AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES HIMMELBERG

Interviewer: Brower Burchill

The Oral History Project

of the Endacott Society

The University of Kansas

2

CHARLES HIMMELBERG

EDUCATION

Rockhurst College, B.S. (Mathematics), 1952

University of Notre Dame, M.S., (Mathematics), 1954

University of Notre Dame, Ph.D. (Mathematics), 1957

SERVICE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

1959 – 2005

Mathematics, Department of Mathematics

RETIREMENT

June, 2005

TITLES/RANK

Assistant Professor, 1959 - 1965

Associate Professor, 1965 - 1968

Professor, 1968 - 2005

Emeritus Professor, 2005 - present

ADMINISTRATIVE/CHAIRMANSHIP POSITIONS

Chairman, Department of Mathematics, 1978 -1999

3

Burchill: “This is Brower Burchill. This is October 20, 2005. I am talking with Charles

Himmelberg, retired this past June after forty-six years on the faculty at the University of Kansas.

I have known Charlie all but about nine of those years and I am looking forward to this chat. Do

you mind being called ‘Charlie’?”

Himmelberg: “No, I prefer that.”

Burchill: “You prefer that – were you called that from the start?”

Himmelberg: “Actually, my family calls me Mickey – Mickey or Mick – it’s a childhood

nickname from the time I was, like, a year old. So my wife and my family and most of my really

close friends from Kansas City from before I entered graduate school call me ‘Mick’ or

‘Mickey’.”

Burchill: “I’ll be darned. Where did it come from? Do you know where that came from? Or

maybe you don’t care to tell.” [Laughter]

Himmelberg: “When I was a baby, I had two cousins who were a little bit older than me, maybe

five and six years older. Apparently they were jealous of the attention that I was getting, so my

aunt suggested that I had a similarity to Mickey Mouse, who was very popular at the time. So,

after that, I was ‘Mickey’.”

Burchill: “Okay. That sounds good to me. Well, then, let’s start back with the early years if you

would. When and where were you born?”

Himmelberg: “I was born on November 12, 1931. My birth certificate said, ‘North Kansas City,

Missouri’, but I think I was actually born in Parkville. It’s kind of a mystery to me. I don’t really

know for sure, but probably somewhere in Clay County, Missouri. I’ve been meaning, now that

I’m retired, to go over there sometime to see if I can find some record of where I was born. I was

born at home, not in a hospital.”

Burchill: “Oh, okay. Was it a midwife or a physician, or neither?”

Himmelberg: [Laughter] “Oh, I don’t remember.” [Laughter]

4

Burchill: “But you were there. A mathematician ought to be able to remember. What’s the

ancestry of your name, ‘Himmelberg’?”

Himmelberg: “Himmelberg is German. All my ancestors were Germanic. The Himmelbergs

came over around the late 1840s or 1850s, thereabouts. They settled along the Missouri River

from St. Louis on up to Glasgow, Missouri, midway between St. Louis and Kansas City. My dad

was born on November 11, 1907 in a place called Aholdt, Missouri, which I don’t think exists

anymore. It was a bottomland community very near to Glasgow.”

Burchill: “Farming?”

Himmelberg: “Oh, they were all farmers. The Himmelbergs, I think, basically came from

Westphalia in Germany, which is largely a farming part of the country. They were all farmers.”

Burchill: “What did your father do – what was he doing when you came along?”

Himmelberg: “When I came along, I’m pretty sure he would have been working at the Kansas

Flour Mill, which was in North Kansas City. Not long after, though, when I was a child going to

grade school, he was a Manor Man – you know, the Manor Bakery? They had horse drawn

wagons and they would drive around through the city neighborhoods…”

Burchill: “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

Himmelberg: “… selling cakes and bread.”

Burchill: “He was on the delivery end of it and not on the bakery end?”

Himmelberg: “On the delivery end, yes. After a while, by the time I was in high school, he had

left that and he worked for Wonder Bread. He sold Hostess cakes, delivered Hostess cakes.”

Burchill: “How about that.”

5

Himmelberg: “Then when he retired… he hated it all his life that he had to work six days a week

so he never had any weekends… but anyway, when he retired he still wanted to work. I got him a

job at Linda Hall Library, where I had worked when I was in college. So that was kind of

interesting. I had a nice relationship yet with Joe Shipman, who was still the head of it. My dad

worked the last ten years of his life there.”

Burchill: “That’s a plum job.”

Himmelberg: “Oh, he loved it. They had various assorted jobs that he did, and he loved it, he

absolutely loved it. I think he made more as a Hostess cake driver, but he loved to work in the

library. My father never finished grade school.”

Burchill: “Oh, he didn’t?”

Himmelberg: “I think it was his grandfather who didn’t have much truck with education. He was

an old fashioned German and he apparently thought the boys should work the farm for him until

he died, and then they would divide up the farm or whatever, and do the same with their kids.

My dad got fed up with that and left the farm when he was twenty. He moved to North Kansas

City and went to work at a mill, and eventually had these other jobs.”

Burchill: “Did he marry a farm girl or someone else?”

Himmelberg: “My mother grew up in Kansas City. Her ancestry is German also, or Germanic.

Her dad was named Batliner. He came from Liechtenstein. I’ve always wanted to go there.

Someday, on one of our trips I’m going to do it. She graduated from high school, St. Agnes

Academy.”

Burchill: “Was she… did you have lots of brothers and sisters?”

Himmelberg: “One sister.”

Burchill: “Was your mother a homemaker, then, or did she work?”

6

Himmelberg: “She was a homemaker, except that after my sister and I were in school she worked

as a secretary some of the time, mostly for Batliner Paper Company. One of her cousins owned

that. The interesting thing about my parents is my mother was… both my parents, I think, were

bright, my mother especially. My dad, even though he had no education, was a natural

intellectual. He was in to reading everything, especially after he had time to do it.”

Burchill: “What was your family life like, I mean, in terms of… did you eat together, or have

dinner? You were a church-going… you were Catholic?”

Himmelberg: “We were a church-going Catholic family. As long as we kids were still living at

home we ate every meal together. I remember suppers, particularly, were joyous occasions,

always fun. Except my sister was a fast eater. She was awfully quick on the chicken.”

[Laughter]

Burchill: “So you didn’t get much, huh?” [Laughter]

Himmelberg: “That’s funny. I remember we would joke and laugh and then she would be going

right through the chicken. It’s turned the other way around now. She’s more talkative than I am.

It was a wonderful, wonderful period.”

Burchill: “Did you consider yourself to be a poor family?”

Himmelberg: “I wasn’t really aware of it if we were. I would say we had moderate means.

There were a lot of good things. I had an aunt who was also not well off, who had about the same

means as my parents. She and her husband wanted a place on the Lake of the Ozarks badly

enough that they built a small cabin right on the lake. We spent a lot of time with them in the

summers. We would go there for weekends. I loved that. She was, more than any of my other

relatives except for my maternal grandfather, very interested in me, because they thought they

saw something special in me somehow.”

Burchill: “Well, you turned out to be a mathematician, which is in my mind quite an amazing

profession. Did you have books in your home that sort of guided you?”

7

Himmelberg: “My folks were very encouraging about getting an education. My dad was always

aware that he was held back by not having an education, and I think he felt kind of blue about it

occasionally. But he never complained, and he and my mother were always totally supportive of

my education. For example, I know when I started… well, early on, before most kids, I had an

encyclopedia. My parents provided me with stuff like that, because I obviously enjoyed reading

and learning. I think in elementary school I was a shy and mediocre student. I can’t remember

very much about it except I remember the first day and I didn’t want to go. I was a very good

high school student, and my mother and dad made sure that I had everything I needed.”

Burchill: “Were there any of the academic areas that you took in high school that led you into

what you were going to do?”

Himmelberg: “Oh, I always liked math and physics. I went to a very good high school which

prepared me well for college.”

Burchill: “Was it a parochial school?”

Himmelberg: “I went to Rockhurst High School.”

Burchill: “Oh, you went to Rockhurst High School.”

Himmelberg: “It was kind of interesting, I knew I wanted to go to Rockhurst High School. I

don’t know how I had figured that out as a twelve year-old coming out of grade school. I also felt

that it would be a great hardship for my parents to come up with the money, so from the time I

was twelve I had a job.”

Burchill: “What did you do?”

Himmelberg: “My first job was as a car hop at a drive-in restaurant. I was small then, so I got a

lot of tips. I remember I did that during the summer, and then when school started I had to leave

that job and I took a job as a delivery boy at a drug store up the street from where I lived. I did

that all through high school. I worked there as a delivery boy and soda jerk. In that way I earned

all my spending money.”

8

Burchill: “Did you work during your high school years as well?”

Himmelberg: “During the school year? Oh yeah, I did.”

Burchill: “The same thing, delivering…?”

Himmelberg: “All year round, just delivering. Well actually, mostly soda jerk later on.

Coincidentally, Mike McCormack (the pro football Hall of Fame tackle from KU) worked at the

same store, also as a soda jerk. Both of us had attended Blessed Sacrament Grade School, he a

year ahead of me. Years later when I was at KU and his pro career was over we sometimes

played handball. I was always amazed that such a big guy could be so cat-quick.”

Burchill: “Really? I was too, a soda jerk, while I was a high school student.”

Himmelberg: “A week ago, Mary Pat and I and one of our boys were in Weston, Missouri, and

we stopped in to a little ice cream store there, and they had a soda fountain almost exactly like the

one that I worked at. [Laughter] They had all of these syrup containers that you squirt to make

various drinks and toppings.”

Burchill: “What was the name of it? Was it a…”

Himmelberg: “The little shop in Weston? I don’t remember.”

Burchill: “It was just an individual shop, it wasn’t a part of a chain?”

Himmelberg: “Oh no, no, it was a family operation.”

Burchill: “Was it in a pharmacy?”

Himmelberg: “No, it looked like an odds and ends souvenir shop, something like that.”

Burchill: “What do you remember from grade school / high school years, like the Depression, or

like any floods, or illnesses or anything that sort of rises to the top of your general memories of

those years?”

9

Himmelberg: “Oh, let me think about that a minute. I was fortunate in one way that my family

was pretty healthy. There weren’t very many tragedies of that sort when I was a young person. I

was born right at the beginning of the Depression.”

Burchill: “You were pretty young during the Depression.”

Himmelberg: “During the Depression, yes, that’s right. As far back as I can remember, my

parents always had a house, and a car, and we ate well, and so I didn’t feel poor. I’ve driven back

to some of those old neighborhoods recently, and realize that it was very humble, but we kids had

a good time. And my parents always struck me as if they were having a good time too. My

mother always said that those were the best years of their lives, the ’30s, their early married years,

I guess.”

Burchill: “That’s interesting, isn’t it, given the times?”

Himmelberg: “Yeah. One of my earliest memories is my parents would get together with

relatives and friends once a month to play cards. It just struck me what a great time it looked like

they had. They really enjoyed it. They had a few drinks, probably, [Laughter] but they just had a

wonderful time. It’s funny, we were poor but I think I wasn’t aware of it. I really wasn’t aware

of it until I was old enough to realize how much it cost to go to high school and college. I wanted

to go to college, and my folks wanted me to go too, but going to Rockhurst College would have

been a real drain on them, so I got a job right out of high school (I was sixteen), and worked at the

Cudahay Packinghouse in Kansas City, Missouri.”

Burchill: “Did you do that for a year and save money? Is that what you’re saying?”

Himmelberg: “Oh, no, no, I saved enough that summer…”

Burchill: “Oh, wow.”

Himmelberg: “…to help pay my tuition at Rockhurst. It shows you one thing: A sixteen year-

old can’t get that kind of a job now. In some ways, hard times were good times. [Laughter]

10

Burchill: “Did you go there for four years?”

Himmelberg: “To Rockhurst? Yes.”

Burchill: “And you worked every summer to raise the money for the next year?”

Himmelberg: “Right, and in subsequent summers I worked in a flour mill, manual labor, that sort

of thing, the same flour mill my dad had worked in when he came to Kansas City from the farm.

During the school year I worked part time at Linda Hall Science Library. I would help to pay my

expenses that way too. I didn’t live on campus. I lived at home, which helped a huge amount.”

Burchill: “Let’s go ahead and go to your experience in college. Science, I guess, pretty

obviously was…”

Himmelberg: “Math and science, I’ve always loved both. I was very much influenced by two

people at Rockhurst: 1) Father William C. Doyle – he taught math, most of it, and 2) the physics

professor named Charles Hamtil. They were both extraordinarily good teachers. I think Father

Doyle was influential in a special way, for this was right after the war (it was ’48), and schools

were not fully staffed yet with as many professors as they wanted, so he was kind of stretched

thin on teaching. The consequence was that he taught some of the courses, upper class courses, in

sort of a seminar style, since he couldn’t find time to prepare them all. I think that had a very

good effect on my learning ability, that we had to dig this stuff out of books ourselves and present

it to the class. I think that was a good experience.”

Burchill: “So that would be one of the teachers that you remember who was important to you.”

Himmelberg: “Yes, those two were very important to me, and then, of course, my major advisor

in graduate school – Ky Fan – made a strong impression on me. One other in college was a really

good history professor named Father Joseph McCallin. I had hated history in high school, but my

experience in Father McCallin’s class left me with a life long love of history.”

Burchill: “I can relate to that too. I suspect academics will come up again, but what outside the

academic realm did you enjoy – sports or music or…?”

11

Himmelberg: “Always music. It was harder to enjoy music in those days because you didn’t

have the easy access to recorded music we have now.”

Burchill: “Singing or music lessons?”

Himmelberg: “Oh, no, no, I never had any lessons. I taught myself to play the harmonica, but I

never had any music lessons or anything like that. I wish I had.”

Burchill: “Were you in group bands or orchestras, or you just enjoyed listening to it?”

Himmelberg: “I just enjoyed listening to it.”

Burchill: “Sports?”

Himmelberg: “I didn’t play any organized sports. I was an avid bowler and handball player. I

played a lot of handball.”

Burchill: “Oh. Did you play any here?”

Himmelberg: “Yes, I continued to play until I injured a knee when I was about

forty-five. I used to play with Del Shankel, Phil Montgomery, Bill Scott and many other

faculty.”

Burchill: “Oh, you were in that group?”

Himmelberg: [Laughter] “With all those guys. After I became Chairman I just sort of drifted

away from that. I just couldn’t find time.”

Burchill: “What about honors in high school?”

Himmelberg: “In high school I was an ‘A’ student. My first two years I earned what they call

‘First Honors’ – that means you had an ‘A’ average. My last two years I received ‘Class Honors’,

which means I was the best student in the class. So I graduated first in my class.”

12

Burchill: “And that’s not a small school.”

Himmelberg: “It was then.”

Burchill: “Was it?”

Himmelberg: “My graduating class numbered in the eighties somewhere.”

Burchill: “It’s not small anymore.”

Himmelberg: “Oh no, it’s huge now. I saw in the paper the other day that this year’s seniors

have among them twenty-six National Merit semi-finalists. That’s amazing. They probably have

at least a thousand to fifteen hundred kids in the school. When I was there, it was probably a lot

like some old English high schools. It was all meat and no… [Laughter] It was strictly a college

prep school when I was there. There were very few frills. The curriculum was very classical and

included four years of Latin and two of Greek.”

Burchill: “So you were a serious student.”

Himmelberg: “I mean, that was the only alternative.” [Laughter]

Burchill: “You were a serious student. They saw to that.”

Himmelberg: “They saw to that, yes. I think it troubled my parents a little bit to see there were

no vocational classes. They were a little bit worried that there wasn’t any time spent on shop or

mechanical drawing or something practical. They had some friends that had done well as

draftsmen, for example. But they had confidence in the Jesuits and it all worked out okay, I

guess.”

Burchill: “When did you decide you wanted to be a teacher?”

Himmelberg: “That came late. I went to graduate school at Notre Dame. I was supported as a

T.A. and during my last couple of years by NSF grants. I never saw myself as a teacher then. I

enjoyed teaching as a T.A. okay, but I hadn’t yet committed to doing it for a career. Also, after

13

finishing my Ph.D. I wanted to spend some time in Kansas City, so I took a job at Midwest

Research Institute in Kansas City.”

Burchill: “Oh, that’s right. You did that.”

Himmelberg: “It’s a first class place. At that time they had a math section headed by a first class

applied mathematician named Yudell Luke, and that’s what I was a part of. We did independent

research when we didn’t have other assignments in the institute, but basically, we were to assist

other divisions. It wasn’t very stimulating mathematically. The last project I worked on was for

the Cook Paint Company, where I learned a lot about physics of colloids. What they were mainly

interested in was developing a latex paint where you didn’t need to use so many emulsifiers.

They wanted to find some other way to suspend the pigments in the paint. I learned a whole lot

about paint making just doing the background on that. I wrote a report finally, telling them that

what they wanted to do wasn’t possible unless they developed a type of pigment which was an

electrical conductor. So anyway, I finished that program, that project, and I just thought, ‘My

God, am I going to be doing this kind of stuff the rest of my life?’, and so I called Baley Price at

KU in the spring of 1959.”

Burchill: “That’s a good contact.”

Himmelberg: [Laughter] “I didn’t know him. I had been on the campus at KU only once before,

to take the graduate record exam. So I called Baley and I asked him if there were any openings,

and he said, ‘Maybe, perhaps. Why don’t you come over and give us a talk?’, which I did a

couple of weeks later.”

Burchill: “What did you talk about?”

Himmelberg: “I just talked about my dissertation.”

Burchill: “Oh, okay.”

Himmelberg: “Yeah. It was in topology. While I was at Midwest Research, I had, for example,

written it up for publication, so it was fresh in my mind. So I talked about that, and then two

weeks after that I got an offer.”

14

Burchill: “That’s wonderful.”

Himmelberg: “Things worked a whole lot different in those days than nowadays.”

Burchill: “Tell me about topology, because I know absolutely nothing.”

Himmelberg: [Laughter] “Okay. Basically, topology involves the properties of geometrical

objects that are unchanged by continuous deformation. The objects may be ordinary three

dimensional figures, but more commonly they axis in some other way. For example, one can

study sets of solutions of a differential equation as topological objects, and in this way learn

useful information about the solutions. That’s not what I did in my dissertation but I got into that

kind of work, topological application to analysis and differential equations, after about ten years

at KU. Fred Van Vleck and I went into a collaboration for about fifteen years mining this area.

His specialty is differential equations; mine is topology. We did a lot of research where those two

subjects merge.”

Burchill: “It’s fun to have a colleague like that.”

Himmelberg: “Oh, it’s fantastic.”

Burchill: “It is fantastic.”

Himmelberg: “We had a wonderful collaboration.”

Burchill: “Yeah, I agree. When you were in graduate school, were you married? I’m not quite

sure.”

Himmelberg: “No, I got married about five years after I was out of graduate school. I had a good

time after I got out of graduate school.” [Laughter]

Burchill: “Okay. Maybe we’d better leave that off of the manuscript.”

15

Himmelberg: “No, that’s all right. It was wonderful. I was twenty-five when I got out of

graduate school from Notre Dame, and I went, as I say, to Midwest Research for two years. I got

together again with friends from before graduate school, and met some new ones. Eight of us

bought a place at Lake Latawana, where I spent lots of weekends. When I say a place, I don’t

mean a house, I mean a dock. We had a lakeside lot and a dock.”

Burchill: “And a boat?”

Himmelberg: “A sailboat and a ski boat, and so we had a lot of fun. The girls liked it. So that’s

how we spent especially the first two years. And then I met Mary Pat. I met her in the spring of

1959, my last spring at Midwest Research. The following fall I came up here. Then it was

another couple of years after that when we got married. We got married in ’62.”

Burchill: “As I read your resume which you gave me, you’ve done a lot of teaching. You’ve

taught a lot of different classes after you were faculty here.”

Himmelberg: “That’s right.”

Burchill: “How would you summarize your teaching experience?”

Himmelberg: “When I first came to KU the Math faculty was relatively small. I think there were

thirteen or fourteen, something like that, but we taught just as wide a variety of Math courses then

as we do now. What that means is that people tended to have to teach a lot of things that were

outside of their specialty.”

Burchill: “Both introductory and advanced levels?”

Himmelberg: “Yes, but especially upper level undergraduate classes. I think all of us on the

faculty at that time were happy to take a crack at any undergraduate class.”

Burchill: “And you did.”

16

Himmelberg: [Laughter] I did. And then I taught graduate classes that were out of my

immediate specialty besides teaching topology. I think I probably taught the introductory

analysis course at KU more often than anybody else.”

Burchill: “You, I think this was in 1985, did a radio interview?”

Himmelberg: “A radio interview? Let me think about that.”

Burchill: “You were talking about…”

Himmelberg: “Refresh my memory a little bit.”

Burchill: “…talking about the teaching, the lack of support for mathematicians, both federally

and state, and how because of that you had to teach a lot, you didn’t have money for research, you

had to hire a lot of graduate students to do the teaching.”

Himmelberg: “Oh, this is when I was Chairman, I guess.”

Burchill: “I think this was in 1985, when this took place.”

Himmelberg: “Let me put 1985 into perspective. After Sputnik in the late 1950’s and through

the 60’s and 70’s Mathematics and Science became very popular subjects as the general public

became convinced of the need to close a perceived technological (especially missile) gap between

the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. The result for us was a huge influx of graduate students in

Mathematics and a large pool of talented applicants for teaching assistantships. Consequently, it

was relatively easy to staff the bulk of our freshman / sophomore classes with highly qualified

graduate students. This freed our regular faculty to teach the also large numbers of Math majors.

By 1980, conditions had changed. Mathematics and Physics were no longer such popular majors

and graduate Math enrollments were not sufficiently large to adequately fill all of our G.T.A.

slate.”

Burchill: “And you hired graduate students from non-Math disciplines…”

Himmelberg: “…from non-Math areas, yes.”

17

Burchill: “And that’s one of the things you pointed out.”

Himmelberg: “…because we couldn’t get enough Math students to get all the teaching done.

Probably at that time we could have hired enough regular faculty to do it, but the university

wasn’t about to have that big a Math department. That was a trying time.”

Burchill: “Well I can tell from reading your words here – the high teaching load, not a lot of

grant support. When I was in Academic Affairs, one of the things that came up a lot was the fact

that a lot of your teaching assistants didn’t have very good English skills.”

Himmelberg: “Unfortunately, yes, but I wouldn’t say there were a lot of G.T.A.’s with poor

English skills. It doesn’t take many to cause a lot of problems.”

Burchill: “And I know you guys worked very hard testing the students before you gave them a

job and all of that. Did that give you lots of headaches when you were Chairman?”

Himmelberg: “I don’t know about lots, but it was a perpetual problem because we were always

desperate to find somebody to help teach the classes, and there were always lots of Asians, for

example, looking for jobs. It was certainly a point of contention between us and Academic

Affairs and the parents.”

Burchill: “The parents would come forward and say, ‘My son can’t understand what is being

taught.’”

Himmelberg: “Of course the parents weren’t very happy, nor were the kids very patient.”

Burchill: “Well, I remember that. That was part…”

Himmelberg: “If you think about it, my major professor was not very fluent in English either.

[Laughter] If you work at it you can understand.”

Burchill: “That’s right.”

18

Himmelberg: “On the other hand, you had to have compassion for a student who is really not that

eager to learn the subject anyway. He gets somebody he can’t understand. That was a difficult

period.”

Burchill: “Do you still have those issues in Math? Are you still having to hire students with low

English proficiency, or whatever you want to call it?”

Himmelberg: “They seem to have a lot more applicants for T.A. jobs now. I don’t think there’s

any trouble getting plenty of T.A.s, so that the Asians we do hire (we still have a lot of Asian

students) are either fluent in English, or we have enough research funds in the department to put

them on as Research Assistants.”

Burchill: “What is it about Asians that makes me think they are more quantitative?”

Himmelberg: “Darned if I know, but there are sure a lot of them that are good mathematicians.”

[Laughter]

Burchill: “I know, it’s amazing to me. It’s somewhere in their genetic makeup, I think.”

Himmelberg: “Asians and eastern Europeans. We’ve had a lot of good students from there.”

Burchill: “I didn’t know that. How about that? Teaching awards – you’ve gotten some, so that’s

good.”

Himmelberg: “I’ve gotten some. I’ll have to check the list, but I got one state-wide award

and…”

Burchill: “Well, you were nominated for the Hope Award three times.”

Himmelberg: “Oh, I forgot. That’s right.”

Burchill: “You got the G. Baley Price Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching in ’88…”

Himmelberg: “…from the graduate students. Yes, that one made me very happy.”

19

Burchill: “Mathematical Association of America Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2001. I

mean, you’ve…”

Himmelberg: “Yeah, I guess I was a pretty good teacher.”

Burchill: “Well, and the thing is, you were doing lots of service. You were Chairman of that

department for a long time.”

Himmelberg: “Twenty-one years. Teaching was kind of like recess, you know what I mean.”

[Laughter]

Burchill: “Oh, yeah, okay, that’s a good way to look at it.”

Himmelberg: “I just always loved being around the students. I miss that now in retirement. I

loved the interaction with the students.”

Burchill: “Surely you were the senior department Chairman for most of that time, weren’t you?”

Himmelberg: “You mean on the campus?”

Burchill: “Yeah. I don’t know whether David Paretsky might have challenged you or not.

That’s a lot of years to be a Chairman.”

Himmelberg: “Let’s see – active Chairs at the time. Oh, Tony Genova became Philosophy

Chair at the same time I became Math Chair. I think he may still be doing it.”

Burchill: “Oh, really? So he may have bypassed you by now?”

Himmelberg: “We had the same amount of administrative tenure at the time.”

Burchill: “What about your students? What have they gone on to do? Let’s say your doctoral

students, are they…”

20

Himmelberg: “I directed eight Ph.D. students, which is more than most Math Professors, during

my time in the department. They’ve had good careers. A couple of them have already retired

[Laughter] before I have. Some have better positions than others, but…”

Burchill: “Oh, sure. Department Chairs?”

Himmelberg: “One of them, Dave Kellman, became a department Chair at Ohio University, and

another one, Charles Alexander, switched subjects and got into Math Education. He is a big

Education grant getter at Old Miss. Some of them have changed fields. Felix Dreher at Pittsburg

State ended up in Statistics and, as I understand it, developed Pittsburg State’s program for the

use of Statistics in business.”

Burchill: “Have most of them stayed in academia as opposed to the business industry?”

Himmelberg: “Most of them. One of them taught at UMKC for years, Paul Liebnitz. I’m trying

to look at the list. One of them turned out to be kind of a mathematical gypsy, or Arab, I should

say, Arlo Schuole, a Kansas boy. He is probably the most talented on the list. He started off

teaching at North Carolina State and did well there, but just got an itchy foot, and took a position

as a Visiting Professor in Arabia. He taught there for a couple of years and then he came back to

this country and taught at a variety of places. He didn’t go back to North Carolina State, but he

kept going back to Arabia. I’ve lost track of him and don’t know where he is now. I am sure he’s

not there though. I don’t think he would be comfortable there anymore. He is an interesting

guy.”

Burchill: “Speaking of plum positions in other countries, you spent a semester in Florence, Italy,

which is…”

Himmelberg: “Yeah, I’m trying to go back there as soon as I can.” [Laughter]

Burchill: “Yeah, that looks really good to me. Oh, man, Visiting Professor, wow.”

Himmelberg: “Yeah, the University of Florence, that was a plum place to be. For that one I can

thank my wife’s patience because we went over there in ’75 with all five of our children. The

oldest was twelve at the time, and the youngest had just become three. It was a difficult time for

21

her but she loved every minute of it, I think. It made it difficult to get the right kind of research

done but I did. It was a very profitable visit. We re-visited Florence about five years ago, the

year after I left the Chairmanship. We went over and stayed for a month. We are hoping to do

that again soon.”

Burchill: “What a great country.”

Himmelberg: “The Italians are wonderful, and there’s so much history and art there.”

Burchill: “What about your research? Did you continue to have an interest in research after you

came here? I know you had collaboration. Did that remain an important part of your…”

Himmelberg: “I was very active in research throughout the ’60s and ’70s and into the ’80s. But

my work tapered off in the ’80s after I became Chairman. Then, to be honest, the longer I stayed

in the Chairmanship, the less research I was able to get done. It just kind of fizzled out, so I don’t

even make any attempts at research now. I’d be too far behind.”

Burchill: “I understand. Academic Affairs did the same thing for me. I mean, it just… they’re

not compatible.”

Himmelberg: “You know, it’s not that there’s not enough time. You could make time to do

things. But there are only so many things that you can concentrate on. If you are an

administrator, that’s the number one responsibility, and then teaching is another very serious one.

Then to be able to re-order your thinking to keep up to date on research materials, it’s really

hard.”

Burchill: “That’s right. I totally agree.”

Himmelberg: “Almost any administrator will tell you the same thing.”

Burchill: “Well, I know, but some of them try, and I wonder how well they’re doing any of it.

They’re just spread too thin.”

22

Himmelberg: “Some guys who work in labs seem to be able to keep some kind of a laboratory

thing going.”

Burchill: “If they have enough money to hire post-docs. If they can keep the grants written, and

get the post-docs to manage the labs, okay, but writing grants is…”

Himmelberg: “…oh, a horrendous job.”

Burchill: “Now, let’s talk about your administrative positions besides being Chairman. You

were on a lot of very interesting committees over your years, and two of them in particular stood

out in my mind, and that’s when you were on search committees for Deans of the college.”

Himmelberg: “Oh, yeah, and evaluation committees also.” [Laughter]

Burchill: “Well that’s true too. One of them was in ’80 – ’81, a search committee. Do you

remember who you hired? Who would that have been?”

Himmelberg: “Oh, Bob Lineberry. He and I became good friends while he was Dean.

When I became Chairman, George Wagoner was the Dean, followed by Bob Cobb, Bob

Lineberry, James Muyskens and Sally Frost Mason. There were a couple of years with Acting

Deans. I think Del Shankel was one. I can’t remember the other. I was very close to Sally Frost

Mason when she was the Dean. I thought she was a wonderful Dean. I think of all the – maybe I

shouldn’t rank the Deans – she was the best Dean I ever served under.”

Burchill: “Well, you know who hired her, don’t you, to come here?”

Himmelberg: “Huh-uh. Oh, you did? You were on the search committee?”

Burchill: “Well, no, she was in my department.”

Himmelberg: “Oh, I see. Well, I probably shouldn’t have shared my opinion of her.”

Burchill: “Well, I love her. I mean, I just think she’s a fabulous scientist and person, and the

whole thing.”

23

Himmelberg: “I thought it was important to evaluate Sally Frost Mason’s tenure. Of course she

left anyway, which everybody thought she would do.”

Burchill: “Well, she went back to her alma mater, I think, didn’t she? Indiana, or…”

Himmelberg: “Purdue.”

Burchill: “Purdue, that’s right.”

Himmelberg: “She is the Provost there. You asked what else stands out. Being on the

remodeling Committee for Snow Hall, that was a real pleasure.”

Burchill: “It was.”

Himmelberg: “Lineberry talked me into doing that. Like Price before me, I was reluctant to

leave Strong Hall. Of course you now the condition of Snow Hall in those days, before the

remodeling. So I really didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I remember this meeting with

Lineberry, and he says, ‘Charlie, we’re talking about more than $7 million they’re going to spend

on the inside of that building. I don’t think it’ll be too bad.’” [Laughter]

Burchill: “So the Dean didn’t think it would be too bad of a building once the remodeling was

over?”

Himmelberg: “That convinced me and our department, and after that we went into it with

enthusiasm.”

Burchill: “With enthusiasm?”

Himmelberg: “Oh yeah, I think it was a wonderful thing to do. I don’t know, have you seen the

inside of Snow Hall?”

Burchill: “Oh, yeah.”

24

Himmelberg: “They did a great job architecturally, I think. The faculty likes it a lot and it’s been

really good for the department. I personally think Snow Hall from the inside and out is maybe

the most attractive restored building on campus.”

Burchill: “It is.”

Himmelberg: “In fact, I think Snow Hall and Budig Hall across the street are the two most

attractive buildings facing each other.”

Burchill: “Snow was a great building for Biology until we outgrew it, and it became antiquated

in terms of the kind of facilities that we needed, but I always enjoyed it. You know, I lived down

there in Charlie Leone’s office for a long time. When he left I moved in, I and Charlie

Wyttenbach. No, I agree with you, it’s a beautiful building.”

Himmelberg: “We were able to do some nice things that overcame some of my original

objections. One of the things that turned me off when we were first considering the project was

the Hall Mammalian Genetics Lab, which stood about eight feet behind Snow Hall. The side

facing Snow was a windowless wall covered with bird dung. Because of donor restrictions on its

use the building was not to be part of the new Snow Hall. The result would have been ugly views

from a number of Snow Hall windows. However, it turned out that about this time the university

was released from restrictions on the building’s use, and it was decided that the two buildings

should somehow be combined. Some clever architectural work then turned the Hall building into

a real asset for the whole project.”

Burchill: “Was it converted into a lecture or…”

Himmelberg: “The combined space allowed for some relatively large Computer Science teaching

labs on the lower floors and for a faculty commons area on the top floor of the Hall building (the

fourth floor of old Snow) with beautiful views of Potter Lake, the stadium and the Kaw Valley.”

Burchill: “Is Computer Science…”

Himmelberg: “After the renovation, the original occupants of the building were Mathematics,

Computer Science, and the Entomology Museum. Subsequently, Computer Science moved to the

25

Engineering School and more suitable space was found for the Entomology Museum. The

building now houses the Mathematics and Economics Departments and (I think) the Architecture

School uses some of the lab space on the lower floors.”

Burchill: “Space is such a domino on a campus where there isn’t enough. It’s just remarkable.”

Himmelberg: “The building is certainly big enough to house both Mathematics and Economics.

Moreover, Economics and Math should be good neighbors. Outside of Theoretical Physics, few

disciplines use more Math than Economics.”

Burchill: “Sure. Let’s move out of academia and into things like hobbies. You’ve played

handball. You’ve traveled some, besides to Italy, over the years?”

Himmelberg: “We’ve been all over the U.S., but mostly traveled – while I was active in the

department – to professional meetings. I tended to always take Mary Pat along. Other than that,

we spent part of every summer in Colorado. We’ve made many trips to the mountains.”

Burchill: “What do you intend to do now that you are retired?”

Himmelberg: “We’re doing some traveling all right.”

Burchill: “Go back to Germany?”

Himmelberg: “Well, to Italy. Sometime I want to see Liechtenstein. In January we are going to

Naples, Florida. In February we’re going to go to San Diego. Then hopefully in March or April

we want to go to Italy.”

Burchill: “Now are you going to drive to the places in the U.S. or are you…”

Himmelberg: “No, we’ll fly. Then of course we’ll fly to Italy.”

Burchill: “Do you take cruises?”

Himmelberg: “One cruise so far, to Alaska, and it was wonderful.”

26

Burchill: “That’s what people say. We’ve not done that.”

Himmelberg: “I can’t imagine a better cruise.”

Burchill: “What about gardening and that kind of stuff?”

Himmelberg: “I do a lot of that. I love gardening.”

Burchill: “Flower or vegetable?”

Himmelberg: “I’d grow more vegetables but we don’t have any sunshine in our yard. [Laughter]

Huge trees shade everything, so I grow what you can grow in at least part shade. I put in a couple

of tomato plants last spring but they just didn’t do well. They need a lot of sun.”

Burchill: “Your dad played cards. Are you a card player?”

Himmelberg: “No, not really. Every now and then we go to the casino and play blackjack.”

Burchill: “That’s fun, isn’t it?”

Himmelberg: “Yeah, that’s fun. I know how to play bridge and we used to play social bridge,

but most of the people we played with – that I played with – died. My wife plays a lot and she is

a good bridge player. She plays with her women friends.”

Burchill: “Who do you guys pal around with as a couple? Do you have a set of friends that you

like to interact with, who you consider your close friends?”

Himmelberg: “Some friends from years ago in Kansas City. We’ll see three of them tonight that

were in our wedding, along with their wives. People like that from the old days we often see.

Locally we have a lot of town folks who are good friends.”

Burchill: “I wondered about that. Are they mostly in the Math department?”

27

Himmelberg: “No, just a couple of them. We are still very friendly with Paul McCarthy, Fred

Van Vleck and Bob Brown. These are my closest friends from the Math department. Then,

locally, Byron Springer, do you know the attorney?”

Burchill: “Oh sure.”

Himmelberg: “We are very good friends, Byron and Marian and my wife and I. We see them a

lot. Then Bill and Jeanie Lienhard and our neighbors Scott and Susie Killough and Dick and

Cathy Peters.”

Burchill: “Bill Lienhard. Oh sure, famous name.”

Himmelberg: “We run around with those people, and many others. I told my wife once that the

thing that appealed to me about her more than anything else, besides the fact that she is a

beautiful woman, was that she has the gift of friendship. My wife attracts friends like a magnet.”

Burchill: “How about that.”

Himmelberg: “I’m kind of reserved, I think. So we have a very lively social life.”

Burchill: “That’s good.”

Himmelberg: “Yeah.”

Burchill: “As long as it doesn’t wear you out. [Laughter] Why did you choose to retire now?”

Himmelberg: “My wife has been telling me for several years it’s time to retire. She wanted more

time to travel while we were still young enough to enjoy it. I was certainly old enough (I’m

seventy-three), so that’s why I retired, basically.”

Burchill: “Not a health issue or…”

Himmelberg: “No, I’m in good health.”

28

Burchill: “You look very healthy.”

Himmelberg: “I take Vitorin for cholesterol but…” [Laughter]

Burchill: “Well. Is that all you take?”

Himmelberg: “Lots of dietary supplements. I take a lot of vitamins.”

Burchill: “My body is falling apart but the pills save me, they keep me going.”

Himmelberg: “Things like Lipitor, Vitorin – those are wonder drugs.”

Burchill: “They really are, yeah. So are you doing any consulting in your retirement, any

professional…?”

Himmelberg: “A little bit, yes I am, as a matter of fact. There is an interesting project I just got

into. I read in the paper one day about a school that was being established in Kansas City called

Cristo Rey.

Burchill: “I’ve heard the name.”

Himmelberg: “That means Christ the King. It’s being established by the Sisters of Charity from

Leavenworth in Kansas City. It’s part of a chain of similar schools that have been going on now

for six or seven years. I think the first one was in Chicago. What they are is prep schools for

under-privileged kids. We want to get them out of public schools where there are all sorts of

distractions and reasons not to succeed, and in to a place where they will succeed. Of course,

most of them can’t afford to go to a prep school, and the question is how to finance it. So each of

these schools finds a group of business men in the community to provide jobs for each of the

students in the school. They are clerical jobs in their company. What they’ll do is they’ll create

one job and they will have four kids fill it. They will work one day a week at this job, one full

time day. It’s an honest-to-God clerical or professional job, so they will be around people in the

working world and see what it’s like. Then the other four days they go to school, a very

strenuous, no-nonsense school day. The school days and school year are lengthened to make up

for the days spent working.”

29

Burchill: “Then they have to…”

Himmelberg: “They’re paid almost enough in this job to pay what it costs to cover their costs in

this school. That’s financially how it’s set up.”

Burchill: “I was going to say, the expectations on the students, probably, are high or else they are

asked to leave.”

Himmelberg: “The results in other places that have done this are that ninety-five percent of

graduates go to college, or some kind of post high school training school, generally with some

kind of scholarship support. There are some interesting rules too. If you can afford, say, to go to

Rockhurst or Pembroke, or some private school, then you can’t go to this one. So anyway, I read

about this and I know some of the people who were backing it. I just happened to mention it to

my daughter, that I thought this was really a great idea. Coincidentally, my daughter used to

work for the Sisters of Charity in their hospital system. She knows the nun who is going to be the

Principal of the school. She mentioned to her that her dad was really excited about this and

thought this was really a neat thing, so naturally…”

Burchill: “You were invited to participate?”

Himmelberg: “I was invited. The school is a year away from being able to start classes next fall.

And so they called and asked me if I would participate in the planning committee for the

curriculum.”

Burchill: “Excellent. Good for you.”

Himmelberg: “We’ve had one meeting so far is all, and another one next week.”

Burchill: “So you travel to the committee meetings?”

Himmelberg: “Yes, it’s just to Kansas City. Do you know where Redemptorist Church is?”

Burchill: “No.”

30

Himmelberg: “It’s the nicest Catholic Church in Kansas City. It’s run by the Redemptorist

priests who established it, but it’s in the inner city at Linwood and Main. You know where Main

Street is, I guess?”

Burchill: “Yeah. I know where it comes in downtown.”

Himmelberg: “Linwood is roughly at thirty-second street. So this is about halfway between the

Plaza and downtown. It’s a central city area that’s re-developing right now.”

Burchill: “How are you with creativity, artwork and that sort of…”

Himmelberg: “I used to love to draw and paint in grade school. It was my favorite thing to do. I

used to think I was pretty good, until one year a kid showed up who really was good. [Laughter]

It discouraged me from doing art. [Laughter] I can still draw pretty well, for example, well

enough that I designed our house. I was the architect for our house.”

Burchill: “Well now, that’s interesting.”

Himmelberg: “We’ve been in it for forty years next month. But anyway, it turned out to be a

very successful project. I didn’t do the contracting. I had a builder do it.”

Burchill: “But you did all the schematics and everything?”

Himmelberg: “Yeah, and I would consult with the builder about things you have to know about

architecture that I didn’t know, but I would just consult with him – ‘can you actually do such and

such?’ – and it’s kind of a garden variety floor plan, but it’s…”

Burchill: “Do you have a basement?”

Himmelberg: “Oh yeah. It’s a nice big house. It had to be big because the children were coming

fast.” [Laughter]

Burchill: “And you had five children. Are you glad you came to KU?”

31

Himmelberg: “Oh yeah. I loved it here. I still do. I get disgusted sometimes with some things

that happen, like with athletics lately, but by and large, yes. In spite of whatever shortcomings

that the university has had, I like it fine.”

Burchill: “So you assess it in terms of quality as being…”

Himmelberg: “Oh, I think it’s an excellent university. I think sometimes, as is his job, maybe

that the Chancellor exaggerates its quality a little bit, but I think it’s a fine place. I like it well

enough I had all my kids go to school here. They could have gone other places too. I love KU. I

think it’s getting better all the time.”

Burchill: “How did you like the period of the sixties and the early seventies, with all the raucous

activity and worse?”

Himmelberg: “That wasn’t so pleasant. Were you here yet then?”

Burchill: “Well, I came in ’68, so I got…”

Himmelberg: “You got the worst of it.”

Burchill: “I got the worst of it.”

Himmelberg: “That was the year that they burned… let’s see, didn’t they burn the Union in ’68

or ’69?”

Burchill: “It was right in there. A couple of shootings and…”

Himmelberg: “I was not at all pleased about the way Chancellor Chalmers dealt with the ROTC

thing, and the end of the school year with no exams, but the poor man was in an awful situation.

That was a terrible situation. I imagine that he was afraid that there would be somebody killed on

his watch on the campus. There were people killed off campus. That was a terrible time.

Fortunately, it didn’t last very long.”

Burchill: “Where were you located then in terms of the Math department?”

32

Himmelberg: “It was in Strong Hall.”

Burchill: “Oh that’s right.”

Himmelberg: “We could look out the window and see the smoke going up from the Union fire.”

Burchill: “Did you have faculty patrolling the halls at night to sort of protect things? We did

some of that.”

Himmelberg: “We did some of that. Of course the Chancellor had people patrolling the halls at

Strong. I remember students sitting in the hallways outside all up and down the halls. The Math

department and the Chancellor’s office were both on the second floor. It was awful. I don’t

remember having any trouble with classes during that time, you know, active students or

somebody trying to disrupt them.”

Burchill: “Science kids are pretty serious people as it turns out.”

Himmelberg: “Yeah, but of course we teach lots of non-science students. Almost everybody has

to take calculus nowadays.”

Burchill: “That’s right, it’s required. That’s right.”

Himmelberg: “The School of Business requires it.”

Burchill: “I didn’t have to deal with that.”

Himmelberg: “As I recall, we didn’t have much trouble with attendance and that sort of thing.”

Burchill: “Anything else we didn’t get to that you had hoped we would? Here’s your time for

the microphone.”

Himmelberg: “I think we have covered about everything.”

Burchill: “Well, I appreciate your coming and I personally found this very interesting.”