1
12
2
-
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>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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
-
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>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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