The 70's & 80's - Dramatic Change
In 1968 Dr. John Petelle was appointed to be Vice-Chair of the Department and in 1970 the new chair when Laase became Director of Graduate Studies. Dr.Lasse retired in 1972 having been in the Department for thirty-two years, a record number of years of service that lasted until 1999 when Dr. Dennis Bormann finished his thirty-third year of service to UNL.
Dr. Laase had a well thought out philosophy of communication and gave the department a clear direction. He did not follow fads and thought one should be careful in tinkering with the curriculum. For good or ill, the Department of Speech and Drama as it existed in 1970, was the house that Leroy Laase built.
During the Laase years, the Department was fortunate in having two excellent professors with long service who had an enormous influence on students in their respective areas, Dr. Donald Olson and Dr. Maxine Trauernicht.
Dr. Olson was the director of debate for over 20 years and his debate teams had many successes in state and national competitions. Dr. Olson was a gifted teacher and highly admired by his students. He trained many students who later became successful in education, business, and the professions. Dr. Olson was admired for his integrity, honesty, humor and general big heartedness. When he retired, former students from all over the country came to his retirement banquet to shower him with gifts and praise.
Dr. Maxine Trauernicht was a specialist in oral interpretation and speech education. She joined the Department in 1948 and retired after thirty years of service in 1978. She was an extremely diligent person and, as Dr. Laase once said, always did the work of two people.' Like Olson she was devoted to her students for whom she always had time and wise advice. Professor (emeritus) Maxine Trauernicht is a legend in speech education in Nebraska.
In the 1970's during John Petelle's reign, some rapid changes took place in the speech area. In the first place, the umbrella Department was split into four areas. Secondly, more members were added to the speech communication area who took a social scientific approach to the field. Thirdly, UNL, following a trend in other Universities, began to stress research far more than it had in the past. Fourthly, all of the areas of the Department, except theatre, moved out of Temple Building which for years had been the building that housed the umbrella Department.
The period 1971-72 saw a dramatic change in the staff of the Department. During that period, the Department lost three of its four full professors out of a staff of seven. Drs. Laase and Olson retired and Dr. James Thurber died unexpectedly. Hence, Dr. Trauernicht was the only staff member from the 'old order', as it were. In this period, five new members were added to a department of eight people. Since that time, the Department has ranged from eight to ten faculty members. The number of faculty members did not increase in proportion to the number of students during the period of rapid expansion of the University in the late 60's and 70's.
In 1973, Dr. John Petelle stepped down as Chairman of the Department and was replaced by Dr. Robert McGlone with two Vice Chairs for the other areas and with Dr. Dennis Bormann as the Vice Chair in the Speech Communication area, who then became the first Chair of the newly independent Department of Speech Communication.
The following three chairs were all lost to other universities before their first five-year terms were completed: Dr. Gustav Friedrich became chair of the department in 1977; Dr. James Klump took over in 1982 and was followed by Dr. Jack Kay in 1985.
