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William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: Stephen Rowe
Date: 1984
Part: 1 of 2
[Barbara]
Okay, whenever you feel comfortable, if you could just comment on that notion of
students adapting to the college.
[Rowe]
Well, I think a theme that comes up again and again… perhaps the central theme
of progressive education hinges on the distinction between the active and the
passive mode. Now James' way of putting that was, I think, what he said in the
talks to teachers that he gave in Boston which is really his only sustained
statement about education. The center of that statement was something to the
effect that in education there's one maxim, and that is no impression without
expression. Now, the point is that education continuously runs the cycle of
impression and expression and that the problem with most of education is not
that it's wrong, but that it only runs half the cycle. In other words, it tests… it gives
the students a certain set of impressions and then tests to see if they've gotten
the impressions. Now, again, the point is not that that's entirely wrong, but that
runs only half the cycle. From James' standpoint, and from the standpoint of
progressive education generally, that is frequently called active as opposed to
passive education, one for every unit of impression there has to be some
expression. One has to do something with it. One has to do the kind of… engage
in the kind of doing that enables the student to come into possession of the
material. Not simply into the possession of the certificates that says that they
have temporarily gotten the impression. And there are empirical studies and point
out that that kind of learning, take the test, which certifies that you've gotten the
proper impressions. That kind of learning disappears very, very fast. I mean the
retention curve with that kind of learning, as compared to the more active
learning, shows the initial retention higher, but the curve drops off very rapidly.
Whereas in the more active mold, which is to say that impression has been
followed by expiration – in this case in writing, or internship kind of work, or what
we in the early days call project-oriented education – the retention initially is a
little lower, but it remains far after the test material has been forgotten. So, with
most of our students coming out of traditional high schools and colleges, they
have come to us frequently with some notion about what they want at the
college, but mostly habituated to this passive mode. And I think one of the basic
events that we see over and over again with students is this kind of crucial
moment of awakening to the more active mode. And so frequently – and
especially entering students – there will be this very distinct process of engaging
education in the more active that is initially perceived as frustrating and indeed it
�seems to me that to enable someone to make the transition from the passive to
the active mode, there is a certain amount of turbulence and frustration. In fact, a
good curriculum should induce a kind of frustration that leads to crossing over
this threshold. And it seems to me that the, quote, William James students – the
ones who are sort of self-evidently reflective of the college at its best – are those
who have made that transition and who are able to participate in this active mode
of learning. And I perhaps should say that one of the reasons for the demise of
the college was the difficulty, late in college, getting students to do that. The
influence of career, careerism, as well as the conservatives and the culture,
meant that more and more students were resistant to that process and more and
more were willing to defer to authority and to wish to be told. And the more
survival became the issue, and the more insecure people became, the more we
saw real resistance on the part of students to cross that threshold and enter into
the more active mode. But the point of contact, again, with William James was
the central statement: "No impression without expression." And when we worked
well, I think we continuously ran that whole cycle.
[Barbara]
Perfect!
[Rowe]
Good, good, good, good. Next question.
[Barbara]
Is this a useful question? I'm concerned… I'm sorry. Whenever you're ready to
go.
[Rowe]
Okay, I think that James the person is difficult to understand, William James
College was difficult to understand, and what both the college and the figure
representative are difficult to understand. But I don't mean it is difficult to
understand in the sense of being abstract, or many concepts, or it takes a great
effort in the intellectual sense. The difficulty in understanding, it seems to me, is
perceptual. It's a little bit like the faces and vases diagram that you get in
Psychology 101. In other words, the diagram shows that as you look at it one
way it's a vase and as you look at it another way it's two faces looking at each
other. It's a gestalt, it's a question of perceptual angle. Now James, the figure,
again I think is useful in understanding the college, James, another way to say
what the opposition was… the two parts of the culture, neither one of which was
sufficient, and the brilliance of the figure James… William James coming to a
third orientation that was sufficient. James needed to do philosophy. He needed
to make sense of things. He needed to understand life as one whole thing, and
the schools of thought they were available to him were both insufficient. On the
one side there was the German Idealism, which was precisely that theoretical
detachment and ivory tower construction of brand theories that don't relate to
anything real, on the one side. And on the other side, the reigning British
Empiricism, which was enormously superficial, which literally stood around on
street corners and counted things. Neither of those world views or perspectives
�he found adequate. And one way to explain his genius is that he met that
fundamental position, and move through it, and was able to construct a more
adequate philosophy. And I think from this standpoint the- a way to articulate that
is in terms of a statement he made its end of his career, when he said: "If this
culture is to achieve health and vitality, once again, we must turnover, lie face
down, and look into the thick of things." In other words, the traditional orientation
represented by the German Idealism tended to understand life by taking a
transcendent perspective out there. And that became very problematic in the
twentieth century. Nietzsche's famous "God is dead" is the most dramatic and
very confusing statement of that. That the way of understanding life through a
transcendent principle that's out there seemed to no longer work, going to eclipse
or be mysteriously absent, et cetera. The second orientation which we see
throughout the twentieth century, which corresponds to the British Empiricism,
more or less gives up on any larger sense of meaning or value and is happy to
count things and expresses itself and materialism and consumerism, et cetera.
Now this third orientation, which is not difficult to understand, again in the
conceptual or intellectual form, it's a matter of what James called "angle of
vision," of worldview, of perspective, of gestalt, involves an orientation to the
depth of the present and to the in here, rather than the out there. And that, it
seems to me, is the basic problem with understanding James the figure or James
the college. It's a problem of world view. It's a problem from the mental
perspective. It's a problem, not of rearranging concepts, but rather of stuff just
ever so slightly to the side and seeing everything in a slightly different way. Now
this is too complicated.
[Barbara]
No.
[Rowe]
No?
[Barbara]
But I'm going to stop and make sure we got it because… It's really whenever you
feel comfortable starting, just talking about where William James College fits into
the history of progressive education and/or the alternative education
efflorescence.
[Rowe]
Okay, well I think in some ways, it's very important that the college was founded
as it was in nineteen seventy-one to seventy-two, more or less on a cusp
between two distinct movements. On the one side, the alternative or innovative
education movement – roughly dating from, say, sixty-eight to seventy-one,
seventy-two, on our campus – to the demise of Thomas Jefferson College, which
was a fairly good example of that. And on the other hand, the career orientation,
which began, I think, about seventy-four. So, we were fortunate at James to have
had the experience really of some of the excesses and confusions of the
innovative education movement, on the one hand, and to have done some
serious thinking about vocation and career before the nation became obsessed
�with careerism in higher education. Now, it had occurred to me that at one point,
one way to understand William James College at its best was that we tried to
integrate elements of three distinct educational movements. There's the
traditional orientation, which in America came regarding critically by about sixtyeight. Then there's the innovative education movement, as I say, from sixty-eight
to seventy-one, and then the career education movement. It seems to me that
William James College, in some respects, can be understood as a synthesis of
the best elements of each of those three movements. And for each of those
movements there's a distinct coinage, or it's coin of the realm, or what passes
between people. In the traditional movement, the coinage tended to be quantities
of abstract knowledge and the innovative or alternative movement the coinage
tended to be richness of personal experience. And in the career the coinage
tended to be jobs and engagement with the world, primarily in terms of financial
success and career. It occurred to me at one point, that if you take each of the
three of those elements, the best of each of the three, you have a view of what
we were doing at William James College. I think, fundamentally, we were trying
to enable people to understand their commitments and to identify, develop, and
interact with their most basic commitments. The identification, corresponding to
the alternative innovative movement, where identifying what one is basically
committed to requires some degree of self-awareness and some capacity to
know what one's own experiences is. The development of one's commitment,
with appropriate resources – academically, historically, et cetera – corresponds,
it seems to me, to the best of the traditional education and the enactment of
one's commitments corresponds to the best of the career orientation. So, the
foundation of the college, as I say, on a cusp between the excesses of the
innovative or alternative movement on one side, and the superficiality of
careerism on the other, seems to me is very significant and fortunate fact about
the history of our college. Now I think something else should be said about the
ambitiousness of doing what we were trying to do. William James College, if
nothing else, was enormously ambitious. I remember a day in the mid-seventies
when I read in the "Chronicle of Higher Education," some private college in the
east – Bennington, I believe, it doesn't really matter - was having to go because
of financial difficulties from a student-faculty ratio eleven-to-one to fourteen-toone. At which point I practically expired of sheer exhaustion and realized the
ambitiousness of what we were trying to do at a ratio of about twenty-three-point
four-to-one. And in some ways, that fact, twenty-three-point-four-to-one is one of
the fundamental significant facts about the college. To try to do small classes,
individualized advising, internships, project-oriented education, all of that, at a
ratio of twenty-three-point-four-to-one, is an enormously ambitious undertaking.
And hence sustaining that for ten years is incredible. And we knew about burnout
and related matters but the fact we were able to sustain that for a decade seems,
to me, incredible. Now this isn't much about progressive education.
[Barbara]
Well, it's been a different answer.
�[Rowe]
Yeah. Yes, the college can be understood as a manifestation of the progressive
education movement. I think I've already spoken to that in the previous… Is there
another angle on that that you want?
[Barbara]
… comfortable. [?]
[Rowe]
Okay. Something needs to be said about this word "commitment." It seems to me
that one of the most significant studies of higher education in the period of
William James College was the famous William Perry book called "Forms of
Moral and Intellectual Development of the College Years" and what he really
pointed out, as a social scientist, is that higher education, when it works well,
enables the student to move through nine stages of developmental process
wherein they enter what he calls the commitment stage. Of the word itself,
"commitments," has been in some respects a cliché of that period, so that there
are understandings of the term "commitment" that are nearly clichéd. But Perry
points in a simpler form of his statement that the deep curriculum of the college
years involves the student moving through three stages: the absolutistic stage,
where they think that there's one right answer, black and white, right and wrong.
Secondly: the relativistic stage. Everything is relative in the sense of outer space.
I mean everything can become anything else. Pure protein is in flux, and so forth.
And if things go well, they emerge from that stage, and through that stage, into
the commitment stage, where they are able to commit themselves, both in terms
of beliefs about the cosmos or religion and philosophy, and in terms of particular
people and projects. So that term "commitment," indicating the culmination of a
crucial developmental process that Perry, and his successors, have argued was
the deep curriculum of the college years. I think is the way that I want to
understand that term and hence the significance… significance is a word I use
too much… the necessity to identify what students are really committed to and
provide them with the context and a curriculum through which to develop their
commitment in terms of awareness, perspectives, what the academy can do at
its best. And third: to at least have some experience with the enactment or
embodiment or living of that commitment into the world as we find.
[Barbara]
What I just asked you about coping with the changes that happened…
[Rowe]
Okay, the future-oriented part of it, it seems to me, was in some ways a sham. Or
a reflection of the society perceiving, I guess, the general term is rapid social
change, so not a sham but a cliché. I think that at a deeper level there was
significance to future-oriented and this is a quality that tends to be present in
alternative education, generally. And that is the emphasis, the realization that
education involves two elements. It involves a substance and a process. And
another way to say what the problem with tradition, much of what traditional
education is that it concentrates entirely on the substance and doesn't attend to
�the process of learning. To emphasize the process of learning is to emphasize
the importance of learning how to learn, quite independent of what the particular
subject matter or substance is that the student is being required to master. So
that many people in the present… in fact, many of the reports on higher
education that we're seeing now – especially the Bell report, for example, and the
American Association of Colleges report – emphasize the importance of a
student learning how to learn as an essential part of the experience with higher
education. So, it seems to me that at its best, what the future-oriented meant was
attention to the process and to enabling the student to learn how to learn. At its
worst it was a cliché…
�
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>
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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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
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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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_42_Rowe
Creator
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Rowe, Stephen
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1984
Title
A name given to the resource
Stephen Rowe interview (1 of 2, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Stephen Rowe by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Stephen Rowe was a faculty member of William James College and a longtime philosophy professor at Grand Valley. In this interview, Stephen discusses how William James students adapted to the college, how the perception of the college was difficult for many to understand, and how William James College fit into the history of the alternative education movement. This interview is part 1 of 2 for Stephen Rowe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
Interdisciplinary approach in education
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a>
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>
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Moving Image
Text
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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eng
-
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PDF Text
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William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: Deanna Morse
Date: 1984
Part: 2 of 2
[Morse]
So, you're going to ask me about the students?
[Barbara]
Yeah!
[Morse]
The qualities of the William James students that you don't see…?
[Barbara]
Or what kind of quality did we really appreciate in some of the people?
[Morse]
Well, I think one of the things about William James students was that they knew
why they were there – and they were there to learn. And my feeling is that some
of the students that are there now don't know exactly why they are except that it's
a transition point between college and something else… life elsewhere. The
qualities that I saw in people were sort of self-initiative, willing to follow things
through, willing to take risks, willingness to fail, and a desire to really do what it
took to get the job done. Which in many times meant a lot of work and a lot of
redoing. And I find that part of the grading systems, I think, is what keeps people
from being willing to do that. And I was really surprised… this term I used the
technique of giving people very low grades with the idea that they would then
redo their work to get the higher grades. And it surprised me that in several
cases people accepted their low grade and just stopped right there. They
accepted Ds, they accepted D minuses, they accepted C minuses and Fs. And
they just said: "Well that's what I'm used to getting in education." And, you know,
that's it and then didn't redo the work. Even with my constant prodding saying: "I
believe that you have something good there. It's worth redoing. I believe your
tape, you know, could use some re-editing, some restructuring." And still people
just said: "Well, I'll accept that grade." And I didn't hear that in James. In James it
seemed like people were more willing to continue redoing the work. Also, though,
I think part of it is the fact that students are juggling six or seven classes right
now, too. And what they're learning from education is…I don't think that they’re
real-life skills particularly. What people are learning is what they need to do to get
the minimum level grades in all of their classes and I really don't see where that
translates into real life and learning later on. I had the same kind experience in
my own undergraduate experience, and I don't see where that has taught me
anything in adult life. I mean, I don't have that kind of experience in jobs where I
go into a job and I say: "What's the minimum that I can do to get this paycheck?"
It's just not the way that it works in the real world. Yet, in education that's
�something that we teach our students is what you have to do to get the minimum
grades to get by. And the students at their own level – whether the minimum
grades are a B, an A, or a C – and they do whatever it takes to get to that level,
just to get by.
[Barbara]
How do you motivate them? What makes the miraculous change? Why don't they
just do the minimum to pass a pass/ fail system? Which is what we had. I mean
everybody always said that's what's wrong with a pass/fail system. They'll all just
do the minimum.
[Morse]
That just wasn't my experience that people would do the minimum. It seemed to
me that something about not labeling it as C, D, F, B, A… something about not
having that label ever put on it made people strive for excellence. And, also, in
the pass/fail system, you could require people to redo. And I guess you can in a
graded system, too, but somehow it doesn't seem to fit as well as it did in the
non-graded structure.
[Barbara]
What else… comes after a terrific interview question?
[Morse]
Well, the other thing that I guess I was saying before the tape ran out about my
own education… which I understand some of the students now, which is that you
do in an educational situation where you are in control of what you're doing. What
you get is this sort of a self-affirming kind of feeling that then makes you want to
work. And, for me, my graduate experience had that effect on me. Going to
Goddard college – which was a similar experience to James – where you were
able to define what it is that you felt was important to you, and then you had
guidance from an instructor that would lead you on some roads or some paths to
reaching whatever that goal was that you determine. Well, you feel then that you
are the person that's responsible for your education. And within the more
traditional educational structures it's hard to get that because instead it's more an
assembly line in a factory or something like that; where you're trying to tell people
I've packaged some information which I feel is important and you need to
process that information to get out of this course. It's a much different kind of
structure saying: "Come to the course, tell me what you feel like you need to do
in this course, and then I will help you facilitate being able to do that through
taking media production, or art, or whatever the course was.” And you can't just
do that… you can just teach that way in a traditional structure because the
students don't come with the same values and same expectations. If you try to
teach that way now students come in and say: "But I expect you to define what
the activities are, what the studies are for the course." And, of course, when I
define them they're a different set of activities than if they were defined
individually by the students, and their my priorities rather than the student
priorities.
�[Barbara]
It's a combination of two things. I think one is an almost Calvinistic sense that
there's sin, you know, that you can't trust people. Okay? In the conventional
educational. And also, the notion that the knowledge that's being imparted is real
knowledge, you know, in the most Biblical sense. "This is the truth, so you learn
it, kid." As versus saying: "This was the truth, but look at the mess the world is in.
Let's find out together what we can do better."
[Morse]
Right and the students come wanting to learn what that truth is. They want to
learn: "What are the things that I must know to get a job." Whereas what we
teach them are more strategies to facilitate them once they've decided what the
job is that they want to get. I mean it's sort of different… it seems in some ways
like it's the same, but it's not, for it. I mean if someone comes and they say: "I
want to learn media because I'm interested in working in the health care
professions." Then you teach the media to try to help and reach that goal. If
someone comes and says: "I want to learn media because my high school
teacher told me that it might be an interesting thing for me to do." It's just a
different… you know, you're talking on a whole different level of approach of
education. The students come with different expectations.
[Barbara]
Can you do an introduction of yourself using your name, please?
[Morse]
Well, yes. I'm Deanna Morse and I came to William James in 1979. And before
that I had done artist in the schools work for about four years and had gotten my
master’s degree through Goddard College – which is an alternative school in
Vermont – and had done commercial production work before them.
[Barbara]
Can you name the students that you feel the proudest of in all these years?
[Morse]
Well, it's hard to name just one. But some of the people that I feel good about are
some of the recent graduates that I've stayed in touch with like Susie Zach and
Maggie Anareno [?], who are people that are working commercially, locally, and
had a sense of questioning when they came into college and are still questioning,
somewhat, what they're doing working commercially in media. Some of our
current students have a lot of the same qualities and I still feel real good about
them so I don't mean to say that when James closed, you know, it's like a whole
different ballpark. I really don't see a total difference in terms of the number or the
quality of students. But it does seem to me that entering students are coming for
a different reason than they came when they were at James.
[Barbara]
I can think of just one more question right now. When I was interviewing Rose
Willey, she was talking about… she almost got accusatory and she stopped
herself. She said: "The school… one of the explicit goals of the school was to be
change oriented. Future oriented. When real change came, and they tried to
close us down, what did you have, what did you have to teach us?" Do you feel,
�like, guilty because we didn't save the school?
[Morse]
Oh, no. I thought that at the time the college was threatened, the discussions
around the college were really interesting and also reflected the nature of the
college a lot. I remember endless council meetings that we had at that time
where there was discussion of Dick Gottlieb, and some other people, about
moving the college downtown, off campus, you know, this kind of thing. And
there was also, I remember, we had faculty workshops where we talked about
how we would teach using some of the William James philosophies within the
new system. You know that kind of thing. And so, I know that the students
probably felt much differently about it than the instructors. And, also, I think in
some ways and students… I guess the one thing I do feel guilty about is that it
seems to me that at that time some of the instructors, myself included, saw the
change with somewhat of a sense of relief because at least it meant that we
would be moving into what we perceived to be as stable environment. And that
we wouldn't be spending our lives feeling threatened at all times and feeling on
the defensive at all times. And I think some of the students were responding with
anger towards faculty. And I felt a bit like I was one of the people that was
justifiably hit with that anger at that time. Because I just felt that the continued
threats were not worth it, at that point. It seemed to make more sense just to
have the college be closed.
[Barbara]
Do you have anything?
[Inaudible]
Check back in.
�
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
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GV016-16
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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Text
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eng
Oral History
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GV016-16_GVSU_41_Morse
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Morse, Deanna
Date
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1984
Title
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Deanna Morse interview (2 of 2, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Deanna Morse 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. Deanna Morse was an Arts and Media faculty member in William James College from 1979 to 1981. In this interview, Deanna discusses the qualities of William James students and her personal journey that led her to teach at WJC, in addition to her final thoughts on the college's closing. This interview is part 2 of 2 for Deanna Morse.
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Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
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Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
Interdisciplinary approach in 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/56647999b9f4cbdb4332832a55e5dfaa.mp4
6ad6be9be8fe13dee38b7a79a3e4752c
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fcd18884ee0436786d5ff2fc5f9248db.pdf
199ab49ab84f708d8f4e7f348944b43e
PDF Text
Text
William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: Deanna Morse
Date: 1984
Part: 1 of 2
[Barbara]
Okay, if you would just start out, wherever you want, talking about the difference
of teaching at a conventional situation and teaching at William James.
[Morse]
Well, one thing for me is the observation about studying both places because I
studied at a conventional school and then I got my master’s degree from
Goddard. And for me the difference between the two was like night and day.
Because what I found in conventional school was that a lot of the emphasis is on
grades and how one would perform. And at Goddard a lot of the feeling was what
you can do with that… whatever the learning is. And I guess I've seen that at
Grand Valley, too. The most obvious thing for me is that when I give students…
after students turn in films, I write comments to them on their films, you know,
with long comments… a page or two. And what would happen at William James
is people would read my comments, and they would take it in, and they would
respond to it. And in grade situations, what I find, is that people immediately turn
to the last part of it, see what their grade is, and then factor all those comments,
you know, on the basis of what that letter grade was. And to me that's the least
important part of the learning. The important part is the feedback. But what I find
students do is they just look at the grade. And even some really good students in
this term, in fact, came to me and said: "Well it's getting near the end of the term
and I wonder how much, you know, how much my grade would go up if I redid
this project." And it's totally unimportant what the grade would go out. The real
important thing is how well they can do the project. But the incentive to do it well
seems to be not there in the graded system.
[Barbara]
But that's the opposite from what people who advocate grades… what most
people say. They say you have to have grades or else people won’t work.
[Morse]
No, I didn't think that was true at all. At James what happened was people
worked because then they enjoyed the work and it had nothing to do with how
you evaluated that work, in terms of A. B, C, D, or F. But they did the work until
they felt the work was right. And in the graded system I find people will say: "Well
I was only a C student in high school, so I don't have to do any better than a C
now." Or: "I was only a B student in high school, so I’m satisfied with a B." Or: "I
was only a D student in high school, I'm satisfied with a D." And then don't try to
make themselves better. And that for me has been the biggest frustration… is
moving back to grades.
�[Barbara]
Okay. What other differences in teaching are there that seem important? If there
are any… excuse me.
[Morse]
Besides the grades? The grades is the big one, for me. The other stuff… it's
harder for me because I always thought James' requirements of the milestone
were a little wacky anyway. And I never quite got a sense of what a student had
to do to complete their study plan. And I feel, hearing Richard, I feel part of the
difference is really a difference of a nontraditional school within a larger structure
versus a school that's nontraditional all the way through. I don't think those
questions come up at a place like Goddard or a place like Evergreen. But within
William James what happened was it seemed like people trying to sort of mold
the alternative ed. to make it fit into what people could see as parallel to
traditional requirements. So that part of it to me hasn't been a real difficulty. But
the grade/non-graded aspect has been the biggest one. And the fact that at
James the nature of the students were different. We got people that were older
and were coming back that really wanted to learn this area and now it just seems
like we're getting a lot of eighteen-year-olds that just want to go to college and
someone told them that film was interesting and they're studying it. And a lot of
that kind of thing.
[Barbara]
What would you say, in your experience at James, was the thing that was most
valuable to you or to, you know, the most valuable to the universe? What was the
best thing about being there?
[Morse]
Well, I think the feeling that you were participating in something that was looking
for answers, rather than just fitting into a structure that people accept as the norm
for no apparent reason for it. That's really for me… and there's no reason that we
should accept the fact that traditional education is the answer. It, you know, just a
thing… "Well, I did it, so other people should too" or something like that. It has
nothing to do with really questioning what students need to know or what
students need to learn. It just seems to me that traditional education is based on
tradition, basically. And it just sort of comes out of that need of knowledge.
Whereas at James what people were doing was saying: "Maybe there is a
different way to approach education, what would that way be?" And everyone
was sort of seeking that answer. And participating in that environment was the
most important overriding aspect of what made it special to me.
[Barbara]
I think that's a wonderful answer, because I agree with it; however, I wonder if
there's something… a specific manifestation of the kind of things we were doing
that you could also mention. That's an attitudinal one, and I agree – it’s basic –
but is there something we did in classes, or in council, or something, that you can
mention that you really miss now or that you think made things work? Because
you were in such a pragmatic place, it wasn't just attitude, things were worked
�out.
[Morse]
I don't know. I think it really, for me, it was just that sort of overriding attitude
which manifests itself in counsel and all the discussions. And I remember sitting
in rooms, and looking around, and saying: "People have such a variety of
attitudes and opinions about things. I can look at these people. I can see their
opinions, I can see their attitudes, I can see how they manifest, I can accept their
different viewpoints as all being valid.” And somehow, within this new system,
you don't have that same… it's not that same sort of flexibility towards accepting
that there are different approaches. That's really… it's very fundamental and
basic.
[Barbara]
Do you think we failed?
[Morse]
Oh no, no. And I get real angry when people say that the college was an
experiment because to me the sort of connotation of that is: if it is no longer
existing and it was an experiment, an experiment failed. And I just don't buy that
at all. And I always tend to jump on people or call in, you know, when people say
that it was an experiment and it failed and that's why it's no longer there. That
wasn't it at all anymore.
[Barbara]
Why isn't it any longer there?
[Morse]
I'm not totally sure why it wasn't there. In fact, when I came it seemed like the
college was on the verge of folding. I remember the first faculty meeting that I
came to, Adrian started the meeting by saying: "If we make it through the year,
we'll be glad." And I went up to Adrian at the break and I said: "If this is true, why
am I here?" You know? I mean why did I bother coming to school that's already
on the decline? And I guess… I don't know how many years. Let’s see, I've been
at Grand Valley five. It must have lasted about three years after that… after I
came.
[Barbara]
What year was that?
[Morse]
Seventy-nine when I came. When did it close?
[Barbara]
Eighty-one.
[Morse]
Eighty-one. So yeah, it was just two years. Not long.
[Barbara]
And that was supposedly the bad two years.
[Morse]
I think I missed the hay-day of the college and I think I did come in at the tail end
and the part when I came in was… I was hired in the week that they took
�computers and management out and all that stuff. And TJC was closed. The day
that I interviewed I think they announced that TJC would be closed, so I came at
a real down time for it. But I remember when I went back to Denver after the
interview, I knew that I would take the job if it was offered because I knew that
working in this place would be a once-in-a-lifetime type of opportunity. And, you
know, that was why I came.
[Barbara]
What was the thing that didn't work most, in your experience? What was the
worst thing?
[Morse]
At James?
[Barbara]
Yeah.
[Morse]
I had the most problem with study plans, and I always felt that there was some
sort of a hidden agenda to what would be expected on the study plans. And I
remember having many long debates with Barry Castro, and other people, about
why we just didn't articulate what we were looking for on study plans because it
seems like we were. And that was the biggest area of dissatisfaction for me with
students… was trying to help them design a study plan that I felt other people
would accept. That was my biggest problem.
[Barbara]
Why do you think they closed us?
[Morse]
I don't know. I think that… I'm not real sure. I don't think it was politically
advantageous for them to keep the college open because they had gotten a lot of
bad press in the community and people in the community didn't understand – not
so much with James but with TJC. And they put James, sort of, into the same
ballpark as TJC. It's alternative ed.; it doesn't make sense. We can't articulate it.
We can't say in one sentence what it is at the college, what it means. So, I think
that was probably why it was closed. But it's not totally clear to me why it was
closed. It's also, in some ways, not clear to me why it held on as long as it did.
[Barbara]
You came here and felt very comfortable here. Had you read a lot of William
James philosophy?
[Morse]
No, no I didn't know anything about William James.
[Barbara]
Why do you think you felt so comfortable here?
[Morse]
Well, I think that my own background in alternative ed. had the most to do with it.
What happened to me was that I went to an undergraduate school that was very
traditional and when I graduated with my bachelor's degree, I said that there was
no way that I would go on for, you know…
�
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
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<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/.
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GV016-16_GVSU_39_Morse
Creator
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Morse, Deanna
Date
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1984
Title
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Deanna Morse interview (1 of 2, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Deanna Morse 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. Deanna Morse was an Arts and Media faculty member in William James College from 1979 to 1981. In this interview, Deanna discusses the differences in teaching at William James College and what she valued most about being a part of its community. This interview is part 1 of 2 for Deanna Morse.
Contributor
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Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
Interdisciplinary approach in education
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a>
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
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b85e0e93fa57554afc0dd956d7e4784b.mp4
226d6e3dc82a57ccf93a72d912f22b88
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2a98ed2bf41924851efb2814cd89a29f.pdf
440278631a4925a5e6ac299bd15ea24a
PDF Text
Text
William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: Richard Joanisse
Date: 1984
Part: 2 of 2
[Barbara]
We have everything. Don't you think Gerb?
[Unknown]
Yeah. We're pretty sure.
[Barbara]
When I say, "Don't you think Gerb," you know what that means?
[Joanisse]
Check the damn thing over.
[Barbara]
Make sure it doesn't screw up.
[Joanisse]
You are what is called the sous chef. That means he's just, what, a little guy in
this thing right?
[Barbara]
No, no, no. He is wonderful.
[Unknown]
Alright now we're not talking about me.
[Joanisse]
We're not talking about him, were talking about his position. Don't confuse Gerb
and his position.
[Barbara]
Anyway, Richard, we're going to start talking. What is the differences in teaching
in the current system and teaching at James?
[Joanisse]
Well, I think that when I first came to the new college I was sort of, I think,
catered to a little bit. I was made the chairperson of the senate and put on a lot of
committees and things. And I said, "Well if I'm in the new system, what I should
really try to do is to get acquainted with everyone and to try to involve people in
the governance of the college." And at the Dean 's request, I went and met most
of the faculty and I sent them a memo and I had him send a memo out – a
threatening memo – the second time around. Because the first time nobody
showed up for any meetings. The most we ever had of a faculty of something
between seventy and eighty was fifteen people who turned out. So, I went
around and I started to talk to people and asked them why. And most people feel
in the division, I think, that you shouldn't really involve yourself in any of those
kind of things. They're not seen as a chance to involve yourself or to have a say
in how colleges ought to be governed. They're always seen as obstacles to your
�freedom, in some ways. They're a pain in the ass to do them, they don't bring
anything back, it's all a farce anyhow, nothing really happens, it's a waste of
energy.
[Joanisse]
The key, I think, to understanding how they feel is that in some sense they’re
never really included. There is an invitation for them to attend things, but the
decisions that are made are never their decisions. And that was so true when I
went over there. The Social Thought and Public Affairs, which I'm a part of,
picked a particular person to represent them, overwhelmingly, and then
submitted first and second name. The second person I believe got three votes,
the first person, I think, got twelve. The Dean overturned the decision, and when
someone asked him why he said: "I didn't say that these proceedings meant
anything." And so, somebody who was leaving turned to me and said: "You think
I'm going to go to one of your stupid meetings? This is the way things work over
here." I think the real difference there is I think that William James, for the very
first year that I arrived and we were building up the college, we made it clear to
everyone, as well as to ourselves, that the college would be governed by us. I
think we created the structural conditions for participation of everyone. And so
that everyone had a voice and everyone was listening. And I think that's what is
embodied in the council itself. And the Dean certainly, as the head of the college,
can always overturn the decision. But if you remember that we had a particular
way of making the Dean… if a Dean wanted to overturn a decision, remember
what we would do is say to her… she had to say that it was… a what? A great
event or something or other. And, I don't know, it was forcing her again to say
that something that happened was extraordinaire and therefore she was going to
intervene. I can only think maybe two or three times in at least the first ten years
of the college where such an occurrence to place.
[Barbara]
Do you remember any?
[Joanisse]
I think the decision of Burt Brower was sort of a bad decision and the Dean used
her power there in appointing people, I think more than anything else. And some
policy decisions… Adrian felt that she knew more information and she would
work on people on a very intimate level. Which is, I think, the way that William
James worked. And I'm not suggesting William James wasn't coercive at that
level either. You couldn't, you know, use people intimately as well as you can use
them sometimes bureaucratically. But I think that what William James did have,
and something which this place lacks, is that people got used to the notion that
they actually have an input and that they, in some sense, were not required to
participate, but that participating was, in effect, one of the responsibilities that we
had. And it was a responsibility that most people and William James accepted.
And that most of the major decisions of the college took place in the council,
openly, where people could say anything they wanted to say. I've been in this
�unit a year and a half and nobody says anything in public. So, there is no public
discourse whatsoever here. There are private statements made about people
behind their backs, but people will not say in front of anyone. So, when we have
had meetings, the meetings have come to naught. I never felt that kind of
cynicism at William James. And I never felt that in William James, even at the
end when William James was changing drastically, it seems to me, and the
council wasn't as representative as it was in the past, it was nothing compared to
the situation that I'm in now.
[Barbara]
So what can you as an individual really do when you're put in a structure that
doesn't give you any opportunity to be responsible? What do you do?
[Joanisse]
Well, very little. I think that I've tried to have an effect on this college. I mean, my
metric at William James is to bring people together. And I'm now with the Dean
on a book club and…
[Barbara]
What's that?
[Joanisse]
A book club is where people come together who are interested in reading
something. I'm also the person who invites guests so we have a committee for
intellectual ideas and I invite various faculty people to give speeches. But the
sense of the community is not there. These are all individual endeavors. At some
institutional level, we're trying to create a sense of community, but the experience
isn't there. What we're trying to do is to create an experience, but I'm very
skeptical of what's happening here.
[Barbara]
Teaching, how is teaching different?
[Joanisse]
Well, there are grades. I mean, you have more students and the students are no
better or worse. I think that the students are not in there because they want to be.
Let’s start there. The caliber of the students are not that different, but students in
William James took a course because they wanted to take it. Very seldom did
they feel coerced, in some ways, to have to take a course. Most of the things that
I teach now almost, without exception, are to meet general education
requirements. Out of a hundred students I taught in social problems last year, not
one of those students is a student majoring in sociology. Not one. So that means
that in effect I'm teaching students because they have been told they have to
take something. And I think that makes an enormous difference. I never have a
student come to my office unless there's a question about a grade. My office has
never been used; I've never been used by a student.
[Barbara]
Never?
[Joanisse]
No, not in the general education. I'm not talking about students who might be in
�sociological theory or something like that. But of these students, I can't name any
student who's come to me and simply said: "I'd like to talk to you about
sociology." I think part of the problem there is that general education courses are
considered, by most students, to be irrelevant anyhow. But that experience you
would've gotten at William James… you would have gotten the curious student
who might've been interested in what you were talking about, or in ideas, and
that you don't get. I'm not suggesting that these students are interested in that in
their own field, but by the time, you know, when we get them, they're not
interested in those things.
[Barbara]
You said that you were thinking of writing a paper but didn't tell me what about.
[Joanisse]
Well, the one thing that I find impossible to explain to anybody is what William
James was. And I always had this sort of paper on the phenomenology of William
James. In other words, phenomenology is always after the question of meaning.
And I was trying to say to people: "What does it mean to be in William James?
And what was William James?" But I was asking the question from the fact that
nobody I've ever talked to who is not a member of William James ever
understood what William James is. Now that's terrifying because that's almost
like being in a cult and trying to tell people who don't understand what a cult is
experiencing. And I don't think we were a cult. I don't think there was anything
hidden or mysterious about what we did and therefore it's scary to me. I can
understand why people who are on communes, who want to hide from the
outside world, and whose experience it seems to me and the kind of beliefs they
have may be, in some sense, different from the outside world. But we were
offering a traditional state institution in the same environment, no more than ten
feet from anybody else; we publicized what we were doing and yet I have never
met an outsider… let me give you an example. Jock Bliss and I were in a
meeting – Jock Bliss is the director of public relations Grand Valley. When the
demise of William James was imminent, he said to me: "I don't understand why
you're so upset Richard, if you are such a good teacher you should be able to be
a good teacher any place. Isn't William James just really a matter of style." And
now, I wasn't offended. I just… something clicked again. I said: "My God here it is
again." I mean we were a school about, in some sense, communication; a
substantial part of what we do and nobody understands what it is that we're
doing. So, it was at that point I said I should write a paper really titled something
like "The Phenomenology of William James; or Distortions of Communication"
and try and see what is it about what we were doing that was distorted? Why did
people perceive… I'll give you a second example. Carl [inaudible]… don't ever
use these names… [?] said to me one day: "I never could understand why you
people work so damn hard, but now I figured it out." He said, "you had,"…
"because, Christ, if you didn't you weren't going to survive." And I says: "That’s
what it was all about, Carl." I said: "I mean we really… we had to do it." He said:
"Yep, I just had to do it." You know, so everybody had some kind of sense of it.
�And even Chris, one time, said to me: "You people really couldn't do all the
things you claimed. You really didn't teach all the stuff and know that stuff, did
you?" And I said: "You know, if you do one thing for ten years, you can be the
best at it." But I said: "For ten years, what your reward is, is to do things with
other people and to learn what other people are doing." I said: "You can be very
good at that." And I said that… so I stood back: There's another miss… but these
are… this person's my friend. This person taught at a school that was,
presumably, in some sense, alternative too. But the bottom line of coming for
Chris was: "I just don't really believe you people were about what you claimed
you were about." And so, it was from that misunderstanding… and I'm not saying
in effect that we were what we said we were, in the sense of what we were
publicly to people print. But the point is – in some sense – whatever we thought
we were, and what we are to each other when we speak to each other about
what we were, no outsiders have ever understood. And so, there’s something
wrong someplace. And I thought it would be marvelous to write a paper about
what it was.
[Barbara]
What do you think it was?
[Joanisse]
Well, I think in part – if I start with the negatives from our own side – I think in
some sense in order to be successful, we had to isolate ourselves in some ways.
To immerse ourselves in our own interpersonal relation, we have no friends
outside of William James… most of us. As a good example, all of our intimate
relationships were with people [?]… that's still true for most of us even now after
two years. If we had a party, most of us would’ve invited people from that college.
So, it was very difficult for us to know, in some sense, what was going on
outside. I think at an institutional level, we were very open about what we were
doing. I think that at an interpersonal level, we were very close and we liked each
other a lot and we had no energy leftover for anybody else. At an institutional
level, we were just willing to please anyone about what we were doing and
publicize anything. I think what we thought is that people would actually be
concerned and read about it and understand it. And I don't think most people
read it and I don't think most people perceived exactly what we were doing. And I
don't think the problem, necessarily, was the way we were saying it.
[Barbara]
Do you think that part of it could be so much of the thing was experience –
experiential – and then we put an intellectual, verbal gloss on it for other people.
But what James was really about… which is why we would throw students into it,
and they would flounder for a while, and then they would start experiencing and
being active, and then they would understand. But it was an experience that they
had to go through. So, when you just write the stuff down or verbalize it to other
people, that experiment component is missing and they're never going to
understand it.
�[Joanisse]
These are people who don't hold much to these kinds of experiences. And
certainly, these are people who have not had the kind of experience that you're
trying to articulate.
[Barbara]
I know… that's what I'm saying. They can't understand. It's interesting, the
Jacque Barzun book on James that I'm reading now says there was a certain
group of people, always, you could count on year after year that just didn't
understand James. Could not understand the English words that he was writing
down. Did not know what he was talking about.
[Joanisse]
I also, I just didn't want to leave this out. I do think that in the first ten years of the
college… I want to make some distinctions: certainly, all the time Adrian Tinsley
was the Dean, I think, most of us had an incredible commitment to teaching. And
lots of the evidence indicates that schools are different. The thing that makes him
different is the kind of commitment and motivation you have in your faculty. The
real keys is to try and figure out how that commitment and motivation was tied to
structural variables. What did the college do, in some sense, to enhance that
commitment, to reward people for being highly motivated? And it seems to me
that goes back to what we started with and most people felt it was their
institution. And that the experiences that they had had, in the institution, had
some kind of effect on the outcome of what they were doing. So, one was talking
about pedagogical interest or one's philosophical concerns. One could go to
one's colleagues and talk about these kind of things, and raise them as an issue
in the council. And we did that, it seems to me, constantly. And realized that what
one was talking about was not bullshit; that it would have an effect. That some
decision would come out of this. That some policy, it seems to me, would be
initiated. That's not true at a place where we're at now and think only a fool would
think it is.
[Barbara]
It's not true for us and it's not true for the students.
[Joanisse]
No.
[Barbara]
Similarly, yeah, I asked you this before. I phrased it badly but were we
responsible for the closing of James or how were we responsible?
[Joanisse]
No, I don't think we were responsible. If you look across the country, there are no
alternative schools that are still open. Evergreen would be an exception, but you
know Santa Cruz is no longer an alternative. None of the other schools that were
alternative when we started exist. I think that in some ways we are as much a
victim of the changing economic situation and the changing historical
understanding of education. And as a broader thing, at a more local level, I think
Grand Valley simply got to the point where it no longer felt that it could deal with
the confusion that the alternative colleges produced. So, you're looking here
�more, it seems to me, at public… an attempt to develop a public image where
people would no longer be confused about Grand Valley. I never met anybody
who ever understood at the administration or in admissions what Grand Valley
was about. So I think that there had been enormous pressure in the last four or
five years before the closing of the colleges to get one college. Both from the
faculty in a large unit and from the administration. And with the closing of
Thomas Jefferson, I just think that it was inevitable that William James would
close. So, whether or not William James was successful or not I think is
irrelevant. The only way that it could've been… there was no way I think it could
have remained open, regardless of how successful it was. If it had more
students, if its students had been successful outside. I don't think it was any
criteria that one could use to point to and say: "Oh it's a successful institution,
let's keep it." That's why I said before, I don't think it was failing. It wasn't on the
basis of its failure that it was closed. It was on the basis, it seems to me, of
outside forces. And certain kinds of the inside forces that felt this is an excellent
opportunity to get rid of this cluster that seemed to drive everybody mad. And the
minute it closed everyone came up to me who worked in admissions – because I
was a Representative of Admissions at William James – and said: "Boy! Now it's
going to be easy to explain what this is all about." So, I think there were a lot of
people who wanted the colleges closed, who had no animosity towards the
colleges. And lots of people who wanted the colleges closed because they never
understood with the colleges were about.
[Barbara]
Interesting. Interesting. Why don't we stop and check, okay? That's also
interesting when you're talking about the whole notion of pluralism.
�
Dublin Core
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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
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1984
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
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
Interdisciplinary approach in education
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
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GV016-16
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eng
Oral History
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GV016-16_GVSU_38_Joanisse
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Joanisse, Richard
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1984
Title
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Richard Joanisse interview (2 of 2, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Richard Joanisse by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Richard Joanisse was one of the founding faculty of William James College and an associate professor of Sociology. In this interview, Richard discusses the differences in teaching at William James College and the phenomenology of William James, in addition to the college's eventual closing. This interview is part 2 of 2 for Richard Joanisse.
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Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Subject
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Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
Interdisciplinary approach in 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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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8ca9213f210cde644dcf36f80960278b.mp4
4eefa220177af47f1b46f38372f55826
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8c89a64aaf9ce37b914ffcdcce412fc7.pdf
f36420e1d4f9c6090acb8509733155a7
PDF Text
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William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: Richard Joanisse
Date: 1984
Part: 1 of 2
[Barbara]
So, I don't know if this is something someone can answer off the top of their
head. If you were trying to prioritize what was the most… the most valuable thing
that James was? If you are prioritizing… is there a way you can prioritize or was
it such a unity one could not draw out?
[Joanisse]
Well, I think maybe there were two or three things… I may end up only saying
one or two. I think the commitment to teaching… and you know everybody says
they're committed to teaching, but I mean teaching is a way of life at the expense
of everything else. And I guess at that point it would be if you did research, if you
were interested in furthering your career, you really were going to put that on the
side. I remember my adviser telling me when I came from Chicago, he said:
"Richard, they'll eat you up there and you'll never be big league." And I think, you
know, it took me a couple years to understand what he meant, but I think that in
the first three or four years I was here, I certainly was working fifteen hours a day
and loving every minute of it. And it's like you immersed yourself in it and I think
after a while when you didn't have to work as hard… when you weren't building
the institution, the commitment to teaching, it seems to me, was still there. But it
wasn't a commitment at the individual level alone, and that's the real distinction
we have to keep bringing up. You can only create that kind of commitment by
institutionalizing it. You do that by having colleagues who are equally committed
and motivated, by rewarding them for that and for creating those conditions that
we talked about before that allow people to participate and to help to evolve what
a college is all about and commit themselves to a particular kind of philosophies.
All of that meshed together, allows commitment to keep on going. If you go to the
institution I'm in now, they say: "You always have good teachers." And what
they're saying is there's always individual people. Like cream rises to the top who
will always be there, and the rest of the people are sort of like, you know, they're
mediocre or they won't do it. And I think at William James we just said that's
baloney. We can bring people in who might, in some sense be individually
motivated, who might have the kind of characteristics that were looking for. But it
was a gamble with most people we hired. But if we got them in William James,
we believed that what we were doing at William James would transform the
person.
[Barbara]
That sounds religious!
�[Joanisse]
Well, there was a religious kind of experience at William James, I think. In the
sense that, especially in the notion, it seems to me, of community. But I think that
when you come to the place where I'm at now, it's always back to individuals. It’s
always back to some people are motivated, some more highly motivated, and
you rewarded that person for being motivated.
[Joanisse]
You don't create a kind of sense that maybe what you ought to be doing, you
ought to be doing together. In fact, what you do in this institution is you created
just the adverse. What you create here is the condition for the separation of
individuals, who begin to see themselves as in a deeply atomized situation where
whatever they're going to do, they're going to do solely for themselves. And
they'll be paid for that either through money, or prestige, power, or influence,
whatever it is. And they have no connection to anyone else. And I think that
implicitly or explicitly the institution has, in some sense, agreed to that. I think it's
more a kind of implicit contract. Where at William James we invited people in and
said: "Look what we want from you is openness, a receptivity or something, to
what we're trying to do. If you don't like it then you certainly are free to leave, but
what we do here we do together. And, you know, we do try to create committees,
and we can try to create organization, and we do try to structure the college in a
certain way. But you are in the person, it seems to me, through a lengthy
conversation that we've had over the years in which continually evolves and
change. You are part of that." And I think for most people, an example of
someone coming in later would be like Deanna Morris or somebody like that.
That's real… that was a really important experience and those people were able
to change, and accept what we were trying to do, and accept, it seems to me,
willingly. It wasn't, I don't think, coercion on people. There's a coerced notion of
community. What we used to call, remember, jokingly people would say: "Did you
want to do this?" And we would say: "This is called voluntary coercion," or
something. And I think that at some point… that happens a lot in what you might
call religious communities. People are constantly being coerced. I don't think that
was true, necessarily, at William James. I think that we actually could see that
worked. And worked hard to create those kind of conditions that would continue
to make it work. And I think that we did end up producing something, we did have
a student who is intelligent… we did have students, as some people have said to
us on the outside, who are inquisitive and creative. Our students seemed, at
least as teachers, to be good. And I think I always measured my students from
what they came to me as and what they left us as. And I always thought that they
left us better persons and better students.
[Barbara]
Who was this adviser and how could he sense this was going to happen to you? I
don't understand. Remember you had this adviser that said they were going to
eat you alive?
[Joanisse]
Well my adviser was at a research institute, University of Chicago, and at that
�time when I was at Chicago it was rated number one, I think. He just thought that
if you go to a small school, and you just spend so much time teaching, that you
really can't produce the research that would be essential for you to make your
name. And that in a very hard, highly competitive academic situation like that,
you would start falling further and further behind. Of course, that wasn't a
concern of ours then and it wasn't a concern of the college. And that's what I
mean by the college never produced any pressure on us. And never saw us as
trying; in some sense, in this case we were very close to Marx. In some ways
both in Rousseau, and Hegel, and Marx there's a notion that there's no
distinction between the state and the individual. We came as close, in some
points in the college, to really believe that we were William James College. And
therefore, the decisions we made were not being made by somebody else and I
think that was very important for us. And certainly, some people can think that we
fooled ourselves and I think I can be critical… I can come back and say “wait a
minute.” But I think for certain moments in the college, I think that we really didn't
only believe that – I think it was true. And I think that makes an incredible
difference in what you're doing. There's no separation then from what was
administrative and what was teaching. They were both, in some sense, they were
as close as you could possibly get them. That doesn't mean to say there weren't
tense situations or disagreements and it certainly wasn't true the council ran
smoothly all the time. But I think, on the whole, I think that the feeling that this
was a college that was whole in some sense, at least that's what we’ve just been
talking about. I think for some of us that there was a real strong feeling that that
was the case.
[Barbara]
[Clapping] Beautiful sound… that was good.
[Joanisse]
I didn't think of that until just now, but I was thinking – Marx tries to make this
point and so does Rousseau - that when you're talking about… how can you
have a state have power and you know what Marx says, “Well, the state is you,”
you know, I mean there is no alienation. If the state were to represent the
working class, blah blah blah, all that stuff like that. Then you figure at some
moments at William James, if you move away from individuals and make the
connection between the institutional processes, like committee work, and
governance documents, and the collective kind of representation that we had.
You put all of that together… you come as close as you possibly can but there
wasn't any separation. And you get into the unit that we’re in now and that's all
you feel is separation. It's very difficult then to turn to somebody and say: "What
kind of experience did you have?" Because the experience, you see, was not
existential alone. It was both a socially produced phenomenon and an existential
kind of commitment brought together.
�[Joanisse]
That was the real thing about William James… that it created through structural
arrangements, through its committees, through its working with the Dean,
through its understanding of what it was trying to be – I mean its pedagogical
statements, it's philosophical purposes – and through the council a set of
relationships that solidified the motivational and existential commitments that
were perhaps already there. And if they weren't there, this certainly brought them
out. And it’s that connection, it seems to me, that we always have to understand
at William James. I think – and I'm trying to reflect back – I think that's an
important thing. You know it's one thing to say you have good people, it's another
thing to say that, you know, that you don't need… there's no place for that to be
collectively representative. We did have a collective place that things could be
represented. And we have damn near committees for everything; I mean we
weren't left off. And I think, in the end, that thing we talked about before – that the
belief that what we did in these committees and in this council were actually what
we were. I mean, there was a product produced. And the product, in some
sense, it's a product of a set of ideas, or a matter of policy, or changing
understanding of the relationships between students and faculty. That was it! It
wasn't going to be something going to somebody else. This is very important
because if it did, it wasn't our fault. And this is a very important point to
understand about why, perhaps, William James, was so close. Once we had
made these decisions collectively, if the central administration decided not to
accept them, then fuck them, you see! They weren't us anyhow. So, we had this
enormous protection, it was wonderful. I mean, if you think of it in those terms
there was an internal dialectic but also an external dialectic in away. So, we
could really come up feeling wonderful even when we were defeated. And
sometimes I've always wondered – when I'm in very pessimistic moods –
whether our success was not condition on the fact that this outside world outside
Grand Valley and that they were always sort of out there and they were different
than us; they were our enemy and “they just didn't understand us.” And that
certainly - it seemed to me in some sense, just in structural terms – helped us to
be what we were. But I don't think it's what we… I don't want to get creative as
well, but it certainly lend, you know, a little push for us to keep that kind of
closeness in. But my point was that when we collectively agree upon something,
and decision was made, it went out. And then the Central Administration could
say: "We don't accept this." But see, what we had done is… we had made a
decision as a college… had agreed on it. So, we could come back and mourn,
collectively, as a college for their stupidity, for misunderstanding, or the fact that
they were conservative, or whatever. And it's a wonderful situation because we
could never lose.
[Barbara]
Until we lost.
�[Joanisse]
Until we lost! Lost almost everything. I didn't like William James the last two or
three years, though.
[Barbara]
I was going to ask you about that because Rose said you were talking about that.
[Joanisse]
I didn't think that… I lost my spirit really. You think back to the old days, you
know, Bob Carow's office down the corner. Man would come and went by like a
bird, you know. You'd say: "Hey Bob! Want to talk for a minute?" He'd say: "Oh
sure." You'd start talking, he'd say: "Oooohhhh too heavy, Joanisse, too heavy.
I'm not into that. See you later!" But the real distinction, I think, was when some
of us started to see that the Dean was a dean, in the sort of a classic sense of
the word, and whose interest we're certainly not the same as ours. And his
interests on very few occasions even overlap with ours. Then it became
apparent, I think to substantial numbers in the college, that we had lost
everything. And at that point, just began to see it really as a kind of a job. And I
really had mixed feelings about the closing then because I didn't think it was
going to be able to stay the same; I don't think we could've gotten anybody in
after having this person. And I'm not suggesting he's a bad dean or anything. I'm
just say his understanding – with the Central Administration – as to what to
college should be, was no longer the understanding of what the college was. And
at that point it seemed to me the last two- or three-years William James was not
the college that it used to be. And that may seem like a minor point, but if the
point we were talking about before has any meaning at all… that in a sense wemost of us believed that we were collectively doing something. The minute that
was there was that cleavage… the minute there was that separation and that
distance, then I think there was an enormous amount of distrust. And that was
the first time we began to see real factualism in William James. People, for
instance, who began to do things on their own, or who wanted to leave William
James, or who wanted to go into the College of Arts and Sciences, or people
who saw that the Dean's decisions were more important or more pragmatic, or in
the long run were better than the decisions of other people. And so, you begin to
feel some real open animosity and…
[Barbara]
[Inaudible]
[Joanisse]
But I think once that it happened, I was…
[Radio turns on from off screen]
[Barbara]
This will not do.
[Joanisse]
We should be close to finished though.
[Barbara]
Yeah, we are. This is not reasonable. This is not reasonable! [Speaking off
�screen to another person]
[Unknown]
Where did that radio come from?
[Barbara]
But you're right, we are almost done. That was just brilliant. If, see… if you have
an answer to this, and if we don't – we’ll stop. If you were going to do it all over
again, one of those stupid questions… not the last few years, the good ten
years…
[Joanisse]
You mean at my age, right now?
[Barbara]
Nay. I don't mean it literally. Is there something that you can see that was like a
critical lack or critical imbalance? Something, with hindsight, that should have
been in James that wasn't?
[Joanisse]
Jeez, that's a hard question. In William James… no, I think we did very well. I
don't think we were perfect, by any stretch of the imagination. I could go, you
know, do an hour of criticism and stuff like that. But I think, given the kind of
students we had, given the kind of location that we were at…
[Barbara]
What kind of student…?
[Joanisse]
We had, basically, lower middle class and working-class students. We do not
have students who go to Grinnell or to Oberland. We don't have schools like at
the new School for Social Research, which is very much like what we are, but
who students are perhaps, score-wise and that, hundreds of points beyond ours,
who don't have problems in writing and conceptualization who are, you know…
and who have the support state-wise of the institution. I don't think from the very
beginning of this college…
�
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
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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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
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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Text
Language
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eng
Oral History
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Dublin Core
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GV016-16_GVSU_37_Joanisse
Creator
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Joanisse, Richard
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1984
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard Joanisse interview (1 of 2, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Richard Joanisse by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Richard Joanisse was one of the founding faculty of William James College and an associate professor of Sociology. In this interview, Richard discusses his experience being immersed in William James College and its transformative power within the WJC community, in addition to his impression of the college's final years. This interview is part 1 of 2 for Richard Joanisse.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
Interdisciplinary approach in education
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a>
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>
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a6916b8b00300e7d9c374af6663c350f.mp4
d3ef918560bbce498bb16016831b5178
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/93b920cd55b002ebd4ff45a2aa11d9be.pdf
7d8a1926235dbdf13f1dd712ed1b6c8a
PDF Text
Text
William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: Robert Mayberry
Date: 1984
Part: 2 of 2
[Barbara]
I'd like to talk about how critical the not giving grades was to the process.
[Mayberry]
I think that it was essential and after a certain amount of time, those of us whose
ideas were maybe stereotype as the most radical to begin with became known as
old curmudgeons really because I personally would not rely it on the grade
question. We had requests from students to have a certain number of courses
optionally graded at James and so on. But I think that it was really essential that
it be ungraded for several reasons. Dealing with the question of work seemed to
me that what we were after was the notion of vocation. That is that people did
things with their lives that they felt called to do and therefore loved to do. That it
was genuine work worth doing and for its sake. And it seemed to me that working
for grades, which not so much maybe grades as the keeping of a grade point
average, the normal accompaniment of the grading system is the grade point
average. Working for the grade point average is a standard barrier to the student
actually experiencing in their own soul, as Plato would say, what it is like to work
for the sake of the thing being done rather than for the external reward and
competitive ranking. For the same reason that I oppose grades, I oppose merit
raises, by the way, and I was very glad that we did not have merit raises in
William James for a lot of reasons. But the same – or very similar –
considerations come from the liberal education side. That is to say, liberal
education is studying a subject for its own sake and studying it in such a way that
one becomes the master of it in a sense and being a free human being in relation
to that subject. That it possesses a power of judgment and has not learned
something by routine and has not learned something just by the rules, but knows
how to do it and, again, it is worth doing, it is worth studying, it is worth knowing
for its own sake. Whether that subject is to be a useful subject or one of the
classical liberal arts subjects, which incidentally have their own usefulness, from
my point of view. That's another subject. But from the two directions – from the
liberal side and from the vocational side - it seems to me very important that we
not have grades. And my experience now that we've switched back to the
grading system (and I'm sure my colleagues who did not go through this
transition will find it very mysterious for me to say this), but I really think it was
possible to operate with higher genuine standards in an ungraded system
because there was never an inhibition on the teacher, say in the conference or in
responding to a paper or project. There was never an inhibition about being
genuinely critical, and you knew, and the students knew that if you got into a
�discussion of that assessment, it was a genuine assessment, and one was not
arguing about the grade that was going to be attached to the paper. One could
stick to the intellectual questions of the assessment in a way that I find confused
and troubled, and I would almost say corrupted by the imposition of the graded
situation now that I am to try and discuss these problems with students in the
new system. I think we had better criticism and better standards from that point of
view.
[Mayberry]
I think it's true that people who depended upon coercion to work, could slip by a
certain distance in the ungraded situation and they were not – because it
would've been a contradiction and a hypocrisy – punished by the low grade for
doing. But that to me does not represent the absence of standards. That
represents the people that we were not within a good time able to reach to
convince of a better attitude toward education. And I think it was the risk we had
to take to avoid lying to ourselves and to students about what was really
important that some students took advantage – took undo advantage – of that
system.
[Barbara]
But a Clover says: "They do now."
[Mayberry]
Yes, they do now.
[Barbara]
People slip through now like crazy.
[Mayberry]
There definitely was doing it under the grading system. And maybe it’s harder to
reach those students under the grading system. Because you haven't really
tackled – and no one is collectively attempting to tackle – the question of what
the truer motivation ought to be: to study and to work.
[Barbara]
I have to stop this because I'm going to shut the door. Okay.
[Mayberry]
I think there was a change in the student generations, which my recollection is
from about nineteen seventy-four. And it goes back to the polarity question and
how someone who is attempting to articulate a synthesis not usually made is
perceived or not perceived, but I think it is a rough generalization. In the period
seventy-one through seventy-four, the opening years, we were chosen by
students who saw us as what was then called alternative education, and they
had a degree of commitment to that and they accepted because of that
commitment what we said was important about having meaningful work to do. It's
kind of like you had to convince them, in those days, that they needed a major.
Along about seventy-four, the term career education, which we had been
employing, you see, all along, we were career and liberal education from the very
beginning, that was all he said. And alternative education being a version of
liberal education that people perceived as offering. All of a sudden in seventy-
�four, because I think their official policy change of some kind under the Nixon
administration, which I'm forgetting the details of, but career education suddenly
became a national theme and a national policy. But again, without the synthesis
with liberal education. So that suddenly we got students who saw the career side
of our programs very clearly – that’s what they wanted. And those students had
to be convinced that some of the alternative education systems, like
ungradedness, were important in the way that the previous students had to have
been convinced that really taking seriously, doing meaningful work, was
important.
[Mayberry]
In each case, what it meant was there was a transition into our kind of education
that, again, maybe we did not take consciously enough the need for doing with all
our students or did not put into place systematic ways of making that transition.
Though, I think most faculty were very much aware of the need for it to happen
and did it in their own way and after a while you heard from students that that
transition was being made – that their attitudes were changing. The force of
personal example maybe on faculty and already established student's part… did
that work for us that we had not consciously worked out. But it was one of the
real tragedies, I think, in the loss of the collegiate system that people who deal
with the questions we dealt with now kind of have to do it alone. There was a
support structure for it to be done, there was reinforcement, there was
discussion, there was an atmosphere, there was a life that helped to be done and
it did not leave the individual teacher out on a market research-oriented limb if
trying to deal with some of these deeper issues.
[Barbara]
Robert, if you had to - and you have to because I'm asking – in a sentence or
two, very briefly, what was the essence of William James College?
[Mayberry]
I don't know if I can do it in a sentence anymore. Well, there was an
experience… there's many essences. There was an experience that was
recurrent – that’s certainly one of them – and it's an issue we haven't talked
about earlier, except very, very tangentially. But the professionalization of
academia meant the departmentalization of the university. Students here came to
a place that didn't have departments, and therefore where all faculty felt, at least,
some imperative to try to deal with general questions and with education and its
moral context. Students would come and they would say to visitors: "I can't
believe it but the thing I studied in that class turns up in all my other classes. It's
like magic!" And you know we never did consciously sit down and say: "Now I'm
going to do this today in mine, so you do that in yours." It happened because that
discussion began to thrive across the lines. That's at least one of the essences.
[Barbara]
That's super. Nobody said that clearly to date. No one… you are the first to say
that.
�[Mayberry]
Do you remember when the people for accreditation came and so forth? I think
we were in at least one of those committees together when students said that
and they never said that to us before and they said it to the…
[Barbara]
Alright, we need some kind of a comment about the fact that our curriculum…
[Mayberry]
I think that goes back to two things. I think it goes back again to what it was that
we meant by liberal education. And it goes back to what was that original impetus
toward what was then called relevance. The liberal education part I think is this:
the old American liberal, small liberal arts college, on a religious foundation. And
I have to say I went to that kind of college, so I was probably thoroughly inculcate
it in it. But it took as the specific mission of undergraduate education a thing that
in the early nineteen century was called mental disciple. The idea was you study
what were then very classical parts of the curriculum – like logic, rhetoric, and
grammar – because they were arts, disciplines, art in synonymous terms, worth
knowing. And that lead to the capacity of judgment that I referred to earlier. When
the university got reorganized again, and professionalized again, and
departmentalized again, I think we ended up with a much more content oriented
definition of what liberal education is. It's stuff… it's some of the things that come
in some of the packages. It’s a stuff definition, it’s a content definition and not an
arts definition of liberal education. And we were saying, I think, that you could
vary the stuff some, you could vary the content some. Particularly if there were
students who were demanding that liberal education connect with the things that
were vital concern to their lives. And you could, nevertheless, hope that out of
different kinds of stuff – sometimes in unrecognizable packages – you could still
get to the important questions about art, and judgment, and discipline, and
thinking, and criticism, and self-direction. That you didn't have to have all of those
packages be the packages out of which the issues of great concern could be
drawn. You can't have no content. Again, the dichotomizing tendency made
people think that if we were stressing the art then we would do without content.
You can't have no content. But the idea was that the content could vary and that
we would be clever enough to see, in the old-fashioned terms, the mental
discipline problems that may arise from quite a variety of content. Nor did our
content ever vary to the extent that TJC's did. On this campus, I think maybe we
were misperceived somewhat because we had involving parts of the curriculum
and another part that was quite steady. Well I think the reason that it was allowed
to vary was that we saw the demand for relevancy as a legitimate one on the part
of students and we saw the possibility of getting the classical arts issues out of
various content and not just out of the packages that have recently been
packaged. I mean in the last fifty, sixty years the packages have been invented
that everybody says are traditional…
[Barbara]
Alright I'm sorry, just a false start. Please go ahead. Please do it again.
�[Mayberry]
Oh, you’re restarting.
[Barbara]
Yeah.
[Mayberry]
Another essence thing occurs to me and that is, I guess, if I look back at what
really typified James for me, as a family member, it was that when we discussed
things in our council – let’s say grading policy or some action to be taken or some
decision to be made. People sat around and related the things they were
studying and they were teaching to the issues under question. You could also
call that, I guess, the matter of relevancy on the faculty level as well as on the
student level. That was a real example, it seems to me, on the part of faculty to
students that what we study is directly related to the questions of our life and
without that example and with the more or less general refusal, usually, of people
to let that happen and university discussions, I don't know where the students
can get that connection. It was a lived connection, very exciting.
[Barbara]
Thank you.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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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
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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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/.
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GV016-16_GVSU_25_Mayberry
Creator
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Mayberry, Robert
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1984
Title
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Robert Mayberry interview (2 of 2, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Robert Mayberry 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. Robert Mayberry was one of the founding faculty of William James College and an integral part of the creation of the School of Communications. In this interview, Robert discusses the grading system and how it related to William James College, in addition to the generational shifts among the study body and the overall essence of WJC. This interview is part 2 of 2 for Robert Mayberry.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
Interdisciplinary approach in education
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a>
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>
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Moving Image
Text
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9378a82c74f13e419051f00673e44193.mp4
5dfd765051a02127233aae6d20274f1f
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b5f19865aa338d959612bcace77b9725.pdf
159a46df6684d9403448abba6d6d5ab6
PDF Text
Text
William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: Robert Mayberry
Date: 1984
Part: 1 of 2
[Barbara]
I really want you to start by talking about our placement – our historical
placement – the sense of continuity before and after James. Where did we come
from?
[Mayberry]
I would say – which maybe I was not all clear about the time and may or not be
all clear about now – but it seems to me that William James College came from
two long run movements. The one called Progressive Education, which is really
founded by the pragmatic philosophers, especially Dewey, but James played a
role in that beforehand and what's called the General Education movement. And
both of these are movements that responded to quite major reorganization of
American education that occurred, more or less, in the eighteen-eighties and
eighteen-nineties – in other words, relatively recently and the grandest historical
scheme of things – but a reorganization that in effect replaced the traditional
American college, which had as its purpose the education of undergraduates,
primarily the liberal education of undergraduates for citizenly roles by the
research university on the German Model. And among other things the
replacement of the MA (which was the traditional teaching degree coming down
from the middle ages from England) by the PhD, which was the research degree
in the German university. So once the new university – which Johns Hopkins was
a pioneer – had effectively consolidated its control in the places where the old
colleges like Harvard and Yale were and smaller colleges also came under some
pressure to imitate this new model, the functions were kind of left over and
undone that used to be specifically undergraduate functions because things – the
curriculum especially and departmentalization, which had followed upon this free
organization – had kind of taken away the general and liberal education
functions. So there began to be a persistent appearance of movements every – I
don't know the sequency of it, but every decade or so – to try and get a general
education back. On a Deweyan side, or the progressive side, I think there was
also the sense that for democracy, specifically, liberal education ought to have
direct relevance to what people do and of course the citizenly role is again
involved, but to their work lives. Along about the middle of the nineteenth century,
you had kind of a really strict interpretation – our purist interpretation – of the old
classical liberal ideal. That sort of gradually made the idea become that liberal
education, by definition, was something useless; that if it could be put to use, you
were maybe corrupting the liberal education part of it. And I think progressive
education tried to deal with the elimination of the sort of class bias of that
�uselessness idea. To get the liberal ideals reattached to the things that someone
seeking education in a democratic context would need and to get critical thinking
applied, even to occupational concerns.
[Mayberry]
So, if you take those two movements, kind of converging, and not everybody who
came to James certainly aware of those two movements. Nevertheless, we were
precipitated, I think, into our attachment to them by being named for William
James because when we read William James and try to take William James
seriously and were led to the other pragmatic philosophers, like Dewey and
Whitehead, we find these two questions – the question of how to relate
specialization and generality and how to relate liberal education and occupation –
dealt with very centrally and the tradition that, almost by accident, we had been
placed.
[Barbara]
[Inaudible] I'm curious… excuse me, I didn't mean to cut you off. Were you still
completing a thought?
[Mayberry]
Well, after those two – which are long run patterns converging – seems to me the
immediate impetus (and this was probably more on people's minds who came
here) was the demand that students had in the period, let's say, sixty-eight
through seventy-one. That their chief concern - meaning the war – be somehow
meaningfully addressed as, indeed, I would say it ought to have been by the
materials, even the classical materials of college education; that room be made
for the student and be able to meet in the curriculum a sense that curriculum
could help the student deal with this overwhelming moral and political problem
outside the classroom. And teachers who had wanted to respond to students
making that demand and had found themselves blocked by the then highly
specialized, highly departmentalized, highly research-oriented university, were
looking for a place that they could do some practical work in the reform of
education. Which the plural system here – the college system – seemed to offer.
So, you take those two long run movements and that short run immediate
concern, and I think that's where we came from.
[Barbara]
Let me check the [Inaudible] and I'm keeping it running. I want to ask you, as an
appropriate question, to ask you. But why does it cycle? [Laughter] In other
words: forget about how often it cycles. Why do we have some [Inaudible]? Why
did we have to be…? I don't mean specifically James. Why does it have to be a
cycle, why is there [Inaudible]?
[Mayberry]
Well, I mean, that's a huge question and I don't know any better than anybody
else, but I have some glimmers of ideas. The reorganization of the university was
also the professionalization of the faculty and professions, in general, guard their
own prerogative. And since that professionalization became effective,
movements to reform the university and the colleges themselves are apt to be
�viewed as, I think, as threatening to the professional structure of things which can
be praised by a defender of it.
[Mayberry]
By saying that it's threatening to scholarship and research and all those good
things that no one really means to attack. So, I think you have a very entrenched
set of structures, habits, interests, and powers that's very, very hard to change. I
think it's notoriously conservative. On the elementary and secondary level there
was a book by Roland Barthes on open education, which is a movement that
more or less corresponds to the James movement on a college level. The
opening sentence of his book is something like this: "We do not have in the
United States, as they do in France, a Centralized Ministry of Education, but we
might as well have." I mean it’s a very brilliant sentence of that sort. Because if
you take this power structure and social structure and habit structure, I mean, it
gets to be unconscious. There's no conspiracy involved. But if you add to that
probably the increased market responsiveness of education overtime, you have a
pressure for education to be uniform. So that I think the problem remains
unsolved, despite repeated attempts to solve it. And every time the perception
dawns again that the problem isn't solved – mainly in general education and the
relevance of education to life - that we're not getting that solved, you have some
new resurgence of the movement to try to deal with it. And there was a third thing
I wanted to add there that now I can't think of, besides market responsiveness.
[Barbara]
[Inaudible] You know I'll cut this part out.
[Mayberry]
I really can't. I think it got swept away in a parenthesis somewhere. It might come
back okay.
[Barbara]
Okay, I thought that was very, very clear. I mean what you had said was very
clear. My second big question was… stop the deck. I'm still… we’re rolling.
[Mayberry]
So, if you've got that institutional inertia – leaving problems perpetually unsolved,
which occasionally call forth somebody who wants to solve them – and you have
increased market responsiveness, the question would be: “What is there about
market responsiveness that leads to uniformity?” And I think that is something
like competition or something like supply and demand. You tend to converge
towards products, toward commodities, and education almost becomes a
commodity in that context… that there are like products or commodities that have
already succeeded. So, I think we fell under some pressure recently, as the times
got harder, to do a kind of education that was recognizably the kind that was in
demand. The trouble being, of course, that you can never get a demand
recorded for a commodity that isn't offered. But there got to be a real sense that
Grand Valley ought to be made more like other places. That was operating not
just at Grand Valley by the way, but around the country. And so, we entered a
cycle of one of the periodic cycles of reaction to the reformers.
�[Mayberry]
The third thing as to why it should be cyclical is really much more mysterious to
me because I used to think it was American culture that tended to be polarized,
but it may be Western culture or some people might say it's the human condition,
but somehow, we tend to be oppositional. That whole business of reform or
stasis becomes a debate rather than a multi-side discussion and so if one side is
in the ascendancy, the other side is out and there really isn't anybody in the
business of looking for the synthesis that you inquired about.
[Barbara]
And each other.
[Mayberry]
I think that when we started in seventy-one, and we were not the first college in
the cluster, in fact it was said, well that's tricky. It was said of us that by being the
third we had truly made it a cluster. But at the same time, we had perceived that
we were coming into a matter that had been settled. There were to the multiple
colleges here and that that was, in that sense, the constitution and we could
therefore appeal as constitutional to a value like plurality, and the provision of
choice to students, and the creation of really distinct approaches to education on
the part of faculty. We could appeal to those things as values that were shared.
And it is important, I think, from that point of you to remember that a
commonness that we did share – unrecognized by almost all participants maybe
in the whole thing, but a commonness that we did share, at least with the original
CAS faculty – was of being educational innovators and experimenters. They
came here to provide an alternative to education such as was offered in the
region. Number one: public, because most of the other education off the junior
college level is under private auspices. And number two: they were also deeply
concerned to recover the liberal education mission for undergraduates. In any
case, as long as times were good, the appeal to plurality often worked in context
of discussion. That is people [Inaudible] of governance. People were willing, in a
way, to adopt a live and let live attitude. Though, as I say, the deeper foundation
of why we might have all been committed to that I think went unknown to the
participants. Which was really too bad because that might've made the crisis
work differently. I think it was also really too bad on the level of public discussion,
too, the administration felt that they had set in motion a kind of competitive game,
if you will, among these colleges for the sake of promoting enrollment. And from
their point of view, anything could persist in the cluster as long as enrollment
figures paid off. But their hands-offness was not so much the constitutional live
and let live as the above the frayness; seeing people compete with one another
and congratulating them when they did well and calling them on it when they did
poorly. So, on that level, I think, had we but known some work had not been
done to really make the constitution acceptable to everyone.
�[Mayberry]
And on this other concealed level, there were conversations we didn't know we
ought to be having with fellow educational reformers because we were locked in
competitive debate. We thought with CAS as the local representative of the kind
of institution we'd all come from elsewhere and which we wish to provide an
alternative. So, the common ground was not present and when times became
bad, the depths of the hostility in certain quarters toward the whole cluster idea –
which had been bidding its time to express itself – emerged to a degree, I think,
that shocked all of us. I think we did not know the degree of hostility to the very
idea of multiple colleges. Which wasn't so much directed with any particularity at
William James, it was just directed at the sense that the original mission of Grand
Valley had been lost. And, of course, William James was easy to see in that
context as one of the waves of professionalism, professional education, which
was – from the point of view, again, of the old-time folks here – a grave
compromise with the liberal ideal in education. They were just as much upset, of
course, with the growth of professional schools and CAS itself as they had been
with the growth of anything like William James. And, again, didn't know that
James had as much quarrel with a segregated professional education as it did
with the segregated liberal education. The notion of the synthesis that we were
working on to try and make professional education liberal and liberal education
practical – that crossing of the lines was pretty much invisible to people. And I'm
not sure that's our fault. That particular segment of the problem I'm not sure is
our fault. There again, I think, is where you do run into the problem of the cultural
matrix more broadly in which you're trying to present an idea that just is plain
hard to see, as clear as you try to articulate it. The dichotomy of liberal and
professional is so strongly built into the inertial structure of education, elsewhere
people maybe may not even hear the words that you're uttering, clear as you
might make them. And I think we made them very clear from time to time –
conspicuously clear. Students understand it better than probably either our
colleagues or our administration did.
�
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
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GV016-16_GVSU_24_Mayberry
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mayberry, Robert
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
Robert Mayberry interview (1 of 2, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Robert Mayberry 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. Robert Mayberry was one of the founding faculty of William James College and an integral part of the creation of the School of Communications. In this interview, Robert discusses William James College's historical placement at Grand Valley and in society at that time, including its place in the progressive education movement and becoming the third college at Grand Valley. This interview is part 1 of 2 for Robert Mayberry.
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Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
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Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
Interdisciplinary approach in 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
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2193091785e983d01a17bea2f8f084f9.mp4
4186df8ef95d9840fd4db56b6d257e63
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/27a11f382b1f1b8a7f471bdaceaa7dbc.pdf
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William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: Kate Noone
Date: 1984
[Barbara]
All were doing now is just like a little test recording. But I want to ask you why
you chose James?
[Noone]
I went to William James because of the people that were there and the type of
education that was available to me, for me, at James. I didn't come to Grand
Valley to go to James. I came to Grand Rapids and ended up at Grand Valley to
finish my education and wasn't aware that James was there until a couple
semesters at CAS and heard about James, met some people at James, and
decided to go over there and check out classes there. What was nice about
James is it wasn't a type of situation where you sat and listen to someone talk,
and you sat still and you sat quiet, and you were obedient and sat there and
listened to them, and then it was two weeks later you spit out what they said on a
piece of paper called the test and then you somehow got graded for that
performance. I was real dissatisfied with that kind of education. I never did it very
well either. It was a difficult thing for me to do. When I was at James it felt a lot
freer to do other things.
[Barbara]
Just continue from where you were.
[Noone]
Okay. The type of education at William James, for me, worked for me a whole lot
better because of the different… yeah, there was a lot of opportunity to think and
to think about what you were doing – what I was doing and James. In classrooms
it was a matter of going in and listening to somebody speak and writing things
down and kind of daydreaming, doodling on the paper. James, you couldn't get
away with that. Couldn't get away with not participating. I think one of my first
experience is that James was a class that I had and the teacher wanted us to
read a book and read it by a certain day. I didn't read the book. I didn't think I had
to; that was kind of education that I was used to having – where the teacher told
you to do something, you really didn't do it, and just kind of went in, took the test,
and always somehow did pretty well on it. But I didn't read and I came into the
class real unprepared and it was real obvious and it felt real awkward. I felt like I
was really missing out on something. It was like the first time that I think that I
really understood what William James was about. Because I didn't read that, I
didn't know what was going on – I wasn't learning, I wasn't being helpful to
anyone else in the class, and I wasn't being helpful to myself at all. And that
really had a big impact on me. I thought about that a lot and I thought about how
that all worked and what was different at William James and that was what
�prompted me to take classes there and to be involved at James.
[Barbara]
That's great, I think we got this all… [Inaudible].
[Noone]
Okay. What did you ask me?
[Barbara]
The incident that we care about is… you didn't do the reading.
[Noone]
Right. The first time that I really learned what William James was about was I
was in the class and I was supposed to read a book by a certain day. I didn't read
it. I never did – I never thought I had to. In traditional schools in my entire
educational upbringing, it's like you didn't really have to do that kind of stuff. You
just kind of went in and got a feel for what the teacher wanted, and you gave it to
them, and you got a grade. I didn't read the book and I came to class, and I was
real unprepared and it was real obvious to myself and other people in the class.
And I felt like I was missing something – a lot. I felt like I was not getting…
anything. I wasn't getting anything, and other people were getting a lot. And I
think it was my first realization about education at William James and what that
was about, and how that was different from my previous years of education. I felt
awkward and I felt like I really needed to do something if I was going to get
anything out of my education and learn anything, and I felt like I had a lot to learn
and William James was there, and it had a lot to offer in terms of different kinds
of things that I needed to learn at that time.
[Barbara]
If you had to summarize what the core of the philosophy at James – if you just
had to name one thing, in a sentence or two – what was the most important
thing?
[Noone]
James worked on the basis that you were solely responsible for your education
and no one was going to do it for you. There were no “A’s” or “B’s” or any kind of
grading system – that’s more than a sentence to say. To say there wasn't that “A”
or “B” grade system, to say at the end of the semester: "This is what you've
achieved." What you achieved at the end of the semester was to your
knowledge, and what you worked for, and your paper and your, you know, what
you worked on with your projects, your milestone. That's what you achieved and
that was solely your responsibility. If you didn't do it nobody cared or that was
your responsibility. And I think that had a real impact on me. That had a very,
very strong impact on me. So, I think in terms of the goals of James, I think was
to make people solely responsible for their education. That's not to say that you
didn't do it with other people, and that you didn't work on it with other people, and
that there weren't other people around to help. But you needed to find those
people, you needed to talk to those people, and we need to find people that
wanted to work with you on projects and whatnot, and I think that it didn't mean at
all that you needed to do it by yourself. It was a nice community to work and
�learn with people.
[Barbara]
This sounds like nirvana. Surely… don't start answering yet because I have to
focus.
[Noone]
Okay.
[Barbara]
This makes it sound like nirvana, surely there were some faults.
[Noone]
I think, yeah, there were some faults. I think it took a while to get acclimated to
what was expected and what it was that I wanted. I mean, it was suddenly this
responsibility and that things felt pretty wide open, but it took me a while to figure
out what it was that I really wanted. So, that was a little difficult. But I'm not sure
that was a fault. I mean, it made me work and it made me think. It also made me
use teachers in the way I’ve never used teachers before, like going in and
saying: "What's going on here, and I didn't understand this, and what's this
about." So, it made me use the teachers a lot more rather than going to the
teaching and saying: "Well I wasn't in class today because I had a doctor's
appointment," and you really weren't, but you just weren't there, you know. That
kind of authoritarian kind of thing. It was not that type of relationship with
teachers. So, in terms of what was a big disadvantage or for James' fault: it
would’ve been nice to have maybe a little bit of a broader spectrum of classes. I
think maybe some administrative things maybe weren't there that would've
helped facilitate some things a little better. But I can't really think of anything else.
[Barbara]
Can I show you what we've done so far?
[Noone]
The film?
[Barbara]
Start tape.
[Noone]
Is it started?
[Barbara]
It's started.
[Noone]
What's not so good about… I think back at it now and it all looks just really
wonderful. But I think if you would've interviewed me at the time when I was
taking classes, I was incredibly frustrated. At times it was hard – there was a lot
of things going on. It was just a difficult thing. Sometimes it was very frustrating…
it was a very frustrating way to learn because there was a lot to be learned and
there was a lot going on and you had to structure things yourself and make sure
things got done to have you on timelines and stuff. It was real frustrating.
[Noone]
There were times I just was, you know, thinking that it might have been nice
�sitting, doodling on a page, listening to some person – verbally, you know – talk
up to a classroom. So, I think that there were some frustrating things about it, but
I look back at it now and it just seems like wonderful.
[Barbara]
Why?
[Noone]
Why?
[Barbara]
Wait, wait, let me check the focus, okay.
[Noone]
Okay. I didn't like that.
[Barbara]
I thought you did it better before. Maybe we should do it again.
[Noone]
Okay.
[Barbara]
Let me focus. Focus, focus, focus. There she is.
[Noone]
Okay. Do you want me to do it again?
[Barbara]
Sure.
[Noone]
Okay.
[Barbara]
Anytime.
[Noone]
Okay, it's hard to think about… what was frustrating about my educational at
William James. I know there were some things that weren't so wonderful at
James and I think if you would've interviewed when I was taking classes at
James there were lots of times I was real frustrated and I wanted some times for
someone just to say: "You should know this, learn it and that's that” and it wasn't
that simple. It was a frustrating way to learn, in some ways, but it stuck. And
that's something that I can't really say about all previous education settings – that
things didn't stick, it didn't integrate. I mean, it was a painful process sometimes
and it was difficult, and I was coming out of class and feeling like your head was
spinning a little bit and not sure what had taken place or, you know, trying to
integrate it all. And I think that was very frustrating for me at times. But I look
back at it now and it feels like it was just wonderful and I wish I was back at
James and back taking classes. It was a nice community. I made a lot of
contacts, you met a lot of people, there was always something to talk about.
[Noone]
And I think that [is important] … especially when you're at kind of a mainstream
America – not going to school and working and kind of out in the real world. And
that is something that's lacking, in terms of people coming together for a common
�kind of principles and ethics and whatnot in terms of education and learning and
knowledge. I think that's missing in a lot of my experiences in the real world.
[Barbara]
Do you feel that your education equipped you for employment?
[Noone]
Yeah, it did. It definitely equipped me for employment. I think what it did, though,
was that it made me pretty selective and pretty knowledgeable about what kinds
of work was okay and what kinds of work wasn't. And I think I didn't go into my
field with blinders on, just knowing book knowledge. I came out knowing a whole
lot of other things that were real helpful to me, in terms of my education. It helps
me a lot. I was fortunate enough to get a job in my field – social work, social
relations field – before I even finished school at an agency that hired William
James students. It was full of a lot of William James students and it was full of a
lot of people who thought real seriously about what they did and how they
worked with clients and what that was about. And it wasn't anything that was ever
taken for granted that you knew; it was always something that was in process.
And that was very helpful to get hired into that agency. It was good and I think
James helped me do that. I'm not sure I would have ever gotten a job at that
agency had I not gone to James and sought those kinds of things out at James. I
understood what the process was about, so that was nice.
[Barbara]
Good answer. Good, clear answer. Did your education equip you to get a job?
[Noone]
Yes, I was fortunate enough to be able to continue learning through work and the
job that I got when I was pretty much finished with school. Social relations / social
work is one of my majors – what I focused on school – and I got hired into an
agency that hired and liked and sought out William James students because they
understood what working with clients was about; they understood that it was a
continual process; that you never, you know, knew and you can sit back and
easy-chair and pretend like you know it all because you never do. It's a
continuous process and I was fortunate enough to get hired into an agency and
stayed there for quite a while. And it was nice; it was real good. It was being able
to continue learning. And I think that's – in terms of my profession and in terms of
my work – that’s what I want to do, is continue learning. So, I was fortunate to do
that one life after William James… are you filming this now? Life after William
James. How it's been difficult to integrate some into the general marketplace, in
terms of my profession.
[Noone]
I have found it very frustrating. I feel like I was real sheltered in the agency that I
worked in for four years. And I think learning the kinds of things that I've learned
– the things that I feel that are incredibly valuable in terms of my profession – are
pretty meaningless, in some ways, to other people and in the field. And I think
that's been real frustrating. I wonder sometimes and William James was nice
because it was a community to grow with and to learn with. And how do I fill
�those needs now? What do I do about that? And I've done pretty well; I still have
people around me that I’ve grown with and I learned with and I have that kind of
contact and that kind of connection with and I hope I always will. And I think I will.
But it was kind of nice William James provided those people. I went there and
they were there. Now it's, again, taking responsibility and making sure that those
people are in my life now. And they're not so accessible as they were when I was
in college, and I hate to think it's because that kind of thought, and that kind of
ethics, and those kinds of ways of thinking about process and whatnot, is
becoming obsolete with maybe younger generations. Or just becoming more
difficult to find people who think like that. But community was rich, and nice, and
was good.
[Barbara]
You talk about the way we think and the ethics and stuff, but what do you mean?
[Noone]
In terms of social work, in terms of being at James – for me, my education was
thinking a lot about how I was going to work with people and how effective I was
going to be. And it wasn't anything I can read in a book and learn that that's what
this is, you know, and have it integrate. It was not that simple. It was thinking
about a lot, it was doing it a lot, it was having the experience doing it. It was
whether that was role-playing or having interactions with, you know, fellow
students or whatever that was. It wasn't just simply sitting down and reading it, it
was doing it and I think in the workplace it's the same thing. You can't just take
for granted that things are just going to come to you or that you automatically
know things. Every situation is different and needs to be thought about. And
there's a process going on with almost every situation that needs to be thought
about and not taken just for granted. So, I think in terms of ethics and knowing
things… that wasn't so clear was it? Sum it up? To kind of sum it up, James was
good while I was there. I still feel like it was good for me. It taught me what I
wanted and what I didn't want, in terms of my field and my profession. It taught
me what was good and what wasn't good. That was, I think, a lot of what it did in
terms of how it still feels for me now. Also taught me how to use other people real
well. And that one… I think that's essential and that was good, too.
[Barbara]
Did it handicap you that you had two or three professors is all?
[Noone]
I think it would've been nicer. I mean, maybe that just comes from traditional
schools – we have a whole lot of different professors you can pick and choose
from. I was pleased with my professors. I think sometimes it would've been nice
to have a little bit more of a variety of different professors and not have just two
or three. But it would've been different to have more. I think sometimes it
would've maybe been nicer to have a little bit more of a variety.
[Barbara]
We have just a little bit of tape. You guys go stand behind Kate, would you? And
then we'll know what those little coughs and thing are. You can just-you can just
�beat it. Okay, there's one.
[Noone]
There's one! There's Jamie.
[Barbara]
See if you can get on the other side.
[Noone]
There's Jamie.
[Barbara]
Okay. Poor Jimmy, move so I can see you.
[Noone]
Move so you can… there. Okay. There's Jamie.
[Barbara]
There's Jamie. Okay. Jessica why don't you come around on that side, too,
because there's not enough light on that side and I want to be able to see your
face really well, on the tape. There you go. Now you both show up. I'm going to
run out of tape in a minute, but I want to get a shot of you now. [Laughter]
[Noone]
Do you have anything to say? Here's the microphone.
[Jamie]
Doot doot!
[Jessica]
Aww, thanks. Put it on me!
[Noone]
Put it on you, huh?
[Barbara]
We’re going to run out of tape in just a second.
[Noone]
It’s on you. So how was it being quiet for so long?
[Jessica]
I hated it.
[Jamie]
[Coughs on mic]
[Jessica]
Don't cough on it!
�
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
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Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Identifier
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GV016-16
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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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.
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GV016-16_GVSU_23_Noone
Creator
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Noone, Kate
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1984
Title
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Kate Noone interview (video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Kate Noone 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. Kate Noone was a student of William James College and a member of the class of 1981. In this interview, Kate discusses her personal journey that led her to William James College, its core philosophy, and how her education equipped her for future employment. This interview is part 1 of 1 for Kate Noone.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
Interdisciplinary approach in education
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a>
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>
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Moving Image
Text
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Language
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eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/01e89ad315320de66a14d3ab7ce8ccf8.mp4
f646366da7233fb969677d7ef1cf1106
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7f5957baa0b1c87f9dc89042d6abb881.pdf
16b12a1c292c0a5984c9f27d754f0de2
PDF Text
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William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: John MacTavish
Date: 1984
Part: 2 of 3
[Barbara]
Are you rolling?
[MacTavish]
Yeah.
[Barbara]
Steven?
[MacTavish]
Yeah.
[Barbara]
Why don't you tell me about other, you know, what you know about…?
[MacTavish]
Well, I personally went to two or three conferences, but we were so busy doing
things and we had so much to do that we didn't, at least, I didn't go to very many.
I remember the Redlands conference. People were talking about their
experimental program here or their experimental program there. And frequently it
was just a few students inside of a department that were trying things; there were
almost no one out there doing what we were doing. And the people, frankly,
found it unbelievable that we were able to do this because that was even beyond
what they were fantasizing being able to do: to have the backing of a college
behind you to turn you relatively loose. And I can remember when the plan for
William James was approved by the faculty council. The thing that put it over the
back, over the top, was I think it was Dewey Heininga [?] that stood up and said,
"there's a time when you have to cut the child free and let them do it," or words to
that effect, because the faculty were wanting to put all kinds of strings and "we'll
check on them next year and kill them if they don't do well" and this kind of thing.
And I believe it was Dewey [?] that finally stood up and said, "We've got to give
them a chance. We've got to let them do their thing and we've got to not have
control over them." And that was almost the last thing that was said before it was
okayed as a separate academic unit, but we were spending so much time
actually doing what other people wanted to fantasize about that we didn't have
time to go around and tell people what we were doing. Although the word did get
out and it never ceases to amaze me the way that students found us, similar to
the ways they found Thomas Jefferson, because somehow there was a student
connection out there with high schools and so forth that I never knew about when
I was a high school. Of course, I don't think anything like that existed back in the
'50s when I was in high school. If it had I wouldn't have noticed.
�[Barbara]
John, but that didn't go on because our enrollment was down.
[MacTavish]
That's true. And I honestly don't remember why that happened. Eventually, we
got up to over seven hundred and then they started back down again. And I think
that at the point when you're seven hundred, then you're dealing with an
institutional size that we didn't have in the beginning. And I'm not blaming the
decline on that. It could easily have been economic. It could have been changes
in the general cultural pattern in the United States. It could have been a lot of
things. The '60s were gone, but it also could have been the fact that William
James was at that point starting to be a large, standard type of institution, even
though we did an awful lot of things that weren't. But there ends up being a level
of bureaucracy that is necessarily just to function that the students were arguing
with, participating in, and fighting against all at the same time. And I honestly
don't know why they started back down. A lot of the faculty were starting to
reevaluate their time commitments. I know I did. Some of our best faculty left.
Well, if I name names, they all think those are the best and the others aren't. But
we did have a fairly high faculty turnover. Eventually, people started hiring faculty
for different reasons than they were originally hired in the beginning. They were
hiring people to fill out levels of... or areas of expertise. They were hiring a
person because he happened to fit as an intern specialist, or we needed a
biologist. And the primary concern was a concern different from the original.
Sure, in the beginning we needed a writer, and we needed a scientist and we
needed a sociologist and a psychologist and so forth. But people were looked at
as much for their secondary and tertiary interests as they were for their original
interests because we knew that people had to be eclectic, broadly interesting,
broadly interested. The person that you could describe as a graduate school
teacher in a discipline spending eighty hours a week in the laboratory studyingI'll pick Paschke's rats as an example because Paschke doesn't fit the mold, but
they spend their life studying the behavior patterns of rats. That isn't the kind of
faculty member we needed in William James. We needed somebody who if he's
a geologist, he's willing to tackle Piaget. If he's a writer, he's willing to try and
analyze wines or the scientific basis for the difference in the way wine plants
grow. And so, he ends up studying geography for a term. We needed people with
the kind of interest and nerve to leave their disciplines. And that was phrase keys
for me. One of our big problems is a lot of people felt like they were leaving their
discipline when they came to William James. I did as an invertebrate
paleontologist. I haven't done a whole lot since I joined William James and the
rest of the academic world labeled you when you did that because those were
lost years, if you tried to come back. Dick Paschke is one of the few people that
were able to not have that happen to him, but many of the rest of us had that
happen to us. In some ways, it's good; in some ways, it's bad. I don't think I ever
want to go back to being a paleontologist again. On the other hand, I spent
fifteen years of my life learning to be one, but it gave me and got me where I
wanted to be at that time. And that got me somewhere else and so forth down
�the road. Where do we go from here?
[Barbara]
Let's stop for one second. [Inaudible]
[MacTavish]
We looked for people that were compatible with ourselves and with what we
thought William James should be. And that includes not just me who hired on,
but that includes the Dan Clocks and the Woodys and the rest of the people on
that committee. The Will Walkos, who knew he wasn't going to be in William
James and wasn't for years, and then situations changed, and he came over. But
we look for people who had what we thought William James needed in terms of
educational philosophy and outlook.
[Barbara]
It's real hard to pin this down in my mind. I keep thinking, you're just not telling
me what this magic thing was that made everyone understand what you were
aiming for.
[MacTavish]
No, we did not analyze what we were looking for and we did not- Well, let me say
it two ways. We did not sit down and say, "This is the kind of psychological profile
we want. This is the kind of credentials we want." In fact, there was a move at
one point to kind of look past credentials once a minimum level was established.
We did, however, spend long hours haranguing each other with why we're
interested in this person or this type of person. And when you spend thirty or forty
hours a week, in addition to your regular job, discussing who you should hire, you
tend to, as a group, reach a consensus. And they were consensus decisions. We
didn't try to say we have to have a person with this particular leaning. We have to
have a position for so-and-so. We tried to fight that. In fact, we wanted synoptic
positions and everything. But we did look for educational philosophies and we
didn't spell out in advance, "This is the cardinal philosophy." Mayberry has his
cardinal philosophy; Zapp had his cardinal philosophy; I had my cardinal
philosophy. And in a way, they were all the same with different edges and then in
another way, they were all different, but the edges overlapped. So that we could
out of the five or six thousand applications, we could find six or eight that made
sense for everybody.
[Barbara]
You know, that's kind of hard to imagine.
[MacTavish]
Well, I think it was in the sense that there was a magic there. There was a feeling
amongst this group that never knew each other before; in a period of two weeks,
we were old friends.
[Barbara]
This is the committee?
[MacTavish]
No, this is the original faculty. The committee was never a group of old friends,
but that's another story. The orientation occurred and the faculty started, and we
�spent so much- we lived together. I mean, our wives saw less of us than
[Inaudible]
[Barbara]
Really explain- Oh, I know it's about money. They didn't see why the hell you
should come here when the money was so low.
[MacTavish]
Well, that was another thing William James did is they took away all the rewards
for teaching. They took away the merit pay. They took away the titles. They took
away everything. And the only reward you got was internal. Well, that's fine for a
few people, but not for a lot of people. And people tended to grump after a while,
even though they participated in the original decision to do that. We took away all
the external rewards, which is not good, I don't think.
[Barbara]
But it's like what we did with the students. We said, "We're not going to reward
you with an 'A.' We're going to reward you with an internal accomplishment." It's
going to be pure.
[MacTavish]
Yeah, it's going to be pure. Well, pure works in the Land of Oz, but it doesn't
always work in real life because there are so many other pressures involved.
When you go to a professional meeting, you say, "Oh, I'm a member of the
faculty." Everybody else says, "I'm associate professor, full professor, assistant
professor, instructor." And there's some kind of pecking order that's known.
When you say you're a member of the faculty, that means you could be anything
from a dean on down to undergraduate instructor, you know.
[Barbara]
Well, what we've gotten into here, and we didn't finish the other thing. I'm asking
everyone what critical steps were taken or not taken or what critical weaknesses
were there or whatever that contributed to the closing? Surely there was more
than one thing that contributed to closing the place down.
[MacTavish]
Well, I wasn't there for the final closing. I was there for, I guess, what you would
call the downhill, at least a large part of it. There were several things, I think, that
were involved. And one of them is individual burnout or pullback because of the
amount of work involved. Another is the change in the general direction or
orientation of the college. It lost a lot of its freewheeling-ness and it became very
much more rigid in terms of curriculum, in terms of faculty teaching patterns. We
ended up with departments. They were interdisciplinary departments, but there
were departments, nonetheless. I think also there were some real political and
sociological problems that people experienced in what some people were calling
the "Women's Club." We, in some cases, either made offers or hired people. The
faculty didn't do it. A certain clique of people did it and they did it on grounds that
were not traditional William James grounds. I'd rather not tape some of those
things. But Inge got into a lot of trouble in that group setting and some of the
other people did, too. I did for a variety of reasons and I don't think that helped
�the college at all. Plus, there always was, in the eyes of some of the traditional
faculty members on campus, the feeling that faculty members in that college,
namely William James, were slumming in some way because they were not
disciplinarians in the traditional sense of disciplines. That combined with some
initial inabilities in the administrative level. She was learning a lot after she got
here and she got much, much better. But for the first few years, she had some
problems that tended to contribute to the point where once she was doing a
pretty darn good job of it, some people had stopped listening. And there was a
general conservativeness that was occurring, especially in this region and then in
the college. We never did get to the point where there were a group of equal
colleges. And then the fiscal crisis hit the state of Michigan and that was a
disaster for William James because the argument was made and very difficult to
fight that being a group of colleges was costing us money. What they did is they
eliminated all the colleges except the ones that they couldn't get rid of for political
reasons like the School of Business, but they kept all the administrators. And if
you look at the faculty, if you look at the ratios between students and faculties
and secretaries and administrators, you'll see, over a period of years, you'll see
that administration level people were being added at a much, much faster rate
than everybody else. And when it came to time for cuts, the faculty members
were cut disproportionately to the administrators, so that made the ratios even
worse. And in addition to that, the faculty members were cut in some cases in
ways or places that were political in nature, rather than having to deal with how
many students they had and so forth. And I'm not speaking about myself in that
situation, although I was one of the ones who was cut. So that there were a
bunch of pressures on William James near the end that were political, social,
psychological. It was a long story. I don't think the faculty got the break in terms
of the break from the heavy workload that they should have gotten to be able to
maintain it continuously for years, after years.
[Barbara]
That's answering the next question I was going to say. I was going to say, the
flipside of what I asked you is: in positive terms, what could have been done
differently? Looking at this as an experimental school and saying…
[Steve]
Thirty seconds about until tape end.
[Barbara]
Alright, well, get the other tape in. Okay. Is there an answer to the positive?
�
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
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1984
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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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
Interdisciplinary approach in education
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
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GV016-16
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eng
Oral History
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GV016-16_GVSU_21_MacTavish
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MacTavish, John
Date
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1984
Title
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John MacTavish interview (2 of 3, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with John MacTavish 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. John MacTavish was faculty member of GVSC who was hired to teach Geology courses in 1968 and later transitioned to planning and teaching for William James College beginning in 1971. In this interview, John discusses the early days of William James College and its creation, in addition to the sense of "magic" that existed within the community and the critical weaknesses that contributed to the college's eventual decline. This interview is part 2 of 3 for John MacTavish.
Contributor
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Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Subject
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Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
Interdisciplinary approach in education
Bureaucracy
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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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eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0ca6b1b55e7c8698aa271047e7431d64.mp4
0ad93e83685e5d9deb8dd5ad1718d6b2
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e35e47ad033009e1b411fd9e76c14363.pdf
40175bec014cfd18354f8e456169fb20
PDF Text
Text
William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: James Clover
Date: 1984
Part: 2 of 2
[Clover]
William James was an information exchange for all the people that were
involved. And I think that in any disciple that you're pursuing, that you need
information and that it was a good way to get it. And I don't know, you know. It
was the first time that I had ever been involved with engineers, environmentalists,
writers. Did we have musicians? We had some amateur musicians.
[Barbara]
[Inaudible].
[Clover]
Right. We had philosophers, psychologist preachers, historians. All in one place.
[Barbara]
You know what, that was good. Keep thinking- keep talking. Repeat it to me.
What was some… [Inaudible]?
[Clover]
Not bad.
[Barbara]
What can't you do now, Jim. I mean, here you are in your studio, it looks like your
[?] totally. What can't you do now? Why do you need a structure?
[Clover]
Now, all I do is go to art faculty meetings and talk about problems that all art
faculties have been dealing with since nineteen fifty-six and not getting any
answers at all. I go to faculty meetings and no one ever talks about teaching. And
I wonder about that and I'm still waiting to meet the first person that says they
can't teach. And I don't know. I'm just sort of… I'm in an isolated kind of situation
right now. As far as artists use information, by the ton. They need lots of
information. More, and more, and more, and more information. I mean they eat it
up. Now I have… now I'm having to go elsewhere for my information. I have to…
I do, I leave the community. As far as productivity of my art goes, there's a lot
more happening because I have to drive to Atlanta to find out what's going on.
And I have to go to Chicago. And I keep six or seven shows going so that I
remain active as an artist. To get the information I have to read more, which is
not fine, I mean, I probably should have reading more anyway. I have to… I find
myself seeking out things that were available in the William James situation. I
have to find somewhere else, and they're spread all over the place.
[Barbara]
Did you find being at James absorbed so much of your energy you weren't as
active in art as you are now?
�[Clover]
Yes. My involvement at William James was a much more intense teaching
situation than I'm currently involved in. Yes I had found myself using the majority
of my energy in the James situation.
[Barbara]
Do you resent that?
[Clover]
No, I don't resent that. I consider that a real growth process for me.
[Clover]
I was genuinely burned out as far as creativity goes, when I came to James and
that kind of experience gave me a renewal that I'm using now.
[Barbara]
Well, it sounds like it worked out alright for you that James closed.
[Clover]
Pardon?
[Barbara]
It sounds as though it was opportune that James closed.
[Clover]
No, I don't think so. I think that I would rather have that and less art involvement.
I mean it was very important for me. Or I'd like to have some of each. Or I would
like to have the opportunity to jump out of the James experience, be an artist, for
a while, and jump back in. Which would have been ideal.
[Barbara]
Can you see ways that students needed the structure… let’s put it, forget the way
I asked that. You said you're isolated. How are the students different under the
current structure of James? We've been talking a lot about your feelings at
James, but what about the people coming through?
[Clover]
Well, the students were actively involved in the total process of the evolution of
the James experience and through community meetings and interactions with the
disciplines there was a lot of student involvement. The difference I think is that
there was a more complete… for the James student, it was a more total
involvement in what living is all about, rather than jumping from specialty to
specialty or from building to building. And there seemed to be a relationship there
and interaction that doesn't take place in a traditional education. My students
come in for three hours a day and then they run off somewhere else.
[Barbara]
Goodbye.
[Clover]
Goodbye. Whereas at James we were involved, you know, ten, twelve hours a
day. And I knew what they were doing and I knew who they were. And I knew
their joys and I knew their troubles.
[Barbara]
Therefore could teach them better?
�[Clover]
Sure. Of course. They knew me. I was willing to tell them about me and they
were willing to tell me about them.
[Barbara]
Why did you ask me if anybody cried?
[Clover]
I don't know. I have a real sadness about the closing of it because it seemed to
be an expanding structure, whereas traditional education expands much more
slowly. And it’s very difficult to communicate across disciplines in a college
situation. Very hard to get their attention. They don't listen. Seems like, you
know, whatever the popular education mode is the time, an example, computers,
I mean where the interest goes. And there's a great expense to people who think
a liberal education is important because of the jumping around from disciple to
disciple. I'm sure in ten years it might be something else. I have no idea what it
might be. Who knows. Restaurant Management, Nursing, all career-oriented
stuff. I talked to a nursing student the other day in the faculty lunchroom: the Oak
Room. Which I swear I'd never go into. Because somehow, I thought that it was
better for me to eat with the students because we could interact that way and
they would know who I am. Now I go to the Oak Room, my friends go there. This
girl was talking to me, she butchered the English language, I corrected her, she
was embarrassed. And I asked her what level student she was and she said she
was fourth year nursing. And I said Lord girl you need to learn how to speak the
English language. And she apologize all over herself. And somehow it leaves a
void in me when I run into people like that who are supposedly getting an
education and I wonder what happened. How did she miss English 110, how did
she miss literature, how did she miss writing? And it's not required for her? I think
that she leaves us in ways that will hurt her later on. I think that she could have a
better life. I think she could be a better decision-maker by being multi-disciplined.
Or at least multi-aware. Aww man. So that what I think William James is about.
[Barbara]
[Inaudible] of shit. Nobody said that. Not one person has said that.
[Clover]
It pisses me off, it does.
[Barbara]
What?
[Clover]
It pisses me off that people categorize themselves and limit their experience. I
can't stand. I don't know any of the philosophy people here. I don't know any of
the historians here other than ex-William James people. I don't know any of the
English people, other than Robert Mayberry. And Ros. Is Ros in the English
department still as an adjunct person? Committed lifelong adjunct. And they
never come by, you know. But then again, I never go by either. So, who knows,
you know. So, it's just these isolated pockets. I go to all college faculty meeting
and the politics are so involved that there is no exchange of information. Pure
politics. And it seems to be some kind of, I don't know, I find it really interesting
�that for the salaries, for the amount of money that people make in higher
education, that they are that cutthroat about their interactions and relationships
with others. It all seems to be territory protection.
[Barbara]
Do you think that happened at William James College?
[Clover]
I don't know. It was like it was not allowed, or it couldn't happen, or the nucleolus
of faculty was all small. And the fact that we were all thrown together dissolved
that. And it also… outside pressures forced us to us stick together. And we did,
as much as possible. I think we really did. And the, you know, the exchanges of
information in the James situation. I mean it's, you know, I'm not trying to make
this all sound like it was a glorious, wonderful, la la la la la, whatever. It wasn't. It
was intense. Oftentimes unnerving. You know, a willingness… my biggest
problem was the willingness to listen to other people and what they really had to
say and trying to figure out what they're really saying and then deal with that in a
reasonable manner. It's not my nature to do that and I was forced into that, and it
was super. And I watched that happen to the students. The place allowed you to
shoot your mouth off and make a fool out of yourself and people would still back
you. Which was kind of neat. I guess while I was there I didn't feel like I really had
to protect myself, career-wise. Or I did not have to be as careful what I say or
what I do. Probably in that case, you know, when you have that kind of feeling
there's a better exchange of information between you and the people you're
dealing with. And I don't know and I also I felt a certain kind of protection. I felt
like I could go into a class and say what I and can talk about what I felt I knew at
the moment, or what I know, and not have the kind of kick back or reaction that I
would have in students who weren't oriented in that way. A lot of
misunderstanding and I find myself being more careful in class. I don't swear
anymore. I gently tell people… I gently try to tell people what it's like to try and be
an artist, rather than, maybe I'm not as pushy or demanding. I don't think.
Something happens, you know, something happened there. Yeah, we used to
just, I don't know, it seems to me like you know, we used to just really it. Get
down on what trying to make a drawing is all about. Or what trying, you know,
dealing with design principle, what it's all about. And I guess the students, they
intuitively understand that we were trying to help them and did not… whereas in
the standard kind of teaching situation, it seems like a lot of people come there to
be offended. And they're looking for that, and they're offended easily. And they
complain. And you end up in the chairman's office, trying to explain what you
were trying to do. And it seems real crazy to me that I should have to justify being
what I am or what I'm trying to express. And I think these are real cheap shots of
people who do not have much background or who really don't understand, and
maybe don't want to. Or at least, I don't know. I don't know if the opportunity is
there for them to understand. Seems like the schools are afraid of the students. I
mean they're so afraid that they aren't going to have enough, that they are going
to fill the classroom. And we're told that, you know, numbers are important and
�we keep cramming in more and more numbers and there's less and less
interaction between us and the students. And it's kind of sad. And I guess I
understand the numbers game, the numbers mean money.
[Clover]
But maybe that's the wrong way to go about it. Maybe you should risk it and
maybe you would have the numbers if the information was flowing correctly.
[Barbara]
We did in the Media Department. We did.
[Clover]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We still do.
[Barbara]
We still do?
[Clover]
Yeah, like crazy, you know, which is really neat. And I really feel really bad about
that. I feel bad that the Art Department at Grand Valley State College is separate
from the Media Program is just absolutely ludicrous to me, and it was a pure
policy. It was a numbers game. And some of us who happened to be titled artists
lost. And we were thrown into an Art Department. Whereas we really preferred to
have the whole thing evolve as a cohesive group, and I certainly hope that could
happen.
[Barbara]
[Inaudible] the sculpture now?
[Clover]
Sure.
[Barbara]
Is there anything else you want to say? I think we're near the end of the tape.
[Clover]
No, I, you know, I miss it. And when I walk, you know, I walk across campus and
I see some of ex-faculty members of William James, you know, I kind of feel like,
you know, God, I used to really know this guy and feel like I really knew him in a
professional way and now I don't, you know, it's slipped away and that's too bad.
So, we all… we meet each other shake hands and say how's going it and
everybody says is going just fine. And I guess it is, you know. Life goes on and it
evolves. So, what? Life's a bitch then there's death.
�
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
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_19_Clover
Creator
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Clover, James
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
James Clover interview (2 of 2, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with James Clover 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. James Clover was an art instructor of William James College and a renowned sculptor whose work can be seen on Grand Valley State University's campuses, including the "Heaven and Earth" sculpture located in the heart of Great Lakes Plaza. In this interview, James discusses how William James College was an "information exchange" for its faculty and students, the importance of working with a community of diverse backgrounds, and the eventual separation of the Arts and Media concentration into two departments at Grand Valley. This interview is part 2 of 2 for James Clover.
Contributor
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Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Art Study and teaching
Interdisciplinary approach in education
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a>
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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application/pdf
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eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5760583b925689b2c98d5d980573c065.mp4
6b249415649bc6696649acb6b04500ae
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fd7d786f3cbf7cce24d046644f115567.pdf
bdbcedba3ba569a7d63b12f04669892a
PDF Text
Text
William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: James Clover
Date: 1984
Part: 1 of 2
[Clover]
You do edit this, right?
[Barbara]
Of course, I do edit this one for you. Tell me, sum up in one sentence, you've got
one sentence: What is the essence of William James College?
[Clover]
Interdisciplinary experience.
[Barbara]
What does that mean? I'm not sure.
[Clover]
It means that I got to rub shoulders with a whole lot of folks, all headed in
different directions, and we exchanged information about our directions.
[Barbara]
Hi Dallas!
[Dallas]
[Inaudible]
[Clover]
And it was- I don't know. It was a willingness of a group of people to come
together and try and understand what each other- what we were doing. What
each of us were trying to do. That opportunity to talk about it, compromise.
[Barbara]
Did you come here to be in alternative college?
[Clover]
Yes, I've been in alternative arts school, but I had no idea what an alternative
college would be about. And the first year I was here I stood around with my
mouth hanging open. I did! I didn't- I don't know. I guess what William James did
for me was it helped to make me listener.
[Barbara]
What do you mean?
[Clover]
I was so into being an artist and being an art teacher that it seems to be that art
information was what I was primarily dealing with and I found out that I needed
outside information to support my ideas.
[Barbara]
Like what?
[Clover]
[Laughter] Like what? Like anything. Life. Anything at all. I think when I came
here, I was pretty, as far as art information goes, I was pretty burned out and I
�needed to make contact with other people, with society as a whole, and the
throwing together of many kinds of people in the William James situation gave
that to me.
[Barbara]
What did we do wrong?
[Clover]
I don't think we did anything wrong. I think that we were, that the people… you
mean administratively, what did we do wrong? I think that people didn't
understand what we were trying to do. And maybe it was our fault that we didn't
communicate it to them, or maybe they just didn't want to know. I don't know if
that's a really good answer. What did we do wrong? I think we did… I don't know.
Maybe we were in the wrong place [Laughter].
[Barbara]
Okay, um-
[Clover]
You know, I don't know. I mean, I can sit here and talk to you about this and as
soon as you get the camera on, I get strange.
[Barbara]
Well, don't get strange.
[Clover]
I know, I'm trying try not to.
[Barbara]
You're doing a good job, you don't look strange.
[Clover]
Well, I'm trying not to get [Strange Noise], you know.
[Barbara]
Now, that's strange.
[Clover]
Okay, well you know what I mean.
[Barbara]
Don't worry, we'll make it through this. Some people think we weren't doing a
quality education for some of the students. Some of the students just slid through
and didn't do shit.
[Clover]
Yeah, but see I think that's alright. I think it's okay to slide through and not do
shit. I think that's a choice of the individual you know. If they don't get turned on
during the process, tough. I think the same thing happens in the structure that we
now operate under. And -it's just a different kind of symbol that's all. There are
symbols there that say, you know, you did this, this and this, you then can slip by
on C's and everything's just fine. It's really easy to get the C symbol, and we
eliminated a symbol. I didn't see any problem with that at all. Because [Noise]
you know, the people involved in the structure wanted it made use of it. It was
there, they learned how. It was very creative.
�[Barbara]
So the key to what we were doing that people didn't understand was that we
were inter-disciplinary.
[Clover]
I think so. I think that people never bothered to find out and you know when some
kind of attempts were made to find out what we actually did… you can't drop in
for thirty minutes and make a judgment on what's going on here. And I think that
there should've been an element of trust involved. Just, you know, based on the
experience of the group of people that are gathered together in William James
they should have trusted us and said: "Hey, you know, they aren't stupid. They
must be willing to do something right. I mean why are they here, you know?
They're doing something, it was going well." It's a farce actually. I don't know. We
were outnumbered, politically. We were never able to establish ourselves
because it was a numbers thing, you know, the credibility thing. Thirty against
how many?
�
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
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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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
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Moving Image
Text
Language
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eng
Oral History
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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_18_Clover
Creator
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Clover, James
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
James Clover interview (1 of 2, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with James Clover 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. James Clover was an art instructor of William James College and a renowned sculptor whose work can be seen on Grand Valley State University's campuses, including the "Heaven and Earth" sculpture located in the heart of Great Lakes Plaza. In this interview, James discusses the essence of William James College, his experience transitioning from an alternative arts school to an alternative college, and the misunderstandings surrounding being interdisciplinary. This interview is part 1 of 2 for James Clover.
Contributor
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Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Art Study and teaching
Interdisciplinary approach in education
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a>
Publisher
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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/677c9e1817dcace32f038f939685f98f.mp4
e74500420d99c3e1c92a46c7b1bd5f53
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d11816b0abb639e0c794f61355f3ee4b.pdf
feeb4b08152ac2bf5ddb9759a0ddeaac
PDF Text
Text
William James College Interviews
GV016-16
Interviewer: Barbara Roos
Interviewee: Rosalyn Muskovitz
Date: 1984
Part: 1 of 2
[Barbara]
Why don't you talk about why you came here?
[Rosalyn]
Okay, I'll start. Let me think. Wait a minute, let me start. I think I should start by
saying that I was one of the people who did not come from academia and I didn't
I come from a teaching background. My teaching experience was limited. I'd
been at Kendall Teaching and Design School. Though I was committed to
teaching, I found that it was sorely lacking as an educational experience. Both for
me and for the students. And so, I was looking for something else. When I found
out about a new college, that had just started the year before, that was
interdisciplinary in nature--and I consider myself an interdisciplinary person
because I'm interested in a wide variety of things. And the college was interested
in having a design component in its curriculum, and I thought that since I had
such a wide variety of background interests, of things I was interested in, I would
give it a shot. Because it was sort of a new college, and it had sort of altruistic
ideas, I guess. And high expectations for educational excellence. I was sort of
caught up in the whole idea of being able to build something from its very
beginnings, that I applied and came the second year--in the second year the
school existed.
[Barbara]
Stop for a moment. I want to suggest… if I may direct you? That you now talk a
little bit… and we have changed the shot. Now you talk a little bit about how that
changed. Remember? 'Because when you're doing it spontaneously to me you
said, "But that changed."
[Rosalyn]
That's right.
[Barbara]
[Inaudible]
[Rosalyn]
That's right.
[Barbara]
Okay. And then we'll start again, and the next point can be the part about the
students being involved. Give me a second. See what I'm doing? I'm dividing it
up more in a more linear way.
[Rosalyn]
Okay. Clearly, that's why you're the editor. Okay...
[Barbara]
Well, it will just be easier.
�[Rosalyn]
Okay.
[Barbara]
You're going to have to answer that again.
[Rosalyn]
I can't remember what I said.
[Barbara]
You look perfect.
[Rosalyn]
Huh?
[Barbara]
I'll do it again. I ask it again.
[Barbara]
Can you hang on a second?
[Rosalyn]
Yeah. Is this coming out alright? I don’t know.
[Barbara]
Yeah, it is. It's reversed from… the polarity is reversed. So, it tapes backwards.
[Rosalyn]
Oh, wonderful.
[Barbara]
You’ve got to keep pointing to the window as much as you can because looks it
very attractive.
[Rosalyn]
Okay.
[Barbara]
The question I asked you was if you had to say what one… in hindsight, what
one problem of the school was.
[Rosalyn]
Okay, with hindsight there were lots of problems. But I think one of the
fundamental problems that we had was that we had an absolute commitment to
equality; as far as decision making and the educational process between the
faculty and the students. That we tried very hard to give the students to equal
voice and equal weight in the decision making. What happened was that the
students – just because they were students and were much younger in general –
they didn't have the background or the information to make those decisions. And
so, in a sense, they had much more power in the decision-making process than
they should have had by virtue of the fact that they had far less experience and
did not necessarily know the where right decisions were as far as around
education was concerned. So, I think we made a mistake, in that we gave that
much… too much weight at the time. I think it was important that they have some
weight, but not as much as we tried to give them at the time. And also, the early
students, I think, had a major commitment to alternative education. And the early
students challenged the faculty, and push the faculty to do greater projects,
larger amounts of work. I mean we were doing graduate level type theses on
�some of these projects at that time. That changed over a period of time.
[Rosalyn]
Because as the idea of alternative education changed somewhat, and the
students, I think, changed somewhat in that… what happened was, that there
was less push to do these major projects, and I think some of that was because
students who came afterwards decided this might be an easier way to get an
education. That it might be-- You could do things by sort of sliding through. There
wasn't as much push to do really in-depth kinds of things. And I think the faculty
somewhat got caught up in that. I think we lost track of what we were doing, as
far as-- let's see. As far as some of the, you know, some of the courses we
taught and some the work that was going on here.
[Barbara]
Why don't you stop for a minute and think? Brief answer, tell me about strengths.
[Rosalyn]
Okay. The major strength of James in the beginning was the absolute dedication
the faculty. The faculty was dedicated to excellence in education. To building
something here that would sort of stand for education at its highest level. And as
a result, because we had that commitment, we worked enormous long hours to
fulfill our goals. I think our goals were somewhat unrealistic in the beginning
because nobody could do everything, and since we were committed to
interdisciplinary education, everybody really had an interest in what everybody
else was doing. And even though they were very damn different fields--and so
we spend a lot of time talking about other things and learning about other things
different than our own field. And as a result, I think what happened was that there
just wasn't enough time, and nobody had enough energy to do everything. What
we didn't do is we didn't delegate responsibility, because everybody was
interested in being involved in everything. And we miscalculated, I think, as a
group. We just attempted to do too much. A result of this was, I think, that was in
three or four years we had massive burnout. People were just exhausted; and
were not really able to meet their somewhat, you know, unrealistic goals that they
set for themselves in the beginning.
[Barbara]
Tell me Ros, do you find it… don't talk till I get in here. Do you find it harder to
teach now that we've switched the systems? Is it harder to teach? Wait till I focus
here. Make sure it's clear. Okay. Does it make a difference?
[Rosalyn]
It's very different, but I can't really say if it's easier or harder. I feel that a lot of the
joy of teaching that existed by being able to interact with people in different fields
and on an ongoing basis is gone. Some of the really satisfying, you know, the
things that satisfy your soul are not there anymore. Is it easier to teach? Well to
begin with I, for one, have far fewer preparations. Because in a tiny school where
we taught such a wide variety of things there were times we had nine
preparations a year. They didn't teach any of those courses the second year.
�[Rosalyn]
So now, with the new organization, I tend to teach a course and teach again the
following year. I am able to spend more time developing my current curriculum in
my individual coursework because I get to repeated so often. However, the tradeoff is that it isn't the same. It's become much more static. I'm able to teach things
like techniques more because, you know, the nitty-gritty of it but I'm not able to
teach the philosophy and theory kinds of things that I did before because I can't
bring in those… the other kinds of things and other people from other areas. It's
much more rigid. So, in a sense what's happening is my students are becoming
much more proficient as technicians, and they're not as good as far as thinking,
problem-solving, human beings. I think the first students we turned out had a
unique quality that came in. Now that I look back and I think that the technical
things that they had to learn, they're learning right now working in the field. And
that the things that we gave them are things they can never get out in industry.
What we're giving them now, interestingly enough, are the kinds of things that
they could learn in industry; but unfortunately, they're not getting the really joyous
things that they came in. A lot of those have to do with values, and just thinking,
and problem-solving. And being caring kinds of human beings. I think those early
students had a wonderful experience. Now, it may very well be that we are a
small microcosm of the times. And that, in fact, in the beginning of the nineteen
seventies -- I came in seventy-two -- there was a lot of feeling of people towards
each other, and that we were reaching out towards each other more as a society
than we are now. Right now, everybody's concerned about the bottom line; about
a job, about how many dollars are going to make for their first job. I have
students want me to tell them, at the beginning design course, how much they're
going to earn when they graduate. How do I know? I don't even know if the job
they're training for is going to be there when they graduate. But they don't
understand that. Yet, in nineteen seventy-two when I talk to students about them
and told them that they had to understand about design, and they had to be
flexible, and be able to go with the change and they understood that. And they
were willing to except that. Different student today. So, I don't know if it's
because of William James. I really don't so. William James may, in fact, have
been a reflection of what was happening in in the greater community; and it's
gone because those values have changed in the greater society.
[Barbara]
Great answer. That was really good. You're all informed warmed up now.
[Laughs] Um, I need to ask you if you were going to summarize what James'
form of alternative education was? As briefly as possible, try to summarize in two
sentences the key to what James was. What was it?
[Rosalyn]
I don't know if you'd call us the key to what it was, but what we tried to do was we
tried to have students, not to teach students to solve problems, but to teach
students to recognize the problem.
[Rosalyn]
And then, the solution would come after it. It was not a question of working out
�the solution, it was a question of defining the problem (whatever the problem
was) and I think that was part of the--That-that was the essence of it.
[Barbara]
Would you care--
[Rosalyn]
Does that make sense?
[Barbara]
Yeah, it does, it means you don't get hung up on specific solutions. You get to
the general problem.
[Rosalyn]
Yeah. Yeah. Which is really what I think that what we were doing. Part of that
was that we didn't have time to do anymore.
[Barbara]
Would you care to venture your guess of why we don't exist anymore?
[Rosalyn]
I think we don't exist anymore because I think the times are different. I think we
live in a very conservative time. I think we are we live in a time where we're more
concerned with ourselves. We're far more isolationist than we were
fourteen/fifteen years ago. I think we don't exist because I think that society does
not want us to exist at this point.
[Barbara]
Why? Why doesn't society still want students that are trained to spot problems?
Isn't that important to the society? Why would the society want to change its
educational system to turn out technicians? Just technicians?
[Rosalyn]
Well because I think we are entering a very repressive era. I think that where we
have people who are… well, I just I think that we are in a more repressive area or
era at this time. That we are not willing to tolerate each other's foibles, whatever
they are. I think we're far more narrow… it might be an economic thing, that there
is less resources. Even though we live in wealthy environment; there are many,
many more people who don't really have access to that wealth. I'm not really
sure. The problem is that when you are so close to it, it's so hard to tell what it is.
And maybe ten years from now we could look back and say that, you know, it
didn't work at that time because of this reason, or that reason. It's so difficult to
know when you're sort of right there at that moment to be able to analyze it. At
least it's difficult for me.
[Barbara]
If you had to do anything differently about the way things ran here, aside of the
one thing you mentioned, which is not give quite so much power to students,
what would that be?
[Rosalyn]
The other thing would have been to delegate responsibility to each other, and to
accept each other's decision making. Because I think that would've helped us to
prevent this absolute fatigue that overwhelmed us. I think I would've change that.
�[Barbara]
I am out of questions. Anything else you want to say?
[Rosalyn]
I don't know.
[Barbara]
You're very good at this. This was fun.
[Rosalyn]
What else would I say?
[Barbara]
Do you think alternative education is going to come around again?
[Rosalyn]
If, you know, history teaches us anything; it teaches us that there's never
anything new. And that, in fact, you know, everything is a circle. And that I
believe that, once we get through this sort of conservative situation that we are
in, that we will come full circle again. And that, in fact, I don't know if it will be
alternative education as we knew it fifteen years ago. But it might be alternative
education in some other mode. And I would fully expect that we would make, you
know, we--it would come around again, because we tend to go in waves.
Assuming that we're all here, you know. We all survive long enough for it to
happen. I think it will.
[Barbara]
There isn't much tape left, but let me ask you this: when you came to James, you
chose alternative, what is there in your background that made you interested in
this kind of environment? In other words, why did you feel comfortable with
alternative?
[Rosalyn]
Because I don't have a traditional academic background, in a particular academic
field. I've done a whole variety of things, and I have… my life has changed over
the years. I think that one of the main reasons was that I was that I was older. I
think if I had been twenty-two/twenty-three years old, just out of school, I would
not have been as well suited to this particular thing as I was when I came. When
I was in my late-thirties, almost forty years-old. Because I'd had a variety of
experiences in my life.
[Barbara]
Like what?
[Rosalyn]
I had been a professional designer. I had taught.
[Rosalyn]
I had been, you know, I had made the choices between being a working mother,
or a mother that stayed at home. I'd raised a family. I did a lot of traveling. I had a
wide interest in many things. I was interested in things besides art and design. I
was interested in sociology. I had a deep interest in history. I was interested in
cooking and the whole variety of kinds of things. And I think that this allows me to
do it.
�[Barbara]
I'm out of questions and tape now.
[Rosalyn]
What do you think?
[Barbara]
I think it's wonderful.
�
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_04_Muskovitz
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Muskovitz, Rosalyn
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
Rosalyn Muskovitz interview (1 of 2, video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Rosalyn Muskovitz 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. Rosalyn Muskovitz was a faculty member of William James College and in this interview she discusses her background prior to coming to GVSC, the interdisciplinary appeal of this new college, and the strengths and weaknesses of WJC. This interview is part 1 of 2 for Rosalyn Muskovitz.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Roos, Barbara (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Grand Valley State University
Michigan
Universities and colleges
Oral histories
Alternative education
Interdisciplinary approach in education
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a>
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