[GEOFF MEARNS]
Hello, I'm Geoff Mearns and I have the good fortune to serve as the president of Ball State University. This month, I begin the sixth season of my podcast. And one of the favorite parts, my favorite parts, of hosting this podcast is having the opportunity to welcome a guest with historic ties to our university. And today that guest is Dr. Tad Perry.
He's a retired educator, higher education administrator, and a former member of the South Dakota House of Representatives. Tad spent 23 years serving Ball State, first as a faculty member and department chair, and then as an administrator. He was instrumental in creating what is now our Bowen Center for Public Affairs, and he formerly served as our university’s liaison with the Indiana General Assembly.
In 1994, Tad left Ball State to become the executive director for the South Dakota Board of Regents, and when he retired in 2009, his 15 years of service made him the longest serving state higher education executive officer in the country. Today, Tad maintains family ties to Indiana, and he continues to remain engaged with Ball State. He is helping our university generate philanthropy to endow our legislative internship program.
In fact, in 2025, we renamed this program the Tad “Doc” Perry and Mike McDaniel Legislative Internship Program. This designation recognizes both Tad's role as an early leader of the program and the impact of Trustee Mike McDaniel. Mike, as you know, is a graduate who also provided valuable leadership to the program. Today, approximately 500 Ball State students have served as interns with the Indiana General Assembly.
So, Tad has joined me in the studio today to talk about his professional journey to Ball State, his role in establishing our university’s presence at the state legislature, and the importance—the ongoing importance—of civics in higher education. So. Tad, welcome. Welcome back to campus. And thank you for joining me today.
[TAD PERRY]
Thank you for the opportunity. Been 55 years since I first set foot on this campus. And it's good to be back.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And it's changed just a little in those 55 years. (TAD: Just a little.) Yeah, so we'll talk about some of those changes. But I kind of want to start at the beginning of your story before we talk about Ball State and your career here, let's first talk about your upbringing. Where did you grow up and tell us a little bit about your family.
[TAD PERRY]
I basically grew up in Fayette, Missouri, which is the home of Central Methodist University. That's only important because that's where my father moved when I was six months old. After he finished his doctoral program, he was a faculty member at Central Methodist for 20 years.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And what did he teach there?
[TAD PERRY]
He taught English, and I avoided it. [GEOFF LAUGHS]
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Did you have siblings? What did your—
[TAD PERRY]
I have an older sister, and I have two younger brothers.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So, politics, as we know, was an important part of your career. Were you interested in politics when you were growing up there in Missouri?
[TAD PERRY]
I got interested in politics, basically in junior high school and high school. I started following politics. I got involved in student government as a young high school kid. But I think it really hit me when I went to Boys State in 1960.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So tell us what Boys State is.
[TAD PERRY]
Boys State—two kids from each school would be sent to Boys State to learn about civics education or civic engagement. So, you ran for office like city council and then for the state legislature and the governor. And so you went through campaigns with this weeklong intensive introduction into politics and the legal structure of the society. And it was just fascinating.
But in 1960, we were at Boys State the week of the Democratic National Convention. Stuart Symington, a U.S. senator from Missouri, wanted to be president, and so did Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy, uh so—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Pretty historic convention.
[TAD PERRY]
Yeah, it really was. So, at Boys State, they made you turn your lights out at 10 o’clock, and you were supposed to not do anything. But my roommate and I had a radio, and we turned it on to listen to the votes for that first round of ballots for who was going to get the Democrat nominee. Be the Democratic nominee. We were hoping that Kennedy would not secure it on ballot one, because we wanted Stuart Symington to come from behind and get it—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So he was your candidate?
[TAD PERRY]
He was my candidate at that stage. But just the whole process captured me and enthused me. And then, of course, Kennedy becomes president. And he was just an absolutely marvelous idol for those of us who were interested in politics and civics at that time. And I became a real believer in Kennedy as a result.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Well, and as you know, historians refer to that period as Camelot, which suggests how he captured the imagination of the country.
[TAD PERRY]
So that drove me then. So, when I got ready to go to college, I was really interested in going to a school that had a Junior in Washington program, an internship.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Meaning as a junior in college.
[TAD PERRY]
A junior in college. And there were two schools in Missouri that had them, and I was busy applying to those two schools.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
What were those two schools?
[TAD PERRY]
Westminster College and Park College. They were both small liberal arts schools like Central. But my dad came in and said, quit wasting your time. You're already enrolled at Central Methodist. Of course, we got a little discount for a faculty kid, so I understood that. But we didn't have an intern program at Central Methodist, so—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So you did enroll?
[TAD PERRY]
I did enroll and I—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Followed your father's guidance.
[TAD PERRY]
And I avoided the English department and majored in political science and had a wonderful four-year education at Central Methodist. Still engaged with them on their board of trustees today. Have been for 20 years.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So how was that? Even if you weren't taking English classes, what was it like to have your father … small campus, right?
[TAD PERRY]
Oh yeah, 1000, 1,100 students during that era.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So how was that? Have your father on the faculty and—
[TAD PERRY]
This is the worst story in the world. [GEOFF: Tell it anyway.] I get to live at home with my folks.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
You say get to live at home or you had to live at home?
[TAD PERRY]
I was given the opportunity to live there or nowhere else. [GEOFF LAUGHS]
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Well, that's a pretty clear choice.
[TAD PERRY]
So, first day I go to campus. I walk the three blocks to the campus with my father. But we didn't hold hands. But I did get my escort for my father to the campus as a college freshman. And so, they gave you your packet of material, and it would … all your classes and your instruction. And they said, by the way, your advisor’s name is up on the upper left corner of the packet. And I look and I said, I think there's a mistake that says Perry up there and I'm Perry. And they said, it's not a mistake. Your father is your advisor. Now, in those days, you got all of your communication about your academic performances through your advisor.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
That was the filter that communicated that feedback, your grades and other things?
[TAD PERRY]
Yeah. And so, I spent the first part of that quarter semester not being as enthusiastic about the academics as I was about joining a fraternity and trying to play basketball and doing other things.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And then did you have a conversation with your advisor about halfway through?
[TAD PERRY]
My advisor one night at dinner said, I received your midterm academic reports and let me share those with you. And he wasn't impressed. So that was that was an experience that I did not wish upon my kids. So, when my kids got ready to go to college, I made sure they did not go to the institution where I was.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
After Central Methodist, did you continue your education?
[TAD PERRY]
I graduated in three and a half years. I wanted to be a high school social studies teacher and maybe do some coaching.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Coaching basketball? You had mentioned basketball.
[TAD PERRY]
Yeah, I would have loved to do it. Have done that. But when you graduate in January, in the mid 60s, there not a lot of jobs available. So, I didn't find any jobs for that second semester. So, I did the next best thing. The University of Missouri was 20 miles down the road from Fayette, where I had grown up. So, I enrolled at the University of Missouri, a political science master's degree program. I didn't really have a strong interest in doing that, but I had nothing else to do. So, I said, well, at least do this. Well, as it turned out, they decided that they would give me money if I would keep coming back. And I kept coming back and I kept coming back, and eventually I earned a PhD.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And so, you were in both your master's and your PhD at the University of Missouri? [TAD: Yes.] Okay. How long did that take you?
[TAD PERRY]
Well, I was there for five years. And when I came to Ball State, I had not finished my dissertation. So, I had one year to get that done. And I had this nice letter from the president who said, “Mr. Perry, it's really nice to have you here, but if you don't finish that by this time next year, it would have been nice having you with us.”
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yes. You'll be looking for another opportunity.
[TAD PERRY]
So I got it finished.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Did you teach any courses while you were a graduate student?
[TAD PERRY]
I was a graduate student assistant in American government. And then my last two years, after I finished my exams, they offered me a chance to teach a state government course, which was a free-standing course that they would have one graduate student teach each year. And this is one of those courses where you were responsible for the whole course. So, I got my first foot into teaching, and I'm sure it was just God awful.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Were you excited? Intimidated?
[TAD PERRY]
I was intimidated; I was scared to death. I worked full time preparing for that course just because I didn't want to be a fool, but it gave me a good, solid foundation for what was to come thereafter.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And making that transition from a student to a professor gives you a little bit more respect when you for what it was like when you were a student.
[TAD PERRY]
Absolutely.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So, you mentioned coming to Ball State, but I understand you have an interesting, compelling story as to how you were recruited to come to Ball State. And it happened, as you mentioned a moment ago, pretty early in your career. Tell us that story.
[TAD PERRY]
Well, I was I was finishing my experience at the University of Missouri, and I was looking for a college job. And I get this call from the department chairman who says there's a guy from Ball State, he's in Columbia this week, and he called us to say he needs somebody to teach state government.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Did you—had you heard of Ball State at that point?
[TAD PERRY]
I'd never heard of Ball State. I immediately went to the encyclopedia and started researching what Ball State was and where it was.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
For our young listeners, that encyclopedia was what we used to use before we had Google. But go ahead.
[TAD PERRY]
That's right. I wish I'd had Google. Yeah. So, I did some homework and I call Roy Grunewald was the department chair. And he said, well, come over, I'm at this hotel in Columbia and come over and we’ll visit for a few minutes.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So he was in Missouri?
[TAD PERRY]
He was in Missouri at a cattle convention.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Okay.
[TAD PERRY]
He raised Hereford cattle.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
As a sidelight?
[TAD PERRY]
He was a farmer, lived north of town in Hartford City, I think. Anyway, Roy was in the cattle business on the side, and so he, I went over and visited with him, and we had a wonderful conversation. And I left the room and got in the car with my wife and son—my then wife. I'm on a second marriage, but my then wife's father also raised Hereford cattle.
So, I introduced Roy to my wife, and he starts a conversation about cattle with her. And he told me thereafter, after I was here, that the only reason he hired me was because of the cattle conversation. He knew that at least I had some good sense.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. You never know what connection you will make with a potential—
[TAD PERRY]
But if it hadn't been for Hereford cattle, I probably wouldn't be at Ball State.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. So, this was, as I understand, this was 1970, ‘71 somewhere in that?
[TAD PERRY]
This was 1971—spring of 1971.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So what—so, he offers you the position. What prompted you to come to Ball State and what did you come to appreciate about Ball State after you arrived here?
[TAD PERRY]
Well, at the time that he made, that he called and made the offer or had me come out for an interview and then made the offer, I had a job offer elsewhere, but the job offer I had was in a very small department where you would teach the whole range of political science. Well, at Ball State you could specialize. And I got to specialize in state and local government and public administration and not have to worry about international relations courses and all that …and that was what made me say yes when he made the offer.
What I began to appreciate at Ball State is that we cared about every student. We didn't just care about those who were the honor students, which is kind of the experience I witnessed at the University of Missouri from faculty. But the faculty at Ball State, they cared about individual students. And I saw that with the senior members of the political science department, Herbert Hamilton and Roy Grunewald and those guys who were had been here forever.
And they taught me that we cared about each student, and we were going to take care of each student. Our job was to take them from where they were and bring them up, and that was always just a real driver. And it was kind of the experience that I had observed when my father was a faculty member, and how he treated students at Central Methodist.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So, it's that culture that most people experience on a small liberal arts campus, but scaled up to a large, comprehensive public research.
[TAD PERRY]
Exactly right. And it really was what drove me. Then as I got into it and got into working with the students more individually as interns, it was just what made me go.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And made you stay.
[TAD PERRY]
And made me stay. In fact, if they would have paid me as much as they paid me to go to the Ad Building, I would still be in the classroom.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah, well, we'll get on to that, to your promotion. Because not long after you were hired, Roy retired and you became the chair of the political science department. You were pretty young at that time, right?
[TAD PERRY]
How many untenured assistant professors in their third year are you going to make a department chair? It should never have happened.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So why did it happen?
[TAD PERRY]
Well, we had a department that was made up of a whole bunch of fresh hires in a 3- or 4-year period. The year I came in ‘71, there were four of us, brand new faculty members. There had been two the year before, two the year before that. And then one the year after. So more than half the department basically was made up of these young shooters. And the senior members of the department wanted nothing to do with it. Or maybe, maybe they didn't want anything to do with us. [laughs] And so as it came down to who were who was among the young shooters who were crazy enough to say yes, and I was—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Why did you say yes? Because you probably understood what it might entail. So why did you say yes?
[TAD PERRY]
Because my long-term interest was to become an administrator. [ GEOFF: Okay.] And so, I said, well, here's an opportunity.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So even at a relatively young age, as a new professor, you saw the career trajectory of going into administration.
[TAD PERRY]
I thought my career would be, if I could become a department chairman and then maybe a dean, I would have a wonderful career.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Okay. So, around this time, you also, as I understand it, played a role in establishing the legislative internship program, which I mentioned in the introduction. And I'm going to ask you a little bit about that in just a second. But first, I want you to share with us how you went from being a department chair to actually becoming involved in state politics.
[TAD PERRY]
Well, it does go back to the internship program, because in my first year here, 71-72, was the year that Phil Gutman, the president pro tem of the [Indiana] Senate, called Roy Grunewald and said Ball State's on a quarter system, and that fits with our legislative calendar. We have a short session in odd years, and then we have the long session.
And so we can have a short session in the winter quarter. And then during the long session, we'll do the winter-spring quarters. So, we can handle that with Ball State. So, we want to take all of the interns in the Senate from Ball State. Are you guys interested? And Roy said absolutely.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Sign us.
[TAD PERRY]
Sign us up. And so, Roger Hollands had been here a year or two before me. And he said, Roger will be the point person in this year one, but you're going to be his sidekick and you're going to learn how to do it, because after this year you take it and run with it. So, in that very first year, I got involved. Well, when you work with a student in the legislative process, you begin to learn state politics. You learn the legislators, you learn the personalities. And that kind of was the introductory phase. So, I knew these people. And then it was about ‘79. My department chairmanship ran for four years. And then they had a term limit. You had to sit out for a while and then you could come back. So, they term limited to me. And I went back and I kind of got bored a little bit. And Bob Orr was the lieutenant governor in the Bowen administration, and he offered me a chance to come do a quasi-sabbatical, and head up the Research and Economic Development planning department in the Department of Commerce. And he wanted somebody with a PhD to do this while Orr was running for governor. So, he really kind of wanted somebody who understood it and who understood politics enough to know that don't do something stupid. And so that was my role. And so, for about a year and a half, almost, I did that for him. And then, you know, you come back to the university, and you get involved with Tom Kinghorn and Bob Bell telling me that they didn't have anybody who knew what a legislator looked like, much less knew the governor.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And did you, if I understand some of your background, in 1981, Bob Orr becomes the governor. And is that when you left the classroom to become more fully engaged, kind of full time as some kind of an administrator in the General Assembly?
[TAD PERRY]
No, I didn't do anything in the General Assembly. When he won the governorship in November of ‘80, I called him the next day and said, this is probably the only call you're going to get from somebody who does not want a job in the administration. I had been reelected department chair. I'm going back and assume my role as department chair, and I was on my way to do that. And Tom Kinghorn and Bob Bell intercepted me and said, come over to the Ad Building because we need somebody to go down and talk to the legislature and you at least know who they are.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Okay, so that's how you became an administrator at the university, serving as a liaison to the General Assembly.
[TAD PERRY]
I agreed to do it for one year.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And how did that?
[TAD PERRY]
13 years later.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
That's why you were a political science. Not a mathematician.
[TAD PERRY]
Well, I learned something. In doing that job, I learned how complex the university was and how little I really knew about it. But I was learning. And so, I got to learn about every corner of the university doing that job. And it became kind of a challenge and a real interest.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So, in that period of time, you also played a role in creating what was then called the Bowen Institution on Political Participation, named after Governor Bowen. How did that program come about and what was its purpose?
[TAD PERRY]
John Fisher, who was CEO of Ball Corp, was a big Otis Bowen fan. So, he called me and he said, I have $50,000 I want to provide to do something to honor Governor Bowen. Can you come up with an idea of how we might do something? So, Ray Scheele, who was a colleague in the department, and you have to know this about Ray Scheele. Ray Scheele was a Democrat.
I was a Republican. I worked for Bob Orr, the Republican. Ray Scheele was working for the Democrat opponent. Ray and I are very, very close friends. We shared an apartment in Indianapolis, so when we didn't want to drive home, we could do that. But we were working on two sides of the aisle. So, I called Ray and said, Go have breakfast with me at the Sunshine Cafe.
I see is still there. [GEOFF: Right.] And we had breakfast one morning about 6 o’clock, and we sat down there with napkins and we sketched out the Bowen Institute on Political Participation, called Fisher back, told him what we had in mind. He said, absolutely perfect because Bowen, this was about training students how to be engaged in public affairs. But we did it with students and what I call the lay citizens.We had half the group were to be lay citizens, half the group were to be students. And we would do this intense, long weekend institute where they would be engaged in different forms of activities, state government.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. So, I want to pause and ask you to reflect on something you said a moment ago. You and Ray were of different political parties, and yet you got along on a common mission. For those of us who are like me, who are not directly involved in government, but we sense that that period and culture of collaboration, even though you might have a different political party, a different ideological agenda, is it your sense that we don't have that any longer? And if not, how do we get that back where the different political parties can cooperate to find solutions to our country's problems?
[TAD PERRY]
I wish I knew the answer to the question, frankly, because if I did, I would be doing it. But you're absolutely right. We don't have what, what I experienced in working with legislators, even in the ‘70s and in the ‘80s, and even when I went to South Dakota and my earlier work with legislators. But then it began to change, and it became very hardcore partisan.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Really hyper partisan.
[TAD PERRY]
Hyper partisan. And I have a story about that. If you … and this is going to jump forward a bit, I ended up in the legislature.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
This is in South Dakota.
[TAD PERRY]
South Dakota, after I retired. This is 2010 was the year I got elected. So, I'm in the legislature and I'm still a very bipartisan kind of personality.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
More practical than partisan.
[TAD PERRY]
And it just didn't occur to me that you didn't do that. Well, the very first day I went to the legislature, I ran into the Democrat majority leader, or minority leader, and he invited me into his office. This is a guy I've been working with for 15 years, when he was a legislator, and I was lobbying for higher ed.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And in a minute, we'll explain why you would have met him. But please …
[TAD PERRY]
Anyway, so I go in. I spend time in his office. I'm there for maybe 45 minutes. We have a great conversation. We were looking for, you know, what can we work on jointly? I get called into the Republican majority leader’s office in next morning, and I am instructed that if I want to get along in the Republican caucus, not to be seen going into the minority leader's office and spending 30, 40 minutes. I went home that day kind of in shock. I mean, I knew things were people were hardcore partisan. I just didn't know that they were that petty.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
It must have been discouraging.
[TAD PERRY]
It was very discouraging. And my wife let me vent. And then we had a glass of wine and I got over it.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. We'll come back as I said, we'll get back there. So, I mentioned in my introduction your role in creating and building that legislative internship program and how the program was renamed in honor of you and Mike McDaniel. So, I've got kind of a two-part question. Tell us a little bit about your relationship to Mike. Loyal listeners have heard a podcast with Mike McDaniel, who now serves on our Board of Trustees.
So, tell us about your relationship with Mike. And then tell me and tell your—tell the listeners—what was your reaction when you learned that this program would be renamed in recognition of your contributions to the program?
[TAD PERRY]
Well, I mean, let me start with Mike. Mike was in one of my first classes I taught in that 1971-72 academic year.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So he was a student of yours?
[TAD PERRY]
He was a student of mine.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
When you were a relatively new faculty member?
[TAD PERRY]
I was a brand-new faculty member, probably didn't know a lot of what I was doing, but he tolerated it. But I identified him as somebody who, because I was working with Roger Hollands, and I was starting to look for the next generation of interns. So, I was trying to identify them. One of the things I did when I would teach, I would start building a list of students who I think, I thought, were good candidates for the intern program, and then I would start working them individually, recruiting them.
It's the only way you do it. You don't wait for them to come to you. You got to go to them and help them understand the opportunities they have. So, I was doing that and I was I was working Mike and Mike was an undergraduate. He started as a junior and went through, and I couldn't get him to do it as an undergraduate. Well, Mike enrolls in the graduate program, the MPA program, and then I get him to be an intern. And that changed his trajectory, because he got involved with John Mutz, who he then became his campaign manager and his chief of staff when John Mutz was lieutenant governor.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And that was the launch—
[TAD PERRY]
And that launched him—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
What did you see in him that caused you to want to cultivate him, recruit him?
[TAD PERRY]
Well, number one, he he's got a very sharp mind. I mean, he cuts through, he gets down to—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
He’s got a sharp wit, too.
[TAD PERRY]
And a very sharp wit. But he’s got that personality that just says I can get along in this environment. And he does, and he has. And he was willing to do the work. He’s a hard worker.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Attention to detail, disciplined.
[TAD PERRY]
Very. Very detailed, very disciplined. So, you get to working with him. And then, when he finishes the intern program, he stays working and eventually, about a year later, becomes the staff person responsible for overseeing the interns for the Senate. Well, I'm still the faculty member over here working the academic piece. So, he and I worked in tandem for almost a decade, while we had the majority of the interns during the ‘70s. And so, he and I just developed that great relationship of how to work together. And it just kept going.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So how about the second part of the question, how you felt when the program was named in honor of you and Mike?
[TAD PERRY]
Well, it's kind of a humbling thing. I mean, it's I—I had an opportunity at Ball State to work with some really good students and to be of assistance to them when they were trying to map out their life and career. And, you know, it wasn't just …. my role as a faculty member was never just a classroom role. I got a holistic kind of approach, I wanted to work with these kids as they tried to see who they were and where they would be going and be of whatever assistance I could. So, I mean, that's a special opportunity you get. And, you know, to be recognized for that, it’s probably not fair because I got so much from those kids that was rewarding, that the naming is just icing on the cake. It was really a nice, nice thought. But to me, it was that opportunity I had to work with them.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. So, from my perspective, it's very well deserved. So, I want to pivot and maybe ask a little more about the importance of civic education, which I mentioned in the introduction. Why do you think this program—because we talked about how do we how do we resolve this hyper partisan culture that we live in now—I suspect that you think civics education maybe can play a role in bridging gaps. So, tell us about civic education, how important it might be, the value it has to our University, and maybe more importantly, how important it might be to the state of Indiana and to the United States.
[TAD PERRY]
Well, I, I'm just absolutely convinced that you cannot live in a democratic society and not be engaged. And so, part of what I always tried to do when I was teaching is to encourage students to understand they have a responsibility to be engaged, and they have a responsibility to try to solve problems and to engage in the whole process.
And if they don't, all they're doing is allowing others to make decisions for them. And when you do that, you've got to be able and willing to work with whoever's there. They're not all going to have your view, nor should they. But you need to understand their points of view. You need to be able to articulate your own point of view, but you need to do it in a way that is not divisive, in a way that is productive and moving you forward.
That's been my approach, I suppose, or philosophical structure. And so, I think that's what we were trying to do when we set up the Bowen Institute for Practical Participation. We took people from all over all different camps, and we wanted them to engage. We wanted to talk to— if you don't engage and talk and communicate with somebody, you can't get anywhere.
And so, the problem I have with contemporary politics is we have gone to the corners, and we only talk to those people in our corner. And I'm guilty of that sometimes. I mean— there are conversations I get into with people and say, I don't want to have this conversation. I don't like where you going with it, and I'm not going to pursue it. But I have to stop myself and say, now, you're not going to get anywhere, we're not going to fix anything, we're not going to get better by doing that. You've got to have those hard conversations. But you can do it in a way that is not uncomfortable. You just lay it out and say, let's talk about it. Tell me why, how you come to that. And let me tell you why I think that may not be—there may be another approach. But people are not willing to engage with the alternate views. And that's too bad.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Right. Little more listening and searching for common ground as opposed to, yeah, to divisive issues. So, let's talk for just a few minutes about your career after you left Ball State and left Indiana politics. What opportunity—you mentioned South Dakota—what opportunity prompted you and your wife and your family to move to South Dakota?
[TAD PERRY]
That's a really good question. The long and short of it is, I was—I'd been in the administration for 13 years, and I thought I knew enough to run the place.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So, you wanted to be a college or university president?
[TAD PERRY]
I thought I wanted to be a president. And of course, I'd worked for Bob Bell and John Worthen, and both great presidents. And Worthen was the president of the time. And he, of course, was not ready to get out of the way. [GEOFF: Yeah. He had 16 great years.] I never told him that.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Oh, he's probably listening—probably heard it now.
[TAD PERRY]
So, I knew that to satisfy that interest I was going to have to seek some other … So, I went out and I was seeking some opportunities elsewhere, hopefully a presidency. It didn't come, but one of the consultants that I had started working with, he says “Your resume and your background would be perfect for a SHEO job—state higher education executive officers’ job.”
And he says, “Have you thought about it?” Well, I said, no. I had never thought about it, but I'd also never thought about being the lobbyist for Ball State University, either. And I said, “I have spent the last 13 years throwing rocks at the Commissioner for Higher Education in Indiana, and I don't know that I want to go be him.”
[GEOFF MEARNS]
You enjoy throwing them, not getting hit by them!
[TAD PERRY]
Yeah, well, my job was to throw them. But he convinced me that maybe I ought to just take a look. And he said, they're not all like Indiana.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
They're different structures.
[TAD PERRY]
And governing boards. And I didn't really appreciate that at that moment. I learned it real fast. And my wife was working for IBM, and she had a job that was multi-state and she was working remotely, one of the first people to work remotely back in the early ‘90s. And she could stay, she could keep her job if she stayed within a 6 or 8 state region. Well, so I applied for a couple of jobs in that region, and I had one interview and I had another one scheduled, and South Dakota called me and said, come talk to us. And I did, and they didn't waste time. They immediately gave me a chance to lead and it was a governing board, not a commission.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So, you were like the chancellor of a governing board of several state institutions.
[TAD PERRY]
I had six public universities and two special schools that the Board of Regents were responsible for, and my job was to make sure they did what the—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And so, there was the president on each of those campus.
[TAD PERRY]
I had a president on each campus. And they reported to the board through me. And it was just a great opportunity.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And you did that work for 15 years?
[TAD PERRY]
Yes.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. You were able—those are challenging jobs. To stay there for 15 years is a testament to your creativity and persistence.
[TAD PERRY]
When the guy who was chair of the board hired me, he says, you got to commit to being here for at least three years. But by five, if you do what we want you to do, you'll probably made everybody so mad that you might want to think about— So, I had this 3-to-5-year mindset, but I ended up being there for 15. And I probably did upset enough people…but that was part of the job.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Instead of 3 to 5, it was three times five got to. So, after you retired you were prompted to actually run for political office. Tell us about that.
[TAD PERRY]
I'd spent my whole life studying legislatures. I mean, I wrote my dissertation on the Missouri legislature. I taught and worked with the interns in Indiana, and I had spent 15 years lobbying the legislature in South Dakota. My life had been built around it. And in South Dakota, we had a situation where you have a legislative district that has two House members and one senator, and we have term limits. And it just so happens that the two House members were term limited in 2010. I retired in ‘09, and a year later there were open seats in the legislature. And I said, well, why not? Let’s go see what it's like. So, I ran and was able to get elected and served then a term in the House of Representatives. Thought I wanted to jump over to the Senate, where the senator had been term limited, but I found out that that was a little harder. I lost a primary election by 35 votes. And this is a case of where I got caught in where the hardcore partisans had decided to do a scorecard of who the most Republican members of the House of Representatives in South Dakota were during my term. And there were 70 House members, 51 Republicans. And so, they did the scorecard, who was a—and I was tied with two Democrats for last place, which meant there were 17 Democrats that were better Republicans than I was.
And so, I then had a primary running for the Senate, and the hardcore partisans won out. But that's you know, that was okay. I now have time to go places and do things and enjoy life.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And that is a lesson in current politics. [TAD: Yes.] So, I want—I've got a couple of questions for you. One is a question I'll ask you in just a moment. It's a question I ask all of my guests. But before I get there, why do you think it is still important for Ball State University to invest in the success of our legislative internship program? Why is that still relevant and important?
[TAD PERRY]
I used to take Ball State students, when I was in the administration, as well as when I was in the faculty, so I always had at least two interns working with me when I was doing the lobbying, legislative liaison work. I would tell these students, you are the face of Ball State University. Legislators won't know anybody except you, for the most part. So how we position Ball State and how we convince people that we're doing a good job at Ball State, will depend upon how they see these students. So, I think keeping those students, preparing those students for that experience, and making sure that they can execute is critical to the future of Ball State. And I think it's been a solid foundation for where Ball State is today. You got the Mike McDaniels and the Julie Griffiths and the Dollyne Shermans and the Rick Halls. These kids who you have to work with who were all interns, but they were the face and they understand that.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. And what you've shared is, is, you know, there are a lot of perceptions and misperceptions about higher education generally. And some of those misperceptions are held by elected officials in the state. And so, to your point, what I always say when they share that, I said, well, don't listen to me. Come to campus and meet our students. [TAD: Yeah.] Because they will dispel on both sides of the political aisle what those common misperceptions are.
[TAD PERRY]
Absolutely right. People didn't believe it coming from me. But if they saw the student and they had a conversation with a student, it meant a whole lot more.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So, I want to wrap up this conversation with a question that I ask all of my guests, as somebody who taught here, was an administrator, been engaged in Ball State, you know, about the importance of Beneficence on this very warm afternoon. We walked by Beneficence over here today. Beneficence, as you know, means doing good for other people through your service and through your philanthropy. You are the embodiment of beneficence. Tell us what beneficence means to you, Tad.
[TAD PERRY]
Opportunity. To me, it's total opportunity. I had the opportunity to work with great students at Ball State, and my goal was to take good students and not to screw them up. And for the most part, I think I was successful in doing that. But I gave them opportunities to build their lives and they’re all over the state. You see them, they’re lawyers or judges, they were legislators. They worked in the statehouse. They worked for governors. They had opportunities to shape their lives. And because they had that opportunity of being an intern. Beneficence means that they need to give that opportunity to future students at Ball State. And that's the goal that we're after today, trying to raise that endowment for the state legislative program.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Well, thank you for the work that you continue to do on behalf of the University, on behalf of our students. And thank you for joining me today. I enjoyed this conversation.
[TAD PERRY]
It's been a delight and thank you for inviting me to do it.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Thank you, Tad.