Report from Santa Fe; Brother Cyprian Luke

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405,002. 305,002. 305,002. 305,002. 305,002. 305,002. 305,002. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico and Organizational Professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. The art of communicating science, Los Alamos National Laboratory, reaching out and working to make a better New Mexico. I'm Ernie Mills, this is report from Santa Fe, our guest today, Brother Cyprian Luke, long time president of the College of Santa Fe

and honored with a number of people this recently when they had the 50th anniversary of the school. Welcome back, it's good to see you again. Thank you Ernie, it's always a pleasure to be here. I want to tell you, a lot of people said I haven't seen Luke around. I said we know he retired, but you had been quite ill back around 1982 or so as I recall. You look better now than I've seen you in the last 30 years. That's what Santa does for a man. So that's the way that... Yes, I retired from the college president in 1982. What I'd like to take a look at today, first, the structure, if you will, so people can understand we have three independent colleges in New Mexico. There's the College of Santa Fe, there's St. John's College, that's in Santa Fe, and we have the College of the Southwest, which is situated in Hobbes. What was the background to start of the College of Santa Fe? Well, the College of Santa Fe came out of a long tradition of the

education efforts of the Christian brothers in Santa Fe. The brothers have been operating St. Michael's since 1859, but after World War II, brother Benilda, who had been principal to St. Michael's, wanted and felt that there was a necessity to extend the secondary educational efforts of the brothers to the post-secondary field, because there was a tremendous demand. The same time. St. Michael's was a high school. St. Michael's was a high school. It was called St. Michael's College, and it was known as St. Michael's College in 1949 up until 1947, when we opened the college section at the Old Bruns General Hospital. Did you have a charter? The charter that was given to Brother Botouff, who was a New York brother that came out to Santa Fe

in the early years, he obtained a charter from the territorial legislature in 1874. That charter incorporated the College of the Christian brothers of New Mexico, the legal name, and under the charter, that corporation could open and operate educational schools throughout New Mexico. You're going back to Archbishop Blaney now. I'm going back to 1874 when that charter was granted by the territorial legislature. It's unique in the state of New Mexico, and there are several provisions in that charter that are very special. One, it granted this corporation the authority to confer degrees that were customary for universities and colleges.

Secondly, the effects and the property of that corporation were free from taxation. The tip of visions in there that had stood the college in good stead throughout the years. Are you still operating under that charter? We operate the college of Santa Fe under that charter. St. Mike's High School, which is operated by the Christian brothers, its name was changed to the high school when brother Benildus took the name of St. Michael's College for his new institution. But St. Michael's High School actually operates under a different corporation called St. Michael's College Inc. And the reason that was incorporated in spite of the fact that charter existed already is something that was not easy to track down why there was the necessity of creating a new charter. And St. Michael's High School has been operating under that charter.

So when brother Benildus opened the college, he had a charter there in 1874 to go to work on. How many brothers were involved at the start of the college? Now we're going back 50 years. It was in 1947. There were 13 brothers, brother Benildus and 12 other brothers. How many are alive today? Three of us are still alive. Brother Richard Segura, who taught English for all those years. Brother Alfred Rico, who is 90 now, was in charge of maintenance of the whole property and of them myself. And you're 80 now. And I'm 80 now. Right. And look 60 now. Well thank you. I wanted to go back a little bit because there's another part of history here. It was invaluable. We're talking today when I talk to the colleges and universities around this state. We're talking about distance learning, the use of computers and such. But at that time,

if you lived in Santa Fe, and you wanted to do, if you wanted to go to college, there was no college up here except for the college of Santa Fe. And if you wanted to do graduate work, you had to high-tail it to the big Duke city. And at that time, we all think of the college. We go back to the old barracks. Now you can't talk about the college without going back to the period. We had the Bruins Hospital in Santa Fe. And they had by, give us a little background on it. You're right there and you can't talk about the college of Santa Fe without talking about Bruins Hospital. When Brother Benildus wanted to open a post-secondary educational institution, he had to have a capital campaign. That capital campaign was pretty much of a failure. I think he raised maybe $100,000. Which wasn't sufficient to do anything because new buildings had to be bought. And at that time, the plans

were to build on the college street campus. And John Galmeme had drawn up detailed plans, architectural plans for some additions to the campus on college street. But since there wasn't any money, or sufficient money to do anything, Brother Benildus kind of put his dream on the side. But fortunately, in 1946, at the end of 1946, the U.S. government declared the Bruins Hospital's surplus property. And opened up applications for federal agencies, state agencies, private agencies to apply for the use and the acquisition of those 250 acres. And the Bruins Hospital, that was a military installation. That was an army hospital. I think it was built around 1941-42.

There were soldiers who needed medical attention all through the war from 42 up to 46. After the war, quite many of those similar hospitals around the country became surplus. We had an internment center, a Japanese internment center here. Yes, but that had no connection with the Bruins. Because, you know, my old colleague, and I know you, I said, didn't know him. He was a graduate of college, a Santa Fe Bob Barth. And his mama had been a nurse at the Bruins Hospital. And that's where she had met Albert Barth, who was a chef, a cook at the hospital. You know, so we have all pleasant memories of that. There were, I think, some 2,000 patients at the hospital and the staff of probably 2,000 people. And how many of the buildings did you pick up? Well, when the final allocation of buildings took place under the supervision and the final decision of the government.

Brother Benildus' application was honored with 50 barrack buildings and 122 acres of land. And other institutions also got the use of the buildings. For instance, the University of New Mexico removed 20 of those barrack buildings down to Albert Curkey to their campus in Albert Curkey. And I forget, it wasn't too many years ago that they finally disposed of the last of those 20 barrack buildings. People to this day have said, you can take them all, but keep one on each of those campuses. I took courses out there and lecture you a couple of times that they're in those barracks. And I remember there was a time when the University of New Mexico talked about some graduate work up here. And an old friend of ours in our Jack Kester had put together the Bank of Santa Fe, and they had a bank president, buddy Wrangley.

And he said, I think we can bring up the graduate school from the University of New Mexico. Well, after a course, he said, where are we going to do it? And he said, college is Santa Fe. I remember very well. I was president when they came on campus with their graduate program. And for good number of years, they were right there on our campus. Using our barrack buildings as well, some of the new structures. And then when the community college was built here in Santa Fe, which is a marvelous admirable institution, the University of New Mexico moved their graduate program in Santa Fe to the community college. I must stop you there for a moment, because when the idea concept for the community college came up, and you know, we all speak in terms of Bill Witter, the late Bill Witter, who was, again, he had a dream for that school. And he was very wise on one thing. He realized the most community colleges they need parking. He said, let's get this out of town where they're going to have all the parking we need.

It's even getting crowded out there now, but it's a marvelous sight for it. But the college of Santa Fe never fought that. They said, this is great. And I want you, because it was done where you were there, and then Brother Don Mouton came in. But the attitude constantly was, let's work with the two-year schools. We have 17 two-year schools now in New Mexico. And to my knowledge, you're one of the first to say, you know, there's no competition here. We're going to be working with them. How did that develop? Well, actually, Bill Witter chatted with me on many occasions about his plans for a community college. And initially, he used the college of Santa Fe. The library, our library was put at their use. Our science building, which we had just completed, was their science building. And that went on for a short period of time, perhaps a year, maybe a little bit more,

until they got organized out on their campus. But the community college, initially, really started to do the things that were customer for community colleges to do. At one time, we had an extensive, continuing ed program at the college of Santa Fe, because nobody else was doing it in town. Bob Turner, whom you probably know, Bob Turner came to me one day. He was an expatriate from Pennsylvania, I believe, to Santa Fe. And he came to me one day and he says, I'd like to come work for you. I says, Bob, what do you have in mind? As I think you, when you at the college of Santa Fe, should be doing something on this thing they call continuing ed, the non-credit courses that cover a multitude of interesting subjects for lots of people. And I said, Bob, you have an idea that is very valuable here.

How much money do you want? And he gave me a figure which was not hard to accept. And I pointed down the hall and I said, Bob, there's your office. Go to work. That started our continuing ed program. Later on, when the community college developed, that program went completely to the community college, and that's what community colleges do. But out of that program, we have what we call the Elder Hostel Program, which is nationally known, and we have one of the biggest elder hostel programs in the country at the college of Santa Fe. But it came out of that same effort of Bob Turner's who has said, I can help you do something that you're not doing yet for the community. You know, the school now has a non-Christian brother, a good Christian person, as they're heading up the institution.

And that was interesting because some people said, well, they went out on a search. And I said, they may have gone on a search. But the president president actually had worked for the college for quite a period of time. That Dr. Freeze had come to the college of Santa Fe and was the vice president under Brother Mutal. And when Brother Mutal decided to resign as president, Dr. Freeze was in place. And the board appointed him as the temporary president until such time as the board could elect a president. And it just so happened that they did elect Dr. Freeze to become the president. He's done an excellent job. He's been there 11 years now. And one can go on that campus today. And this very day, and see how much is being done there

under construction is $10, $11 million art center. Let's go back on memory lane for a moment, because someone we all know very well. I go back to Manuel Luján Sr., who used to listen to the radio broadcast, but his son, Manuel Luján Jr., who had been not only congressman from the Mexico, but had been secretary of the interior, he had had to go, he went to go to Christian College, went to St. Mary's, I think, on the west floor. California. California. Then came back. Wasn't he in your first graduating class? Yes, Manuel graduated from St. Mike's High School in 1946, I believe, went out to St. Mary's in California for his freshman year. We opened the college in 47. Manuel transferred to the college of Santa Fe as a sophomore and graduated in our first graduating class in 1950.

Your graduates read like a who's who of Santa Fe appeared. And it's amazing. How about the connection with Greer Garcin? She was a lovely, you know, we talk about, you know, film stars today. She was always the perfect lady. And how was that connection made? Do you remember? Well, Ernie, you are asking a question that many people have asked me. How did you get to know Greer Garcin? Well, it's a long story and I'm sure we don't have time on this program to tell it. But what we did, one of my staff members, was in charge of our track team, besides teaching history. And he had a couple of students in his track team, who came from Pecos. And he wanted some financial aid scholarship money to help those kids through college. And I suggested to him, why don't you go out and talk to Greer Garcin out at Pecos

because they were here for several months during the summer. So he made an appointment and Greer invited him to come out. Al went out and to this day still remembers that vision of Greer Garcin as she opened the door to welcome him into her house. And so he presented it to Greer and particularly the buddy. But he focused on her husband, Dallas Oilman. But he took over the conversation and started asking a lot of questions. And of making the usual objections, we're not Catholic. Why should we help you? What is this St. Michael's College? Are you accredited? And a lot of questions. And he came, Al came, my staff member came back and gave me all of this. And I said, you know, Al, the first smart here,

I said down and right answers to all of these questions. And you can bring it back to Mr. Fogelson and to Greer and see if that's going to be persuasive or not. We did that. Al went back. I still had not met either of them. Al went back and I suspect this is the official record of what happened. Mr. Fogelson finally said to Al, all right. Now I'll tell you what I will do. You tell your president that if I will give him $5,000, if he can get $5,000 from the Archbishop. Because one of the questions that he had asked was, what does your Archbishop do for you? And we wrote the response to that in our written responses. So that was a challenge. So Al comes back to me with that response and in a sense it was good news and bad news.

Because I had a job to do that I thought was going to be pretty difficult to get $5,000 from Archbishop Bern. That's right, it was Archbishop Bern. But we did. And I called Mr. Fogelson up. I said, Mr. Fogelson, I introduce myself because I had not yet spoken with him. I said, Mr. Fogelson, I have a check here from the Archbishop of Santa Fe for $5,000. Buddy said, congratulations, Brother Luke, you'll have my check from the Dallas office before the end of the week. I heard Buddy Fogelson retail that story more than once. And on one occasion it was in Dallas at their wedding anniversary. I happened to be in Dallas and he invited me up for a little lunch up in the office. And there were friends of his and his staff. And I could still remember towards the end of the lunch he says,

Brother Luke, tell these friends of mine how you first got to me. Oh, isn't that great? He loved the story. Well, it's a matter of record that the college of Santa Fe that Buddy Fogelson and Greer Garcin gave over $5 million eventually to the college of Santa Fe. But the first 5,000 was that story. That was hard work. Well, it was easy work in many ways. Because Buddy, I've always wondered and thank God that those 2 people were as generous to that small school. And why? That's, I believe, their secret. That's, you know, in a sense, if we ask sometimes, you know, you say maybe a secret, but it's part of the outreach that we look for with people when they come in and they are good neighbors. Someone said to me once they said, she is a very well-turned-out lady. She's a lovely lady.

Buddy Fogelson was a very fine gentleman. Oh, yes. I came back to another period because the, I'm going back now to the time I had met Bruce King early on. He was in the, if I could think it was a county commissioner when I first came to Santa Fe. And the way I later talked, and I had mentioned to him, I said, you might want to take a look, I was referring to a beat I had covered in New York where they had a waterfront commission. And it was part of the New York, put in New York authority. It was a combined group that looked at New Jersey, New York, and down reaching all the way down, you know, into the inland waterway points back there for to sort of combat organized crime or keep an eye on it. And we talked about it, and Governor King said it sounded like a good idea. And next thing I knew, they put one together. And lo and behold, they came up with Brother Cyprian Luke to share that. Now, a lot of people don't realize you had never met Bruce King before that time, had you?

Not really, not really. And I forget to approach me and ask me. And of course, I was surprised and obviously incompetent to do anything in the area of organized crime. I assume you didn't have, you know, if it wasn't part of your training. But yes, and I accepted the position. Art Spiegel was one of the leaders of that organization. And he was on the first board. First commission, as it was called, of seven people. Four Democrats and three Republicans. We found out that that was the composition of the commission after a number of years of working together. And I accepted position on the commission. One of our first assignments, of course, was to get an executive director who could organize the commission, hire the detectives and the people

that we needed to run that commission. And we were lucky to get Sam Papich to come from Washington, D.C. And Sam has worked in New York. He had been with the FBI. Yes, that's correct. Super person. Super person. And he got that organized. And I stayed on the commission 12 years, went through, I think, three different governors. And every four years had to be reconfirmed, of course, by the Senate. I know why you were chosen and why you're reappointed in its credibility. And that ability to reach out. Because I know we could, one of these days, I fully plan to talk to a sister, Mary Joachim, who used to be the head of the hospital. And if we tell the stories about how you, both of you work, that team between yourself and a sister, Joachim, it was almost dangerous to be turned out on the community. But marvelous woman. Marvelous woman.

Absolutely. I think she was the superintendent there for 15 years, the administrator. And really, went through the important transition of moving out of town, down town, into a new facility. That was a big project. You should do it on that property at the time they chose it. John Galmien, he was on the committee to search for a piece of property. And I can still remember standing with this little committee on that site. And I said to John, this is the place this hospital should be. And if the board will not buy this property, the college of Santa Fe is going to buy it. Marvelous. It was a great deal. It was several doctors, I believe, I forget who owned it, but I think it was one of the doctors. A lot of people say that's true. Too far out of town. Well, we looked all over town. We were actually offered, I believe, some property out there where the community colleges.

This is a perfect spot for me. And we turned it down because we thought it was too far out. There were those who wanted to build up at Marcy. We rejected that because that would have just compounded the problems. That's right, the ambulance couldn't get through the traffic. That's correct. And you know, St. Michael's Drive was not very much in those days. But it was out there and available to ambulances and whatever else. If you're going to stand on property like that, Sean Garmin is the one you want to be standing with. Rather than the final word for today on your feeling about the future, not just for the private schools, but for the future. Well, I've been around for 50 years watching and being a part of higher education, post-secondary education. And in this state, it's amazing how much development has gone on at the university and all of the colleges. And of course, the community college experience was a development of the 60s, basically 70s.

That was a nationwide expansion of post-secondary education around the country. You feel good about it then? Oh, I feel very good about it. You know, in the private colleges, we hope that those of us who are involved with the private college in a very... I would say difficult situation. Private education isn't very well supported here in New Mexico or Arizona or Colorado. Texas is a different matter. But here, the people involved with private post-secondary education are pretty heroic kinds of people. Well, you're a pretty heroic guy yourself. I'm Ernie Moser, I'd like to thank our guest today by the Cyprian Luke, one of the founders of the college of Santa Fe. I want to thank you for reaching out with us today on report from Santa Fe. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico. An organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future.

The art of communicating science, Los Alamos National Laboratory, reaching out and working to make a better New Mexico. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.