As I noted 18 August, when I was a beginning graduate student at Oregon, I already knew about Hill Walker because of his work that had been published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and elsewhere. JABA was a research journal that my early mentors had promoted and from which I was able to extract immediately applicable methods of instruction; it became a guiding light. Thanks to coaching by Alice Thompson, Phil Lean, Teddee Blumbrerg, and others, I learned about research’s potential influence on classroom and behavior management.

So, when I went to grad school at Oregon, I was immediately excited to have the opportunity to talk with Hill directly. In fact, I found that Hill and people like him whom I grew to admire really quickly (Hy Hops, Charlie Greenwood, and others—not counting one whom I admired, but I never met, the then-late Joe Cobb) were very accessible.

When I picked up the phone and called the number, a real person answered. He said, “Sure, come on over. We can talk.” Now, to be sure, they dressed up when they made formal presentations, but otherwise, they just hung around in denims, easy shirts, and such. They were just regular folks.

Hill, Charlie, and Hy had a research outpost (what researchers know as an “off-campus” location, which means that the university didn’t have physical campus space to support their funded research, but the university sure-as-hell didn’t want to decline a federally funded grant because it didn’t have space—it would rent the space!.

The rented, physical space for Hill, Charlie, and Hy was about half-way between the U. of Oregon campus and the houses where Pat and I were living. It was, across from a strip mall near the main N-S drag, the Center at Oregon for the Behavioral Education of the Handicapped (there should be a Wikipedia entrry about this project!). I started to hang out over there, joining training sessions about observation and intervention methods. Maybe way lucky?

CORBEH was cranking out good [poop] at an astonishing rate. Here're just a few examples:

• Survival Skills and First Grade Academic Achievement (can we teach kids skills that increase the chances of their success in first grade? See e.g., Hops & Cobb, 1974),

• Contingencies for Learning Academic and Social Skills (can we coach teachers to manage problemsome child behavior by using positive management methods? See, e.g., Hops et al. 1978),

• Group contingencies in social interactions (can we program group interactions so that kids interact kindly rather than unpleasantly? Greenwood et al., 1974)

• Helping socially withdrawn children to learn to initiate and sustain peer interactions (see Greenwood et al., 1977).

Keep in mind that the dates of publications of these projects were 1970s! These topics are still quite current for the coming school year! At the known risk of seeming a bit preachy, researchers who fancy themselves leaders in the topics identified in those bullets would, I think, be well advised to review those early studies and their progeny. Sure, it’s good to know what researchers are studying now, but the foundations matter, too.

Getting Lucky

So, I wound up applying for the doctoral program. Hill was the chair of the admissions committee. He called me by old-style telephone and said, "We can't consider your application unless you have a Miller's Analogies Score...you can take that test by going to see [so-and-so], but we need it by this Friday." A couple of days later (9 April 1974), I took the test and few days later the administrator sent the score to the admissions committee. Hill soon told me that I was "in."

I think there was a "fix:" I had Hill and Barbara Bateman on my side. They knew I was working with Gerry Patterson, taking challenging classes from Sig Engelmann and Wes Becker, palling around with Doug Carnine, hanging at CORBEH, and spouting interest in research.

I got lucky, as some would say. I am sure that I was in the right place at the right time. I wish I had been there a couple of years earlier, because I would really liked to have had the chance to learn from Joe Cobb. But I was fortunate to have the influence of Hill, Hy, Charlie…those people shaped my career in such great ways.

And Gerry, Wes, Zig, and Barb did so much for (to?) me. To go through an intense three-year education with people like these folks constitutes immersion in reason, evidence, and communication. I have not regretted it in the previous 49 years, and I don’t expect to regret it for how many ever years I have left on Hamlet’s mortal coil.

Recommendations

For any graduate students or potential graduate students who read this, I offer a bit of advice. It may seem that I got lucky, and I did…I was in the right place at the right time. But, I was also eager and active. I went for it. I cold-called those scholars. I took advantage of oportunities that they provided. “Lucky” was only part of the equation.

For any parents who are reading this, please understand that famous researchers are great potential collaborators. There are probably some in your own geographic region, and they are interested in helping kids with disabilities. They, themselves, may or may not be great “therapists,” but they probably know people from whom you can get great help.

Find the Hills, Hys, Charlies, et al. They are likely quite willing to help.

Said another way, there are lots of special educators who want the same things (better outcomes for kids). Lets work together.

Sources:

Greenwood, C. R., Hops, H., Delquadri, J., & Guild, J. (1974). Group contingencies for group consequences in classroom management: A further analysis 1. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 7(3), 413-425.

Greenwood, C. R., Walker, H. M., & Hops, H. (1977). Issues in social interaction/withdrawal assessment. Exceptional Children, 43(8), 490-499. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/001440297704300802

Hops, H., & Cobb, J. A. (1974). Initial investigations into academic survival-skill training, direct instruction, and first-grade achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 66(4), 548–553. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0036745

Hops, H., Walker, H. M., Fleischman, D. H., Nagoshi, J. T., Omura, R. T., Skindrud, K., & Taylor, J. (1978). CLASS: A standardized in-class program for acting-out children: II. Field test evaluations. Journal of Educational Psychology, 70(4), 636–644. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.70.4.636