Newsletter

It doesn't take a long talk with Peggy Kruger, newly elected president-elect of RFSA and former University associate vice president for public affairs, to realize that she possesses an unusually sunny, optimistic personality with an unerring ability to draw out the best attributes of everyone she deals with, whether the president of the University or its lowest paid staff member.

Her odyssey to the top levels of UT administration began with private colleges.  She earned her undergraduate degree in French from Tulane University's Sophie Newcomb College in New Orleans, at that time strictly a women's college.  There, she said she acquired a degree of self-reliance and independence that wouldn't have been possible at a co-ed institution. After a stint back in her home state of Kansas for an M.A. in French at the University of Kansas in Lawrence she returned to private education to teach French at Rockhurst University, a Jesuit College that tested her coping skills as she learned to deal with an all-male student body and faculty. From there she went with her husband to Illinois were he pursued a graduate degree in philosophy at the University of Chicago. She landed a position heading the language lab at Loyola University, another Jesuit institution and pondered the irony of "how a nice little Methodist girl from Kansas" ended up in that milieu.

Her ability to not only survive, but thrive, in a difficult situation was further tested during the two years she and her husband spent as Peace Corp volunteers in the rain forest of Cameroon; she to teach maternal and child health and her husband to focus on environmental health. Assigned to Makak, Cameroon, a village of 3,000 without electricity or running water she learned what's important in life and how kind and generous people can be.

Kerosene lamps provided light and a kerosene refrigerator the means to keep food from spoiling. Jerry cans of water were brought from a nearby spring, which they then boiled before using.   Eventually they managed to rig up a shower system using captured rainwater.

Peggy's first kitchen equipment included a two-burner kerosene stove that eventually she was able to upgrade to one using bottled gas.  A visit from her parents brought a camp stove and oven with a temperature gauge.  Peggy said her first culinary achievement was making potato omelets, but by the time they left she could make fudge, chocolate cake, pizza as well as learning how to make local favorites.  They grew popcorn in their garden, and on Sunday visiting day they entertained village friends with popcorn and other delicacies from her kitchen. " I was the only restaurant in town," she joked.

Of that experience, Peggy said she learned to look at a situation, learn how to adapt and take advantage of what she had.  In the end, she said, "I gained ten times more than I was able to give."

Upon completion of that posting, the couple took a leisurely trip back to the States by way of East Africa, India, Thailand and Japan and then began casting about for a graduate school for her husband, who now wanted to earn an advanced degree in psychology.  Although they had their choice of all the "biggies" in the country, her husband applied to UT on a whim because he had lived in Texas before and had family here. When they made their recruitment visit to Austin they were met at the train station by his father's first cousin, Bert Kruger Smith, director of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. 

What probably sealed the deal for choosing UT was a dinner Kruger Smith gave for them attended by Ira Iscoe of the Psychology Department.  As Peggy says, "In an era when women were expected to work in the dime store to support their husbands while in graduate school, Ira spent the first half hour of the evening talking to me. He wanted to know what my interests and goals were and had suggestions for possible job opportunities.  Only then did he talk to my husband."  Louise and Ira Iscoe have been mentors and role models for her since then. 

The Krugers did come to Texas, and as they say, the rest is history.  Peggy, on her own, found an appointment teaching French at Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University), but she soon decided college administration was her forte and she entered UT's College of Education's community college leadership program.  Three years later she emerged with a PhD.

In 1974 she was hired by then UT President, Lorene Rogers, to head the University's first Equal Opportunity Office.  Interestingly, her initial job interview had been with RFSA's new Board member and co-chair of the Investment /Finance Group, Bob Mettlin.  As head of this new agency, Peggy needed all her talent, tact and ability to change the employment culture at UT and bring about good management practices. With the backing of the president's office and the Office of Personnel Services (now Human Resources), while Norman Minter, past president of RFSA, was Director), she began insisting on standardized job descriptions and a creditable justification of all hiring, promoting and terminating decisions. Squaring off on the "old boys" hiring network, she was adamant that all jobs be advertised. This does not mean she could not understand the validity of a department chair's "gut feeling" in making personnel decisions, she just maintained that the reasons behind these feelings should be explored and documented.

Beyond employment decisions, her duties included overseeing grievance procedures, which might range from a disagreement between a faculty and student to a charge of sexual harassment.  To all these cases she brought her trademark even-handedness and ability to see both sides of a situation.

In naming the accomplishments of her UT career, Peggy talked about her role in establishing UT's Child Development Center in response to a grassroots call for quality childcare on campus. At the time she was assistant vice president for administration, and she chaired a committee to study the feasibility of setting up such a center on campus.  The committee's work resulted in the creation of current the Child Development Center located in the Social Work Building, the former University Junior High, and open to the young children of faculty, staff and students.  The UT CDC reported to her for over 10 years.

Next, as interim director of the old News and Information office, and later as associate vice president of public affairs she presided over the transition of News and Information from a strictly news bureau to the more comprehensive Office of Public Affairs.

Peggy's final service to UT was with the Development Office working first for vice president Johnny Ray.  Though she freely admits she had no training in fund raising, in typical Kruger fashion she found a niche for her special abilities, and among other things continued teaching in the undergraduate provost seminars designed to enrich students' experience in their first years at UT.

Among her current activities, she visits Kansas often where she owns family farmland and still has many close relatives. Too, Kruger is working with Tesar International Consulting, using her experience in the education field, and hopes to be working abroad soon on some short-term evaluation projects.  She is also a Certified Coach Practitioner (CCP) for life and executive coaching and is consulting in that area.

She ended the interview for this article with accolades on the importance of public education as the historical training ground in the United States acting not only as the foundation of democracy and an economic engine, but also as a method of instilling the importance of a life of the mind which lasts for decades.