Oral History Project - Retired Faculty
Dr. Carl Huberty
Professor Emeritus
Educational Psychology
Department of Educational Psychology & Instructional Technology
(1969-2004)
Date: 16 October, 2007
Q: How did you come to work at the College of Education here at UGA?
A: Back before you were born, I had a chance to go to four places and after visiting Georgia, I just decided that it was the best of the four.
Q: What did like about Georgia?
A: I don’t know. It was more the University than it was the state of Georgia, Georgia people, and all that kind of stuff. It seemed to be a nice department at that time.
Q: What was your position and what was your title?
A: Assistant professor
Q: What did your work involve? Teaching and research?
A: Statistical methods. Both of them were Statistical Methods in Teaching and in Research.
Q: Thinking back to that time that you came to UGA, is there anything that stands out in your mind, any memories, things that you really liked or anything maybe that you didn’t like?
A: I worked with some nice people. When I came here my office wasn’t here. This office didn’t exist. I worked across the street in an old research lab, and I enjoyed working with those people over there. And I don’t know of anything that I didn’t like. I don’t recall anything that I didn’t like about the University or the department.
Q: Who were the most influential people in the College of Education when you started?
A: The dean was a nice guy. He was approachable. I appreciated his effort. He wasn’t, pardon the expression, a loud mouth. I liked the department head, and there were some real nice faculty members. Don’t ask me to rattle off all the names, but there were some really nice faculty members. They were cooperative, and I had the opportunity to teach, early in my career, here in the statistics department. I appreciated that flexibility.
Q: Thinking back over your career here at the College, what are some of critical events?
A: Critical in terms of myself ?
Q: Yes.
A: I guess the most critical one was completing the first edition of my book. Yeah, that was the most critical one.
Q: When was that?
A: Oh, that wasn’t until ’92 or something like that.
Q: And what kind of book did you complete?
A: It was a book about discriminate analysis and alternate methods.
Q: Was it about research you had done or was it a text book?
A: A text book. And I had some other nice publications, and I enjoyed the teaching. I’ve always enjoyed teaching.
Q: How did you feel about finishing in your text book?
A: It was a relief, at the same time, it was something that I really wanted to do. I know when I started working on it, I wrote some chapters and then I was going to write another. Then I was like, wait a minute, and I had to put the book aside to do some article writing that I could use in the book. That part was helpful, but it probably took me six to eight years to write the book.
Q: Some of my professors here at the University of Georgia have used their own textbooks in their classes, were you able to do that?
A: Yeah . It came out in ‘94 and I used it until I retired in 2002. But it only was a multivariate course, it was like once a year, and I had, at most 20 students, or something like that, so it wasn’t like a big drawing board.
Q: Were those students statistics majors?
A: No, a lot of them weren’t. Some were, of course, but I got some from child and family development, forestry, and some from all over campus.
Q: Do you keep up with how often and where your book is being used now?
A: Well it turns out that in 2006 a second edition came out. I worked with Steve Oljenik on that, but I don’t keep track of that stuff. No.
Q: Looking back over your career, what advice do you have for others studying and working at UGA, whether they be pre-service teachers or graduates students or faculty.
A: Holy mackerel. Well, my first thought is to work hard and be diligent whether you’re studying or teaching or whether you’re writing research. Another thing as a faculty member is to work with other faculty members, in teaching and research, being a collaborative person rather than an independent person.
Q: During your time here at Georgia, what research was most memorable?
A: I guess the first publication came out of my dissertation at the University of Iowa and I was very pleased with that. It appeared in a real reputable journal, and I was very satisfied with that. That’s probably that first publication, I wish I could have brought my vita, I mean my dossier to remind me, because my memory isn’t that good. But I remember that first publication and I enjoyed working with other faculty members, and some students in publishing other articles. They were very helpful, and it was good for them and good for me. But I think that first publication was a biggie.
Q: Would you consider you work here at UGA to be more analyzing data or collecting data? I’m trying to get a sense of what you would do in your research.
A: I was involved in a very new research project that involved collecting data, new data. I also worked as a second and third author for some people, but it was mostly working with methods of analysis. That reminds me of another article that came out in the mid- to late ‘90’s, with a student and with another faculty member, on cluster analysis which was another thing with which I was pleased. But no, I never dealt much with original research data qualitative research projects. I used some data from research projects but I wasn’t involved with that, mostly methods.
Q: Is there anything that you would like to add about your time at UGA or the College of Education that I have not asked about specifically?
A: I enjoyed being a representative as the University of Georgia along with others at national and international meetings. I would like to think that I contributed a little bit to the recognition of the University, of the College of Education, that part of the profession is good. The big thing probably besides the book was teaching classes. I have gotten some positive feedback from students working on dissertations, writing journal articles, and stuff like that, so the teaching part was very good. I enjoyed that.
Q: Even though you are retired, or you were retired, and now you are back teaching a couple of classes here, do you continue to help students work on dissertations or publications in your area?
A: No, not any more. I did for a while, but I haven’t in the last two or three years. I have…well…I think…well this past year was the last one I did.
Q: You mentioned at the beginning of the interview that you had the chance to go to about four places and you chose Georgia. What were the other three places?
A: One was Cincinnati, Kansas, and, there was one in California; however, I forget where it was.
Q: Tell me where you are from, where you attended school and how you got into statistics?
A: Well, I grew up in Northeast Wisconsin and I went to the Stevens Point College. Now it’s the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point. I went there for four years and got a degree in mathematics and then I taught a year. I don’t know why, but I was thinking about this just in the last couple of days. To this day, I don’t know why or who did it, but I was invited. I was asked to accept an assistantship at the University of Wisconsin in mathematics, so I went there and got my master’s degree in mathematics. And then I taught again – down by Milwaukee I think it was, and then I went up north and coached basketball not too far from my hometown.
Afterwards, I went to France. That was a tremendous experience. To this day I really thank myself for going there. It was in d'Oléron. I taught mathematics there for three years. And then I came back taught a year, and I went back to Madison, Wis., again for some other stuff I really don’t remember. I taught at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh for a year – mathematics, and then I got my doctorate at the University of Iowa. I came here in ’69 before you were born!
Dr. Carl Huberty
Ph.D., Educational Psychology
University of Iowa
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