אמנון רפופורט: זכרונות

(במכתב)

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נכתב בסוף יוני 2017 באריזונה, בה אמנון חי.

אמנון בן 82. יליד חדרה.

שירת בחיל השריון, סיים תואר ראשון באוניב' העברית ודוקטורט בארה"ב.

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Early Encounters

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                                                                  In 1974, about a year after the Yom Kippur war, I was living in                                                                            Chapel Hill, North Carolina, as a Professor of Psychology at the                                                                          University of North Carolina (UCR). I was then a faculty member                                                                        of the Quantitative Program that included faculty members with                                                                        interest in psychometrics, mathematical psychology, or both. I was                                                                    married and had a daughter ten years old. There were several                                                                            reasons why I decided to leave a very comfortable and lucrative                                                                          academic position and returned to Israel.

Firstly, I was contacted by Prof. David Lapkin, who was then the Acting Rector of the University of Haifa and a very close and old friend from our joint stay at UCR. In a series of phone conversations, he tried his best to recruit me. For this purpose, he also asked Prof. Sobol, who was then the dean of Social Sciences, to contact me by phone during one of his visits to the USA and reiterate David’s invitation. Secondly, my daughter was reaching the age of ten and, perhaps not surprisingly, succumbing to the American culture and becoming too Americanized to my taste. Jointly with my wife, we reached a resolution to return to Israel and stay there until my daughter completes her military service at the IDF. We have kept our resolution. Thirdly, after resigning twice from the Hebrew University, I have opted to look for a position elsewhere. The University of Tel Aviv was then an unknown entity. The Technion was a viable option. Its faculty members wanted me, mostly because of my quantitative skills and interest, but were unwilling to commit to a program with several faculty members in quantitative psychology. Hence, the deal was not struck.

So I have joined the University of Haifa and never had a reason to regret my decision. It had then opportunities to expand that were not available at other and more established universities. In 1975, after approximately one year at Haifa University, I came up with the idea of starting an institute focusing on research in information processing and decision making, and convinced several faculty members to join me in this adventure. The IIPDM (מעמק"ה) was first established within the psychology department. Realizing that I may not succeed in winning the internal battles for space and money, I applied directly to the university administration for a change of status as an independent institute outside the faculty of Social Sciences. The condition for establishing an independent institute with its own budget, set by the provost Ozer Schild, was my consent to start a Graduate School at the university level and serve as its first dean. I consented to this request not without reservations. Ozer Schild was a skilled and effective bargainer.

As they say, “the rest is history.” The Ma’maka was a story of success judging by the quality of its members, by the quality and quantity of their publications, and by its growing budget from grants. When I left Israel a few years later, it was on its way to become financially independent. I have only positive memories from that period.

Most of the members of the Ma’maka were also full-pledged members of the psychology department. My memories of the departmental faculty meetings are mixed. There was too much friction between members of the various programs that I did not like. I left the University in 1985. In retrospect, this friction has not exceeded what one would expect in a multi-disciplinary department. Faculty members, by nature and training, are very individualistic, some with inflated egos, who are not geared to contribute to the public good. Over the years I have seen worse situations with departments that were formally split because of interpersonal animosity.

In the later 80’s I switched my academic affiliation from psychology to business administration (without changing the focus of my research), and moved through a sequence of business schools. Consequently, I have lost track with my colleagues and friends in the psychology department and their academic accomplishments. My impression is that the psychology department is still strong with considerable potential to grow both in number and influence. I remember it fondly, and I wish it well.

Amnon.