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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7bc10ca36c87103e5d847537d0002494.mp4
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/52659b18946217b719f10feba4aebfa8.pdf
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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
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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
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Identifier
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GV016-16
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Language
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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
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GV016-16_GVSU_47_Lubbers-Rowe
Creator
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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>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Language
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eng
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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
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Moving Image
Text
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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
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GV016-16_GVSU_46_Lubbers
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Lubbers, Arend
Date
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1984
Title
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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
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Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Rowe, Stephen (Interviewer)
Subject
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Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
College presidents
College administrators
Lubbers, Arend D.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/07edd5efb603db138c71cac791e42647.mp4
6828e9a45f67f210afb89cd25b1a4693
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e5e1a0f15123015c693818c7363d4739.pdf
dd537ed0e7e5b1fe20e6efeb0802a7b2
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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
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
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Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Identifier
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GV016-16
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Language
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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>
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