296 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0da55dc21449dbf92e5825f93fc15cd0.mp4 b2eeecbbee5fc187296715de0e70b723 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/640508d60514792dc199f078b3c696b9.pdf 20755cfc594dd771655eac549651b7d6 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Ronald Poitras Date: 1984 [Poitras] How is Burns doing? Is he doing okay? [Barbara] [Inaudible] [Poitras] Good. [Barbara] [Inaudible] [Poitras] You're only teaching part-time though, right? [Barbara] [Inaudible] [Poitras] You’ve got to do it full time now? [Barbara] [Inaudible] [Poitras] Do you want to, or don't you want to know? [Barbara] [Inaudible] [Poitras] Walter! How about Walter? Is he coming around? Huh? [Barbara] I'll tell you all about it. [Poitras] Okay. [Barbara] Focus on your eye... [Inaudible]. [Poitras] Okay. [Barbara] [Inaudible] [Poitras] Okay. Thank you. [Barbara] Anytime we can go. [Poitras] You want me to put this down? You going to start? You're asking questions? �[Barbara] I ask you a question. [Poitras] And I can answer them. [Barbara] If you had to sum up William James philosophy in a sentence or two, what would you say? [Poitras] A sentence or two? I would say that the William James philosophy was teaching, and that we were all teachers. Both the students and the faculty alike. I think that's the biggest thing that we all receive from it. That's how I'd sum it up. Is that too…? [Barbara] No, that's fine. I've not gotten the same answer from… [Poitras] Anyone. [Barbara] Which is fine. Which is fine. Okay, you were saying that you… If you were special… [?] Projects? Is that why you came to the college? [Inaudible] [Poitras] No, I came to teach. I also had another opportunity to teach at Ohio State in the graduate school. And I chose William James because I knew I would do more than just planning. So, I came to William James because I could do more than just planning. But what I did for William James, and what William James got for me and Grand Valley was the projects I did. Because I continuously got reviews on the presses, and TV, and newspapers, and that was the neat thing. But that's not why I came to William James. I came to William James because I knew I can do more than just planning and I did. Well, you and I team taught, Barbara. And think I almost team taught with everyone at William James. Probably one of the few that did. There aren't many people I didn't team teach with, almost everyone I went through. Just I had a list when I got there. I went bang, bang, bang, bang, and I went through everybody. And I learned, that was the whole idea, right? So, I learned, I learned a lot. And that was one of the neat things. The projects, as I saw it, for me were just a little icing on the cake. But it was very important to William James for their survival. It was really important for professionalism. It was important for our students, and important for Grand Valley. So, I did that just… not because I wanted to do it so much, not because I think maybe is the best teaching device (although I think it's good), but I did it as something extra for the college. Just with all the Public Relations. [Barbara] It fascinates me that we all think of James and somehow recognize it for what it was. How did we all come to understand James' philosophy? What is the background that we all have? [Poitras] That's a tough question. That is a tough question, right? Well, I think when… see �when I first read about the ad for William James, it talked about professional planning. You know, in kind of a free environment. But those weren't the terms. It insinuated it, implied that. [Poitras] So I said okay. I would like to see what a free environment is, and I think maybe something to that effect even though the words are different probably for all of us. Something to that effect probably attracted most of us. I mean maybe that's a common thing. That we would not be tied down to a lot of the traditional things. Like requirements for each class, and one class fitting the other. That we would have a lot of freedom, and flexibility. And I think that's maybe the thing, the common bond. A group of individuals you'll never find that, such a group again, everybody was such an individual and that was a neat thing. I could walk through the hall anyway, anytime, anyhow I wanted to. Anytime, and nobody would say a thing-- one thing. Even though we were a community, but a community of individuals that was a neat thing. And that was the success of it, right? Because each person went out, and did their own thing and made a college very successful. Primary aspect, you look at Robert and his ability to run CAS-- not run it but at least part of that whole thing. And Steve with his strong academic liberal arts background, and go to everybody. Then me with a lot of professional things, and yourself a professional and academic background. Just looking those things, each one of us unique, and then we could get together and struggle through our councils together to try to mesh our ideas. But I think was that freedom, just that freedom. In fact, I could walk through those halls and I was famous for walking the halls, and I could say anything to anyone, and it wouldn't upset them. Almost everyone. It wouldn't upset them. It didn't matter what I said because they were too bogged…you know, involved with all the things that they're doing, and they didn't care. You know they didn't take it. They weren't paranoid like a lot of other professional settings and organizations. [Barbara] Do you think we made some critical mistakes? [Poitras] The critical mistake, and I don't know if it was our fault, the critical mistake was we started taking in students that were more concerned with professionalism than careerism that's concerned with the overall concept of William James. And I don't think that's our fault because we're worrying about numbers, and so-- But that's what led to the decline of the college as far as I'm concerned. We were only concerned with professional career areas, and less concerned with the ideas of the students. Not all of us, but generally that's what happened, and that's what led to the fall the college. That was a real problem because look at all the students that we have near the end compared to the students that way maybe couple years earlier. They were just different times, neither good nor bad, just different and I think that was a critical mistake. Let me give you a real good example of that. So, I can just… have to defend this statement. A good example would be, we'll say in the arts program. Not the media as much, but the arts �program. They became known for certain type of art program. So, the admissions office would send people to them that were interested only in art, and then they would let them into the college. [Poitras] And that's true planning and other things, too. I just use art as an example. So, the students came there interested in art as a career, but not interested in James and the concept. Some certain lots were but many weren’t, and I think that's what led to the decline of the college. That's my impression that was as far as I was in the most critical error that we made. [Barbara] How else could we have— [Poitras] Yeah, well I don't know, see? So, that's… I'm saying I can blame us… because following in [?] and all of the country following moment here [?] we had to have students. So, I guess that's a compromise we made in the process I think that led to the fault college because if we would've had the same students that we did in the early years, I don't know, I think William James would still be there. I think they would've given us as faculty [?] and the support that we went [?] and want to be able to stand and fight for James and we just didn't have… it wasn't a mutual thing, you know. The students gave us energy and we gave the students energy and it worked real well but near the end it wasn't way. I'm not absolutely… gosh [?] doesn't really need kids there you know. I know that just the career thing really got us, and I think that it's too much of the career thing with all the other components and I think that lead to the end. That was the year, as far as I'm concerned. [Barbara] What you're teaching now, are you teaching the same lesson? [Poitras] Yes, in fact, I'm doing some graduate classes as well and I had a student to graduate William James who works at the college who came and took my graduate class, she goes: "Gosh, I like this class it’s just like William James." Now that's easier doing a graduate level. I think in my undergraduate levels (classes) they're a little different but I know that it's really hard. It's hard to make that compromise and the bridge between giving grades and people that come in there and then they have taken the of course after that. But I'm trying real hard to be who I am when I am and I don't think I've changed too much. [Barbara] I want to talk about a thing that worked for you best in your years. If you were telling somebody about the college and wanted to be very specific about something, what story would you tell? [Poitras] I guess, I can think of two stories. One story might be just doing all the team teaching. It was just such a beautiful experience for me. The other story would have to be the projects I worked on with all the different students and they were �really pretty fantastic and I guess the Prospect House was the biggest one that we worked on. Trying to take an inner city house and making it self-sufficient in the inner city and it took so much out of me and so much out of the students. But to this day every one of those students are in well-paid professional positions. [Poitras] The ones that were a part of the key team that ran that thing, they all have big, good careers. They all went to the best graduate schools; they all have well-paid jobs. So, this really paid off for them and I was glad to see that the Prospect House itself, as far as the costs were concerned, worked out. We managed to get out of it before there was some problems with it. So, the cost was okay but as an overall concept just didn't carry on as long as I wish it would've but that was fine. The big thing, heck, I worked… I didn't sleep for I think two years. I worked on that thing straight for two years, day and night, with all the students. About thirty William James’ students and there must been a hundred involved through different levels and, of course, you did things, too. But there was a core of about thirty students that worked on that thing, and maybe even a real small core of about ten that worked day and night on that thing, also. And I can't take any of the credit; they have to take as much credit, and probably blame as I do. [Barbara] You didn't have anything beyond that did you? [Poitras] Well, a little bit, but not really – that was Rod Bailey's project. Really a good project. [Barbara] If you were going to do it all over again, would you do it again? [Poitras] Oh yeah. The Prospect project? [Barbara] No, I meant James. [Poitras] Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely. Oh, God, yeah. Hey, I'm so sophisticated, I could have never… I made leaps and bounds. You know, I can go to professional organizations, which I do, the planning ones, urban planning organizations. I can sit there and talk on anything. Hell, are you kidding? Of course, I’d do it again, it was the best education I ever had. [Barbara] How? [Poitras] Just, well, just being able to teach the courses I wanted to teach, being team teaching and teaching things outside my area. I mean, I came here thinking I was going to teach… well no, I would've had to teach urban planning at Ohio State. Here I taught urban planning, political science, I taught geography, I taught a writing class. I taught myself …this isn't team teaching now. I taught some philosophy classes about William James. Oh gosh I can go on and on. And as �you know just to prepare for each one of those classes just took time, and time, and time. So, I learned all sorts of things, and I became less narrow, I think. I hate to use that. That sounds so much of a cliche, less narrow. [Poitras] But it provided me with a better background to teach the courses I'm now teaching. It really broadened my education. Expanded my undergraduate education enormously. [Barbara] Let’s stop the tape a second. Let’s repeat the question. What about burnout? [Poitras] Well, I think in some areas the projects have tired me out. Just doing those professional projects is really difficult, especially with the different students that we have because it takes a lot of initiative on the individual student’s part to do a good project. So, I've been doing more… well, I was doing more [Inaudible] when I was in William James. And I think that part maybe wiped me out a little bit. But as far as burnout, as far as the college was concerned overall, uh-uh. The feedback from some of those good students, it was a lot of energy they gave me and it was a reciprocal thing. I think that was a really neat thing about William James. Just having that ability to act with the students, get energy from them, and return the energy. So, I never felt burnt out. I think we could've kept going. You know some people say there's too many meetings, and I, you know, I don't like a lot of meetings either but in a lot of ways it was good, and we found a lot of information. One neat thing about Adrian, the dean that hired me, was that she would always let us know everything that was going on and that was kind of neat. So, those meetings I thought paid off and I didn't get too tired of them. Some people thrived on them. So, I can't believe there could have been too much burn out. I don't know where the burnout would have come from. Nah, I don’t think burnout was an issue or question at all. [Barbara] Okay, okay, why don't you do the family stuff because I'm not sure what you mean, so just do it. [Poitras] Yeah, well, I think some personal ways William James was really good for me was because… in the following ways: (One) Not only could I do my thing but Peggy helped me do a film with the college under Jan Zimmerman and there were several faculty involved in that. That was a nice experience. My son, Walter Wright, I had my son in his computer classes. That was always good. Moscovitch is always [?] I need to advise my students… I mean my own family. So, on a personal level, William James was good not only for me, you know, through my work. But was also good for my family and their own growth. So, I think that William James provided a lot of stuff professionally, but a lot of stuff personally for all of us, too. And I look at other faculty people and often it was both spouses were teaching at William James. And there was a lot of growth. So, it wasn't just a separate thing. And it wasn't that… even though I mentioned earlier that were �all free as individuals. There was that little, somewhat of a community, because we'd all help one another. You mentioned in the hospital that one of the faculty was there with you. And when my son was hurt his leg. [Poitras] I think almost everyone in James faculty went to the hospital and visited him, when he got hit by a car. So almost all of them were there. So, it was kind of neat. I think it’s a real personal experience that we all enjoy also. [Barbara] [Inaudible] [Poitras] One little note, one little mistake that we made, Barbara, was that we didn't work close enough with our counterparts in CAS and I really made an attempt to do that for William James and I team taught with several faculty in CAS so that we can try to bridge the gap. And I think more faculty should've done that and I think it would've helped our college immensely. [Barbara] Politically at the end? Or other ways? [Poitras] Everyway. I think politically we would've had more friends and more people supporting us, and if we did put on a big fight, if we would have then we would've had more support and I think that would have helped everyone. [Barbara] Should we have tried to fight? [Poitras] Oh yeah, yeah. I think we should have. [Barbara] I think so, too. [Poitras] Good. [Barbara] Why didn't we? [Poitras] My excuse is, I think, I didn't see any… who was going to fight. A lot of the students weren't and I just didn't think it was there. I think maybe the time had passed and it just wasn't there. [Barbara] Good, I'm glad that happened… [Inaudible]. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_14_Poitras Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Poitras, Ronald Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Ronald Poitras interview (video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Ronald Poitras by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Ronald Poitras was a Community and Environmental Planning faculty member in William James College and longtime professor at Grand Valley. In this interview, Ron discusses the philosophy of William James College and what attracted him to teach there, in addition to his experience working on the Prospect House project in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This interview is part 1 of 1 for Ronald Poitras. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c59f9bf9dcc9119a8a4cf503ac55e34b.mp4 4f0e3d17a74f413f35285835a4bd8d04 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cffc9acb11a6e01e2e1e07f8d9677417.pdf c55bc3668777774525f179a7c8cd542d PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Tom Bell Date: 1984 [Bell] Here at the Network, the Amway Network, bringing to you live today, a discussion. What was it you wanted to touch on? [Suzanne] [Inaudible] [Bell] What kind of things was it that, you know, we talked about the other day that seems relevant to you? [Suzanne] Community. [Bell] Community? You wanted to talk about community. That's probably the most difficult… [Suzanne] Why don't we warm up here for second [inaudible]. [Bell] Okay. What do you want to talk about? Where do you want to start? [Suzanne] How have you used what you learned at William James in your life today? [Bell] Okay, that's a really good question. I'm using the things that I got out of William James in ways that I probably didn't understand or didn't expect when I was in school. I think like a lot of folks, when you reach a certain point of pursuing an education in particular field where you're really paying all your attention to that particular field and you sort of set aside as a matter of convenience or really in the drive to obtain a degree, a goal to get out and do what it is you think you want to do. And so that process for me, I think I put aside a lot of the things were being talked about at William James. About process, about integration, about preparing for change. I put those things out of my mind as being conscious focused items and can try to get on with what I was there to learn. And oddly enough, the things that were the most valuable to me from William James, were exactly the things William James was trying to talk about. The aspects of integrating other disciplines into your own chosen field of discipline. To look towards the future with an eye to changing and accommodating change. Both social change and personal change. And I think, now, that a lot of the things that I really was pursuing and at the time with intensity, technical skills and job opportunities, are really not that valuable to me now. The things that are valuable to me are the �skills I've got that allow me to perceive the opportunities of change or the indicators of the need for change. The comfort that I have with going to other disciplines or actually always looking at other disciplines to see what it is that they're doing that I might find useful in my own genre of activity. I think that skill alone has probably made it worthwhile to spend time at William James. That has allowed me to have a greater breadth of ability and conversation with people doing other things. And that's terrifically valuable. [Suzanne] How was that enacted at William James? [Bell] I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. [Suzanne] How was the interdisciplinary thing that you are talking about, how did you see that happening at William James. As a student, walking in there. [Bell] I think the whole idea of interdependent disciplines was, and is, a difficult concept both to talk about in pragmatic ways and difficult to show unless you have a particular problem right in front of you. In my case, some of the things that I found really useful was… I was pursuing working in media realms with an eye towards social applications, to use media, and video, and film for social change in education and awareness. Which is, in a lot of times, becomes a very technical endeavor. And the things that I found useful in terms of interdisciplinary kinds of approaches to things. Let me back that up. The things I found useful in terms of interdisciplinary… the things that I found useful in terms of interdependent disciplines was developing the practice of looking at other disciplines like engineering to see how they organized their thought processes. I found a lot of things that engineers use, in terms of organizing projects and presentation modes, to be very useful, both in terms of organizing my own thoughts and my own projects, but also in terms of talking to technical people. It gave me the skill to know that I can go in and talk to this group of people within their own jargon, within their own realm, the paradigms that they're most comfortable with. That was a tool that I might not have otherwise had, had I stayed working with visual artist, or graphic artists, or writers, or musicians. And I'm sure that wouldn't have been available to me. I think another example of that is the way that environmentalists think about issues. In terms of taking an issue with a larger scope and water pollution, air pollution, viewing that in terms of how it affects a region, how it affect the whole nation, how it affects a neighboring nation, and then taking that larger view and then being able to bring it right down to a specific region of activity, a specific area that's contribute into it, or not contributing to it, and examining those things. In essence, being able to jump from a macro view of a situation to the micro aspects of it. Now that's a skill that has to be developed within that realm that is also directly applicable to what I do. Again, it also gave me the vernacular, as it were, of another discipline, so that when dealing with people in another discipline, where you can start out with a common ground. And �I think probably even more importantly than starting out a common ground is the process of developing the ability to listen to other individuals, to other practices, other disciplines. And any time you practice something like that you're going to get better at listening to them. Let me start that over again. I think more than being able to use the particular knowledge I've through the practice of… that's not what I want to say either. I think the practice of looking to apply interdisciplinary approaches to what you're doing, is probably immeasurably valuable. It has given me a leg up in getting in on particular kinds of activities, from the start. But also, it gives me a sense of comfort in dealing with awkward situations, knowing that, you know, that I do have a skill that I've been working with that is aimed at understanding other points of view, other applications, and not only understanding, but doing it with an eagerness to say: "What can I get out of this that's useful for me." [Suzanne] Do you remember [inaudible] students come in and had to go through this transition period [inaudible]. Do you remember that? [Bell] Yeah, yeah. [Suzanne] Can you describe it? [Bell] Probably not. The transition period of coming into William James, of leaving a conventional educational environment to getting into this alternative environment, I think was really awkward for a lot of people. People just didn't catch on. People didn't understand that you're responsible for your own process. You're responsible for your own education. And that was an idea foreign to a lot of students. Especially in the later years of William James. Now in the earlier years, it was a whole different story. That was the reason the school was there. I mean it was a reason a lot of those instructors, a lot of those professors, chose to be at William James was because they wanted students who were going to assume responsibility for their own educational process. I think that transition period of going from a high school or perhaps some other college that was a very structured, rigidly structured, environment into the William James environment was awkward for a lot of people. It wasn't particularly awkward for me, it was exciting for me, it was exactly what I wanted to do, and I wanted to get on with it. I couldn't learn fast enough in William James. It was an exciting period, to have the opportunity to jump into the kind of things that I wanted to do, at the pace that I wanted to do it at, was exhilarating, and I couldn't get enough of it. [Suzanne] Can you describe it [inaudible] a little bit more? [Bell] What kind of things are you looking for? What would be useful for me to touch on? �[Suzanne] What would be really useful if you said, in one line, actually you just said it. [Bell] No, I can say it again if it’s going to be for help for editing. As long are you're not making me lie. [Suzanne] No, it’s what you said actually about the students changed. Just some of the changes in here, real succinctly. Like the students changed. At first, they came here they came here, they didn't have to have that transition and later they had to make that transition and a lot of them couldn't and that was a problem. [Bell] I think making the transition from a conventional educational realm, whether it's high school, or another college, to the environment William James was difficult for a lot of people. The change in having the ownership of responsibility on the student was both a hard one for some people to comprehend and apply more. [Suzanne] More specifically… [Bell] Not that succinct, huh? [Suzanne] More specifically, when the school first started, people were specifically looking for that and they… [Bell] Oh, I see what you're saying. [Suzanne] How that transition, you think, was a problem. [Bell] Sure, sure. I think one of the unpleasant aspects for me about the experience of William James was… no, I don't want to do that either, that's kind of putting it in a negative tone. That's the way I feel, but when William James started, the responsibility for an individual's education was on the student. And I think that's why a lot of teachers were there. It was a different environment, a different way to work. I would say almost all the students that I met in earlier years of William James, that's why they were there, they wanted to shape their own educational experience. Well, that changed as the time period changed. We got a new generation of students and they just wanted to be handed the routine that they could adopt or adapt themselves to, rather. And I think that was a real major indicator that William James time as a college had come and gone. [Suzanne] Okay, now, community. Can you describe what the William James community was? Just the other day… it was a network, a network. It wasn't being friends; it wasn't all that. [Bell] I think one of the more nebulous parts of the William James experience has got to be trying to describe that community. I think for the most part, the William �James community only really exists between those students who caught on to being self-responsible for the educational experience. And they aren't necessarily the students who stayed in contact with each other on a social kind of basis, or even perhaps in in the professional realm. And yet that community of independent thinkers is a powerful one. Especially as students get further away from their educational period, their time in college and find the need to make contacts in other realms. That there is a network of people that exist because of William James where the dialogue has- the tone of the dialogue, rather, has only been established. It's one of being ready to think in alternative modes. But that community is a very narrow one and I don't think all the students from William James belong in that community, either by choice or just by being able to carry on the dialogue. It's sort of a self-exclusive room. [Suzanne] Can you describe it? The other day you were talking about what it wasn't. [Inaudible] It was great, there was this community there that was interdependent, and it wasn't friends or whatever. Remember you were talking about. [Bell] Yeah, yeah, and I'm not so sure that I really made the point that I feel strongly about come across. I think the community of William James College is very unique one, in that it is made up of people who are posturing themselves or placing themselves in the positions, intentionally, so they can discuss alternatives in what they're involved with. Whether it be alternatives in environmental aspects, or media aspects, or management. There is a basis for dialogue whose foundation lies upon this desire to look at alternatives and see if they might not be more appropriate. That's a very unique kind of community. It's a very exciting kind of community. It's, I think, a very, very valuable kind of community that is probably not going to happen again for a while. I think people are very much attuned, nowadays, in this particular period of you know ten years or so, into finding a status quo that works and to stick with it. Nonetheless, there is a community of William James students who are getting older and stay in contact, somewhat, and I just think that what makes that community valuable is that the readiness to talk about alternatives is ever present. Did that get you where you wanted to go to, Suzanne? [Suzanne] That was really good. [Bell] I'm not sure that the community that gets talked about, the William James community, is really as valid as a lot of the discussion and rhetoric might lend it to be. I think a lot of the rhetoric about that happens to come from hanger-oners. I think the people who really engender the spirit of the William James community, if there is such a thing, are those people who have taken the principles of applying what you're involved with, with an interdependent view. That is to say going into whatever activity you're involved with, with a view towards integrating other disciplines, integrating other points of view so that you'll find the most �appropriate way to apply yourself to a given challenge or situation. And I don't think that gets shared by everybody who came out of William James. [Suzanne] What about the faculty? I mean with the student community, does that, with the faculty? [Bell] Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think one of the more powerful drawing aspects of the early days at William James College was the faculty. I think this faculty was a very special group of individuals with very powerful ideas looking, for a way to apply these notions of interdependent educate… being personally responsible for your own education, interdependent disciplines. Wait a second, I'm going to back that up a little bit. I think for me, one of the things that drew me to William James was the uniqueness of the faculty. There was a powerful collection of individuals there, working with a lot of powerful ideas. And not all those ideas ever made it to fruition, or perhaps made it to fruition in the successful sense that a lot of people had hoped for. But nonetheless, there was a very powerful professorial community there. Which drew to it, I think, the early William James community, which was also a very powerful bunch of people in terms of energy, and ambition, and vision, and vision, and discipline. And I think that that's one of the things that set William James College apart and did make it unique. And for a while, really fulfill its intent, that is, of providing an alternative environment to acquire an education. [Suzanne] Good. I'd hate to ask you the same thing. [Bell] Fine, fine. If I'm not hitting where you need to go, please do that. [Suzanne] Yeah, do it for me again. [Bell] What is that you need to know about community? [Suzanne] What I need in the editing process [inaudible] is someone to give a concise, yet excited, that there was this community there. You know, and you can say the word community isn't quite right. Maybe a network. [Bell] Yeah, but see I don't think that was that much different from any other college. [Suzanne] You don't? [Bell] No, I don't think to the community that existed William James was any less enthusiastic than the community that existed at Michigan State. I think the thing that sets it apart is it's a pretty large collection of people, thinking in alternative ways. And it just doesn't happen that you get alternative thinkers who gathered in large groups very often. It's an exciting place to be in. To be in with a bunch of �people… to be inside of a community that not only encourages alternative thinking but pursues it. And beats it to death if it were to find ways to really come out ahead of where you started at. Both in terms of your thinking, your professional status, in your personal life. So, if there's a William James community, it's one based upon pursuing alternative visions. And in a lot of ways, it doesn't mean that it's a limited to the people who went the school at William James. There are places that still apply a William James technique to learning. And I think that those people are as much a part of that community as anybody who was tuition paying person. I think the community of William James is much larger than just the students and the faculty who participated in it. I think it's a global thing. Actually it's a network process, where you begin… you go to a place like William James to get involved in and expanding your processes of thinking. Expanding your own visions of whatever it is you're involved with. And in that process of doing so, you make contact, you make a network with other individuals. And that's the community. That's the exciting part. I don't get that sense of excitement, that sense of personal and professional value from people who gone to other schools and who have established their own networks based upon, you know, whatever their curriculum was. I think that there was something unique about William James College which extends beyond the school, and that is that group of independent thinkers. [Suzanne] Great [inaudible]. That was real good. What do you want to say, specifically? [Bell] What do I want to say specifically? I guess I can say, I think one of the more powerful aspects of my experience that William James happens to come to be one of anger rather. To have left the school feeling let down in the last two years of my time there. And to feeling a sense of disappointment that it was waning. The opportunity, the time of experimentation was slipping away. And I went to William James for that opportunity, to indulge in this time of experimentation that was, I think an outcrop of the sixties and a lot of social change that occurred. And to have that slip away, it was sort of embittering, for a while, until almost by surprised, I realized that I was really applying, in my daily activities, the form of thought, the method of thinking, that William James College was working on. And whenever that day arrived and I suddenly set up from my desk and I realized: "It's working! It's working! It made it worthwhile to go to William James." Because in spite of all the negatives that I had been focusing on, I got a wonderful kit of tools to take with me from now on out. [Suzanne] Okay, that's good. [Bell] Okay. I know there's probably one last thing that… I think a lot of people in the community surrounding the college, in West Michigan, business people, and a lot of students in other colleges, tend to look at William James, and students, as being unpractical, or air heads, or in most and a lot of times just in unpleasant �ways. And I think that kind of perception comes out of the later years, which was a result of it being a period of change. I think the very powerful time for William James to exist occurred at the end of the sixties, or the early part of the seventies, when there were a group of people, mostly Vietnam veterans, who were wanting to go to school and were able take charge of their own educational process and were looking for a place to do that in. And so, when you couple that up with a faculty looking for a way to offer a different environment to learn in, it’s a wonderful ready-made situation, which may not come along again for a long time. It was for a while, the most appropriate place for a lot of people to be. And when those people got their value out of the experience, when the professors got their value, and it started becoming burnt out and moved on to other opportunities, when students graduated and went on to apply what it was they were pursuing, the need for the place to exist dissipated. And so, I think it's probably appropriate, and it's very appropriate that William James ceased being. And I hope that in the future, and given ten years when similar circumstance arise, and it will happen, that those people at that time can say: "Oh look, they did this at William James, and it was very powerful, and some things worked really well, and some things didn't, and let's try it again based upon that." And I think, probably, if nothing else, the important thing about the process at William James was being attuned to change, being aware of the need for perceiving other ways to approach what it is you're getting involved with. And if you do that, you'll become aware just through the process of when it's appropriate to put something down and move on something else. And so, William James leaving us was ultimately appropriate. [Suzanne] Good. [Bell] Anything else? [Suzanne] Yeah. [Inaudible] [Bell] Let me try that again, alright? Let me shorten it up for you. I think the important thing to keep in mind about William James is that it came into reality during a time of terrific change and the kinds of things that it focused on were dealing with that change, were dealing with the changes both in terms of changing educational systems, changing social systems, and preparing yourself to be able to change in the future. So, I think it's ultimately appropriate that when the students who wanted that kind of education, when the teachers who are willing to give themselves to that situation, decided to either move on or that they were all through with the process, and then all new kind of students came in that weren't looking for that educational opportunity, when all that happened, it was ultimately appropriate that William James cease to be. Okay. [Suzanne] Great. About the community [inaudible]… �[Bell] No, fine, fine. If you're not getting what you need, let’s look for it. [Suzanne] We're getting it, I'm just thinking [inaudible]. You were talking about people outside the community, and they looked at… I guess what I'm talking about it the difference between people who are not part of the community… [Bell] Yeah. [Suzanne] Who are, I mean there's a major part of the world who aren't part of that community. So, is that community practical? [Bell] Oh yeah. Yeah. With the William James community you mean? [Suzanne] Yeah. [Bell] I think a lot of people question whether or not the educational process at William James provided people with practical tools. And I'd say absolutely yes. That when William James students interface in a more conservative conventional environment, there is no conflict per se. I mean we're just people, were working together, and, you know, suits and ties are just another kind of uniform. And we can all put on a uniform and for that little while people think it's all, you know, everybody's in the same kind of army, or team, or whatever. And yet, a William James student possesses a set of tools that makes him very versatile, or her, very, very versatile. Those tools being looking to other disciplines for useful tools, looking for other ways to integrate these other tools into your own application so that you can further yourself and further your own profession, or whatever activity it is you know you chosen to be involved with. So, no I don't think that people fitting William James students have any trouble at all fitting into a conventional industrial environment. As a matter fact, I think they have a leg up in the sense that a lot of them are subversive to begin with and it gives them an environment they can be subversive in and in a very practical way, and it sort of works out better for everybody because employers benefit from people thinking you know alternative ways, whether or not they're willing to accept the dialogue with that person thinking in those ways. So yeah, I think people coming away from William James, if they really caught on to what was going on there, have some very practical skills. [Suzanne] But if… [Bell] But if… [Suzanne] But if people- one of the issues in this today is going to come out as if society is…[?] wants people to just be able to [inaudible] one narrow job, everyday, don't �question it, don't make drama. I mean, things are getting more and more specialized and liberal education is going away, but William James was focusing on that. Is that part of the reason for the change or going away of William James? Is that one of the ways it was not successful because it was training people for something society doesn't want? [Bell] Well, I think there's two issues in the question of the change of William James. One issue is "Was William James successful?" Because, obviously, it went away as a school. And I don't think that there's any conflict in when you say: "Yes William James was a successful educational environment, and yes William James went away as an educational institution." The point still remains is that it was appropriate for a certain group of people at a certain time in history, and when that time came and went, it was no longer appropriate. So, to hang on to the school in order for it to adapt and to exist it would have had changed into an environment that it wasn't intended to be to begin with. So much better that it just went away altogether and rather than become some kind of hypocritical institution. And this… what was in part of that? [Suzanne] The professional training people for something that [inaudible] might not miss or really want. [Bell] Oh, oh, about…. [Suzanne] That sort of thing [inaudible] . [Bell] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's true that the other influence that William James suffered, you know it's demise was a result of…wait a second. Yeah, it's true that another influence that William James had to deal with, had to contend with, was the specialization of the job market. Was the increasing unattractiveness of a liberal education. And I think it's just a temporary thing. I mean, historically it's temporary. People get specialized, and learn about math, and science until we're engineered to death and people say: "We need more artist!" And then we get so many more artists until we suddenly realize: "Oh geez we're lagging in the technological race, so we need more engineers." I think it's just an ongoing thing. And I think that there's a lesson there to be learned from William James is dialogues with what it was trying to do, and that it was attempting to integrate these disciplines of creative disciplines, of creative art disciplines, the ways of being creative, with engineering disciplines, so that you don't exclude any activity. In fact, you include all activities, so that you actually integrate your society, your… first off on a personal level, and then on a social level, in terms of your society and workplaces you're involved with, so that what happens is that you don't have these peaks and valleys. You have a more fulfilled individuals. You have a healthier society in that it has the ability to adapt to the changes as those changes come up instead of always playing catch up there. You're always �looking to the situation in terms of what it needs to be appropriate for the moment. And I think the only you get that is if you are integrated with multiple disciplines. Okay? [Suzanne] Good. I want to ask you one more other thing. This is just something… [Bell] Fire away. [Suzanne] …that Barb is asking everybody to sum up, in just a few sentences or more, what was William James? In a few words or more. [Bell] Yeah. Yeah. [Suzanne] [Inaudible] [Bell] How would I describe William James to somebody that didn't know anything about it? I would say William James was a very exciting place to. That it was a collection of tremendous thinkers, in terms of faculty. It was a collection of a tremendous group of people, hungry for knowledge and hungry for a way to pursue that knowledge in their own ground and in their own terms. And as a result, it was a tremendous environment of experimentation that was very exhilarating, and a wonderful place to be for that period of time. [Suzanne] I'm going to stop the tape and look through some notes, to see if there's anything else [inaudible]. [Bell] To see if there's any more questions, fine. Hi Vern! [Suzanne] This is going great. [Bell] Good! [Suzanne] You're still taped. [Bell] Thank you! One of the keys to William James was its structure, in that it was a non-competitive structure, both non-competitive for students, in terms of not having grades, and also non-competitive for the professors. No tenure and things like that. And the dean wasn't some autonomous feudal lord. And the students also had a say in terms of how the schools was run. The student council was more than just an organizing fun committee for bands, and dances, and stuff. It was a very powerful voice in the decisions that went on in William James. And that made it for, again, a very unique environment. [Suzanne] That was great, can you say that… �[Bell] Even quicker? [Suzanne] No, with the point that it was intentionally structured that way, from the beginning. It was thought through and built that way so that it could fit this kind of environment. [Bell] Yeah, yeah. Sure, I can do that. Yeah, I think something that- that is important to make note about William James is that it structure it's non-competitive structure, where students weren't competitive, because there were no grades, and professors were not competitive, there wasn't tenure, and the dean wasn't some kind of feudal lord, as you find in other institutions. All that structure was intentionally. It was a well thought out structure for creating the environment that William James had. Is that what you need? [Suzanne] Good. Very Good. [Bell] Okay. [Suzanne] I'm going to stop it again. Why not just look at that sheet and see if there's anything else you want to talk about? [Bell] These are things that need to be said? [Unknown] No, not necessarily. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_64_Bell Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bell, Thomas Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Tom Bell interview (video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Thomas Bell by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Thomas Bell was a student of William James College who pursued the study of media and film for social change. In this interview, Thomas discusses the personal impact of his William James College education, the transition from a conventional educational environment to the alternative education environment, and the community of independent thinkers that made William James unique. This interview is part 1 of 1 for Thomas Bell. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8482dff385f7964cdb4999ee0c5f36c2.mp4 1c1856a5524d2908535ce4ba1c41c3b3 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/33fa2fdc73ff050c87a8a1589643907b.pdf 1a36a40f651db91011c7c3fee162b2ad PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Steven Laninga Date: 1984 [Unknown] People have their William James t-shirts. [Laninga] Is that right? You know, I never had a William James t-shirt. [Unknown] No? [Laninga] They don't make them in my size, so I never bought one. And it always bothered me and I couldn't really be a part without a William James t-shirt. And then I decided that was going to be my own little private experience: the William James student without the badge. My own mark. [Unknown] Okay, let’s go from the top, your history, why you came to William James College, kind of go over again what we just talked about. [Laninga] I started at William James in, I believe, the fall seventy-four, after two years of Calvin College, here in Grand Rapids, and a year of stopping out and private introspection. I bummed around a lot. The fall of seventy-four, I went back, intent on studying photography at William James. And I was attracted to the rather broad offerings of photographic training at the school, as it was clustered with the other schools. And because of Willy Jay's lenient attitude towards students, I felt that I could slip in and out of William James, and across to TJC, and over to the regular school, to get all that I needed to study photography without having to cope with the superstructure of a traditional liberal arts education undergraduate. So that was the reason I came out there, and my intention when I arrived on campus. A couple of things happened when I got there. I met my future wife about the first week and we really haven't been separate since. It's been almost ten years now. That's very nice, and that's a little present from William James to us, I think. I, also, after pursuing photographic chemistry, and darkroom, and cinema, and a number of other photographic classes, began to become aware of a greater, more profound aspect of the photographic image making process. And that was what happens after pictures are viewed. What goes on in the mind of the viewer? What goes on in the mind of the creator, and how that is transmitted through this piece of material? So, I began to be distracted by that whole topic area and ended up a good ways from where I started when I wanted to be a photographer. And I became, instead, someone who, mostly, thought, talked, and wrote about the process of communicating through media. And my degree is still a media degree, a Bachelor of Science �from William James. But a lot of my course work was really in the Social Relations department at William James. [Unknown] Can you talk a little bit about the educational experience? What you did at William James? How or what you perceived the college to be? [Laninga] Okay. [Unknown] [Inaudible] Something that it was? [Laninga] Well, I was a commuter student for the entire five years that I was at William James. A part-time commuter student. I arrived on campus about five minutes after I was supposed to have gotten there. And I would leave as soon as I had done everything I came on campus to do, whether that was attend a class or attend a class and go to the library for an hour, what have you. As a matter of fact, I used the bus to get there, for a number of years. So, my experience of William James is, perhaps, a little different than many William James alumnus in that I was not really ever caught up in the community of William James. I had almost a business relationship with the school. It was a transactional relationship. Very, very clean in that respect. I would pay for the class, I would show up, I would talk, I would think, I would write, we would interact, and I would leave. And all the stuff that went on the Skylight Room, all the committees, and task forces, and all the other stuff that I heard about and read about went right past me for a very tumultuous and colorful five years. And I was almost as unrelated to it as the people in Grand Rapids that only heard about it from associates. Still, in all my… there are some things about William James that I think cannot be taken away in that it was a school that was focused on the individual and permitted the individual to find his or her education. That was what originally attracted me to the school in the first place. And that part I really did take advantage of. I don't think that the Skylight Room and all the goings on in there was necessarily what I came to the school for the first place. I got what wanted out of school and the school gave that to me and generous quantity. I pursued my own course, and I came away fully satisfied with what I got. As I said, it was a transaction relationship. And I came away a much better person for having been there. [Unknown] We talked a little bit about how the school dealt with failure. Can you say something about that? [Laninga] William James had a pragmatic approach to education. And caught up in that is an understanding that in order to achieve worthy goals, there are risks that must be taken, and one of the clearest risks is the risk of failure. And failure was always real at William James. It was something that everyone lived with, from the lowliest new student, right on through the administrative offices. Everyone dealt with failure on a daily basis around here because much was tried and only a �portion of that was accomplished. And everyone understood the realities of stalled projects and fizzled ideas. And I have since then come to understand that one good idea is worth a hundred ones that seem to be good, and it's worth weeding through a hundred possible ideas to come land on one good one. And that means a lot of failure. That's ninety-nine failures. So, I probably… that's one of the most valuable things I learned at William James. I'm not sure that that is so readily accessible at other schools, where failure is completely different in its meaning for undergraduates. [Unknown] Moving on to how do you think… what do you think William James was as an experiment? Do you think it failed? Do you think, you know, we talked about not being allowed to fail or something…? [Laninga] Let me say it again, William James, the experiment of William James College, did not fail. I firmly believe that the experiment of William James College was not permitted to succeed. The school is a part of the community around it, and it serves the community, and the community is supposed to nourish and feed the school. And the two of them grow together. That takes a long time, it takes generations in most cases. This school was not permitted to grow for even a full generation. There is no way of knowing what kind of contribution, ultimately, the school could have made because it was not allowed time enough to bring its… they're no longer students, they're almost children, to adulthood. It's alumni we're not permitted to reach places visibility and influence in the community that are typical of a situation where a school and a community have grown up together. And that's really a tragic loss for this community, and obviously for the school, and all of those of us who felt that it was an important place to keep around. [Unknown] In five years? [Laninga] I think that if the school had been permitted to live on for a few more years, four or five years, that it would have to been impervious to any kind of administrative reevaluation. It would not have been quite so easy to simply pull the plug on the school that had fifteen years of roots in the community. I think by that time, there would have been enough reason for the school to stay around, for it to stay on and continue. [Unknown] What did survive the experiment? [Laninga] The people survived William James. And the people are scattered all over the world, but there are a great many of us still in the West Michigan area. And the school may be closed, and the books may all be scattered, and the files filed, but what the school accomplished is still here, it's a living, it's breathing, and it's making its presence felt every day, every year. And there's no telling what real contribution was made, yet, because we're not finished yet. �[Unknown] Was there anything of the philosophy that survived? Do you think West Michigan is now without a William James philosophy, entirely, because the school went away? [Laninga] No, I think the philosophy preceded the school. I don't think that's something so graded and timeless, and profound as that kind of… William James thought, originally, is already eighty or ninety years old. And I don't think he was the first… he may have been first to verbalize it, perhaps in English, but I don't think that the philosophy is gone. I think it was here before the schools here, and maybe it will return in another form for future. I'd like to think so. I know I would support any effort along those lines because I still think it's the most humane way to educate people. [Unknown] Excellent. Okay. This is Barbara's question: what is the essence of William James? [Laninga] Define essence. [Unknown] That's just what she told me to ask you, so I have no idea. [Laninga] No more help than that. What is… what was the essence of William James? [Unknown] What do you feel was the essence? [Laninga] Well, I don't want to talk about failure again, but I think that the essence of what we knew as William James was an agency. It was an agency available for those who pursued, frankly, whatever they wish to pursue. I saw a number of students out there pursuing something other than education. The school was big enough to accommodate them. It was free enough to accommodate them and was flexible enough to accommodate them. There were… part of the essential quality of the freedom of that type of curriculum is that you must allow people to… how can I say this is less than a blunt form? You must allow people to not do anything at all. You must allow people to not contribute, to not participate. They've had twenty years of a more structured regimen and built up all kinds of blocks and obstacles to a direct link to the education process. And it takes time for people to break down all those old barriers and realize and understand that nothing stands between them and what it is they want to be and what they want to achieve but themselves. So, all of these self-defeating habits, regimens, have to be cleared away. And no one can do that for you. No one can come in and reorient you, you have to do that for yourself. It worked for a great many of us. It didn't work for all of us. And probably the essence of William James was willingness to allow people to go their own way, whether that meant going out the door or not. A lot of people drifted in and out of the school, and that's not wrong. That's exactly what �the school was for. [Unknown] Great, beautiful. Alright one [inaudible] the tape. How was the William James Association formed? [Laninga] William James Association was formed in the wake for William James and out of the grief and the bitterness of the moment. A feeling a need to respond to this administrative cruelty was expressed. And the only thing that not the only thing but the thing that probably is most typical of that particular group of people, our age group, our mentality, our culture, is collective action. We almost knee jerk react to any kind of challenge in a collective manner. So, the Association was originally formed as some notion of an influence group for the preservation of some aspects of William James. And I think as that it's probably failed. But like I said before, failure's a reality for our community. And something bigger than that, I think, was realized by many people. That we’re all alive and well. We got together, we saw each other, and felt of each other. We were fine. The school was dead, we were fine and we knew that things are going to be okay. [Unknown] Crazy. Anything else you want to wrap up with? [Laninga] No, I think you've pretty well gotten it all on there. [Unknown] Alright. Thank you, Steve. [Laninga] You're welcome. [Unknown] It's going to be good. [Laninga] When do I see it? [Unknown] Well, I think there is going to be a… � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_63_Laninga Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Laninga, Steven Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Steven Laninga interview (video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Steven Laninga by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Steven Laninga was a student of William James College and a member of the class of 1979 at Grand Valley. In this interview, Steven discusses the personal journey that led him to William James College in the fall of 1974, studying photography and incorporating Social Relations coursework, and how the William James Association formed in the wake of the college closing. This interview is part 1 of 1 for Steven Laninga. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8e22232efcabe3929759797f054049eb.mp4 47b7df9f5ca4d0691fb04e364c3907ec https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/53ea654a5e96c36a514e912f28315dd0.pdf a7f705d10a5a6e720fca27df0a537511 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Richard Paschke Date: 1984 Part: 3 of 3 [Barbara] Final question that we have here is… oh, I don't like the wide shot. We don’t need the palm tree in the way. That's better. You were talking about James is over, but you read in the newspaper stuff that suggests that James [inaudible]. Can you comment on that for a while? [Paschke] Well, it makes me angry. It’s always that saying, "You can't be a prophet in your own lens," has always upset me. It just seems like you should be able to. It makes me angry to see those articles now. I don't know quite why. Maybe to think that I, you know, should have fought harder to keep it. I still have this sense that if we had continued it right to the present moment, they'd kill it off and redo it again from the beginning somehow. Just couldn't work. That it could be like it was and then suddenly come into its own and be right. I don't have a sense of that being able to happen. In some ways what we did at James, I think, is what the good teachers all over in other kinds of schools have always done. Sort of, maybe they might be thought to be eccentric in their department or sort of an interesting person to have around, but there has always been people, I think, who did the kinds of things that we did at James, they just didn't have whole colleges to do it in. Whole department in colleges to do it in. I think it's right. I mean part of me claps and says: "Well, I'm glad that people are finally realizing in the national committees and task forces what's important." I'm glad that we did it. [Barbara] What are some of those things that are going to be reinvented? [Paschke] The idea of transdisciplinary approaches to, you know, take a problem, make a course focus on a problem area rather than on a topic or a content area. And then bring to bear whatever you need to bring to bear to solve the problem and cross disciplinary lines in that way. I think people are reinventing those kind of things. I just attended a meeting where they were trying to talk about how all the behavioral sciences together could teach certain class courses and certain problem issues. And I think that's important. The importance of critical thinking, learning critical thinking, which is I think one thing that our students learned, a lot of them. The better ones learned. Probably because you had to develop critical thinking to figure out what was going on, sometimes, at the college. So, it was already the real world in terms of problem solving a complicated organization. But also, because people asked a lot of questions. There was a lot of the Socratic, you know, method was used a lot in teaching. Asking questions, not �having answers always. That kind of an approach to a liberal education, I think, was important. [Barbara] To pick up something, I would appreciate it if you would say again what you said in our pre-interview, just a sentence. You said something about that the founding of the college, it was your impression, that what it was… [inaudible] a lot of us were sixties people and we took that energy and directed it. I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but could I please put words in your mouth, and would you say something around those lines because no one else has? [Paschke] Well, when all of the faculty were in college, it was the sixties, largely. And there was a kind of an energy then, I think, that had to do with the questioning, andand reacting, revolting, if you will, or whatever. A kind of an energy which was still there in the seventies, for the faculty. And, you know, I think that they brought that energy to bear on what they were doing, you know, in a different way than they would have in the sixties, in a lot of cases. In some ways and sometimes not so differently than they would have done in sixties. We had some sort of sit-ins and protests, too. We would bring things to the central administration and what not. I think the energy had to do with not accepting things as being finished and in inevitable categories. Saying: "Hey, I'm a person. I'm just getting myself together. I don't want to have a whole structure laid on me without having anything to say about it." And so, the idea about equality, the emerging idea that was I think was there already in the sixties, and certainly in the seventies, and the feminist movement. Ideas in general about equality. The student should be voting members of this committee, the student should have things to say, they're people, too. A lot of our students were older than we were, coming back to school. And there was that kind of a feeling of… it’s romanticizing it too much… I think of Martin Luther King, and I think of Selma, and people holding hands, and being passively aggressive, you know, and their protests and their certainty, and being sort of a cloistered community that we were, and, you know, going against the outside world, and being, sort of, flower children. Somebody went to a wedding recently, I heard, of a William James student and described it as being like the old days. And what the old days meant was the part of the sixties that carried over into the seventies. Where they went out and picked wildflowers for the bouquet, where people were into organic foods, and, you know, all that kind of sort of natural, you know, corduroy, and whatever, flannel. I mean a lot of that was a carryover from the sixties. And we looked a lot, I think, like people going to college in the sixties and were now teaching and didn't change a lot. But I think what the sixties tapped was a kind of a thing that's there in recent United States during adolescence for everyone, at some point. They’re starting to say: "Who am I, what can I be, what's out there?" You start reacting against established institutions, you start trying to find a voice. And to find a whole faculty that, in some ways, was going through its adolescence right in front of your very eyes over a period of ten or fifteen years was unusual. And again, maybe it couldn't �happen again today. You can't take a group of people in the eighties that went to college in the seventies and have that same magic or charisma, a kind of a… remind me, what is that mythological creature that has a lot of heads? [Barbara] Medusa, no. Hydra? A Hydra? [Paschke] Gorgon? Was that it? I don't know. Anyway, in some sense, it was always a problem for our administrators, at least within the college for our dean, to really feel like things were under control. Because it was like a group of people, again, emerging from this equal, everyone should have a say, kind of mentality of the sixties moving into the seventies. It was sort of a structure that went like this, it wasn't hierarchical. It was more people at the same level trying to make decisions, wanting to have something to say, thinking they had a right to have something say to say. Made a heck of a time for somebody trying to administer that. It was more like a band of people who were moving along, more or less, you know, in the same direction. That seemed like a sixties kind of a thing to me. I mean we had crowd mentalities and that kind of thing. [Barbara] So what you really see is some of the things that we were doing that are valuable coming up in completely different contexts in different forms? [Paschke] Uh huh. [Barbara] There's a question that I ask everybody, I think you already answered it but I'm going to ask you anyway. A one sentence answer, two sentences max, to you, personally, the one key thing that was William James, that characterized William James. In a word, in a sentence, two maximum. [Paschke] The man or the college? [Barbara] The college. [Paschke] Oh, personal freedom, whatever that means. [Barbara] Good. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_62_Paschke Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Paschke, Richard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Richard Paschke interview (3 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Richard Paschke by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Richard Paschke was a faculty member of William James College and longtime Grand Valley professor who retired as Professor Emeritus of Psychology. In this interview, Richard discusses the interdisciplinary nature of William James College, the Socratic method approach to liberal education, how the spirit of the nineteen sixties inspired the teachings of the William James faculty. This interview is part 3 of 3 for Richard Paschke. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f6a0aaa812667b4a163b47dbcfa9364b.mp4 3bea9c7be7f2f4c41d7e7b53dac310d4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/66d9b1e4b0e895437a3943fc27bd5be5.pdf 782feff71eba389772e2f041b08c3df9 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Richard Paschke Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 3 [Barbara] Cameras warmed up yet, so you don't have to stand in an odd position while it warms up. [Paschke] Okay. [Barbara] Okay. Check my focus. I like head shots, which gets risky because you can't cut as well. Do you have one last comment on, like, our core that has to with pedigrees? [Paschke] I don't know if it has to do with the sort of the sense of community and communal thinking that was worked out in the first few years or if it has to do with the people, but something that was at the core James, I think from the faculty point of view, was the sense that you didn't have to be pedigreed in an area. The idea that you could be curious if you want to learn. That if you were a professional reader, if you ready for a living, you could read books, and you could talk to people, and you could learn things, and teach about things that you hadn't had a master’s degree in. That's sort of a unique notion that's not like that in many other places in the world, I think. And somehow, we transcend the usual way in which people get on one another's case about whether they're really prepared, or whether they really ought to have a right to teach certain things, or talk about certain things, from the front of classroom. And I think that's too bad. I think that when I talked before about community or how the students and faculty fit or what they had in common, I think the kind of curiosity the students have and the kind of hunger for new material was a hunger that was promoted. That was allowed and it was even promoted in the first five, six years of the college. People would go off and you didn't have to talk about faculty development. People would go off and prepare new courses on their own. You didn't have to set aside special time to do it. If you look at the numbers of courses… the numbers of different things that people taught, new preparations, it's incredible. It's a burnout kind of pace. But it didn't feel like that to people. I think, certainly, not in the first five or six years. Because it felt like they were doing what they wanted to do. The lid had been taken off, somehow. They were able to explore and expand. And that was really neat. And you don't find that in traditional departments. I'm going to meetings now in which people are talking about how to do trans-disciplinary teaching and whatnot. And you can't just get together a group of three people to team teach a course and have that same sense of wanting to read, and the other �person's part of the library, and wanting to have something to say about the things that they teach, and you're wanting to learn about, and teach about. [Barbara] That's fine for us, but what did it do for the students? [Paschke] What it did for some students is provide a really rich culture in which to find things out about themselves. Other students it blew away. Other students ran away and went to more traditional forms of schooling that had more structure. Identifiable traditional structure and expectations. And so, it didn't do the same thing for everyone. [Barbara] Changing the shot. Nice shot. You had a career before you came to James. [Paschke] Right. [Barbara] And you still have a career today. James came and went, and we devoted enormous amounts of time to it. How did that work in your whole life pattern? [Paschke] You mean how did I keep the same career? [Barbara] Yeah, if you did. [Paschke] Well, I don't think I did. I think I really changed careers pretty drastically. And several times while I was here, although people probably didn't know about it. One thing that's important is, I think, is that I think I am a pack rat. I really carry around too much stuff with me because I'm afraid to lose some sense of history and some place. I want to make sure I've got something in the drawer that connects me to other parts of my life. I don't let go of things very easily. In one sense, I think I like to explore a lot of and be curious a lot, but I need a really solid base, like some sense of continuity, someplace in my life. And I guess my identity as a psychologist was important to me and that way. That I maintain some connection with the literature at the national and international level; that I go to a few meetings now and then and be in touch with what people were doing. That was probably driven by the sense of not wanting to be seen as a sham either. The sense of how important it was to let other people know that we were professional, that we did know what we were doing, we weren't just dabbling. So, I did stay in touch with the literature, but I had a whole career in music. I didn't really know what I was going to, you know, do. Where I would end up. I guess I still don't. And that I made several readjustments in my career from a research psychologist to sort of an applied psychologist, to a sort of environmental psychologist. And then we hired people who really did that in a more pedigreed way, certainly. And so, I sort of… I moved around. And as we hired different faculty, I think what I did changed in response to where they were. And I still don't feel finished yet. But I guess there is some sense in which I'm still a psychologist. �[Barbara] You were in or you interviewed in the CAS Psychology and then you went to James for fourteen years. Come back to CAS… [Paschke] Psychology. [Barbara] …psychology, essentially, how did that work? How did it feel? [Paschke] Well, it was hard because after the first few months at William James I tended to ignore my colleagues who were psychologists on the campus. Felt like they had a very narrow visions because they were just being psychologists. And I didn't really feel that I had a lot in common with them, a lot to talk about. It sounds really egotistical to say, but it felt to me like I knew what they knew, plus I knew some other things. I had been outside of psychology and so where it fitted into other things. Coming back was hard because some of the same people are still there that were in the first department. And I had to deal with being, sort of, a snobbish kid, you know. Back fourteen years ago. But it's gone relatively well, I think. Staying low-key, not trying to act like I know everything. And not bringing my William James experience into what I'm doing now. Eventually, you know, the dust has settled. Plus, I wasn't the only person that came into the Psychology department now. There were three of us who came in from other units and we sort of deluded, you know, the going medium there. It felt like a relief for a while, to teach only a few courses, predictably the same courses every year. The same courses every fall, same courses every spring. I've already started to get itchy though. And I feel sort of constrained by the fact that in order to do a new course, I would have to go through so much rigmarole. Not just think it out, not just know what books I wanted, not just know what concept should be in the course, not just be able to defend the course, but all the paper stuff that goes with it. The ego stuff to goes with it. Making sure I'm not touching on someone's personal area of expertise. That I've decided not to do that, I guess. And I've changed my reading, my personal reading, still runs pretty freely around a lot of areas, and it just doesn't show up in preparation for classes anymore. The adjustment wasn't impossible. I do feel like I have to stay low-key in order to fit. Because in some sense it feels… this is a terrible thing to say… in some sense, it feels like I've been to, you know, to Jerusalem or something and come back and other people haven't been, and I know some things that they don't know, but I can't tell. [Barbara] But isn't part of that being older than some of the colleagues? Or isn't it? I don't know the department. [Paschke] No, the department is generally about my age. [Barbara] I have personally been accused by a student just this summer of having sold out. "Where did James go? You guys were teaching us about being future-oriented �and then the future came, and it wasn't any [inaudible] and went, “Hey! I'll take my paycheck!'" Have you had that kind of experience or do you recognize it, or do you think we sold out? [Paschke] No, I don't think we sold out. I think people tried really hard and they fought with everything that they had. We were not people who had lived through corporate mergers and things like that before. We didn't know how to do that. But I think everyone tried to handle that in the best way that they knew how. I think it was inevitable that James would be re-assimilated, you know, into the large college. I think that started right from the beginning of the college. It's like the death of James began as soon as the college was in place and people realized various things. That they would like to have been in the thing that they created, but they weren't. That the thing that they had created was sort of a thankless child that almost immediately after its birth turned its back on its parents. Even stuck its nose up in the air, I suppose, in some ways at the parents. That it was scary. It broke traditional kinds of boundaries. That it did things that sort of like having a rebellious teenager, I suppose, around. Sometimes the things that James did embarrassed the parent, you know, entities. Sometimes they got to places first. The parents: "Gee I wish I thought of that. Should've been doing that." But it was a competition almost right away. And the fact that the college didn't do exactly what its planners hoped it would do, made a kind of a chaffing kind of effect. You can see if you looked, I think, back five, six years before the college change, the reorganization changed everything. You could see a kind of inevitability. There was a kind of, a natural progress leading toward the end. Actually, surprised me that it lasted as long as it did with people fighting as hard as they and being as clever as they were about, you know, dancing and getting out the way or whatever because it was inevitable. It had to go down, I think, for the whole college to live. [Barbara] You mean Grand Valley? [Paschke] Grand Valley as a whole, yeah. [Barbara] Why? [Paschke] Well, I guess for the reasons that I said. If it's true that people who were there were there because they weren't quite finished, that they were always becoming something and trying to figure out what they were going to be when they got big and grew up and sort of finished up. They're always pushing the limits, testing limits, asking questions, being provocative, being gadflies, whatever. Their job, their sense of self, lead to keeping things in suspension. Sort of up in the air, sort of thing going… people might go out in and they might march in Grand Rapids with the placards or something, and embarrass people, write articles in the newspaper, or do things that, you know, didn't quite fit. Their job wasn't to �maintain complacency, and when you are the gadfly there's always the flyswatter there, right. Eventually going to get that damn fly. [Barbara] Surely then, we did do a bad job of preparing our students for this inevitable end. [Paschke] Well, I think student cycling through, although some of ours were on longer cycles than four years, certainly. The normal cycle for the student was shorter than the faculty cycle, certainly, by the end. Faculty that have been there for fourteen years or twelve years. I think there were, in the lifespan of the student, there would be a time in which they would really discover what William James, you know, was or what it was supposed to be. They couldn't really get it, always, right at the beginning. But they would start to appreciate that by the time they were in their junior year, I'd say, in a lot of cases. And they didn't want that to go away. And I think some of the students who were so negative and feeling that the faculty had been irresponsible about keeping the college alive, were, in a way, being idealistic. In a way being selfish. Saying: "Keep this around for me at all costs!" And in a way, it was contrary to the whole thing that James had, which was to change. In some ways, for its whole period of time, we added people, we added programs, we change programs around. We were responsive and it just kept changing. There was a way in which there was a mystical golden era in which that students didn't want to change, I think. That's part of it. But I think we weren't very good. We didn't build the kinds of bridges that you would normally build and to make sure that you come out with your piece of the pie in a mergerin a corporate merger. We didn't really know how to do that. But I think in the sense of inevitability was obvious to a lot of people. There were people that left. Everyone who came to William James on the faculty didn't stay the whole time. People came and went. Some people would see the frustration, would see the inevitability, I think, of the end. Even some people on the faculty would see that you couldn't keep doing what we did during the time when everything in the country got more conservative. Students were more serious about: "I, you know, I want a job. I want a certain kind of paying job. I want certain kinds of courses." There was a more of a rigid kind of feeling that wasn't there at the beginning. That students wanted some different things. They wanted a kind of a tightening up. And the more we went from being what we were toward being like what the rest of the campus was like, I think the more threatening it was for the rest of the campus some ways, too. I don't know, there's a lot of levels to that, I think, to try to understand. I don't think I understand all of it myself. But I knew that I had the feeling that the end was inevitable, and it was only because there were people who were literally willing to throw themselves in front of the train at the eleventh hour, like Robert Mayberry, that kept it going as long it did. [Barbara] Okay. Tape out. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_61_Paschke Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Paschke, Richard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Richard Paschke interview (2 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Richard Paschke by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Richard Paschke was a faculty member of William James College and longtime Grand Valley professor who retired as Professor Emeritus of Psychology. In this interview, Richard discusses the communal thinking that was at the core of William James College, the rich culture provided to the students, and how he transitioned to working in the College of Arts and Sciences. This interview is part 2 of 3 for Richard Paschke. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ef7fbfe0b9779c9fc2a36ef89888f2c7.mp4 58d4ffa3216b069047733e0fc2960793 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/02866acb1ce9c1da7dc5f827b8623ca3.pdf b7310fae9324fd3e901b037d81eb6b83 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Richard Paschke Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 3 [Barbara] You’re right at the beginning because you need to hold that in front of your face. It's called white balancing; it gets the camera to read whites correctly. Okay, you’re done. Yeah, that looks nice. If we could begin where we began before. You were at James at the beginning, and how did we manage to not just use the name William James like someone would use, you know, Woodrow Wilson High School, but really to become Jamesian? [Paschke] Well, I think there were a number of things involved. One was that we had already planned for us a synoptic lecture series with people that were so various that all of us had to scuffle around, and read, and learn about these people, and then we had to interact with these people. And it forced us outside of our training. It really pushed us in all kinds of ways. So, I think in that way, by “Jamesian” it means to have a hunger for knowledge and a non-departmentalized kind of a style of thinking that just the synoptic lecture series forced us to do that. That's how we started that first fall, with almost every other week having speakers come in and talking to people from all over the country that we never would have talked to before, I think. There were lots of incentives to break categories, to look at things in a broad way, since we were given, what we thought, was a blank check to create a college and do the best thing we could for a liberal arts, and sciences, and liberal education. Again, I think that pushed people beyond themselves, to broader perspectives. I don't know that everyone read William James, but certainly a lot of us did. A lot of us reread William James, and went off and found things to read, and were sharing articles and whatnot even about William James, so that kind of feeling was in the air for a lot of people. Thinking about community, I think back to the very first meetings that we had in the college which we spent, I don't know, six to eight hours a day for several weeks, every day, meeting [firetruck sirens] to work out everything. [Barbara] Why don't you start again? [Paschke] Thinking about community and the history of the development of the community of William James, I think back to the original meetings when, I can't remember when exactly, during a two- or three-week period, before the beginning of the fall semester, the original faculty sat in a room, or various rooms, pretty much all day. Six, eight hours a day, sometimes at evening meetings, working out everything that had to be worked out for the college. We had to decide on �grading policies, we had to decide on all that administrative stuff that people usually have in place when they start teaching at a college. But we also had to decide on how to implement a philosophy, which meant a lot of talks with one another about how we saw things. Sort of at a less than… a higher level than a paperwork level, but personally, philosophies of things. We literally, maybe this is an incorrect recollection, but I think we didn't pay as much attention to the original planning documents that were around as we should or we could have. I guess a lot of things had been worked out in task forces and whatnot before we got there. We pretty much redid all that stuff. Sat down and figured it all out and in that process worked out a really close sense of community. And again, it may not be an accurate recollection, but I think we got… by the time the classes started, we started meeting with students, there was already a sense of community. We were living, literally, in one another's hip pockets during that whole time. Working out ways to talk to one another was very strange, you know. I had never talked to a person who was as close to a Buddhist monk, I think, as Ken Hunter was. As anyone I had ever seen, you know. To talk to a person who knew about all that stuff and then try to figure out how to negotiate decisions with a person like that. And someone like Robert Mayberry, who was so careful and so, you know, articulate in the way he thought about things and spoke about things was a really intense kind of experience. A sort of trial by fire for that…those first meetings were sort of a rite of passage in the community. After that I think we insisted on it. Our hiring included a lot of times where people would sit around and talk. I think that's where the real interviewing went… not interviewing, but the real screening went on to see how people handled themselves in answering questions, and how they thought on their feet, and what they were like when they had a few beers in them, and those kinds of things were real important. There was a real sense of operating, intuitively, from something that was a sense of community. At level though I think there really was a real community. At another level there wasn't because some people lived in Grand Rapids and some people live in Grand Haven and it was always a joke from the beginning that there was the Grand Haven group and the other group. And the sense of community was really obvious when, I think, people from either the Grand Haven group or the other group would wonder why they weren't invited to a particular event or I mean it was a sense of being left out after the first year. You lived together so intensively so you had a sense of loss, almost. So, I'm not…how did it happen… the original meetings, past the administrative meetings, started including students. We would meet in Lake Huron Hall, with one hundred and thirty, or forty, or however many students there were in the student body, and there were these big town meetings, or whatever. And no one really seemed to be really self-conscious about that. Everybody seemed to sense it was an opportunity to speak up, to become known in the community, to have your voice heard, to work things out, to be in on the ground floor. And so, it was a really big community by the time September rolled around, I think, of a hundred and forty or a hundred and fifty people. And again, that whole group of a hundred and fifty people meeting every �two weeks for a synoptic lecture series, meeting with the speakers, meeting in small groups exchanging ideas. There was just a lot of interaction. It would be, I guess I've used that example before, but it would be like the kinds of survival courses that they do for inner-city kids during the summer when they send them out to the wilderness, and they have to learn how to live together and talk to one another. And in some ways the rest of the campus was a wilderness. Not many of us went out and explored very much and talk to other people very much to think there was more than enough to do in trying to get to know those hundred and forty, or so, people that were right around you. [Barbara] Okay, that's at the beginning, that's a good [Inaudible] answer, but when I came in or when the students who had been interviewing came in, that was much after the beginning, and the community was still so very strong. What were some of the mechanisms for that intensity? [Paschke] Well, I think the way council meetings went on were a mechanism. People could still, not a hundred and forty anymore, but anyone could come and could either contribute to or tie up a whole group of people for hours and hours in discussion. That kind of continuing discussion was almost an addiction to discussion. I think in the hiring that went on, everyone had their eye on one another. Again, a sense that the people who are being hired could talk. I think the word of mouth spread quickly among students. There were students all over Grand Rapids are who were looking for a place like that to emerge and then when they found out about it would come in. And they were sort of prepped already for that kind of community life and expectations of interacting and contributing. We drew very heavily on students, I think, from the Grand Rapids area who had been around, who had been in other kinds of school, who were just ready for something like that to happen. [Barbara] Let me change that shot. Nice. When we were doing hiring, it was, indeed, an interesting experience where you really pushed people, to pushed all of ourselves, but it seemed as though we all understood what the criteria were for somebody we would hire and somebody who wasn't right. What the hell were those criteria because we never talked about them explicitly. We never drew up a list. [Paschke] Well, when I think about it now, the closest experience I have today is when I'm talking to someone that's seventeen or eighteen and I can understand what they're saying, with the part of me that hasn't gotten to be forty yet, I guess. A part the of me that wants to break the rules, that doesn't want things to go on forever in a really conventional way, to have people tell me what I have to do. There's a part of me that resonates, even now, with, you know, seventeen-year/ sixteen-year-olds. People who are going through searches for self-identity, going through, sort of, a personal crisis, trying to figure out who they are and what their �voice means. I think everyone that came here, students and faculty, felt that way. It partly had to do with coming off of the sixties, and where people were, and that kind of stuff was in the air. And you didn't want to go sit in at the U of M, but you wanted to be given a little peace that you can call your own; make something out of it that really counted, that really made a difference. Idealism, I guess. And I think we looked at people, and people who are sort of dreamers, and idealists who weren't afraid to have dreams… weren't so worried that they might not be practical dreams. That's a weird mix. That's a weird mix to have people… well on the one hand, we're all very pragmatic, I think, too. People could all do things that were very practical but were dreamers and idealists, in a way, I guess. And I think you could… we thought we could recognize that in other people. People came in… I remember one person… people we would interview, we would look at their style of writing, and their letters, or other applications, that was one thing. But when they came in, when we talked to them, if they seemed to have scripts that they were running out, that didn't seem to work. If they weren't really listening to us. If they didn't seem excited by what we were doing, it was sort of a self-centered approach. This a really neat thing we have going on here and if you're not excited about it you probably are not going to work out very well here. I think age has something to do with it because I can think of one person in particular who when we interviewed, we felt was quite a bit older than the other people and felt would not have the same kind of vision. I can remember going through something with that person. When I look back on it now I realize that we put one another on the spot in ways that people probably would be mortified by if they were interviewing at Old Kent Bank or some other corporation. I mean, we asked some very personal kinds of things. I don't mean like: "What kind of pillow do you use when you sleep?" About like: "What do you really think about whatever religion?" Those kinds of questions. The kinds of questions that, you know, when you're seventeen and eighteen you might spend all night, sitting someplace, you know, smoking, and having intense discussions about… those kinds of things usually drop off when people get into their twenties and thirties. And they didn't drop off for the people that were around James, it seemed like. [Barbara] Do you… when you check that tape, would you go on…I think, to me, the follow up to that has something to do with: we recruited the kinds of students we were. Is there any way to get to that from what we've just been talking about. The misfit thing that you said. We were recruiting in our own image, not only faculty but students, we were talking about before. [Paschke] But the image didn't have anything to do with how we looked, I guess, but had to do with how we felt, maybe, or how we thought. And I do think the people that came to William James saw it was sort of like California, you know, in the eighteen-hundreds or something. You would come to William James, thinking that you would have an impact on it. Somehow your voice would be heard. Something about a whole bunch of individuals, together. The similarity had to do �with this idealism, or hopefulness, whatever words you want to use there, I think. Kind of a youthful idealism. I don't think that we saw sought it… because we didn't screen students the same way we screened faculty. Students would apply, and they did write letters and things, and people did read those letters, but I don't think everyone knew each student came in so well when they were first coming in as they knew the other faculty. But there was something just about the same thinking that would draw students who are a lot like the people who were doing the thinking. We were, in many ways, if you think about the teaching style. People who had gone through educations in which they were one of two hundred people sitting in a lecture hall we're now sitting in a circle on the floor with a bunch of people. And if an administrative person were to walk by, they might not be able to single out who the faculty person was in the group, because the age differences weren't really that great. They seemed big to me then, but I realize now the difference between a seventeen-year-old, or an eighteen-year-old, and a twenty-five-year, or a twenty-six-year-old, were really not that great. And so, we looked a lot like the students, I think, and dressed a lot like the students. We didn't have uniforms. And certainly, talked and taught like the students, in lots of ways. So, it was a kind of a situation in which there was a community with faculty and among faculty and students. [Barbara] Would we then, even if they hadn't closed us, would the mere fact that we all got older have diminished the community? [Paschke] I think it could of. I think maybe it did, in some ways. You know, I think maybe you can't go back to that kind of thing as an older person. But I don't know. We did bring in older people. We brought in Leo Hurwitz, who obviously had a big age difference. And people understood him, and he seemed to understand the students. They're talking on the same wavelength. Like there has to be a part of you that didn't grow up as far as, you know, totally buying into a really narrow vision. You had to be curious and want to explore, you know. And you would sense that in other people. A person could come in who was thirty years older, I think, and you could understand within a short time, within a paragraph, that they knew what you were talking about. They have been there themselves, maybe never gotten out of it, in some ways. [Barbara] We're running out of tape. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_60_Paschke Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Paschke, Richard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Richard Paschke interview (1 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Richard Paschke by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Richard Paschke was a faculty member of William James College and longtime Grand Valley professor who retired as Professor Emeritus of Psychology. In this interview, Richard discusses the "hunger for knowledge" that unified the William James College community, how searching for self-identity bonded the faculty and students, and the youthful idealism of that place and time. This interview is part 1 of 3 for Richard Paschke. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Identity Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d768f5135cf27c6f4d086aee582ce985.mp4 ecc27c349767d0c213f88258bfa8b417 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d85e73d73d9ff5d41c0a94de60583aa8.pdf 661b43aada9cc1c12924a8b4e95dbdf2 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Scott Troost Date: 1984 [Troost] My year was the first year that we still had draft numbers, but it was the first year that it was clear that no one was going to be drafted. The year before me… [Unknown] After the lottery? [Troost] Yeah. Well, we had a lottery. My year had a lottery as a class of seventy-two in high school. We had the lottery but when we had a lottery everyone knew that it was not going to make a difference. By that time Nixon declared the war was going to be pretty much phased out. The class before me there had been people that were drafted. So, when I was in high school, I assumed that I was going to have to face that issue. My brother who was two years older than me had to go through it. Ended up getting a deferral from a friend who was a psychiatrist who just gave him a psychological deferral. And so that really shaped my mind as far as… [Unknown] This goes on a theory that I have and that is that in the later sixties and early seventies there was a greater need for alternative colleges because of all the returning vets and [inaudible], you know, that weren't accepted at traditional colleges at that time. [Troost] Yeah. [Unknown] Do you want to say anything on that? [Troost] I don’t know what… I'm real surprised about the whole anti-nuclear movement, about people I meet that are younger who seem to have a lot of social concerns. And yet they don't have anything like a Vietnam to galvanize them. So, I don't know. Maybe there is still a population out there of kids that grow up that for whatever reason don't accept the standards and need some place where they can go and not feel like they're the odd ball. And because it seems like there is still a significant group out there that have that feeling. [Unknown] Definitely a minority. [Troost] Definitely a minority. Though when you look at the… after the end of the Vietnam War, a lot of people that were protesting ended up going back to the fold. The �fact that the student population became Republican quite quickly, gave some indication that for a lot of those people, it didn't stick. Whatever it was they were feeling in the sixties, once Vietnam was over with, they went back to being pretty much typical students. [Unknown] Yeah, the cause was [inaudible]. [Troost] I remember I couldn't… I remember being so surprised to meet someone my age who was racist. Because I thought to myself, "Well, that was something we figured out." We figured out in the sixties that racism was bad. And so, anyone my age should know that. I mean they went through all that, they should know that they can't tell a racist joke and that's bad to do. And yet here they are doing it. Where were they during that time? How come that didn't have the same effect that it had on me. [Unknown] Yeah. Well and I'm twenty-six, and I'm probably the last generation, or near the last generation that knew what was happening… [Troost] Oh yeah, you’re real close to being at the end of that. [Unknown] Yeah. And I think I’m one of the few “long hairs” that’s still left of that generation. [Troost] Well, now if you have long hair it's more indicative that you're conservative and kind of a redneck. I mean, I'm scared of “long hairs” now. Like, ooh, watch out for that guy, I'm sure he's violent. [Unknown] Okay, well let’s roll video. [Troost] Okay. Now you're going to be… were just going to be conversing? [Unknown] Yeah, it's the same thing. Just roll video. Is video rolling? Alright. I’m going to wait a few seconds to get to the video. [Inaudible] [Troost] Okay. [Unknown] So, you studied Arts and Media also? [Troost] Well, I studied Arts and Media, I took some dance classes, I took one design class. I just, I really literally sat down. All the milestone things they were just phasing in when I was graduating and so I didn't have to do any of that while I was at [William James]. I sat down in the last week and just juggled around all the classes and thought, "Hey, I can get a double major here.” And so that's what I did. �[Unknown] That's funny. You know, I got away with that, too. See, I never graduated. [Troost] So, you didn't have to… [Unknown] Well, I kept on not doing my milestone and they would either not ask me about it or they would change the rules while I was still under it. "Well, you should have done that four terms ago." Well, I didn't do it. "Well, don’t worry about that.” [Troost] Well, the greatest thing about Grand Valley was that because it was cluster colleges, whenever there was a screw up, they always assumed they had screwed up. Whenever I'd go into the records office and they would say, "Well, we don't have that." Or when I was trying to get something, I'd say: "Well, it should be there." They would say, "Well, we probably lost it." The assumed they lost it. I was so shocked when I went to the University of Iowa where it's a monolithic structure and so I went in and said, "Well, I already paid that." And they said, "No, you didn’t." I said, "Well, can I get in anyway?" They said, "No, you’ve got to pay right now." Where at Grand Valley it was, "Oh yeah, go ahead, go ahead, you're in.” [Unknown] Okay, from the top. What drew you into William James College and West Michigan and how did you get to there? [Troost] Well, I grew up in Oklahoma and went through high school and did the whole thing there. I was a child during the sixties and the Vietnam thing. I had a draft number, though I wasn't drafted. By that time the war was coming to a close. And so, when I was out of high school, I was hot for experimental education. Also, the schools I applied to had turned me down because I had been rebellious my senior year and dropped all my grades. So, I wandered around for a while. I was out in California in a small junior college out there. I went overseas on a program called Experiment in International Living in Denmark. And while I was there, I met a woman, Sally Norquist, who said: "Well, I'm going to a small experimental college in West Michigan called 'Thomas Jefferson College.'" This was the first time I heard about it, even though I had looked at literature about experimental colleges. Never- the name of James never came up. But at that point, Thomas Jefferson had a national reputation among a small group of people. It also was attractive that it was a public institution and was quite cheap compared to a lot of the other experimental colleges I investigated. And I said: "Well, that sounds great." So, I followed her to Grand Rapids and set up household with her and some other people and started taking classes at Thomas Jefferson. To find out then that there was a cluster college there, several cluster colleges, one of which was William James College. The first time I heard about William James was one of my housemates, Paulette Rosen, came home and said that she just started taking this class with this professor named Stephen Rowe, Ethical Problems and Perspectives. And she thought it was the best class she had ever taken, that he �was a wonderful professor. She also was in love with one of the other students in the class, which made her even rave more about the class. And that whetted my appetite to see what he was like. At that time, the classes I was taking at Thomas Jefferson weren't that exciting to me. About that time the only thing I did at that point was to sponsor a class myself in how to throw the Frisbee. Which fit in the curriculum about as well as anything else fit in. I also did learn how to deliver a baby in my Pregnancy and Birth class at Thomas Jefferson and if anyone ever needs that help from me, I can perform that. So, there were a few things I learned about how [?] shares in the work of some value but I started taking classes with Stephen and found him just to be a wonderful professor, and loved his ideas, and his conversation, and the way he conducted his class. I eventually got hooked in with Barry Castro and had the same experience with him and I found a little niche there. The thing that I remember when I first got to Grand Valley was that someone said: "Well, you go to Thomas Jefferson College to get your shit together and once you've got your shit together then you go to William James." And that seemed to fit my experience also. [Unknown] So, how was William James different than Thomas Jefferson, in the people and the classes and also from other traditional schools? [Troost] Well, the thing that- the main thing, the difference between Thomas Jefferson and William James that I found was that the people at Thomas Jefferson seem to be… the main mode there seem to be emotional. People were passionate about this, about that, and it worked quite well for things like dance, and theater, and other arts activities. But there was very little thought, there wasn't a lot of respect for conversation, there was a lack of focus at Thomas Jefferson, or there was an attempt to find focus that it never seemed they were able to find. And what I found at William James was a celebration of ideas and thinking, at least in the classes that I took the professors I took classes with. And the students seem to be serious about studying, about thinking, about issues, about broader themes, about being synoptic, to use the word that we all have to use at least once if were William James alumnus. And the other thing I found that was… that the difference between William James and more traditional schools I went to was that I had always felt like an oddball or a rabble at the more traditional colleges. And I didn't like that role. I would play it and I started… I wasn't taking myself as seriously. And William James College was the first place that I could take myself seriously and that other people would, too. And that I wasn't the oddball in the class or the rebel in the class. I usually was probably one of the more conservative people in the class. I could say things on my mind and not have them laughed at or have to be defensive about them. And I love to talk. I love to be in a classroom, and talk, and engage with people and it was a perfect place for that. I found a little niche there. And I was not able to find that at other colleges. And it seemed like William James was set up to allow people to find niches. People that didn't fit in other places, they could come there and find a �niche. And that's how I found it different. [Unknown] Okay. What of the education? Was it a good general education? A good liberal education? How would you rate with other traditional colleges? [Troost] Well, I was a self-motivator. Once I find something that I enjoy, I usually work quite hard at it. And so, I studied very hard at William James. I remember a class I took during the College of Arts and Sciences, this is after a couple of years at William James, and it was an Environmental Studies class, and it was one credit class, and the professor was not going to be there one day, and it was a discussion class. And he, by that point I had been the one that had been talking most the time, and so he suggested that I'd be the moderator for the next class, when he was going to be gone. And I showed up that day and no one else was there. Once when the professor wasn't there that means there wasn't a class, in their minds, even though they knew it was scheduled. And yet for me it was a lost opportunity to talk more about the environment and what the issue was in the class. And I found that kind of thinking and serious study was as rigorous as any other place that I went. And was certainly for helping me to think creatively, it was as good as education as I could find. Because other people that I met that would come through traditional schools didn't do that. All they wanted to know was what was expected of them and then that's what they would do. Now I didn't do that very well, and I found that would be a problem later on as that once I got back and I went to law school after Grand Valley, and it was back in traditional structure that didn't work very well for me. The kind of stuff that I had learned at William James. [Unknown] How is that education regarded at any other traditional? [Troost] Well, most people don't ask you or don't care too much where you've gone to school. I went to University of Iowa Law School and they didn't know Grand Valley from Adam. Or certainly never heard of William James College. So, it was only after I told him, which I told him quite frequently that I had gone to the experimental college, and that I had gone to William James College, that it was a special place, and I wore my T-shirt, and I was having articles written by Stephen and other professors that I was willing to hand out at the least provocation. So, I made sure that people knew that I'd been to a different place, and that it was unique, and that it had given me a whole different view of the world that they should also have. I proselytize quite a bit when I first left William James. But I found that most people didn't have a very clear conception of what that kind of education would be like and it was business as usual for them. They were in law school and there were more pressing matters to be worried about. [Unknown] I'd like you to say a little bit about the role of the educational community out there in the support [inaudible]. A statement on that. �[Troost] In terms of the educational community of William… [Unknown] Of students, and how that was unique. [Troost] Well, I don't… in Grand Rapids it's rare that I don't meet someone that hasn't been to William James. It seems like every time I meet someone in some field either they were at Wayne James, or the person they're married to went to William James. And there's an immediate sense of community there. Even though we might… even though I usually don't know them. And I find that ironic that I went to a school as small as William James and I know very few people from Wayne James. I mentioned when we were talking before the tape started that when I graduated in seventy-seven, I got to graduation and there was the little room full of William James graduates and I didn't know a single student. I had to introduce myself to everybody, and everybody had to introduce themselves… they didn't know me. And here was a school that was, I think, sixhundred people and I had been there for two or three years, and I didn't know a single person I graduated with. And yet there was that sense of then, and when I meet people now, that there is a community of people and a support for, again, for being a little bit different. And accepting that. And certainly, I think there are certain values implied, usually more liberal. Though I'm sure that's not always the case, but you can… you don't have to apologize about not voting for Reagan. Things like that. [Unknown] Can we talk a little bit about… I'm taking off my notes right now. [Troost] Sure. [Unknown] Can you talk a little bit about the language. [Troost] Yeah, well that was one thing when I… a frustration I found when I left the William James community was that we had developed a very specialized language there, especially in the Social Relations group. I don't know… I don't know about the other groups, whether they had their own language. [Unknown] I'm sure they did. [Troost] I'm sure they sure did. It just didn't translate. I remember giving a group of very good friends at law school – who also seemed to share most of the values that I shared - an article by Stephen. They didn't understand. They didn't… I mean they literally couldn't understand what it was about. And for me it was… it summed up my complete experience at William James. I could read that, or I can read that article and it said exactly what I felt about the world. And yet for them it was mishmash. And so, I had to try to figure out ways see to translate what I learned �of William James, or just give it up entirely. I finally stopped talking about it because I couldn't find ways to bridge that language gap. And it was also… the other thing about the language that I learned William James was it was mostly a language of ideas and thinking to the exclusion of emotions and that sort of thing. Now I know that there were some other classes, I know Dick Gottlieb in Social Work paid a lot of attention to that, but I'd never had any classes with Dick. And so, for me, I had a whole language of ideas and I didn't have much language of emotions. And that got me in trouble because I think I started assuming that things that were happening to me had more to do with my thinking than with what was going on emotionally with me. And as I later found out, that wasn't always the case. The decision to going to law had a lot of emotional reasons. My father wanted me to do it, my parents were getting divorced at the time, and I needed some stability. There were lots of emotional things that were happening to me when I made the decision to go to law school that I never talked about. And I was able to, with ideas and thoughts, rationalize why I should go law school, when really that was not the reason I was going. I was going because my father wanted me to go and because I needed some stability in my life. Now I'm going into theater, which seems to get much closer to my heart and what I should be doing. But it took me a long time to realize like that. And I had to… I didn't learn that at William James. I'm of the opinion now, thinking back to that age, that I probably needed a lot more than just William James College at that point in my life. I needed a therapist; I needed a vocational counselor. And I was under the mistaken impression that I could get all of that at William James. And I think that was probably a problem William James had is it held itself out to be more than it should be, or could be. What I needed a teacher to say to me was: “That's something you need to deal with a counselor, and I can't do it here for you." But we had this idea that William James is a community. We could talk and deal with all sorts of intimate issues. And maybe we could… maybe we were a bit more ambitious than we should've been with that. [Unknown] Yeah, I've heard it criticized because of the fact that you develop, you know, a surrogate family, more or less while you're in college. And the four years, and you're out and back into your reality, as you know, is completely shaken up. Your friends are gone, you know, everybody you can relate to. And the language barrier. That kind of closure I think, do you think, perhaps that was one of the things that didn't work for the college? [Troost] Well, the thing is… the thing that worked for me was the challenge to remain alive and remain thinking. And to initiate thought for myself. And that's something that has stayed with me as a strength for me. It sometimes trapped me. Like I said, there were certain emotional things that I didn't have a handle on, and I trap myself by my idea and my thinking. But at least I kept thinking and kept questioning things. And that's something I still hang onto and it's something I think I got from William James or least I got strengthened by William James. To �feel like that was okay to think for myself and not accept what was going on, what the status quo was. I was going to say something else, but I forget now. [Unknown] Why is that… [Troost] Oh! The community of… the community people. There was a whole group of us that ended up moving out to Lake Michigan in Grand Haven for school year and it was a wonderful and horrible experience. It was this whole idealism that we could establish this community for ourselves and be self-sufficient. We even talked, at a point, where maybe we didn't have to go into Grand Valley, we could just do our education there among ourselves. And by the end of the year, we had come apart at the seams. It had gotten quite incestuous. People went from one couple group to another. I mean people… so and so and so and so split up, and then these two people started sleeping together. And people started checking out, emotionally. And it was a… it ended up being a very painful experience. Though when we started it, we were full of idealism and we had some wonderful times together. And it's an experience that still feels strong to me, that it is possible, you know, in moments to find that kind of community among people. And so, I still take that with me. I think in the end, I am still a committed idealist, even though I have longer periods of cynicism now I have to weather. I think deep down, my hunch is for most William James students, they didn't lose that. They got a little more tempered by the society, maybe they’re a little more reluctant to talk about it now, and they're certainly a little more cautious about jumping into things. But deep down there's still that idealism that they have. [Unknown] Looking for things that perhaps didn't work and, you know, perhaps tie that in with the demise of the college. You talked a little bit about early how you felt too much was paid to, perhaps, the pragmatic rational attitudes than not to the emotional attitude. And you also talked about how there's a [inaudible] that's going to be made after the closing because William James… [Troost] Well, I remember when they announced the closing of Thomas Jefferson College it certainly seemed that the trend was going away from a cluster college concept. And that Lubbers, who initially seemed to embrace the idea, had lost his enthusiasm for it and was starting to become convinced that there was a need to make a more university type setting. And if that's the case, then William James would've had to radically change to continue to exist within that university structure. So that if a stand was to be made, it should've been made back when they closed the first cluster college. Even though at that time I think Thomas Jefferson College just had tremendous problems and had no educational philosophy that was working and had not worked. But it also seemed that the die was cast. And I'm sure everyone has their opinion about why they closed William James College and mine is as valid or no more valid than anyone else's. But I don't feel like we have much to do with that, that we had much power over that �decision. I think once the decision was made at the higher levels that it was a political decision that we couldn't have changed. We might've been able to make more of a fuss about it or embarrassed Grand Valley more about it but my hunch is that the trend towards a cluster college at Grand Valley had run its course and was not going to be supporting any longer. [Unknown] We talked about the constitution of the William James student base. Too much idealism, not enough idealism, too much rationalism, too much -isms [Troost] Too many -isms. [Unknown] Yeah. You know, I want to get a good picture of that because I think that was one of the points that led to the demise that people were always reacting [inaudible] perhaps emotional. [Troost] Well, for me, what worked for William James – and I suspect worked for most William James students – is the relationship with the professors and the classroom work they did. It seemed like people that were there found a comfortable niche of two or three professors that they took most of their classes from and of a subject matter that they studied. Beyond that, I'm not sure if the institution worked for the student in any other way. I know they have the council meetings, but I never figured out what they were talking about at council meetings. I didn't go to very many. I was fairly antisocial in terms of the larger structure at William James. I suspect that was the case for most William James students. So that the power structure or what happened beyond the classroom level was really left up, principally, to the administrators and the faculty. I don't know enough about the politics of what happened among the faculty when things were coming apart, to know what happened or didn't happen. Whether the faculty could have taken certain stands or could have pressured certain people, I don't know. It's beyond me. I think for the students, though, I never had a sense that we had much to say about how William James worked, and certainly not about how William James worked in the Grand Valley community… Grand Valley State Colleges as a whole. The student I found there, like me, loved to talk. They were, in some ways, pretty conservative folks. Thomas Jefferson College were just wild. I mean, they were fun; they were wonderful. It was exactly the kind of people you should be around for part of your little liberal education because they really were willing to expand and try things that have never been tried. William James students, on the other hand, though, we're much more willing to talk and to think. And yet there was as basic conservatism, even though most of the values we had and talked about were quite liberal. I think they came from a much more conservative place in us. And certainly, for me I felt that way. I wasn't radical or liberal because I had this expansive view of the world, it was because certain things didn't make sense. I thought about the way our structure was… the way our society was structured, and it didn't work right. And I thought: "Well, �that's not right." I mean they came from thinking about these things. And that's a fairly conservative type of view of the world, where you just see contradiction. It's interesting, I found that in Denmark, which is usually considered a very liberal country and very, you know, socialistic country, that the people there, basically, were very, very conservative people. They just see things that don't make sense and so they change that. And I had a sense in William James that was more the way people thought. I admit that sometimes people seemed a little dull, but I certainly didn't… I certainly liked… that was the place that I found for myself and I liked, even though I kept playing Frisbee, and I had my hair long, and did all those things. And I had… it was like a duality for me. I regretted that TJC didn't work, but certainly found a home for myself at William James. [Unknown] Okay, got some wrap up questions here. We got most of them. Is there anything else you want to throw out? [Troost] I don't think so. [Unknown] Okay. How would you describe William James to another person? [Troost] Oh, God. William James College to another person. [Unknown] Somebody that doesn't know about William James, and you're talking about it. [Troost] I would tell them it was a small college among a cluster of colleges near Grand Rapids, Michigan, that had a very dedicated faculty. And that were dedicated to thinking and liberal education, and that found a student body who are committed, or willing to commit themselves to the same thing. And that attracted students, and I suspect faculty, who have not fit in other places very well. And yet were not radical in fundamental senses, but basically misunderstood or just needed a place where they felt more comfortable and were among peers that they could share things with. And that for a period of time there was created a community of people who could talk and think in the way that they'd always felt. And it was a worthwhile experiment. And it was probably an educational tool but that's still needed. I don't think it was a product of the sixties, I think there was a viable philosophy that was going on there that still can appeal to a certain segment of kids graduating from high school. Kids that don't quite feel accepted, or have different ideas, or want to seriously talk about the world and questions fundamental things in the world. You know, I think William James was the perfect place for that. The whole emphasis at William James about career education was not so much the thing for me. I did an internship, I did all that sort of thing, that was not as important to me as the whole celebration of ideas that I found at William James. [Unknown] Okay, good. Okay, so [inaudible] question. �[Troost] Okay. [Unknown] What is the essence, you know, the bottom-line essence, using, you know, a couple words, bottom line, the essence of William James College? You know, take a minute to think. [Troost] Bottom line essence of William James College? [Unknown] You know, what was it? That's one of the big questions everybody asks. What was William James, really? [Troost] Blue. I don't know I have to make a joke because it's an important question and I can't think of anything to say about it. It, for me… I'm going to say…I'm going to make… I'm going to do an intellectual answer. I wish I could come up with emotional response to that and I can't. And it's unfortunate because I think I could come up with a better answer if it was emotional. The intellectual thing I was going to say was that it was the conversation was the essence. That I found people to converse with for perhaps the first time in my education. And maybe last time in my education. And that was liberating to me. That had a liberating effect on me. The idea that I could converse with faculty and with other students and have a true conversation in the broadest sense of the word was, for me, the essence of William James College. [Unknown] Great. She's been telling everyone the response to the question [inaudible]. [Troost] Yeah, I wish you… like I said, I wish I could come up with something that was more from the heart, an image or something. I can't come up with an image. [Unknown] Well, maybe that wasn't the essence. [Troost] Whatever it is, it's the image, I mean when I think of William James I think of a classroom. I think of either Stephen or Barry talking. A lot. Because they both love to talk. And yet in a way that included the students. And talking about fundamental things. And not being afraid to do that. Not being afraid to spend time talking about very fundamental questions, and speculating about the world, and being able to entertain any question and talk about it in a serious manner. That's the image I have of William James College. I don't… the rest of it seems to be blurry. That's why it's always embarrassing to me when people ask me about William James because I like… I can't tell them about council meetings, I can't tell them about what it was… what was happening in other niches in the in the college. There's not many professors that I know. There's not many other students that I know. I just know I know those classrooms and what happened in those. And that there was something magical, for me, in those moments, in those �classes. And Stephen and Barry and sometimes other professors, seemed to be able to create a magic for me that just was explosive. I was in seventh heaven when I discovered them. I thought: "This is education. I finally found education." And I knew that it was there. I knew, in high school, and in the first colleges I went to, I knew that that was not something that was happening, that could happen. And when I found it, I went: "Aha! I was right all along." I suspected that you could do this, this was possible to have a conversation like this. So that was… [Unknown] Okay. Did you have class with [inaudible]? [Troost] No. Same way? Same kind of feeling? [Unknown] Yeah just real involved. He was the only person I saw… [Troost] He taught music, didn't he? [Unknown] Yeah. He's the only person I ever saw talk to everybody personally, and to the whole class at the same time. Every time he talked, you thought he was talking to you. Not at the blackboard, not at the class as a whole. It was just real good. The instructors, I think that's the essence also. [Troost] Yeah. And maybe that's the best thing a college can offer people is a good core of the professors that you can find one or more that you can use the mentor. And maybe that's all William James really needed to have done. Maybe the other stuff they tried to do was more ambitious than it needed to. I was not unhappy with my education at all at William James, even though I kept suspecting I should be. I kept thinking, you know, I'm not at council meetings, I should be there. I am not really a William James student unless I'm doing all this synoptic stuff. But in fact I was happy with the classes I was taking. And someone said: "That's all you need to do." I was like: "This is great, I don't want to do anything else. I just want to study with these people." [Unknown] Great. Anything else? [Troost] I can't think of anything. [Unknown] Okay. Good. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_59_Troost Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Troost, Scott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Scott Troost interview (video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Scott Troost by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Scott Troost was a Social Relations student of William James College who graduated in 1977. In this interview he discusses what drew him to William James College and West Michigan, how he first learned of Grand Valley while overseas in Denmark, and how he switched from Thomas Jefferson College to William James due to influential professors such as Stephen Rowe and Barry Castro. This interview is part 1 of 1 for Scott Troost. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative educaton Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/06bb48251d361d6f6b04cfd819be3557.mp4 8d813da1e92fef375f3809556aade9d2 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6c7906d6d0ef0dc1361dba6e848e1c73.pdf 78ff12cc35ee6de93d1d935ed3a90f2c PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Margaret Proctor Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 2 [Barbara] Let’s get started. If you had to sum up the essence of William James College in a sentence or two, what would you pull out of it? [Proctor] Well, there are two things really. I guess a liberal education for a practical world and that doesn't really say it very well. I think the liberal education is extremely important and for graduates I've talked to it was and it made them much broader and better workers in the real world. And that combined with the – you might say – more practical, real life education they got here was really what it's about. And the two were not separate because the liberal fed into the practical. And the other thing would be the sense of community. Which I think helped, well, more than helped, it was part of the education and made them able to go out into the world and be entitled, as Barry Castro used that term. I was going to talk about that more in another question, though. But the sense of community. [Barbara] Have you had any feedback from people who have gone out in the world and have been so disturbed by the lack of community out in the world that they’ve, essentially, blown their education? Have you ever had that? [Proctor] No, I haven't. I keep hearing that that must happen. I haven't had that from anybody. [Barbara] Would you talk about the liberal education aspect of James and the liberal studies program now. Is that a direct outgrowth but what's the difference? [Proctor] It is a direct outgrowth. It really is. When we knew that James was going to close… I was talking with Barry Castro in the hall, and he said, "Why don't we get a bunch of people on campus – James people, but other people on campus – who’d be interested in liberal studies." We had a liberal studies major, you see, at the time he said, "Why can't we keep the liberal studies major going?" Well, actually, I'm not sure he even said the major. We got together… let me back here. Let me back up. [Barbara] Yeah. Start the question again. [Proctor] Okay. �[Barbara] Start it again. [Proctor] It is a direct outgrowth of James. Not of the liberal studies program, per se, but of James. Let me start over again. I need to figure out how I'm going to start this. It really is a direct outgrowth of the James idea of a liberal education. We had a Liberal Studies major here already, but that wasn't the main thing. What happened is by chance. Barry Castro and I started talking in the hall one day and he said, 'Why don't we get together a liberal studies committee and keep liberal studies – liberal education – going at Grand Valley. Not using just James people, but other people on campus who support a broad liberal education." So, he came up with some names out of what was going to be the divisions. And we said, "Hey, yeah, Bill Balm. Hey, yeah, this person and that person. Hey, yeah." And so, we just handpicked the committee. [Laughter] And I don't know how… that's right, I chaired the liberal studies program here, so I happened to chair it. And we called up the people and just said, "Do you want to meet?" And we met. I said, "We want to keep this program going." They wanted to keep it going and we started meeting. We had about fifteen people, twenty people. And it started to get kind of official because it became clear after talking to Glenn that we could keep the problem going. He did want to keep going. And so, the committee got cut down in size for a while, and now it's back up to what it was because we decided it was too small. But what happened, as it turns out, there's a lot of people at Grand Valley – not the majority, but a lot of people – who really do want this kind of education. And they were tucked in out there in the various departments and a very fine bunch of people. I think if we tried to do it with only James people it wouldn't have worked because it would've been seen as a James thing. And now this thing is firmly in place. There's a William James synoptic speaker every year, through the Liberal Studies program, there's Liberal Studies majors from all over the campus. The various people in their departments kind of find people who want to have a little broader education than just the narrow. And they take a certain number of courses maybe in that major. But, for instance, in business. Barry recruits them like crazy in business. A number of people who want to get the business courses but don't want a very strict business major and have some broader interests. He says, "Well, maybe a Liberal Studies major is the thing for you." And they get an individualized program, and a very broad program, and they get their business courses, too. And it's working. There's not tons of students in it, but it's working, and the faculty are working together. It's going very well. [Barbara] It sounds wonderful. [Proctor] Yeah, it is! [Barbara] I'm envious. �[Proctor] [Laughter] I made sure I stayed on the committee. I wouldn't let anybody kick me off after Steve Rowe became chairman. It's one of the more… actually, I consider it one of the most important things around here. I really am excited about it. [Barbara] Does this at all actually go into the discussion you wanted to have about study plans? [Proctor] Yes. One thing that struck me at William James… the thing I was worried about most with the breakup of William James was that the education of the students would become very compartmentalized. And they would take a course in sociology, and a course in history, and a course in mathematics, and they'd study for the exam, and ten weeks later, two weeks later, it would be gone, and they'd get out, and they wouldn't connect the things. And they would think that the major, especially with the tone in the United States now, they would think the major was the only important thing and the rest was just, kind of, you had to take it. And you see as Liberal Studies [?], I had read an awful lot of study plans. And after about a year of reading them I realized, too, you know, what a traditional education looks like having had one, and knowing what the distribution requirement was in CAS at the time. And I remember telling people at the time, after about a year of reading study plans, I remember getting very excited saying, "My golly, some people…" The idea is, maybe, that this college has too much individualized instruction, people take what they want only, and they're too narrow, and they take only subject courses in their major, very technical subjects and they end up with too technical an education at William James. That's just not true. And my estimate, you know, very rough, was that two thirds of the students get a broader education than they would – a more interesting education, in terms of the types of course they took – than they would let’s say in CAS, or a traditional distribution where… because I actually looked at the number of credits they were taking in Liberal Studies and at least two thirds of the cases they were more beyond the requirement. Which was already higher, I think, than CAS. But they didn't just take what they had to take, like, they knew they had, if they were a media major, they didn't think: "Oh I have to take a course in sociology, so I'll take media in society just to get by." They didn't do that. They would take, maybe, two or three courses in sociology or resembling that, or something about the Arab World, or a lot of totally unconnected things. And they would get… you could tell they would get interested in these things and would pursue them for a while. Several courses in other fields unrelated, supposedly, unrelated to their own. And I got very excited in reading these study plans. I would say a third of them were really good – that type I've been talking about. Another third were better than the CAS equivalent. Another third were kind of just… they were the ones who wanted to squeak by. So, you know, but I was impressed and I think that was a loss that we don't have that anymore. [Barbara] I know you made a reference, just now, to the fact that you had quite a traditional �education yourself. Let me just change the shot here, sorry. And I was wondering how you came to be teaching at such an untraditional kind of place. [Proctor] Well [laughter] it was by accident. I met Robert Mayberry on a Greyhound bus and there was only a window seat available, and Robert Mayberry doesn't like to sit by the window I found out later. He doesn't like airplanes either. Anyway, there was one window seat on the whole bus, and I asked if I could have it and the gentleman next to me said, "Fine." So, he was reading a book on wines and I was interested in that and I had pulled out an article on oral literature in Africa and he kind of looked over my shoulder and he was interested in that. So, we got talking and he said that he taught at Grand Valley and… actually he didn't say, he said he taught at William James College. And I said, "Oh" and we got talking about that and I was teaching in Chicago at the time. We got talking about black English, which I been studying, and he said, Why don't you come up and talk to us?" Because I had started to look for jobs in this area. And I said, "Fine." So, I came up and talked and that was an informal interview, and then there was a formal interview. And there I was. So, kind of by accident. I would've accepted a traditional job in this area if it had come about. My husband was teaching at Hope College at the time. I ended up here and I didn't have any problem coming here, the teaching is the main thing to me. And the working with the students, and some sense of community I wanted. I didn't want just isolation from everybody. But I had no problem coming here; I didn't feel any problems. And there was one thing that happened, I remember, in the interview. I remember saying to Adrian at the time, that I would accept a job except that I wanted her to realize that I wouldn't be here twenty-four hours a day, as some of the people seem to be. That was a time I think of transition in the college where it had been very intensive and people had been putting their whole lives into the college, there were divorces, there were all kinds of problems. And I could see that in some of the people that interviewed me, that they wanted that commitment and I told her straight up front, "If you want to hire me, I won't make that. I will be here the four or five days a week, but I have a family and I'm not going to mess that up, and I don't want to anyway. It's not me to be." So that aspect. But then after I came, people seemed to be, you might say, moving my right direction. I'm not saying because of me, but there was a move away from the totally intensive, twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week thing. That was the only thing that might have kept me from taking the job. Once here I was very comfortable. I had no… I think part of what made a difference, I think, in my own education – probably in high school and in college, certainly in elementary school – I had a sense of community with the people I was being educated with and with the teachers. Not as much in graduate school, but certainly in college. And that's what was important about William James. And I think wasn't as true in the larger Grand Valley and in a lot of more traditional big schools. I had gone to a small school and I wasn’t actually always part of the community of my small school, but I knew it existed and in the long run I am. I think… well the other thing is more an �answer to another question. I don't know if you want to get into that now, Barbara. [Barbara] Well, I don't know what you are about to say. [Laughter] [Proctor] Well, okay, I'll get into it now and then we can do it over if you want. Where are we here? I think the sense of community – well I mentioned it earlier – is one of the things... [Barbara] Okay, start that over. [Proctor] Start that over. Okay. I think the sense of community – which I realized only after a few years James – is extremely important to the education. Because Barry Castro came up with a term for it, he came up with the term, "entitlement," where students come in and instead of receiving an education from the professor… [phone rings] I think I'll leave the phone… instead of receiving an education from the professor, they… well, I'll answer it. It's bothering me, I can't go on. Margret Proctor? Yes. [Proctor] Go ahead. [Barbara] Okay, let me make sure my framing… oh, it's still beautiful. [Proctor] Okay. [Barbara] Just go ahead. [Proctor] Well, anyway, how I happen… why I seem to fit in here, I think – or had no problem, even came to like it much better than a traditional college – was the sense of community. And I realized after about a year here that I had had that in my education; a sense of community. And that, maybe, a lot of the students who normally come to a school like Grand Valley don't because they're of a different social class, different group, different… they're outsiders, they're not part of the of the academic world, or even the professional world. And they're coming here to receive an education from the professor and to go out and try and get a good job. But what I had had in elementary school, and in high school, and in college… I went to a small college, Wellesley College, it was a fairly small college. I wasn't totally part of that Wellesley community, but I did afterwards, years afterwards, I knew that it wasn't just the information and the courses I learned, but because the professors there saw me as someone who would become like them. Not a professor, necessarily, but was of their same group. Was an intellectual equal, or almost anyway, something on the… where there was a real conversation going on. And I had that in high school, pretty much in elementary school, I'd been part of the group you might say. And after a while here and after having taught in �Chicago, too, at a ghetto college, essentially, where that was not so true. Where the faculty, though many tried, there wasn't a concerted effort by the faculty. Although individuals tried, there wasn't a concerted effort by the faculty to make it a place of community. But this place gave students the opportunity to become part of the mainstream, you might say. The main… people who are going to go out… and Barry Castro used the term “entitlement” or “entitled.” They would become those who were expected. Yes, you are on an equal basis with us, intellectually, at least you know you don't know as much, but you're learning, and you will go out and do these things. You're becoming part almost of a different social class. I think of it in class terms, actually. You're changing social class. And I saw that in students and I’ve talked to them since graduation. And that did happen very drastically with them. And I just know it wouldn't have happened with a traditional education. They might have dropped out of it, they might've stayed with it and gotten low level jobs and been bored. And many, many students – the ones for whom this education was most successful – are the ones who became part of the William James community. And with faculty and other students, were changed – their lives were changed. They didn't just get courses that taught them information, their lives were changed. And I hadn't had such a drastic change in my own life because I was already part of that when I was born, you might say, or the way I was brought up. But for them it was very moving. It was a change. It was a change. [Barbara] I'm going to stop you for a minute because the tape will run out within the next minute and I don't want to be in the middle of a… � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_58_Proctor Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Proctor, Margaret Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Margaret Proctor interview (2 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Margaret Proctor by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Dr. Margaret Proctor was a faculty member of William James College and a longtime communications professor at GVSU. In this interview, she discusses the essence of William James College, the continued importance of liberal education at Grand Valley, and the chance encounter that led to her faculty position within the college. This interview is part 2 of 2 for Margaret Proctor. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/38e3bfba29674cef2e7b1cc07cd17a0f.mp4 62ac586eb8c25224f8f3b97deedd0dba https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0d41424735974ddad2b71653573b4099.pdf 81d4f8740b9124c6da0b315927a479e2 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Sanford Fried Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 2 [Barbara] Yeah, but sometimes we were not as interdisciplinary as we thought we were. And then when we were talking the other day in the co-op, we started talking about the way the process of learning really worked was not so much that you just took from everybody, but that you…something else. So, describe it. [Fried] Oh, how we took from the few, the mentor…the mentor thing? [Barbara] Yeah. [Fried] Well, one of the problems about what was good at James was that there were many good people. And as you got over your, kind of, freshman fright, and started to see what the value of the resources there were, you knew there were a lot of people that you wanted to study with and then came the time problem, you know? How long were you going to be an undergrad student? And it would take you ten years to study with everybody. So, you gravitated towards those people who were most important in your field, or who had the most to say to you, in terms of your own human development. And I think that the mentor idea worked real well in James. And I hope it works in other colleges. I'm not that familiar with other colleges to know. But by going with mentors, of course, the problem is that you sound like them, you start to look like them, you… in some cases you may start living with them. And that just becomes awkward because then you’ve got to go through this embryonic process to get rid of it, you know? And you’ve got to shed it and become your own. You know, I was affected by that because I was affected by some people who aren’t there anymore. They were there at the time. And it affected me good, and it affected me real harshly, as well. And I had a lot of things to go through with that, personally. I think interdisciplinary… in the interdisciplinary method that we would like to talk about there, at James, we couldn't always do it the way the catalog listed it. It always looked so good in a catalog, and all those people in those pictures always looked so interested, you know? And I still find myself looking at those pictures now and then and thinking: "Gee that would have been a great place to go to, I wish I went." [Laughter] But it was happening for us, in our own way, you know? After about my first year, when I started to realize what was going on there. I always maintain that this college works best for the people who do their bit to get out what they want to get out of it. And if you're passive, your education is passive. In the way of getting a crossbreeding of disciplines – that won't happen for passive student, you know? �Or a passive individual. That only happens to people who are going to say: “I demand that because I refuse to work through life any other way. I refuse for my career to be in a very strict mode." And that wasn't all of us, you know, that didn't work for all of us that way. Some people, you know, James wasn't for everybody. We all knew that. And in the same way, some people who were employed there – the faculty – weren’t for everybody as well. You had to have good direction to get the interdisciplinary aspects. And when it didn't work, maybe it was advising, maybe it was your own, you know, your own pursuits, your own motivations that it didn't work for. I don't know, I guess I'm not being clear for you, as to what… [Barbara] You're saying things, they're not coming out linearly. [Fried] Yeah. [Barbara] They're coming out tick, tick, tick, which is why I wanted some kind of [Inaudible]. The sentences are clear and well formed, and then they go off, and then they come back. [Fried] Yeah. [Barbara] That's how you're talking. That's alright, I accept that. [Fried] That's how I'm thinking of it, too. [Barbara] Yeah. No, that's alright. [Fried] Floating through me in images. Let’s see, some of the beauties of the interdisciplinary approach, though – there are some of those. And I've seen those most graphically by not working in my field, by working in retail. And I'm seeing things that require you to be – of course, it’s also the uniqueness of my job – but require you to be a social activist, to get people to think about things in a larger context and not just such an “I” centered context but in the world center. And then to be narrow about it, too, and to be very managerial. Which may be unfair to call it narrow, but in some ways I think it's a real narrow way of defining stuff. If you didn't take advantage of the interdisciplinary, if you didn't take advantage of the people who are talking that way and the readings, then I don't know how it would happen. That kind of stuff didn't seem to happen by osmosis. It really seems like it had to happen through thinking under fire and being challenged. The challenge is what worked well. I still seem to be going around like that. [Barbara] Its alright. Briefly…see, I thought Isaac would be up and I was going to plant him in your lap and say: okay, big dilemma for all of us at this stage of our life is what kind of education do you want for your children? �[Fried] Boy. Yeah, I want to talk about that; I thought about that. You know, being that Sheila [?], my wife, is a James grad, too, and now we have a two-year-old – I’d love to show you him but he's asleep. We think about what's, you know, what's in store for him, educationally. At this stage, we don't do things like get him into twoyear-old swim and that kind of thing. I have friends who do that; I think it's really wrong. But certainly the…I don't want to say, “hands on approach,” that phrase seems to have been ground into nonexistence anymore. But being able to embrace your education and embrace your experiences by touching them – literally touching them – is such an important learning tool for me. And when I teach somebody a new job at the co-op, I use that to teach them (one of the things I brought with me from Allendale). And with my own son, I want him to be able to grasp it that way. Because he seems like that kind of a kid. He has enough of me in him that way. That's how he's going to learn. There's real parental dilemmas in things like in kindergarten or public school / private school, you know? You want the best quality education for him or is it important that he be with all types. I'm sure every parent sees this, you know, deals with those things all the time. And we all come to different decisions on that. [Barbara] What should his college be like? [Fried] What should his college be like? His college should be the world for a time. Nobody should go to college right out of high school. And I didn't and I learned a lot by traveling for that time. I strongly encourage Isaac to travel. He's alreadywell, he's already been to Canada, his second country, several times, okay? And he travels well, and as he gets older and more empathic and more cognitive, he's going to travel more. And he's going to learn about that. And he's going to learn the way of bringing in lots of experience to teach him about the world. He's going to learn that books, and instructed journeying through books, is a very valuable way to learn. But he's also going to learn that it’s not the only way to learn. But it sure helps to have a mix. It sure helps to be able to have everything around there and be able to sit back with friends, in a comfortable environment, and talk about how these things are mixing together, and how it makes you feel, and how it makes you think, and how it makes you react. We did that James, you know. We had that time, and that social part of the college was real important, real important to me, to be able to integrate that. [Barbara] You said you were having visual images. What, you know, if I say: sum up James in a visual image, what is it? [Fried] Oh, Mona, the dog. Remember Mona? [Laughter] The best visual image for James is a round building in a square frame. [Laughter] It's just so perfect, you know, because we were, you know, we were so traditional on the outside. We tried to look that way, but yet when you get inside, and you couldn't find those corners, you couldn't find where the dust hid, you couldn't find, you know, your �easy way around the things. And that damn building was a maze. It was always a maze; you never really knew what end you're coming out on. And I guess, you know, you could say that about the education to some degree if you wanted to. But I thought the building was perfect, you know. It couldn't have been any better for that college, I suppose, unless it was one long hallway that always had windings within it, too. Other images of things at James… I don't know. I remember people bustling a lot and I'm not sure if they were bustling because they were busy or if they were bustling because they were just overwhelmed with a lot of different things. And maybe not busyness, but just sorting. Lots of sorting that went on. We sorted for a long time in there and hopefully for a long time afterwards, too. And certainly, what would happen with James closing, a lot of us started to get more emotion involved with it, you know? Either saying "good riddance" or saying, you know, “how can the bastards do that?" And I went through the latter for a long time and was real angry about it. And even didn't even see the value of this tape for a long time and thought it's stirring things up too much. And the college can't be reconstructed, hopefully somebody can be motivated by it, either a student or somebody who comes into contact with it in some way to try and do something like that when it's appropriate in a setting where it can be protected and nurtured. But, you know, the college brought me across the state to come here and wound up making this my home for other reasons. But, you know, I wouldn't recommend that people do that now. I wouldn't recommend that people come across to Grand Valley because aside from the few good people that are left that are teaching, I don't know if the college is that different than a lot of other places, and it's a long schlep just to be in the cornfields or downtown if they wind up downtown in the near future. [Barbara] That was a great answer, that was an absolutely terrific answer. I'm just going to stop this for a second. Finish the analogy, the round and the square is a…? [Fried] Okay. The round and the square is, of course, is that round peg in a square hole. T.J.C. [Thomas Jefferson College] was the same way, though they seem to be a little more vocal about it. And, you know, I don't remember about Lake Michigan Hall. I think Lake Michigan probably was the same way, too. So, what started out as some designer's idea became a real fitting analogy for what was going on in the building. [Barbara] Terrific! [Laughter] [Fried] That's a cut. [Barbara] That was a wonderful take. [Barbara] Okay, let’s start. Okay, go. �[Fried] Okay. It was almost like the outside of the building was almost a buffer. In that when I worked with you, Barbara, and I was in your office all the time, and you had an exterior office, and the damn thing was never heated and was always cold. And it was almost as if they take the hearty people, the people that wanted to be in view, you know, and put them out there, and face the library, and face the campus center, and face the tour buses and those things. And so much, but so much was hidden. And there were things that went on in the core of that building that I, you know, kind of media experiments I don't want to talk about. But they were great. I mean it was really exciting stuff that happened, I'm sure. I hope it goes on today. I don't know if it does, but I hope it does. You know, I will always remember that painting of James, too, that painting right in… I never remember which entrance it was, but that double stairway, you know. And it was the painting, the logo that was on our T-shirts, and probably on the letterhead, if I remember. And I still have my T-shirt, you know. The gray ones, not the new ones, the gray ones with the brown. That was the important one to have, I felt. That was the official card. But whenever I see any of James’ books around here or I see them in a bookstore or something, you know, I always flash to the face. And I don't think I've seen any photographs of him. I don't remember seeing any. But I almost don't want to because he was this ethereal spirit, in more ways than one, around the college. And being there as a visual student, that embodiment was comforting after a while, after it became home. It was real comforting to see it, you know, done that way. [Barbara] What are we going to do for cutaways? [Fried] I don't know. [Barbara] I'll probably shoot your hands, which is so draggy, but I don't know what else to do? What else can I do? [Fried] Yeah, hands are good. Not my shoes. You don't want my shoes. [Barbara] You better talk about something because it's weird to do hands. Tell me about… [Fried] Let me tell you about… I know what I'm going to tell you about! I'm going to tell you about my first videotape. Okay? Want me to take the mic off? [Barbara] No, just keep it… unless you want to say something you don't want… [Fried] No, no it's nothing like that because my first… I get real graphic describing that. But, well you remember Kim Bemen [?], okay? Kim, back a few years ago. In that first Video One class we had to do a tape, it was a self-portrait. And at the time, I didn't have a car, and I was hitchhiking to Detroit a lot, going back to family and, you know, trying to ease through that transition of leaving the family-stead. And �so, for my tape I set up a camera in the AV studio with one light on me, two seats, and I did a monologue with his imaginary driver as I hitchhiked on the way back to Detroit. And it just so happens that I had some sixteen-millimeter footage of birthday parties, old birthday parties and that. And I ran that, and we did a fade onto the screen and put some of that onto the tape. The tape is gone, I don't know where it was. It was real crude, and it was just totally spontaneous, and it just worked really well. I was real pleased with it. Kim was there when we taped it and she was really surprised that anybody was going to do something like that. And it came off real well. Does this…[inaudible]? � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_57_Fried Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Fried, Sanford Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Sanford Fried interview (2 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Sanford Fried by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Sanford Fried was an Arts and Media student of William James College who was active on the WJC Council and various committees during the years 1977-1980. In this interview, Sanford discusses mentorship among the William James community, the interdisciplinary approach of the college, and reflects on what the WJC education means to his family and his son's future. This interview is part 2 of 2 for Sanford Fried. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/445d9eee3ff43444fafbc62e115b3351.mp4 70f24478c72a6d6f368dba8a7676db4b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/41fd411b327926d4c9e6fa22a08deb4a.pdf 26410adfc8510213a04e92ddb237a864 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Margaret Proctor Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 2 [Barbara] Is there any way we can talk about that briefly? When did we close the college? [Proctor] Now wait a minute, though. See I didn't have this information on the funeral and the commune now. Is that being brought in some other way? [Barbara] Yeah, yeah. I was… okay I want to ask a different question then. When we closed the college… [Proctor] Yeah [Barbara] When the college closed, some people have said that we – the faculty – should have fought the closing. Do you agree with that? [Proctor] I don't know, I think we fought it. I don't know, if… I went to the President, other people went individually, maybe we should have done something as a group. I don't think it would've made any difference. I think we did fight it. I mean, I don't know. We sent off… we tried as best we could to work, you might say, somewhat within the system to change it. I remember Robert, we had a whole about a tenpage memo to whatever committee it was on campus trying to explain why the new divisional structure wasn't good. I think we talked to people, there was lobbying going on. I don't know that they could've done much more. [Barbara] Let's stop and I just want to take the tape. If you were going to join another alternative college modeled on what William James was, is there anything based on the experiences that you've had here that's central – that you would like, that you think should be done differently – to give a better education experience? In other words, is there some way we were weak that we should've been remedied? Do you think? Is there anything? [Proctor] Sometimes – here’s my traditional background showing – there wasn't enough rigor in the courses. I don't know how you get at that, though, without making standard requirements. I'm not sure you can get at it. I think it's an atmosphere created in the faculty. And I think things were getting better over time. I think there was more of that at the beginning, and I think things were getting better. I think that faculty has to have a sense among themselves, not just individually, but as a group that we're going to require this, and this, and this. And I think by �the time the college closed we were as a group. There might have been a few that weren't, but we were. That was the main thing I saw that was a problem, and about solved itself by the time the college closed. I can't think of anything else major that is worth mentioning. [Barbara] Can you talk a little bit of the flip side of that? What was most valuable in the James experience? What- what worked best? [Proctor] What worked best? Designing your own study plan, I would say. Maybe because I saw all those study plans. And see, a lot of the students we had were rebellious. And a lot of students are rebellious now I bet still, only they're keeping it down more and so they just don't learn as much. They sit in the courses, and they go through routine, and they get C’s or B’s or something, but anyway that's another issue maybe. And I don't think they would have gone to college or they would have learned as much, certainly, if they had to take Sociology 101, okay? Now, at William James they didn't have to take Sociology 101, they had to… they knew that they had to have something to educate them broadly about people in the world, and people outside their own little narrow group. So that seemed more reasonable to them. It wasn't Sociology 101, and they worked with their adviser, and they came up with the course, and they got in the course, and they really enjoyed it. "Oh, this is interesting,” they would say to themselves. And they had chosen the course in consultation with the adviser, but they had really chosen it. So, then they'd say, "Oh this is interesting" and they get into the course, and they learn the stuff. They were really got excited about it and they'd read about it outside the course. I want to say one thing in here. I think there may be an impression that there's very few kind of "super William James students" who did beautifully and maybe the majority kind of just squeaked by and had a mediocre education. I don't think so. I think this experience of really making their own education and doing well is true for more than half the students. Of really going beyond what they had to do and learning more than they would. I’ve said that in other contexts, but it wasn't just a few super students that gave an image to the college of this thing – it was a lot of students. Again, I came across this in the study plan. Study plan after study plan, I would read like this and oh courses in the Arab world and they took a Shakespeare course here, and they were, I don't know, a computer major here, they had a Shake… oh my golly! And they chose these on their own and it was very impressive. Yeah, I think you asked me what worked well. I think I answered that already. Let me see if I can… [Barbara] I'm unhappy with… Probably the earlier part is alright, but that little clicking means it might not come across the head smoothly. Yeah, it fixed it. I fixed it! [Proctor] Yay! [Barbara] Okay, let’s do rigor. [Laughter] �[Proctor] You better ask me the question, or I won't be able to answer. [Laughter] [Barbara] If we could recreate William James tomorrow, what…was there anything that we should do differently this time around? [Proctor] Well, I think that we did pretty… I think by the time the college closed we were just about where we wanted to be. I wouldn't say perfect, but in the earlier… when I first came, I think that we didn't have enough rigor in some of the courses. There wasn’t enough… I think we were liable… right on everybody whether they liked… you know, everybody could say that the… let me start the whole thing over! I did better the first time. Goddamn it! Why is it when you say something first and then you try and say it again you can't get it? Anyway, I think some of the courses should have had more rigor. I think we were liable to that criticism and sometimes that was justified. There wasn't required of the students so they could get through without learning very much in some courses. No, the idea that students can take whatever they want, do whatever they want, and I don't think that necessarily produces a good education. And that was more a stereotype of us than it was the truth. I think that wasn’t as true by the time the college closed. I think what it takes is the… I don't think you can enforce it. I mean, you can say: "All the faculty members have to give two exams every term or three papers." And what's that going to produce? The faculty member doesn't have to grade the exams or look at the papers, and they can be hogwash. You can't enforce that in that way. I think it has to be a feeling among the faculty – in the community of faculty – that we're going to have hard requirements and courses. Certain requirements and courses, and a lot of rigor in the courses. And I think if you have that it'll work. And if you don't have it, even if you have all these other requirements or assume that everybody's going to give exams and all, then that's not going to work either. But I think by the time the college closed we had that, I think, with very few exceptions. I mean, there were a few courses here and there, but the fact that… and that changed in the years I was here. Faculty were getting a sense of we'd maybe allowed students, I would say, actually allowed students too much freedom to do only what they wanted in the classes and found that they aren't learning enough and now we're tightening up, and we're saying, "No, you've got to do more work in this class, or you don't get credit for the class." And I think by the time… yeah, anyway. [Barbara] What about the other question? I have managed to absolutely space out. Let’s see if I can remember where I was. What was it? [Proctor] My memory is going. [Barbara] Oh, damn? Where did it go? �[Proctor] What should we have done differently? No. Oh, Barbara, this is terrible. Don't tell me your memory is going. [Barbara] Oh! Fighting, fighting, fighting! [Proctor] Oh, thank you! Should we have fought more. I think the faculty did fight. I went to see the President about it, I made an appointment with the President. And a lot of people did that. I know, I found out later that many had done that. We had that long thing Robert Mayberry mostly drafted. Ten-page thing to the committee on why the reorganization was not good, and why we should have the individual colleges. And we did fight, you know, in an organized group way. We didn't go marching around. I don't think that would've been any more effective. I don't… I think it just would of alienated us from people. I think, frankly, Robert and a few others were in… if anybody was going to persuade other faculty administrators, it was going to be Robert and a few others in their way. And they did the best they could. And they fought the whole way, in their way, which was the way that was going to work – if anything was going to work – and it didn’t work. And I think we fought as much as we could. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_56_Proctor Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Proctor, Margaret Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Margaret Proctor interview (1 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Margaret Proctor by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Dr. Margaret Proctor was a faculty member of William James College and a longtime communications professor at GVSU. In this interview, she discusses the faculty's reactions and efforts regarding the closing of William James College, in addition to her thoughts on the college's strengths and weaknesses. This interview is part 1 of 2 for Margaret Proctor. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6b4d84f00fdc8cd8de12406995503e38.mp4 4dd7674a909a05ce5621e2639b2bfe3e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c807b3539897a4a2cef639997f1bea5e.pdf c5ddaec34919cefbda8a7589874da101 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Barry Castro Date: 1984 [Barbara] I told you that the students would be among the audience. Was there something you want to be sure to say? [Castro] When I talk to my management classes now, management is a difficult field to teach, in a way, because you've got lots of students who haven't ever been in a managerial context, an ordinary one, haven't been in the industrial context, and they get a bunch of management courses as part of a business curriculum. So, your task is to find some experiential context that they can connect that theoretical material to make it their own. And I like using classroom material for it. One of the major management theories that we talk about is Douglas McGregor's "Theory Y" notion of invoking participation loosely. McGregor argues that it's necessary to assume a willingness to be involved, a willingness to work. That there is no adversarial relationship between work and a firm [?]. And that given that assumption, it will be ill-founded sometimes, but you will get much more happening than if you don't. And it talks about the disastrous consequences of beginning with the opposite assumption. And everybody affirms that, and people read that stuff and they feel "Lord, it's just mom and apple pie, of course that's true." And at around that point I asked them how many of them have heard of the cluster colleges and William James, and Thomas Jefferson, and those places. And it's recent enough so that many of them have. And I say that, you know, that is really what we did, we were pushing on that kind of involvement, all the time, and from ourselves, from students, students doing it to each other. It was what made the place work. But looking at it from the outside, what do you know about it? I guess that's the first thing I ask. And they say: "Well non-graded, one. And two, easy." And we talk about the proclivity to define participative management as soft management by people on the outside of it. So, the resistance you get to any effort to manage in a way that involves subordinates in a way a firm really works is people on outside giggling and saying: "Oh my! Just look at what they're letting them get away with." And when they can find someone who is actually getting away with something, there's a cause for real celebration there. And to say that abstractly is nothing. But to point at the people in my class and say "Look at what you folks are doing," with very little information. But your incentive is so great to interpret what you've got, or to make up information that you don't have, that kind of resistance to managerial innovation, to, I think, good management, needs to be reckon with all the time. And it's the case in point that I use. I think for students and faculty, we were made to order for them. Many of �our students come to school… many students at places like Grand Valley come to school having a notion that if it's hard, it's good, and if it's fun, there's something wrong with it. So, the Board of Education in Grand Rapids, I think, last week passing resolutions saying, "Everybody should have homework." And the City High School, which prides itself on being a quality institution in Grand Rapids, advertises itself as "two hours of homework a night," as if that was the elixir, you know, that was the magic stuff that made it work. And they're onto something about the sociology of your clientele that's right because the clientele are so bound up in that notion that if you involve people, and you let them have fun with it, you're somehow doing it wrong. You're not giving them the real stuff. And I think that was very hard for us to overcome. [Barbara] Could we have overcome it, or did the administration have a responsibility to help us overcome it? Where could this ever have been fought? [Castro] Well, public image-wise, I think we were in much, much better shape for fighting it for the last few years. I think we got to know what we were doing much better. And asking for public… the public has a notion that we're supposed to know what we're doing from scratch. And that were supposed to come in and just do something, all which has been invented, which in any field is absurd, no field I think more absurd than in education. The standard item, the routine stuff, the kinds of classes they are used to… know what they're doing, certainly know better than we do. In my view, often knew less well, they inquired less thoughtfully into what they were doing. The question doesn't come up for them, and folks were… it would be hard to get folks willing to give us the time to be so much above the mark, so they can begin to trust us even though we were out of the ordinary. I don't think there's a lot the administration could have done about that. My neighbors who say "Thomas James" were not reachable by the administration. And they were sophisticated, nice people who like me and think that it must've been a little bit okay because I was there. They don't mean to be putting it down, but they can't get it straight. [Barbara] If you had to sum up what made James unique, very, very briefly, like two or three sentences, what was the thing that was critical? [Castro] Keywords: ambition, involvement, tremendous seriousness about education, and not being caught up in cynicism about careers and making it and looking for things. We talked about vocation all the time, looking for real vocation, and the students who are… I think profit most from the place, were most involved in it and the faculty were most involved in it, had found the vocation there, which was going to be with them the rest of their lives, as far as I can tell. And that seemed enormously valuable to me. [Barbara] That's a wonderful execution. I think we’re running [Inaudible]… yeah, �everything’s fine. Is there an answer… this may be too personal, in which case let’s not treat it as a serious question. Can you phrase why you came to James without laying on a whole biography? What was there in you that readied you for an alternative setting? Why was traditional education not satisfactory? [Castro] Well, I came there… I read an article about it, actually, that just touched on it. Mostly about Grand Valley in general, more about TJC, a little bit about James and change. But I was taken enough with the ambition of what was going on here to write Don Lubbers a letter saying I read this article about your place and I'm interested. And Don passed it on to Adrian and I got invited out for an interview, which was nice. I think the particularities of my own situation is there's nothing… the only problem about personal is I don't know how generalizable it will be. I taught with some very good people when I began teaching who were serious and good about what they did. And I did a kind of extended apprenticeship with them. A historian named Herb Gottman, a sociologist, people who became friends and had been at it longer than me and were very good. And I got a sense that I was going to college over again, only much better this time than I had gone the first time. And that was wonderful, and I wanted to keep on doing that. That stayed with me for a while. Then one of the people I taught with at that first institution got to be dean of faculty at a new branch of CUNY that started in nineteen seventy. And called me and asked if I wanted to organize a social science program there. And it was a wonderful opportunity to invent from scratch an institution. And we did a lot of things wrong in that invention. But I learned a lot at [Inaudible] which was the name of this place at City University and wanted a place to use what I had learned and going to an economics department to do micro, macro and an occasional elective seemed very dreadful, yes. And when I came to James, I think the first… immediately upon coming in, and meeting people, and getting some sense of what the place was about. It was as if I had been here forever. I recognized it and I don't know what folks’ reaction to it – my stance – was, but I never entertained the possibility that they wouldn't hire me at all. I mean it was mine and of course they'd… it belonged to me. And they did what they were supposed to do, but it was very compelling. [Barbara] What would you say, again, not being very specific about current things, but in teaching now… no, it's not a good question, forget it. I’m sorry. Stop for a second. God, he’s looking gorgeous, isn’t he? Its fine, I'll cut through the other stuff. Okay, that's the question we’re on. [Castro] Okay. I want to talk about… [Unknown] That side, yes. Like that, that's… [Castro] The difference between… I've been teaching the last couple years in a business school environment and that seems on first vision… when I first understood that I �would be going to a business school, that was, it certainly felt like it was going to be a very alien environment, it was scary. It has not been an alien environment. The internal dynamics of my classes seem very similar to what went on in James. I am teaching in the same way and I feel that I am being responded to well. In some ways, very well. I am more of a rare commodity teaching at a school of business than I ever was at James. And folks could kind of nod their head when I did what I did at James and they are hearing it all for the first time. [Barbara] Like what? [Castro] Well, the purpose of this class is not information transmission, boom boom, boom, boom, boom. What we’re up to is engaging your thinking and engaging you in a conversation on the one hand with the literature, and on the other hand with the experience, and getting you to see that conversation, and respond to it. And getting smarter. I tell my students that the heart of management, the only two real ingredients of management are being as smart as you can be and good manners. And everything else is detail. It all follows from that. You need to listen to people, and respect them, and you need to think about what you're listening to as hard as you can. It fits in the context of liberal education much better than I think most people either in the humanities or in business schools know. And I’ve discovered a sense of mission about getting people both in the humanities and in the business schools to recognize that. That business schools can be perfectly viable milieus to teach well in. And I think a lot of what business schools are has been a reaction to feeling nasty prejudice coming from humanities. And the kind of thumbing of the nose back at them and turning up of our speakers, or ghetto blasters, or whatever, and just letting it blare out. Because you guys expect us to be doing that anyway, so we're going to let you have it. So, it's been fun to discover that there was something real for me to do in this milieu. And fun also that there were large numbers of students who were there, who I didn't need to go scraping for them, there was support from the outside environment, we didn't need to defend the business school’s right to exist, at all. I could go on to do the work that I needed to do as a teacher, without needing to deflect my energies in all sorts of ways that at James they got deflected. And that's been very exciting. Students have been… they come to my office a lot. People are around, and they're grateful for the kind of thing I've been pushing for. And I’ve very, very, very little resistance. Actually, almost none that I know of… there may have been some that's quiet. I miss the collegiality. I had Robert Mayberry next door to me for ten years at James, and that was extraordinary and wonderful and I miss it. But he's only across a short mall. This not having to worry about Alison Bernstein's double preciousness has been very nice. I'm not in a precious milieu now, I'm just in a business school. And if we can do the stuff we can do in that kind of milieu, that's better. I don't think I could have gotten as good without James, at all. I don't think we could have. I don't know that we can stay as good without it, and I worry about that. And I worry about what's going to generate �more faculty with those same commitments. And my sense is that we have to do it. We have to keep on talking and wait until the next cosmic change happens, right? [Barbara] Wonderful end to the show. Thank you! It was a good close. [Videotape recording ends and begins again] [Barbara] Because also, like, everybody doesn't cover the same material, so it must be clear that this isn't a real… I mean, people didn't get together and talk and organize this. People's conversations do bypass each other a little bit, you know. [Castro] Are you going to get Adrian? [Barbara] Of course. She troubles me. Has she written you? She hasn't written me either. [Castro] She talked to me about three weeks ago. [Barbara] Oh really? [Castro] Where did I see her? Were we in Minneapolis? � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_55_Castro Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Castro, Barry Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Barry Castro interview (video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Barry Castro by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Barry Castro was a faculty member of William James College from 1973-1983 before becoming a professor of management for the Seidman School of Business. In this interview, Barry discusses the qualities that made William James College unique and the personal journey that led him to the college, in addition to how the WJC philosophy informs his management courses. This interview is part 1 of 1 for Barry Castro. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/21073b8a354436b292bff74ec4010b47.mp4 4b3f1f2f0e0752d5bb9f305f0cf7dd33 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2a43de6ab2a3ec1c1cd8ab5202ef1d6e.pdf ee0c5aef308a0fc8638903524ea5407f PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Richard (Dick) Gottlieb Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 2 [Barbara] Something about the… you like teaching, so talk to me a little tiny bit about the teaching process and how it was Jamesian and how it wasn't… [Gottlieb] Oh, God. [Barbara] I'm getting criticism but there was positive because you miss it, and you haven't said why. You haven't really said why. That's it. [Gottlieb] Each class was an attempt to create something. I'm not an academician, I'm a therapist, and I would try to come into class hoping something would happen, without planning for something to happen. And I would have a general sense of what we were covering. Maybe, by the time I was there four years, I was even doing outlines for the term, with probably twenty or twenty-five lines to cover the description of the term. And sometimes I would even follow the outlines and I would sort of have a general sense of what going on… what I was trying to cover. But I would not read lectures, or write lectures, or anything. I would try to respond to the material as it generated in class and I got better at that. That's a clinical skill, too, and it helped me practice development of creative interaction, each class. And the students who were there during that loved it, and learned a lot, and are good clinicians, some of them now. And there are people… I guess, I get some confirmation about the quality of my teaching in that there are some people now who are well past their master’s now doing work in the local area, and all of the ones I find disgustingly horrible in their work are the people who had terrible problems in my classes. And I smile a lot about that, that seems right. And the ones who are lovely and helpful, didn't… or didn’t have prolonged trouble in my class. [Julie] You… [Gottlieb] What? [Julie] Loved you. [Gottlieb] Yeah or loved me. Okay, the only other thing I want to say is that I think that having a William James College in Western Michigan in the seventies and eighties was a mistake from the beginning. Interesting notion and interesting �experiment but idiotic. The idea that it would last even ten years, seems to me, was incredible and it should've just been moved to the east coast and allowed to grow. It certainly could not survive here. Ever. Only if it stayed small and manageable. And if it stayed small and unmanageable or large, I think it was doomed. And I think that was true from the beginning. [Barbara] Do you think we should have put up a fight, though? [Gottlieb] A fight? For what? [Julie] Yes, you did. [Gottlieb] For what? What kind of fight? What do you mean? [Julie] Do you think the students should be raising hell? [Gottlieb] Oh, the students, yes, but when you say "we" I think faculty. Yes, I think the students should have burned down the damn campus. But they didn't and that's why we closed. Students will get what they want, and they did, and they do. And so now Grand Valley is more populous than it ever was before. They have more students than they know what to do with. They're rich, they're happy, they're fat, they're ridiculous, they're horrible. And there's still good faculty there, teaching good courses to good students, but there's not that magic combination that was there before. [Barbara] Julie, you have to say something because we have you… he's talking to you and if we don't see you, it’s absolutely ridiculous. [Gottlieb] If you excuse me, I'm going to him. [Unknown] Mosquito on your left leg. Good shot. [Barbara] That’s a good shot. [Unknown] You can tell she's loving it. [Julie] I'm not… [laughter]. [Unknown] I know. [Barbara] You’re going to ask the second question. I’m going to ask the first one. You know her very best. You know what to ask her. [Gottlieb] Oh, okay. �[Julie] Well, you said I should say something about the essence of William James. [Barbara] Yes, I would like to hear it. [Julie] It makes me sad to think about it. I think, for me, the essence of William James was the people. The sense of community and learning, of people coming at things from different directions, and with different vocabularies, and coming to a common understanding. And that's what felt real important. [Barbara] Stop playing with the microphone cord! [Everyone] [Laughter] [Barbara] [Inaudible] Dick, do you have a question? [Gottlieb] How did you feel about… how do you fell about the way you were made part of the community, or not made part of the community? [Barbara] As an adjunct. [Gottlieb] As an adjunct faculty. [Barbara] Good question! [Gottlieb] Thank you. [Julie] It varied. It seemed that there were some people who were committed to not seeing me as a part of the college. But, generally, it seemed like I could be there, as much as I was willing to work to be there. And I felt accepted by the students. I felt like it could be my school, too. [Barbara] Were you accepted by the institution? [Julie] No, I don't think so. [Barbara] Because? [Julie] I don't know. It was always difficult for me to tell how much of that was me being reluctant to fully enter in, and how much of that really was the institution not being real welcoming. And… yeah, I don't know, I'm… [Barbara] I have one more question, which might draw a blank, but I'm going to ask it. Talking to Stephen, it's so clear that William James College really did embody the �philosophy of William James. Did you catch… how did catch that philosophy? Did you study James when you came? In other words, there was something that made the college work, which indeed embodied James's philosophy. I'm trying to figure out how we all learned it so fast when we didn't read James. [Julie] I don't know. What I think of when you ask the question is that we were asked before we interviewed, each of us, to write a statement of our teaching philosophy. And we did that knowing nothing about what the college was about. And it was a perfect match and that just felt real nice. It's like we discovered William James College and William James College discovered, or collected, people who already had that sense of William James philosophy within them. [Barbara] Indeed. The selection process was very important. It really was. It was absolutely critical. [Julie] We came to William James and we loved the faculty. When we came for that first interview, and it felt wonderful to be with those people. [Barbara] Perhaps we can stop so that we can let that stuff [Inaudible]. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_54_Gottlieb Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gottlieb, Richard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Richard and Julie Gottlieb interview (2 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Richard "Dick" Gottlieb and his wife Julie Gottlieb by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Richard Gottlieb was a Social Work faculty member at William James College and a co-director of the Social Work program at Grand Valley. In this interview, Richard discusses how the future of William James College was limited in West Michigan and his thoughts on the college's closing. Richard is later joined on camera by his wife and fellow social worker, Julie, who worked as an adjunct faculty in William James College and discusses the essence and importance of the William James community. This interview is part 2 of 2 for Richard Gottlieb. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Gottlieb, Julie Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Social work education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b6a635ab2dfd6f5046b3dd5c4310e447.mp4 cc09890d51a0b38e57b42dab60a8acb8 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/12eb6f940205cc7664f037b084a39445.pdf e3b41bea686fbef9dae004be762cf2f2 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Richard (Dick) Gottlieb Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 2 [Gottlieb] Here we are being informal, yes. [Barbara] Are we still rolling? [Unknown] Yes. [Julie] Um yeah, I was just wondering Barb… [Barbara] Okay, just a minute. [Unknown] Stop tape. [Julie] Of the kind of subject matter that you were teaching and not having this power to… [Gottlieb] Yeah, let’s see if she asks about that. [Barbara] Well, I am asking. Yes, please tell me what you guys are saying. [Gottlieb] Yeah. Teaching therapeutic process in a college classroom leads to certain kinds of reactions in students, lots of powerful reactions in students. And as long as there was institutional support for that to happen, as long as a student who would be upset by the material that is talked about in class, like, if we're talking about psychosis and a student either has a relative or they themselves have been severely disturbed, it brings it out. And as long as you have institutional support, you can teach it, and the student goes through that experience of stress, and realizes that they can survive and still learn about this material and not have to be crazy. If there isn't institutional support, then you get, yeah, you get crazy reactions. You get the craziness acted out. And I don't know if examples are a good idea, but probably not. [Barbara] Well, could you tell me what you mean by institutional support, because it just sounds like… [Gottlieb] Well, if a student is upset by something that happens in class and they talk to other faculty or they talk to the administration of the college and the message �they get is: "That's a serious issue, take it to the faculty and work it out.” I'm here, you want me to help, fine. But that's a serious educational question, take it back to your faculty. But if what they get is, "Oh, God, that sounds horrible! Write that down and complain about it," then what you have is students demanding to be comfortable in class and my experience is that teaching psychology or psychotherapy – specifically psychotherapy – you can't be comfortable and learn. You just can't be comfortable. The process of psychotherapy, even at the bachelor level, teaching psychotherapy is teaching something that will be bringing on stress if its ever practiced and to teach it in a stress-free environment is impossible, in my view. [Barbara] So, you did… you were able to teach it with institution support for a while? [Gottlieb] Yep, for long while. And when that changed was when the deans changed. There was not a sudden shift, it was a shift that flowed. It flowed in the direction away from support of faculty, in my experience, in the direction of making students experience Chevrolet-like. Acceptable to a wide range of students and… let me finish my thought. Acceptable to a wide range of students and not bothering anybody ever. And the sparkle went out in my view of the college at that point. What Julie? What? What? [Barbara] If you want to say something, say it loudly so the mic picks it up. [Julie] Well, it seems like a reflection of a conflict in the society, generally, about who should be doing what kind of work. People were saying that this kind of material shouldn't be taught on the bachelor level at all, but we’re reaching students now doing treatment throughout the city and facilities that hire bachelor level people to work directly with clients who are severely disturbed, but they're… [Gottlieb] Do you want me to say that? Or something about it? [Barbara] Yeah, use it. [Gottlieb] Okay. That's disgusting. [Barbara] That time we got it. [Gottlieb] Well, what you were just saying is whether or not it's legitimate to be teaching bachelor level people about psychotherapy and I think our experience in the last ten years in mental health indicates that it clearly is because bachelor level people provide therapeutic services all over. And increasingly do so. [Barbara] So why the change? Was it a decision on somebody's part or was it personalities or what? �[Gottlieb] No, I don't think it was personalities or a decision about whether or not to support. I think it was a decision at high administrative levels on the campus, that it was time Grand Valley State Colleges (newly called College) shall henceforth not piss anybody off. And I think at all levels of teaching that philosophy infected us. William James, I don't think, raised people's anxieties terribly much as a college, except people who were bothered by what seemed to be the enjoyment people had in their mission. And I think that kind of anxiety was untenable in the new Grand Valley, which was a place where nobody was supposed to be tense about anything. Everybody should be kind of copacetic. And they had undone Thomas Jefferson, and they had undone any sense of accomplishment – experimental accomplishment – on the campus. And everybody was trying to look as gray as possible so that nobody would take them out of the picture. And William James couldn't quite look gray enough and I think that's why it was closed. [Barbara] Um… [Gottlieb] So what I've just outlined is a kind of progression from the question I had to face there in teaching courses which encouraged nervousness to a college which encouraged nervousness. And there were advantages to being at William James and there were disadvantages to being at James and there were advantages to being in my class and disadvantages. And I think that in the five years I worked there until there was this shift I'm describing, I think I was getting to be a much better teacher. I think in the two years following that shift, I think I got to be a much worse teacher. [Barbara] That's my experience, okay. That's parallel to it exactly. Some people have said on tape that there were certain turning points in the history of the college which made it have to be closed and that one of the turning points was losing social work. Would you comment on that? [Gottlieb] Losing social work? When I was hired, I was asked to be the Director of the Social Work program and there were a lot of people at CAS… thank you Rich… a lot of people at CAS who were teaching in social work. So, I made the proposal that there should be co-chair with CAS, instead of just myself, and put that together and a woman, Ann Johnson [?] (she has long since disappeared) from CAS, and I became co-chair. The following term was shifted to CAS because that was seen as clearly duplicating services, somehow, that there were co-chair running the program. And or the following year, I guess, that was moved to CAS. The effect on the school, I thought, was minimal, actually. Professional education, as defined in the program, then moved to CAS, was limited and, I thought, bankrupt. �[Julie] We lost a lot of students because of the move. [Gottlieb] Yeah, but losing students isn't what caused the end of William James College. [Julie] No, not the end of William James College. [Gottlieb] That's what I'm commenting on. I don't think that Social Work going to the College of Arts and Sciences was at all a turning point for the school. I think we developed a social work curriculum within William James College that was really fine and… [Julie] The students didn't go to it? [Gottlieb] The students went to it! I don't know why you think students didn't go to it, my classes were filled. All of them, all the time. [Julie] Until the end? [Gottlieb] Julie, Social Work went to CAS in nineteen seventy-nine. Okay? We're talking two different stages here. When social work went to CAS, we sat up our own social work program, students came to it, it was fine; worked beautifully. The problem was that we were then being disallowed to be teaching some of the courses because that was, again, duplication. It was not simple to… it wasn't simple enough somehow to have two colleges teaching courses that had the same… somewhat similar content, anyway. And our students were being told not to take courses at William James. They were being told to take courses at CAS. It was not moving of the social work program; it was, I think, again, the administrative response which told students that William James was not the place to get their education. They were telling students who were currently enrolled, and they were telling incoming students. Just… testimonials don't mean diddley squat, but one student who came to me and said: "I came to the admissions office. I asked for a school that didn't give grades, I asked for a school that had a community in it, I asked for a school where you individually set up your own curriculum, and they sent me to CAS." And that was going on all over the place. I think movement of Social Work was symptomatic of that. I don't think it mattered… made any difference. [Barbara] I ask you to please summarize the essence of William James college very briefly. Like one or two sentences. [Gottlieb] Bob Burns, Robert Mayberry, Stephen Rowe, Margaret Proctor, Barry Castro, Wil Walko, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. [Barbara] Okay, no two people – I ask this question to everyone – no two people have �given anything remotely resembling the same answer, which is wonderful. Whether it be… [Inaudible]. Why did you come to James? I don't mean your personal history; I mean, what was there for you? [Gottlieb] Julie and I were invited to interview. They wanted social workers. We were living in Detroit, and what we saw when we came here was a group of people… one of the people who interviewed us had his zipper down, couldn't uh…[laughter] and we found a group of people who were excited about something and I was working in a hospital at the time. Julie was not working, but we were both committed to the provision of services, and here was an opportunity to impact other people who might be providing service in the future. And I think we just got very excited by the kind of contagious quality of the place. What it had to offer us? A chance to do something meaningful. [Barbara] What do you miss? [Gottlieb] The most amazing thing is what I don't miss… about the campus. It's the only place I've ever been in – only physical environment I've ever been in – where after seven years (that's a long time), I had no attachment to the physical environment at all. Nothing. There wasn't a corner that I remembered fondly, or a stairwell that I remember sitting on. The place was so well designed as to be totally unattachable. It was wonderful, it was a marvelous place. What do I miss? I miss teaching. And so I don't exactly miss the students, I don't exactly miss the faculty, and I don't exactly miss classes but I miss teaching and that's all part of that. I liked teaching, and so that feels like a real loss. I still see a lot of people who were the faculty, and I still see a lot of people, actually, who were the students. Or people who might have been students. It was a quiet community. That's all I miss. A lot of things I don't miss. The sense of deterioration, the sense of being co-opted, piece by piece. A little chunk here, a little number there. Let's just change that rule. Let's just move that piece of… I hated it. You agree? [Barbara] Let us stop for a minute. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_53_Gottlieb Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gottlieb, Richard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Richard Gottlieb interview (1 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Richard "Dick" Gottlieb by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Richard Gottlieb was a Social Work faculty member at William James College and a co-director of the Social Work program at Grand Valley. In this interview, Richard discusses the closing of William James College, the movement of the Social Work program to the College of Arts and Sciences, and the essence of William James. Richard's wife and fellow social worker, Julie Gottlieb, can be heard off camera while joining in on the conversation. This interview is part 1 of 2 for Richard Gottlieb. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Gottlieb, Julie Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Social work education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/774593335ddb9e80faf89dac3073ee19.mp4 69cd74e2febec959b57d4fda97d738f8 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cd91137d7e8ceea8fce90566721f3ebe.pdf a0d465b18c2f7a11a2fc4f18d759bfe8 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Forrest Armstrong Date: 1984 Part: 3 of 3 [Barbara] What's your guess… what's your estimate of the… how much of the feelings that the way that Zumberge saw us was because we were really straight up, and how much was it that we just made them uncomfortable because of our style? [Armstrong] Hard question to answer. I really don't think that the system, collectively, was out to get the college. I say that because there were so many instances when it could have done so, and yet did not. When TJC was killed, before I came, that would also have been a time to change the system, to get rid of James, too. In the fall of nineteen eighty, when the budget problems were severe, when we had a financial emergency, when we laid off faculty, we did so across the institution, not simply by lopping off one of the small colleges, which would've been the easy way to go, and which had some champions. The reorganization that took place would not have taken the shape it ultimately did if there had not been some serious, profound respect for things that the college offered, including both ideas and people. I do think, though, that there are some things that happened that created a climate of, at least, misunderstanding and sometimes of distrust on campus. I think that the idea, of course, was that from the beginning the institution would be made up of collegiate societies which would share, profoundly, even though they, in each case, had some distinguishing differentiating element. My sense is that never really happened, that the formation of the federation took place after a sizable number of faculty had been hired at the institution. And largely, as a way to promote innovation and differences. It's almost as if the small colleges as they were formed were islands for misfit toys, for people who didn't like what was then the dominant mode could go and do their own thing. I think this led, at least, James to define itself in very negative terms. Basically, in opposition to the dominant mode of thought in higher education at that time. And seldom was the college able to find something that was positive that it could define itself as being, without seeing that same positive element picked up, subsequently, in other places on campus. The attempt to integrate career and liberal education, which certainly marked this college from its beginnings, ultimately was picked up by only other colleges, too. So, it didn't differentiate in a meaningful, obvious way to people who were relatively naïve observers. What William James was that CAS or Kirkhof was not, each in its own way. So, many people here when I came in nineteen eighty defined themselves in opposition to something else. That was a clear problem. It was that we were different than they are, hence, better; rather than we are �different in particular ways that present particular advantages. I think that was exacerbated, too, by the series of decisions… style-type decisions. And also, because in the hiring process, we didn't always go for both "ands." We didn't look for people who had the credentials and who could fit into any college on campus, but who, for special reasons, also had dimensions that made them especially good for James. That process I think began with the first faculty appointments and probably proceeded all the way through. That obviously didn't help the college in the eyes of the rest of the campus. There also being no intellectual life that tied the institution together, where the intellectual life was around the exterior, the rim of the doughnut, but not anything in the center of the doughnut, meant that people basically defined themselves in opposition to others on campus, rather than as something powerful, and positive, and unique that had its own contribution to make. I think that was a major problem in the air when I came, and I sometimes am amazed that the several opportunities to kill the college outright never led to that result. There were certainly days when I feared it would. [Barbara] Was there any sense that there was simple prejudice against us as versus us screwing up. [Armstrong] I'm sorry, simple prejudice…? [Barbara] Simple prejudice just against our style, our politics? [Armstrong] I suspect that didn't help. I suspect it didn't help, but I think politics in a broad sense… I don't think that it had to do with necessarily support for or opposition to any particular ism but perhaps an orientation that was slightly less controlled, less modulated, less considered, than people perceived academe ought to be, perhaps. [Barbara] I moved something here and then asked you to start talking. I don't know how we phrased it before, but talk about your mini history of what happened when they decided they had to do something, regardless of the organization, at what point was it decided we would kill…? [Armstrong] Well, there was concern expressed, I think, always from the time in fall of nineteen eighty, when the budget collapse struck us, how the institution was going to respond. And the decision at that time was to prune selectively, if you will, across campus rather than simply lopping off a college or two. Subsequently, we had a series of budget cuts. That was only the beginning, not the end. And at each point, the problem loomed large enough that, potentially, one could have said, "We will simply cut off a college." That was never done, and I think that was of real consequence. I think people understood… people intuited, perhaps more than they understood, that there was something of value in the college. My sense �is that in the fall of nineteen eighty-one, I believe, the pressure began to build to do something more consequential than simply pruning here and there. And in the early part of January of nineteen eighty-two, the President's proposal that we conduct a study to eliminate unnecessary overlap and duplication said, I think, to the people who wanted to get rid of the collegiate system that, potentially, that was an acceptable alternative. The process moved fairly quickly at that point and by, as I recall, the beginning of March, there was a report from Curriculum Committee. And there was a time, before the decision had actually reached the Academic Senate, the President called a campus-wide meeting and endorsed a particular plan, which is the one that, in essence, that we have today. That plan took apart the old system. It didn't simply lop off James or Kirkhof. It didn't simply keep a traditional college and create then a professional college. It did, I think, much of what we in James were trying to do in some important ways. It extended the effort to integrate the liberal and the professional programs, to pull them together, to find some synergy there across the entire institution so that we now have four academic divisions, each of which has both professional and liberal arts programs in it. Certainly, that was not the way much of the rest of the world was organized, and that's an idea and that came directly from James, and people saw that and valued it. Interdisciplinarity, as a term, was – and I think probably still is – not a favorable one on campus. I think people react negatively to the term interdisciplinarity and yet I'm intrigued to see the number of people who are coming to me and looking for ways to accomplish exactly those opportunities. As faculty members, as researchers, as teachers – they are looking for that opportunity to work with others from different disciplines around common ideas. They just don't call it interdisciplinarity, but there is an interesting, growing interest on campus in precisely that sort of thing. The new General Ed program with the categories that are not owned by any single division is, I think, as explicit as one needs to get in the recognition that there are things that the divisions can share around common ideas that are important to all of us. The other thing I think that's important is that the new General Ed program says that there is something that we all share. We are interdependent. It's not that one division does something for its students and another division does something for its students. We are all interdependent. I think, too, that's something they got from James that they saw to be of value. Probably not at as high a level of articulateness as one might have hoped. But nonetheless it was there, and it was an appreciation, it was valued, and it was saved. [Barbara] Duplication then was not, really, a serious problem? [Armstrong] I have never thought so. If one has full classes – so what, you know? We now offer fourteen sections of Philosophy 101. Every year, they're all full. If we offered seven of Philosophy 101 in one college, seven in another college, and they're all full, [inaudible]. I think that was really an excuse, an opportunity. I don't believe that we really did save anything of consequence that way. What we did do – and �I think it was high time that we did – was combine faculty in larger programs. By the time there had been cuts over time, in the last… seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one, there were lots of programs on campus that were staffed with very few faculty. Lots of one person programs. That's probably not good, and the reorganization allowed us to bring together people into larger critical masses of faculty. And I think probably strengthen programs for students, too. I think that was a step forward. I think that needed to be done, regardless of the organizational structure in which it were accomplished. [Barbara] There are people who say on tape, more than one people… "more than one people." [Laughter] The administration was going to close us; they knew it within the first couple of years. Was that your experience? Did they know they were going to close us at the point when they started talking of duplication in the organization? [Armstrong] I'm sorry, they knew they were going to do it within the first couple of years of what? Of the founding of the college? [Barbara] Yes. [Armstrong] That's very hard for me to imagine, but it's also a long time before I came. [Barbara] But, I mean, in terms of your experience when you were in the middle of the reorganization, talking duplication, did you have a sense they were looking for an excuse to close the college? [Armstrong] No, I think… I think actually the opposite. It seems to me, looking back on it, that there were all sorts of opportunities for them to have closed the college they did not take. When they chose to kill TJC, that was a wrenching decision from the institution. I understand that. But having made the decision to do that, one could have, I think, at the same time, passed a different resolution which is to kill the federation concept entirely. They didn't do that. When in nineteen eighty then Adrian resigned and they needed to replace the dean, that was another opportunity which they did not take to kill the college. And that was a convenient opportunity. In the fall of nineteen eighty, when the budget deficit was so severe and so sudden, that was an opportunity to solve the problem and ruffle almost no feathers on campus by simply lopping off one or two small colleges. James first choice and then Kirkhof second choice, I would guess, to solve the budget problem. Didn't happen! In nineteen eighty-two, when the opportunity came for reorganization, when it was pretty clear that there was going to be a reorganization, the only question was what shape it would take. Again, that was the opportunity; that was the obvious, easy answer and it wasn't taken. That says to me, that people with the long knives were not out. That there was, perhaps, a latent appreciation, but at some levels a profound appreciation for that which we �were trying to accomplish and had made some headway on that people didn't want to lose. Didn't understand it well but didn't think it ought to be lost either. [Barbara] It's blinking at me. [Armstrong] Okay. [Barbara] We have one more question, I think. I think you've done the legacy, don’t you? � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_52_Armstrong Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Armstrong, Forrest Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Forrest Armstrong interview (3 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Forrest Armstrong by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Forrest Armstrong was the Dean of William James College from 1980-1983 and also served as the Dean of Arts and Humanities during his ten years at Grand Valley. In this interview, Forrest discusses his impression of how the William James College community defined itself, the outside community's reaction to their politics, and how the institution responded to the budget collapse beginning in the fall of 1980. This interview is part 3 of 3 for Forrest Armstrong. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College administrators Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/770aaa0d6bde37f836fe39853679f294.mp4 276ad35bef6ac8cb04e44a029d2411d6 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4d796fbd2887157259a1ce2134871c42.pdf 21bb2dccf1cab8a356c8dc7a4ac32b0d PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Forrest Armstrong Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 3 [Barbara] Could you please sum up what you felt was the distinctive core of James in a sentence. [Armstrong] I think that the distinctive idea had to do with working with students individually, helping them see the relationship between their own efforts and the impact those ideas and efforts would have on society. I think the essence of the operation of the college was council, with a profound respect for other people, for hearing ideas on the merits, for looking things up one side and down the other, and for drawing people out for playing what Peter Elbow called the “believing game” rather than the “doubting game.” Immensely important, immensely powerful and made a lot of the good things in the college happen. [Barbara] Good. [Barbara] Anytime. [Armstrong] Looking back on it, if I had it to do over again, I think I probably would have accelerated the timetable for some things I tried to do. I don't think I would have changed them; I would simply have gotten to them immediately. In the second year, in the beginning of the second year, I proposed an agenda of, I believe, fourteen different items – things that the college needed to attend to. Almost all those we did work on, and I think almost all of them, in one form or another, were received favorably, which I think is a testimony of the power of people to look at with open eyes and ideas that were not necessarily the same as the ones they had been working with. We should've done it the first year, not the second. I remember vividly that we had a retreat in January of eighty-two. We had a retreat at Kirkhof House. And one of the things I did at that time was read to people the statement I had just gotten earlier that day from the President, about the charge to the committee to, you know, attend to overlap and duplication – things of that sort. At that time… in that meeting, on our agenda was things like a change in the grading system, and some other modifications which, I think, possibly could have made a difference had they been in place during the nineteen eighty, eighty-one academic year. Eighty, eighty-one was a bizarre time. I was never here, really, during the normal time, except those first twenty-nine days. But, if we had made some changes then – that I personally think were called for – it’s conceivable to me, I think it is unlikely, but I think there's probably five to ten �percent probability that it might have worked out a little differently. That's not a high probability of success, but those are the kinds of things that I think would have been taken seriously. I know the changes we made during the eighty-one, eighty-two academic year were taken seriously by the people across campus. They looked at us in a little different way as a result. And I think that if we had attended to the grading system which, in many respects, was the central, most visible thing about us that people were then taking shots at. Conceivably, we might have done it. Conceivably we might have had a different outcome. Not probably, but least conceivably. [Armstrong] In retrospect, it is easy to say that I really should have proposed a number of things earlier. I didn't do it because I really wanted to take that first year and get to know the college more fully than I could possibly have known it coming in a fresh. I really didn't want to just bring in ideas and say: "I've got answers and here they are." I intuited that there was something of great value here, and one of the reasons I came was that I wanted to learn, and I understood that I could learn a number of things here. Learning means you talk to people, you ask questions, you listen. You don't simply come in with your bag of tricks and say, “Here they are, we gotta do them." And I did – I learned a lot. And that's one of the immensely important things for me about the experience. That would have been changed – for me, and I think for the college – had I come in with a whole agenda in nineteen eighty. On the other hand, in retrospect, maybe something else could have happened as a result. [Barbara] Fascinating. [Barbara] Let’s give it a shot. [Armstrong] One of the interesting things about the federation – I think probably one of reasons it came into being initially – was that the several colleges presented multiple opportunities for innovation, multiple pathways. And during that heady growth period of the seventies, there were ultimately five different places where a good idea could be found, where a good idea could be nurtured and grow and develop. And I think it was always in the eyes of the people in central administration at that time, that if there were a good idea, it would be appropriated by other units across campus, and the whole institution would be stronger as a result. The decision to reorganize then in nineteen eighty-two, I think, was also informed by that understanding. The decision to create a divisional structure happened to end up with the same number of divisions as there then were colleges. I think that was probably accidental; probably had more to do with the structure of knowledge with the traditional three domains, and the existence of Seidman, which was a foregone conclusion to continue pretty much as it had been. But that also offered then multiple pathways for innovation; multiple structures through which people could work. All smaller structures than �what would’ve happened had there been just one large monolithic organization. I think probably people had learned that if there are somewhat smaller organizational structures and somewhat more of them, maybe it's more likely that ideas will surface and flourish. [Barbara] How are you feeling? [Armstrong] Okay. [Armstrong] I sometimes wonder what the future of the college would have been had we had more time. One of the things that has always perplexed me has been the relative disparity between some of the things that were valued publicly – that were certainly central to the theory behind the college – and the kinds of things we would have wanted our students to do, and some the decision-making processes within it. There seemed to me to be a hard time for people collectively to engage hard decisions. The idea that the choice of Adrian's successor was left to tie. Where, repeatedly, people who had chosen to abstain from the voting passed the decision to Zumberge. The decision at the time in nineteen-eighty when we had to reduce staff… that faculty could have been collectively, centrally, involved in that, but chose not to be… before the fact, at least. The difficulty so many people had with giving no credits, even though the giving of an incomplete, more than ninety percent of the time, was tantamount to giving a no credit, because they all lapsed to no credit. There was some, in some sense, a reluctance to grapple publicly, as council should have caused, with certain kinds of hard decisions. There was a strain of thought in the college that said one of the things I value about it is the opportunity to do things… do my own thing, really, without the kind of real, shared scrutiny that in theory is called for. And that always has perplexed me. It seems to be out of character with the rest of the institution. But I think it was something that did not augur well for the future. I don't know why it was. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_51_Armstrong Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Armstrong, Forrest Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Forrest Armstrong interview (2 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Forrest Armstrong by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Forrest Armstrong was the Dean of William James College from 1980-1983 and also served as the Dean of Arts and Humanities during his ten years at Grand Valley. In this interview, Forrest discusses the core of the William James College philosophy, what he would have done differently for the college in retrospect, and how the cluster college structure at Grand Valley provided opportunities for innovation. This interview is part 2 of 3 for Forrest Armstrong. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College administrators Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0a5c25b79dd65c053371d6d9118ceecd.mp4 f9db2b5b3c2675157f81876d63b121f5 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f4fed114d7057b01883f4824648eaf61.pdf dc7119787fa60602b2874d711706968f PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Forrest Armstrong Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 3 [Barbara] Not as many students as I would like to, but everybody from the faculty and… What kind of description that tells you what kind of vibes about the place did you get from others? [Armstong] Did I get from others? [Barbara] From others. Not what you observed, but what kinds of things were you told about the college? [Armstrong] Okay. [Barbara] Anytime you're comfortable. [Armstrong] Oh, you're running? [Barbara] Yeah. [Armstrong] Okay. I think the image that I got when I came was of a place where there were a fair number of good people, people who were viewed favorably across campus, but who, genuinely, were not well understood in the kind of thing they had chosen to put their lives to. The college was not at all well understood. There was the shared perception that there was nothing of coherence that one might call general education. The synoptic program was not seen to be a program. The concept was, I think, not well understood. The grading system was a major problem. And I think, increasingly, the college became known more by its failures than by its successes. I think there was a sense that there was a fatal fascination of moth for a flame. And the college with its perceived lack of structure, perceived lack of rigor – collectively, though not individually – and lack of grading system as understood by the rest of the world, was attracting people for the wrong reasons. Yet, there was attention, I think, because many people on campus could point to individuals at the college and say: "There's a very bright, very dedicated, very capable, very attractive, colleague." But somehow collectively it didn't work that way. [Barbara] Okay. Can you be specific about certain things that you were told to change? If that's a proper question. �[Armstrong] I don't think I was told to change anything. I think I came, probably, with an implicit mandate that things needed to be better organized, that things needed to be tightened up, if you will. There was the budget fiasco of the previous year, where the budget had been overspent and we were, actually, in nineteen eighty debited by over half of the amount that was overspent the year before. [Barbara] How much? [Armstrong] I'm going to say six thousand was debited and the overrun was twelve thousand out of a CSSM of sixty. Maybe not close enough for government work even. I think there was the sense that a number of things had – at least in the near term – been left unattended. I wasn't here then; I don't really know what that meant. But there were a number of things that were of the standard organizational sort: things that needed to be done on time and things needed to be done comprehensively. In the sense, I believe, those had not been done that way in the past. I think Zumberge presumed, appropriately, that that's something I could do. But that's the tail, not the dog. Another thing I think that was probably not well understood was the extent of which the curriculum changed in a relatively fluid manner. Not as fluid as TJC's had been, apparently, but far more so than CAS's. And I think there was some lack of understanding about how that could keep going on. Why people didn't think it through, get it straight, and then more or less stay with it once they had gotten it that way. One of the issues – I don't how long it had been an issue, but it was certainly and issue when I came – was the need for the institution to run as many course descriptions and the time schedule each semester as it was doing. And that was attributed largely to James's insistence that it be that way. [Barbara] Okay. We've been talking about other people's perceptions, what were your perceptions of the college when you actually came and started administrating? [Armstrong] My perception of the college was that it had a lot of good people who are very seriously invested in the college. That there was a real openness to seeing students as significant participants in the process, which is immensely valuable, and it helps set the tone for a lot of other things that could happen. I think I also saw that there was a real openness to ideas. People were used to working with ideas of others; they were open to that. There was a kind of collegiality that was important here, and it's something that I think I value especially and is one of the many things I found that was attractive that led me to come. I think that I also found that there was probably a mismatch between perceptions of people in the college about what it was and what it actually was, especially in the nature of the student body. And my sense is that the perceptions of people in the college – faculty – probably were formed maybe five years before I came, when the student body was largely social relations students, and probably largely made up �of students who were here for what we all came to say were the right reasons. They understood… they were attracted to the college because of this educational philosophy, because of the myriad ways they could grow within that philosophy, because of all very positive things. And, indeed, many of the students I met when I came for my interview, I later learned were of that sort just exiting the college. I think, though, probably beginning about seventy-eight, the student balance changed fairly abruptly. They changed from social relations students to arts and media students and – not because of that, but I think in addition to that – more and more came for what might not have been the right reasons. People running from a perception of the structure and the rigor that they would find in some other place to a place where they could do their own thing, and everything was okay. That was never the perception of the faculty, collectively, but I think it was of more and more students. And I think over time, those students made an impact on the whole campus's perception of the college. And also had something to do with the nature of the discourse in classes. I think that was one of the things that we didn't anticipate and had hurt us in the long run. [Barbara] Very clear. What was your impression of the quality of education that we were delivering or that was being absorbed (if those are two different things) when you arrived? The quality of the education? [Armstrong] I think, in general, it was quite high. I think it was, probably, more ambitious than an increasingly large percentage of the students were able to handle. One of the things that I remember vividly is the sense of people saying: "It's not working the way it used to. We used to be able to do certain kinds of things and we can't do them now." I looked at the numbers, and the distribution to students, and so forth, and it seemed relatively clear to me why that might be. But for people who had evolved through the change from seventy-four to eighty, the changes were gradual and relatively imperceptible in any moment of time. The difference between what had been done in the education and vocation class, whence came the idea for milestone, and what was done in milestone is, I think, dramatic. And it's probably a symbol of the changes that had come upon us without our understanding it. [Barbara] Good. You must have been in show business. [Armstrong] I'm sorry? [Barbara] You're very crisp, I was teasing you. [Armstrong] Oh [Laughter]. [Barbara] I was saying you must have been in show business. I'm sorry. What was your agenda? You didn't get to be [inaudible] for very long, but what was your agenda �for that, probably, year and a half, wasn't that it? [Armstrong] Twenty-nine days after I came, the state’s fiscal crisis was announced. And so whatever it was that might have been, I think, was really abrogated before even a month had past. I was really very interested in James, in part, because I had spent twelve years in a different interdisciplinary setting, and I was quite interested to get some perspective on what I had been doing. Some perspective on interdisciplinary teaching, interdisciplinary collaboration. I was also very interested to see an entirely different approach to the integration of general and liberal education with a major. Green Bay had had a core program; I had been centrally responsible for devising, and teaching in it, and revising it when it happened toward the end. Green Bay, in many respects, was much more tightly controlled. The whole thing was to be interdisciplinary, but there were many more strictures. Students would all have to do this, all have to do that, all have to something else. A very different approach toward achieving what I saw as some common objectives was the one taken here, and I wanted to get some perspective on that. One of the things I did not anticipate – but came to appreciate tremendously and learn a great deal from – is James's way of doing things. I think, probably, the central institution in the college, was council. And I had not understood – even intellectually, much less come to appreciate fully – the importance of council, nor the way it worked; nor the kind of respect for the ideas of others and concern for avoiding a rush to closure that I found here. That's one of the many things I think I got from James, was to learn something from that. One of my disappointments was that I did not find here – in those twenty-nine days, at least – I didn't really find the kind of collective attention to epistemology and to the intellectual underpinnings of the interdisciplinary enterprise that I had hoped. I think, frankly, that was a weakness. And I think that there were enough people who thought interdisciplinary just meant doing whatever one wanted, without taking a hard look at it. That disappointed me a bit. There was a lot of openness to ideas and there was a lot of sharing at some levels. And on a one-to-one basis, one could go a long way there. But, interestingly, in the collective endeavor, people backed away from doing some of the hard questioning, which I think is a natural outgrowth of the process and ought to be valued… ought to have been valued. But in my experience, at least beginning in nineteen eighty, wasn't always. I don't quite have a theory for why that was, but it was one of the strange things that I came to think about, and still think about, in trying to make sense out of what James was and what it offers us now. [Barbara] What I think of when you talk about that is Walter because I really feel that Walter was open to that and Walter tried to get people to converse with him in the way that you're speaking of, and people backed off. [Armstrong] I think that's true. I think he did, and he was certainly one of the truly broad, �fascinating, interestingly educated persons I've met. He didn't get very far in the public discourse, and I don't know why. I came at a time, which was I think at the tail end of the discussion I couldn't chair in about visual literacy, and apparently, he had been central to that in seventy-eight and seventy-nine. My sense was that, to a certain extent, he'd used up some of his credits, if you will, in that discussion. I don't know why, but that was more of a closed topic than an open one with most people when I got out here. I don't know why. [Barbara] I don't know why either. I know we're heading towards the end of the first tape, even though I can't see my light, so let me just ask you… here I'll even… [Armstrong] Among the problems that were identified: the colleges unwillingness to collect the student fees it assessed, the colleges willingness to Xerox things at college expense, and violate copyright to give them to students, saving students the cost of buying the book, the willingness to pick up faculty that had been denied tenure in another unit of the college, the wholesale granting of credit (or so it was said) for life experience in a couple of instances early on in the experiment with that which lead, I understand, to the decision not to do so at Grand Valley anywhere. And then, of course, the lack of tenure, the lack of a grading system that was understandable by the rest of the college. And also, the perceived lack of any clear relationship between the major and general ed. Synoptic simply meant anything that you wanted to the uninitiated outside the college. All of those, I think, created an atmosphere of misunderstanding. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_50_Armstrong Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Armstrong, Forrest Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Forrest Armstrong interview (1 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Forrest Armstrong by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Forrest Armstrong was the Dean of William James College from 1980-1983 and also served as the Dean of Arts and Humanities during his ten years at Grand Valley. In this interview, Forrest discusses his initial perceptions of William James College upon his arrival at Grand Valley, his impression of the quality of education being delivered, and the state's fiscal crisis that contributed to the college's future. This interview is part 1 of 3 for Forrest Armstrong. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College administrators Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ac217648f8ba422f8bd66b90c61de1ac.mp4 c31fa176b9c797f0b5b24f872dc36224 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bbfe419941af76750b0007d4eb475d15.pdf ff4357c1db86bbb32ea387a884158590 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Ingrun (Inge) Lafleur Date: 1984 [Lafleur] A few weeks ago, Adrian Tinsley asked me to be a consultant for their general education program at Glassboro, where she is now provost. And during my day's activities we both noticed that a lot of my rhetoric and a lot of my behavior and actions were really reminiscent of and greatly influenced by my days at William James College, where I was a faculty member from nineteen seventy-two to nineteen eighty. And in nineteen eighty I became Dean of General Studies at Stockton State College in New Jersey. And now I'm Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh, which is a beautiful, magnificent campus in the Champlain Valley, near the Adirondack Mountains and the Green Mountains of Vermont with Montreal nearby. And it has a really exciting faculty and student body. And many of the things that I do here are directly related to my work at William James. I remember a lot about William James, and I remember some of the things that I do not use anymore, but I also remember the things that I have carried with me since those days and have become a part of me. I think our days at William James were very intense. Everything seemed to be important, everything mattered, everything was related to everything else. And it was very important to be trying out new things, to have alternative perspectives, to be socially conscious. There was a sense of the importance of community, of doing things together, of relating one's work, and someone's life, and one's personal life, to one's work life and public life as well. Some of these things, I guess, I have since discarded. For example, I no longer think that everything matters. I tend to prioritize in order to concentrate and conserve my resources. And that may be a function of being older. I have also come to the conclusion that everybody does not have to be in on deciding everything, but it's important for everyone to know and to help decide who decides what. And I think I've got a more critical view of both the counterculture days of the nineteen sixties and seventies, and also a more critical view of socialism, although it is still one of the foundations of my beliefs and behavior. I also wish that Grand Valley hadn't felt ambivalent about William James College. I think that if Grand Valley had put William James on center stage that it, too – like Evergreen State College or like Brown – would continue to be thriving because some of the things that we did at William James are continuing at institutions throughout the country. I do not think that it was necessary to close it down or fold it into Grand Valley as a whole. I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the things that I still use that remain with me from William James College. And I'd like to focus on three things. First of all, I remember very well the phraseology that �was repeated by people like Robert Mayberry and Stephen Rowe, and I don't know where they got it, but the phrase that has really shaped a lot of my activities is the one that went: "The liberal arts are practical and professional studies can and should be pursued in a liberally educative manner.” Now, very often, at William James, I think we did not focus in as much detail on technical knowledge or assess our own performance. But I think we fostered an entrepreneurial spirit and a creative spirit that really made it possible for students to do things when they left us. The phrase, "The liberal arts are practical and professional studies can be pursued in a liberally educative way," has been very useful to me at other places where I have taught to show the faculty that they can work together in the liberal arts, and in the professional and technical education, and that indeed public higher education has a civic and a social mission. That the liberal arts are not an ivory tower, that ideas have consequences. I remember team teaching with Kenny Zapp and going through the ideas and the books in our courses and Kenny always asking the students and Kenny and I asking each other, "So what? Why are we studying this? What is the meaning of this? What are the implications of this?" So, in other words, the liberal arts are practical. They have an impression on us. And similarly, in looking at career education, we didn't look upon it as simply technical training, but as preparing students for a variety of careers and for an entire lifestyle. I think we wanted to provide ourselves and our students with a real sense of context, of moral, ethical, and social context for professional studies. So, I think this sense of relating the technical and career areas to the liberal arts was extremely important and I think that we, as faculty members, learned from each other. I learned about the design from Roz Muskovitz and she and I discussed the sociological and ethical implications of different kinds of designs. I learned about chemistry from various people who taught that as well. So, in addition though to the relationship between the career and liberal arts, what has remained with me and has shaped my working life and my personal life is the feminism which developed at Grand Valley and at William James College. I think feminism pervaded the entire ethos of the college and our personal lives as well. In part, it was because of the times that we lived in the nineteen seventies, but also in part it was because of the faculty and staff that we hired. We hired… the people who founded William James hired a woman dean. And back in nineteen seventy-two that was much more unusual than it is today. And that gave a sense of strong leadership by a woman. We also hired a large proportion of our faculty who were women and who are very strong and diverse women. They were… not all necessarily call themselves feminists, but they were present on the campus. And this sense really pervaded not just the women faculty members, but I think the male faculty members, as well, the secretaries, and the students. I think that this sense of feminism influenced our curriculum, our student body, our sensibility, our values, and our behavior. And that feminism really seem to be in harmony with a lot of the other things we were trying to do at William James, and the kinds of values we were trying to propound have been values that were… are not genetic certainly, but values that have been �associated with women and feminism. And these values include a sense of cooperation rather than competition. That is, we didn't have grades, we didn't have rank for faculty, we didn't have tenure. A sense of emphasis on conservation rather than exploitation. Conservation has been considered a feminine or feminist value. And there was a great deal of emphasis on environmental studies, for example. And thirdly, a sense of participation and nurturance, rather than hierarchy or bureaucracy in informing our academic community. And these were values of the college as a whole, but I think they came in part out of the feminist movement of the nineteen seventies. We were also influenced – that is, the feminism at William James – was also influenced by people at Thomas Jefferson College. Although from our point of view – or from my point of view – they tended to be more, what I called "cultural feminists." They tended to be more flamboyant and focus on the cultural rather than the social and political aspects. They had their Purple House, their temple in Grand Rapids, they talked about the Goddess, they talked about mythology. However, we all were influenced by each other and worked together to develop a Women's Studies program. And wherever I have been since then, I have been associated with women's studies programs. And I believe that some of the best things that have happened – in scholarship in the last fifteen years and in education – are things that have been related to the methods and processes of women's studies and the women's movement. Finally, I think what I carry with me from William James is really a wealth, a cornucopia of ideas, a power generator of ideas about teaching and learning. A sense that we teach and learn from each other, and that we teach students, and not just history, or chemistry, or subject matter. A sense that we learn at the point of inquiry, that a course evolves because of the student in it, because of the subject matter that happens to arise. A sense that the curriculum evolves because of the way that people work together. I still have with me this little pamphlet from the William James Synoptic Program which lists the series of questions that we ask students to respond to. And even now, when I'm trying to refine and develop the general education program at Plattsburg, I want both students and faculty to focus on common questions. There are certain things that seemed like daily bread and water to us at William James that are considered new ideas in higher education today. And practices… some of the very best things that we did at William James are still the best things that are being put into practice in education today. It seems as if it were in response to national reports on higher education, but we did back at William James. We were the ones who insisted on active learning, as William James said, "No impression without expression" – that you are not really learning unless you produce a product. At Plattsburg, we are having… we are pursuing an emphasis on active learning, on getting students and faculty to work in groups and pursue projects. We are still continuing writing across the curriculum emphasizing the use of writing in the middle of a particular class. We still emphasize advising as a form of teaching. And the Living and Learning course we had at William James and the milestones or ideas that some of the very best colleges are pursuing and �trying to advise freshman and having special freshman seminars for them. Interdisciplinary and team teaching are still at the cutting edge of higher education. And finally, I would say what has remained with me is a sense, still, of the interrelatedness of things. That everything is really learning and teaching. The administrative work that I do is related to admissions, is related to teaching, is related to the curriculum. The work that we do inside the classroom is related to what happens in the dormitories, and concerts, and plays, and the co-ops, and internships that students do. I think that William James College was really a quintessentially American college. Part of one of the finest traditions of America. And that is the tradition of pragmatism, of practical activity, and working together with others. And William James also have an entrepreneurial spirit and encourage people to be creative and to produce. We made a lot of mistakes, and we were a little flaky, and we have changed a lot, but I think that all of us – the students who went there (many of whom I'm still in touch with) and the faculty – retain a sense of entrepreneurial spirit, a sense of creativity, an obligation to work together in a community to create and make knowledge meaningful, and also a commitment – a public commitment – to civic and social betterment. I think these things still remain and I think they could have remained at William James College had it been allowed to continue. And that's it for today folks! That's all I’ve got to say. [Videotape recording ends and begins again] [Lafleur] One of the things that was most important was all of us doing things together as a community. Having common readings, usually related to a guest speaker, such as Tilly Olson or Kenneth Bolding, or reading the works of Piaget and William James together. This idea of a college theme and common readings is something that other colleges are now trying as well. And that helped to create a sense of community. I also remember the trips – the opportunities – that I got at William James to take groups of students to Yugoslavia and have a integrated experience of travel abroad. And I remember, as well, the last days of some of the classes that I had when students would bring in their projects in a history class or a media class. And then you would look at these projects, and then several weeks later, or even a year later, you would see students in various careers. You would see, for example, Mary Cramer, with her byline in the Grand Rapids Press and now being an editor of the Ann Arbor News. I think, therefore, that while the college no longer exists physically, in the lives of those of us who are faculty and students who were there, that our thinking and our behavior was very much shaped by it. And I think that the things that are happening in higher education today and that will recur again when there are future reports on higher education, that the things that we experimented with will continue to be ideas that will help to make education worthwhile and meaningful. Because we always answered that question: "So what?" and we tried to make it integral to our very own lives and our work. Okay, that's it for now, can't think of any more to say. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_49_Lafleur Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lafleur, Inge Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Inge Lafleur interview (video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Ingrun "Inge" Lafleur by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Inge Lafleur was a faculty member of William James College and in this interview she discusses the importance of the college in her life experience, how the feminist ethos of the college shaped her personal and professional life, and the wealth of ideas about teaching and learning that she carries with her as a result of being a part of the William James community. This interview is part 1 of 1 for Inge Lafleur. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Feminism Alternative education Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6638ffc26438322b5d45e2ca2060ce85.mp4 14ea8094cc1c0910aeb6928e771b29b7 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/06f0f3f20324cb56f1ffa58893f8335a.pdf 5af404cafd60d7feac958bb77b36298a PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Sanford Fried Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 2 [Barbara] The question is: a lot of people I talk with – students – did not have anything to do with Council, or anything to do with governance, or were not involved in the college. And you and Sheila [?] were, and I would like your evaluation of how really important that was to the education. [Fried] Boy, I was just thinking about that whole thing. I was running through the Castro question, and that whole statement, and in that phrase, you know, that you weren't a part of the college. And I thought, wait a minute, there was a whole part of this college that happened… was happening in Council and it was happening in the committees. I try to remember all the committees that I was on… everything from the Community Life committee that probably isn’t even around anymore that died a long time ago, Academic Life and Faculty Review and all that faculty hiring. And, you know, the leadership quality and the building leadership quality in our students – it was never really discussed as an upfront thing of what the college was about, but it was, and it was underlying, I mean, it was obvious because there were what fifteen seats for students on the council, right? And so, it was intentional that people were going to get involved but there wasn't much of a dialogue of how that really integrates into your education and how that really helps you when you get out. And I've done various things since I’ve graduated that I’ve thought right back to my Council experiences, where when I sat in that room, I tended to listen more than talk because it was the first time I had ever been in that sort of a setting. But from going out from there, I've been able to put those experiences into my head and into use and think about how we did things at James and, in fact, I got a real concrete example of that, too. At my current job, my yearly job evaluation off my Board of Directors, they do a shitty job. They’ve just done such bad evaluations on me; I mean, you know, I've gotten really upset with it and I think back on how we did evaluations the one year that I was on Faculty Review and how we did some good evaluations then, so that was one specific thing that really… [Barbara] How were their evaluations bad? [Fried] Oh, well, for one thing they were unfair. I don’t want to get into personal gripes about the, you know, things about the job, but they were unfair and that it was an unbalanced evaluation. Any good evaluation stresses positive and negative aspects of your job performance. Okay. There wasn't enough information for the �board to make statements on various things and they weren't able to go around and collect the information. They chose not to go around and collect the information in the way when we were reviewing if a faculty member… of course, we look at all those crazy course evaluations that were done and then there was a general sweep of data from the community at large. And so, it was a very serious attempt made to get as much information from people and as much opinion and fact from people because jobs were at stake; because raises were at stake; it was an important thing to do. And in this last evaluation, I was so disgusted I just I blasted the board for it, and it didn't endear me to them in any way; it added to me wanting to get out of the job sooner and I’ve got two weeks to go. [Laughter] [Barbara] Okay, okay. Because its curious how many people I’ve interviewed that have said, of course, I didn’t have anything to do with Council, I just went on the bus and came back home. And Council, to the ethos of the school from the faculty point of view, was real important. [Fried] I think Council was real critical because, first of all, there's probably only a handful of schools in the whole country, undergrad and graduate, where you can actually… where you could have any access to any of that decision making, okay. And so, in James it was just… it was part of the daily routine or the biweekly routine, I think it was, and sure the committees got crazy, and they got out of hand. But how many of us got into jobs that we are going to be having committee time with? Surely almost everybody in Social Relations and almost everybody in Arts and Media. Anybody who's doing any producing work, you’re always on committees; you’re always doing meetings. So, you know, meetings aren’t just a couple people sitting around – you’ve got to learn how to read those meetings; you got to learn how those politics work. And they were working! They were working the Skylight Room and plus I learned about good facilitating watching Kenny Zapp and watching Pat [?]. They were some of the best, they were very good facilitators. I tried to draft Kenny to do facilitating for the Co-op while he was still in town here. It only worked once – too busy. [Barbara] Okay good, solid answer. I’m going to try going wide here [camera zooms out]. [Fried] I’m glad you asked that because I was going to work it in anyway. [Barbara] Okay, then I want to go back to a question we didn’t talk about which is, oh yes, you said James was half of your education. You’ve been out of school approximately as long as you were in James, so tell me about how it was half and what wasn’t there and all that. [Fried] Okay, should I do a little background on that now? �[Barbara] Sure. [Fried] Okay, let’s see. So, I attended James for approximately three years (seventyseven to eighty). Full-time, more than full-time in a lot of ways in Arts and Media. And now I’ve been out from eighty to eighty-five, so it’s been like five years that I've been a graduate and what I've done mostly in that time has been retail management… had very little to do with Arts and Media. I’ve been doing photography semiprofessionally and just to keep, you know, the skills sharp, but the… oh, God, I just lost my train of thought. [Barbara] Don’t worry about it. [Fried] Okay. [Barbara] Okay, so that’s what you did in terms of your history. Now, how do you characterize your education as having contributed to what you did after school? After you got out of school? [Fried] Okay, the way the education I received and the experiences I received there contributed towards what happened from nineteen eighty to eighty-five for me is that, for one thing, there was a social ethics value that I came out with. Working for a food cooperative was important to me because how food makes it way around from farmer to plate is an important issue for me and I was involved with co-ops before I came to William James, but I saw a greater opportunity to do things that were important to me and my life and to be able to affect my community a little bit. So, I took the steps of getting on the Board of Directors and wound up being able to get a hired position through there, and it was at the time that I thought, “Now I can try and put some of this stuff to work. I can try and put some of these management principles that I heard of and read of and put them into play.” And it was real gratifying for me when I could hire William James people, too, of which I was able to hire a couple and it was always fun. And more than that, it was also reminiscent of there’s now two experiences happening here, and we can talk about the Jamesian way in which we would, you know, try and sell bananas. Or try to do something in real specific context that was not talked about in James. You know, retail was just not talked about in James; that was not one of our areas. At least, it wasn't one of my areas. But, okay, so it helped me to do… to work that side of my… kind of my life commitment of service. You know, everyone has their way of service – if it’s a service to their dollar or service to some community or other or some population and visually I tried to make things happen there, too. I knew that the more exciting you can make things be visually that it would draw people in. It would be… the psychology is wonderful; it just keeps them in and then they don't know why. Of course, that can be used the way it’s used in the grocery industry is really kind of schlocky. I just tried to use it in the food co-op to make things exciting, to make �them dynamic. And, of course, the idea of using video was gone through many times, but for lots of reasons that just couldn’t happen, so I just let that one go. But the other half of the education that I didn't receive was the management and how to run a business. And I know those things were taught at James, but I never would have taken them. That was not in my head when I was there; I was learning to be a creative person in visual arts. That’s what I wanted to do, that’s why I came there. And for me to be studying management principles would have required a great leap for me and one that I was unable to do at that time. And, also, one that was not impressed upon me as being an important one to do by my peers, by my faculty and that. So, it came later. And I’m glad for the way it came because I'm the kind of person I need application for that stuff. I can’t, you know, learn about profit margins in a college context; it wouldn’t have done anything for me. But when I sit there and look how much money we lost this last month because the profit margin dropped all of a sudden it becomes more real. So being able to apply the information really was important to me. And what I maintained all through my education at James, once I really saw what was happening there, the essence of it was that I was learning to be a learner. I was learning to be a lifelong student and I think lots of other people had that same thing. Those of us who really tried to get the most out of James got that… got the ability to learn. And I taught myself just an incredible amount of things and gave my… engendered the confidence in me to know that I don’t need a college to keep on going with my education. It helps to have a community, you know, and that community aspect of James I miss. I miss that sorely. And I wish that was still around. And for me it is, in some ways; I still have a couple of friends that are still around, and we talk but it's just so great to… I’ll just drift off, there’s a cut right there anyway. [Barbara] Okay, okay. This is almost one, I’m not sure… I’m just trying to make sure I hear you. In other words, the way you answered that, it was not that we were elitist, it’s that, why didn’t you do business in school? In other words, you were encouraged to, but it was available. Why didn't you do it? [Fried] Okay. Well, there was some, I think there was some elitism about doing business in school. There was certainly for the art students, for the musicians, the media people, the dancers, and that. You were there to learn your craft, and hopefully you learned it enough - with enough of your own soul – that it could become art. To study something like business seemed to be hypocritical but it really wasn’t because it really does employ some of the same kinds of things in your mind and in your creative person. There are…since I’ve done both now, I see the overlaps and the overlaps are more than not. They are quite a bit. But we were better than that, right? We didn’t have to spend that time studying business because we were learning how to make statements about, you know, what was important to us. But for the most part I felt a lot of people didn’t know what was important to them. They were learning the craft, but they weren’t learning, they weren’t �developing their own voice and what to say through it. So, being articulate isn’t enough unless you have some ideas, right? And business skills were only another way of looking at your ideas, it was just another perspective and I think we suffered a bit, suffered quite a bit by ruling it out, by not saying that this was an important thing for us to be doing because it’s just another way at looking at it. You know we all had to do some science, we all had to do some math. And that’s just another perspective of looking at the world; business is just another one of those ways. And I know a lot of people in the media world who have gone out and started studios here in town have mentioned that same sort of thing to me. You know the business college came later, I had to go to JC, I had to go to Davenport, or I just picked it up myself. Or I just lost a lot of money and I learned how to do it right. That’s a tough way to do it, but you pay your tuition one way or the other way, I guess. [Barbara] Good line. [Laughter] [Fried] That’s right. [Laughter] [Barbara] Sheila [?] just came, do you want to talk to her for a minute? [Fried] Okay. [Barbara] Alright, that was very good. [Fried] I left the college in a rage. And I was raging from actually one of my most memorable experiences in that one – I won’t mention the faculty’s name – one person, we’ll identify him as male, who I was talking to in the later part of my senior year. I had even asked him to serve on my committee as far as seeing the rest of my paperwork through and kind of giving me his blessings and just in the course of conversation he said, “Well, what courses did you take with Stephen, Stephen Rowe?” And I said, “I think I sat in on one of his courses, I don’t think I took anything for credit though,” and he kind of knitted his brow and said, “Well, let’s see you’re a media student. Did you take anything with Mayberry? With Robert?” I said, “No, I never took any of Robert’s courses, but you know I listened to him a lot in Council.” You couldn’t help that, you know, you did a lot of listening. What about Richard Joanisse? Well, no, I didn’t take anything with Richard either. And he just got this awful expression on his face and looked at me with disgust and said, “You never attended this college!” And I’m not… I don’t have violent tendencies but I could have at that moment because I was just so mortally insulted after being such an involved student and I thought a very responsible student for three years. And going through lots of stages of anger after that and coming back to him and confronting him and saying you’re just really unfair, really unfair, and you really angered me a lot by saying that and I’m taking back my invitation to be on my graduation committee, I will get out of here �without you. And then I thought about later on, I think years later, that comment has haunted me for a long time, I can still feel anger. But since then, I thought about them, the other experiences of being on Council, for example, being in the student governance that James wasn’t strictly about anything but encompassing the academic inquiry, the scholarly pursuits of the social issues which this faculty was heavily invested into. And I thought, no way, you can’t do everything there, you just can’t do it all. It would take you five years, six years, and I just didn’t have that kind of time. But I learned my craft well, and I learned about leadership in Council and I learned about working through committee process and that was one of the strong things about what the college was about. So those experiences I realized are very valuable to me and valuable, I think, to anyone else who was in on them. That guy was just off base, he was just seeing things from his own angle, his own perspective. And I think that that created a real split, too, among the students and faculty. Because there were “us” and “them,” there were the camera heads and the chemical fingers and those of us who spent our times in the basements and over in the TV studios and there were those people who spent most of times in the libraries and other places. Our libraries were just different, you know, there’s lots of ways to do that. And I think that we were… it was a real unstated… in some ways unstated division within the college. In some ways it was antagonistic, I think the comment that I shared was “majorly antagonistic.” [Barbara] Okay. I’m going to stop because I’m going to put a new tape in because I have another question to ask you, one more, and I hate to have you start it. [Fried] Okay. [Barbara] You know? [Fried] Yeah. Do you want to set up another angle? [Barbara] I’m going to, yeah, I actually have dominated this tripod so I should be able to change the shots slightly. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_48_Fried Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Fried, Sanford Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Sanford Fried interview (1 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Sanford Fried by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Sanford Fried was an Arts and Media student of William James College who was active on the WJC Council and various committees during the years 1977-1980. In this interview, Sanford discusses his involvement on council and his committee work, and how his involvement was critical to his educational success at William James College. This interview is part 1 of 2 for Sanford Fried. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Student councils Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7bc10ca36c87103e5d847537d0002494.mp4 3389952cc9a5c472ecd04993bca176e6 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/52659b18946217b719f10feba4aebfa8.pdf b2e45ffb1db38ed59ed54fb01414f2fb PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos and Stephen Rowe Interviewee: Arend Lubbers Date: 1984 Part: 3 of 3 [Conversation between President Lubbers and Professor Stephen Rowe] [Rowe] Was that characteristic of College IV as well as Thomas Jefferson and James? The model was this distinction among and between units about pedagogy. You're suggesting that underlining that there was a deeper distinction between the traditional education and the experimental. Is that a fair understanding of what you are saying? [Lubbers] Yeah, I think so, I think it was. The experimental education with its structures – its evaluation structures and its curriculum – were just not acceptable or respected. The College IV, later the Kirkhof experiment, I don't think that the ire of the faculty in CAS was directed so much to that institution as it was to Thomas Jefferson and then to William James. But I think the criticism by that time was, "Well, we don't… this organizational structure is inefficient and there's no need for us to be this way. And it would be so much better if we're offering similar kinds of education." That is, I mean, we're offering English everywhere, languages. We should be putting the faculty together and doing departments the traditional way and have stronger departments. And so, there was not only the antagonism directed toward the experimentalism of the institutions, and that was the great part of it, but also toward the inefficiency. And then in the struggle for credits and courses, who's going to get the students, and can we get them, or do they get them? [Rowe] Did the traditionalism learn anything through contact with James and the other colleges? [Lubbers] I don't know. I would, as I said, I think the heritage left is what I described, is the way we are organized in professional disciplines and the liberal learning disciplines together. I don't know to what degree people accept that, endorse it, or grudgingly accept it. I don't know… that you'd have to take a vote of the faculty to find out. But at least that's the heritage. I would say most of the faculty who were opposed to the experimental colleges would probably say good riddance. You know, I'm not sure that there is any cherishing of the past in any way. I think this is about time that this was put aside. That's the way I view it. I haven't taken any scientific surveys to know how people really feel. �[Rowe] Changing the subject a little, can you comment on legacy or heritage in relation to the larger community? Perception of William James’ alumni or with the college in the larger community? [Lubbers] You mean, how the larger community viewed the experimental colleges? Or? [Rowe] You're right, and its products, the students. [Lubbers] No, I really don't have anything to base a judgment on. I do think that the community had a difficult time understanding our structure at that time. [Rowe] Grand Valley's? [Lubbers] Grand Valley's. And the public, generally, was not too sympathetic to the experimentalism that went on here. Well, there are always exceptions and pockets of people who liked it. But, I think, generally in this this area of the United States, experimental education is not looked upon with great favor. And we weren't looked upon with great favor for indulging in it. So far as graduates are concerned, I don't know. Like you, I run across graduates of William James or Thomas Jefferson, who are very… seem to be happy and pleased with what they're doing and respected the education they received in those colleges. So, there is that heritage, too; the heritage of the people who enjoyed and benefited from it. I think, again, as I look back on the '70s – maybe period from seventy-one to seventy-three or four – was the high watermark in terms of Thomas Jefferson College. William James might be a little bit later than that – maybe seventy-five, seventy-six – where both colleges had their best students, the largest number of good students, and those people have done very well. And after that, there were fewer good students attracted to that kind of education. And I don't regret having done it. As a matter of fact, I think in a crucial stage and I believe there was something happening to people, to young people, whether it was the Vietnam War or what it was. But, from the late '60s into the '70s, well into the ‘70s. This is a generation cut from a different cloth, I think. You know, in all of my experience, they're different. And that kind of educational approach saved a lot of people a lot of difficulty and agony. They would not have fit into the traditional mold. And they did have places to go, other places in the country, too. But they had some places to go here, and their older brothers and sisters and their younger brothers and sisters have gone in the traditional route, but they were that group that needed it, needed something different. And that was a great service to them. [Rowe] Here again, we're back to the term that emerges from this discussion, is really basic, and that is: experimentalism, which so far has been characterized as this certain kind of evaluation and this certain kind of flexible, if not loose, curriculum. And now as a refuge, that seems in this whole discussion to be the one term that needs one level deeper. Or can you say more about what this experimentalism is �or was at its best? In some ways, all of the characterizations we have so far are negative. Lack of evaluation, overly flexible curriculum, refuge from the society. [Lubbers] Well, of course. [Rowe] What is the positive? [Lubbers] The negative… the positive is the other side of the negative. These people who flourished in that kind of environment were those people who flourished best when there was no traditional curriculum and no traditional evaluation system. They did flourish very well for a small period of time. [Rowe] Self-motivated was the term that you used earlier. [Lubbers] They were self-motivated, and they were in a state of rebellion, too. Now, if you're rebelling, you have some idea about what you're rebelling against. But then where do you channel your energy? What do you do with that energy that is born out of rebellion? Where do you take yourself? Where do you take your body and where do you take your mind and what do you do with it? If you have a place to go where you can do some positive things, where you're not restricted by that which you are rebelling against and you can find another object for your attention, you're likely to not waste so much time. [Rowe] What was the object of attention? [Lubbers] The object of attention was the learning in these institutions. And they could take themselves and go to a curriculum and work with some faculty members to do what they wanted to do and move on. [Rowe] The study plans and riddling people to do what they want to do and become entitled or empowered, except for individually, was certainly something that was important to James. [Lubbers] Yes, it was. [Rowe] Perhaps to all experimental education, I'm not sure. [Lubbers] I think it is to all, I think it characterized experimental education of that era – of the late '60s and '70s. [Rowe] So this was basically a vision. This experimentalism was a vision of perhaps a very modern vision or a revival of the very modern vision of the independence and development of the individual person. �[Lubbers] Right. Yes, I think so. [Rowe] And what was the social or communal or cultural implication of that or was there any? Was it merely individual, as so much of modernism has been in ways problematic? [Lubbers] It may, I think, more individual than I thought it would be at the time. [Rowe] Then this is a question for me as well. What was the communal vision that accompanied that individualism? What was it? [Lubbers] Oh, I think, again, a more egalitarian society where the hierarchies would no longer exist, where there would be decision by consent of the group. I think there was a lot of that at that particular time. And I don't know exactly why except, again, a reaction against the Vietnam War and a government that was waging war and not always telling the truth. And that became obvious and here you are where power is. You know, power is far away from you and it's coming in on your life from that distance that you can't get at. You can't get at it. You can't influence it. And I think that at that particular time, the experimental education carried the communal vision of "we're going to be small groups deciding our own destiny." And we begin in our experimental college by governing our experimental college that way. [Rowe] In retreat from or separate from the larger communal structures, not in a way that would reform them? [Lubbers] No, I think the hope was that they would be reformed, that the experiments would work, and that out of this would come a new age. And certainly, the campuses would be democratized and that was a hope. But, we Americans, when we have our objectives and hopes, and we usually solve our problems as quickly as possible. And we're not… we usually think that our vision will become reality within our lifetimes. And I think I'm finding out that when you do experiment, you maybe make a small step towards realizing what you want and what you hold is ideal and as desirable. But then you don't get there all at once and you don't get there in one lifetime. [Rowe] Rats, well this is just getting started. [End of Lubbers Interview] [Start of Rowe Interview] �William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos and Arend Lubbers Interviewee: Stephen Rowe Date: 1984 [Conversation between Professor Stephen Rowe and President Lubbers] [Lubbers] [Inaudible] everyone, there are no students here. I mean, some may come back or their students, but really there's no student tradition anymore or there are no students here who talk about William James or Thomas Jefferson. [Rowe] Or in the community, for that matter. This William James association about which I was nagging you about this plaque and not letting them paint the wall, it ceased to exist. I mean, they can't even get a damn plaque on the wall, you know. They don't… [Lubbers] It's interesting. It is almost as though it hasn't happened. And as we go about our daily business, as I go about my daily business, that which was so important in it during the decade of the '70s, it's almost as though it never existed. [Barbara] Hey, could you ask a question… rephrase your question about the communal side of James? That's one question I would like to have on camera. It was just in this last part of the interview. [Rowe] If the college was… if the experimentalism was essentially about the enhancement or development of individualism, what then was the communal… the accompanying communal vision, if any? Anarchism, some sense of the individual fully developed in such a way that he or she is able to be in community in the way that their ancestors weren't? [Lubbers] Is egalitarianism more than…[Inaudible]? [Rowe] What does that mean? [Lubbers] People living equally and sharing equally, deciding the fate of their lives as equally as possible? [Rowe] Yeah, but see, that's a term in the modern period like "freedom" that everybody uses and that means different things. I would say basically in the modern orientation, there's equality of sameness and equality of difference. In our best moments, the communal vision that accompanied this particular sense of individual development, at the best, argued for an equality of difference; at the �worst moments, it became an equality of sameness. That makes sense, right? [Lubbers] Yeah, the right. Yeah, which then comes back on itself as individualism, doesn't it? It's, in a sense, the equality of difference is really… it's a kind of individual who "I have a right to be different and work out my destiny than say we have a right to be different and work out our own destiny." But then it's every little we… it's kind of like Protestantism that it breaks up finally because everyone has a right to be what she or he wants it to be. [Barbara] I'm sorry, I know you want to follow this through, but I just have a certain amount of tape. I need to ask one more question… ask some sort of intro question to the notion of the cluster college. You asked very early in the first… [Rowe] An intro to what he said? [Barbara] Yeah. [Rowe] I'm trying to remember. [Barbara] Well, the answer is that [inaudible] had to do with the difficulties of that structure. [Rowe] Okay. Developing out of your and the founders of the college's notion of small educational communities, Grand Valley became, in effect, a cluster college. What were the difficulties that were related to that kind of model in itself? And how is that different from the Oxford model of small communities? I think the answer to that is at Oxford, the pedagogical differences developed sort of willy-nilly over a long period of time. Whereas, here in America, in some ways we tried to make them. Arend [Lubbers] wouldn't talk about the problem we're making at that point. [Lubbers] That’s true, well we took a single institution and broke it up into pieces and it wasn't ready to be broken up into pieces. Whereas universities, many universities, people came, they did their little thing, and the other people did their little thing side by side. And then finally, it develops… a kind of unity evolves. [Rowe] A more organic rather than made. [Barbara] It's now eleven o'clock, okay? � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_47_Lubbers-Rowe Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lubbers, Arend Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Arend Lubbers interview (3 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Arend Lubbers by Barbara Roos and Stephen Rowe, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Arend "Don" Lubbers was president of Grand Valley State University from 1969-2001 and served as president during the lifespan of William James College. In this interview, President Lubbers and professor Stephen Rowe have a conversation about William James College and its place within Grand Valley history, its legacy and heritage within the larger college community, and the positive elements of experimental education. This interview is part 3 of 3 for Arend Lubbers. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Rowe, Stephen (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education College presidents College administrators Lubbers, Arend D. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2bea94e0a171b2bacf29bb52309c8590.mp4 cdba35c0a98053d349ce1cbc09926850 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5e5df6ee3903a50ff1948b0341f2ecd1.pdf 0bb3d864084af5090388f6d4f9931c31 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos and Stephen Rowe Interviewee: Arend Lubbers Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 3 [Conversation between President Lubbers and Professor Stephen Rowe] [Rowe] Could you comment on the connection there? [Lubbers] Well, I'm just talking experimental education, you know, you can have many different pedagogies. You can have colleges, or schools, or courses, that are different from the traditional. You can have very different kinds of pedagogies. There is not, in my definition, experimental education does not have a pedagogy. [Rowe] And yet so much of it fell into problems with evaluation and curriculum. [Lubbers] Right. [Rowe] Why was that do you suppose? [Lubbers] Well, I wonder if that was more the spirit of the times. In other words, when people were ready to experiment, and wanted to experiment, and maybe accompanying an experimental era is this desire for freedom and individualism. In other words, an experiment is a breaking away, of doing something different from the way most people are doing it. So, there is a freedom about that. I want to break away and be free. Well, what do you want to be free of? You not only want to be free of the traditional curriculum, you want to be free of the way it's delivered. [Rowe] Or, as many people put it, they tend to be very clear about what they be free from, but not very clear about free for. [Lubbers] So often, experimental education has so much rebellion built into it. And rebellion, you know, finally has to be, I suppose, consummated. I mean you have to have your rebellion, and be done, and move on. And so… [Rowe] How would we have that here? [Lubbers] Oh, I would say we had, again, that desire to be free of the usual constraints. And that was built into William James College, as it was into Thomas Jefferson College. And I don't think… and that led to a way of evaluating, or not evaluating �very well, and it led to a way of putting a curriculum together perhaps in too haphazard manner. But I think that here – and maybe in most universities – the experiments that were tried were not accepted by an overwhelming majority of the faculty. And I think that's a problem. It's almost insoluble. And it's a problem that I think experimental education will always have, because if you set up a freestanding experiment, that is very difficult. Most experiments need the strength – at least the financial strength – of a traditional university or college. Maybe Evergreen State is an exception to that and that's why I would like to see them… see how they've done it. And at the same time, it's very hard to get a large majority of the faculty to support the experiment, to really be enthusiastic about it. If the majority of the faculty or if the CAS faculty, for instance, had a high regard for William James College, it might have survived. Though, we were in a real financial crunch and things had to happen. We couldn't afford to do some of the things that we had done. So, the reorganization of the institution might have taken place anyway, but certainly it was the financial crisis that triggered the changes. But if there had been a high regard for what was going on at William James College by the rest of the faculty, they might have fought to keep it. Because they would look upon it as a distinguishing part of Grand Valley that they liked, but that was not the case. [Rowe] What do you think they understood William James to be? [Lubbers] Just, low standards, low academic standards. And no comprehensive, comprehendible curriculum. [Rowe] Did they understand the pedagogy or the basic approach? [Lubbers] I don't know whether they did or not. If they did, those who did might have respected that to a certain degree but didn't feel that it was being carried out well enough to save it. [Rowe] Some people noticed that the very first sign of trouble in William James was when the nation, as a whole – “Change Magazine" identifies this as seventy-six – became involved with the “New Vocationalism” was the term. So that everybody suddenly became interested in integrating career and liberal education, even on the campus as a whole. [Lubbers] Uh-huh. [Rowe] Some people reviewing the history of William James notice as early as seventysix we were, in some ways, co-opted by a much larger national movement. [Lubbers] Yeah. �[Rowe] Could you comment on that? [Lubbers] Well, I think co-opted and maybe that is one of the great values in William James College: was that it was before its time in terms of philosophy. And I think that the heritage that William James College has left to the campus as a whole, is probably this integration… this attempt to integrate the professional and the liberal learning. There's been the two tracks, of course, in education and the synthesis between the two is essential. But as we are now organized with our professional schools living intermixed in the divisions with the arts and sciences, I think is a good illustration of what William James meant and has been that part of the William James heritage that continues and is a major contribution to this institution. Again, I think maybe faculty accept it, the ones that do accept it, not all do, but the ones that do accept it, some will do it because they believe in it philosophically, but many of the arts and sciences professors have had to face the unpleasant reality for them that many of their students are majoring in professions. And therefore, they have to live together with the faculty in the professional fields. And for whatever reason, it's happened, and is happening, whether the motive is high or low, I welcome it because it does mean that people have to… educators have to live together and have to work out some of the problems that exist between professional curriculum and an arts and sciences curriculum. [Rowe] Do you have any frustration or concern about what developed as the understanding of "career" in this new vocational movement? Some of us in William James felt that the definition of career that developed was precisely the more narrow form that you and others, at the founding, tried to avoid. [Lubbers] Well, I think that it has come to that. And I don't think that every student, or all faculty, or every program, is narrowly career. The narrowly career programs can exist side by side with the ones that are broader philosophically. And yet this happens to be the day of the narrower career approach. But those things begin to change some. Although we are facing a time when jobs are so specialized and require such carefully honed talents that I wonder whether we're going to continue to need places in our educational system where people are, in a sense, trained but at a very high level. If you're going to be, well, on our campus for instance… if you're going to be a physical therapist, you can't just take a general major in health. There can't be a general health vocations major, and then practice that profession. [Rowe] You still need the terminal bachelor’s degree which I suppose they may have to assume. We've mentioned seventy-six as the time when the new vocationalism became very popular in the country and on the campus, and the reorganization in seventy-nine? �[Lubbers] It was after that wasn't it? [Rowe] Eighty? [Lubbers] Eighty, eighty? [Barbara] Eighty. [Lubbers] Was it nineteen eighty? Is it that long ago? [Rowe] Can you say anything about the lay of the land between seventy-six to eighty in terms of what happened to William James, both internally and externally? [Lubbers] Well, I think that there was a growing problem for William James. Students – high school students – were not quite so interested in experimental colleges, or they were much more interested in the traditional educational institutions. And in the more narrowly defined professional fields. And so, it was becoming a problem to attract students. And I think that was a major reason, too, for the demise of the institution finally. There just wasn't the student interest in it anymore and it was declining. And, well, I think those of you who are on the faculty worked very hard to recruit students and try to gain interest. And there were several older students who liked the style of William James. And, maybe again, if the institution had been well-respected, by all the faculty, it might have survived and became a real haven for older adults. But, again, the financial crunch and the declining interest of students in the eighteen-year-old group, or the high school group, and really the lack of appreciation for William James by the faculty, and the financial crunch. And I think you begin to put all those factors together. Often one factor will not bring about the demise. But they were pretty strong factors bunched together working against William James’ continuation. And I really don't see that it could've survived, probably not even in good times. I'm not sure. [Rowe] Because of? [Lubbers] Because of the faculty really working against it. [Rowe] In terms of evaluation? [Lubbers] Yeah, I think so. The failure of the cluster college system to survive… I think, really, the single factor that was maybe most important of all these clusters of factors was the inability of faculty and students on one campus like this one to ever have a real feeling that though they were a part of an experimental college or they were part of the traditional college, they also were part of Grand Valley as a whole. That never could be done. And I guess I did not foresee that at all at the beginning. I never dreamed – and that was probably my own naiveté – that the �competition between and amongst each of those colleges would be almost… or it was really, more intense than our competition – Grand Valley's competition – with other institutions outside. But I suppose, one should understand that possibility and I don't know why didn't. Because in my experience, like probably yours and everyone else's, we need to have our enemies close. And if we don't, we really have… I've noticed, if you're with any kind of an organization, maybe within a church. I've often enjoyed watching denominations; they fight internally more than the enemy out there. And we were fighting ourselves all the time. And… [Rowe] The drift of things that I'm hearing from you is that the fight was primarily… [Barbara] I'm going to have to stop you. Finish your question… � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_46_Lubbers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lubbers, Arend Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Arend Lubbers interview (2 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Arend Lubbers by Barbara Roos and Stephen Rowe, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Arend "Don" Lubbers was president of Grand Valley State University from 1969-2001 and served as president during the lifespan of William James College. In this interview, President Lubbers discusses the "spirit of the times" that played a role in the experimental education of William James College, the perception from the faculty outside the college, and how WJC was ahead of its time in terms of philosophy amidst the "New Vocationalism" movement. This interview is part 2 of 3 for Arend Lubbers. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Rowe, Stephen (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College presidents College administrators Lubbers, Arend D. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/07edd5efb603db138c71cac791e42647.mp4 6828e9a45f67f210afb89cd25b1a4693 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e5e1a0f15123015c693818c7363d4739.pdf dd537ed0e7e5b1fe20e6efeb0802a7b2 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos and Stephen Rowe Interviewee: Arend Lubbers Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 3 [Conversation between President Lubbers and Professor Stephen Rowe] [Lubbers] You can just… you’re going to just kind of edit and put comments in? [Barbara] And it should be very informal and if you say something you don't like you can say: "I don't like that, let’s do that again." Okay? [Lubbers] Alright. Did you want to start with a question or? [Rowe] Yeah, it seems that the basic question would be that in the wake of rebellion and confusion and break up of what some have called a “traditional model” of our education in the late sixties, there was this period of so-called innovation and Grand Valley, in that period, adopted the cluster college model. So, it seems to me, the first question for you to characterize the deliberation within which Grand Valley made that decision. [Lubbers] Well, of course, the college when it was established had a concept – or the people who established it had a concept – of a cluster of colleges. As I remember the original plan called for… [Rowe] This was sixty-three? [Lubbers] Yeah. Four colleges of fifteen hundred each. Thinking that that would be a nice educational unit. [Rowe] This was Oxford inspired? [Lubbers] I don't really know. I’ve talked to Bill Seidman about it, but it's been such a long time ago that I don't remember how it came about. I think that there were some who felt fifteen hundred was a large enough group for a college and that if you wanted to keep personal contact and tutoring, you had to keep it at that number. No one did much planning about the time the first college reached fifteen hundred. What do you do then? Do you start another college with the two hundred more that you might have? So, it was an original concept, but it was not one that was clearly thought out in detail. But when I arrived, there was the talk of having this School of General Studies. And so that was in the works by the time I �came here. And then I noticed the plan, of course, the original plan and thought that this was a movement towards that objective. [Rowe] Did the alumni give the idea to get it more from the culture or from the original plan? You suggest that it was the latter… or the former. [Lubbers] I don't know whether people like Dan Clock and Gil Davis was here. I assume that you talked with Gil, maybe not, but Gil was here, and he might remember more about the origin of that School of General Studies. [Rowe] That was seven… what was the date on that? Sixty-seven? [Lubbers] They were talking about it… I came in January of sixty-nine. And I know it went into effect, I think, then in the fall of sixty-nine. And it's terrible how these things kind of… the past blends together, and I can't remember the dates exactly. But I know my own thoughts at that time were sympathetic to the original concept. And I also felt that there probably were different ways to learn, and if we can establish colleges with different pedagogical approaches and styles, that might be useful in higher education rather than to take it on a number’s basis. In other words, you have your first fifteen hundred and then you set up a parallel college with the next fifteen hundred. I thought it would be more useful to students and higher educational experimentation to establish the schools on the basis of pedagogy, rather than the numbers. [Rowe] At what point did you or the college become aware of cluster college as something distinct that we were doing, say, like Santa Cruz or other places that were similar? [Lubbers] Well, really from the time I arrived in January of sixty-nine and saw the formation of the School of General Studies, I was very much interested in the cluster college concept and worked toward it. And then, of course, then the School of General Studies became Thomas Jefferson College. [Rowe] Can you characterize the moment at which the College III task force was founded. College III, of course, became William James. [Lubbers] William James. I recall a conversation that I had with Tom Cunningham about the concept of a William James College. [Rowe] So named? [Lubbers] I don't remember calling it anything else or thinking about it. [Rowe] Seems likely. �[Lubbers] I do remember the ideas that I had at that time. I was very much interested in the vocations of the future. What were they going to be? What were people going to be doing with their lives? And concerned a bit about the narrow vocational direction. And of course, we have many of these schools now that are professional and choose a profession and educate for it. We're more into that. But I was concerned about the narrowness and that there ought to be a place where you educated for broad fields and that the approach to communications was a very broad one, in my view anyway, and then we had the computers and the social relations. And I can remember some of the literature in that period pointing in directions… jobs are going to be in these general fields. And so, there was that professional aspect of it, but a broader based professional approach. And so that appealed to me a great deal. And how you educate for professions and at the same time keep the liberal arts core was the part of the experiment that I liked. And an attempt to bring a synthesis between the professional approach and the traditional liberal learning approach. [Rowe] What was it about Tom's idea or James' philosophy that made the fit there, between your thinking…? [Lubbers] I think it was the pragmatic approach. In other words, let's try to educate people to do things that work, that function, that will serve them well. I think that was probably it. But, again, you know, you have… such as William James College and Thomas Jefferson College, in a sense, cut out of whole cloth. In other words, you come at it with a strong sense of pedagogy. This is what it's going to be. And then to see how it works out, and it never works out the way the plan calls for to work out. [Rowe] How did James work out? [Lubbers] Well, some people, I think, were very well served by it. I think there's a problem in the experimental education. I think that's been true throughout the country. Was true throughout the country in the nineteen seventies, particularly late sixties into seventies. Accompanying most of these experiments, of course, was a different evaluation system. They didn't have the traditional A through F grading, nor the traditional examination. And I have a feeling that one of great problems was really quite simple: that experimental education never did work out a very good evaluation system. And some people do not require evaluation, they just are selfmotivated. And I think that we saw a group of students – particularly in the middle seventies – who were more inclined toward independent study and had the kind of motivation to carry through a sensible educational program with the assistance of faculty. But for the most part, and certainly on into the eighties, I think we find people needing more traditional evaluation structures. They like to have "A’s," "B’s," "C’s," and "D’s," and as much as they don't like examinations, they need to �have examinations. And I believe that what happens is that the standards begins to be relaxed. And then a lot of students who are really not inclined to be students pass through a system and are not evaluated. [Rowe] How is that problem with evaluation, which you associate with experimental education, related to the basic model: integrating vocational and liberal? Is there any connection? Is there some integral connection? [Lubbers] I don't think so. Are you asking whether that kind of a model for William James required a different kind of evaluation system from the traditional one? [Rowe] Yeah. Well, you mention two things that seem separate: one, the basic pedagogy and the philosophy of education, integrating liberal and career studies, and secondly, the experimental orientation, which had this problem with evaluation. I don't see what you say about how the two are connected. [Lubbers] They're not connected. [Rowe] So they just happened to… [Lubbers] They came together and one of the reasons I think that experimental colleges have changed, closed, or merged is because they did not have a more traditional evaluation system. I think that there would have been a better chance of William James College surviving, if the evaluation system had been similar to the evaluation system that was in the College of Arts and Sciences, which of course was the more traditional evaluation system. I think that it would have been… because a comment was made about people not liking William James College. I think that's true. I think that a large number of people in the College of Arts and Sciences did not think highly of William James College. [Rowe] Because? [Lubbers] Because they didn't believe that the quality of work was a college level. And whether that evaluation is correct or not, that was the perception. [Rowe] And you're suggesting that perception was related more to the evaluation and experimental orientation than it was to the basic pedagogy? [Lubbers] I'm saying that I think that is one of the contributing factors to it. And you know, again, the curriculum was put together, somewhat as you go, and I think that was probably another reason why people in the more traditional institution did not respect William James College. [Rowe] In that sense it was experimental? �[Lubbers] I would say yeah. I would say it was in that respect. I wonder if there could have been a more fixed curriculum, and also whether there could have been a more traditional evaluation system, whether that might have made a significant difference in the survival of all experimental colleges. I think this is a characteristic of experimental colleges, and not a fixed curriculum, and not a traditional evaluation system. It might have been possible to have a different pedagogy, a different approach, and still have those two traditional elements. [Rowe] Or to not have those elements and have a different pedagogy. For example, TJC. So, maybe the question is: was the pedagogy of TJC more consistent with the experimental approach in evaluation and curriculum? [Lubbers] I don't know whether it was or not. But I do think that it's possible, a least I… this is again, conjecture, but I think that some of the pedagogy of the experimental colleges was valid, and is valid, but I don't think the systems that were used, or the lack of system, served the experiments very well. [Barbara] Steve, we have to stop and change tape. [Rowe] Okay. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_45_Lubbers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lubbers, Arend Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Arend Lubbers interview (1 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Arend Lubbers by Barbara Roos and Stephen Rowe, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Arend "Don" Lubbers was president of Grand Valley State University from 1969-2001 and served as president during the lifespan of William James College. In this interview, President Lubbers discusses the cluster college model that was utilized at Grand Valley from the time he arrived in 1969, the origin of William James College which was previously known as College III, and his impression of the college's performance. This interview is part 1 of 3 for Arend Lubbers. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Rowe, Stephen (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College presidents College administrators Lubbers, Arend D. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/892daa01be0d58ca2e155127a4c65b0c.mp4 963dd92afca4133b0b7b14718c29dab5 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3e456dd3eb84a9acfcb9d5d124bd8207.pdf a3ad50f8ce12abc300e55bdcc6206ca4 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Michael DeWilde Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 2 [Barbara] Anytime you want to start. You could talk about where your education failed you, and where it worked for you, or whatever you want to talk about. [DeWilde] Maybe I should do a thumbnail sketch first and go from there. Yeah. My name is Mike DeWilde, I was at Grand Valley… I was at William James from seventyseven to eighty-one and came originally to do Arts and Media. And took about two classes with the Liberal Arts people and I never did get around to Arts and Media. I've since gone on to do a couple of years of graduate work in Boston and I’ve just come back visit. [Barbara] Are you sorry you went to James? [DeWilde] There were a number of interesting… it was a roller coaster ride and I tend to view it more dispassionately now than I did when I was there, of course. But I think I have a sort of love/hate relationship with it that when it worked, it worked very, very well. And I felt that the collegiality that people talked about was happening and was possible, and that it was very inclusive, and you could do what you needed to do and you could do that with support. And when it was bad, it was very bad and there was no such thing as collegiality, and that the rhetoric was just that. Not just rhetoric but empty rhetoric, and that it was perhaps not unlike Christianity in that it kept vision alive of something very grand, yet was unable to structure itself in a way that could reach any sort of possible fulfillment. So that it did some empowering and gave people some confidence, but when it didn't work, all the empowering and confidence were not helpful because it wasn't…you weren't being educated. [Barbara] Can you speak about it in terms of specific experiences? In other words, classes, or tasks, or something, you know? What were the variables? When did it work and when didn't it? [DeWilde] So long since I've thought about that. Trying to think of… I think for me, I ended up doing a lot of independent study my last couple of years, with a couple of different people. When I got here, I was very gung-ho, I did all the committees, and history of the college, and what was William James about, and it was very exciting and I was very involved. Through, I think a certain disillusionment with perceiving the unable to do advance sort of work in classrooms and there wasn't �the possibility. The kind of students that were filling classrooms, and this is the classes I was taking my last couple of years here, it was just impossible to do any sort of advanced work that faculty was teaching to, if not lowest common denominator, then certainly a very common denominator. And that was very frustrating, so I was doing a lot of independent study and working with a small community of friends who were all looking beyond college to work or graduate work and with two or three faculty people. And those were the relationships that I really treasured. It was no longer so much the relationship with the school as an institution as it was with those individual folks and spending a lot of time in people's offices talking, you know, putting bibliographies together. And that sort of thing became the focus of my education which once I got to [inaudible] and Harvard, both worked for me and against me. I knew how to interact with those people, I knew how to ask the right sorts of questions. I didn't have the kind of basic nitty-gritty skills. I didn't have a lot of the broad general education that a lot of my colleagues had. I didn't have CIV 101 and all that sort of thing that was picked up through primary sources and through reading other revolutionaries and counterculture people. And it was… so I think my perspective was somewhat different. I found it very hard to find a community – I think, well, probably until I got to Harvard – that was interested in broad questions, that was interested in the underpinnings of an institution, that was interested in the assumptions upon which institutions were based, that was at all interested in challenging methodologies and pedagogies and it was very hard to fight that. I had a couple of faculty people in graduate school who at times would yell at the classroom: "This is religious education, why are you people allowing yourself be to graded?” And of course, I was right there at the forefront, I said "Of course, you know, that's absolutely ridiculous!" At the same time there was a resignation and I wonder sometimes if it wasn't at James too, among the students, if not among the faculty. That, well, we are playing a bit of the game, that you do get graded, and money is important, and this is nice and its safe, and I can do what I want for a while. But essentially what I need to get out of it is a career skill because my performance and how much money I make is finally going to be of importance. It's very hard in a few years in an alternative college isolated in western Michigan, I think, to erase protestant, capitalist work ethics and all that sort of thing. And I don't think there were enough students. I think William James worked very well for a relatively few people. Because of the discipline involved and because of the assumptions made about students, that students would take responsibility for such a large part of education; because it was difficult to get the faculty because of committees and meetings; because the place spent half of its waking life defining itself. There was… if you weren't in class talking about alternative education, then you were on a committee talking about alternative education. And how to present yourself and what the image was. The changes that took place in William James from – in the four years that I was there – are not unlike the changes that I see in the skyline in Boston. They've taken what's… it's charming, it's livable, it's old world… let's just say that about William James. �But and it dumped a lot of concrete and steel on it and the changes have been dramatic in a few short years. And William James got dumped on a lot in the… when I was there. I think it existed one year after I left, as a separate entity. It got dumped on by students who didn't understand alternative education, who weren't interested in philosophy or the theory behind alternative education. It got dumped on by burned out faculty. And it got dumped on by the institution. And there are times that… that pissed me off an awful a lot at the time because I'm committed to alternative education. I mean, I keep an eye out toward what Goddard is doing and what Evergreen is doing, because that's important to me because I never would've made it through college if it hadn't been for a place like William James. I can survive at Harvard taking tests when I'm there – I’m not there right now, but when I'm there, when I go. I can survive there because they're secure enough as an institution to let people do different sorts of things. You can… you don't have to do regurgitation. I mean they're not, for all the other nasty things you can say about them, they're not insecure. There's an intellectual freedom there. Which certainly gets interpreted and gets manifested differently than it did at William James. But there's a kinship, nonetheless, I think. And if it's elitist, then it's elitist. [Barbara] Excuse me, can I ask you a question? [DeWilde] Yeah. [Barbara] You're going along beautifully, but you said, something I've heard from most students, and I want you to explain it: "I wouldn't have survived at another institution." What do you mean by that? [DeWilde] High school was a very, very bad experience. I was the editor the paper and had to deal with lots of censorship issues. And I was not necessarily the part of a clique. I was not the genius math type and science type and the people who are on the four-year college prep program – I wasn't that. I wasn't among the people who are going to be janitors, you know, for the rest my of life – that was clear. But there seemed to be no place to go. There were some of us just in the middle, and there wasn't anybody addressing people who are profoundly dissatisfied with education but couldn't be shipped on one hand into vocational school, or shipped into… you know, and that's [inaudible]. I don't mean to sound pejorative about those but those were looked at pejoratively, certainly in the high school I was at. But there was a certain number of people you had to get rid of, there were certain people that were going to go on and do professional stuff, and then there were a few of us who said: "Wait, the whole thing is wrong.” Your premise… start by rejecting the premise and then have nowhere to go because there isn't anybody there who's equipped with dealing with premises. So, I went to a community college for a year and just looked through the catalog and anything that said alternative or non-graded, I went to that. I had no idea what alternative meant or any of that, but it certainly sounded right. If it was an alternative to what I had �experienced so far then I had to go on and do that. And through them heard of William James. And, I don't know, I had trouble with authority. I mean, there was no way I was going to… I knew that I, you know, in a dorm situation, in a typical college dorm where people are… I just didn't feel like I was interested in the kinds of things that those folks were interested in. And that may again be elitist, and I just have to plead guilty I suppose. But, doing tests and multiple choice, and regurgitation and reading nothing but secondary sources, and all my assumptions about what I would be doing at a major university, and getting lost in shuffle, and that sort thing, was not all appealing. So that William James was a beacon and when I read all the catalog and the rhetoric, you know… this place is run by God, you know? That was the feeling from the catalog. Certainly, that impression changed quickly, also. It's clear to me, without the freedom to pursue the interests that I had, and without the support. That was most amazing thing to me when I got here was that if you were serious, if you seem to be able to think at all, people took you seriously. And people were tolerant, people were forgiving, and supportive. And it all worked – especially faculty and students across the board. When I first came here, I was absolutely astounded. People who had been here for four years, and who knew far more than I did, were taking me seriously when I talked. And this was the first time that had happened. So, I began to take myself seriously and began to take your sources seriously, and you begin to do more serious work. I think that's what made it possible for me to not just survive through four years of college, but to cherish it. And I think that even if it's not William James… and I say sometimes, I'm ambivalent about the closing because I don't know when I left how many people it really was working for. But the idea and the ideal seem to me absolutely necessary. Because I'm sure that there are younger people, like myself, who, again, are outside the clique, and outside the mainstream, and have fewer and fewer places to turn. There are fewer William James; there are fewer alternatives altogether culturally. Certainly, you can see it in Boston, as the crowd grows more homogeneous all the time. And so, I don't know if I feel, at this point, more angry or sad. My commitment, right now, is to… I'm working as a carpenter and there's a commitment there. And when I go back to school my commitment is to my graduate work. But I don't see myself shaking the William James. It's not like giving that up, I've not become reactionary about it. I'm still committed, like I said to that idea and that ideal. And even if it only works for relatively few, there have to be options like that… that vision. Same way I feel about Christianity. You know, even if it doesn't always work, that vision has to be kept alive. Because that's an important part of who we are, it's an important part of Socratic method. [Barbara] Can I stop you for a minute because it’s about to run out of tape? That's totally lovely. Would you go on for about another five minutes? Is that all right? Do you feel that? I have a question. [DeWilde] Sure. �[Barbara] If my crew shows up. [Inaudible] � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_44_DeWilde Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource DeWilde, Michael Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Michael DeWilde interview (1 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Michael DeWilde by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Michael DeWilde was a philosophy student of William James College who went on to become a longtime professor at Grand Valley State University and the Director of the Koeze Business Ethics Initiative in the Seidman College of Business. In this interview, Michael discusses his experience as a student of William James College from 1977-1981 and his commitment to alternative education. This interview is part 1 of 2 for Michael DeWilde. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ff7d4527e5cccca66b8168e0d07a150b.mp4 77076d503ff97403daa7d31654f0070d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f6e68d3175eafc9f048f3887f166718e.pdf 1a0a363db774c3bb0f4ec7083ab615fb PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Michael DeWilde Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 2 [Barbara] When you speak, you know, it all makes sense except it sort of doesn't because you started out in one frame of mind and then changed to another by the end of the tape. Do you have a comment on that? Did you feel a [inaudible] of anything? Do you know what I mean? [DeWilde] I'm not sure, like I said, it's been a long time since I’ve thought articulately about William James. [Barbara] Yeah. [DeWilde] What was your sense of the change? [Barbara] Well, I guess, I'm not really asking a question, don't worry about it. It's just that when you started talking, over the process of twenty minutes, the school seemed to have become more, well it did become [inaudible], but it also became more valuable, in the way you were talking. [DeWilde] I think it… well, it was valuable and that's just the… [Barbara] I guess you can record anytime. Record anytime. [DeWilde] Say more. [Barbara] I was talking to them [inaudible]… [DeWilde] I guess, I really do feel a strong ambivalence about its continuation. That the spirit, the [inaudible], the rhetoric which was prevalent, strong, and had something to do with the practice of the place when I first got there, seem to be diminishing and weakening and that was taking its toll on everybody. And it’s not that the faculty were any less committed. I didn't sense that they were less committed. I felt that there was just less understanding and less interest in understanding what it was that the place was going to be about… what it was about, what it had been about. But at the same time, feeling a strong commitment to alternative education, to alternative pedagogies, and that I don't know how you get back to that given this tenor of the times and all that. �[Barbara] Okay, I guess my real final question is something about… my presumption and my personal program in life is that alternative education keeps cycling, and you keep hopefully learning a little more each time and doing it better the next ten years when it cycles up again and you get an opportunity to participate. Do you have any views on what we could do better or what we did wrong? Or was it just the tenor of the times? Which is so amorphous, it just frustrates me [inaudible]. [DeWilde] [Laughter] Yeah. The tenor of the times was actually a bit before my time. I'm more a child of the seventies, I suppose. So, I understand, you know, times being tolerant of experimentation, alternativism and things like that. But I can't get a handle on when people say this a gestation period or if people say, “Well it's going around, it's coming around again.” I don't know what that means. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't see that. I don’t see it coming around. It doesn't look like it's coming around. I mean, perhaps it will. What it did well, it seemed to me, was this [inaudible] attitude… was manifest an attitude of genuine commitment to educating the individual as a whole. Educating the individual to be an individual. To a commitment, not just to learning a lot – any number of disciplines – but to be Socratic and to teach individuals about themselves. It sounds a little corny, but I think when it worked and when it was doing… when William James was being William James, it did that and people experienced that, and it was real. You could see the consequences in the people you talked to; that you knew when somebody was from William James and when they weren't. [Barbara] But what could it, in the next era, what could it better do? Because you’re also a Grand Valley professor. You also didn’t get enough. [DeWilde] Well, I was… � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_43b_DeWilde Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource DeWilde, Michael Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Michael DeWilde interview (2 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Michael DeWilde by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Michael DeWilde was a philosophy student of William James College who went on to become a longtime professor at Grand Valley State University and the Director of the Koeze Business Ethics Initiative in the Seidman College of Business. In this interview, Michael discusses how the spirit of William James College diminished over time and how the "tenor of the times" affected alternative education during that period in Grand Valley history. This interview is part 2 of 2 for Michael DeWilde. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2c998017ef75ab39833000f1ecc58b9e.mp4 cc8ff28dfbd512ff8231ad2055d8347a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a3facaaaf8044d6072fba7dcfccd1346.pdf 17cea6ad179836c64aca9c38ff4f5093 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Stephen Rowe Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 2 [Barbara] Alright. I guess the one thing we should really start talking about is if you could – Oh, I would say, tell me one or two of the main thrusts of James's philosophy that were manifested in the college. [Rowe] Okay. I think in terms of the college, the most important thing about James, as tends to be the case with the other great figures in the twentieth century, is that he wound up taking on the central cultural problem, which for some people is a problem of ideal and actual. For other people, it's the problem – beginning with Descartes – of the separation of mind and body. For others, it's fact and value. And for James, it tended to be the problem of theory and practice. In other words, there's fairly widespread agreement among the great figures in the twentieth century that our culture is dichotomous or it had become unstuck in such a way that you get two elements that are not related. An extreme expression of that, of course, in our time is Heller's "Catch Twenty-Two.” Here's two choices, neither works, pick one. Gregory Bateson's “Double Bind” – same idea. But for James, the problem tended to be – or the manifestation of that deep problem tended to be – in terms of theory and practice. Such that, he observed, that without intervention, the situation would develop where your thinkers would drift to one end of the room and create grand theories that were related to nothing real. And your actors would drift to the other side and mindlessly act out whatever procedure or undertaking was going. So that, again, all things being equal, and there being no intervention, there tends to be this split between theory and practice, or ideal and actual. And with William James College, we tried to take that problem on. And hence the integration of theory and practice, stressing the importance of internships, and the consequences of what one is learning on one side, and the implications on the more technical side – or career-related side – at the same time. Now there's more to be said about James, but it seems to me that in an era of alternative education, many of the examples and instances of alternative education – perhaps even on our campus – failed because they lacked coherence or they failed to achieve sufficient intellectual discipline. And they simply became schools of doing your own thing, which is what happens over and over again with progressive education… a history for progressive education. And we were most fortunate with William James College then that we had really the discipline of a great thinker with whom we could be in dialogue. So, it seems to me that with William James College we have at least three things. It's an instance of alternative education, which in some ways is the same tradition as �progressive education, which as I say fails over and over again because it lacks discipline and coherence, and it devolves into a situation where people are merely doing their own thing. Secondly, the college was a manifestation of the human potential movement and, unfortunately, that movement in many respects suffered the same fate as has progressive education, which is to say that it failed to find sufficient articulation and hence in the worst forms became helter-skelter or nearly do your own thing. And to me, the history of the modern period, generally, I mean the whole of the modern period displays that problem, that there's some great idea about the dignity of the individual and a certain kind of relationship in which the individual can mature. But – and here I place most of the blame on intellectuals – we have had an enormous difficulty finding the articulation that can remind us and provide the appropriate forms of discipline for that intuition about being human and the relationship between being fully human and being in community. And as John Dewey, William James later colleague, points out in many respects our failure has been fundamentally intellectual in that philosophy has failed to serve its function of reminding us and pointing us to those experiences and moments in which we are being fully human. And unfortunately, so much of philosophy or thought generally became co-opted to the superficial, mechanical, laissez-faire notions of both the individual and community that they effectively were absent in terms of reminding us of the best. So, in my view, William James College – as an expression of a period, as well as an institution in itself – was an attempt to institutionalize the best of the modern period, which is to say, again, a view of the maturity and fullness of the human being that is not antithetical to community. That, in fact, depends on and leads to a certain quality of relationship that is very difficult to give voice to in the Cartesian mechanical, even hydraulic, modern vocabulary. Where the assumption tends to be that if I do something for myself, that's necessarily at someone else's expense. And if I do something for someone else that necessarily involves sacrifice. There is, it seems to me, at the root of the modern period a vision of individual and community related in something like what we these days call synergy. That, again, is very difficult to articulate in intellectualist either/or categories. And so, here with the human potential movement, and the college as an expression of that, was a surfacing of the attempt to embody that ideal. And it just happened that it was a fortunate circumstance in that the namesake provided help on that, rather than as with so many alternative projects – educational and otherwise – the intuition appeared, was healthy for a time, and then the failure of articulation began to take its toll in terms of people drifting off into who knows what. And so, it seems me the relationship and the really continuous dialogue with James the figure throughout the period was most deeply significant in terms of that issue of having discipline and a coherent view of what we were doing that tended to center around the problem of theory and practice and the integration of the two. But it really went deeper than that in terms of the capacity to affirm both the individual and the communal dimensions simultaneously and in a way where each is enhanced, rather than one being �enhanced at the expense of the other. [Barbara] I'm going to stop the tape for a second. [Rowe] Okay. Molly, get lost. Go lie down. [Barbara] No, don't tell… tell her not to do that. [Inaudible] how we managed to just attempt to engage in genuine conversation with James is just… what techniques were important, as versus just having him has a figurehead or something, you know? [Rowe] Well, I think dialogue or conversation with vision in two particular ways. One in the structure of the college itself, which hopefully on an ongoing basis with students is alive. And it seems to me that the central elements of structure were the organization of the curriculum not around the traditional disciplines, but around problems and issues in the world. And secondly, the organization of individual student work around individualized study plans and individualized advising. Such that the student – him or herself – had to take responsibility for their education. And a second kind of institutionalizing of dialogue was the synoptic lecture program, in which we tried to emphasize the significance of vision – James’ and others – and on an ongoing basis put the college in contact with figures who are genuinely visionary. And then a related element was that we saw the need to do some basic socialization with students in terms of an introductory course that went through many incarnations. I think the longest one was called “Living and Learning at William James College,” in which we studied James. But from the students’ standpoint what's even more important is what we enabled them to make the transition from a more passive orientation to education to a more active mode. And in the context of that dealt with a Jamesian vision. Hence got it into the college on an ongoing basis. [Barbara] Let me stop it again because I'd rather we talk about the questions than me just… Can you comment on the phenomenon we agree that we’ve both seen, that when students would come to the college they would have a real… there would be an adaption period before they were really functioning. And yet when they started to function within the college – function well – we always said there was a James student. "Oh, that's a real James student." It wasn't that we taught them how to behave, it’s like they recognized some process. They learned to trust it. Can you just talk about that? [Rowe] Yeah, I think perhaps best in James' own terms, James and his… [Barbara] There we go. See I wasn't talking nicely to him. Okay, now open wide, woah! [camera zooms out and refocuses on Rowe] Alright. Okay. There was similarity in backgrounds for a lot of us that came to the college and there was sort of an understanding between a lot of us, I think. Do you think that's the most important �aspect to what you refer to as activism within the history of the college? [Rowe] Yeah, I think that our faculty tended to share a history in common. Now there were all kinds of variations, but I think in the broad terms there was a common history that goes something like the following: we were committed in the sixties to social and political change within the system. At some point – sixty-eight, sixtynine, in that area – for most of us, there was a terrible realization and that is that quote "change within the system," or social and political change in and of itself does not get at the problem. For example, nineteen sixty-nine is when Pogo said: "We've met the enemy and they are us." Nineteen sixty-nine is also the time at which the Beatles sang: "You say you want a revolution; you better change your mind instead." Or, to put it another way: there's a point, historically – in our shared history – at which social and political change became impossible without cultural change. In other words, social and political change by itself is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, unless one can get to the deeper level of cultural change. And whether it was through the consciousness movement, the women's movement, the sensitivity movement, various ethnic-cultural movements, there was a shared sense, again, that the changes that need to occur need to occur at the level of transmission of cultural value. Deeper, underneath the social and political, at the level of the value transmitting institutions: religion, family, education. Hence, most of the faculty sharing that history came to education with an understanding that education – if it's to work – is not simply about enfranchising students that hadn't been enfranchised before, though that was important. The fact that we were teaching at a public state institution that was making education available to quote "the new student" – the student to whom education had not been available before. That was a significant social and political intention of the college. But at this deeper level, there tended to be this shared concern that education could develop and facilitate the emergence of the kind of value change that's necessary in order for the culture to heal. So, at that deeper level there was a concern with value in the faculty and hence in the college and value of a relatively specific sort. Now, there were times in the history of the college when there were conflicts over articulation of the value. I can remember intense conflict, for example, as between the feminists and the, say, new culture/ new consciousness types. That became most vividly present, I think, with the synoptic lecture with William Irwin Thompson. But the point is that, at some… that the agreement upon which the faculty and hence the college was founded, was an agreement deeper than the social and political level; it was an agreement about the need for change at the cultural level. And that agreement was not without its disagreements internal to it, but it seems to me significant that we have that shared history, the activist zeal, and a sort of a loose consensus about the need for cultural change. Good? [Barbara] Now can we pet the dog? �[Rowe] Oh Yeah! Hey Moll! Molly! Now the dog's asleep. Moll! Come on over here. Come over here. We're going to pet the dog. [Barbara] What's going on? It’s suspicious. I don't believe you! [Rowe] Okay, here's where the guy pets his dog. [Barbara] Sit down, the way you were dear. [Rowe] Sit, Moll. That's good, there’s a nice dog. [Barbara] I promise you I won't use it unless I have to because its corny. [Rowe] Yes, it is corny. That's a nice dog. [Barbara] Alright that's enough petting the dog. [Rowe] Good. Alright, as you were. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_43a_Rowe Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rowe, Stephen Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Stephen Rowe interview (2 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Stephen Rowe by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Stephen Rowe was a faculty member of William James College and a longtime philosophy professor at Grand Valley. In this interview, Stephen discusses how William James's philosophy manifested in the college and the unifying qualities of the faculty that were tied to a sense of activism within the history of the college, in addition to ending the interview with a brief interruption by his pet dog, Molly. This interview is part 2 of 2 for Stephen Rowe. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives