 He used this freedom not only to hire a hugely distinguished faculty (Lionel Abel, C.L.Barber, John Barth, Robert Creeley, Carl Dennis, Irving Feldman, Leslie Fiedler, René Girard, Mac Hammond, Norman Holland, Stanley Edgar Hyman, Bruce Jackson, John Logan, Ann London Scott, Charles Olson, Bill Sylvester and Dorothy Van Ghent all joined the faculty during his watch), but also to democratize the department by encouraging the breach of conventional barriers among period specialties, or between creative and scholarly, young and old, tenured and untenured, and even teachers and students.His presence was especially strong during the two sensational Buffalo Festivals of the Arts in 1965 and 1967, transpiring during a politically and ideologically explosive decade.