Interview Transcript
CC - The following interview was conducted with Robert Stacke on behalf of the Public
History 300 class's oral history project for the Augsburg College archives. It took place
on March 14,2015 at Augsburg College. The interviewer is Caitlin Crowley. So you can
just star... Show more
Interview Transcript
CC - The following interview was conducted with Robert Stacke on behalf of the Public
History 300 class's oral history project for the Augsburg College archives. It took place
on March 14,2015 at Augsburg College. The interviewer is Caitlin Crowley. So you can
just stare your background and education and the daGs.
RS - Okay, so my background is that I went to Augsburg College 66-71 and got my
bachelors degree in music and came back and did music education for 1971 and then
taught for a bunch ofyearc, werfi to Saint Thomas, got my masters. Taught for a bunch of
years and then went to the U and got my doctorate. And in between I always played
drums and sometimes stopped teaching and played drums at different places in
Maracaibo and Symphony Orchestra and Chanhassen Dinner Theater but I've always
liked to teach, so that's my backgrormd. Always music.
CC - Tell me about your time as a student at Augsburg
RS - It was a fi.rn time. I had a good time.
CC - What drew you to shrdy at Augsburg?
RS - The music program. I went to a camp at big sandy lake, a music camp, when I was
in eighth $ade. One of the faculty members was a pianist. We did Rhapsody in Blue and
from then oq I was coming to Augsburg.
CC - What was Augsburg like when you went there? Do you remernber the name of the
p,resident ofthe college or some ofyour professon' names?
RS - Oh sure, of course. Charlie Anderson was the president of the college then and he
was a great guy and, Oscar Andersoru excuse me. And he was super personable and
always engaged with the students. Kinda at the forefront ofa lot of different issues. Then
it was more a gender issue than racial issues but he was always at the forefront to get
more equality between men md women. A wonderfirl sense of humor, the president.
Could raise money. He loved the arts. He was just a fantastic guy. I had a lot of
interaction with him and totally enjoyed him. The school then, yea[ it was a tumultuous
time during the 60s and I think Augsburg really fred well. It was a place of good values
and ideals and charging ahead. They did a lot.
CC - Did your family background draw you to Augsburg College? A lot of pmple who
went to Augsburg were Norwegian or Lutheran in background.
RS - Na[ none ofthat. My mother's from Australia. My dad was a merchant sailor...met
her in Aushalia, went back to sea She came over here. After two years ofnot seeing hinl
and they got maried. And I'm the son of a sailor. So yea[ my heritage is IrishAustralian.
CC - Not at all Norwegian or Lutheran.
RS - Not even close.
CC - So you graduaed with a degree in music education. What kinds of classes did you
take?
RS - Basically the same thing that we have the students do now. You have your core
curriculum with theory, music history, per:formance studies, and playing in ensemble and
then all the gen. edsjust history and I had Don Gustafson who I adorcd.
CC - Was he a history professor?
RS - Yeah uh huh.
CC - What kind of history did you take?
RS - World hisory. And he just rctircd last year with me but he was around a lot longer
than I was. He was a geat guy. But he was a wonderfrrl teacher and I remember him
very, very well. We had really dynamic folks I remember all of my English teachers and
music teachers and all the sorts of things that we did in the deparhnent. And the
curriculum in the music deparhnent really hasn't changed much. Its standard fare across
the world, really. The core curriculum. And I think one of the things that was really
interesting here was tlla;t jan was the taboo music. And the world. Because it was the
devils own music or you just made it up and everything, so the better things I did as a
student and a teacher is we started a jazz band when I was a shrdent here. Ilwasn't really
sanctioned. We had to practice in the middle of the night and we'd find ways into the
music building, which was an old chrrch in those dayg to practice. Wrote our own
music, which is fantastic. It was one of those things that was forced on us because there
was no budget for music and so we wrote our own and the bmd director at the time Mayo
Savold really championed us and la us perfomr on tlrc band concert. So we started kind
of a jezz program here and some singers like we have with our jive or gospel praise
singers and Jim Lindstrom was a choir mernber and he did the vocal and I did the
insfumental and then when I came back we put it all back together again. We built i! and
im really proud of the jazz program.
CC - What were some of those people's names just so.. .
RS - Oh the band director was Mayo Savold. M-A-Y-O Savold, and the actual rehearsal
room is named after him, and Lee Sateren, Leland Sateren was the departsnent chair and
theory teacher. He's the one I mid that played at that music camp. Small group of people
but very influential on so many ofus.
CC - So you think slowly people started to accept jazz a little more as a valid form of
music at Augsburg?
RS - Yealu it took forever. Like, when I first started lrcre to get jazz history it took forn
times through acadernic affairs committee because they didn't thinl they couldn't see
how that was diverse or worthwhile music. And this was, I'm talking, 25 years ago so all
those people ae long since not here but it was a real battle to get that kind of music into
the curriculurn.
CC - So was that difficult for you as far as study abroad Fograms too, related ta jaz?
RS - By then things changed really quicHy and it's never been a barrier, in fact it's been
a plus now. We feel that we forged ahead. Like, for instance there was this thing called a
music educators association and I was president ofthe jaz association of it. Well they let
me come in but I couldn't vote because jazz qzs5o'1 u legitimate music. I mean, for real, it
was like, 'No you can come but you don't, you can't vote trecause you're a joz
musician."
CC - You're a citizen without suftage.
RS - That's right. Oh yeah it was really ba4 some racial things too, just awfrrl because
they associated jaz-z with African Americans and we really battled a long time with
different things.
CC - Do you think that the college being diversified had anything to do with jazz being
slowly accepted?
RS - No, I think just the times. We were always a diverse camprts. Not to the extent that
we are now but it would reflect the city pretty well. It wasn't a place where you just came
and it was just all Norwegians or white folks. Even back then we wanted to have more
diversity I remember always saying that we we should just look across the freeway here
at groups of people and say we should be recruiting within our area And, of course, we
do now. It was always a goal of Augsburg to become part of the crty and to show the
diversity of the city. Even back then.
CC So has Augsburg's music program always worked with people around the
-
RS - Yeah I think we did. At least in my experience. We would bning it guest artists like
we have down here today like people from Cuba p,racticing and people over at cedar
cultural center with all the Somali population. Back then it was more African American
jazz musicians that we had contact with and we'd bring in some of the great players but I
think we've always reflected our community well. I'm proud of this place.
CC - Did you meet anyone at Augsburg that changed your life?
RS - Yeah, my wife.
CC - Okay, you should tell me about, like how did you meet your wife here?
RS - Band.
CC - In band?
RS - Yeah, stre was a drummer too.
CC - Oh I didn't know that.
RS - Yeah. So, yep we met in band. I was a couple years older. She
right out here on
the comer right outside my office. So we juS dafed and got married the first week after
graduation.
CC - Wow. And how long have you been married now?
RS - Forty yearq something? Yes.
CC - So you alrcady told me a little bit about this but can you tell me how Augsburg was
different than it is now?
RS - You know. That's a searching question because I've always just felt a part of a
continuum here and I think its evolved in so many good directions faster than a lot of
things have evolved and I've always found that a place of values within having people
when I recruit and when I went here and when I brag about the school and its are you a
Lutheran school and yes we are a Lutheran school but everybody feels welcome here and
I would my that even in the chapel, yeall we have religious ceremonies in the chapel but
I don't care, it's about values more than it is about a certain denomination or certain
religion its that everybody should feel welcome in our chapel. The values system of
Augsburg was wonderfirl when I went herre. I mean people were protected and I just
-
remember it would when people (were) partying too much or getting drunk or
whatever...you know they'd take care of them it wasn't like oh look here's a narc you
know or whatever and people for the most part took care of each other. And same thing
with the social issueg if someone's being bullied or the racially discriminated against I
always felt the community came together and said no we're not gonna tolerate that and I
think the continuum is here and with curriculnm its the same thing. With the honors
progftm becoming so prominent and such a good thing here at Augsburg there always
was something like tbat but with the honors program I think it was continuum of getting a
diverse body ofstudents in. And also our core students that really glommed onto different
things. It hasn't changed that much it's changed with the times. It hasn't been stuck in the
past. So it's a nice continuum.
CC- OtL and you did talk about this a little bit too, what was the diversity on campus like
compa.red to now?
RS- Oh, it was less of course. Because the Twin Cities was a lot less diverse. And so
again I'll go back and say that I think we always reflected the community. And so the
diversity it was here it wasn't probably the big topic all the time and so it wasn't part of
our mission staternent but it was just part of us. I remembet Malcom X when he was
assassinated and Martin Luther King I mean that was a huge impact on Augsburg
community, and saying this is a honible thing to happen and people banding together and
supporting the Atican American here
or trying to understand, what
the situation was. And so yes, it's always been very welcoming and a diverse population.
And there was a lot of things too with Native Americans back then too where we try to be
more inclusive with the Native American population. They were just blocks away, so,
yeah.
CC- And did Native Americans so, that community became
then while
you were at Augsburg?
RS- I think recognized. I don't remember if they were actively recruited or anything like
that. But think again, the social services and our outreach programs I think they reached
out to the Native American population because that was one of the prominent non-white
populations at the time. And of course the immigrants were more Norwegian than they
were Somali or East African so, I think that's really int€resting that this neighborhood has
always been an immigrant neighborhood and now it's East Africa rather than
Scandinavian, and it's really cool.
CC- Yeah that is. I had no idea that there was a huge Norwegian population here.
RS- Oh around here? Oh yeal1 and musically it was all these fiddle players.
CC- Really?
RS- Ohyeah.
CC- Wow, did you have the fiddle playing in school or not?
RS- No it was mostly just in the commrmity, you'd get all these Norwegian dancers and
bands and all that sort ofthing around andCC- That's cool.
RS- Yeah it was. And yeah then we had, the Norwegian roots were much more prominent
then because I think more Norwegians went here but rhen we had lutefisk at Christmas,
we had all that stuff we'd have in the cornmons. You might want to gag but it was still
there and so the Lutheran thing was big... but still very encompassing of the community.
CC- So you think the changes that have happened to Augsburg are positive or negative?
RS- Oh I think they're positive. I thinll I think just... people are people. And if you're
thinking of the diversity issue it shouldn't matt€r, it just, everyone should feel welcome
here and think they do. I think that's very important. I think academically, we go in
cycles. And we need to c,oncenhate- that this is a college of higher education and really
continue to shive to have excellent acadernic programs. Without that I think everything
else suffers and goes away. And I think there has to be something that's academically
rigorous all the time so people feel proud of the degree they get not just social or the
wealth ofoutreach programs we have it has to be academically very proud too.
CC- So do you guys have several diflerent majors in the music deparbnent?
RS- We have five.
CC- Five? And has tlnt been like that since you've-
and
more
RSi- Uh uh.
No.
CC- Which ones were added?
RS- When I was here it was basically music education... just a BA, and it was kind of
perfomrances and since, well, with me as cbair we added music business. Music
education became very shong. Music therapy was added with Roberta Kagin which was
quite a while ago I think we're going on the fortieth anniversary of music therapy. So we
have five degree programs, we have a BA, a degree in performance, a degree in music
educatio4 a degree in businesq and a degree in... did I say education, or?
CC- Yeah I think so.
RS- So we have five.
CC- Ok. And you said as chair you helped add several ofthose?
RS- Yeah the business one for sure.
CC- The business one. Great.
RS- And the curriculum has really diversified in that we have abig jaz.z studies prograrl
we have snall combo groups that celebrate contemporary music or rock, which I'm, that
put in and I'm very proud of that because think that music education should
encompass not just your classical or band geeks, you know, and I mean band geeks with
affection because I'm the band director, or was. And music education has to accompany
everybody and all styles and you can teach all those elements of music in a nontraditional way.
CC- Ok so you helped add a lot of smaller bands.
RS- Yep.
CC- Oh great. So can you name a couple of those again I missed...
RS- Ob just like contemporary ensembles we started three years ago, which would be
rock bands and things like that and then we have a group now that accompanies a lot of
Somali artists over at the Cedar Cultural Center and that's a mixture of alumni and
current Augsburg sfudents and then as different Somali artists come in we rehearse with
them, put on performances at Augsburg and at the Cedar Cultural Center and now we're
starting to branch out and work on a presentation in Chicago and things like that so. Not
for sure, but we're hoping it'll come tbrough.
CC- What's the language barrier like with people... Somalian population or others?
RS- It's so much fun. Because, you get together and the language becomes somewhat of
a challenge but what's fun about it is that we have, we just talk in music. And they don't
read music, they do everything by ear. We're the opposite, we do everything by writteru
so you're combining musical leaming styles, plus language barriers, so you're singing
back and forth, finding all new ways of commrmication...and it's a ball. And it's so fun,
and it works. We just laugh about it... because... nobody cares, and language doesn't
matter. It comes across really well.
I
I
CC-Wow.
RS- Yeah it's just an amazing situation. And culturally, we're so proud of this because
you've go! you get different genders, and whicll and so in the cultrnes (this) is a big
deal, especially Somali culturc... and that's breaking dovm, where women arc now, cafl
sing, and they're not ostracized because they're singing a song. They can become
musiciang so they're grormdbreaking in that area. To us thBt's just '.of course,', but as we
leamed in Cuba, you're (women) not even supposed to play drums in some cultures.
CC- Yeah.
RS- Same \ing within the Somali culture, but that's breaking down, you have all these
white folks playing with Somali's and nobody cares. It's just... we're making music, and
it's a really fantastic thing. So it's a fusion of cultures, and music styles. We're learning
so much from each other.
CC- Are they ever surprised that these people arc interested in their music, or t}at
they're ... able to play their music?
RS- I think they're delighted. And at first it was like, *Oh my gosh, what's going to
happen here? And as we rehearsed and werything they understood how much we're
anjoying the music, and want to learn the music, and are infusing some of our jazz and
R&B lines into their music which fils perfectly because their shrff is like Bob Marley
meets Malaysia meets East Africa meets a little bit of R&B and hiphop. It's just this
wonderfrd mixtrre of creolization of 516 many art forms and.. . they're excited about what
we're doing.
CC-Awesome.
RS- It is.
CC- Just going to make sure these (microphones) ae still working. They are. Hooray! Ok
so I apologize, some of these (questions) are sort of repeats, but... tell me about your
time as a professor at Augsburg, and the dates.
RS- Yeah, I started here in 190, and I'm sill going I'm just not firll time anymore. I got
sick a year ago and had a forcibly... the doc said you better Sop, so I did. And so, bnt
I'm still teaching a class in Cuba, administering a grant, and doing different things here,
different projects. So faculty, not frrll time anymore.
CC- So tell me a little bit about the projects that you're doing now at Augsburg.
RS- A lot of it's what we were just talking about. The Somali connections, whe're I put
bands together for the Somali rtists... helping with some music education and things
with some of the grad students where we're fying to do a zustainable project with some
of our commrmity. In other words... training people in seminars, maybe classroom
settingq and we're talking like high school students where they leam a skill like stage
We don't think there's one pemon from East Africa that is a light p€rson, a
sormd person, or any type of stage production, so we came up with the idea and we met
with the Mirmeapolis schools, Bill Greeq who used to be superinterdant, and we came
up with this ide4 Steve Herzog, who was in the gmduate program, that we tain anybody
that wants but really trying to target more of the folks that, tom East Africa, and how to
do recording technology, lighting technologies, just being a stage manager, all the things
that (you) need to do to put on a production. And it doesn't have to be theatrical, it can be
a musical
So, they're leaming music, they're leaming these skills, and
hopefully can get employment. So that's what- yesterday- I did.
CC- Great.
RS- Yeah. And ofcourse I love my Cuba class.
CC- What brought you to... Augsburg to teach? I know that you taught at a couple other
places before you taught at Augsburg.
RS- I taught public school for almost seventeen years- Minneapolis, Bloomington and
Hopkins. then I was at Saint Cloud for a couple years and I kept going to school and
getting more of my degrees, and I've always wanted to come home... back to Augsburg.
And I.., going dou,n the questions here... a position opened up and I applied, and it was
a part-time position, and I got the job. And then it became a tenure track position and I
had to reapply and go through the whole search process again. Kept the job, and I've
been here ever since. Got t€nure, so, yeah.
CC- Nice, was that a difficult process, or.. .?
RS- It's nerve wracking. Yeah because you have to, it's hard because you have to
convince people that you're worthwhile and fhat's, in a way, humiliating, and in another
way it's an opportunity, so it's a really hard thing to find that balance. Yeah, it's a good
pmoess. It's very good because you'rc judged by your peers, you're judged by the
administration, and then outside folks so I think it's very fair. And it gives quality
education to you guys.
CC- How did you become the chair of the music deparfnent?
RS- About fourteen years ago Merilee Klernp was chair, slre needed to go back to school,
and I was elected, and reelected and reelected. ..
CC- Do you have to be reelected wery... how many years?
RS- Let's see, six years.
CC- Six years, ok.
RS- That's how we did it.
CC- So are you still chair of the music department then?
RS-No.
CC- Who's chair now?
RS- John Schmidt.
CC- John Schmidt?
RSi- Yeah.
CC- Ok. Ahight. What responsibilities did you have as chair of the music departrnent?
RS- I think it's really just getting all the ideas of everyMy together and trying to have a
dernocracy where people decide on how to implement their ideas, and the challenge there
is of course everybody has lheir own ideas but I think that kind ef thing is good. You
don't want everybody to agee on everything because it's gonna be a one-track
departnent. So when you have discussion or people feeling very passionaGly about
something, it's great if we can dl air it together and come to a nice compromise or a
conclusion to it. And you assign classes to peoplq you hire all the adjuncts, and here we
always, I would be the main person, but I always open up to anyone in lhe faculty lhat
wanted input. So, and now we have a mastersr. That's another fting I did with Roberta
Kagin, we put the masters of music th*py iru and that's another degree program we
have.
CC- Is that the only even higher level class you guys have?
RS- Yes.
CC- Or sorry, degree.
RS- In the music departnent. Oh our music ed kind of but it's not a masters in music
education it's a masters in education with an emphasis in music.
CC- I see. Ok. Ahight. From your experience being a teacher, what do you think makes
Augsburg unique?
RS- I think we can be really progressive. And I'm proud of our deparment in that it's
progressive in curiculum. That we have your traditional, your classical traditional musicwhich you have to have, it's mandated to get acs€ditation and everything like that, but at
the same time we celebrate music from everyrvhere and all styles of music. So you can be
a classical singer, but at the same time tum around and sing in a rock band or a gospel
group, or play jaa or play charnber music. We have, I thinh an incredibly wide base
curriculum where we celebrate all people's styles and ne€ds.
CC- Nice. And when you were a student did you feel the same way or was it different?
RS- Oh, it was very traditional.
cc-
ok.
RS- YealL and... right down the line. And when I was a student- I'm a dnrmmer- and
they had no idea what to do with me. Because nobody- they had never had a drum person
as a major in the school. And so for recitals and stntr, they had no idea what I was
supposed to do.
CC- They didn't know how to test you on anything?
RS- No, no, because. no, it was great. And so I studied with Elliot Fine who was in the
Minnesota Orchestra. So they said, "Bob, go study with him," and... I had a lot of
chances to play here and show what I could do but yea[ it was kind of interesting. It was
fun. Now of course, they can't pull that on me, so when I go to recitals, I know what
they'rc supposed to do.
CC- Did they have you leam any other instruments?
RS- Ob, sure. For music education you have to have a working knowledge ofjust about
werything.
CC- Wow. And did they make you learn how to play werything or jus kind of leam
basic knowledge?
RS- Oh you have to lern to play a little bit of a brass instrument, a valve instnrmen! a
trombone. . . violin was... yes. We still do lhat to everybdy. You have to have a working
knowledge of strings, brass, percussion, because howCC- Which ones did you learn?
RS- Oh I did trumpet, violin,
Something from each family.
CC- Ok. And what was yolrr favorite part about being a teacher?
RS- Oh, the students. Yeah, and interaAing with the students, and trying to help thern
make their dreams come tnre, md listening to what they think should happen. It's
because it's your time noq it's not the firture, it's now for you grrys. And so, yeah, it's
the students. That's what I miss, t€xribly, about not teaching every day is coming in and
seeing everybody and interacting with students. It's actually very sad for me.
hard.
CC- Well at least you still get to be here part time, right?
RS- Yeah.
CC- I'm really int€rest€d in the shrdy abroad trips you've taken too. Obviously I went on
one of those study abroad trips with you" so tell me about the study ab,road tips you've
taken.
RS- Oh yea[ I was, I've been really lucky trcause many years ago- 1993... 1990
something in there the dean sai4 *Bob, you should teach an interim class," and I sai4
*Yeah, if it's in the Caribbean
" they go, *Go for it!" So we came up with a program
ttrough this thing called U-may, Augsburg didn't have as much short-term study abroad
then, and so we put together this program in Jamaica. And so it was 21 to 23 days long,
and I did that nine times I thirik?
CC- Wow. Nine years in a row?
RS- Every couple of years... So it was a consortiurn, it was really our consortium of
schools. It was Saint Thomas, Saint Kates, Saint Bens, Saint Johns, Bethel, and... ACTC
schools, and I mean, it'd fill overnight.
clarineL
kty
32:26
CC-Wow.
RS- And so, it was a wonderfirl prcgram. lVe'd study Caribbean music. We'd go to Bob
Marley's recording studio and we saw a lot of people there... really fun stuff.
CC- What was the class called?
RS- History of Caribbean Music in Jamaica.
cc- ok.
RS- Hasn't changed much.
CC- But it was a focus on the Jamaican rnusic?
RS- Sure. And more broad than what we did in Cuba because we had three weeks and so
we really probably... lots of emphasis on Jamaican music. We leamed a lot of different
music of the differcnt islands and styles of music. I think the big telling thing that we
talked about on our tip was just the recording thing. I think we could do a whole timeline
of things tlnt I brought down for people to listen to the music on. I remernber first
bringing a big boom box with a cassette tape in it- not eight track bu! you know- and a
cassette tape, and trying to find power outlets and doing this and that and getting the
huge speakers and getting it through (customs) and it was an amazing situation, and then
those got smaller and better and start getting CDs, I mean we didn't even have CDs when
I started doing the Jamaican thing. And so I'd get the CD player and I'd put the CDs in
and I'd have to bdng a big thing of CDs, because you couldn't bum thern in those early
times. So I rhink you know, and then we went to more phones, and then thene would be a
huge doc for those, and cords you'd have to put in on the speaker, and so it was all that.
And that was like, tlnee, four years ago. And now youjust bring your phone, and a...
CC- A portable speaker
RS- A portable speaker like we used and... there you go. It's fantastic. I really would
love to do that visual thing ofthe first ones I bnrought down.
CC- So is that the only, the only place you went or did you go to other study abroad trips?
RS- The only ones- Yes, I led a trip to northem Ireland where we studied peace and
reconciliation and tlnt was like six weeks.
CC- When was that?
RS- 2002 I think?
cc- ok.
RS- Or maybe a little earlier.
cc- ok.
RS- No, 2003 we went to Cuba, so it was- tlrat was my first trip to Cuba. But it was in
there.
cc- ok.
RS- Yeah, bnt like 2000 something like that.
CC- And what was that like as far as music educatioq or was it just- was it a music class
or a different kind of class?
RS- With errphasis on music, and what was interesting was studying the music of the
troubles between northem Ireland, Irreland, and England. And it goes back a thousand
years. And I found old, ancient books that had the lyrics of hate at the time and between
denominations of the same religion which nobody could quite understand and it would go
through this whole... And I'm talking about songs hundreds of years ol4 would start off
with the romanticism of a revolution. we can relate this to cuban trips, we can relate this
to Nicaragu4 and the idealism of revolution the way you want a great outcome, and then
the realities of revolution where people dig and how do you reconcile that, is it wortltwhere does thuggery come into it. We see in so many places now, people start with an
idealism, and then thugs come in and riot and loot and really you could ask them why are
you here? Because it's fim? I mean I'm ov€rdrama(tizing)... but there's a lot of that and I
think the thuggery and the same thing is happening in the Mddle East. Some of the
idealisn is good but people just go crazy and do horrible things.
CC-Right.
RS- And so, the same thing happened with Sandinistas and all that in Cuba, their
revolution, the idealism was grcat but the reality of killing people. And so the music
would reflect all tlnt and tlrcn we would go to sites and study what we hearrd" and we had
a lot of guest speakers. There was a group I can't rernernber the name- but they were
(from) northern Ireland and they had sang a lot of protest songs against the British, and
three out of the six were assassinated for their music. And so I interviewed the three of
them that were left and then came to... a lot of the study was people of revolution have a
lot of music. But the people in charge have very little.
CC-Wow.
RS- And you know, and that's a sweeping generalization because you could say we have
a nationalistic period of'\rave the flag" country western music and all that sort of thing
and other cormtries have the same thing but for that sort of thing at those periods of time,
it seems the revolutionaries have a lot more music than the people in charge because they
don't want to admit to something terribly wrorg intemally. A civil war, revolution. So we
studied that.
CC-
That
sounds
like
a
fabulous
trip.
RS- It was, yeah.
CC- I would love to go to Ireland.
RS- Yeah. It's a great place.
CC- So, you took a trip... You've been to Ireland, to Cubq to Jamaic4 and you said
Nicaragua as well?
RS- Yeah.
CC- Was that also a history of Caribbean music class?
RS- No that was just something I went on with CGE, I didn't take students, but there was
some students that we met and worked with so, so basically it's been Jamaica Ireland
study abroad. And then with our ensembles we've been all over the world.
CC- Oh yeah, I'd like to hear about that as well. You've taken trips with the Augsburg
bands
RS- And choirs, and orchestras.
CC- Oh ok Yeah tell me a little bit about those trips or where they were, or anything
you'd like to tell me.
RS- We've really been all over the world. It's fantastic. The band has been to Norway,
Ireland, England, and the last hip was to Turkey, the one before tlnt Romania... and
performed, 61d agaiq the choir- same thing. China, most of east- west€fli, most of
eastern Europe.
CC- Wow.
RS- All over the world. Literally. And it's been fantastic because again just like the
things with the concerts here you find that people are all the same. And they want to
celebrate music, we want to celebrate love, we want to celebrate our lives, we juS wantninety nine percent of the world is quite normal, it's the- and we nwer hear about iq we
hear about that one percent that's nuts and abnormal that deshoys things for everybody
else. Most of us want the same thing. And just kind of leave us alone to do what we want
and live our lives.
CC- And play music.
RS- And play music. An4 and so I think all those trips are fantastic. Because we try to
interact with student musicians from all those countries. So yea[ it's been a wonderfirl
thing to be able to go on these hips.
CC- That's wonderfirl. And I know it's hard to pick a memory, or can you tell me any of
your favorite countries, any funny stories or anything.
RS- think for countries, it's always the unfamiliar like. It's the ones that just
unexpected \ings (are) gonna happen. I think Romania was wonderfirl that way because
it's- it's just coming out of really a dark time, it was one of the last cormtries to get rid of
commrmism, the celebration of life is fantastic. So those type of place, Estonia was the
same, we went with the choir, we went in the period where the Russians had really jus
given them their independence after the fall of the wall and stuff, and the celebration of
independence was fantastic. So I think that sort of thing for me, it's always the unfamiliar
tlnt I really like to go towards.
CC- Yeah. How did the study abroad trips differ from the trips you took with the band?
RS- Not perforrnance. For me, the sfudy abroad without perfonnance are a lot less
stressfirl. Because you're not worried about acoustics, you're not worried about getting
homs there, you're not worried about wear the uniforms or the dresses or this or that, and
are people getting sick- mean you always care but it's hard when you lose an
instrumentalist, they can't per:form or sing so it's a lot less shessfirl. And bu! on the
other side, is that when you have a group of non-performerg you see it in a whole
differelrt light and hear it in a whole different light, because I think the non-perfonners
hear music different thnn the performers. It's more of an emotional response than an
emotional, analytical rcsponse. It gives an honesty to it tlnf I leam so much from- you
guys- and things like that.
CC- So the people that play inshuments arc mone methodical about how they see the
otherRS- I think so, and I'm the same way, because we're so trained that oh listen to this- this
is in tune, does the melody fit the rhythm, is- what key is it in, and how are they
articulating it, is it accurare, all these rhings we're tained to do. And we sometimes miss
the message of the music.
CC- Right. lVould you guys ask- would the teachers ask the people more emotional type
questions?
Intemrption here- Peter Hendrickson opens door.
RS- Oops, hi.
PH- I didn't think you were here. I was gonna ask- see ifthe bus was here.
RS- You have a gr€at tour.
PH- Thank yoq " ^nk you. We will. Sorry.
CC- It's ok.
RS- We're just dorng an interview thing. You know, this is my first tour... you know
Peter, this is my first trip without going with you in twenty some yearc.
I
I
I
PH- I know.
RS- It's really sad.
PH- I know.
RS- But have a great trip.
CC- What's the trip?
PH- The choir tour.
RS- The choir tour.
CC- Ob have fim.
Peter Hendrickson leaves.
RS- Yeah, firs tip I haven't gone on in twenty years.
CC- Aw. Where are they going?
RS- Iowa.
CC- Iowa ok. Let's see. Do you have any... let's see. Tell me about your favorite, or one
ofyour favorite mernories tom a band trip. Or a study abroad tip. Or both.
RS- Yeah. . . I think a lot of it is when people and both things aren't tourists but travellers,
and then like our group that wexrt to Cuba. Everybody was trying to understand the
culture. We weren't looking at werything like we were perpetually in a box looking at
little figurines out there, we tried to becorne part of the culture or rmderstand the culture.
And not being tourists, we were really travellers. And I think tlnt's the best memories of
the groups like that. I think performance wise sometimes you have a magical space like
with Peter and his choir we w€re in Estonia... Yes it was in Estonia we were in an old
church, no ceiling, and then we found out... And there was boxes of skulls and bones.
And we found out that this was a place that Nazis has murdered and deshoyed the church
when they were leaving and then the Russians did the same thing, so this place was just
pounded. And they sang a concert that was so ernotional because it was in memory of
those people that lost their lives because they just wanted to be free. And they got it
coming and going- they got it by the Nazis and they got it by the Russians, so that is an
incredible mernory to me.
CC- That is really anrazing. So tell me about why you decided to retire.
RS- Oh that was... I had no intent on retiring, and then I had some heart trouble and had
surgery and they said I'd better stop... working fiilItime to take care of myself. So that's
the gis of ig and it's been hard because I didn't prcpare myself for not being part of
Augsburg. It just happened, like overnight. Literally. So, yeah, it's been really tough. So,
but teaching these classes and being here doing things like this.
CC- Right... what year was thafl Was that this year that you becameRS- A year ago. So yeah, it would have been last official firll time day was August of
2014. So it's just been six months.
CC- Ok. And... well you've told me a little bit about this already, a lot about it
actually... Tell me about your current musical projects.
RS- Otr, it's really fun. And like I said, I'm working with the Cedar Cultual Center and
Augsburg and on these Somali groups that come in. We do perfonnances with therq
depending on their needs. Sometimes it's a full ban4 sometimes it's a srraller group. We
have five of those that we were doing in the course of this year and a hal! so we have
two left. And musically, I just came from a rehearsal. It's a repertoire orchestra where we
were playing some vivelias and MC Korsakofr and I'm playing and travelling as much
can. But musically keeping very active and playing and the grant's keeping me very
happy here. Yeah.
CC- So do you... do you play usually when you... or do you direct these groups?
as
I
RS- These groups for Augsbqg I usually direct. Or play like auxiliary percussion. We
have such fine people here, they slrould be playmg not me. But like if it's not Augsburg
then I play.
CC- Ok. So you applied for a grant to do this?
RS- Yeah, Doris fhrke. Huge- it's called Building Bridges.
CC- Doris Duke?
RS- Duke. Of D.rke University and Drke tobacco... was the big tobacco baron and trying
to do some good wilh her money. And so she has all these educational things, and this is
to promote Muslim cultre through music. And of cornse that's a dichotomy because a
lot of people think Muslims don't like music. mean we're talking about these
generalizations, here's this huge grant that we're doing to promote Muslim culture
through music. So it's proving most folks do like music. And things like that... So we get
this gmnt and we vtrrote it two yees ago and the Cedar is the administrator of it and
everything so it's in parhership with Augsburg. So I'm the Augsburg music connection.
CC- Wonderfirl.
RS- Yeah.
CC- And... Just going to make sure everything is good and working still. Alright. And
this is the final question. What do you consider your legacies at Augsburg? As a student,
as a pmfessor...
RS- I hope the students remember me well. I think about that. It's like, you know, my
peers and my deparfneng and my students" and I think sometimes you get an email from
twenty years ago and you just go "lhis is so cool." And then running into my colleagues
in the departnent. I think that's the legacy: that I rcally tried to be a good teacher. And
people would ask me, you've taught for forty swen years, why do you keep wanting to
do it? And I said because I've never got it right. So it's a wonderfrrl challenge. And so
that's how (I want to be) rerrembered. As a gmd teacher.
CC- Well thank you so much for doing this oral history wilh me, I really appreciate iq
and your answers were really awesome, so thank you so much.
RS- Thank you.
I
Show less
INTERVIEW WITH
PETER HENDRICKSON
AUGSBIJRG COLLEGE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interviewed by Meridith Main
March
6th
2015
Augsburg College Archives
Interview with Peter Hendrickson
Interviewed at 221 1 Riverside Ave,
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Interviewed on March 6ft 2015
Augsburg College Oral H... Show more
INTERVIEW WITH
PETER HENDRICKSON
AUGSBIJRG COLLEGE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interviewed by Meridith Main
March
6th
2015
Augsburg College Archives
Interview with Peter Hendrickson
Interviewed at 221 1 Riverside Ave,
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Interviewed on March 6ft 2015
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Interviewed by Meridith Main
Peter
Hendrickson-PH
Meridith Main-MM
Time Los
00:02
MM:
The following interview was conducted with Peter Hendrickson for
the Augsburg College Oral History Project. It took place on March 6s,
2015 at Augsburg College. The interviewer is Meridith Main. Hi Peter.
00:15
PH:
Hi Meridith.
00:17
MM:
So, the
00:.22
PH:
Okay, um, started in
first question I have for you is to tell me about your time as
an undergrad at Augsburg College.
l972.Um,I basically was following my, my,
didn't actually make Augsburg my, my, choice among many, I
just simply followed. I had three older sisters and my oldest sister was at
Gustavus as my parents went, as well, my older brother did that as well,
we were all supposed to go to Gustavus because we wer€ Swedes. And my
sister Sharon fell in love with somebody who was going to seminary here
in Minneapolis/Saint Paul and um, she then transfered to Augsburg so
that she could get married. Well then, my sister Rachel, the next one, sorta
followed suit as my sister Rosanne and I sorta just did the same thing. I
guess that's just what we did, and as much, very much, sort of a family
orientation. But I didn't necessarily do it all for myself, Ijust did it
because that's what you're supposed to do. Um, and it wasn't a bad choice
sisters um
at all. One of the things that was uh, really uh, prompting me to go was
um, Gabe Gabrielsen, the college organist for forty sum years here, came
out to Clarkfield to play for my sister Rachel's wedding, when I had just
built a shop project. Oh sorry, I built a um, a harpsicord as a shop project,
my uncle said, 'lvell why don't you buy a kit and make a harpsicord, you
seem to like woodworking." So I bought a superman kit for $150 and then
I, uh, as a shop project, put the case together and all of that, but uh but
when Gabe came out, to um, to play the wedding, he came to our house,
and sat down at the harpsicord and, started to play some Bach piece, and I
was so taken by it that at that point in my life, you know I wanted to go
and I want to live in the land that Bach walked. You know I made that
choice at the age 15, but that's what I was going to do, I didn't know how
I was going to do it or where, but I was going to do it. So anyway, I came
to Augsburg, and my intention was to be um, a doctor, so I was doing the
calculus, the chernistry, and physics, all of that sorta stuff. After the first
semester, I got straight A's, but I also got an ulcer, so, I had also been
starting music theory from day one, so I kinda thought, you know this
science stuff is not really for me, so I, I, kept going with the science,
because I actually did enjoy it, um, I kinda had a minor in the natural
sciences, I did some biology, some chemistry, physics, calculus, but that
was just for fun. But I was taking, I was taking some music theory, so that
was uh, and I was in the choir, as a fluke in a way. Because I intended, I
was an all-state trumpeter in high school. I had intended to join Mayo
Savold's band that year, and I auditioned for the band, but I didn't make it.
He had a lot of trumpets that year. But my sister Rachel said, "Well, you
should try out for the choir." So, I tried out for the choir and Leland
Sateren, who was the director at the time, and um took me, as a freshman.
And I spent the next four years, um, studying with him and being in the
Augsburg choir. And so he sorta became one of my first mentors. Um, I
joined the choir and I went through it and in a couple years, in my junior
year, we uh toured Norway in May, and I actually got elected president in
my junior year and my senior year. Um, I enjoyed myself, I mean I really
loved singing; I made some of my longest term friends in choir. So that's
sort ofwhat happened at Augsburg. You want to ask another question?
04:31
MM:
O4:40
PH:
Oh yes, um, so since you said that Sateren was kind of your first
mentor then um what type of style did he give to Augsburg?
Well, it was very much the Lutheran college choir background, the
Norwegian Lutheran sort of started F. Melius Christiansen um, St. Olaf
and was at Concordia and um, Luther, Augustan4 it was all, it was
basically that tradition, started because the immigrant Norwegians,
Scandinavian, swedes, whatever, um, they weren't very wealthy. So, they
didn't really have instruments to play. So, their instrument was their voice
and the sound of the sort4 Lutheran tradition, was first to be like an organ,
that's how it was intended to have that full richness, an orchestra could
have that an organ does have, and to mimic that sort of combination of
voices, like an organ would. So it was sort ofthe premise of the Lutheran
college tradition, is that we're supposed to be an organ. That may sound
really weird, but you can understand that there were no instruments, or
very few anyway. Wealth was not among the Norwegians and swedes.
05:58
MM: I understand that you studied in Berlin correct?
PH: I did, yes.
05:59
MM:
06:02
PH:
Well, as I said Gabe Gabrielsen came out to Clarkfield, played my
harpsicord when I was 15 and he had studied in Germany, uhm, and I
studied German in high school, as I said I'm going to go to Germany and
walk in the land where Bach walked. So, I would say that just that alone
was the premise upon which I decided to go, was Gabe playing the
harpsicord when I was 15 years old in my house, he had been to Germany.
I was going to go to Germany. I was going to leam German. So.
06:39
MM:
O6:46
PH:
05:54
and how did Augsburg set you up for that?
Um, do you try and connect to the previous director's styles, or
create a new directive for the choir?
Well, um, it, well, it's sort of hard to say, I honor the past
director's for sure, and I think every year that I've been here, this is my,
20,21"1year., every year I think I've done something by Leland Sateren,
just to honor his hadition. I also have my own idea of vocal sound for
example, Le had a very muscular sort of strength, strong, gutsy and it hurt
actually, when I sang. After an hour and a half singing with him my voice
often times would hurt, as he wanted so much muscle he kept drawing,
mor€, more, more, louder, rrrrr. And I, and after I was at Augsburg I went
to work with Dale Warland at Macalester and actually it was Le, Le
Sateren, who recommended me for that job. When I went with Dale for
those two years, at Macalester, uh, I could sing for five or six hours, and
not hurt. So that's influenced my vocal production, sound, I don't try to
make people sing, uh, any older age that they are, but I want them to sing
ifthey're 16, I want them to sing like they're 16, but a full 16, but not
pretend like yott'rc26.I think that does more harm than good for voices
when you try and force them to sound at an age that they're really not.
08:19
MM:
.
Um, besides your duty with the Augsburg Choir and the
Masterworks Chorale, what else do you do in the classroom to try and
bring the Lutheran tradition out?
08:29
PH:
Um, well, let's see, in choir, as I said in choir, I do stuffby Le
Sateren, but I also do things by F. Melius Christiansen, Paul Christiansen,
um, Rene Clausen, who is at Concordia now, um, just try, you know try
and keep it alive, but you know things change over time and then the
strength ofthat Lutheran choral tradition is not as strong, except for
maybe at Concordia, St. Olaf, but you know and it dwindles in a sense,
but, so, it's in a way up to me to decide you know to yes, I want to
preserve it, honor it, keep, it. That's been a conscious choice of mine, is to
you know, keep it alive. It has merit on its own and it's part of Augsburg
History. I really think that tradition is honored and kept alive.
09:26
MM:
09:36
PH:
Mmm. Well, for one thing diversity has many different meanings.
The way I started, I've always been this way since I was you know 20
years old. I like languages. Uh, I've studied many languages, and my
choirs over the years have, I think I've counted and I think we've sung in
as many as 30 different languages over the 21 years I've been here. That
to me is the ultimate diversity. The language of another culture becomes
your own, and you can't help but understand it, and get into the culture
just a little bit. That to me is uh, in choral music, the way you can show
diversity. It is not necessarily who is up there, whether its white, black,
Mexican, whatever, it doesn't matter, what matters is the music, for me,
personally. I'll take anyone who can sing, anyone who has an ear. I uh, if
they're qualified, I'll take them. But for me the diversity is most easily
accessed t}rough, I think singing the language. My favorite language, for
the choir to sing kr, is Russian. Ijust love that Russian sound. Low second
basses, awwwwwww.
l0:54
MM:
l:14
PH:
Ohwow.
l:15
MM:
To uh, what you have now?
I
1
What types of measures do you try to take to um, to incorporate
Augsburg's new and diverse community and student population?
Um, so, it seems like you've been around the country, like for
places to study, you've been at the Manhattan school of music, you've
been to Columbia University, and Macalester and Augsburg, and tlen way
over in Europe. So, how do you bring all different the pieces together?
I
l:16
PH:
This is sort ofa hard question to answer easily. I guess, each one of
those places, um, has influenced both me musically but also personally,
and I actually have three times in my life when I felt like I was in a state of
bliss. The one, the first one, was when I was in, at Holden Village. That
was 78-80, I went up there as a cook, and I cooked for two years. I ended
up doing all the music, I played all the Beethoven sonatas with my
violinist that was there, but I skied every day in the winter time, I skied 6700 miles. I climbed 15 peaks. I was just in bliss at tlat point. And all I
had to do was wake up at 4 in the moming and make the bread and cook
until noon and I was offfor the rest of the day. It was great, I was in a
state of bliss. And then the next one was when I went to Berlin. I was just
lucky that I was at Holden Village, because the director ofthe Lutheran
World Federation, at that time, came and he actually got me a spot in a
great institute, which was the German language institute in Freiburg in
1981. From there I spent three years in West Berlin, when it was still West
Berlin, and that was again a state ofbliss. I practiced the harpsicord for 6
hours a day. You know I went to the Kinieapa um, I just had a lot of fun,
but I worked my butt off, I worked my tail offso much that I actually
could have stayed. I had some enough gigging possibilities, and jobbing
opportunities in West Berlin. Um, I could have stayed. I was a continual
player for a Swedish chamber orchestra. So I could have made a life there,
but I came back for various reasons. And then my next state ofbliss this is
the third one now, was when I was in New York. I absolutely loved it, I
loved living in New York. It's so ironic; you know everyone says New
York is so loud and crazy. And I had an apartment, um, 400 sq. ft.
aparEnent, 2 bedrooms, really small. But you know it was so quite in there
you couldn't even hear the street. You come off into the building, go into
the apartment; it's totally dead, dead silent. But there I studied harpsicord,
I studied some conducting. Musicology at Columbia was really sort of was
driving me at the time. So all of these things, I didn't really have a fi.rll
time job, with benefits, and health and all that kind of stuff, until I was 35.
So, I sort of took a very, very, circuitous route to get to a place where I
actually had ajob. I was jobbing all the time. I had churchjobs and all that
all the time, conducting things. But the real job where you have pension
and benefits, and all that, until I was 35.
l4:18
MM:
So, you were on faculty at Macalester? Is that correct?
l4:22
PH:
Briefly, yeah.
l4:'24
MM:
Briefly?
l4:.25
MM:
l4:27
PH:
No, I was, no no, I was, Macalester was very early on. That was
right after college,T6-78. That I, uh, was assistant choral conductor at that
time. No, I uh, came back from Berlin, no sorry, came back from New
York and I went to Westminster Presbyterian Church downtown
Minneapolis, and was the organist and choir director there for a number of
years. Then the position opened up here at Augsburg and I was asked to
apply and I was the first of three interims. Um, and then nobody took it, of
those three interims, so they came back to me and said would you like it?
And I said yep, I'll take it. I had had a really good experience as the
interim conductor, so I thought, okay I can do this.
15:13
MM:
l5
PH:
15:
So then you left there and came to Augsburg?
What is an interim?
Oh, interim. The former conductor had left mid-year, so I came in
as the first to do the last semester ofthat year. And they did a search but
couldn't find anyone they wanted, so then the next year there was
somebody in the fall and somebody in the spring to fill the position while
they searched again. And then that's when I put my hat in the ring there
and said, yep okay I'll consider it.
15:41
l5:44
MM: And whose position did you fill?
PH: It was Tom Rosen. Well, Le Sateren, and then Larry Fleming and
then Tom Rosen, and then I was the next one in line, yeah.
l6:00
16 :05
16 :06
16:07
16:09
MM:
So you said you're Swede by um, heritage...
PH: Swede, Fin
MM: Swede, Fin
PH: Don't forget that Fin part!
MM: Sorry, so then how do you, do you try and bring that into the
Norwegian at all?
l6:14
PH: Actually,
16:15
MM:
Or,
l6:16
PH:
Oh sorry.
l6:17
MM:
No, go ahead.
16:18
PH:
Oh, um I, it's interesting because uh, um, Le Sateren, he was, you
know, Scandihoovian, you know as they say as Norwegian as they get. He
was very instrumental in bringing sort of contemporary Scandinavian
music; particularly from Norway into the United States, he created a
relationship with Knut Nystedt. Um, who was a Norwegian composer and
conductor. In fact Knut came over here for a year and they sort of
exchangedjobs. He went to Bergen, I think, and oh no Nystedt was just on
the faculty, that's what it was. But he was here for a whole year and
Sateren premiered many, many works of Nystedt. So that continued
because when I was uh, my fifth year or so, there was a commission ub
see Halverson, I can uh, anyway, somebody commissioned Knut Nystedt
to write a piece for the Augsburg Choir. Uh, and so we premiered that and
it was, uh, 1998 or something like that. So then I've done lots ofworks by
uh Scandinavian composers that's sort ofbeen what, what, uh, Sateren
started out doing is doing a lot of stulfyou know by Scandinavian
composers, and in fact, you know the piece we uh, in choir, um we end
concerts with is um Stay With Us is from Egil Hovland he is a Norwegian.
It's from his opera Captive & Free.
18:03
18:07
MM: How has the music program evolved since your time as a student?
PH: Ah ha, good question. Well, um, when I came um, I had a very
small Augsburg Choir, and only a few handfrrl it was kind ofa program
that had diminished a biL so I had to rebuild that. When I first came, one
of my, part of my job is to do the Masterworks Chorale. Which is a town
and gown group um, students, audition students, faculty, staff, friends,
alums, um all lumped into a symphonic chorus. That's the one rqrertoire
that Augsburg has never been able to do, the full choral orchestral
literature like Mozart's Requiem and Brahms' Requiem that kind of thing.
So, I changed the format a little bit, making four choirs and no one was
competitive. Whe'n I was in college there was the Augsburg Choir and
there was the Choral Club. The Choral Club were always felt like they
were second rate, and I vowed never to have anyone feel second rate. So,
I started the Augsburg Choir was there, I started the Masterworks, which
was symphonic chorus. The repertoire is different. I started in the
Riverside Singers and then evolved into the Cedar Singers as well, so we
had a men's group, women's group, symphonic group, and an a Capella
group. So no one, no one has to go across the board and say you're better
than I, no we do different things. That was my, that has, I reached that
goal. I mean it's happening now as we speak. It's never going to be a huge
program, but it never was. It's vibrant and alive with those four choirs.
19:.47
MM:
How has the music program in general grown, like the band, and
the classes?
19:55
PH:
Well, one big thing is we keep adding classes, although they keep
money
taking
away from us. Which is unfortunate, uh, maybe I wasn't
supposed to say that, but I did, too bad. One thing that we've done was uh,
which was sort of our gift to the community is the Advent Vespers, where
we have everybody involved. That actually was started by Larry Fleming
who followed Le Sateren. He started it in 1981 and as a matter of fact, I
was actually part of that first Advent Vespers. I was working at the
seminary as a cook, but at the same time I was doing the choral club, so to
speak, for that one semester when Larry started it, so I was there at the
very first Advent Vespers. But, anyway, it continued from '81 and then I
came in '94, and it had been going on each ofthose years, so that we've
really kind of charged ahead. Starting out with four services with maybe
500 per service to five services now with maybe I 5,1 8,2000 per service so
that is really, it has really mushroomed and grown. I think that is
departmental thing as well, it is notjust the choral program. The
instumental program, the orchestr4 the faculty play alongside students in
a mentor situation, it is really, that's probably one of the biggest crowning
achievements, I think during my time here, that we've gone that far with
it. Yeah, I'm very proud of that.
2l:31
MM:
2l:33
PH: Yeah you know! You know the drill.
MM: So, you're a part of the Midnimo?
PH: Midnimo, yes.
MM: Yes, Midnimo, can you explain that a bit?
PH: Well yeah, Midnimo is the Somali word for unity. The Cedar
2l:37
2l:42
2l:45
2l:46
Well, it's a great show.
Cultural Center got a big grant to combine, um, Somali music at the Cedar
and Cultural exchange at Augsburg. So I have, so they asked me to have
one ofthe cohorts um, people from the choir, my cohort, so to speak, and
we've um, had the Somali's music in our classrooms, we have gone to
their concerts at the Cedar Cultural Center. It's a way to cross over you
know the boundary between two different cultures and to at least
understand, not necessarily assimilate, but to understand each other
through music, basically. Because all the residencies are, ar€, musicians,
bands, or single. It's a great project.
22:43
MM: How long do you expect it will continue?
22:46
PH:
Well, right now it is just this first year, there is only one year. I
think it is the Doris Duke Foundation that put a grant in for the, this year
to do I think, five different residencies, but beyond that I don't know what
would happen.
23:02
MM: Finding different residencies meaning what?
PH: Yeah well, an artist comes in and is here for a week. A week's
23:05
residencies so to speak, and then he goes away and then another one
comes in and she stays and goes away. So we have five discrete bands
coming in.
23:21
MM:
23:31
PH:
Well, my singers I think love music. I think they like me. They like
to sing, they better anyway. I'm being, not arrogant, but it's true. I think
my students love to sing and I, I can't do anything else but you know
facilitate their singing so, it's just sort of who I am. Music just oozes out
of my pores and I share it with my students. It's pretty easy actually. It's
like a no brainer for me.
24:07
MM:
What types of things have you leamed and brought them to the
classroom tlrough your conducting and just your love of music?
Where do you think the music program here at Augsburg is headed
in the within the next...
PH:
24:13
Well I hope it's headed upwards and onwards, um, the school at
this point in time is having struggles with um, finances, and that's always
a question as to what happens and how it works. So, I'm not quite sure but
we are plugging ahead. I'm recruiting as many singers as I possibly can. I
have lots of really good singers, fine arts scholars are coming in. We've
got a lot of endowed scholarships, named scholarships, they call them. So
we, and we're out in the community, I think there is an Augsburg group
out in the community probably five times a week somewhere, somehow,
and tlat's a lot.
24:58
MM:
25:02
PH:
When you say they're out in the community, doing things what?
Concertizing, choir goes to a mass at the Basilica, j""z land 9695
out on, er, gospel praise goes out on a Sunday moming to a place. We've
got students playing in clubs around the area um, some ofthem have
gotten their start through being at Augsburg and connecting with other
singers and instrumentalists, creating their own bands.
25:28
MM:
25:35
PH:
26:ll
MM: How do you try and keep up with the times of evolving music and
Do you have any part or part that you play in the music therapy
program?
I don't, although I believe all music is therapeutic. That is, I
understand music is therapeutic because it touches the soul. It's got an
energy that um, is connected to the spheres and ether and all that, there are
sign waves that go through our bodies that affect us. Acoustics prove that.
I just feel that you know, music is everywhere.
the new styles and everything?
PH:
26:19
Well, um, again I'll go back to doing things in different languages.
Um, there's been a lot of multicultural things happening where you're
working with music from New Guinea, for example, I mean the doors, and
the intemet, has basically opened up the door for us musicians as well.
Suddenly, we can get a printed score from someone in South Africa or
from the mid part of China. There's one company called Earthsongs which
has produced a lot of , lots of, songs from the Earth, so to speak, from all
over, from around the world. I do a lot of, I've done, as I say, I've done
stuff in a lot of languages, intentionally. Because I think that brings us
closer as humans of the world.
27:22
PH:
27:23
MM:
27:37
PH:
Am I doing okay?
You're doing great.
One
ofmy most favorite concerts, I'lljust back up for
a second,
I
work for Dale Warland and the Dale Warland singers, and he um,
there was a woman named Marie Gannon, whose still alive, she's from
Venezuela, fantastic conductor, and Dale brought her um, in to do a whole
concert of Latin American music, and I, I um, got to prepare the Dale
Warland singers for it in advance of her coming. I'll tell ya, that was one
ofthe best concerts I've ever been part of. I actually didn't sing in it or
conduct it, but I prepared the choir ofall those pieces, um, they were
complicated! Some of those pieces from Venentela arc very, very diffrcult
to sing. Rhythmically, and texturally as well, it's got some difficulty.
use to
28:22
MM: Do you take part in bringing new, not necessarily new, but u[ the
performers here, or anything related to just maybe chapel, or maybe the
convocations or anything?
28:38
PH:
28:54
MM:
Um, I'm not a part of that, I did the chapel as a part of the interim
for about two years. Um after Gabe passed away, um, I took over for a
couple years before they found somebody to do it on a permanent basis.
So you said that you went on tour when you were an undergrad
here.
28:58
PH
Yeahmhm.
28:58
MM:
So, has tour for the Augsburg Choir always been something in the
works?
29:02
PH:
29:26
MM:
Oooooo
29:,27
PH:
Yeahhhh.
29:.28
MM:
29135
PH:
Culturally rich and musically rich on both ends, yeah. I, we go,
well, now a days you go anywhere in the world and it is music rich. Um,
all the very different kinds of music.
29:50
MM: What do you think touring brings back to Augsburg?
29:55
PH:
Um, global understanding for sure, um, connection to a wider
community. The intemational tours are eye opening for some people,
something they never forget. I went on the, I went to Norway with the
Augsburg Choir in '75 and I'll never forget some ofthose things, like, I
wrote the King of Sweden a letter to come to our concert in Stockholm. I
was being bombarded by all of these Norwegians and I thought, "Hey I'm
a Swede!" So I wrote a letter to him, he didn't come I don't think, but the
invitation was there. You know that's a cross cultural exchange right there
you know. I'm trying to get the king of Sweden to come to a concert. That
wouldn't have happened if we hadn't have gone on an overseas trip.
30:43
MM:
Yep. When I started in 1994, I want to go every four years some
intemational tour. We have been able to do it. '98 we went to Scandinavia,
2002 we went to Finland. 2006 we went to Hungary, Czech Republic.
2010 we went to China. 2014 we went to Ireland. My next hope is to go to
Iceland.
Are you, for the places that you try and chose to go, are they
musically rich or what are you trying to find?
Have you ever tried to take them, the Augsburg Choir, back to
Germany and show them around or anything?
PH:
30:51
Um, well, we did one year, that year we want to Scandinavi4 in
1998. We started out in Germany, I was the conductor of the Leipzig,
Leipzig choral festival for many years, and the Augsburg Choir was part
of that in 1998. That was about as close as we got, but I haven't been back
to Germany per say with the Augsburg Choir, it is very expensive these
days. Europe in general is expensive.
3l:25
MM:
So you are taking, or pieces of the Augsburg Choir to
New York
City...
3l:32
31 :33
31 :35
3l:41
3l:44
PH: Yep.
MM: In a week or so, aren't you?
PH: Yeah well, let's say two weeks, don't rush into these things.
MM: And you're going to sing at Camegie Hall,
PH: Camegie Hall, yep, I'm going to conduct a piece by Morten
Latidsen, Lw Aeterna. lt's
a large mass choir, 83
ofAugsburgites from
alums, see um, Augsburg Choir, Masterworks, alums, and some guests as
well. We 83 going, and there is another chorus from Virginia that will join
us on these pieces. The other guy conducts one piece, Doug Mears is his
name, um, and I conduct the piece Lux Aeterna.
32:16
MM:
And how did you get to be able to do it?
l8
PH:
He called me up, asked me to do it. It's Mid-American productions
32:
in New York. They have a lot of conductors come through. They might,
it's a way to sing in Camegie Hall, it's their signpost, you know, "Wanna
sing in Carnegie Hall? Well we can make it work." So it's very appealing
to singers to be able to say, "Yeah I sang in Camegie Hall." Um, so yeah,
look forward to conducting there.
32:46
MM:
32:51
PH:
Have you been offered many um, conducting opportunities?
Yeah over the years, lots ofclinics. I do, probably, six or seven
clinics every year with high school choirs. Um, I do festivals, yeah all
kinds of stuff.
33:05
MM:
How do you think that your time at Augsburg and around the
country and in Berlin and things set you up to have such a wide reach in
different festivals and such?
I
33:
l8
PH:
Well word of mouth a lot, well are you in the know or not? Do you
go to conventions and talk to people and get to know school directors?
Stuffjust comes out from networking, I think, more than anything else.
They know that a product will be good. Augsburg has a reputation in
terms of choral music and I think people know that so they would trust
that whoever is there will come in and work with their festival or choir.
33:51
MM:
34:O4
PH:
34:47
34:50
How do you try and keep Augsburg expected outcome of product
compared to all the other choirs in our...
Well, I try not to think about competitiorl although because we are
one ofthese Lutheran colleges, I have no choice but to consider it. I prefer
not to, I prefer to go sideways; I'm not going to try and go over the top,
that's pointless. It's not really thinking about your students. Your students
are mor€ important than the 'lre're better than" some other college.
There's always been some banter back and forth between Concordia and
St. Olafand Augsburg and Luther. They all have good programs. I like the
conductors, I like the music, but I do my own thing. That's the way it has
to be.
MM: Do you have a lot of athletes in your choir?
PH: Not so much, but I've worked very hard to find ways to make it
work. I've had some football players, a woman who plays lacrosse this
year, track people, that's about it I think. There's probably been about one
or two or three that I've had to kind of coordinate timing within the
athletic department.
35:16
MM:
How do you try and get them to join if they have a prefty good
voice?
35:22
PH:
35:47
MM:
What do you think your legacy will be...
35:51
PH:
Oh boy...
35:52
MM:
at Augsburg?
Well, I just walk up to them and say do you sing? They say no, I
say why not? I've gotten lots of people by just asking well why not? Well
I don't have a good voice, and then they audition for me and I say well
yeah you got a good voice. So, it's beating the bushes, knocking on the
door, seeing someone and say, "Hey I like the way your voice sounds, do
you sing?" No, oh well why not?
35:53
PH:
My legacy. Ha. Ijust hope I have legs when I leave here, how is
that? No I just want to make good music with people. My job as conductor
is to facilitate my singers, teach them good music, teach them how to sing,
and get that out ofthe way. So, it's more important that the students are
serviced instead of I'm just servicing my own ego or my own legacy
guess. I don't even think about that.
36:29
PH:
So, the legacy
line and not mine.
36:40
MM:
will probably
I
be someone else's decision down the
I'll just do my thing.
So, um, the main point of this interview was to see how your time
as a student in the music and the choral program is compared to your
time
as a member ofthe faculty now, and conductor of all the choirs. How do
you think those two correlate or match?
36:58
PH:
Oh they don't at all because I never wanted to be the Augsburg
Choir director. It never occurred to me. I was an instrumentalist, I sang all
the time, I conducted choirs, but I was going to be a musicologist for a
while. That's what I was at Columbia, get a Ph.D. in musicology. I was a
harpsichordist when I came to Augsburg in that first semester interim, I
wasjust there to help them out. I wasn't looking for ajob, I had a great
job. So, in some ways I sort ofjust fell into this, it's not something when I
was a student at Augsburg, "oh I hope I can be like Le Sateren and be the
conductor ofthe Augsburg Choir." That never existed in my mind and
suddenly I was like, oh okay, I guess I can, it was in my face. I guess I
better do it then.
37:50
MM:
Was it a happy fall?
37:52
PH:
Yea[ pretty good. Yeah, it's had its moments
here and there. By
job.
in large, I don't hate my
Hahah4 there are times when I love it. I hate
rehearsals most ofall. Ill tell ya, I get some sort ofanxiety that I cannot
get rid of, once I'm in it I'm fine but I don't like to prep for rehearsals, I
don't like how it feels. They seem odd, because I've done about 2,500
rehearsals and I counted them one time, like x number per year, okay that
adds up to this, and this is about 2,500 rehearsals, I think I've done over
the 34 years.
38:31
MM:
My goodness.
38:32
PH:
Yeah. I know my goodness.
38:33
MM:
38:39
PH:
Yeah, musicology, yeah.
38:41
MM:
What exactly is that?
38l.42
PH:
Well, it's um, it's sort of, well mine was historical musicology.
That is um, studying music history in depth um, keatises, people usually
pick a specific area to study. Mine was going to be um, Mahler's use of
early music, that was going to be my dissertation, but I left New York to
come back and have babies. That's basically what it was.
39:19
MM:
39:22
PH:
Well they were already gone. They're done with school No they
didn't come here. My daughter went to Grinnell and my son went to the
University of Denver. So they had the opportunity to look all around and
they had friends in their school that looked all around too. Of course
Augsburg was a consideration, but I let them where their heart landed, you
know. That's the best way.
39:52
MM:
Um, earlier you said you wanted to get your doctorate in
musicology?
Are your children going to follow your footsteps and come here?
If you could summarize the choral tradition
at Augsburg College
in
a sentence, what would you say?
40:02
PH:
40:29
MM: Do you think that Le Sateren was the one who set off Augsburg's
Uh, a tradition bom out of Norwegian immigrants with love for
music, a love for the lord, so to speak, and its inception, and always,
always, always, trying something new, I guess. That's what I would say,
Le Sateren sort of started that, looking for something new all the time, but
steeped in that Lutheran tradition.
music progtam or was it always at the top?
40:38
PH:
Yeah, no, he was here from about you know 1949-1980, that's a
long time, thirty-some years I think it was. He is the one who brought the
music program, you know, to the floor. He was sort of like the F. Melius
Christiansen there and the Paul Christiansen there and Weston Noble at
Luther. He was the guru at Augsburg I guess.
4l:09
MM:
4l:10
PH:
PH:
41:13
The guru.
Yes.
Prolific composer too, he wrote lots of music.
4l:17
MM:
4l:79
PH:
Have you done any composing?
Yeah, I do a lot ofarranging, orchestrating. Because I'm an
organist I orchestrate pretty easily. We're always drawing stops so you
know to make a certain sound on the organ, same thing with diving out
instruments, in a piece for vespers for example, I orchestrate a lot ofthose.
4l:45
MM: What do you think is the next step for the choral program here is?
PH: More.
4l:46
MM:
4l:47
PH:
42:01
MM:
42:06
PH:
4l:19
More?
More singers, more music, more touring, more frrn. I don't know
anything more than that. Just keep going, just keep going.
Well Peter, thank you!
Thank you Meridith! It's been fun, I babbled didn't I?
Show less
Interview with Michael Kidd
Augsburg HIS300 Oral History Project
Interviewed by Anthony Valeri
3/10/17
..
Michael Kidd : MK
Anthony Valeri : AV
00:02 AV: So today is March 10, 2017. I'm sitting here today here with Michael Kidd of
Augsburg College. He is the Director of Medieval Studie... Show more
Interview with Michael Kidd
Augsburg HIS300 Oral History Project
Interviewed by Anthony Valeri
3/10/17
..
Michael Kidd : MK
Anthony Valeri : AV
00:02 AV: So today is March 10, 2017. I'm sitting here today here with Michael Kidd of
Augsburg College. He is the Director of Medieval Studies and the Associate Professor of the
Language Arts and Cross-Cultural Studies. Michael, how are you doing today?
00:15 MK: Good, Thanks.
00: 17 AV: Could you tell us a little about yourself to get things started. Where are you from?
What was your family life like? Did you participate in any activities growing up?
00:26 MK: I grew up in Louisiana, so the deep south, from a family of five. I was the youngest
of five. My father was a biologist who worked for the state of Louisiana. My mother was a
homemaker. Yep, I guess.
00:49 AV: When did you find your passion for learning different languages and the medieval
studies?
00:59 MK: Languages started pretty early in middle-school. I had,just kind ofby accident, I got
placed into a Spanish classes as an elective and I liked- and this would have been about 7th grade
- and I really liked it- you know it wasn't really learning language at that point it was sort of
vocabulary lists and verb paradigms. But I really liked the grammar, puzzlings through the
grammar and it helped me with my own English grammar, and it helped me with writing. So I
stuck with it. I kept studying it through high school and when I got to college I kept with it. I
didn't think I wanted to be a language major in college initially, I was going to do Philosophy;
but I studied abroad in Spain in my sophomore year and that's what kind of sealed the deal for me
in terms of Spanish. When I came back, I decided I wanted to study additional languages so I
studied French and Latin as well; then later on in graduate school, German and Greek for reading
knowledge.
I didn't really get into medieval studies until later. Actually, I guess I would say, coming to
Augsburg because of the medieval studies program here. I had studied Medieval Literature as
part of my doctoral degree and I had taught medieval literature as part of courses here and there,
but I had never really focused on it in my teaching. When I came to Augsburg with the great
medieval studies program, I got involved with that and started teaching more and more in the
program and eventually became Director.
02:47 AV: Would you mind elaborating what medieval topics you chose for your doctorate?
02:53 MK: Yes. So I didn't, that's the thing. I wrote my dissertation, so I did my PhD in Spanish
and Classics, so I wrote my dissertation on Greco-Roman mythology in Spanish theatre. So the
periods that I focused on were the Renaissance and the 20th century, because those-were the two
richest periods in which Spanish playwrights were working on Classical Mythology. In the
course of doing my PhD, I - you have to take an exam, a field exam and that covered Medieval
literature. So I read a good bit of medieval literature in my doctoral program; but it didn't
specifically go into my dissertation.
03:53 AV: Ok, so what-did you plan on becoming a professor after you gradated with your PhD?
What was your goal?
04:09 MK: Yes, absolutely. I actually thought as an undergrad that I wanted to be a professor
and that's why I went to grad school, because you pretty much need a PhD to be a professor if
you want a permanent position. So that was kind of my plan all along when I decided to go to
graduate school and I came out of graduate school after I got my PhD and was lucky to get a
teaching job right away. That was my first position at the University of New Mexico.
04:40 AV: Could you elaborate on that? Could you share with us with how you came to
Augsburg? I noticed on your biography online that you taught at- (pause)
04:50 MK: Yes, I can go over the sequence with you. I started at the University of New Mexico,
which was my first job in Albuquerque. And that was a very good position right out of graduate
school and I ended up staying there eight years. But I decided I wanted to go to a smaller place you know- it was a pretty big state university. So I came to Minnesota and initially taught at
Carleton College; which is a small college in Northfield where I still live. I moved around from
Carleton to Macalester, then from Macalester to St. Olaf; but those were all short-term
appointments- and the position for Augsburg came up, which was a permanent position so I
applied for that and got it. So that is how I ended up here.
05 :41 AV: Were all these short-term positions based on teaching language arts and cross-cultural
studies?
05:45 MK: Yes, they were all in language departments, mhm.
05:50 AV: What year did you join the Augsburg faculty and what did you work on initially?
What position did you hold initially?
05: 57 MK: Sure, so I came in- in 2008 and I was - trying to remember- my title was Associate
professor of Language and Cross Cultural Studies without tenure. So I was here two years before
I was awarded tenure. And initially in the first few years, I - a lot of my teaching was language,
beginning in intermediate language classes- and I would say only in the past three or four years
have I started teaching more medieval studies. I still teach language classes but it's not my full
teaching load.
06:49 AV: So you had experience in Medieval Studies writing your dissertation. Did you have to
take any other studies with - in order to become director of Medieval Studies?
07:10 MK: No. What I did was when Phil Adamo, who was director of the program previously,
decided that he wanted to step down from the directorship- and he is currently director of the
honors program- he asked me if I was interested and I said yes. I certainly was interested. I felt
like I needed to - do some study of my own so I could bring myself up to speed to direct the
program and teach the HUM120, Intro to Medieval Studies class. So what I did was the last
semester he taught the class I sat in and attended all the classes. So I could get a feel for his
teaching style and the material that he covered. I kind of inherited his approach to the course and
I have been teaching that way for two years now; but I think now that I feel that I have more
experience teaching the class, I would like to spend some time redoing it and kind of reinventing
it in my own way.
08:27 AV: What was Augsburg like when you joined in 2008?
08:30 MK.: Hmm. Well, I came in the middle of the financial crisis of 2008. The stock market
had just plunged. We had a presidential election. It was an exciting and scary time for the
finances of the college. Enrollment was in quite a bit of flux. It was a very different student body
back then - I mean, it's amazing, only nine years ago- but the face of the student body has really
changed since then. It has become a more diverse student body. So when I first came the first
couple years it was still majority white middle-class student body I would say, and that the
admissions office has really made efforts to diversify and go after much wider socio-economic
ranges of students.
09:35 AV: Has the college during the financial crisis done anything different to combat it?
09:43 MK: Heh, that's a great question. For a while, you know, it was pretty rough and I think
that about five years ago? Maybe four? A lot of staff were laid off and that was one of the
responses to the crisis. I think we- I think the college has assembled a pretty good team of vice
presidents. The whole-almost the entire administration has changed except the President since I
arrived. So, we have a new vice president for marketing, a new vice president for enrollment.
And it seems like a pretty good team and they have a pretty good strategy going forward and I
think we turned a comer.
10:35 AV: What is the strategy going forward?
10:37 MK.: Well, they- I think- I think you should talk to the VP's to get a clearer idea but my
sense is that they have attempted to broaden the - admissions base for the college - what they
would call the admissions funnel. One of the issues at Augsburg is that we don't have a huge
endowment like a college like Macalester or Carleton has - which is a pile of money that just sits
there and the college spends the interest, right? So it's like a savings account, but the interest that
at a place like Macalester and the size of the endowment can be significant, right? So millions of
dollars they can get from the interest of the endowment. Augsburg isn't-doesn't have that, which
means that we depend very heavily on student tuition. So if- if enrollment drops by forty or fifty
students in a year - at a place like Carleton that wouldn't make a dent, right? Because the
endowment income could make up the difference. At Augsburg that is not the case and if the
enrollment drops forty students, that's a crisis - a financial crisis. So the administration has tried
to come up with an enrollment strategy that will ensure that they always have- a big pool of
student applicants to draw from to keep enrollment steady
12: 14 AV: What are the positives and negatives of that? You mentioned just now that Augsburg
would have the safety net from funding, but what are the negatives in broadening applications?
12:27 MK: Well, that is a good question. It's -you know- honestly, I don't see any negatives
myself because I think the quality of the students is still very good. I suppose that a negative
could be that if you basically open the doors to every student because you want tuition from
them, that - you know - you might be accepting students who may not be ready for college. And
I suppose some faculty might say that has happened - I don't see it myself in my classes. I
believe the quality of students in my classes has remained consistent.
13:13 AV: Could you share with us your participation in Augsburg clubs, committees, and
academic groups?
13:21 MK: Sure. So committees, I'm currently on the faculty senate- which is the chief
governing body of the faculty. It is twelve faculty members who are elected to the senate. It is a
two year term and I am in my first year. It is the main organ for faculty governance - so anything
about the curriculum or the academic program of the college has to go through the faculty senate
as well as lots of other things that would be asked of us to consider. So it's a pretty important
body. We meet every other week and make some pretty important decisions. We don't ever - you
know- make important decisions on our own in isolation. Anything important we would talk
about, maybe take a vote, and take before the entire faculty at the general faculty meetings. We
kind of get the first look on a lot of things. I'm also on the Committee for tenure and promotion,
known as CTP - and that is the college committee that reviews candidates, faculty candidates,
who are coming up for tenure and or promotion and we make recommendations on those files for
if their case should be approved or not. Those are the two faculty committees that I am on this
year. I'm also faculty sponsor of a student group called the Classical and Medieval reading group
- and that is again a student group that meets every week to explore readings Classical and
Medieval literature. It was kind of a spinoff of one of my courses; some of my students wanted
to continue reading so we formed that group.
15:33 AV: As [briefly, perhaps falsely interpreted] mentioned by Professor Jacqui deVries in one
of my other courses, HIS480. She had mentioned that over the years, Augsburg has become more
and more bureaucratic and our presentations would be assessed by a Minnesota standardmandatory standards- do you believe Augsburg is becoming more bureaucratic?
16:00 MK: Tell me what you mean by bureaucratic
16:02 AV: Meaning that Augsburg is working with other schools and committees that have
basically set standards to assess students
16: 13MK: Yes, if you are talking about assessment of student learning in particular, yes. I would
agree with that statement. I don't think- don't think that - It's not a decision that Augsburg has
made itself that we're going to become more bureaucratic. It has to do with federal guidelines,
right? State guidelines, right? External bodies that hold colleges accountable mainly because
tuition has become so high and students and their parents- right - they want to make sure they are
getting their money's worth and that the college does what it says it is going to do in educating
students. So these external bodies hold us accountable - right? - for certain standards and that has
to be- they ask us to come up with assessment processes that can be documented so that we can
show that if our mission says "We foster critical thinking ability in students" we can actually
prove that we can do that. That has become a bigger and bigger issue- but again it's not really
because Augsburg is necessarily chosen but it's our crediting body- the Higher Leaming
Commission - most colleges go through a accreditation process every ten years or so. If you
aren't accredited then you aren't really a legitimate college and so as part of the accreditation
process, the accreditors will ask what you are doing in terms of student assessment: How are you
assessing student learning? How are you proving you are doing what you say you do? As part of
our last assessment process - which is about three years ago - the assessment movement in higher
[education] had really kicked in and we we're part ofit and we had to do it.
18: 13 AV: What plans do you have for the future of language arts, cross cultural studies and your
medieval studies department
18:25 MK: We are currently in - Jacqui deVries, actually, who is the director of general
education, is undergoing a general- a review of general education, the general education program
of the college. And the last - the last - the current gen. ed program was approved twelve or
thirteen years ago and she just feels and the provost feels and I think that most faculty agree that
it's time to look at that and see if it needs to be updated. So one of the things that rm involved in
with that and that has to do with the language department is that the college wide language
requirement at Augsburg; which is currently as you probably already know, two semesters,
right? So most students have to study two semesters of a foreign language in order to graduate;
with a few exceptions there. So one of the things that I- my department would like is to at least
think about extending that requirement because we don't believe that two semesters is sufficient
for- developing ·competency in a foreign language so we are hoping to extend that to three or
maybe even four. Most of our - institutions that we like to compare ourselves to have a threefour semester requirement. So that's one thing. In terms of medieval studies, I think I would like
to think about expanding into Renaissance and maybe rebranding the program to Medieval and
Renaissance studies. In a sense that it's already that; because the - the program - the classes that
are required for the major include classes in the Renaissance. There is a class in Martin Luther,
there is a class on Shakespeare that count. Those are renaissance classes. So it would really be
renaming the program and I think hopefully attract more students because of that if the students
see that if the name actually reflects the reality of the program.
20:46 AV: Going back to what you were talking about extending the language requirement to
three-four semesters, do you think that would impact how long students stay here when working
towards other majors?
20:59 MK: Yeah. So that's one of the battles, right? If we try to do this, it would certainly
impinge on certain segments of the student body, for sure. So right now, there is no standard
number of classes that a major - you have to have in a major. So when - if you are a Spanish
major or a German major, it is around ten or eleven classes, something like forty credits. If you
are a biology major or a chemistry major, it is more like sixteen or seventeen classes. So the
science majors in particular, especially if they are doing a Bachelor of Science instead of
Bachelor of Arts, there are additional requirements. Some of our science majors in particular
have trouble, even with the two semester requirement. The other segment of the student body
that it would be difficult for would be the adult student body who are studying at night because
they are trying to cram everything- right- into a night, into an evening schedule. So that's
something that we are going to have to think carefully about. We do take that seriously, we don't
want to make it harder for students to get their degree and we might have to think creatively
about ways that we would allow them to satisfy the requirement that wouldn't slow them down;
such as online language learning, or community service that includes language and cultural
involvement. Yeah. We are still- still thinking of that, thinking that through.
22:43 AV: So, we've talked about some changes in the college, how the school has handled the
financial crisis, the increase in diversity among students. What in your opinion would the future
of Augsburg be? What goals should the institution make effort to fulfill?
23:07 MK: Wow, that's a great question. Well, this is a very biased point of view from my ownit reflects my own interests. But I would like to see from the administration more - greater
commitment to the humanities and fme arts. I would like to see something along the lines of a
classics or classical studies major which we don't currently have - or haven't had for a long time.
I would like to see more commitment to the fine arts: art, music, theatre in particular. I think
those disciplines in particular are the public face of the college, right? If you think about how the
community interacts with Augsburg, it's coming to a play, right? It's coming to a Vespers
concert, right? It's coming to an art opening. I think it's money well spent ifwe invest in those
departments because the public will see it and it would be its own reward in that sense.
24:45 AV: Do you have any concluding thoughts or stories that you would like to share?
24:53 MK: What'd I say... I kind of ended up at Augsburg the - way a lot of people end up in an
academic position. In a way it's luck of the draw because you apply for the jobs that are
available in the year that you are applying and you don't necessarily know what the place is like.
I didn't know a lot about Augsburg before I came here but I feel like I made my home here. I
really love the institution. I feel pretty fondly for it and I hope we have turned the comer
financially. I think that we have, I do feel confident in that. We have a sesquicentennial
celebration in 2019. We are changing the name of the college to Augsburg University, we have a
brand new science building that is almost complete - so I think that the future is bright for the
institution and I am happy to be a part of it.
26:06 AV: With the construction of the new science building, do you think Augsburg will go the
path that you would like it to be from a more fine arts point of view to more of a
technical/science based?
26:21 MK: Yeah, I think there are some good signs there. It's not just a science building, the
name of the building is actually Center for Science, Business, and Religion. So there will be
several academic departments housed there and there has been a lot of talk about what can come
from housing those three departments in that building and that kind of - interdisciplinary
synergies that would come out of it. And the other thing that is exciting about the building is that
they have created - are in the process of requisitioning original artwork to decorate the building.
They're doing it in a very smart way financially; which is they get a local artist who has an idea
for murals, statues, whatever they think would look nice in the building and they come up with a
description for that piece of art - and they get a donor who is willing to donate a sum of money to
sponsor that piece of art and have their name attached to it somehow. So it is a great idea because
you get a beautiful piece of art out of it and a chunk of money that our donors are willing to give.
So, in an interesting way, everyone thinks of it as a new science building but it does have some
potential to create interest in some of the other disciplines as well.
27:58 AV: Over the eight years coming onto nine that you have worked here, have you seen an
increase or decrease in the amount of students pursuing a fine arts degree? The fine arts,
humanities, medieval studies?
28:18 MK: I don't know ifl have those numbers. My sense is that the numbers have dropped off.
I can definitely say that the number of students who study languages has declined and we've lost
a number of full-time tenure-track positions in my department that haven't been replaced: one in
German, one in French, one in Norwegian. And the administration's argument for not replacing
them is that there aren't enough students studying those languages. I understand that argument
because the numbers have declined and if you - you know - making an investment in a faculty
member - a new tenure-tracked faculty member- it's a big commitment from the point of view as
the college. If you hire somebody and there aren't many students who take their classes, it's a
problem. All that is to say that study - language study in particular - has dropped off quite a bit
since I've been here. I think that part of it might be that the new demographics of the new
students that we are talking about - it's a more urban student body from all different socioeconomic strata - and they are not necessarily students who are interested in taking languages
and I think that is part of the reason that the study of languages has dropped off.
29:56 AV: How would you get students invested back into languages and the fme arts?
30:07 MK: That's a great question... You would need to convince them that it is something
worthwhile. you need to convince students - you know what I think, unfortunately, a lot of
students have had bad experiences with languages in particular in high school because they
hadn't been taught the right way, so students have these preconceptions about language either
that it is hard to learn or even if you do learn it, it's not useful. We need to do a better job at
explaining to students the usefulness of studying a foreign language and the doors it could open
up to you. I would argue the same with the other disciplines - you know - the English department
has to do the same thing for English majors to explain the value of an English major and
Philosophy - the importance of a Philosophy major.
31 :09 AV: During my study here at Augsburg, I've studied abroad twice and that has got me
invested in going down the path of History - finishing my degree- I'm proud I've chose this path
of study. Do you think more- more study abroad programs or interactive programs would get
students invested into those fme arts and cross-cultural studies?
31 :36 MK: Yes, I do. I think that study abroad has been identified - it's called a high impact
program. So in other words, it's a program that deeply affects students that can be transformative
that can be, just as with yourself, can make- help them make decisions about what they want to
do. I hear this story all the time, students who go abroad and come back and they've been
transformed. It happened to me as a student as well. The problem is access to Study Abroad as
you know. It's not cheap. It can often cost more than studying here for a semester. And that's
something the college is going to have to ask itself - if - you know- if it wants to make that a
priority it is going to have to invest money and make it more affordable for students. But I think
it definitely would - you know- be the impulse in creating interest in studying languages and
foreign cultures.
32:52 AV: Did you have any say over the change in the name of the institution from Augsburg
College to Augsburg University? And if so, what was the thought process behind the change?
33 :05 MK: Yeah, that's a great question. I don't feel like the faculty - I'm speaking for the
faculty - ever had much say in it. I feel like it was kind of a done deal - right? - from the
beginning. And I understand the reasons for it. I think that - you know- in reality we already are
a university so the name change reflects the reality. It is kind of what I was saying about the
medieval studies, it's really Medieval and Renaissance Studies and so if we change the name it
would just be reflecting the reality. There are some good reasons for it as well in terms of student
recruitment, especially international students. In Spanish- speaking countries for example, the
word colegio which [we interpret as] "college" means high school. So when a Spanish speaker
sees Augsburg College, they are not necessarily clear that it is a university, right? They may feel
like it's a private high school. So the name change could have real impact on recruiting
international students, especially in Spanish-speaking countries. But I don't feel like - you know we certainly did have discussions about it among the faculty but I don't really remember the
faculty being given a vote, a chance to say 'yes, we want this change', or 'no, we don't want this
change'. I feel like it would have been nice to have a more deliberative process even if the result
had been - probably would have been the same thing.
34:53 AV: Have you ever worked in your cross-cultural studies work - have you ever been with
the Center of Global Education?
35:05 MK: Sure
35:05 AV: Where have you been to?
35 :09 MK: About five years ago, I guess it was, I went to our - so we have a campus in Mexico
and another in Central America. I went there in late summer to - just kind of to observe - kind of
like a quality control sight report, site visit. I sat in on classes talked to some of the instructors,
some of the students who were there at the time. I just wanted to get a sense of the learning that
was going on and the pedagogy that was being used and - I came away pretty impressed with it's a very unique pedagogy based on social justice and equality that they used on both of those
campuses. Yeah, it was a very great trip
36:02 AV: Do you think the Augsburg Center of Global Education should make better efforts in
attracting an international body of students?
36:14 MK.: I think the college should do that for sure. I'm not sure if it's the Center of Global
Education's role, I guess maybe it is. The way I think of the Center of Global Education is
sending American students abroad and not bringing international students to Augsburg. But I
suppose it can be a two-way street and it can be the same organization that's doing both.
Whoever is in control of bringing International students to Augsburg, I think they should do
more of it for sure, yeah.
36:51 AV: How has Augsburg improved in terms of playing a community role in the Twin
Cities, in Minneapolis?
36:59 MK: I think that's one of our strengths and it has been that way for a while, certainly when
I came here. We have a very strong internship program at Augsburg. I think we got a Presidential
award several years ago from President Obama for our internship program so I think the college
has a pretty strong presence in the community and is pretty well-respected in the community; in
particular this neighborhood of Cedar Riverside; which is an amazingly diverse neighborhood. I
think the college has a pretty strong presence and - a fair number of solid community contacts
that it can send students to for internships or whatever it may be.
37 :49 AV: Are these internships in a particular field or is there a large variety?
37:56 MK: There's a large variety. I mean, speaking for my department in particular, students
often do internships at one of the nonprofit organizations that serve the Latino communities. I've
had students who literally do daycare with children of Latino parents who cannot afford daycare.
I've had students who tutor adults in terms of adult literacy and most departments have sort of you know - two or three organizations in the cities that they work with and send students to for
internships.
38:41 AV: So would these intern.ships possibly be used when talking about extending the number
languages courses to three or four? Could these internships potentially be used for that?
38:55 MK: Yeah, that's a-when I sort of indicated creative ways of reaching this goal that could
certainly be one. In a way, it would serve several purposes at once because one of the
impediments that many students find to graduate is the Augsburg Experience and the Augsburg
Experience is supposed to be one of these high impact experiences, either intern.ships, study
abroad, etc. And for whatever reason, students are busy and I understand that. They may find it
hard to get off campus, to carve out the amount of time in their schedule to do this Augsburg
Experience. If we were to combine language learning and the Augsburg Experience, it is kind of
two birds and one stone, so it could potentially be a creative way of solving that problem.
40:00 AV: Great! Do you have any concluding thoughts as we wrap up?
40:03 MK: No. Just what I said earlier, I am happy to be at Augsburg and I look forward to a
great future.
40: 11 AV: Thank you very much, Michael
40: 12 MK: Yeah, thank you.
Show less
Interview with Mary Kingsley
Intenieryed at 2426 Sheridan Ave'
Minneapolis, MN
Interviewed on March 18th, 2015
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Inteniewed by Anny Finch
Mary Kingsley- MK
Anny Finch- AF
Time
toe
0.13
Ar:
The following interview was conducted with Mary Kingsley on be... Show more
Interview with Mary Kingsley
Intenieryed at 2426 Sheridan Ave'
Minneapolis, MN
Interviewed on March 18th, 2015
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Inteniewed by Anny Finch
Mary Kingsley- MK
Anny Finch- AF
Time
toe
0.13
Ar:
The following interview was conducted with Mary Kingsley on behalf of
the Augsburg College Archives for the Augsburg College Oral History Project. It
took place on March 18th 2015 at Mary Kingsley's home. The interviewer is
Anny Finch. Mary Kingsley is a fonner professor of Modem languages, taught
Spanish for 42 years at Augsburg College. During her time at Augsburg, she was
a key member in faculty govemance and encouraged and engaged students about
how one should be in the world She also has a passion for justice. Thank you
again for your time. My first question is just to tell me about your background and
education, kinda a back-story?
1.03
MK:
Well, I grew up Crosby-honton, a mining town and my father was a
mining engineer and I went to school at Crosby-konton High school and then I
followed in the tradition of our family and went to St. Olaf. Where my
grandmother had been widowed at a young age and she we'nt to Nortbfield,
bought a house and made a living there so that she could educate her children and
have them go to St Olaf which they did. So we came into tlnt tradition. So I got
my B.A. from St Olaf in 1962 and I was a member of the Span Program that went
to Spain in the summer of 196l before I graduated. And because ofthat I feU, I
switched my major in college which was French to Spanish which was my minor
and went back to Spain on my own and went for a year to the University of
Madrid and got (Spanish Spoken here) from the Univenity of Madrid and then
because I wasn't planning on getting any degree, I was just was doing it for
myself , I decided that I better stay and get a master's degree so Middlebury had
its own program by that second year and then I finished that in 1964. And I
applied for ajob by mail, I applied to four colleges or universities and I got ajob
at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota. And everybody
there would ask each other how did you end up here? And I was only 24 years old
and I had already ended up somewhere and I was but I did, I did enjoy that year.
But, when I was there I called Mimi Kingsley who had beeq who taught Spanish
at Augsburg and Mimi Kingsley and Jim Kingsley were my span advisors and she
said that they were going to go to Chile to work for the Ford Foundalion on the
library in Chile and why didn't I come to Augsburg to teach. So anyway, she
recommended me to be hired at Augsburg and...and in March I think, they called
me and I thought I was suppose to stay two years at least at someplace. Well
anyway, I thought well if I get offered the job well I'll take it so I left and went to
Augsburg after one year al the University of South Dakota. And I had never been
to Augsburg so I had never seen Augsburg so when I told the dean, Martin
Quanbeck that I had never seen Augsburg when he offered me the job and I
accepted, he was kind of shocked. So therU I decided I better go, take a look at
Augsburg and I gave them a look at me. So
went to Augsburg and Mimi
I-I
Kingsley introduced me to the dean and we talked for an hour and we talked only
about religion for the whole hour. And I was never introduced to the chair ofthe
depaxtrnent ofmodem language. (laughing) Butn so the reason we talked about
religion was in those days it was legal to
question and I had been in Spain,
"sk the
and I had had a lot ofquestions about my beliefs so I had been raised a Luttreran
and then I spent two years in a residence ran by a Catholic Order so I was very
introduc€d to Catholicism as well but I was kind of slipping out of Christianity at
that so I wrote my Augsburg application that I was half Catholic and half other
(laughing) so he wanted to know what I meant by that. So that's uihat we
discussed for an hour and we had an interesting conversion and he didn't take
back his offer (laughing) for the job. So that was, that was my introduction.
5.30
AF:
Tell me about when you first started at Augsburg, how the feeling was,
how the people were?
5.42
MK:
Well...we had faculty workshops in those days and there was a new dean,
dean Ken Bailey and I was new and the president Oscar Anderson I think- I'm
not sure, he was, I don't think he was new that year but he was quite new and he
had hired Ken Bailey from Moorhead from which he had come, originally to, he
was a pastor before at a well known church in Concordia, Oscar Anderson was.
So anyway, we had this workshop so I knew I was coming into this with relatively
new people in the administration and, and so I first went to a language department
meeting before the faculty meeting so I heard all the conversation about
something they were talking about and I heard what they were going to present to
the faculty. And when we got to the faculty meeting, the chair got up and
presented something entirely different. (Laughs) once the department head had
decided so I started wondering oh what is this? What is going on here? you know
here they had decided something and he goes and presents something else well so
that was my introduction to the departrnent and to faculty meetings so I was more
or less just an interested, igrrorant bystander to those first meetings. But I had
when I first started, I had-I think I had, I think we had 8 courses then at that time
ifl remember correctly, courses a somester, oh a a year, a year rather, four a
semester. And I think I had two beginner classes and two intermediate classes and
it stands out in my mind is that, I went and told that
grade
intermediate class that the
they got would be exactly what they deserved
and there was a visible gasp (aughing the grade they deserved) so the whole
one thing that stands orit, well
group came up afterwards and said oh well we had this terrible class last year and
we all signed up for the same one so that so that so there wouldn't be, they
wouldn't believe how little we knew and everything was so and so they were
worried about what would happen and, and I think that it tumed out alriCht, that
somehow we made it thrcugh thaf, that second year but they were but I think
someone had been fned to hire me. They were planning on doing it but they
waited till the last possible minute tlat's why I got the ofer in March to come in
so this person had not been to successflrl with the students. So they were worried
but, but it everything worked out alright I think, I think we had, has a good year.
8.40
AF:
8.50
MK:
Talking about you becoming a deparftnent chair, can you describe the
role ofa deparanent chair, why you took it on?
Well that was, that was sort of a interesting thing, it was prctty much well
known that I didn't enjoy deparhnent meetings. (Laughs) And here I was, I was
first asked to be the interim chair because Mimi Johnson who was the chair and
taught French was asked to take on some other work. So the dean asked me ifI
would be acting chair and I think everyone was surprised when I said yes that I
would do it cause I think I was, it was well known that I didn't enjoy deparhnent
meetings. For one thing, is I recall there wasnt much of, we didn't really have an
agenda to stick to so when I went to be acting chair, I told them that I figured that
they probably knew that I, they were probably surprised that I accepted this job
and I said that we were having an agenda and we were going to start our meetings
at a quarter to four and we were going to finish at five, our meetings just went on
as long as the last person was talking and ifanyone was still left (laughs) to talk
to. So I was trying to bring order, oh and then I discovered that I eqioyed bring
order to chaos (laughs). Which I saw happening and I think that-that the
department enjoyed that too. Because we got out so the next year, I was elected
chair unanimously I think and I had a lot of support by the second election ofa
three year term, I had made some decisions that (laughs) caused some, so I didn't
enjoy such a support, by that second election and by the third, I think I had to vote
for myselfto make sure (laughs) I would get elected. So I was chair for three
terms and then Frankie took over for six years and then after six years she didn't
want to do it anymore, I came back in for another nine years- three terrrs. So,
but the work of the chair...involves a lot things and there were personal
di{ficulties, questions from students but mainly getting the courses, deciding on
the curiculum and getting the courses set up and assigmng everybody and all the
adjuncts to courses year by year and keeping that going in an orderly fashion. And
I think, deans have told me tlat almost everybody handed in programs for the
following year with mistakes and I had several things, oh, oh well. No I didn't
think I had made any mistakes, well, oh well maybe not, but then I did make one
and it was a lulu. (laughs) That was that I assiped Don Steinitz to two classes
(laughs) at the same time. And, and we found out about it two hours, he came in,
oh no there is a terrible mistake and he hadn't noticed it either, something had
shifted, changed something in the summer or it was different from what I had in
the fall when I handed it fuL I put him into an open spot, we had filled it with we
had moved his other class and neither one ofus noticed that so another Spanistr
teacher switched with him and before the class met and before the classes met,
sort it out again was a litfle hicky but so that was, ah that was a lulu to have
somebody assigned for two classes (aughs) at the same time, for someone who
was bragging about not mak- not making mistakes. A-nd so I donl I don't just
make little ones, I made a big one so that for me was and keeping everything, you
know. Solving questions, somebody for example, had a question ofa student
cheating in a class well then it ended up in my lap with that and that, I dealt with
that and different, all sorts ofthings. But mostly, mostly people took care oftheir
own issues with students and things but once in a while, you'd deal with
something like tlat.
13.15
AF:
Did the experiences or responsibilities, did they ever change over
time, since you first started as a deparfiment chair or to later coming in? Or has
it
always been consistent?
13.26
MK:
By the time I was elected chair, chairs were elected by the department but
when I first came to Augsburg they were named by the administration. And I was
um, telling Phil Adamo yesterday, that shift where I can remember going in to
dean Bailey and I said we need to have a process at Augsburg for getting rid of
departnent chairs and he looked at me and said I don't like your language.
(laughs) And then I realized getting rid of sounded, (laughing) sounded a little bit
fierce. So, but anyway, if you look in the faculty handbook there is a process now
for the removal of department chairs. And then it went into voting I don't
remember exactly how that came that of the departrnent votes that came later after
that. But that would be another process that came before I was chair, where the
departnents elected chairs and we had the tlree year terms and another election
and so on and so on. So tba! that process changed in that way, there was a process
for deparfinents, I think it might have been used once only. Butjust having a
process helped so that people, and having people elected to so that would so that
they would try not to do things that would be too disruptive. One of my
colleagues said to me, one time, oh everybody meaning all of the permits look out
for their own piece of the pie. I was famous for always thinking ofthe college
first much to the consternation of the deparEnents sometimes because it meant
doing what I thought departrnents should do. Which was to cut classes if we didn't
have large enough enroltnents and to ty and try to be responsible in managing
the money that we had and the resources that we had. Keeping the overall college
in mind as well and not holding on to everything we could so I said to the person,
not everyone looks out for their own piece of pie, my answer always was there's
no piece without a pie. So we have to look out for the pie. (aughs) So as in that
sense, I was also looking out for our piece. Because but the college so I always
did try to look out for the college as a whole. On the other hand, when Frankie
came iq I think Frankje was really good at looking at, thinking about how the
department should maybe change over the years and so it is good to have different
people if you can have different people with diffetent visions. So I was trying to
keep things together, keep it going with the needs of the college but and looking
out for the department too and my way. Frankie, I think was better, looking out
for some of the shifting trends and, and the departnent did change after I left it.
They were working on that my last year. I had Frankie on a committee working
with people to change the name of the deparfinent and the name changed even to
cultural studies or something, I can't even remember exactly what it became. I'm
confidante the departnent has taken care of all of that (laugh$ after I've gone.
They ended up going offin a new direction and that's a good thing.
17.00
17.18
AF:
I'll shift a little bit to your involvement in the faculty governance cause
you kind oftouched on it. Can you kind of discuss your role in the faculty beyond
just being a deparhent chair and kind of how many deans or presidents who've
served under while you were at Augsburg?
MK: Well, first I served under as I said Oscar Anderson and Ken Bailey and
then Ken Bailey- left the deanship and he went into the faculty which was a
difficult rhing to do and I always admired him greatly being able to make that
switch. It would not be easy to be removed as dean and then go into the faculty
and he did that and he did it well. He was elected to faculty senate and played a
major role as a faculty merrber so I served with him as dean first then as a
colleague and I always had a high regard for him and considered him a friend.
And that's when Chuck Anderson came in as dean and when he first came in as
dean, I had just written a little play (laughs) that was criticizing the
administration. And it was criticizing the Oscar Anderson administration cause
the faculty at that time had a personal committee that decided promotions and
they had gone through the whole process of making recommendations but hadn't
announce them yet. And Oscar Anderson announced that we had too many people
in the upper ranks and he was suspending promotions for the year. So I wrote a
little play criticizing that action. (laughs) I was sick at home with the flu and I sat
down and wrote this play. I think it was called the little engine of morality play
and it was about how this poor engine was trying to get over to (made up Latin
spoken) my made up Latin sounding like things, you know, and I had a good time
with it. And with everyone trying to get through and then things changed and
shifted and it was quite critical. Well I showed it to Chuck Anderson and a- a- he
was riding through the hall pass my office often and he stopped in and intro- he
was the new dean and then I gave him a copy of this play and he said I can't wait
until you start writing things for me. Well, he probably would have (laughs)
shifted on that waiting for me to write things for him. We had a complicated
relationship and I did have quite a few complaints about things and did write
things and talk with him later so he. He was the dean under Oscar and then he was
chosen dean and he, chosen president, in fact I think Oscar retired a year early
maybe because St. Olaf was looking for a president and I think, he was concemed
that Chuck might go to SL Olaf instead of stalng at Augsburg. So then by that
time I was on faculty senate and I could back up and tell a little bit more about
that but I was on faculty senate and I was the committee to chose the new
president could include one male faculty mernber and a female faculty member
and the faculty senate was going to chose these people. And ihe faculty senate
chose me and- John Holm in chemistry and I had mixed feelings because as
usual I had just been through some big confrontation (laughs) with Chuck
Anderson. And so I went and talked to him and I was trying to figure out whether
I could be completely unbiased in that role and then I decided, I thought I could
be but I thought I shouldnt stay in that role knowing that we had had these
differences of opinions and I thought it would be better if somebody else would
do it. Just in case anybody would think thBt I would be biased or whatever, I
thought I could be unbiased but I removed myself from that and then I think
Maureen Mcniff served in that role. So there was good faculty administrative, I, I
I think good faculty govemance procedures going on and as I recall, I think this is
accurate, the committee to chose the new president decided that it was clear who
should be the new president early on and they suspended the search andjust chose
Chuck Anderson. And I remember that I saw him out in the parking lot and I
think I was one ofthe first people to congratulate him on his win and the search
and then he was president for many years. So then after Charles Anderson and
then I served under Frame until he left and then I was, and then that was with his
dean who was then Chris Kimball, who was a colleague of mine, who came from
being an associate professor to being the academic dean which is not an easy
thing to do. And then ah one year under Pribbenow before I- retired. And, and
that was with then Barbara Anderson who was, he didn't call her an interim dean
but she was sort of placed in there for a temporary time and then became the
official dean at the request ofPribbenow who named her his only, his only
chose. So she was a friend of mine and I wanted her to be the dean but I thought
there should be a search. So I was the only friend ofBarbara Farley's who wrote a
letter and said Barbara Farlee is a friend of mine, I want her to be dean, we should
follow the official process and have a search, an open search because this method
is not good for Barbara Farley, it's not good for the president and it's not good for
the college. So that was ignored (laughs) which was ok with me because I did
what I thought I should do and I thought I was being a good friend to Barbara
Farley by pointing that out. So that's tlrc history ofthe presidents and the deans,
so when I first got to Augsburg, one of the first committees I was on was the
social committee. The social committee was made up of all women and guess
what their job was?
AF: What?
MK: (augls) To decide what should be served at the faculty meeting and one
of them, one of the five women on the committee would pour the coffee and a
good time was had by all of course. So I sat dovyn and I wrote a letter to Oscar
Anderson, one of my first letters to a president and I said that I thought that the
social committee should be abolished. Because we as faculty have much more
important things to do such as to plan a faculty love-in, a faculty pot party, I bad
about five things that were equally as serious, (laughing) you know, and, and in
response, I got a very formal letter from Oscar Anderson saying fhat the social
committee was a very important committee and would have to continue and
needed to continue or something on that order. So we named all men to it and it
was abolished immediately (laughs) after that. So in those early years things were
quite different from what they became and in the early, I went to Augsburg in
1965, in the early 70s about ten people were fired and most of them were women
and some women anonymously who were not fired I thinl, who weren't affected
by the cuts filed a lawsuit charging sexism. And it became big news in the paper
and it was the president was going to name a committee to study this whether or
not there were biased against women at Augsburg. So he named Marjorie Sibley
to chair-person of that committee and the faculty senate named the four other
members and the four other members were Mles Denchel, Jean Skibby, Norrran
Newman and I was the fourth one so the 5th one. So we went to a meeting with
Oscar Anderson and other administrators and in that meeting, President Anderson
said that we may study the documents of Augsburg to see if they were sexist but
we couldn't study any cases. So I looked at him and I said do you mean to say that
if Augsburg was unfair to a faculty member or faculty mernber was to Augsburg
you don't want to know it? And I get emotional easily so I assume that it's true I
had tears in my eyes probably and another administrator said well you people are
really uptight, Mary's got tears in her eyes and another member of the committee
said no we're not uptight but if we can't look into the cases then I'm resigr.ing
from this committee, me too, me too, me too, me too, me too. So immediately he
shifted and said we could look into the cases which we did for two years and then
we made recommendations and in the credit to Oscar Anderson and his
administration they followed our recommendations. So we started with a new
salary scale that was pretty objective it didn't take into account subjective criteria
and Miles Denchel and I spent a whole Easter vacation, siuing in here studying all
of the documentation about every person and we found that in almost every case
men were favored over women in the salary and even disciplines that were
considered more feminine were discriminated against in salary. So something like
English verses Chemistry, English would have a lower salary. So that was an
important committee and it made a big difference and I think it gave that
Augsburg was ahead of a lot of other private colleges in trying to hire women,
promote women and they weren't any women on faculty senate at the beginning
either and I don't rernember how tley were nanied or if they were elected. But
Miles Denchel is due to the heiress system where you could weigh! you could
name, if you named it if any group ofpeople named, I think you needed about
ten or twelve votes if you had number one, were rated number one by ten or
twelve people, you could get elected. So it weighted the vote sort of like that last
election on the mayor in Minneapolis so that helped women get on senate. And at
one year after that I remember one year there was only one man on senate that
was very unusu"l. (laughs) But so senate became more representative ofthe
desires of various groups on tle faculty. So senate was an important part and I
was on faculty senate for at least 25 years staight so I was on there a lot-but one
person speaking out could have a big afect- also and I did think like my play
that I put out all over and other time Charles Anderson announced that he was
going to, he- well he didn't annormce, he sent letters to five people. And told them
that they weren't guaranteed a contract the next year and the reason was, he had to
make some cuts in order to have raises for the rest ofthe faculty. So one of, so
somebody who worked under me, Joel Muggy worked under me as I was Director
of Intemational Programs so that was another role that I played and he worked
under me and he came and told me that he had gotten one of these letters. So then
I suspected that somebody else who was a friend of mine in the English
depaftnent, I didnt know who had all gotten them but she had gotten home so I
went and asked Chuck if she was getting one and he said yes. And I said, you
should call her so she will know that's she is getting one ofthese letters otherwise
she is going to come in tomorrow moming and find it under her door and that
would not be good. (laughs) And he said, you got yourself into this mess, you get
yourself out cause I think I had mentioned to her that some ofthese letters had
gone out but we didnt know whether she was getting one. Well he wouldnt call
her, so I ended up writing a letter to the whole faculty and I asked them to vote to
give up their raises for a year to save those five people. And some colleagues
whom I respected didn't think we should make that vote and they got up and left
when the vote happened cause they didn't want to vote no but they didnt want to
be voting yes either and I respect that. And they left, but the faculty voted to give
up their raise to save those five people and those five positions were safe in those
departments for many years to come. I think they are still, all, they didn't have to
be cut. That's the only thing I've ever fought for that I think now was a mistake,
that we shouldn't have given up our raises because it put us even farther behind,
that we should have argued for something else. But it did save those five people
and the faculty in general is, was willing to do that and in our deparfinents
sometimes too, we offered to cut back in our departnent so save somebody in our
departnent but the administration wouldn't let us do that and tlnt probably was
right. Because you have to keep thinking about what's going on and what you can
reasonably sustain. People sometimes making these generous sacrifices, maybe
it's not the b€st thing, maybe that wasnl 11rc $s51 thing oveiall for our salaries for
example. So I have wondered about that but at the time, I was convinced it was
the right thing to do. That would be one thing I wonder, look back and wonder
was that you know maybe that was a mistake.
33.27
33.41
AF:
You were talking about being on the faculty senate, during your time on
what was- can you discuss kind of the priorities of the faculty senate and how
they were determined?
it
MK: Well-I think that they probably were determined by the issues that were
brought to us by other faculty mernbers or the administration or the board. And
one year, that was really important, all thou I don't remernber what year it was but
one year-{harles Anderson announced in the fall that he was going to declare
financial exigency which is a really big step that allows you to fire tenured
people. But it means you are in serious financial trouble, well the faculty senate
that year because somebody on the board had requested it was studying the
committee structure so that was what we were working on. And a friend of mine
kept saying to me, I don't think we really have to declare financial exigency, I
don't think that's what we should really be doing, in one ear, out the other. Finally
there was something in between one eye and the other to stop that, Ijust started
listening and thinking well, well she is right, we really shouldn't do that, so I went
to senate and I said, what are we doing talking about committee stnrcture when
the president's talking about declaring financial exigency? Why are we talking
about committee structure? We should be talking about this, so we started
building up and we had other people in the faculty interested in one thing and
finally convinced the president that was the wrong thing to do and
gave reasons and he listened. And we stopped it and we, the dean was saying well
we are going to be better than ever, well without any plan. Well how are we going
to be better than ever, we cu! how many tenure people would we cut and how
another, we
would be then, how is this going to get out and so on, so anyway, we convinced
the president and he convinced the board and we had a big committee on where
we could cut elsewhere and, and a lot of the things we said we would cut, (augh$
the committee decided to cut football. Well you can see how well that went over,
we also decided to cut Norwegian but of course that didn't save a lot ofmoney.
It's always hard to cut we have, that is one of our weaknesses at Augsburg is
knowing where to cut and really evaluating how are things going; where could we
save, what do we really need and, and now in languages be an example with
French and Ge(nan have lower enrollments a lot ofplaces and we don't have a
strong, we don't have a whole lot of French students or a whole lot of German
students so is there or with Frankie Shackelford leaving Norwegian, do we really
need to have, Norwegian was saved and it was saved by Ed Stebella of the
Business departrrent. Who got up and spoke against it said we should not be
cutting Norwegian, we are a Norwegian school and, and that came back in. I don't
know how football was saved but I'm sure the president had a role in that and it
probably wasn't a good idea. (laughs) That's right that probably wasn't a good idea
but the faculty and the administration working together, I mean, we all ended up
being together and so-in a lot of these things where I had differences of opinion
with Charles Anderson and I was a faculty leader who spoke out often in
opposition, he wrote me a letter one time and said lve tried to think about why
you and I are so often on opposite sides and he was trying to tmderstand which is
something that I look back on and I respect and admire and know it was an
important characteristic. And- he said, I think it's because I get as much for the
college as I can and you try to get as much for the individual that you can.
Because I defended individuals who were in trouble with the college, who were
fired or removed as chair or something like that and I tied to help them through
the grievance procedure or the faculty acuity committee, the ah-- in one case it
was a chair person had been removed and there was a process for that and he
could have an advocate. I was his advocate and on the staff, to make a long story
short, I was named StaffAdvocate by a staff committee the A.O.W. the Augsburg
Office Workers, because I had helped a woman who had been fired. And I didn't
get her, her job back but at least the committee said stre had been misteated and I
thought it was important to help her. And I helped her, um, because nobody came
forward to help her, I didn't even know her but I knew the procedures hadn't been
followed. And I thought, they should follow their procedures and her boss was a
friend of mine but the only, the only mistake she made was she hadnt given her a
fair, critical evaluations, she had given her good evaluations always but then she
got mad one day and fired her. (laughs) And that's what you can't do and so she
was trying to be nice, I think and so the H.R. person told her, well you got to, I've
kind of slipped offtrack wittr this story about the staff member person so the staff
person, a[ needed help I thought, so I went and told her boss who was my fiiend
that I was going to help her. She said, how did you get into this, and I said well
nobody was helping her and I felt that I had to do it and she wasn't very happy. So
I did help her and the committee did say that she had been mistreated but they did
give her a sum of tuition rernission for her children so at least she got something.
Well then later, she went to the human rights commission and filed a suit against
the boss. So then I felt, she charged thag tlnt the boss was using ageism as
discrimination. Oh it was because her husband was a doctor and I don't know
what, you know, diferent things, and I knew she didnt really believe those things
and I didn't think they were tue. So she enlisted me as a wihess, she hadn't talked
to me but she listed me as a witness. So then I went to my friend and I said well
now I've gotten these things, oh do whatever you think you should do, she didn't
want to hear anything about it. So I wrote a letter to the Human Rights
Commission and then I argued against every criticism ofthat worker and
defended the boss and it said that the boss di4 had made a mistake and the reason
I helped her was that the boss had not given her a fair evaluation and had not told
her that she needed to improve in these areas and had just gotten mad and fired
her and of course then she didn't believe it when the H.R. told her, that she should
have told the boss to give her a month to get better and so on and she didnt
believe she was really going to get a free month and I dont think anybody thought
that was possible after that. So anyway, I defended the boss, so then one day I ran
into Chuck in the hallway, we had a lot of face to face in the hallway, he said you
should know, that so and so was cleared of all those charges by the Human Rights
Commission. And I said, oh good, you should know I wrote a letter to the Human
Rights Commission (laughs) negating every one ofthose or arguing against every
one of the charges that the staff member made. Cause, so, I'm glad, so he was oh
so he was, so we are back to where I was. He was wondering why we had these
disagreements, so I sai{ he said I try to get as much for the college that I can and
you try to get as much for the individual, I said, all I want, I don't want anything
for the individual expect fair treatnent, that's all I want. I'd, I'd be happier ifthey
didn't get anything expect that fair treafinent. I'm not after your salary which I got
for somebody else, I'm not after tuition remission, after, I'm after fair treaffnent
and I said, I think that I am also fighting for the college because if we're unjust to
one person, it hurts the whole college. Which I really believe----so he was, you
knoq probably, another time he wrote me a letter when we were in the midst of a
big disagreement. And he said, I want to know in writing if you respect your
president. So I thought for a while, ob, so I wrote back, I show my respect for you
by telling you what I really think---and I think tlnt teachers, professors,
administrators over other people below who, who's salary jobs depend on them
often don't get (laughs) in honest response from those in charge oftheir grades or
their salary or their promotion or whatever. So I, I really believe that showed a lo!
that he was lucky to have somebody who was honest and so, so we had these
things back and forth. And I know we don't have a lot of time so I'll just cut to the
chase and say that underneath it all, I had a deep affection, underneath all those
real disagreements, I had a deep affection for Charles Anderson. And after he
retired, well before he retired, he had cancer, did you know that? And I had had
cancer. So I met him in the hallway and I said, I bet you didn't think I would be
your role model, (grumble) so he didnl I said, I swvived cancer and I want you
to survive cancer. So, in that sense, I should be your role model. (laughs) So after
he retired, he came up to me at somebody else's, Rick Nelson's retirement party,
took one ofmy hands and looks at me and said, I miss our little exchanges. And I
did too, bu! wele probably the only two people who missed them. But in the end,
and, as I wrote to Kate and I becarne friends when Chuck had Alztreimer's. My
husband had Alzheimer's too. I understood a lot of what she was going through
and I was really sorry when Charles Anderson came down with Alztreimels.
Because I knew what it was and I always thought of his family and I bet there was
no body as sorry as I was. Um, but, well, when he died, I sent a memorial to them
and I wrote in there that I thought a lot about our relationship and I thought that in
the end, we were really deep allies. We were working from different positions,
from different points of view, different perspectives but we were both fighting for
the college as we sought best to do. And wha! one of the things that I re-regret
not having told him, I told Phil yesterday too, I never thought I could do his job,
he probably that I did. But I never did. (aughs) I was only fighting for those
issues one at a time. You can see, I have strong emotional feelings about him.
(tears)
He made me madder than anybody except my husband. (aughs) And I
think that's because I cared. I cared what he did. I guess I probably wanted him to
be perfect all the time. (laughs) And he was, he was a important person in my life.
And I was happy to hear that when he had Alztreimer's, a colleague, a former
colleague of mine and staffworked where he was and she told me that, she would
tell him before she would go out to eat with some of us from Augsburg would get
together once a mont[ she would tell him, that she was going to see so and so and
so and so and so and so and every time she would mention Mary Kingsley, he
would laugh. And I was happy, I was happy. (tears) So I don't know where we've
ended up but.
-
47.18
AF:
Ah, we can talk abou! um, why you decided to retire after 42 years?
47.25
MK:
OtU
well-well I was 67, for
one thing, so I, I thought 67 was probably a
good age. I also had had, well I had cancer in 1991 so I was 5l and, and 2005, I
had to have a pace maker put in so I had that health issue but that worked fine. I'm
on my second one now and I'm doing fine but I also had bad knees and I needed
surgery in both knees. But I don't think that any ofthat really that much. I just
think that I thought, I should retire when I was at my prime and still going strong.
And I slrculd make room for others and so people would ask me, oh are you going
to travel a lot? You gonna travel a lot? And I says-said uno, moono, only inward.
I'm only interested in traveling inward. And to two people, I said, vrhen they said,
what are you going to do? I said, I'm going to get ready to die. Well that didn't go
over well. Qaughs) That, vftat, oh no. Well why should we slrouldn't really be
surprised, I've since found out that Leonardo Da Vinci said, I thought I was
leaming how to live but really I was leaming how to die. So his pretty good
company for this. But I have thought about that a lot and so I am tryhg to, IVe all
my life probably tried to reconcile loving life and being ready to let go. ... So
that's part ofwhat I tried to try my students and now I'm too close (laughs) now
I'm where, where it's, I've always felt close because really, no matter how old we
are, we're close.
So life is short, and we have to use it to the best, as best we
can. So that's why I fought for what I thought was right. And I have to hope that I
was. One time I lost a big battle, and one of my colleagues said, what are you
going to do now? And I said, I'm going to hope I was wrong. I did the best I could
and I'll hope I was wrong and I think I probably was. So.
-
50.24
AF:
50.29
MK:
Can you tell me, what you miss the most from your time at Augsburg?
(augls) Yes. I miss one thing the most, I miss the big battles. I enjoyed
those battles. I enjoyed fighting for what I thought was right and I, I enjoyed the
excitement ofthe confrontations. I guess, I think that one of Chuck's favorite
adjectives for me was, combative. Well, (laughs) I think that combating, is
something that is wrong, that you think is wrong, is good. I think it's good to be
combative. But, I did, a[ I was always combative with humor. There was always
humor involved. But there was, a strong drive for what the issue or, you know,
whatever, I was fighting for, I was, I loved kying to figure out how to make the
argument in the best way. So I, I miss that. I miss that and I like he$ing
somebody who needed help. I had one woman over her who had been fired one
time, one time I could help her was at eleven o'clock till midnight. And she said, I
feel so guilty having you do this but I was sitting there, trying to figure out hodd
we could win our case. And she looked at me end said, you love this dont you?
Yes. (laughs) Yes I do. Yes I do. So- I miss my students and I enjoyed
especially towards the end. I had enjoyed advising them as they were coming in to
one of the most exciting times in their life. When they're just going to college,
changing, growing and going out at the beginning oftheir lives. That was a
privilege to be a part ofthat. (tears) So I miss that. But I'm happy now too. I have,
I could always be happy and figure out a re- I always tried to have, well if this
works out this well, it will be good for this reason, if it works out and Frankie said
to me, oh Pollyanna, I said, oh no, not Pollyanna. I know what it means to have
bad things happen but you can always so appreciate good that can be found in the
bad. So-right now, I'm painting, as I said, painting the coal bin, and the fumace
room, painting the basement. So I'm fixing up my house but at the same time I've
never realized so much that somebody else will be here someday- but in the
meantime, I'm here and I'm enjoying it
53.35
53.40
AF: Well, thank you so much for your time, you being so open and honest.
MK: You welcome. Can't help it. (aughs)
Show less
Inteniew with Garry Hesser
Inteniewed at Augsburg College, Oren Gateway Center 106A
Minnerpolis, MN
Interviewed on March 4o 2015
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Interviewed by Heidi Heller
Please note that the
narator, Garry Hesser, requested
of additions and edits to the final
tran... Show more
Inteniew with Garry Hesser
Inteniewed at Augsburg College, Oren Gateway Center 106A
Minnerpolis, MN
Interviewed on March 4o 2015
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Interviewed by Heidi Heller
Please note that the
narator, Garry Hesser, requested
of additions and edits to the final
transcript before it was approved. These edits resulted in a tanscript that varies in a number of
places from the recorded interview. The changes do not change the context of the interview, but
serve to clarify, expand upon and enhance various items discussed in the oral history interview.
a number
GH: Garry Hesser
HH: Heidi Heller
HH: The following interview was conducted with Garry Hesser on behalf of the Augsburg
College Archives for the Augsburg College Oral History Project. It took place on March 4, 2015
at Augsburg College. The interviewer is Heidi Heller. Alright, so my first question is how did
you get interested in sociology.
GH: I was a history major as an undergraduate. I used to ridicule my Sociology major roommate
because history dealt with specifrcity, and sociology, only offered sweeping generalizations that
everybody knew. I think probably that the sociological perspective came later, as I attended
Union Theological Seminary in New York where two of my favorite professors in social ethics
and education used sociology and sociological theory as a framework for what they did which
was my introduction into sociology. To make a long story short, I wanted to do a graduate degree
in Human Relations at New York University. New York University accepted me, but didn,t want
to offer me any money and we had a baby on the way. But Notre Dame, in a fit of generosity,
thanks to the federal govemment and National Defense Education Act, had received some major
scholarship money for graduate students in the sciences. So, in a sense, Notre Dame '.bought me
off'to become a sociologist. The degree I was going to do at NYU was a joint Sociology and
Psychology degree. But Notre Dame offered the scholarship, and we lived in South Bend
already. So, to make a long story short, I was always interested in sociology because of those
seminary professors, and I had also become increasingly involved in civil rights, fair housing and
issues related to social inequality. sociology is focused on that kind of interest, but it never
occurred to me that, without a sociology undergraduate degree, that any school would accept me
for graduate work, but Notre Dame did because ofa unique set of circumstances. They were
seeking a cohort ofus that didn't have sociology undergraduate degrees. They were trying to
compete with Chicago and Berkley by attracting older and more experienced professionals. So I
became a sociologist almost in the back door. I was bought and glad ever since. [laughter]
HH: Ok.
So you had your Masters of
Divinity before you got your Masters?
GH: Right, I had an undergraduate degree from Phillips University, a school like Augsburg, in
oklahom4 with majors in History, Religion, and Philosophy. I went to seminary and was serving
Page2ofl5
(Disciples of Christ) congregation in South Bend, India''a. That is how Notre
Dame, which was there, came into my life.
a Christian Church
HH: Ok, alright.
So how did you discover an interest in experiential leaming and service based
leaming?
GG: Um, probably since I was bom. I was bom into a family of educators. My father was a Boy
Scout leader and volunteer; and so Boy Scouts became, along with the church, central to my life.
And you don't do Boys Scouts, whether it's Indian dancing, like I did, or become an Eagle
Scout, camping and hiking, without becoming experiential; it's almost at the core. But, to be
more specific, you don't go into something applied like the church ministry without being very
experientially oriented. I was up to my eyeballs in civil rights and issues like that with local
priests and activists, so my own leaming curve and my own learning process was always very
experiential. And when I went to graduate school and had to teach a class as part of my training,
my colleague and I, who also stayed in serviceJeaming/experiential education for many years,
desiped it with an interactive game, SIMSOC, in the class. We were labeled "Sesame Street"
sociologists. fiaughted And then, in summers I worked with OEO projects, as part of the War on
Poverty to support my family, doing community-based service related projects. But probably
more specifically, when I started teaching at the College of Wooster, my job included being the
director of Urban Studies. We had six sites around the country in Detroit, Philadelphia, Portland
where students would do an urban semester. The students went there and were involved in
service and govemment related intemships. Now we would probably call most of what they did
"community serviceJeaming," because it was basically community-based, experiential leaming
in challenging urban settings. Then they retumed to a small town, Wooster, Ohio, much like
Northfield, with a reverse "culture shock." Two of them, Don and Margie, literally walked into
my office and confronted me with: "You sent us offto the big world. Now we're back in this
place and have changed. What are you going to do with us?" They basically challenged me and
my wife and our two children, four and two, to live with them in a student-faculty livingJeaming
arrangement. And we did, thanks to the students pushing us. We organized a communitycentered livingJeaming anangement involving two houses. It was called the "community service
house." We designed a course on the topic of "community" together, and we lived with students
for the entire year. We would have continued, but we wound of getting pregnant again and had
twins. And four children was little bit too much for continuing. So, in a nut shell that experience,
that kind of conversation and collaboration with students was a lot like what was happening here
at Augsburg in the late 1960s and early 70s with Joel Torstenson and the emergence of HECUA.
I was also on the faculty advisory committee in the urban semester program in Philadelphia
which brought me into contact with other faculty involved in this emerging experiential
education focus on community engagement and service. Overall, it was second nature for me,
but it was also because of circumstances and students pushing and saying'Now what are you
going to do with us", because at that point, except for these urban locations, Wooster didn't have
an intemship program. So we were making it up as we went along within the context of the
Wooster's commitment to these six urban sites where they were sent to study for a semester.
HH:
Were there a lot of colleges at that time doing that or where there a few kind of at the
forefront?
Page 3
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15
GH: Not many, but it was starting to emerge when I became involved in the early days. But this
was a second generation establishment of serviceJeaming in higher education. I later discovered
it was really during the 60's that colleges, including Augsburg's role in founding HECUA - the
Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs. Joel Torstenson was among that first wave of
people during the 60's when much of this started. If you think about this in context, there was the
opposition to the war in Vietnam, and the Civil Rights movement was still evolving. For
example, the sit-ins were in 1960. There was a lot ofdiscontent on campuses that was starting to
take shape in different ways, and different campuses embraced that. The 4-l-4 Academic
calendar was one invention, so colleges could be free for a January term of exploratory, usually
experiential, courses. That was the original idea, but it evolved in not very create ways later.
Even then, we would say in those days "Experiential leaming education was still marginal."
And in that 1970's context, it is accurate to say that I am at Augsburg because of differing
opinions about experiential education in higher education. I didn't get tenure at Wooster.
Paradoxically, the college where I was involved in the community service, student-faculty
leaming community and community-based research with students, which made me recognized as
a pioneer in serviceJeaming, made a decision based on traditional criteria for what they wanted.
Even though I was doing a lot of faculty research and publishing, they made a decision that the
kind of scholarship I had embraced did not fit with their priorities for tenure. As a result, I lost
and somebody else won the tenure prize. Bu! not to be bitter, I am gratefirl for that for that loss.
[laughter] But that was an indicator that experiential education and serviceJeaming were not
mainline, even in liberal arts colleges; it was still marginal. The urban quarter programs at
Wooster were valued, but seen as something extra, though commendable, if you had time. Does
tlat make sense?
HH: That makes
sense. So, when you came
in 1977 to Augsburg was it because you didn't get
tenure?
GH: That's correct, yes.
HH:
Was there any other things that drew you here to Augsburg?
GH: The job description certainly. A good friend looked at it with me and said "They wrote this
job description for you." I was looking for ajob because ofthe tenue decisioq so I felt lucky to
see this one that fit so well. On a personal level, I'd also just gone through a divorce, so we also
needed to make a change and find an urban location where my former wife could find employmint. we were co-parenting as well. smdl towns usually are not too easy to do all that in. And
so, there were whole lot of things about the Augsburg position that were attractive. And the more
I found out about it and discovered what Joel rorstenson had been doing, including the HECUA
consortium, I was eager to come here and work in academic arrangements that were so similar to
my wooster work with the urban semester programs, but with more experiential education.
Augsburg was looking for a sociologist to be chair ofthe urban studies program and that is the
role I played at Wooster. So, yes, it was kind of a match made in heaven for me and many people
think it was mutual. It couldn't have been better and more timely. And another side story. It was
a real accident of history, because Joel rorstenson was forced to retire at 65. I gotthisjob
because of another form of discrimination. You had to retire at the age of 65 in those days, or he
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15
would have, I am sure, stayed on and done even more creative work like I was able to do after
65. But because he had to retire, and the college saw the role he played as cenfral to its mission,
Augsburg did a national search and hired me a year earlier than his retirement so I could work
with him for a year. And due to another strange accident, made possible by Bob Grams taking an
unpaid leave, it became possible financially, which usually wasn't the case for Augsburg. so I
was able to come a year early, at precisely the time I needed a job
HH:
So everything lined up.
GH: The stars were aligned in stange a1d unFredictable ways. I walked into a position marked
by two realities: the faculty had decided, which the wooster faculty had not, that experiential
educatioq including intemships, were important for urban studies majors, but also for all
students at the college. I like to say that "Joel and the faculty set the table, and I have been
feasting at that table ever since."
HH:
So
it was, at Augsburg, it was a campus wide sort of thing; it wasn't just in the sociology
departnent?
GH: oh, absolutely. In fact, tlat was what was brilliant about it. Joel, the sociology professor,
started the sociology Deparfinen! Social work, urban Studies, and HECUA. In 19t7, he got a
sabbatical leave and traveled around the country. He and Frances visited penn, chicago, Rutgers,
and a whole lot ofurban based colleges. He came back and wrote his classic paper linking liberal
arts objectives to community-based experiential learning, identifying what wi now embrace in
the Engaging J\rfinneapolis and Augsburg Experience elements of our curriculum. It wasn,t just a
paper;_it was literally read by the faculty and voted on. And a whole new curiculum emerged
from that paper, "The Liberal Arts college in the Modern Metropolis." He wrote it bas€d on his
research, experience, and his observations of campuses that were engaged in their community as
a leaming site. under Joel's leadership, the college grasped the validity of experiential,
community-based leaming and emerged as a pioneer in the field, establishing an intellectual and
operational base for all that we have accomplished since 1967.
It took the university of Minnesota another l5 years to even grant credit for intemships. The
Augsburg faculty, with Joel's leadership, the entire faculty, including chemistry, English,
religroa I mean everybody. I wasn't here to watch the vote, but it liGrafly was-voteJ on as a
principle and then operationalized in a curriculum that could include four intemships, that's four
ofyour 36 courses. It also included a required urban related course that demonstraied what that
discipline could contribute to the understanding of cities and the human habitat, as well as how
the resources of the Twin cities could contribute to the content of any particular course or
academic discipline. They called it the "Urban concerns" course. so when I arrived in 1977,
that decision had been made and the curriculum was in place. I inherited a campus wide
commitrnent to what Wooster and most of Higher Education still considered "marginal." I don't
lvant to overstate it, but Augsburg was truly a pioneer in community-based experiential
education. Yes, chemistry had a different view of it, Religion had a different view of it, but
every department was encouraged to offer courses that had an urban focus, thus embracing our
urban locafion as a valuable asset to student leaming. we, and higher education" were not-using
Page 5
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the language of serviceJeaming at that point. But, it was experiential education, and it was based
on intemships, community-bases service and urban studies programs.
HH: Hmm, so what was going on when did arrive
Augsburg?
n
1977, what kind of things were going on at
GH: Well, HECUA was one, in addition to the campus
based intemship program. In the early
stages, Joel got a grant and Augsburg created an Intemship oflice called MUSIP - the
Metropolitan Urban Studies Intemship Program. It was similar to what we offer now in the
college-wide Stommen Center, the Career Planning center that supports intemships in all
academic majors. And it addressed what Mary Laurel True and others in the Sabo Center do in
temn of community service leaming. MUSIP had a staffto support lntemships and active
engagement in the community and HECUA programs. I write about MUSIP more in the chapter.
But another activity that was going on that was really, really important was what was called
CHR [Conserving Human Resources]. It had its own parallel story. I don't know its whole story,
but it orbited around vern Bloom, whom Joel had recruited to teach Social work. At trrat point
all the social work courses were still in sociology; then we split just as I anived, so they could
get accreditation. vem Bloom was a social worker recruited from the Model cities progam. ln
the early 70's Cal Appleby, an adjunct professor, began taking his students to Trevilla in
Robbinsdale to meet and study with the severely disabled adults who lived there. At the same
time the college began to provide co-leaming classes in prisons [stillwater and Shakopee] and
with the elderly. One outgrowth of that was students in wheel chairs coming to campus thanks to
the efforts of wayne ("Mo') Moldenhauer, an ex-con who had taken Augsburg courses at tre
stillwater prison. wayne had talked his way into a job at Augsburg after he completed his prison
term. Augsburg Work Study students drove the accessible vans purchased with money Mo
raised, and this became the forerunner of Metro Mobility region wide. In addition, this led to a
retired alum, Abner Batalden, raising money from Lutheran Churches to make the campus
accessible for people in wheel chairs, well before the legislation was passed requiring
accessibility. So cHR, which was called conserving Human Resources, added significantly to
both Augsburg's traditional students and expanded education for persons who often did noi have
access to college. All these efforts were very experiential and firther expanded our communitybased, experiential education and the diversity ofthe student body. It grew into the GLASS
office. We also established residential programs in Senior Housing in collaboration with the
Housing Authority on the North side. Joe Bash, who invited Joel to bring Augsburg students to
!!g North Side after Dr. King's assassination, resulting in the Crisis Colony, which grew into
HECUA, invited me to recruit students to live with senior citizens in public housing on Olson
Memorial Highway shortly after I succeeded Joel in 1978. All of thes€ efforts buili easily on the
foundation, "at the table," that Joel Torstenson and the Augsburg faculty established in the late
60s and early 70s. To recap, when cHR began it was a group ofcollege students from Augsburg
that got in a van and drove to the prison with the teacher. Half the class were Augsburg sudents;
half were Shakopee women students, Stillwater prisoners or Trevilla residents. I taughi at the
Stillwater prison shortly after I came in 1978. By that time students weren't always going to the
prison, but faculty were going there, so it didn't involve as many students as in iti origins. nut
cHR also reflected the powerful experiential commitment of the college and faculty, along with
the coJeaming model associated with community based service-Ieaming in which Augsburg
students leamed while serving and studying with others in the communiiy. that, to me, is almost
Page 6
of l5
always the best kind of service. It's where you are co-leaming, when you are also being served
by those you serve, [conects himself], the men and women in the prison were helping studenr
understand things that they were trying to leam. we were also serving them by hetping to
provide an education for them. So that was one of the most exciting things and daailed more in
in a file recently. I will give it to you to rake a look at. It islirerally a letter from
y_h1 Ut
Mo [wayne] Moldenhauer, who then wound up being that employee at Augsburg after he got out
ofprison, the one who wrote a letter to the student body thankingthem for ttre opporttrnitiei to
study with them. Then Mo, after he got out of prison tumed to vern Bloom and iaid ..I need a
job, because nobody will hire me." Vem says ..We don't have any money,' and Wayne replied
that "I was in prison because I was a con-artist and I took people;s money, so let me ty to raise
th9 money for my own job." And Mo did, and essentially when you drive around this city,
without going offtoo far on a tangent, you see Metro Mobility vans. well, that began at
Augsburg college. Mo raised money to buy vans and Augsburg students with work-study picked
up people at Trevilla in wheelchairs because they retrofitted the vans to haul people because
-lvlo
nothing like that was being offered. And so, Augsburg students, with the money
raised,
picked up people brought them to campus and we then had all these people coming to Augsburg
in wheelchairs. And, as I said earlier, another alum named ebner Bataldin, who hid created an
employment program during the Depression while a student himself, had retired from church
world service/Lutheran world Relief. As a volunteer, Abner raised money to make the campus
accessible, putting in the elevators and walk way. It's a complex causality world, but that was
going on when I arrived. So in addition to Joel Torstenson and the Urban Studies program, tlere
was a lot activity going on in a variety of different places that took Augsburg studentJ out into
the community to leam and grow. And, of great importance, this was considired central to the
Augsburg education and mission, unlike most other places in higher education up tmtil that point.
*9
HH: Hmm, I did not know any of this.
GH: And I found an old file Joel had given me that I had never looked at very closely, which
was this letter from Mo when he was still in prison and it has an article the students had written
in the school newspaper about the CHR program and taking courses at the prison with prisoners.
HH:
So the impact is long and deep here.
Yes; I have always said that Augsburg reflects the philosophy of ..let a thousand flower
blossom." You are pretty much free to do whatever you wantedtohere. There was not always
much monetary support, but ifyou had the your energy and enthusiasm, there was and is a lot
of
freedom to create programs and find support to makJthem work, just as we have done with
serviceJeaming and many ofthe experiential education endeavori over the years. In hindsight,
as I reflect back to 1977, it would appear that Augsburg was looking for someone
to replace Joel
Torstenson who also understood the centrality of experiential education to the teachinj
and
leaming enterprise. This was welltefore the rest ofhigher education did, as we curreritly see
in
AAC&U's LEAP Initiative and what ttrey call High Impact pe<ragogies, or see in campus
compact's. service-I,earning and civic Engagement. ai I have aieaay noted Joel tea ttre
zuutty
and administration of Augsburg to embrace experiential education thirty ye*s befo.e
ttrey have
become mainstream. It was also clear to me wfien I was being interviewei to succeed
Joj1 that
Augsburg was seeking someone who would affirm that pioneering spirit and build upon
the
9H:
Page 7
of l5
"shoulders of the giants" who early on established the college as a leader in bringing experiential
education into the center ofthe curriculum and effective teaching and leaming. Ironically, and
fortunately for me, the very qualities that Augsburg was seeking were the qualities that Wooster
had decided were not central to their own mission and future. Over the years, it has been clear to
me that the national awards and recognition that I have been honored to receive - the campus
Compact & AAIIE's Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service-Leaming (1996); Sociologists of
Minnesota's Distinguished Faculty Award (1998); MN professor of the year (2002); NSEE's
Lifaime Achievement Award in 2014 - were also a stong recognition of Augsburg's firm
foundation and enduring support for all that we were able to do together as my colliagues and I
have expanded upon what we were given and feasted upon at tlnt "table" all these years.
We got paid to teach at the prison and we had faculty release time in order to supervise the
intemships which supported the efforts. And there was great support from faculty and
administration for the program. Again to make the important and simple point, compared to any
other campus, and I have done faculty workshops by now at more than 60 different campuses
around the country--compared to any campus I have ever been to- there has always been wide
spread faculty and administration endorsement of experiential education at Augsburg, unlike
most places. This was not "top down", forced upon us by a president, as marked the beginning of
Campus Compact when college and university presidents initiated community service programs,
at Stanford, Notre Dame, Brown, or Michigan. It bubbled up from the facility and the students.
HH:
Has there ever been push back that you have experienced from the faculty?
GH: well, the push back would be mostly financial in light of other priorities and limited
resources.-The push back, if you would, came when we had to cut out funding faculty to
supervise intemships, especially when you would have a departrnent that didnt many students
doing intemships. And when finances got touglr, which they did in 1982, when we aimost
declared financial exigency, the support to supervise intemship was taken away. Faculty had to
teach more classes and we didn't receive additional credit for iupervising intemships and ttrat
kind ofa thing. But I don't think tlnt there was ever, by faculty, any serious push back or by the
President or leadership or that faculty ever said this was a mistake. It's been a pretty natural
evolution and, my role in this, I hope it's been to just keep greasing the sled and moving us
frrther and deeper.
In light ofthis, I suppose what made it possible to take it to the next level, and I reflected on that
in the chapter of the book on Successful service Leaming programs, "on the shoulder of
Giants", is something that happened in 1980, to put it in historical terms. I had been on the
search committee for a new Dean, Richard Green, an African American chemist from capital
University in columbus, ohio. when Richard had barely gotten on the scene, our Associate
Dean, Patricia Parker, had to have emergency surgery. Dick tumed to me and Earl Alton, from
the chemistry deparhnent, to be the acting Associate Deans while she was recuperatirg. b*irrg
the period of time that I was the Associate Dean in 1981, I was given responsibility foi
intemships, because that was part ofPat's load. I decided to taki advantage ofthai and do some
of the things she and I had talked about. ln the process, I discovered cooferative Education,
which was a federally funded program that Gustaws and concordia collige in Moorhead had
been taking advantage of. Federal funds were available to restore the origi-nal "MUsIp.
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15
Intemship support office that we had to discontinue because of funding in the 1970s. so I, along
with Bob clyde, kept rewriting the proposal. we were successfr.rl in gating the federal co-op Ed
Grant grant. when the 5 year grant was approved in 1983, the Dean iumed to me and said l'Ygulll do it won't you?" we had always put my name and resume on the application, but I
initially said'ho" to the Dean. I didn't think I wanted to spend the next stagi of my career
getting intemships mostly for business majors. And I had a sabbatical leave coming up
to write a
book with a former Wooster colleague based on our interviews of 500 Minneapolis-residents.
But I went home that weekend, and my wife said "who are kidding, Garry? Augsburg is never
going to lave money to do this sort of thing again. you're going to look over thi shoilder
of
somebody who takes thejob and moan and groan and whine beiause they're not doing it right.
why are you tuming this down?" So I called the Dean on Monday moming and saia *ls it stitt
open, I want to do it." so, that gave me not only money to hire and superviie the staff overseeing
and promoting intemships, but also time to secure additional funding io hire Mary Laurel
[Truef
and really expand and deepen the service-learning aspect of experiential education. lronicaty,
at
a time of very limited financial resources, after almoit declaring financial exigency,
I had money
t9 havel and attend Cooperative Education and NSIEE meetings. There was rio travel money at
the college, but there was federal money in the coop grant so icould havel to support the
program. As a result, I became involved in the National Society for Intemships and
Experiential
Education INSIEE] in Pittsburgh in the fall of 1984. As a tenured faculty member, I walked into
a national organization that had been instrumental in promoting experiential education
and
intemships in higher education and was a leader in the emergirig service-learning movement.
And, to give you an idea about faculty involvement at that time in experiential ef,ucation, I went
to NSIEE's faculty interest group. There were seven people who showed up, four of them
weren't faculty members; they had come to talk to faculty members because-no faculty members
back on their campuses wouldtalk with them. The point is, I was one of the few faculiy members
and virtually the only tenured faculty member from an institution that actively supported
experiential education. And within two years, I became not only its vice-presideni but
its
President. This was not because I had a whole lot ofskills or knowledge at that point,
but
because they knew that NSIEE needed someone with faculty status from an institution
that
supported experiential education in leadership in their organization ifthey were going
to be taken
s19y9[11the rest of higher education. So the funding let me travel anddeeperimy-affiliation
3+_IIIE_E-_14 the cooperative Education network. In addition, I got tained as part of
NSIEE's FIPSE Grant [Fund for the Improvement of postsecondary Education] *d b""u." u
*q"t"l consultant in experiential education. So there is a lot accident and the intentionality tied
up in what happened, but I always come back to say "IfI hadn't been from Augsburg,
an
institution that_s_upp9fieq experiential education deiply, going way back to my-predJessor
and
before, probably little of this would have happened.;, Dois that make sense?
i
HH: It does make
sense. So where do you think Augsburg foundation in that came from?
GH: Well, I think I tried to explain-that in the chapter in the book on successfirl service-leaming
programs.Augsburg began as an educational institution to train preachers and
teachers. So in its
DNA and bones [emphasizes this word], Augsburg understood Iiewey ana practiJ
exfirience
well before it evolved into a liberal arts college and a co-education one and-became finally
accredited in the 50s. And I think you could say that this distinguished us from
Gustavtrs or St.
olaf, which began as fledging liberal arts colleges, even ifwe didn't call them that then. This
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of l5
was a "prcacher school" and seminary until the 50s, and that would be one
explanation. The
other-is that, by accident, Augsburg relocated from a small town in wisconsin
to a rapidly
The founders got kicked out of their building in Marshall, and you t noi, tt ut purt
ryyrng.citr.
of that history. ole Paulson, an urban pastor, up here, responded to so*"
f"tho, ioea trrat
*we need a
college over here in Minneapolis besides the university; they"ity
looked over in st.
Paul, where they had four, Hamline, Mac, st. Thomas and St. catherine,s.
what are we going to
do?" My point is that our urban location was also an accident and quite foreign to
this bunch of
Norwegian farmers who supported tlis new school. virtually none orth"- rivea a ttracity,
tut
there_was this Norwegian church in Minneapolis that got them to come here.
So I think it's, as
Joel rorstenson would say "It's our location, location, location.', If you're in
Northfield or St.
Peter or Moorhead, it's not that you are disengaged with your community,
but the community is
just not really in your face all the time. And the reaity of ttrat
city location in the midst of CedarRiverside's immigrant realties has made a huge diffeience as the'new initiatire ty
rirsten
[Delegard], is documenting.
HH: Historyapolis
GH: Yes, and this college arose in the middle of snooze Boulevard and the west Bank, which
wls home to immigrants and we were an immigrant college itself. And that is different'tlr*
-o.t
all the other Protestant liberal arts
that were mostly established in small tor-r, pu.tiafy
^colleges
because Protestants were scared ofcities.
Catholics tended to live in cities and established their
colleges there to oversimpli$r a bit. Two faculty members had the mort
to Ao JU, e"gJ*g
claiming its urban location, Joel rorstenson aod c*l chrislock, who was a histo.y p-ioror.
Both carl and Joel went here as students, I think. I know Joel did. But they,
rrayr.,
stenshoel in Political Science, a1d n9b clyde, inspired generations of student
"rorjriitr,
to-affrm the crty,
is political in$sges, history and reality. But again, theri ul*uys seemed to be a comfort with
application and relevance to the dynamic and challenging world tlat sunounded
us so that the
applied experiential education emphasis wasn't foreiga wasn,t a uaa thing.
Hence, the link
between the liberal arts and professional studies has irarked our history
6r" til*g;;;g.
lrH: o. k, backing
up to your time when you were serving on the Nationar Society for
Experiential Education President. what do you think yoir experience on that? ylu
talk about
what you were able to give to them. what do you think bang on that
brought back for
Augsburg?
GH: well, the conference I went to in pittsburgh featured the FIpsE Grant from the
Fund for
Improvement of Post-secondary Education, which NSIEE received to promot.
*a
r*"rty
and.staff in the development of experiential education. ril/ith the .".o*"".
"qG
of tt C"-lp-'g*,
I
could cover my expenses related to my training as a consurtant. I was
" back-to
able to bring
j{ugsb_ure, two things, I think. one was an ability to say were on the right toack, tfrat what we had
been doing for decades, higher education is nowaff*ming. And the
selona trring *as aat r
learned how the emerging community_serviceJeaming fiid was
unfokring ana ;kin! shape. es
a rgylt we w9r9 a!19 to vev
qrlckly frnd and get funding from a Mi*"r&. bgi.lrtii" grant that
to nire Mary Laurel rrue. That put us in touci- with eveo rnor" r.roil"",
ys
9na!t9{
*a?-aiog.
And I think the reason I was asked to. write that chapcr in the book was that
our service-Laming
program was grounded in what Augsburg had been doing for
decades. It also gave us a chance
Page
l0 of
15
to tell Augsburg's story on a national level, which I also have been
able to do in the sixty prus
g1:Effdevelopment workshops I have done across the
u;ini"I).
on or
the few FIPSE consultants who had faculty stat s. But I was
aso exposea to frressiona
colleagues.who had pioneered in,the deveiopment of serviceJeamiri
*a
education
overall and add their wisdom and experience to Augsburg and rrectla;s "*frri."tia
p.*ti."
*J
experiential educatioq further enriching and expanding
efforts here.
My other colleagues, Lois olson, Mary Laurel irue, ira Ira.oi" Benasutti,
added further
p.resence at NSEE and Campus Compact,_while
expanding student invok;"rt
development. And I think it's fair.to
thTe a{e ro,n" kiy
we keep receiving nationar
:ay
recognition from the President and others.
Certainly it is because ofnumbei of studenft we have
involved, the_Bonner program and a wide embrace by faculty. But,
modesty *i0",
it i.
also, in part because I have had the opportunity to bi involved
nati"rarv.
trr"
campus compact Erlich Award ror rliaerstrip in Service Leaming
recognized me, but also my
colleagues_and the college that had supported us in creating
high q;lfty I*p"ri"rtia-"Ju""tion
programs. Indeed, Augsburg almost stood alone in those early-auy,
ufor" oa.. i*"rty ro*a
support from their institutions to engage in serviceJeaming. i t"n"rrtt"a
i**"nr"iv
trr"t
support and unique history.
c;hy.
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As regards my career, {rs I indicated previously, I had to make
a decision. I,m going in two days
to Detroit to visit my friend that I was doing research with beginningi,
wr"r[, Jtf,aG
neightorhoods and housing. During the swnmer of 19g0, we got several grants
and we hired four
Augsburg students to do summer rese-arch on housing ani neilhborhooar]
random sample of 400 households in Minneapolis. We hua g;h"."d
"
neighborhood dynamics and housing maintenance. Then Aulsburg "ll
re."i*a trr. c".p
funding in 1983 when I was schedulid for a sabbatical to wriL oui
book. rrre aeclsioi to tat<e
the co-op job meant I had to tum to George Galster and say..the
boot i, yo*r.
iJgoing to
have the time or be able to take the sabbaticar that r was
eligible f"r.,'
trr"t
research career to do what I have done at Augsburg. But
I can say in ..t o.p".t, it i. "p *or"
consistent with who I am and my sense of vocation', to use
the Augsburg.'-t l. i"r:"v"a trr"
research and the topic of housing and neighborhood dynamics
whi-cr,
ut tlr"
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teaching and the Metro urban studies pro-gram. And f bved
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the
students out in the community interviewing and doing research. "pp"rt""ity "irr"rtig
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it was a bit painfril to let go oiit, ro. *y
no-d;gltl". nut trr" opportunity took me and
"e-o,if directiJns.
Augsburg in some very exciting and rewarding
and *causi'aaiis #tui eug.u*g
needed and wanted me to undertake, the synergy has been,
I think, mutuaty teneiJJ.T
certainly have benefited immensely and hive no regrets foi pursuing
tt
*J putr, trri.
opened for me. I think that both the college and I ha-ve enhanced
" becaus" oitt *uy
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HH: And have an impact.
GH: Yes and a reputation.
HH:
Yes, yes
Page
ll
of
15
d,
GH: Yes, my experiential education workshops have been well received and beneficial because
they are grounded and significantly augmented by the overall Augsburg successes and practices
of my colleagues, as well as my own community-based teaching and supervision of internships.
IIH:
So during the 80s, you
talk about "On the Shoulders of Giants" from 1984-1989, you were
you
talking about
spent most of your time on experiential leaming that was when you were
working as the President and Vice-President, ah, on the board ofNISEE. What kind of changes
happened here on campus?
GH: During that time period when we had the co-operative education gant, I continued to work
fr.rll time as Director of Co-operative Education and wasn't teaching much Sociology or Urban
Studies. Then as the funding for the federal grant wound down and we found funding for Mary
[,aurel True to expand the service learning, we created.t]e Center for Service, Work and
Leaming. We brought the oversight of intemships into this Center. Lois Olson became its
Director, and Mary Laurel worked with her, along with Susan Giguire, Sandy Tilton and Menie
Benasutti. All that has now expanded to form the Strommen and Sabo Centers as the TorsGnson
vision and legacy continues to grow. But during the period you're asking about, I think that one
ofthe biggest things that happen was that we evolved as current curriculum was designed. It had
two important "book ends." Every first year student is required to take a course called Engagrng
Minneapolis that is embedded in one of their liberal arts courses. This is supposed to introduce
them to what the urban location would means for their education and introduces them to the
leaming opportunities available in the city. The other "bookend" is basically an experiential
education graduation requirement called the Augsburg Experience. We more broadly defined
what the Augsburg Experience would be, but there were only about 2 or 3 colleges in the country
that had an experiential education requirement for graduation, Monmouth and DePaul. An
internship is one option, as are study abroad, student-faculty research, an upper level serviceleaming course, and a student can design his or her own experiential project. ln that new
curricular context, I retumed to the Sociology department full-time and Urban Studies. And this,
I think, is very important to stress. Many of the colleges, like Gustaws and Concordi4 that got
the Co-operative education grants, when the money ran out, the programs dried up. Augsburg,
and I really credit the faculty and administration, found the resources and have continued to
support these endeavors that significantly enhance the quality and reputation ofthe college. As I
said, I retumed to teaching full time, and we institutionaliz€d that with the Center for Service,
Work and Leaming. And the college continued to support the staffthat had been hired using
federal money to start with, affrrming that "Yes, this truly is who we are and we can't let this go
when the federal grant ends." The Sabo and Strommen Centers, along with the Center for Global
Educatiorl are Augsburg centerpieces because the college faculty and administration have said
"we can't be Augsburg College without providing the support systems for students and the
faculty related to experiential education." Have we arrived or gone as far as we should and could
have? Probably not, but the commitnent is shong, and it has always been a work in progress.
HH: You would
have liked to have seen more pushed?
GII: Well,
yes, I think the lack of funding is just pure and simple, but given that, the fact that
is institutionalized and the support is there is a testament to the college and its leadership.
Page 12 of 15
it
HH: And it still remains today,
so.
GH: Yes, and maybe it is even stronger. When we split the Center for Service, Work and
Leaming to forrn the Strommen Center to oversee the internships and career service and the Sabo
Center to intensiff our work in public service and public involvement, it reflected President
Pribbeno's vision and call when he came here as President. Paul says that he was athacted to
Augsburg College, as were the other candidates, when I recall their speeches, because of its
embracing of its urban location. His competitor was a person who was Provost at the University
of Colorado in Denver. Paul wanted very much to be at a school that was committed to
community service and its surrounding community. And he was attracted to Augsburg because,
of all the Lutheran colleges, we were the one most engaged. So you could say, and he does say,
that he came here because he knew the college was already committed to
leaming.
HH: And that is current President Paul Pribbeno?
GH: Yes
HH: Ok. Alright
so what do you believe your greatest challenge in work here at Augsburg has
been?
GH: On a personal level, the greatest challenge is to stay focused. There are so many
opportunities. And my own personal inclination is to tackle too much. I would sometimes
describe myself as an intentional dilettante. I get excited about new ideas and my wife says I
have trouble walking in a straight line fiaughter]. so, on a personel level the greatest chalienge
was to stay focused and see things through before I launch into another idea and take on
something else. And that, I think, is the institutional challenge for Augsburg as well. We
probably should have been more disciplined and strategic, but who knows?
HH: What do you believe
has been your greatest challenges in your work at Augsburg?
GH: I think that when we embraced the new curriculum, we had to give up original Urban
Sfudies required course. There used to be a required course in urban studies that went clear back
to that curriculum in the 60s and 70s. But when we identified the Engaging Minneapolis and the
Augsburq Experience as requirements, I chose to go with that decision. But I think my biggest
sense of failure or biggest challenge tlnt we've faced was that the Engaging Minneapolis course
very quickly, for practical reasons, became first just a serviceJeaming course that often didn't
really accomplish the larger objectives. It specified very clearly that the inhoductory courses
would introduce students to leaming opportunities in the city, notjust service, as valuable as that
is. so if you were a history major, the intro course would intoduce you to the resources and
accessibility to the Minnesota History center, the Hennepin county Historical. If you were
chemistry or business major it would introduce you to research and work going at 3M, Ecolab,
Target or Medhonic. It wasn't that you would always be doing service. So, first Engaging
Minneapolis tended to become identified with just service, which was not the primary inG"t.
That tended to introduce students primarily to the problems of the city even more than seeing the
city and region as a resourc€. It did not meet the goal that Joel rorstenson and I believed in,
Page 13
of
15
namely equipping students to understand cities, how they work and how people, as citizens, need
to be actively engaged, not just servicing people, but politically and socially making the
community a better place by working together with the people who live in it. And so even to this
day, the Engaging Minneapolis course doesn't usually meet lyhat the criteria are, which was to
introduce new students to the leaming opportunities of the city and how the discipline of the
course being taken contributes to an understanding of the city-whether English, Literature,
History, Chemistry, etc. That is a weakness, I think. When I became the Sabo professor of
Citizenship, and when I retired last year, I became less and less engaged with the actual
gurriculum. My own personal sense of failure and the institutional challenge is what do we really
do with the Engaging Minneapolis requirement related to what it was designed to do. The
graduation requirement ofthe Augsburg Experience is, I think, still pretty solid, but, like
everything, can always use more attention and support. And we are starting to do more support
for intemships. we now have a major frrnd and grant to give support to students doing unpaid
intemships, so more people will do intemships. So, for me, the biggest challenge is to simply
make the curriculum "book ends," the Engaging Minneapolis and Augsburg Experience, be what
they were designed to be and intended to be. But no one thought that would be easy anyway.
HH: Ok,
on the flip side, what do you hope to be remembered for? What do you hope your
legacy is here at Augsburg?
GH: well, I say it
a lot, and
I know I really mean it. I hope my legacy is that I contributed to and
helped the Torstenson platform and legacy continue. I hope I have deepened that in some
important ways. And, in a broader sense, hopefully my legacy is that i played a role in
increasing the quality and quantity of what is "on the table,', using the metaphor ofJoel
Torstenson, carl chrislock, Bob clyde and Myles Stenshoel setting the table for us. I deeply
believe they did, because the curricular pieces were mostly in place when they retired, too.
Hopefirlly, my legacy is that I put more on the table, that I helped put a lot ofvariety, good
"food" on that table to help Augsburg students, faculty, and staff to feast at and to takJ advantage
of as they d,ine at Augsburg [aughter]. Sorry, I may milk that metaphor too much. And I hope
that in my final role as the sabo Professor of citizenship and Leaming, we have been able to
transfer and continue to translate community engagement in some new ways. community
engagement should mean, I think, looking at the city as a place to leam along with otlers, but
also as a place to co-create as we listen to the voices of community members and co-leam
together as a leaming community. That also should help us understand what citizenship is about,
namely, citizens engaging each other in problem-solving. citizenship is not about me fixing you.
It requires working together to make our communities healthy, generative, and humane for all.
And so hopefully that is an emerging role for the college that I have contributed to. Having Harry
Boyte, Dennis Donovan, and Elaine Eschenbacher and the Center for Democracy and
citizenship move here from the University of Minnesota is giving us a way to keep expanding
the Torstenson vision. And that is very consistent with that vision, namely'equipping every
Augsburg student to be an active citizen and community builder, exercising their civic agency, as
Harry would stress, and work with others to address the issues and challenges facing theiity or
community where they live. Joel rorstenson's basic theme was that we need to eqoip every
Augsburg student to be a community builder. we don't know where people are going to live, but
we know trrat communities are dynamic, organic, and evolving, so through engagemEnt in the
city, through service and whatever modes we would call experiential education, itudents from
Page 14 of 15
Augsburg are, we hope, better equipped to be community builders. I hope that my legacy is to
have conhibuted to that vision and the educational preparation that enables all who leam and
work here to be active community builders the rest of their lives. So, hopefrrlly, I have
contributed to that vision and that I have helped my colleagues at Augsburg embrace it as well.
It certainly has become central to Augsburg's reputation, and I know many ofus have helped
that happen. The other legacy of Joel Torstenson that is consistent with my own values isi deep
belief in a multi-cultural community that values and honors people of all beliefs, reputations,
ethnicities, skin colors and orientations. That is also the college's new demographic profile,
which is quite unlike any other Lutheran or most other Protestant related liberalarts colleges.
And it represents a foundation that our urban location makes possible, where that diversity has
happened and is happening. That is a legacy that I hope I contributed to by what I have done over
the years, but it is the result of many, many hands and efforts that I have been privileged to
share-u,hat a gift and good fortune. This should equip us to be even better community builders
and civic agents.
HH: Ok. Well, I want to thank you Garry for your time.
GH: You're welcome and thank you.
Page 15 of
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1
Interview with Douglas Green
Interviewed at Memorial Hall at Augsburg College
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Interviewed on March 1st, 2017 at 11:06 AM
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Interviewed by Clara Higgins.
0.00 Clara Higgins: Alright this is Clara Higgins, uh, interviewing Douglas G... Show more
1
Interview with Douglas Green
Interviewed at Memorial Hall at Augsburg College
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Interviewed on March 1st, 2017 at 11:06 AM
Augsburg College Oral History Project
Interviewed by Clara Higgins.
0.00 Clara Higgins: Alright this is Clara Higgins, uh, interviewing Douglas Green for the
Augsburg College Oral History Project and it is, um, March 1st at 11:06AM. Alright, so um, I’m
just going to ask a little about your time before, um, teaching at Augsburg.
0.20 Douglas Green: Sure.
0.22 Clara Higgins: So can you just describe a little um where you are from and your education
before teaching about Augsburg?
0.28 Douglas Green: Sure, that’s an easy question, okay. So I, um, I’m from, uh, New York,
New York State originally from, um, Riverdale which is a section from the Bronx, a fairly well
to do section of the Bronx. So some people get the idea that I, I grew up in poverty, that’s not
true. Um, and then we, so I spent half my childhood there and then half my childhood on Long
Island around the Huntington area. I went to school at Amherst College in central Massachusetts.
And then to Brown University for my M.A. and PhD. Um, so that was Providence. And then I
traveled around as academics, especially English, uh, those in English, uh, tend to do for about
five years. The first two on a leave replacement at Carleton College, uh, the third year, uh, as a
leave replacement at Colby College in Maine. And then, um, two years and my first tenure track
position at Dayton, uh, University in Ohio. And, at that point I had married, uh, Becky Boling,
uh, who teaches as Carleton College. We had met, uh, the second year of my leave replacement
and, uh, got married in, uh, when I, uh, took the job at Dayton and kind of commuted back and
forth. And, uh, luckily I started looking for work up here. Uh, we liked this area, Becky had a
good job, and, um, I was very fortunate to find a job at Augsburg. And I’m very, very happy I
did. It’s been a great, um, almost 30 years, almost 30 years.
2:22 Clara Higgins: Um, I guess, that, yeah, that answers my first question, you’ve taught at
Augsburg for 30 years. Um, can you talk a little bit about what you teach at Augsburg?
2:30 Douglas Green: Sure, sure. So, I do, um, I do a little bit of everything for the department
and also some things outside the department. So, um, I, my, the main areas I teach in of course
are composition. I teach, um, my specialty is, um, English Renaissance literature particularly the
drama, so every year I teach a Shakespeare course, uh, which draws both English majors, theater
majors, and folks from outside of even those areas who just want to do some Shakespeare. Uh,
that’s an upper level class. Um, and then I do a variety of different things. I’ve done, I’ve taught
the English Renaissance material, uh, for many years until we set up a drama sequence, and now
I teach that sequence and American drama, British drama, British and Commonwealth drama,
and world drama. Uh, so that’s what I’ve been doing lately. In 2000, because I was writing as a
poet, uh, one of my colleagues needed someone to teach the introduction to creative writing. I’ve
been doing enough work in creative writing myself that it seemed like the right time. And so now
2
almost a third to a half of my time is in creative writing. I’m teaching mostly the intro, uh, but
also the creative nonfiction class and lately the keystone, um, course every year.
4:12 Clara Higgins: Great, um, so, um, what are some of your interests, uh, research interests as
an English scholar?
4:19 Douglas Green: Okay, so, those are also split now into, um, oh, can I go back for one
second?
4:24 Clara Higgins: Yeah, yeah.
4:26 Douglas Green: Um, so the other thing is I teach right now is I’m teaching the, um,
introduction to queer theory, which is actually an upper level class for gender, sexuality, and
women’s studies. I’ve been doing that since, on and off, since 1997, um, usually team taught
with another faculty member. Um, in addition, I’ve taught with Diane Pike in the sociology
department, a pair course, for about 12 years, um, an Augsburg seminar associated with our two
courses. So, I would teach effective writing, Diane would teach sociology. And, finally, I was in
at the ground level working on the film major when it first started. And, I have taught the
introduction to film, so that’s what I meant when I said I do a few things outside the department,
uh, as well. Um, so you had asked me another question.
5:19 Clara Higgins: Yeah, yeah I can restate it.
5:22 Douglas Green: Yeah, would you restate it?
5:23 Clara Higgins: What are some of your research interests as an English scholar?
5:25 Douglas Green: Right, so every year, I’ve been going since 19, I want to say, 1986. I go to
Shakespeare Association, I’ll be going this April. And, I either participate in a workshop for
which there’s an informal paper usually or assignment or I write a seminar paper. It’s a little bit
different than most, uh, conferences. Uh, if you’re in a seminar, you actually exchange papers
with everyone else. That’s how my articles develop, so, over probably the half, so I’ve taught for
30 years, I probably have 15 articles. So, every two years, that kind of thing. And I, I workshop
them at the conference. That’s basically what’s happening. So that’s my Shakespeare interest.
Um, I’ve done a, in Shakespeare, I’ve done a little bit on film, a little bit on gender and sexuality,
um, a little bit on performance, so, that’s sort of the range of things. I’m coming up on 62 now,
so, I’ve been thinking a little bit about how do I keep doing the things, what are the things I want
to keep doing after I retire? And I probably will do fewer formal scholarly articles, um, though
I’ve been doing them, I mean again I’ve, almost every other year, um, even though I, I gave
myself a break at 55 and said if you don’t want to do those anymore you don’t have to, but it just
turns out I keep doing them, so um, but I think I probably will slow down on those, but keep
doing, I do reviews, what are called reviews of record for Shakespeare Bulletin and they’re
performance reviews, so I’ve done reviews of Guthrie shows Ten Thousand Things. Um, I did a
big article on, um, sort of the house styles of several, um, areas and, uh, several theaters in town.
And then try to think about, is there a kind of special sort of Shakespeare production or scene in
Minneapolis, um, as well for them. And that was fun, uh, it’s a different take. I use my expertise,
3
but it’s a little bit more journalistic type of writing even though it’s for a scholarly journal. It’s
edited, but it’s not peer reviewed, in that particular case. Um, the other half of what I do now is
poetry primarily and also a little bit of creative nonfiction or journalistic prose. Um, so you can
see, both of those areas are going to converge just a little bit after retirement, that I’ll continue
with the performance reviews, I hope. And, um, and then write, um, um, really, I hope to write
much more poetry than I’m writing now. Um, I write a bit every year, you know probably 20 or
30 poems, but, um, I’d love to be able to do more than the 20 or 30 that are, are worth looking
back at again. Not necessarily ready for other eyes, but, um, the things that I would keep working
on.
8:57 Clara Higgins: Um, so I guess we can move into talking about Augsburg.
9:03 Douglas Green: Sure, sure.
9:05 Clara Higgins: Um, so you’re president of the faculty senate, um, what are your
responsibilities, um, in that position, and what types of decisions are made on the faculty senate
regarding Augsburg College as a whole?
9:18 Douglas Green: Yeah, so, well the biggest area of concern for the senate is, relates to the
main, um, responsibility of the faculty which is for the academic programs, uh, the curriculum is
basically our responsibility, our primary one. And though we look at a lot of other things; work
conditions, um, other college policies, et cetera, we’re mostly looking at them in relation to their
impact on the academic programs. So that’s our primary, um, concern. So new programs that
develop, um, go through several committees, they come back to us for recommendation, that
would be a primary area that we’re concerned with. On the other hand, there are things that we
don’t oversee, but take a deep interest in because the affect students like you, and so because of
the election and certain uncertainties around that, we’ve been following very closely, and in fact
met with, um, the faculty members on the Campus Climate Advisory Team, um, as well as the
director, Joanne Reeck, was really, um, made time on her schedule to come visit us, and had, I
think some instructive discussions, um. You know, I never thought I’d be dealing with this, but
you know some questions have come up about what if an ICE official, you know, someone from
immigration and customs, uh, comes to, um, a classroom, um, how do we deal with that? And
we’ve got faculty members, who are, I mean there are some faculty members who might want to
do something resistant and there are some faculty members who feel you can’t ask me to do
something that’s against the law. So we have to respect both of those positions, but the main
thing we’re concerned about is, everyone is concerned about, is keeping our students, um, as safe
as we can, which is of course limited even on the part of the college, um, so we had a very
instructive discussion about that and I know that that team is working on protocols for a simple
directives that we can use if somebody comes. So, there’s something you know you don’t think
of that as a responsibility of the faculty senate, but it’s certainly, we were able to give good
advice, so we do a lot of advising of administration, um, in that regard, and participate in that.
We set up the committee structure, um, in fact I have to send out an email to the faculty today
about that. Um, which deals more closely with the nitty gritty; approving courses, those kinds of
things, working on the handbook, the faculty handbook which is connected, really connected to
the founding documents of the college. The constitution of the college, um, is and the articles
that govern us are part of the handbook. Augsburg was small enough when it started that in some
4
ways it was governed by the faculty. Um, much more directly, the presidents and deans came out
of the faculty. That of course has changed as we’ve become closer to what a modern university
looks like. Does that help?
12:57 Clara Higgins: Yeah, yes, definitely. Um, so, um, what brought you to teach at Augsburg
College?
13:05 Douglas Green: Well, I mean as I mentioned, I met my spouse at Carleton, and, um, so I
was looking to move back in the area, so that was the primary reason for moving back to this
area and Augsburg gave me the opportunity to do it. What was a wonderful surprise, and what I
would say has kept me here and got me as involved as I’ve been at the college is that I just think
its mission and people that it serves are, um, are great, I mean, that’s the best way to put it. I
believe fully in it, I would say that in the last five to seven years our student body is reflecting
more the, I think our aspirations, and that’s very exciting so it’s even, it’s made the work even
more meaningful than it was before. So, a big part of it is I feel I’m doing meaningful work here,
um, with students who I think care deeply about what they’re doing and with great colleagues.
Um, I, I, what I like to say is that I’m so lucky to teach here because I get to live off the
reflective glory of everybody, um, because, you just have, I mean I think of Michael Lansing in
your department and the work that he’s done. Um, we’ve got Stephan Clark in our own
department, who’s a wonderful writer, and Cass Dalglish, I mean just fantastic, um, artists. I
work with, um, Julie Bolton, originally in theater, um, Martha Johnson, both of them are retired
now. Uh, but also I’ve worked with both Sarah Myers and very closely with Darcey Engen, um,
over the years. And, so those have been great collaborations for just letting me sit on stuff. I
really appreciate that. And, um, and one of the highlights actually was that I’ve been torturing
Darcey for years to do Cymbeline and she, she took up that challenge and I’m so grateful
because it was a wonderful production.
15:37 Clara Higgins: Um, so, since you have been here for a while at Augsburg, um, what have
you learned through your time here?
15:46 Douglas Green: Oh, that’s a good question, and I, I need. I should’ve asked you for the
questions in advance. I could’ve really prepped it. What, so say the question again to me because
I want to think about it.
16:00 Clara Higgins: Yeah, um, what have you learned through your time here teaching at
Augsburg?
16:16 Douglas Green: So, I’m going to twist the question just a little bit.
16:20 Clara Higgins: That’s fine.
16:22 Douglas Green: I think it’s, um, I think Augsburg has allowed me in some ways to teach
literature not just as a discipline, and I would say the same is true of writing. To teach them not
just from a sort of disciplinary perspective, um, but also for the reasons that I love them and in
relation to the concerns, in some ways of the whole person. So let me give you an example. If I
were teaching, so I taught Milton for many years. Milton is an author who is difficult to love.
5
And so I don’t know if you’ve read Paradise Lost or any of his, but I, I had the students read all
of Paradise Lost. Um, and I had a lot of reasons for doing it. Um, it’s a difficult text. But, if I
were teaching that over at, say, the university or maybe at Macalaster, um, or Hamline I would
probably talk about religion, and the religion in that poem is in many ways inspired, I mean,
Milton thought of himself as inspired, um, in a very literal way, to write that, um, and in the
writing of it. I would probably talk about those things mostly from a very historical and, um,
professional, um, objectivist, sort of, um, view point. And I do some of that, I did some of that
when I teaching Milton, um, because it’s important to know. You have to know what was the
religion of his period. What were his affiliations? It was a very contested area. He was a Puritan.
You need to know some of those things to understand him. At the same time, I think, for our
students, um, the sort of moral and religious questions that the text itself raises, are, I don’t want
to treat them just clinically in some sense. I don’t think they should be, I think we have the
opportunity here to say so, how does this relate to your religious outlook? I mean, do you, uh, so
whether you were an atheist reading it, or whether you were a Lutheran reading it, um, or a
Catholic reading it, how did that, um, text affect you? How does this presentation of Adam and
Eve or Satan relate to your notions of human being, and um, evil in the world? Um, um, how do
his very troubling views of God relate to your conception of God? So, I think there’s a personal
element in reading Milton, which is the way that text was meant to be read. It wasn’t meant to be
simply studied. Um, so we have that opportunity here, and so that’s been one big thing that I
think matters. The other would be a kind of socially conscious dimension to the work that, that
we do. Um, so just as another example I’ve taught Lear in, come in and lectured on Lear, uh, for
the Honors 490, um, that Paul Pribbenow, and that year I think it was Tim Pippert were doing on
homelessness. Or, I’ve taught Chicago literature this year for the city, um, seminar that they were
doing, um, that Paul was doing with Jay, uh, Walljasper. Um, so just kind of bringing in a
literary perspective on a particular topic, um, that’s been exciting, um, as well, and thinking
about society in relation to literature.
20:43 Clara Higgins: Great, um, so I guess, kind of, um, again kind of talking about, um, your
experience at Augsburg, um after being here for a while, um, what changes, if any, have you
experienced or seen at Augsburg through your time here?
21:01 Douglas Green: Well the biggest one is one that I touched on earlier that, um, it’s
happening a little bit more slowly with the faculty because you know we get hired, and you’re,
one thing about academia at least the tenure professoriate tends to stay for a long time. I’m an
example of that. But, um, it’s certainly more diverse than it was when I came. And the student
body is infinitely more diverse, um, some of that’s a function of a change in the state itself, um,
and the, or certainly this area, this part of the state. But even I live down in Northfield and
commute up here and even Northfield’s different, um, from what it was when I first came, um, as
many rural towns are now. Larger Latino populations for instance, and other immigrant
populations as well. So those things are different. Um, it’s racially more complex. Not as diverse
as some other states, but certainly much more diverse than it was. Um, and that’s reflected in the
college. Um, the college is actually more diverse than the state, um, which is fantastic. I mean at
some sense we’re at the leading edge of who’s going to be here doing the work of the state. Um,
and I kind of feel like, you know we talk about, you know we have sort of the mission statement
that sounds like a slogan and I can never remember all the adjectives that go with all the parts,
but the idea that, so if you take for instance responsible leaders, um, I think I’ve got that right,
6
um, we really are educating that class of people. Will all of them live in the state? Probably not.
But will a good portion of them? Yes, and that’s really vital. So, that’s what I mean about
meaningful work, it’s not just what we teach, but who we’re teaching, and the way in what we
teach will matter to them, sometimes in ways that students aren’t aware of when they’re going
through the classes, but that’s another story. So, I really feel there’s a value, I feel like the
teaching here matters, um, in a way that, you know I mentioned I taught at several other places,.
they were all lovely, the students were great, um, but, I’m not sure that my teaching there matters
as much as my teaching here. Um, and you know our students come from very different
backgrounds from the places that I taught before. Exception maybe of Dayton, um, but Dayton
was not nearly as diverse as Augsburg, not back in the mid 80s anyway.
23:57 Clara Higgins: Um, are there ways in which the, um, diversity of the college affects your
teaching?
24:05 Douglas Green: Oh yeah, well it affects, and this is a function both of the profession has
changed also. Um, but, um, there, so just when I developed the drama sequence. Obviously the
American drama class is going to reflect the diversity of America. Um, but, I also constructed the
British course as British and Commonwealth so that we’re looking at Anglophone drama around
the world, and I wouldn’t necessarily have done that when I started out. I would say, oh, that’s
British and someone else will do the rest of the world. Um, and that’s been great for me. I mean,
I discovered playwrights I didn’t know about, and um, it’s changed the way I look at British
drama and its politics, um, and the same thing with world drama, that these things then kind of
become, um, connected to our larger interesting global matters. So that’s just an example of it.
Um, when I’m teaching Shakespeare, when we do Othello, we look back at Ira Aldridge, who
was a 19th century African American actor, became really, really important in Europe, and had a
big influence, very likely a big influence on even the development of Stanislavski’s method,
that’s where he played, in Russia among other places, could not have played in the U.S. at the
time that he was. So we read about him and his interpretations of Othello and some other plays
as well.
25:47 Clara Higgins: Yeah, um, so, regarding, um, you being an, um, English professor here,
there is a lot of literary history, um, so how can literary history, such as the Murphy Square
Literary Journal, um, be used to understand the history of Augsburg as an educational institution
since the, uh, sesquicentennial is coming up?
26:15 Douglas Green: Yeah, so I can’t answer that question yet. I can tell you how I’m going to
find out the answer to that question. Um, so I’ve proposed, and I’ve got students working with
me on, um, an anthology of over 40 years of Murphy Square. We’re not sure exactly the dates
will be, it depends a little on when the book is finished. Um, but it’s planned for the
sesquicentennial, so sometime in 2019 or 2020 the book will come out. That’s the plan. Um, I’m
working with actually the keystone, the first keystone worked this fall on, um, issues of the, uh,
the magazine. And, um, I think we’ll learn something about the student body over time, um, the
relative interest in writing and the arts. The journal’s much more polished and bigger than it was
in the early days, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there was more commitment to it, right?.
There’s always been something a little bit scrappy about Augsburg, and um, so there may be the
very fact of the small pamphlets that it started out as, um, have a kind of charm to them, um, and
7
grit to them, charm and grit at the same time, that I really admire. Um, funding I imagine was
very small, uh, at the time. They’ve worked and built up a kind of way of being funded that
works much better now. And it’s also cheaper to print now, than it was then. Um, but, um, it’s
interesting, we found poems that still speak to us, stories that still speak to us. Uh, we found
writers. It was interesting to see, not, the students didn’t know this, but a couple of the stories
they picked are by, um, Paul Kilgore, who is, um, a well-recognized writer from the area. He
lives up in Duluth. Uh, graduated here, I think around 1980, and is primarily a lawyer, but he has
also been nominated for a Minnesota book award for his, uh, short stories, and we found some
wonderful little pieces by him. Um, without students, I didn’t say to students, look for Paul
Kilgore if you see that name, you know pull them out. They just went ahead and found them, uh,
just by reading through the issues and saying, “This story, this is really good, let’s include this.”
And so we’ve started to see some of that, um, those names popping up. We’ve mostly looked at
things from the 70s, and then a little bit in the 90s and the 2000s, so, right now there’s, I think we
did one issue in the 80s, so there’s a kind of gap there that I really think we might hone in on
next fall. Um, so this is what I mean about discovering the answer to that question. Right now
we’re just beginning to pull the work together, um, to see well what’s the variety? Again, we
know it wasn’t as diverse a place. Um, also, and this is true even as we become more diverse, I
think it’s only recently that I would say even the staff of Murphy Square has, um, diversified in
some major ways, um, people were interested in working on it. And so that’s an issue I think,
um, that students, because it is largely student run, um, want to think about. You know, how do
we get more people, who we know are doing writing, um, to submit things for the, for the
journal, so that it becomes more representative of the student body. But that’ll be interesting to
see, you know, what does it look like over time, and who’s contributing, and what kinds of
things are they writing about? There was a wonderful little piece, um, called “Overalls” or “My
Overalls” by Camille Carnes, who I knew when she was here, Cami Carnes, and the students just
loved it. It’s about being hung up in the closet by your overalls when you were a kid, and it
sounds like abuse, but it is one of the funniest, most charming poems you could imagine, but it’s
also about gender in a way that’s very modern, and it was done decades ago. Um, right around
the time that things like, uh, the first sort of, kind of the predecessors to QPA and other groups
on campus were coming into being. It’s a really fascinating piece.
31:40 Clara Higgins: Yeah, very cool. So, I guess this relates to also the tradition, um, regarding,
um, Augsburg, um. On your Augsburg biography, um, you talk a bit about, um, where your
office is, so, “The snaking corridor on which my colleagues and I have our offices is the closest
thing you’ll find in the Twin Cities to an 18th century coffeehouse, minus the coffee,” um, and
you talk about how you are fortunate to be part of this tradition, um, can you talk about like the
relation, um, of this to the atmosphere and environment on campus with the faculty?
32:20 Douglas Green: Right, so, it’s really more that right outside this door, and I’m right
opposite the restroom, so everybody, that’s how I met everybody. I’ve been in this office from
the very beginning, and I actually wrote about it for Augsburg Now at one point, there’s an
article. Um, oh gosh, it’s got to be ten of fifteen years ago now. Um, but my closet, here, that’s
what I consider it because it’s one of the smaller offices on campus, um, has been really a kind
of, on a hallway where we’ll be standing out in the hall and we’ll be discussing politics, and the
people from religion, who we’re going to miss when they go over to the new building, so I don’t
know exactly what’s going to happen to our coffee shop here, to our coffeehouse. But, um, we’d
8
be standing out there just talking about campus politics, you know, what’s the president doing,
uh, you know whether it was President Anderson or President Frame or President Pribbenow,
um, or the deans, or whoever, but also talking about, um, art, politics on the larger scale which is
certainly occupying us right now. Um, that’s what I mean about it being sort of an 18th century
coffeehouse. This is where we’ll just suddenly stop and, uh, you know kind of stand around out
here. It’s the most inhospitable looking environment in some ways, these narrow hallways, but
maybe the narrowness of them makes us more attuned, uh, to gathering together there, so, I’ll
miss the, at least half of our hallway’s going to be gone, so that’s gonna be. I don’t know what
we’re going to do about that.
34:15 Clara Higgins: Um, so you, you just talked a bit about, um, you know, working with other,
talking with other departments. How, how is that, um?. Do you work a lot with other
departments, um, I guess you do teach in other departments, but are there other ways in which,
um, you connect with other departments to, you know, make your teaching more, uh,
(interdisciplinary)?
34:41 Green: Right, so I can talk about that on two levels, um, so one would be, um, on a kind of
macro level, if you will. Uh, when I developed the drama sequence, it was because, um, the
theater department, um, for their, the people studying directing in particular, um, and other areas
that was useful for them; dramaturgical work, those kinds of things. So, the curriculum for
English expanded in a way that also brought some people in from theater. We have a lot of
double majors and what not. Um, we have women’s studies classes in our department, that kind
of thing. So there are, we also have some courses taught by, um, language and cultural studies
Prof, um, Michael Kidd, who does our medieval and some of our early renaissance courses now
which is his area of specialty, uh, his specialty and area of expertise. And, um, in American
Indian studies Elise Marubbio teaches both film and, um, literature classes that also, um, count
for those majors which we’re involved in as well. And we contribute, of course, to the film
major. So, that’s one way in which those things happen, environmental studies as well. So the
English department, some people say we’ve got our fingers in everybody’s business. And, I think
it’s always, in some ways, been like that. It’s a, it’s a field that, um, expands out. I mean, people
will often, even in other disciplines teach a novel or something, and the same is true. We’re
interested in what’s going out there, and the way in which say sociology is affecting things. So
for me personally, it’s really manifested itself, not only in teaching courses that serve other
departments and developing courses that serve other departments, as well as our own, but in um,
actually team teaching with other members of the faculty. So I mentioned Diane Pike and
teaching in sociology. I took a class too, I taught a class, an English class alongside, uh, Nancy
Fischer, another sociologist and urban studies prof, who, uh, we went to Denmark, we went to
Copenhagen and we took students there, and I was teaching Danish literature in which I am not
expert, but became as expert as quickly I could. It was a lower level course, so, I didn’t have to
become, you know, the definitive expert on Danish lit, um, but, um, it was fascinating. I mean, I
love learning about it. We’re going back it looks like, uh, and I’ve got a lot more stuff I know
now, and I’m very excited about that. And that’s actually the way, I, this is my own belief, but if
you want to remain a vital teacher, you have to be learning at the same time, and that’s one of the
things I love about the Augsburg faculty, is that people are always developing new stuff, they’re
not kind of just sitting back and, and rolling with what they knew. Um, and, uh, I think we feed
each other in that regard. So I’ve done that work, um with Nancy, um, a lot of work on what’s
9
become the queer theory class. It wasn’t called that originally, because you couldn’t call it that to
put it in the catalog when I started out. Um, but that I’ve taught with… It happens that all of the
people I’ve taught with for that class didn’t have to be this, but all the people I’ve taught, um,
that class with have been in religion. Um, so Bev Stratton was the first, Janelle Bussert, and now
Mary Lowe. Um, and I just love doing that. I love team-, that’s really, I don’t think there’s a
better way of kind of developing as a faculty member than team teaching with somebody else. So
I’ve taught with my own colleague Bob Cowgill, we both taught the contemporary American
poetry, uh, class, the modern American poetry class, and that was absolutely fabulous to do that.
We’re going to teach a course, before I retire, on the American musical, um, American movie
musicals, and, um, it’s going to be great, I’m just warning you. Uh, that’s a passion we both
have. We come at it from very different angles, but um, that would be, I think a just a lovely
thing, um, to teach. And I’m just trying to think if I’ve team, then I’ve done like sort of guest
lectures in other peoples’ classes. Adriane Brown, I come into her, um, theory classes et cetera,
so, uh. And so again in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies, um, and I love doing that kind of
work. I love the kind of work where you’re learning about somebody else’s discipline. Um, so
thinking with Nancy about design, and thinking about, well how would that affect the way that,
um, how does that play into, do we see any similarities in the way that the literature works, um,
would be one kind of question one might ask. But I think even more, um, we, actually, oddly
enough set up our exploration of Copenhagen by using a whole set of film Noir stories, detective
stories that brought us around the city. So, Nancy was actually adjusting her class to meet the
sort of blueprint of the stories themselves which were set in various neighborhoods.
40:51 Clara Higgins: Very cool.
40:52 Douglas Green: Yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun.
40:55 Clara Higgins: Um, so I guess as we kind of finish off the interview, um, what, um, since
the sesquicentennial is coming up, um, is there a way that you think that will strengthen the
community of Augsburg, or will that change, um, how, um, faculty, um, teach? It’s an institution
that’s been around for a long time, um, does that affect how the college is, um, as an educational
institution?
41:29 Douglas Green: Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean one answer to it is, no, it’s not going
to have any affect at all, in the sense that we’re going to keep doing what we do, changing as we
change, and have changed, um, I don’t think that will change. I do think, I do think it maybe
gives us a somewhat different sense of ourselves, and these are hard times for institutions of
higher learning, um, and we’re an institution that has a long history of teaching immigrant
populations. I mean this is not, actually what’s happening here is not new, it’s just a different
group of immigrants that we’re teaching, um, and children of immigrants. Um, so in one way,
there’s a case where nothing’s going to change, right, and yet at the same time, everything is
changing. And I think the sesquicentennial maybe gives us a bit of a sense of the longevity of
that project, and the fact that it will persist into the future. I think sometimes it’s easy to think, oh
my gosh, this is all going to come to an end. Even academics are prone to apocalyptic thinking
sometimes, right. Um, and I think the answer to that, and the sesquicentennial reminds us of this,
is no, it’s not going to end, it may, we may have periods of belt tightening and we may have
periods of relative affluence. I’ve lived through both on this campus. Um, but I really do believe
10
that, uh, we’re well situated not just to survive, but to thrive, and to really, um, improve the lives
of those that come here. Um, help them, uh, do important work, do work that matters to them and
to our community, our communities, really. So, yeah, I think it’s more as a kind of memorial
function, um, and that sounds like death, but it’s not, but I think it’s got this sense of, it’s
monumental in some ways, right?. We have something we can see. We have work over a century
and a half that I think we can be justly proud of. And we can admit some mistakes we’ve made,
and learn from them and move on.
44:10 Clara Higgins: Um, is there anything else that we didn’t talk about that you would like to
add?
44:16 Douglas Green: Well, I’m, I’m very pleased. It was actually an interesting experience for
me to think back on my, uh, my time here, and sort of, um, what it might mean. It’s reminded me
again, I think, of um, how much the people at this place have had an impact on me, and if I’ve
had a small impact on them, that would be just great. Thanks very much.
44:43 Clara Higgins: Yes, thank you very much for your time.
Show less
RG 21.4.2014.03.13 Don Gustafson
Transcript
Fri, 08/23 11:29AM
66:24
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
students, augsburg, department, faculty, year, india, carl, people, chair, remember, courses, spring,
jensen, college, point, gus, nominated, 70s, questions, teaching
SPEAKERS
Phil Adamo, Don Gustafso... Show more
RG 21.4.2014.03.13 Don Gustafson
Transcript
Fri, 08/23 11:29AM
66:24
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
students, augsburg, department, faculty, year, india, carl, people, chair, remember, courses, spring,
jensen, college, point, gus, nominated, 70s, questions, teaching
SPEAKERS
Phil Adamo, Don Gustafson, Michael Lansing
M
Michael Lansing 00:02
The date is March 13 2014. The narrator is Donald Gustafson, professor of history at
Augsburg College. The interviewers are Michael Lansing, associate professor of history at
Augsburg College and Phil Adamo, associate professor of history at Augsburg College.
The interview is taking place here in Don Gustafson's office in Memorial Hall, Minneapolis,
Minnesota. Gus we're wondering if you might be willing to describe the department as you
encountered it when you arrived in 1960?
D
Don Gustafson 00:35
Could I do something first, please. Which is it just for your sake? Let me talk a little bit
about the 50 years I've been here, you know, just just to give you a sense of where I was in
each decade, okay, I came in the in September of 6160s. were, you know, quite an
interesting decade for what was going internationally. For me just getting involved in new
institution teaching going off to do my PhD finish up my research in India and coming
back they were good years I, I didn't I, I can't. It's probably not fair to say that I was a fair
her child but I certainly was in an honored position being here.
D
Don Gustafson 01:20
RG 21.4.2014.03.13 Don Gustafson Transcript
Page 1 of 20
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
The 70s were, in some ways, great and awful. Eyes managed to do some traveling during
that decade overnight, took three groups to either Sri Lanka or India on the base via the
University of Minnesota span program. I had the misfortune of becoming department
chair which could which was it ultimately horror. We were a small department and could
talk about those people are those into situation. If you Teaching was a joy. I was certainly
not the greatest teacher on campus, but I, I did well and liked, like the process in the 80s.
D
Don Gustafson 02:19
Let's see, I've been struggling with the 80s because there were some good years in the 60s
70s and 80s were really great years for the history department. Because of the students
we had also, the school was still relatively small. And then something happened in during
the 80s. Well, Carl, Chris Locke, who was the Grand Old Man of the department retired
and we got somebody new but or temporarily at least new. But something else just really
must have set me off that is right after Carl's retirement. I think that was when I just
decided I'd had all I wanted to Augsburg I should have left. Instead, I just backed out of
everything said no, no, no. And then realized after a time, I was cutting off my nose to
spite my face, and, and therefore selectively went back into doing some of the things I'd
done before.
D
Don Gustafson 03:18
The 90s came along. And continuing, it was a wonderful decade for me for travel
overseas, with Africa in 90. Let's see, where did we go? Where did I do in 91. It was India in
92. It was Russia and Sweden. In 93, it was Egypt. Just just sheer luck. One of the best
things academically that happened to be during the 80s in the 90s was that having didn't
renounced ever doing a seminar again, I went back and chose to do And it turned out I
had learned how to do it, or what and certainly be having a seminar was one of the best
things that happened over the last year's. The 90s was also a great decade because I
began using tacs. And that was a positive thing personally for me. And it was in the 90s
that the class program, I think, got started here. And clearly, it has been the class program
that given me some remarkable shots in the arm because the students that brought and
then comes our current Millennium and you both were here most of that time. So you
know, basically what may have happened. I, I think I had some very good years here. I
also had some down years. And at the moment I am I feel increasingly depressed. Who
knows? Well, it may be because of the upcoming departure.
D
Don Gustafson 05:00
But, you know, as I look back Also, my great days were in the 60s and 70s. And and then I
RG 21.4.2014.03.13 Don Gustafson Transcript
Page 2 of 20
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
just begin to a different situation. And now I'm at the point of thinking, why am I still here?
I'm not keeping up with people and so, okay with that, and as of the first of June, I'll be out
of here I expect. Okay. That's Oh, yes. The 70s were also a big set of big decade because
that's the year Bev and I made the decision to move to St. Peter on a temporary one year
affair, and somehow we're still in that temporary one year affair. It was also the decade
we added two more adopted children to the family. And well, okay, that's enough. Now.
Do you want me to just go on
D
Don Gustafson 06:00
It's talking to and do you want to break in with some of your questions if I've got to sit
telling enough?
M
Michael Lansing 06:04
Sure.
D
Don Gustafson 06:05
When I came to this to here in 61, CArl Chrislock, and Oracle Gisselquist, were the member
in the Department, and they talked to me very generally. I want you to know I did not
apply for the job. I was called, by the dean wondering if I would be any of it. They had an
interest. His he was calling me because the man who had been teaching ancient history
was moving on to somewhere else. They needed to get somebody to teach ancient
history. There. One of my college classmates from Chris Davis, Glenn Sampson, top notch
guy. Somehow Dane Quantic heard about him, call it a good save is how can we get ahold
of him? We'd like to offer him a job. And will then he'll answer the phone in in the alumni
office, new, new Glenn. Hey, back in those days, if you're in alumni office you knew
everybody. And and as Sylvia certainly did, and she told him know that she knew where
Glenn was and what he was going to be involved. And she said, but you know, I don't know
if Don Gustafson has a job for next year. And my son Tom really likes him. So that was the
recommendation that got me to Augsburg. Plus, I got a master's degree. And that was
wonderful because the college was hiring a good number of people who were teaching
with their bachelor's degrees. And so I met I met Chris luck for a very informal sort of time.
I arrived on campus the day of the old school picnic at como Park, so I had to wait for
people to come back to be here.
D
Don Gustafson 07:43
And the older older man in the department was claiming, I can't remember his name. I
RG 21.4.2014.03.13 Don Gustafson Transcript
Page 3 of 20
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
don't ever remember talking to Dr. Cleveland other than greeting I remember Carl looking
at Orland saying well, should we should we find Craven and orlistat? I don't think it pays,
or something of that sort. So I did meet him, nor did I meet Khin Khin Jensen, who was
within the department head had become a part time faculty member. At her own
requests. And I think that next year, the first year I was, she was on leave, and had seen her
husband and kids went back to to Burma for a year. So I didn't meet her at first.
D
Don Gustafson 08:36
We were the department. Our back in those days, you know, was wonderful teaching here,
partly because I was welcomed, partly because, you know, I was only Well, how old was it?
28 and among the younger faculty here, and well Sure, I, I'm not sure I knew how to teach,
but I knew how to keep it, classes attention. And students seem to like me. And one of the
things that I have really missed recent in recent years is, college was small enough, that
there were basically only a limited number of choices. And so freshmen, I knew pretty well,
but freshman, each freshman was taking the religion course in English and so on. And
again, and again, it was possible to relate something from class to what I know, they knew
they were doing in one of these other departments. In some ways, I think, I think kids kind
of better had a better chance and liberal arts education then, because there was a little
more possibility of integration, thinking of questions and so forth. Also, at that time, we
still had chapel that was attended by almost everybody.
D
Don Gustafson 10:01
I know I personally found the chapel a great way of getting something started in class by
referring to the chapel talk etc. And I could I could depend on the bulk of the fact of the
students having been there. And and and we could I was in room. What was it? Have I
already forgotten? It used to be room 18 of Maine and it is so politically proper that I am
my last teaching will again be in that same room which has now become five at 105 or
something. By the way, I should also indicate to people I came here in 61. I have been here
connected with the college for 53 years but in effect, I am finishing my 15th year of
teaching right now because I was gone for three years to do that. HC I think I'm just
oblivious to lots of things. And so I don't remember very much outside of the history
classes and so on from that first year, I do remember one thing very vividly. This was I was
not at the faculty meeting when Dr. Christiansen announced he was leaving, that he was
retiring, which, and that was 1962. This was, I think it was in the early 80s. I think it was in
the fall of 1961.
D
Don Gustafson 11:31
RG 21.4.2014.03.13 Don Gustafson Transcript
Page 4 of 20
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
And then and because I remember, probably in March or April of 1962, the board
announced their selection of the new president. And one of the nice things back in those
days was we didn't have department coffee pots, or individual coffee pots if we're going
to have coffee. We went down to the factory lounge, which is where the education
department is now. There was a little kitchenette. There you go. It was good coffee. And
my recollection was was almost always, you could find some faculty member sitting down
there and talk to it. So I hadn't heard the announcement of the new president. I remember
walking down into that faculty lounge. And here was Phil Kline back and Paul Sonic and
some of the very respected faculty having the longest faces, you could imagine, because
they had hopes that now Augsburg was going to make a step forward. And then what did
the board do? But go get a preacher from Morehead as their as the president of the
school, somebody who didn't even have a master's degree as far as I recall, and they were
a gun bunch and I was just out of touch enough not to fully realize the ins and outs of it.
D
Don Gustafson 13:00
I suspect it was a case where the board did with the board or was it they make the
decisions and told the faculty afterwards? And no, I take that back. I take that back and
watch it. But you're right. It was in the spring of 63. Because with the announcement of
Christians and his departure, it was announced that OG What was his name was going to
come in and fill in for a year as a temporary interim prison. And then it was the next spring
when he was still here that we got the word from about Oscar Anderson coming. I will say
that I I always liked Oscar. I thought he was excellent. And but that's that's another matter.
D
Don Gustafson 13:57
Okay. I went off to graduate school.
M
Michael Lansing 14:00
What year was that?
D
Don Gustafson 14:01
In the summer of 63. I had taken a couple I've taken some courses at Minnesota while I
was here. Because I could so easily do that. And it was, to some extent, I think Martin
quarterback who was dean who basically said, Guys, if you're going to stay at teaching,
you've got to, you really have got to go on and get your, your spiritual union card. And I
did not want to go on to graduate school because I had learned enough about graduate
school to know that at that time, graduate school taught you to be a researcher, so you
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could write books. And my interest in being a researcher and writing books was not very
high. I wanted to teach. And so I really thought the idea, but finally sort of broke down
and Great to partly also, Wisconsin was just into the second or third year of what looked
like a very interesting program, comparative tropical history. What a crazy mouthful of
stuff that was. But it was a wonderful time to go back to graduate school because for me
in this area, because that was when the government had just decided we don't have
enough authorities on the rest of the world. And so, anybody, almost anybody, if you went
back to grad school in certain fields, and we're willing to study Arabic or Swahili or almost
any one of those obscure languages, the government didn't quite pay your whole way. But
did they did well by and I did not apply for that because I didn't know about well, in fact, I
didn't. I don't think I applied to get back into grad school until probably March of that
year.
D
Don Gustafson 16:02
OR times, James, different now. And I was accepted immediately, partly because I had my
masters from Wisconsin, and had been at that point promoted to do PhD work. So that
was on the record at night. I could do that. About graduate work at Wisconsin. Well, I
decided I would do India part because I'd been to India before as a student, and I was so
intrigued with it. By the way, I don't remember that anybody here suggested to me Well,
first of all, there was no, there was sort of an understood. We hope you'll come back, but
nothing on paper. No, nothing, no. Written commitment. I think I hit every expect of
probably coming back. And nobody that I can remember made any suggestion as to what
they thought I should take what, although I suppose I had given understand it would be
something non Western.
D
Don Gustafson 17:19
Grad school was hard. I'm not overwhelmingly bright in terms of academically, and I had
an instructor who proved to be the kind of wonderful friend that I still go and visit, and so
on. But clearly one of the weakest teachers I've ever had, partly because he was so busy
getting his first book published, so he would get tenure, and this was who this was. frickin
Berg and this little world we live in. His parents had been missionaries By the way, my first
year, I think Three or was it four of the faculty I had? Were all missionary children, because
missionary children were the few people available who had done academic work in these
parts of the world that they were interested in. But my last morning in India as a student in
at the hospital in Bombay, I had breakfast with a couple missionary couple who asked me
if I would bring some tapes and some other things back and from since I was heading
back to the states to Minnesota, and shortly before I took off for India tour doing my
research, I went back over my diary and discovered that that couple that I had breakfast
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with with the parents of Robert frickin Berg who is my advisor, Wisconsin.
D
Don Gustafson 18:52
Anyway, the fabulous part of being it was gone. Was that I had Philip curtain, who became
a very recognized name and was clearly a superb teacher Jedi. What I learned from him
was very good. And of course, my, my closest academic friend at that point was Barbara
Metcalf who A few years later is going to become president of the American Association
Asian Studies. You know, I haven't apologized but I rub shoulders with people who were
great people and went off to India in 68. With the my second year of graduate school, I
did get a government grant just to continue my study of Canada, of which I learned
almost nothing but I got the credit and went off to India for that year of 6566. In order to
keep from being lonely over in India, I we got married just weeks before we We took off,
had a wonderful trip going to India because we spent two weeks in Japan or Bennett like
Hong Kong, or neither where I hadn't been Bangkok where I hadn't been. And then, and
then India were at four o'clock in the morning we were met by Marianne, who was a good
friend from St. Peter who paid, married an Indian doctor and was living in Delhi and knew I
was coming sometime but we had never told the plane exactly, but I don't know how she
found out but anyway, they were there the airport and and of course, you know, as I think
about, we had made absolutely no plans as to what we're going to do when we got to
Delhi.
D
Don Gustafson 20:45
So God intervened and saw that we were taking care of. And two weeks later, the war
broke out between India and Pakistan, which made an interesting X ray interesting here
and from there about the end of August we Train down to Bangalore where I knew I was
going to be and so forth. You know, that got back here in the summer of 66. August of 66.
found an apartment. I my first years at Augsburg, I was sharing an office in Memorial up
on the second floor and I have a remnant of that because just today I dug out that pile of
cherry tobacco cans because back in those days I smoked cherry tobacco and i think i
through most of them when I moved in this at one point or another, but these are remet.
Anyway, I came back and number of things really, I owe you the echo to sue. Neat article
about Gus is back which you know, is I didn't think very much about you know, I liked it at
the time. But now that I think back on it, you know, it was those were it was, you know, one
commodity on campus. And I just took her for granted that I wouldn't be now. It's, it's a
little depressing now to feel like I don't know anybody on campus anymore.
D
Don Gustafson 22:21
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Let's see what Ellen and I had written with Carl and said that, you know, he or Carla
written and he said, Well, if you're coming back, what do you want to teach? And I of
course would teach that I agree to teach the Western Civ series of freshmen to term and I
also a group would teach the ancient history, because I had taught that before and after
all, these two years of Greek which college which just automatically qualified me for, for
teaching ancient history. And then and I think it was in the fall of 66. Right away, I, I asked
if I could teach a course, which was simply a mimicking of what I had of what I'd taken it
Wisconsin, the expansion of Europe and permitted no objection. And, and either that that
year or certainly the next year, I was teaching expensive about it and it was a to fall in the
spring. Not they didn't have it was like, never take both of them, but I found myself fitting
in with Augsburg students. There were different groups somewhat different than to save
us.
D
Don Gustafson 23:46
Why, but I thought it could save us the year before I came here, as I indicated, and, you
know, we had some children of professional families. You know, I remember a couple kids
who was fathers were lawyers, a couple of doctors here. We had professional kids, but
they were fathers were ministers. And that was the moment otherwise they were much like
some of it could save his students straight off the farm. I think I've I felt I this is just off the
cuff, but I think I think I felt that Augsburg was a little more national in that across the
country, in that people came to Augsburg because it was a Lutheran college and many
because it was a Lutheran preschool. And they were still there. They were families that
were still very deeply connected with the Lutheran Free Church. And so I'm always
delighted students from the from New England, from Washington, Oregon, etc. We all I
also had got to know a number of missionary kids, because Lutheran Free Church was
really a remarkable institution in in sensing people had vocations to be missionaries. And
and I, you know a great memories of these these missionary kids and they often
gravitated here because I was one of the few people on on the faculty who had been in
the kinds of worlds they had grown up here.
D
Don Gustafson 25:28
And and that was that was, you know, really, really very fun to do it. There was a kind of
downer and let me not get too involved in this but at the very first faculty meeting, our
department meeting rather in September, and it seemed to think for some reason that
was it was held upstairs in in this in this building in were Mark furious office now. It was fun
to do that because my My second year of teaching here at Augsburg ventures where I
have been part of the year because my roommate, no, my roommate had been had been
transferred to Omaha and I couldn't afford the apartment. So I so I live in this was that at
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that point two boys dorm anyway.
D
Don Gustafson 26:17
And at that meeting Dr. Jensen, at some point simply said, Well, she let her unhappiness
shine. She indicated she saw this course expansion of Europe. This was her world.
Augsburg was too small school for having to non Western historians. If she had known this
was going on she would have put us up to it which was quite a welcome back. Once
you've returned from Wisconsin GI you would this was returning with the PhD from what I
hadn't got the PhD yet but it was returning from from my leave, you know and I was in line
by The way this world we live in several years ago, several I remember when I came across
the program of the day, I took my I had my Masters exam, quiz or whatever, whatever I
needed and which I was at 130 National and guess what, at 930 that morning and digital,
had her PhD, it's Khin Khin Jensen. I never met her at the time, you know, I would have no
idea who she was. I never told her that.
D
Don Gustafson 27:36
Anyway, and I was pretty shaken and by this broadside, and didn't handle it. I didn't. You
know, I tried to suggest that it was it will, that I was not will be trying to move in on her
territory, and so on. And Much of the thrust of the expansion of your Of course under
curtain was to do comparative stuff and, and and that kind of thing. And, and certainly
Carl Chrislock and an Oracle backed me up quietly but, you know, they, they are not
about to get involved in discussion, but that was sort of the mood that I lived within for the
next years I was unwanted competition.
D
Don Gustafson 28:30
I I can't remember how many years it took before I dared do a course on India, because
that was her field. And you know, I I did eventually do some but so what did you teach
instead? What did what I teach? I think as I recall, it was expensive. Your I was still the
bright young star at that point. And I think I had classes if I should go back and double
check, but I'm sure I had classes and have 30 or 35 students for this because, you know, it
was exotically new doing something like this, etc. And I taught the Western Civ dealt
department wise during these years. I think about 68 or so. The decision was, though, first
of all, the dean, Dean Ken Bailey, that read some book and had made it clear that in a
small college, no department should have more than 16 courses in the catalog. So we got
the orders, go to the catalog and cut out all the courses cut down to trim 16 courses. So
we did they did for us it was healthy because we had several courses that had been there
for years and never taught and so on, but there was that, then somewhere.
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D
Don Gustafson 29:59
The idea Came we'd be better off if we'd have the quarter system rather than the two
term system. And what was good about that was that in the old system, we would come in
the fall, and then this fall term would end, sort of in the middle of January. So we come
back from Christmas break, and then try and get geared up to finish the course and do
the end. And it was always hectic. Or I found that when we go into the quarter system, we
didn't have that kind of thing. However, after two years, it became apparent that the
quarter system had one drawback that they hadn't realized, and that is, it made. It made
it much easier for students to transfer from Augsburg to the university since we had joined
cat paga. We had concurrent calendars. So and it was just about this time that the Twin
City College Just at the end throughout the country, the the new thing was to do a 414.
And so we had full term interim and spring term.
D
Don Gustafson 31:11
And now, each of these, it meant rearranging courses and, and for example, when you
went to for one for at that point, that's when it went to courses from credits of courses.
And so there was a matter of revising, of course, I don't recall if there was ever, you know,
overwhelming problems but it was new so to speak. Hey, these were you know, now that I
think back on it. These are some good years for me a fun years. And I really feel like I've
gotten old, but in those years well, I was I just somehow think back on I was involved in so
many things on campus. I know when they had the Sadie Hawkins dance, I would always
be the marrying Sam. When the art department had its spring auction of artworks, I would
be the auctioneer.
D
Don Gustafson 32:20
Let's see. Oh, that was it was that this time that the Danforth foundation had a wonderful
program for academic conferences, and what they wanted were two or three faculties
from every school out there and Phil Thompson. I don't remember how he got involved in
the program, but I think arts my second year back here after that, from India. Phil
nominated me too. And so I got it. And this was great because we have conference twice
a year at always Some at all was at a, you know, a very pleasant resort kind of thing. It
also began with a national conference in in Georgia. And it was at that conference, and I
acquired that hot middle made at the Athens, Georgia had just had a fire downtown, etc.
And those conference, they were clearly no notice no discipline, and no specific discipline,
just general. just general academic conferences where we enjoyed being intellectuals. And
we, by the way, hosted IN not here at Augsburg, but Phil and I had to put together a
conference sometime on was that early 80s, I guess of this for for the Midwest and forth
and I would gather, we have maybe 150 people who would come it was one of the best
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ways Meeting faculty from other institutions here.
D
Don Gustafson 34:03
I was lucky enough to be in it. And of course, it helped that in the fall of 68. I finished
writing my PhD dissertation. And I got that it was at this point. That was one one of those
days when Carl said, as I have told you, Carol, I met Carl in the hallway said, well, you're
getting here. You'll be getting your degree in a couple of weeks is tiny. We have 10 year old
tell the dean and I got 10 years. And I think it was 1970 when Phil Quanbeck and I were
selected by the senior classes, outstanding faculty. Oh, and it was at the side that during
these years I was faculty rep on the student side. it. And I, I did like it in that and it was at
the time was it? Like I said earlier, somehow history was the in thing because I made sure
and partly because we had a good number of students going on education part because
we had a fair number of students going on to the seminary. And then there were the usual
group, which is like history.
D
Don Gustafson 35:24
And we had some Well, it was good to get to know these people and work with them and
so forth. in that fashion, and I, I stayed as faculty rep on the Student Senate for 10 or 12
years. I'm not sure if it was because they didn't know how to tell me to get off or what it
was, but it it it gave me a sense of some of what was going on campus and and let's see
what Can I see well, and then, in 72, Ben and I took our first group of students, only one of
whom was an expert student to Sri Lanka. And three years later in 75, we took a group to
India. This time there were two experts.
M
Michael Lansing 36:17
How many other faculty at Augsburg were leading study abroad trips like that?
D
Don Gustafson 36:22
In the early mid 1970s, I don't remember that anybody was. I don't recall it. I may have
overlooked somebody, though. It was in the late 70s. I think that Mary Kingsley was, and
Joel McGee and so forth, we're getting things organized in Mexico that an adventure that
was developed. But you know, I can understand why nobody lead groups in those days
because well, I took a group to India but I it was all up to me and I and of course, in the
span program, I didn't have to keep them together as a group. I have been a spanner in
India myself. So it was a matter of spending the year previous, every other Saturday with
the students preparing for the trip. And then once we got to the country, each one of
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them went off on his or her own project and we'd have occasional meetings if it was
convenient and what a span standpoint, student project for enmity among nations. It was
a idealistic group that came out of the university right after the Second World War.
D
Don Gustafson 37:35
University of Minnesota, yeah. And is strictly University of Minnesota program. And it is
still struggling. It is still in existence, amazingly. And let's see what what else can I say
about we one of our most illustrious man alumni with A woman named john Mondale and
there were others as well. And anyway, that seven of us who I grew up with India, in 54 we
really bonded as a group and the five of us who are still living get together every year. It
happens. Where we all live in Minnesota, we haven't gotten anywhere. And so it's amazing
and I, I am not in contact. I am still in contact with I would say three or four of the
students that went with us to India in your history log back in those days, and then I took
another group in Bev and I took another group in 79. Good experiences we was only we
could afford to take trips like this because they were We were given a stipend, which was
meant to cover our costs and that's about what it did.
D
Don Gustafson 39:07
But was it was to go to a place one likes to be with students that are, you know, and as
you will have discovered, going with students can be so rewarding because you get to see
and hear so much that one personal doesn't hear you. Okay. Well, what else should I say?
Oh, let's see what else was happening in the early 70s. Oh, yes. Dumb Gus. Carl, Chris luck.
Nice guy. He very much did you say? I don't think Carl had a sophisticated bone in his
body. And I'm not saying that as an insult as a man is. It just wasn't his way of doing
things. And he regularly grouse about The administrative responsibilities he had. And I
can't remember when it was, I must have been in spring of 71. He said, Gus, you've been
here long of his time, you'll be chairman of the department. And you know, I was honored
at the time. All right.
D
Don Gustafson 40:20
So I became stupidly chair of the department. I don't know if Karl realized this was
happening to coming or if it but it was that year that suddenly college realized that
enrollment had dropped. They are there. The incoming freshman class was down by 50
students or something. And it was a major financial crunch. So the question was, is that
the time they they came out with strap, which was the initials for some sort of committee
to investigate? And of course, quickly it became we are strapped in And, and the decision
was I, I was at five or six, four or five, six faculty simply would have to be cut, as well as
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staff and so on. Well, this was difficult because our newest faculty member, which is Rick
Nelson, by the way, I had been asked somewhere I think it's 68. Gus. We're going to hire
another faculty member. What do you you're doing? You've been doing ancient history. Do
you want to continue that? Or? Or do you want to shift and do some of the modern
Europe stuff? And I opted to do because it fit with them graduate work and sauce. So they
and I don't remember anything about the hiring of Rick Nelson.
D
Don Gustafson 41:48
Except there were questions. He was Roman Catholic, and he would be expected to teach
the road for reformation course. And I don't think there were any questions Within the
history department, but there were some other questions that were raised from, you know.
Anyway, Rick was hired, he was spectacular choice fine guy to, as you will know, from his
reputation, I'm sure etc. And well, within the department, there was Oracle who was clearly
financially struggling because he had his five children and so forth. And Bev and I are not
on hot on high, but we were managing and, and raw, Rick Nelson was obviously not doing
well, I mean, was on the edge of things.
D
Don Gustafson 42:48
And it was, to my mind to all our minds. He was he was vulnerable. And what made it
worse was that it was at this point that Dr. Jensen decided She should become full time,
years before she had asked to become part time. And she had been, as I was told, she had
been informed that yes, she could go part time. But she could not make the decision as to
when if she came back full time, it would have to fit within the school. She could not
understand that at all. Because after all, she was she was contingency. And that all came
to a head in the in the spring of I must have been 72. And I absolutely refuse to ask that
she be given full time because I was so certain that if she had been given full time record,
they would have let it go. Now, I may have been wrong in that assumption. Certainly.
Neither carnal nor low. were arguing to get Jensen back full time. And but it didn't. It
didn't do much to cement a relationship between us.
D
Don Gustafson 44:15
That was the time she was sitting in that damn chair, very chair. We were having a spring
faculty meeting, department meeting. Why am I going into all this I was decided I was
going to do that. We were having this me. And at those days we did things so stupidly we
got together the whole group and made a request for what courses were going to do the
next year and we list them and and then the sort of the chair and each individual to work
it out. And so we went down around the list and and I thought she had gotten the
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message that she would not be full time. So there she said and presented next year. I want
to teach Seven courses, which was a full load, and I just lost my cool. Absolutely. And all I
did was say, I've lost my cool I can't go on, let's quit. And that came back to haunt me
again and again because I she said I raised my voice anyway. Enough of that.
D
Don Gustafson 45:30
Let's see what else happened during the 70s Oh yes. During the 70s we had a remarkable
man on campus who was came to be head of the English department Mark Davis, right
April guy, good guy. And he was the one who basically set the groundwork for what
interrupt was going to be and and did it well. And he became Associate Dean, not
surprisingly no I forgotten exactly the sequence how long he was in charge of the the intro.
But I think when Charles Anderson came is Dean Mark was his associate, and Mark and I
got along very well liked each other and so on. And, and I suppose it was Mark who, who
told Charles, that he wanted out from running the intro and said, ask us to do it. So, and
you know, it was all right. I thought Sure, why not? And I'm glad I did because one of the
best wonderful education in the realm of administration, so to speak, and my kind of level
of administration I didn't realize it at the time. But you know, I just have to follow the rules
and simply say, I have no budget so I have no money and and yes, there were harried
moments and whatnot, but It was just doing those and I think I ran a fairly good intro my,
the hardest problem was absolutely insisted nobody could take more than one course
during January. And I had some fairly intense discussions with both students and faculty
at times about that. Well, I remember social worker from it was no longer here, came into
the office one day, she had this student who desperately needed credits. And the student
was going to be in in that class. And then student also wanted to take another course. And
and of course she can do it because she has did that but one had that much to do in my
course. Two wishes about next year then your course open, you have credit course.
D
Don Gustafson 47:49
Student did not get by a fun moment. So what year did you become the director? I can't
remember what year it was. How long were you that director AI it was it was lifted from
me I, I got the interim in place, and I think it was I went on to leave the spring of 91 and I
had the interim ready for that point that that's a whole other instrument or another. We all
have our little stories of irritation with but that and several times I went to the academic I
told For example, I told her this is this is the kind of experience on the resume that other
faculty should have. Because I discovered like prima donnas faculty can be and on the
other hand, he gave me also a chance to meet and work with that we that I otherwise
never and I, and, well, finally one year and I can't remember the why of it. He appointed
another woman or another woman, a woman can't even remember who she would
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pleasant Spencer's but, but yeah, she really messed things up. And then next year I was
back.
D
Don Gustafson 49:12
Okay. Let me think what happened what what sorts of things were happening somewhere
in this time of the 70s Rick, Rick Nelson became chair and then he was replaced by Oracle.
Rick and insisted he didn't like being chair but in fact, I think he did. But or low or low was
not a strong teacher. He was sounded solid, but no sex appeal. And, but when it came to
being Chairman, the department Oh, he was a dreamer. He he could Well, not what we
should be doing. I never got those things that doesn't cross my mind. And one of the
things in somewhere in the 70s I think it was, I had been and when I became Associate
Professor, but somewhere in the 70s or about 1980 it was suggested that I should become
that I should, I should put myself up for full professor. And I chose not I said, I just can't
because there was or low who was my senior and she was associate professor.
D
Don Gustafson 50:43
Hey, that reminds me more local gossip abroad the way we operate. One of the things
when I became chair things were pretty loose about the way and I can't remember if it
was the first or second year that I was chair the dean said I want to know who should be
considered for promotion So will you department chairs get together and and with under
the chairmanship of your other division chair and and tell me what you and so so we five
or six of us and I don't remember who was apartments who the vision share was at that
time but boy talk about you know I'm just not with it because I got in there and and we sat
around and then we got to well who should Who should we got it what and Norma begin
by saying well I'm going to nominate myself because I've been here six years and then
Dwayne Johnson and said, Well, I'm tending to nominate myself because and I get up
you're not occurred
D
Don Gustafson 52:00
To me talk about being night and and I can't remember who else was. But there were
three chair all who I came because and my problem my question was should Khin Khin
Jensen be nominated? And I had talked with Carl, I think I talked with Marlo and it
basically come to the conclusion. I was not validated. There were several all kinds of silly
things that should not have made a difference. But I know somewhere early in my
chairmanship I had sent a note around saying please, if you're going to miss class,
because you're going to a conference or something, let me know so I'm aware of it. She
had a riot about that because didn't I understand what academic freedom meant? catch
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any house well, when she And I, I told I, and she had been there several other things that
occurred.
D
Don Gustafson 53:09
Anyway, so with the chairs, I said I was struggling with it and had come to the conclusion I
was not going to nominate her. And that, okay, we just listened to. Well, she made a case
out of that, that she had not been nominated. And I had to go before the faculty equity
committee and so forth, because anyway, but that whole business of these one chair after
another, and the next year, well, we learned the next year. We were in forum chairs have to
be nominated by the division chair. Not but yeah, okay. Well, we got we came became
more sophisticated. So you said that you were choosing to not go up for full. Can you tell
us more about that? Well, just it was partly I wasn't sure I would I would necessarily get it
and and partly I really you know I respected Arlo so much and and he was usually I got
the feeling that he was stepped on and so forth and I really thought how can I well he
never did go to never an either or their qualifications for this or I mean in the way that
these things are very know precisely laid out oh nowadays well I'm not if I'm not mistaken
by the time I did go up for professor, the chair of the department had to write a letter and
I'm not sure if anybody else did or not but the chairs letter and at that time we were given
to understand that the number one qualification was good acceptable teaching and and
you know, I don't remember quite what else however, You asked the wrong question.
D
Don Gustafson 55:02
There was the year I was nominated and recommended by the dean for promotion when
they when these were presented to the Board of Regents, and I think there were seven set
here because it had been, they suddenly thought they had to get caught up. And
somebody on the board said, This just isn't working. How many of these people have
published if they haven't published they can't we Why are we promoted them? And there
were others in the boards. It hasn't been a requirement. How can we pull it pose it now?
And so as a result, the board just lifted hanging. And, and it hung all spring. There were
five of us who didn't know if we're going to be familiar. What year was that? I don't
remember sometime in the mid 80s. So 84 somewhere. And I think it was the morning of
graduation of graduate The day before the board it had one of their meetings.
D
Don Gustafson 56:05
And one of the things that was decided as well, we have to approve these and, and so I
think it was that morning I got a note. Yes, I had been promoted. But you know, it rankled
a little bit. And but on the other hand, partly because of that, the faculty committee got
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ready and start I got to business and be laying things out about the kinds of things okay,
let's see what else happened during the the big thing and one ways within the department
is we had a whale of a farewell dinner for Chris luck. I was chairman of seeing the end up
being chairman of the in terms of arrangements and so on. And and, of course, the
highlight of it was that Carl was to speak We didn't talk to Carl badly, but Carl wants to do
something dreadfully academic. And he read a public paper about some aldermen. And
we wanted to hear of some of the great stories that he might have had.
M
Michael Lansing 57:19
I heard there was beer at that party.
D
Don Gustafson 57:21
Not that I recall, but I don't think so. Maybe afterwards. But it was a wonderful send off for
him and, and he appreciate, by the way, something else you know, as you all you people
have been here I've been I've not gone anywhere. As far as academics in conservative
those first years. I went off to a association of Asian Studies. I even was part of a
presented a paper in Boston in 1969. I think. I soon realized that that conference was just
too big as far as I was concerned. It But it was about that time that the University of
Wisconsin began with crew to be a wonderful South Asia conference every fall of starting
out me. Well, it had there'd be four to 500 people coming. And these are people I knew or
wanted to know. And, and so we always went to that. And my graduate advisor, regularly
called and said, well, gosh, you will stay with us, Walter. Chris, we generally did.
D
Don Gustafson 58:32
Let's see what was. And then here the Midwest, we had something called something
called a Midwest historical con. It was pretty well that proved to be primarily
D
Don Gustafson 58:44
the Twin Cities and some of the outlying colleges. And there would be a fall in the spring
dinner, and somebody would read a paper and we bet IT department, people from other
schools, which was the only time I've been in
D
Don Gustafson 59:00
You know, we're in that kind of atmosphere. That Let's see, what else did I say something
about, okay. I'm not a conference person. I haven't given you a chance to ask a question
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for a long time. That's all right. That's all right.
M
Michael Lansing 59:22
Um, what what have been the most significant changes in the department? over your time
here?
D
Don Gustafson 59:30
Well, here I go back to myself. And I wouldn't mind to mention it when I came back. From
graduate school, though, I wanted to do this expansion of your Of course, when I also said
we've got to provide a seminar experience for students. And well, and I think I don't
remember if I think it was in the fall of 67. seminars became part of other requirements. for
graduation. And let's see what other kinds of things are. We at some point also in this case
you've ever wondered. I think it was when we had to pare it down to nine to 16 courses
and should have courses have different numbers and so on. And so then we, we came up
with this scheme that we currently are using the 100 level courses being the survey 200
level courses, of course, being to us survey by the way. When I first came to Augsburg, soft
freshmen were not permitted to take the US history course. And only primarily as I
understood, because freshmen came and they couldn't imagine doing anything but
setting American history. So to keep them from So, so it became sophomore level courses.
D
Don Gustafson 61:01
And then the first half of the 300 courses were they to be they were to be the US courses.
And the second half of the three hundreds were to be ancient medieval history. I think the
second of the first half of the four hundreds were to be Asian, non Western. And the last
half of the four hundreds to be a seminar and and and it had the misfortune for
misfortune of students assumed that 400 level courses were harder there. And I think it
was the third year that Jensen insisted people weren't taking her China class because it
was listed as a 423. It had to be put down and so it became 323. And we didn't fight those
things. I mean, she made her feel better. And so what year did you all come up with that
system? I don't know. But I could if we looked at the catalogs all part, I would guess it was
early 1970s or 1970. somewhere.
D
Don Gustafson 62:15
But we had also, we also had agreed that what we should do is provide general coverage
of time wise, at least for the Western world. By the way, and champion last night, one of
my, one of my China, people said, When are they going? Are you people going to offer an
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ancient China course as it will be interesting, but it's not likely. Anyway. Other changes you
know, they must have been so subtle. I wasn't aware of that. I don't remember when
internships became a popular became a possibility, but they were there. I can't remember
who for I think Carl was responsible for certain teachers until I got the table I think Orla
was for a while to and then I got the job somewhere about 1990. Well, it might be
worthwhile to have a second interview where we ask you questions about the 1980s and
1990s.
M
Michael Lansing 63:41
I'm wondering what kind of hopes and aspirations you have for the future of this
department.
D
Don Gustafson 63:46
Hey, just survive.
M
Michael Lansing 63:48
How do you mean?
D
Don Gustafson 63:51
You have any hopes because I think things are going so well right now. I mean, you see,
that's why I'm not a good leader. I don't have dreams. Oh, back to the 70s. Another thing
different about, you know, in the late 60s and early 70s there was a real valiant effort on
the part of some people to to maintain the kind of social community that I suspect that
the college was for many years. And I know my wife was involved in we had a tab of
family Valentine's party, progressive dinner one evening and I can remember we always
had a family Christmas Party, which eventually became better Because there were too
many, too many people, too many kids and so on. But it was great fun at times.
D
Don Gustafson 65:08
And they're there they developed a a faculty wives reading breeding group. It still isn't
exists. It's almost everybody who's part of that group now is it back it would, but it is down
to what is it seven people or something. But people. People just wanted to be together
and they were looking for opportunities for that.
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D
Don Gustafson 65:39
Well, Phil, we want your voice on here. You must have something you want to ask me.
P
Phil Adamo 65:45
No, I've been thrilled and fascinated to hear all of all of these different stories. So I'm, I'm
good.
M
Michael Lansing 65:54
I think that this is probably a good time to stop and we'll think about maybe doing
another interview. Spring where we cover some of the other topics.
D
Don Gustafson 66:03
Okay, okay,
M
Michael Lansing 66:04
it's not all right?
D
Don Gustafson 66:05
on there's up to you. But I think though you were right on that we are that. You know,
you've just got me fired up, but you two have been sitting there having listened to all this
work for.
P
Phil Adamo 66:17
Oh no, it's been it's been great.
M
Michael Lansing 66:19
It's been great. Thanks so much for it.
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Show less
Soldier’s Perspective of American Occupation of West Germany (Transcript)
Narrator: Don Gustafson
Interviewer: Chris McCollom
Chris-The following interview was conducted with Don Gustafson on behalf of the Minnesota
Historical Society for the Soldier’s Perspective of American occupation of ... Show more
Soldier’s Perspective of American Occupation of West Germany (Transcript)
Narrator: Don Gustafson
Interviewer: Chris McCollom
Chris-The following interview was conducted with Don Gustafson on behalf of the Minnesota
Historical Society for the Soldier’s Perspective of American occupation of West Germany for the
oral history project. It took place on March 7, 2013 at Augsburg College. The interviewer is
Chris McCollom
Chris- Ok Gus, my first question is what brought you into military service.
Don- Easy answer, my friends and neighbors. Because back in the 1950’s the military the draft
was still there. I had just left graduate school with my master’s and the draft board quickly
realized I was no longer in school which meant I lost my 2S classification. I don’t recall, I think
it was in September they informed me I was 1A, in November they sent me off for a physical,
and in February I was a soldier.
Chris- And just to clarify what year was that in?
Don- That was in February of 1957.
Chris- 1957
Chris- And how did you feel about service initially?
Don- I was damn mad because I was too important a person to have to waste two years of my life
doing the monkey business that went with the military. I had heard very little good from buddies
who had been in the military, it was a grind and all the rest. So I did not go in with the best of
attitudes, on the other hand there I was, I wasn’t going to mope.
Chris- Ok, um, so that seems like it was a pretty prevalent feeling among people. So what was
your understanding of American occupation prior to arriving in Germany?
Don- Come again with your question?
Chris- What was your understanding of American occupation prior to arriving in Germany, what
was kind of the feeling heading into Germany?
Don- I guess I hadn’t thought about that, well ah I just knew that we had one heck of a lot of
soldiers, military, in Germany after the second World War. I knew very little about what
occupation actually meant and as I recall I got into the service in February, went through basic
training, was blessed with being lucky enough to go to a splendid adjunct general school for
sixteen weeks and then had a month in Texas with the outfit I was going to go with to Europe. I
don’t remember getting any kind of orientation really. We may have gotten, except that last
month, that month at Fort Hood was hell as far as I was concerned. Because I was new there, I
didn’t know anybody and the whole outfit was trying to get ready to go, they were trying to get
all of their equipment spit polished and as I recall, we were working into the night, into the
evening, 9, 10, 11 o’clock…anyway enough of that.
Chris- Alright
Don- And then in November of 57, we landed in Europe and were sent to a small casern, or fort,
which was on the outskirts of Nurnberg in southern Germany.
Chris- Ok, and that’s where you stationed for the duration of your service?
Don- I was there for the rest of my, uh and I remained in the service. Technically, I was
permitted to leave in February of 1959 but for various reasons I agreed to stay on for 3 more
months and so I was separated from the service in May of 1959.
Chris- Alright and what kind of orders were you given on arrival? Was there clear
communication of what you were supposed to be doing
Don- Uh, well yes and no. I mean I knew what I was supposed to be doing, I had been assigned
to be on the personal staff of a one star general who was the commander of the artillery of the 4th
armored division and I worked with him for then for about not quite a month, uh and so my job
kind of, was doing what he asked me to do. You know, office work and so forth and, uh, you
know I, I don’t remember exactly though clearly we had a bunch of officers that were, came over
to Germany with us. Many of them, some of them, had never been in Germany, some of them
had been, perhaps, before but, uh, they were very tense as if the Russians might attack us
tomorrow, we got to be ready. And they were also very much attuned; we can’t, we got to be
careful not to insult the Germans and jumped at all sorts of little things just because they didn’t
sense the situation. A year later it was a lot easier to be with them because they weren’t as
uptight.
For example, we had a service club on the casern, it was a very small casern I suspect, maybe,
fifteen hundred guys at the most. We had a service center that was a recreation place that was run
by, well I don’t know who, I suppose by the army but there were civilians running it. I know one
night those of us who were over there, to keep us busy, they suggested we should create a
newspaper and uh, of the news of the day and so on. And somebody wrote an article about the
Germans and their honey wagons. None of us knew what honey wagons were until we got to
Germany. The honey wagons were simply the manure spreaders of the day. I suspect what was
happening. We had manure spreaders at home but these, there was enough moisture and liquid
that they were sort of in containers and there was a slight aroma about them. Most of the guys in
our outfit that I knew were city guys, they weren’t used to the smells of farm. So there was a cute
article about the Germans and their honey wagons. Well the next day one of the officers in the
casern happened to see a copy of this and he went bananas because if a German were to see that
he would be so insulted and blah blah blah and it was that kind of stuff we lived with, at first. I
haven’t thought about those honey wagons and that little business. Glad you came by and
reminded me.
Chris- So, then kind of another question off that, in my research I came across something called
the four D’s: denazification, demilitarization, decentralization, democratization. Did any of your
orders kind of revolve around that…that was all…
Don- That was all governmental stuff or diplomatic, um, not that I recall anything of that. I never
heard of those four d’s before, sounds like historians were working on it afterwords. And well
next question.
Chris- I guess you kind of already went over it but could describe a typical day during your
service?
Don- There were about a hundred guys who were in our headquarters battery as I recalled. In the
fourth armored division, and armored meant it was basically tanks, there were four units that
were artillery and two of those units each of which had about four hundred men were at our
casern. Then our battery, which was the headquarters, and we were superintending all of these
four groups, uh, was there. In one wing of the building, there were the offices. The general had
his own office and I had an office adjoining it which I shared with the aide-de-camp. The day
started with a miserable revelry, uh reveille, that we had, it was no revelry and we had to get
outside and watch the flag go up even if it was so dark we couldn’t see the flag. This was
Germany and Germany is far enough north and I don’t think it got light on winter mornings on 9
o’clock, maybe that’s an exaggeration, reveille was there.
Went to breakfast in the mess hall and then I immediately went to my office and the general
usually came in a bit after 8. I was there in the office, I left for lunch of course, but I can’t
remember, I suppose I was in the office until 4:30 or 5 o’clock. I was clearly underworked in that
the amount I had to do for the general was, well a minimal other than being a receptionist for
people coming in to see the general. I guess I had to go and get his coffee occasionally and little
things like that. The amount of correspondence I had to do for him was not great, some. I was
lucky because since I was working for the general, nobody else dared come in and throw
anything on me to do because it might interfere with what the general. I should also say, the
general’s office was on one side of my little room and on the other side was the chief, what was
his title, the assistant officer to the general who, he was a colonel, and my general had only one
star so he was among…I was impressed to be working with the general, but among the army one
star general’s were not that special.
Let me also say I was lucky enough to be working with a fellow I never got close to him in the
sense, at no point were we buddies or pals, but I certainly respected him and I clearly felt that he
respected me. So we basically had a, what I would say, a good working relationship. I had a
somewhat different situation with the aide-de-camp who was a west point bastard, immature and
difficult. Fortunately he left after 4 or 5 months for something else and then the second aide-decamp was just a really neat guy that I did like and we worked together very well.
I can also say, or best mention, that was office work. Because we were with a field outfit,
meaning we were to be ready to fight when the time came, we at least once a month had what
was called an alert which would come about 4:30 or 5 o’clock in the morning which meant we
had to jump up, get clothes on and get ready to march out. And about every other month we
would be told, and this time you don’t just stand there by your vehicle, you go on out and were
told where we are to meet again. So we’d be out in the field, in the woods for the morning. Most
of us hated that and then occasionally we would go out for, two of three overnight stays and in
those cases my job was to, I never rode with the general in his car or his jeep, but once we got to
the field I had to dig his personal latrine. So I became a prime latrine digger. Ok next question.
Chris- I guess another question I have is, could describe your first impressions of the German
populace and maybe their attitudes towards you and the rest of the American occupiers
Don- By sheer chance I had been in Nurnberg a couple of years earlier, only for a few days,
when I was on my way to India. In that sense it wasn’t totally new but I didn’t meet any
Germans at that time and the Germans who were down there weren’t speaking English,
generally, and they looked askance at us and we looked askance at them. We certainly had been
informed that the Germans didn’t necessarily like us and in this little village of Zurndorf where
our casern was located.
Zurndorf was basically a suburb of the big city of Nurnberg, in this village it had few shops and a
very fine eating place. A small eating place but on the door to that place, in very bright, clear
letters, was a sign that said “No occupation troops”. We took that seriously for a while.
Eventually some of us discovered that what that really meant was that they didn’t want us to
come in there wearing our uniforms. If we came in in civilians clothes and ordered dinner, that
was fine. But most of the guys in our outfit didn’t enter the Golden Lavel, they went up the street
to a place I never I went into, which I’m sorry about now, which was a just an old fashioned beer
joint where the whores hung out and amazingly called “Mom’s”.
That’s where they went, not all of them but ok. As we were there for more months, you know,
we just began to realize there just Germans, they’re the people who are here and I don’t
remember any really antagonizing situation or so on. Eventually I got involved with a group in
Nurnberg, of Germans who wanted to practice their English and we would meet one night a
week and just talk about all sorts of things.
Chris- Did your superiors kind of have the same attitude towards, were they lax with the german
people or were they a little more…
Don- It was very formal, they knew they had to be nice to Germans and not offend them and of
course the Germans knew how to protect themselves. If for example an army jeep hit a chicken
and killed it, the army would be then billed not only for the death of that chicken, but also for all
the eggs that chicken might have produced in the next two years or three years and that kind of
thing.
A couple of the officers, for example, the aide-de-camp I mentioned as being the bastard, he got
hooked up with a German girl and in a year had married her, I don’t recall ever meeting her. I’m
not sure I wanted to. So there was that kind and of course, the guys I still remember, one of the
first nights we were allowed off the casern and off the base when we got there. This bunch of
guys from our battery went down to and heard about “Mom’s” place and they had found women
and they came back and I can still hear “These women don’t shave under their armpits!” and
German women didn’t!
Chris- So I guess kind of going off that, you talked about the jeep hitting the chicken, was that
kind of misconduct or accidents prevalent?
Don- Not tremendously, we were pretty much warned about what we could do and couldn’t do. I
suspect maybe I didn’t hear all things but I do know one of the fellows that I got to know a little
bit, neat guy, I should mention in a way I didn’t see the real army because, well I did, the guys I
was with after hours and so forth, most of them were guys with college educations who were
going to become professionals one day. They weren’t 18 year olds, we had enough of those. I
was 24 years old. Most of the guys I was with were similar age and well one of these guys, that I
didn’t know terribly well, proved to be gay at a time when being gay was certainly not permitted.
He ended up having an affair with a German fellow, roughly his own age, and the German
fellow’s father found out about it and there was hell to pay over that. That probably would have
happened anywhere, not just because they were Germans.
Non-sequitur, we had one German friendship day a week I guess. We were supposed to bend
over backwards to let the Germans know we like them and whoever planned it saw to it that one
night, the officers were to go to the opera in Furt and furt was the city adjacent to Nurnberg. The
general knew I’d like to go to a free opera and he saw to it I got a ticket and so on and that was
very fine. Most of the officers I knew could care less about opera but they had to go and they
were supposed to bring their wives and so forth. I can remember, of course the opera was in
German, I don’t remember what it was, but somewhere in the opera these guys were trying to
stay awake to watch and listen. At some point in some scene one of the characters “auf deutsch”
two of the few words almost everybody learned, which was mach schnell (make speed) and all of
a sudden “Mach Schnell!” and the whole audience just burst into laughter because finally they
understood something. It was kind of, obviously, a formal affair. It’s kind of difficult when
you’re given an assignment trying to like these people and the Germans, who were there, it was
the mayor and some other officials who were probably as unwilling to be there. Anyway enough
of that.
Chris- You kind of touched on the Germans initial reaction, at least when you first got there..
Don- At least what we perceived
Chris-Perceived, did that perception hold over time?
Don- No, I quickly learned. I made German friends who, partly some of them wanted to learn
English, some of the Germans liked to meet Americans because Americans would give them
cigarettes and those sorts of things. And some of the guys in our outfit, who had wives, brought
their wives over and they rented apartments on the economy and they lived down in the
economy. I know the general, for whom I worked, had a very nice house that had been assigned
to him and he had a soldier who was his valet for all practical purposes, taking care of his clothes
and so forth. Al was a really neat guy and the general saw to it that Al could live out of the
house. There was an apartment above the garage and I was invited to move in there. But I didn’t
have a car and it was about 3 miles from the casern so I declined that.
But there were fellows who lived off camp and there were a number who got into serious. Oh
and I dated, well I guess I can use the word dated, a very attractive young German girl in the
village who I met in this English language group. Her parents were highly suspicious of all this
and even though I went to their house and met them, I realized they were fairly unsure of all of it,
of what this was all about. In fact, they decided I wasn’t all bad when I invited her to be my date
for that opera I talked about and that was proper cultural stuff. I don’t even remember her name
now but she recognized that I was not about to propose to her and as I say she was cautious but
about, and I can’t remember how long afterwards, but somewhere along the line I had a letter
from her telling me she was getting married to an American officer that she had met. I don’t
know anything more about it but look what I led her toward.
Whereas there were some guys in our outfit who never left the base unless they had to. They
were mad about being in the army, they were lonesome, they never got over that they weren’t
back home in Kentucky. Ok, I’m not sure if that answered your question.
Chris- That answered that and my fraternization question which seems it was pretty high
between…
Don- There’s another thing here. While we were there, a film was released about the Nurnberg
trials and after the war German leaders were tried at Nurnberg and it was a major event that went
on for months and a documentary was released somewhere, I suppose in the spring of 1958 and I
was intrigued by it and I went to see it. I remember sitting there in that theater surrounded by
Germans and all of a sudden it dawned on me: I was very obviously an American because
Americans were picked out because we had to have military haircuts and Germans wore their
hair long. We smelled different, I don’t know. I remember suddenly thinking what am I doing
here, what if we got some real Nazi fanatics who are angry about what’s happened. Will I get
punched on the way out and so forth? None of that ever happened, I was not aware of anything
but it indicates that one had to be somewhat aware, suspect so forth, what might happen.
Chris- I had a question about the Bundeswehr, the federal armed forces, that were formed in
1955. Did you ever have to interact with them? Could you describe that if you did?
Don- Not very closely but usually in the spring of each year we had a major practice war and
there would be for maybe a week or so and we would be out in the field living in pop tents and
what not. I think the first year I was there was the first year the U.S. army cooperated with the
German Bundeswehr, which they obviously should be doing if we have to fight together. I don’t
remember if we had any German troops coming into our base but I was somewhat aware of what
was happening with the Germans because this fellow Al who was the servant for the general. He
was a German boy and had come to the united states and had agreed to be in the army because
this would get him citizenship faster but Al came from a village 50 miles south of Nurnberg and
he had a younger brother who was in the Bundeswehr and occasionally that younger brother
would come and he’d be around or we’d hear where he was.
I don’t remember any other, I’m sure the general was involved but when it came to those tactical
things, I really wasn’t involved in finding out about things. I had to get a top secret clearance, I
don’t remember ever getting close to anything that I would’ve considered secret but that was just
one of the army rules and I passed. I hadn’t done anything to suggest I was unworthy of the job.
Chris- You kind of mentioned earlier how you were always ready for the soviets in case there
was an attack. Was that threat really taken very seriously? Could you describe the kind of feeling
you had about East Germany?
Don- Yes and we were not too far from the Czech border so we were frequently reminded. We
were soldiers and soldiers were to be ready to fight. Ya know I don’t even remember if I had a
weapon during those years. I know I had a weapon in basic training and so on. If I did have a
weapon it didn’t amount to much, I have a typewriter I kept saying I had to throw. But I was due
to get out of the military, to be separated I think about the 20th of May 1959. That was when my
three month extension would expire and I think it was on the 10th of May or 8th of May
something happened, I don’t even remember what it was, but all of a sudden there was real fear
that we may be on the brink of conflict and so our outfit was ordered out to the field and we were
located at a place where I don’t remember exactly if we could just look out and see across the
border.
I was quite aware that as our tanks, and men, and artillery and so forth were gearing up on our
side, the Russians were doing it, or we assumed, were on the opposite side. Somehow I could not
believe we were likely to go to war directly but I’d seen enough of our drunken sergeants to
think it would be just like it for one of these goofballs to do something that looked provocative
and fire his weapon at them and they’d fire back and we’d be into something by accident. That
did worry me and I thought “Damn, could it be because I extended for three months could it be I
end up being killed in conflict over here.” As it turned out it didn’t happen and I don’t remember
how long our outfit had to stay in the field because when the 19th or 18th of May came along, I
was shipped back to our casern.
I packed up my stuff to leave, however one of the really nice things…the general knew, it was
my last day in the office, that morning captain whatever his name was who was the general’s
helicopter pilot came by. I was surprised because I knew that we had not laid him on to take the
general on a tour like he often did. The guy came in and I said “What are you doing here?” and
he said “Well Gus I came for you.” It turned out as sort of a farewell gift to me, the general had
asked his helicopter pilot to give me a ride around the country side and I’d never been in a
chopper before. I think we were up in the air for an hour and a half or so and it was tremendous
fun because I was seeing villages and woods and so forth that I had only seen from the ground.
Don-Well next question we must be close to 25 by now.
Chris- Pretty close.
Don- You didn’t think I was going to be this…
Chris- No I was making sure, I figured you would be…um that’s a good thing.
Chris- So did you ever have interaction with people from the other side, refugees coming over.
Don-Nothing, I wasn’t aware of anything like that. Maybe it was occurring at some point, even
though I was working with the general and, as I say, he wasn’t high up either. So, I did after
leaving, after getting out of the service I stayed in Europe and I didn’t take off for the states until
August sometime. I had several, couple, of months. Much of that time I was up in Finland at a
camp. On the way from Finland I came back into Germany because the ship I was going to be on
was from Bremerhaven and at that point I stayed overnight in Hannover I guess it was and then
took a train into Berlin and spent the day or two wandering in East Berlin. This was so long ago,
hell, the wall had even’t been built yet but, and then I was simply a tourist. Otherwise I have no
recollection of any contact of that sort.
Chris- Can you kind of describe what it was like being in East Berlin, because I think that was
pretty interesting that you were…
Don- Oh in East Berlin
Chris- As opposed to the West…
Don- I didn’t know except I just, I had my passport which I knew I better have with me and
walked through Checkpoint Charlie with no trouble and simply wandered. I know I got into the
museums, visited a church or two. We did go, I had traveled, this was in 1959. Five years before
I had been, I had spent the summer in India with a group of Minnesota students, one of whom an
incredible woman. Blonde, who had chosen the summer of 1959 to do a bicycle tour of Europe
and we had arranged we’d meet. So we met, not in Hannover, in Hamburg we met. So she and I
did Berlin and she absolutely left me terrified more than once, guts turned to ice because Joan,
Joan was used to doing her own thing and more than once she’d say “Hey this is an interesting
ruin I want to get a picture of it.” And I said “Joan!”. Because we heard about what could happen
to people that might be doing things that the authorities…
But I don’t remember a single moment when anybody, when any official, police and so forth,
even looked daggers at us or anything. So, I do remember being rather jolted because we did get
into East Berlin and changed some money because…and we found, ya know, we knew that the
economic situation in East Berlin was not good. But hey their coins were so flimsy. I almost
thought they were made of cardboard. They weren’t, they were metal. But there was so little
metal in them that, uh, whereas the West German coins were good, solid coins. Those little
indications, it’s another world. Well push me.
Chris- Ok, um, so now looking back could you describe how you feel about the American
approach to the occupation.
Don- Well we had, it was assumed…come again? The American approach, what?
Chris- Kind of how the American military approached, the way they handled the occupation or
so forth.
Don- I guess maybe I had been brainwashed well this is the way the army has to operate. I don’t
remember, hmm, well I can remember being sometimes embarrassed. For example like that night
at the opera when the officers around me were obviously klutzes, cultural klutzes and things like
that. I had never thought of things in that direction, so let’s pass.
Chris- Ok, let’s just finish up with… as your service came to an end, how did you feel? Like
could you describe the emotions you went through, the experience you felt in Germany. How
that kind of all…did you reflect at all at the end?
Don- Well I was kind of sorry to leave in some ways. I was, I had a college education, I had read
about these places, suddenly I’m there. You discover Europe is a place where everything seems
to be on top of each other. If you had a car you could have breakfast in one country, lunch in a
second country, and supper in a third country because you just moved around in that way. I
didn’t get a car until just a few months before I separated from the service. But I did have friends
who would have vehicles and our service club at the casern, every so often they did the kind of
things that tried to get us out, on a Sunday afternoon, we’d go tour a place that had some historic
interest. I felt I got around a fair amount, but the woman who I eventually married came to
Europe just as I was leaving. She taught for the army, so she was a civilian so she wasn’t under
the kinds of limitations I was. And the amount of traveling she and her fellow teachers did, just
awesome.
So and well I, it was just great fun being there and, oh, and the food. To get off base and eat
German food, that was just so great. Some years later when Bev and I returned to Germany, for a
few days, we both just laughed at ourselves because somehow we discovered all we wanted to do
eat kartoffel and get those hard rolls, and it was the food! I didn’t make any long range German
friends. I didn’t, I had acquatances and in a couple cases we maintained contact for a year or two.
But, whereas my wife, she spent two years in a small town called Permisons and now 50 years
later she still corresponds with people. But then she was a civilian. She didn’t have to be on the
base when she wasn’t teaching and so on. She just had more freedom.
You haven’t asked me this but for me, the army was my liberal arts education. In that I don’t
think I had led a really sheltered life but I certainly got to know new types of fellows that I had
never really associated with before. I had never had much work experience; I had a bit but not a
great deal. But to see how power worked and I really left when I got back home I missed the
army in some ways. In fact I even checked to see if I could get in to a reserve unit somewhere. I
didn’t but, well there were certain things about the army that I liked, amazingly.
And partly I was just, just this morning I was skpying with one of my closest buddies who was
fellow I met when in the army in Germany and I was asking him something about Pinder
barracks that I had forgotten about and amazingly even, at the time I sort of, got, wasn’t happy
about being a soldier but this morning it was amazing his comments were very positive. He said
it was really a good experience. Now if on the other hand Tom was just a very lowly clerk in, as
to the, of his battery. Whereas I was a person of some prestige, I was the general’s secretary. You
know when I was out wandering some of the lieutenants almost would salute me because “he
know the general”. The assumption was that because I was his, well, who knows. But it was the
aura of power. If I had been where Tom was I probably would have had a somewhat less
glorified picture of army life. I’m, well, come on you must think up a question of your own.
Chris- You’ve answered all of mine for the most part. Even without me asking some of them,
you just answered them.
Don- I ended the service, well I can’t remember when it was but I finally was promoted to a rank
of E5 which was a specialist 3 as I recall, the equivalent of about sergeant but I was not called a
sergeant because I, the kind of my responsibilities were not directing people. I think the only
time I had any sort of command in the army was once I was told to see that these three fellows
did a good job of cleaning the latrine.
One of the things that the army in general did for me, Chris, is that ya know I grew up knowing I
was a weakling. In grade school when we had recess and chose up teams, I was always the last
one picked to be on a team because “Well ok I’ll take Gus”. Well I wasn’t, I didn’t give two
hoots about it. So I just assumed but ok, but when I got into the military I wasn’t quite as weak
as I thought I was. Basic training had some bad moments, hard moments but hey I did a heck of a
lot better than lots of the fellows. I loved the obstacle course. I still remember the fun crawling in
the mud on my elbows with my rifle while they were shooting blanks over us and barb wire in
part because I was a farm boy. So that was, that was good.
I came away very impressed with that the army knew what they were doing. Ya know I
frequently said “oh my god” and yet boy I learned a lot. So I honestly am sorry for guys like you
that you don’t have that chance at a military experience. While I’m not telling you go on out and
enlist, I suspect if I had stayed in the army and spent my whole two years in Levenworth, Kansas
I’d have a heck of a lot to forget. That one month at Fort Hood, longest month of my life. Partly
because of the situation, partly because Fort Hood was such a hell hole, no trees. So do you think
you have enough?
Chris- I think, yeah, I learned a lot I think we got enough and we almost got to an hour.
Don- Well let’s see
Chris- No we’re fine on time, so…
Don- I can’t, hmm, I do remember some very good moments, some pretty rough moments. I
remember a couple of times we were called to go out for reveille and it was cold and I hid in my
wall locker knowing it would be hell to pay if I’d been found, caught, those kinds of things. It
was good for me; you know you people have had chances and experiences that I hadn’t up to that
point but I had never had interaction with Afro-Americans. In the military I met a couple of
really neat Afro-Americans with whom I connected. One of the fellows, who was among my
closest buddies in Nurnberg, has become well known in church circles for his music. I would say
three or four times a year I find myself at a church service or something and they’re doing a
number by Hal Hobson. Well good enough guy.
Chris- Thanks Gus, I appreciate it. It was enlightening.
Show less
Transcript of “Where Do We Go From Here?”
A panel discussion of Augsburg Faculty and Administration
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0388
Description: Augsburg administration and faculty wrap up "One Day in May" with a
question/comment and answer session. Augsburg's Pre... Show more
Transcript of “Where Do We Go From Here?”
A panel discussion of Augsburg Faculty and Administration
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0388
Description: Augsburg administration and faculty wrap up "One Day in May" with a
question/comment and answer session. Augsburg's President, Oscar Anderson, joined Dr.
Carl Chrislock, Dr. Einar Johnson, Dr. Phillip Quanbeck, Ken Fagerlie, and moderator Dr.
Douglas Ollila to hear and respond to student feedback. The panel was part of a day
focused on speaking and listening to issues of racial injustice, known as "One Day in May,"
1968 May 15.
Duration: 01:08:53
Collection: 13 “One Day in May” sessions were recorded and have been digitized.
They are available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp3IfZjFdUQJMy9uNoEADuy9KPltsIF-9
[the recording cuts in as an unidentified speaker is speaking]
00:00:00
[Douglas Ollila] Where do we go from here? What is our role as a college?
It's been suggested that our curriculum is a little bit irrelevant. Our panel
members are President Oscar Anderson, Einar Johnson, Carl Chrislock,
third, and Phillip Quanbeck, and Ken Fagerlie1.
00:00:46
[Oscar Anderson] I don't know why I have to get these other fellas off the
hook by starting out, but I will try to just say a word. At the end of what has
been, I think, a very, very significant day at Augsburg, I think it's all and
more that we hoped it to be. Some of us have been thinking about this for
a long time. This whole matter of really taking time to listen, and I think
we've had some splendid presentations today. I think we've been talked to
directly, and honestly, forthrightly, and I hope that we've heard what has
been said.
1
Johnson: Professor of Education; Chrislock, Professor of History; Quanbeck, Professor of Religion;
Fagerlie, Vice President of Development
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 1
00:01:39
Now the question that the panel faces is this; where do we go from here? I
would like to submit that it's too soon to say. I don't think we can say, right
at this point, where we are going. I think we've heard too much to really be
able to sort through everything. I know how we feel, and maybe that's
what the last speaker said, we should just move ahead on the basis of
how we feel about it. I'm sure all of us want to move ahead, I think we
want to go someplace, but to sit here and say ‘now, this is what's going to
happen because of this One Day in May,’ I think would be presumptuous.
00:02:21
I know this: that we will have to wrestle with what we have heard today.
We will have to wrestle with it in all humility. First of all, realizing that we're
part of the problem, that we don't have the answers, but that we suspect
there are some areas into which we will have to move, such as the area of
our own curriculum, how to be sure that the people who leave this
institution are really educated, in terms of the whole man, in terms of what
it means, really, to be human. I think it means that we turn also to the
question of our own constituency as a student body, because I think we
are deprived, by virtue of the fact that we do not have the kind of racial mix
that we ought to have at Augsburg. I think it means that we look also in the
direction of action, further ways in which we can be involved.
00:03:29
These are just some of the areas that we're gonna have to wrestle with.
Now I'm not sure how we're gonna go about wrestling with them. I'm not
sure in my mind whether this is something that we wrestle with as a
community constituted mostly of white people, or whether this is
something that we can work out better with our Black brothers, I'm
groping, I don't know. I do know that what we will seek to do will have to
be within the context of what we are, and that is a college. We're not an
industry, we're not a social agency, we're not a segment of government,
we are an educational institution, whether that's good or bad, but that's
what we are. And what we do we will have to do within the context of our
own existence as one educational institution, in this community, seeking to
do what it can with this problem that has been so dramatically placed
before us today.
00:04:44
[Douglas Ollila] How about you fellas responding? We will get them to
respond, believe me, let's invite questions from the audience. Yes.
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 2
00:05:01
[Inaudible question from the audience]
00:06:15
[Oscar Anderson] I appreciate that because I think that's exactly the mood
of this college. That something is going to happen and it's going to happen
soon. I don't want to give the impression that it is going to be put off, but I
didn't want to give the impression that we can stand up here tonight and
say ‘this and this and this is going to be done’ because I think that would
be presumptuous. I think very, very, constructive things will be done,
because it is raining and we're gonna get the umbrella up. There's no
doubt about it, as far as I'm concerned.
00:06:48
[Carl Chrislock] I'd like to respond to this too. I think that I'm in a curricular
area that's very much involved here. I think I can promise, partly as a
result of the stimulus we've gotten today, that History 21 and 22 will be
taught somewhat differently than it has in the past.
00:07:18
[Thunderous applause from the audience that lasts 15 seconds]
00:07:31
[Carl Chrislock] I don't exactly know how to interpret that! [Laughter]
00:07:48
[Carl Chrislock] We have been, in the past few years, trying to give more
emphasis to the role of the Black man in American history, and we're
certainly going to work harder along that line. And I think, too, in our
department, we'll examine other courses--I can say this as a member of
the department, I'm not the chairman--to see if the emphasis is right, if it
doesn't have to be reoriented, but that's one specific suggestion.
00:08:32
[Douglas Ollila] Would you like to respond?
00:08:36
[Audience member] I was going to ask if the Education Department is
going to really delve into what we can do to relate to the inner-city
schools?
00:08:45
[Einar Johnson] Good --
00:08:46
Douglas Ollila] Question has to do with the role of the Education
Department--
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 3
00:08:50
[Einar Johnson] --Good, I wanted a chance to say a couple of things about
it. I'll have to warn you, though, that next year I'll be landing in Paris in the
midst of the riots if they keep on, I’m going on to Sweden where we are
too popular either [some laughter], but the department will be here, and
we have many things to be done. First, let me say that, as a department, I
think we have a very important role to play, and that part is in teacher
education and we should be and will be, I think, involved more with the city
than we have been.
00:09:33
This year, for instance, we are making arrangements for more student
teachers to go to the Minneapolis schools than we have in any year since
I've been here, and we think, and I am firmly convinced, that we have the
kind of student that, if they see the need, will rise to this. I think our
obligation, in part, is to give exposure to the need. I would like to say also
that, with fifty percent of our people going into a teacher education, this
means that this is not only the responsibility of the Education Department.
We tell accrediting agencies that this is a total college commitment, and I
think it's true that the educationists haven't been a hundred percent
successful in preparing teachers as far as their curriculum or the program
is concerned.
00:10:39
I think we're going to increasingly need to solicit the help of every
department in preparing a curriculum which will be more useful, more
beneficial, more pertinent to the situation. We are making some steps in
this direction. I think there are some steps underfoot now for some efforts
in cooperation among colleges and the universities. I feel that the
university and the colleges are wide open to doing some things together
and I would hope we would put our own stamp upon this and our own
influence upon this, and I think we can. By the way, one concrete thing
that has come out of this and one of your very fine speakers today, I
asked him if he would be able to and would be willing to come to talk to
one of our classes in “school in society,” and I think this is the sort of thing
we want to do.
00:11:43
We want to know, more specifically, how we can prepare teachers more
adequately for this situation for Minneapolis. Because after all, here we
are the only college in Minneapolis, and we would like to be relevant to
Minneapolis, and that means we're going to have and we intend to go to
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 4
the community and to other disciplines in trying to develop a more relevant
preparation for teachers. That's our little part of it in teacher education.
00:12:22
[Douglas Ollila] I'll recognize the lady over here, yes.
00:12:26
[Inaudible question from the audience]
00:13:04
[Carl Chrislock] Well I teach one course in the Education Department, this
probably isn't an answer to your question. I don't think I can answer your
question entirely, but in the social studies methods class we're having as a
principal assignment the preparation of units to be fit into standard
courses in the high school curriculum and all of them involving minority
history we're encouraging the people who are members of the class to
secure resource materials from wherever, from the resource centers here
in Minneapolis. We're trying to get them to grips with the problem in that
respect and of course we expect in our social science courses to step up
the emphasis in minority history and minority culture apart from the
professional education courses.
00:14:10
[Einar Johnson] We've made steps already for next year to have the
student teachers who will be going to Minneapolis to be in attendance in
the same class as to which the the Minneapolis teachers will be diddling in
the area of minority history, and I already have a verbal agreement from
Minneapolis that they would be willing to take our students in such thing,
and we would feel that people, at least for these people are going into
Minneapolis, that they would have this exposure. In addition, we would
say that this was a part of our teacher education program. We're making
those very concrete steps. I have now a verbal agreement from
Minneapolis that this will be so.
00:14:43
[Douglas Ollila] Lady over here, please.
00:14:56
[Inaudible question from the audience]
00:15:20
[Douglas Ollila] Would a new teacher qualify to teach in a deprived area?
00:15:29
[Einar Johnson] Well, I think you have to remember that people like myself
are groping in this, and we aren't as conversant with it as we should be.
We'd have to admit our inadequacy. I don't think that teachers as a group,
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 5
and including ours, who come from backgrounds that are different would
be adequately prepared, I don't suppose, really ever. We're trying to make
all possible efforts, no, I think that's an unfair statement I don't think we've
done nearly enough, but I think we I think we should do more to expose
them to what it means to be a teacher in deprived areas. I think that this is
one thing that needs to be more to be done.
00:16:30
I think I would have to rely, in large measure upon, again, what I feel
among our students a fine, dedicated people who as a group, who are
willing and conscientious and dedicated that probably isn't enough and we
can do much more and I think that you're probably aware that there are
some cooperative arrangements now in effect, under the latest
educational Act of Congress which may do some things in this area, I
hope.
00:17:09
[Douglas Ollila] What do you Auggies think here? You're always very
forthright. I'd like to hear from you. I'll recognize the fellow over here.
00:17:17
[Inaudible question from the audience]
00:17:56
[Douglas Ollila] President Anderson will respond.
00:18:00
[Oscar Anderson] Some of the men at this panel know that, a week or two
ago, know I called a meeting of some of the faculty members and I said
‘now, I think you should be very serious about answering this question:
how can we be sure that no student leaves this institution without an
adequate exposure to minority history? How can we be sure that nobody
gets through this institution without facing the problems of racial bigotry
and prejudice?’ And I think that it's up to the Education Department to see
that no one leaves this institution to teach who hasn't had the exposure in
these areas that we've talked about. Now the things that Dr. Johnson has
said, I think, are going to bear fruit in the area of education. I think that
there are some things that can be done in the area of the religion courses
that will deal specifically with this, and in the sociology courses.
00:18:53
There are courses right now that maybe ought to be put into the general
educational requirements, and others removed, in order to make some of
these things possible, and I realize that this is a dangerous ground for an
administrator to be on, because he's not supposed to tell the faculty what
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 6
to teach or what the curriculum ought to be, but this was the question that
I put, and I got some real good response. This is the kind of thing that is
being grappled with right now.
00:19:20
[Douglas Ollila] I'll recognize the girl here, and you over there next.
00:19:26
[Audience member] The administration, and maybe the faculty [inaudible]
change their courses, but what do you do about people who don't know
what they're doing? What do you do about teachers who have no idea
what it means to change? With all the times that I have to teach this, this
has to be included in sociology, so we don't have time for this, or we can't
give it enough time. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time.
00:19:53
At the same time they’ll sit there and teach them for the fourth time, and
the fifth time, what you probably should have learned when you were in
high school, about the family of languages or something like this. How do
you change people, which is what the last speaker was talking about. How
do we change students who are so cooly aloof and I disagree with the
man from the education department. I don't think Augsburg students are
really dedicated, because we stand up there and look, and we say, ‘now I
look at it objectively’ but none of us look at it emotionally.
00:20:29
[Applause]
00:20:41
[Laughter]
00:20:44
[Philip Quanbeck] Do you really think that's true?
00:20:48
[Audience member] Yes.
00:20:50
[Philip Quanbeck] It occurs to me that we've talked, and that our last
speaker, Mr. Williams,2 talked about institutions, systems, establishments,
and individuals, and of course I think that we have some romantic notions
about what education can do with people. I think that we make some, we
have some ideas about what can be taught people, and how they can be
taught to respond that don't find much correspondence in reality, and so
I'd like to kind of just turn around and pose the question in a different way.
2
The former name of Mahmoud El-Kati.
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 7
00:21:34
Now, most of you are students, and you're here a max--now, I shouldn't
say maximum, one of my friends went to school for seventeen years in
college [laughter]--but let's say you're here ordinarily, for four years, and
sometimes for less. And what's important I think for you, really, is not
simply what the institution does about minority history, it seems to me that,
from what we've heard today, what's important is the sort of attitude that
you bring to those structures within which you live when you leave the
place
00:22:23
[Audience member] Wrong!
00:24:24
[Philip Quanbeck] Yeah, I don't think it's wrong! You talk about established
prejudice. Prejudice is established by institutions, and it's maintained by
individuals and I think that you and I are part of that. I think that the
dictionary description this morning of red, white, yellow, and black was
indicative of that subtle prejudice that, you know, that fills our lives. And I
think that we have to do with this institution and we have to try to work with
the institution, and see that it doesn't perpetuate that, but I think that when
you leave the institution--and you are here for a relatively short time--that
you have responsibilities which aren't simply institutionalized. I think you
have to deal with it.
00:23:22
[Audience member] I have three suggestions. I think that the Department
of Sociology should be informed by minority groups [inaudible] We need a
legal history course. I think in English we should have a literature course
that deals primarily with Black authors, and there should be a required
course that deals with Black authors. I think in the bookstore, we should
have more book by Black authors, and a whole section devoted to Black
authors. And I think last, but not least, we need more Black professors.
00:24:19
[Applause]
00:24:29
[Douglas Ollila] Yes.
00:24:32
[Audience member] Can you repeat the question for the people each
time?
00:24:34
[Douglas Ollila] Thank you. Let's see. Okay I'll recognize you.
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 8
00:24:40
[Audience member] [Inaudible] My question is, are we worried about
[inaudible] Or are we worried about people not getting the exposure that
they need [inaudible] whichever way it goes, not setting up and education
course [inaudible] exposure they need to [inaudible]
00:25:17
[Douglas Ollila] That's a pretty long question to repeat, who would like to --
00:25:26
[Philip Quanbeck] --can’t answer--
00:25:24
[Laughter, followed by a long pause]
00:25:39
[LaJune Johnson] My name is LaJune Johnson, and as a member of the
steering committee for “One Day in May”--who, at the request of the
president, have slaved for almost a month trying to put across a program
that we hope will not end on May 15th, 1968--I'm not gonna stand back
and let these people say that we have to learn after we get out of
Augsburg, because we're not gonna pay twelve hundred dollars a year to
hear the stuff that's not relevant to us as human beings because you go to
college to further your knowledge, not to be whitewashed.
00:26:18
Now President Anderson will sit in his office and tell me he believes in
Black power, and then he'll come out here and say that ‘we don't know
what to do, we can't decide now, and we don't want to move too fast, and
be peaceful’ and all this kind of stuff. Now we've got to have at least some
positive approaches to the problem. We can't--curriculum can't change
overnight. I think everybody is realistic enough to know, but if the Board of
Education, which has control over most people, can say that, by
September, we will have books by Black people, Black Americans in the
English classes, as required reading, that Malcolm X will have, with
parental permission, that students will have a day off for him, and to
recognize the contributions of all minority groups, for all the schools, in
Minneapolis, and Augsburg's the only four-year liberal arts college in
Minneapolis with fifty percent of its teachers graduating supposed to be
going out to educate, and they're not aware of this?
00:27:28
You can't be doing the function that you're supposed to and another thing,
Mr. Fagerlie is working on the FAME Program.3 Now this is supposed to
get minority students into college, give them an opportunity to be exposed,
3
Financial Aid for Minority Education Program
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 9
and to go through four years of college and also the summer transition
program. The Black students at Augsburg will not support this program if
some changes aren't made in the system here at Augsburg.
00:27:56
[Applause]
00:28:12
[Douglas Ollila] Some very specific proposals have been made, I wonder if
there are any responses to the FAME program and why this isn't
supported, what needs to be changed --
00:28:27
[Audience member] What about Cap and Gown?4
00:28:29
[Douglas Ollila] What about Cap and Gown? Here's a girl over here.
00:28:32
[Mostly inaudible question from the audience] --doesn’t have the quality
that other students have, yet we’re very insistent about the college’s
ambitions. There are many students who are here by the grace of their
[inaudible]
00:29:16
The question has to do with our responsibility for deprived students who
can't meet our admission standards. What --
00:29:23
[Audience member] Don't call them deprived students! [Inaudible]
00:29:30
[Applause]
00:29:38
[Oscar Anderson] I agree with that, I think I made the statement there that
this was one of the deprivations that we were suffering here. I appreciate
very much the comments that LaJune made, and I think that these
comments that have been made by some of the faculty members ought to
be interpreted in terms of the fact that things will be changed when we get
back to school in the fall, in terms of these sociology courses, these
history courses, these education courses, these things are going to be
done. And I certainly didn't want to give the impression that nothing would
happen. I simply wasn't going to be so presumptuous as to stand here and
tell you all the things that I thought ought to happen because I think you
Possibly a reference to an editorial in The Echo (May 8, 1968, page 3) that calls for scrapping the
annual “Cap and Gown” breakfast and donating it’s $2,000 (almost $15,000 in 2020) cost to the FAME
program.
4
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 10
ought to tell us what ought to happen! And that's exactly what's taking
place in this kind of dialogue and that's why I think it's important.
00:30:29
Now let's get down to this question here. I think that the college transition
program that we're trying to institute this summer will make it possible for
us to say to any student, Black student, or otherwise who has not been
able to fulfill the normal admission requirements. ‘Look, you take this
program, and we believe that it is of sufficient depth and integrity that it will
make it possible for you to get into Augsburg College.’ Then there are
students who do not have high school diplomas, and we have said these
people can enroll at Augsburg College, we've made specific arrangements
for that kind of student who wants to pick up his education, who has been
deprived, for some reason or other of his high school diploma.
00:31:20
These things are happening, they're happening in the admission
requirements, they're happening in the various tracks that are set up that
people can utilize so that we can give more people an opportunity to get
an education at Augsburg College. Now I know it isn't enough yet, but it's
a start.
00:31:37
[Douglas Ollila] Kim.
00:31:40
[Audience member] I'd like to suggest that tomorrow morning you call a
meeting in your office [inaudible] people, students who are ready for
change [inaudible] We’re going to have 20 minority students in the fall,
we’d better have it together [inaudible].
00:32:16
[Douglas Ollila] Kim has proposed that President Anderson call a
committee of ten students with LaJune as the chairman.
00:32:31
[Oscar Anderson] I'll be happy to receive such a committee in my office
and, if you want me to set the time right now, I will. I realize that there's
always problems of scheduling, but if you want to make it 9:00 or 9:30, let
me know, and we'll be there to talk it over. I just certainly welcome this
kind of response
00:32:48
[Applause]
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 11
00:32:58
[Audience member] Yes, I’d like to direct this question to Dr. Quanbeck.
Since religion is the only department that is required of every student
[inaudible] I was wondering if [inaudible]
00:33:27
[Applause]
00:33:33
[Douglas Ollila] Can the religion requirements be somewhat altered so that
they will speak more relevantly to the issues today?
00:33:43
[Philip Quanbeck] I'm sure that, within the context of the religion
department requirements, that that can be done, and I'm sure that it can
be done in the introduction to theology course which is offered first year to
all students.
00:34:02
[Audience member] In terms of one specific suggestion, it seems to me
that rather than letting the head of our Education Department spend its
sabbatical running through Sweden and France, we should send them to
the inner-city schools so they can learn where it’s at.
00:34:14
[Applause]
00:34:21
[Douglas Ollila] A proposal for a change in sabbatical has been made.
[laughter] The change will be instead of Sweden, the inner city. [laughter]
Somebody else had his hand up over here.
00:34:38
[Inaudible question from the audience] I'd like to hear some concrete
changes -- [inaudible]
00:35:17
[Douglas Ollila] What proposals specifically do the members of the panel
have? I think I should remind you that some proposals have already been
made. President Anderson has talked about one already. Do any of the
members of the panel want to respond in terms of specific proposals,
changes, and courses have been talked about. We talked about them for
a long time. What else specifically is proposed?
00:35:52
[Oscar Anderson] Well as I took it, this was the purpose of this meeting,
was not to to superimpose upon this group the changes that a few people
thought ought to be made, but that this was the place for some dialogue to
take place so that we could understand each other, and in that way arrive
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 12
at some solutions. Now we've had some splendid suggestions in the area
of curriculum. We have talked about change in the mix of the student
body. We've talked about changes in the admissions requirements, and
the various tracks that the college sets up. These are specific things that
we think ought to be done. Now I think that the meeting tomorrow will
bring out some further suggestions, and again we're open.
00:36:43
[Inaudible question from the audience]
00:37:18
[Douglas Ollila] What about Negro faculty members, and I'd suspect you'd
want to add to that, resource persons as we had here today.
00:37:32
[Inaudible question from the audience]
00:37:43
[Unidentified speaker, presumably faculty in Chemistry] There is a
tendency and a possibility of being carried away in an event like this.
Remember what you have heard is highly biased in one direction. We are
not all wrong in what is going on here at the moment, and any deficiency
that you have is partly your own. For you have eyes. You can read the
paper, you can see what is going on. You need not necessarily sit in a
course, and have it taught to you. As a matter of fact, your college
education is primarily to get you ready to think and look for yourself, and
that is not limited to your classes. Relative to a colored person,
Africo-American [sic] on the faculty, our chemistry department, two years
ago, made a bona fide offer to a highly qualified person, a Negro. New
PhD, we were turned down, he could make more money in industry. He
had a golden opportunity to come, but he did not take it.
00:38:51
[Inaudible chatter from the audience]
00:38:59
[Unidentified chemistry professor] I'm sorry I don't see who spoke over
here.
00:39:07
[Audience member amid crosstalk] We're getting your bias!
00:39:08
[Another audience member amid crosstalk] Yeah! We always get your
bias, why can't we have some Negro bias?
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 13
00:39:12
[Another audience member amid crosstalk] You're prejudiced in this
manner.
00:39:14
[Unidentified chemistry professor] May I have the honor of carrying on for
a moment here please?
00:39:17
[Inaudible speaking from the audience]
00:39:30
[Unidentified chemistry professor, possibly Courtland Agre] May I have the
floor for a moment, I still have it please. Let us remember now when you
are talking about bringing any person into Augsburg, or any other college,
you have certain requirements. You have had to meet them. Now then, let
us grant that the Africo-Americans [sic] have had many disadvantages in
their homes, in the areas in which they live, let us not minimize that, but by
the same token, how are they going to come and do college work when
they would not do it in high school?
00:40:05
[Inaudible speaking and crosstalk from the audience]
00:40:07
[Philip Quanbeck, speaking under his breath] Oh, come on. Don’t. Don’t.
Come on.
00:40:11
[Unidentified audience member, possibly Courtland Agre] At least we're
getting a little activity here. [laughter] Let us not rush on, let us not rush
on from the viewpoint. We're going to change things radically because
we've heard today. We're going to change things I trust that we shall.
00:40:25
[Mostly inaudible speaking from the audience] You wanted to hold your
chemistry class while this whole thing was going on.
00:40:34
[Unidentified chemistry professor, possibly Courtland Agre] I wonder who
told you that.
00:40:37
[Mostly inaudible speaking from the audience] We know that. We
know.[laughter]
00:40:43
[Unidentified chemistry professor, possibly Courtland Agre] May I--I yield
the floor to those of you who know so much more.
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 14
00:40:49
[Audience member] I’d like to ask President Anderson, was there a memo
sent out to make sure that the classes wouldn’t be held, and was it you, in
a faculty meeting, who added a [inaudible] to hold classes on this day?
00:41:02
[Unidentified chemistry professor, possibly Courtland Agre] The faculty
meeting is a closed event, it is not to be published. Now, whoever told you
that I did anything in a faculty meeting spoke where it did not belong
00:41:11
[Mostly inaudible response from the audience] But whether he spoke or
[inaudible] [crosstalk and shouting from the audience]
00:41:16
[Oscar Anderson] I'd just like to say that the memo, which was sent out,
was in order to clarify the understanding of the administration and the
faculty, as to the character of this day. And I hope that
00:41:32
[Inaudible question from the audience]
00:41:35
[Oscar Anderson] No. I had no overtures from Dr. Agre with respect to
keeping laboratories open. [Inaudible] whatsoever now the Dean may, I
don't know because the Dean isn't here to answer for that. I'd like to say
this: that I wish we could have more Afro-American professors. And I know
that these people are in very, very short supply, now if we could get--we
have candidates applying from many quarters, and I'm sure that this is one
area in which we would like to make some significant advances.
00:42:06
And I think one of the professors that's made a great contribution here at
Augsburg is Mrs. Howard. I think this has been a start, and we'd like to
move further. Now, I would like to venture one suggestion, and that is that
we consider using some of these people who have made such splendid
presentations today as adjunct professors at Augsburg College so that we
could call on them.
00:42:28,
[Applause]
00:42:36
[Oscar Anderson] See this is one of the wonderful things about being in
this community. We've got these people who are willing and believe me
they were very willing to come today and I am amazed at their response,
the willingness to be here, and I think they would be willing to also help us
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 15
in our courses as adjunct members of our faculty. I really believe that
that's a real possibility.
00:42:57
[Philip Quanbeck] I believe Ken Bailey5 has been asked to respond.
00:43:05
[Kenneth Bailey] I would like to clarify one matter, if I may please. It is
perfectly true that there were some faculty who were concerned about the
fact that on the 8th of May, and the 15th of May, and the 30th and 31st of
May, all in the same month, that class periods and laboratories would be
missed, which would mean to them that substantial parts of the material of
the courses being taught would be missed by the students.
00:43:51
Now, there was no organized group in the faculty meeting which
requested permission to hold laboratories on this day or on Registration
Day. There were a few individuals who asked permission to leave
laboratories open, on a voluntary basis, on one or the other of these days,
and in virtually every instance, the decision by the faculty and myself was
to leave laboratories open on Registration Day in preference to this day,
the One Day in May. I will have you understand that the faculty, as a
whole, was thoroughly in favor of holding this day, and you should not cast
aspersions against people who were as thoroughly in favor of this
occasion as anyone that I know.
00:44:48
[Applause]
00:45:01
[Douglas Ollila] All right we're going to have to close very quickly, but I
think there should be time for one more question.
00:45:10
[Mostly inaudible question from the audience] I have a personal interest in
community relation centers, since it falls under student government, we
attempted to set it up this year, but it has to be recognized that the work of
a student [inaudible] can't possibly affect any kind of change for [inaudible]
participation [inaudible]. We've got a community research center
[inaudible] I think it’s time we had a community participation center.
00:46:05
[Unidentified panelist] Amen.
00:46:05
[Applause]
5
Kenneth Bailey, President of Academic Affairs.
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 16
00:46:15
[Kenneth Bailey] I would like to add one last comment if I may please. I
think there has been some serious misunderstanding of things that have
been said by the members of the panel tonight, particularly, the comments
made by Dr. Quanbeck. Let me be as clear as I know how to be. You may
be sure that the college will do everything it possibly can to be sure that,
as an institution, we do not perpetuate racism. But let me say this one
other thing: that regardless of what the institution may do, the final key to
the problem is you and me. We are the ones who will determine the
impact that any program the college can devise will have upon us as
citizens, and it is perfectly true that you come to the colleges as the kind of
people you are, you leave the institution as the kind of people that you are,
and that is where the proof of the pudding lies.
00:47:41
The kind of people you are when you come, while you're here, and when
you leave, and this is all that Dr. Quanbeck was saying, is that the college
can do what it can, but in spite of that, it is just as possible for a person to
go through a course in Black history and be totally unaffected by it, as it is
possible for a person to sit through a year's course in religion and be
totally unaffected by it. Now your willingness to be affected by the things
that happen like a day like today is your responsibility and not the
institution's.
00:48:21
We do have a responsibility, yes, but so do you, and so do I as an
individual, and as individuals, it is up to us to see to it that we live up to the
opportunity that we have now.
00:48:37
[Applause]
00:49:03
[Douglas Olliila] I think that, on that very fine note, we can conclude
00:49:09
[Several members of the audience say “No!”]
00:49:14
[Douglas Ollila] Why don't we let those who want to leave leave and spend
a few minutes yet together. [laughter] Nobody wants to leave.
00:49:27
[Inaudible member of the audience] Mr. moderator, can we also put it this
way, that let those who must leave, leave.
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 17
00:49:33
[Douglas Ollila] Let those who must leave, leave. And some must, of
course, obviously.
00:49:41
[Inaudible question from the audience, and the microphone cuts out for a
moment]
00:50:11
[Unidentified panelist] Indeed.
00:50:13
[Philip Quanbeck] I'd like to suggest that--at noon we did, there was this
worship.
00:50:22
[Inaudible response from the audience]
00:50:24
[Philip Quanbeck] Well I don't know where you were--
00:50:29
[Inaudible response from the audience]
00:50:31
[Philip Quanbeck] Well that's, you know, what we did was pray,
[stammers] but you see here we are in this predicament and, you know,
religionists, people interested in religion and theology and interested in
being Christian like I, we've said far too often, you know, that if you've got
that peace you know real down in your in your heart, well then that's
alright and you see what we should like to insist is the correspondence
between the affirmation and the action, and I guess that I should not like to
imply by our earlier comments that society is, you know, atomized and
individualized.
00:51:34
I should like to agree with those who say that that we have systematized,
established prejudice. I'm certain that that's the case. And in order to
disengage that prejudice, we have to deal with the system and with the
establishment, but nobody--or I should say not nobody, but--we will not be
engaged to participate in that disengagement, if we if we do not will it, you
see. And so I would guess that in the first place there the group did gather
for worship, we did gather for prayer, and in the second place there is the
social and individual relationship between which there must be
correspondence.
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 18
00:52:31
[Audience member] I don’t think, personally, that Augsburg College has
been a Christian College until May 15th, 1968. I think that, until this day,
Augsburg has been an old-fashioned Norwegian college. [Applause and
laughter]
00:52:43
[Unidentified panelist] Thank you.
00:52:51
[Douglas Ollila] ‘Augsburg, until this day, has not been a Christian college’
was the comment.
00:52:59
[Audience member, mostly inaudible] I think we've been praying ever
since our country was founded [inaudible].
00:53:11
[Another audience member, mostly inaudible] Well since Augsburg is
affiliated with the church [inaudible], well obviously our graduates
[inaudible].
00:53:31
[Douglas Ollila] What will Augsburg graduates do for the church? He's
suggesting a difference between the institutionalized church and the kind
of thing that's taught at Augsburg.
00:53:47
[Mostly inaudible response from the audience disputing the recap]
00:54:04
[Douglas Ollila] What do you do with the church at large, what do you do
with local congregations if your attitudes are different?
00:50:16
[Oscar Anderson] Well I guess that's why we're in business, in order to get
people infiltrated into these congregations so that there can be some
change, and that's why we had the Day because I think this is a basic
expression of our Christian concern. And it was a great risk because a lot
of people are offended by this kind of thing, but so be it! This has got to
happen in order for us to really be consistent. Now, I think I ought to say,
and I don't know much about it, but some very concrete steps are being
taken in our own American Lutheran Church, and remember this: that only
fifty-six or three percent of our student body come from that particular
segment of Lutheranism, so I think we have to be very careful here, but
the Project Summer Hope, which is now being instituted in the
congregations of this particular group is intended as a crash program to do
exactly what we've done today.
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 19
00:55:12
Now, whether this is carried out a hundred percent in all congregations, I
have no way of knowing because I'm not in those circles, but I can say
that Project Summer Hope is intended to give the kind of exposure and to
give the kind of unsettling that such a day ought to give. An establishment
that is all too complacent and which needs the kind of students that we
believe Augsburg can produce and send back into all of the areas of the
establishment and do the kind of job that ought to be done in this area.
00:55:45
[Unidentified panelist] The local congregation is not merely a brick wall
and to take no responsibility for it is cynical.
00:55:54
[Inaudible response from the audience]
00:56:19
[Douglas Ollila] She has made the suggestion that Augsburg students
make some recommendations which can be sent to local congregations,
some recommendations on the basis of the kind of experience we had
here today as a response. This is a specific kind of suggestion, what do
you want to speak to? Mrs. Karens.
00:56:44
[Inaudible response from the Audience]
00:57:24
[Douglas Ollila] Faculty exchange programs with southern universities and
colleges has been suggested. Do we have faculty interchange at
Augsburg? Not at this point, it's very good suggestion.
00:57:42
[Mostly inaudible response from the audience] exactly What religion, no
matter What you call it, What your religion is, your personal views and
attitudes. do What you do with other people. You talk about what maybe
Bishop Pike says or Tillich says, or something like this, which is fine, and
which I think [inaudible], but that's my opinion, but we don't talk about what
do I believe, what do we as thirty or forty students [inaudible] what do we
actually believe. What do we do with it, what do we practice, and how
must we change or can we change it, or will we change it?
00:58:57
[continue, mostly inaudible, statement from the audience] and that's where
it should be [inaudible] everybody has to take it.
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 20
00:59:04
[Douglas Ollila] Freshman religion ought to deal with one's own personal
affirmations and attitudes
00:59:11
[Philip Quanbeck] Why don't you respond?
00:59:13
[Douglas Ollila] Well I think that all of us in freshman English, I don't know
what happens at St. Olaf, or religion, I teach English too, so. I think that
most of us do expect a student to learn how to think theologically and to
learn how to think theologically means that you have to read some of the
theologians. You have to know what, well Bishop Pike is old hat, but you
have to know what Tillich thinks and you have to know at Bonhoeffer says
and what others have contributed and I really don't think that one can
really come to a definitive conclusion about what I think or what I would
like to think now or how I would like to restructure my theology until I have
examined some of these theologians.
01:00:02
It seems to me that that's a prerequisite, however--
01:00:07
[Audience member]-- you talk about what you do and we don't talk about
that!
01:00:12
[Douglas Ollila] What we do?
01:00:13
[Audience member] What we do!
01:00:14
[Douglas Ollila] Well I think, well I haven't quite finished with what I started,
okay. In most or many of the freshmen religion courses each student is
expected to write a concluding statement on what conclusions he has
reached. Now we try to think--we don't stack your conclusions for you,
perhaps we do, we're not completely objective--nevertheless, your
conclusions ought to be your own and what conclusions you reach
theologically are intimately related to the kinds of things that you do. Well,
what about what you do? Well, in many of our courses we provide
textbooks which are specifically concerned with some of the relevant
concerns in society. I should think that secular [inaudible] is about what I
ought to be doing and what you ought to be doing.
01:01:15
It seems to me that we do this. I hope we accomplish this objective
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 21
01:01:20
[Mostly inaudible response from the audience]
01:01:29
[Douglas Ollila] Education ought not to be merely courses, but
involvement if we're going to talk about the inner city and its problems, we
ought to be involved in the structures of the inner city. Anybody want to
respond? Phil?
01:01:49
[Philip Quanbeck] You know the teaching of religion, or the teaching of
any course in which you know values come to some sort of expression is
not, I think, a simple job and the teaching of religion courses in in a society
which has become more and more, becoming more and more pluralistic.
01:02:12
That doesn't make it more easy. I think that there is a sense in which, in
our courses, for example, take for example the Introduction to Theology,
we seek to address some of the problems which actually exist. For
example in reading Harvey Cox's book The Secular City, that he really
talks about some of the problems. Now, there isn't just one problem. There
are really many problems, and I think that the course seeks to introduce
some of those problems. Some years ago in an honors section in a course
called Basic Bible we used to read as a matter of course in connection
with the prophets, Lillian Smith's, Killers of the Dream which was an
attempt to introduce the the particular problem in relation to an
understanding of religion, but I think that it's not an uncomplicated problem
01:02:23
[Douglas Ollila] I don't believe you've asked a question yet.
01:03:30
[Inaudible question from the audience]
01:04:08
[Douglas Ollila] We really ought to try to get faculty members,
Afro-American faculty members. We ought to make a real attempt to this
as you suggested.
01:04:22
[Philip Quanbeck] Yeah I suppose that there isn't a self-respecting
university or college in the country that isn't looking for qualified Negro
faculty members. Now, I think that's true, and I suppose that the number of
available competent faculty members, Negro and white, is not unlimited.
01:04:54
[Douglas Ollila] Yes, right here.
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 22
01:04:56
[Inaudible response from the audience]
01:05:09
[Applause]
01:05:22
[Douglas Ollila] Thank you. [laughter] Should we agree on, should we
agree on two more questions? [the audience responds with “No.”] We will
make it three [laughter] over here. I'll recognize the fellow here.
01:05:42
[Mostly inaudible question from the audience] It seems to me that we keep
going around and around [inaudible] things on again and it gets right back
to the basic things of What we as a community, a Christian community
especially , are going to do about it. You know, we can sit here and throw
questions out which [inaudible] all the students at Augsburg [Inaudible]
Unless we do something concrete you're just gonna let it slide, and One
Day in May won’t mean a thing.
01:06:11
[Douglas Ollila] We have committed ourselves to something very concrete
here this evening I think. I really believe we have.
01:06:19
[Inaudible response from the audience]
01:06:44
[Douglas Ollila] She affirmed the excellence of the experience today.
[laughter] One more question. Right back there.
01:06:57
[Inaudible response from the audience]
01:07:14
[Douglas Ollila] I didn't hear all of the question--It had to do with why this
hasn't taken place before.
01:07:19
[Inaudible response from the audience with crosstalk]
01:07:40
[Douglas Ollila] All right. It's been suggested that--[laughter in the
audience]it’s been suggested that we try this again.
01:07:51
[Unidentified panelist] Betty, Betty back there.
00:07:51
[Douglas Ollila] Betty?
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 23
01:07:52
[Betty McCoy, speaking from the audience] I think we should have more
[inaudible] anytime that something goes wrong here, you have somebody
[inaudible] so why not have Black people coming and talking about
different things. Maybe once a week, you know, better than just putting
one day aside and talk about it and revel over it over it again, how about
what plan to do [Inaudible] Why not just do something? I mean,
everybody's tired of of the same old bag. ‘We're gonna do this, we're
gonna try this.’ Time is out for trying, it's time to act and unless Augsburg
acts now, you ain't gonna have no Black students!
01:08:38
[Douglas Ollila] Thank You Betty.
01:08:41
[Applause]
01:08:49
[Douglas Ollila] Thank you for your splendid response this evening.
“Where Do We Go From Here?” panel discussion (transcript), page 24
Show less
Transcript of “Sex and Racism”
(morning session)
A panel discussion with Lillian Anthony, Sumner Jones, Dr. Ronald Palosaari, and Dr.
Mary Howard
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.00124a
Description: Lillian Anthony, the first director of the Minneapolis Civil Rights
Commis... Show more
Transcript of “Sex and Racism”
(morning session)
A panel discussion with Lillian Anthony, Sumner Jones, Dr. Ronald Palosaari, and Dr.
Mary Howard
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.00124a
Description: Lillian Anthony, the first director of the Minneapolis Civil Rights
Commission; Sumner Jones, a staff member at The Way; Dr. Ronald Palosaari; and
Dr. Mary Howard discuss issues of sex and racism in a morning panel at Augsburg
College, now Augsburg University, in Minneapolis. The panel was part of a day focused
on speaking and listening to issues of racial injustice, known as "One Day in May," 1968
May 15.
Duration: 01:00:01
Collection: 13 “One Day in May” sessions were recorded and have been digitized.
They are available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp3IfZjFdUQJMy9uNoEADuy9KPltsIF-9
00:00:04
[The recording cuts in as Lillian Anthony is speaking] ...often saw her, not
as the woman would be a replica of his wife, but really as a woman, and
he saw that shaft of light going from his back door to that little shack. And
so there were many little children that came that way [inaudible section as
the microphone is adjusted] And at the same time, remember this man
that she is living with, and I say that because in that, the early period they
were not permitted to marry. And even if they were permitted to marry, this
still occurred, this man can’t do anything at all! And so you can begin to
see how this white man might think that the, under the whip, threat of
death, this Black man better not tell the white woman. And so if this man
thinks this way, he began to conjure up in his mind the fact that the Black
man wants to have sexual intercourse with his wife or with his daughters.
00:01:12
“Well my daughters and my wife would not want to have that animal,
therefor he would have to rape her. He would have to coerce her. She was
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 1
not willing to go to bed with that Black man. That animal.” So here we
come up to the whole historical business of Black men, particularly in the
South, being afraid to even lift their head up because they were [inaudible]
white women [inaudible]. Often this woman would yell “rape.” And this
man, he’d die. [inaudible]
00:01:48
So when they wanted to get rid of Black men throughout the history of this
country. They’ve been able to yell “rape.” [inaudible] And at the same time,
then, our Christianity has taught us that sexual intercourse was
permissible in the framework of a marriage. And that it was bad outside of
that. And yet we were able as human beings to relate one to the other
would go through all these petty processes, you know, and get all stirred
up. And you weren’t able to do anything about it.
00:02:30
How many of you young men or young girls, I see that there’s a thing
going on now that young men are saying, you know “you really gotta help
me out.” You know, “you don’t want me to become a homosexual.”
[inaudible] The other thing is they’re using saran wrap, heard about that?
Can’t buy any prophylactics or pills and things so they’re using saran wrap
and doctors are having a real time and headaches. Saran wrap. Girls are
using stupid things like 7-up. [long silence] Well, you brought it up.
[Laughter]
00:03:28
Yeah, and some of the girls are using [inaudible] some there is reason get
rid of those little things and make babies called sperm [inaudible] So we're
saying basically [inaudible] So I have now given you kind of a historical
perspective of this and I’m now thinking that the other two can give their
points of view and we can talk when they’re done.
00:04:13
[Ronald Palosaari] Well, I'm here mainly to integrate the panel [audience
laughs] And the particular thing I hear is just tangentially related to sex
and race. I happen to have three children at home, if they haven’t burned
the place down by now. They're all rioters. But we have two, two girls and
a boy. And last summer my neighbor was walking by and said to my
blonde daughter “my, your brother has a nice tan doesn't he?” And my
daughter, put out anytime her brother is praised, said “yes, but he is a
Negro you know, and they are darker.” [audience makes a shocked noise
and some laugh]
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 2
00:05:01
So I'm on because we have a mixed racial family. And we adopted
Michael after we adopted two Caucasian girls, mainly because we lacked
the courage to do it the first two times, you know. We had thought about
and talked about but, like like most white families, we were wondering you
know, “what would people say, and what will the in-laws say,” because my
father is prejudiced and Audrey’s folks are from North Dakota [the
audience laughs]. And it's not that they're prejudiced, they’ve just never
seen, you know [audience laugs] a Negro. They don't allow them except at
the Air Force the Air Force base.
00:05:44
But we finally we finally adopted Michael. And we did not we did not adopt
Michael because we thought, you know, we were going to give him a great
life. Being my son is not, you know, no guarantee of a great life [audience
laughs]. We adopted Michael because we thought, in this society, we
needed Michael more probably than he needed us. But the truth of course
is there are babies that need adoption, many of them are racially mixed
now. The problems we have faced, so far just really nothing at all, but we
know that in his lifetime Michael, because he is part Negro, is going to
face hatred. He's going to face bitterness. He's going to be insulted. What
are we going to do about this as as parents?
00:06:29
Well there's really very little we can do except to try and give Michael
some pride in his white heritage and pride in his Black heritage. And he is
going to somehow make his own adjustment of being in a society which is
white and black of being both. The real problems have come, of course,
when Michael hits high school and college. Who is he going to date, you
see, and who is he going to marry? Do you think Michael should date only
whites, only blacks or that he can make it his duty to find those who are
also of mixed racial parentage, but who really knows? Michael will have to
make his own decisions, but so far as anyone’s asking us, Michael can
date anyone he pleases. Anyone will go out with him [audience laughs]
Anyone he feels like asking.
00:07:18
If boys are still asking girls [the audience laughs] by the time Michael hits
that--when it comes to married, is fine. Michael again will make his own
choice obviously as most young people do. He wants to marry pure white
and pure Black or in between that is Michael's choice, and it's certainly all
right with us. But the problem is going to have to be faced. But the reason
I'm here is because I think probably most of you think when you think
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 3
about married the most you think of producing little babies just like
yourself. But I would suggest that what we need is not girls going on
producing five and six babies you see. What we need are people who are
willing to adopt after you have your first or second baby.
00:08:04
Why not consider adoption? And if you consider adoption, why not
consider a racially mixed adoption? Or if you find out that you have--that
you are going to adopt anyway, and you and you cannot make your first
adoption racially mixed, adopt your second or your third one racially
mixed. Be willing to consider that. There are families in this town which
could have natural children, and instead have adopted with mixed families.
Some Caucasian, some racially mixed. One family we know of and I
admire the [last name of the family stated but is inaudible] perseverance if
nothing else has seven children: one natural, six children adopted. All six
racially mixed.
00:08:43
The other day we had a meeting of families who have adopted racially
mixed children, and one lady said that when--since so many times these
kids get shoved around from foster home to foster home, that when they
finally got their little girl she came to them and she said “my last mommy
didn't want me. I hope that you will want me.” This is a little two and a half
year old, and since she is now adopted, she was wanted. I don't want to
end this with a sad story, to end with a sad story, but these kids are there,
and they need to be adopted.
00:09:22,
Now, if you say “well, why doesn't the Black community adopt them?” You
already, I think, are revealing some kind of deep prejudice which all of us
whites I think have. And that is of course: why should the Black community
adopt those children who are racially mixed? Why should the Black
community even adopt those children who are black, except that they
want to and that they have economic means. In our society, it is so often
the whites who have the means. This is the result of discrimination and
prejudice, but the child who is racially mixed, it seems to me, is a child
who is in need of a home, and the person who does not feel that he can
provide a home for that racially mixed child, then I think has has some
really deep, deep, hang-up. Well that's that's my little pitch. I also have
some views on the rest of the game if you want that.
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 4
10:14
[Sumner Jones] I might start off by saying I don't know a whole lot about
sex, but I do know a whole lot about racism. And racism, like any other
“-ism,” is more of a discipline than anything else. We know, for a fact, just
looking around us, that wherever whites and people of color--I can't say
only Black because then I'm excluding a great many other colors--coexist
in the same geographic area, there exists a system of white racism which
distorts reality to a an unrecognizable degree. I think, in this country, one
of the ways that it manifests itself is in the sexual relations of not only
white women and Black men, but more important white men and Black
women, because there are really only two free peoples in this country.
00:11:31
That's the white male and the black female. If you want to talk about what
racism has done, look at prostitution. Look at the vast number of black
girls that go out onto the street to sell to that white man, that nice
middle-class man as such does distorted views of what sex is all about.
He feels he can't do it to his wife unless he's going to have kids, and once
you have so many kids you can feel that you can't afford anymore, and it's
biological necessity. We all get horny. So he goes out to the street and
picks up a Black woman, and the blacker the better. What's that old saying
down south: the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice and they believe it.
But what's this doing to the white female? More important, what's
doing--more important to me, totally selfishly, what's it doing to that Black
man?
00:12:48
It's destroying them both, in a sense, it's taking away the manhood of the
of the Black man and certainly taking away the femininity of the of the
white female because your white women have been put up on a pedestal
by your men which is detrimental to you because these needs aren't
fulfilled. the man can do whatever he pleases. If he feels the urge in the
middle of the night he always comes down to Plymouth Avenue and I've
seen them lined up. When I was a kid going to Warrington they used to
stop me coming from school asking me where they could go find a woman
and I tell him to go rap on the second garbage can they give me a dollar
and stand there and wait. [audience laughs]
00:13:44
Now this is the sort of thing it does. I think two things have to be attacked.
Two things have to be really evaluated in this system, and I don't want to
take the time to evaluate them orally at the moment. One is that system of
racism. It's got to be destroyed. The other is your own interpretation of
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 5
what sex is all about. Sex is the logical extension of of any male to female
feeling I think. If you, if you stifle it, you become very frustrated. You don't
see too many black homosexuals walking the streets, you don't see too
many black kids masturbating. You don't see too many black kids walking
around totally hung up about sex. That doesn't happen in our culture. It
does happen in yours.
00:14:50
I had one time considered myself a member of the intelligentsia which was
a mistake, not because I'm not intelligent enough, because it--but because
the intelligence he has absolutely nothing to offer me. And a group of
friends and I, all nice middle-class white kids, you sit around and talk
about sex. All the time. Constantly. And I began to get you know 13, 14,
15, and so on that there was really no sense in talking about it. You know,
it's not something that you sit down and rap about. It's an active thing. It’s
a participation sport, not an observer sport, and not a commentator sport,
and this is the thing that you've made it. It's fine to talk about sex now, but
it's not alright to show you're feeling one person to another by indulging in
intercourse.
00:15:52
And I think it's far more dangerous if you don't. People keep talking about
the high illegitimacy rate among Black people, and these people come
from areas of town where they give abortions in every holiday station.1
You can't talk about an illegitimate child. There's no such thing as an
illegitimate human being. Illegitimacy is something that you punish. It's a
crime, something that you put people in jail for, and what the hell are you
going to do with this kid once he's had? Send him back? Out of the
question. So you have to start to redefine your terms. You have to start to
re-evaluate your entire moral system because it's the women that are
getting left up and they're beginning to get smart.
00:16:48
They're beginning to realize that, since historically that white man has
used that Black woman, they are now beginning to use that Black man
and paying for it. You'd be amazed at the number of your, probably some
of your classmates, who come down to Plymouth Avenue, get picked up
by a man, and get him all he wants, all the money, just to go to bed with
her every now and then. It says something about your system. It says a
great deal about the way you handle things because while the husband
may be over north, his wife could be someplace over south. So you're
1
Holiday was a gas station chain in the Twin Cities area.
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 6
destroying yourself with this. Only in any system of false values, denying
everything that's basically human, and I think that that sex isn't something
you learn. You don't have instruction in it.
00:17:59
I think it's something basic to all human beings. I can't say that that I
blame the system of racism for your false views. But sexually, in regard to
the Black man, Black woman, it is racism combined with your values
they've kept this down in part for a long, long time.
00:18:33
[Ronald Palosaari] Yeah, um...as many have speculated, [inaudible] said
that I think the basic paty of thus analysis is right. I think that in our society
first by making the female Negro, Black, available to the white in the south
and there's some hangover in the north, that she became sexually
charged. And that the--as the white man divided women, because we
want--at the same time the male wants to put women on a pedestal, he
also wants to put them in bed. That's the two places, you see. And and the
white woman got on the pedestal and the Negro woman got into the bed,
you see, mentally.
00:19:15
Now, and of course since the Negro male was denied to the white female,
the Negro male got sexually charged with the racist attitude that here was
a person who was more close to being animal, more close to being beast,
he suggested the primitive nature of sex. Thus, in our society, I think both
the the black male and the black female are now sexually charged. I think
it's probably getting better, as things loosen, as things loosen up, but I
think the charge is both there. And with my suspicious mind, it seems
mean this is why these dark stockings are so terribly popular since they
suggest--as when I see a girl walking these dark stockings, they suggest
that she's white from the waist up and black from the waist down, you
know. Those of you who buy the stockings may disagree, [audience
laughs] but this is the way this is the way I happen to read it--as several
girls pull down there [audience laughs] Okay I'll turn it back to Mary.
00:20:18
[Mary Howard] I want to make two comments and then I'll throw it open to
questions. One of these is that you would have a task of finding a needle
in a haystack to find a black person, Lillian's pretty dark, but I dare say
she's not African, and I don't think Sumner is either, and I can't you know
just look. This is not all by virtue of miscegenation, as it's been called,
erroneously. It started out on the African slave ships coming over. And you
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 7
also know that you didn't come over and find us, and you know win the
war and bring us over. We sold ourselves to you. So we had a few of
these little problems before you got there. One tribe puts another tribe and
then they took that tribe down and posted them, you know, along the
coastline, well you want to buy? Here you are
00:21:19
The other thing is that, in terms of this development of the idea of the
Negro male being beautiful--and I know how I got on this panel, I made a
statement a couple years ago and somebody remembered it. Somebody
in the audience at one of these discussions of the film said, “well the
Negro male is such a beautiful sexual animal.” I said “That's a myth.” I
don't know about all of them [the audience laughs] But it kind of left that
taste. The idea was that you wanted good strong people to work in the
cotton fields, so how do you get them? You find a good strong Negro male
and you match him up. You use him just like you do with a horse, as a
stud. And the idea was perpetuated that, you know, they kept producing
these lovely strong babies and use them in the fields and the others they
put in the house.
00:22:15
And by the way those that were in the house, the Negro women--I happen
to prefer the word Negro, I don't know where it's going eventually, a
“person of color,” or anything else--those that were used in the house as
housemaids we're also used in the house as concubines. With the
knowledge, quite often, of the white female. And the children who were
produced--we developed a class society too, you know--the children that
were produced were of mixed color, lighter than the ones in the fields. And
the fathers, the master of the household, took an interest in these children
who were produced, and educated them. And those who were educated
among the Negroes became the landed gentry as such when slavery was
abolished on the books at least.
00:23:02
The others in the fields turned into the majority of the Negroes, and they're
the ones who are represented poor people, who remain the majority of
poor people. I am--I think the word “Negro” has to be defined as
representing anyone of mixed heritage with a darker hue then that
normally acquired through a suntan. If you go in the background of most of
the people who are of the Afro-american, Negro group, you'll find many
Indian ancestors, you'll find many North European ancestors, and you'll
find as many African ancestors.
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 8
00:23:52
Okay, what are some of the questions that got raised? You nodded your
heads very nicely. Do you accept everything-- ah, yes.
00:24:00
[Inaudible question from the audience]
00:24:38
[Lillian Anthony] I hope everybody heard him outside. Did all of you hear?
00:24:40
[Several audience members say no]
00:24:49
[Lillian Anthony] He said it so well. I would rather that he, um [there is
sound of movement, murmuring, and laughter in the audience]
00:25:00
[Audience member, who has gotten to the microphone] Second go-round,
it won’t be as good. I grew up in the South, and it took me a long time to
understand what was happening to people around me. And there was
something hysterical about the way they responded on the race issues,
my own friends that I met in school. And I started out with the initial
assumption that most [inaudible] were the result of something sexual
[inaudible] But anyway, with the Negro, the way I explained to myself was,
the reason they were scared and hysterical about integration was that it
was the promise of the end to a way of life. And this way of life was to live
loving oneself, and yet have the possibility Saturday night to get drunk and
go down to shantytown, go down to the black section and have a fling.
00:26:02
To be evil for a while and to step back into the beautiful world. And this to
me was why integration was such a threat and I was wondering if the
panel felt this was the case too.
00:26:26
[Lillian Anthony] I think what he has said gives some credence to my
assumption to the beginning of the whole business of the assumption of
Black being bad and evil and white being good and pure. And we all
recognize that we are a little bit of both. But then, it’s a pity that we cannot
get to the place where we can look at another human being and recognize
that what we enjoy with another human being does not necessarily have
to be a taste of evil or badness. But that this is a way to be more of a
human being.
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 9
00:27:04
And I think this white male who has sought out the Black woman, I
certainly agree with everythings that he said. He said it very well. But here
is this white man who wants to be a human being, who want to enjoy a
complete sexual relationship. The pity is that he cannot enjoy that sexual
relationship with a caucasian female because of having put her on this
pedestal. Or that the female has not learned that she can also enjoy the
sexual life. And I--this is one of the things that the Black woman, those
that don’t have too many middle class hangups, does do. And I think that
this kind of abandonment that many of us have not been really taught.
00:28:00
And this is the only place, I don’t think you learn sex [inaudible] but I do
think we learn how to be emotional human beings. I do think that we learn
how to abandon ourselves. And I think, in going to shantytown, there was
great abandonment. Now, you come to some of our parties, there is great
abandonment. We laugh, we yell, the food is a part of it. There's great joy!
There’s great merriment. Now, we go to some of these white parties, and
everybody’s just kind of standing around [the audience laughs,
presumably because she has imitated what she saw] and all of these
intellectual hangups, and there is no abandonment. Now, we’re beginning
to sense a little bit with funky Broadway, and the new dances, there’s a
new kind of abandonment, which I think it's very healthy for all the groups
that are beginning to dance.
28:58
Did I respond, did you understand the way I’m responding, I’m agreeing
with what he’s saying and I’m trying to amplify it to say that you do have to
learn to feel and you do have to learn to respond appropriately to a sex
mate. Appropriately. And that was not an appropriate response, you see.
00:29:29
[Ron Palosaari] I agree fully. I'd like to raise just you know one very
complex question--
00:29:33
[Lillian Anthony] Oh, you can’t just do that. I just want to catch him on one.
[the audience laughs] I thought, I want to catch him. Now, why did you
constantly refer to adopting a “mixed racial” type. There I thought “now,
that’s his racism.” Because why should this child have to be mixed? Why
couldn’t this child be Black? Why couldn’t this child be from two Black
parents?
00:29:56
[Mary Howard] He can’t find them.
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 10
00:29:57
[Lillian Anthony] Well, I don’t know about that. I just--but he stressed that.
You know, he stressed it. Each time. And so I’d like to know.
00:30:05
Well the--as I understand it, one thing to pass the buck, the welfare
department usually plays in an all caucasian home a mixed child rather
than a blank child. And since I know in part of white races having a mixed
child doesn’t make it any easier with in-laws and with other people.
The--we got a child that happened to be light [in skin tone] and I suppose
he'll face the problem of passing. You know, he can--he wants to call
himself Italian, with the last name of Palosaari, right [audience laughs]. A
kid, you know, if he has a racial hang-up and then he has that last name,
you know he's done. But our next child may be darker or not. And then it
just it just--the mixed racial amuses me, you see, because if someone
asks you expect to have problems, I usually say, well, since--since
Michael's biological mother was half Swedish, he probably will [audience
laughs]
00:31:08
But to raise problem which Miss Anthony's suggested, you know one thing
we don't know is how much, granted to the white middle class is a kind is
a kind of hung-up class, but how much this impulse control is not tied to
our economic kind of development. We have depended, in the Caucasian
race, we have dependent for a considerable amount of time for young
people putting off the fulfillment of their sexual drive and channeling that
into education or into hard work. The reason you're such good students
you see--well let’s not go into that-- [audience laughs], but this whole thing
of the middle class depending upon impulse control for economic
satisfaction is a very complex issue you know and I just wanted to suggest
it because it relates to this whole question of what kind of lifestyle should
one have.
00:32:03
And I don't think that when we talk about a free emotional lifestyle, we
mean laying everybody, but I rather think it is a quality of life that really
can vary a great deal as to how the individual approaches it. But still,
there's a freedom which is a kind of, I think, an ideal. [long pause] I never
worked at all [audience laughs], and I've never changed that. I went into
teaching because it’s the easiest possible thing I could think of [audience
laughs].
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 11
00:32:36
[Sumner Jones] I think that your answer, the conclusion that you came to,
is a good explanation, but I think realistically it's probably only part what's
really going on. I can't imagine the fear of Black peoples to be one that is
only sexual. There is the fear of our grieving revenge upon you for all the
things you have done to us in the past. It’s a good excuse, to say “I don't
want this guy living next door to me, because I know damn well that, come
sundown, he's gonna sneak into my daughter's bedroom window.” I think
that the sexual thing is convenient. No longer can they call us animals,
because proportionately, we’re the most educated people in the country.
We don’t stop at bachelor’s degrees, we go all the way. And then you get
that job down at the post office with three or four PhD.s. [audience laughs]
This gives us, really, a great deal of insight into mail delivery. [audience
laughs]
00:34:16
So I think that that is what we're dealing with the total dehumanization of
Black people over the past, what maybe sixteen, eleven [inaudible] when
we first came here, it was ten. And we’re trying to fight back. Radically
adjust people’s sexual attitudes. So I don’t think that you’re afraid of
[inaudible] you’re more worried about losing. It’s a place to go to. They can
always [inaudible] Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world.
Whenever a woman wanted something of a man she knew damn well how
to get it. And what prostitutes stay [inaudible] it’s a very small price to pay
for your neighbor’s [inaudible] any other way.
00:35:13
I don't think they're worried about losing prostitutes. They're more
worried--they're just using that as an excuse, because they've got a
conception of [inaudible] And they just don't want us near him, for any
reason, because we're inhuman and sex is the way to be human.
00:35:44
[Audience member asks an inaudible question. Dr. Howard begins to
answer it away from the microphone before switching over to the
microphone when someone asks her to]
00:36:40
[Mary Howard] --huh? Oh, okay--the pigmentation in the skin enabled
them to withstand it. All right now, here's a nice situation we want to keep
it this way, because it's economically necessary. Now, we have to build up
a set of myths so that we can maintain the situation as it is. One of the
things we have to do is break down any culture, so the only place in which
the slaves could congregate was in the church. And we tell them that, you
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 12
know, “there will be a better world next time, you should sing, and relax
and enjoy yourself, and be free in the church under God, et cetera.” And
this is where this abandonment idea was based, also. Right in the church.
This was the only time--you go to church on Sunday mornings to Sunday
night lots of poor people do that too, by the way.
00:37:31
The rural community did it, the poor people still do it, and church starts at
10:00 in the morning or 9:00 in the morning with prayers et cetera, and
ends at 4:00 in the afternoon for dinner, or supper, or in time to get home.
The idea of miscegenation grew up as a protection; “we have to keep
separate races.” If white and Negro marry, or white and African marry, or
white and African cohabitate, then there will be a decrease in intelligence
and strength, increase in diseases et cetera. Most of the diseases that we
have, we got from you. This has, there's an idea that I have--I don't know
how good it is, we probably lost a lot of it--but I think on the whole that the
health of the Negro is pretty darn good because the only ones who could
survive getting over here on the slave ships were adaptable and were
strong.
00:38:30
Otherwise we would have long since died out. We’d never have made it to
the fields. Now, over the period of time since we have intermarried or
quote “intermarried by accident,” we may have lost a lot of this strength
and I think this another point, but the whole thing is that most of the ideas
of all of the ideas that have supported racism I have been a matter of
necessity in order to maintain the economy. And all we're trying to do now
is get some facts inserted into the mythology and get rid of the myth.
00:39:06
Are you going to sit there quietly and take everything we have to say?
Yes? [she laughs]
00:39:12
[Audience member asks an inaudible question]
00:39:39
[Sumner Jones] It is. It's been substantiated by studies. Masturbation is
just sort of a mechanical outlet for a sexual drive. Homosexuality is
something that I don't really understand, but it's been explained to me as a
rejection of one sex because of various things. The way you've been
taught: to view females, the sexual act with females, so you've got no
recourse. You know, there are only two sexes [he laughs] You've already
eliminated one, you've got to turn to the other. So that's homosexuality. I
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 13
at one time, when I was studying biology, I thought that people were
taught to be heterosexual, but you aren’t. It's a basic instinct.
Heterosexuality is basic to all animals. Thank goodness.
00:41:07
[Presumably, the audience member responds, but it is inaudible]
00:41:15
[Sumner Jones] Which which breeds homosexuality and masturbation and
sexual perversion. Yeah [presumably talking with the audience member]
That's exactly what I'm saying. In our culture, we face sex for what it is.
Puberty, that time when young men climb trees and young women dig
holes in the ground and things. In your society, it’s a very trying time. I
went to a predominantly white high school, you could almost call it all
white, and went to some parties during the time I was becoming sexually
aware, or aware of my sexuality. And they put us like in a basement from
8:00 to midnight with a candle going, and the mother would come down
every now and then and check on us bringing us cookies. And at midnight,
after we were all aroused, really sexually aroused, speaking of sexual
charging man, I had enough to start a semi-truck. [audience laughs]
00:42:41
And then they sent us home! Say “good night,” shake hands with you
partner and go on your lonely way. Now, what happens during puberty is:
puberty is the time where parents consider the fact that their child is
growing up, so they provide them with all sorts of things, like the dark
basements, and and like the perks. But, man, there ain't a cot in sight. You
reach a certain point, and then it's cut off. Now, that's bound to cause
some sort of frustration. I'm advocating honesty. I'm advocating you know
everybody to his own thing. You know, at their own particular time. I'm
advocating reality which isn't necessarily free love. I haven’t, I never
understood the concept of “free love.” It seemed to me, you know,
outlawing prostitution, and making them go out there for nothing. That's
about as close as I ever came to explaining free love.
00:44:03
But I think what's happening now is a denial of human sexuality, which
can't possibly be healthy.
00:44:17
[Lillian Anthony] I am not sure that I can really help you, but I, in trying to
understand some of these things have read several books and some
excellent books. Theodore Wright, one is called “Love and Lust.” Seven
hundred and some pages, but he attempts in this book to explain how in
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 14
puberty, the male child relates to the mother. Example: here you have
been coddled by the mother, you’ve been loved by her, all this--you know
all that. And then, suddenly you’re told,that you can no longer relate that
way to your mother. And so this brings a lot of hangups. Now, in the Black
community, then how is this different? That's what you're really asking.
00:45:05
Well I think that there's several things that are different in the Black
community. One is that both mother and father usually have to work to
sustain the family. Or there are enough siblings in the family so there is
not this overemphasis in terms of coddling and holding,and therefore the
child then can relate more to others. So I don’t think that many of the
Black children come up having sexual, actual sexual intercourse, and
sooner than Caucasian children. I think their mental psyche about it is not
mystical. It’s a thing. You know, everybody knows it goes on.
00:45:53
I remember when I was 11 years old, I came home from school, and I just
said to mom “You know, I don’t understand what the kids are talking
about.” We were sitting on the curb today, and I was talking to these girls
and they started talking about menstruation,” and my father dropped a
spoon. [the audience laughs] And he said--cause we always had found
council around the table. And daddy dropped his spoon. I thought “Uh-oh.
[audience laughs] This is a thing.” So then we--mama said “well, we'll talk
about it later.” Well then my little brother, who's six years younger, said
“why can't we talk about it now?” And then my sister said “yeah, what is
that word you used?” So right there, we started dealing with it at the table.
And then we continued. And all with my father when the whole biological
process came from me, it was my father who was the one who was able to
do this.
00:46:48
Now I think, because we don't have all of these sophisticated standards to
go by, then we I think are--this abandonment, this freedom, is intrinsic in
our culture, you see. That--and I know--it's hard for me to gey this over to
you--
00:47:05
[The audience member responds, but it is inaudible]
00:47:18:
[Lillian Anthony] It may be. I wouldn’t say “lower class,” I’m changing my
vocabulary and hope you would be able to change yours. In terms of the
economic base, people who have less money, then I think find more
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 15
ingenious ways to have entertainment. You know we have great
[inaudible] parties, great food parties, great record parties, great
joke-sharing parties, cause we cannot afford to go--huh?
00:47:48
[Someone, presumably on the panel, says something that is inaudible]
00:47:49
[Lillian Anthony] Yeah, huh! [She laughs] The whole business [she laughs]
we didn’t have the money to go to the night clubs, and all of these other
things. So I think we had to be a little more ingenious about how we
enjoyed ourselves. And I think we were more communal in family and in
community.
00:48:08
[Sumner Jones] When you’re talking about standards for Blacks, you’re
automatically talking about standards for what you consider low-income
whites because we live so closely together. I mean, a ghetto, a Black
community is simply a community that, whose life result revolves around
Black culture, which includes whites, see, because you won't let them live
with you out in Edina because they can't afford to. So they live with us in
North Minneapolis and Harlem. And our values are the same. So when
we're talking about only Black people, we're talking about
Mexican-Americans whoever else happens to be poor.
00:48:55
[Someone responds but they are inaudible]
00:49:00
[Sumner jones] Oh, yeah! Yeah, sure they would.
00:49:03
[Someone responds but they are inaudible]
00:49:10
It, it is! From the outset, you see. What happens is that we get hung up in
this striving thing, the same as all of you students do. And the only way we
can prove to you that we are strivers is by accepting all your values. Never
eat watermelon. Never. [audience laughs]. Never go to bed with anyone.
And deny, personally, all of the myths that that have been created about
Black people. So it's on an individual level that this thing occurs, but the
mass of Black people accept black culture. The majority, simply because
we have no choice. And those of us who do have a choice and recognize
the choice, realize what each culture is all about tend to go back. Because
it's more honest there.
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 16
00:50:11
[Ron Palosaari] Yeah, I just want to emphasize the fact that there's an
economic explanation for many of these things. At least, people in this
kind of economic group tend to behave in this kind of way. And I don't
think it I don't this--it’s necessarily a racial thing at all, but when you have a
Negro subculture then you have certain patterns. But one thing's kinda
bothers me as a middle class white--I hope this this isn't a thing, but--I'm
not so sure that masturbation is all that bad, you know. I don't you should
hold it up as a kind of a kind of perversion. And the the incident of
masturbation is so terribly high among among unmarried males who are
not having intercourse of both lower class, and middle class, and upper
class that it really doesn't, you know--when we get into that kind of statistic
it's not worth getting excited about.
00:50:55
And you certainly, I mean we all know too that we certainly have Negro
homosexuals as well as white homosexuals, that's not, that's that's not a
race thing to0. But it is it is a thing oftentimes related to the kind of the kind
of family, and there's a word which is used for Negro class, middle class
Negroes, in some places which is “strainers.” You know, they're kind of
straining to stay up in the middle class. And I kind of laugh out in the
suburbs, because I have a Negro friend up there who has to keep his lawn
in great shape, and when I go off and play golf and tennis I always look at
him out there sweating on that lawn, you know [panelists laugh] They, and
hope the kids have [inaudible] some way by the time I get back.
00:51:40
[Inaudible response from an audience member]
00:52:09
[Mary Howard] See, we were taught that it was right because this was
later reproduce so we could be more available as slaves.
00:52:17
[Inaudible response from an audience member]
00:52:44
[Mary Howard] It's interesting when the Catholic Church changes the tone,
everybody changes [she laughs] and it's definitely changed tone. I would
like to make a comment regarding his point. We're talking about racism,
now. It does apply economically across the board to all poor people and
the majority of Negroes are poor, so we're talking about the poor man in
general when we talk about the Negro with most of the things applying
across the board. But we are a defined group, and we have certain
self-interest right now, so we have to be talking about us. The March to
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 17
Washington, that is called the “Poor People's March,” though it's not called
the Negro’s March. And there are some whites in that March. They talk
about guaranteed annual income. The impetus came from our big push in
the 1950s and still going on. A lot of people got benefit, the middle class
got a benefit, as well as the poor class, as well as the Negro.
00:53:44
From what's going on right now, we're busy trying to get the Indians to join
us, and they looked down their noses at us for a long time. And now, one
by one, they're getting in on the group, you know. Because it's
becoming...what? Profitable. And not just the economic sense, but
profitable to be identified because we're bigger and we can do a little
more, so they join in and and benefit as well. Yeah?
00:54:10
[Inaudible question from the audience]
00:55:27
[Sumner Jones] It still applies. It doesn't really matter who you’re going to
shag with, if you happen to get it wrong. It's it's interesting what's
happened. As you people start waking up to sex, and you have. Your
parents make available to you, if they find that you insist on being a sexual
animal, they make available to you all sorts of contraceptive devices. All
sorts of birth control pills, that sort of thing. So we're wondering what's
really wrong now. Is it wrong to have a kid, or is it wrong to go to bed with
somebody? And, if we find that it's wrong to have a kid, then it definitely is
wrong to go to bed with somebody, because that's what it's all about.
00:56:30
I've known several girls on Plymouth that have had kids without being
married. And the proudest person is that father. Not only as a matter of
egotism, in that he sees a part of himself, but that is his son. And he goes
places with his son. I don't care if the guy is only 18 years old, he takes
care of that boy, if he has a chance, or that girl. Whereas, I've seen guys
that have been in the same position. White guys from from middle-class
families, and all of that, and they deny it. You know, “that's not my kid. I’ve
never had a kid in my whole life.” Of course, I'm making general
statements because that's the only way you can talk about a group.
00:57:29
[Lillian Anthony]--which I am going to use, and one is the whole business
of illegitimacy. I thought it was a very beautiful statement and the analogy
he made, about what the word “illegitimate” means. And then you
mentioned dehumanization. They go hand in hand. And I think the
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 18
way--I’m really beginning to realize that semantics are a real hangup for
us. That when we say “this is an illegitimate child,” we then are taking
away the humanity of the child. And that’s why that child who’s Black who
has the illegitimate child, the child out of wedlock, can still be loved by the
parents when they bring the child into the way I want to hold it. And she
tells me “you know, I’ve learned not to ask stupid questions, like who is the
father” or something like that. But we all love that child and I think that’s
what I’m trying to say, trying to have humanity. And I think this is a great
thing that Black people have to give to the world. And colored peoples, I
don’t know about other ethnic or racial groups in terms of what they do
with their child.
00:58:47
What they’re really [inaudible] adoption happened to me when I was in
New York last year, a couple adopted a child. And this child was brown,
but the child had been born of a Jewish young girl. And the family was
willing to take that child, and they had taken the child into the home. And
then, as the child--you know, often when we are born, we are much fairer
in complexion. Then the child’s complexion began to change, so when the
child became six months old, they began to accuse her of having had an
affair with an Afro-American. And she, to this day, says that she did not.
So it’s quite common. Because it could have been in the family, you see.
So, again, what difference did it make what color the child was, this is a
little human being! These are the kinds of complex things which you have
got to get in trouble with. I saw a free hand, over there, yeah.
01:00:01
[The recording cuts off at this point]
“Sex and Racism” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 19
Show less
Transcript of “Sex and Racism”
(afternoon session)
A panel discussion with Lillian Anthony, Sumner Jones, Dr. Ronald Palosaari, and Dr.
Mary Howard
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0363
Description: Lillian Anthony, the first director of the Minneapolis Civil Rights
Commis... Show more
Transcript of “Sex and Racism”
(afternoon session)
A panel discussion with Lillian Anthony, Sumner Jones, Dr. Ronald Palosaari, and Dr.
Mary Howard
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0363
Description: Lillian Anthony, the first director of the Minneapolis Civil Rights
Commission; Sumner Jones, a staff member at The Way; Dr. Ronald Palosaari; Ellen
O'Neill, staff TCOIC; Joe O'Neill, staff TCOIC; and Dr. Mary Howard discuss issues of
sex and racism in an afternoon panel at Augsburg College, now Augsburg University, in
Minneapolis. The panel was part of a day focused on speaking and listening to issues of
racial injustice, known as "One Day in May," 1968 May 15.
Duration: 00:59:54
Collection: 13 “One Day in May” sessions were recorded and have been digitized.
They are available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp3IfZjFdUQJMy9uNoEADuy9KPltsIF-9
00:00:00
[Mary Howard] [The recording cuts in as Howard is speaking] --here you're
in the right place, this is the sex and racism one. Wonder what you heard
about this morning’s session [laughter]. I will introduce the panel. We don't
have Gwen Jones-Davis, whom we'd hope to have, she's quite ill and
could not come. We have--Lilllian Anthony, was kind enough to remain for
the morning session, had to leave for this afternoon, so as sex is often
improvised, the panel is currently improvised. I am Mary Howard, on the
faculty here in psychology. That's not the reason I was chosen for this
panel, I have a suspicion it's because of an error I made a couple of years
ago, in response to a statement, some of you know about it, I won't repeat
it.
00:00:47
Sumner Jones on the staff at The Way, Ron Palosaari, English
department here at Augsburg, Ellen O'Neill, staff TCOIC, and Joe O'Neill,
staff TCOIC. I was trying to decide how to start this, this morning Lillian
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 1
Anthony kind of took it over and went ahead. I'm going to make a brief
introduction and then, I know I think at that point turn it over to Ron to
make a statement and to Sumner to make a statement. Joe and Ellen said
that they did not come prepared to make a statement but will instead
discuss. Can you hear me without the mic? You're frowning.
00:01:31
Can you hear, anybody can't hear me back there? Okay.
00:01:36
[Unidentified panelist] How can you tell?
00:01:36
[Mary Howard] Well I don't know, if they can't hear me then, maybe they'd
raise their hands and frown. I was sort of curious as to why we had a
panel with this title, and several people raised the question after the
session this morning, and also before the session. I thought about it a little
bit. I think it's appropriate. I think it's particularly appropriate because,
though not the reason for racism insofar as the thinking person is
concerned, it is the reason for racism so far as the average person is
concerned. And on the basis of a number of myths, and myths are usually
built on a tiny amount of fact, and a great deal of intention with purpose.
00:02:25
The myth of sex as attached to racism developed during slavery times as
a means of supporting the economy and was done very, very successfully.
A few of the myths that I think are particularly pertinent to this topic, and I
will give some of the facts and some of them you will want to raise
questions about, they're old. And I'm sure you know better, but I'm going
to call them to your attention because even though you may know some of
these things you don't stop to think about them. One of them is that the
Negro is anatomically and physiologically different. That was exploited
during World War Two. French people ran around and looked for the tails
on Negro males and they didn't find them, most people know better now.
00:03:15
Secondly, that the Negro is particularly vigorous. As Edgar Pillow pointed
out this morning, the majority of the Negroes are poor, and poor people,
the majority of the poor people are sick, weak, tired, and generally not
vigorous. However, there are a few things that do support the idea that the
Negro is fairly strong and adaptable, one of them being that he simply has
survived all of the many indignities to which he has been subjected from
the time he came over on the slave ship until now and he's still here, and
in fact is growing in terms of numbers. Third that the Negro is happy, that's
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 2
a stupid idea. No one who is poor, unhealthy, forced to be subjugated to
someone else, is happy. He may put on a happy face for you because it's
unsafe for you to know him if he's in a weak position. You defend yourself
by not letting other people know too much about you. It's only in the last
ten years that you've gotten to know the Negro, and you were possibly
aware of that.
00:04:23
We've known you for a very, very long time, because it was necessary to
our survival to know you, and we've known from your kitchens through
your living rooms and many of you have never been in the homes of a
Negro, and this has been true over the years. Fourth, the Negro is
irresponsible. The males could not get jobs for years, as such could not
support their families, and as frustrated individuals will do, they leave the
situation. There was a precedent for this in the sense that during slavery
times, the Negro, married Negro, had no rights whatsoever insofar as his
family was concerned. He was simply sold out. If it was convenient to sell
the children, they did so and left the husband and wife there. If it was
convenient to sell the wife, they did so and left the father and the children
there, or whatever situation. Usually the children went with the mother.
00:05:18
This precedent was set for the Negro family, that marriage really had no
meaning for the family. Furthermore, the mothers generally took very good
care of their children and still do. This is a tradition among the poor
people. They take as good of care of their families as they possibly can
and unlike the wealthy person, they do not leave their children to the care
of other people. They may not be able to stay there all day because
they're out working, but when they come home they are there with their
own children. Another myth, that the Negroes represent a race. There is
only one race, period. Another one, that if you're light, that if you have a lot
of white blood, that you are more intelligent. A book was published even to
that effect two years ago by a South Carolinian psychologist, he proved it
by his test.
00:06:21
You can prove lots of things with statistics if you twist them and he did a
very good job of it. The fact that there were more Negroes who were in,
who were educated and who did have reasonably decent jobs occurred
because during slavery times those who were misceginated, if you like the
term, were also the ones who were educated by their white fathers, and a
social class grew up within the Negroes that was built on color. And one of
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 3
the things that disgusted me when I was a child was the Society of the
Blue Vein, and if you could see the blue vein in your arm, you belong to
the elect group. I happen to be able to see the blue vein in my arm, and I
rejected that group because I thought it was one of the most silly things,
even at age ten, that I'd ever heard. And finally, that the Negro women are
morally free. I have been accosted on the street by strangers, and
propositioned. One time by a policeman, in a police car cruising down the
street, in the middle of downtown Birmingham.
00:07:33
I am so constricted, I make myself sick, it would never dawn on me to flirt
with anyone. I was propositioned by the policeman. Another time, I was
propositioned by a person walking down the street when I was on my way
home from work, after dark. I have never been propositioned by a Negro
male stranger. I wonder who's morally free? In Alabama, there is a sheriff
of a small town, a white sheriff, who is "married", with quotation marks, to
a Negro. He acknowledges her as his wife, acknowledges the children as
his children, and they attend the white school, and no one makes any
remarks about her. He cannot, could not, at that time--and I don't know
whether the law has changed in the last two years or not--could not marry
her in--legally, because legal marriages were not possible in Alabama and
I think this is still so. I have two white female friends there who are married
to Negro males, and they simply designate themselves as Negroes.
Alright? With those comments, I will turn it over to Ron Palosaari.
00:08:51
[Ron Palosaari] I feel like an anti-climax, no pun intended. [Laughter]. How
many of you were here this morning, because I don't want to make the
same--not too many. I hate making you identify yourself, but I'll make, I'll
make a little bit of the same pitch then. Last summer, I have two daughters
and a son and my four-year-old daughter was outside playing with my
two-year-old son, and a neighbor wandered by and said to my daughter:
"My, your brother has a nice tan, doesn't he?" and my daughter, indignant
that she had not gotten any praises, "Yes, but he's Negro, you know, and
they are darker." We decided, after we had adopted two Caucasians, and
talked about a mixed-racial child for a long time, to adopt Michael, and
soon Mike will be joined by his brother who we have not yet seen but are
told is coming.
00:09:51
And so, I'd like to just mention the situation of interracial adoption. We did
not adopt Michael because we thought that we could give him the greatest
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 4
life in the world. Obviously, being my son, you know, he's exposed to me
twenty-four hours a day is not the greatest situation you can imagine, but
we adopted Michael because we thought not only could we provide a
home for a child who needed an adoption, as adoptive children do, but it
also would be a healthy and good experience for my two Caucasian
daughters. It would be, it would be, and it has been a good experience for
us, because Michael has given to us far more than we will ever give to
him. But we, of course, I think like most people who have ever adopted a
mixed-racial child are little bit frightened about the future. We want
Michael to be proud of both his white heritage and his Black heritage, or
Negro heritage depending on which word you prefer right now, and this is
going to be hard, because we know that he's going to hate- he's going to
face hatred, stupidity, meanness of various kinds.
00:10:54
And, of course, the tension will probably come, really will get probably
tough when he gets into high school or college, because this is when the
question of sex and racism will most obviously appear. What will we tell
Michael to do about dating? Well our choice, which we talked about
before, is Michael you know can date any girl he's brave enough to ask
out you see- whether she know what, no matter what shade of color she is
race, creed, or any other religion, any other thing like that, and the same
goes for marriage. Some people have suggested, usually not directly to
us, well if a child is Negro, partly Negro, why shouldn't the Negroes adopt
him? Well, for one thing, it is the whites in our society, in our unjust
society, who can afford the adoptions. And I would ask you today why
don't you right now consider, when you get married, most of you are only a
few years from prime breeding time [laughs], when when you get--when
you get married rather than just populate the Earth with others like you
and contribute to the population explosion.
00:11:51
After you've had a child or two naturally, or even before, why not consider
adoption, and if you consider adoption, why not consider racially mixed
children because then as now there will probably more of them than there
are homes to receive them, and these kids need homes. There's over
thirty children, racially mixed children, in Minneapolis right now who could
go into homes if the homes were available, and the only reason they're
being kept out is because of the prejudice of our society. Think about it.
There are families in our town now who have, who even though they could
have natural children have adopted racially mixed children because they
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 5
felt that they were in a sense contributing more to life by having this kind
of family than the one which is in greater vogue in our society. It's
something to think about. But it's very curious to us, as we see Michael
around our house, and he doesn't have any special problems that we can
think of now, except, you know, normal problems for two-year-olds, that
some day some father is going to say ‘well that Black bastard isn't going to
date my daughter.’
00:12:55
Michael happens to be, you know, light brown, but he'll be called that I
suppose, you see, and this will involve us right in. What is there about
Michael that is going to frighten some parents so much that they, before
they ever know him, will say I don't want him to date my daughter. This is
the whole question of race and sex in our society which my child is going
to be a part of, and I'll turn it over to Sumner now for one view on what the
situation is - why it is something like this.
00:13:27
[Long Pause with sounds of microphone adjustments]
00:13:45
[Sumner Jones] I think it's time that we begin to blame the irresponsible
actions of any society with each and every individual member of that
society. We have to blame all of Germany, including the Jews, for
Auschwitz, we've got to blame the entirety of Western Europe for the
predicament that the American Indian is in. In the same sense, we have to
blame the entire world for that institution of slavery which resulted in the
ultimate, total dehumanization of Black people in this country and other
countries. This brings it down to a personal level, and we talked a great
deal about sex this morning, and I imagine that's why most of you are here
because you heard, man, it was pretty racy discussion going on in that
group. I'd like to concentrate more on the racism aspect of it now because
that's something that you people can do something about.
00:15:03
You don't recognize the fact that you, as college students, are perhaps the
most powerful group of people in the country. Most of you are old enough
to vote, all of you are old enough to demonstrate. I say that you carry this
power because you're the, you're the good people, you're the strivers.
You're going after what the society says you should have using the tools
that the society says you should use to get it. So nobody's gonna disagree
with you. If you people say that the society has to change and you say it
convincingly enough you can bet that the society will change. But it's
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 6
interesting that those who recognize most the need for change in the
society tend to rather drop out from it then stay in it and work.
00:16:09
It isn't through dropping out that we'll accomplish anything, nothing at all,
but rather by plunging into the world, by getting our hands dirty, by
working and working like hell, admittedly, to change things. You are the
people that have to put pressure on the trade unions. It won't mean much
coming from me. You're the people that put pressure on the police force.
It's obvious that they aren't going to listen to me. So you see what I mean
you are the people that can change things, but you're operating from
basically racist point of view, every one you. The saddest thing about it is
that when people tell you that you're racist, you get up in arms and say
‘man, I'm not a racist, don't believe it. Never have, never will.’
00:17:09
I contend that you are because you cannot help being anything else, in a
society that governs every institution the way as this society does, the
racism is bound to show up and it's bound to show up in the products of
that institution, education. What we mistakenly call education is actually
social training. You get one side of history. That side is naturally distorted
because you're leaving the other side out, you can't possibly know the
truth about your own history unless you know the history and the truth
about the history of related peoples and nobody could tell me that black
and white people in this country haven't been related.
00:17:59
The relation admittedly has been one of oppressed to oppressor but that
relationship says a great deal and it shapes the history. We haven't talked
about it, we haven't talked about it honestly. We run around thinking that
George Washington was a great man, fantastic man, fought the - fought
for freedom on all levels while he held 42 slaves. We call Abraham Lincoln
the great emancipator. You have to realize that Lincoln was only human.
I'm sorry to destroy any myths that you may have built up. I hope you don't
cry yourself to sleep tonight over the fact that Lincoln was indeed human
and necessarily a product of his times. He himself said in a letter to
Horace Greeley that what he was concerned with was saving the Union.
00:19:00
If he could do that by freeing half the slaves he would, if he could do it by
not freeing any of the slaves, well then, he’d do it too, but to him, the Black
people would always be second-class citizens. That's understandable,
because he was dealing from that orientation in the society and I think that
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 7
we've perpetuated it just about long enough. We're waking up to the fact,
or some of us are, that black people are like any other people. We're
good, we're bad, we're beautiful and we're ugly, just like you. We aren't
asking anybody to distort history in our favor. We can't do that otherwise
we'd be just as bad as the people that wrote the history before. What
we're asking for is the truth.
00:20:07
What determines a person's humanity today is in large part what he did
yesterday. You recognize a person is human in relation to what group he
comes from in correlation to what you know about that group and you
know damn little about my group. You know certain things for facts, made
a hell a lot of watermelon and I'm congenitally happy but in fact there's
nothing for me to be happy about. I sing songs and dance and try to get
into every white woman the bed that I see. These are myths.
00:21:00
Myths that were necessarily initiated but foolishly perpetrated-perpetuated--because at the time of slavery, you had to have some sort of
rationale for doing what you were doing. So you said: ‘okay, these are
subhuman beings so we can do anything we damn please to them.’ But
somewhere along the line, we became human beings as individuals, still
not as a group, we haven't reached that status as a group yet, but you
begin to see individuals within that group who did have certain human
characteristics. We cried when you hit us, we laughed when you tickled
us, we even fell in love. All that, all that which you consider human.
00:22:04
So we acquired as a group a sort of three-fifths human status, and you
realized that you no longer do this sort of thing to us, so you didn't enslave
us physically anymore, the mental chains are still there however. Chains
were put there intentionally. Berlin Conference 1885, I think, where the
major powers of Europe were splitting up the continent of Africa. They
decided that no African history would be taught except in relation to Egypt
and Egypt only as it related to the building of the Greek and Roman
empires, you can't possibly talk about the Greek and Roman Empire
without talking about Egypt, anybody that's taken history knows that.
Anybody who's taken history ought to know that you can't possibly talk
about civilization on any level without talking about the primary civilizations
in the Nile Valley.
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 8
00:23:11
You've got to go back all the way. England didn't just spring up overnight.
It has, it had its predecessors and you know nothing about it. I think
education is the key. More specifically, I think that Afro-American history is
the key to solving many of the problems that we have now, and you're the
people that can get it into the curriculum not only at this school but every
school in the state. I'd like to see it in every school in the country, but I'm
no dreamer. I'm at least realistic enough to realize that not every state is
going to allow this. Frankly, I'd be very surprised if Minnesota did.
00:24:11
But as I said, you people do have a great deal of power and you're
wasting it. I ran into a--not really a friend, but a guy who went to high
school with, and my high school was so small that I couldn't help noticing
him every day. He said he'd really like to get involved. I said ‘good.’ He
said ‘but it'd have to be next fall, because I'm traveling this summer.’
Where are your priorities? Travel if you wish. If things go on the way they
are going on one summer, you may travel and not have a place to come
home to. Because we're tired of talking.
00:25:14
[Long Pause]
00:25:18
And we're dealing with what is a revolutionary question. The answers are
actually in history. History has been distorted so we can't see them there.
History at best is not what went on, but what we think went on. With the
form of history that we teach is a form that that portrays what we wish had
gone on, which seems to me to be a supreme insult to the intelligence of
every single one of us that are taking it, except we're conditioned to take
that sort of insult. Realize your own worth as individuals and you won’t be
able to. Go into history classes and laugh at your professors because
they're telling you totally ridiculous things.
00:26:31
Ask them, ask them what happened to all the Black people during the two
hundred years that cowboys were roaming around. What happened to
them? Put him on a boat and go back to Africa? No, they were there. I
once saw Sammy Davis doing an impression of a cowboy. Thought it was
the funniest thing I'd ever seen. Man, yeah a big white hat on and two
guns and was walking bowlegged, and all that I just fell out laughing,
called people ‘hey man, look at this! This n****** thinks he's a cowboy.’
Well it's true. The Black people made up the main body of what you call
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 9
the cowboys and the really bad cats, I mean the mean ones you never
heard of.
00:27:25
We were cowboys. Not only did we - we fought Indians, we rode with
Sitting Bull, we helped capture Sitting Bull, we played a very important role
when building this country, and I don't mean only physically. I don't mean
that we just built the houses. We built the heritage of what is now America,
and sometimes I'm ashamed to admit it but it's true. We're the people that
you're talking about when you talk about the people that persevered, that's
us. Because there's no more persevering group of people in this country.
We've been here fourteen straight generations, almost one hundred
percent American born and there's no other group like that but in every
single one of your stupid wars, everyone of them and right now the
frontlines of Vietnam look like the football team from Howard University.
00:28:41
We've died for you, we've fought for you, we've sweated for you and got
nothing in return. I've been operating under the mistaken assumption that
we have some sort of legitimate responsibility to this country but we can't
possibly have a responsibility in this country because we don't see
ourselves reflected in it anywhere, not in the political system, and certainly
not in its history, so we can't feel like we're a part of it. The only way we
see ourselves reflected is in the myths, the sexual myths and the others,
the stereotypes, Amos 'n' Andy--Amos 'n' Andy isn't me. That's about all I
have to say.
00:29:30
[Mary Howard] [Laughing] I don't think it's really all he has to say, and
there will be--I want to leave time for questions, I don't know, this morning
it was rather quiet. You've had time to think it over, so we'd like to hear
about it this afternoon. I'm sure you don't agree with all of us. I'll give you
one fact that perhaps we'll eventually get in history books. In Virginia,
Nevada, one of the best divorce areas in the country, outside of Alabama,
you can run in there, and stay for a few days and get a divorce, there is a
monument to a person known as Bloody Mary.
00:30:08
Bloody Mary ran a house of prostitution, she was one of the richest
women in Virginia Minn- Virginia, [laughs] Nevada, [clears money] I don't
know about Virginia, Minnesota. A lot of the money that she made went
into building of San Francisco and nobody knows about her unless you
happen to go to Virginia, Nevada it's - right a few miles outside of Reno. I
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 10
have an announcement to make: Dudley Riggs Brave New Workshop will
present a one-half hour specially written drama for our One Day in May in
Melby Hall at 4:30. There is no charge. The evening session with Milt
Williams1 will begin at 6:30 and held in the College Center Lobby.
00:30:50
Now, Ellen said initially that she didn't want to say anything except in
response to questions and we pumped her now, or primed her or
something and she wants to make a few comments before we open it up
to you, ok?
00:31:05
[Ellen O’Neil] I wanted to go back to some of the comments that Mr.
Palosaari had made, and this is one very basic area in the area of
attitudes. And he talked about his youngster who would perhaps be facing
many attitudes when he got to the teenage years of dating and courtship
and this kind of thing. You know, I think one of the big test questions in our
society is: would you want your daughter to marry one and this always
comes up in most conversations that, you know, you'll be involved with
and I think because of this we structure our society in in a way that it
makes it very unlikely that little Johnny who happens to be Black and little
Mary who happens to be white will ever get together and so that this - this
type of thing, this fear of any kind of interracial communication, I think, has
a great deal to do with the way we see our society structured.
00:32:12
As far as attitudes are concerned. Now I happen to be married to a man
who happens to be Black, and so you find yourself constantly being
confronted with all kinds of attitudes. They may not be overt like bricks
crashing through the window or anything, you know spectacular like this,
but they're very subtle, condescending, patronizing kinds of things that I'd
like to share with you. You perhaps have had these kinds of reactions or
have seen these kinds of things happen. Of course, the first question that
anybody will want to know was ‘how did you two ever get together?’ You
know this is a real puzzling kind of question it seemed, ‘you know, a nice
girl like you’ I had people say to me and this is a common response.
00:33:06
Another thing is "oh, but the children" and I'm sure you've all heard this.
Well, in this society of ours, if you're one thirty-secondth of a Black man,
you're considered a Black man in the society, so it really doesn't make any
difference, the child is Black as far as our society is concerned, so that
1
The former name of Mahmoud El-Kati
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 11
usually takes care of that question. Another interesting kind of thing that
you get are the curiosity seekers and you get many invitations to dinner,
you know, and they want to see how you act and how you eat and, you
know, if you're just like they are and so it goes.
00:33:52
Another thing, you are identified as a Black person. For instance, the other
evening I was talking to someone about politics and we were discussing
the candidates, and he immediately said: "Oh no, you couldn't be for
McCarthy, because Negroes don't like McCarthy." So this is another bag
that people fall into. So, as I said they're very subtle but the disaster about
them is that they don't respect you as an individual and look at you as a
person you know. You're this type of person or you're treated in a special
way, and you know it just makes it all worse and another thing
stereotypes, you know the girl who happens to marry a black man, well
there's there's a whole list and I'm sure you're pretty much aware of them.
She has to be a beatnik, or a neurotic, or someone with loose morals, or
all sorts of things that people are hung up about. So, I just wanted to throw
these things out to you and maybe we can get some response.
00:35:06
[Mary Howard] One more comment [laughs] I'm sorry about that. Not
directly on sex and racism, but have you ever thought about the fact that
it's peculiar that the white person has been so weak and so incapable of
thinking for himself that laws had to be set up to protect him from the
Negro, i.e. you may not go to school with the Negroes, you may not eat in
their restaurants, you may not do this, that or the other--not to protect us,
nobody thought about us, but to protect the white person? It was
necessary to set up these laws? Comments? Questions, reactions, to the
panel? Yes I think [inaudible] was up first, no status involved here.
00:35:55
[Inaudible question from the audience that gets interrupted]
00:35:57
[Mary Howard] One of the problems we have was that the questions could
not be heard earlier, will you scream please?
00:36:04
[Audience member asks question, inaudible]
00:36:13
[Sumner Jones] One Afro-American history text?
00:36:15
Audience Member: Yes.
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 12
00:36:22
[Sumner Jones] Oh man. W.E.B Du Bois is coming out with a nineteen
volume [laughter] history. You've got, you've got many, man, go to New
York some time, go to the Schomburg Collection in Manhattan, an entire
library.
00:36:42
[Audience Member] What is one good one volume history book you
recommend?
00:36:45
[Sumner Jones] I wouldn't recommend a one volume history. I wouldn't do
it. If you, if you want a bibliography of books, we've got them at The Way.
We've got a bibliography of, you know, something like a million books.
Read them all. [Laughter]
00:37:09
[Mary Howard] Sumner, I think what - what he's saying it's, you know, it's
sort of like beer, you have to start with a little bit first, and they can't read
them all and he can't assign them all at one time. Ellen, did you-?
00:37:21
[Ellen O’Neil] One basic text that we've been using in minority history
classes, is Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett which gives you, it's it's sketchy, you know, but it gives you a start, you know, It's very well
written.
00:37:41
[Mary Howard] Oh and another one suggested was Crisis in Black and
White by Charles Silberman. The gentleman here.
00:37:55
[Audience Member asks question, inaudible]
00:38:06
[Sumner Jones] It's got to be a separate course.
00:38:05
[Audience Member continues with their question]
00:38:14
[Mary Howard] I think--may I? Just a general comment. The pendulum has
to go all the way to the other side before it can get back in your history
books and I think maybe now it does have to be a separate course and
then integrated with, so that you do have a correct history of America, but
right now, it's got to be separate because there's so much that's been left
out and as all textbooks are pieces will have to be picked out to be tucked
in, appropriately, but right now it can't be.
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 13
00:38:42
[Sumner Jones] Right now I think it's very important that the students
begin to recognize the fact that, you know, when you talk about
Washington DC, it was a Black man that designed it. I think that's
important or if you sneak that into a history course, just straight American
history course. People are going to be outraged, because I don't think that
history should have to label in terms of Black and white, it shouldn't have
to, but it does now and it's got to be in a separate course.
00:39:23
[Audience member] In our society, it seems that a white man has
[inaudible] had a right to a Negro woman if he wants, but a white girl does
not have the right to have a Negro man. And this relationship between the
sexes seems rather peculiar and I wonder if this says something very
bad--or says that our concept of the relationship between the man and the
woman in American society is somehow basically wrong.
00:39:59
[Mary Howard] The question was that, in our society it's been alright for a
white man to have a Negro woman, but not for a Negro male--and I
haven't decided what I want to call me either--a Negro male to have a
white woman. Joe would like to respond to that is that the gist, I know you
said more than that but is that the gist? He says there's something wrong
with our society in this respect right, is that close enough?
00:40:32
[Audience member] It seems to show a kind of pathology in our
understanding of the meaning of sex, and the relatinoship between man
and woman.
00:40:38
[Mary Howard] He says it's pathological, it's neurotic to have this kind of
set-up in terms of our sexual and inter-human relationships.
00:40:49
[Joe O’Neil] Well, for one thing, that certainly has put the, the white man
has been in a very advantageous position, he's been in a position of
having his cake and eating it too. I'm glad you mentioned that, because in
one AAE class, Armchair Adult Education, class, here, recently, this deals
in minority history, a lady wanted--I asked her why did she, what did she
believe was the reason for so many different colors and hair textures and
facial features among Black people and she said: "Well, I just thought they
came that way" you know.
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 14
00:41:32
And I pointed out to her that, you know, all of this cry about integration,
you know, integration has been going on since slavery times, but it has
been going on in a one-way street like you've mentioned. The white male
who enjoyed it, so I always feel that the white woman certainly has been
discriminated against, and deprived, and I go along with Thurgood
Marshall is that, many parents apparently does not give their daughters
too much credit for having very much intelligence, you know, they could
always say ‘no,’ but they don't want to give them that freedom they want to
say ‘no’ for them, you know, and earlier Mrs. Howard mentioned that she
had been accosted on the streets in Alabama. I'm here to tell her that I've
lived across this nation, from Los Angeles to Boston, and this is a problem
for Black women all across this nation, including many activists.
00:42:32
And if you don't believe it, you can go down on Hennepin Avenue tonight,
and I will show you. And the men who patronize these women, prostitutes,
are middle-class people because poor people can't afford them, and
certainly not Black men. I don't say that this is anything that makes one
necessarily superior or inferior, it's a fact of life, what I'm trying to say as
you see the rabid racists of the South, many of them have participated in
nighttime integration.
00:43:09
Some of you, perhaps, have wondered why of the interracial marriages
that does occur that most of it is from the Black man, white woman
relationship. Well that's very easily explained, in my opinion, you see the
white man he can go out and leave the suburbs and come to the city and
and play, and go back, and he's still respected in his community, but most
importantly is his status and economics plays a part. So the Black man
has been economically deprived all his life, so really don't have that much
to lose, and well I do admire any woman, I'm one of those who do not like
to be told what I can and cannot do, and to the extent possible I'm going to
do what I feel that I should do, regardless of what society says.
00:44:01
I have certain standards that I abide by, but I not only try very hard, I
believe that I am so secure within myself as a person I don't have to worry
too much about what Johnny John does next door or how you may part
your hair. I feel that I'm an individual, and I have a right, and it makes me
less of a human not to feel that I can do things that satisfy whatever
standards that I may have. Now, I don't know whether I answered your
question about that, this is a very strong point with me, because this has
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 15
been something that has been kept under the rug for quite so long, and it's
so obvious, you know, that something has been going on. I mean there
have been some jumping over the fences and things like this, and the very
ones who shout the most about so-called miscegenation and all of this are
the very ones who are the most guilty of it.
00:45:08
[Mary Howard] We're gonna let one of the minority members of the panel
say something. [Laughter]2
00:45:15
[Ron Palosaari] Lilian Anthony covered this this morning, we talked about
so I'd just like to mention some of the things we mentioned. One thing of
course is that given the situation of slavery it was very easy for the white
man to take advantage of the Negro woman but obviously not for the
Negro man to do anything about it and in this case there grew up a split in
the white man's mind which I really believe in where the Negro woman
became associated with that which was animal about sex, whereas they
could elevate the white woman who was not been a sexual object
because she became a symbol of purity. A man wants a woman in two
places, one on a pedestal, the other in the bed, and it's a very easy
division, when you put mentally the Negro woman in the bed and the white
woman on the pedestal which happened in the South and which has
affected the North.
00:45:52
Now consequently, the Negro woman became associate with sexuality
and, as Richard Sargent mentioned this morning, in his southern town, it
seemed like white men sometimes need to go down to the Negro district,
there they could be quote unquote ‘evil,’ then they could come back to the
white district and again be church members and again be pure but that
was the place where they could expose, you know, the darker side of
themselves, to use the language. At the same time, though, something
else happened and that is when when the white woman was assumed to
be so sexually pure, holy, and the Negro man was associated with that
which was brutish for animal like, that stereotype, the Negro male became
sexually charged. Until now we have the situation where I believe--and I
think of course that this varies a great deal, you know, as to what what the
individual is--but the Negro male and the Negro female both are sexually
charged, partly to the white community, partly because they're forbidden,
partly because of prejudices, partly because of the remnant of slavery.
2
This is presumably a joke due to composition of the panel: three Black panelists and two white panelists.
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 16
00:46:49
As I mentioned this morning it seems to me that one of the reasons for the
popularity of these dark stockings is that on the on the white girl they
suggest, at least, that she was Negro from the waist down and white from
the waist [laughter] up I think, I really think they carry a positive sexual
charge [one person claps] A stocking manufacturer back there is-[laughter]. But now I am not saying that all of you who are white, or all of
us for a white, have this, you know, to the same degree but I think it is a
part of our society and I think our fear of Negro sexuality is there. In
“Guess Who's Coming to Dinner”3 that's the only love picture I've seen in
twenty years, where the only kiss was through a mirror in the backseat of
a car, you only got a glimpse of it, you see. Think if it had been a white
couple, you know, there'd been necking scene after necking scene, but
still on the film they are so afraid of Negro sexuality, they had to be just
suggested through a bumpy mirror.
00:47:53
[Mary Howard] Others? Yes.
00:47:57
[Audience member] Well I think what Mr Palosaari has said, since I might
take a course from him next year, I agree with him one hundred percent.
[laughter] But I think that this is really quite true and I think that a book that
shows this is
00:48:10
[Mary Howard] Come here. [sound of microphone adjusting]
00:48:11
[Ron Palosaari] Yup, if he's gonna agree with me, let him speak up.
[Laughter]
00:48:14
[Audience member] Well I think that a book that really shows this,
strangely enough, would be Lady Chatterley, where she didn't want to be
on this pedestal, and she didn't want to be honored, she wanted to, you
know, the way we tend to put the white woman on this pedestal, she
wanted to be more or less the sexual and passionate nature that that we
tend to associate, I think the Negro woman, with somewhat and she had a
terrible time getting along with society, no one would respect her at all
because of this. And so I think this is shown, and another thing that I
wanted to say before is on the question of inter-marriage, when I was
3
A 1967 film starring Sindey Poitier in which a white woman brings a Black man (Poitier) home to meet
her parents.
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 17
working at St. Mary's Hospital the night that Dr. King was assassinated,
and of course everyone in the place was talking about it, and some people
said ‘good, we got another one out of the way.’
00:49:02
Which I felt like walking off the job right there, I almost did but since I'm
poor I stayed [laughter].
00:49:11
[Sumner Jones] Wise decision.
00:49:12
[Audience member] and anyway this one woman of course talked about it
and she said ‘oh, I think it's a terrible thing, it's awful’ and she went on and
on like this and I know they're wonderful people and implying they're
wonderful people as long as they stay, you know, away from my
neighborhood and then finally she said ‘oh, but of course I don't believe in
intermarriage.’ And she went on like this and I'm thinking this woman is
saying well I'm not prejudiced, however I am prejudiced it is what it
amounts to.
00:49:34
[Mary Howard] Thank you. You may be interested to know that the first
time a jury in the South got concerned about murder and mutilation of a
Negro was, when a Negro male was castrated, the white League of
Women Voters got together and decided that there had to be a
prosecution for that, and that was the first time and that was within the last
ten years. Maybe sex and racism don't go together I don't know. There
was another question. Yes, kind of behind the pole, yeah.
00:50:12
[Inaudible question from the audience]
00:50:29
[Mary Howard] Against the what?
00:50:33
[Audience member continues speaking]
00:50:39
[Mary Howard] She wants to know if anyone on a panel would comment
on the pressure of economic power against the Black man?
00:50:47
[Audience member continues speaking]
00:50:59
[Mary Howard] Okay, because of the relationship between sex and
economics, Joe?
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 18
00:51:03
[Joe O’Neil] In my opinion, there very definitely is a relationship. First, it
starts with the status I think, you see, if the black man has an equal
opportunity for economic development, this puts him in a position where in
our society women, white women are taught to really look for security in a
marriage. I really feel this is about love. And it certainly is a challenge and
it represents a lot of competition to the white man for the Black man to be
in an equal or even surpass him in his economic capacity to provide for a
wife a home and so have you, so there's a very definite relationship.
00:51:53
This goes hand-in-hand with, also, if the Black man is not able to assert
his masculinity, this also served to degrade him not only in the eyes of his,
of white women but in the eyes of black women also. There very definitely
is a relationship between economics and sex now I'm one of those who
feel, among others, that economics is the basis of racism as well as
certainly a vital factor in the sex versus economics issue.
00:52:42
[Sumner Jones] Well, I expect that from you Joyce, really would. Joyce is
an anthropologist, and they come up with all sorts of weird things
[laughter]. There is definite correlation between sex, a definite relationship
between sex, and economics. This relationship as it exists now obviously
just makes some white men more desirable than the Black man, even to a
white woman. If you want something of a secure relationship,
economically, which I think is what white women, certainly, young women
are trained to look for. Now what can you give to you? In fact that's the
basis of love.
00:53:34
Why do you love Johnny? Well because he comes from a Boston family,
he's got a yacht, limousine and all that, not simply because I do which is
the only legitimate reason it seems to me. So, that puts the Black man in a
bad position as far as acquiring some sort of mate by these standards, by
these standards only. If it doesn't come that it, doesn't become that
important when you're talking about Black women. Because our culture
has a totally different sort of orientation to economics and to what money
is all about. Money is that which you use to get what you want which
excludes a woman because most of you who are from ghetto areas, I'm
speaking obviously to the Black students, know damned well that the
money gathered is often the woman, which is fine, you know, this is just
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 19
an interesting twist in the in the rule because there's more of a demand for
the Black woman on the part of the white man.
00:54:49
He wants to marry and the white woman wants to marry for security, you
see. This becomes really involved--and I'm sort of thinking it through as
they go along--wants to get married for security but she has the same
sexual drives as everybody else, don't try to deny it. I've seen too many of
you in action. [Laughter] The Black woman, however, isn't taught that
security is the important thing when approaching marriage, that love is. So
she's not after security, however money is necessary so when the white
man comes down, which happens all the time because he puts his woman
up on that pedestal and you can only go to bed with your woman in order
to have kids and after you have so many kids, man you just can't afford no
more. So when he gets that urge in the middle of the night, he comes
down to Plymouth Avenue.
00:55:43
Now, the woman can do exactly the same thing, but she has to pay for it
as well in many different ways, new cars, you know, apartments, stereos,
all that. So you're dealing with two totally different orientations to money
and, in a purely Black to Black relationship, it doesn't matter that much
when we're talking about the typical Black culture. You know white to
white or white to Black relationship, it really does matter a great deal
because whites are trained if you love in terms of security, in terms of
material gain.
00:56:42
[Mary Howard] I understand that there was a lot of--that some students felt
that they would be interested in this today and some felt that there would
be very apathetic. Your presence, I think speaks, for itself. I hope that
maybe we can continue this kind of dialogue and discussion at another
time. We have run out of time, I'm being pressured by Ron to ask - permit
one more question and we'll have to make it very short. Penny?
00:57:02
[Audience member asking question, inaudible]
00:57:16
[Mary Howard] One minute, he's gonna answer it already.
00:57:18
[Joe O’Neil] No, I do not. Why should it be necessary to destroy one race,
why should it be necessary to destroy a Black race. I'm very very pleased
with what I am. I can enjoy everything that anyone else in this room can
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 20
enjoy as I am, and I feel that that's a very coward way of not meeting the
issue head-on. Look, I don't advocate--I don't advocate even though I
have an interracial marriage, I don't necessarily advocate that, I don't
necessarily advocate marriage [laughter]. I advocate what you know two
people whatever they decide that they want to do this is what they should
do. Now, I've heard that asked many times. I certainly do not, and I and I
don't really feel that this is going to come about, because I for one when
certainly fighting with all means that I would have at my disposal.
00:58:07
[Mary Howard] Ron wants the last word.
00:58:10
[Ron Palosaari] I think when couples want to marry they, you know, they
should but it shouldn't be a social program. But I do think I do think that
that here again the interracial adoption does get children, you know Black
children, mixed children, into into places where they otherwise wouldn't be
and the people on our block now are integrated whether they want to be or
not. Sumner wanted one last word. [Laughter].
00:58:33
[Sumner Jones] I think that what we're dealing with is a question that has
to be dealt with. It's a question of recognizing humanity, where humanity
does exist. Now, if we were to intermarry whites and Blacks, you refuse
humanity to some other group, and I know that there are other groups that
you refuse humanity to. So, it's not a question of, you know, ‘let's mingle
and wipe out the problem.’ What we want to do is get a culture accepted
as a legitimate culture, a way of life as a legitimate way of life although it
may be different than yours and if you can't do it with Black people, you
can't do it with anybody. So the questions cannot possibly be solved by
massive intermarriages. It can only be solved by confronting the real
problem which isn't Black people. The problem is not Black people, it's
your way of thinking about not only Black people but any other group that
happens to be in the minority. The only minority problem is the majority.
00:59:41
[Mary Howard] Thank you very, very much.
00:59:48
[Applause]
[The recording ends at 00:59:54]
“Sex and Racism” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 21
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