1 24 66 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a5ebf586a38a740256eb61c049b22f66.mp4 d85f0b989c29931c790ad3bd782d7669 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5fefd6df044f016e68be5bede9225881.pdf e60d6081691d0d5440a0935d4297cb6b PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Adrian Tinsley Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 8 [Barbara] Hit the light. Okay, now I actually am running. [Tinsley] Okay. [Barbara] When you came to James – you know, it would be nice of you to mention when that was, when you actually came as Dean – what did the administration tell you about what was expected at the college? [Tinsley] I came in the summer of nineteen seventy-two. The college had completed one year of operation when I came. I can't say that the administration of Grand Valley told me anything about what they wanted the college today. Let me just start this again. It’s going to take me a little... [Barbara] Well, I'll adjust the shot. [Tinsley] Okay, it's going to take me a little bit to kind of warm up. [Barbara] I know, it always does. [Tinsley] It's like doing a practice interview. [Barbara] It is, so start again and take as many times as you want. I have an entire case of tapes. [Tinsley] Okay. [Barbara] What was it like? What did the administration tell you? "Hi Adrian, here's what you're supposed to do." [Tinsley] Well, I came to the college in nineteen seventy-two. And I can't say that the administration told me anything about what they wanted the college to be. The college had completed its first year of operation. I knew that Grand Valley was beginning a cluster college operation and that William James was the third college and that Grand Valley anticipated that there would be more colleges. That the decision had been taken early in Grand Valley's life – in fact, it had been a plan George Potter's, I believe – that instead of just growing bigger, because �Grand Valley expected to grow significantly. Instead of just growing large, they would develop a whole series of colleges and each would have its own mission and its own curriculum. So, William James… I understood William James was to be part of that. And I understood that there had been a task force to set up William James chaired by Tom Cunningham. And I understood that what was written in the task force document was what the administration wanted the college to be and that was a career-oriented college. What I did not understand was that even at the point at which I arrived at William James – in its second year – there was some significant concern in the Grand Valley administration about the direction that the two cluster colleges, Thomas Jefferson and William James, were taking. [Tinsley] And, in fact, after I had been the Dean of William James for a year, the Vice President to whom I reported, Bruce Loessin, said to me with a big smile: "Well you've really done a good job – the college has survived! Most of us didn't think that was going to happen!" And that was my first indication that there was any question in anybody's mind that the college would survive. [Barbara] Two things about that I didn't understand. I don't understand who Potter is… you made a reference. [Tinsley] Potter was, I believe, a Vice President for Academic Affairs at Grand Valley and the first president of Grand Valley, James Zumberge… I don't know if it was Potter or Zumberge that had the notion of developing a cluster of colleges. They had that idea but didn't implement it. Don Lubbers was the president who caused that to be implemented. [Barbara] Why… I mean, when Loessin said that to you, you must have said whatever [Inaudible]. Why start a college and presume it's going to fail? I don't understand it. [Tinsley] And reasonably enough you don't understand it. William James was supposed to be a career-oriented college. When the first faculty were hired by Bruce Loessin, he took pains to hire a faculty that came from the traditional liberal arts disciplines and were very – not traditional – but very good faculty in the traditional sense. They had good academic degrees. They were not interested in doing career education in the sense that I think Grand Valley had in mind. I think Grand Valley had in mind that William James would be what they later had to start Kirkhof in order to get. So, there was a sense right from the beginning that they were looking for a technical college and William James was becoming something quite different from what they had in mind. But what can they expect, given the faculty that they had hired to found the college? [Barbara] Turn this off for a second. Make sure this thing is running right. I get a certain �amount of neuroses… paranoia, that's the word I'm looking for. Tell me… Ah! Tell me… let’s get you in the shot. [Tinsley] Tell me, whoever you are. [Barbara] Okay. Tell me what the administration said… what did you observe? What was it in total, you know, really meshing all kinds of things? What was going on when you arrived? What kind of place was it? [Tinsley] It was struggling to be born when I arrived. It had been in operation for you a year. It had had no planning time. It had been started just immediately, crack off the bat. After that, the task force report had been completed; an acting dean had been put in; the faculty had been brought in. [Tinsely] And they had no lead time, they were just told that you are open in September and get your curriculum together. So, they were struggling that whole first year to put together a first curriculum and hire a new staff. There was not much opportunity to do anything other than run very hard to accomplish those tasks. But my belief about the college… and I knew it pretty well because I interviewed for its deanship before it started and then did not come at that time…had other commitments and then came a year later. So, I had a chance to talk to Robert Mayberry and Bruce Loessin that very first summer, and then again in the interview process for the second year. What I observed were that the faculty that were at the college took that planning document – the Cunningham Task Force Report – very seriously. And they were about the business of trying to make that happen. And I observed that the most compelling part of it – it certainly was to me and I believe it was to the faculty – was the notion of good work. We had a lot of words for that, you know. Vocation with a "V," career-oriented, the notion of doing something useful in the world. And we struggled a lot because we didn't want this college to be simply career-oriented, but we wanted to have utility to do something useful in the world – to make social change – and there were a whole bunch of ways of talking about that. But that's what I saw when I came… that people were looking at the college to be and that people wanted the college to be. Everybody came to the college with a critique of their own graduate education because we were all young. So, we were very clear about what we wanted the college not to be and, in fact, that was kind of a problem early on. We kept defining ourselves in terms of what we didn't want to be. We didn't want to have grades. We didn't want to have majors and disciplines. We didn't want to have a sterile kind of research focus. So, everybody had their own critique and everybody, I think, also had their own dream of what the perfect college would be, what the perfect society would be. The piece of it that was in the public space right from the beginning was making a difference in the world and that's what I thought people wanted to do in the world. �[Barbara] Change the shot here. [Tinsley] Does the tape pick up your questions? [Barbara] Yes, but what I'll do is redub them because I'm off mic. [Tinsley] Okay, okay. [Barbara] You can hear them, but you have to strain to hear them. [Tinsley] Okay. [Barbara] So I get a chance to clean up my act. [Barbara] James operated as a sovereign state. You would agree? [Tinsley] Yes. [Barbara] Did we seize that sovereignty or was it given to us? [Tinsley] Neither really. We didn't seize it. Seizing implies some kind of resistance. I think in the early years, the Grand Valley administration did not have a particular plan as to how they thought the college should develop or indeed what they wanted from it. We took a lot of freedom, but we didn't really have to fight them for it. [Barbara] If we can just stay in this shot. How did feminism infuse the college? [Tinsley] Well, feminism was extraordinarily important in the college. I think… you obviously are going to have to edit this because I will get rolling in a little bit but I'm not yet. I think feminism was probably one of the most important social forces that operated in the college. It's an interesting mystery why the initial first eight male faculty turned around and hired a number of strong women faculty and the women dean. But that's in fact what happened. I said earlier that everybody brought their own dream to the college. I think the women, in particular, brought a feminist dream and you have to remember this was nineteen seventy-two, so feminism was just really becoming a significant social force. And feminism embraced both notions of, you know, gender equity and also notions about organizational structure. There was a lot of talk in the feminist community at that time about non-hierarchical decision making. About rotating authority. About everybody taking turns doing the job so that everybody got a chance to do all the jobs. A lot of talk about how you didn't want to specialize into male roles and female roles or faculty roles and administrative roles, you know, to go by extension. So, the whole philosophic context of radical feminism came into the college as in many ways as the dream – or at least the strong interest – of a lot of �the women faculty that came. And particularly as it related to, you know, malefemale relations and organizational structures. The men were coming in with the same kind of a dream. They may have come to it through feminism per say or they may have come to it through some other kind of social analysis. But there was general agreement on what our politics and then for the social structure of the college. So, I guess I would say feminism affected the college because there were a lot of women there. I mean we were very unusual in that there were so many women and that the women really were in positions of a good deal of authority, respect, and influence – both formally and informally. Whether they were program coordinates, or the Dean, or whether they were just strong faculty who were “Weighty Friends” in the Quaker sense in the design of the curriculum. Feminism, I think, influenced a lot of our early attempts and organizational structures. [Tinsely] The whole governing structure, the coordinator's temporum, or the notion that we would take turns doing the college's jobs. And I think it influenced the way we treated each other. It influenced what kinds of interactions were acceptable in the public space of college and, indeed, in people's home lives. And I think it was interesting in that regard the ways they interacted with each other – the men and women in college. We never fell into sex roles – or the kinds of gender-based, sex-based teasing – that is real frequent in other situations. The place that feminism didn't affect the college terribly strong was we never developed a very strong Women's Studies program. I often felt as Dean, you know, I was really remiss in the kinds of formal curricular or extracurricular things we could offer our women students. I often saw women students come in, you know, if they’re first in their family going to college, with very conventional aspirations and it was possible for women students to go through this structure that was a college and be a little untouched about what was going on. And I thought that was a real weakness. And I think it came from the fact that the women were so busy in their nontraditional roles - sort of running the college, developing the curriculum – that there really weren't people to spare for developing the more usual Women's Resource Center, Women's Studies program, and the like. [Barbara] I think to me, a question that follows that when we were interviewing faculty, we went through these long interview processes – forty-eight-hour things – and we always knew what we were looking for. What were we looking for? [Tinsley] Well, I think the easy answer to that is we were looking for people like ourselves. But what did it mean to be like us? I think we were looking for some sort of real evidence of commitment to social change. We were looking at people's politics. We had political litmus tests and I think there's… you know, we shouldn't blink that fact. I can remember interviewing a candidate for psychologist at one point – a woman – and she was asked something that had to do with feminism and then she responded that she didn't care to define herself; she didn't care to take on a �label. It was very important to us that people we label that they have politics. So, I think we were looking for that. I think we were looking for breadth. I think we were looking for people that were interested in a lot of things. And I think we were looking for people that weren't interested in sort of narrow, discipline based, traditional academic interest. I think we found them kind of pompous and kind of boring. We could know us when we saw us. But how you'd write that down on paper it isn't really clear. Except we did know us when we saw us, and we were anti-pomposity and we were pro-politics. But our politics had a very broad definition. We were pretty inclusive in our politics, but we demanded that people have politics, I believe. [Barbara] It’s coming up to the… conveniently this blinks at me when we’re running out of tape. [Tinsley] Okay, okay. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_26_Tinsley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tinsley, Adrian 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 Adrian Tinsley interview (1 of 8, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Adrian Tinsley 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. Adrian Tinsley was Dean of William James College from 1972 until 1980. In this interview, Adrian discusses her arrival at William James College during its second year of operation, in addition to how feminism infused the college. This interview is part 1 of 8 for Adrian Tinsley. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College administrators Women college administrators Women in higher education Feminism Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/354f3ad1f96b741ab62276b0aeb34e68.mp4 baa701d267c1fb3b7ffeb14aacdcabc3 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ddd97b05c966bf3ee59f9b5f4e0e1cdb.pdf a1814268b269c8fe86f32b0836c9badf PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Adrian Tinsley Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 8 [Barbara] And I'm rolling. [Tinsley] Okay. [Barbara] And I wanted to ask you: we refer to some mysterious beast called a “real William James student.” What's a real William James student? [Tinsley] Well, again, you know, a real William James student – you knew one when you saw one. We wanted students to take responsibility for their own education; we painted it up on the walls in Lake Superior Hall… that wonderful cartoon of the student we didn't want which was somebody having knowledge poured into his head through a funnel. We wanted students to do it themselves. And so, a real William James student was a person who knew what he or she wanted to learn and took their own route in getting there. [Barbara] I just screwed up, Adrian; I just pulled the panhandle. Can you repeat the last part? [Tinsley] Sure. [Barbara] I’m sorry. [Tinsley] A real William James student was a student who knew what he or she wanted to learn and desired to take responsibility for learning it. Wanted to use the faculty as resource people. Wanted to figure out how to learn and was willing to hustle to, you know, really move their butt to get what they needed. Willing to go to a lot of sources and use a lot of resources. Had some drive and motivation. I think in the early days, the real William James student was somebody who was specifically seeking an alternative education, who shared the views of the faculty. In the areas, for example, of grading. That letter grading was at the root of all evil. Who wanted the freedom to design their own way of studying things, who wanted to do independent studies. And as those students became fewer and fewer in number because we had many more those of in the early days of the college, you know, then I think the real William James student became simply the one with energy. The one who was self-initiating. �[Barbara] How did we teach them this? [Tinsley] I don't think we taught them to it, they came with us. They came with us. [Barbara] But there was a phenomenon of students who were lost for a year and then turned it on. [Tinsley] Well, that's true. But I don't know how that happened. But you have to remember, I was not in the classroom teaching the students so that I got to know the good students and I got to know the problem students. [Tinsely] But I could not explain how that mystery actually happened in the classroom because I wasn't there. [Barbara] Let me grab my notepad out of here. Oh, the rocking adds a nice comfortable touch. We were profoundly egalitarian, and yet you were in a leadership role. How does one lead a commune? [Tinsley] That is a very good question, and I must say what I learned about leadership in that situation… that's probably the most important learning I took from the college actually. I guess I'd answer that by saying I didn't go to William James; I didn't set out to be the leader. I didn't know enough to know I was supposed to set out to be the leader. And I think one of the things that is important about William James and my contribution to it is that not only were all the faculty very young, I was very young. I have never been a dean before. I didn't know, really, what deans we're supposed to do. All of us made this college up out of we what we knew. And all of us had a critique, but none of us really knew how to make the college happen. I think it's important for the college that I did not arrived with an agenda. I arrived responsive to the same social climate that everyone else was responsive to. We had a variety of ideologies, a variety of critiques, but I didn't go there saying "I am the Dean and this is my vision of alternative education". I think that the role that I played… and I don't want to give the impression that I was the colleges facilitator, because I don't view what I did in that way. But I think what I did I think I had the gift of being able to understand what kind of vision for the college motivated most of the people who were there. And they were very different visions and I think my gift was to be able to find some common ground among those visions that we could agree to and put that in the public space and affirm it. And I think that – as I thought about in later years - I think that is probably the quintessential quality of leadership. Pat Labone used to say to me that what the dean should do is read the litany. She had a Catholic childhood and there was some real truth to that. I often used to long to have a chapel and William James that everyone was required to attend so the little inspirational speeches could be made. I think it's important that an institution have that and I think that I brought that to the college. And I think that I had the ability to bridge �among the various kinds of faculty at the college. I think it was extraordinarily important to success of the college that I could talk to heavy male synoptic types, that I could talk that language and that I valued that. I think it was important that I could talk to the women. And I think it was important that I could talk to the people who brought professional skills into the college but more scared, frustrated, and sometimes irritated at the quality of intellectual discourse that went on because they felt insecure about participating in it. And I truly believed there was room for everybody. And I think that I kind of could embody that. And I think I also – in terms of leadership – was able to work with the college's peerpressure structure. [Tinsely] Because you can't tell people to do things and you can't make people do things, and an administrator has to work with what's there. You can say "no" but you can't make it happen. And so, the trick to it is to be able to mobilize the energy that's there, give it some focus, and get people on the same wavelength. And the college had very strong norms of behavior. I mean there was a lot of peer pressure in the college that said, I believe, what faculty were supposed to do and what they were not supposed to do. And I think I was able to work with that and I think I was able to find some constructive channels for using people's energy. Not always, but if there was a trick to operating as a leader in that kind of setting, that's how I would describe it. [Barbara] But surely what you just described at the end of your answer would be true of being an administrator at any college. [Tinsley] Yeah, it is, but it was more so at William James because we had a rhetoric about – and said and really meant – that we were non-hierarchical. I think that's how the whole critical issue format developed, which I think was a very healthy one for the college. As inexperienced as I was – and I really was absolutely green when I came to William James as Dean – and I remember, practically, the first week that I was there we were drafting the governance document for the college. And that was drafted by Robert and Inge and it was very elaborate, and it was really a model for participatory form of governance that worked neither on hierarchy nor Roberts Rules of Order, which was what we wanted. But even though I was I very green and I looked at that and I said: "Wait a minute, the Dean has responsibility beyond, simply in a consensus fashion, gathering the will of the faculty and implementing it.” There are probably issues at the college that I am responsible for and there are issues that the faculty is responsible for, and yet we’re all responsible for all of this together – how can we sort that out? And out of that came the notion of a critical issue. That most of the times we would all be on the same wavelength about what we wanted to have happen. But because we had different responsibilities and sat, in a sense, in different chairs, there might be times when the college would want to do X, but I would know it couldn't. It absolutely couldn't. And thus, was born, you know, the critical issue and the �veto. An elaborate way of saying: "But the college says this and the Dean said that, the Dean would say 'no.'" And then you'd go back and discuss it some more. And you might still come out with yes and no but their would be ways so… I didn't abrogate what was my real responsibility to make sure that in matters of relating to the structure at Grand Valley, the college didn't harm itself. And that the college at some basic level operated in the way it ought to: in trust from the people of Michigan, through the Board of Control, you know, through the President, and down to me. I had real, legal, responsibilities there. [Tinsley] And yet at the same time I was a member of the community and wanted to be involved in the process of working out what the college was going to be and do. Because I didn't know. So, I was both part of the process and outside of the process. [Barbara] Presuming that some people are going to see this tape that have no direct experience with James, would you care to give an example of a critical issue that actually came up? [Tinsley] Yes. The critical issues came up around hiring issues and around money. And two examples were: at one point the council voted to hire a faculty member and I felt the decision was untenable, that it was made not because the person was the best candidate, but because there were a great many…the person was known to us, there were many personal feelings involved. And I felt it would be irresponsible of me to let that decision go forward, so I vetoed it. Another issue came when we had a very elaborate, as you will recall, salary administration policy. And which I did not like, but never really interfered in because I felt that was the faculty's business to determine. I did not approve of it. In one particular year, it works to really the detriment of an older member of the faculty who was going to end up with a less than a cost of living raises as a result of the operation of this policy and I said "No, that would not be acceptable." There may have been others that were more, you know, policy issues but I don't recall them. One of the interesting things was that these issues arose very rarely because we have did most of our work by persuading one another. It was very interesting; we were frequently compared with Thomas Jefferson College because we were both alternative colleges of sort of different kinds of stripes. I thought, and I think many people agree, that there were very different leadership styles at the two colleges. Thomas Jefferson was run by guru, a bearded, alternative education dean who put his picture on the front of all the colleges brochures. And then, in fact, the early brochures, you know, showed his face with his beard and the little legend was: "This man runs a college." The faculty at Thomas Jefferson seem to be very pleased to have a dean who would be their guru and who would not tell them what to do exactly but would take care of them. That was basically what it amounted to, would take care of them. And we had a model that was much more political. Our model was: everybody had to understand how this works, �everybody has to have an operator manual because we all have to understand the political context we're working in order for to work, I guess. I don't want to say, "We won't survive," because we didn't sit around thinking "Well, maybe it won't survive." But we all had to understand it. [Tinsely] And I felt really strongly about that and I think most of the faculty felt strongly about that. And I was not there to, you know, be there to take care of them, and they were not there to be, you know, recipients of somebody's guruism. I think that was real important as to how we worked. It was like a marriage, it really was. People called me Adrian, but if they were really angry at me, they referred to me as the Dean and I didn't like that, you know. I can recall saying: "I am not the Dean!" or "I am Dean, but my name is Adrian!" So, there was, you know… I don't quite know where I'm going with the rest of that answer but… [Barbara] Let me check on the tape. Ah, look there! See, I have this sixth sense. � 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_27_Tinsley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tinsley, Adrian 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 Adrian Tinsley interview (2 of 8, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Adrian Tinsley 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. Adrian Tinsley was Dean of William James College from 1972 until 1980. In this interview, Adrian discusses what makes a "real William James student" and her experience as a first-time dean of William James College. This interview is part 2 of 8 for Adrian Tinsley. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College administrators Women college administrators Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/87ae057bb80134a199788b0801fac231.mp4 9b6d9cb5256e7ae095f44fae10bcfb88 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d532358870b38f47b104952ec650a917.pdf 44e7f725305ce13c81a99d6004dfe4b3 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Adrian Tinsley Date: 1984 Part: 3 of 8 [Barbara] There you go. There’s a good tape… [inaudible]. Okay, we’re a go. Just tell me, just [inaudible] about the beginning. [Tinsley] Well, what I really remember about the beginning – although, of course, I didn't realize it at the time – was we were all so young. I sometimes think about the three older faculty who are in their fifties, who were hired because the initial core faculty had some sense that we ought to have a spread of age and experience in the college, which was an absolutely right instinct. But I wonder what it must have felt like to Willard and Doris and Phyllis to arrive with this entire college that was so very, very, very young. And I look at the pictures of us from those days, and it's kind of interesting to see us. We were very concerned to build a sense of community in the college and that expressed itself in a lot of ways. The first year, I recall, the first fall that I was there we decided to go on a retreat together. And we all packed up our camping gear and we went off. I can't even remember where – somewhere on a river. I remember being out on a rowboat with Pat and Inge and Romano. I remember that Robert wouldn't go because he didn't believe in going camping. And I remember that Richard expressed the sentiments that he would not know how to pack the right food and he was hooted down for the sentiment and told that he would have to work like everyone else. We had the phrase – which I'm sure many people have referred to – we wanted to integrate our work and our lives. We wanted to be an intentional community. In some ways, as the years went on, that wore a little thin as we realize that the integrating our work and our lives meant basically abolishing our private lives. And spouses were not always thrilled to be part this of intimate, intentional community. But I remember the first fall… our way of doing business was typified by the first fall. We had a confrontation. One of the students, a black student, whose name I have forgotten… I may be putting two or three incidents together. But there was some real criticism of how we were doing business. I believe it came from a black student, although I have forgotten his name at the moment. And to deal with that, we simply shut college down for a day and all got together to talk about it. And that seemed to be the most reasonable thing in the world to do. Toni Cena wrote a very moving statement which she read. I can remember us all sitting around on the floor, talking earnestly about whatever these charges were that had been brought, and how we can do better as a college, and how students could take more of a hand in the college. And that seemed the most natural way in the world to do business and very, very good. And we did a lot of �that. I remember the first year we painted the walls of Lake Superior together and that was very nice. And I can remember – or maybe it was the second year – Rhonda was the Assistant Dean, and I can remember people painting mustaches on me and Rhonda and taking pictures of us. [Tinsley] I had a good friend that I worked with in the Modern Language Association who visited me in the first year and I brought her out to the college and showed her around and she turned to me and says: "You can't fool me, Adrian. I know what a college is; this is not a college; this is a summer camp." I always remembered that because I took that as a compliment. There was a real attention to community. [Barbara] Where did that attention come from? Where did that ethic come from? [Tinsley] Well, I think Robert, as he did so many things and gave it articulation. We were – this is not Robert 's formulation – we were not to be alienated from our labor. That's not Robert 's formulation; Robert would have talked about not being cynical. Robert would have talked about, you know, controlling the conditions of your work life so that they were human and met your human needs. They came from the whole movement in the sixties to make work life more responsive to human needs. And I think most of us had felt very alienated in our graduate kind of experiences… had felt we were part of big faceless bureaucracies. It was also a time in American history where there were an awful lot of communes. It was right in the middle of the “back to the commune” movement. So, I think it came from those places. And then once we were all there, is when it kind of took on a life of its own. And I think was, probably for me, it was one of the very, very appealing parts of the college. That it was not only a workplace, but it was a place where you really were yourself, and you know, in a sort of a whole human way. [Barbara] Some people I have talked to acted as though there were two William James Colleges: the early one and the late one. Would you comment on that? With the kinds of things you're talking about, how much of that persists? Or why did it change if it changed to something other? [Tinsley] Yeah. Well, I like to like think it persisted. And for me, of course it persisted. [Barbara] Me, too. [Tinsley] So I don't have the sense of their being two colleges. The college changed in its externals. The college change in some of the externals of its organization to reflect demands that came about as Grand Valley put them on William James, and as the State of Michigan put them on Grand Valley. I learned as I'd gotten older a lot more about the kind of demands that come from the outside that mean �you don't operate as free agent, if you're looking to the state for your money. And as Grand Valley began to get its act together. You asked me earlier what Grand Valley wanted from William James. Grand Valley didn't have its act together, they didn't know how they were going to develop. As they began to get their act together, they wanted William James to fit into their structure. [Tinsely] And so we began to have to do some things to suit Grand Valley. For example, we always had a great deal of flack around the title of the course, "Uptight About Writing" – it became symbolic of kind of conflict we were always in. The faculty thought that the title absolutely expressed with that course was about. The Grand Valley administration thought that that course title made William James look silly and made Grand Valley look silly. We did a lot of changing of external things so that Grand Valley didn't feel it was looking silly. Some of that was legitimate, I think. So, my view was that what changed a lot was our way of fitting into the bureaucracy. The student body changed, you know. That seemed very real to me even though I was not, myself, in the classroom often. I taught maybe once a year. I could tell the students were changing. And the students wanted different things. And I think that's where the sense that there were two William James' comes from. The later students came because we had an Arts and Media program. They just wanted to learn what they, you know, were supposed to learn so they can get jobs in arts and media. The kind of students that really wanted to direct their own education, we had very few of them towards the end. So, I think that was a real change. But for me the other stuff was superficial. [Barbara] I would argue, being in Arts and Media, some of the guys that just graduated and the last people to graduate… I interviewed one of them, and he's typical, okay? And pissed off because they took James away. And he articulates and personifies something that is far more than just a hard nose, "I now have my professional stuff and I'm going out in the world." He talks about being in Steven's class before William James was closed and afterwards and the difference in the other student. You know what I mean? [Tinsley] Yeah, oh yeah. [Barbara] I'm still not convinced it's just the students changed. [Tinsley] Well, it may not be. But my first answer to the question: I didn't feel there was an early William James and a late William James. Perhaps there was in a sense that we were younger earlier and it was fresher. We believed it was a good idea to all go camping with one another. Probably after ten years, we didn't think it was a good idea to all go camping with one another. But that's just sort of time passes and, you know, life happens to you. I didn't think what was at the center of the college changed much. I really didn't. �[Barbara] That makes two of us. [Tinsley] [Laughter] [Barbara] Where did the seminal ideas come from? We talk about feminism – and that's really important – but how did William James actually… it seems like a miracle. I don't understand how James suddenly, genuinely, infused the college… something that had been dead for X number of years, you know. [Tinsley] I think it came from a really happy confluence of a lot of streams of thought and a lot of things that were happening. I think we all acknowledge we were awfully lucky to get the name "William James" and I don't think we thought that up. I believe Tom Cunningham named the college, so we had that to work with. We also had that very thoughtful document that the task force had put together, which embodied a lot of the ideas of the late sixties but pointed forward in his emphasis on careers. So, it gave us something we could kind of sink our teeth into. I think we came from a lot of different intellectual places. We were just Godgiven lucky that it just worked together. Robert, for example, whom I knew the best of anyone because I had known Robert – we had been graduate students together at Cornell. Robert was very interested in the philosophic base the college was working off. He cared passionately about not making what he used to call invidious distinctions between the liberal arts and practical subjects. Roberts was a person… it was very important to Robert to view himself as, simultaneously, a philosopher and a practical man. From his philosophic side came many of the ideas that carried the college forward. And then in the next year also from Stephen. For me, I didn't come to it by reading philosophy. I came to it by teaching at the University of Maryland in the English department. The University of Maryland had, like, fifty thousand students on the College Park campus. There were over one hundred faculty in the English department. And I couldn't figure out what anyone was doing there. I used to look out over the rows of parking lots and say: "I know why I'm here; I'm getting paid to be here. But why are the students here?" I really didn't understand that. It was the late sixties and early seventies. All of the students who were majoring in English were paralyzed, they didn't know what to do with the lives, their degrees we're not going to fit them to do anything, the Vietnam War was going on. The students I knew spent most of their time smoking dope and being very scared. And really not knowing how to interact with the world that was going to greet them when they left the University of Maryland with a kind of a third-rate degree in English literature. For me to come to a college that was going to put some emphasis on being able to do in the world was really important. I mean I cared passionately about that and when I was interviewed, the Grand Valley administration said to me: "Well you have a PhD in English literature, what makes you think you can be the Dean of a college that is practical?" And I said: "You just don't know how much I desire this. This is the desire of my heart." And then I think feminism came in also, with its �stress on theory and practice. I think a lot of people came to the college from an ideologically feminist perspective wanting to combine those two. [Tinsley] So all that came together. And I don't want to say we were just lucky, but we were living at a historic moment where it could come together. [Barbara] This comes from another question that I forgot to ask you. What is a male synoptic heavy? [Tinsley] Oh, a male synoptic heavy? Well, that's the men in the college and it was interesting how it did tend to divide on gender line. [Barbara] Oh damn. Adrian, I just moved the damn thing again. [Tinsley] Oh well, we'll do it again. [Barbara] Keep going anyway. [Tinsley] One of the tensions in the college was that a compelling interest in discussing the philosophical base of the college seemed to divide along gender lines. It divided, to some extent, on professionals versus the liberal arts line, but really it was on gender lines. And there were a group of men that were perceived as the male synoptic heavies, and they carried the flame of the sort of philosophic base of the college. The women saw themselves, in many ways, more as the doers and tended to rely, in many ways, more with the professional faculty. And yet those two had to talk to one another. One of the tensions in the college had to do with one's synoptic credentials. Only on a tape about William James College could one talk with a straight face about one's synoptic credentials. But I can remember at faculty retreat, prior to one of our years, in which we had facilitators come in to get us going for the year. And that's what came out – that there seemed to be a distinction between the philosophers, the synoptians – those who were seen as guarding the flame of those who were appropriately liberal artsy and the others. It was an interesting tension in the college and people felt very insecure about it. The man who did not see themselves as the liberal arts heavies felt very insecure about it, as did some of the women. The women in the college who have those credentials to be synoptic heavies were sometimes impatient with it. I felt that I could really relate to both sides, and those were the strengths. And that the college needed both… because one of the things that gave the college power was that it did have a concept – it really did – and that gave it enormous power. [Barbara] Concept of? [Tinsley] Theory and practice. And using theory and practice to make a difference in the world. �[Tinsely] And we spread out from there – the concept got broader from there. But it had that core concept. [Barbara] End of tape. Good answer. � 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_28_Tinsley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tinsley, Adrian 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 Adrian Tinsley interview (3 of 8, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Adrian Tinsley 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. Adrian Tinsley was Dean of William James College from 1972 until 1980. In this interview, Adrian discusses her memories of the early years at William James College and the importance of community, in addition to how the college developed over time and the role of feminism in theory and practice. This interview is part 3 of 8 for Adrian Tinsley. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College administrators Women college administrators Women in higher education Feminism Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/14658cb13005e4c207bd82efbcb54138.mp4 ec8e601ad6311d86c6027e320ed57869 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b14e73f4cd28bbe0f70381f282ef762a.pdf c143e2bb8723b3c16a980e7665f3bef3 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Adrian Tinsley Date: 1984 Part: 4 of 8 [Tinsley] Yeah, test at the end. [Barbara] Question will be: [inaudible] the administration at Grand Valley, at various times, would give you, sort of, “We're not completely happy – shape up” or “You're doing very well – this is going to go on forever.” Did you get that kind of feedback from [inaudible]? [Tinsley] Yeah. [Barbara] That's not phrased very well, is it? Do you know what I mean? [Tinsley] Yeah. It's another version of "What did the administration think was happening." [Barbara] Yeah. Okay, anytime you feel comfortable. Let me just double-check that we’re rolling. Yeah, we are. What kind of feedback were you getting from the administration? [Tinsley] It's interesting that I'm having a difficult time answering questions about feedback from the administration at Grand Valley and there were really two parts to the administration at Grand Valley. The first phase was during the period that I reported to Bruce Loessin. And I might just say, parenthetically, that one of wonderful things about being totally greenhorn, an inexperienced dean, and being a woman and never having served in the army, I was told I reported to Bruce Loessin. I guess the first year I reported to Harold Colbert; I had no clue what it meant to report to somebody. I had no notion what the term meant or that I was supposed to tell them what was going on in the college and that was what it meant. But from the college’s second year, up until about nineteen seventyseven, I would guess, Grand Valley had a structure which differentiated where the colleges reported. And William James and Thomas Jefferson reported to Bruce Loessin and the other colleges reported to Glenn Niemeyer. That function was split. In seventy-seven, or whenever the reorganization took place… it may be seventy-seven, maybe seventy-eight. Let me start this answer again Barbara. Okay. [Barbara] No harm. �[Tinsley] Let me think about it for a minute first. Okay, the question that you asked is what kind of feedback, criticism, encouragement, direction that you got from the administration of Grand Valley. There were really two administrations at Grand Valley during the time that William James existed. During the first administration, I reported – William James reported – to Bruce Loessin. Grand Valley had a structure in which the vice presidents were all equal and they were all called the Vice President of the College. [Tinsley] Bruce was, at that time, the vice president of the college William James and also Thomas Jefferson reported to him. This is not just a bureaucratic thing of interest to administrators. Bruce was responsible for William James and for Thomas Jefferson and so he wanted us to do well, as well as he wanted us to do good and fight evil. And he bent his fairly considerable energies to helping us do that and to fighting our battles. You didn't ask if I had any mentor at Grand Valley; if I ever did, it was Bruce. He was a kind of funny mentor, you know, a little short guy. People used to laugh about little, short Bruce and his high heels. But he looked out for William James because it was his – it reported to him. What I got from him was: "You’ve got to make it so it looks like the other colleges. You can't be out there looking weird. I don't want to change anything you're doing; I don't want to change you. I think William James is great and I think you have the finest faculty at Grand Valley, but you have to not look weird." And that was really, to tell you the truth, that was right. Bruce was right about that. He would give me a little pep talk about not looking weird. I'd go back; try to get us not to look weird. But he helped us, you know? He would fight for us when we had clashes about who was going to offer what or were we going to be able to get our name out in advertising brochures. Bruce was there fighting for us. So, he had an interest in us. And seventy-seven or seventy-eight… this was a bizarre structure at Grand Valley with these deans, the vice presidents at the college and the academic units reporting lines split. Don changed the reporting structure and Glenn became the Vice President for Academic Affairs and all of the collegiate units reported to Glenn. Now, you have to understand I'm not saying anything about Glenn or Bruce personally; I'm talking about structure. The day that reorganization came down, Bruce took me to lunch at the Matterhorn and he said: "I just want you to know, that I've always been on your side, always before, and I have really busted my ass to make sure William James got its fair share and survived, and I've been your friend, but you need to know that I'm on the other side now." And I said: "Right. I understand that. I appreciate your just saying that upfront, you know? Thanks for everything Bruce." And in some ways, I mean, you could say that was the beginning of the end. When the college is reported to a different vice president, what it felt like was you had your very own knight. When I needed something, I went to Bruce; CAS needed something, they went to Glenn. Then Bruce and Glenn got into their suits of armor and rode out to go like this to one another. And, you know, sometimes one won, sometimes the other, but the Dean just kind of sat back, you know, and waited to see who was �going to triumph. When all the units reported to Glenn, we had entered the era of rational planning and the emphasis went to program. When the units reported up different lines the emphasis was on, not program distinctiveness, but distinctiveness of mission, distinctiveness of student body, distinctiveness ethos. [Tinsley] When all the students reported to the same vice president – and maybe this would have been true whoever the vice president was. I'm suggesting that I think a lot of the issues were structural; the issue then was which college will do what? We'll have a rational plan, and programmatically, we'll differentiate programmatically, you know. And I think people do have to understand that this was not an individual decision that Glenn made because he was an individual; it had to do with rational planning with the kind of accountability that he had placed on him. Because we were entering a time of much tighter money and Grand Valley couldn't really afford to have computer science programs in both places. It was confusing, it was messy, and it was expensive. So that's the apologia. What actually happened when we started reporting to Glenn was that the whole emphasis went on programs and on new programs. What Glenn wanted from Williams James was that it would develop new, sexy new programs that would attract new students and that could give us a niche that we could occupy. And we fiddled with a lot of things there, at one point, I mean, computers was our thing. At another point it was going to be environmental science and planning; at another point it was going to be social work. The problem that happened there… rational planning might've worked as a model, but the units were of such a different size and political power. We could make all the bargains we liked, we can say "We'll do social work and you do nursing. We'll do arts and media and you do fine arts." But every time a decision was made, we do this and they'll do that, and what we were doing looked interesting or looked like it was drawing students, then the other unit wanted to do it. And we didn't have it – I don't think it was the political clout – we didn't have the size. There were too many faculty angry that little William James got to do this and they didn't get to do it. And so those faculty would go to Glenn or they would go to Don. And Grand Valley was governed in a political way. It was and probably still is on the political model. There are books written about styles of academic governance and you can have the bureaucratic model, and you can have the hierarchical model, and you can have the political model. And Grand Valley was governed in the political and that meant that we couldn't keep our gains. So, the problem for us was that Glenn would say: "Develop some new programs." And our tongues would hang out and we'd say: "My god, we developed a whole new college. We've got zillions of programs. We've got three programs per faculty member." You know? We need to consolidate some programs; we need to grow some programs; we need to develop; you know, we need to let some programs get bigger and stronger. When we got good stuff, we'd lose it. We couldn't hang on to it. �[Barbara] Like what? [Tinsley] Like computers. I suppose that was a real good example. [Tinsley] The deal was, initially, when I went to the college that the math department wanted to do computer science. Right at the beginning, the math department had an opportunity to hire Ken Hunter and had refused to do it. And William James had hired Ken Hunter. Ken had a genius for understanding how to teach the use of computers in business and applied context. And that's what our students wanted to learn. And he built a super program in that area. It was called Administration and Information Management. Very strong in information management. And it was very clear where the lines were. It was rational planning. Mathematics Department did computer science and students who did that went to graduate school and they became computer scientist and if you wanted to be an information managing specialist and work in business in an applied way, you went to William James. Along about the middle or end of the seventies, it became clear that we were in a gold mine; we were sitting on a gold mine. We were sitting on top and what everybody wanted to do. And the math department began to want to do it. And the math department had a lot of political power at Grand Valley. The lines were clear, you know, there was no question about what the agreements were. But there was a lot of political issues, so Don Lubbers set up a task force to look into the matter. And he hired a consultant who came and spent a couple of months on the campus one summer looking into the matter. And then he called a meeting and we all trooped into the President's office to have the meeting at which we were going to decide what was going to happen with computer science. And Don VanderJagt went in from the College of Arts and Sciences; Bruce Klein at that point was already in the College of Arts and Sciences or maybe he was with us, I can't remember this. The punchline of the story was VanderJagt trooped with the Dutch guys from Holland and this area and William James trooped in with the woman, the Jew, and the Martian. And I thought: "I think I know how this is going to turn out." In the end, you know, I suppose I should be careful putting that statement on this tape. [Barbara] Maybe you need to say that again. [Tinsley] Yes, probably… I will say that again. [Barbara] Why don't I change the shot… it's accurate, but I don't think you're really… [Inaudible]. [Tinsley] Yeah. [Barbara] Okay, let’s see. So, then William James trooped in. You can go from there. �[Tinsley] Yeah, so then William James trooped in with a fine program, but we didn't have the political clout of the people that had been at Grand Valley for a very long time and we're very close friends of Niemeyer and of Lubbers. [Tinsley] We were a smaller unit; we didn't have nearly the potential to make trouble for Lubbers that CAS had to make trouble for Lubbers. So, somehow we ended up losing out. Now the way in which we lost out was not that Don said: "I've thought about this and on the face of it the College of Arts and Sciences is a bigger unit, it has more students, it makes more sense for the program to be there." Don said: "I've thought about it and it doesn't make sense for me to prevent the College of Arts and Sciences from doing it. I'm not going to prevent them from doing it. I certainly want you to keep doing it; you're doing a wonderful job. Let many flowers bloom." And when you broke down the trade agreements and let many flowers bloom, it was very hard for William James to compete. So that's why it was very hard for us to hang onto students, because we were a smaller unit. Now you might ask me, it might be good question to say: "Why was it hard for William James to compete, you know, in an atmosphere that said 'let many flowers bloom.'" And that's the real question. Because we were smaller, because we were viewed as an alternative, because as the decade began to draw to a close, people in large numbers began to be a little afraid. Maybe they always were, but it was a little closer to the surface of their mind, they didn't want to go to a school that was weird. So, if you wanted a real straight-line thing, like computers in relation to business, and you had your choice of taking it at CAS or in William James, chances were unless you were an unusual student, you would take it at CAS. Because we really were an alternative to that. And yet it meant it was hard for us to hold onto our programs if they took equipment because we couldn't develop enough students. That was a rambling answer, but you can maybe use parts of it. [Barbara] It's blinking at me anyway. [Tinsley] Okay. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_29_Tinsley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tinsley, Adrian 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 Adrian Tinsley interview (4 of 8, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Adrian Tinsley 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. Adrian Tinsley was Dean of William James College from 1972 until 1980. In this interview, Adrian discusses the two administrations at Grand Valley during the time of William James College and how the college developed over time. This interview is part 4 of 8 for Adrian Tinsley. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College administrators Women college administrators Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/21006ae57ddf7f3e23506b884642356e.mp4 f37ac2cb1e5e843082adab1b0311588d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7e428a4e09dbdc4c76a863dedfae8083.pdf 558a57f961c0488dfb7f959fe7009be4 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Adrian Tinsley Date: 1984 Part: 5 of 8 [Barbara] It’s meant to warm up [the camera]. [Tinsley] Okay. [Barbara] Okay. We are balanced. [Tinsley] Okay. [Barbara] When you left… [Tinsley] When I left… [Barbara] Yeah. Did you think that we would…how long did you think we would survive? [Tinsley] When I left, I didn't think the college would not survive, but I thought it was problematic. And the reason I thought that is that the college was getting smaller. We were finding it more difficult to hold onto programs. I started thinking about leaving in seventy-nine, actually the end of seventy-eight, and left in the summer of nineteen eighty. And I left for two reasons. The compelling reason was I needed a rest. I needed to find out who I was when I wasn't being the Dean. If I could've gotten a year’s sabbatical, I probably would have stayed. And I discussed that with Glenn and while he was not opposed to a sabbatical, he felt that he couldn't spare the Dean for more than three months. And there was some reason to that. In any case, I decided I would simply move it on. Another thing in my thinking about that was that I did not see how Grand Valley could continue to put the kind of money into administrative salaries it was putting into to run the collegiate structure. I thought that the collegiate structure was getting marginal from a financial perspective. If you think about what it cost to have at William James, a Dean. We had – for most of our time – an Assistant Dean at least part time. We ran the Records Office – Hank Mei's operation. We put money, you know, modest amounts of money into Student Services – that was a lot of overhead. If you counted that up that was probably a hundred thousand dollars a year in the administration of William James College. We were smaller than many departments. I mean, we were twenty-two, twenty-four faculty. If I looked at Grand Valley – and you remember at Grand Valley at its peak was at six collegiate units and by the time it ended was at four – that’s a lot of salaries and �administrative overhead and that made me nervous. So, I thought that was problematic about the college's survival and I was just tired. I thought I needed to do something else. It's, you know, it was a long… I was Dean, what, eight years, I guess. And that's a number of years of working very hard and cheerleading so I needed a rest. When I left, I said to myself: "This is a window in the college’s history. Right at this moment, I perceive us as very secure, nothing is threatening us. It is time for me to leave and this is a good moment to leave," because I didn't want to close the college – that was last thing I wanted to do. And so that’s kind of why I decided to leave and when I decided to leave. [Tinsley] And at the time I decided to leave, I did not think we were in any danger, though I was well aware of what the administration of those collegiate units was costing. And I was also, by the way, well aware - and I haven't said this on this tape - you know, if you think about it, the Deans of the two alternative colleges were women. Women were pretty well represented at Grand Valley during the time I was there. But we were running the alternative colleges and I said, and I remember saying this, you know: "When we choose the next Dean, we have to choose someone who's more like them. We have to try to get this embedded in Grand Valley." So, I was not, you know, looking for another woman. I was hoping that the college would get someone who could maybe do a better job than I had of getting the college really embedded in the Grand Valley social structure. And those were my thoughts as I left. [Barbara] It occurs to me that it in your last answer, you said there were two levels of administration and you talked about Bruce Loessin. What kind of feedback did you get from the other level? [Tinsley] You mean from Glenn or from Don. [Barbara] I don't know. [Tinsley] Oh, the second… once we started reporting to Glenn, I talked about getting feedback about programs. Glenn certainly never said anything to me to suggest anything other than he supported William James and he was working very hard to understand William James. He found a lot of it incomprehensible, but I believe he did work to understand it. And I believe as long as he thought it was supportable, he worked to support it. That's not a very good answer. [Barbara] Okay, I understand. I was envisioning Lubbers. [Tinsley] Yeah. Let me talk a little bit about… you know, some question like: were there any major threats to the college or… [Barbara] Yeah, what were they? �[Tinsley] You’ll remember that towards the end of the seventies, things starting to get – financially – really tough in Michigan. And Grand Valley had to go through a retrenchment and reallocation, and I believe that happened in seventy-nine. And that was the first serious and significant threat to the college. And that one, we came out of okay. And I guess I'd like to talk a little bit about that because I don't think many colleges could handle that situation the way that we did. [Tinsley] The deans were not involved in making the decision to reduce and reallocate; that was done at the level above us. We were simply brought together and told Grand Valley was going to reduce and reallocate; that it was probably going to cut Thomas Jefferson and that we had to prepare budgets. Well let me go back because I want to get this accurate. I'm going to pick that up again. The deans were brought together and told that Grand Valley was looking at a shortfall of money that we were going to reduce and reallocate. And we were given targets. We were given, I think, three levels of targets for cutting: the deepest, the middle, and the lightest. And we were told to go home and figure out how to do that. To go home to our college. Go home, it sounds like home, we go home and figure out how we do that and come back prepared to meet those three levels of cuts. And also, to figure out where the new money would be reallocated. The family obviously didn't want to do that. I mean that is a very painful thing to do. But when I went back to William James, and I remember that afternoon because I went back on a Friday afternoon to say: "The news is we’re going to have to reduce and reallocate; here are the levels we have to shoot for." I said, "How do you want to do this? If you like, I'll just do it. If you like, you can. I am open to suggestions; we'll do this any way you want to." And the faculty… it wasn't a council meeting; it was just the faculty. We didn't take any votes, people just said: "Look Adrian, let's make a committee of people that we all agree we trust and then you guys just do it and come back and tell us what you've done, and we'll tell you if it's okay." So, a committee was made of Robert and Barry and Kathleen. The next morning at five in morning, the phone rang and my father was dead. So, he died literally the next morning. And that committee came over and we sat around my dining room table before I flew off to my father's funeral, figuring out how to do this. And then that committee just sat down and figured out, you know, what we could do and what they could live with. And we brought it back to the college and nobody fetched, and nobody screamed, nobody said: "Kill the administration." Everybody just said: "Well, you folks have done the best you could, thanks." I was really amazed. [Barbara] What percentage cut did we lose? [Tinsley] I can't remember, but it was deep. It required a retrenching. I think in the end three faculty. It was not clear if it was going to be five, four, or three, and my memory is it in the end was three now. It wasn't clear, at that point, whether the �cuts in Thomas Jefferson were going to be so deep that the college was going to die as a result. And we had one meeting that was sort of the last critical incident of my watch, as it were. We were all given to these nautical and military metaphors. But I do think of it as my watch, and it was the last critical incident, and I'm rather proud of it so I guess I want to tell it on this case. [Tinsley] The deans were all brought together in the Dean’s conference room and we simply were to go around the table and talk about how we'd like to meet the budget shortfall, and so I presented our plan, everybody did. It was very clear that the senior administrators wanted to deal with the problem by merging Thomas Jefferson and William James. And they thought that would take two units, both of whom we're getting so small that they might be marginal, and perhaps give them enough substance to be able to survive as a joint unit. I thought that would be an absolute disaster. Just an absolute disaster. I thought that although, indeed, the two of us we're both alternative colleges, and we both had women deans, that didn't mean our operating philosophy is… our ideologies as colleges were just so different. I could not see anything positive would come of that. And I knew that it rested on me to prevent that from happening right that moment. And I can remember taking a deep breath and remembering, and knowing I had to get on my feet. I had to somehow get some height in the room and to be able to speak with the kind of authority I wanted to speak with. And there was a folding blackboard in that conference room which was closed and I can remember getting up and very slowly walking to that thing, opening it up and getting a piece of chalk and beginning to draw diagrams on the blackboard. And I have no idea what I drew, but I was trying to get myself, you know, organized, to make the pitch to show how different we were. So, I drew these diagrams and delivered a little lecture about the differences between the two colleges. And maybe talked for ten minutes, you know, as compellingly as I remember going about anything. And when I finished there was a long silence. Nobody said anything for about a minute and then Doug Kindschi – and I will be grateful to him for this to this day – said: "You know, that's right. William James and Thomas Jefferson are very different and if we put them together, we'll likely lose what's good in William James." And that was it, you know, and then they passed on to other topics. So things were tense during that last… that reduction. And then, of course, there were further reductions to be had after Forrest had come on board as Dean. So [Inaudible] started getting really tough in seventy-eight and seventynine. [Barbara] And that's the… you said, plural, the threats, buts that's what they did? [Tinsley] That was the most compelling one that I had to deal with. [Barbara] What about hostility from CAS all along, did we feel it? Did you feel it? �[Tinsley] Oh sure, sure, it was a real pain. I didn't feel it from my colleagues because, you know, they weren't allowed to for one thing. And also, it was simply we were at a level where we were kind of above that. But for the faculty it was very tough because there was that constant grinding: "You're different, you're not as good. We won't play with you. We don't have to. We're traditional, we're good." And it was so ironic because our faculty was one of the finest in the country. I mean, we didn't come from Michigan, we came from all over the United States. And we had superb degrees from superb schools. And we had to put up with this kind of "Well you're not good enough for us to let you, you know." We took all of CAS's courses for credit. But CAS was always very picky. "Well, we might not take that, it might not be up to our high standards." And so that was a constant problem for us; and it's too bad. And it happens in all kinds of places that try to do this kind of thing. [Barbara] That's true. What would it have taken for us to survive? [Tinsley] Well, I don't think we could've survived. And I have really given that a lot of thought, obviously, because I've had to think: "Is there something I could have done that would've made a difference for us." And here's why I don't think we could've survived. It wasn't financial; although, as I indicated earlier, it was very expensive to have four, or five, or six different deans. That was a problem, but the reason we didn't survive wasn't because of money. And I think that was clear when Grand Valley reorganized itself into schools or colleges. They didn't leave faculty off, at that point, because the issue wasn't financial. The issue was twofold. One, and they're both important, but the first issue was Grand Valley was always fighting with itself. The problem could never be solved that the units were competitive with one another. There was no way to make them stop fighting each other. And particularly not if you're working in a political model. I often thought, if the presidential just said: "There will be no more fighting. I won't have it. The next complaint, the person will be fired." Maybe it would have stopped, although I doubt it, because it is human nature. But it would have put the central administration at a very autocratic position, saying: "CAS will do this, William James will do that, and that's the end of it. I don't want to hear any more about it.” And they didn't want to that do that. And I can't blame them. They would've come off as tyrants, and they would not have won any friends with CAS, which was much larger and more powerful a unit, just to kind of save us. But because they didn't do that, everything was in a constant state of turmoil. And Grand Valley, in the end, just couldn't afford that. We needed to pull together and put our energies outside the institution, not with constant battles inside. And I believe that's the reason that it couldn't work and that cluster colleges, in general, have a very hard time working. I think, also, and I never used to believe Bruce Loessin about this, but I think it gave Grand Valley a kind of weird image in the community. It's a very conservative community. We always used to say that William James is really lucky to be embedded in a community this conservative because it kind of… that �Grand Valley protected this, really quite radical unit, in a very conservative community. But even having the different collegiate units, in the end, was pretty hard for Grand Valley. [Tinsley] It gave it a weird reputation and it couldn't afford that. And in the end, it needed to get rid of it. So that's where I think we couldn't survive. [Barbara] Can you see that light? You're doing a good job knowing right when it ends. � 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_30_Tinsley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tinsley, Adrian 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 Adrian Tinsley interview (5 of 8, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Adrian Tinsley 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. Adrian Tinsley was Dean of William James College from 1972 until 1980. In this interview, Adrian discusses her experience transitioning away from William James College, the conversations surrounding combining WJC with Thomas Jefferson College, and her perspective on the college's future. This interview is part 5 of 8 for Adrian Tinsley. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College administrators Women college administrators Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bb6b0043b473fdc2973378dc4ed2ac99.mp4 5f271fddab80448de0ebc486388ae64a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a00bd1f1e28160b998aaa9f5aeb65626.pdf d016e24b77f01d78e6d14cf11831bdeb PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Adrian Tinsley Date: 1984 Part: 6 of 8 [Barbara] Come on, camera! There you go. Nope, not yet. Sorry. I’m still getting in there, so I don’t have your finger [in the shot] and you have an incorrect white balance. Hey, you didn’t do it! There it goes. Alright. We’re actually rolling. We can go any time. [Tinsley] Okay. [Barbara] We were talking about the legacy of the college as a partially conservative... [Tinsley] Okay. The legacy of the college… that's a really broad question. And I guess what I'd say about that is that we were very early strugglers with some things that now need to be struggled with less and are just a very normal part of the college scene. The whole issue of professional programs, for example, we struggled hard over that, both intellectually and personally within our college community. And we were dealing with professional programs, I think, long before they became such a very important feature of collegiate life. Nowadays it's a very rare student who majors in anything other than a professional program. I think we struggled with some issues around how you do liberal education in a professional program context. I think we came to some really good solutions to that issue. And that, you know, probably that hasn't filtered out as much into the larger community as I wish it would. I think there are a lot of articles to be written there, if everybody's looking for articles to write about the college. Because ninety percent of the students who go to college major in professional programs now. So, I think that's important. I think, for students, a lot of the things that we wanted to do for students and with students exist in very mainstream colleges. You know, all the way from independent study, to at least some credit no credit grading, to certainly internships, to stress on projects related to community needs. A lot of stuff that was very innovative when we did it is not particularly innovative now and is pretty much an accepted thing now. So, I think we were sort of the first wave of a lot of new stuff that was coming into higher education. That kind of legacy certainly remains; what doesn't remain is a space, you know, a local habitation in the name; a place where you can go to get something. I'm not sure I how want to put this. Where you can go, where you don't have to worry about what the meaning… I'm literally going to take this answer again. Let me think about it a second. I've talked to some of the William James faculty the last year or so, talked to Richard, to Margaret Proctor, to Barry. Barry, I think it was, �has talked in an interesting way about what it means that the William James faculty are mainstreamed now and they're part of the ordinary units at Grand Valley. And they haven't just disappeared into those units. I mean, they have begun, maybe this is grandiose, but they have begun a little bit to transform the settings that they're in. I know, you know, some of the William James faculty are doing that in the places where they are at Grand Valley. And what Barry said about that was: "Well, you know, as long as we had each other to talk to you, we didn't really have to talk to the other faculty." And we didn't very much. But the place was poorer because we didn't. And that's right. So, there is some sense in which I think Grand Valley as a whole is enriched by having William James faculty in the mainstream. It's the same argument you might have if you were talking about women's studies, you know. [Tinsley] To what extent do you want to have a special place that women can go and totally deal with their own issues and one another, and deal with women's courses? And to what extent do you want to say every course in the university should contain topics of particular relevance to women and should address its subject matter from the perspective of the new scholarship on women. What's missing is that there is no place you can go to now where you go there, and you know that all the people there share your values, and care about the same kinds of things that you care about, and want to… [Barbara] Okay, [inaudible] we'll use the rest but [inaudible]. Okay? [Tinsley] Okay. No place you can really go where you know that everybody shares your values and cares about what you care about. And I think having that space is really important to our students and to our faculty. [Barbara] Why? [Tinsley] One answer is because it was there, and it was safe, and we didn't have to create it every day. You had it. It gave you some identity. You didn't have to always be creating it at all the time. It was a place where you could go, and it gave you some identity because you shape it and it shapes you. [Barbara] But Barry said, in his interview, that… you know, he very much believes in this notion of moving out into the mainstream, and that its working, and that in his classes that he is still teaching in a Jamesian way. But he said: "Of course, I don't know how long it's going to last. I don't know how long my energy can last since it's not being infused anymore." [Tinsley] Yeah. [Barbara] Because that's what the places does. �[Tinsley] Yeah. If you concentrate the energy there and concentrate the people there, you can go deeper, and you can replenish it. And that's what's missing because the space isn't there. And I suppose all of us are looking to find some other similar kinds of space out in our lives. [Barbara] Including the students? [Tinsley] Yeah. [Barbara] Would you put this in personal terms now. What does it mean to personally spend the eight years you did, working very hard? [Tinsley] Well, I suppose… let me say what it meant to me professionally really first, rather than talking first about what it meant personally. I went from William James to the state… stop. Let me think about this another minute. I don't want to, you know, falsely romanticize the period at William James; although, I personally do believe it was a kind of Camelot. I do know that when I did go back and do administrative work, I felt very strongly that I wasn't ready to go back to another campus. I couldn't give my heart to another campus in the same way. And so, I took a job in the central office of the state university system. And two things seem important to me that I want to say. In Minnesota, I've been in a very mainstream administrative situation. I work with seven separate state universities, with their vice presidents, with their presidents, with strategic planning, with academic policy. The people in that system are very good. They are very competent, professionally. Minnesota, I would guess, is one of the very advanced states in the union, in terms of not only its support for higher education, but the professionalism with which their system is managed. And what I've learned is that, although I work with an incredibly competent professional people, professional values are not enough. The change for me was growing from a place where, I mean heaven knows we did want to be competent, but there was a real value beyond competence. There was a reason you wanted to be competent. There was a reason you were doing what you were doing. So, by the contrast that existed at William James, simply, the value of professional competence is not enough. It doesn't keep you warm at night. It's too thin. I'm on my way to go to Glassboro State College in New Jersey and I 'm now ready to be back on the campus, and I am just really excited about going back to campus, and, you know, and having a substantial leadership and management role on a new campus now. But here's what I asked myself: I say, at William James, everybody knew the meaning of what they were doing, so you could stand up and so recite the litany, or you could have an external person to come in and recite the litany and say this is what's important about what we're doing, this is why it's important to work this hard, and this is why we're not cynical. Because here's why we're doing what we're doing, and we really care about it. I go to �Glassboro and I say, you know, what does the vice president do? The vice president has got to find that thing that the institution is doing that's important and put that in the public space and say: "This is what we're doing, and this is important, and it's important that we're doing it and we're doing it well." And I don't find it really easy to look at a Glassboro or at the state colleges in Minnesota and say: "Here's what I can say about that. Here's why it's important in the mid nineteen-eighties to be doing this." And I think that's a problem that we are dealing with in higher education. It's hard to talk about why we're doing what we're doing and why it's so important. And it's hard to get that into the public space. [Tinsley] I remember when the colleges were about to be dissolved, and Robert said: "The problem is that it's not that I don't want to work in CAS, I mean all those people are fine, but I've got to have something I can believe in. I just can't work with people who are cynical or who are apathetic." And so, what I'm saying is there was no cynicism, or very little, or little apathy at William James. And how do you find in a mainstream institution… how do you find, sort of, what you hang your hat on for the meaning of it. And I think that's the question that we answered at William James. And that's the question I want to try to answer now at a more mainstream institution. I don't think finding that answers is going to be just real, real easy. [Barbara] This is going off from that answer what we thought was important in James and the reason that we would be energizing and uniting the kind of notions that we had. Were they specific to the time? Are they not specific now? Why can't you just take those notions to your new job? [Tinsley] No, they're not; they are specific to the time and let me talk a little bit about that because I have thought a lot about this and I really believe it. In the midseventies, the agenda of the society was access and new opportunities. And it was very important to open higher education up to women, and black people, and minorities of all kinds, and older students, and people that hadn't been to college before. And we put a lot of stress on that. And William James came out of that milieu and that was very important to us. That is not a value in nineteen eighty-five. In nineteen eighty-five, we talk about quality which is – depending on how you look at it – is either a positive or negative from my perspective. I think there is some genuinely good work being done under the rubric of upgrading quality, but there's also some genuinely reactionary stuff being done under that rubric. And the agenda for the institution is the economic development of its region, science, and technology. The issues that the institutions are dealing with are very different. In the mid-seventies, we had the federal government really pushing access, really putting money into social services. Now we have science, and math, and technology. I think there's no reason that we can't relate to this �new agenda. But we haven't really thought about what it means for the values we had in the seventies. So, I think the times are very, very different. And I think that's why it's hard to find the spine of the institution in the eighties. I mean that's what I learned from dealing with seven mainstream institutions in Minnesota and the state legislature. [Barbara] Because my experience… I'm blinking again. My experience… � 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_31_Tinsley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tinsley, Adrian 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 Adrian Tinsley interview (6 of 8, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Adrian Tinsley 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. Adrian Tinsley was Dean of William James College from 1972 until 1980. In this interview, Adrian discusses the legacy of William James College and the importance of having a community with shared values, in addition to the importance of keeping the William James philosophy alive. This interview is part 6 of 8 for Adrian Tinsley. 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 College administrators Women college administrators Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4082a53062701be1ef0f139a40d64be7.mp4 6bf51067c429ce5698da83268a6142b9 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2126441a7c7ddbae8e0ccd5ab59d2336.pdf 3bf07d5bad3b1264044f6441d7f2d581 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Adrian Tinsley Date: 1984 Part: 7 of 8 [Barbara] Oh, I always ask you to do it when the cameras are warming up. [Tinsley] Alright. Okay, let’s see a piece of white paper in front of my… [Barbara] Okay, it’s all wound up. It's not in really great shape, truth be told. I kept it, though, for some reason… must have something I'm supposed to do. [Tinsley] Yeah, you’re supposed to tell them how to allocate your TIAA and your CREF. [Barbara] Oh yes, I think I'll just let it set. Thank you. I didn't really plan on that saving me anyway. Alright, we are almost good. Best thing about your experience at James? Is that a meaningful question? [Tinsley] Oh, I think it is. It's like a psych quiz question, but, yeah, the best thing about it is that it had meaning – it really had meaning – and it was important. You felt like you were using your life for something useful. I've always liked Marge Piercy's poem "To Be of Use." And you felt like, at James, you weren't just treading water, you were doing something very, very useful. And that was the best thing about it. And you were also doing it in the company of like-minded people who were friends, and intimates, and you really had a family that you were doing it with. So, I think those two things were the best. We weren't the only institution that was doing this; there were other colleges like us. FIPSE, the grantmaking agency in Washington, was very much like us. A lot of little enclaves of people doing this kind of work and it seemed real and important. [Barbara] If you… [Tinsley] And it was! Sorry. [Barbara] I'm being a bad interviewer. I'm really listening to you. I am listening to you, but I was thinking of the next question. Which is: if you had to sum up the nature of William James College in just one sentence, what would it be? [Tinsley] Well, I actually frequently did have to sum up the nature of William James College in just one sentence for a variety of public relations and mission definition purposes. But I don't remember any of the sentences and I'm sure �none of them were very real. William James was a place where people talked about real things and did real work, and really loved each other. [Barbara] No two people have said anything resembling the same thing. They just go with the strength of the college and its weakness. And no one has said “synoptic” either. [Laughter] [Barbara] Okay, there is one question around in my head and it’s something that I wrote down in the beginning. It has to do with power, and you sort of talked about it when you talked about CAS and all that sort of stuff. Couldn't have we been more political? Even though we were small, dammit, some small things survive because they are so political, because they do their own PR so as well. Do you have any feelings about that? [Tinsley] Well, let me think about it. I am myself a structuralist, and I believe the structure of Grand Valley – not the structure of William James – worked against us. In the back of my head is the nagging thought: "Suppose we really had been more like them?" Because I don't think you can fudge that, because you can't go around pretending to be like somebody when you're really not. Suppose we're really more like them, and our values, and what we want to do, but our values were sort of more like theirs, would it have helped? My honest answer is no, it probably wouldn't have. Because, structurally, we just had a very difficult situation to deal with. But that's from my perspective. I sure did everything I could. And so, you know, maybe it's in my interest to not be able to think of anything else that could have happened. [Barbara] Richard talks about a siege mentality being very useful to us, energizing us. To go out more would have destroyed some of the energy that helped us work as well together as we did. [Tinsley] Yeah, I don't think going out more on the Grand Valley campus would've helped us a lot. I really don't. Because it would've been that painful work of trying to make friends with CAS. And they didn't really want… it takes two to make friends, it really does. If we would've been able to get outside into the local community even more than we did – and we did a lot – that might have helped. [Barbara] Do you want to do it again, quickly, the story about… the story happened because you were talking about how we could not… how this could not work, how we were at a disadvantage. One example was losing computers, and you made that bit by the anecdote of the day we lost computers. And if you want to retell it using euphemisms, fine by me. [Laughter] [Tinsley] [Laughter] I don't think so, the point of the story comes from the cast of �characters. But I will trust you not to use it on the tape. [Barbara] What about first part, when you talk about them being from Holland? Is that okay? [Tinsley] I think. [Barbara] I think so, too. [Tinsley] I think it’s okay. [Barbara] Is there anything to say here? [Inaudible] [Tinsley] Oh golly, well there probably is, but I can't think of it at moment. [Barbara] It’s tiring at this point. [Tinsley] It is, it is tiring. No, I mean I would like to talk on about it for another ten hours, but I don't have anything in particular at the moment. � 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_32_Tinsley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tinsley, Adrian 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 Adrian Tinsley interview (7 of 8, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Adrian Tinsley 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. Adrian Tinsley was Dean of William James College from 1972 until 1980. In this interview, Adrian discusses the highlights of her experience at William James College and the overall nature of the college consisting of community and conversation. This interview is part 7 of 8 for Adrian Tinsley. 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 College administrators Women college administrators Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eaf285fef8bbaaa63efe8e2f5de2cc8e.mp4 f65a858fd0951d1719f16ccf0f662757 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7f3e58bdae16743c8c0999882c013395.pdf 81d5000bf6060fa85b01d69f5c221445 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Adrian Tinsley Date: 1984 Part: 8 of 8 [Barbara] The question is: what is the quality of the education that we were giving students? [Tinsley] Okay, ready for me to go on that? [Barbara] Yep, anytime. [Tinsley] Okay. The issue of quality was a real one during the life of the college. I think looking back, I would have to say that the quality of what we did was variable. For the good students, what we gave them was breathtakingly good, I think. We gave them access to superb faculty. We gave them access to sort of a panoply of resources that they would not have gotten in a conventional undergraduate education. The students that were less good could skate and that was a problem – and I think we did have some students skate. It seems to me that the issue of quality was very tied into the real ethos in the college on individual energy and individual rights. I think the college always leaned towards wanting the individual to express himself or herself. It was difficult in the college to get a clear sense of institutional norms; at least, those norms could not be imposed easily by administrators. They needed to develop in kind of a more organic fashion and I think that was a problem sometimes. For example, in terms of our beliefs about appropriate curriculum, appropriate grading standards, and the like. As the years went on, I think we had a lot more homogeneity about those things. But part of what I did as Dean was endlessly negotiate with faculty. There was no sense that I had any divine right to set standards or, indeed, to set policy. It was a matter of endless negotiation in a milieu where, as I said earlier, the ethos was on the individual's right rather than the institution’s necessity. Looking back, I guess, as Dean of the College, if there is an area where I should have paid more attention, it is… no, let me stop that and you come back to this, okay. [Barbara] Let me change the shot, then you can do it. That's fine. [Tinsley] As the college matured, we began to get a curriculum we were pretty comfortable with. I think there were still, probably, some issues around supervision of internships and independent studies. There were still some course titles that remained as symbolic battles between the faculty and the administration. I think in another two, three, four years we would probably have been on a cycle of �independent curricular reviews with outside consultants. In the end, in terms of the curriculum itself, I felt very good about it. I felt it was a strong curriculum. In terms of the standards of the college, in terms of what happened to individual students, I think we probably always let students skate a bit too much. I think we paid for that very heavily. [Barbara] Say that last sentence again because I screwed up. So just the last sentence: "In the end..." is a good time to start. [Tinsley] In the end… about the curriculum? [Barbara] No, just in the end about individual students. [Tinsley] In the end, I think we always erred a bit on the side of putting out a hand to individual students to help them through. And sometimes, in some places in the college, we did that too much; we weren't tough enough. We paid for that, I think, very, very heavily. That's something I won't do again; it was too costly for the college. [Barbara] Finito? [Tinsley] Finito. [Barbara] Good. [Tinsley] I guess the last thing I'd like to say about the college – after having done some thinking about it in connection with this taping – seems to me that most of us, or all of us, brought to the college a desire that our work have real meaning; that our work bring meaning into our lives; that our work perhaps be the significant source of meaning in our lives. We wanted a kind of a texture in our work; a kind of depth in our work. Clearly not some kind of situation where we did our work and did home in our real lives outside of work. Our real lives – our most important lives – were in our work in the college. Sometimes this provided some stress and strain. We made demands that our work give meaning that I think aren't very unusual in American work life. And I think for most of us, the experience of having the college no longer present is that it's forced us to say: "In whatever work life I'm in now, how can I make it have that kind of meaning for me?" That's certainly true for me. One of the things that is very interesting to me as I look at what the faculty are doing now – and because of my position, I knew the faculty better than I knew most students – it seems to me that there's almost a little explosion of good work going on: research, writing, work products coming out of people that were on the William James faculty or interesting jobs. Almost as if some of our energy that was being used to make the college work is going right into creative work products. And I see that as coming out of this desire to find �meaning in one's work that I think is so important and that I think was really critical to us at the college. Sorry I trailed off on that. [Barbara] [Laughter] I'm tempted, I won't do it, I'm tempted… � 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_33_Tinsley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tinsley, Adrian 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 Adrian Tinsley interview (8 of 8, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Adrian Tinsley 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. Adrian Tinsley was Dean of William James College from 1972 until 1980. In this interview, Adrian discusses the quality of education at William James College and how the experience brought meaning to the lives of those involved. This interview is part 8 of 8 for Adrian Tinsley. 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 College administrators Women college administrators Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/07edd5efb603db138c71cac791e42647.mp4 6828e9a45f67f210afb89cd25b1a4693 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e5e1a0f15123015c693818c7363d4739.pdf dd537ed0e7e5b1fe20e6efeb0802a7b2 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos and Stephen Rowe Interviewee: Arend Lubbers Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 3 [Conversation between President Lubbers and Professor Stephen Rowe] [Lubbers] You can just… you’re going to just kind of edit and put comments in? [Barbara] And it should be very informal and if you say something you don't like you can say: "I don't like that, let’s do that again." Okay? [Lubbers] Alright. Did you want to start with a question or? [Rowe] Yeah, it seems that the basic question would be that in the wake of rebellion and confusion and break up of what some have called a “traditional model” of our education in the late sixties, there was this period of so-called innovation and Grand Valley, in that period, adopted the cluster college model. So, it seems to me, the first question for you to characterize the deliberation within which Grand Valley made that decision. [Lubbers] Well, of course, the college when it was established had a concept – or the people who established it had a concept – of a cluster of colleges. As I remember the original plan called for… [Rowe] This was sixty-three? [Lubbers] Yeah. Four colleges of fifteen hundred each. Thinking that that would be a nice educational unit. [Rowe] This was Oxford inspired? [Lubbers] I don't really know. I’ve talked to Bill Seidman about it, but it's been such a long time ago that I don't remember how it came about. I think that there were some who felt fifteen hundred was a large enough group for a college and that if you wanted to keep personal contact and tutoring, you had to keep it at that number. No one did much planning about the time the first college reached fifteen hundred. What do you do then? Do you start another college with the two hundred more that you might have? So, it was an original concept, but it was not one that was clearly thought out in detail. But when I arrived, there was the talk of having this School of General Studies. And so that was in the works by the time I �came here. And then I noticed the plan, of course, the original plan and thought that this was a movement towards that objective. [Rowe] Did the alumni give the idea to get it more from the culture or from the original plan? You suggest that it was the latter… or the former. [Lubbers] I don't know whether people like Dan Clock and Gil Davis was here. I assume that you talked with Gil, maybe not, but Gil was here, and he might remember more about the origin of that School of General Studies. [Rowe] That was seven… what was the date on that? Sixty-seven? [Lubbers] They were talking about it… I came in January of sixty-nine. And I know it went into effect, I think, then in the fall of sixty-nine. And it's terrible how these things kind of… the past blends together, and I can't remember the dates exactly. But I know my own thoughts at that time were sympathetic to the original concept. And I also felt that there probably were different ways to learn, and if we can establish colleges with different pedagogical approaches and styles, that might be useful in higher education rather than to take it on a number’s basis. In other words, you have your first fifteen hundred and then you set up a parallel college with the next fifteen hundred. I thought it would be more useful to students and higher educational experimentation to establish the schools on the basis of pedagogy, rather than the numbers. [Rowe] At what point did you or the college become aware of cluster college as something distinct that we were doing, say, like Santa Cruz or other places that were similar? [Lubbers] Well, really from the time I arrived in January of sixty-nine and saw the formation of the School of General Studies, I was very much interested in the cluster college concept and worked toward it. And then, of course, then the School of General Studies became Thomas Jefferson College. [Rowe] Can you characterize the moment at which the College III task force was founded. College III, of course, became William James. [Lubbers] William James. I recall a conversation that I had with Tom Cunningham about the concept of a William James College. [Rowe] So named? [Lubbers] I don't remember calling it anything else or thinking about it. [Rowe] Seems likely. �[Lubbers] I do remember the ideas that I had at that time. I was very much interested in the vocations of the future. What were they going to be? What were people going to be doing with their lives? And concerned a bit about the narrow vocational direction. And of course, we have many of these schools now that are professional and choose a profession and educate for it. We're more into that. But I was concerned about the narrowness and that there ought to be a place where you educated for broad fields and that the approach to communications was a very broad one, in my view anyway, and then we had the computers and the social relations. And I can remember some of the literature in that period pointing in directions… jobs are going to be in these general fields. And so, there was that professional aspect of it, but a broader based professional approach. And so that appealed to me a great deal. And how you educate for professions and at the same time keep the liberal arts core was the part of the experiment that I liked. And an attempt to bring a synthesis between the professional approach and the traditional liberal learning approach. [Rowe] What was it about Tom's idea or James' philosophy that made the fit there, between your thinking…? [Lubbers] I think it was the pragmatic approach. In other words, let's try to educate people to do things that work, that function, that will serve them well. I think that was probably it. But, again, you know, you have… such as William James College and Thomas Jefferson College, in a sense, cut out of whole cloth. In other words, you come at it with a strong sense of pedagogy. This is what it's going to be. And then to see how it works out, and it never works out the way the plan calls for to work out. [Rowe] How did James work out? [Lubbers] Well, some people, I think, were very well served by it. I think there's a problem in the experimental education. I think that's been true throughout the country. Was true throughout the country in the nineteen seventies, particularly late sixties into seventies. Accompanying most of these experiments, of course, was a different evaluation system. They didn't have the traditional A through F grading, nor the traditional examination. And I have a feeling that one of great problems was really quite simple: that experimental education never did work out a very good evaluation system. And some people do not require evaluation, they just are selfmotivated. And I think that we saw a group of students – particularly in the middle seventies – who were more inclined toward independent study and had the kind of motivation to carry through a sensible educational program with the assistance of faculty. But for the most part, and certainly on into the eighties, I think we find people needing more traditional evaluation structures. They like to have "A’s," "B’s," "C’s," and "D’s," and as much as they don't like examinations, they need to �have examinations. And I believe that what happens is that the standards begins to be relaxed. And then a lot of students who are really not inclined to be students pass through a system and are not evaluated. [Rowe] How is that problem with evaluation, which you associate with experimental education, related to the basic model: integrating vocational and liberal? Is there any connection? Is there some integral connection? [Lubbers] I don't think so. Are you asking whether that kind of a model for William James required a different kind of evaluation system from the traditional one? [Rowe] Yeah. Well, you mention two things that seem separate: one, the basic pedagogy and the philosophy of education, integrating liberal and career studies, and secondly, the experimental orientation, which had this problem with evaluation. I don't see what you say about how the two are connected. [Lubbers] They're not connected. [Rowe] So they just happened to… [Lubbers] They came together and one of the reasons I think that experimental colleges have changed, closed, or merged is because they did not have a more traditional evaluation system. I think that there would have been a better chance of William James College surviving, if the evaluation system had been similar to the evaluation system that was in the College of Arts and Sciences, which of course was the more traditional evaluation system. I think that it would have been… because a comment was made about people not liking William James College. I think that's true. I think that a large number of people in the College of Arts and Sciences did not think highly of William James College. [Rowe] Because? [Lubbers] Because they didn't believe that the quality of work was a college level. And whether that evaluation is correct or not, that was the perception. [Rowe] And you're suggesting that perception was related more to the evaluation and experimental orientation than it was to the basic pedagogy? [Lubbers] I'm saying that I think that is one of the contributing factors to it. And you know, again, the curriculum was put together, somewhat as you go, and I think that was probably another reason why people in the more traditional institution did not respect William James College. [Rowe] In that sense it was experimental? �[Lubbers] I would say yeah. I would say it was in that respect. I wonder if there could have been a more fixed curriculum, and also whether there could have been a more traditional evaluation system, whether that might have made a significant difference in the survival of all experimental colleges. I think this is a characteristic of experimental colleges, and not a fixed curriculum, and not a traditional evaluation system. It might have been possible to have a different pedagogy, a different approach, and still have those two traditional elements. [Rowe] Or to not have those elements and have a different pedagogy. For example, TJC. So, maybe the question is: was the pedagogy of TJC more consistent with the experimental approach in evaluation and curriculum? [Lubbers] I don't know whether it was or not. But I do think that it's possible, a least I… this is again, conjecture, but I think that some of the pedagogy of the experimental colleges was valid, and is valid, but I don't think the systems that were used, or the lack of system, served the experiments very well. [Barbara] Steve, we have to stop and change tape. [Rowe] Okay. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_45_Lubbers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lubbers, Arend Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Arend Lubbers interview (1 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Arend Lubbers by Barbara Roos and Stephen Rowe, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Arend "Don" Lubbers was president of Grand Valley State University from 1969-2001 and served as president during the lifespan of William James College. In this interview, President Lubbers discusses the cluster college model that was utilized at Grand Valley from the time he arrived in 1969, the origin of William James College which was previously known as College III, and his impression of the college's performance. This interview is part 1 of 3 for Arend Lubbers. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Rowe, Stephen (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College presidents College administrators Lubbers, Arend D. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2bea94e0a171b2bacf29bb52309c8590.mp4 cdba35c0a98053d349ce1cbc09926850 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5e5df6ee3903a50ff1948b0341f2ecd1.pdf 0bb3d864084af5090388f6d4f9931c31 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos and Stephen Rowe Interviewee: Arend Lubbers Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 3 [Conversation between President Lubbers and Professor Stephen Rowe] [Rowe] Could you comment on the connection there? [Lubbers] Well, I'm just talking experimental education, you know, you can have many different pedagogies. You can have colleges, or schools, or courses, that are different from the traditional. You can have very different kinds of pedagogies. There is not, in my definition, experimental education does not have a pedagogy. [Rowe] And yet so much of it fell into problems with evaluation and curriculum. [Lubbers] Right. [Rowe] Why was that do you suppose? [Lubbers] Well, I wonder if that was more the spirit of the times. In other words, when people were ready to experiment, and wanted to experiment, and maybe accompanying an experimental era is this desire for freedom and individualism. In other words, an experiment is a breaking away, of doing something different from the way most people are doing it. So, there is a freedom about that. I want to break away and be free. Well, what do you want to be free of? You not only want to be free of the traditional curriculum, you want to be free of the way it's delivered. [Rowe] Or, as many people put it, they tend to be very clear about what they be free from, but not very clear about free for. [Lubbers] So often, experimental education has so much rebellion built into it. And rebellion, you know, finally has to be, I suppose, consummated. I mean you have to have your rebellion, and be done, and move on. And so… [Rowe] How would we have that here? [Lubbers] Oh, I would say we had, again, that desire to be free of the usual constraints. And that was built into William James College, as it was into Thomas Jefferson College. And I don't think… and that led to a way of evaluating, or not evaluating �very well, and it led to a way of putting a curriculum together perhaps in too haphazard manner. But I think that here – and maybe in most universities – the experiments that were tried were not accepted by an overwhelming majority of the faculty. And I think that's a problem. It's almost insoluble. And it's a problem that I think experimental education will always have, because if you set up a freestanding experiment, that is very difficult. Most experiments need the strength – at least the financial strength – of a traditional university or college. Maybe Evergreen State is an exception to that and that's why I would like to see them… see how they've done it. And at the same time, it's very hard to get a large majority of the faculty to support the experiment, to really be enthusiastic about it. If the majority of the faculty or if the CAS faculty, for instance, had a high regard for William James College, it might have survived. Though, we were in a real financial crunch and things had to happen. We couldn't afford to do some of the things that we had done. So, the reorganization of the institution might have taken place anyway, but certainly it was the financial crisis that triggered the changes. But if there had been a high regard for what was going on at William James College by the rest of the faculty, they might have fought to keep it. Because they would look upon it as a distinguishing part of Grand Valley that they liked, but that was not the case. [Rowe] What do you think they understood William James to be? [Lubbers] Just, low standards, low academic standards. And no comprehensive, comprehendible curriculum. [Rowe] Did they understand the pedagogy or the basic approach? [Lubbers] I don't know whether they did or not. If they did, those who did might have respected that to a certain degree but didn't feel that it was being carried out well enough to save it. [Rowe] Some people noticed that the very first sign of trouble in William James was when the nation, as a whole – “Change Magazine" identifies this as seventy-six – became involved with the “New Vocationalism” was the term. So that everybody suddenly became interested in integrating career and liberal education, even on the campus as a whole. [Lubbers] Uh-huh. [Rowe] Some people reviewing the history of William James notice as early as seventysix we were, in some ways, co-opted by a much larger national movement. [Lubbers] Yeah. �[Rowe] Could you comment on that? [Lubbers] Well, I think co-opted and maybe that is one of the great values in William James College: was that it was before its time in terms of philosophy. And I think that the heritage that William James College has left to the campus as a whole, is probably this integration… this attempt to integrate the professional and the liberal learning. There's been the two tracks, of course, in education and the synthesis between the two is essential. But as we are now organized with our professional schools living intermixed in the divisions with the arts and sciences, I think is a good illustration of what William James meant and has been that part of the William James heritage that continues and is a major contribution to this institution. Again, I think maybe faculty accept it, the ones that do accept it, not all do, but the ones that do accept it, some will do it because they believe in it philosophically, but many of the arts and sciences professors have had to face the unpleasant reality for them that many of their students are majoring in professions. And therefore, they have to live together with the faculty in the professional fields. And for whatever reason, it's happened, and is happening, whether the motive is high or low, I welcome it because it does mean that people have to… educators have to live together and have to work out some of the problems that exist between professional curriculum and an arts and sciences curriculum. [Rowe] Do you have any frustration or concern about what developed as the understanding of "career" in this new vocational movement? Some of us in William James felt that the definition of career that developed was precisely the more narrow form that you and others, at the founding, tried to avoid. [Lubbers] Well, I think that it has come to that. And I don't think that every student, or all faculty, or every program, is narrowly career. The narrowly career programs can exist side by side with the ones that are broader philosophically. And yet this happens to be the day of the narrower career approach. But those things begin to change some. Although we are facing a time when jobs are so specialized and require such carefully honed talents that I wonder whether we're going to continue to need places in our educational system where people are, in a sense, trained but at a very high level. If you're going to be, well, on our campus for instance… if you're going to be a physical therapist, you can't just take a general major in health. There can't be a general health vocations major, and then practice that profession. [Rowe] You still need the terminal bachelor’s degree which I suppose they may have to assume. We've mentioned seventy-six as the time when the new vocationalism became very popular in the country and on the campus, and the reorganization in seventy-nine? �[Lubbers] It was after that wasn't it? [Rowe] Eighty? [Lubbers] Eighty, eighty? [Barbara] Eighty. [Lubbers] Was it nineteen eighty? Is it that long ago? [Rowe] Can you say anything about the lay of the land between seventy-six to eighty in terms of what happened to William James, both internally and externally? [Lubbers] Well, I think that there was a growing problem for William James. Students – high school students – were not quite so interested in experimental colleges, or they were much more interested in the traditional educational institutions. And in the more narrowly defined professional fields. And so, it was becoming a problem to attract students. And I think that was a major reason, too, for the demise of the institution finally. There just wasn't the student interest in it anymore and it was declining. And, well, I think those of you who are on the faculty worked very hard to recruit students and try to gain interest. And there were several older students who liked the style of William James. And, maybe again, if the institution had been well-respected, by all the faculty, it might have survived and became a real haven for older adults. But, again, the financial crunch and the declining interest of students in the eighteen-year-old group, or the high school group, and really the lack of appreciation for William James by the faculty, and the financial crunch. And I think you begin to put all those factors together. Often one factor will not bring about the demise. But they were pretty strong factors bunched together working against William James’ continuation. And I really don't see that it could've survived, probably not even in good times. I'm not sure. [Rowe] Because of? [Lubbers] Because of the faculty really working against it. [Rowe] In terms of evaluation? [Lubbers] Yeah, I think so. The failure of the cluster college system to survive… I think, really, the single factor that was maybe most important of all these clusters of factors was the inability of faculty and students on one campus like this one to ever have a real feeling that though they were a part of an experimental college or they were part of the traditional college, they also were part of Grand Valley as a whole. That never could be done. And I guess I did not foresee that at all at the beginning. I never dreamed – and that was probably my own naiveté – that the �competition between and amongst each of those colleges would be almost… or it was really, more intense than our competition – Grand Valley's competition – with other institutions outside. But I suppose, one should understand that possibility and I don't know why didn't. Because in my experience, like probably yours and everyone else's, we need to have our enemies close. And if we don't, we really have… I've noticed, if you're with any kind of an organization, maybe within a church. I've often enjoyed watching denominations; they fight internally more than the enemy out there. And we were fighting ourselves all the time. And… [Rowe] The drift of things that I'm hearing from you is that the fight was primarily… [Barbara] I'm going to have to stop you. Finish your question… � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_46_Lubbers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lubbers, Arend Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Arend Lubbers interview (2 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Arend Lubbers by Barbara Roos and Stephen Rowe, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Arend "Don" Lubbers was president of Grand Valley State University from 1969-2001 and served as president during the lifespan of William James College. In this interview, President Lubbers discusses the "spirit of the times" that played a role in the experimental education of William James College, the perception from the faculty outside the college, and how WJC was ahead of its time in terms of philosophy amidst the "New Vocationalism" movement. This interview is part 2 of 3 for Arend Lubbers. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Rowe, Stephen (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College presidents College administrators Lubbers, Arend D. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7bc10ca36c87103e5d847537d0002494.mp4 3389952cc9a5c472ecd04993bca176e6 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/52659b18946217b719f10feba4aebfa8.pdf b2e45ffb1db38ed59ed54fb01414f2fb PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos and Stephen Rowe Interviewee: Arend Lubbers Date: 1984 Part: 3 of 3 [Conversation between President Lubbers and Professor Stephen Rowe] [Rowe] Was that characteristic of College IV as well as Thomas Jefferson and James? The model was this distinction among and between units about pedagogy. You're suggesting that underlining that there was a deeper distinction between the traditional education and the experimental. Is that a fair understanding of what you are saying? [Lubbers] Yeah, I think so, I think it was. The experimental education with its structures – its evaluation structures and its curriculum – were just not acceptable or respected. The College IV, later the Kirkhof experiment, I don't think that the ire of the faculty in CAS was directed so much to that institution as it was to Thomas Jefferson and then to William James. But I think the criticism by that time was, "Well, we don't… this organizational structure is inefficient and there's no need for us to be this way. And it would be so much better if we're offering similar kinds of education." That is, I mean, we're offering English everywhere, languages. We should be putting the faculty together and doing departments the traditional way and have stronger departments. And so, there was not only the antagonism directed toward the experimentalism of the institutions, and that was the great part of it, but also toward the inefficiency. And then in the struggle for credits and courses, who's going to get the students, and can we get them, or do they get them? [Rowe] Did the traditionalism learn anything through contact with James and the other colleges? [Lubbers] I don't know. I would, as I said, I think the heritage left is what I described, is the way we are organized in professional disciplines and the liberal learning disciplines together. I don't know to what degree people accept that, endorse it, or grudgingly accept it. I don't know… that you'd have to take a vote of the faculty to find out. But at least that's the heritage. I would say most of the faculty who were opposed to the experimental colleges would probably say good riddance. You know, I'm not sure that there is any cherishing of the past in any way. I think this is about time that this was put aside. That's the way I view it. I haven't taken any scientific surveys to know how people really feel. �[Rowe] Changing the subject a little, can you comment on legacy or heritage in relation to the larger community? Perception of William James’ alumni or with the college in the larger community? [Lubbers] You mean, how the larger community viewed the experimental colleges? Or? [Rowe] You're right, and its products, the students. [Lubbers] No, I really don't have anything to base a judgment on. I do think that the community had a difficult time understanding our structure at that time. [Rowe] Grand Valley's? [Lubbers] Grand Valley's. And the public, generally, was not too sympathetic to the experimentalism that went on here. Well, there are always exceptions and pockets of people who liked it. But, I think, generally in this this area of the United States, experimental education is not looked upon with great favor. And we weren't looked upon with great favor for indulging in it. So far as graduates are concerned, I don't know. Like you, I run across graduates of William James or Thomas Jefferson, who are very… seem to be happy and pleased with what they're doing and respected the education they received in those colleges. So, there is that heritage, too; the heritage of the people who enjoyed and benefited from it. I think, again, as I look back on the '70s – maybe period from seventy-one to seventy-three or four – was the high watermark in terms of Thomas Jefferson College. William James might be a little bit later than that – maybe seventy-five, seventy-six – where both colleges had their best students, the largest number of good students, and those people have done very well. And after that, there were fewer good students attracted to that kind of education. And I don't regret having done it. As a matter of fact, I think in a crucial stage and I believe there was something happening to people, to young people, whether it was the Vietnam War or what it was. But, from the late '60s into the '70s, well into the ‘70s. This is a generation cut from a different cloth, I think. You know, in all of my experience, they're different. And that kind of educational approach saved a lot of people a lot of difficulty and agony. They would not have fit into the traditional mold. And they did have places to go, other places in the country, too. But they had some places to go here, and their older brothers and sisters and their younger brothers and sisters have gone in the traditional route, but they were that group that needed it, needed something different. And that was a great service to them. [Rowe] Here again, we're back to the term that emerges from this discussion, is really basic, and that is: experimentalism, which so far has been characterized as this certain kind of evaluation and this certain kind of flexible, if not loose, curriculum. And now as a refuge, that seems in this whole discussion to be the one term that needs one level deeper. Or can you say more about what this experimentalism is �or was at its best? In some ways, all of the characterizations we have so far are negative. Lack of evaluation, overly flexible curriculum, refuge from the society. [Lubbers] Well, of course. [Rowe] What is the positive? [Lubbers] The negative… the positive is the other side of the negative. These people who flourished in that kind of environment were those people who flourished best when there was no traditional curriculum and no traditional evaluation system. They did flourish very well for a small period of time. [Rowe] Self-motivated was the term that you used earlier. [Lubbers] They were self-motivated, and they were in a state of rebellion, too. Now, if you're rebelling, you have some idea about what you're rebelling against. But then where do you channel your energy? What do you do with that energy that is born out of rebellion? Where do you take yourself? Where do you take your body and where do you take your mind and what do you do with it? If you have a place to go where you can do some positive things, where you're not restricted by that which you are rebelling against and you can find another object for your attention, you're likely to not waste so much time. [Rowe] What was the object of attention? [Lubbers] The object of attention was the learning in these institutions. And they could take themselves and go to a curriculum and work with some faculty members to do what they wanted to do and move on. [Rowe] The study plans and riddling people to do what they want to do and become entitled or empowered, except for individually, was certainly something that was important to James. [Lubbers] Yes, it was. [Rowe] Perhaps to all experimental education, I'm not sure. [Lubbers] I think it is to all, I think it characterized experimental education of that era – of the late '60s and '70s. [Rowe] So this was basically a vision. This experimentalism was a vision of perhaps a very modern vision or a revival of the very modern vision of the independence and development of the individual person. �[Lubbers] Right. Yes, I think so. [Rowe] And what was the social or communal or cultural implication of that or was there any? Was it merely individual, as so much of modernism has been in ways problematic? [Lubbers] It may, I think, more individual than I thought it would be at the time. [Rowe] Then this is a question for me as well. What was the communal vision that accompanied that individualism? What was it? [Lubbers] Oh, I think, again, a more egalitarian society where the hierarchies would no longer exist, where there would be decision by consent of the group. I think there was a lot of that at that particular time. And I don't know exactly why except, again, a reaction against the Vietnam War and a government that was waging war and not always telling the truth. And that became obvious and here you are where power is. You know, power is far away from you and it's coming in on your life from that distance that you can't get at. You can't get at it. You can't influence it. And I think that at that particular time, the experimental education carried the communal vision of "we're going to be small groups deciding our own destiny." And we begin in our experimental college by governing our experimental college that way. [Rowe] In retreat from or separate from the larger communal structures, not in a way that would reform them? [Lubbers] No, I think the hope was that they would be reformed, that the experiments would work, and that out of this would come a new age. And certainly, the campuses would be democratized and that was a hope. But, we Americans, when we have our objectives and hopes, and we usually solve our problems as quickly as possible. And we're not… we usually think that our vision will become reality within our lifetimes. And I think I'm finding out that when you do experiment, you maybe make a small step towards realizing what you want and what you hold is ideal and as desirable. But then you don't get there all at once and you don't get there in one lifetime. [Rowe] Rats, well this is just getting started. [End of Lubbers Interview] [Start of Rowe Interview] �William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos and Arend Lubbers Interviewee: Stephen Rowe Date: 1984 [Conversation between Professor Stephen Rowe and President Lubbers] [Lubbers] [Inaudible] everyone, there are no students here. I mean, some may come back or their students, but really there's no student tradition anymore or there are no students here who talk about William James or Thomas Jefferson. [Rowe] Or in the community, for that matter. This William James association about which I was nagging you about this plaque and not letting them paint the wall, it ceased to exist. I mean, they can't even get a damn plaque on the wall, you know. They don't… [Lubbers] It's interesting. It is almost as though it hasn't happened. And as we go about our daily business, as I go about my daily business, that which was so important in it during the decade of the '70s, it's almost as though it never existed. [Barbara] Hey, could you ask a question… rephrase your question about the communal side of James? That's one question I would like to have on camera. It was just in this last part of the interview. [Rowe] If the college was… if the experimentalism was essentially about the enhancement or development of individualism, what then was the communal… the accompanying communal vision, if any? Anarchism, some sense of the individual fully developed in such a way that he or she is able to be in community in the way that their ancestors weren't? [Lubbers] Is egalitarianism more than…[Inaudible]? [Rowe] What does that mean? [Lubbers] People living equally and sharing equally, deciding the fate of their lives as equally as possible? [Rowe] Yeah, but see, that's a term in the modern period like "freedom" that everybody uses and that means different things. I would say basically in the modern orientation, there's equality of sameness and equality of difference. In our best moments, the communal vision that accompanied this particular sense of individual development, at the best, argued for an equality of difference; at the �worst moments, it became an equality of sameness. That makes sense, right? [Lubbers] Yeah, the right. Yeah, which then comes back on itself as individualism, doesn't it? It's, in a sense, the equality of difference is really… it's a kind of individual who "I have a right to be different and work out my destiny than say we have a right to be different and work out our own destiny." But then it's every little we… it's kind of like Protestantism that it breaks up finally because everyone has a right to be what she or he wants it to be. [Barbara] I'm sorry, I know you want to follow this through, but I just have a certain amount of tape. I need to ask one more question… ask some sort of intro question to the notion of the cluster college. You asked very early in the first… [Rowe] An intro to what he said? [Barbara] Yeah. [Rowe] I'm trying to remember. [Barbara] Well, the answer is that [inaudible] had to do with the difficulties of that structure. [Rowe] Okay. Developing out of your and the founders of the college's notion of small educational communities, Grand Valley became, in effect, a cluster college. What were the difficulties that were related to that kind of model in itself? And how is that different from the Oxford model of small communities? I think the answer to that is at Oxford, the pedagogical differences developed sort of willy-nilly over a long period of time. Whereas, here in America, in some ways we tried to make them. Arend [Lubbers] wouldn't talk about the problem we're making at that point. [Lubbers] That’s true, well we took a single institution and broke it up into pieces and it wasn't ready to be broken up into pieces. Whereas universities, many universities, people came, they did their little thing, and the other people did their little thing side by side. And then finally, it develops… a kind of unity evolves. [Rowe] A more organic rather than made. [Barbara] It's now eleven o'clock, okay? � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_47_Lubbers-Rowe Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lubbers, Arend Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Arend Lubbers interview (3 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Arend Lubbers by Barbara Roos and Stephen Rowe, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Arend "Don" Lubbers was president of Grand Valley State University from 1969-2001 and served as president during the lifespan of William James College. In this interview, President Lubbers and professor Stephen Rowe have a conversation about William James College and its place within Grand Valley history, its legacy and heritage within the larger college community, and the positive elements of experimental education. This interview is part 3 of 3 for Arend Lubbers. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Rowe, Stephen (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education College presidents College administrators Lubbers, Arend D. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6b4d84f00fdc8cd8de12406995503e38.mp4 4dd7674a909a05ce5621e2639b2bfe3e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c807b3539897a4a2cef639997f1bea5e.pdf c5ddaec34919cefbda8a7589874da101 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Barry Castro Date: 1984 [Barbara] I told you that the students would be among the audience. Was there something you want to be sure to say? [Castro] When I talk to my management classes now, management is a difficult field to teach, in a way, because you've got lots of students who haven't ever been in a managerial context, an ordinary one, haven't been in the industrial context, and they get a bunch of management courses as part of a business curriculum. So, your task is to find some experiential context that they can connect that theoretical material to make it their own. And I like using classroom material for it. One of the major management theories that we talk about is Douglas McGregor's "Theory Y" notion of invoking participation loosely. McGregor argues that it's necessary to assume a willingness to be involved, a willingness to work. That there is no adversarial relationship between work and a firm [?]. And that given that assumption, it will be ill-founded sometimes, but you will get much more happening than if you don't. And it talks about the disastrous consequences of beginning with the opposite assumption. And everybody affirms that, and people read that stuff and they feel "Lord, it's just mom and apple pie, of course that's true." And at around that point I asked them how many of them have heard of the cluster colleges and William James, and Thomas Jefferson, and those places. And it's recent enough so that many of them have. And I say that, you know, that is really what we did, we were pushing on that kind of involvement, all the time, and from ourselves, from students, students doing it to each other. It was what made the place work. But looking at it from the outside, what do you know about it? I guess that's the first thing I ask. And they say: "Well non-graded, one. And two, easy." And we talk about the proclivity to define participative management as soft management by people on the outside of it. So, the resistance you get to any effort to manage in a way that involves subordinates in a way a firm really works is people on outside giggling and saying: "Oh my! Just look at what they're letting them get away with." And when they can find someone who is actually getting away with something, there's a cause for real celebration there. And to say that abstractly is nothing. But to point at the people in my class and say "Look at what you folks are doing," with very little information. But your incentive is so great to interpret what you've got, or to make up information that you don't have, that kind of resistance to managerial innovation, to, I think, good management, needs to be reckon with all the time. And it's the case in point that I use. I think for students and faculty, we were made to order for them. Many of �our students come to school… many students at places like Grand Valley come to school having a notion that if it's hard, it's good, and if it's fun, there's something wrong with it. So, the Board of Education in Grand Rapids, I think, last week passing resolutions saying, "Everybody should have homework." And the City High School, which prides itself on being a quality institution in Grand Rapids, advertises itself as "two hours of homework a night," as if that was the elixir, you know, that was the magic stuff that made it work. And they're onto something about the sociology of your clientele that's right because the clientele are so bound up in that notion that if you involve people, and you let them have fun with it, you're somehow doing it wrong. You're not giving them the real stuff. And I think that was very hard for us to overcome. [Barbara] Could we have overcome it, or did the administration have a responsibility to help us overcome it? Where could this ever have been fought? [Castro] Well, public image-wise, I think we were in much, much better shape for fighting it for the last few years. I think we got to know what we were doing much better. And asking for public… the public has a notion that we're supposed to know what we're doing from scratch. And that were supposed to come in and just do something, all which has been invented, which in any field is absurd, no field I think more absurd than in education. The standard item, the routine stuff, the kinds of classes they are used to… know what they're doing, certainly know better than we do. In my view, often knew less well, they inquired less thoughtfully into what they were doing. The question doesn't come up for them, and folks were… it would be hard to get folks willing to give us the time to be so much above the mark, so they can begin to trust us even though we were out of the ordinary. I don't think there's a lot the administration could have done about that. My neighbors who say "Thomas James" were not reachable by the administration. And they were sophisticated, nice people who like me and think that it must've been a little bit okay because I was there. They don't mean to be putting it down, but they can't get it straight. [Barbara] If you had to sum up what made James unique, very, very briefly, like two or three sentences, what was the thing that was critical? [Castro] Keywords: ambition, involvement, tremendous seriousness about education, and not being caught up in cynicism about careers and making it and looking for things. We talked about vocation all the time, looking for real vocation, and the students who are… I think profit most from the place, were most involved in it and the faculty were most involved in it, had found the vocation there, which was going to be with them the rest of their lives, as far as I can tell. And that seemed enormously valuable to me. [Barbara] That's a wonderful execution. I think we’re running [Inaudible]… yeah, �everything’s fine. Is there an answer… this may be too personal, in which case let’s not treat it as a serious question. Can you phrase why you came to James without laying on a whole biography? What was there in you that readied you for an alternative setting? Why was traditional education not satisfactory? [Castro] Well, I came there… I read an article about it, actually, that just touched on it. Mostly about Grand Valley in general, more about TJC, a little bit about James and change. But I was taken enough with the ambition of what was going on here to write Don Lubbers a letter saying I read this article about your place and I'm interested. And Don passed it on to Adrian and I got invited out for an interview, which was nice. I think the particularities of my own situation is there's nothing… the only problem about personal is I don't know how generalizable it will be. I taught with some very good people when I began teaching who were serious and good about what they did. And I did a kind of extended apprenticeship with them. A historian named Herb Gottman, a sociologist, people who became friends and had been at it longer than me and were very good. And I got a sense that I was going to college over again, only much better this time than I had gone the first time. And that was wonderful, and I wanted to keep on doing that. That stayed with me for a while. Then one of the people I taught with at that first institution got to be dean of faculty at a new branch of CUNY that started in nineteen seventy. And called me and asked if I wanted to organize a social science program there. And it was a wonderful opportunity to invent from scratch an institution. And we did a lot of things wrong in that invention. But I learned a lot at [Inaudible] which was the name of this place at City University and wanted a place to use what I had learned and going to an economics department to do micro, macro and an occasional elective seemed very dreadful, yes. And when I came to James, I think the first… immediately upon coming in, and meeting people, and getting some sense of what the place was about. It was as if I had been here forever. I recognized it and I don't know what folks’ reaction to it – my stance – was, but I never entertained the possibility that they wouldn't hire me at all. I mean it was mine and of course they'd… it belonged to me. And they did what they were supposed to do, but it was very compelling. [Barbara] What would you say, again, not being very specific about current things, but in teaching now… no, it's not a good question, forget it. I’m sorry. Stop for a second. God, he’s looking gorgeous, isn’t he? Its fine, I'll cut through the other stuff. Okay, that's the question we’re on. [Castro] Okay. I want to talk about… [Unknown] That side, yes. Like that, that's… [Castro] The difference between… I've been teaching the last couple years in a business school environment and that seems on first vision… when I first understood that I �would be going to a business school, that was, it certainly felt like it was going to be a very alien environment, it was scary. It has not been an alien environment. The internal dynamics of my classes seem very similar to what went on in James. I am teaching in the same way and I feel that I am being responded to well. In some ways, very well. I am more of a rare commodity teaching at a school of business than I ever was at James. And folks could kind of nod their head when I did what I did at James and they are hearing it all for the first time. [Barbara] Like what? [Castro] Well, the purpose of this class is not information transmission, boom boom, boom, boom, boom. What we’re up to is engaging your thinking and engaging you in a conversation on the one hand with the literature, and on the other hand with the experience, and getting you to see that conversation, and respond to it. And getting smarter. I tell my students that the heart of management, the only two real ingredients of management are being as smart as you can be and good manners. And everything else is detail. It all follows from that. You need to listen to people, and respect them, and you need to think about what you're listening to as hard as you can. It fits in the context of liberal education much better than I think most people either in the humanities or in business schools know. And I’ve discovered a sense of mission about getting people both in the humanities and in the business schools to recognize that. That business schools can be perfectly viable milieus to teach well in. And I think a lot of what business schools are has been a reaction to feeling nasty prejudice coming from humanities. And the kind of thumbing of the nose back at them and turning up of our speakers, or ghetto blasters, or whatever, and just letting it blare out. Because you guys expect us to be doing that anyway, so we're going to let you have it. So, it's been fun to discover that there was something real for me to do in this milieu. And fun also that there were large numbers of students who were there, who I didn't need to go scraping for them, there was support from the outside environment, we didn't need to defend the business school’s right to exist, at all. I could go on to do the work that I needed to do as a teacher, without needing to deflect my energies in all sorts of ways that at James they got deflected. And that's been very exciting. Students have been… they come to my office a lot. People are around, and they're grateful for the kind of thing I've been pushing for. And I’ve very, very, very little resistance. Actually, almost none that I know of… there may have been some that's quiet. I miss the collegiality. I had Robert Mayberry next door to me for ten years at James, and that was extraordinary and wonderful and I miss it. But he's only across a short mall. This not having to worry about Alison Bernstein's double preciousness has been very nice. I'm not in a precious milieu now, I'm just in a business school. And if we can do the stuff we can do in that kind of milieu, that's better. I don't think I could have gotten as good without James, at all. I don't think we could have. I don't know that we can stay as good without it, and I worry about that. And I worry about what's going to generate �more faculty with those same commitments. And my sense is that we have to do it. We have to keep on talking and wait until the next cosmic change happens, right? [Barbara] Wonderful end to the show. Thank you! It was a good close. [Videotape recording ends and begins again] [Barbara] Because also, like, everybody doesn't cover the same material, so it must be clear that this isn't a real… I mean, people didn't get together and talk and organize this. People's conversations do bypass each other a little bit, you know. [Castro] Are you going to get Adrian? [Barbara] Of course. She troubles me. Has she written you? She hasn't written me either. [Castro] She talked to me about three weeks ago. [Barbara] Oh really? [Castro] Where did I see her? Were we in Minneapolis? � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_55_Castro Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Castro, Barry Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Barry Castro interview (video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Barry Castro by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Barry Castro was a faculty member of William James College from 1973-1983 before becoming a professor of management for the Seidman School of Business. In this interview, Barry discusses the qualities that made William James College unique and the personal journey that led him to the college, in addition to how the WJC philosophy informs his management courses. This interview is part 1 of 1 for Barry Castro. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5e80ee69ef712a4f112bc4bcf5477244.mp4 30939aaf18cd7d979b21ef5c88c4f704 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e8e53bdf1ad792dc8608871ef80622e5.pdf 648450292db4b289bcda02d23097fc5b PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Bruce Klein Date: 1984 [Barbara] … So, Bruce, those are the things I want to know. [Klein] So you want to know why I came to James? [Barbara] I wonder if I can do it on this shoulder. Yeah, why… you know what I mean, we’re not into big biographies, we’re into what James was. So, when phrasing your answer… you know what I mean? Hey, that looks nice. That looks nice. Now we got you. Make sure we have you focused. There. Anytime you want to start talking, you're really clear. [Klein] Okay. Why did I come to James? That's an interesting question. I think you have to do a little biography: I was at Virginia Tech. for five years teaching and before coming up here. And Virginia Tech. is like Michigan State and I didn't like that. I didn't like the movement towards one hundred, two hundred, three-hundredperson lectures and movement away from when I started there. It was a very personal place because I was the only faculty member. There were two of us. And by the time I left there were twelve of us with a PhD program and all of what that implied. And it's a long and funny story about how I got to James. I applied at Thomas Jefferson because I felt that any college for advertising in "The New Republic" couldn't be all bad. And they correctly sent me back a letter saying: "We're not interested in you; however, we've sent your material over to William James." And that was the year before William James… that was the year when James was being founded. So, I actually applied to William James before it existed. Ken Hunter was hired instead of me. And two years later – I think it was two years later – the circle came around and I was added to the staff. And it was really, in a lot of ways… coming to James was a reaction against a standard mega-versity type education. [Barbara] Okay, let me shift here. Okay. Now would you like to talk about… I just did something, sorry. Talk about the movement of computers. [Klein] Okay, I think… [Barbara] Let me change the shot just a little. [Klein] To talk about the movement of computers from James to CAS is… I think there were two reasons. One had to do James itself. And that was the students we �were attracting were less and less interested in a linear kind of thing that computing implies. And at the exact same time, a very powerful person on the Grand Valley campus, Don Vander Jack, saw finally that computing was going to be a very important curricula item and waged a campaign to move it. And we were vulnerable because of dying enrollments in that area. [Barbara] That's real clear. Okay. Let me just check focus here. Okay. [Klein] It was interesting. When I came, there was a core of about twenty students, I think, from roughly the first year or two of James that were really interested in computing. And when I left – or when it was suggested I apply for an open position in CAS by the Provost, let’s put it that way – there were probably fewer than ten. [Barbara] Because? Well, you already said. [Klein] I already said. I don't think we were attracting… I think the message of James was not the thing that was going to attract students interested in computing. And the students that were attracted to James were turned off by "you can't take the fourth course until you've taken the first three." I think there was some real problems with that. [Barbara] Real clear. From the position of both an insider and an outsider, I was never an outsider, you know what I mean, for James… [Klein] Yeah. [Barbara] Would you care to comment on its final demise? I mean, could it have been prevented? What should we have done differently? [Klein] I don't think anything could have been done, not in the context of Grand Valley. Grand Valley was going to make itself look like every other college in the state. Because I think, at that time, there were some serious enrollment patterns though James was doing just fine. If you want to look at James vis-à-vis Seidman, the enrollment in James was – to my recollection – just as good as the enrollment in Seidman. But I think the powers that be wanted Grand Valley to look like every other college in the state because they were taking enough flak for not being like every other college in the state. [Barbara] If you were to sum up James – the key to what we were trying to do or were doing – in a sentence, what would that sentence be? [Klein] Wow. That's a hard one, Barb. Well, something that my wife and I have been talking about a lot lately – and that's growth. Personal and intellectual. And I think �to my mind that's what James was more about than anything else. [Barbara] You're a great interviewee. You say 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 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_40_Klein Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Klein, Bruce 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 Bruce Klein interview (video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Bruce Klein 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. Bruce Klein was faculty member in William James College who worked at Grand Valley from 1977 to 2001 and later became Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Information Systems. In this interview, Bruce discusses his personal journey that led him to William James College and the movement of the computer program from WJC to the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). This interview is part 1 of 1 for Bruce Klein. 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 Lectures and lecturing Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4d60f6a4a26d054225de2696f4872cbb.mp4 67a82aa8f7df39fc812e6cadd27de972 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/657d7614ad54fd0d3e6db113db6ed194.pdf 9891caf345f4bf376c4fe20404ce1b80 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Dahleen Menning Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 2 [Menning] Okay, it's hard for me to think back succinctly over almost nine years since we began, since I came. I came, I think, the second year of William James. Actually, it was the third technical year, but the first-year faculty weren't teaching and I was hired the second year that faculty were teaching. So, I saw it pretty much from the time it was a tiny, very tiny college to right up to the end. It kind of went through a growth period and then had loss some students. And seemed like that even though at the beginning we were struggling with so many things: places to have classes, all kind of very basic functions of just getting the teaching job done. There was a real excitement at that point to the students and the kinds of interactions between the different individuals, the faculty and the students, and all the parts that go into to making a college, that didn't sustain itself all the way to the end, after nine / ten years. The memorable things from that early time, besides having my office in a tiny basement, squalid place, was the real independence and assertiveness of the students that would come to you and say I want to do XYZ and here's how I'd like to do it and they had a plan. They thought it all through. They were able to pretty much assess what they would need to learn and how they would go about affecting this whole thing in their lives and could see down the road and it was a very exciting thing to see that kind of independent thinking. Now we had good dialogues and some bad dialogue. I remember with students that used to argue, just for the sake of being argumentative, about their projects, their particular work, their process, but most of the time it was a really exciting, stimulating dialogue of growing and sharing, and those are the times that I remember best with the most affection I think. There was an exploring feeling amongst the faculty, as exploring feeling my student and even when things didn't go well bureaucratically for some students, often times they get hung up in the records office over procedures, those things didn't seem to bother them. We'd roll with the punches, we'd go over and straighten it out and sometimes even it was even funny and a bit humorous and we all enjoyed that. It was part of the reaching out and exploring. The students that I remember most clearly from that particular group were really wonderful creative artists that I had in class, that in spite of the fact we didn't have a traditional art program at that time, they seemed to grasp the necessary things that were necessary to the art world, and they put them together and integrated in with everything that was happening at William James and they wanted to be part of the whole thing, and yet they could retain their independence as artists and I found that very exciting and very mature and that is what I thought was the ideal and I thought we lost that about sixth, seventh year, toward the very end. �We didn't see students that exhibited that kind of independence. One that usually sticks out in my mind took us through the whole art therapy program deal because that was initiated by student who came into my office and planted her feet and said: "I want to be our therapist and I think I can do it here. Can I do it here? Here's how I'm going to do it." And I took a deep breath and said, “Well, it looks like you can probably do it here. Let’s see if we can.” [Menning] And we actually put together an art therapy program for her that involved internships and involve psychology courses, the art courses that she needed, she had to take a few things over in the College of Arts and Sciences, but by in large she put together a very strong personal program to study art therapy with the resources that we had in the college. And that was my first real introduction to internships because my particular persuasion in the arts is not an internship related thing. In the fine arts there's not much you can do. You can't really understand the painter. So, I had to go out and generate internship placements and this student went out and she and I found them. We persuaded people to let her try. It was a very ticklish situation because it involved working with people in a clinical setting and she lived up to the promise. She was very mature, she handled herself beautifully, and she set the pace and then right after her and I have no idea how students seem to hear about it but they came out of the woodwork and they found out that we were doing something with it and they want to do it too and it wasn't very exciting thing and integrated the coursework from the social sciences and from the fine arts and seem to be what the college was about and that represented I think one of the nicest ideals. And we had a group of students that went through, in the art therapy program, we didn't really have one, but they devised their own programs, more or less, and most of the students that I've kept track of have gone on to graduate school one way or another. Some by taking time off to work locally in various social service agencies around town, some of them rose to administrative positions in social service agencies and went on to graduate school, some went right away. But they all seem to make something of themselves and they all seem to use initially what they decided they wanted to do in the context of William James College. And that seem to be one of the shining examples for me and out of that discussion with a student came the class that I was the most excited about in the end, as an integrated thing, and that was the developmental art course that I taught initially, I think with Willard Bradfield, and then I taught it on my own, changing and developing and actually integrating practicum into that, plus studio experience, plus theory and it was a very involved kind of course and the students came through that course were clearly changed in their approach to things in life. And that was what was really exciting to me. That that one course made a major difference in those students in their entire life. They saw things differently, they saw how they could affect change and people even if they were never going to do it quite that way, even if they were never going to be in the classroom or if they were never going to do art therapy, in particular. They all saw that there �were methods for taking theory and then applying them and that if you learn something and used it you could make something else happen and it was a very powerful thing for me to see that happen, I think I learned a lot, and I change a lot of my own teaching philosophy from that. It was a give and take situation with me and the students. [Menning] They wanted something, ask if we can provide it, I was one of the providers, I learned, developed my teaching ideas, developed a course to suit their needs, they responded to the course they went on to do other work that was a companion to that course and went on and graduated and did something important. And that seemed to be a whole example of what the college was supposed to be about. Then later on we tried to deal with this art therapy and make it a "program" and we tried to pin it down because people got nervous about it. People, you know, college, and people across campus because it had clinical associations nervous that we wouldn't do it right or we'd damage somebody and so on. And the whole thing got rather tight and everybody got into it and then got out of it, and then we dropped it. But there were I guess three, four years there where it seemed that we really were able to do something important with students with the nucleus of the few classes, and a few faculty, and a few student working together and learning and teaching each other. Now that was one of the most memorable experiences that happened over a process of several years. There were others I think that we're maybe a little less outstanding in there William Jamesian-ness. There were students and classes in just the art courses portion of the arts and media programs that I saw do actually marvelous things and brought to class a personal integration of what they were learning in the college but didn't have such a strong identification with any one group of things and there were individual students that classes from other individual faculty and have very good dialogues with those faculty and with me and that we knew each other and had and shared that but it didn't happen in such a programmatic way. [Barbara] Then what happened? That happened a lot and then what happened? [Menning] Well, it seem to me that about the fifth, sixth year the students changed quite a bit in their independence, and they became less assertive and less self-directed and didn't seem to want to struggle with why am I doing these things this way and answering questions for themselves and they became more interested in the how should I do it and their focus and classes changed radically. I felt a real difference in their need for different teaching styles. Much more emphasis on what needed to be done coming from the teacher. Much less willingness to explore a personal route. More willingness to work hard sometimes I think, an eager beaver attitude toward let's get the work done but you tell me what the work is and the students initially were more interested in defining what the work was. And so, my teaching style changed quite a bit. I noticed that my, well first of �all, I start writing syllabi for courses, finally. Some of them are fairly loose syllabi. Certainly, wouldn't pass muster to some of the things that end up writing now. But nevertheless, I had to make a plan and follow through. I started to have to have rules about attendance. One of the other things that happen I think was we got a lot of bureaucratic nonsense laid on us that had to do with money. We had to have more students in our classes. [Menning] And all of a sudden confronting thirty students in a studio class changed the dynamics from when we have fifteen or eighteen. And it made a huge difference in how you approach them as individuals. You couldn't talk to them at length and so you had to treat them as groups. So that may have changed. And I think the times changed. There wasn't as much interest in sympathy toward an independent way of thinking and striking out on your own is there was initially. So probably a whole bunch of influences put together changed it radically for me and I found my interest the last two to three years, particularly the last two, it was very hard to sustain my own interest in that the teaching became so different that I started reverting back to more of a disciplinary approach in my own field more of an art approach that sustained my independent interest because I had lost that feeling of group. I think the faculty got a little large; was hard to maintain that cohesiveness amongst faculty. Then we did lose some faculty as programs were cut. But it seemed a little big at the end and I think maybe we outgrew what was possible to do in that same sense. [Barbara] Okay, we are rolling. [Menning] Alright, as I've put a little bit of distance between the close of William James and my own life, a number of things have passed through my mind as they have everybody, I'm sure. But there were obviously more than one group within the college, amongst the faculty, because there were different people coming from different kinds of backgrounds that had different experiences and they tended to cluster somewhat because it's only natural that you speak and commiserate with people and have a similar background and a basic understanding in the same way. And so, there were a group obviously that were centered around somewhat the arts, or at least a more applied way of doing things, and sometimes they were technological way, sometimes there are simply practical ways of getting things done. And then there were people who did a lot of the thinking and the reading and sometimes we didn't always agree and we tend to find a schism I think between two point of view very often and how to approach different issues within the college. And those are always interesting times for me, all the way through to college, but in hindsight as I look back on that; I've thought about the fact that I learned an enormous amount being a faculty member and this kind of college, perhaps more than I contributed, although that isn't the right way to say it. [Menning] But I had to stretch and reached to learn from the frame of reference of others �where they were coming from. I had to read some other books I had to look for the philosophy and understanding of what we were about, and I didn't have a similar thing to contribute in a way that seem to fit the discipline of the arts is kind of a singular process and as I tried to enter that world again, the one thing that has struck me and sometimes with a certain amount of anger and resentment and then sometimes the feeling well we choose a life course and it takes is on a route and then we accept what we getting and then we change back again sort of a live and let live attitude. I oscillate between being somewhat angry and its okay type of attitude that the growth that I experienced didn't take me down my professional path very much. It took me in a sideways way where I learned an awful lot of things. I read a lot of books, learn how to work with people that were very different from myself, learn how to appreciate their values and what they had to contribute. I'm not sure it was always mutual, and it took a ten-year hunk out of my professional life in terms of my own growth as an artist. And now that I'm reentering that world again, I find that frustrating, and sometimes threatening, and the anger builds because I didn't maintain the contact with my field that I wish I hadn't done in hindsight. It didn't seem important in the first few years. The rush of building a college was very strong. The excitement of integrating the need to talk a lot with other people and why we were going to do it this way and that way and work out some systems and build these classes seemed so all consuming that I lost personal side of my own goals. And then I began to find them again, but I didn't have an easy access route to affecting those. I didn't have a studio space. There was no academic support in the college for me to do my thing. I noticed that in particular when it was time for me to take my sabbatical, there was no money for me and the excuse was that I hadn't been doing my thing and therefore I didn't get to have money to do my thing. It was sort of like they haves got and the have nots didn't get, you know. And I felt somewhat cheated because I had done all these things for the college, for William James, the greater good, thousands of hours of countless committee work. And yet there wasn't fifty dollars in the budget for my own artwork based on the ground that I had and stay current. And I've thought about that and I thought that was unfair to this day, but I wish that I had stayed current and in hindsight I would have tried to find a way and maybe insisted on it. If there had been any other way to do the college I think that would be the major thing I would like to see change, would be to have some way that would insist that the faculty stayed current part of their own field so that they didn't lose that. And that might have retained the excitement for me, to bring that back into the college and into the mix. Maybe I went dry. Maybe we all went dry. The times were definitely different toward the end. But the initial excitement was lost, and when I came to the college I was fresh from a large body of work, my own personal was high, I wanted to share all that wonderful stuff with everybody. But then I wasn't doing it and after four, five years of not doing it there's nothing left to share. [Menning] I think I had given all that was inside of me and then it got kind of flat and I really �had to work to sustain it, and I guess that's for my teaching changed. The students were changing. We were all changing and the times are changing. But I would like to have done more with my work. I wish that the college had then sustained our own professional work now. They arrange for studio spaces for the College of Arts and Sciences Art faculty. That should have been done for the Arts and Media faculty. That we should have been given studio spaces. The adequate funding, recognition for work. That should've been done for everyone. We should have been encouraged to go to conferences, exhibit our work, retain the professional identity in our field. And that maybe would have made a major difference. It might've been the difference between the college closing and I don't know, there's so many intangibles there, but it certainly I think would have given me a sense of self-worth that was starting to wane toward the end because ourselves got so entangled up in the whole that was hard to find us. I had a hard time finding me in the end. And I guess that's why my own interest started to lag and that I started to seek way to find me again, which was to naturally revert back to where I felt strong in the beginning was in my own field. And that's both good and bad, you know there's not a clear-cut run answer to that. But now that I'm back there I feel whole again. I still have things to share that I can share with other people and like to do that. But somehow there was no balance at that time. And maybe that was the one failing aspect of the whole endeavor was that we went overboard trying to build this thing and then they maybe ten years wasn't long enough for us to have the bounce back time and then to come back to the middle and level off at some point. We got cut off for whatever reasons maybe a little bit too soon. � 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_16_Menning Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Menning, Dahleen 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 Dahleen Menning interview (1 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Dahleen Menning 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. Dahleen Menning was a faculty member of William James College who taught studio art and developmental art. In this interview, Dahleen discusses her overall experience being a part of the William James community and her most memorable moments including teaching a developmental art course and the growing student interest in Art Therapy within the Arts and Media concentration. This interview is part 1 of 2 for Dahleen Menning. 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 Art Study and teaching Art therapy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7962b21f3a15519a3b68f8f811286896.mp4 5d202f75883c15c76b0e22bcbebad4dc https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c285beec6f8420828ed242015cf83a9e.pdf e25b52bb7f9e3ed342ed743fa74286c2 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Dahleen Menning Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 2 [Barbara] We are rolling. So nice. Such a nice shot. Anyway, we are rolling [Inaudible]. [Menning] Okay, I thought a lot about whether or not we gave the students a quality education. And I think we gave a lot of them very good education. I think we get a lot of them a minimum education. But I'm not sure that that's different from any other kind of college. And that’s the thing that I keep coming back to. And I think about what we gave our students and I think about what I got from a very important major university traditional education, although I didn't have a liberal arts education, I had a very specialized art education but I had their traditional distribution stuff. I also learned some intangible things from my university situation that weren't planned, that taught me more than the things that were planned. And I thought about that many times, that the things that had happened to me, particularly as a graduate student, that were not supposed to be part of the program but taught me coping skills that made it possible maybe for me to even teach at a place like William James. And I think that we gave students a lot of coping skills that were kind of side by side to coursework that they probably drew and maybe continue to draw on more in some ways because life is like that and the real world isn’t [?] a place as a university or campus settings. And so, I think of students struggling to help organize the college, and early on particularly struggling to fight for a course they wanted, struggling to argue their program through, in some instances, and try to defend why it was worthwhile for them. Those probably were good experiences for students. I think that we let some through that were non-thinkers. But they get through every place, even Harvard has some of those, I think, there's people I guess with a minimum they can do, and manage to, you know, pass things at the minimum level. So, every place has students that can do the least possible. We certainly had some. But I think that we were a challenge to students, particularly when they came to graduate. I are used to tease them, and still do, there's a few that are still finishing up this last year, that just to get out was the real test. If they can get their program approved and they can write about it intelligently that in spite of all. And that was sort of an extracurricular academic activity. It wasn't part of a regular course in spite of the fact we tried those various courses about building your program. I can't remember what they're called now, so that obviously didn't stick in my mind that well. But we did try to make students write something about their program and the ones who really struggled with that I think learn some things that were intangible that probably serve them well. And the fact that they had to get out there and maybe generate their own internship, or they actually were part of �council and that they learned how to argue a point and present their case and hold their own against some fairly strong voices that were articulate. They learned coping skills and how to work with people that were different from themselves. And when I take a look at some of those former graduates, I think, "Wow!" [Menning] Those people are doing well in the world and what is an education? And then we start to talk about deep philosophical things. Is it a mere smattering in a smorgasbord way of a certain amount of history, philosophy, English, all of those things? Or is it really learning how to learn, and enjoying what you're learning, and then in life you get around to it in turn as you begin to discover what you want to learn. Which was part of the initial goal of the college was that you would learn what you needed to learn. Well, we never really quite had time for that in four years. It didn't seem that it was time to learn something and then discover that what you needed to go forward you had to go back and learn this. That most students needed to progress through much more quickly and in a more orderly fashion. But that's how life is and that we all continue to learn things that seem important to us because of what we bring to it at that time and I think that a lot of those students that we graduated learned that. They learned that learning was fun, that there was an exhilaration to learning, that it had work attached to it, on occasion, for some people. And that was the value. And I think that because the systems were very loose there were a lot of people who escaped. And we let them escape and sometimes we had a few good arguments about some of them, and there were tears in the hall, and a few loud voices and things over a few of them. But those seem to be the exceptions. I think that by and large we gave a good education to the majority of our students. I would say probably seventy percent got probably a more personal considered education by teachers who cared about them in person, rather than them as a group, who knew their names personally, who can call their name in the hall when they met them going down a hall, and they had a more personal interaction with all of your faculty than they probably would have had in almost any other setting I can think of, other than a few similar alternative colleges around the country, on our campus, and elsewhere. That they had to maybe even confront the fact that we did know who they were in class. They couldn't hide behind a number, or seat, or an alphabet alphabetized row. That they were responsible and even though they didn't do well sometimes and they knew they weren't doing well, they knew that we knew it. It wasn't something they can escape exactly, so they had to own up. There was a certain honesty and fessing up for what was accomplished or what wasn't accomplished. And I think that was good. Even when we didn't somehow strike the right number with the right personal time, because we didn't, clearly. And toward the end I thought that the students, in general while they wanted to learn, they had a different attitude about what learning was about. And the whole thing changed quite radically there. Not just in the courses and in my own teaching, but in my opinion, in the advertising and in the way that we set up the programs. We �started to really pin the stuff down. What they had to study, some of which was good and some of which wasn't. And I think in some cases it was good because students needed that and in other cases it probably damaged a few. And so, I think on both sides there were good things and bad things. [Menning] But I think certainly the education, in my opinion, would measure up to almost anywhere, particularly for the student who grasped it for themselves took hold. [Barbara] If you had to sum up what made James in just a sentence or so…? [Menning] [Laughter] If I have to do anything in a sentence or so I'm sunk. When I think about uniqueness, as a college, I guess independence is the word that keeps reoccurring in my mind. Of all the good things that happened, the best thing happened when people took things into their own hands and then did it. Now both on the part of students and on the part of faculty that occasionally caused some abrasion and some fireworks but things got done for that individual. And the independence and then generated on the part of everyone built a better person, in my opinion, and I keep thinking about that. Integration was another one of the buzzwords that flew around a lot. But I like the idea that people took initiative, and they did things on their own and they didn't always ask first if they could, they just assumed that it was alright, and they went ahead and they tried things. That wasn't a sentence or two but that's… I think that's what sticks. [Barbara] Okay [Inaudible]. [Menning] I think one of the exhilarating things for me personally that I think contributed to a good education to students and to all of the good things that came out of William James was for me and my life was the first time that I had ever encountered a whole batch, a lot, more than one or two professional women altogether contributing to the whole in a way that really made a profound difference. In all of my undergraduate years as I thought back, I had only encountered three women faculty in the entire time none of which had a profound effect on my life. I didn't happen to study under them because of their discipline wasn't my choice. So, I only have them as a cursory experience. And I had never experienced a place where women were major part of anything, and all of a sudden, and perhaps this is where I got caught up for myself to, was a chance to actually do something and believe that I could do it, and that no one else bothered to tell me I couldn't, and nobody suggested that I couldn't. In fact, everybody said, "Well, of course you can." And that was a very heady time, I think, I had enormous respect for the professional expertise that all of those women faculty brought. And even thought I didn't get to know all them well, some of them left shortly and went on other things, there was a time there where you really felt that it was equal it was a totally egalitarian time where everybody's ideas count equally. It didn't matter who you were and it there was not an "old-boy" network that you somehow have �to plug into first. And that was one of the most exciting times. And I think that contributed to the students. The women students saw role models. [Menning] The men students saw that women were equals in this mix, and so they gave you due respect. And the attitudes were different and I noticed that immediately. And since the end of William James I have noticed a change away from that. Not in my own particular setting as much as I have noticed that around campus and other places, and I can see that that really is a very unusual situation. I think that is one of the exciting things that came out of William James. It had that wonderful sharing. [Barbara] Start take. [Menning] I think probably the one really seriously negative thing that was a thorn in my side all the way through was the tension between the two groups of faculty that I alluded to a little bit earlier. The, I think, the Arts and Media faculty particularly as a group, although didn't include all of them actually, but the people in that group who made things and who are very pragmatically oriented, and then there were other groups of people, the other body of faculty who tended to not make things and didn't have that as their experience, but they read things and wrote things. And we approach life differently. We approached organization differently. We approach things differently. And I never ever felt the kind of respect from the group of faculty that read and wrote things that I felt I should have an artist person who made things. That came out a number of instances different tilts that we had by and large. I think it affected how we resolved things in the college. Those two groups would very often line up on different sides of the issue. We could’ve almost expected to never agree on certain kinds of things. And consequently, may have contributed to the ending of the college or may not have. Tension is dynamic and wonderful in certain instances and then it's just destructive and I think that it had its destructive moments and then it had some dynamic excitement to it at that point. And so, it was both bad and good but we didn't ever resolve how to be different together and I wish we had. � 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_17_Menning Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Menning, Dahleen 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 Dahleen Menning interview (2 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Dahleen Menning 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. Dahleen Menning was a faculty member of William James College who taught studio art and developmental art. In this interview, Dahleen discusses the quality of education students received in William James College, the independent spirit that unified the community, and the personal impact of having strong female representation within the college. This interview is part 2 of 2 for Dahleen Menning. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0dbcd9eb2f3a0905003b937456a2e1ef.mp4 e3b91bd830b4f3f8a8cdb18cff034451 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/390893e8e36e05f242f6226cee559100.pdf 26ab1abf35dae767206f34371d3c7a03 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: David Rathbun Date: 1984 [Barbara] … talking about three things that stuck out in your mind. [Rathbun] Two or three things. I came to William James in 1981, so I didn't have much time in William James. But my first recollection: my first council meeting. I sat down in the skylight room with this group of people, most of whom I didn't know yet, and during that meeting there was a debate between Robert Mayberry and Steven Rowe in which the two men were arguing: Socrates versus Aristotle. And I thought to myself: "My God! Someone still cares about this stuff." And I remember going home and carrying on a good part of the evening about what an incredible place this must be where faculty people, instead of sitting and bickering about small, petty stuff, argued from real philosophic basis. What an incredible place. That's one of my favorite memories of William James and one of my earliest memories of William James. I also remember the ordeal of interviewing for the position here. I think my first meeting was at eight o'clock with Glenn Niemeyer and I talked to people the entire day and the entire evening and finally finished with Forrest Armstrong at one thirty the next morning. Pretty incredible ordeal. Makes a lot of sense as I got another place in retrospect. Another real strong memory in my mind, and again it’s a fairly early meeting, was in a PCC meeting in which we we're discussing the changes in the photographic curriculum. And the facility needs through [?] needs. And I remember there was a room in the basement which was in question about who ought to use it and clearly the film and video people needed for room, clearly the photography people needed the room. And Deanna and Barb said: "We will give up that room. You need more than we do." And it was a kind of generosity again I had not encountered at any other institution I had taught in. The ability to put aside one's self-interest, one’s immediate needs, in the interest of the larger program. I was impressed. I hadn't encountered that. [Barbara] Let me stop your train of thought slightly while I check everything because I couldn't [inaudible]. Let me zoom in on you a little bit and then we go on. If it’s not interrupting you too much, I would like to know why you think this was all so different. Don't answer yet because I have to get the shot… Right now, I have the shot. [Rathbun] Okay, in the past, at the Institute of Design, which is a pretty remarkable place. decisions were made on the basis of politics. They were made on the basis of narrowly defined self-interest. Your sense from beginning to end was that you better be prepared to scramble and scrap for everything you were going to get for �your program because nobody was going to give it to you. As a result, there was an attitude and the feeling among the faculty of distrust, of suspicion, people were constantly tailoring their behaviors and looking over the shoulders to make sure the right people are watching and that the wrong people one right behind them. [Rathbun] I don't recall ever sensing that at William James and I think for me it was one of the extraordinary aspects of working with a group of people that were the faculty and the last two years of William James. The sense that people really cared about what somebody else was doing. That they wanted to share and making it good. That they were willing to put time and energy and sometimes give up things that they need is in order for something else good to happen. It was not my experience at the Institute of Design it was a very different kind of faculty. People who were not very generous particularly with the resources, or with their time, with their giving to students even. [Barbara] But there must have been structural reasons for all this. What structural reasons can you analyze? [Rathbun] Well, I think one of the things that made William James such a delightful place, for faculty, was that it really was not a competitive environment in the sense that we had to compete with each other to succeed either within our programs or within the institution. The fact that we didn't have merit raises, the fact that the review process was not punitive but was rather something that was intended to help us understand each other and to grow with each other. The fact that we met weekly in faculty meetings, that we knew each other and we knew what was going on that we had some control over our destiny in this building. I think all those were important aspects of that feeling of collegiality and community. That is not that way in very many places. For me it was probably the most extraordinary teaching experience I've had the two years that William James was here. The freedom to dream, the freedom to pursue the dreams, the freedom to share your dreams with colleagues, the willingness of colleagues to dream with you, to be a little bit crazy at times when it was appropriate to be crazy. The sense that things were possible, and it that was good to pursue those possibilities. It was a feeling that pervaded this place. God knows it was no joy to come to council meetings every Friday morning. There were a number of times I would prefer to be sailing around the lake or something. But it was never really a problem to come to those meetings because we were doing something. We were making decisions. We were assuming the responsibility and we were doing a pretty damn good thing with our programs. [Barbara] Let me change the [inaudible]. Wonderful, very clear. Very clear. Very Clear! You're dark on one side your face but I like it. You know what I mean? It’s not dark, I like the naturalness. �[Rathbun] Now, I'm not sure, maybe you should ask me some questions, if you want more specific kinds of things. [Barbara] You were very specific then. I pushed a little on your work. [Rathbun] Because those are… that was the sort of thing I was thinking about saying was those two events, the room generosity from you and Diana. I don't remember the first one now. It’s a good thing you're taping this. And then just the sort of overall sense of what an incredible thing this place was. [Barbara] There are two things that I'd like to ask on the basis of what you said already. You said you taught very well and it’s not clear to me why one would teach better. I can understand why one would be happier as an individual. But why teach better? [Rathbun] If you think that being happy as an individual has nothing to do with teaching well – it has everything in the world to do with teaching well. At the Institute of Design, I never felt support particularly from colleagues or from the administration. That began to chip away and erode my commitment to the place. The more times I was worked over, the less excited I became, and the more I had to turn to purely an internal discipline to keep things going well. And I did that, but it was not with great effort. The feeling of support of collegiality, of sharing both a destiny and also shaping that destiny was absolutely vital to feeling good about teaching and being here and being with students. [Barbara] Were students different? We just have a different breed of students here. [Rathbun] Its apples and oranges. It's difficult to compare. We're talking on one hand about a very expensive private school in Chicago that draws a national constituency of generally wealthy and well-educated students. As opposed to a state college that draws essentially from one area within the state. But the differences I think ultimately are sort of superficial. They have remedies. The biggest difference was simply one of experience and visual literacy Those kids in Chicago have seen a lot and the kids initially here haven't seen very much. Even allusions to people as like Edward Weston drew blank stares when I arrived here. It was changing. The William James students were different in the sense that they were much more aware of what they were up to with their educations, I think, for the most part. I remember when, in the last year of William James, when there was all this rumors and talk and almost every day brought a new scenario of what the reorganization was going to be like. I remember that Provost Niemeyer appeared at a student forum in the Campus Center and there were probably a couple of hundred students who were there. It was interesting to me as I looked around the room that good percentage, perhaps the majority of those students, were William �James students and that the questions that were being asked the hard questions, and the appropriate, questions were coming almost uniformly from William James students. In that respect I think William James is doing something very well for students, making them understand that they had responsibility for their education. [Rathbun] That they had the right to ask questions and to expect answers about their educational experience and about what was going on. And they were asking pretty intelligent questions and Niemeyer wasn't entirely happy about that. He squirmed a lot. He clearly wasn't pleased with some of the questions that were being asked. But it occurred to me and watching that whole thing transpire: that if really interested in an educational experience for students in which they understand that they have control over their lives was working here, he should have been tickled that those people were asking those kinds of questions, because it meant that their education was working. [Barbara] Do you remember what they were asking? [Rathbun] I don't remember the specific questions, Barb, I just remember that during that whole discussion the questions and seem to be right on the mark, that seem to be the right questions that students ought to be asking, the William James students were asking. And it was not entirely comfortable for the administration to have to try to answer those questions. But it was precisely an indication of success in the educational experiences that students were having here. [Barbara] Let me ask you this but let me change the shot and zoom. Woah, that's darker zooming in. Okay, good. I want to ask you: this is all very well to talk about how we taught them to ask the questions, but it didn't save us. What could have saved us, or what was your experience in the process of closing James? [Rathbun] Well, it's all too easy in retrospect to understand that nothing could have saved us, short of moving the school somewhere else. And it's hard for me to really understand how all of that transpired Barb because I wasn't here during most of William James. I had really sort of one good year and then the second year, which was the last year of William James, everything was in turmoil and up in the air. I seriously doubt that there was anything significant the faculty could have done, or the students could have done. I think the decision was made, I think it was simply a matter of how to implement the decision and dissolve the units. And I think after that happened the degree to which there was hostility, it was like someone turn on the tap, it was like packs of dogs were being held at bay and suddenly been released and it seems so unnecessary. [Barbara] Tell me, that's too vague, I don't know what you mean. �[Rathbun] Well, the attempt in an early discussion in the School of Communications to eradicate all evidence of William James having been in Lake Superior Hall. The suggestion on the part of some faculty from a previous unit that the portrait of William James be painted over with post-haste, with great haste. That's the right way to say that. [Rathbun] The articles that appeared in the Lanthorn characterizing William James’ students and faculty as some sort of malcontents. Things which under a healthy old division probably would not have been printed suddenly were popping up all over the place. It seems clear to me that the decision was made and it was only a matter of how to work it out with the least damage from their perspective. [Barbara] Do you see any organizational or other holdovers from James in the new structure? [Rathbun] Well, I don't see very many and I'm so busy that it's hard for me to look very far away. And I thinks that's one of the problems of the new structure. Certainly, we don't have the kinds of collegial possibilities that we used to have. I think it's clear that those holdovers or those instances where the William James philosophy carries on are to be found in individuals, and mostly individuals that were in James, although it is interesting that there are other faculty who continue to be sympathetic and espouse certain ideas. And I'm not, again… because I wasn't a part of William James from the beginning and for years and years and years, I don't know whether I am really Jamesian in the sense of wearing a badge. I think that I'm interested in intelligent educational experiences for students. I don't think of myself as trying to teach them something. I think of myself as a fellow traveler with them. I think of myself as someone who is growing with them, and what I try to do is provide environments and experiences which hopefully allow the students to learn something. And I think that maybe is a part of what William James College was about at its best. I think it's just damn good teaching and I think wherever people are teaching in that kind of way, where they understand that they really are involved in this with students and perhaps at best what we can do is try to create a series of experiences from which students can learn something. And I think that's living. I think it continues to live. But I don't think you're going to find it in any particular unit; I think your going to have to look at individual people. [Barbara] I'm out of questions. Do you have anything else to say? [Rathbun] I don't think so. I mean, I can stop at this point. � 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_15_Rathbun Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rathbun, David 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 David Rathbun interview (video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with David Rathbun 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. David Rathbun was a faculty member in William James College who taught photography in the Arts and Media program, and was a longtime professor and founder of GVSU's photography program. In this interview, David discusses how he started his journey with William James College in 1981, his initial impressions of the WJC community, and the extraordinary experience he had being a member of its faculty. This interview is part 1 of 1 for David Rathbun. 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 College environment Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/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 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_39_Morse Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Morse, Deanna 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 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 An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3332e020fc383ca7fb5d778ccebdd3fc.mp4 f06de20bdc516c26989c8ee847ba7b53 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e224af6b706927cbd127bc6da306d990.pdf 647876f24c2708041c0b6c041f1d7bb6 PDF Text Text 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 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_41_Morse Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Morse, Deanna 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 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. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0a5c25b79dd65c053371d6d9118ceecd.mp4 f9db2b5b3c2675157f81876d63b121f5 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f4fed114d7057b01883f4824648eaf61.pdf dc7119787fa60602b2874d711706968f PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Forrest Armstrong Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 3 [Barbara] Not as many students as I would like to, but everybody from the faculty and… What kind of description that tells you what kind of vibes about the place did you get from others? [Armstong] Did I get from others? [Barbara] From others. Not what you observed, but what kinds of things were you told about the college? [Armstrong] Okay. [Barbara] Anytime you're comfortable. [Armstrong] Oh, you're running? [Barbara] Yeah. [Armstrong] Okay. I think the image that I got when I came was of a place where there were a fair number of good people, people who were viewed favorably across campus, but who, genuinely, were not well understood in the kind of thing they had chosen to put their lives to. The college was not at all well understood. There was the shared perception that there was nothing of coherence that one might call general education. The synoptic program was not seen to be a program. The concept was, I think, not well understood. The grading system was a major problem. And I think, increasingly, the college became known more by its failures than by its successes. I think there was a sense that there was a fatal fascination of moth for a flame. And the college with its perceived lack of structure, perceived lack of rigor – collectively, though not individually – and lack of grading system as understood by the rest of the world, was attracting people for the wrong reasons. Yet, there was attention, I think, because many people on campus could point to individuals at the college and say: "There's a very bright, very dedicated, very capable, very attractive, colleague." But somehow collectively it didn't work that way. [Barbara] Okay. Can you be specific about certain things that you were told to change? If that's a proper question. �[Armstrong] I don't think I was told to change anything. I think I came, probably, with an implicit mandate that things needed to be better organized, that things needed to be tightened up, if you will. There was the budget fiasco of the previous year, where the budget had been overspent and we were, actually, in nineteen eighty debited by over half of the amount that was overspent the year before. [Barbara] How much? [Armstrong] I'm going to say six thousand was debited and the overrun was twelve thousand out of a CSSM of sixty. Maybe not close enough for government work even. I think there was the sense that a number of things had – at least in the near term – been left unattended. I wasn't here then; I don't really know what that meant. But there were a number of things that were of the standard organizational sort: things that needed to be done on time and things needed to be done comprehensively. In the sense, I believe, those had not been done that way in the past. I think Zumberge presumed, appropriately, that that's something I could do. But that's the tail, not the dog. Another thing I think that was probably not well understood was the extent of which the curriculum changed in a relatively fluid manner. Not as fluid as TJC's had been, apparently, but far more so than CAS's. And I think there was some lack of understanding about how that could keep going on. Why people didn't think it through, get it straight, and then more or less stay with it once they had gotten it that way. One of the issues – I don't how long it had been an issue, but it was certainly and issue when I came – was the need for the institution to run as many course descriptions and the time schedule each semester as it was doing. And that was attributed largely to James's insistence that it be that way. [Barbara] Okay. We've been talking about other people's perceptions, what were your perceptions of the college when you actually came and started administrating? [Armstrong] My perception of the college was that it had a lot of good people who are very seriously invested in the college. That there was a real openness to seeing students as significant participants in the process, which is immensely valuable, and it helps set the tone for a lot of other things that could happen. I think I also saw that there was a real openness to ideas. People were used to working with ideas of others; they were open to that. There was a kind of collegiality that was important here, and it's something that I think I value especially and is one of the many things I found that was attractive that led me to come. I think that I also found that there was probably a mismatch between perceptions of people in the college about what it was and what it actually was, especially in the nature of the student body. And my sense is that the perceptions of people in the college – faculty – probably were formed maybe five years before I came, when the student body was largely social relations students, and probably largely made up �of students who were here for what we all came to say were the right reasons. They understood… they were attracted to the college because of this educational philosophy, because of the myriad ways they could grow within that philosophy, because of all very positive things. And, indeed, many of the students I met when I came for my interview, I later learned were of that sort just exiting the college. I think, though, probably beginning about seventy-eight, the student balance changed fairly abruptly. They changed from social relations students to arts and media students and – not because of that, but I think in addition to that – more and more came for what might not have been the right reasons. People running from a perception of the structure and the rigor that they would find in some other place to a place where they could do their own thing, and everything was okay. That was never the perception of the faculty, collectively, but I think it was of more and more students. And I think over time, those students made an impact on the whole campus's perception of the college. And also had something to do with the nature of the discourse in classes. I think that was one of the things that we didn't anticipate and had hurt us in the long run. [Barbara] Very clear. What was your impression of the quality of education that we were delivering or that was being absorbed (if those are two different things) when you arrived? The quality of the education? [Armstrong] I think, in general, it was quite high. I think it was, probably, more ambitious than an increasingly large percentage of the students were able to handle. One of the things that I remember vividly is the sense of people saying: "It's not working the way it used to. We used to be able to do certain kinds of things and we can't do them now." I looked at the numbers, and the distribution to students, and so forth, and it seemed relatively clear to me why that might be. But for people who had evolved through the change from seventy-four to eighty, the changes were gradual and relatively imperceptible in any moment of time. The difference between what had been done in the education and vocation class, whence came the idea for milestone, and what was done in milestone is, I think, dramatic. And it's probably a symbol of the changes that had come upon us without our understanding it. [Barbara] Good. You must have been in show business. [Armstrong] I'm sorry? [Barbara] You're very crisp, I was teasing you. [Armstrong] Oh [Laughter]. [Barbara] I was saying you must have been in show business. I'm sorry. What was your agenda? You didn't get to be [inaudible] for very long, but what was your agenda �for that, probably, year and a half, wasn't that it? [Armstrong] Twenty-nine days after I came, the state’s fiscal crisis was announced. And so whatever it was that might have been, I think, was really abrogated before even a month had past. I was really very interested in James, in part, because I had spent twelve years in a different interdisciplinary setting, and I was quite interested to get some perspective on what I had been doing. Some perspective on interdisciplinary teaching, interdisciplinary collaboration. I was also very interested to see an entirely different approach to the integration of general and liberal education with a major. Green Bay had had a core program; I had been centrally responsible for devising, and teaching in it, and revising it when it happened toward the end. Green Bay, in many respects, was much more tightly controlled. The whole thing was to be interdisciplinary, but there were many more strictures. Students would all have to do this, all have to do that, all have to something else. A very different approach toward achieving what I saw as some common objectives was the one taken here, and I wanted to get some perspective on that. One of the things I did not anticipate – but came to appreciate tremendously and learn a great deal from – is James's way of doing things. I think, probably, the central institution in the college, was council. And I had not understood – even intellectually, much less come to appreciate fully – the importance of council, nor the way it worked; nor the kind of respect for the ideas of others and concern for avoiding a rush to closure that I found here. That's one of the many things I think I got from James, was to learn something from that. One of my disappointments was that I did not find here – in those twenty-nine days, at least – I didn't really find the kind of collective attention to epistemology and to the intellectual underpinnings of the interdisciplinary enterprise that I had hoped. I think, frankly, that was a weakness. And I think that there were enough people who thought interdisciplinary just meant doing whatever one wanted, without taking a hard look at it. That disappointed me a bit. There was a lot of openness to ideas and there was a lot of sharing at some levels. And on a one-to-one basis, one could go a long way there. But, interestingly, in the collective endeavor, people backed away from doing some of the hard questioning, which I think is a natural outgrowth of the process and ought to be valued… ought to have been valued. But in my experience, at least beginning in nineteen eighty, wasn't always. I don't quite have a theory for why that was, but it was one of the strange things that I came to think about, and still think about, in trying to make sense out of what James was and what it offers us now. [Barbara] What I think of when you talk about that is Walter because I really feel that Walter was open to that and Walter tried to get people to converse with him in the way that you're speaking of, and people backed off. [Armstrong] I think that's true. I think he did, and he was certainly one of the truly broad, �fascinating, interestingly educated persons I've met. He didn't get very far in the public discourse, and I don't know why. I came at a time, which was I think at the tail end of the discussion I couldn't chair in about visual literacy, and apparently, he had been central to that in seventy-eight and seventy-nine. My sense was that, to a certain extent, he'd used up some of his credits, if you will, in that discussion. I don't know why, but that was more of a closed topic than an open one with most people when I got out here. I don't know why. [Barbara] I don't know why either. I know we're heading towards the end of the first tape, even though I can't see my light, so let me just ask you… here I'll even… [Armstrong] Among the problems that were identified: the colleges unwillingness to collect the student fees it assessed, the colleges willingness to Xerox things at college expense, and violate copyright to give them to students, saving students the cost of buying the book, the willingness to pick up faculty that had been denied tenure in another unit of the college, the wholesale granting of credit (or so it was said) for life experience in a couple of instances early on in the experiment with that which lead, I understand, to the decision not to do so at Grand Valley anywhere. And then, of course, the lack of tenure, the lack of a grading system that was understandable by the rest of the college. And also, the perceived lack of any clear relationship between the major and general ed. Synoptic simply meant anything that you wanted to the uninitiated outside the college. All of those, I think, created an atmosphere of misunderstanding. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_50_Armstrong Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Armstrong, Forrest Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Forrest Armstrong interview (1 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Forrest Armstrong by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Forrest Armstrong was the Dean of William James College from 1980-1983 and also served as the Dean of Arts and Humanities during his ten years at Grand Valley. In this interview, Forrest discusses his initial perceptions of William James College upon his arrival at Grand Valley, his impression of the quality of education being delivered, and the state's fiscal crisis that contributed to the college's future. This interview is part 1 of 3 for Forrest Armstrong. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College administrators Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/770aaa0d6bde37f836fe39853679f294.mp4 276ad35bef6ac8cb04e44a029d2411d6 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4d796fbd2887157259a1ce2134871c42.pdf 21bb2dccf1cab8a356c8dc7a4ac32b0d PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Forrest Armstrong Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 3 [Barbara] Could you please sum up what you felt was the distinctive core of James in a sentence. [Armstrong] I think that the distinctive idea had to do with working with students individually, helping them see the relationship between their own efforts and the impact those ideas and efforts would have on society. I think the essence of the operation of the college was council, with a profound respect for other people, for hearing ideas on the merits, for looking things up one side and down the other, and for drawing people out for playing what Peter Elbow called the “believing game” rather than the “doubting game.” Immensely important, immensely powerful and made a lot of the good things in the college happen. [Barbara] Good. [Barbara] Anytime. [Armstrong] Looking back on it, if I had it to do over again, I think I probably would have accelerated the timetable for some things I tried to do. I don't think I would have changed them; I would simply have gotten to them immediately. In the second year, in the beginning of the second year, I proposed an agenda of, I believe, fourteen different items – things that the college needed to attend to. Almost all those we did work on, and I think almost all of them, in one form or another, were received favorably, which I think is a testimony of the power of people to look at with open eyes and ideas that were not necessarily the same as the ones they had been working with. We should've done it the first year, not the second. I remember vividly that we had a retreat in January of eighty-two. We had a retreat at Kirkhof House. And one of the things I did at that time was read to people the statement I had just gotten earlier that day from the President, about the charge to the committee to, you know, attend to overlap and duplication – things of that sort. At that time… in that meeting, on our agenda was things like a change in the grading system, and some other modifications which, I think, possibly could have made a difference had they been in place during the nineteen eighty, eighty-one academic year. Eighty, eighty-one was a bizarre time. I was never here, really, during the normal time, except those first twenty-nine days. But, if we had made some changes then – that I personally think were called for – it’s conceivable to me, I think it is unlikely, but I think there's probably five to ten �percent probability that it might have worked out a little differently. That's not a high probability of success, but those are the kinds of things that I think would have been taken seriously. I know the changes we made during the eighty-one, eighty-two academic year were taken seriously by the people across campus. They looked at us in a little different way as a result. And I think that if we had attended to the grading system which, in many respects, was the central, most visible thing about us that people were then taking shots at. Conceivably, we might have done it. Conceivably we might have had a different outcome. Not probably, but least conceivably. [Armstrong] In retrospect, it is easy to say that I really should have proposed a number of things earlier. I didn't do it because I really wanted to take that first year and get to know the college more fully than I could possibly have known it coming in a fresh. I really didn't want to just bring in ideas and say: "I've got answers and here they are." I intuited that there was something of great value here, and one of the reasons I came was that I wanted to learn, and I understood that I could learn a number of things here. Learning means you talk to people, you ask questions, you listen. You don't simply come in with your bag of tricks and say, “Here they are, we gotta do them." And I did – I learned a lot. And that's one of the immensely important things for me about the experience. That would have been changed – for me, and I think for the college – had I come in with a whole agenda in nineteen eighty. On the other hand, in retrospect, maybe something else could have happened as a result. [Barbara] Fascinating. [Barbara] Let’s give it a shot. [Armstrong] One of the interesting things about the federation – I think probably one of reasons it came into being initially – was that the several colleges presented multiple opportunities for innovation, multiple pathways. And during that heady growth period of the seventies, there were ultimately five different places where a good idea could be found, where a good idea could be nurtured and grow and develop. And I think it was always in the eyes of the people in central administration at that time, that if there were a good idea, it would be appropriated by other units across campus, and the whole institution would be stronger as a result. The decision to reorganize then in nineteen eighty-two, I think, was also informed by that understanding. The decision to create a divisional structure happened to end up with the same number of divisions as there then were colleges. I think that was probably accidental; probably had more to do with the structure of knowledge with the traditional three domains, and the existence of Seidman, which was a foregone conclusion to continue pretty much as it had been. But that also offered then multiple pathways for innovation; multiple structures through which people could work. All smaller structures than �what would’ve happened had there been just one large monolithic organization. I think probably people had learned that if there are somewhat smaller organizational structures and somewhat more of them, maybe it's more likely that ideas will surface and flourish. [Barbara] How are you feeling? [Armstrong] Okay. [Armstrong] I sometimes wonder what the future of the college would have been had we had more time. One of the things that has always perplexed me has been the relative disparity between some of the things that were valued publicly – that were certainly central to the theory behind the college – and the kinds of things we would have wanted our students to do, and some the decision-making processes within it. There seemed to me to be a hard time for people collectively to engage hard decisions. The idea that the choice of Adrian's successor was left to tie. Where, repeatedly, people who had chosen to abstain from the voting passed the decision to Zumberge. The decision at the time in nineteen-eighty when we had to reduce staff… that faculty could have been collectively, centrally, involved in that, but chose not to be… before the fact, at least. The difficulty so many people had with giving no credits, even though the giving of an incomplete, more than ninety percent of the time, was tantamount to giving a no credit, because they all lapsed to no credit. There was some, in some sense, a reluctance to grapple publicly, as council should have caused, with certain kinds of hard decisions. There was a strain of thought in the college that said one of the things I value about it is the opportunity to do things… do my own thing, really, without the kind of real, shared scrutiny that in theory is called for. And that always has perplexed me. It seems to be out of character with the rest of the institution. But I think it was something that did not augur well for the future. I don't know why it was. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_51_Armstrong Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Armstrong, Forrest Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Forrest Armstrong interview (2 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Forrest Armstrong by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Forrest Armstrong was the Dean of William James College from 1980-1983 and also served as the Dean of Arts and Humanities during his ten years at Grand Valley. In this interview, Forrest discusses the core of the William James College philosophy, what he would have done differently for the college in retrospect, and how the cluster college structure at Grand Valley provided opportunities for innovation. This interview is part 2 of 3 for Forrest Armstrong. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College administrators Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/774593335ddb9e80faf89dac3073ee19.mp4 69cd74e2febec959b57d4fda97d738f8 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cd91137d7e8ceea8fce90566721f3ebe.pdf a0d465b18c2f7a11a2fc4f18d759bfe8 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Forrest Armstrong Date: 1984 Part: 3 of 3 [Barbara] What's your guess… what's your estimate of the… how much of the feelings that the way that Zumberge saw us was because we were really straight up, and how much was it that we just made them uncomfortable because of our style? [Armstrong] Hard question to answer. I really don't think that the system, collectively, was out to get the college. I say that because there were so many instances when it could have done so, and yet did not. When TJC was killed, before I came, that would also have been a time to change the system, to get rid of James, too. In the fall of nineteen eighty, when the budget problems were severe, when we had a financial emergency, when we laid off faculty, we did so across the institution, not simply by lopping off one of the small colleges, which would've been the easy way to go, and which had some champions. The reorganization that took place would not have taken the shape it ultimately did if there had not been some serious, profound respect for things that the college offered, including both ideas and people. I do think, though, that there are some things that happened that created a climate of, at least, misunderstanding and sometimes of distrust on campus. I think that the idea, of course, was that from the beginning the institution would be made up of collegiate societies which would share, profoundly, even though they, in each case, had some distinguishing differentiating element. My sense is that never really happened, that the formation of the federation took place after a sizable number of faculty had been hired at the institution. And largely, as a way to promote innovation and differences. It's almost as if the small colleges as they were formed were islands for misfit toys, for people who didn't like what was then the dominant mode could go and do their own thing. I think this led, at least, James to define itself in very negative terms. Basically, in opposition to the dominant mode of thought in higher education at that time. And seldom was the college able to find something that was positive that it could define itself as being, without seeing that same positive element picked up, subsequently, in other places on campus. The attempt to integrate career and liberal education, which certainly marked this college from its beginnings, ultimately was picked up by only other colleges, too. So, it didn't differentiate in a meaningful, obvious way to people who were relatively naïve observers. What William James was that CAS or Kirkhof was not, each in its own way. So, many people here when I came in nineteen eighty defined themselves in opposition to something else. That was a clear problem. It was that we were different than they are, hence, better; rather than we are �different in particular ways that present particular advantages. I think that was exacerbated, too, by the series of decisions… style-type decisions. And also, because in the hiring process, we didn't always go for both "ands." We didn't look for people who had the credentials and who could fit into any college on campus, but who, for special reasons, also had dimensions that made them especially good for James. That process I think began with the first faculty appointments and probably proceeded all the way through. That obviously didn't help the college in the eyes of the rest of the campus. There also being no intellectual life that tied the institution together, where the intellectual life was around the exterior, the rim of the doughnut, but not anything in the center of the doughnut, meant that people basically defined themselves in opposition to others on campus, rather than as something powerful, and positive, and unique that had its own contribution to make. I think that was a major problem in the air when I came, and I sometimes am amazed that the several opportunities to kill the college outright never led to that result. There were certainly days when I feared it would. [Barbara] Was there any sense that there was simple prejudice against us as versus us screwing up. [Armstrong] I'm sorry, simple prejudice…? [Barbara] Simple prejudice just against our style, our politics? [Armstrong] I suspect that didn't help. I suspect it didn't help, but I think politics in a broad sense… I don't think that it had to do with necessarily support for or opposition to any particular ism but perhaps an orientation that was slightly less controlled, less modulated, less considered, than people perceived academe ought to be, perhaps. [Barbara] I moved something here and then asked you to start talking. I don't know how we phrased it before, but talk about your mini history of what happened when they decided they had to do something, regardless of the organization, at what point was it decided we would kill…? [Armstrong] Well, there was concern expressed, I think, always from the time in fall of nineteen eighty, when the budget collapse struck us, how the institution was going to respond. And the decision at that time was to prune selectively, if you will, across campus rather than simply lopping off a college or two. Subsequently, we had a series of budget cuts. That was only the beginning, not the end. And at each point, the problem loomed large enough that, potentially, one could have said, "We will simply cut off a college." That was never done, and I think that was of real consequence. I think people understood… people intuited, perhaps more than they understood, that there was something of value in the college. My sense �is that in the fall of nineteen eighty-one, I believe, the pressure began to build to do something more consequential than simply pruning here and there. And in the early part of January of nineteen eighty-two, the President's proposal that we conduct a study to eliminate unnecessary overlap and duplication said, I think, to the people who wanted to get rid of the collegiate system that, potentially, that was an acceptable alternative. The process moved fairly quickly at that point and by, as I recall, the beginning of March, there was a report from Curriculum Committee. And there was a time, before the decision had actually reached the Academic Senate, the President called a campus-wide meeting and endorsed a particular plan, which is the one that, in essence, that we have today. That plan took apart the old system. It didn't simply lop off James or Kirkhof. It didn't simply keep a traditional college and create then a professional college. It did, I think, much of what we in James were trying to do in some important ways. It extended the effort to integrate the liberal and the professional programs, to pull them together, to find some synergy there across the entire institution so that we now have four academic divisions, each of which has both professional and liberal arts programs in it. Certainly, that was not the way much of the rest of the world was organized, and that's an idea and that came directly from James, and people saw that and valued it. Interdisciplinarity, as a term, was – and I think probably still is – not a favorable one on campus. I think people react negatively to the term interdisciplinarity and yet I'm intrigued to see the number of people who are coming to me and looking for ways to accomplish exactly those opportunities. As faculty members, as researchers, as teachers – they are looking for that opportunity to work with others from different disciplines around common ideas. They just don't call it interdisciplinarity, but there is an interesting, growing interest on campus in precisely that sort of thing. The new General Ed program with the categories that are not owned by any single division is, I think, as explicit as one needs to get in the recognition that there are things that the divisions can share around common ideas that are important to all of us. The other thing I think that's important is that the new General Ed program says that there is something that we all share. We are interdependent. It's not that one division does something for its students and another division does something for its students. We are all interdependent. I think, too, that's something they got from James that they saw to be of value. Probably not at as high a level of articulateness as one might have hoped. But nonetheless it was there, and it was an appreciation, it was valued, and it was saved. [Barbara] Duplication then was not, really, a serious problem? [Armstrong] I have never thought so. If one has full classes – so what, you know? We now offer fourteen sections of Philosophy 101. Every year, they're all full. If we offered seven of Philosophy 101 in one college, seven in another college, and they're all full, [inaudible]. I think that was really an excuse, an opportunity. I don't believe that we really did save anything of consequence that way. What we did do – and �I think it was high time that we did – was combine faculty in larger programs. By the time there had been cuts over time, in the last… seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one, there were lots of programs on campus that were staffed with very few faculty. Lots of one person programs. That's probably not good, and the reorganization allowed us to bring together people into larger critical masses of faculty. And I think probably strengthen programs for students, too. I think that was a step forward. I think that needed to be done, regardless of the organizational structure in which it were accomplished. [Barbara] There are people who say on tape, more than one people… "more than one people." [Laughter] The administration was going to close us; they knew it within the first couple of years. Was that your experience? Did they know they were going to close us at the point when they started talking of duplication in the organization? [Armstrong] I'm sorry, they knew they were going to do it within the first couple of years of what? Of the founding of the college? [Barbara] Yes. [Armstrong] That's very hard for me to imagine, but it's also a long time before I came. [Barbara] But, I mean, in terms of your experience when you were in the middle of the reorganization, talking duplication, did you have a sense they were looking for an excuse to close the college? [Armstrong] No, I think… I think actually the opposite. It seems to me, looking back on it, that there were all sorts of opportunities for them to have closed the college they did not take. When they chose to kill TJC, that was a wrenching decision from the institution. I understand that. But having made the decision to do that, one could have, I think, at the same time, passed a different resolution which is to kill the federation concept entirely. They didn't do that. When in nineteen eighty then Adrian resigned and they needed to replace the dean, that was another opportunity which they did not take to kill the college. And that was a convenient opportunity. In the fall of nineteen eighty, when the budget deficit was so severe and so sudden, that was an opportunity to solve the problem and ruffle almost no feathers on campus by simply lopping off one or two small colleges. James first choice and then Kirkhof second choice, I would guess, to solve the budget problem. Didn't happen! In nineteen eighty-two, when the opportunity came for reorganization, when it was pretty clear that there was going to be a reorganization, the only question was what shape it would take. Again, that was the opportunity; that was the obvious, easy answer and it wasn't taken. That says to me, that people with the long knives were not out. That there was, perhaps, a latent appreciation, but at some levels a profound appreciation for that which we �were trying to accomplish and had made some headway on that people didn't want to lose. Didn't understand it well but didn't think it ought to be lost either. [Barbara] It's blinking at me. [Armstrong] Okay. [Barbara] We have one more question, I think. I think you've done the legacy, don’t you? � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_52_Armstrong Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Armstrong, Forrest Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Forrest Armstrong interview (3 of 3, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Forrest Armstrong by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Forrest Armstrong was the Dean of William James College from 1980-1983 and also served as the Dean of Arts and Humanities during his ten years at Grand Valley. In this interview, Forrest discusses his impression of how the William James College community defined itself, the outside community's reaction to their politics, and how the institution responded to the budget collapse beginning in the fall of 1980. This interview is part 3 of 3 for Forrest Armstrong. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories College administrators Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e6fa7c2b14e063475a58ac4f2b970dd5.mp4 4ac98a39910dbe5708d09a3f1bec9bd0 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ff860e7d7305865c01de8cff65b46744.pdf 79ecbaa7e90d2b84379a4ad1204e07fa PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Ginny Gordon Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 2 [Barbara] First question being: you were here at the very beginning. [Gordon] Uh huh. [Barbara] I just want you to talk about what it was like at the very beginning in terms of starting from scratch. [Gordon] Okay. Well, did you want me to talk about how there was the founding committee. They wanted to add another college. They were into the cluster college concept and they were going to be five cluster colleges. There was College of Arts and Sciences, which they were going to get a name, but they never did. And then Thomas Jefferson, which was well established. And then college three, which became William James College… [Barbara] How did you get faculty for William James College? [Gordon] Well, there was the original committee that was Tom Cunningham, Bruce Loessin [?]… there were about seven people on that and some faculty members from CAS that were on that committee. And they advertised and the first person that they hired was Ken Hunter. They hired Robert Mayberry that year, Richard Joanisse, Dick Paschke, John Mactavish from CAS, Dan Clock who was in TJC (he was halftime CA, halftime William James). So, there was John, Richard, Dick, Dan Clock, Ken Hunter, who else? There were five and a half people that first… Robert Mayberry! Okay, and they came in early August. They all came here. They started quite early. And then they met and got the groundwork… the schedule all made out that was published. Of course, then we were on terms, so classes didn't start till the end of September. Our first two students were Theresa Paul and Tyree Anderson, and they also worked on the committee. So, then there was me, five and half faculty, Bruce Loessin [?] and Tyree and Terry Paul. And the schedule was made up of about probably, I don't know, fifteen or seventeen classes and admissions office recruited a hundred-and-fifty-two students that first year. [Barbara] What were you promising them that they would come to a new school? [Gordon] They were looking for an alternative education. They all had the real pioneer �spirit. Those first-year students, by the way, have been quite successful in the world. Most of them have gone to graduate school. Dick Wilson, do you remember him? Well, he was in that original hundred-and-fifty-two. So, we started out with a very small, selective, close knit, and we had all the first floor of Lake Superior Hall. So, we had our own turf. And we met often between classes; we had like a coffee room and everybody would sit around and quite often after classes. [Gordon] Formally, we had one or two council meetings a week and informally there was always a lot going on. [Barbara] Who went to council meetings? [Gordon] Everybody went to council meetings. We had to have them in thirty-four-thirty-six with the door open; they were usually packed, and they were always open to everybody. [Barbara] What did you talk about? [Gordon] We talked about adding new classes, what we were going to add, what the needs were; the purchases usually were made on a sort of, more or less, a communal basis. Governance document was written then. So, there was nothing when anybody came and we had no government, no structure, nothing. And everybody… they all had a hand in creating their own institution or organization from scratch. They didn't inherit any rules. [Barbara] Well, did the faculty have more say than the students in creating this? [Gordon] Well, in a sense in that they certainly couldn't teach something that the faculty there weren't capable of teaching. I mean within the capability of the faculty, yes. But the original programs where the administrative and management, arts and media, social relations, pretty much environmental studies, and then of course the synaptic program. Those were all that was established prior to the hiring of the faculty. [Barbara] But you say that this whole… [Gordon] The way that the college was going to move… was established, I mean, that was that they can decide they were going to go into economics or something. [Barbara] But the alternative nature of the college was set up by the entire community, is that what you're saying? [Gordon] No, that was… No, the grading/no grading…the grading system was set up by �the administration. By the original committee they were not going to have grades. They were going to have honors credit or no credit. They did drop the honors the second year in or second or third – it must have been the third year. And that was a communal decision we did. [Barbara] When did representation come in? Because by the time I got to James not everybody was on a council. You had… [Gordon] Well, that was all how the governance document was written during the first and second year. So, that was where representation came in. It was a whole community, and then they decided how they wanted to rule themselves or govern themselves. So, the governance document was hacked out, changed a million times over during the course of the first, I would say, two years. What year did you come in? [Barbara] Oh, seventy-five, something like that. Seventy-five, seventy-six. [Gordon] Oh, okay. And it was pretty much established when you came in? [Barbara] Okay, how did… [Unknown] Hollywood! [Gordon] Yeah. [Barbara] How did the James philosophy get imbrued in all this? How did this happen? Was it… did Mayberry lecture or something or how did the community get built here? What were the ethics of the community? How did everybody learn to work together? [Gordon] Well, let’s see. Well, I don't know. [Barbara] Okay, that one's going to go. Do you need Ginny right now? Is that why you came in? Do you need me to stop? [Unknown] Oh, I'm just waiting… [Gordon] No, it's okay. I was just… I didn't really understand your question. I really don't know what you're driving at, it seems sort of a… [Barbara] Why don't you talk about what you were saying before we started about the hiring thing. Where you were getting so many applications. As you could be very selective. �[Gordon] Okay. There were… the first year, there were 2,500 applications. They had advertised in, you know, I would imagine several academic magazines. Whatever. They advertise in New York Times, places like that. And there were 2,500 applications. So, the faculty could be very selective on who they wanted to pick. [Barbara] What kind of criteria were they using? [Barbara] You were in on a lot of it because it was kind of your decision. [Gordon] Well, I think they were looking for people that were, first of all, interested in alternative education. Secondly, who fit into the categories of the programs that William James was offering. And then also, they were looking for people with a very strong background in academia. People who are activists. People who weren't from the traditional background, you know. Like Lafleur. And they were looking for women. They definitely had a dedication to hiring women. So that's kind of, you know. [Barbara] This is getting at the community thing again. [Gordon] Okay. [Barbara] You've been a secretary here. When you were at James, you participated in decision making. [Barbara] In what ways did you participate in decision making? [Gordon] Well, I was on the council as an elected member for about two years. And also, I had the voting privileges of hiring. We voted at the end on who we were going to hire. They would bring two or three people here per position and then hack it all out for better or for worse. And I had… all the secretaries had voting rights on faculty hiring. And the council members, of course, where the ones that had voting rights on other things. [Barbara] Okay. In the years that you've been here, you've seen a lot go on. I wonder if you think we've made certain mistakes at James. What mistakes did we make at the college? What should we have done better? [Gordon] Well, I think the only thing that I think could've been a little… I think it could've been a little more disciplined. Not structured in a sense, like exams, or grades, or anything. But I think that some of the faculty were a little too lenient about student’s participation in the class and work that was required. I got my degree from William James. Totally – I took all my courses in William James. So, I was a student here, as well as working here, so I can speak from a classroom as a �student as well as a worker. I think that some of the students fell into the cracks because they had a view that this sort of cavalier attitude, "It really doesn't matter if we don't go to class. It doesn't matter if we don't get the work in on time. We still love each other, and I'm a real good friend of professor, you know, so and so, and so therefore I don't have a problem." [Gordon] And I think that some of them are still not being able to cope and are still trying to get a degree that started before I did. [Barbara] And you would be the one to know that because… [Gordon] I found as a student that was serious… class I found it very disruptive to students. I had a real hard time with those that would show up occasionally in class and then try to participate as if they've always been there and they didn't even know what the textbooks were. So, that was a problem I had as student. I think that could've been a little loss… sort of, chummy with the students where it wasn't important. Because it was important. [Barbara] What did we do right Ginny? What was the… [Gordon] Well, I think that the level of education was just incredible. think the wide range of classes was phenomenal. I think that the faculty were absolutely superior. I mean they came from the very best schools in the country themselves. They were all very brilliant. The ones that have left, have gone and have been hired by first-rate schools. They weren't ordinary faculty; they were extraordinary. And they brought with them a wealth of culture, education, knowledge. They were all so interdisciplinary. They didn't have one discipline where nothing they taught was nothing but history, they taught nothing but English or they could teach numerous amounts of subjects – each faculty. That was another thing that they looked for. Interdisciplinary! That’s the keyword. And that's something that I missed, in the beginning, when we were talking… is that they were, first of all, hired on how much they could teach. And they could… most of them, like Engie, could teach five or six different disciplines. It was incredible. And they brought all that knowledge to each class. That was the main thing. You don't find that at all anymore. So, I don't think I could have gotten a better education anyplace. I feel real fortunate, you know. And if there were a few flakes that fell by the wayside – so what, you know? I mean the ones that came out of it… the opportunity for a superior education was there if you chose to get it. Yeah. [Barbara] Good answer. You wanted to talk about why you think some of the faculty wanted to come here. Because of the area? [Gordon] Oh, I think first of all, they came here because it gave them the opportunity to create something where they could use all their talents. You know, where they �weren't hired as a quote like Engie hired as a history professor. Period. Where she taught nothing but history. I think they were all looking for that. They all had the pioneer spirit; starting something totally on the ground floor. And it seems like they came from areas where, being close to the lake, having the choice of living in the city or in the country, on the lake, was real important to them, you know. It's kind of like going out to the Colorado mountains or something. I mean it was a pioneer spirit here to come here where things weren't established either. And they lived in Grand Rapids, they lived in Allendale, and they lived in Grand Haven – which are worlds apart as far as the environment goes, you know. I always feel like I've driven 500 miles from the difference between Grand Rapids and in Grand Haven, you know. [Barbara] I was talking to somebody who moved… [Gordon] Yeah! So, you had that choice that I would find very attractive coming here from, say, New York city or you know. [Barbara] Ginny, here's a question I ask people, and I never ask it in advance. I want an answer in a sentence or two: if you had to sum up the core of William James, what was distinctive about William James? Very briefly. One thing. What was it? [Gordon] Mainly doing, in your profession, what you enjoy doing. You know, mixing your avocation and your vocation into one, or getting it as close to it. Developing your avocation. Not getting an education for the sake of a job, per se. We all have to earn a living but not just, you know, engulfing your entire life. [Barbara] Great. [Gordon] You know I was sorry. I really got nervous when Alex was in here. It just shut me right off. [Barbara] I know, me too. It draws all the… he just comes in… [Gordon] Well he was standing there and listening and all of a sudden… [Barbara] I was mad at him because he knows what's going on and he knows it's distracting, so he walks in, does this, went over there. He didn't have to do that. [Gordon] I know it. So, I'm sorry that… [Barbara] No… [Gordon] I don't even remember what the question was now, but I… �[Barbara] What you did was you said: "I can't answer it." Which was the honest response, and we went on. [Gordon] Yeah, okay. [Barbara] You gave some very good answers. One thing that is so neat is that I ask everyone that question about what was the core of William James, say it in a sentence, at the end of an interview. No two people have said the same thing. I just love it. [Gordon] Oh, yeah, yeah. [Barbara] And it’s so William James-y. See. We weren't programmed, there wasn't one thing to hold on to. I've recognized every answer and none of it seemed off the wall. [Gordon] Um-hum, uh-huh. [Barbara] You know, but it's all been different. I just love it. I'm going to run this sequence… [Gordon] Oh, that's neat. [Barbara] Of people answering it. Isn't that nice? [Gordon] Oh! That's… yeah! That's the way to do it! Yes! Yeah, yeah. [Barbara] It really works. I just love your answer, you know? [Gordon] Good! Good! Good. [Barbara] I think you did real well. Please think for minute what else you would want to say. You know what I mean? [Gordon] Um-hum. [Barbara] Sometimes I walk away and then we go: "What we really should have said was...." [Gordon] Yeah, I know it. [Barbara] So just take a second. I think it's a great interview okay. [Gordon] Well, let me just mull a couple things around. �[Barbara] Keep talking. [Gordon] I think that's one of the biggest things that is missed now, but it's also because of the times – it’s not just Grand Valley, it's not just because William James isn't here – is that there's no feeling of community anymore. There might be within small little… like your little film group or you know, your little… but as far as your feeling community with the historians, you could never. I mean, what do you say to those people? Or that… I mean, you know it's nothing but… � 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_35_Gordon Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gordon, Ginny 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 Ginny Gordon interview (1 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Ginny Gordon 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. Ginny Gordon was an Executive Administrative Secretary in Grand Valley's Central Administration during the creation of William James College who provided administrative assistance and helped guide the new faculty in the college's infancy. In this interview, Ginny discusses her experience being a part of the William James College community since the very beginning, the pioneer spirit of the founding faculty, and the profound interest in alternative education at that time. This interview is part 1 of 2 for Ginny Gordon. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/03f1157e97647dfcdc6a56685b84634a.mp4 80777c9b409648e8ddf90e4cd703cb22 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e4250b4e55bd1b1e848eb9b4d288ec33.pdf 277cc5bcabf70f38a15cf1ee28d9b528 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Ginny Gordon Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 2 [Barbara] Anyways, so you were talking about community and how… what the quality of community, I guess, you were talking about. Talk about it some more. [Gordon] Well, it was really unusual to have a large group of people to sit together and discuss things intellectually, respect each other, and make things move. I mean and they were very reasonable about things. You go in there with an opinion and you'd listen to, you know, three or four people talk and you come out and you'd get a much broader idea, a broader sense of the way a college should go there. The decisions weren't made by one person in an office. They were made by a group of people and nobody had more control than anybody else. I suppose legally the Dean could throw out a decision, but I don't think that ever happened. I think that they voted on it and usually there was a large majority at the end of maybe an hour or two-hour communal discussion of a problem or situation most of the time people came out being more dedicated to the decision and how it affected the whole community, rather than how it would affect themselves personally. And I think that was one of the real successes of the college. [Barbara] It seems as though a very important decision made early on was to hire Adrian. Do you remember anything about her hiring? I mean we didn't talk about this; I just wonder if you did. [Gordon] Yes, she had been considered the year before and I can't remember whether she turned the decision down or not. But then the next year she was reconsidered and asked to be hired and was hired. She did come here, I believe, for an interview in the beginning, but had another commitment that she needed to finish. And then the second year she was reconsidered, came back for an interview, and was hired. And that was the second year, too, of the college, I believe, when she was hired. Dick Paschke was the chairperson of the Dean search committee. I remember that and there were hundreds of applications for that position. Yeah, Robert Toft I think was one of those two… uh-huh. Yeah. And he was subsequently hired for college four, which became Kirkoff College. [Barbara] You brought community up several times and so have I. How did community contribute to the quality of education? Community’s nice but what does it have to do with education? �[Gordon] Well for one thing, one of the things that the community talked about was the courses that we're going to be taught. You know, so that affected their education: number one. Number two: it kept people here. They didn't just come and take a class and leave. They stayed here. This was like a second home to many people. They would come in the morning and they had their discussions that were informal, as well as formal. They talked about your classes; I mean, education was the main topic of conversation. Another thing that I think that should be mentioned is the political awareness that William James instilled on the students. It wasn't just a question of coming in and getting an education, it was how they could affect the outside world. They were also very much aware of the Woman's Movement, of the Vietnam War, of all the political things that were happening around the world. [Barbara] Okay, I hear what you're saying. Then when these people went out to get jobs or – you yourself, because you were a James student – go to a place where there wasn't community or there's less community where it's very hard to be politically active. Isn't it sort of like the education was aiming us one way and the society another and therefore the wrong kind of education? [Gordon] Well, no because we have to have… it would make it even more strong. It would be even more important to have a political awareness so that you could try to keep other people politically aware who didn't have a political awareness. I can't see that an education does anybody much good other than just earning a living, period, you know. It doesn't help humanity any, that's for sure. So… [Barbara] Anything else? Great answers! [Gordon] Oh well, I don't know, I guess that kind of covers it in a nutshell. Yeah. [Barbara] Good answers, too. � 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_36a_Gordon Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gordon, Ginny 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 Ginny Gordon interview (2 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Ginny Gordon 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. Ginny Gordon was an Executive Administrative Secretary in Grand Valley's Central Administration during the creation of William James College who provided administrative assistance and helped guide the new faculty in the college's infancy. In this interview, Ginny discusses the quality of community found within William James College, the hiring of Adrian Tinsley during the second year of the college, and how the sense of community at WJC contributed to the quality of education. This interview is part 2 of 2 for Ginny Gordon. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ac217648f8ba422f8bd66b90c61de1ac.mp4 c31fa176b9c797f0b5b24f872dc36224 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bbfe419941af76750b0007d4eb475d15.pdf ff4357c1db86bbb32ea387a884158590 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Ingrun (Inge) Lafleur Date: 1984 [Lafleur] A few weeks ago, Adrian Tinsley asked me to be a consultant for their general education program at Glassboro, where she is now provost. And during my day's activities we both noticed that a lot of my rhetoric and a lot of my behavior and actions were really reminiscent of and greatly influenced by my days at William James College, where I was a faculty member from nineteen seventy-two to nineteen eighty. And in nineteen eighty I became Dean of General Studies at Stockton State College in New Jersey. And now I'm Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh, which is a beautiful, magnificent campus in the Champlain Valley, near the Adirondack Mountains and the Green Mountains of Vermont with Montreal nearby. And it has a really exciting faculty and student body. And many of the things that I do here are directly related to my work at William James. I remember a lot about William James, and I remember some of the things that I do not use anymore, but I also remember the things that I have carried with me since those days and have become a part of me. I think our days at William James were very intense. Everything seemed to be important, everything mattered, everything was related to everything else. And it was very important to be trying out new things, to have alternative perspectives, to be socially conscious. There was a sense of the importance of community, of doing things together, of relating one's work, and someone's life, and one's personal life, to one's work life and public life as well. Some of these things, I guess, I have since discarded. For example, I no longer think that everything matters. I tend to prioritize in order to concentrate and conserve my resources. And that may be a function of being older. I have also come to the conclusion that everybody does not have to be in on deciding everything, but it's important for everyone to know and to help decide who decides what. And I think I've got a more critical view of both the counterculture days of the nineteen sixties and seventies, and also a more critical view of socialism, although it is still one of the foundations of my beliefs and behavior. I also wish that Grand Valley hadn't felt ambivalent about William James College. I think that if Grand Valley had put William James on center stage that it, too – like Evergreen State College or like Brown – would continue to be thriving because some of the things that we did at William James are continuing at institutions throughout the country. I do not think that it was necessary to close it down or fold it into Grand Valley as a whole. I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the things that I still use that remain with me from William James College. And I'd like to focus on three things. First of all, I remember very well the phraseology that �was repeated by people like Robert Mayberry and Stephen Rowe, and I don't know where they got it, but the phrase that has really shaped a lot of my activities is the one that went: "The liberal arts are practical and professional studies can and should be pursued in a liberally educative manner.” Now, very often, at William James, I think we did not focus in as much detail on technical knowledge or assess our own performance. But I think we fostered an entrepreneurial spirit and a creative spirit that really made it possible for students to do things when they left us. The phrase, "The liberal arts are practical and professional studies can be pursued in a liberally educative way," has been very useful to me at other places where I have taught to show the faculty that they can work together in the liberal arts, and in the professional and technical education, and that indeed public higher education has a civic and a social mission. That the liberal arts are not an ivory tower, that ideas have consequences. I remember team teaching with Kenny Zapp and going through the ideas and the books in our courses and Kenny always asking the students and Kenny and I asking each other, "So what? Why are we studying this? What is the meaning of this? What are the implications of this?" So, in other words, the liberal arts are practical. They have an impression on us. And similarly, in looking at career education, we didn't look upon it as simply technical training, but as preparing students for a variety of careers and for an entire lifestyle. I think we wanted to provide ourselves and our students with a real sense of context, of moral, ethical, and social context for professional studies. So, I think this sense of relating the technical and career areas to the liberal arts was extremely important and I think that we, as faculty members, learned from each other. I learned about the design from Roz Muskovitz and she and I discussed the sociological and ethical implications of different kinds of designs. I learned about chemistry from various people who taught that as well. So, in addition though to the relationship between the career and liberal arts, what has remained with me and has shaped my working life and my personal life is the feminism which developed at Grand Valley and at William James College. I think feminism pervaded the entire ethos of the college and our personal lives as well. In part, it was because of the times that we lived in the nineteen seventies, but also in part it was because of the faculty and staff that we hired. We hired… the people who founded William James hired a woman dean. And back in nineteen seventy-two that was much more unusual than it is today. And that gave a sense of strong leadership by a woman. We also hired a large proportion of our faculty who were women and who are very strong and diverse women. They were… not all necessarily call themselves feminists, but they were present on the campus. And this sense really pervaded not just the women faculty members, but I think the male faculty members, as well, the secretaries, and the students. I think that this sense of feminism influenced our curriculum, our student body, our sensibility, our values, and our behavior. And that feminism really seem to be in harmony with a lot of the other things we were trying to do at William James, and the kinds of values we were trying to propound have been values that were… are not genetic certainly, but values that have been �associated with women and feminism. And these values include a sense of cooperation rather than competition. That is, we didn't have grades, we didn't have rank for faculty, we didn't have tenure. A sense of emphasis on conservation rather than exploitation. Conservation has been considered a feminine or feminist value. And there was a great deal of emphasis on environmental studies, for example. And thirdly, a sense of participation and nurturance, rather than hierarchy or bureaucracy in informing our academic community. And these were values of the college as a whole, but I think they came in part out of the feminist movement of the nineteen seventies. We were also influenced – that is, the feminism at William James – was also influenced by people at Thomas Jefferson College. Although from our point of view – or from my point of view – they tended to be more, what I called "cultural feminists." They tended to be more flamboyant and focus on the cultural rather than the social and political aspects. They had their Purple House, their temple in Grand Rapids, they talked about the Goddess, they talked about mythology. However, we all were influenced by each other and worked together to develop a Women's Studies program. And wherever I have been since then, I have been associated with women's studies programs. And I believe that some of the best things that have happened – in scholarship in the last fifteen years and in education – are things that have been related to the methods and processes of women's studies and the women's movement. Finally, I think what I carry with me from William James is really a wealth, a cornucopia of ideas, a power generator of ideas about teaching and learning. A sense that we teach and learn from each other, and that we teach students, and not just history, or chemistry, or subject matter. A sense that we learn at the point of inquiry, that a course evolves because of the student in it, because of the subject matter that happens to arise. A sense that the curriculum evolves because of the way that people work together. I still have with me this little pamphlet from the William James Synoptic Program which lists the series of questions that we ask students to respond to. And even now, when I'm trying to refine and develop the general education program at Plattsburg, I want both students and faculty to focus on common questions. There are certain things that seemed like daily bread and water to us at William James that are considered new ideas in higher education today. And practices… some of the very best things that we did at William James are still the best things that are being put into practice in education today. It seems as if it were in response to national reports on higher education, but we did back at William James. We were the ones who insisted on active learning, as William James said, "No impression without expression" – that you are not really learning unless you produce a product. At Plattsburg, we are having… we are pursuing an emphasis on active learning, on getting students and faculty to work in groups and pursue projects. We are still continuing writing across the curriculum emphasizing the use of writing in the middle of a particular class. We still emphasize advising as a form of teaching. And the Living and Learning course we had at William James and the milestones or ideas that some of the very best colleges are pursuing and �trying to advise freshman and having special freshman seminars for them. Interdisciplinary and team teaching are still at the cutting edge of higher education. And finally, I would say what has remained with me is a sense, still, of the interrelatedness of things. That everything is really learning and teaching. The administrative work that I do is related to admissions, is related to teaching, is related to the curriculum. The work that we do inside the classroom is related to what happens in the dormitories, and concerts, and plays, and the co-ops, and internships that students do. I think that William James College was really a quintessentially American college. Part of one of the finest traditions of America. And that is the tradition of pragmatism, of practical activity, and working together with others. And William James also have an entrepreneurial spirit and encourage people to be creative and to produce. We made a lot of mistakes, and we were a little flaky, and we have changed a lot, but I think that all of us – the students who went there (many of whom I'm still in touch with) and the faculty – retain a sense of entrepreneurial spirit, a sense of creativity, an obligation to work together in a community to create and make knowledge meaningful, and also a commitment – a public commitment – to civic and social betterment. I think these things still remain and I think they could have remained at William James College had it been allowed to continue. And that's it for today folks! That's all I’ve got to say. [Videotape recording ends and begins again] [Lafleur] One of the things that was most important was all of us doing things together as a community. Having common readings, usually related to a guest speaker, such as Tilly Olson or Kenneth Bolding, or reading the works of Piaget and William James together. This idea of a college theme and common readings is something that other colleges are now trying as well. And that helped to create a sense of community. I also remember the trips – the opportunities – that I got at William James to take groups of students to Yugoslavia and have a integrated experience of travel abroad. And I remember, as well, the last days of some of the classes that I had when students would bring in their projects in a history class or a media class. And then you would look at these projects, and then several weeks later, or even a year later, you would see students in various careers. You would see, for example, Mary Cramer, with her byline in the Grand Rapids Press and now being an editor of the Ann Arbor News. I think, therefore, that while the college no longer exists physically, in the lives of those of us who are faculty and students who were there, that our thinking and our behavior was very much shaped by it. And I think that the things that are happening in higher education today and that will recur again when there are future reports on higher education, that the things that we experimented with will continue to be ideas that will help to make education worthwhile and meaningful. Because we always answered that question: "So what?" and we tried to make it integral to our very own lives and our work. Okay, that's it for now, can't think of any more to say. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16_GVSU_49_Lafleur Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lafleur, Inge Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Inge Lafleur interview (video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Ingrun "Inge" Lafleur by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Inge Lafleur was a faculty member of William James College and in this interview she discusses the importance of the college in her life experience, how the feminist ethos of the college shaped her personal and professional life, and the wealth of ideas about teaching and learning that she carries with her as a result of being a part of the William James community. This interview is part 1 of 1 for Inge Lafleur. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Feminism Alternative education Women in higher education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives