RON ROSS: Now, what year was this?

RALPH STEETLE: This was 1934. I graduated in '36, and a master's degree in linguistics and broadcasting in '38. I was influenced a great deal by Dr. Harley Smith, who was on the speech faculty and was a superb teacher and good person. One of the things that impressed me about his teaching is that he would ask, "Before you do anything, it would be useful if you would ask yourself, 'What's the purpose of this?'' Whether it's writing or whether it's acting. If you start with a sense of what the purpose of this is, it would be a lot easier to do."" And so part of my life has been marked by an internal sense of questioning, what is the purpose of this before I start. So I owe that to Dr. Harley Smith, who through his efforts, I became the first Director of Broadcasting at the university, and the first, I guess . . . He taught radio classes and I first became his assistant and replaced him as he went into other fields.

ROSS: What was the locus of speech and broadcasting? In what building?

STEETLE: Music and Dramatics Arts building. The half to the right as you entered.

ROSS: Yes.

STEETLE: And because I knew quite a few of the people and faculty in Music because of my broadcast activities, of course, I always narrated yearly broadcasts of The Messiah. Jo sang. I never met her. So my future wife and I were in the same building for some years and never met.

But I was very fortunate to receive a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship that occurred as my master's year ended. I suddenly had to complete my thesis in six weeks instead of three months. So I worked day and night and finished my thesis to get on the train for New York and the Rockefeller Foundation. Never have caught up that sleep. I thought I would do it in New York, but I never did.