Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced three appointments to high-level positions in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and said the appointments were "key steps in making the Bureau more responsive to the needs of the Indian people."
Named to the top-level posts under Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert LaFollette Bennett were:
-- Theodore W. Taylor, a career civil servant, to be Deputy Commissioner. Taylor has been Assistant to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution since 1959, and is a veteran of Interior and BIA service.
-- Carl L. Marburger, currently Assistant Superintendent of Schools at Detroit, to be Assistant Commissioner for Education.
-- William R. Carmack, Administrative Assistant to Senator Fred R. Harris of Oklahoma, to be Assistant Commissioner for Social and Governmental Affairs.
“The choice of these three officials marks the culmination of a Nationwide search for the finest talent we could secure in an effort to strengthen the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a top team," Secretary Udall said.
Deputy Commissioner Taylor holds a doctoral degree from Harvard University with a dissertation based on the regional organization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. His Government service, which began with the Rural Electrification Administration in 1936, includes 13 years in the Department of the Interior.
Taylor served four years, from 1946 to 1950, as Executive Officer of Interior's Office of Territories, followed by six years as Chief of Management Planning for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1956 he began a three-year tour of duty as mobilization officer for defense electric power in the office of the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Power. Before joining Interior, Taylor worked as administrative assistant to the director of the Agriculture Department's Federal Extension Service. He holds degrees from the University of Arizona and Syracuse University as well as Harvard. A native of Berkeley, California, he grew up in Tucson, Arizona.
Marburger, who has a doctorate in education from Wayne State University, has been Assistant Superintendent of Schools for Special Projects at Detroit since 1964. He has devoted most of his efforts during recent years to improvement of educational opportunities for the disadvantaged. He has been serving as a consultant to the U. S. Office of Education on implementation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. From March through December of 1964 he was a special assistant to the Commissioner of Education. He has also headed the Task Force for the Disadvantaged, a joint committee of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the Office of Economic Opportunity.
A former classroom teacher in Detroit, and later a high school principal, Marburger in 1963 was named director of curriculum studies for that city's schools, and helped establish the Great Cities Project--a tailored program of education for socially and economically underprivileged students in public schools, in which about 20 major cities participated, with Ford Foundation funding. His published works include papers on education in depressed areas and upgrading of public schools in pursuit of excellence. He is a native of Detroit and attended schools and college there. He will head up a network of more than 250 Indian day and boarding schools, most of whose pupils must overcome cultural and language barriers to achieve their full potential.
Carmack's newly created position includes responsibility for Indian participation in the War on Poverty, Indian employment assistance and welfare, and tribal operations and community development.
He has worked for Senator Harris since the latter's election in 1964, dealing with the problems of constituents, who include many Indian groups. Prior to his Senate staff service, Carmack was director of the University of Oklahoma's Human Relations Center, which originated and developed five Indian adult education centers serving communities through the western half of that State. The centers provided training and consultation for communities facing various kinds of potential conflicts, such as race relations, religion in the public schools and other problems.
Carmack established the Human Relations Center and directed its activities three years. Formerly he was an associate professor of speech at the University of Oklahoma. He has a doctorate in communication from the University of Illinois, and bachelor's and master's degrees from Abilene Christian College in Abilene, Texas, and Florida State University, respectively. A native of Decatur, Alabama, he grew up in Lawton, Oklahoma, and attended public schools there.
