Edwin and Anita Bixenstine, Oral History

Recorded: March 19, 2009
Interviewed by Craig Simpson
Transcribed by Shannon Simpson

Note: This transcript includes geo-references to locations that are discussed in the oral history. Geographical names linked in the transcript will open in a new window or tab that takes you to that location information and map in the Mapping May 4 project. To request a transcript without geo-reference links included, please contact Kent State University Special Collections & Archives.

[Interviewer]: Good morning the date is March 19th, 2009. My name is Craig Simpson. We are conducting an interview today for the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project. Could both of you state your names?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Ed Bixenstine

[Anita Bixenstine]: Anita Bixenstine

[Interviewer]: We'll start with you, Ed. Where were you born?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: I was born in Centerville, Illinois. It's a booming town you've probably heard of.

[Interviewer]: Is it near Peoria? That's where my dad is from.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: It's hardly a cross-route. But I was born there in 1926, August 5.

[Interviewer to Anita]: Anita, where were you born?

[Anita Bixenstine]: I was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 30, 1927.

[Interviewer]: Where did each of you get your schooling?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Ah, are you asking about --

[Interviewer]: Undergraduate and advanced degrees.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Undergraduate, I was in the Navy Officer's Training program, and started in 1944. So I went to DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana initially, and then was switched to Montana's School of Mines in Butte. They had a Navy contingent there just in case the Japanese found some way to send ships or -- then was transferred to Berkeley, University of California, at Berkley. Altogether there a two-year period. But I accumulated a host of rather poor grades, as a matter of fact, a lot of points. Then I came home, mustered out and came home, and worked for a year and resumed my study at the University of Illinois. Finishing up some necessary grades, then I went on to graduate school there.

[Interviewer]: And this was in psychology?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yes. I majored, ultimately, in undergraduate in psychology, and also graduate school in clinical psychology.

[Interviewer]: That was your specialty? Clinical psychology?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Mm-hm.

[Interviewer]: And, Anita?

[Anita Bixenstine]: Well, I have an undergraduate degree from Brooklyn College in theater and speech education. I went on to the University of Illinois, which is where I met Ed, got a master's degree in speech pathology. Then when he came to Kent I went on to get a master's degree in English and ultimately a Ph.D. in English from Kent State.

[Interviewer]: When did both of you come to Kent State?

[Anita and Ed Bixenstine]: 1956.

[Interviewer]: How would -- and either of you can jump in -- how would you describe the University prior to the events of 1970, just maybe the general atmosphere through the Sixties?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Well, I think you would say that it was a university growing because that was the state of affairs across the nation, our growth in university sizes. I think it was about -- 6,000.

[Anita Bixenstine]: When we came there was 6,000 students and 300 faculty. And George Bowman, who was president, knew everybody's name.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: He was something, alright.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Yeah.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: It was beginning to be ambitious around 1960 for establishing graduate school. We established in the 60s a Ph. D. program. We had a masters program when I came, established and starting. Well, actually, one of the reasons that I came was that they were ambitious about developing a graduate department, and that's what happened in the Sixties. But altogether I would say the quality and character of the university was kind of middle to conservative.

[Anita Bixenstine]: In a way what I'd done mirrors what happened. I took my first full-time -- I'd taught English here on the campus and the regional campuses -- took my first full-time job in 1969 as an administrator in the Honors College. Now, it had just become a college; it had been a program before then. And it had its -- Jim Olsen was its first dean. So I was coming into a program which was just beginning to burgeon, just beginning to grow in the late 60s.

[Interviewer]: This growth spurt you talked about -- approximately 6,000 students in 1956, and then I know the figures by 1970 you had about 20,000 students -- do you think that this rise in the student population had an impact on the university and the surrounding community of Kent?

[Anita Bixenstine]: Oh, yeah.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yes. I think, well, it's kind of understandable. You had a relatively middle conservative community even though Portage County and Kent always voted, pretty much always voted democratic largely because of the university influence.

[Anita Bixenstine]: For a couple of years or so, we owned a house next door to our house, which we turned over to student housing. And I think in a way how that went exemplified that. When we entered student housing there was a dean of students who the students were responsible to, as well as he was responsible for them. They had certain requirements they had to meet. These were boys that we had. If they did damage, they didn't get their grades until they took care of the damage. So there was an in loco parentis atmosphere in the Sixties which disappeared essentially after what happened in 1970 and thereafter. So the whole relationship between the University and the students changed, and I think that the relationship between the community and the students changed as the students began to get more -- or no, as students were less controlled by the University. Which is what happened as time went on.

[Interviewer]: Right. What memories do you have of the events of May 4? You can start wherever you like. Some people start the weekend leading up to it, or some people start on the day of.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Let me start because the memories are so clear. First of all, one of those four students that was killed was a freshman in the Honors College.

[Interviewer]: Which one was that?

[Anita Bixenstine]: Allison Krause. So we were very intimately involved in what had happened during that time. And the fire that took place at the ROTC building. The Honors College was in one other of those buildings right next door to the ROTC building. So we had both physical intimacy and personal intimacy in that we knew the students.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: One of the reasons that I suggested Anita come is because of the fact that, yes, she was on campus, right sort of in the middle of things, and I was on a leave.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Sabbatical.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Sabbatical leave. So that I was here, I was home. But I was, you know, I wasn't in the department. I wasn't teaching. So I remember you were asking or commenting about what was happening in the department and what could I say about that. Well, I can say very little about that. [laughs] But, of course, some of the aftermath was --

[Anita Bixenstine]: Awful.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: -- [I was] very much involved in. We had a meeting at our home of, I suppose, faculty leaders and so forth. I had been involved in the AAUP, I was the president in the 1964 AAUP. And then they were looking for off campus place to gather. We have a big house, and so there they came. And --

[Anita Bixenstine]: You know --

[Edwin Bixenstine]: -- and the Dean of the college of Honors College, I was just remarking to Anita on the way over, Mike Lunine was an eloquent man. I remember his holding forth about how troubled these times were and how aghast, and --

[Interviewer]: How do you spell his last name?

[Anita Bixenstine]: L-U-N-I-N-E.

[Interviewer]: Lunine. Okay. Backing up just a little bit, Ed, do you remember where you were when you heard the news?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yes, I was in my home office, at my desk, writing away. And the initial -- the information we got was so garbled, really. That I initially thought, Oh my God, what have those kids done now? And how in the world would they have prompted being shot at and killed? And so, I suppose, my initial reaction was to think critically of the kids.

And then, as time went on, as more information came about -- you know, there was this information that the shooting had been started by a shot from the roof. And all kinds of rumors were circulated that were proven in the end to be, I don't know, that these men turned around, troopers turned around, and what seems in all likelihood to have been by order and shot with the live ammunition. I remember Treichler mentioning that it was thought that they didn't have live ammunition, which people had various perceptions based upon what they thought was likely, or what was keeping with the atmosphere of the people. And yes, there was a great deal of wonder and anger and distress and concern that was being expressed by the gathering people at our house.

[Interviewer]: Anita, what do you remember about that day?

[Anita Bixenstine]: Oh, no. Very vividly. I had just picked up a state car. One of my responsibilities at the Honors College was recruitment. And I'd picked up a state car and I was going to Roosevelt High School to have a talk with seniors. And I had the radio on. It was just afternoon and I was crossing the Stow Street Bridge over the Cuyahoga River; and they announced that four students had been shot. I parked the car, and I [thought] "What do I do now? What am I supposed to do?" So I said, "Well, okay, I'll go on to Roosevelt." By the time I got there, they had decided to close all public schools. So I went to take the car back; they wouldn't let me on the campus. So I took the car home and I kept it in my driveway for a whole week because there was no way that I could return it to the campus. Before I did that, I went to the university school where my children were, and I picked them up and I picked up some neighborhood children that were also students because they had closed all the schools. And I brought them back home and parked the -- one other interesting sidebar, the ROTC was stationed at Walls School, which is right behind our house. So we saw all the soldiers, we saw all the --

[Edwin Bixenstine]: You --

[Anita Bixenstine]: -- we saw all the helicopters --

[Edwin Bixenstine]: --you don't mean the ROTC, you mean the--

[Anita Bixenstine]: I don't. Yes. The National Guard.

[Interviewer]: The National Guard.

[Anita Bixenstine]: The National Guard.

[Interviewer]: They camped?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: They camped at Walls [Elementary] School. Right behind us.

[Interviewer]: Oh.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: It was right behind us.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Right behind us. And there were helicopters flying, and all kinds of activities. My young son, who was seven at the time, he would just go over and watch [laughs], because he couldn't go to school, and so he'd walk by over the back yards, essentially our back yard.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: High-beam lights.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Yeah. It was, it was --

[Edwin Bixenstine]: And another --

[Anita Bixenstine]: -- unreal.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: -- another kind of thing that stood out in my mind, and I'm sure yours too, was that we had a son in the line of fire.

[Anita Bixenstine]: We did.

[Interviewer]: Really?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Our oldest son was a student.

[Anita Bixenstine]: He was an RA at Apple Hall.

[Interviewer]: What's his name?

[Anita Bixenstine]: Bart Bixenstine.

[Interviewer]: And he was, he was there?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: He was there next to that metal piece of art through which a hole was shot. He was behind that piece of art.

[Anita Bixenstine]: And he had a car. He took the car, and he drove students to the turnpike because parents couldn't come on the campus. And so, we never saw him. We knew he was okay. We never saw him until about 11 o'clock that night, because he was trying to get students to go home.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: No cell phone in those days [laughs].

[Interviewer]: Right.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Right. So our family in so many ways was intimately involved with what was happening.

[Interviewer]: You had mentioned Allison Krause. Did you know her well?

[Anita Bixenstine]: Yes, very well.

[Interviewer]: What do you remember about her?

[Anita Bixenstine]: Well, it's hard not to romanticize, obviously. She was a freshman. She was very bright. She came from Pittsburgh, I think? She was quoted in the paper ultimately as saying, "Flowers are better than guns," and that sort of became the emblem of what had happened to the students. She had a boyfriend.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: He was very active, wasn't he?

[Anita Bixenstine]: Levine was his last name. I can't remember. Barry Levine, was his name. They were active, they were activists, anti-war activists. They were -- Allison had been involved with the students all weekend in what was happening. In the demonstrations. She was not my advisee, so I didn't know her academically in -- personally academically. But she made her presence felt as a freshman in the Honors College.

[Interviewer]: You had mentioned also the National Guard. Did either of you have any interactions with the Guardsmen while they were here?

[Anita Bixenstine]: I didn't. Did you?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: No, no.

[Interviewer]: So, as far as the aftermath goes, I guess we can talk about, start with the Psychology Department in terms of how did it respond to the closing of classes?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Well, as I say, I wasn't really there. I didn't have a class to be concerned about.

[Interviewer]: Okay.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: And this is kind of what happened. Those with classes, they were saying, "Well, how can we finish up with our kids? Where can we, what can we do?" And this was very much, the thrust of the faculty was, "Let's get this semester finished somehow." So then there was a search for off campus facilities where they could meet with the students and help them get through and get credit for the semester. Harold Walker was the minister. Still is [laughs]. But he's--

[Anita Bixenstine]: Once a minister, always a minister.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: -- at the Presbyterian's church on Summit. He's a very thoughtful and liberal man, and he invited the faculty to utilize the church facilities there.

[Anita Bixenstine]: You had a meeting in Akron. At the Universalist Church, over by Summit Mall?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: I don't remember much about that meeting.

[Anita Bixenstine]: I was there, so I remember that --

[Edwin Bixenstine]: You remember.

[Anita Bixenstine]: I can't remember why it was there --

[Edwin Bixenstine]: This was a general meeting. Faculty meeting.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Yes.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yeah, you're right.

[Anita Bixenstine]: You issued some statements afterwards, you were trying to get some policy statements, or some, some responsive statements. But I remember going to that meeting.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yeah, we were trying to respond. I think after awhile the faculty was trying to generally respond to the reaction of townspeople. And people, non-University people, who were just so extraordinarily critical.

[Interviewer]: They said, "Kill the students."

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yes! "They should all be taken out and shot."

[Anita Bixenstine]: And I think that they were critical of the University as well. I mean, we had allowed all this to happen, you know? So that criticism just spilled over.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: And certainly the University -- as we thought about it then and as I look back on it -- was pretty much a victim, an innocent victim of the times, and events, of the governor's excesses. He --

[Anita Bixenstine]: Ed and I went to Europe in the summer of 1972. And everybody knew about Kent State. So as soon as you said, "Kent State," [or] "Kent, Ohio," they knew what had happened there. So that this had spilled over to international status. But we're talking about, now, two summers after the events had occurred. There was nowhere you could go without people knowing what had happened at Kent State. What I think is ironic, in a way, is that nobody would have said that Kent was a radical school. They would have said maybe Berkeley was a radical school, or Columbia. But nobody would have said Kent was a radical school.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Well, it wasn't. [laughs]

[Anita Bixenstine]: It wasn't, no.

[Interviewer]: But, that impression changed as a result of the shootings.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Well, I'm not sure, I'm not sure that --

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Not by those who know.

[Interviewer]: Right, but from the outside perspective.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yeah, it was people in general were very critical of the protesting movement. And, I can understand that. Anita and I took part in some of the protests.

[Interviewer]: Did you?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Not on the campus. We went to Washington [D.C.] to protest the war along with a lot of other folks, and we were not always terribly enamored of the youth culture at the time. "Love, not war" and, "dropouts" -- you know -- "Tune in, tune out, drop out." That kind of druggie culture, that didn't fascinate us at all. But we were certainly sympathetic to the swelling opposition to the war and understood that the kids were right. The kids were right, and most of the elders of the country were not.

[Interviewer]: Anita, what was the Honors College response that summer of 1970?

[Anita Bixenstine]: Well, I was thinking that when you asked Ed the question, I think we had two responses. One was to reassure our current students that things were going to be alright, and the other was to write to the incoming freshman who we had admitted to the Honors College to reassure them that the University would continue and they should come. There was such a danger that the University might die, that nobody would want to come anymore.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Mm hm.

[Anita Bixenstine]: I think our concern was that we -- so we wrote letters to both our current students and our incoming freshman to try to reassure them that we were going to function, the University was going to function, that things were going to be okay.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: And there was a fairly strong movement attempted by people -- both the townsfolks and of course the University and faculty -- to find rapprochements, [to] see if they could get together and communicate.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Right.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: So that --

[Anita Bixenstine]: There were a lot of town meetings. Lots of them. I think we had some of those as well.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Mm hm.

[Anita Bixenstine]: I think we had some of those as well. We had people in our house they were all --

[Edwin Bixenstine]: And with the Methodist Church. I remember going there. So there's a -- it wasn't that everybody, it wasn't like a black-white division here. It was that most of the criticism that was levied at the University and at the students -- at the students particularly -- came from non-university folks, townsfolks. But there were a lot of townsfolks who said, "Hold on a minute, and let's see if we can't really seek to understand what's going on."

[Anita Bixenstine]: One of the things that grew -- I don't know whether others have told this -- experimental programs grew out of what happened on May 4th. And experimental programs got to be housed in the Honors College. And, I don't know, did--? It wasn't an assistant dean at that time, it was an assistant director, I guess -- Wes Thaner, right?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yeah.

[Anita Bixenstine]: So that was another, that was another thing that was going on, developing this kind of experimental -- do I have to explain that?

[Interviewer]: What kind of experimental programs?

[Anita Bixenstine]: Well, it was called "experimental programs." It was courses that were not traditional departmental courses, but dealt with issues, ideas, rather than --

[Edwin Bixenstine]: And it had advised, people from the --

[Anita Bixenstine]: Department.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Well, from the department, but also from the town to participate.

[Anita Bixenstine]: To teach.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: It was kind of an outgrowth of this rapprochement effort to see if some newer understandings might be reached by all about what had happened.

[Interviewer]: Ed, did you come back in the Fall?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Mm hm.

[Interviewer]: Dr. Treichler had mentioned a clinic that had developed as a result of this. Or, he had mentioned that you and Horace -- or I think it was--

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Al Page?

[Interviewer]: Yeah, Page.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: No, the clinic was already there.

[Interviewer]: That was already there?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yeah, and the clinic continued to be a resource to the faculty and part of the University community. It served both students and faculty. I had started a group therapy effort in [the] middle Sixties, and had elaborated that into an off-campus self-help organization by the name of Community House. It received funding ultimately. It was kind of the first mental health organization. But it was too radical for most of the profession and so they started griping about it, and so it lost that funding and was turned over to those with more professional conventions, But this effort to address the broader concerns were there in the clinic, but it was a continuation of what they'd already been doing.

[Interviewer]: Were there a lot of trauma victims after the shootings?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: You know, that whole concept of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder is an outgrowth of probably of the late seventies and eighties. So that concept wasn't around. I don't recall that we had people coming in--

[Anita Bixenstine]: You started back in September?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Mm hm.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Then?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yeah, I don't recall that there were people coming in. That may have been on my mind, or the others, that we consequently began to talk about the post-trauma -- I don't recall any kind of addressing of that kind of a thinking.

[Interviewer]: I ask that because quite a few of the interviewees that we've had who were eyewitnesses to the shootings, not all of them, but many of them said that when they sat down for the interview that was the first time they had even talked about --

[Anita Bixenstine]: Oh, really?

[Interviewer]: -- this topic in 20, 25, 30 years or longer.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Because they were traumatized by it, do you think?

[Interviewer]: Well, it seemed to be -- I don't want to put words in their mouths, but it seemed to be just something that wasn't talked about or as much as it's encouraged to be today. Would you say that's a fair assessment?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: I think the fairest assessment is that, in my judgment, trauma and PTSD have been overblown. I'm claiming reading some research just recently to the effect that most people don't have much in the way of post-traumatic stress lingering. Surely when you're in the middle of something that where you're threatened or you're injured, you're going to have reactions. You're going to be emotionally aroused. But [the idea] that this will last for some lengthy period of time -- even those in war conditions, where they're subjected to traumatic injury and a rather recurrent fear of injury or death, only a small percentage wind up carrying evidence of PTSD a year, several years later. Trauma, accidents, injury -- we all have them, one way or another. And most of us don't have a lingering kind of psychological problem as a result.

[Anita Bixenstine]: I think I would agree with you. I can't remember any people telling me that they felt in some way permanently damaged by what had happened, in part because for most of them it was only a listened-to or heard experience rather than one they had actually experienced themselves. They weren't on the campus. They weren't on the hill when the shootings occurred. And I think for the -- on the part of the students, they were pretty young, pretty flexible, pretty adaptable. I think that the people who stayed with the issue were those who were wounded. There were a number of wounded people, and they, for reasons which are very obvious, that experience has really stayed with them.

Edwin Bixenstine]: Well, some of those folks had a cause.

[Anita Bixenstine]: A cause?

Edwin Bixenstine]: A cause.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Yeah, right.

Edwin Bixenstine]: They were repeat attenders to the May 4th anniversaries.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Some were just bystanders.

Edwin Bixenstine]: Well, but they got involved in it. So consequently they kind of kept alive in their own feelings the event. And, I think, their anger about it.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Last May I went to the May 4th program.

[Interviewer]: The commemoration?

[Anita Bixenstine]: Commemoration. And there were people there who were actually talking about their memories for the first time. And I find that really very moving how they looked at what had happened to them. Most of them were students here. Some were not even here but they just remembered what had happened and had come afterwards and had become, in many ways, involved with the May 4th commemoration or trying to, as you are doing, keep the history of that accurate and alive. So I think that the experiences of people were quite varied, not only just along age parameters, but in terms of their relationship to the university, their own personal reactions, and so forth and so on.

[Interviewer]: Right. I've been very struck by the variety of reactions like the two of you are talking about. One reaction that somebody once talked about was -- everybody always talks about, with a lot of validity, the negative consequences on the university, and so forth. But you kind of talked a little bit about this earlier, maybe you can tell me a little more about the unknown story a lot of people don't talk about, [which] is how the university was able to survive as the result of all this. Because there was a lot of concern that the University might not, initially.

[Anita Bixenstine]: I think it survived because we all insisted it was going to survive. We all worked toward that end. I don't think there was ever a feeling that the University was going to die.

Edwin Bixenstine]: No, I didn't have that feeling.

[Interviewer]: You didn't?

[Anita Bixenstine]:I can't remember that anybody did.

Edwin Bixenstine]: I didn't have that feeling.

[Anita Bixenstine]: I think there were people that wished it did.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: You had too much institutional momentum that had been established. If there was a down-side [it was] what kind of a university would I -- "I can't send my kid to a university like this, a radical university." That was the apprehension that I remember folks having, that there would have formed in the mind of parents of potential students. This apprehension that this was a very radical university. That was the down side, but there was an up side as well. And the up-side was Kent State was suddenly world-known.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Survivors.

[Interviewer]: Right.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: And it's obvious that notoriety is sometimes as useful as fame [laughs]. Earned fame.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Among the kids, maybe; not their parents, right?

[Interviewer]: Yeah, yeah. A lot of people have said before this nobody, either nobody even knew about Kent State, or they thought you said "Canton." But, then afterward, like you talked about going to Europe, and just suddenly everybody knew where Kent State was.

[Anita Bixenstine]: To this day, we have family and friends in Europe and [they] say, "Where you from?" "Kent." "Oh!" And you know what the "Oh" implies. The "Oh" implies that that name rings a bell with someone. Not -- well even the younger people, I think, have that feeling because they know something of its history. Kent has a history. It's a history that it will not ever live without. And in some ways, maybe in most ways, Kent is better for it.

[Interviewer]: Are there any other thoughts either of you would like to share?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Hm. Well. Gee. [laughs]

[Interviewer]: It's an open question [laughs].

[Anita Bixenstine]: It's your chance! [laughs]

[Interviewer]: If you think I haven't touched enough [on a topic], you're welcome to--

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Well, I think you've had a good outline of questions to pose.

[Anita Bixenstine]: You didn't -- have others spoken to you about the relationship between Kent and the State? The governor and that?

[Interviewer]: Not really. Please talk about that.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Well, I think that's kind of interesting. Both the mayor of Kent who asked for the National Guard --

[Interviewer]: Satrom.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Yes, and Governor Rhodes, who -- I'm going to say this even though you're taping -- saw this as a great political opportunity to manifest himself as the protector of everybody, and who shut down the University, essentially.

[Interviewer]: He was up for election at that time, too.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Right, exactly. So I think that there were a lot of political ramifications of what happened.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: And, of course, the fear mongering that had been going on, about how Kent was a center where any number of radical, politically radical young people were descending. This was something that I know Rhodes referred to, [that] he's not going to let the students take over. That there was "going to be order." Order! He was the prime mover of disorder, as far as I'm concerned.

[Anita Bixenstine]:I think that that aspect of it played its role vis-a-vis between the State and the University for a long time. In terms of funding, in terms of support, in terms of all kinds of ways in which people took that incident and made of it what they thought important.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yeah. Rhodes was a object of some various feelings of academic types. He was insisting on making a state university out of almost every college around, you know.

[Anita Bixenstine]:What was it, he said there was going to be a university every 25 miles in the State of Ohio?

[Interviewer]: Is that what he said? I've never heard that before.

[Anita Bixenstine]: Something like that, yeah.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yeah.

[Anita Bixenstine]:And, he was going to name a lot of it after him.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yeah.

[Interviewer]: Rhodes University?

[Anita Bixenstine]: Well, but Akron has a Rhodes, has a building named after him, I think.

[Edwin Bixenstine]: Yeah.

[Anita Bixenstine]: All of the universities do. He was going to leave his mark. Well, it's interesting. You roused up a lot of memories that I hadn't thought about for a long time.

[Interviewer]: Do you have any more thoughts before we wrap up?

[Anita Bixenstine]:I don't think I do, how about you?

[Edwin Bixenstine]: No.

[Interviewer]: Okay. Dr. Bixenstine, Dr. Bixenstine, thank you both very much for taking the time to talk to me.

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