Speaker 1: One of the most overused phrases I found is renaissance man.
Speaker 1: But it's not overused or inappropriate for one person I
Speaker 1: met with recently, Walter Massey. Walter Massey has been the
Speaker 1: leader of Morehouse College, the University of California, University of Chicago,
Speaker 1: the Art Institute, the National Science Foundation, are Gone Labs,
Speaker 1: and now he's leading the effort to get the giant
Speaker 1: Magellan telescope funded by the US government and by private institutions.
Speaker 1: I sat down with him recently at the University of
Speaker 1: Chicago to talk about what he's most proud of having
Speaker 1: achieved in this incredible life he's had. Dr Massey, you
Speaker 1: have been, I would say, a renaissance man. You've been
Speaker 1: involved in education, the arts, business, science. Of all the
Speaker 1: things you've done in your incredible career, what is it
Speaker 1: that you're most proud of? Well, I'm actually I'm proud
Speaker 1: of all of those things. I think the position that
Speaker 1: has given him more satisfaction going back to more House College,
Speaker 1: which is my alma made as president. I went back
Speaker 1: in nineteen and my wife, Sherln and I, when we
Speaker 1: talk about the various things we've done, we agreed that
Speaker 1: that was a lot of fun, but as I said,
Speaker 1: satisfying a number of ways to go back to your
Speaker 1: mo mata and to preside over their graduation. A little
Speaker 1: about five thousand African American man, Let's talk about your
Speaker 1: background for a moment um. You grew up in Mississippi
Speaker 1: when it was very segregated. What was it like growing
Speaker 1: up in Mississippi and that my nineteen forties and fifties.
Speaker 1: My mother was a school teacher, him elementary school principal
Speaker 1: of an odd who's a school teacher. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what I wanted to be, but I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be a school teacher. I thought I might want to
Speaker 1: be an engineer. I have no idea. I don't think
Speaker 1: I just heard the word engineer. I knew I would
Speaker 1: go probably go to college because even in Mississippi in
Speaker 1: those days, um my family went off to college mostly
Speaker 1: in Mississippi and Mississippi. I didn't know I would wind
Speaker 1: up in more House, and that was serendipity. A lot
Speaker 1: of my life has been. It's one of the scholarship
Speaker 1: that allowed me to go from the tenth grade to
Speaker 1: more House, and that would have changed my life. But
Speaker 1: you grew up in an all segregated area. I assume
Speaker 1: that you were not going to launches and dinners with
Speaker 1: whites at that time. No, No, The only lunches and
Speaker 1: dinners became close to was working in the kitchen. My
Speaker 1: grandmother was word as a domestic, and even my mother,
Speaker 1: who worked as an elementary school elementary school teacher and
Speaker 1: principal in the summers, sometimes worked as a domestic. We
Speaker 1: were totally segregated, segregated sounds to a mile. It was apartheid,
Speaker 1: like did you worry it for your safety and life?
Speaker 1: At times? Not constantly. You one had to be careful,
Speaker 1: and you would. There were things you knew you were
Speaker 1: not to do from a very young age. White women
Speaker 1: were very dangerous like man also, but in particular things
Speaker 1: white girls and white women you would There were places
Speaker 1: you didn't go. Um So there were modes of behavior
Speaker 1: which you expect that you learned to adapt to. But
Speaker 1: I didn't wake up every more and think thinking I
Speaker 1: would be lynched. We lived in a community that was
Speaker 1: a fairly warm community, had a big family, cousins all
Speaker 1: lived all around me, and I would say, in spite
Speaker 1: of the harsh segregation around us, within our bubble, you
Speaker 1: might say, as much as you would keep it. I
Speaker 1: had a good childhood. You got a scholarship to go
Speaker 1: to more Morehouse when it was you would only completed
Speaker 1: the tenth grade. So what happened to the eleventh and
Speaker 1: twelfth grade? Did? You didn't need that? You went to
Speaker 1: Morehouse once you're kind of young to get to college.
Speaker 1: I was sixteen and I was part of a program,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't the only one that was about it
Speaker 1: has been going on for three years, and I was
Speaker 1: in the third you have this experiment and uh, that
Speaker 1: was about fifteen of us in my group, and there
Speaker 1: had been some before. So the college had sort of
Speaker 1: adjusted to these young kids coming in who didn't have couses.
Speaker 1: So we had good counselors, had very good teachers, and
Speaker 1: evidently we were smart. I didn't know it because, uh,
Speaker 1: we were able to not just survive, but we were
Speaker 1: were I would say we were some of the most
Speaker 1: accomplished students in the college. Okay, so you go to
Speaker 1: more House, uh, and you decide you want to major
Speaker 1: in physics. So it was had a very popular major
Speaker 1: at more House at the time. I was the only
Speaker 1: physics major for my intil four years. In my class
Speaker 1: that was one before me, if one before here? And
Speaker 1: what did you tell your parents you were gonna be
Speaker 1: a physics major? What did they say? My parents were
Speaker 1: very good. Uh. My mother, I think would have wanted
Speaker 1: me to be the typical mother to be a doc. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I got a PhD was something, But they were
Speaker 1: comfortable with whatever I showed. I came to physics through mathematics.
Speaker 1: I was not a tinker. I was not a person
Speaker 1: who did experiments, and in fact that was not that
Speaker 1: attracted to laboratory science. But I like mathematics and I
Speaker 1: was pretty good at it, and I took my and
Speaker 1: I took my first physics schools. I saw that he
Speaker 1: was a way mathematics could be used trying to understand
Speaker 1: the world around. So you majored in physics, You graduated
Speaker 1: from Warehouse, and then you decided to get a PhD
Speaker 1: in physics at Washing University in St. Louis. Why did
Speaker 1: you pick Washington University? A very good school? But how
Speaker 1: did you pick that school? My physics teacher at more Houses,
Speaker 1: his name was Hans Sabina's hop about Christians and it
Speaker 1: was Danish white. Uh. Don a month with PhD from Harbord,
Speaker 1: and he became my mentor and grew into a friend.
Speaker 1: But as I said, I was the only and the
Speaker 1: advanced physics class at that more House. I was the
Speaker 1: only one in the class, so it was like the
Speaker 1: Oxford tutorial system, just Chris and myself. And Chris recommended
Speaker 1: that I go to why she this is nineteen sixty now,
Speaker 1: and because I worked at more House one year and
Speaker 1: it wasn't clear that that was every place was going
Speaker 1: to be welcoming or nurturing and supportive of a young
Speaker 1: black person wanted to be a physicist. And Chris thought,
Speaker 1: what you had that environment and it turned out that
Speaker 1: it did when you got your PhD? Or what did
Speaker 1: you decide to do? I came to ARGON here in
Speaker 1: Chicago as a post doctor, and Argon was run by
Speaker 1: the University of Chicago, so I was also associated with
Speaker 1: the University of Chicago then, and my first job was
Speaker 1: working with the group at ARGON National Laboratory. She worked
Speaker 1: in Oregon. Adventure you got a teaching position at the
Speaker 1: University of Illinois, and Urvanah did and then you did
Speaker 1: that for while you're teaching physics. I went to Albanna
Speaker 1: for two reasons. I loved Argon. I love my research,
Speaker 1: but that's what I was doing a little right here
Speaker 1: in Hyde Park, about oh four blocks from here. Um
Speaker 1: that celabrity. We could see it from where we it seated.
Speaker 1: Nineteen sixty eight, Mine Luther King Jr. Was assassinated, and
Speaker 1: from where we are now you could see the city
Speaker 1: of burning, and I could see it from my apartment.
Speaker 1: And it really became clear to me that I say,
Speaker 1: I had this feeling that I was just not contributing
Speaker 1: to the civil rights movement to the degree that I
Speaker 1: felt that I ought to. I was going to Argon
Speaker 1: doing my research. Coming home, I to the kids in
Speaker 1: the command of the community. But I wanted to be
Speaker 1: more engaged, and I thought if I went to a
Speaker 1: college campus where there were students, I would be more
Speaker 1: engaged in activities. I went to Albanna for that reason,
Speaker 1: and Urbana turned out to be the very best place
Speaker 1: in the world for the kind of physics I did.
Speaker 1: You did that for a while, and then you got
Speaker 1: recruited to go to Brown University. I did, and you
Speaker 1: became the dean of studentship Brown, then of the college.
Speaker 1: In the college and um were there a lot of
Speaker 1: African American professors and a Brown Actually Uh, at that
Speaker 1: point there were quite a few. And interestingly asked that
Speaker 1: because I was just reminiscent with some of my old
Speaker 1: friends about what we call a golden age at Brown. Brown.
Speaker 1: And then when I went to the nineteen six to
Speaker 1: nine and seven and we had Professor May in physics, engineering, chemistry,
Speaker 1: political science, history three in English, the general council was black.
Speaker 1: The associate had a him of it. So we had
Speaker 1: a wonderful black community. It didn't grow at linearly, didn't
Speaker 1: even last but a while. But yes, the period I
Speaker 1: was there in the early seventh was front period Brown
Speaker 1: for a number of years. And then you got recruited
Speaker 1: to be the head of ARGON. I did. So what
Speaker 1: does Argon actually do? Argon? Uh? It's called a general
Speaker 1: science National Laboratory is one of the laboratories that the
Speaker 1: Department of Energy owns, but they operated by contractors. University
Speaker 1: operates our gone so forth. Much of this history it
Speaker 1: was involved in nuclear reactors. Now it does basic science,
Speaker 1: a lot of materials science, UH, and low temperature science.
Speaker 1: That's why I was there in the sixties. It also
Speaker 1: has a very large facility called the Advanced Photon Source,
Speaker 1: which is like a giant high energy X ray machine
Speaker 1: that can you know, penetrate through materials and examine them.
Speaker 1: It's also has some of the world's fastest computers. It
Speaker 1: has a big program and energy storage advanced research on batteries.
Speaker 1: So it's a broad based um energy research. The laboratory
Speaker 1: right now, So you're running argn um. Is that a
Speaker 1: place where that was filled with a lot of black
Speaker 1: physicists and mathematicians or it was fairly white? Fairly is not?
Speaker 1: Fairly is an under statement? Mostly most overwhelming? But what all? Right?
Speaker 1: So you're doing that for a number of years, and
Speaker 1: then you get a chance to be the head of
Speaker 1: the National Science Foundation. All of a sudden, you're handing
Speaker 1: out money on behalf of the federal government, the National
Speaker 1: Science Foundation. You find you are more popular than you believe.
Speaker 1: It's always best to be on the side of being
Speaker 1: asked for about it to ask for If you're doing
Speaker 1: that for a few years and then you get a
Speaker 1: chance to be the provost of the University of California system,
Speaker 1: is that right? So why did you take that position?
Speaker 1: It's a great job, and you'd want to be a
Speaker 1: head of a major university. I did by that time
Speaker 1: do the transition from doing too administering science that are gone.
Speaker 1: And then as Uh, I began to see that I
Speaker 1: really had a knack for um said, let's say running
Speaker 1: the organizations, and that people people like working for me,
Speaker 1: and I'd like working with people. And I saw that
Speaker 1: I could get things done over areas that I cared
Speaker 1: about science, education, science or underrepresented groups, these kinds of
Speaker 1: things that I couldn't do as an individual scientist. All right,
Speaker 1: so you took the position. You're the provost, the number
Speaker 1: two position in all of the University of California system,
Speaker 1: maybe the leading public education system in the United States
Speaker 1: and higher education, and so you have a chance to
Speaker 1: be the chance or the overall head of the University
Speaker 1: California system if you'd stayed there for another year or
Speaker 1: two and then all of a sudden, your alma mater
Speaker 1: comes calling more House and they say, come back and
Speaker 1: be the president of this small college in Atlanta, not
Speaker 1: the head of the University California system. Why didn't you say, look,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be the head of the University California system.
Speaker 1: It's a better job than being they had a more House.
Speaker 1: Why did you not do that? I did say that.
Speaker 1: I said that for several months from the albit to
Speaker 1: my alumni friends and trustees. I said, no, you're crazy
Speaker 1: that I've been hill. My whole career has been in
Speaker 1: big science, big institutions. I mean, that's that's what I know.
Speaker 1: But um, I thought about it. It really was a
Speaker 1: family decision. One day, Surely surprised me by flying in
Speaker 1: my two sons for data and I came home for working.
Speaker 1: There they were, and we talked a lot about it
Speaker 1: and reached a decision that I could probably do more
Speaker 1: in areas that I cared about, some of which I
Speaker 1: just mentioned at more House. One. Secondly, that I really
Speaker 1: owed priceefully everything that I had achieved to my beginnings
Speaker 1: at more House, and that I ought to do this.
Speaker 1: Our youngest son, the one who lives in Amsterdam, Eric said,
Speaker 1: you know, being head of the University of California be great, Dad,
Speaker 1: but you could get a lot more accomplished than he
Speaker 1: had more House. How many years were you the president
Speaker 1: of more Houses? That twelve years? Twelve years. Okay, so
Speaker 1: while you're at more House, you got an opportunity to
Speaker 1: go on the board of the Bank of America. No,
Speaker 1: I did that in California, because then they went on
Speaker 1: the board of the old bank. The old wore we
Speaker 1: emerged and we were located in San Francisco. And then
Speaker 1: at one point they said, you should be the chairman
Speaker 1: of the board of Bank of America. Is that right?
Speaker 1: That's right? Wasn't that simple? But that's right? And did
Speaker 1: you want to be chairman of the board of Bank
Speaker 1: of America. I had no time to think about it.
Speaker 1: It came about so quickly. Came as a result of
Speaker 1: the shareholders meeting in April two thousand nine. After the
Speaker 1: shareholders had put on the proxy the agenda a proposition
Speaker 1: to separate the chair from the CEO, as you know,
Speaker 1: and most cooperation. That's a combined position. And the shareholder vote,
Speaker 1: uh got the most. It's got the majorge of the votes. Now,
Speaker 1: the board didn't have to accept that shareholder vote, so
Speaker 1: recommendations and every good, but the board did. And just
Speaker 1: after the board meeting, the then chairman Ken Lewis said,
Speaker 1: the board executive committed I was gonna recommended to the
Speaker 1: board that I'd be the chairman. This is on the
Speaker 1: way into the meeting and I said, how long did
Speaker 1: I think about this? This is about a minute. All right,
Speaker 1: So Danny, if you get that position, a couple of
Speaker 1: days later, the federal government calls you up and says,
Speaker 1: guess what, we gotta talk to you. You've got some problems.
Speaker 1: They told you that you had to do some serious
Speaker 1: things to fix the Bank of Americas. At right, that's correct,
Speaker 1: I thought when I accepted the position, but I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: it's prestigious, it's on that and that, well I can
Speaker 1: I can do it. I've been on I've been on
Speaker 1: what the teen years, so I wasn't a novice in
Speaker 1: the board room or with you know by then, of
Speaker 1: financial institution. I've been on the board of McDonald's where
Speaker 1: we had a non executive chair at one point, Motorola
Speaker 1: had a non executive chair. So to BPCE so I
Speaker 1: had seen what they did. It's about a two days
Speaker 1: a week a job and pretty um. The preside over meetings,
Speaker 1: you help with the agenda, You keep in touch the CEO.
Speaker 1: I said, well, I can I can do that? Until
Speaker 1: the fan called and asked me, asked, summoned me to Richmond,
Speaker 1: which is the office of the Federal Reserve Branch that
Speaker 1: oversees uh A. Bank of America was just located in
Speaker 1: Charlotte and asked me to bring some other directors with
Speaker 1: me because I didn't want to take this message back
Speaker 1: to my colleague by myself. And the message they gave
Speaker 1: me turn this into a full time job. So they
Speaker 1: basically said that you had some financial problems at Bank
Speaker 1: of America and you need to make some changes and
Speaker 1: ultimately you have to spend a lot of time fixing
Speaker 1: the Bank of America. Is that right? And so then
Speaker 1: you led an effort to pick Brian moynahan, who's still
Speaker 1: the CEO of Bank of America's a right, that's good.
Speaker 1: So that worked out? Okay, that's what out? Fantastic Brian.
Speaker 1: I think it's just done a wonderful It's not just
Speaker 1: my opinion. He's been chosen CEO of the year. I
Speaker 1: think a couple of time, not just in the financial industry,
Speaker 1: but throughout the corporate America, and the bank has done
Speaker 1: very well. I suppose somebody says, I'm watching this and
Speaker 1: I'm a young person. I'm in college now or high
Speaker 1: school or graduate school, and I want to be water
Speaker 1: Massy and I grow up, what would you say is
Speaker 1: the best way to prepare to be someone like you.
Speaker 1: There's no substitute for hard work that it doesn't know,
Speaker 1: let's start with that. But also pursue things that you're
Speaker 1: interested in, things that you like, And especially if you
Speaker 1: in high school and college, don't commit totally so quickly
Speaker 1: to been totally absorbed in one thing. And you may
Speaker 1: have to because if you're gonna do things like computer science,
Speaker 1: maybe in physics, it really does take a lot of time.
Speaker 1: But I urged young people just study other things. You know,
Speaker 1: take courses outside of your especialty. It's a broad based learning.
Speaker 1: From first, you're gonna enjoy it, and secondly, it might
Speaker 1: open up other doors that you may not even realize.
Speaker 1: Would you say race relations in the United States are
Speaker 1: much better than when you were growing up in Mississippi
Speaker 1: or do you think we've made less progress than you
Speaker 1: think we should have made both? I think I think
Speaker 1: that's much better, uh than when I was going up,
Speaker 1: I would not be in the position you even have
Speaker 1: this interview. And there are so many other people in
Speaker 1: positions of importance, so many um people who occupied areas
Speaker 1: and I never thought I would see them, and but
Speaker 1: I would have hoped that be better. It's haven't done
Speaker 1: a lot of progress, and somehow we are in an
Speaker 1: area era now where in spite of the progress, race
Speaker 1: relations in certain areas has become very scary. You know,
Speaker 1: some of the things that one reads about now remind
Speaker 1: me growing up in Mississippi. Let me ask you right
Speaker 1: now about something you're involved in right now, which is
Speaker 1: the Giant Magellan telescope. You're leading the effort to get
Speaker 1: people to fund the Giant Magellan telescope. Why do we
Speaker 1: need the Giant Magellan telescope since we have the web
Speaker 1: selescope it seems to be sending back pretty nice pictures.
Speaker 1: How much better is they trying? Magellan gonna be four
Speaker 1: times better, four times better, four times better resolution, which
Speaker 1: made the pictures will be sharp. But the science the
Speaker 1: way it will work the web, as you're seeing those
Speaker 1: pictures there sharp, but they are identifying parts of galaxies
Speaker 1: and space almost back to the beginning of the universe
Speaker 1: that people haven't seen. They can't, folks. It cannot focus, however,
Speaker 1: more sharply as we would like to be able to
Speaker 1: identify objects. So the web will identify a portion of space.
Speaker 1: The GMT Giant Magellan telescope can affect zoom in on
Speaker 1: that space, have final resolution, look at it more clearly.
Speaker 1: And in addition to that, we'll have a set of
Speaker 1: instruments which in collect that light, analyze it and see,
Speaker 1: for example, does it contain signs of oxygen of water?
Speaker 1: So they'll be complimentary. How much does it cost before
Speaker 1: we get the giant Magellan telescope? We're estimating now at
Speaker 1: over two billion dollars two billion dollars. And where is
Speaker 1: that money coming from? About highs coming from private sources.
Speaker 1: The University of Chicago being one of the eleven partners,
Speaker 1: will put up about half, and the federal government is
Speaker 1: now will negotiate with negoti shading with the National Science
Speaker 1: Foundation to come up with the other half. You know,
Speaker 1: I've often thought the way you could raise money for
Speaker 1: the giant magel and telescope used to take away the
Speaker 1: name Magellan because he didn't put up any money for it,
Speaker 1: and let somebody very wealthy Elon Musk or Bill Gates
Speaker 1: or somebody so will name it after them and put
Speaker 1: up a billion dollars. You ever thought of that? We
Speaker 1: think of that every day. I do. Yes, you have
Speaker 1: a millionaire that you like, I think you need a
Speaker 1: multi billionaire but there might be something out there. If
Speaker 1: your name it after from it's a big, big naming
Speaker 1: opportunity as Actually I'm not that we do. We have
Speaker 1: naming opportunities all the way from a mirror, an instrument
Speaker 1: that will look for ats so planets. Uh. For twenty million,
Speaker 1: ten million dollars, the mirror is gonna be named. We
Speaker 1: actually have one mirror name Uh. Mitchell dinner was Donna
Speaker 1: to the university was twenty million dollars. Uh. The telescope
Speaker 1: dome itself a hundred million dollars, and you can name
Speaker 1: the whole. We can negotiate device for hotels. What are
Speaker 1: they gonna name after anything? The water mashi anything or
Speaker 1: anything name me after you? I think they have some
Speaker 1: ported photopotties. The life of people on Earth is going
Speaker 1: to be better if that is funded, because of what
Speaker 1: we're gonna discover that there's life somewhere else in the universe.
Speaker 1: And how is that going to make our life better?
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna make your life better in
Speaker 1: the sense of delivering material comfort, material advantages. I think
Speaker 1: it's gonna make you want human life more interesting and
Speaker 1: probably inspire people to think about their life differently. Uh.
Speaker 1: The artist Jeff Kohn's Friends of Mine UM says that
Speaker 1: when he looks at those images from the James Webb Telescope,
Speaker 1: the others that show you almost the beginning of the university,
Speaker 1: see these galaxies, it just makes you realize how special
Speaker 1: it is to be living in these times when you
Speaker 1: can discover these things, and how special it is to
Speaker 1: be a human being. I mean, how improbable it is
Speaker 1: that there's something like us that has been generated over
Speaker 1: all these years and now we still exist. Do you
Speaker 1: believe there is life in the universe somewhere else? I do? Now,
Speaker 1: why do I say that's just probability there was? And
Speaker 1: we go firm it we used to be here. Actually,
Speaker 1: what is purported to have said, where is everybody? Why
Speaker 1: haven't we heard from them? Because just given the number
Speaker 1: of stars with what now they're calling exoplanets planets, that, um,
Speaker 1: it looked like they would be situated close enough in
Speaker 1: a position with a start to have life. They've already
Speaker 1: discovered five thousand, five thousands and our galaxy, and given
Speaker 1: a number of galesses billions in the universe, UM, it
Speaker 1: just seems to be probably holly unlikely, you know, I
Speaker 1: from a mathematical statistical point of view, that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have conditions like we have on it. But I don't
Speaker 1: have any other reason. So as you look back on
Speaker 1: your life incredible career, what would you say is the
Speaker 1: legacy that you would like to have people think about you? What?
Speaker 1: What would you're most proud of having done? Is at
Speaker 1: the position at uh at moor House or your scientific leadership.
Speaker 1: What would you say as your legacy to your children,
Speaker 1: grandchildren and your fellow Americans. Well, it wouldn't be in
Speaker 1: a particular accomplishment. I would hope it would be that
Speaker 1: people would realize that you can accomplish a great deal
Speaker 1: in life no matter where you start. Uh if you,
Speaker 1: for I do think luck is involved a lot of luck,
Speaker 1: But if you have the y of you have the
Speaker 1: right mentors, um the right support, and if you yourself
Speaker 1: are willing to work hard at it and and be
Speaker 1: curious enough and bold enough to take advantage of opportunity
Speaker 1: as one day arise. Thanks for listening to hear more
Speaker 1: of my interviews. You can subscribe and download my podcast
Speaker 1: on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen