C.P.: How did you arrive at MU?
Petty: Paul Burcham was chair of the department at that time, and he hired me. Burcham was an outstanding personality and was a favorite with the students. The math building was not here at that time. We were in the Engineering Building East, which was only partially air-conditioned and quite uncomfortable in the summer.
C.P.: You seem to have had many different research interests in your career.
Petty: I started in Minkowski geometry but switched to astrodynamics and celestial mechanics at Lockheed. We were solving the satellite orbit problem at that time. The work was challenging, and the mathematics was advanced. I then moved into differential equations and, eventually at Missouri, to distance geometry and convexity theory. Like my research, my teaching covered a number of different areas. I taught more than 30 different courses at MU.
C.P.: You were chair of mathematics for a time.
Petty: I didn’t want to be chair. The department had a lot of problems. I was forced into this position by the faculty since there were few professors at that time, and they decided it was my turn to serve the department. However, once I took that job, I felt I should put in a maximum effort for the department. I worked very hard to make this a fine math department. The job as chair was itself a full-time job. In addition, I was expected to teach each semester and, in particular, during the summer. Because I was on a 12-month appointment, there was no extra pay for it, and this saved the College on its summer budget. I was often here until 11 p.m. Late one night I was in my office and someone threw a rock through my window. The police took it away for evidence. I wish I had it now for a souvenir.
C.P.: What were some of the problems you had to deal with?
Petty: Salaries were very low, in particular, for the assistant and associate professors. We compared poorly in both pay and other benefits to other comparable departments. This made hiring very complicated, although we did manage to hire some excellent people like Nigel Kalton and Joe Conlon. Also, our Equipment & Expense budget was very low, and we had a lot of trouble making ends meet. The phone bill and necessary supplies used up most of our E&E budget. We had little travel money, no money for meals, hotels, etc. Eventually, during the year we went “bankrupt” and they stopped us from even buying stamps. I spent a lot of my time writing to the dean trying to justify increasing salaries, getting more faculty and getting more E&E money.
C.P.: Were there other problems?
Petty: Very few procedures in the department were formalized. I spent a lot of time trying to take care of this. For example, we had no formal procedures for getting a doctoral degree such as what courses to take, what languages, etc. Also, I spent a lot of time trying to formalize criteria and procedures for promotion and tenure for junior faculty.
C.P.: How about the strengths of the department?
Petty: Today, the department is bigger and stronger than it has ever been. Salaries, the E&E budget and many other things have been vastly improved. However, teaching was always very good—even historically— in the department. Parents could always feel good about sending their kids to MU to study math. We always maintained high standards. We used the best books, which were competitive with the books being used at the best universities in the country. Our undergraduates could get to the best PhD programs in the country and do well when they arrived.
C.P.: How about work loads when you came here?
Petty: When I arrived in 1966, we taught two courses a term, but they could be a large calculus section plus an additional course. Later, they gave a release for teaching large sections. Also, the director of graduate studies and the director of undergraduate studies had a reduced teaching load; however, some of us did all of these at various times without a reduction in teaching load. This was not all bad since I enjoyed teaching the most and administrative work the least.
C.P.: Thank you for taking the time to meet with us.
Petty: It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.