T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History
Collection
INTERVIEWEE NAME: Irwin Berg #
4700.0526
IDENTIFICATION: [ 1913 - ? ] Head of the
Psychology Department and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
INTERVIEWER: Mary Hebert
PROJECT: LSU
History
DATES: April
29, 1995; May 6, 1995; May 10, 1995
FOCUS
DATES: [1953 - 1980]
ABSTRACT:
T 761 Side A
family history including Swedish heritage; visiting Ljunby,
Sweden(where mother lived); moving to Chicago suburb, Berwyn at age 3; father
trained as a veterinarian but worked as a blacksmith; mother's immigration to
the United States; parents commitment to education; Berg's Swedish stunted in
childhood speech; father's insistence that Berg speak English; how Berg became
interested in Psychology; working at Western Electric Company; the Great
Depression pushed him back into school(Knox College); fraternity prank;
T761 Side B
working at Western Electric again; meeting wife; her career as a public
health nurse; beginning graduate work; joining military during WWII although
has a deaf ear; prank with LSU administrators during Vietnam War;
T762 Side A
graduate work at Northwestern University; inquiry about moving to LSU;
situation of the Psychology Department upon his arrival, no outside funding,
little research being done in the department, graduate program not accredited;
Jimmy Davis got a Masters in Psychology at LSU; bringing family to Louisiana to
visit; Louisiana Legislator calling LSU administrators before them during the
integration process; brought new, talented people into the psychology dept.;
funding from Public Health Service;
T762 Side B
accreditation of graduate program; having trouble keeping good people
in the department, Brendan Mahr, Bernard Bass, Donald Lewis, Robert Thompson;
editing a book with Pennington on clinical psychology;
T763 side A
accepting the position of the Dean of Arts and Sciences; problems with
certain departments, political science, math; LSU as a conservative
institution; recalling the change from compulsory to voluntary ROTC; problem
with getting Phi Beta Kappa on LSU campus; problems with scholarships; funding
scholarships with parking fines; getting the deanship and a pay decrease;
people who are supportive of funding LSU, Longs; Louisiana Legislature using
LSU budget as a funding resource for their own projects; Black students push
for Black history course; Huel Perkins coming to LSU from Southern; E. B.
Robert, Dean of Education, didn't want outside funding and wanted to
incorporate other department's courses in to the College of Education; getting
funding for the School of Journalism from Hitesman, President of the Reader's
Digest Association; approaching Douglas Manship about funding for School of
Journalism;
T763 Side B
membership on the Commission on the Administration of Law Enforcement
and of Criminal Justice; inspection of prisons; Louisiana Legislature passed
recommendations but didn't fund them; development of the College of Science at
LSU; remembering T. Harry Williams;
TAPES: T761,
T762, T763
TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 180 minutes
# PAGES TRANSCRIPT: Total pages - 95 pages
T761
- 28 pages
T762
- 28 pages
T763
- 39 pages
RESTRICTIONS: None