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William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: Rosemary Willey
Date: 1984
Part: 3 of 3
[Rosemary]
We're rolling.
[Barbara]
Is there anything we could have done differently there at the end to save
ourselves?
[Rosemary]
Well, God – that’s a very difficult question because, quite honestly, I don't think
so. But I tend to be kind of a pessimistic person. I'm not sure what we could have
done because it got to the point, we were working in an environment that was…
you know, we were going against the mainstream; we were running an opposite
course. And, I think with the way Grand Valley was moving, as a whole, there
was really very little we could do. I didn't realize that at first, I think many
students…you know, we were taught that these values, and this approach to
education was vital. It was really going to do things for us. I mean nobody went to
William James to be told that this is going to fall apart. You know, I mean they
went to William James because there was a real supportive set of ideas that
made some sense to you, and that was going to be very advantageous to me.
You felt good about what was happening. So, I think that students when they…
when there was some organizing to save the college, it was really heartfelt. We
really thought we could have an effect on a few things. I mean it came down to
simply wanting to save the name. You know, for one of the departments or
something. But so, when it became clear to me that it was a losing battle, I'm not
sure if everyone felt that way, but there was a point, I think. I saw it happen to
many people. There was a point where you felt it was a losing battle, and you
didn't go to council. I mean why get up at nine o'clock on Friday morning, get in
there to sit around at a council, you know, that's kind of digging our grave. That
was sort of the activity of the day. It was always quite depressing. The students
started to kind of, you know, we went from everybody showing up because we
were going to do something about this. To people just needing to, you know, get
back to work on their classes. I mean, some students were letting classes slide
because they felt so strongly about this movement, this organizing. So, then we
all kind of stepped back, and just had to look out for ourselves. And take care of
ourselves, and I for one didn't want to be devastated. So, I just got back to my
own ideas. This is why I… part of how I ended up in New York, was that I kind of
wanted to be sure that I was paving my way out to put myself in a new
environment where there were opportunities and things kind of bursting, things
going on that I can feel new and involved in as opposed to sliding off of this
closing of William James. So, I stepped out into New York, which was very
�refreshing, but I had my tools – so to speak – with me from this education and all
these experiences and I think I could take on the city and many different kinds of
people because William James was very rich.
[Barbara]
I’m reading a book right now on American education. Did you ever feel at James
that you were involved in anything radical? Does that seem a useful word?
[Rosemary]
William James, as an entity, which it became sometimes… I mean, there were
many times when I felt like I was going to college and I was excited to get to my
classes and I was involved in this community and I worked in the students’ files
office and it kind of became my world. And when I was really just being a part of
this community, it didn't feel radical, it didn't feel… I didn't stop and think that it
was special and different – not very often – but I do when I look at it in the terms
of education and our society today. I do see that it was a radical place only
because it was different. It moved away from the simple formulas and structures
that I think the educational process can be boiled down to these tight little
systems and because William James was so different and operating on such
different principles, it was a radical organization – radical idea – and it certainly
allowed for you to meet many different political types now because “radical” is
kind of a political word to me. I think of, you know, being able to study social
issues from a socialist point of view or this kind of thing was extraordinary and
different. Now, I made a mention of being excited to go to class and this is
something that, you know, I remember time and again and there were a lot of
little networks that were built up in the classes. You would meet for coffee to talk
about your class, these kinds of things. The excitement in the activity of learning
was really something that I felt there. And once you could grasp the process, you
know, read something, and think out something and have these conversations in
the classroom – it was very confidence building thing. Especially as a freshman
coming from high school where, you know, high school can be a kind of
dehumanizing identity crisis and certainly was for me. To step into something that
involved you and meant something to you, where you weren't afraid of what you
thought and to say what you thought. It built character, it built real character, and
there were a lot of characters there. Yeah.
[Barbara]
Do you remember any in particular?
[Rosemary]
Oh, I remember all of them. I remember all of them in particular because I haven't
met people like that since. So, they do, they really stand out to me. People that
really had an effect on me. People that I miss and people that I still write to and
I'm very fond of.
[Unknown]
Students as well as…?
[Rosemary]
Students as well as professors. I have had connections to professors that were,
�you know, beyond a student professor relationship, where they saw I wrote some
poetry and I had Roz [Rosalind] Mayberry paying attention to me as a person
who was connecting things and discovering the magic of my own words and she
would relate to me in being just as excited and involved in my process of learning
and this is something that I still can't, you know… I still write a poem and want to
know what Roz thinks and we are in touch and it certainly isn’t something that
has stopped because our class ended. That's enough, that's good enough, yeah.
[Barbara]
Okay, this is a place that was, you know, this was change, this was a changeoriented place. That’s what we’re going to have to deal with and we didn’t deal
with it, Rose. They don’t quite say that.
[Rosemary]
Change. Oh, you mean like I said something about how, you know, we were
being taught to live in a changing world, this kind of thing, and I talked about that
being valuable to me. But I don't know what you mean.
[Barbara]
Real change confronted the college, but we didn’t feel it.
[Rosemary]
Alright, okay. Yeah, that's right. I did have a way that I wanted to put that. You
know, I sort of feel like it's up to you, too. What I did was I was thinking along the
lines of all these things that were so essential to us: integration, holistic
approaches to learning, well-rounded, not only career-oriented. These things that
really had substance became like buzzwords and when we were crumbling, we
were still trying to (crumbling… I’ve got to quit saying that) but we were still trying
to hang onto these essential things. But I think quite hypocritically because we
were allowing so much to be put upon ourselves, so many compromises.
[Barbara]
Like what?
[Rosemary]
Just the whole system of getting students out and graduated became
systematized in a way that wasn't paying attention to students’ particular needs
and problems. So that when we would come up with a graduate, and all of a
sudden people realized this person couldn't write very well, the student got
stopped and nailed and I think it was simply a matter of our being so caught up in
covering our asses and that there was a lot of things at the beginning – students,
their needs, where they're at, how to build and work with them – that started to
get systematized and the very typical thing of, you know, Johnny can't read or
write, that could happen to us and it did, it did happen.
[Barbara]
I know it's hard to believe we still have a couple of people who are all William
James people who have graduated yet because they can't write.
[Rosemary]
It's hard to believe but… and it's hard to sit back and say that it’s William James’s
fault. I think, you know, here again it's difficult to place blame because if we had
�all the support we needed so that we didn't have to worry about how we appear –
the society or whatever – we could have continued to pay attention to those
things that were vital to the individuals. But it became quite clear that there were
three or four or five individuals that were really in there bantering, playing a hard
game, to keep what was essential to the college but that was really all I think
that, you know, the small things we started to compromise on. I mean, it's very
small but, you know, you start to number your courses. You start…
[Barbara]
What difference does it make if you number your courses?
[Rosemary]
Immediately students would get the impression that, gee, I better take this course
before this course and then I have to have this course before this course. Now, at
times there was a simple logic to that… to being able to sit in a class and know
what's going on, to have a little bit of history with the subject. But I think in
general, it meant that students stepped into a kind of semi-structure and saw that
and tried to move through it as though it really were a structure. It was very
confusing. I mean, I sat down with beginning students in those last years who
were concerned that they couldn't take this course because it didn’t fit their study
plan, you know, the study plan became this rock that you carved your classes
into and I think that there were a lot of students that started to feel like there was
this whole… there was a set of expectations that they've simply had to do to
graduate now. I think we handled those expectations entirely differently at first
because it fit a certain philosophy to go out, to try things, to be well-rounded, to
be sure you’ve... I mean, sometimes it boiled down to, you know, be sure you’ve
had a class with Dick Paschke especially because he will really change your way
of thinking. And I think these things were happening in a way that was much
more individualized and progressive than, you know, school by numbers and I
think we're to blame for that a little bit because we started to lose confidence in
ourselves. We started to misunderstand, perhaps, what these essential ideas
meant and how to work with them, how to use them as you know so it amounted
to a kind of model. I mean, William James was really a tremendous model for a
lot of people, and it was a surprise to a lot of people, but I think I was there long
enough to not be too surprised. Yeah, I had a couple friends that took this college
so seriously and so to heart, I mean, they were more than us, but we were
angered. Frequently, we were angered by the students that kind of weren’t
getting it. They weren’t getting it; they were taking advantage, they were only
here to do their photography and to go get a job, you know. We were really
troubled by that, but it certainly wasn't the student’s fault.
[Barbara]
Why wasn’t it their fault?
[Rosemary]
Because these were the shifts that were beginning to make sense to those young
people. These were the kinds of shifts that were setting in this sort of new logic
that I think put too much emphasis on career and much less emphasis on
�discovery of all possibilities that you can have in those few years. And, you know,
I am very well aware of the numbers game that started to set in in terms of how
many students are in what programs and if it was really mounting up in that
media program, for example, then we better pay a lot of attention to that. I mean,
the bottom line is getting students in there and getting enough money so that the
college would survive. And we had to have some kind of external measure of
value and it pretty much amounted to how successful I think we were in terms of
student ratios and numbers and things that for some of the students that were
aware would really seem hypocritical and we would get very angry and fed up
and these were the things that made us feel like it was a losing battle, and we
ought to take care of our coursework and get 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
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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_03_Willey
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Willey, Rosemary
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
Rosemary Willey interview (3 of 3, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Rosemary Willey 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. Rosemary Willey was a student of William James College from 1977 to 1982. In this interview, Rosemary discusses the closing of William James College, her memory of the cast of characters in their community, and the shift toward a more career-oriented education for the youth at that time. This interview is part 3 of 3 for Rosemary Willey.
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>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
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<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
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ddacd65d640d0e5e4659ef22872a448f.mp4
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PDF Text
Text
William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: Rosemary Willey
Date: 1984
Part: 2 of 3
[Barbara]
Just keep talking.
[Rosemary]
I started to feel like people asking me how much money I can make as a
research assistant to an independent filmmaker. I started to feel like-- "Hey!
That's a real personal question." And I started to kind of take offense, and maybe
it's partially because, you know, I'm not making any money. But it was also
because, you know, I don't care how much money you make. But there was
really a, you know, it's just a sort of wrapped package. You graduate, get a
degree to be something, and you're going to make so much money depending on
what you've picked. This all adds up to, you know, what you've amounted to.
Now, people have asked me how much money I make, I kind of banter about it.
But…
[Barbara]
What’s the matter? Oh shit, you were perfect, Rose! You were so good!
[Rosemary]
[In a fake southern twang] Okay, we'll try it again. I'm so glitch. I'm so glad you
noticed that we'd run the whole tape.
[Laughs]
[Rosemary]
Let's see, yeah. I started taking offense at people asking me how much money I
could possibly make working with the independent filmmaker. I started to feel like
that's a really personal question. Happened many, many times. It happened in
the hallway, in my building, people, you know, just after a few questions. “Well,
what do you do? Where are you from? Well, gee, how much money do you
make?” I started to feel, of course, like that's not anybody's business. Maybe,
partially, because I'm not making much money. But then as I got to get enough of
this attitude among young, newly graduated, out in the world types. That it was
important to let people know I'm not out in the world to turn a buck. That I'm, you
know, that I'm out for experiences, that I feel like I have something to say. I mean
there…I've met many people who have, I'm going to have to stumble with this for
some reason. I'm drawing a blank.
[Barbara]
Okay. That's because you already said it. So, it's hard for you to do it again. So,
the point is that their education has been [inaudible] at the very limit, and your
education was something different.
�[Rosemary]
Yeah. Well, I went out east. Moving out east where there's a lot of young
professionals in New York, who have acquired a certain status that has to do with
where they have been to school, and what they studied. And you run into these
people frequently at parties or whatever. Gatherings where young people want to
know where you went to school, and what you studied. Their education is that -most commonly I find that these people have gone to college to be somebody, to
be something, to be a particular thing. And, if that hasn't added up in terms of
their salary, or whatever, I think that people feel pretty bad about where they're at
now.
[Rosemary]
So, at first it was kind of difficult for me when I confronted this attitude about what
you do is what you, who you are, and what you've amounted to, and I had no
simple answer for what I do and what I wanted to continue to do, and where I'd
been. And having William James College close has made it difficult, in that I can't
go on about this college that is this real happening place where people go to
really learn something and where there was an attitude, there was a real
concern, that even though they were concerned that people got out and could
find work and have careers and skills and stuff, but a real well-rounded education
that involved a lot of other things, thinking and writing, you know, that it wasn't
strictly career-oriented, that it was really kind of learning-oriented. And so, it has
really put me in a space that has, that I have found is quite unusual, where, you
know, being professional and being involved in something and having a career
means something entirely different. Well, it certainly doesn't mean how much
money you make. I think it means kind of loving what you do and being good at
what you do. You take pride in different things.
[Rosemary]
And so I stumbled with these young people and cocktail parties or whatever that
wanted to peg me, wanted to take me from some Ivy League school and that I
that I've been to law school or whatever. And then it didn't take very long before I
decided, what I have done, and what I am doing, and what I will do, and my
reasons for it, can really blow people away. Because it is unusual. And it's I think
it's a lot more dynamic approach to being a graduate and most people I've come
across, I mean, it's made me feel like an odd duck out in New York. But I've
come to take certain amount of pride in that. And I take a tremendous amount of
pride that I went to William James College and have felt a little bitter sometimes
that it wasn't sitting out there in West Michigan and still turning out people who
had an approach to their careers that was more like my own. Now I sort of feel
like stopping the tape. Okay.
[Barbara]
Why don’t you just talk about Walter?
[Rosemary]
Yeah, well, Walter Wright was an example of something I felt was really going on
there, was kind of a symbol of something to me as a student. Because I had the
unusual experience of being there when it was really a very dynamic, powerful,
�functioning place and then in my later years, I graduated just as it was folding,
and there was a lot of involvement of students and faculty and we really were
unified in a kind of “save our college” movement. And so, I experienced the
pitfalls and the hard realizations about where the support was coming from was,
you know, from within ourselves or really not within the administration, it was in
the world at large. We pretty much were up against it. So, people began to
realize this and there were a lot of very sad emotional times going on between
student and professors. And, you know, what an education that was, that in and
of itself, to be involved in this changing times. Feeling not only that we were
changing but we had promoted ourselves as a college that was going to equip its
young people to handle change, to be survivors, to get out in the world and make
change. So here was a real experience for us and I think it made a tremendous
impression on those last graduates. And you know, even though it was a very
sorry thing, I think we did end up feeling very well equipped to take on the
conservative world and to do the things we wanted to do.
[Rosemary]
Walter Wright, when I first came to William James was kind of, you know, the
happening professor. He was really very exciting for students. He really was a
great advocate of individualism and I think many students who didn't feel like they
had a niche in the world definitely could find it with Walter. And they were doing
amazing things, there was always all kinds of amazing film and video things
going on for people. And I think personally they were some of the most
interesting students at William James were the students that gave Walter a lot of
support and vice versa. And as William James started to undergo this sort of
cracking away at the foundation, the changing ideas, Walter was a person who
never really changed. He still handled his classes and the way that he felt was,
you know, was right on and he still…
[Barbara]
Like what?
[Rosemary]
Well, one thing that comes to mind is that he was a great advocate for play. That
learning was playful and that whatever you did, it was going to be fun and
expressive and yours. And for example, my very first super eight film, because I
didn't handle my camera right or something… I still don’t, I'm not sure because it
never happened again. But I came up with a three-minute roll of black film. I had
a completely black film. So, Walter said we're going to show your film, it’s a black
film, and we'll get around to what happened. But he told me I could take this film
and cut it into things where I wanted a black spot, that was interesting, that I
could scratch it, that I could make, that I could work with film and it wasn't
hopeless and I was devastated. And here Walter really wanted me to feel like it's
all part of it, you know. And so, it was all right, you know, it was all right. And then
I went on to not be intimidated by the camera, to not be afraid to make a black
film again. But he was just, you know, a very magical kind of instructor for me,
someone that I certainly had a lot of confidence to work with him, and to try new
�things.
[Barbara]
And then what happened?
[Rosemary]
Right, well what I wanted to… Okay, so, Walter was very important to me, to the
whole kind of philosophy and openness that made the college a very involved
place and he… I think as the college started to suffer some changes and
structuring, some things that were imposed upon us, Walter couldn’t maintain his
approach to classes and to students. He never really started to structure his
classes in a way that would've been quite different. Sso he kind of went from
being you know very much a part of what the college is all about to, I think, a sort
of exceptional person. He was kind of a dying breed, someone who became very
unusual. And Walter was always Walter, I mean he handled that very well, but I
always felt kind of sorry that he began to appear to be, more and more, the
exception rather than…
[Barbara]
Do you know why he left?
[Rosemary]
… a facet. I'm not exactly sure why.
[Barbara]
Because he was told he would not get tenure, that’s why he looked for another
job. It’s nothing that even he was unpopular, it’s that Walter had to go.
[Rosemary]
Well, yeah, he was driven. Students were allowed to be on faculty review
committees, which were these committees that were, you know, inside the
college that sat down and reviewed the progress and the, you know, how a
particular professor was doing, and how the students were feeling, and how they
were feeling. And I mean it was really a very good thing, but I sat on some of
those review committees, and I think that in Walter's case in particular, I really did
learn a lot about how he was kind of being forced into this exceptional, unusual
role rather than supported. Rather than supported, and rather than looked at as
an incredible asset he started to be, I think the attitude started to be “What are
we going to do with this guy that won't write a syllabus?” You know, and so I got
to see which was also another very unusual thing about William James, I got to
see the kind of internal attitudes and the real clashes and the things that made
you feel very helpless as to why, you know, why the foundation was crumbling.
�
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_02_Willey
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Willey, Rosemary
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
Rosemary Willey interview (2 of 3, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Rosemary Willey 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. Rosemary Willey was a student of William James College from 1977 to 1982. In this interview, Rosemary discusses the career-oriented attitudes of young professionals in New York City in comparison with the learning-oriented education she received at William James College, in addition to her experience learning from professor Walter Wright. This interview is part 2 of 3 for Rosemary Willey.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
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Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
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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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application/pdf
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eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4a6d593c630fe11a494b948230ea3917.mp4
0779bf81f0f2c6f2e93ae65db9ded30d
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ad32fb631019cf7c9fa77b24cd44db4d.pdf
ab931513183ee456c0c53b40fc89f256
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William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: Rosemary Willey
Date: 1984
Part: 1 of 3
[Barbara]
Go on.
[Camera operator]
Rolling.
[Barbara]
Just talk. You don't have to worry about it.
[Rosemary]
He has himself… he has some kind of idea that… there's all this talk about how
we had a philosophy, and we had this, and we that going for us. I don't know. He
was saying some things about how little of that was really, you know, commonly
understood. It was interesting, like he was kind of fed up with everyone talking
about, you know, the philosophy of education, and stuff. I just think it was
interesting to talk to him.
[Barbara]
Okay, we'll do some more of that. I would like you to, first of all, start talking
about… in a sentence, say who you are, when you went to James, and what
you're doing now.
[Rosemary]
I am Rosemary Willey, and I went to William James from seventy-seven to
eighty-two, little time off, and I'm living in New York, and working with filmmaker
Leo Hurwitz. And his-- and research for his next script in film.
[Barbara]
How did you get that job, Rose?
[Rosemary]
I was studying script writing and very interested in writing for media, and I set up
an internship with Leo. Was encouraged to get out and do something in my field,
which is what the internship program is all about, and I had met Leo Hurwitz. He
was a Synoptic Lecturer at William James, so I met him through the college. And
I wrote to him myself. We talked over with the internship program was all about,
the kind of thing I'd like to do. And, you know, of course the first it depended on
where he was in his work, but I was very persistent. We kept in touch, and it
worked out very well. That I could come out, do research, and be involved in the
script writing process with him. When my internship was over, I stayed in New
York and continued to work with him.
[Barbara]
Didn't you write a poem that you sent to him, or something?
�[Rosemary]
That's right, my initial meeting with Hurwitz was that he brought a film to William
James. It was a film that I don't believe has been shown in the United States at
all. It was his new film called "Dialogue with A Woman Departed." I'd never seen
anything like it, and I was very excited by the film and by Leo. He asked for
responses to film, and I wrote him a poem I spent a little time on it and got to him
before he left. So, we had a very tremendous encounter. Where he enjoyed my
poem very much, and I spoke about his film. And we kept in touch ever since
then, so...
[Barbara]
People are not going to know what you mean by a Synoptic Lecturer.
[Rosemary]
Okay.
[Barbara]
What does it mean?
[Rosemary]
Right… the Synaptic Lecturer program at William James was a situation where
students could be involved with up with the personality, author, filmmaker, a poet.
People that they brought onto campus to spend time with the students to lecture
and visit the classes. Leo was a Synoptic Lecturer. He brought his films and
spent time in classes. Spent time meeting students, answering students’
questions. And it was a very wonderful opportunity to not only see someone's
work, but really get to know them and let them have you know real responses to
the work.
[Barbara]
People at a more traditional college environment might say: "Isn't that an easy
credit?" I mean how would you respond to this whole notion that this stuff is so
vague and amorphic that there's not really any learning going on, or something
like that, you know?
[Rosemary]
Right. I think that because William James college had no grades, no tests –
these kinds of things that create a measure or formula for learning – people
assume that it must've been something that you could slide right through, and
there was nobody checking up on you or this kind of thing. But it was quite the
opposite experience, really. Because they were small classes. You got to know
your advisor, and your professors quite well. And they got to know how well, you
know, they got you know you're writing, what you are capable of, they have
certain expectations of you that came out you know rather soon in the whole
college experience. They got you know what you were interested in, you know,
how your writing was excelling, whatever. So, there was no way to really slide
through something it was, you know, you couldn't hide from the real
responsibilities, or from the expectations people had of you. You really had to be
involved. And you know, of course, I enjoyed very much being involved. I found it
to be very difficult at times, but not difficult in a negative way. But a kind of
challenge, very challenging.
�[Barbara]
In other words, the notion that “it has to be suffering, to be learning” is sort of
beside the point. In other words, you're saying that you worked hard, but being
hard doesn't cover it.
[Rosemary]
Right. Right, well the whole idea of students being active and responsible for
their own educations made the, I think, effort that you put into your work much
greater.
[Rosemary]
But the rewards were much greater. You really could get involved in things. You
took great pride in turning in something that had real substance. That you'd really
thought about, and if what you wanted to turn in, that was substantial and
important to you, was going to take you three weeks more. You could just let
your professor know, this is what you're doing and I'm going to take this much
time and things could work out that way. So that essential things really to come
through.
[Barbara]
Do you remember when you came to James? You came out of high school,
right?
[Rosemary]
Yeah.
[Barbara]
Okay, do you remember that you had to have some transition into this
philosophy? [Inaudible] Or something?
[Rosemary]
No, it was a very stimulating place when I first came to William James College. I
remember being in classes that, you know, were no comparison to high school.
And as a freshman you worry if you're going to be able to kind of take on these
college classes. But, at William James College, you could sense there was
something going on. It was intimidating at first, but you came to realize that your
experiences, and things that you think about, and you know, experiences you've
had in your life are relevant, are important you don't have to be an expert on
something to have something to say in a class. People were interested in finding
out about you. So, you know, with a little bit of confusion from the transition from
high school to something so really sophisticated and involving. There was a little
transition in there, because in high school we were spoon-fed graded… your
goals were really quite defined. At William James College, people didn't really
define things for you. You could kind of see, you know, you made your own
decisions about what you were interested in and then there was sort of
encouragement. This whole, you know, these kind of adult issues, and adult
educational concerns where your concerns from the start. I mean there was
guidance and conversations, but it came quite clear to you that, you know, the
philosophy, so to speak, that was going on here was really to your advantage.
And something that you could really work with and become a part of. You know,
�it took me a few classes. I remember a class I took with Inge Lafleur. Um, no.
Aimee(?) Bijkerk (?). Her name was Aimee(?) Bijkerk(?) My instructor in Jungian
psychology, and it was my first year William James and I was very much
interested in Carl Jung. So, I took a course specifically about him, that was
tremendously rewarding. You'd spend a lot of time reading Jung, talking about
Jung, and getting a handle on how these things related to art, symbols, and it
was a wonderfully stimulating class. When it was over, I had a tutorial was Aimee
(?) where I asked her: "What I am supposed to do this class--with this Jungian
psychology?"
[Rosemary]
I was interested in therapy at the time, and I asked her: "How does a therapist
work with all this information?" And she explained to me, which I understand
more and more as I get older, I guess, that what you can do with this kind of
information is that it helps you develop an attitude. That there isn't just one way
to think through an idea. There isn't just one way of handling a problem. There
are many ways, and there are many ways that are related to each other. There
are things… there are ways in which schools of thought can overlap, and by
diving into something in particular like Jung, you can work on… it sort of
develops a sensitivity to the many ideas that there are in the world. Now, this to
me later became an explanation for William James College as a whole. Because
I have really developed an attitude, a way of thinking that where I feel capable of
taking many things into account because of the integration of ideas. And I found
this sensitivity added to approach to learning and to living that was very well
rounded and took a variety of things and brought them together. Was what was
happening at the college.
[Barbara]
One question on this tape. Then we'll probably change tapes and get you
something to drink.
[Rosemary]
That would be great.
[Barbara]
Can you remember a class early on, or later on that – and this is not to gossip –
but the experience where it just didn't work where you needed it to?
[Rosemary]
God, I might want to talk about that. Let me see…
[Barbara]
Because, it wasn't... [Inaudible]
[Rosemary]
Yeah. I had a class that I think was kind of an experiment. An experiment for
everyone involved. This kind of thing was allowed to happen at William James,
you know. Someone had an idea for great class, and they pulled in some
students that were really interested with a real hook. Course title, you know,
"Something in the Modern World" or whatever. So, I took a class, and I was a
freshman then, that turned out to be very nebulous, and it was at a time in my
�education where I needed to see how things fit together quite directly. I was
dealing with some very metaphysical ideas and I didn't, you know, I wasn't told
not to take this class. But anyways, I took it. Had to write papers about something
I had no confidence writing about – this was psychology. It was the history of
psychology. It was pulling together many schools of thought in a way that had no
glue. And people were very… there were some very intellectual things going on
there that were working for some people, and not for everyone in the class. I
wasn't alone, but I found the whole experience very stifling.
[Rosemary]
You know, we went through six to eight weeks before, you know, there'd be a
break where I might say to someone: "Gee, this isn't sinking in." And they say:
"Oh, I don't get it either!" You know, so we had… but, interestingly I did get some
papers out. What I wrote about was my problems with the class. I expressed why
I was having problems, and this broke down some barrier of silence I was having.
The instructors paid attention to my complaints. We talked about them. We talked
about them in the tutorial. I still feel like I didn't learn very much, but I struck up
some real conversations with people as to why. And I met a lot of people who
were going through similar experience. There was still a community, you know, a
forum for some real communication. Which was going on all the time. So, you
don't really regret experiences like that. But it was unusual.
[Barbara]
Would you like to stop for a minute?
[Rosemary]
Yeah.
[Barbara]
It's going very well.
[Rosemary]
Yeah. Juice!
[Barbara]
Okay. Something that's really important to talk about is what happened when you
went on the East Coast in terms of your education?
[Rosemary]
Right. Well, I went out to New York…
[Camera operator]
[Rosemary]
Fine.
[Camera operator]
[Barbara]
Wait a minute, let me stop this here.
Because we are almost out of tape here.
It would be lousy to stop.
�
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
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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_01_Willey
Creator
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Willey, Rosemary
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
Rosemary Willey interview (1 of 3, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Rosemary Willey 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. Rosemary Willey was a student of William James College from 1977 to 1982. In this interview, Rosemary discusses her time being a part of the William James community, in addition to her internship and work with documentary filmmaker, Leo Hurwitz. This interview is part 1 of 3 for Rosemary Willey.
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
Hurwitz, Leo T., 1909-1991
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
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Moving Image
Text
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Language
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eng