Oral history interview with Dr. Bruce Kirchoff, 2016

Brittany H.: My name is Brittany Hedrick and today is Friday, December 23, 2016. I am in Parish Library with Dr. Bruce Kirchoff, Professor of Biology to conduct an oral history interview for the UNCG Institutional Memory Collection.

Brittany H.: Thank you Dr. Kirchoff for participating in this project and sharing your experiences with me. I'd like to start the interview by asking you about your childhood. Could you tell me when and where you were born?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Well, first let me say thanks, I'm really pleased to be here. I'm glad to have my voice and remarks recorded for UNCG's oral history. I've spent a long time here, and it's nice to be able to contribute something however minor here to the history of the institution.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, let me see, what was the first question? My family and my home life? Or, where I was born?

Brittany H.: Yeah.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I was born in Detroit, Michigan at Mercy Hospital in 1952. I was the first child to my parents, and the first child in kind of our extended family of friends and things. So, they always made a big deal about that, that I was the first child and the first boy born. We were very close during the early 00:01:00years to my aunt and uncle, my mother's sister and her husband.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And, spent a lot of time together in those years when we were growing up. They lived close to each other for much of the time.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, our early life was spent living, I think initially living with my grandparents in Detroit and then after that in Livonia for a short time, until my parents got their own house.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I remember mostly growing up in a place called Redford Township, which is a non-city outside Detroit. I've had conversations with people where they sometimes say, "Redford Township doesn't even exist." I think people know it exists now, but it was a small residential area.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: My father worked in the auto industry. He got a job with GM 00:02:00after completing his degree at GM Technical Institute, where was that? In Flint? In Michigan, in some place. I've forgotten now.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: He got there after the war. So, he didn't go to college right after high school, but I guess was drafted into the war. Was a truck driver in World War II, after the war he returned and probably on the GI Bill. Although, he never told me that.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Went to college at GM Tech, that's been renamed now, something else. It's no longer called GM Tech, but it was natural for him then to go into engineering at General Motors after that.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Some years after that he switched over to Ford and the whole time that I remember from my childhood, he worked at Ford. Although, it may have been a few years when he was at GM, and I just didn't really realize it.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: We did move at one point to Plymouth, another little town more 00:03:00outside, more outside Detroit. And now, thinking back on it, my parents told me that we did that move because my father was going to be closer to his work. So, that must've been when the time he switched over to Ford.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I was in fifth grade at that time, or in sixth grade in my old school. I came back, and I went back a grade to fifth grade because I guess my old school wasn't very good at math. I turned out to be pretty okay at math as time went on. But, I didn't know it very well at that time. So, I made some of my first really clear memorable friends that have stayed with me most of my life in that time after we moved to Plymouth, and I sat in fifth grade, I have very clear memories of my friend David pulling Mary Swainson's hair in front of him in fifth grade.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, I guess that's how things ... It's funny now, with Facebook, I'm back in touch with Mary after all of these years.

Brittany H.: Okay.

Brittany H.: Was your favorite subject math?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: No, I don't know if I had a real favorite subject in grade school. As we went on into high school, I gravitated more towards science. I was one of the ... I don't know, later on what they would be called nerds, but one of the serious, science-y kinds of students and really liked the math, science subjects. I guess my first ... one of my early subjects that I really liked was ... I liked both chemistry and math, and biology. The biology teacher took us in 10th grade, I think, to ... it could've been 11th. We took a field trip to Chicago and went to The Field Museum in Chicago. So our whole class went there, and that really made a big impression on me. I really liked The Field Museum, hated Chicago.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Was the first place I saw a policemen taking a bribe. The only place I've ever seen a policemen taking a bribe. I hope that doesn't happen anymore in Chicago, right in front of the Hilton.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, had very mixed feelings about Chicago itself, but loved going to The Field Museum, had a really great time with learning about all the different exhibits and everything they had to show.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, I really enjoyed biology throughout that time. I'd come into biology lab right after swimming in the early morning. Swimming was one of the first things in the morning, and so we'd come out of this really chlorinated pool, into formal and dissecting pigs. So, it's amazing that I liked biology at all. I think that was the part ... maybe that had an influence of my becoming a botanist later on. I didn't have to deal with these formalin fumes whiffing up from a snake, or a pig, or a crustacean right after swimming, when my eyes were stinging already.

Brittany H.: Okay. So, what did you do after high school?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I should probably finish high school a little bit here, because one thing that happened unusual is that in 12th grade my father took a job in Germany. So, my family moved to Germany, he worked at a Ford transmission plant in Germany working on transmission design. He was a transmission engineer for Ford, and I guess for GM before that.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And, they were doing the manufacturing in France, but the engineering was done in Germany. So, I went to my senior year in high school was spent in a school in Europe.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Now, there wasn't an English speaking school near my parents home at that time. So, I went to high school in Switzerland, to an American school called The American School in Switzerland, TASIS, still exists today. So, that was my senior year there. It was a boarding school with all the 00:07:00difficulties. You can imagine being away for your senior year at that time when you just want to be completely free of your parents, but you aren't really free of your parents, but you don't want to admit that you're not free of your parents, but you're really dependent on them.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, all of those things played out in the school in different ways. Still, in some ways a really great experience. So, I continued my studies of science and mathematics at TASIS. So, back in Michigan ... our math teacher always said, "Oh no, you guys aren't smart enough to do calculus. You can't do calculus in high school it's not enough, yeah yeah." And so, in Switzerland there was just a calculus class, and I was just in the calculus class and that was it. There was no question about that. So, that was great, they really took us seriously academically in that way.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: The other really, but even more than that was ... in being in 00:08:00Europe, and we were in southern Switzerland, and there's all these different cantons, like states in Switzerland and we were in a canton that spoke Italian. There's one Italian speaking province down near Italy, it's just south of the Alps.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, we were in that Italian speaking part, and we were in this very rich cultural tradition, and we had a great art history teacher. I took art history there, we traveled around. We went to Bern, to museums, we went to Milan and saw Alla Scala, the opera company there. Really opened my eyes to really great art. And, that has been an influence in my life until this day. Had to put it aside a lot for my work in biology for many years, but now as I've gotten older and can go back and really appreciate, have to take some time to appreciate art again. I really am so grateful for that.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I'm still in touch with many of the people whom we graduated with. It was a very small graduating class, like around 40 people. Probably would've been 1000 people or close to that at my other high school.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, we were about 40 people, so we've stayed relatively in touch. We just say we were so lucky to have some of the teachers we had. We had a fantastic, really a character for an English teacher and also for these art history explorations. Really grateful for those kinds of experiences.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, we're talking more about me, I haven't gotten to UNCG yet, right? What did I do after that? What did I do after?

Brittany H.: Yeah. So, what did you do after you graduated from high school? What year did you graduate?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I graduated in 1971.

Brittany H.: Okay.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And, I went to the University of Michigan. So, kind of growing up in Michigan, I'd always just thought that I was always going to the University of Michigan, it was just never really a question as long as I got in and there was just never a question in my mind that I was going to get in, and I did.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: There, I remember before we moved to Europe that summer before, 00:10:00I think we moved to Europe. I did a summer, little science thing, with some of my friends at the University of Michigan. We stayed in one of the sorority or fraternity houses, which was empty for the summer, and went and met with some of the professors and especially the engineering school and things.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Even though I didn't go into engineering, a number of my friends did, or specifically one of the friends did. And, I know that, that experience of coming to campus really made a difference for us.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: UNCG does some of those kinds of things, like the music school, it has the summer music program for kids. And, we're doing in the sciences now, the Science Olympiad. I'm sure that, that influence on the kids. I really think that, that's really important for the university to do those kinds of outreach things. It really made a difference in my life, that it cemented my idea that I was going to the University of Michigan, which is then what I did.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: My parents were able through Ford to get in-state tuition fortunately for that even though they were living out of state at the time. 00:11:00Someone at Ford wrote a letter and said, "Look, they've lived in the state their whole lives except for this. They've paid taxes this whole time. You should really give him in-state tuition." And they did.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Don't know that we would actually do that anymore. So, legalistic now.

Brittany H.: Yeah.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: It's hard to make exceptions for people. But, they did make an exception for me, and went to the University of Michigan. I started in a big math-science curriculum, and I hated it. I did ... I just was very intense, I did okay. I pulled my first and last all nighter before one of my classes. I had a chemistry class taught by a graduate student. He would stand at the class, and he would take a ... I'm now a boxing pose next to Brittany, and he would take a little boxing pose and he said, "Don't call my by my name, just call me 'The Bruiser.'" Actually that was math, that was calculus. I was not impressed. I stopped going to that class, I stopped going to my chemistry class, the professor was so bad. I actually remember his name. I wonder if he's still 00:12:00alive. I guess, I shouldn't say it.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: A very, a very impressive name, but really a horrible teacher. I just completely stopped going. I was getting nothing out of the lectures. I didn't drop out ... school that semester, I did drop out for a semester later on.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I dropped out of science at that point, and started doing art history. And, I did a lot of art history. So, my degree was a really weird degree, it was called a Bachelor of General Studies. I don't think they have those degrees anymore.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, UNCG and University of Michigan at that time had similar kinds of course numbering, so when I talked about course numbers it'll just translate exactly into what UNCG does.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, my distribution requirements at ... for a Bachelor of General Studies were, you must take half of your courses at the 300 level or above. That was it.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I signed my own drop/add forms, I didn't ever have to talk to an adviser, I made my own degree in any way I wanted to, as long as I satisfied 00:13:00that degree requirement I did okay in the thing. And, I stayed in that through my whole time. I talked to an adviser once, and it was not a good experience. So, I was very happy making my own degree. The initial part of that degree was a lot of history of art, I took every course that I needed for history of art major, except one. I never took Far Eastern Art.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And then, I got disillusioned with art, I mean I learned a lot about art. I got to the level while I was taking lower level graduates level courses. And, at that time, art did not speak to me. It was all about the continuity of style. I was interested in that to some extent, but not ... Art history today, is not the art history then. There's feminist art history, there's probably gay/lesbian art history. There's all kinds of different social aspects of art history, it's all linked to culture and things. I mean, we got nothing about ... very little about culture where these art works took about, it's all about style. And, it was great, I really am glad that I did it all. 00:14:00Provided a wonderful background, but it wasn't going to be my life work.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I dropped out of school for a semester, I worked as a lunch room attendant at a school. I read some original works by Freud and Jung, and Adler. Started thinking about coming back to school, and I came back to school and decided I would go back and started pursuing biology.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, I did that, I came back and still got a BGS, but started taking biology courses, went on to the University of Michigan and got a Master's in Biology, and I picked up all those course I'd missed in my undergraduate so that I could get into graduate school.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And then, because of a very exciting ... so much depends on the people you meet. And, had a very dynamic Professor of Botany and he inspired me to go on in botany, and went on to graduate school at Duke in botany eventually 00:15:00after that master's degree.

Brittany H.: Okay.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Michigan had a very good botany program at that time. It was one of the best. So, it's not just this one professor, but they had really great botany courses across, was one of the best schools in the country in botany at that time. I don't know where they stand now, but at that time it was one of the top four.

Brittany H.: So, you ended up at Duke University?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Yes.

Brittany H.: Was that for your PhD?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: For my PhD was at Duke University, yup.

Brittany H.: Okay.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And I worked on plant morphology of plant structure and development of tropical plants. And again, did pretty much my own kind of work. My professor worked on other kinds of things, but he was very willing to support me in my own kind of explorations as graduate students all kind of explore their own different areas.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And so, I worked on these tropical plants. I still work on them, in fact, I just submitted, after review a paper on another one of the related plants yesterday. Still looking at flower development in some of these plants.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, I've done a lot of other things, but I still continue to work on the same kinds of things that I've worked on for my PhD in part of my work.

Brittany H.: Okay.

Brittany H.: And so, what year did you graduate with a PhD?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: It would've been '81. That's right, because I spent 10 years in school after. So, four years undergraduate, two years for a master's, and then four years for a PhD.

Brittany H.: Okay.

Brittany H.: So, I guess that leads me to my next question, how did you find out about UNCG and what made you decide to come here? And when did you start working here?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I was applying for jobs and all the time after I graduated for my PhD in '81. My first job was at Louisiana State, where I had a visiting assistant professorship for one year. I then had a post-doc in Israel. I spent 14 months in Israel, and in Jerusalem specifically, which was a great 00:17:00experience. I won't talk too much about that, but that was just fantastic to live overseas in that city. It's a very amazing city, it's not ... it's very easy for me to understand that people have fought over that city for the whole of human history.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I then wrote a National Science Foundation Grant, ended up at Fairchild Tropical Garden. And, back in the country, it was very hard to get interviews when you're overseas, especially when you're that far away. I started applying, in earnest, I mean I was always applying in earnest, but I got a couple of interviews when I was in Miami, and UNCG was looking for an assistant professor in my area. The person who had been here before had moved onto another position. They were looking to rehire in that same kind of area.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And so, I applied and did an interview, that would've been January or February 1986, I believe. Then I started here in ... August 1, 1986 00:18:00was my official start day.

Brittany H.: So, why did you choose UNCG in particular?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Oh well, they offered me a job, my wife at the time was able to find a job in the same area. She had a job offer in California. I did not have a job offer in California. It really came down to the last week before we had to make a decision and we both found jobs in North Carolina.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Now, she worked in the Research Triangle Park. I worked here in Greensboro, so we ended up living in Hillsborough, and for many years I commuted in to Greensboro from Hillsborough.

Brittany H.: Okay. Could you tell me about your first days on campus?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Well, I don't know if I remember a lot about all the details. So, your first job is kind of overwhelming. You have so many things to do, trying to get a lab established. I was working on grant applications pretty soon 00:19:00after I came here, or probably had ideas for how I was going to form them before I came.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, I was working on that, was doing the orientation. I remember a little bit about orientation and learning about getting the packets and learning about healthcare and all the different benefits that we got from that. Meeting the faculty in the department. It was long before the new science building was built, we were just in Eberhart. I can't ... so, I don't remember a lot of things. I mean it was a really different campus and the University had a different feel to it then. It was even as recently as 2000, it was hard to walk east to west across campus. There just weren't good conduits for doing that.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And so, the University has spent a lot of time making the campus more friendly to pedestrians and also the road, or the really nice 00:20:00pedestrian walkway that's in front of Eberhart and Sullivan now, that was a road. And, there were houses next to it and you park sometimes the University owned some of those houses, and some of our parking was in a little parking lots behind the houses, that used to be the backyards. So, it was really different in the way that the university was laid out and how it thought of itself, as I'm sure everyone knows it was more of a commuter school at that time after it made the transition from the Women's College, it had become a lot of a commuter school and making the transition back to more residential now with a lot of the new dorms.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I'm not sure if that's what you wanted, but those are the things that I remember about it.

Brittany H.: Okay.

Brittany H.: So, was it what you had expected?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Not sure I really had expectations except I really wanted to be in a university setting. The one thing that was really disappointed is that I had to live so far away. I always had the idea that I would live close to the 00:21:00university and that was something that was very attractive to me, is to live within walking distance of where I was going to work as I did as a graduate student. So, that I could walk to work and be really part of the university life. For most of my career that hasn't been possible.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I was divorced in 1998 and moved to town. Lived out near Guilford College in an apartment. Eventually bought a house really close to the University. I owned that house that was next to the sushi place now.

Brittany H.: Oh.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Really great house, I loved living there, did walk for a year or so, walked to the University, but then got married again and we moved out of town again. Lived in Mebane, a little closer this time.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, most of my life, my university life has been spent commuting in and not being able to participate in kind of the real life of the University.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, I'm back now for the last, little over a year. In Greensboro, live out of Guilford College again, have a house. And, I'm able to 00:22:00do some things on campus to come to some of the plays. We just got great theater departments and music departments, and really wonderful to be able to come to these things and enjoy some of the artistic events that take place on campus.

Brittany H.: Yeah.

Brittany H.: What are some of the social and academic events that stand out in your mind during your time here?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Well, as I've said, we didn't do a lot of things. But, I always came to the Chancellor's Christmas party. I still come the Chancellor's open house.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And, for years and years it was held in Virginia Dare Room. It moved out for a few years over to the EUC and that never really worked all that well. But, it's back in the Virginia Dare Room.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Chancellor Sullivan really knew how to throw a good Christmas party. I remember one year there were chocolate fountains in there. I was talking to someone this year and they said, "Chocolate fountains? There were chocolate fountains? When was that?" Yeah, we had chocolate with dipped 00:23:00strawberries and all kinds of things. It was really ... so, I always liked those. And, back in those years too, they did the luminaires, but they did them with real candles for a while and they lined them all up down College Avenue and around over ... even behind Foust, I believe.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, parts of the campus, when you'd walk over to this, were all lit up and you'd come up to the alumni house and there would be Santa or a brass band playing. And, there still is, I mean there's still, was a brass quartet this year, which was really nice. And then, you'd come in and Chancellor Sullivan would be there and she'd shake everyone's hand as they came in to the ... so it was just a really nice atmosphere. I really remember those kinds of parties.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: A highlight of my year that I really enjoyed.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Also, I remember the Teaching and Learning Center has been very different for as every different head comes on into it. But, I remember Patrick 00:24:00Lee Lewis was the Head of the Teaching and Learning Center for one year and he did a lot of really great things. The things that he did that I remember, he used to have what they called "Faculty Takeovers of the Faculty Center."

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, the Faculty Center is just really a room, there's no coffee house there or anything. There's no place really that the faculty can go and gather. We used to have down where the Multicultural Center is now, that used to be a dining room in the '80s and early '90s, that was a dining room that was restricted to faculty and staff. And, they used to have holiday dinners, and you had to come in and pay, but you can come in and have turkey before Thanksgiving. It was a really nice gathering place for faculty, which was something that the faculty at a university needs. So, the artists are talking to the biologists and there's all this cross disciplinary kinds of things.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: It was really sad when that went away and the Faculty Center, which is just an empty room came and there wasn't really a gathering place. You 00:25:00just don't go sit in an empty room and hope someone is going to come there. But, Patrick had the Faculty Takeover, a bunch of faculty would get together and kind of ... because he put them that way, right? Faculty taking back their space, somehow they were able to have alcohol there. I personally don't drink, but that attracted a lot of people. They can't do that with University funds, and I'm sure he didn't. They have private funding for having some wine there and that really brought faculty out and it was a gathering place for that year. I really enjoyed those kinds of places to meet faculty from other departments again to which ...

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, you see both of those kinds of things. Where places were kind of gathering places where faculty could interact with each other and stuff. We weren't just doing our job, we were socializing across departments and things. And, I think those are really important kinds of things, and even for someone living outside of town, that really kind of stood out for me.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Of course now, that we're going to performances, I could talk about the great music school and theater department and all the things we know, but probably everyone knows about that. They don't need me to rate more than I 00:26:00already have.

Brittany H.: Well, I guess that leads me into my question. Are there any professors in your department or university-wide that really stand out to you? Or that made an impression on you while you were here?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: It's funny, you asked me about my first days at the university and there were two people, especially one person. Who I only overlap with for one year at UNCG, but she made a big impression on me because she was so welcoming and that was Laura Anderton. She was a Professor of Biology and when I came in ... you know, biology was really different and the University was really different. I mean we had almost no money.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Now, I say almost no money because when I was in Israel in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, we had no money. I mean I had a post-doc there and they funded my work through a fellowship with the University, so I got a salary for doing that.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: But, if you wanted to come in and you want to say, "I'd like to use this technique, could we buy this chemical?" And, "No we don't have any 00:27:00money for that." "Could I buy some paper to print my ..." "No, we don't have any money." I mean they really had absolutely no money. They had these staff positions and if you could find a way to get some paper to print them, they had a photographer there who would help you do the printing for your photog things, but no money.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, it was almost that bad at UNCG at that time. I remember when we came in, I used to go into the biology office and I'd say, "I'm out of staples, could I get some staples?" And the secretary would take the box, the box of staples and she would take one line of staples out and she would give me one line of staples. I could have one line of staples at a time.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And, that's how everything was at the University. I mean, it wasn't just biology, we were so cash strapped for every aspect of our work. It was amazing we got ... we'd get to this time of year, to January new year and this was '86 was before the internet really came on. We weren't sending email at that time. So we had to do everything by paper. Had computers, my cohort and I were the first people who were starting to buy computers for a desktop, use 00:28:00desktop computers so we could do our Word processing and print our letters there, but we had to mail the letters.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Well, after January we didn't have any postage. We couldn't mail anymore letters on university. So, they had to have a contest to know that when I came in, Laura Anderton was just so welcoming and so ... And she said, "Do you need any chemicals? Here, come and look in my lab." You know, "Here's some ... you need some beakers and things like this, here I've got these extra beakers. Take these beakers. Or, take this equipment that you need."

Dr. B. Kirchoff: We had essentially no start up money, very little start up money at that time. I think we had three people were hired at the same time as I was, and we got $5000, we split between the three of us. That got us each a computer and a not great microscope.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, Laura was just really wonderful. She passed away a couple years ago, and I saw her obituaries, and I am not the only one who said these kinds of things about her. I mean, old students and things were saying how much 00:29:00Laura really made a difference in their lives.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, of all the people Laura Anderton, even though ... we only overlapped a year, she really made a big impression on me.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And, Ned McCrady too. Also, a professor at that time, also passed away about a year ago now, or two years, maybe two years ago.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Just the way he really devoted himself to the students and really did a lot for the department. I mean, I remember at that time in the early '90s, I ran the Introductory Biology Program and Ned would always culture our flies for it.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, we'd have the students do experiments in the lab and they'd have to be looking at fruit flies and Ned would grow these fruit flies for us. And, that was not a simple task, it took a lot of his time to do that. So, I just remember Ned was one of the few people who really said nice things to me in those early years and encouraged me. So, I remember those two people.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: It's all about people as we said before with professor.

Brittany H.: Okay. Well, what were your ... I think you've mentioned this, but could you elaborate on your areas of focus in teaching, practice, and scholarship?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Early on, I taught Introductory Biology. I was hired to teach introductory biology and plant systematics, which is plant identification and the theory of classification.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And ... so, those kinds of two things. So, in the early '90s I took over the directorship of the Introductory Biology Program. Which, I can't remember how large it was now, 600 students or so, like that. It's significant, but I don't know what it is, it's several thousand students now. So, it's a lot larger.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, I ran that program and coordinated the TA's, the teaching assistants for it and did all of those things, and taught in the program more. And, taught a little less in the plant classes. And then, as I got out of that, 00:31:00I taught more in plant classes as people retired. I took over another plant class called Plant Diversity, where we do plant life-cycles. And, I've taught Evolution also in those years. I was really proud of how I developed the Evolution class.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: That's all kind of switched now how we're doing it all very differently these days and the class is huge now. 200 students in the class. When I was teaching, it was just an elective that students could take, and so it was a small class that was writing and speaking intensive.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I know I transformed how students spoke in that class. How we did the exercises in the class. I had students, who left that class who could speak better than some of the professors ... oops I shouldn't say ... very good, they could speak very well. Some of the students that were in that class, just really impressive. I remember one student from a traditionally non-represented 00:32:00group in the sciences who got up and I had been telling him not to put a lot of text on their slides and that the information really needed to come through them, through the speaker, not just let them read what's on the slides.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And so, he had slides that were like I thought, but sometimes students do that and they just completely blow it, their slides don't have text on it and they don't say anything about it and I was afraid ... "Oh God, he's going to blow it." He got up there, he stood in front of the projector, no so he was blocking the slides, but not away from the desk, he spoke directly to the students. He spoke without notes. He just nailed every part of it.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I mean the students in the class were like, "Oh, I'm getting help from that guy." I said, "Oh God, I've succeeded, they're not coming to me for help. They're coming to another student for help." I was so proud of that. I think you may ask about those things later, but just that student. Some of the others I know in that class, I know I really made a difference in how they presented themselves. Even though they're not going to be evolutionary biologists, they may not do anything with their biology degree, that guy is 00:33:00going to be able to go out and he's going to be able to speak in front of people and that's going to make a difference in his life. And, I know he's not the only one for that.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, I taught that and now I'm back ... I'm right at the moment teaching the two plant classes, Plant Diversity in the spring and Plant Systematics in the fall, and what's going to happen in the next few years, I don't know, not sure. Curriculum has changed, and so maybe back in Introductory Biology again, maybe back in Evolution again. Don't know. It'd be a very different evolution class with 250 instead of 24. I will not do speaking and writing intensive class with 250 students, no.

Brittany H.: Well, I might just go ahead and jump down a little bit and you were talking about some of the things that you've done that you're proud of. Are there any other ... any work or projects, anything else that you're particularly proud of? I know a few weeks ago, I saw your picture on the UNCG website. So, 00:34:00you're famous.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Yeah. That's just complete photo bombing, I mean my student Faris came into my lab one day and said, "Oh, they're going to come and take pictures of me." I said, "Pictures of you? Does that mean pictures of me?" Well, it did, and they ended up using one of those. They took a lot of pictures of just Faris, but they chose one of me and him for the webpage. So, it really just a photo bomb, it was about him.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I don't know why they choose him, but he was very nice and he's a good grade student, did great work in the lab.

Brittany H.: I thought it was a great picture of the both of you.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Thank you. Thank you.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I mean, some of the, I haven't had very many graduate students, it's not something that most students hear about when they're going up, how to be a botanist. We haven't seen too many commercials about go out and buy this great plant, talk to your doctor about ... I mean, your botanist about which plant you should put in your yard. No, we don't see those commercials.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, they don't ... students don't come through there. So, I haven't had a lot of graduate students. The ones that I've had, have done real well. And, I'm very proud of what they've accomplished. One of my students wrote a thesis that was eventually published in one of the major botanical journals, it reviewed and contributed new data in an area, summarized the research in this area and contributed new data in the area. Was 80 pages long, I mean, a major botanical paper in a major botanical journal by a master's student. That doesn't happen very often. I'm very proud of what he was able to accomplish.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Another student has just graduated last year and we're in the process of putting together her work for publication. We hope to submit it to another major journal. Even more important journal. I don't know if it'll be accepted, but her finding was very surprising and interesting and we hope that it'll be published in a really good journal.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, I'm proud of what I've done with the students, and like in 00:36:00those classes, you know you let the students do the work. I'm there to try to support them and encourage them and things, but not to do the work for them. So, you give them tasks and you try to say, "Look, gosh, you did really well on that, let's do the next task." And, slowly build them up to the place where they're doing just fantastic work on themselves. So, I think I've done a good job on that.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: In a way, I'm reflecting here what a colleague of mine said to me about it. I'm trying to capture the sense of his quote and let me just tell you what his quote is. He said, "Yeah Bruce, your students do well because you let them do their own projects. You let them do things, and then they have the opportunity to fail or to do well. And they can do well because you let them do that." And, the implication was you don't do the work for them, and the implication was ... I'm not going to do the implication.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, I was happy about that. I've also done work in the Faculty Senate. I was never on the Senate, but I've done a lot of work for the faculty 00:37:00in revising the promotion and tenure regulations.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: They're complex issues, let me just say, it was several years work, it was a lot of work, it involved multiple trips back to the Senate to get multiple kinds of things passed. It involved work with the upper administration, with the legal staff, with officers of the Senate, with all the officers of the Senate, with committees on the campus, and I spearheaded the work that revised the promotion and tenure regulations. The promotions and tenure regulations are the legal document that determines the flow of how information flows when someone comes up for a promotion and tenure. Doesn't deal with the criteria by which you're judged on, but it deals with who sees it when they see it, what happens this. It's the way that you can give faculty protections against arbitrary decisions because you can make a process that protects faculty from 00:38:00arbitrary decisions of administrators or weird faculty members who may have to take a personal dislike to someone, or those kinds of things.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I was very happy that I was able to do as much as I could to provide the faculty for the protections that I thought that they needed so that they could pursue active careers, and not then be derailed just by some petty dislike that someone has for them, or some bureaucratic thing. So, those protections remain in our documents today.

Brittany H.: Could you tell me about how you served beyond UNCG in professional organizations or in the community?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I worked with Botanical Society a little bit, so my major professional society was the Botanical Society of America. And, I've gone to their annual meetings for ... since before I was employed at UNCG, so probably 00:39:00close to 40 years now. As long as when I was in the country I pretty much always went.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I served as officers of sections, so the Botanical Society is divided into sections, and the section that I've been most associated with is the development and structural section. It's a very active section, a lot of members in the society, and I served as the chair of that and also the treasurer of that.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Did I serve ... I might've served in all three capacities, treasurer, chair, and program director at various times.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, those were all three year stints in those various ways. I also offered, for many years, I offered workshops through the Botanical Society focused on either various aspects of teaching or various aspects of the scientific work that I've done. Would do those just before the full meeting 00:40:00would start, there would be a day of workshops and I would often offer one to two workshops.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: In fact, I think I've done one or two workshops for the last six years at the Botanical Society. I won't do any this year, I'm not going to the meetings. I have been invited to speak in China at a big botanical congress in China that happens every six years.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And, I just can't do both things. So, I'm going to that one this year.

Brittany H.: Okay.

Brittany H.: And you might've said, I just want to clarify, what were ... any special awards that you received?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I received the Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2014. That's the highest post-secondary award in the state. It's not a single award in the sense that every campus gets ... someone from every campus gets one of those awards each year.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, there's how many campus ... are there 14 campuses now? I 00:41:00lose track.

Brittany H.: I don't know.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: One from every campus person gets that. But, it's awarded officially by the Board of Governors, so there's a campus process and then it goes to the Board of Governors for final approval on that. The different campuses have different criteria for making those awards. At UNCG the criteria have been very rigorous, so the competition has been very stiff here.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, it really has meant something to receive that award. So, I was very pleased that the institution honored me in that way.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: In that same year, I received an award from the Botanical Society. There's a major Botanical Society award, the Edwin Bessey Award for Botanical Education, and that's been one ... traditionally that's been one of the two major awards that the Botanical Society has awarded. One has been more kind of a research all over ... all around contribution, but they focus mainly 00:42:00on research and this one has been the teaching award.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Now, Botanical Society has enlarged the number of awards that it's giving in the last two years, which has diluted these awards a little bit. But, traditionally those two were the two major awards Botanical Society one.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And then, the year before that in 2013, on my other societal affiliation was with the American Association of Plant Taxonomists, and they instituted an award in Plan Taxonomy Education. So, I had developed some software for teaching, for visual learning and have published a paper showing that it was very effective, and I was the first person to win the award from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists for that.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, I have those three awards.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Awards are nice and things, what you really want is the respect of your colleagues and things. If they help with that, that's good. But, I think 00:43:00it's like me talking about Laura Anderton, if one of my colleagues thinks that I've helped them in the way that Laura helped me, I think that's really more meaningful to me, than the awards. Awards are nice, but-

Brittany H.: It's still impressive.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Yeah, thank you.

Brittany H.: Okay.

Brittany H.: Well, we're doing these interviews as part of the 125th anniversary of the University. Which is an excellent opportunity for reflection, but it also helps us to think about where we're heading in the future.

Brittany H.: So, what do you think the future is for UNCG? And, where do you see UNCG going as an institution in the next 25, 50 years?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: You know, those are really hard questions that I don't know that anyone can answer.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, let me return to a theme that I brought up several times and say what I hope for the institution, rather whether I see it going, what I hope for the institution.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And that is that we're always an institution that respects the people that are here. That there's a certain kind of institutional mindset that 00:44:00says, "This institution is the thing, it needs protection maybe, it needs legal protections, or it needs certain kinds of things, it's the institution we have to support." I really hope that we see that the people are what make the institution, and that we find ways to support the people and to grow the institution by supporting the people.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: I'll use something from improv. So, I've started to do improv now. Years ago, I took a class in clowning, I was away at a summer institute teaching about [inaudible 00:44:35] kind of thing, and there was a guy teaching a clowning class. I said, "What the heck. Let's take a clowning class."

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And, so that led now, there's an improv troop in town, which I'm not a member of, but the same guy who leads the troop has some little classes, and I've been going to those.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, saying all of that is a way of saying a key part of improv is saying, "Yes and ..."

Dr. B. Kirchoff: So, I really hope that the University will say, "Yes and ..." to its faculty and to everyone at the University. Now, we'll say support them in 00:45:00what they're doing. I remember another person who was at the University, who has left the University now in research. He came the same years I did, his name was Steve Mosier, he was head of the ... well, I don't know that there's a position that really is like Steve, we've reorganized research so many times. Now, but he was the head of making sure grants got out and faculty did good things about grants and were submitting grants and track granting and all those things.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Steve's attitude was let's encourage faculty to submit grants because we know if they submit grants we are going to get more grants, and it worked really well.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Steve went on because of that success to another larger university and did the same things, I'm sure he's doing the same kind of thing here.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And, that attitude that kind of encouraged faculty to do things that they wanted to do. It wasn't like, "You go get grants", it was like, "Do 00:46:00your best and go out there and get grants, I mean apply for grants, and we'll help you apply for grants, and tell us what we can do to make this easier for you." And, people did that, and they started the University on the track that we continue on of being a more strongly focused research institution, which has been a goal of UNCG for many years.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: We've achieved it in a way, in a way it's come out of our institutional goals now because we've kind of achieved it. We are doing research. We're in a high research ... not the highest research Carnegie classification, but a high research classification, which was a real achievement for us.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: And, I think we got there because we encourage people. We use this attitude of, "Yes and ..." and, I hope we will continue with that to see the people as our best resources and support, what the fact we want to do. Even if it doesn't seem like to us that it's the absolute thing that we would do if 00:47:00we were directing the University, if I ruled the world, I might not say, "You, faculty member do this." Just tell them that they're doing a great job, and they'll do more of it and you'll find out that they have so much to offer, and give so much back to the University. That's where I want us to be as a university.

Brittany H.: Wonderful. Okay.

Brittany H.: Well, I don't think I have anymore formal questions for you. But, did you have anything that you would like to add about your time here at UNCG? Or any other experiences that you would like to mention?

Dr. B. Kirchoff: Well, you understand that you've just given a professor permission to talk as much as he wants. How long is ... 13 hours do we have?

Brittany H.: ... Go right ahead.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: No, I'll just say thanks so much for asking. I don't know how I was chosen, but I'm very pleased to be able to offer my input into the University history and to tell you a little bit about my time here. And, some of 00:48:00the things that are meaningful to me, and glad to have contributed to this great University and hope that in my little way could help make it a little better.

Brittany H.: Yeah, well we're so glad to capture your story. Thank you so much.

Dr. B. Kirchoff: No, thank you.