Hollis Hughes is very well known by many members of the Ball State University community. As a two-time graduate, Hollis had the distinction of serving on the University’s Board of Trustees for more than two decades. Previously, he served as a board member of the Ball State University Foundation, the Alumni Council, and the Black Alumni Council.
Hollis studied at Ball State at a time when segregated housing policies existed on our campus and in our community. In this episode, he shares how a university employee helped him to navigate those challenging circumstances. He also reveals how Ball State taught him valuable lessons that helped him transcend cultural barriers throughout his life.
Later in the conversation, Hollis shares his opinions about some of the biggest developments at the University to coincide with his volunteer service as a trustee. And he discusses why serving others—at work and in the community—is how he’s been able to accomplish goals on behalf of his colleagues, his community, and his alma mater.
If you enjoy this episode, please leave a review to support the show.
Hollis Hughes is very well known by many members of the Ball State University community. As a two-time graduate, Hollis had the distinction of serving on the University’s Board of Trustees for more than two decades. Previously, he served as a board member of the Ball State University Foundation, the Alumni Council, and the Black Alumni Council.
Hollis studied at Ball State at a time when segregated housing policies existed on our campus and in our community. In this episode, he shares how a university employee helped him to navigate those challenging circumstances. He also reveals how Ball State taught him valuable lessons that helped him transcend cultural barriers throughout his life.
Later in the conversation, Hollis shares his opinions about some of the biggest developments at the University to coincide with his volunteer service as a trustee. And he discusses why serving others—at work and in the community—is how he’s been able to accomplish goals on behalf of his colleagues, his community, and his alma mater.
If you enjoy this episode, please leave a review to support the show.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Hello, I'm Geoff Mearns, and I have the good fortune to serve as the president of Ball State University. On today's episode of my podcast, I'll have a conversation with a graduate whose affinity for his alma mater spans across several decades and includes many years of service to our university.
My guest is Hollis Hughes. For more than two decades, Hollis served as a member of our Board of Trustees. Previously, he served as a board member of the Ball State University Foundation, our Alumni Council, and the Black Alumni Council. I'm grateful that Hollis was able to join me on campus for this conversation, and I'm looking forward to asking him about his time at Ball State and the fulfilling career choices he pursued after graduating from our university.
Hollis, It's a pleasure to welcome you to the podcast. Thank you for making the trip down this afternoon from South Bend to join me here in the studio this afternoon.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Thank you for having me.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So for anyone who may be listening to my podcast for the first time, I always like to begin by asking my guests about their upbringing, about their childhood. So if you would, Hollis, why don't you tell us where you were born and raised and what was it like growing up in your family?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Well, I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and we lived in Tulsa until I think I was about seven or eight. We lived on the infamous Greenwood Street in in Tulsa. And as I recall, growing up as a child, we lived in a big old brick home, which we called the Big House, which was located on Greenwood. That was while my dad was in the service. And when he came out, we moved into a small development and we stayed in that development until I left Oklahoma. But I was about two blocks away from my aunt and my cousins, and so I have lots of fond memories of Oklahoma, especially of my summers and spending time with my grandmother, my dad's mother, who lived on a little small spread out in the country. And I really loved being out there in the country and in the woods.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So for those who may not be familiar with the history of Tulsa that you're referring to in Greenwood, why don't you remind our listeners of the historical significance of that neighborhood and that city in the fight for civil rights and justice?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Well, Tulsa had a very significant African-American population. In fact, the development in the area of business prosperity that was referred to as the Black Wall Street was in Greenwood. Greenwood was the center of that prosperity. Lots of black owned businesses, newspapers, banks, and so forth. There was an incident in Tulsa that involved a black man who was accused of assaulting a white female, and it sparked a race riot.
And the white community completely destroyed all of Greenwood, burned it to the ground. Hundreds of people lost their lives. And we are still to this day looking for mass graves and there is a center there now dedicated to the memory of the black men of Black Wall Street in Tulsa. But it was just one of the worst racial incidents, but not the only one in the United States at that time. There are a number of them all across the country, not just in Tulsa, but other states as well.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And that was in the early 1920s, right?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Correct.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So that affected your childhood, your perspective of the world. And so your family, at some point when you were a child, I think seven or eight, moved to Indiana.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
You know, after World War II, there was a great migration where lots of blacks moved from the South and the Southwest to urban centers looking for jobs and for prosperity. My mother's mother and father first moved. They were the owners of the property on Greenwood, but they moved to South Bend, Indiana, and acquired a residential hotel. And my grandmother convinced my dad that there were opportunities.
And my dad wanted something different for his boys. He did not endorse Jim Crow as it was practiced in the segregation of the South and thought there would be more opportunities in Indiana. So he moved the family to Indiana, and at the ripe old age of eight, I thought I'd come along and keep him out of trouble.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And so in Indiana, did you go directly to South Bend?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Yes, we moved to South Bend, and that's where we remained until I came off to Ball State.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And we'll get to that in just a second. So you attended high school in South Bend?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
I attended high school in South Bend. South Bend Central, which was, is famous in the northern part of the state, no longer exist, but it was a real powerhouse in sports when I was in high school.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And were you an athlete in high school, too?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
I was an All-American high school and college athlete spectator. No.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Well, and we're grateful that you're still an ardent fan of our Ball State Cardinals.
[HOLLIS HUGHES
Yeah, I did play try to play football. And that's where I learned I didn't have the temperament. I enjoyed the sport. But I'm not into hitting people and hurting somebody and especially getting hurt. You know, that's not part of the game.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Well, and we'll talk a little bit later. Instead of hurting people, you've committed your life to helping people. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. When did you start thinking about college—making the decision to go to college and in particular, how did you come to choose Ball State?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Well, I think rather than my making the decision, I think my mom and dad made that decision. My dad in Oklahoma when he was in high school ran track and apparently had a state record, which stood for a number of years. And he had a chance to go to college but couldn't afford it. So I think when they moved to Indiana, they started thinking that my brother and I would probably go to college.
So it was something that was kind of talked about. I had an uncle, my dad's next to youngest brother, who went to Texas Southern, played basketball, went on to sign with the Boston Celtics. So I think that was in their program. I remember I dated a young lady who was a year older. She went off to IU and I had a chance to go down to IU and visit. The place was just humongous. I just didn't see it as the place for me—too far to walk. There were just people everywhere, just not my school. By the time I was a junior and senior in high school, we were talking about Indiana State, and Indiana had a regional campus in South Bend. And I remember going into my senior year saying something to my dad about I thought I would go to IU in South Bend. And I was—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
He had a little different idea.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Oh yeah, he definitely a different idea. You were not going to go there, it was not in the plan. I was going to go away to school. And I looked at Indiana State, had lots of friends who were going to Indiana State, and I did not go down to Indiana State. It just seemed there were too many people I knew who were going there.
And I just felt like, no, I need to be on my own. I'm one of those people that sort of marches to his own beat. And I had a neighbor, interestingly enough, who was about two years ahead of me, and he went to Ball State, flunked out, and he told me that I would too, but I guess I proved him wrong.
But Ball State, when I came down, seemed to be about the right size. People were friendly. Everybody spoke to one another. Whether they meant it or not, they were friendly and smiling. And it was a smaller school. I knew several people that had attended. There were three or four other guys from South Bend that had attended. There were two that were still in attendance. So it seemed like the kind of place for me.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah, we hear even to this day from some of our students that Ball State, very quickly, our campus feels like home away from home. It's not at home, but it feels like it's welcome like home.
But so last fall, last October, you were among a small group of our graduates who spoke at the public launch of our new fundraising campaign. And you told the audience that evening about how back when you first came to Ball State, that was the early 1960s that when you came here, it was during a time when there were still segregated housing policies in effect on our campus and in the community. And you shared a story about that experience. Can you tell us—the folks who are listening today—tell us about the employee in our housing office who helped you find a place to live, to navigate that difficult, that difficult situation?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
When I first came to Ball State, I came down by myself to look for housing. And so I stopped at the housing office and they handed me a package that must have had 25 or 30 pages of off-campus housing that was available. Apparently the policy was that if you if two Blacks were registered for housing at the same time, they could put them together. But since I didn't have someone that I was registering with, I was going to have to find housing out in the community. And I looked at this, you know, I'm 18 years old, 30 pages of housing.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
In a new city.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Yeah, I'd never been to Muncie, so I'm looking at this list, and I guess he saw some of the confusion on my face. And so I take the list and I start for the door and he says, “Wait a minute, Mr. Hughes.” He said, “Here, let me give you this other list.” He said, “You can keep the larger list if you like. But let me give you this list of about ten pages.” He said, “This housing is primarily located out in the Black community.” He said, “If you go to the other list, you may be embarrassed, you might even be insulted and you might have some difficulty. If you go to these other places, they're further from campus, they're out in the Black community. But I think you'll find some nice housing there and you won't have any of these other problems. So I thanked him and took that list and ventured off and found a wonderful family that I stayed with my freshman year. And then, I'm sure that did an awful lot to make the transition a lot easier. But about 90% of us in the freshman class lived off campus and about 65% of us were all out in Whitely.
So we all rode the bus in the morning to campus and referred to ourselves as the Whitely Dogs.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So you're getting acclimated at Ball State, come back for your sophomore year. What subject did you decide to study, or subjects, and what did you decide to major in? And if you could tell us why you made those choices at that time?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Well, I really liked history and I started off as a social, what we call social studies, and English because I enjoyed English and reading. I think it was probably, I know by, we were on the quarter system then. By the second quarter, I was seriously thinking about changing my major English and social studies. The reading was incredible. There was always a book a week and I like reading, but not that much.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
That's a heavy load.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
And I was always buying books, so I changed my major. Well, I changed my direction, from I stayed with social science, and my minor I changed to psychology because I was interested in that. Less reading, but it was something that I was really interested in. I want to know more about myself and more about people.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So after ... you graduated in 1965, I've got that right. Correct?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Yeah.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And after you graduated from Ball State, you returned to South Bend and you were going to become a teacher. What was that experience like for you?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Well, the first part was really kind of interesting. I admit, since Ball State mostly was primarily teachers college, there were several people in my student teaching group that were from South Bend, so we did our student teaching together and a couple of us were even assigned to the same school when I signed my first teaching contract. The interesting part was that I had to dispel everybody from the notion that I was a PE major, and I for some reason they assumed that I was going to be a PE teacher.
And I kept telling them, no, it's social studies, and sociology was my interest at that point, since South Bend didn't offer a psychology in the classroom. But it was ... I was a new and beginning teacher in a brand new school where I was probably eight years older than the oldest students. And it was honestly the best job I ever had. I truly enjoyed my years of teaching, my first few years of teaching. It was a lot of fun. I ... not only was I teaching, but I was the Booster club sponsor, I was the assistant track coach, the assistant swim coach, and the scorekeeper for the freshman basketball team. I went into the building in the morning with the custodians and left just before the night custodians came. Yeah, it was fun.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah, I can hear the joy in your voice and the joy on your face, as you recall that. So, around this time, you also met your wife, Lavera. She's a Ball State graduate. But the two of you, you didn't meet at Ball State. How did you meet?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Interestingly enough, we met on a blind date. She graduated from Southern University, which is a historical black college, and she had come to South Bend mid-semester on a six-month teaching contract. She was originally had signed a contract to teach in Livonia, Michigan, but decided to wasn't going to go back home for one semester. She'd come to South Bend and so we met on a blind date. I drove up in my car and got semi-stuck in front of her apartment building and told her that I was stuck ever since.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
[laughs] And maybe later we could talk ... I understand she was a big Ball State athletics fan. Every football game and virtually every basketball game. So the two of you both earned a master's degree from Ball State in the early seventies. She continued to teach in South Bend. But then you were recruited to participate in a new program that was funded by the federal government. This was a program that was a part of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society program called the Model Cities. Would you tell us a little bit about what the Model Cities program was and what your role in that program was in South Bend?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
The Model Cities program was an experiment in participatory democracy. What it did was it defined the geographic neighborhood, which was about 1/10 of the city's population, and it grew to sort of a geographic boundary around that. And it provided a set amount of funding. I think it was about $10 million, which was a lot of money in those days.
And what that what you did was you organized that geographic area and you did a comprehensive plan, redevelopment plan, for that geographic area. Our area was about one square mile. And in that one square mile, there were 100 churches and 150 liquor stores. It was predominantly black, black and polish at that time. Now it's black and Hispanic.
But that was the defined model cities area. But I'd like to go back beyond that because as I taught, by my third and certainly by my fourth year, I was becoming a little less—a lot less— enamored with classroom teaching at the high school level. I thought I wanted to go back, pursue a Ph.D. in sociology. I had worked with the administration to write the first curriculum for Black Studies in the South Bend schools, and nobody would use it except me.
And I had students tell me that, well, they didn't tell me, but I heard a couple of students talking about, if you want to compete for the DAR medal, you don't want to be in Mr. Hughes’ class. He's got some nice stories, but you want to be in Mr. and I won't name him, although he's deceased now, but you want to be in his class because that's where you’re going to learn about history.
Well, you know, nobody had an appreciation for black cowboys and the contributions of African-Americans to the development of the country at that time. We also were at a time where the racial tension in the country was rising and we were having brawls in the school, in the bathrooms, and my white colleagues were telling me that they didn't see any difference in their classrooms.
They didn't, couldn't, tell if their students were black or white. Now, one of the first things you learned is that every student is different and you got to learn how to deal with that. And they were lying to themselves. In the evenings, our kids were going out fighting in the parking lots. I asked the building principal, I used a lot of gimmicks and things in teaching, and one of them was to use a VCR. And I said to him, Let's put a video camera up on top of our building. We released a lot of our seniors for fifth, for sixth hour every day, and they were supposed to leave and go to jobs. But what was happening is our kids were sticking around and they were joining with other kids from a neighboring high school, basically all white. And they were congregating out in the parking lot. At the end of the day, the black students would get out and they go out knocking a lot of each other. It was just inevitable. And I asked the principal to put up the equipment. He said it was too much trouble. He said, it's inevitable. It's just going to happen.
So by that point, I figured I couldn't deal with that. I had to—I could do all that I could do to work with the students to keep them out of trouble, but that just wasn't the environment for me. And I wanted to go back and find out more about black history and more about sociology because I thought that I could make a difference.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So that experience and that frustration is what in part prompted you to join Model Cities?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Yes. That caused me to go out. And I was in summer school, working on my master's, and was recruited by a gentleman of whose name was Charles Lennon, a Notre Dame grad who I became really good friends with. And he wanted me to be his—to head up his community development community development division. And that meant I'd go out and organize block clubs and put people into planning groups and solicit neighborhood participation into the planning process. And we did some exciting things. We did some really exciting things. I had responsibility for educational planning, although I wasn't in charge of all of the various planning components.
But they felt that because I had been a teacher that I should do educational planning. We made it possible for every fourth grader who lived in the Model Cities area to go to Head Start because you could start Head Start in the fourth grade. We also made it possible to recruit and train people from the Model Cities neighborhood to become paraprofessionals, to work in the schools, people from the neighborhood to work with the kids from the neighborhood.
And we provided assistance for their education and some support to the corporation to hire them back into the schools. So we did a lot of exciting things that I thought were exciting. We did physical planning, social planning, health planning. One of the funniest things that we did, we had an abundance of feral dogs roaming around the city. So we designed a project that was going to work with the Humane Society and we’d capture all the dogs we could get.
Well, we had a little neighborhood militant group and they used to refer to it as Kill a Dog a Day. We didn't kill any dogs, we just rounded them up and had them taken to the Humane Society. But that was an interesting experience. Another subject that would be fun to talk about with you for. ....
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah, so after your service in the Model Cities program, you joined another federally supported program, a housing choice voucher program organized by HUD at the time. Tell us about that experience and your experience and how that helped you develop as a professional and a person.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Well, before I left Model Cities, I had really gotten involved in educational activities in a variety of ways. I worked on one of the very first gubernatorial committees for Early Childhood Education in Indiana. I also became a member of the school board. I was appointed to the school board and the library board, so I was doing a lot of things in the community at the time and Model Cities was an experiment that was set up for five—for ten years.
And I came in there and we worked for five years and it started to wind down. And then this other experiment in housing called the Housing Allowance Experiment, it was an experiment where the government would provide assistance to renters and homeowners. It would provide that assistance directly to the family as opposed to going through an agency. You came in, you're registered. We determined your eligibility, how much you were eligible for, and we made that payment directly to you to assist with your housing expenses. We capped it at about 80% of what your housing expenses were, and we also stacked the deck by making sure that you did have legitimate housing expenses that was pretty much going to cover the entire allocation.
So I was brought in as the chief of client services to help with the enrollment process, the housing inspection process, because I had also served at Model Cities as the director of the Bureau of Housing. So we did a lot of interesting things there. The experiment was set up to last for ten years. The purpose of the ten years was to give people coming in the first few years the feeling that it would last forever. Last a decade, so ... we were set up to run for ten years. We also had enough funding to cover about 20% of the city's housing population. So we could have a major impact on the cost of housing because we needed to measure to see would that drive up the cost, would it drive it down ..what would happen, would people take care of their housing units. So we did that. Eventually, through internal issues, I ended up becoming the director of that program, and we had some fantastic people that worked there. I worked with a young man by the name of Tim Corcoran, who was a Ph.D. student from Stanford, and he headed up the research side. But when our director left, I told him that no offense to him, but I felt I was a better manager than he was and that if I didn't get the job, I'd leave. And the dummies gave me the job.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
I think they could recognize talent and passion.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Well, it was it was an enjoyable time and we helped a lot of people. The program was scheduled to phase out right during what I call the Great Recession, not the one we're going through now, but people in those days had a choice, especially the elderly, of, without that housing allowance, it was a choice of food or fuel. And we had a Congressman, John Hiler, who had won by 120, 130 votes. And I convinced him that 60% of the participants in my program were senior citizens and they voted. And if they were going to have to make those kinds of decisions, he was going to have a tough time winning his reelection. So I secured another five year window for my agency and for my sister agency, which was in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So in addition to is, as you said a moment ago, in addition to this work, you also were involved in many in many ways in the community and in a volunteer capacity, including volunteering with the United Way. And it's my understanding that this volunteer role in the United Way led to you eventually becoming the president and CEO of United Way of St. Joseph County.
Did I get that right?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
That's correct. One of the best run service organizations that I had ever run into was United Way. The guys there were polished, professional. I mean, it was the only office I'd ever been in where they had a shoeshine kid. These guys shined their shoes before they went out. I mean, I was so impressed with them and they were dedicated professionals. They did good work. I volunteered to be a projector, run the projector, did a little speaking, but I did a lot of work like that. Served on a number of boards, was involved in bringing public television to the community, served on the hospital boards. So I'd been involved in a lot of different kinds of things. The chamber, education committees, sort of just involved in a lot of different kinds of things. But they impressed me at the United Way. And as the Experimental Housing Allowance Office was winding down and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do next with my life, someone came to me and said, You know, we need a new director at United Way. And you think you might be interested? And I was impressed with him.
And so I said, okay, I think I'll give it a try. I think I was there for sixteen years, which makes me one of the longest serving United Way directors. But it was another fun job. I met a lot of dedicated people who I called miracle workers in the community. They did the hard work. I just help with raising money and explaining to people why it was important.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. So your service to your friends and neighbors and to your community is extraordinary. And in addition to all of that service, you also committed your time and service and philanthropy to Ball State. How did you first get involved back at Ball State as an alumnus and why did you choose to step up and step in?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Well, as I told you before, I worked for this guy who was Notre Dame grad and he was so proud of his alma mater, and I used to call him Rah Rah. I mean, he would drive me crazy.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Did he appreciate that nickname?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Yeah, he liked it. He went on to become the alumni director at Notre Dame.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Okay.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
But Chuck loved his alma mater. And so I thought to myself, What's the difference between private schools and state schools? People that go to private universities seem to love their alma maters, and we don't have—we act like we're ashamed of them some of the time.
So I thought, you know, I got a good education at Ball State. Chuck convinced me of that. I was as smart as he was, and I was convinced that I got a really good education at Ball State. And I came away an educated me in those days. I don't know about now, but I felt like I got a good education and I was a well-rounded person and I could fit in anywhere I thought I wanted to be.
So I thought there were other [black] people there, when I came to Ball State, maybe there were 50 to 75 of us when I graduated, maybe 150. I thought, maybe there's something I can do that—and this is selfish, not necessarily going to help Ball State, but help some of those people like me that are going to Ball State because we were doing good things.
We came out prepared and I knew we were going to do well things in our communities. So I thought I could maybe do some things that might make it a little easier. So I got involved with the alumni council, and it was fun going back to games. We didn't win as much. I still don't understand why we don't win as much as we should.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Well, maybe, maybe we'll have another podcast with Jeff Mitchell, our athletics director, and you and I can ask him that question. But actually we had a very good season last year. But we'll keep going with your story...
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
So that's what attracted me, you know. But, you know, Ball State was a place that was basically white, and so was the alumni council. The Michiana club was basically a white club. And there weren't—I was ... but by this time, being at Ball State and professionally, you get used to being one of the only one in the room or one of just a few. So if people are willing to listen to you, then you stay engaged. If they ignore you, then you don't have time for that.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. You find something else to do with your time.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
And these were fun folks. We had similar experiences. You know, these were guys that came from little, small towns. We had our first taste of broccoli at Ball State. I mean, nobody ate b broccoli when I was a kid. We had—I had my first piece of filet mignon in the dorm. I mean ...
[GEOFF MEARNS]
We don't do that anymore.[laughs]
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
I know. [laughs] It's too expensive.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And they want vegan options.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
But yeah, so I, I found that I used to think that I was so different from these white kids that I didn't know. The more I got to know them, I found out that we were a lot alike. We had high aspirations, first generation in college. We wanted better things for ourselves and for our kids, and so we had a lot in common.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So I think to me, you know, a relative newcomer, certainly compared to you, what I often say about our students is they don't come to our campus with a sense of entitlement. They come with a sense of purpose and, irrespective of color, I think that is quite common across our student population. So you served, as you said, as a board member on the alumni council and also on the board of directors of the Black Alumni Council, on the board of our wonderful foundation. But I think many people are well aware of your long standing service as a member of our Board of Trustees. Why don’t you tell us, I think I know the number, but why don't you tell us the number? And first of all, maybe why don't you start with, tell us what your reaction was when you found out that you were going to be appointed to the board in 1989?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Well, I was really surprised. I did not—somebody said something to me about maybe there's going to be an opening on the board of trustees and we think we'll put your name in. And I thought, Yeah, okay, that'll never happen. And when they told me that it had happened, I was just totally surprised. And I'll never forget my meeting with Dr. Worthen and Dr. McKee and the others. I felt crammed into this little booth with one on either side explaining to me how boards worked, and I mean I had served on so many boards at that point. I thought it was kind of fun and kind of cute.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So you had experience on those boards and you were familiar with the responsibility and role?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
I was familiar with what I thought was the responsibility of good boardsmanship. Now, I knew that lots of people didn't always do that, but I knew how I should behave as a board member and that it wasn't about me, that it was about the institution that I agreed to serve. And so, I’ve enjoyed it.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
It's not a place for your own personal interests. It's what's in the collective good of all.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
What’s in the interest of the institution. What advances Ball State and its opportunities for young people.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And so you served on the board, correct me if I'm wrong, 27 years and then you stepped down and retired from that service in 2016. I'll share with you, don't need to comment, I came to the university in 2017, so I wonder whether there was any cause and effect with you being concerned that I was arriving and you figured this was a good time to make your exit. I'm just teasing you.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
No, but you recall that I did say to you the first time we met that, you know, I have only one regret that I didn't serve one year longer so I could serve with you.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Well, that's very kind. But you have been a good friend and a good mentor and a good source of guidance and encouragement to me. So thank you. So, speaking though of that service, I know, as you say, your vision, your view is that you all, all of the trustees, are there to accomplish something good, to achieve something good, to make a difference for the collective.
What was, as you look back, what are you most proud of that you and your fellow trustees accomplished during that, nearly, it's nearly three decades.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
There are a number of things that I really am pleased with that I think were significant to the development of the university. I personally can't claim any responsibility for them, but John Worthen's tenure ... working with him and supporting him when he worked hard to change the structure of the university from the old college system to a university, and some of the trauma that he had to go through as administrator, going from where we paid everybody the same thing, every department, and you couldn't get business professors and architects for the price that you could get a social studies professor. Working with him, and helping him get through that period of time, that's something that I'm pleased with, that particular transition. The hiring of the first female president at Ball State, Dr. Jo Ann Gora. The lady was a living dynamo—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
I was just going to use that word. She is still a dynamo.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
She is incredible. And being a part of that process and making sure that we kept our feet to the fire and did the right thing by bringing that talent to this university. I'm proud to be a part of that decision. So I've been a part of watching this university do some things, taking some chances on occasions. Geothermal was a chance that we had to take. Just watching that and seeing that we still get dividends from that decision. There are just a lot of those things you don't see them—you can't see them when you walk around campus, but you see them. When you look at the beauty of the place, the people that are here. Some of the best associations I had were with with administrators at this university, people that cared so much about it, as to dedicate themselves, their lives, and their professions to making Ball State the super place that it is now. It's so much better than it was when I came. I probably couldn't get in now, but it's just a fantastic place and I'm not sure—I don't know if students truly appreciate what a wonderful place it is and how much they're getting from it.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. When I speak to the students, I think I think many of them do. I don't think they know the history, and so they don't know how far we've come and how far we've come because of your many contributions. So at your—at the final meeting that you served as a trustee, I understand you were surprised to learn that Governor Mike Pence, when he was governor, named you a Sagamore of the Wabash, which is the highest honor the governor in Indiana can bestow upon a Hoosier. Tell us how—what that felt like.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Well, I was surprised. Well, I'd met the governor on several occasions, but, you know, I didn't think he knew who I was. And I was sort of, I was really surprised by the recognition. And I thank the trustees, who I think were probably responsible for that recognition. The recognition that I think I appreciate the most was the naming of the assembly hall in the Alumni Center. That ... my colleagues made that decision to have something named in the same facility as one of my best friends, Tom DeWeese, who the courtyard in the Alumni Center is named after it.
And Ed Shipley, who was a great friend, that meant probably more to me than the Sagamore. I have lots of awards, and when I remarried and I was preparing my house for my new wife, and getting walls painted, and I took down all of that stuff. I put it back. [laughs] The awards are nice. It's really nice to be recognized. I was recognized by the mayor’s office back in February during Black History Month. I happened to be in the hospital the day that they did the recognition and there were billboards around the city. Those are nice, and I guess it's nice to be recognized. But I think that going through this life is a lot like walking on the beach. If you think you're going to leave permanent footprints out there on the beach, you are crazy. The tide is going to come in and wash it all away. Just don't leave any obstacles out there on the beach. That's what life is about it.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
But you, while you may not leave footprints on the beach, the impact that you've had on the lives of so many people will endure well beyond. And speaking of enduring impact, you mentioned your wife, Roxanne. When you and I and Roxanne walked over this afternoon, we had a chance to walk by Beneficence. And as you know, and Roxanne knows, that beautiful statue is the representation, the reminder of our enduring values, the kind of enduring values that you have embraced and embodied through your life of service to other people.
So as you think about beneficence, you know, and it means the quality of doing good through doing good for other people, through service and philanthropy. So Hollis, tell us as we conclude, what does beneficence, what does doing good for other people, mean to you at this point in your life?
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Well, apparently beneficence means something very special to me because when I got engaged, it was raining that night and I refused to get out of the car in the rain. But we parked as close as I thought I could get without bringing the campus police down on me in front of Beneficence and proposed to my wife Roxanne, in front of Beneficence.
But doing good is what we're here for. I mean, my fraternity has a motto. First of all, servants of all, we shall transcend all. And I've always felt that if there's something I can do for you, that's my obligation. Use me, but don't abuse me. And service is important. It's how you get things done for other people. And you can get things done beyond what you can do individually. There are lot of ways to serve, and I found that the way that made sense for me was not so much one on one. That's a special kind of service, too. But by getting involved in systematic kinds of things, I felt that I could be of greater service by interacting with others that impacted on systems, and that those systems can impact on lives and make changes. Though sometimes those systems didn't always do what they should have. And one of those happened at Ball State with uhh... when we decided that we were going to support an educational initiative for charter schools. I thought we could do some interesting research. That's not necessarily what we did. And charter schools, I think, is a total disaster for public education, but that's neither here nor there. But I was a part of the decision that we ought to get involved in that. Sometimes you do a lot of good, sometimes you don't. But it is, I believe, a route that more people should take, that if you go to the table and people are willing to listen, make sure that they're willing to listen and make sure that you know what the game is and that you've got something to say. And who was it who said, Seek first to understand before seeking to be understood, because if you are too busy trying to be understood, nobody will hear you. Understand what they have to say, then make sure that they can understand what you have to say. And then if they don't understand, it's okay to walk away. But service is so important and there are variety of ways that you can do it. Individual. Public. I think most people would be surprised in their communities. And I did this once, I looked around, to determine how much of the community was controlled by service opportunities, by volunteers who just volunteered to sit at the table and make a difference in their community. Library boards. It used to be school boards. Don't believe in elected school boards, because I think once you have a constituency, you can't represent the whole system. You're too busy worried about the people that you think brought it to the table. It's the system, the broader system that brings you to the table.
So I think there are all kinds of ways that you can serve. If you look around, there are a lot of important things: chambers, business committees. There are a lot of things in the community that have a major impact that you need to sit at the table, get involved with, be heard, be a part of. That delivers lots of things way beyond you. And yeah, you don't get any credit for that. But the institutions that you work with, the ideas, make impact on the community.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Well, thank you. I hope, particularly in this last part of our conversation, that some of our students hear your message and your encouragement to get involved and to serve. Your life, as I say, your life here at the university and in your community has been a life of service. Thank you for sharing those experiences with us. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. And again, thank you for your encouragement of me. I'm very grateful.
[HOLLIS HUGHES]
Thank you for your service to Ball State. It's a better place because of you.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Thank you.