it. And then actually, I think
Linus was one of the people involved, I was another one involved, in saying, “well let’s see what
our graduating seniors are graduating with.” And we found a lot of dessert on the plate. You
know, this balanced diet was not really what the transcripts were revealing. The other issue was
that the college was becoming increasing secular, and I was worried about this heritage issue,
values issue. So we came up with a Core Liberal Studies Program with a focus on values. And I
can remember the initial discussions when I proposed the idea. It was met with, by some people
that I think should have known better, with a great deal of sarcasm and a great deal of cynicism.
I remember one department chair saying, “What do you want to do? Teach students how to be
good?” So, you know those kinds of things. But I think what it did was it was very modest
when it started out. It requires students to savor different academic areas and it was more modest
than it is now. The requirements have actually been increased. The other thing that we
introduced was a concern for values. And what was built into that also was the work of the
Philosophy department and Xavier Ryan, who were very influential with his modes of
consciousness, which eventually came into the Intro to Philosophy course. And the other things
that we introduced at that time…you know, Marist in so many ways was on cutting edge and
ahead of cutting edge, and we never realized it. We introduced the idea of the capping course.
Which, you know, if you look at the literature on general education and liberal education, this is
one of the things that they constantly recommend they don’t know how to do it. So we had that
in there also. It was passed. Some people say, “You know, it’s a very political kind of core.” Of
course it’s a political kind of core, because any policy issue is political. You have to do trade-
offs; you have to give some people things. So we did that but I think it was very respectable.
Then I think in early 1980s, the Academic Affairs Committee took the core that we had and
expanded it. So where we had three credit requirements, they put six credit requirements in
many areas. But they kept the fundamental orientation of the core. The fundamental philosophy.

GN
: This is a historical document that we are creating now. What is the base? What are the
five or six areas that each student had to take at least two courses or at least six credits in?

LZ
: At that time it was three. It was history, literature, fine arts, mathematics…I think it was
mathematic science was one category.

GN
: Was foreign language in there?



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LZ
: No, there was no foreign language requirement.

GN
: But there was philosophy?

LZ
: There was an Intro to Philosophy which was the foundation course. In fact, we had a six-
credit foundation course right from the beginning: Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics.
Eventually, the Ethics course would be moved to the junior year, but originally it was
Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics were taken in the freshman year.

GN
: When did writing enter into it?

LZ
: Writing was there from the beginning.

GN
: It was?

LZ
: Yes, writing was there. They had to demonstrate proficiency in writing.

GN
: Some seniors did that in their last semester. [Laughter]

LZ
: But we had in the adoption of the core, we were benefited by an NEN (National
Endowment for the Humanities) development grant. We had John Gore come in from the
University of Southern California, who kind of baptized and said that this was a good core and
then everybody believed it. And one other person, who stood very prominent, is Arthur Caplan,
who’s now heading major Bio-Ethics Programs. He was one of the consultants. He was from
the Hastings Institute. And he thought what we were trying to do was very innovative.

GN
: One last thing. Where you are now, in the Center for Teaching Excellence, what would
you describe this as? What’s your role there and what are you trying to do?

LZ
: My role with the Center for Teaching Excellence…the idea of having a faculty
development program in teaching has been bouncing around the college for a long time. Among
the people that I’ve heard, I know that Vince Toscano was one person who pushed it, but it never
materialized. Bob Grossman supposedly had a role in this too, in pushing it. Well, I was called
by Artin who said, “We would like to set up a center.” So what I told him is, “what about these
other people, because they really have…” Okay, whatever, they were on to other things. I told
him I would be glad to work in the establishment of the center and that I would give him two
years because I retired last year. So I would give him last year, which was my last year of full-
time teaching, and this year and then I’m out of it. And the idea was to give this idea some
structure, get it started, get it accepted, and get it going.

GN
: Well, how is…

LZ
: Well, what we’ve had is we’ve had workshops, that seem to have been very good. At the
end of last semester, we did a special workshop for part-time faculty only on Saturday morning.
Eighty-eight people attended. And we’re going to follow that up this semester and next
semester. So the thing is rolling, and it’s moving. We’ve tried to establish St. Ann’s Hermitage
as the physical location. That has problems, because it’s so out of the way. But we are
maintaining a presence there this year. And so we’re under way. We’ve gotten literature; we’ve


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tried to provide a wide range of programs which would be more scholarly, more pedagogically
oriented different kinds of programs. So, so far, so good.

GN
: There’s a reference here, I didn’t realize it, that you wrote a paper supporting the academic
and student life areas with value concerns. Does that ring a bell?

LZ
: Yeah, I think I did that when I as academic dean.

GN
: I see. And that was at a point to try to bring the values into the life of the students in
terms…

LZ
: Right, because we talk about you just can’t have, you have to have some kind of
consistency, cooperation, coherence. So I don’t even know where that paper is now. But I
remember talking about the idea and somebody said to me at a Management Council Meeting,
said, “well, why don’t you write that up,” and so I did.

GN
: Other areas that you were definitely involved, I think, in your leadership at Marist had to
do with such things as bringing a nursing program in for a period of time with Mt. St. Mary’s.
Did you work with that?

LZ
: Well, you have to be careful on that. We had a program of cooperation with Mt. St. Mary
dealing with special education, which had been, I think, originated and worked out by Richard
LaPietra when he was dean. So I have always been a big believer in those kinds of cooperative
programs, where institutions wouldn’t overlap but would cooperate with each other. So we
proposed to Mt. St. Mary a program where they would provide, let’s say, the first two years with
a good solid grounding in…let’s see I don’t remember which way it went. I think it was they
would provide the grounding in nursing and we would compliment that with grounding in
general education. And they would come up here to teach the nursing as I remember it. And it
would be a cooperative program. And we came almost, we came close to making the deal but
we never made that deal. Certain people at the Mount that didn’t like the deal. So that was the
way in which I tried to get nursing at Marist. Subsequently, a nursing program was brought to
Marist, but it wasn’t brought by me. It wasn’t brought with the cooperation with Mt. St. Mary
because they never bought into that finally.

GN
: What about the paralegal program? Did you have anything to do with that in its
development here?

LZ
: The paralegal program was really an initiative taken by Carolyn Landau. And she was the
one who initiated interest in paralegal. And that’s really her baby I was chair of the department I
think or dean at the time. I will claim credit for some other programs, though.

GN
: Like?

LZ
: Criminal Justice. The Criminal Justice Program started out by my meeting with the
academic dean at Dutchess Community College – Sabra Meserzbi was her name. A good
woman, she’s passed on now. What we did essentially was to say you have a two-year degree
program in Criminal Justice we’ll cap that. And what they were worried about is that we would
launch our own program and be competitive, and we didn’t. We had a very good cooperative


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relationship. It’s only recently that Marist has gone completely on its own with the criminal
justice program. But that started as a cooperative relationship with Dutchess Community
College. And the other program that I will claim credit for introducing, you know setting up the
stage for, is the Social Work Program. That we encouraged, and then of course we got people
into launch it and Margaret really took it from there.

GN
: What’s your feeling about the graduate programs? The MBA and MA in psychology? Do
you think that the college should invest more, or less, or the same in those programs now?

LZ
: Well, I think, you invest in the successful ones. And eventually, I’ve always believed that
programs eventually have to pay their own way, that we shouldn’t be subsidizing programs. So I
think that the graduate programs in psychology, teacher education are doing well. At one time I
don’t think they were doing as well. Now I don’t know how the MBA is doing, it’s certainly not
doing the way…because that used to be the premiere program. And the MPA program, which
I’ve taught in, from what I understand is almost, if it hasn’t, it’s about to go completely
electronic which I’m not crazy about.

GN
: That’s the distance learning kind of thing that would be involved in that?

LZ
: But one of the things that I think that we have to look at very carefully is how we assess the
use of resources. So when I did the finances, I always counted that a person who was teaching in
the graduate program, half of his salary should be attributed in the cost in the graduate program.
I know other people don’t agree with that fully, the financing of the whole thing, but that’s the
way I always did it.

GN
: One last program: how about the fashion program? Did you play a part in establishing?
LZ
: Yeah, well I mean, I played a part in that I happened to be a dean at the time that Bennett
College closed, and the real leadership on that was Ed Waters, who was very entrepreneurial. He
was the executive vice president at the time. And many of the programs that we have here are
attributable to Ed’s entrepreneurship. And he was the one who gathered programs from Bennett
College. Then we tried to make the way easier with faculty being hired, getting program
approval, finding the…you know, how we going to get a degree here? And I think I was the one
that found the bachelor’s in professional studies as a way in which we could accommodate that
program as a four-year program.

GN
: Did you have anything to do with the creation of the present time schedule? That is, the
college master time schedule? The two courses per week, the thinking that went into that, or did
that come during your time or was that in place?

LZ
: I was involved in a major controversy over a time schedule. And I know that I had created
a time schedule, which eventually became the time schedule. Gus, I can’t tell you if it’s this time
schedule. [Laughter] But it’s probably similar to this.

GN
: I should have said there was one other program. What’s your view about the Study Abroad
Program?

LZ
: Good, I think it’s great. Oh yeah, I think that that’s wonderful. It’s always been a premiere
program at Marist.


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GN
: Now, coming to the concluding part of this little interview, but some significant questions
that I’d like to get your view on them. You are really very familiar with two presidents: Linus
Foy and Dennis Murray. Could you speak, in an objective way, how their administrations
differed and the major contributions of each?

LZ
: Well, I think the first thing you have to take into consideration is that they were, in a sense,
presidents of two different schools. I mean, Marist today is not the school that it was at the time
of Linus Foy’s administration. But I always felt that Linus Foy was a very fair president. He
was a person of great integrity. He was a doer. He was very intelligent. He was the one who
really set the seeds for the computer, the whole movement into computers. He saw that early on,
and he had expertise in that, and we fumbled our way through the early stages as the whole
society was fumbling its way through the early stages. I think that he was a very modest man. I
found him a good person to work with – he was an honest person. And we didn’t always agree
on things, I remember there was a faculty member, who I voted to deny tenure to, and Linus
didn’t see it that way and he went through his procedures. At the end, the faculty member was
given tenure, but I didn’t have any complaint. I had done my part honestly; he did his part
honestly. So he was a good person to work with, and I think he was substantive academically.

GN
: He allowed you to disagree with him?

LZ
: Oh yeah, there’s no question. There’s no authoritarianism in Linus. He was very
encouraging and supportive to all the young people. He was very encouraging and supporting to
the lay faculty. So I had a lot of respect for Linus and I still do. I think in 1980, Linus’ day was
over. That’s my honest opinion. Marist needed the next step. And I think that Linus’ great
virtue, his modesty, may have become somewhat of a liability in the sense of the world of public
relations and the world of blowing your horn. I constantly think of the Marist Brother’s slogan:
do good quietly. It’s not going to work for a college president where the name of the game is
image, public relations, etc. So Dennis Murray, I think, has brought that to the table. I also
respected Dennis a great deal and I thank God we got a person like Dennis Murray because he
has some feeling for the heritage of the college. And at that juncture, we could have gone a lot
of different ways. So I think that Dennis is – and I attribute this virtue to Linus, too, but in a
different way –Dennis was very bold. He’s gusty in the sense that he’s taking chances. I think
that some of the building and the construction that’s gone on and the chances that we’ve taken
with funding and all that really, you know, require a great deal of faith in the future. I think that
he’s more of the traditional administrator, aware of kind of like professional administrative. So
he kind of knows what to do at the moment, he’s into a great deal of show. There’s a great deal
of show. But I think he’s deeply committed to Marist College. See, I only had one year with
Dennis as an academic dean and academic vice president. He was always very supportive, but
he had a different style of administration where he was much more like the external person, or
the person who was going to be the spokesperson for the college. He’s curious in the sense that
you would think from that, that he would be a hands-off administrator. But if there’s probably
one fault that he has, and he has more than one fault as we all do have more than one fault, he
can also tend to be a micro-manager. Not letting people do their own thing, if it’s something that
he happens to be interested at the present time. But I think that his accomplishment…I mean,
Linus took virtually nothing, and made it into something really that people could be proud of.
Dennis has taken that something and taken it to the next level.



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11

GN
: In that transfer, you seemed to be respect very much the ideals that Marist, having planted
here and Dennis has managed to keep those and refers to them often and make sure that they’re
in our statements, in our Mission Statement and in the philosophy of the college and so on. Do
you think that still is true in the student body and the faculty, or has there been a major change in
the outlook and mentality of the college as regards the old Marist ideals and the present Marist
ideals?

LZ
: Oh, I think they’re much diluted today. I think they’re much diluted. I think they’re much
diluted in society. But, I mean, the faculty is more diverse in the best and the worst sense of that
word. In the sense that it’s so…I think that initially, when people came here, they came for a
certain sense of mission was involved in that. And that’s not the case today with a number of
faculty, because of the way in which we are recruiting them. And I don’t think you know I’m
not saying that I have a better way of recruiting them. We want people who are experts in their
field much more. They have, public scholarship, they provide leadership in areas that don’t lend
themselves to value kinds of concerns – more technical. So I don’t fault any of the people that
are coming here, but if you say, “does it have the same spirit of mission and values that it had at
one time?” No, I think it’s less, but it’s present.

GN
: Would you say that if you had an opportunity to speak to new faculty coming on, the best
way to succeed here, or the best thing you could do for Marist and for yourself would
be…continuing your discipline, be a part of the community? Is there an advice you would give
them to be involved, or to be involved with the students, be open to the students?

LZ
: Well, I think that those things are all said. I think that they’re all preached. But when it
comes down to reward structures, you know what are you getting rewarded for? When I started
out here, things like program development, activities for students, were not only more valued
verbally, you got rewards for that. That was part of the merit package. Today, the reward as I
understand it is much more heavily towards what have you published, what have you done in
your discipline. So if I were advising the young faculty member here today who wanted
mobility within the school and within the profession, I would say that’s what I see being
rewarded today. Maybe that’s what should be rewarded today. So it’s not an either or. I get
upset when I hear there were no expectations in scholarship before, and now there’s all these…of
course there were expectations in scholarship. But they were not as pronounced as they are
today.

GN
: Finally, what do you envision for the future of Marist? Do you see the college going more
in the technical area and distance learning as part of our future, or do you see us capitalizing on
our location and still remaining kind of an educational center right here in the Hudson Valley
that would draw people. We bring people now from further and further away. What’s the
direction that you think that the college will be in ten years or twenty years from now?

LZ
: The fact of the matter is, in my mind, what has been is and will be the most important
criteria for Marist College is how to sustain and increase tuition income. That’s how we survive.
We survive with tuition income financially. So whatever programs are going to give us tuition
income will be the programs of the future. So distance learning is a way of getting a mass of
people, lower overhead because you don’t have all this faculty teach a lot of people at one time,
and get tuition for it. The on-campus programs are going to have to be programs that attract
students who are willing to pay tuition. So in that case, location, programs, what’s hot what’s


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12

current is going to be paramount. Because comparatively speaking, we do not have, never have
had, a very large endowment. So our rainy day fund in a sense is very small.

GN
: Indeed.

LZ
: And so what really dictates the future is going to be maintaining viability by maintaining
enrollments. The other thing that I…the question was whatever I would like to see for the future
of what I think it’s going to be. What I would still like to see in some way in which the board of
trustees would revamp their bylaws to find some way to guarantee that the heritage and spirit of
the founding of the college would be maintained in all successive administrations. Either that by
review of president, by the Marist Brothers or increasing the number of slots on the board of
trustees by Marist Brothers. Something, and I don’t know have the formula, but that’s what I
worry about most for the future of Marist College. I mean this college was founded for a
purpose. And of course, we’re in a totally different age now but I would just be crushed if that
purpose was ever really seriously compromised because that’s what I dedicated my life to.

GN
: That’s very good. I would just put this on the table. Is there something I didn’t ask you
that you would like to add to this interview? Is there a question or a point in terms of your own
involvement in the larger community?

LZ
: Well, I think that the one area that we should address here is the relationship between the
lay faculty and the Brothers. Which is, I think an area that we should get more information on.
Mainly that in the beginning, while the relationship has always been collegial and collaborative,
the college was much more the Brothers College. And it was their generosity and their spirit of
openness that inspired and engaged the lay faculty. I don’t know, I think that there was a
moment of tension there that’s part of our history where the Brothers may have seen the lay
faculty as a threat to their control or acceptance of the college. And then, eventually, the
Brothers faded because of numbers from the scene, so that became a root issue. But I see that in
kind of stages. Like where we were the young guys on the street and we were very welcome,
and we’ve always been welcome, as lay people. But there was a little point of tension there I
think that is part of our history.

GN
: The situation now, of course, is that a graduate of Marist College is the superior general of
the Marist Brothers, Brother Sean Sammon. And it might be an opportunity for him to come
here and just do what you say, kind of play out as it were an interest and a backing as it were of
the directing and you’d give him the same reception we’d give Paul Ambrose who was the
founder of the college.

LZ
: Yeah, I think Paul Ambrose is an important symbol and his presence on the campus is an
important symbol, so something like that would be great. If he would locate here, you mean?

GN
: Well, at least a ceremonial kind of beginning to kind of re-establish

LZ
: Yeah, I think that anything like that is really very valuable.

GN
: Well thank you very much Lou.

“END OF INTERVIEW”


Louis Zuccarello

13




For the Marist College Archives and Special Collections
Transcript – Louis Zuccarello